The ability to create texture packs with your own character texture replacements is now available. These texture packs can be used by you and other map creators in the Level Editor.

To create a texture pack, select 'Level Editor' > 'Texture Pack Creator' in the main menu. From there you can setup packs with textures you've created. Use the 'Create Example Textures' button and create example and guide textures and view them and a readme file with information on texture requirements by using the 'Open Texture Folder' button.

You can upload texture packs with 1 to 5 heads and 1 to 5 bodies. Note that inappropriate texture packs with offensive content will be removed.



When in the Level Editor in the Settings menu you'll find a 'Setup Custom Textures' button which will bring you to the menu where you can setup up to 12 custom appearances using up to 4 different texture packs you've subscribed to. Custom appearances have a fallback appearance which will be used when players do not have the texture packs downloaded.

If you subscribe to a level that uses texture packs you don't have, they should be automatically subscribed to and downloaded for you. If you're playing a level when the texture pack downloads, the textures will be dynamically changed from the fallback to the custom textures while you're playing.

A full list of changes for this build and the build from late last week focused on fixes is below.

Version 0.8.35

• Ability to upload custom character textures for use in Workshop levels
  
• Level Editor: Custom character textures can be set from Workshop
  
• Level Editor: Increased quality of level preview screenshots
  
• Fixed memory leaks related to Workshop level preview images
  
• Fixed Modifiers from Level Editor testing not being disabled

Version 0.8.341

• Fixed animation loop bugs
  
• Fixed not being able to create a full length GIF
  
• Fixed pirate cove chair material issue when static
  
• Fixed Smite counting down before being able to shoot
  
• Fixed Smite camera effects fading in backwards
  
• Fixed right elbow and knee on enemies being rotated incorrectly
  
• Fixed punching bag material error
  
• Fixed mirror ball shader on OpenGL & Vulkan

Version 0.8.30 is available now. The main features of this release are focused on the Level Editor.

You can now set weapons to be static props in the Level Editor which also improves load times and performance when using a large number of weapons this way. You can also now edit properties on multiple props and weapons at once. Properties for characters have also increased with options for a vision cone trigger and proximity trigger, as well as the ability to have character move randomly around the environment near their start position before they enter combat.

The other changes are listed below. There have been a large number of backend changes in addition to these as part of development of Beneath, so you might notice other differences. If you notice any change that appears to be a bug please let us know.

Version 0.8.35 will be released shortly with support for custom character textures on the Steam Workshop as well as some other Level Editor changes.

Note: 0.8.30 initially had a bug where bone voxels weren't being destroyed. This is now fixed in 0.8.31.

Version 0.8.32

• Fixed Smite not ending

Version 0.8.31

• Fixed bone voxels not getting destroyed

Version 0.8.30

• Engine update (DX9 support removed. DX11, OpenGL and Vulkan available)
  
• Level Editor: Added option for weapons to be unusable static props
  
• Level Editor: Added ability to edit some common properties for multiple selected props and weapons
  
• Level Editor: Added vision cone and proximity trigger options for characters
  
• Level Editor: Added option for enemies to randomly move around pre-combat
  
• Level Editor: Added more button props
  
• Large blood particles now only emit when voxels are destroyed
  
• Performance improvements when playing Level Editor levels with lots of small weapons set as static props
  
• Improved distance fog in Pirate Cove and Arena
  
• Fixed ragdoll force when enemies die when body parts explode
  
• Fixed gfycat upload bug
  
• Fixed some bullet damage and impact issues
  
• Fixed Arena Challenge 2 being at night
  
• Fixed lighting issues on Pirate Cove
  
• Tweaked Disco lighting bloom

While we continue to work on getting Beneath ready for release there are some features we'd like to get out sooner so we'll have a couple of updates over the coming couple of weeks. The first update is 0.8.30 which is built on a newer engine version and is focused on Level Editor improvements and will be available this coming week. Following that will be 0.8.35 and is focused on adding Workshop support for custom character textures.

