MiniLAW: Ministry of Law News

Greetings players,

After spending nearly 4 years in Early Access here on Steam and 5 years since development began, we at Lasso Games are happy to announce that miniLAW: Ministry of Law is officially released for Windows/PC here on Steam.



It has been a very long road full of obstacles. There have been many ups and downs throughout the development of this title. In 2017, we took the project from the United States to Finland for the Game Development World Championship, where we were a 3rd place finalist in the commercial category. Later, we were featured in Kotaku by collaborator Leo Wichtowski in really neat feature.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developers and team members have come and gone over this period, but the core of the work has been completed by a dedicated team who refused to see the project go unfinished. As Lasso Games flagship title, as well as its first fully released game, we look forward to seeing the community expand and are ready to take on the responsibility that it entails.



I would like to take this time to extend one last call to action to our dedicated fans and followers. Please spread the word of this game release and help get it into the hands of players, content creators, journalists, and other media outlets. The future of our studio depends largely on the success of this title, and I know it is capable of reaching some amazing heights with your help. The best way to do this would be to follow us on social media platforms such as twitter (@lasso_games, @lassominilaw) and facebook, and simply help circulate our content with shares, retweets, etc.



Finally, I would like to extend our warmest thanks to our fans and players who have stuck with us this whole time. Our gratitude cannot be put into words and your dedication to this project along with your continued interest in it have kept our team motivated and eager to finish it out strong.

Our sincerest regards, and

THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!!

This changelog coincides with the transition from Early Access to Full Release, check out all the things we've done to get it ready for the masses.

• Six new cutscenes featuring NEW BABEL ACTION NEWS now play when appropriate to elaborate on the story and add lore to the world. Also some play on the mini tvs in level!
  
  
  
• New "Help Screen" accessible via the Title Menu featuring animated info screens.
  
  
  
• All phone conversation portraits now have talking animations
  
• New cutscenes and art for the various endings added.
  
• New Game Intro cutscene has been dressed up.
  
  
• Experience the PANNNNN, New Babel's most secure prison (seen below) and two additional slummy levels.
  
  
  
• On easy difficulty the upgrades should become available sooner to account for the extra time the player has, making it so that the augment screen won't be so barren for easy players. Enemy and crime generators account for extra time in easy mode now as well, so enemies should scale up with time in easy mode like they do now in normal/hard mode.
  
• Credits updated and will now display if you finish the game.
  
• Color swap palettes added to various civilians.
  
• New lit wall panels added and distributed throughout levels.
  
• Updated in level enemy-chatter to use a less intimidating font to indicate their normal people voices. Enemy-chatter now draws a black box around the text.
  
• Fast Collision compatibility mode, tested and switched on.
  
• Rewrote ragdoll ledge collisions to be more efficient with the Fast Collision mode.
  
• New baseboard tileset placed in appropriate places
  
• Nerfed goliath grenade to have less weight and to factor in more of the enemy's melee and ballistic resists.
  
• Increased the tracking lag on several of the harder hitting enemies. They won't be as fast to murder you now.
  
• New music track.
  
  

• Multiple fixes for rain sometimes crashing the game.
  
• No longer see Minilaw HQ in the background when you are docked at Minilaw HQ
  
• If player is docked at Minilaw HQ and views hangar while it is also raining over Minilaw HQ it should no longer incorrectly produce raindrops on the car.
  
• Stairway-movement animation takes priority over jumping animation, which should fix jump/stairs animation glitch.
  
• Fixes for vertical doors in "Highrise" level, should make up/down function as intended, all floors should be reachable.
  
• Fixed some wonkiness with the tension trap.
  
• Lots of various typo and capitalization fixes for phone conversations.
  

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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This update makes the Title Screen look like a proper Title screen. Weather patterns are happening around New Babel. Four new levels enter the rotation. A new Dash Grab move for you to try out! There is also a ton of behind the scenes ending stuff happening that we are keeping under wraps and not including the details in the changelog for obvious reasons.

We have a pretty clear and concise internal roadmap to 1.0 and plan to release very early 2020.

• Rain clouds now rotate around the map screen and display rain fall in car screen and the levels they are over. Check out the car with rain below!
  
• Updated car interior. You can see it in the above rain gif as well.
  
• New tactical move: Dash Grab. Self explanatory. Can be executed mid dash or by dashing mid grab.
  
• New Main Screen Title art x2 with a new Title track (still in production) are in game. Make sure you check out both Main Game (shown below) and also the Title Art for endless mode!
  
