Oct 27, 2022

Faraway Lands | Official Map Contest 2022

Witch It - Exenoxx

⚠️ Update: Entries are now closed, and the results will be revealed soon. Stay tuned!

Across the endless tomes secured within Grunewald Library, tales and rumours of faraway lands fill the pages…

Chronicles of small-scale hamlets, landscapes and monuments tell stories of the magnificent architects that built them.

Now it’s your turn to write the next chapter!

🗺️ Theme:
Small Maps - You must build a map suitable for 4-8 players!
Aside from the player capacity, there is no visual theme - get creative and build something unique!

🥇 Main Prizes | Official Implementation:

We will be implementing multiple winning maps into our Official servers, which will be added to our voting pool when a server contains under 8 players. We have no particular number of winners in mind. Winning maps will also be available in custom matches.

All winning maps will receive baked lighting, and will be played for thousands of rounds to come!

Each contributor in a winning map will also receive:
- 1x Witch It Steam Key (Giftable)!
- 10x Crystallized Moonlight!
- Your name added to the description of a Creative Mode structure!
- Grand Architect Discord Role!

Bonus: All Discord entrants will receive the "Architect" role after posting their map entry. Entrants who have participated in previous map contests may receive "Architect (x2)" or "Architect (x3)". We’ll grant these roles towards the end of the contest.

🖼️ [NEW] Presentation Prize:

This time, there are no community voting prizes. We are now offering a “Presentation Prize”, which is an additional reward granted to the three entries with the best presented workshop pages. To win this award, spend time making your workshop page visually appealing! You can add high quality screenshots, banners, a video (if you’d like), or anything else to make it stand out from the other entries. Feel free to add some lore or a backstory to your map too, but this won’t count towards the presentation prize!

Each contributor towards a map which wins the presentation prize will receive:

- 10 Crystallized Moonlight!
- Your name added to the description of a Creative Mode structure!

✔️ Participate in just 5 steps:

1. Create a custom Witch It map following our theme, rules and advice!

2. Upload your map to the Steam workshop!

3. Upload at least ONE screenshot onto your workshop page!

4. Add the hashtag #mapcontest2022 in the description - this helps us organise entries, as well as lets us know we can use your map on our servers!

5. Finally, post your entry in http://discord.gg/witchit or underneath this contest announcement on Steam!

📚 Are you still unsure what to do? View our detailed participation guide here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2203730812
⚠️ [Important!] Rules:

> You must build on an empty map containing no structures (interior, town day, island day, town night, ice day, graveyard night, magical forest, desert day, desert sunset, or jungle day)!
> If you wish to build in a default map containing pre-made structures, such as Grave Gulch or Port Plunder, you must build out-of-bounds!
> You can submit as many maps as you want (however, quality is always better than quantity)!
> You can either make your map solo, or collaborate with up to 3 other creators - please mark them as a contributor to your workshop item!
> You cannot enter using other creator's maps that you are not an original contributor on (we will check for stolen work)!
> You must design an entirely original map - it cannot be based on an existing map from another game!
> You cannot edit your existing maps to be smaller - please make an entirely new map!
> Offensive/NSFW content is strictly prohibited!
> All users can enter, including Grand Architects (previous winners) and staff members!

⚠️ [Update] Switches: Switches are allowed in maps.

⚠️ [Update] Water: If you're building in out-of-bounds water, the physics of the water do not work properly and therefore will be unbalanced for gameplay. For this reason, please avoid using out-of-bounds water in the playable areas of your maps.

🔨 Breaking these rules may result in disqualification from the contest!

📖 Advice for Creating Entries for Faraway Lands:
Below is some advice for creating maps suitable for our Official servers. Please read each section carefully!

📕 Size Matters
Your map must support 4-8 player lobbies! If your map is too small, Hunters will find it too easy to locate and eliminate Witches. If it’s too big, then Witches will have too many hiding options. Our hope is that you’ll create a map balanced somewhere in the middle. Be clever with how you tackle your map size - for example, start with a map segment, test it out, then expand. Or if you’re trying to fit more content in a narrow radius, consider extending your map vertically.

📙 Test Your Map
One benefit from building smaller maps is that you don’t need as many players to do a suitable test. Round up a few of your friends (or even other entrants) and test each others maps thoroughly! A great looking map may be unapprovable if the gameplay mechanics are inconsistent or broken. Some things to watch out for include stairs that don't work, ladders that cannot be climbed, doorways that are too small etc. Hunters should have a spawn area that they cannot leave until the hiding period is over.

📒 Optimise Your Maps
Ensure your map is smooth to run by optimising your structure and prop use - rather than using small wall segments, can you scale a single wall up to create the same effect? Have you removed objects in areas that aren't visible to the player during gameplay? Are there too many props?

