Aug 31, 2022

Rain World - [AG] riv otter

Hello slugcats!

I am excited to announce a free update called Rain World Remix. This update will add accessibility options, customization options, fix many bugs present in the current version of the game, and improve on some of the things that annoyed players, like the rain deer interactions. Those who don’t buy the Downpour DLC will still get this update when Downpour releases.

I won’t go through all the options as this announcement will turn into a dictionary if I tried, but if you have any questions about ones that I don’t go into feel free to ask and I’ll answer with the best of my ability. Any of these options can be toggled for your best individual experience.

Loading screen tips and extra tutorials will be added to help newer players with the mechanics that the game doesn’t normally teach you in game - like how to drop items or how to tell how much time is left in a cycle. Loading screen tips will occasionally give tips when the slugcat dies or when the slugcat survives the cycle. Extended tutorials will give in-game tutorial messages for certain mechanics and scenarios.

Music is an important part of telling if there is danger nearby in Rain World. However, those that have a hard time hearing do have a major disadvantage. Threat music visual pulse will give a visual indicator of incoming danger. In addition to the music going more intense as the slugcat gets closer to danger, the threat music visual pulse shows a heartbeat of red dots on the bottom of the screen. There are up to five red dots that can appear and the more red dots that show up the closer the slugcat is to danger.

If you ever feel that a creature killing the slugcat just off screen is unfair, then Slug Senses is a way to counter that. Checking the map with this option active will show the creatures that are near the slugcat in the room, including those creatures that are just off screen. On the map it will show the creature symbol and will differentiate if they are alive or dead. However, camouflaged creatures, creatures in darkness, or those underwater, will still obscure themselves from the map.

Karma gates are a big barrier that many players reach. Sometimes it can be super discouraging for players to reach the needed karma to cross to the next region only to die and then not have the required karma to cross the karma gate again. Rain World Remix will have two options that will help players cross those karma gates. The first option is that karma gates will have Monk style gates for all campaigns. Once you cross through the gate, that gate will continue to be unlocked and not require karma again. The second option will disable all karma gate requirements - so even if you are struggling you can continue to go through the karma gates at the lowest karma.

For speedrunners of the game, there will be a togglable in-game speedrun timer that can be used. Now a lot of speedrunners may be distraught to hear that Rain World Remix does fix a lot of speedrunning exploits like karma caching and guardian skips. We don’t want to hurt the speedrun community and make speedruns less consistent so we have put in a toggleable option that can be used to keep exploits and advantageous glitches that speedrunners use to get the fastest times. For those interested in speedrunning for the current version of Rain World the Rain World Discord has a meta-and-tech channel that you can discuss with other speedrunners on strategies.

If red lizards weren’t scary enough there is an Alpha Red Lizards option to make them stronger. This option gives them tongues to pull you close, and if you think that stashing a bunch of spears is a good idea, their tongue can snatch your spear and break it in half with their bite.

The rain deer is one of the most annoying creatures for the community. In the current build the rain deer behavior cannot be influenced by the player once on the antlers. If they go a different direction then what the player wants then there is no way to change that other then jump off and wait for the next rain deer and hope they go the correct way. The tweaked deer behavior option adds two ways that players can influence the direction the rain deer goes once on the antlers. Shaking on the antler will encourage them to change directions, or encourage them to move if they are idling in place. If the slugcat is holding a sporepuff while on the antlers, then the position of the slugcat will also influence their movement.

There are many more options that can be toggled to make your campaigns unique to what you like. Rain World Remix as a whole can be enabled or disabled, if you would like to continue playing Rain World unchanged from the way it is now. This free update will be launching alongside Rain World: Downpour.

Feel free to come chat with us in the Akupara Games Discord, or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook for updates!

-[AG] Riv Otter

Jul 21, 2022

Steam Workshop Dev log!

Rain World - [AG] riv otter

Hello, Slugcats!

The modding community has given many players plenty of reasons to put countless additional hours into playing Rain World and it has honestly blown our minds to see the community’s ideas come to life in game. I’ve watched the progress of different mods being developed and have personally worked with different modding projects from the community. To put it in no uncertain terms, we at Akupara Games support the modding community of Rain World.

