*Sephy made a bitey old mountain monster for the new Levelhead-Gifs discord channel*

This week we've got flamethrowers, tiny levels, and general astonishment from our dev team at what y'all are whipping up. As always, click a level name to bookmark it for later! LET'S GOOOO!




In Ripcord the Bird Trial, Egomouse sets up a single screen looper that has you launching off missiles and dodging saws like a maniac while the level gets increasingly dangerous. Tons of fun and jam-packed with good design.




Bmiclock took inspiration from the lava flows of last week's spotlight and created a new hellacious flamethrower in Fire Beam Canyon! WHY!? WHY MUST YOU DO THIS?!




In Trial of the Champion, Jornker pushes you to become your best self. The level moves through increasingly intense challenges that take advantage of many of each of the playstyles that Levelhead supports. Prepare to bop enemies, sprint over exploding spikes, and do some precise Clood jumps!




Spekio created Wonder Chamber for the Levelcup (vote on your favorite contest levels here) and dare we say got carried away. The restricted 13x13 tile space is intricately packed with switches, balloogs, and traps that turn off and on as the player progresses, creating a tiny level that's gigantic fun.




Sephy's newest creation,Flyblock Gulch, takes GR-18 for a winding, snakey ride. Be careful not to fall behind or you will be stabbed.

• Mrichston creates an fantastic head scratching puzzle in Mechanical Watch Puzzle
  
• Cprice makes us lose all trust in humanity with a new trap level, Trust 2.
  
• Muckgop Tintyjim inspires with a great mechanical exploration of the Ripcord in The Temple of Ripcord.
  
• ScuhBaum's Fly Away Island has clever secrets and feels like a wonderful adventure in the sky.
  
• BT83 creates an enchanting forest experience with exceptional design in Explore the Blopfush Forest.

That's it for this week - be sure to share your creations in the Levelhead Discord so we have the chance of including them in the

Another week, another set of outrageously creative levels from the community. Click on any of the level-names to bookmark these levels and check them out over the weekend. LET'S GOOOO!




Well, we didn't WANT y'all to do this, but Spekio managed it in such spectacular fashion that it deserves a mention. By using some clever switch triggering, Spekio created lava flows. The level may melt your computer, but Through Fire and Fear is quite the experience if your computer can handle it.




Not only did Lorossi recreate Darude's Sandstorm song inside Levelhead - the level is actually played to the beat of the music. It's hard as nails, but that's what Darude would want. Check out Sand Storm? and see if you can unleash your techno powers.




Some of our favorite builds each week are recreations or interpretations of other games inside Levelhead. Sephy is carrying on this tradition with Space Zonk, a ridiculously fun Space Invaders style level that makes use of the new missile level elements. DIE BLOPFUSH, DIE!




In one of the funniest levels we've played since the Trap Adventure style one highlighted a few weeks ago, Cammymoop's Get Back Here! had us busting up by putting a single switch on a path. GR-18 has to chase this switch down through a mad obstacle course, and all the time it's just STARIN'. GET BACK HERE!

• Play's 11 by 11 is a new type of level - exceptionally compact, precise, and puzzling.
  
• Following Play's lead, Paragon RetrophileTV built Sweet Little Death Box. The title is descriptive, so... proceed with caution.
  
• JanBanane's Langer Umschalter Dann Ziel mashes all styles of gameplay together into one intricate level packed with clever designs.
  
• If Dune Doom Dream's nightmares have faded from your mind, give RoedelPoes' Keep Up Canyon! a ride. It's an ode to the sidescrolling level.
  
• Temple of Whizblade by Espurrator is a wide-ranging, challenging level that feels like a great adventure.

First off, thank you all for being understanding about our shift to a two-week patch cycle! This has given us a ton of extra breathing room and space to experiment, implement bigger features, and put our focus where it counts.

ANYWAYS... We've got a REAL WHOPPER of a patch today, so we'd like to apologize in advance for delivering so much content. We know it can be overwhelming, but... just do your best. You've got this!


It's time to unveil our first new powerup since Early Access launch: The RIPCORD!



The Ripcord allows GR-18 to turn his little robot arms into rocket engines for a short time, after which he has to touch his feet to the ground (or an enemy's face) to replenish fuel. This will allow GR-18 to reach far higher places than were originally possible -- in some cases, up to 5 times the height!

On the way down after touching the sky, GR-18 can use the Ripcord's Helicopter Mode to slowly descend, while still maintaining full control over horizontal movement. This allows you to kill your fall speed and weave between enemies like a pro, or glide across long gaps that would otherwise be impossible.