Our recommendations:
- Stay below 500 props
- Use any amount of structures
- Do not stack lights or jump pads
- Frozen props shouldn't glitch when touched

📗 Broken Hiding Spots
Combining structures together can sometimes lead to small gaps in which props can fit into. This is most often seen with world boundaries, rocks, and ice structures - but can easily be avoided by vigorously checking intersections of structures. One small gap in a structure leading to a impossible-to-reach area for Hunters will result in a broken map. Please be mindful to ensure your maps have no broken hiding spots on them by testing during and after the creation of your map.

📘 Gamemode Compatibility
Your map must be compatible with Hide & Seek, Mobification and Hunt a Hag. Please consider using a variety of props and gameplay options for both teams, and take into account the skills each team may use.

⌛ Deadline
We are closing this contest on Monday, 5th December, 2022 (12:00am UTC)
Once the contest ends, we will review your entries and decide on the winners, which will be revealed shortly after.

We hope you enjoy creating your maps! #mapcontest2022

Oct 12, 2022

Patch 1.3.1 - Happy Halloween!

Witch It - Exenoxx

Happy Halloween! To celebrate the spine-chilling festivities, we're introducing our latest map: Grave Gulch, alongside new props, skins, structures, Creative maps and more! 👻

Before we begin... we want your feedback!

Our new Witch It Feedback Survey 2022 is now live! Your answers will play an important part in the direction we take the game in the years to come. We are not collecting any personal data in this survey, and any answers provided will be kept anonymous if we decide to publish any results. Please click the banner below to participate in this survey:

Grave Gulch

Welcome to Grave Gulch - a monstrous ravine cutting through a haunted valley, filled with critters, crevices and revolting cobwebs... 🎃

Hide among the harrowing foliage and abandoned buildings, or climb the rugged cliffs and possess a cocoon hanging far above the hunters below. Skilled witches will need to get creative with their escape routes, as the narrow play area leaves little room for error - climb a web or use a jump pad to make a quick get away!

14 New Props

We've introduced a variety of Halloween and autumn-themed props, ready for you to add to your prop collection! Search Grave Gulch for the beehive, cocoons, and even a friendly mandrake! For those looking for a challenge: two new secret props are hidden within the gulch... good luck finding them! 🔎

70+ New Structures

As promised, we've introduced tons of Flint Falls structures to Creative Mode, polished and ready to be added into your custom maps. Included with the structures are new tiles, rock formations and even Grave Gulch's giant spider and webbing! 🕸️

Fancy participating in one of our map contests? Keep an eye on our announcements on Steam and on our Discord server, as we'll be revealing our next contest on Friday, 21st October 2022! All skill levels are welcome, and yes... there will be prizes! 🏆

⚠️ Contest Update: Click here to view "Faraway Lands" - Official Map Contest 2022!

40 New Skin Items

Get dressed up for trick-or-treating with our new Halloween skins! Wrap yourself in old bandages and haunt Grave Gulch as a mummy, or decorate your witch as a spider and blend in with the insects living within the nooks and crannies. 🕷️

How do I obtain the new Halloween items?

Opening Witch It during the Halloween 2022 event will grant you 30 "Gloomkins"!
A Gloomkin contains a random Halloween item (including Halloween items from previous years), which can only be opened by combining them with "Haunted Candy".

To earn Haunted Candy, fill up the Item Cauldron with 250 experience points. You can see the item cauldron fill up at the end of the round, on the level up screen.

Filling up the cauldron on Sleeping Rose Cemetery, Cursed Ruins, Grunewald Library (Day) or Grave Gulch will grant you a 40% chance to receive a Haunted Candy. If you're lucky enough to earn one, head back to the main menu and press 'Halloween Event' to combine it with your Gloomkins! 🍬

Every Halloween 2022 item is tradable and craftable even after the event is over.
If you use up all your Gloomkins, you can craft more by combining 5 Candies together!
Note: Candies can only be obtained in Official servers.

You can also receive the new items by:
- Crafting Halloween recipes in the Witches' Cauldron (main menu > collection > Witches' Cauldron).
- As random drops by filling up the item cauldron at the end of a round.
- Trading with other players (we recommend using our Discord server to find traders).

New Creative Maps

We've introduced 3 new Creative Maps which you can use as a base for your epic maps and prop layouts. Flint Falls has been added - time to build your own prehistoric maps! "Jungle Day" is a flattened Flint Falls for those who want to build their own custom terrain. Grave Gulch is also available for those wanting to build maps in a spooky environment - we hope you enjoy them as much as we do! 🦇

Haven't tried our Creative Mode yet? Press "play" in the main menu, then "creative mode" to start your own Creative server with your chosen parameters. From there, you can build your own environments to hunt and hide in. Need some inspiration? Check our most popular workshop maps here!

