Fantastic Contraption News

Hey everyone! We're still working away at our big update to come out soon but we thought it'd be good to get this bug-fix-release out earlier. Here's what's new:

• Fixed a glitch that would make all the parts explode if you engaged the Steam Overlay in play-mode
  
• Fixed the bug that would have joints falling apart on their own after making ground-penetrating-edits. This was a tough one to track down!
  
• Added tutorials for some of the shortcut gestures and sticky-balls.
  
• Another audio pass, added a few sounds and tweaked some old ones.
  
• Added support for some classes of webcams that use RGB24 format instead of MJPG (some older Logitechs)
  

GIF-generating-cameras, Twitch-chat-integration, Director Mode controls, Twitter integration... So much is new! A heap of bug fixes and minor features, too. Check it out!

Check out our blog post on v1.1.0 for a goofy video and longer explanation!

Here’s the full changelog:

• Twitch Chat: Show emotes, number of viewers. Alert for followers and subs. Two-hands resizable. Throw to reset.
  
• GIF Bug: A happy, bumbly, fly that wanders around your play-space and the level. Grab it to record 8 second gifs and, if you want, upload them to Twitter. GIFs are saved to the autosave directory, max 10 at a time named with incrementing numbers. After grabbing the bug it will stay in place. Throw it to return it to “roaming” mode.
  
• Undo/Redo: Small buttons on controller now access undo/redo. Undo is batched for similar actions happening in quick succession.
  
• In game camera controls: added buttons to change cameras in-game (activated when Director mode is turned on)
  
• Integrated webcam mode: webcams will be recognised by the game and composited between foreground/background automatically to make mixed-reality videos simpler to make.
  
• Camera Delay option for streamers in Director Controls. The Slider will delay the game rendering so you can match the delay of your camera. Greatly improves mixed-reality streaming.
  
• Hand-held camera offset now settable with arrow/wasd. Also shift-arrow now “rolls”
  
• All cameras are now represented by little flying bugs. Can grab them to move and rotate, will show preview of what they see until thrown.
  
• Added hats to in-game avatar. ~f to toggle between hats. Also works in mixed reality.
  
• Menus: Fix bug applying settings on startup. Add menus for integrated webcam settings, improve streaming menu generally. Add twitch setup to menus including a button to go to oauth key generator. Sign in to Twitter menu (for the GIF bug). Reduce arrow-key moving interfering with menu options.
  
• New Sounds: New sound effects for berries, dice, twitch follows/sub, throwing rod, berry bounce, save tables
  
• Music: You can now create flat notes by attaching sticky-balls to rods
  
• Grab your eyes out of your head and put them on a contraption. Also eye’s rotation matches parent when moving parent object in both editing and play mode.
  
• Save Tables: Faster loading from server. No longer show friends first in non-friend results. Show empty friends table if you have no friends. Improved table flipping. Small server improvements and admin tools. Minor fixes.
  
• New colouring of wheels that are out of bounds
  
• Warning messages now pop up on the companion window when no hands are present or twitch credentials are not set while using twitch window
  
• Adjustments made to the Vive controller models.
  
• Optimisation: Batching of maquette and static level geometry. Fixed some memory leaks. Skip rendering of some off-screen effects. Objects cache some internal data instead of recalculating it. Loading level is now faster and less likely to cause hitching.
  
• Change some graphical settings while streaming for performance reasons
  
• Fix horrible bug that makes the game unplayable if you attach a sticky ball to a glow-berry.
  
• Possible fix for missing shared replays bug. Server side improvements.
• Add extra logging to track down missing replays bug.
  
• Grab models off the dark-world maquette more easily
  
• Better data sanity-checking on contraption load.
  
• Reduce hitching when a replay transitions back to playing live
  
• Small improvements to feedback form
  
• Minor tutorial fixes
  
• SteamVR Update
  
• Fix for things getting stuck in the ground causing joints to disconnect
  
• Fix light-world maquette interfering with dark-world save tables
  
• Handle Oculus headsets better (still not officially supported yet)
  
• Fix to physics glitches when pausing game with steam button
  
• Better sanity checking around settings loading
  
• Setting companion camera smoothing to zero will now improve performance
  
• Physics stability improvements (changed wheel-on-wheel behaviours)
  
• Fix for building pieces/outline not appearing properly in the Goal tutorial level
  

Edit: Minor update to 1.0.9:

• Fixed a replay bug causing things to lose their momentum
  
• Enabled haptics

We've been hard at work improving the game based on your feedback and suggestions, so please keep them coming (preferably through the form inside the game!). This update we're addressing a couple common issues (and these are likely related): acknowledging your great achievements and punishing dirty cheaters.

