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Sipho 1.0.1f3 is now available - better performance and AI!

Hello all!

We have been gathering feedback from community forums and watching various streamers play Sipho and got a nice list of notes that we are addressing with this update!

Budlings now feel much safer next to their parents and should not run away from big enemies. Especially those enemies who are threatening their mother colony!
There seems to be a disturbing lack of self-preservation among your offspring...

Enemy AI has been tweaked to be less aggressive to enemies that are much smaller than them - that makes more sense to make them dispose of something that is more threatening and only then go after small ones. The change is most impactful when the small one is the player!

A lot of bugfixes and performance have been done - especially related to level spawning and whirlpool level destruction. While there are things to optimise further, we hope this will help with stuttering a lot.

Version 1.0.1f4
  • More robust way of holding consumables should fix Polyp sometimes causing consumables to be unholdable
  • Do not update Environment Grid if things have recently been spawned


Version 1.0.1f3
  • Optimize whirlpool level destruction
  • Tweak Advena areas
  • Cache level spawner texture values - improves performance for levels based on texture lookup spawning


Version 1.0.1f2
  • Add Tooltip to separate canvas in Main Menu
  • Mover camera fast while in transition - fixes camera flying around after entering new zones
  • Fix growth zooid type categories not being disabled correctly


Version 1.0.1f1
  • Refactor enemy spawning to allow having different enemy counts per campaign level. Adjust enemy aggressiveness and counts
  • Add option to slow down game simulation if it is unable to keep up with target framerate
  • Alphas are guaranteed to drop relevant mutations
  • Fix whirlpools not spawning in Freeroam
  • Saenus Boss 3 creates currents a bit more rarely. Other boss fight enemies never flee
  • Pathfinder completes its path requests when setting new ones
  • Allow Mutations have differently constructed titles for localization. Add missing translations.
  • Refactor how campaign sipho zooids get swapped for variety - dynamically determine if swapping is possible instead of being hardcoded. Fixes enemies with impossible layouts appearing
  • Megalocyst explodes instantly instead of 0.1sec delay
  • Do not regenerate health when losing nutrition to overnutrition - fixes some bosses healing themselves for a while before allowing themselves to be over-dps'ed
  • Make Advena campaign areas a bit wider to navigate
  • Boss battle arena does not care if there is null sinkable to sink
  • Fix zooid info tooltip text to contain proper newlines
  • Better Leader following AI for minion Siphos
  • Enemies are less likely to attack smaller enemies
  • Display zooid type next to breed name in the tooltips
  • Improve some zooid descriptions
  • Fix leech teleporting
  • Mutation generation can skip types - allows Abrasive mutation to be applicable to Puffer, but not be generated for Structures
  • Enemy Spawner tracks and manages children of the children as well - fixes boss arenas sometimes being stuck after killing a boss
  • Siphos drop recently eaten nutrition if they're killed fast enough
  • Don't clump up enemies when spawning
  • Correctly dispose of player minions when starting new Epoch


Version 1.0.1a1
  • Revert to shape matching correctly when detecting NaN deformation values
  • Add obstacle inside shrimpy's centre so nothing gets moved or spawned in it
  • Cra'Than second boss waits before attacking
  • Update Environment Grid over several frames - reduces stuttering
  • Update pathfinding grid 1 chunk over time as now obstacle spawners spawn more consistently
  • Obstacle spawners update chunks dynamically over several frames
  • Do not spawn sizzler arc if distance is lower than 0.1 - fixes arcs flying away
  • Claw Weapons and Twister Swirls have unlimited overlaps
  • Fix flower petals in Buginis areas and enable their fade-outs
  • Polyp damages their target immediately when attaching
  • Use realtime in breed selection breed chosen animation so the animation isn't affected by time scale
  • Align level spawners with Environment Grid chunks - better overlap checking, better performance.
  • Give spawner manager one frame delay to spawned chunk checking - should allow physics to catch up and have valid raycast queries
  • Improve Enemy Spawner checking for unspawned chunks - include radius in search so moving spawned enemy is guaranteed to not later overlap the enemy

Sipho Trading Cards and Emoji are now available!