Patch Notes

+ Added: New map ‘Grave Gulch’
+ Added: 14 new props
+ Added: 70+ new structures to Creative Mode
+ Added: 40 new Halloween themed skin items
+ Added: ‘Flint Falls’ to Creative Mode
+ Added: New empty map based on ‘Flint Falls’ to Creative Mode
+ Added: Third prop layout to ‘Shard of Wiqqarra’ & ‘Amara’s Fountain’

↻ Changed: There are now 2 Map pool for random map cycle. One for small maps (up to 8 players) and one for more players
↻ Changed: Only tradable items & a few exceptions are visible in Steam inventory
↻ Changed: Collision of the lianas on ‘Flint Falls’
↻ Changed: Implemented particle pooling to improve performance
↻ Changed: Potato impact effects use Unreals new VFX system to improve performance
↻ Changed: More UI performance optimisation
↻ Changed: Switchable Palace Door in Creative Mode now shows where the door would be in closed state if open

✓ Fixed: Broken spots on ‘Port Plunder’
✓ Fixed: Broken spots on ‘Snowbreeze’
✓ Fixed: Broken spots on ‘Northern Whispers’
✓ Fixed: Jump Shroom lights on ‘Twisted House’
✓ Fixed: Holding crouch, but you aren’t crouching
✓ Fixed: Chicken not triggering spring pads
✓ Fixed: Utility selection issues in Creative Mode

We hope you enjoy our Halloween event! ːhunterfaceː

Jul 14, 2022

Patch 1.3.0 - Dawn of the Potato!

Witch It - Exenoxx

Welcome to Dawn of the Potato, an era in which the first ever hunters built their potato-slinging legacy. Flint Falls is where it all began: a primitive encampment located at the foot of an enormous waterfall, containing both resources and witches plentiful... :purplewitchhat:

Fan-made teaser created by fri. Subscribe to his YouTube channel for more spectacular Witch It content!

Flint Falls

Flint Falls is a primeval-themed map located in the clearing of a prehistoric jungle. A stunning waterfall towers over the map, connecting to a fast-flowing river that may pull you along if you're not careful. Thick stone slabs on the surface mark the beginning of a civilisation, but also double up as great hiding spots for the witches - but for those who want some proper shelter, locate the cave system underground and see what you can find! :hunterface:

Flint Falls is more compact than most of our Official maps, encouraging faster-paced gameplay on highly populated servers, or a more balanced experience for the smaller gaming posse.

20+ New Props

Feast your eyes on our new prehistoric props, including a tanning rack, makeshift stone furniture, and... is that a Luaq pelt?! The new props and Flint Falls map will arrive soon to Creative Mode - stay tuned! :potatothrow:

Quest Drops & 18 New Skin Items

Collect a pair of pants made from a leopard pelt, or maybe a broom made from the bone of a humongous dinosaur!

Want to obtain the new skin items? After completing or rerolling your current daily quests, new quests will have a high chance to reward Dawn Of The Potato items! :luaq:

The DOTP items are not part of an event or a collection, and therefore can be crafted through standard recipes or obtained as normal drops.

Patch Notes

1.3.0 “Dawn Of The Potato”- Update

After completing or rerolling your current daily quests, new quests will have a high chance to reward “Dawn Of The Potato” items.

+ Added: New map “Flint Falls”
+ Added: 20+ new props
+ Added: 18 new skin items

✓ Fixed: Hunter skills missing after canceling prior match in player customization screen
✓ Fixed: Flickering environment on creative mode map 'Magical Forest'
✓ Fixed: Stairs on ‘Loakiki Paradise’
✓ Fixed: Broken spots on ‘Oasis Temple’ & ‘High Spruce Town’

Jun 22, 2022

Patch 1.2.8 - Half-a-Byte!

Witch It - Exenoxx

It's heating up! 🔥
We've got a small patch to keep you entertained while we work on our next content update...
Twin Mask Theater now has a third prop layout, and we made some balancing changes to the Anniversary servers - on top of that, we've crunched some bugs and made some performance optimizations! 🐬

We hope you're getting plenty of sun wherever you are in the world! ☀️

Patch Notes

+ Added: Third prop layout to ‘Twin Mask Theater’

↻ Changed: Game rules for the Anniversary Servers (limited but powerful skills)
↻ Changed: Performance optimizations

✓ Fixed: Hunter skills missing
✓ Fixed: Switch connections visibility after opening menu in Creative Mode
✓ Fixed: Removed floating structures on ‘Twisted House’
✓ Fixed: Double “Tome of Wisdom”, instead there’s now an additional book called “Tome of Bravery”

NEW | 23/06/2022 Hotfix

Following some feedback from our community, we've split the Anniversary servers into two separate rulesets. You can find which ruleset an Anniversary server is running by looking at the server name.