For this devlog, I’m excited to announce that Steam Workshop support will be coming to Rain World! Modders of Rain World will be able to upload their mods to Steam Workshop to enable more players easy access to their mods. Modders will have an easier time getting updates for their mods to the community.

On the player’s side, Rain World will be updated to include an in-game mod loader! You will not have to purchase Downpour to have access to the mod loader as this will be part of a free patch that will be added to the base game of Rain World! This will allow players to customize the mods they’ve subscribed to from the Steam Workshop in-game without having to manually move or manipulate files. Toggle what mods you want active, click the “Apply Mods” button, and it is as simple as that. You will also use this menu to toggle the More Slugcats Expansion and Jolly Co-Op coming in Rain World: Downpour, when the DLC is installed! If you have mods that might conflict with each other then the mod loader also allows you to adjust load order to configure which mods have priority over the others!

Those who have modded Rain World before, or who have made mods for it, will be familiar with ConfigMachine, a framework created by topicular that allows configuration menus to be made for mods. Rain World’s new in-game mod loader was a joint creation between topicular and Andrew, and all of the same capabilities of ConfigMachine will still be available and built into Rain World for mod creators to make configuration interfaces for their mods, and for players to tweak settings for their installed mods.

Some folks will be worried that this update will break the mods that are currently available, and unfortunately that is the case. However Andrew, the lead developer of Rain World: Downpour, will be working with modders to help them upgrade and transfer their mods to work with Steam Workshop. So once this goes live, many mods will already be ready to be uploaded to Steam Workshop and work with the mod loader. For now, modders can start reading this technical reference to start to learn how to upgrade their mods, and about how the modding landscape will change in the new update.

In the meantime, if you would like to try out some of the mods that work with the current version of Rain World, then I would strongly recommend checking out RainDB created by Andrew and Custom Region Support created by Garrakx! Both of these are websites / databases made to host the different mods made by members of the Rain World community (And now the authors of these sites are working with Akupara to bring Downpour to players!). There are loads of mods available to play right now, including different slugcats, regions, modes, and more made by the community!

Well that is it for the devlogs for Jolly Week of July but tomorrow we will have a live stream! Join us tomorrow at 11 PDT on the Akupara Twitch channel to get an early sneak peek at Co-Op Mode as we try to figure out how to traverse through the world with friends.

Thank you all for an amazing week! Let me know if you have any questions with the Steam Workshop and I’ll be happy to answer anything that I can!

Jul 20, 2022

Local Co-op Dev Log 2

Rain World - [AG] riv otter

Hello, Slugcats!

Welcome to the second devlog of Rain World: Downpour where I’ll talk about the customization options and gameplay details in the new local co-op campaign mode. Longtime players of Rain World might notice that many of these features stem from the Jolly Co-op mod from Garrakx, whom we enlisted to help us craft the Downpour experience for you. If you missed the first dev log, you can view it here!

The local co-op campaign can be played with up to four players. Choose from any combinations of the eight slugcats, which means you can have more than one of the same slugcat! For example, if you want to explode the whole environment with your friends, for some reason, then multiple slugcats can be Artificer!

This mode also brings customization options for the slugcats where you can change the slugcat’s size and color. With color mode you can select the colors of the each players’ slugcats. Choose the colors of each of the slugcats with “Custom” or have random colors chosen with “Auto.” You can experience the game as a small young slugpup which has a harder time grabbing higher poles or as an adult slugcat which is bigger and can be grabbed by other creatures easier.

Camera Input alters how fast the camera changes when a player requests the camera to be focused on them by the map button in game.

There are three difficulty options which are easy, normal, and hard!

Easy: Only one player needs to make it to the shelter to progress the next cycle
Normal: You can hibernate if all the slugcat’s bodies make it to the shelter. Even if all but one slugcat is dead, as long as all the fallen allies are in the shelter then the world will progress to the next cycle.
Hard: If any players die then it’s game over. All players need to make it to the shelter alive.

The HUD will show an arrow pointing at the slugcat with their name while they are on screen. You can customize the name given to the slugcat and the HUD will show that in game! If a player is off screen, an icon will point at the location of that player.

