With version 0.9.14 we've made more changes to keep improving and refining Beneath.

Based on feedback we've made some changes to the Pursuer. Now the Pursuer will only appear on a smaller percentage of levels and you'll be told at the start of the level if there will be one.

You can also summon a Pursuer on any level and have it arrive early from a Pursuer Summoning Station in the shop. Why would you want to do this? Well the Pursuer can now benefit you in a couple of ways. If you are close to it when it destroys enemies you will get a small amount of health. This adds a free, but risky way of gaining health if you're desperate. The other thing that will happen when you're close to the Pursuer is it will generate a Guiding Light.



We'll continue to make changes as necessary to elements of Beneath based on feedback while making sure not to negatively impact the desired difficulty.

The Guiding Light is a mystic orb that will zoom away from you and towards the level exit. Besides appearing when close the Pursuer, you can purchase a Guiding Light from any shop if you need help finding your way out.



There is still further work to go on getting the difficulty balance right, but we've made a few changes in this update. An issue with weapon spawn rates is now fixed so that unlocked weapons spawn with the correct chance. Ranged weapons have also had their damage variability reduced. The Islands and the Aberration boss fight will be a bit more difficult now with more frequent and damaging ranged attacks in the boss fight and now falling off the Islands will kill you as was originally intended. You can also no longer jump in or out of the boss room.

One aspect of player movement that has been poor since launch is when walking into and on top of weapons with complex geometry like chairs and stools. In this update the player collision with weapon has been changed so that you no longer walk on top of them, but you will still knock them around when walking into them. Weapons that are stuck into walls can still be stood on. This change could have some unforeseen consequences, particularly on some Workshop levels so we'll monitor that and make changes as necessary.

There are still a number of Beneath bugs we'll continue to fix as well as other improvements and additions. Besides this single player Beneath work we're continuing development of the next scenario and on the co-op for Beneath.

Getting the enemies and assets working in co-op is also a prerequisite for many of them being able to be added to the Level Editor. We'll begin adding Beneath props into the Level Editor shortly as well as all enemies that can work in Workshop levels once they're multiplayer ready.

Throughout the last several minor updates we've also been working on reducing system and GPU memory usage in a number of ways and there is still more work being done on that front. This is to allow the game to run better on lower spec machines.

Below is the changes for 0.9.14 as well as changes since the previously posted about version 0.9.0. The changelist for each update are also posted on the Steam forum and the community Discord when they are released.

Version 0.9.14

• Fixed/Improved weapon spawn rates for better balancing
  
• Changed the Pursuer to only appear on a lower percentage of levels
  
• Enemies killed by the Pursuer will slightly heal the player if close
  
• Added the ability to purchase a Guiding Light in the Shop to guide you to the exit
  
• When you are near a Pursuer a Guiding Light to the exit will appear
  
• Added a Pursuer Summoning Station to the Shop
  
• Completely changed the way the player collides with weapons to reduce erratic movement
  
• Modified the damage of some weapons to improve balance
  
• Enemies will not attack player until a few seconds have passed at the start of Beneath levels
  
• Enemies will now not necessarily crowd the shop door
  
• Falling from the Islands will now kill you
  
• Falling in the abyss in the Construct will now hurt and can kill you
  
• You can no longer jump into the boss room on the Islands
  
• All other islands and paths go away during Islands boss fight so you can't jump out
  
• Added some additional death method messages
  
• Fixed the projectiles from the Aberration tentacles not properly damaging player
  
• Fixed collision on punching bag in Biker Bar basement
  
• Fixed timing and damage of attacks from ranged tentacles
  
• Fixed animation bug on The Deceiver

Version 0.9.13

• Fixed a Level Editor bug causing enemy triggers to not fully trigger if connected enemies were deleted
  
• Fixed a Level Editor bug related to enemies spawning with ranged weapons
  
• Fixed a Level Editor bug with traps deactivating that don't play sounds
  
• Fixed some bugs related to Hydra voxel elements regenerating when a level ends
  
• Fixed a bug with some Whiskey Bottles causing incorrect enemy hand positioning
  
• Fixed a bug causing double up of footstep sounds in some cases
  
• Sound effects tweaks

Version 0.9.12

• Fixed a Steam Cloud issue preventing some users from uploading new Workshop content
  