Hello, Gamers! ːsiphoPogː

For all your gamer conversations and cool profile backgrounds Sipho Emoji and Trading Cards are now available!

Impress your friends with your grabbing skillz:
ːsiphoPogːːgrabberStartːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberMidːːgrabberEndːːnutritiousEggː

Or make silly faces:
ːpoisonBombːːlickItːːpoisonBombː
ːskellyHandLːːseaheadːːskellyHandRː

Are all now available in Steam through card collecting and points shop!

Sipho 1.0.0f7 is here with Brazilian Portuguese language support!

Hello Sipho players!

Almost a week has passed since 1.0.0 launch and it was exhilarating! After so long in the Early Access tunnel the release and tons of new players experiencing the game for the first time were the light at the end of the tunnel.

Development isn't over though - we want to "unlock" the intended Sipho experience for everyone. After watching many new Let'splays and collecting players' feedback we noticed that onboarding to the game needs more work. It is something you can develop a blind eye on - the playerbase was experienced, you, as a developer know how things work - so nobody notices the missing first steps as they've already passed them.

One of the things we can immediately fix are certain moments where players can't get up on their feet anymore: Losses at the end of levels sometimes put players in soft-lock state, where there is no more nutrition left and only large enemies. Our solution - spawn some "snacks" so if player has lost any nutrition they will be able to regain before having the courage to dive deeper.

Other things were obvious quality issues - stability, problems with input and polish in general. We will continue to improve new player experiences, controller support and add more polish to the game. As well as new in-game languages.

Sipho is now also available in Brazilian Portuguese language!

We had a good friend to help us and translate to Brazilian Portuguese language. The language can be accessed through Options -> Player Settings menu. New players, who have their Steam client set to available and fully translated language will have it selected automatically. Divirta-se!

Changenotes:
Version 1.0.0f7
  • Fix Leech and Polyp teleporting their tentacles around
  • Deep Zooid Layer no longer collides with Ignore Raycast layer - fixes Flail Chain Links connector colliding with Deep Zooids
  • Fix second Advena zone to no longer spawn food into walls
  • Peapod distance stiffness when relaxed is a bit higher
  • Expand player vision under top level decortaions if siphonophore is covered
  • Optimize Environment Settings shader property upload by using property name hashes
  • Projectiles that carryover buffs check for null colliders - fixes rare error
  • Apply tint to Saenus whirlpool sprites
  • Enemies properly spread out
  • Spawn snacks when player is below expected progression to help with soft-locks when a level ends but there's no nutrition left
  • Tweak Piston stats - increase mass to 5 (up from 1) to allow better deformation stability when many heavier zooids connect to it. Increase angular connection stiffness to 0.5 (up from 0.1) to prevent oscillations
  • When changing constraint values also lerp angular constraints - reduces physics overshoots even more
  • Fix wrong distance constraint stiffness step amount when undeforming - that caused overshoots and sipho mangling-up
  • Auto-set languages that have marked as fully translated when first launching the game. Set Brazilian language as fully translated
  • Add Translators credits
  • Separate different environment depth layer gradients to ensure that they are selected properly for their depth layer. Fixes rare occurences when certain objets appeared uncollidable when they were
  • Tweak Buginis boss 1 arena to have smoother outer walls
  • Fix that UI toggle button didn't toggle off certain parts of UI
  • Change Frakir minion value range from 200-400 to 150-250 - less broken layouts to fight against


[h2]Previous hotfixes contained:[/h2]

Version 1.0.0f6
  • Caltrops penetrate things one frame ahead of time which prevents them getting physics reaction forces and bouncing off penetrated objects
  • Caltrops do not immediately die when penetration expires
  • Skin Flower has more accurate colliders
  • Add DPad defaults for growth mode picking zooid category to grow - those were unused and are kind of nice. Always rebindable in Options menu
  • Add input detection mode to allow overriding automatic input type
  • Do not unparent objects when they're about to be destroyed as part of scene unloading - just some game-log santiziation
  • Clamp caltrop pull force after 5 seconds - fixes some crazy scenarios where caltrops no longer collide due to huge forces acting on them