We're excited to see all the wacky levels our community creates using this powerful new item!


Levelhead is becoming known for its robust and ridiculously flexible Switch/Receiver system, and with the set of switches we already have, our players have managed to create all kinds of ludicrous contraptions, including pinball machines, 3-in-1 arcade games, music boxes, and replicas of existing games of all kinds. BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH! We have more ideas for switches, and this patch, we've brought one of those new switch ideas to life. Introducing, the TEMPSWITCH!



The Tempswitch is the most versatile switch we have added to the game. At its most basic usage, it simply flips for a short duration, and then flips back. For an obvious use case, you can use it to create a temporary batch of Jems that the player has to collect before the time is up.

But that's not all there is to it! The Tempswitch has multiple behaviors, so you can have it be reusable for a more forgiving experience, locking so it can only be used once, or even have it explode when it expires, blowing up brittle rocks, bricks, and enemies, and launching the player and other items!



BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE! The Tempswitch is the first switch in Levelhead that is both a sender and receiver. This means that, aside from just using the Tempswitch as a pressure plate, you can also trigger the Tempswitch via other switches in completely different locations in your level, of different styles.



Our hope going forward is to expand this concept even further, allowing numerous other switches in the game to be both senders and receivers. It allows for a huge amount of flexibility in building interesting triggers, events, and contraptions!


This patch also introduces a new type of projectile: Rockets! Rockets don't home in on the player like Homing Missiles do -- they just fly straight, and fast. They're also non-lethal. Instead of killing the player, they explode like a bomb, destroying breakable blocks, damaging enemies, throwing items, and flinging GR-18 across the level.



We'd tell you to be careful with these, but we know you won't. So... just try not to get killed too many times.

To unlock the Ripcord, Rockets, and the Tempswitch, we've added 11 (!) new levels to the end of the campaign. Have fun!


A new daily competition has opened up in the halls of the Tower! The Tower Trial is a daily batch of six player-made levels that our robots pull from the tower using the power of algorithms, science, and good old-fashioned elbow grease. You must -- and I cannot stress this enough -- routinely grease your robot's elbows.

Score Hunters and Speed Runners then compete to get the top scores and top times on beating all six levels in a row.



The response from our players on the beta branch has been super positive, and the Tower Trial will only get better over time as we adjust our algorithms to make sure we're only serving up the highest quality, piping hot, spiciest player-made levels.

Now, you might be saying, "Hey! I'm not a speed runner! There's no way I can get onto that leaderboard!" Well, don't worry! Our magic robots also choose a "Trophy Time" for every day's trial, which should provide a good (but reasonable) challenge for the average player to strive for.

The Tower Trial also has a fun edge for level builders, as well, since when you publish a level, there's a chance that level will end up in the Tower Trial, accumulating a big burst of plays and being forever enshrined in the Tower Trial's archives for future players to come back to. Levels that have been part of a Tower Trial will be permanently emblazoned with the golden Tower Trial icon, signifying just how cool they are.



And best of all, every Tower Trial is made permanently available. So if you miss a day's trial, you can always just go back and do it later!


Aside from all the new features above, here are some of the highlights we've added to make the game just a little bit smoother, better, and more convenient!

• We've overhauled how Background Tile placement works in your levels, so you can go crazy with it and not fear accidentally destroying parts of your level.
  
• Tons of bug fixes, including fixes for inconsistencies while moving on paths.
  
• You can capture screenshots using Steam's screenshot system!
  
• You can now lock pressure plates!
  
• A bunch of new words in the Name Combobulator!
  
• You can make big arrows!
  
• Some items can now go on paths that couldn't before!
  
• New icons and animations for the Sign!
  
• Overhauled scoring for in-game actions such as collecting Jems and defeating Enemies, to make score hunting feel more different from speed running. Get out there and claim those crowns!

There's a lot more in the notes below, so if you're really into it, go take a look! Thanks for playing, and we'll see you for the next patch in two weeks!



See the full patchnotes.

New Features

New Item

• Introducing the RIPCORD powerup! The Ripcord allows you to fly by turning your arms into rocket engines for a short duration, and you can also slow your descent by sprouting a helicopter rotor from the top of your head.
  
• Introducing the TEMPSWITCH! This is a versatile switch that sends a signal for a limited amount of time before flipping back to its original state. The Tempswitch normally functions as a pressure plate, but you can also tell it to listen to other switches, making it the first switch in Levelhead that can both send and receive signals. Tempswitches also have three different behaviors: Reusable (can be activated repeatedly), locking (can only be activated once), and exploding (can only be activated once, and then explodes like a bomb when its time runs out).