Some of the main features of 0.8.30 include:

• The ability to make weapons be treated as static props in Level Editor levels so they can't be picked up by the player and will improve performance when using large numbers of weapons to build elaborate props
  
• Enemy properties will now include options to use sight and proximity triggers. This will allow you to have enemies only begin combat when they spot you or you get close to them
  
• In the Level Editor you will now have the ability to edit properties on props and weapons when you have more than one selected
  
• Fixes and improvements to bullet damage and impact and also ragdoll impact force when enemies are killed from melee weapon attacks

Some of the main features of 0.8.35 include:

• The ability to create custom character textures and upload them to the Steam Workshop
  
• The ability to use a number of custom character textures from the Workshop in your created levels
  
• The option to save created levels to the Steam Cloud

The goal for how custom character textures can be used in created levels is that you can pick existing ones from the Workshop to be used within your level. The game will then attempt to automatically download associated Workshop items when your level is download/played. This will allow you to use textures created by other players in your levels.

These builds will also allow us to ensure the many backend changes that have been made over the past few months work in the existing content as well as bring miscellaneous performance and compatibility improvements from the newer engine version out sooner than waiting for Beneath.

We'll continue with Beneath Preview posts after 0.8.30 is released.

In this post we'll briefly cover some of how levels in Beneath are created mainly from a high level overview of the technical aspects involved.


The most common style of level in Beneath, the one you'll see in the first few areas, is created by connecting a number of randomly placed rooms with corridor pieces. This allows us to combine the benefits of pre-made rooms with the practically unlimited randomised layouts. In addition to randomising the layouts of levels we also randomise the types, counts and placement of enemies and items throughout the levels. These are governed by your progress through Beneath and how difficult it is supposed to be on that level.

Room Placement

There are some different ways in which rooms can be placed to allow for levels that flow in different ways. For the following example I've restricted the generation to using a limited set of room shapes and a basic level layout to more easily demonstrate room and corridor placement, but in a future preview post I'll cover the much greater variety of rooms available and the ways in which even the same rooms and corridors will appear completely different based on a large amount of flexibility with the environmental content of a room.

The most common way rooms will be placed is as follows:

1. The starting room for the level is placed.



2. The next room is placed by choosing a random direction to offset it from this one. Attempts are made to place the next room close to a doorway of the current room to prevent too many sequences of long corridors in the level.



3. This process is repeated for all main rooms in a level with the randomised room offset direction being re-used each time and rotated within a certain range so that the level will have some ordered flow while still maintaining the ability to turn and intersect with itself in more chaotic ways over time.



Some areas feature multiple levels of rooms and a certain number of rooms per level are created as stairway rooms connecting these. Also note the square-shaped room towards the end is ignored and bypass by the arrows here as that is a special room that will be covered at the end of this post.

The process of creating the rooms in an order with some loose restriction on a flow direction gives the ability to have the last room generally be the furthest from the starting room while also giving the ability for the flow to change enough to make this not the case and possibly provide earlier access to the exit room. The gameplay mechanics of Beneath make reaching the last room earlier not always desirable though. The order of rooms allows difficulty to ramp up over the course of a level through increases in numbers of enemies and the types of enemies you'll encounter.

Corridor Placement

Besides the snaking flow of room placement, the corridor generation also allows for rooms to be connected in a variety of ways that disrupt the initial room order. While the rooms shapes themselves aren't created with much size or shape restrictions, they contain metadata that gives them a tile-based shape which is used in the corridor generation pass. To create the corridors connecting rooms a pathfinding algorithm, much like what is used by the enemy AI to find their way through environments during gameplay, is used to traverse the tile grid from room to room.



In the above image you can see the result of the pathfinding algorithm. The rooms are connected to eachother based on their order, but you'll also note that there are some paths connected rooms that are not following the logical flow of the level. Depending on the initial arrangement of the rooms and various other randomised factors, rooms can be connected in many different ways with paths branching regularly. In this example even with a level that flows fairly linearly, the second room connects to the 3rd, 4th and 5th rooms and similarly the 6th room has a path to the 9th room allowing you to completely bypass the 7th and 8th rooms.