Version 1.0.0f5
  • Enemies after first boss are bit more chill
  • Final boss now enrages properly and does a bit more to survive
  • Reschedule path if Sipho radius changes
  • Slow down time earlier in transition effects so the game doesn't play while while is about to be chomped on
  • Fix respawning in Aquarium sometimes setting overshot values to transition and time effects
  • Make relaxed peapod a bit stiffer in distance constraining
  • Buginis Guard doesn't aggro immediately when passing by
  • Greatly reduce number of unintentionally destroyed poolables - a slight performance improvement
  • Puffer projectiles are not containable in Voider
  • Fix deep rocks showing up in growth mode incorrectly - various boss arenas had weird black shadows from deep decorations that were close to the surface
  • Add cursor lock to window option to gameplay options
  • Append extra zooid info when hovering grown zooid and holding Alt key
  • Don't destroy on load Time Master


Version 1.0.0f4
  • Add Full Screen Mode option to Graphics menu - using Fullscreen Exclusive could help improve performance on low-end machines
  • Reduce overall music volume just a tiny bit
  • Fix memory leak in deformable jobs
  • Fix memory leak and improve performance of pathfinding clearance calculations
  • Fix Grabber erroring out in rare occasions and do not exert firing force if it stayed connected


Version 1.0.0f3
  • Add translations incomplete disclaimer
  • Fix polyp not attaching correctly
  • Tidy up music playing and play it in Aquarium
  • Upload to Workshop with Public visibility by default
  • Fix layouts marked in layout Browser as Do Not Spawn were still spawned
  • Things that do not want to be held are no longer held - fixes Polyp attaching to Zooid unlock consumables
  • Correctly request for Depth texture rendering when depth blur is on - fixes the game being super blurry if Ambient Occlusion is off, but Depth Effect is on

Sipho 1.0.0 f6 hotfix is now live!

Hello all,
We have a small batch of hotfixes from recent feedback. Some have reported controller auto-detection not working, so we added an option to override input detection mode. It can be found in the Options menu.
We notice a lot of runs end after the first boss - enemies are noticeably more aggresive there and gang up on the player. As a temporary solution we have tweaked their aggresiveness and range of detection to be lower - making them less likely to gang up on the player. Let's see how this goes.
Caltroper is one of the newest Zooids who is quite hard to control. These changes make it a bit more predictable by pre-penetrating objects without obstruction of movement. Old behavior was that they would bounce-off for single frame and penetrate on the next one.



Version 1.0.0f6
  • Caltrops penetrate things one frame ahead of time which prevents them getting physics reaction forces and bouncing off penetrated objects
  • Caltrops do not immediately die when penetration expires
  • Skin Flower has more accurate colliders
  • Add DPad defaults for growth mode picking zooid category to grow - those were unused and are kind of nice. Always rebindable in Options menu
  • Add input detection mode to allow overriding automatic input type
  • Do not unparent objects when they're about to be destroyed as part of scene unloading - just some game-log santiziation
  • Clamp caltrop pull force after 5 seconds - fixes some crazy scenarios where caltrops no longer collide due to huge forces acting on them


Version 1.0.0f5
  • Enemies after first boss are bit more chill
  • Final boss now enrages properly and does a bit more to survive
  • Reschedule path if Sipho radius changes
  • Slow down time earlier in transition effects so the game doesn't play while while is about to be chomped on
  • Fix respawning in Aquarium sometimes setting overshot values to transition and time effects
  • Make relaxed peapod a bit stiffer in distance constraining
  • Buginis Guard doesn't aggro immediately when passing by
  • Greatly reduce number of unintentionally destroyed poolables - a slight performance improvement
  • Puffer projectiles are not containable in Voider
  • Fix deep rocks showing up in growth mode incorrectly - various boss arenas had weird black shadows from deep decorations that were close to the surface
  • Add cursor lock to window option to gameplay options
  • Append extra zooid info when hovering grown zooid and holding Alt key
  • Don't destroy on load Time Master

Creature-growing survival game Sipho 1.0 is out now

Climb to the top of the food chain in Sipho, a game about building up a creature with zooids. After being in Early Access since late 2018 it's finally done and hit the 1.0 release.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/10/creature-growing-survival-game-sipho-10-is-out-now