Gone Viral News

CLOSED BETA UPDATE 0.2.11.1

Just a small update since we ate turkey instead of working one of the last two weeks - and oh yeah we SIGNED UP WITH AKUPARA GAMES! Who are quite cool. But, we won’t let our wasting time with hanging out with our loving families and our stupid sexy publishing partners keep you from the dev updates we have been matriculating into the game over the last few weeks.

Highlights include awesome new music from AAA Composer And God Among Men Jeff Kurtenacker and a number of QoL bugfixes. We’re also putting in some backend work for a full UI overhaul of the Murderpedia (and then the full UI!) that should be coming online over the next several updates… woot!

Enjoy!

Features:
Music!
-- Updated the out of combat and in combat music loops
-- Added new ambient and combat music tracks to the game
-- Added and hooked up the new music for the main menu, boss fights, and da Champ fight
-- Updated the main menu music to loop properly

Content:
Genetic Surgery polish in progress:
-- Artification prototype of new genetic surgery being set up
-- Added new BuffBot AnimBP
-- Created new Injection animation montage
-- Added new animnotifies/delegates to BuffBot
-- Pods can now be in "Genetic Surgery" mode
-- Pickupables can now be forcibly applied to characters

Twitch:
-- Webcam enabled in main build for dev mode
-- Twitch voting now shows twitch user names (we now properly support the higher-security long user names as well as the easily displayable short user names from Twitch)
-- Enabled decor wall/column monitors that show an audience member (70%) or gone viral logo (30%) unless the webcam is enabled (will show your smilin' face)
-- Added an extra warning to people streaming about keeping their OAuth token secret

Polish:
-- Combat backend revamp
-- Now there is a separation between room lockdown (red security gates are up in a room) and combat active (live combatants exist/the unit of time a Fan Event persists)
-- More than one room can be in combat separate from each other
-- Combat/Room Buff overhaul - Phase 3 (complete)
-- Combat/Events now properly handled when combat extends from room to room when rooms are not locked down
-- Fixes - BUG: Some Fan Events don't apply properly in the Champ fight (thanks @Gramstaal!)
-- Fixed long-standing contact damage bug that could occasionally damage the player while interacting with newly spawned creatures/objects
-- Fixes BUG: @Kahvikone seemed to take damage from a spawning sword gladiator (also thanks several others, including @[AG] David for noticing spikeballs causing damage a little too quickly)
-- Beginning stages of setting up the new murderpedia
-- Fixed: BUG: Barrels from droppers save state separate from their parent dropper, causing them to double up or more
-- Activated new startup logo
-- Did a bunch of cleanup on our older and previously disabled flat screen decor pieces
-- Re-enabled the flat screen wall decor
-- Webcam widget automatically sets aspect ratio based on your webcam resolution in the twitch settings window
-- Added additional tracking around character resurrection
-- Added ability to override behavior in BuffManager on registered combatants
-- FIXED: BUG: Resurrected mobs don't get their viewer event buffs re-applied (thanks @Kahvikone)
-- Fixed: BUG: @Kahvikone was able to touch a minidrone without getting hit
-- Fixed: POLISH: Big Shot injector should handle timers VFX better when stacked
-- Simplified language in Oauth warning panel so even streamers like @[AG] Moosey can understand it
-- Fixed: BUG: Buffs that extend the timer of the next buff on max stacks don't appear to affect the visible timer properly