Even moreso than room placement there are many rules governing how the corridor paths are generated. The main reason for this is to limit bugs and unwanted path issues, but the other reason is to ensure corridor path shapes fall within certain predefined types. Like rooms, corridor pieces are pre-made models and these are placed to match the tiles occupied by the corridor generation step. Once the pathfinding is complete, a process of placing corridor pieces takes place. This can be quite complicated as there are many different shapes to account for all sorts of intersection possibilities and a strict order of operation must be followed in how the models are added to ensure full path coverage without any overlaps.





Additional Features

There's much more to a Beneath level than simply placing rooms in an order and corridors between them. Many levels will have intentional branches that lead to nowhere or to other secrets. Other levels take on a more hub-style approach where the starting room might be more central with the level going out from it in different directions.

One element that will be common that doesn't fall into the basics of the level layout is shops. Throughout Beneath you'll earn gold from defeating enemies and this can be spent both at standalone "vending machine"-style objects found randomly in rooms, or at a shop. Shop placement in a level is handled after all rooms are created and typically will insert itself into a spot where there is a longer corridor between rooms. In the example here you can see the shop has placed itself between the 8th and 9th rooms which are the furthest from eachother.



There are many more aspects to level generation with room variety and level structure usually being much greater and more complicated than what was shown in this example. We'll likely go into more detail on other aspects of this and on how other areas generate their levels in upcoming posts.


We're planning on releasing an update soon to bring the current state of the game closer to where it will be when Beneath is released. This is in order to ensure non-Beneath elements are working correctly and to minimise the amount of new things introduced at once when Beneath is released. There have been several significant engine upgrades since the last update and a lot of systems have been re-written to handle the greater variety of powers, enemies, weapons, etc. We'll detail more about what will be in this update in the next post.

In this post we'll briefly cover some of how levels in Beneath are created mainly from a high level overview of the technical aspects involved.


The most common style of level in Beneath, the one you'll see in the first few areas, is created by connecting a number of randomly placed rooms with corridor pieces. This allows us to combine the benefits of pre-made rooms with the practically unlimited randomised layouts. In addition to randomising the layouts of levels we also randomise the types, counts and placement of enemies and items throughout the levels. These are governed by your progress through Beneath and how difficult it is supposed to be on that level.

Room Placement

There are some different ways in which rooms can be placed to allow for levels that flow in different ways. For the following example I've restricted the generation to using a limited set of room shapes and a basic level layout to more easily demonstrate room and corridor placement, but in a future preview post I'll cover the much greater variety of rooms available and the ways in which even the same rooms and corridors will appear completely different based on a large amount of flexibility with the environmental content of a room.

The most common way rooms will be placed is as follows:

1. The starting room for the level is placed.



2. The next room is placed by choosing a random direction to offset it from this one. Attempts are made to place the next room close to a doorway of the current room to prevent too many sequences of long corridors in the level.



3. This process is repeated for all main rooms in a level with the randomised room offset direction being re-used each time and rotated within a certain range so that the level will have some ordered flow while still maintaining the ability to turn and intersect with itself in more chaotic ways over time.



Some areas feature multiple levels of rooms and a certain number of rooms per level are created as stairway rooms connecting these. Also note the square-shaped room towards the end is ignored and bypass by the arrows here as that is a special room that will be covered at the end of this post.

The process of creating the rooms in an order with some loose restriction on a flow direction gives the ability to have the last room generally be the furthest from the starting room while also giving the ability for the flow to change enough to make this not the case and possibly provide earlier access to the exit room. The gameplay mechanics of Beneath make reaching the last room earlier not always desirable though. The order of rooms allows difficulty to ramp up over the course of a level through increases in numbers of enemies and the types of enemies you'll encounter.

Corridor Placement

Besides the snaking flow of room placement, the corridor generation also allows for rooms to be connected in a variety of ways that disrupt the initial room order. While the rooms shapes themselves aren't created with much size or shape restrictions, they contain metadata that gives them a tile-based shape which is used in the corridor generation pass. To create the corridors connecting rooms a pathfinding algorithm, much like what is used by the enemy AI to find their way through environments during gameplay, is used to traverse the tile grid from room to room.



In the above image you can see the result of the pathfinding algorithm. The rooms are connected to eachother based on their order, but you'll also note that there are some paths connected rooms that are not following the logical flow of the level. Depending on the initial arrangement of the rooms and various other randomised factors, rooms can be connected in many different ways with paths branching regularly. In this example even with a level that flows fairly linearly, the second room connects to the 3rd, 4th and 5th rooms and similarly the 6th room has a path to the 9th room allowing you to completely bypass the 7th and 8th rooms.