New Projectile

• "Rockets" are now available as projectile types for Lookannons and Cannons. "Rocket" style projectiles explode like bombs upon impact, launching items, destroying bricks and brittle rock, harming enemies, and flinging GR-18 across the universe.

Campaign

• The campaign has 11 new levels to introduce and unlock the Ripcord, Rocket, and Tempswitch.

Steam

• You can now capture screenshots by pressing F12 or "Print Screen." These screenshots will be automatically uploaded to your Steam profile. They will also be saved locally to your game's save directory in a subfolder called "Screenshots." (thanks to @jr527m)

Localization

• Updated translation for the settings menu, daily

Biomes

• Began prototyping the Asteroid Tunnels biome (in development).

Editor

• Prize blocks can now have Receiving Channels on them, so they can respond to switches. Prize blocks that are on switches cannot be invisible.
  
• You can now merge Arrow Holograms up to 2x2 or 3x3 sizes.

Tower Trial

• A new daily competition section has opened up in the Tower! It's called the "Tower Trial." Every day, six levels are pulled from the tower and turned into a playlist. Competitors in the Tower Trial compete for score and time across all six levels back to back. In this mode, the timer continues running across deaths (except when restarting the very first level of the Trial), and your total time is the amount of time it took you to clear the entire trial. The Tower Trial also has a "Time Trophy" available for anyone who clears the entire trial in less than the displayed time. This feature is still a work in progress, so please give us feedback!

UI

• When playing levels as part of a playlist, there is a new interface that shows each of the level orbs in sequence.

Improvements

Campaign

• Updated "Grand Theft Grotto" level to have more space during the Popjaw fight.
  
• Increased the space ship's maximum speed on the campaign navigation screen.
  
• Updated the ship's particle system on the campaign navigation screen to be more contiguous, and gave it a subtle sound effect while moving.
  
• Campaign instruction cards can now be attached to switches, so we can show them only when they are relevant, and not before.
  
• Bumper Ascent's final bumper room has had its bumpers shifted to be symmetrical. MILDLY INFURIATING, NO MORE! (thanks to @d29oze)
  
• Thorn Cloud Delivery's first spring has been more thoroughly enclosed so players don't fixate on jumping off it via forgiveness mechanics. (thanks to @ucjumj)
  
• The Heist now has a checkpoint and some updated decor (thanks to @h42985)
  
• Clockswitch Tower's second bug piece is now attached to a saw path. (thanks to @pkmng8)
  
• If you slip the portalfire on Pressure Puzzle you'll be able to escape the confines of the room you were previously trapped in. (thanks to @kc8n1q)
  
• Temple of karma's third checkpoint no longer soft-locks you if you too skillfully killed a gentle blopfush (thanks to @3w0c8j)
  
• Go Go Rumble's autoscrolling section now forces you to touch the checkpoint prior to the scroll beginning. (thanks to @bmy2wb)
  
• GR-18 in the Machine's coins will no longer disappear if you don't get them the moment you clear the second room. (thanks to @itozuu, @ya0lqh)
  
• The campaign overlay in the top-right corner now shows how many badges you have yet to unlock and how many levels you have left to beat, so the 100% number is now fully described by what you see there.

Editor

• Added words to the name combobulator: Rampage, Destruction, Destroy, Smash (thanks to @rmk4os)
  
• When you click a path node with a tool such as "Add Node" or "Insert Node", you no longer have to click the path once to select the path, and once again to begin dragging the node. Instead, the path will be selected, and it will begin dragging the node, both in the same click. (thanks to @g5w3g0)
  
• You can now control the volume of boomboxes.
  
• Sliders now respond to your mouse on a 1:1 basis, instead of a 1:2 basis. The previous slider sensitivity is no longer necessary, now that we have the ability to enter numbers directly via the editor Numpad.
  
• You can now make Blopfush, Swoopadoops, and Whizblades be "Stationary" as a movement style. Previously, the only way to do this was to put them onto an inactive path. This should save quite a bit of tedium! (thanks to @pkmng8)
  
• Added words to the name combobulator: Lab, Theft, Steal
  
• Added words to the name combobulator: Fury, Furious
  
• You can now place Flippy Longswitches on paths.
  
• You can now place Lockswitches on paths.
  
• You can now place Spike Traps on paths.
  
• Added words to the name combobulator: Rocket, Missile.
  
• Added "Jets" and "Propeller" instruction cards for usage in the campaign, for teaching how to use the Ripcord powerup (Developer only).
  
