Colt Canyon News

Howdy fellow gunslingers!

First of all I want to thank all of you who still enjoy Colt Canyon! You are the best, and the reason why I keep working on the game. I also want to thank everyone who helped me track down issues with the latest patch. Obviously this also helps a lot.

Unfortunately some of you had severe issues with the latest patch, I am sorry for that but it was difficult to catch during QA. I am blaming the engine update. There were a couple of issues with the new engine version that were only identified now. Luckily we found a workaround for (hopefully all) the crashes and don't have to wait for an engine patch to fix the crashes. At least for the PC version. Sadly the console version of Colt Canyon will take longer to get right. Console players will have to wait for patch 1.2.0.2 which will hopefully fix all remaining issues and which is scheduled to be ready early next month.

Next to a lot of bugfixes, 1.2.0.1 also brings some slight balancing tweaks. Please find the changelog below.

And don't worry: 1.2.0.0 savegames are compatible with 1.2.0.1!

• Slightly nerfed fast reload upgrade
  
• Rebalanced some area 2 enemies
  
• Slightly buffed bandit snipers
  
• Slightly increased health of bear boss in loops
  
• Slightly reduced player knockback when hit by heavy weapons
  
• Fixed a crash preventing some players from starting new runs
  
• Fixed guns not creating any particles when fired
  
• Fixed remapped trigger button not being saved
  
• Fixed throwing knives missing collision
  
• Fixed player in savegames not loading correctly when game crashed during level generation
  
• Fixed crashes/glitches when loading/saving a savegame while already loading or saving something else
  
• Fixed pause menu saying save and quit instead of just quit in prologue level
  
• Fixed weapon break particles visual issues
  
• Fixed penetrating arrows duplicating visually
  
• Fixed Pistolero achievement
  
• Fixed cliff decals not being restored
  
• Fixed beartraps sometimes causing savegames to not load correctly
  
• Fixed slower bullets upgrade making some enemies invisible during attack
  
• Corrupted savegames shouldnt crash the game anymore
  
• Various other fixes
  

Let me know if you are still experiencing any issues with Colt Canyon and I will make sure to fix the issues with 1.2.0.2.

All the best, thanks for playing and stay healthy!
Jonathan

https://store.steampowered.com/app/940710

Howdy fellow gunslingers!
It took a bit longer than expected but it is finally here: Update 1.2 is now available! At least on Steam, GOG, PlayStation and Xbox. Switch and some other stores will need to wait until early next week. Not a lot of new content this time but a lot of balancing changes and of course the biggest new feature ever yet: Quit and Continue!

A savegame feature is something many have been waiting for, because depending on your playstyle a run can easily take more than an hour to complete. And some people just don't have this time. So, with this feature I am trying to better value your time and allow new players with less time on their hands to still enjoy the game to the fullest. Additionally the save feature will also allow another type of player to enjoy the game by cheating their way through the canyon. Good old save scumming. It's something that is very much possible, even though I did not implement a no-permadeath mode (yet?) but I am not giving any instructions right now. More on that in the wiki.



Additionally patch 1.2 also brings a lot of balancing changes, changes to shell weapons and of course a load of bug fixes. Oh, and yea, a lot of work was also done in the background, porting the game to the latest version of its engine, which is critical to keep supporting Colt Canyon in the future.

Oh, and one note to everyone who alread tested the unstable version: Other than expected Colt Canyon will stay a 32-bit application for now, as some functionality wouldn't have been supported in 64-bit. This does not impact anything really though. Just a side-note.

Find the full changelog for Update 1.2 below or in the official Colt Canyon Wiki.


[h3]Big changes:[/h3]

• Save game support! Yep, you can now save progress and resume any time.
  
• Switched to a new engine version hopefully fixing a lot of old bugs that couldnt be fixed otherwise but possibly also introducing new ones that can be fixed once reported
  
• Please note: User progress is not backwards compatible! (If upgrading to 1.2 do not go back to 1.1 or you might lose your unlocks and stats)
  

[h3]Balancing changes:[/h3]

• Adjusted bullet logic for shell weapons (shotguns), also buffed some of the shotguns in general, like the pumpgun, and adjusted damage values and falloff distances for all shell weapons
  
• Buffed most throw weapons and reduced their melee cooldown but decreased melee damage
  
• Slightly reduced health of bear boss and bandit boss and slightly increased slaver boss' health
  
• Increased explosion size of explosive weapons
  
• Increased amount of items found in loops
  
• Reduced revolving rifle reload speed
  
• Buffed Eagle's bow reload speed but nerfed bonus damage
  
• Nerfed Fox' bow reload speed
  
• Buffed Taco's tnt reload speed but nerfed bonus damage
  
• Allowed enemy attention 50% without disabling achievements
  
• Spawning less new containers if player already has a lot of ammo
  
• Made ammo cheaper to buy from merchants
  
• Companions bleed out slower and can no longer bleed out in boss levels (they can still be executed)
  
• Loot in all locked crate now scales with level (before only the locked weapon crate scaled with progress)
  