• Fixed bug causing Crystal Entity to not hit player
  
• Fixed bug allowing Plant Bomb to be triggered multiple times on an enemy
  
• Fixed possible freeze from Plant Bomb explosion
  
• Fixed bug causing break in sequence involving turret in the facility
  
• Fixed potential overrun in decal job system
  
• Fixed excessive memory usage from FFT spectrum read for Disco lights
  
• Fixed error when clearing pathfinding path during navmesh regeneration
  
• Additional sound effects
  
• Ambient audio volume reduced in Scenarios and nearby combat sounds increased

Version 0.9.11

• Improved performance hitches with blood collisions in some Beneath areas
  
• Fixed Level Editor UI on low resolutions and narrow aspect ratios
  
• Fixed body chunk blood decals forming on some invisible collision

Version 0.9.10

• Fixed music volume not affecting custom music in Workshop levels
  
• Minor memory optimisations
  
• Stopped the 'shortcut created' message appearing multiple times
  
• Fixed the incorrect Beneath upgrade total in the menu

Version 0.9.9

• Fixed level exit not showing for clients in multiplayer
  
• Fixed bug causing enemy position bugs for client in multiplayer
  
• Fixed using Chaos causing the level exit to trigger from a distance
  
• Fixed Level Editor UI on ultrawide monitors
  
• Fixed missing collision on turret prop in Beneath

Version 0.9.8

• Fixed not being able to take level preview screenshot in Level Editor
  
• Some improvements to Ruins loading time
  
• New sound effects added

Version 0.9.7

• Prevented the Acolyte from being counted towards Pirate Cove completion

Version 0.9.6

• Fixed Pursuer moving too fast after it arrives. Speed now builds up over 5 minutes
  
• Fixed incorrect ambient sound on Workshop levels

Version 0.9.5

• Fixed incorrect character materials in the Level Editor and Workshop levels
  
• Fixed Workshop level characters making idle grunts
  
• Fixed transition area after using the Ruins shortcut being incorrect

Version 0.9.4

• Fixed a bug causing freezing on some Beneath level loads

Version 0.9.3

• Reduced memory usage
  
• Fixed incorrect transition area after using Ruins shortcut portal
  
• Prevented moving into some out of bounds areas in the Facility
  
• Prevented falling off bridges in Ruins room

Version 0.9.2

• Added info text when performing a sequence in Beneath
  
• Fixed missing effect in Beneath facility
  
• Added additional text in the facility to make a sequence more clear
  
• Fixed incorrect image for one of the Beneath death methods
  
• Reduced damage from Minion staff beam

Version 0.9.1

• Fixed overuse of memory in Beneath
  
• Added more sounds to Beneath
  
• Tweaked Pursuer timings
  
• Fixed positioning of some facility whiteboard text
  
• Fixed playback of built in music in the Level Editor and Workshop levels

The build has been updated to include the single player portion of the rogue-lite mode: Beneath.



The changes between the last build and this one are too extensive to list. Besides the addition of Beneath there are changes to existing areas of the game including many new sound effects. Much of this is still a work in progress and will continue to evolve over the coming weeks.

Because there has been such a massive amount of changes in this update it is very likely there will be new bugs where there weren't before. Similarly there will no doubt be issues encountered in Beneath that haven't been picked up on prior small scale testing, but we'll try to resolve all identified significant issues over the coming days.

This version of Beneath contains all intended content in terms of gameplay and features, but there will be further additions and improvements to come throughout Early Access. These include additional sound effects and music and improvements to the UI as well as further graphical and mechanical improvements over time.

We'll be focused on fixing bugs and ensuring Beneath is stable and playable from beginning to end over the next couple of weeks and then will transition to preparing to roll out the next Scenario and Arena Challenges as well as fixing outstanding issues with the Level Editor.

Over the coming months as we get the last of the planned content into Paint the Town Red you'll see big improvements to performance and the overall polish applied to all areas of the game.

Thanks for you patience and support as we worked hard behind the scenes to get Beneath to this stage.

