by

The Boost Update

The Boost update (v0.7.9) brings a bunch of changes both significant and small

New Item: Boost

Initially designed with multiplayer in mind, the boost item first comes to Race Mode — Zip, zoom, and bounce around levels at ultra-fast speeds.

A future update may bring the item into other modes if some balance issues can be satisfactorily addressed…

Support for up to 8 Players

(on platforms that allow it)

AI in Battle Mode

Previously cordoned to the bowels of Tutorial Mode, the AI has finally broken free into Battle Mode proper! On the character-select screen, just press the “Add AI” button (you can watch the scrolling bar at the top of the character-select for specific instructions)

  • Currently only supported on Verticality and Treehouse levels
  • Some improvements are still coming
  • You can increase the difficulty by adding more AI opponents + turning on Handicapping in the Mode Options panel (press Options/Menu while Battle Mode is selected on the mode-select screen)

Misc Changes

  • Race Mode: new and refined levels
  • Better filtering of sword-joystick overshoot
    • Greatly reduces, and possibly eliminates, the potential for joystick overshoot* to cause a sword swing in the wrong direction.
    • The naive filtering I did before seemed pretty decentâ„¢ — on average I saw maybe 1-in-300 sword swings experiencing this problem. But one day I came across a controller that had it occur about 1-in-20…
    • * “joystick overshoot” being where you release the joystick and it returns so fast towards the zero point that it actually shoots past it and returns a value in the opposite direction from where you intended.
  • A couple new characters
    • fish
    • bot (for AI only)
  • Refined options menus
    • Easier to understand and more space efficient
    • For keyboard/mouse players: Control remapping and other settings are now available in the character select options. (We still recommend playing with a modern gamepad controller if you can)
    • More options — including item weighting for Battle Mode. Then because Cannons Mode and Dynamiter Mode can now be recreated using the new options, those modes have been eliminated.
    • Further polish on the control-remapping feature.
  • New song

Tweaks

  • ThrownSword
    • The sword-hittable area more closely matches its visual shape
    • More reliable physics responses at high speed
  • Stunned State (after falling into lava)
    • You can pick up items — but those items *won’t* immediately kick you back to the normal state
    • Various new ways that a teammate can rescue you
    • *testing* You can swing your sword while in stun (offering some defense against enemy thrownSwords)
  • More team color options. The colors will continue to be tweaked over time — for greater color-contrast but also to try to make them as color-blind friendly as possible
In no particular order: yellow, powder pink, blue, cyan, green, red, magenta, purple
  • The handicapping option — which creates free blastZones for the losing player(s) now scales the number of free blastZones to the size of the level
  • Slightly easier-to-spot limbo bombs
  • More sounds: things falling into lava, items colliding, additional interface sounds on the menu screen, etc
  • Race levels unlock as you complete prior ones
  • All tutorial levels start unlocked — so people can pick and choose specific things they want to practice
  • Smoother Race cam — most noticeable at really high speeds (there are still some ways to make it even better)
  • Defined color schemes in Race Mode — to have greater color contrast + just be a bit more pleasant overall
  • Star item in Race mode can’t be hit/recoiled off of
  • (Not 100% complete yet) More instruction icons for keyboard/mouse input
  • Small graphic tweaks, jump animation plays every time there is a successful jump (previously it only played if there was a fairly big difference in before/after speed)
  • Race Mode: Option menu includes ability to turn on/off best-time playback
  • Split level: refined for easier jumps
  • Single player modes (Exploder and Race) — accomplishing a Gold or better score will *always* earn an extra coin
  • Simple implementation of input behavior for keyboard/mouse while in limbo, boostPrep (aiming the boost), and stunnedScamper (after falling into lava)

Bug Fixes

  • Menu screens
    • Rapidly exiting and entering the Character Select area could make some character-select boxes invisible
    • Fixed error with attempting to load leaderboards when in Steam Offline mode
    • Fixed issue where 2+ players pressing Back at the same time could potentially “confuse” the UI
  • Gameplay
    • Under certain conditions a thrownSword hitting the ground could fail to play a sound
    • Stopped thrownSword from continuously making ground-contact sounds when it’s on a moving platform
    • Better enforcement of: if you jump off a pickupable (dynamite, freezer, thrownSword, etc) then you do *not* pick it up
    • Fixed issue where a player trying to rescue a teammate from the stunned-state could potentially leave them immobile
    • More reasonable speed output when hit a fast moving object with your feet
    • Fixes related to the owner of a thrownSword dying while that thrownSword has items attached
    • Fixed issue with ownership transferring to items attached to a thrownSword
    • Fixed interaction between temporarilyInvincible (an attribute you have when first revived from Limbo) and lava
    • Prevent “mega” jumps from potentially occurring for a newly revived character who had initially died while moving really fast
    • Fixed the potential for characters to teleport a massive distance under certain, very specific circumstances. (Never saw this happen in a public playtest.. but once I knew how to do it, it was fairly reproducible…)
    • Screen Expand settings now work in Race Mode
    • Improved the timing of round-beginning events
    • Fixed issue where limbo character was unable to create limbo bombs/cannons
    • Remove a super rare case where a team with all its players in limbo could still have non-limbo bombs, cannons, etc created on the play field.
    • Fixed issue related to a trapShot potentially being able to “double hit” a bomb

Write a Comment

Comment