Even moreso than room placement there are many rules governing how the corridor paths are generated. The main reason for this is to limit bugs and unwanted path issues, but the other reason is to ensure corridor path shapes fall within certain predefined types. Like rooms, corridor pieces are pre-made models and these are placed to match the tiles occupied by the corridor generation step. Once the pathfinding is complete, a process of placing corridor pieces takes place. This can be quite complicated as there are many different shapes to account for all sorts of intersection possibilities and a strict order of operation must be followed in how the models are added to ensure full path coverage without any overlaps.





Additional Features

There's much more to a Beneath level than simply placing rooms in an order and corridors between them. Many levels will have intentional branches that lead to nowhere or to other secrets. Other levels take on a more hub-style approach where the starting room might be more central with the level going out from it in different directions.

One element that will be common that doesn't fall into the basics of the level layout is shops. Throughout Beneath you'll earn gold from defeating enemies and this can be spent both at standalone "vending machine"-style objects found randomly in rooms, or at a shop. Shop placement in a level is handled after all rooms are created and typically will insert itself into a spot where there is a longer corridor between rooms. In the example here you can see the shop has placed itself between the 8th and 9th rooms which are the furthest from eachother.



There are many more aspects to level generation with room variety and level structure usually being much greater and more complicated than what was shown in this example. We'll likely go into more detail on other aspects of this and on how other areas generate their levels in upcoming posts.


We're planning on releasing an update soon to bring the current state of the game closer to where it will be when Beneath is released. This is in order to ensure non-Beneath elements are working correctly and to minimise the amount of new things introduced at once when Beneath is released. There have been several significant engine upgrades since the last update and a lot of systems have been re-written to handle the greater variety of powers, enemies, weapons, etc. We'll detail more about what will be in this update in the next post.

When you first start Beneath and in between each run you'll be in the 'U.H.D.F. Frontline Facility Omega'. The story in Beneath and how it relates to the rest of Paint the Town Red will primarily be told implicitly through the environment and much of this will be in this area.



Certain areas of the facility will not be available for you to access initially and as you progress through Beneath and increase in rank you will gain access to restricted areas.



While the facility area is quite large and detailed, it was important to make sure you didn't need to spend time traveling around it in between runs. Any pre-run setup you can do such as class selection will occur in the facility, but is located right next to where you enter the area and also where you begin a new run.

You'll also also be able to visually see any permanent progress you've made in Beneath reflected in different ways in the facility.




Most of the facility content (textures, props, etc) will also be made available in the Level Editor. In addition there are a lot of props and environment assets from the areas of Beneath that will also be available in the Editor.



A lot of additional work has also gone into the enemies in Beneath to ensure they can work outside of the environments they're found in so they can be used in a range of environment types created for user's Workshop levels.

Some of the new gameplay features such as enemy and player fall and impact damage will be configurable in created levels to maintain expected gameplay from existing levels and to allow different gameplay types such as where player fall damage wouldn't be desirable for example.


We've been continuing to work on various aspects of Beneath over the past week. We'll go into some more detail about the different ways the levels are generated in a future post, but one area of focus this week has been in setting up a different generation process for a later game area so that the level can suit the enemies and required play-style for the area.

Most areas in the game are a multi-level maze of rooms connected by winding corridors, but others, like the one setup this week is island based, with straight bridges connecting closer rooms. Avoiding being knocked off an island or bridge by enemies like the Charger will be as import as surviving regular attacks.

We'll show more about these different areas in upcoming posts.

There's a number of gameplay mechanics that Beneath's different classes, enemies and environments make necessary and in most cases these will benefit the modes outside Beneath.

One of these changes made in the past week include increasing the punch distance when looking down so that it's easier to punch small enemies and knocked out enemies without needing to crouch.

Another is the much requested feature of fall/impact damage for the player and enemies. This allows you to do much more damage when knocking enemies off high ledges or when they impact hard into walls such as after you use the Shockwave power. Also to properly handle the attacks of some of the new enemies such as the Charger, the player can now be knocked around when hit by certain attacks.

