Sipho News

We can finally say that the latest version 0.7.8 is a direct improvement over previously available Sipho version 0.6.9 and time has come to make it available for everyone! There are loads of new content and tweaks in this update:

New and higher resolution graphics for all environments. Deeper objects are now affected by parallax effect. Some of new objects have special properties - Bones spawned in Advena areas are breakable, Cra'Than Holes spawn food if they are unblocked. And all of these environments are no longer visited in fixed order - this improves replayability and allows us present more varied enemies. Previously, Saenus Beefuorus were only seen in first levels and they barely fought back. Now, you might encounter them in later giving a much better fighting chance for that breed.
Sea creature in its comfy coral-decorated environment waiting to snip you

9 new bosses were added for each difficulty tier, adding up to a total of 13. Some of boss designs were based on the winners of community boss design competition. Boss fight arenas also use new environment features to spice up the strategy. We will be further polishing these fights - we want to these fights to encourage varied strategies and break pace from regular open-area battles. Boss fights are also great for experimenting with different mechanics in isolated area which we might bring later to the rest of the game.
One of new Advena breed bosses found in Level 3 "Secondary Crater"

Extended connections for structure parts was a small change which unlocked exponentially more possibilities of designing your SIpho. It was once a cursed growth technique of experienced players, which required placing and removing structure Zooids in a specific way to create farther connections than usually possible. Thanks to our community, it has been implemented to work out of the box:
Here you can see Advena structures placed further apart to allow Spikes sliding through

Special properties for movement Zooids were added to differentiate movement zooids further. They have the following effects:

• Advena movers regenerate energy on hit - we hope that this will play well with Advena's aggressive idea
  
• Saenus movers have much stronger Dash skill effect - acting like real-life squid jets
  
• Buginis movers decrease cooldowns of neighboring zooids by 10% - plays well with Buginis skill
  oriented breed. Since skills are not separated for each zooid and connections can be more intricate, mean value for cooldowns is used. For example if you have a Flak with 110% Cooldown Recovery and another with 120% CR, skill cooldown will be reduced by 15%.
  
• Cra'Than movers have additional connection points - crazy, we know, let's see how this works!
  
• Vagorian movers regenerate health - destined to bump into spiky things, Vagorians have evolved to regenerate their wounds,
  

Improvements worth mentioning:

• Rebalanced energy use of skills to scale better with smaller and larger Siphos. Read more about the change in previous announcement
• Added new Cooldown Recovery stat which improves your Skill cooldown duration
  
• New type of Siphonophore enemy - Polyp, which are stationary, turret-like Siphos. They don't think much and certainly don't move. Currently they can be found in single boss fight and spawned in Aquarium. In future versions we might use them as enemies in regular areas as well as in different boss fights.
• Zooid unlock drop options increase with each level - first boss drops two zooids to choose from, second one drops three and so forth - we hope this gives more freedom and incentive to continue playing in further levels.
  
• You now keep all adapted Zooids throughout runs. It means that with every replay extra Zooid selection list grows with new zooids. We thought that previous behaviour was just unpleasant for inexperienced players and nothing of value for experienced ones.
• New powerups - Melee and Ranged Damage, Cooldown Recovery and Range
  

Known issue:

• With increased amount of environment objects performance can get worse once Area is Cleared. We are looking into how to improve both performance and experience of being told that the level has ended.
  

The most recent changes that haven't been mentioned in previous updates:

• Spawn Cra'Than boss 3 whirlpool in the middle of arena
  
• Fix save updating to new version
  
• Support child colliders in Object Eraser
  

• Reduce crazy amounts of nutrition in Advena areas
  
• Serialize Zooid rigidbodies so they're always available
  
• Deactivate Zooid Reposition UI Stack if we are coming back to it dragging nothing
  
• Add optional debugging to UIModuleStack
  
• Remove duplicate event system from Aquarium menu
  
• Serialize Canvas reference in Growth Manager so it can have Growth Point UI recreated early
  
• Fix Spike throwing skill errors when becoming dead
  
• Bump year label
  

• Update obsolete Bone Ball Obstacle references in scenes
  
• Refactor achievements to support nonlinear levels
  
• Add environment type analytics
  
• Stop spike damage once it has exceeded pierce count and is still not retracted to simulate previous behavior
  
• Spike weapon improvement - track damage time per damaged collider rather than per-spike
  
• Debug improvements: add optional logging, allow turning off AI in debug enemy spawn menu, instantly spawn them
  
• Spikes pierce all colliders when retracting. Tweak spike forces
  
• Fix author of Crabs
  

All of changes made since 0.6.9 can be found here.

As we are getting closer to 0.7.x release to wide masses we are focusing on doing last touches of polishing roughest edges. Remakes of Cra'Than areas and boss polish will be coming after we release this update to the default branch - they are good enough to not lower the quality bar compared to widely available version 0.6.9.