The earliest commits of Beneath work in our source control software spans all the way back to July 2016. It became our primary development focus about 2.5 years ago and due to that we've not had many significant updates to the early access experience of Paint the Town Red in that time. It has taken longer than we expected, but we are now (almost) done. On November 26th (27th here in Australia) we will release the first Beneath update.



Paint the Town Red is still in Early Access and this Beneath update will be no different, but it will be more complete than any other aspect of the game has been. We'll continue to polish and improve it over the remainder of the Early Access development period, but this update will contain the whole mode playable from start to finish. For now it will only be single player, but we will be adding 2-4 player co-op multiplayer for Beneath early next year. We'll also be continuing to add to and improve music, sound effects and more following this initial release.



We've had test builds of an early WIP slice of Beneath available for a few months and have now removed that. We were very happy with the response to those builds and the feedback was invaluable so thanks to everyone that helped us out by playing those builds.

Beneath is a rogue-lite mode that is for all intents and purposes the 'story mode' of Paint the Town Red. It features procedurally generated levels that take you deeper underground as you fight hordes of monstrous new enemy types, gain new abilities and powers, and attempt to destroy the ancient gods that control the world below and have decimated the world above.



You can play as and upgrade 5 different classes that have different powers and attributes and unlock permanent upgrades that will make it easier to get further in Beneath every time you play. You'll need to explore and use your wits to uncover the secrets of how to advance to new areas as well as discover the clues behind the nature of the Paint the Town Red scenarios themselves.

Beneath development completely destroyed our ability to keep any regular cadence to the release of updates, but we will be targeting weekly updates following the Beneath update through to version 1.0. We've also been pretty radio silent for the most part which is not what we wanted, but it's because we've just been working to get this done and without knowing when it would be there was no definitive information we could give.

Beneath isn't all we've been working on though, we have the majority of the next Scenario level already completed which will be the next major update after Beneath. We will also be rolling out new Arena Challenges regularly as well as adding more Level Editor features and props and characters including most of the Beneath content.

Build 0.8.6.2 is out now and is the first version utilising FMOD Studio for music. We'll eventually transition all audio to using this system. This has allowed us to add support for more file formats like MP3 and Flac in Custom Music packs and should improve loading times for levels using custom music.

We're also testing the sound occlusion system we've been developing for Beneath in this version by making the music in the Biker Bar and Disco scenarios be 3D positional audio that will occlude based on where you are. This system will be used for more sounds in the future, but for now you should notice the music becoming muffled when it has more of the level to traverse to reach you even if your direct distance to it is short. You might notice this in the Disco boss room or Biker Bar basement.

We've also fixed a number of physics issues with weapons and ragdolled enemies from the last few builds that caused some collisions to be missed and ragdolls to have false positive collisions on other enemies and the environment with high velocities.

If you notice any new bugs in this version please let us know on the community Discord server and we'll try and get them fixed as soon as possible.



Version 0.8.6.2

• Changed all music to new fmod audio system
  
• Custom Music packs now also support MP3 and FLAC files
  
• Created a sound occlusion system to occlude sounds. Currently testing on music in Biker Bar and Disco Scenarios
  
• Improved loading time of levels using Custom Music packs
  
• Level Editor: Fixed Logic connection nodes not showing correctly after deselecting props
  
• Added smoothing collision to stairs in Biker Bar
  
• Fixed weapons going through walls and floor sometimes
  
• Fixed enemies getting hit by fast moving ragdoll enemies that don't actually hit them
  
• Fixed some modifiers still working in Workshop levels and when testing Level Editor levels
  
• Fixed bugs related to body parts exploding on colliding with environment at low velocities
  
• Fixed Boxer attack range
  
• Fixed weapons not using interpolation when knocked around
  
• Fixed blood from steak not applying to dynamic objects properly

Version 0.8.6.1

• Fixed lots of enemies targeting a single enemy on Pirate Cove in 0.8.6

Build 0.8.6 is out now and includes a variety of fixes as well as performance improvements, the ability to play the Pirate Cove at day or night in Standard or Challenge modes and multiplayer and other minor improvements detailed below.

