MADNESS: Project Nexus News

After what was almost eight years of development on this game, I can't believe I'm writing about our first week post-release.

It's been a whirlwind, guys. It's outrageous to wake up every morning, check Steam, and see that thousands of you are playing the game at once. For years, the player base has been limited to the few original Kickstarter and crowdfunding backers who'd found us early on. Many of you have only just discovered MADNESS: Project Nexus through Steam's marketing, Newgrounds, or our live action trailer. Others have sat patiently for years, awaiting the day that we finally found the nerve to say "Okay, I think this game is done."

Leading up to launch, we were working the most obscene hours we'd ever known. At the beginning of September, we thought we'd make the workload light: 10-hour days, 5-hour weekends. A week in, and that wasn't going to cut it. We kicked things up to 12-hour days, 8-hour weekends. Still not enough. With launch day approaching rapidly, we pushed it to 16-hours a day for 11 straight days, and to handle the post-launch bug reports, we kept that same schedule for a week more after that.

But that's what it takes. To make this project pristine, to keep our promises: that's the cost. Jumping from 50 beta testers to thousands upon thousands of live players means otherwise unknown issues suddenly pop out from the shadows. We haven't stopped addressing and fixing these issues, and after nearly eight years of working on this game, we hope you'll trust that we don't intend to.

Thank you to the Testing Corps beta tester team for helping us crack bugs since day one, but especially now, when time is of the essence. This project could not exist without you.

Thank you to those that found us and backed our little concept of a project back in 2014, or pre-ordered the game without ever being sure that it could be made. We hope your wait was worth it.

Thank you to the Madness fan community, as well as to gamers giving this world their very first try. We hope you'll stick around a while.

Thank you for believing in this game. Thank you for giving us a chance.

-Swain, 1/2 of Team Madness

Beta [2.01.k]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]

FIXED
-Body splitting deaths could prevent room progress
-Stake weapons given to you by breaking your broom or baseball bat could go into negative durability.

**Beta [2.01.j]**
[Access this build from the ``releasebeta`` Branch on Steam]

ADDED
-Integrity check added to file saving. Your old data will not be overwritten if the new data your game is trying to save looks to be corrupted. If you notice any career rollbacks taking place, then it's because you're one of the extremely rare players who may experience their careers being rendered unreadable, but the integrity check prevented the corrupted save from overwriting the old one. If, after this update, you *still* end up with an unreadable career, it may be something more critical, like an OS issue. Either way, we're not done attending to this bug and have alternative fixes we want to test before implementing.

FIXED
-[MAYBE?] If you or an opponent were struck just as you sync'd into an animation with them (Executes, Grapples, and Sword Locks namely), then one character could be released from the animation while the other stays in it to completion (or forever, if it's a loop), even after death. We've added a safety that should prevent this, but we'll need bug reports if it continues.
-Crackpot could teleport to some absurd locations. We're slowly closing off his access to those.
-You would retain your throwable slot weapon when ending your Arena game, before Imprinting.
-Thrown weapons will pass through allies again, and your lawnmower skill will work with larger weapons (such as the Dragon Slayer) again.
-The grapple range for enemies to find a target was terribly low.
-Chainsaw executes (and some others) won't leave bodies hanging in the air anymore.

TWEAKED
-The bridge lock in Last Leg receives a quest marker after using the terminal (if the lock has not been destroyed) to help players figure out what to do.
-The same bridge lock also responds to damage from Dissonance weapons, in case the player opted to bring in the Christoff loadout.
-And while we're here fixing the bridge lock, we've included an infinite-grenade pickup briefcase in addition to the grenade refill box, on the off chance you managed to lose your grenades.
-Some sync'd animations wouldn't move characters close together quickly enough. We're tweaking the numbers to see if we can get the feel we want without breaking anything.

Here's what's new:

FIXED
-A single door in the Training Mission was preventing players from proceeding past one of the later rooms.
-A few spots characters could have been stuck have been given bumpers.
-Some invisible bumpers were allowing themselves to be rendered.

We're merging the existing Beta fixes into the public build! As always, merging builds may yield unexpected glitches. We appreciate all bug reports to help us resolve those problems. Thanks everyone!

Here's what's changing:



Beta [2.01.b]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

ADDED
-Safeguards against file corruption if you should crash while your game is saving.

FIXED
-(Maybe?) Turkish players were unable to advance past the Inner City stage. Converting a piece of text from upper to lower case would fail 100% of the time for these players specifically, but no one else, and prevented them from completing the stage.
-Sheriff doesn't teleport to his start position in his first confrontation.
-Demoniac eyes were the wrong color.
-Swamp Zed spawning was broken in Haunting.

TWEAKED
-Zed Brutes (G03LM Mk.Zed) have their armor removed. Because they don't have a takedown prompt, it's unfair to make their bodies invincible.

TESTING
-There is a soft lock at the fan in Flood Control that can sometimes happen. We've included a few safeguards to stop it, but until we can nail down what's causing it, we can't be sure it's fixed.
-It's rare but possible for a character to get caught in an infinite falling loop while using very specific spawn points. We've added safeguards that we hope will prevent this from occurring.



Beta [2.01.c]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

FIXED
-Blood pools had been switched off.
-Was possible to create duplicate saves when creating a character.

TWEAKED
-Safeties added to prevent Players from killing themselves if they haven't already figured out that Turrets in Seeking Asylum are lethal.


Beta [2.01.d]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

FIXED
-Wonky physics on rope chains decorations.

TWEAKED
-Safeguards added to prevent players from getting past the Flood Control giant fan and the Seeking Asylum glass barriers.
-Some adjustments to the Orders system to prevent characters following others off of cliffs.



Beta [2.01.e]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

FIXED
-Bossman wouldn't let you hire folks into your empire if you skipped his dialog with the Quartermaster after rescuing the Pilot.



Beta [2.01.f]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

FIXED
-Hidden door to the Sewer in Flood Control was moved from the Fan Room to someplace else. You couldn't return to the room that took you there, but that's been fixed.

TWEAKED
-Improved mask applied to Crackpot in the Chasms bossfight.
-Climb is a little less grindy in its more tedious parts, and has more guns. The destruction puzzles are also more obvious.
-Footlockers and pegboard "lockers" didn't default to having extra magazines for their weapon drops, but we decided they should.


Beta [2.01.g]
[Access this build from the releasebeta Branch on Steam]
Status: Released

FIXED
-[MAYBE] MERC Zerkers, Mag Agents, and other enemies with an angry charge could get stuck in place and behave as if stunned despite standing idle.
-Final Story mission wasn't recording your victory. This prevents beating it again on Madness difficulty, accessing loadouts, or getting your achievement.
-Some of the toggle gates in the Sleepwalker Labs wouldn't give you access when up.

TWEAKED
-Added a few more colors to the Employer swatch in Arena.
-More guns brought in by Zeds during Beat the Streets.