This version can be played after updating to Steam's beta branch called [staging]. Find it at: Library -> [Right Click] on Sipho -> Properties -> Betas

• Enemies now remember who damaged them and treat them more cautiously
  
• Fix Zooids instantly exploding on death in previous commit
  
• Refactor Zooid health change events
  
• Add Siphonophore debug info to Development UI
  
• Destroy blocking rocks and other environment features once Seanus Boss Fight 3 ends
  
• Destroyed Sinkable Environment Objects handle being sunk
  
• Tweak gamepad/camera code
  
• Tweak Twister Narrows area - wider gaps, less food spawns, nicer bone spawns
  
• Dirty Project Settings
  
• Support controller with Camera Follow
  
• Remove Input workarounds for controller inversion. Use built-in Input System UI Input Module
  
• Use more generic IsPointerOverUI calculation code
  
• Put tentacle sprite pivot at the tentacle base. Adjust all prefabs and placements of tentacles
  
• Fix dead zooids throwing errors on whirlpool sink
  
• Alphas should spawn without extra nutrition
  
• Reimport all prefabs to populate serialized data
  
• Cra'Than boss battle arena layout tweaked
  
• Environment spikes remember damage time per-object - should feel much more consistent. Tweak damage values - damage more often, but require more velocity for full damage
  
• If ungrowing a Zooid would leave some Zooids detached, ungrow them too
  
• Fix glitch that allowed stacking zooids
  
• Remove silly Saenus layout from built-in
  
• Add powerups and Bone Balls to Aquarium UI
  
• Update object database
  
• Allow skipping objects from inclusion to the database
  
• Create new Bone Ball prefabs with new prefab workflow
  
• Decorate Cra'Than first Boss arena
  
• Ignore .vsconfig
  
• Upgrade Unity engine to 2020.3.0f1
  

• Make Advena Boss 2 rotate instead of constantly facing player
  
• Skip a frame when registering for Sipho Inventory so that anything that sets up inventory doesn't trigger Zooid unlock popup
  
• Rename Powerup Range to Range Powerup
  
• Currents should not affect Ignore Raycast layer - fixes leeches being affected
  
• Fix destructible object becoming almost invisible while damaged. Scale mass and hit damage with size
  
• Set local scale to Poolable objects before spawning them
  
• Do not lower clamp zooid decay to 0.01
  
• Re-enable save compression
  

• Reduce spike launch and chip forces to accomodate for lower mass
  
• Spread out enemy spawners a bit
  
• Change Eating powerup to become Range powerup - it also increases zooid range. Make powerup IDs consistent, add save upgrade path.
  
• Improve Cra'Than Boss 1 fights
  
• Add proper save versioning and upgrade path
  
• Change base time to spawn to 8 of Cra'Than Hole and scale it by their size - larger holes spawn more often
  
• Scale Destructible Container drop amount and health by their size
  
• Tweak Gemini boss, add its down aggro effect
  
• Never scale zooid size below 0.01 - fixes rare cases of leech tips disappearing
  
• Fix leech tips staying visually attached to pooled objects
  
• Reduce camera change speed in growth mode
  
• Print Siphonophore spawn log entry in Start instead of Awake - allows Enemy spawners to set Siphonophore name for better debugging
  
• Refactor how Enemy Spawners gather their settings. Clean up lots of parameters. Add scaled Alpha Enemy spawning to all areas. Tweak enemy Layout value level ratios
  
• Tweak spike
  
• Tweak spike to be less wiggly
  
• Fix Cra'Than mover "hands" being below their elbows
  
• Fix connection visuals not syncing correctly while dragging introduced in previous commits. Do not discard valid position when ending drag very close to zooids of that position (makes placing a bit nicer)
  
• Use absolute position values when moving child zooids through repositioning in growth mode
  
• Obliterate Zooid.transform references in Zooid Button UI - use Zooid.Position/Rotation instead
  
• Allow setting Zooid rotation through its property
  
• Add missing Peapod audio clip
  
• Fix skill bar being limited after certain width. Also stretch it down if it doesn't fit the screen
  
• Fix hole sprite bone references
  

Another fight based on boss design contest has been added to the game! This time it's The Gemini, create by Popcorn Dust!
The original design was solid - boss behaviour promotes interesting strategies fighting them. And there is a lot of potential for lore. We deviated a bit from original by making the second Gemini an invert of the original design:

The fight might be fiendishly hard or cake-walk easy. We will be monitoring feedback and tweaking this boss in the future!

The arena features new Cra'Than environment objects which will be added to existing levels to spice up variety. We are very happy how Tentacles have turned out to be. If they prove to be stable enough for such physics-based action as Sipho has, we might add stronger interactions with them - some might get annoyed and push objects away. We have also added Holes which sometimes spit out useful powerups to aid you in your fights.

Aquarium Layout Browser has gotten a little bit of love - it can now be searched and sorted by names or values of Layouts. More Aquarium functionality improvements are planned in the future.