Developer Notes
-- [DEV] Throwing in some test ui assets to poke around at
-- [DEV] Adding a few more test UI pieces
-- [DEV] Adjusting some existing test UI pieces
-- [DEV] Added more in-widget UI tests
-- [DEV] Web browser widgets enabled in project
-- [DEV] Buffmanager internals for shifting combatant buff tracking to BuffManager from DungeonRoom phase 1
-- [DEV] Moved buffing actors into C++
-- [DEV] Removed old Roombuff callbacks/etc. from GameInstance
-- [DEV] Phase 2 of combat/lockdown/buff overhaul
-- [DEV] Room buffs (generally for Fan Events) are now managed by BuffManager rather than individual rooms. No apparent effects to users, but keep an eye out for oddnesses involving Fan Events
-- [DEV] Characters are now responsible for registering themselves with BuffManager on SpawnComplete
-- [DEV] SpawnComplete now managed in CH_BaseCharacter as well as CH_NPC
-- [DEV] Adding in new murderpedia UI assets
-- [DEV] Added data to CPP_BaseCharacter so that characters record if they have completed the spawning process
-- [DEV] Added delegate CPP_BaseCharacter::OnSpawnCompleted
-- [DEV] Added in updated murderpedia assets to assist with aligning the visual components when scaling the UI
-- [DEV] Built a working first visual pass for the background elements, the two scaling content boxes, and some temporary content for testing purposes
-- Updated the left metal bar in the murderpedia UI to properly position itself
-- [DEV] Barrels now implement iSpawned::ShouldSave()
-- [DEV] Adding a bunch of different music tests to try out various ways of handling our looping music tracks
-- [DEV] refactored Decor hierarchy phase 1 (in prep for camera monitors)
-- [DEV] Decor hierarchy shift complete

Akupara Games has partnered with Skullbot Games to release Gone Viral!

As publisher, Akupara will be helping out with social media, marketing, and platform integration to make sure the devs at Skullbot have all the time they need to make the bloodiest massacre machine they can with Gone Viral.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Join the Discord today to directly interact with the developers and help shape Gone Viral into the gruesome roguelike experience you’ve always wanted to see!

Sign up to be included in Gone Viral's Beta!

CLOSED BETA UPDATE 0.2.10

Well, our Closed Beta is getting it’s 10th major update today. Our beta is becoming a teenager; soon it’ll be able to drive and go on dates and that’s when the REAL trouble starts. But enough about that - WE GOT SOME COOL STUFF GOING IN!

Music! Jeff Kurtenacker has been composing music - we realllly dig it. He gets us, which says something scary about him. We’ve got main menu music, ambient music, and combat music in a rough fashion right now - polish to come. Feedback welcome as you’ll get to listen in as he and we iterate it going forwards.

Boss Variants! After you beat a boss flawlessly, you’ll add a new variant to the pool of bosses - like a rocket-based bombadier, one with tank minions, or Doctors Death (the Doctor Twins). More to come!

Sudden Death! Piss off your fans too much (by doing things with the red “thumbs down” symbol) and they’ll put you in Sudden Death mode - any hit will kill you! Luckily, if you rack up carnage (or make them happy in some other way) they’ll forgive you. If you’re still alive.

Boons! Curses! If fans are happy/unhappy, there’s now a chance to get more positive or negative events. Happy fans = rewards, unhappy fans = more punishing events like Blind Fight with invisible enemies. If you make the fans SuperHappy (2 thumbs up!) they’ll immediately send you a rewarding Fan Event. Well, it’s probably rewarding - they’re fickle little buggers.

Audio overhaul! Tons of new sounds and sound FX.

Webcam Streaming! Now you can send your webcam into the in-game monitors! Fun while streaming, purely narcissistic if you’re playing solo.

Polish I think I broke my exclamation point key with all the above bullets, so none here. Polish. Lots of it. You know tha drill by now. Maybe I can make an exclamation point with two characters: ./

I’m conflicted by this patch - I feel like we were a bit slower on dev this update than our Usual Frenetic Pace as we’ve been working towards hiring in more folks (3D artists wanted - tell your friends) and ramping up with our new publishing partners (woot woot!) But somehow this still seems like a ton of stuff from the Little Dev Team That Could.