With this build we've updated the engine version which allows for some of the improvements, but also could have some unforeseen issues. If you notice any new bugs in this version please let us know on the community Discord server and we'll try and get them fixed as soon as possible. It's also a great place to post suggestions and discuss the game with other players.

We'll likely have one or more small updates over the next couple of weeks to implement and test changes being implemented for Beneath so we can ensure they are all already working well for when Beneath is added.



Version 0.8.6

• Significantly improved weapon collision detection on enemies
  
• Added some more colour variation in the waves on the ocean water
  
• Added separate Scenario options for Day/Night Pirate Cove
  
• Pirate Cove Night playable in Multiplayer
  
• Decreased time before first frame draws when you open the game
  
• Made Splash screen skippable quicker
  
• Reduced chance that weapons pass through voxels to damage inner voxels
  
• Added decals for more liquid water particles
  
• Weapons will now stay in 'Thrown' state longer allowing them to damage enemies after rising and falling
  
• Reduced size of bathroom combat trigger in Disco
  
• Level Editor: Logic Zones can now be duplicated
  
• Level Editor: Fixed bug with decimal numbers not working in some input fields
  
• Fixed bug with weapon hold positions during animations on some weapons
  
• Fixed friend icons not showing in Arena
  
• Fixed some bottles swinging very fast after breaking
  
• Fixed bug constraining the mouse cursor to wrong area after resolution change
  
• Fixed thrown weapons going through ground and walls sometimes
  
• Fixed cigarette lighting not being based on smoking animation
  
• Fixed modifiers working on user created levels
  
• Fixed one handed enemies trying to pickup shields
  
• Fixed enemies not jumping between platforms
  
• Fixed Smite location for knocked out enemies
  
• Fixed Leaderboard displaying in menu when Sandbox selected
  
• Fixed a bug where severed body parts would disappear or appear at wrong position
  
• Fixed a bug where severed limbs could kill an enemy if falling through world
  
• Fixed a bug where some severed body parts would duplicate

Version 0.8.5.1

• Level Editor: Added additional float sanitize step to try and prevent integer rounding on property fields
  
• Fixed bug with friends not working in Level Editor/Workshop levels
  
• Fixed players weapon attack animations snapping position after attacking
  
• Fixed enemies attacking during reacting to arm cut, face clutching or shield stagger
  
• Fixed enemies breaking out of arm cut reaction if it triggers their combat state
  
• Fixed decimal numbers not working in Level Editor for some regions with workaround to engine bug

Build 0.8.5 is now available. This build was focused on rewriting much of the multiplayer code to greatly reduce bandwidth and packet counts to improve reliability, and on reworking enemy movement synchronisation to greatly improve the gameplay experience for client players.

If you have previously tried the multiplayer and had issues, please try again now and see if there is an improvement for you. The quality of the experience will still depend on your ping to the host and the quality of the hosts internet connection and PC, but the requirements are much lower than before.

In addition to these multiplayer fixes and improvements there are a number of improvements and fixes. Some cosmetic improvements like how weapons break and impact enemies and how the camera snaps when you're hit improve the feeling of combat. Other changes improve loading times like there being less time to load into the main menu or the caching of pathfinding data for Workshop levels after their first load. There are also some subtle gameplay improvements like how enemies won't change targets and turn to hit you if you attack one while they're mid-swing.

These list below doesn't cover all the changes in this build as there have been many minor things changed during development of Beneath that have not been captured.



Version 0.8.5

• Multiplayer: Improved overall networking performance, bandwidth usage and feel for clients
  
• Multiplayer: Static weapons now have collision for clients in Workshop levels
  
• Multiplayer: Added a death pose for players
  
• Multiplayer: Removed forced start timer in lobby
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed LOD not updating for enemies correctly for clients
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed packet order issue with initial player relation for enemies
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed issue with added Bouncers in Disco
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed enemies looking at player on clients when in pre-combat animations where they shouldn't
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed Logic Zones not triggering props and lights on client
  
• Multiplayer: Fixed Arena errors when ending a wave with a player dead
  
• Level Editor: Fixed default values not working on some props (e.g. Logic Timers)
  
• Workshop levels will now cache pathfinding data after the first load so subsequent reloads of the level will be faster
  