You can select if there is friendly fire with thrown spears! Thrown spears by slugcats will fly past your friends if spear miss is selected. Don’t tell anyone but you can still hit your companions with rocks even when spear miss is active.

Now with more players that means more mouths to feed right? Well, technically no. All players will share one food bar so if one slugcat eats all the slugcat gets one food pip filled. We decided to go in this direction as the world is built around the idea of only one slugcat existing in the world. If there were four slugcats each with their own food bar, then they could eat all the food in the region within just a few cycles with no way to survive. Spearmaster is still without a mouth and still has to eat through their spears plus those that like to eat other creatures still have the ability to eat them.

The next dev log we will reveal something new that we’ll launch as part of the free Parity Patch for the base game alongside Downpour!

Jul 19, 2022

Local Co-Op Dev Log 1

Rain World - [AG] riv otter

Hello, Slugcats!

Welcome to the first (of two!) devlogs coming out this week for the new local co-op campaign mode coming to Rain World: Downpour! Longtime players of Rain World might notice that many of these features stem from the Jolly Co-op mod from Garrakx, whom we enlisted to help us craft the Downpour experience for you. Later this same week, there’s gonna be a third devlog coming out and let’s just say I’m excited for it! Though, I’m not gonna spoil any of the secrets for that one.

In Downpour, you’ll be able to play with your friends to travel through the dangerous environments while avoiding the deadly creatures that inhabit every different region. You no longer have to try to survive alone in the treacherous world of Rain World.

The local co-op campaign can be played with up to four players with any of the slugcats including the five new slugcats coming in Downpour! The slugcats keep their abilities from their own campaign so you can swing over your friends with Saint, share the explosives you make with Artificer, create spears with Spearmaster, quickly scout out hazards with Rivulet, and craft different items with Gourmand. Finding clever ways to combine the abilities of the different slugcats is half the fun, so experimenting is half the fun! We learned the hard way during capturing footage that the Gourmand is so massive, they can actually kill their slugcat companions with their weight. (We plan to put them on a slight diet so that they won’t be hurting their friends at launch.)

You can select any of the base game campaigns of Monk, Survivor, or Hunter to send your slugcat crew into! You can start with the higher creature reputation of Monk’s campaign, play the first campaign as Survivor, or play with the harder and more vast creature spawns of Hunter.

Wordless communication will be another feature added so slugcats can point at dangers, food, shelter, or even each other.

If one of the slugcats is having some problems getting past an obstacle, then another slugcat can pick them up and give them a piggyback ride! They can even carry Gourmand with little effort! By both slugcats laying down in front of each other, one of the slugcats can grab the other and give them a piggyback ride! The slugcat giving the piggyback ride can still use their abilities to get around the world. Artificer can still explosive jump while giving a piggyback ride or Saint can swing with their tongue while carrying a companion.

I’m excited to reveal more in the next dev log where I’ll talk more about the customization of the campaigns you can play with your friends!

Jun 29, 2022

Sneak Peek Into Challenge Mode

Rain World - [AG] riv otter

Hello Slugcats!

We’re still hard at work on Rain World: Downpour and making sure that Gourmand is well fed so they don’t eat any more cables. We’ve upped their meal plan from 10 meals a day to 15 meals.

Rain World: Downpour brings 70 new and unique challenges that will test your skills in Challenge Mode! Master each of the slugcat’s abilities to overcome the difficult scenarios the different slugcat will face! You’ll slay powerful creatures, befriend wary lizards, swing across hazards, dodge deadly attacks, eat delicious food, and more!

Take a peek at some of the new challenges in the new Teaser!

You will start off simple with challenge 1 by playing as the survivor with plenty of spears and rocks to kill a green and pink lizard.

Things get more complicated in challenge 17 where you have to kill a vulture as the hunter with only two spears at your disposal. If you stick them in the wall or throw them off the edge, you will fail the challenge.

In challenge 22, you’ll use Gourmand's weight to your advantage to slay the new lizards in Downpour - the carmel lizards - with no weapons available.

These are just 3 of the 70 new challenges that will be waiting in Challenge Mode!

- [AG] riv otter