• Slightly reduced elite power in looped runs
  
• Reduced attention range of elites
  
• Made it impossible for enemies to spot you unless they are visible on screen
  
• Increased health or attack speed of some bandit types
  
• Its no longer possible to keep companions when looping, except for Flint
  
• Made ambushes much less likely to occur after first level
  

[h3]Various changes:[/h3]

• Added indicator in character selection when all loadouts for a character are unlocked
  
• No longer removing loaded ammo that cant be turned back into ammo when weapon is replaced
  
• Dead prisoners will no longer drop medicine
  
• Added a way to unlock the unique revolver again and added some ammo to its loadout (Die just before reaching your partner, but in a looped run)
  
• You can now visit the main menu before starting the prologue
  
• Disabled damage indicator in tutorial level
  
• Disabled weapon level indicator when swapping with empty slot
  
• Weapon level indicator now highlighting if same weapon but durability is better than equipped durability
  
• Changed the input system causing some custom key mapping to possibly become invalid
  
• Persistent levels now utilize the save game system so reduce memory usage (they are loaded from disk now)
  
• Various command prompt changes to support new engine features
  
• Fixed boss corpses fading before dropping their loot
  
• You can now go back in menus using RMB
  
• Fixed active reload being impossible to fail in first half on some weapons
  
• Fixed some objects being displayed incorrectly on game over screen
  
• Fixed level 4+ elites not having circle indicator
  
• Fixed crosshair animation missing if no weapon equipped
  
• Fixed a special case where buying a shop item would fail
  
• Various minor visual changes/fixes/tweaks
  

See you in the canyon!

JOIN THE DISCORD COMMUNITY

GET COLT CANYON!

And please don't forget to leave a review for Colt Canyon, it really helps us:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/940710/Colt_Canyon/

Howdy everyone!
Welcome to the first "dev update" post. I decided to post an announcement even though I am not releasing a new stable version today (but I did release a preview version so please keep reading), because if you are not active on the Colt Canyon Discord Server, you might miss some interesting news, and also because the patch frequency is not as high as it used to be. So I assumed, with Colt Canyon not being an Early Access title, some of you might be thinking that Colt Canyon is all done and will never get touched again. But thats not what I want you to think, because the opposite it true. I am still actively working on Colt Canyon and its getting better and better with every patch.

The last couple of months I spent on updating Colt Canyon's game engine to a new and more advanced up-to-date version. This was quite some work but is important to keep supporting the game in the future. The previous engine version was quite outdated and therefore, especially on console, some bugs were simply unfixable and a lot of SDKs and back-end tech about to become unsupported. Thankfully this is all done now and we are good to keep working on Colt Canyon and possibly even get some new content in at some point. And the new features that we unlocked with this engine update will also come in handy in the future.

But now to some more hands-on news: Colt Canyon is getting savegame support! Yep, you read it right. With the upcoming patch 1.2 we are not only switching to a new engine version (which you probably won't even notice) but we are also introducing a "Save and Continue" mechanic to the canyon.



This will allow you to quit playing the game while in a run, even during a fight (not recommended), and then come back later and continue where you left off. Simple as that.

Obviously, up until now we've already saved all the progress you did outside of runs, like character and loadout unlocks, your run settings, game settings, achievements, stats etc.. All that is already saved and you could describe this as a savegame too. But the new savegame system will work next to that and save individual runs and the state of the levels that are part of the run. To save a run you simply quit through the pause menu and then later either choose to continue your active run or start a new run, which will override the existing run's save. This way the game will still keep its rogue-like focus and not become a savegame management game and you no longer have to keep your pc turned on when you are deep into a run but have some urgent real-life duties to tackle.

The new savegame system will be deeply integrated into the main game and will from now on also power the persistent level mechanic. This will save quite some memory on the player's end (the game never used a lot of memory anyway but still) and maybe even speed up some of the level transitions. But more importantly it prevents you from losing progress. Every time you enter a new level the system is doing its thing and auto-saving, and therefore if the game or your pc crashes you will not lose the entire run. You can simply restart the game and load the most recent save. Which will hopefully allow you to continue your adventure. (Yes, this will also allow some players to cheese their way through the game. But thats a price I am willing to pay.) However, as mentioned the save system is still work in progress and we will see how it turns out once its all done and working on all platforms.

You can test the new savegame system yourself right now. You simply have to switch from the stable branch to the unstable beta branch. To do so simply right-click Colt Canyon in your steam library and navigate to Properties... > Betas and then switch from "None" to "unstable".
You can find the changelog of the version as it is right now on the Colt Canyon Wiki. If you encounter any bugs or issues please join the discord server and let me know.

The savegame mechanic will be the main feature of patch 1.2, which is expected to go stable next month (no promises). Of course there will also be a lot of balancing tweaks, QoL improvements and bug fixes, but not a lot of new content. Patch 1.3, which will come much later than 1.2, will then focus on new content again.

So much about Colt Canyon and its future. I hope you are as excited as I am and I hope to see you in the canyon again.