When you first start Beneath and in between each run you'll be in the 'U.H.D.F. Frontline Facility Omega'. The story in Beneath and how it relates to the rest of Paint the Town Red will primarily be told implicitly through the environment and much of this will be in this area.



Certain areas of the facility will not be available for you to access initially and as you progress through Beneath and increase in rank you will gain access to restricted areas.



While the facility area is quite large and detailed, it was important to make sure you didn't need to spend time traveling around it in between runs. Any pre-run setup you can do such as class selection will occur in the facility, but is located right next to where you enter the area and also where you begin a new run.

You'll also also be able to visually see any permanent progress you've made in Beneath reflected in different ways in the facility.




Most of the facility content (textures, props, etc) will also be made available in the Level Editor. In addition there are a lot of props and environment assets from the areas of Beneath that will also be available in the Editor.



A lot of additional work has also gone into the enemies in Beneath to ensure they can work outside of the environments they're found in so they can be used in a range of environment types created for user's Workshop levels.

Some of the new gameplay features such as enemy and player fall and impact damage will be configurable in created levels to maintain expected gameplay from existing levels and to allow different gameplay types such as where player fall damage wouldn't be desirable for example.


We've been continuing to work on various aspects of Beneath over the past week. We'll go into some more detail about the different ways the levels are generated in a future post, but one area of focus this week has been in setting up a different generation process for a later game area so that the level can suit the enemies and required play-style for the area.

Most areas in the game are a multi-level maze of rooms connected by winding corridors, but others, like the one setup this week is island based, with straight bridges connecting closer rooms. Avoiding being knocked off an island or bridge by enemies like the Charger will be as import as surviving regular attacks.

We'll show more about these different areas in upcoming posts.

There's a number of gameplay mechanics that Beneath's different classes, enemies and environments make necessary and in most cases these will benefit the modes outside Beneath.

One of these changes made in the past week include increasing the punch distance when looking down so that it's easier to punch small enemies and knocked out enemies without needing to crouch.

Another is the much requested feature of fall/impact damage for the player and enemies. This allows you to do much more damage when knocking enemies off high ledges or when they impact hard into walls such as after you use the Shockwave power. Also to properly handle the attacks of some of the new enemies such as the Charger, the player can now be knocked around when hit by certain attacks.

As you may be aware we've been working for quite a while almost entirely on the Beneath mode which has been little more than an ineffective menu button in the game for some time. Development has taken a long time as it's much larger than other parts of the game. Since we're now approaching the final stages of Beneath's development, we're going to start publishing these preview posts with some details on what you can expect in Beneath as well as development updates. There's a lot we don't want to spoil about later areas, character classes and enemies which is why we've been avoiding showing too much, but we'll show what we can over the coming weeks.


Beneath is what's usually referred to as a rogue-lite. It takes place in a number of different settings that are each made up of procedurally generated levels that will be different every time you play. Each of these areas will feature different varieties of enemies, weapons and power-ups. Typically you'll die before reaching an ending in Beneath, but each time you play you'll be gaining Energy that you can spend on permanent upgrades that will improve your chances on subsequent runs. There are multiple endings to Beneath with one ultimate ending that will require you to have completed all others on previous runs.

One of the great things Beneath brings to Paint the Town Red is a lot more variety in the gameplay than what's available right now. Most of this will be available for use in the Level Editor and the remaining Arena challenges will feature lots of content from Beneath (which is why there haven't been more challenges yet). The Endless Arena mode will also feature enemies, weapons and powers from Beneath and will be released in an update after Beneath is available.

We'll cover more of the Beneath content in greater detail in upcoming Beneath Preview posts, but below is some brief details on some of what to expect.


The most important aspect of Beneath is the array of new, distinct enemies. While there will be human enemies in certain areas of Beneath, the majority will be entirely new and have very different attacks and behaviors. Right now we have over a dozen enemy types which are all very different from one another, but in finding the right difficulty balance we might find we need to add more. The goal is to create complementary enemy types such that when they appear in different combinations will present unique, interesting and fun challenges for the player.