• Enemies no longer change direction to hit you mid-swing if you attack them while they're attacking someone else
  
• Increased distance enemies will stand from targets when attacking
  
• Level loading process changed to be faster
  
• Post processing effects now work in a layered system allowing for effects to better blend
  
• Reduced texture and audio memory usage
  
• Increased player camera snap on hits (we'll provide an intensity option in a later build)
  
• Menu loads in background now during splash screen
  
• Changed shader on Arena cloth to add subsurface scattering
  
• Made Arena Challenge 3 selectable from in-game level select menu
  
• Made 'Hard Hitter' modifier always KO enemies
  
• Added a Speedrun.dll to allow programs like LiveSplit to easily read relevant data from a DLL memory offset (we'll provide more explicit details on variables and memory offset addresses soon)
  
• Fixed Workshop levels capturing characters in reflection cubemaps
  
• Fixed enemies standing up when killed if they were in an animation like the fetal position
  
• Fixed enemies snapping to standing pose from pre-combat animation on knockdown
  
• Fixed animation bug with dancing characters in Workshop levels
  
• Fixed bug with initial player not getting set to correct position for Arena waves
  
• Fixed bug with enemies on Arena waves from 2 on not playing walking animation on entrance
  
• Fixed bug where some menu button actions could run multiple times
  
• Fixed rare bug preventing Arena wave transition
  
• Fixed stairs on Disco being difficult to walk up
  
• Fixed a bug locking UI options after backing out of selecting a player created level in the Multiplayer menu
  
• Fixed Esc key not closing player created level list in Multiplayer menu properly
  
• Fixed faucets and taps going crazy after getting knocked off
  
• Fixed bug causing some Modifiers to not be selectable
  
• Fixed bug preventing all weapons from being removed with No Weapons modifier
  
• Fixed katana and dagger being held backwards by enemies
  
• Fixed some clipping issues in Pirate Cove building
  
• Fixed Sandbox UI having the go to exit message

If you encounter any significant new issues please let us know on the community Discord server and we'll try and get them fixed as soon as possible.

We're currently working on an update that will be released in mid December that is focused on significantly improving the multiplayer performance and client experience, fixing major bugs and many other quality of life improvements. We'll detail some of the changes to expect below.


In very exciting news we have brought on a fantastic addition to the team: Jeff van Dyck. Jeff is a two-time BAFTA award winning Composer and Audio Director that we had the pleasure of working with around 10 years ago at Creative Assembly and will now be working with on the creation of music for Paint the Town Red. Jeff has been creating music and sounds for games since the original Need for Speed and FIFA titles and is well known for the audio direction and award winning soundtracks of the Total War game series.

At a minimum we were planning on having original music for Beneath, but now we'll be working with Jeff to create a complete soundtrack for Paint the Town Red including replacing much or all of the existing Scenario and Arena music with new original tracks. All existing music will still be available in the game for use in Workshop levels however.

We've been big fans of Jeff for a very long time and have no doubt his music will elevate not only Beneath, but Paint the Town Red as a whole. In addition to composing original music for the game, Jeff will also be assisting on sound effects going forward.


After some recent design improvements we have made based on our play-testing and with not having brought on a composer earlier in the process, we have a few factors affecting the release of Beneath.

We're currently adding new environmental weapons to bring the flow of combat more in line with the Scenarios and we're adjusting level length and enemy variety to get the urgency and difficulty of the game feeling right.

It will all be wrapped up early in 2019, but we might make the first areas of Beneath, including the first Boss, available earlier in a separate beta build for testing and feedback sooner. Keep an eye on the Paint the Town Red Discord server over the coming weeks for any information on that.


For this update we've brought forward some of the improvements and polish work we planned on doing early next year. We'll have a full changelist when the build is released, but below are some of the main changes we've already completed or are working on currently.

Multiplayer Packet and Backwidth Reduction

Depending on the hardware and bandwidth limitations of the host and client players, currently there can be issues with the number of packets being sent and received causing increasingly large de-syncs between players. We've reduced the number of packets being sent on average by a factor of 10. This should eliminate this as an issue.

The up and down steam bandwidth was already quite low, but due to the reduction in packets there are fewer bytes wasted on packet headers which reduces the bandwidth being transferred by around 5x.