More to come./

Features:
-- Added Sudden Death mode - any damage will kill the player
-- Added placeholder UI around Sudden Death mode
-- Sudden Death kicks in when Fans become Furious (2 thumbs down) and is ended if Fans become Happy (1 thumbs up)
-- Maxing out your Fans' happiness grants you an immediate positive-or-neutral (more likely to be positive the higher your "IT!") Fan Event
-- Note - all Fan Mood event is in ugly placeholder UI mode for the moment as we tune it. Good news on the UI front though overall - there’s a big pass in the works coming up.
-- Boss Variants!
-- Webcams can now play into materials in the game world

Content:
-- Music (pass 1!)
-- Added new Fan Event/Boon Koins4Karnage - Coins rain down based on how much carnage you cause and your "IT!" factor
-- Added Negative Fan Event Flamageddon - all enemies leave fire trails and are immune to fire.
-- Added new gadget Fan Pheromones - immediately maxes out Fan Happiness

Twitch:
-- Added ability to stream your webcam directly into in-game monitors
-- Available on the Twitch Settings page (for now, that options page is getting crowded)
-- If your webcam is captured by another program (like OBS) you’ll need to disable the other program’s capture and then enable the webcam in Gone Viral.

Polish:
-- Your starting gear is now properly marked as having been picked up
-- Your starting gear doesn't influence Fan Mood
-- Pickupables that have been dropped/have already influenced fan mood no longer have thumbs up/down markers on their UI
-- Carnage earned counts down the Sudden Death timer
-- Fixed typo in FlickerFists mutation description
-- Added ability to tell how many stacks of a given buff are active
-- Boombadier mutation now doubles bombs generated by Bomber, Missile Launcher, etc. (thanks many who reported this)
-- Boombadier when stacked now affects Bomber/etc. multiple times
-- Portable Nuke gadget is now affected by Boombadier
-- Fan Events can now have their individual chances of being chosen affected by Fan Mood/IT/Fan Opinion in a way similar to spawned items
-- BlindFight fan event now only happens while Fans are Unhappy (and only if the Fan type doesn't have a negative opinion of the buff itself)
-- Gadget Play fan event now only happens while Fans are Happy
-- MediaPlayer testing/cleanup
-- Set up a bunch of initial data for the Dr. Death boss variants
-- Added webcam monitor to LevelGreeter
-- Cleanup of Movies hierarchy
-- Consumables no longer affect Fan Mood
-- Webcams enabled in game for streamer types (or lonely solo players, I suppose)
-- Fan Happiness/Sudden Death mode now persists across levels/sessions
-- Cleaned up Audience how loads from saves/initializes
-- Slightly increased Dr. Death's size
-- Added some initial work on the Dr. Death Twins variation
-- Added pools separating out positive, neutral, negative Fan Events
-- Dr. Death's twins variations now properly reserve each other for resurrection and release the reservation on their own death
-- Separated Dr. Death's twins resurrection from Dr. Death's mutant surgeon resurrection
-- Slightly increased the tank's rocket range
-- Added ability to mark buffs as not affecting the PC in particular
-- Added telegraphs to all existing tank enemies
-- Adjusted all existing tank attacks to have better attack timings
-- Added a new, larger tank that the Bombadier's minions variant spawns
-- The Bombadier's minions variant tanks spawn instantly and no longer respawn mid-fight
-- Began upgrading tank AI to not shoot at you from infinite range after it sees you once
-- Added widescreen TV mode to webcam
-- Added new cheats for devs
-- Fixed split-body animation with claw weapon
-- Enemies can now be set to forget you if you get out of range
-- Adjusted the ranges and set the new forget flag for all tank enemies
--Hooked up the final textures for the level greeter screens, wall bouncers, and floor / wall spikes
-- Some general clean-up to how the Dr. Death twins resurrect each other
-- Fixed an issue with Dr. Death's syringes hitting the floor and destroying themselves
-- Wallbouncers in trap rooms correctly start flinging spikeballs/etc. around on room initialization
-- Weapons scaled up by Long Arms or similar mutations are now properly scaled up when thrown
-- MegaCombo Carnage Item properly cleans up unresponsiveness on affected targets
-- Added new twitch dev cheats
-- Webcam materials now handled by GV_Instance for cleanliness/lack of duplication of effort