Some enemies, like the Crystal Crab, use powerful ranged attacks. Others might avoid the players, building up a powerful attack and then charge and strike the player from close range.



The Bore Worm will hide and move underground where it can not be damaged before erupting before the player and unleashing powerful attacks. You'll need to find strategies for dealing with these enemies to progress through Beneath.




In current Paint the Town Red scenarios besides weapons and punches you have a kick attack and 3 powers: Shockwave, Berserk and Smite. In Beneath each run you will pick from one of 6 classes that each have their own set of powers, an alternative to the kick attack and different base amounts of speed, health, and attack damage.

The Brawler class will feel fairly familiar, with the same Kick attack you're used to and a focus on melee combat with powers like Stone Skin which makes you able to withstand attacks while taking minimal damage. Other classes will feel completely different like the Warlock which is far less effective at melee combat, but will shoot fireballs instead of kicking and has potent powers like Chaos which will turn enemies against each other for a time.

Since different combinations of enemies can complement each other in dynamic ways, we wanted to give the players the same opportunity in Multiplayer. When playing Beneath cooperatively with friends, you'll find all new possibilities when you are using different character classes. Powers that might be fairly simple alone like the Brawler's Slow Time or the Spectre's Speed can be much more powerful when used together. Alone the Guardian's Restoration power allows a player to move and fight in an area while being healed, but when playing co-op it can be much more influential by restoring health to your whole party, saving friends who are near death.


Every new scenario in Paint the Town Red has introduced new weapons and the Beneath mode is no different. Many of the existing weapons will be available in Beneath along with around 30 new weapons. Part of the progression system in Beneath is unlocking the ability for some of the powerful weapons to appear in subsequent runs. Some of these will be fun upgraded versions of weapons you've seen before like a Baseball Bat with Nails or a Flaming Gladius.



Other weapons are completely new like the Crossbow which have their own upgraded versions like the Triple Crossbow.



We're working as fast as we can to get Beneath finished and ultimately Paint the Town Red to 1.0 and out of Early Access. With the amount of time we've put into Beneath so far though, it's important we don't rush things now and release it before it's as good as it can be.

There's much about Beneath we don't want to spoil which has been one reason we haven't shown too much until now, but primarily with the huge amount of new content we've been working on there hasn't been much in a state of completion that's worth showing. Even now though almost all individual elements are finished to 90%, but it's the last 10% where things become visually complete and good enough to show.

Spending over a year on such a huge feature during Early Access is not ideal for you or us and while we had a number of updates in 2017, we regret not being able to have more substantial game updates during that time. We have been working very long hours on Beneath throughout and look forward to getting this mode into the build and your hands. We'll continue to post Beneath information and progress updates in these Beneath Preview posts on Steam so watch and follow the game to get notified as they are released.

As you may be aware we've been working for quite a while almost entirely on the Beneath mode which has been little more than an ineffective menu button in the game for some time. Development has taken a long time as it's much larger than other parts of the game. Since we're now approaching the final stages of Beneath's development, we're going to start publishing these preview posts with some details on what you can expect in Beneath as well as development updates. There's a lot we don't want to spoil about later areas, character classes and enemies which is why we've been avoiding showing too much, but we'll show what we can over the coming weeks.


Beneath is what's usually referred to as a rogue-lite. It takes place in a number of different settings that are each made up of procedurally generated levels that will be different every time you play. Each of these areas will feature different varieties of enemies, weapons and power-ups. Typically you'll die before reaching an ending in Beneath, but each time you play you'll be gaining Energy that you can spend on permanent upgrades that will improve your chances on subsequent runs. There are multiple endings to Beneath with one ultimate ending that will require you to have completed all others on previous runs.

One of the great things Beneath brings to Paint the Town Red is a lot more variety in the gameplay than what's available right now. Most of this will be available for use in the Level Editor and the remaining Arena challenges will feature lots of content from Beneath (which is why there haven't been more challenges yet). The Endless Arena mode will also feature enemies, weapons and powers from Beneath and will be released in an update after Beneath is available.

We'll cover more of the Beneath content in greater detail in upcoming Beneath Preview posts, but below is some brief details on some of what to expect.