This change will improve the consistency and reliability of the online multiplayer experience.

Improvements to Client Multiplayer Feel

The primary issue currently when playing the coop multiplayer as a client (i.e. a player that joins a Host's multiplayer game) is that the overall game experience does not feel close enough to playing singleplayer or as the game host. There are a number of causes for this and it usually relates to a delay in feedback on your interactions with enemies. We're shifting more authoritative control over elements of the game to the client when it makes sense to and will favour game feel over exact synchronisation of non-gameplay critical elements like effects and ragdolls.

This is also an important prerequisite step for the Beneath multiplayer.

Caching of Pathfinding Data for Workshop Levels

There are some truly massive levels that have been created using the Level Editor and with great size comes great load times.

By far the biggest contributor to load times on large levels is the generation of the navmesh for pathfinding. In this update when you load a Workshop level for the first time it will generate a navmesh cache file. This will then be used on subsequent loads instead of calculating the navmesh again.

On some of the largest levels the navmesh generation could take over 30 seconds and when loading these with the cache file, the navmesh generation should now take under 1/10th of a second.

We're also exploring the viability of creating and including the cache file when Workshop levels are uploaded so when you download a new level the first load will be just as fast as the following ones.

Speedrunning Support

We've put some time into developing the best way to support the Speedrunning community going forward. There is already a small speedrunning community for the game as it is now, but we believe with the release of Beneath and updates to the Challenge mode of the Scenarios, there will be a lot more opportunities for great speedruns.

To best support this community we now write out a ton of data useful for speedrunning into a separate DLL. This gives the data a consistent memory location as offsets from the DLL's loaded address. With tools like LiveSplit you will now easily be able to have an Auto Splitter that can do things like pause the timer during loads, immediately split on various conditions, etc. With how we're writing the data, the memory addresses should not need to be changed when Paint the Town Red updates.

We'll provide an example LiveSplit Auto Splitter file and information on the variables and memory addresses with this release and as we add to it in the future.


There are many more changes coming in this build and similar quality of life improvements will come to subsequent builds as we work to improve all unfinished elements of the game for release.

As we approach the completion of the Beneath mode it's getting harder to find things we want to show and talk about. Maintaining mystery so you can discover how to progress through the game while playing it is very important. Unfortunately since the time spent developing it has been very (very) long, it has meant we haven't been providing a lot of updates on progress and information about it. In this post we'll cover some of the elements of Beneath you'll encounter quite often, give some information on the back story and setting of Beneath and talk about our plans for release.




As you make your way through earlier areas of Beneath, you'll sometimes come across gated rooms that will seal you in once you enter them. They will not release you until you either succeed or fail the task they set out. If you complete a room you'll gain a significant amount of Gold, Energy and a selection of some of the more powerful weapons, but you'll risk taking damage or dying.

There are a few different types of Challenge Rooms, such as the one that requires you to kill all the enemies in the room without taking any damage.




For the most part the story of Beneath and of Paint the Town Red overall will be told implicitly through environmental details. When you start playing Beneath it is many years since the conflict you're in began. Your goal is to defeat the Elder Gods that rule the dimensions beneath the surface. A lesser one of these gods that came to the surface has already been killed before you begin. The heart an Elder God shatters into powerful shards when they are killed.



The humans use a shard to mutate the soldiers that get sent Beneath to give them powers. These are the characters you will play as and each 'run' you will be able to choose from a a selection of classes each with different powers. There are also many monsters that found shards and used them to become powerful beings known as Shard Lords. Defeating these elite enemies will allow you to amass these Shards of a Fallen God to spend on permanent upgrades that will increase your ability to progress through Beneath. These upgrades are separate from the other permanent upgrades you'll acquire using the Energy gained by defeating regular enemies.




As we've talked about previously, with the exception of some later areas there will be a shop in each level. These shops will sell weapons in exchange for Gold. Sometimes they might also contain a special item. Some shops will also contain a creature selling permanent upgrades in exchange for Energy. These permanent upgrade shops will also be available in the transition zones between areas.

Shops are shielded so that monsters cannot enter, giving you a temporary reprieve. Don't spend too long browsing though, as that will give you less time to avoid the Pursuer.