-- No longer have occasional lag when loading a Stream_Monitor
-- Cases of not having a webcam/failing to open a webcam quietly cleaned up
-- Fixed an issue where Dr. Death was no longer increasing his chance to resurrect his minions with the number of them that had died
-- Fixed the spawned Dr. Death Twin being assigned the wrong action tables
-- Adjusted how Dr. Death moves so that he doesn't rush straight into melee range
-- The Dr. Death Twins variants now avoid standing right on top of each other
-- Webcam can now properly be activated from in-game even if there is another webcam hooked up when game starts
-- Added a syringe rain attack to the twins variant of Dr. Death
-- Fixed a pathing modifier sphere that was accidently set to be visible
-- Prepared the startup sequence for an additional logo
-- Hooked up Dr. Death's twins variant so it can be unlocked and fought
-- Added new materials for each of the Dr. Death twins so that they look different from the main variant and different from each other
-- Additional setup for an eventual new startup logo
-- Fixed an issue where the sound was being listened to from the player's rotation instead of using the camera's rotation
-- Added the working main theme song to the project
-- Built a looping sound queue with a fade out at the end to test the manually looped version of the main theme
-- Switched the main menu music over to the new music
-- Main Menu polish of hero (animates, cleaned up level blueprint)
-- Audience cleanup around Fan Events
-- Retargeted various animations to improve main menu idles
-- Updated the default volume settings to 75% across the board
-- Adjusted the max volume to keep the default levels roughly the same
-- Changed the name of the "Melee Arrow" setting to the more correct "Wallop Arrows"
-- Changed the default "Wallop Arrows" setting to true
-- Initial phase of web cam options (partial)
-- Added HUD widget for webcam
-- Moved the arena door combat gates back into the hallway by a little bit to help prevent enemies getting stuck in an especially tight area in the arena hallway
-- Webcam settings productized (80% complete)
-- Prizes dropped by Fan Gifts no longer affect Fan Mood on pickup (I'm sure they like you picking up the gifts, but that's an awful tight feedback loop)
-- Can now mark actors as not affecting Fan Mood with the appropriate tag
-- Cleaned up that one fat mutant on the Main Menu whose hands wouldn't meet while he was clapping (Thanks @[AG] David)
-- Fan Traits are now seeded (i.e. if you repeat a run/share a seed the Fans will be Sadistic/etc. identically in both runs).
-- Some Fan Traits are now only available in Hard Mode (Minimalistic, Insane, Minmaxer, a few others - basically the ones that are a bit more obtuse, complex, or punitive)
-- Fixed an issue where a Spikeball could damage the player for a fraction of a second even after they shattered
-- Added the new ambient music themes to the game
-- Hooked up a quick test for switching between the non-combat and combat versions of the themes
-- Added a 2 second delay after combat ends before the non-combat music begins
-- Added a location to call a combat music begins sting
-- Hooked up the new shield impact sfx variations
-- Hooked up the new, more impactful generic hit sfx variations
-- Switched to the new, louder rocket sfx
-- Hooked up the new fire damage sfx
-- Switched the prison music over to the new songs
-- Hooked up the ambient to combat music sting
-- Added and hooked up the new blood lock sounds
-- Added and hooked up the new Abacus pain and death sounds
-- Added and hooked up the new crate destruction sounds
-- Added and hooked up the new large and small metal impacts
-- Added and hooked up the new large and small robot pain sounds
-- Added and hooked up the new Decimus death sounds
-- Added and hooked up the new secret door reveal sound
-- Added the new telegraph charge-up sounds
-- The world music no longer plays during the boss music
-- Fix for main-menu Decimus' armor morphing strangely after playing as Abacus
-- Added wall, column decor monitors
-- Cleaned up Twitch Settings page
-- Updated a test level to show the security tile set
-- Updated the crate destruction sounds
-- Updated the secret door reveal sound
-- Removed the extra, unused secret door sounds
-- Updated Abacus's pain and death sounds
-- Removed Abacus's unused pain and death sounds
-- Adjusted the volume for several end of level and end of run sounds that were being played quite loud