• Four new levels: two shit hole slum areas, a more tech savvy shit hole slum area, and a tall shit hole slum area. This New Babel sounds like a nice place to live.
  
• Stamina damage to enemies from player executing a perfect block now has more effective range, and does slightly more stamina damage than before.
  
• Made dash more responsive.
  
• Biofreak Assault's melee move happens at roughly half the speed it used to so it shouldn't be quite so overwhelming.
  
• Added the build version number to the bottom right of the Title Screen.
  
• Wall cling vertical speed now slows down based on player speed.
  
• Lowered minimum velocity required to trigger crouch landing and three point landing, so at higher dexterity you should still get the superhero landing.
  

• Vertical door interaction fixes to keep the player from being in mid-drop from a jump as they attempt entry.
  
• Downed enemies shouldn't randomly blink to behind cover when knocked out or dead now.
  
• Fixed typo in bulldog phone call.
  

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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Howdy! Jack here.

We were receiving some reports about a crash to desktop on picking up certain clue drops in game. Wouldn't ya know it one of those pesky variables got away from us in the last build.



We believe we've got it tracked down and fixed, so hopefully no major interruptions from your regularly scheduled perp beatdowns.

As always, hit us up on the bug report threads as you see issues and we will respond as swiftly as we can.

Thanks again, we all hope you know how much this community and your continued support means to us, especially as we near the exit from early access!

Closer to full release, the look of New Babel is brighter and more vibrant. The overall narrative and phone conversations are getting tidied up and are more clearly on message.

• All Sky and ambient colors are slightly brighter. Functional sun and moon cycling to go along with sky and darkness color changes. Darkness in general is more colorful and nighttime shouldn't wash lots of shapes out.
  
• Increased the light distance by 50%, rooms are now more evenly and brightly lit, instead of small pools of light.
  
• New characters and conversations added into various narrative sequences.
  
• Added gun mode switching to keyboard controls. Gun mode can be rebinded in the rebinding screen like any other action. Gun mode shows in in game menu!
  
• Player hitbox while crouching and performing crouching actions is slightly smaller than before to more accurately represent the player's diminished profile. Animus and Renegade Justice and Biofreak enemies now have high melee attacks that can whiff the player if they are triggered and then ducked under. Animus Initiate basic melee speed slowed down, Renegade Justice Soldier kick speed slowed down, Renegade Justice Assault gun knockback move takes longer to wind up, Syndicate Ranger punch now has slightly more windup..
  
• Player dash now also inflicts a stamina penalty against enemies who pass the knockdown resistance check, giving you slightly more feedback. Player move speed factors into this stamina penalty.
  
• Updated the way walls, floors, and everything else is drawn so brightness more accurate now display on them, the depth sorting is improved, and you can see small objects on the ground more clearly.
  
• Player bullets and enemy bullets will now sometimes leave bullet damage on wall faces.
  
• Floor tiles and rugs now exist and are in game.
  
• Blood splatter tilesets for when blood hits a wall face, with code to keep the splatters within the boundaries of the wall face. The moon now has a glow.
  
• Rewrote some player platforming collisions during walking/running/jumping to use more efficient functions. Player jumping controls are considerably more efficient.
  
• Optimized the way wires are drawn in game.
  
• Added some more variety of slang to some current conversations
  
• Odd conspiracy theorists can now be found in New Babel
  
  
  
  
  
• Starting a new game now has 1 active crime on start.
  
• Updated map screen generates a more dense city.
  
• Big ventilation fan created and placed throughout New Babel.
  
• Gang raid levels have more accurate gang member on site.
  
• When you switch the game to endless on the main title screen options 1 and 2 turn teal. Gave the endless/normal mode switch a chirpy sound.
  
• Two new shouts, one for Citizen contact and one for Surrender.
  
• Added heavy throw to the combat commands list.
  
• New 'lit stairs' which have small lights on the face of each step. So lit.
  
• Changed block mask so it shouldn't pop the player up on stairs as often. Player ground actions can be triggered from further up from the ground, meaning player controls should be tighter on stairs and slight drops.
  
• Reviewed and updated capitalization of many phone conversations. Capitalized all onomatopoeias.
  

• Fixed a large bug in the conversation system in which multiple written conversations were inaccessible.
  
• Name of person player is talking to should wrap earlier to prevent printing into unviewable area.
  
• Added multiple fail-safes to save data script to prevent crashes.
  

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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