Pursuers are immortal entities created to cleanse the world beneath of invaders from above. After the surface war humans sent large forces underground, a front-line that slowly progressed towards the nearest Elder God. The creation of the Pursuers stopped this effort as they sucked the life from all human forces. In the earlier levels of Beneath you'll see the remains of this assault. Now only a single human (or up to 4 in co-op) can remain undetected beneath for a short length of time.

If you spend too long in one level you'll be warned the Pursuer has arrived. They are not corporeal, will move through walls and cannot be killed. If one arrives it is time to find an exit, especially if you're one of the slower classes.


We have all features in and working for Beneath, just some have placeholder art and sound effects. All levels of the mode are complete, as well as all weapons, enemies, upgrades and powers. 2 of the 4 bosses in the game still need to be finished as well as various UI elements, sound effects and music. We're also working on tweaking balance and progression. Recognizing we're in Early Access, some of this doesn't need to be 100% complete for an initial release of the mode. Once Beneath is fully completable with no major missing elements we'll release it. Within a month after that update we should have added the co-op multiplayer and finished anything that was incomplete.

There are obviously many improvements still to make to other areas of the game, especially bug fixes and multiplayer and performance improvements, and these will be coming after Beneath is released. There will be more Arena challenges featuring enemies and weapons from Beneath and another main Scenario. That will take us to 1.0 at which point the game will leave Early Access. We will continue to add more to the game after 1.0 with more Scenarios and content for the Level Editor planned.

Thank you all very much for your patience in waiting for Beneath. We haven't been able to reduce the scope at all as that would have diminished the mode to where all the time and effort we've put into it would have been wasted, so it has taken a long time to get done. We'll post an update once we've finished enough of what's left to be able to give a firm release date for the update.

Update 0.8.4 is available now and adds support for Custom Music packs for use in Workshop levels as well as a lot of other improvements.

The Music Packs work very similarly to the Texture Packs and can be created from their own menu accessible in the Level Editor sub-menu options in the game's main menu. Packs can include up to 14 songs with a combined maximum size of 100MB and up to 4 packs you have subscribed to on the Workshop can be used in your levels. A new logic prop will allow you to change the music based on triggers in your levels.

A current limitation of the music files used in the packs is that they currently must be either .wav file or .ogg files. This is due to licensing and engine restrictions, but you can easily convert to .ogg files from .mp3 files or other using software like VLC or online converters. This is the site I used in testing to convert MP3 files to OGG files: https://www.onlineconverter.com/mp3-to-ogg

A full changelist is at the bottom of this post, but some of the new changes include:

Collision based damage to enemies
From minor damage...


... to major damage on extreme impacts


Shockwave affects props, bodies, etc



Sharp weapons can stick into the environment


... and some can pin enemies to walls


Bullets and liquid will create decals



Many of these new additions will continue to be improved upon in upcoming releases.

Due to the large number of changes in this update there may be some new bugs. Please let us know if you encounter any major new bugs on the Discord server or via email to contact@southeastgames.com.

Version 0.8.4

• Custom Music Packs can now be setup and added to the Workshop
  
• Knocked down/out enemies are now damaged when colliding with the environment
  
• Bullets now move unused weapons they hit
  
• Bullets now break some weapons like bottles
  
• Weak unused weapons can break when hit
  
• Bullets now leave impact decals in the environment
  
• Spilled liquid now leaves decals in the environment
  
• Added some slight variation to blood decal colour
  
• Arterial spray will no longer occur when hitting dead bodies
  
• Enemies voxels now show some burn damage
  
• Shockwave now moves weapons and props
  
• Shockwave now moves dead and unconscious bodies
  
• Sharp thrown weapons can now stick into static environment geometry
  
• Spears and similar weapons can now temporarily pin enemies to walls
  
• Changed block position of guns to actually look like they're blocking
  
• Improved thrown weapon torque
  
• Weapons can now break when thrown or hit into objects depending on weapon type and impact
  