Have a go at all changes we've made:

• Enable random motors on tentacles to make them move
  
• Cra'Than boss battle 2
  
• Set up Cra'Than holes which spawn food
  
• Turn off batching on tentacle sprite skins to attempt fixing flying vertices
  
• Conver "bulp" audio file to ogg and trim silence
  
• Add minimum delay option to Audio Player
  
• Support looping audio on following effect
  
• Turn off always update on sprite skins of tentacles and holes
  
• Spawn bonus nutrition where the boss was
  
• Tweak tentacles
  
• Set Ragdoll layer to not collide with Default layer
  
• Set up Hole sprite bones
  
• Add new environment objects to environment object collection
  
• Polish tentacle physics
  
• Improve Cra'Than Twin boss fight
  
• Fix layout author search not being lowercased
  
• Add sorting and filtering to Layout browser
  
• Add joints to tentacle objects
  
• Generate sprite bones for tentacles
  
• Allow rocks to set different solids layer than Default
  
• Add Ragdoll layer
  
• Add random motor speed script for Tentacle use
  
• Add music beat detector script
  
• Add 2D skinning package
  
• Do not use Growth Point UI while Sipho structure is dirty - fixes rare cases of entering bad UI state when quickly doing growth things
  
• Add multiple boss support
  
• Add Rect extension to incorporate Rect expansion
  
• Tweak depth colors so that mid depth is not as desaturated and dark
  
• Set up Cra'Than obstacle colliders
  
• Add Cra'Than prefabs and gallery scene
  
• Add new Cra'Than environment sprites
  
• Fix camera having slower zoom change speed than intended
  

Initial release of so-called Swarm - Buginis third boss fight has shown several things it needs to be improved upon. Its AI was tweaked to have a goal inside the Boid-brain to attack its current target Siphonophore - you, the player. Previously it would override Boid flocking behavior to go straight to its target, if it is in vision, and it would cause clumping together with other agents. Clumping up should now happen much less often.
Another interesting change was addition of Camera position and size overrides for boss fights. We can now increase zoom range in arenas without having to design environment outside of playable areas - the camera is simply pushed away from the edge, towards arena contents. This increases vision of important arena parts and allows us to tell the story using the environment more clearly.

• Beautify Buginis boss 3 arena
  
• Add plant Nest formation
  
• Add damaged effect to Sipho container
  
• Fully zoom out when using custom views - makes boss fight zoom consistent
  
• Make Buginis Swarm boss movement fully boid based with goal support
  
• Sipho eggs spawn siphonophores using their own direction
  
• Tweak Buginis Boss 2 arena camera limits
  
• Add Camera Follow Overriders to boss arenas to limit vision only to relevant area and allow zooming out further
  
• Tweak Buginis Swarm boss behavior to include player as goal in Boid simulation
  
• Workaround Sipho size being very large after boss area load by skipping a frame
  
• More Rect utility tests
  
• Add Camera Follow Overrider to enable custom camera control for boss fights
  
• Remove explosive sweeping from Sipho container
  

After many tweaks, third Buginis boss fight is now in the game! It is based upon Murderswarm design by TIC. We have let ourselves experiment with it a bit and we feel that it is going to be yet another unique boss fight.

The boss fight implementation differs from original by being Buginis, rather than Vagorian breed. On paper, swarm-based AI might sound easy to do, but it required quite a bit of tweaking to get it somewhat right in the game. It turned out alright and we are pretty happy with the result - the Swarm behaves believably in confined arena and is a threat to the player.

While tweaking and improving Swarm's behavior we saw potential of using the same method of control for friendly Siphos in Aquarium. Smaller Siphos would follow larger ones, including player's Sipho, which would have some influence upon the rest of the Swam. That would turn into a herd-management minigame if you want to keep your own Swarm together and fight other Siphos. These Aquarium improvements would come after we finish with non-linear levels in 0.7 versions.

• Less error prone way of applying zoom to view margins
  
• Reduce duration for camera animation if there is no spawn animation
  
• Use boss battle zoomout for other bosses
  
• Allow overriding zoom level for camera follow. Use zoom overrides for boss battle initial camera animation
  
• Swarm AI and arena improvements
  
• Add Buginis Boss 3 Swarm Layouts
  
• Do not save game while boss fight has not ended yet. Deterministically select zooid unlock drops
  
• More appropriate way of saving Boss Battle state
  
• WIP Buginis swam boss - swap arena art to Buginis environment, boid movement improvements, spawn swam from destroted eggs
  
• Add Destructible Sipho Container which spawns Siphos upon destruction
  
• Add HUE shift property to environment shader
  
• Add test for finding duplicate Environment Object IDs and fix them
  
• Swarmer Boid AI is now Faction based - boids will follow anyone in their faction
  
• Add Intended Rotation property to Siphonophore
  
• Update Siphonophore physical radius each frame instead of on Structure change
  

We had a little hidden update with several improvements:

• Use automatic Graphics API for MacOS
  
• Move LUTs to Textures directory out of PostProcessing
  
• Show Builtin layouts first if there are no manually saved layouts in Layout Browser
  
• Rename few particles options
  
• Re-gather shader
  
• WIP Buginis boss
  
• Add some particle graphics options
  
• Remove two unused texture lookups in whirlpool mist shader
  
• Choose another enemy spawner layout if enemy spawner fails to spawn in 100 tries
  
• Increase level end timeout to 30 minutes