The most important aspect of Beneath is the array of new, distinct enemies. While there will be human enemies in certain areas of Beneath, the majority will be entirely new and have very different attacks and behaviors. Right now we have over a dozen enemy types which are all very different from one another, but in finding the right difficulty balance we might find we need to add more. The goal is to create complementary enemy types such that when they appear in different combinations will present unique, interesting and fun challenges for the player.

Some enemies, like the Crystal Crab, use powerful ranged attacks. Others might avoid the players, building up a powerful attack and then charge and strike the player from close range.



The Bore Worm will hide and move underground where it can not be damaged before erupting before the player and unleashing powerful attacks. You'll need to find strategies for dealing with these enemies to progress through Beneath.




In current Paint the Town Red scenarios besides weapons and punches you have a kick attack and 3 powers: Shockwave, Berserk and Smite. In Beneath each run you will pick from one of 6 classes that each have their own set of powers, an alternative to the kick attack and different base amounts of speed, health, and attack damage.

The Brawler class will feel fairly familiar, with the same Kick attack you're used to and a focus on melee combat with powers like Stone Skin which makes you able to withstand attacks while taking minimal damage. Other classes will feel completely different like the Warlock which is far less effective at melee combat, but will shoot fireballs instead of kicking and has potent powers like Chaos which will turn enemies against each other for a time.

Since different combinations of enemies can complement each other in dynamic ways, we wanted to give the players the same opportunity in Multiplayer. When playing Beneath cooperatively with friends, you'll find all new possibilities when you are using different character classes. Powers that might be fairly simple alone like the Brawler's Slow Time or the Spectre's Speed can be much more powerful when used together. Alone the Guardian's Restoration power allows a player to move and fight in an area while being healed, but when playing co-op it can be much more influential by restoring health to your whole party, saving friends who are near death.


Every new scenario in Paint the Town Red has introduced new weapons and the Beneath mode is no different. Many of the existing weapons will be available in Beneath along with around 30 new weapons. Part of the progression system in Beneath is unlocking the ability for some of the powerful weapons to appear in subsequent runs. Some of these will be fun upgraded versions of weapons you've seen before like a Baseball Bat with Nails or a Flaming Gladius.



Other weapons are completely new like the Crossbow which have their own upgraded versions like the Triple Crossbow.



We're working as fast as we can to get Beneath finished and ultimately Paint the Town Red to 1.0 and out of Early Access. With the amount of time we've put into Beneath so far though, it's important we don't rush things now and release it before it's as good as it can be.

There's much about Beneath we don't want to spoil which has been one reason we haven't shown too much until now, but primarily with the huge amount of new content we've been working on there hasn't been much in a state of completion that's worth showing. Even now though almost all individual elements are finished to 90%, but it's the last 10% where things become visually complete and good enough to show.

Spending over a year on such a huge feature during Early Access is not ideal for you or us and while we had a number of updates in 2017, we regret not being able to have more substantial game updates during that time. We have been working very long hours on Beneath throughout and look forward to getting this mode into the build and your hands. We'll continue to post Beneath information and progress updates in these Beneath Preview posts on Steam so watch and follow the game to get notified as they are released.

We're putting this update out now mainly to help the awesome map makers that are making insanely large and detailed levels for the game. Adding and deleting props should be significantly faster when you have a large number already in the level.

There are several other fixes and performance improvements mainly from work that has been done on Beneath that are included in this update.

Version 0.8.22

• Level Editor: Improved performance when editing levels with large number of props
  
• Increased punching attack range for large enemies
  
• Tweaked weapon settings
  
• Added occasional weapons hitting environment during latter half of swings
  
• Performance improvements with large numbers of enemies
  
• Fixed some issues with enemy movement before combat
  
• Fixed shields not being dropped on death
  
• Fixed bug with weapon damage areas becoming offset after throws
  
• Fixed bug with how spinning blades trap hits enemies
  
• Fixed race condition in decal threading
  
• Fixed a bug resulting in enemies dropping through floor at times
  
• Fixed bug with bullets not coming out of guns correctly
  
• Fixed out of range error in light culling on large workshop levels
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed bug with some trigger zone settings not being correct for clients

If you notice any new bugs after this update please let us know at contact@southeastgames.com.