• Level Editor: Custom Music Packs can be used
  
• Level Editor: Added invisible paint
  
• Level Editor: Logic Zones can be set to kill enemies
  
• Level Editor: Logic Zones can be set to kill players
  
• Level Editor: Added optional fall damage for the player
  
• Level Editor: Added new triggerable Logic prop to change Music
  
• Level Editor: Added level setting to disable fall/collision damage for enemies
  
• Level Editor: Added ability to duplicate rooms
  
• Level Editor: Enemies will prioritise targets at the same height as them in multi-story areas
  
• Level Editor: Added checkbox on upload to approve your level for use on other platforms
  
• Level Editor: Fixed enemies that fall outside play area being reset to invalid position
  
• Level Editor: Fixed prop position property being incorrect after creation
  
• Level Editor: Fixed platforms not being included in calculation of navmesh extents
  
• Fixed enemies recovering from KO while in the air
  
• Fixed bullets being destroyed before completing their full damage potential
  
• Fixed cigar box cigars being tethered to box
  
• Fixed enemies recovering from ragdoll upside-down

Since the last preview post we've been wrapping up work on the remaining elements of the first 3 areas of Beneath which make up the main branch that leads to the first boss and run end. This included setting up the interface for purchasing permanent upgrades and having those upgrades both work and save both locally and to the Steam Cloud.

Another change in Beneath is that instead of pressing a button to drop weapons, that button will store and swap weapons so that you can hold 2 weapons at a time and swap between them. This will allow you to save more powerful weapons you've purchased or found for when you really need them. This feature, as well as many of the permanent upgrade options, required having an icon for the weapons you'll find in Beneath. To achieve this we have a process that renders every weapon to an texture in white and from a recognisable perspective and places them in particular positions on a texture atlas.

Some of the auto-generated weapon icons


Many of the permanent upgrades are to unlock the ability to find superior weapons in future runs in Beneath. One important element we've considered that we've found to be a negative element of similar upgrades in other Rogue-Lite games is that unlocking more weapons will reduce the likelihood that other powerful weapons you've unlocked will spawn. This is because the range of weapons the procedural level generator can select from has increased. In Beneath we've made sure that every unlockable weapon will always have a consistent random percentage chance to be found in the world and as you unlock more weapons only the lesser weapons of the default range of weapons will then be found more rarely.

Other upgrades include things like permanently improving stats for all classes, upgrades to starting weapons and shields, unlocking additional beneficial unique random encounters or increasing the durability of all weapons.

Swapping between 2 weapons



Besides finishing the boss enemies for Beneath which is still to come, we've about wrapped up the last remaining big feature (besides bosses most work from here is related to tweaking/polishing/etc) which was the most complicated enemy in the game, the Giant Mage.

We won't show and spoil too much about this enemy because they have a lot of impressive abilities that will be much more fun to discover in game. The main thing that makes them a complicated enemy to create though is their interaction with other enemies. The class hierarchy will be pretty clear when you encounter a Giant Mage with some other enemies nearby like the Interceptor or Minion. They'll drastically change their usual tactics to protect and augment the abilities of the Mages. If you do encounter a Giant Mage without any protection you'd better act fast because they have the power to summon whatever they need.

That's not to say they aren't more than capable of dealing with you themselves...




Since we've reached a Beneath milestone we're going to spend next week working on the next update that will not only feature the Custom Music Packs for the Workshop, but also a huge number of other improvements. Many of these additions are possible because upgrades required for Beneath can easily transfer to existing systems and the changelist for 0.8.4 is by far the largest we've ever had in an update.

We'll hold off on posting the WIP changelist as it will definitely change over the coming week, but below are some additions you can expect in the update which will be available in a weeks time.

• Custom Music Packs (workshop upload and Level Editor usage)
  
• Ability to change music in Level Editor with logic triggers
  
• Liquid Decals
  
  
  
• Thrown sharp weapons stick into level
  
  
  
  
• Some thrown weapons can pin enemies
  
  
  
• Smite attacks will knock some nearby enemies away
  
• Shockwave knocks props and weapons away
  
  
  
• Invisible paint option in Level Editor
  
• Ability to duplicate rooms in Level Editor
  
• Bullet hit decals
  
  
  
• New blood spurt effects
  
• Blood colour tone variation
  
• Shooting and hitting some fragile weapons will break them