Developer Notes
-- [DEV] Cleaned up buff hierarchy
-- [DEV] Hid some extra wall bouncer arrows that were visible unnecessarily
-- [DEV] Updated the Ext3 test level for art asset feedback
-- [DEV] Additional changes to the Ext3 test level to allow easier movement
-- [DEV] Made the valid melee table check much more robust
-- [DEV] Switched Dr. Death over to swap its firing node tables based on leaf tags
-- [DEV] Fixed several issues with how NPS's handle their tick events during death and resurrection
-- [DEV] Quick clean-up on how the Dr. Death Twins variants handle their pathing modifier component
-- [DEV] Renaming a bunch of impact sfx assets to match our internal naming schemes
Checkin:
-- [DEV] Deleting a bunch of our old impact sfx source files

CLOSED BETA HOTFIX 0.2.9.1

A quick hotfix today to fix some of the accidental damage we did to arena reward pods while adding in a new feature. Such is the price of progress. Enjoy!

Polish:
-- Changed "Viewer Event" to "Fan Event" in intro widget
-- Fixed a blueprint error when picking up an item from an arena pod because it isn't a choice pod
-- Fixed an issue where the camera was zooming into the floor when you completed an arena

Developer Notes:
-- [DEV] Fixed a build warning in arena pods
-- [DEV] Cleaned up how the dev alt menu spawns fan events
-- [DEV] Added the ability for the dev alt menu saved sets to also save fan events

CLOSED BETA PATCH 0.2.9

A patch! A most palpable patch!

We’re cranking away - focusing on wrapping up features and adding in some quality of life goodies in preparation for our next big Beta push!

There are now Boss Variants for the Bombadier, your fans and your “IT!” can now influence spawns (better IT! = better stuff, unhappy fans = more nasty surprises!), Hard Mode is unlocked - and of course, there’s lots of continued polish and fixes.

Enjoy!

-Your SkullBuddies

Features:
-- The ability to play in Hard mode is now unlocked by winning the game once in Normal mode
-- Implemented ability to modify the spawn chances for an element of a pool based on one or more of:
-- PC's current "IT!" value
-- Fan opinion on the given object/buff/etc.
-- Or current Fan Happiness/Unhappiness

Content:
Added multiple new variants of the Bombadier, unlocked by performing a Flawless Kill on everyone’s favorite explosion-obsessed level guardian