- Jonathan

Howdy fellow gunslingers!

Just a small patch this time. Mostly fixes and improvements for the PC version. That's why it's not launching on all platforms simultanously. But because there are also some balancing changes this patch will also be released on all consoles as soon as possible.

I added some interesting new scripting possibilites, but I will post an update and more details on that in a special post or on the wiki, since it's really only interesting for people looking to modify the game.

For everyone else this is mostly just a bugfixing and balancing patch.

For anyone struggling with rare late-game crashes on console: I am aware of the issue but it's not fixable right now since its related to the engine itself. It will require a major engine update which will take a long time to complete. But this is next on my to do list. Afterwards I will also start working on more interesting content updates again.

• Slightly reduced amount of enemies in B levels
  
• Dodge rolls will now save characters from being on fire
  
• Buffed some melee weapon stats
  
• Dynamite Bandits will not throw dynamite when they are not on screen
  
• Nerfed movement speed of some elite enemies
  
• Made it easier to avoid killing dogs
  
• Disabled explosion blur on consoles
  
• Improved explosion performance slightly
  
• High contrast player indicator now uses color of player one
  
• PC: Improved scripting support and command prompt capabilites
  
• Fixed a rare graphical glitch with vertical fences
  
• Fixed secondary melee key binding not being saved
  
• Fixed back button in keybindings being at wrong spot
  
• Fixed main menu discord hint not working
  
• Fixed bisons in ambushes count as innocent
  
• Fixed dynamite bandit game over screen display
  
• Minor translation fixes
  

Thanks for playing
Jonathan

https://store.steampowered.com/app/940710

With 2021 coming to an end I want to say thank you and goodbye to everyone reading this, especially if you've played my game this year. You are the reason why Colt Canyon keeps getting better and why I still have the motivation to improve the game wherever I can.

Before we take a look at this year's achievements I want to remind everyone that Colt Canyon is a one-man project. During pre-release we got a few artists to help me with some of the more difficult tasks, but 2021 was truly a one-man show. This is also why the update frequency is maybe not quite on par with other games.

Colt Canyon was released on PC, Xbox and Switch in mid-2020. Now its almost 2022.... Or when you are reading this it's probably already 2022, so happy new year to you! The game is out for 1.5 years now, and it has changed a lot since the initial release. During the first half-year, we already saw 9 smaller and bigger patches coming to almost all platforms.

But this is nothing compared to 2021, which started off big with the PlayStation release, together with Update 1.0.2.0, which was already available for PC players around christmas 2020, and brought features you would miss a lot now, like run settings, improved UI and, like every single patch so far: Much improved balancing.



Developing an action roguelike is hard. With every update the amount of content grows, but also the challenge of getting everything balanced, documented, and stable. So it's important to keep updating and tweaking the game until it's just right. And thats what I tried to do during 2021, and what I will try to keep doing in 2022 and beyond. But instead of pushing many smaller patches, like what I did in 2020, this year I tried to focus on bigger updates and improving the wiki. I made heavy use of the steam unstable branch, where interested players are able to test upcoming patches and share their feedback on our official discord server to remove the need for hotfixes and allow for much bigger updates released on all platforms at once.

One year after release, in mid-2021, the biggest update yet was about to launch when Colt Canyon got its first big award. We won the "Best Game" GameMaker Award. As you might now, the game is developed with the GameMaker Engine, so winning the GameMaker Award of 2021 was a big thing for me and a dream came true. This wouldn't have been possible without you: The active and growing Colt Canyon community. Your votes won this award.



This award boosted my motivation and I couldn't wait to release Update 1.1. It launched on all platforms simultaneously, bringing massive amounts of new content, like dozens of new weapons, but also new upgrades, obstacles and game mechanics, like all new melee combat, blood weapons or active reloading. With over 200 thumbs up on the steam announcement I think it's fair to say that this update was well-received.



Shortly after the release of Update 1.1 we won yet another award, this time a more local achievement. We won the German Dev Days Indie Award in the category "Best Visuals" and were nominated in two more categories. Winning "Best Visuals" was a surprise, but a welcome one. The jury made it clear that Colt Canyon won because the style captures the game's setting and gameplay and impresses with it's particle effects and feedback. I was very pleased to see them recognize and praise my artistic choices, since Colt Canyon's visuals were always something that people either liked or hated.



I ended 2021 with a smaller balancing and bugfixing patch: Update 1.1.1.0 - Which polished Colt Canyon to a degree that it hadn't seen before. Now is the perfect time to try Colt Canyon!
However, this is not the final patch. I still have plenty of ideas and plans for Colt Canyon. The only thing limiting me is my time and of course financial limits.



While 2021 was a big and successful year for Colt Canyon, it was still not big enough to allow me to grow as an indie developer and pay my bills. Therefore my resources are still severely limited and I have to use my spare time to work on Colt Canyon. But you can expect 2022 to be at least as great as 2021 as long as there are people playing Colt Canyon.

I hope you have a great start in 2022 and stay healthy!

- Jonathan