First, we've added coloring to the base of the models on the level select table, to indicate whether you've beaten a level, and how well you've beaten it. Because all contraptions are not truly equal, we now assign colors and badges to solutions which show how you've beaten it:

• Black - cheater cheater pumpkin eater
  
• Red - cheated but not quite as pumpkin eating
  
• Pink - Victory!
  
• Green - without using any powered wheels
  
• Gold - without any wheels at all
  
• Champ badge (star) - goal ball stays in the goal for 10 seconds
  
• Boomerang badge (boomerang) - entire contraption must return to the build area
  
• Clean badge (arrow) - entire contraption must fall off the island and disappear into oblivion, which takes about 3 seconds
  

If you cheat horribly (by say putting the goal ball on a stick and placing it in the goal - haha very funny the first time) you'll get a black base on the level select, and Button the Dog will not appear! Take that cheaters!

Changes in 1.0.6 - 1.0.8

• Level Select represents level progress! Base colour represents if you've finished it. Also if you finished it gree, gold, or cheated
  
• Level Select bases also now has badges for Boomerang, Champ and Clean
  
• Dog doesn't pop up if you cheat (a surprising number of people write us distressed that they can cheat horribly but still progress)
  
• Mixing pass for audio!!
  
• Can't "throw the helmet onto your head". Fixed problems around grabbing things while taking on/off the helmet
  
• Button the dog and Neko's eyes sort correctly in mixed reality
  
• More reliable table flipping
  
• Throw less errors if there are zero hands
  
• Make Twitch logo follow Twitch brand standards
  
• New sounds: grab pin, burrito bite
  
• Mixed Reality mode turns shadows off in headset and on in companion window
  
• Optimisation: batch game and maquette meshes
  
• Fixes to level and player parts not appearing on Maquette. Also throwing the Maquette and hitting play doesn't make it go all wibbly.
  
• Fix to Steam overlay making contraptions hurtle into the air
  
• Fix for sky not initializing properly
  
• Fix for camera-insect not following hand-held camera properly
  
• Fix to save-file formatting
  
• Fix to various bugs around "did you win? and what badges did you get? Did you even make this contraption?"
  
• Fix to loading contraptions saved in the tutorial levels
  
• Fixed bug around resuming replay recording after an existing replay ends
  
• Fix to the goal colour not persisting or persisiting too much
  

For the next update we're adding features to let you record and publish gifs of your contraptions, and we're improving the game for streaming and videos with new camera stuff. We'll help you unleash your inner cinematographer!

Collect all 5 and trade them in to get a badge, plus one of five unique Steam backgrounds or emojis!

The cards feature Lindsay Jorgensen's concept art from the game and the emojis are cute as all heck. The later badges are OMG cool... I'm building my collection now!

Collect collect colleeeeect!

It's been one week since we launched Fantastic Contraption, and it's been a great one. We got to play all the other Vive games that we've been eagerly awaiting (and streamed a marathon 13 hours of it), and there were no major issues with the game.

But there have been some bugs, which today's 1.0.5 update will now address, most notably the Infinite Level Load Loop and Massive Twitch Chat Box. I've decided we should name our best bugs to make them more fun... not that fixing bugs isn't already amazing fun...

If you do run into one of these issues again or any new ones, please report it using the form inside the game (on your monitor view) which will send us your log. And you may want to switch to the experimental beta branch to see if we already have a fix pending there. Thanks so much to those who have helped us so far! More coming soon!

New in 1.0.4
- warning if play area under min requirements
- confirmations for delete buttons
- fix dynamic menu layout and text sizes
- fix Massive Twitch Chat Box
- fix make twitch box stay connected
- make large contraption replays run faster
- prevent throwing contraption models out of bounds
- fix make exit burrito more stable
- make music play in background when game loses focus
- fix steam overlay affecting contraptions

New in 1.0.5
- fix (hopefully) Infinite Level Load Loop
- fix (hopefully) win animation not triggering
- fix highlighting correct level model after you load one
- improve achievement cleared level check
- moar meows
- fix maquette in dark world when you throw in light world
- fix wrong model base colors