🌟 2Skills4U - New ruleset; limited but powerful skills.
🌟 Fastmode - Old ruleset; all skills enabled, faster-paced gameplay.

We're continuing to monitor feedback on the modes, so feel free to send more feedback here or over on our Discord server!

In addition:
✓ Fixed: Imposturous mode
✓ Fixed: Small fix to the new 'Twin Mask Theater' layout

May 31, 2022

Patch 1.2.7 - 5 Year Anniversary!

Witch It - Exenoxx

We appreciate you!

5 years ago today, we cautiously pushed the Early Access release button... anxious, yet hyped for the world to play our wacky little game.

Positive reactions to our Alpha and Beta testing periods gave us a spark of confidence we desperately needed to hit that button, no matter how daunting the following journey may be. Since releasing a game was a first for the team, we didn't set our ambitions too high - our only goal: to bring as much joy to our players as to us making the game. 💜

Within a matter of months, we were absolutely blown away by the abundance of support for Witch It!

To describe ourselves as fortunate would be an understatement; there's simply no words that can articulate how grateful and proud we are to have turned our passion project into a full-time career. And as cliché as it sounds... we really couldn't have done it without you. Whether you joined us in the Alpha, Beta, Early Access, after the full release, during a sale, during an event or after watching your favourite creator, we deeply appreciate you being here and supporting us all these years.

And we're not just saying that...

5 years is a long time, especially when working on content non-stop. Any rational person would probably tell us we need a break. However, remember that spark we felt right before we pressed that release button? It never left us.

So we're not going anywhere. In fact, we're doubling down.
We've taken substantial steps over the past year to multiply the size of our development team, so we can continue working on Witch It for the years to come! We strongly believe our best years are still ahead of us. So whether you're a new player or a seasoned veteran, we hope you stick with us!

Thank you for everything. We owe it all to you! ːluaqː

~ Barrel Roll Games

A Nostalgic Timeline

Let's take a trip to the past. Below is a timeline of all the major news that followed the release of Witch It Early Access on May 31st, 2017. It's so fascinating to see how far the game has evolved over the past 5 years! At which part of the timeline did you join us? 📅

5th Anniversary Hats

Every celebration needs a cake. Pick up the "5th Anniversary Cake Hat" for the Witch, and the "5th Anniversary Witch Hat" for the Hunter by playing at least one round in an Official server! 🎂

5th Anniversary Player Icon

Is it really a Witch It event if there's no player icon? 🐔🥚
Of course not! And since it's such a special occasion, we've made it animated too!
Open up the game and play at least one round in an Official server to obtain it!

Anniversary Servers

We've released a fresh batch of 'anniversary' servers which you can now find on the server list. In these servers, we've altered the game rules so that every skill is more powerful than before! The gameplay is a lot more manic and unpredictable, but extremely fun! Please let us know what you think, as we may make some changes and additions to these servers over the next few weeks. We also plan to give players the ability to use these game rules in custom servers soon!

We've also enabled double rewards for quests during the Anniversary event - however, these will only apply to newly generated quests. Complete or skip your current quests to see the double rewards in action! 🎁

Patch Notes

+ Added: 5th Anniversary Hat for Witches
+ Added: 5th Anniversary Hat for Hunters
+ Added: 5th Anniversary Player Icon
+ Added: Third prop layout to ‘Shipwreck Hollow’

↻ Changed: Inspecting props and utilities in Creative Mode now shows which switches are directly connected to them in addition to the existing feature of switches showing all props and utilities directly and indirectly connected to them
↻ Changed: Performance optimization to improve FPS. Mainly the UI and Animations got optimized, but this should increase the CPU performance
↻ Changed: The default rendering is updated to dx12. Therefore a launch option for dx11 was added for players with Windows 7 or 8
↻ Changed: Updated smoke effects to use the new particle system
↻ Changed: Removed level requirements for skills

✓ Fixed: Cloning witch bug in Creative Mode
✓ Fixed: Chickens alerting to palace doors
✓ Fixed: Pinwheel prop fps dependency affecting movement generated wheel spinning
✓ Fixed: Broken spots on Oasis Temple, Kasbah le Ribat, Shipwreck Hollow, Powersource & Pizza Factory
✓ Fixed: First layout of Witch House is now available again
✓ Fixed: The wood chop task in Imposturous Mode now ends properly if a meeting is called
✓ Fixed: Camera focus for ghosts in wood chop task and study witch skills task in Imposturous Mode
✓ Fixed: Pressure plate switch being triggered by Witches that turned into props
✓ Fixed: Switch connection info in Creative Mode if more than one switch is in the selected group
✓ Fixed: Reselecting group member in Creative Mode not removing it from group