Polish:
-- Adjusted weighting of votes on polls so Twitch voters count a bit more strongly against NPC voters in lower-twitch-viewer scenarios
-- Wallspikes and Wallbouncers now deactivate when the room is not in lockdown similar to how tile traps do (good call @loginerror)
-- Added backend for Mood Tiers (named tiers of happiness for the Fans)
-- Pickupables now persistently know if each one had previously been picked up, and do not adjust Fan mood if it is not the first pickup.
-- First pass implementation on removing chat lines from the in-game Twitch chat box
-- Pickupables refactoring around being added to inventory
-- Cleanup of mood tiers/mood tier change delegates to simpler system
-- Mood tiers clamped between -2/2
-- Mood tier displays properly/moved to Mood tag system
-- Added the game instance callback hookup for removing Twitch chat lines
-- Buffmanager cleanup:
-- Added concepts of Fan Boons and Fan Curses (applied by changes in fan moods)
-- Moved some functionality into C++
-- Cleaned up concept of Fan Events
-- Twitch functionality:
-- Cleaned up API from Twitch when user messages come in
-- Added Twitch ViewerID functionality to C++
-- We now pass metadata, ViewerID, LineID etc. to chat box so can display/handle twitch moderation more properly down the road
-- Now store both displayed name and full unique identifier for twitch viewer chat for to handle moderator bans/spammers
-- Slightly increased the dash distance for Gladiators and Da Champ
-- First pass on allowing NPC's to avoid dashing into pits
-- Implemented conditional spawning based on current Fan Happiness
-- Removed the swirly wall bouncer material as it is a bit distracting / confusing at the moment
-- Fixed issue where sometimes nothing would spawn with PoolEntryTags applied
-- Diminishing returns no longer applies during the tutorial
-- Adjusted the number of repeat moves at which diminishing returns kicks in
-- Added additional Steam achievements for maxing out fame for all current characters
-- Changed our explosion sfx to a duel channel one to fix issues with explosions quickly switching between the left and right audio channels
-- Unified how projectiles (and other non-projectile fused explosives) slightly vary their timing so that they don't all go off in the same frame
-- Fixed issue where arena pods could accidentally re-lock when coming back from a save - thanks @Seebo
-- Spike traps now by default initialize as "off" on room reveal and then activate.
-- Fixed: Spike traps could end up in the wrong state in an arena room if they were not in a sync group
-- Adjusted Spike trap covers so that they interact better with sand piles in arena rooms
-- Active Item Bugzapper now defaults to consuming less Carnage per use
-- Arena grating tiles now check for spike tiles before spawning some of their extra sand decor
-- Imported the new innate armor assets
-- Fixed an issue with circle arena tiles not being rotated properly to assist with the sand texture transition
-- Creatures spawned as minions are now tagged properly
-- Only mini drones spawned by drone factories play their "teleport in" sequence
-- Added a spawning sound for drone factories making mini drones
-- Fixed various edge cases of where traps could be on/off at inappropriate times in the various room types
-- State of whether room has been in lockdown now persists
-- Adjusted the opening sounds for the secret door so that it plays in unison with the normal door opening sound
-- Fixed minions being frozen in place on spawn
-- Added Fan Event BlindFight - Enemies are invisible (only given by Unhappy Fans)
-- Added new trap type - Recycler - initial implementation
-- Unlock widget fades rather than shrinks while disappearing
-- Added Danger decal to recycler
-- Shields refactoring
-- Shields now have debug logging
-- Shovers now behave somewhat better in terms of shield collision
-- MegaCombo now can attack creatures with shields
-- Optimized wallop arrows to trivially out if the option is not enabled
-- Cleaned up some of the Bombadier's attack animations
-- Slightly adjusted the frequency of some of the Bombadier's attacks
-- Fixed an issue where the Bombadier's giant electricity AoE was ticking damage at a greater range than it had hit initially
-- Added first pass textures and materials for the Bombadier variants
-- Fixed warning from animation blueprint
-- Moved attack table selection into the Bombadier so it can change based on leaf id
-- New container DualPods are now fully functional
-- Hooking up new attacks for the Bombadier's rocket variant
-- The Bombadier's rocket variant is ready for playtesting
-- Made some small attack frequency tweaks to the Bombadier's rocket variant
-- The Bombadier's rocket variant can now no longer walk when spawning a cruise missile but can during its rocket spray attack (except during the forced rocket spray after a melee slam)
-- Added a period during the rocket spray animation where the Bombadier can't turn
-- Adjusted the turn radius of the Bombadier's cruise missile
-- Tuned cruise missile code
-- All vaults now provide choices between items in them
-- Cleaned up timing around registration of choice pods
-- Improved signage on choice pods to make it only one can be chosen
-- Fixed issue with DualPods signage
-- Added a slam sound to the Bombadier's ground punch
-- Added an electric sound to the Bombadier's electric field
-- Tightened up our existing audio attenuation distances
-- Interaction widget cleanup
-- Upgraded our internal minion systems to be able to support multiple independent types of minions at the same time
-- Starting to set up the minion variant of the Bombadier
-- Began cleaning up how the Bombadier spawns its minions
-- Slightly adjusted the Bombadier's starting health
-- Added more spawned popper minions to the minion variant of the Bombadier
-- Added more appropriate "is" tags to the various versions of the Bombadier
-- You now unlock future Bombadier variants by getting flawless kills on the Bombadier
-- Added fan events to the dev alt menu
-- Switched the Bombadier's variant minions from poppers to tanks

Developer Notes
-- [DEV] Cleaned up variable initialization in UVotemanager
-- [DEV] Moved the WeaponType enum into C++ in an attempt to fix a 4.23 build issue
-- [DEV] Moved the AnimBP_MovementDirection enum into C++ in an attempt to fix a 4.23 build issue
-- [DEV] Added the ability to set spawn containers for minion spawns
-- [DEV] Fixed compile issue in PollWatcher