• Added "Jump" and "Grab" icons to the sign. (thanks to @77wdm5)
  
• Added three different beam styles with different colors to the Sweep Laser (in development). These beam styles currently don't do anything, but they will affect the world differently in a later patch.
  
• Added a new suite of icons to signs, including powerup references and specific enemy images.
  
• Updated the visuals of the Tempswitch (Still in development) to convey whether it is resuable, locking, or exploding.
  
• The Backdrop and Enclosure items no longer delete terrain when you place them. This should make it easier to wildly wave your hand around as you place backdrops without worrying about accidentally exploding some part of your level.
  
• If you have the Backdrop or Enclosure item selected and you click on that same item type in your level, you will enter "Delete Mode" for that item type. While in Delete Mode, you can delete Backdrops or Enclosures without fear of deleting the thing sitting on top of it. Note that if you enter "Delete Mode" with the Enclosure item selected, this will only delete Enclosures, while Backdrops will be unaffected (and vice versa). (thanks to @jzpvey)
  
• Added words to the Name Combobulator: Room, Awesome, Mist, Paradox, Lurk, Rail, Crypt, Tomb, Abandoned, Forgotten, Ancient. (thanks to @77wdm5, @sc4796, @3719xx, @0gfsfk)
  
• Item properties that have decimals will now always display to the hundredths place, so you know that they aren't stuck as whole numbers.
  
• Signs can now be placed on paths. (thanks to @2x7lcg)
  
• Added words to the name combobulator: Second, Interval, Moment, Marathon, Minute, Skyscraper

Audio

• Added hover sound effects to the social links on the main menu.
  
• Implemented new music and sound effects for the Tower Trial.

Optimization

• Optimized the new path physics, so they should stop making unnecessary calculations when using path objects that can't be stood on (like Jems).
  
• Updated the texture page entries of the game for a small improvement in frame rates.

Tower Trial

• Fixed text overflow problems on the Tower Trial's "Top Times" and "Top Scores" headers in non-English languages, and added the Ribbon and Shoe icons to those headers.
  
• Added cooler visual and audio effects to earning the Time Trophy in the Tower Trial.
  
• You can now view and compete in tower trials from previous days.
  
• Updated the Tower Trial description to be more clear about how scoring and times work.
  
• The Tower on the main menu has been updated to have the Tower Trial icon displayed where the "LH" used to be. This icon will flash slightly if there is a new Trial available. It will darken once you have beaten the day's trial, and it will be an aqua-blue color if you have earned the Time Trophy for the day.

Visuals

• Updated the animations of the Ripcord to make GR-18 lean in-air to make it feel more reponsive.
  
• Signs now snap open and shut when they change switch states.
  
• Updated the visuals of the Prize Block so it has only two colors instead of three, so it clashes less with other things' colors.

UI

• Updated the phrasing on the Tower Trial to reduce confusion about whether it is time-limited. (thanks to @rmyh5h)
  
• Updated the confirmation dialogue when publishing a level to no longer state that you can never make changes to the level. (thanks to @cpk3kz)
  
• There is now a Refresh button on your bookmarks page, which will allow you to force-update your Bookmarks list. (thanks to @cs9krq)
  
• Updated the in-game playlist UI to be smaller, so it doesn't crowd out the rest of the UI on full-bodied mode.
  
• You can now paste with a gamepad on the Lookup page by pressing "Y" (on Xbox controller, or equivalent on other controllers).
  
• When playing a playlist in-game, there is now an indicator at the top-center of the screen that shows your position in the current playlist.
  
• Player-made levels that have been selected for the Tower Trial will now display the Tower Trial badge on them.

Gameplay

• Purge gates now remove all powerups, including armor and temporary buffs such as the Dbot.
  
• Rebalanced score values of jems, enemies and dunking the package to be roughly triple what they used to be. This should make the strategies for score hunting quite different from the strategies for speed running, which should make score hunting more interesting. This change is retroactive across all previous levels, so get ready to steal some crowns!
  
• Updated the Tempswitch (in development) to have better audio cues, to only countdown when not being activated, and to have cleaner item properties.
  
• Rocket projectiles (in development) now explode on contact with enemies.
  
• Slightly reduced the cooldown on re-entering portals you just came from, to make it easier to pop back in.
  
• "Rocket" style projectiles now explode like bombs.
  
• Physics tweaks to the propeller and jet of the Ripcord powerup, to make it smoother to recover from falls, and to allow you to use your copter or jet after being launched out of a Blaster.

Biomes

• Implemented the second draft of the Asteroid Tunnels background concept (in development).

Multiplayer

• When you have "Players Share Powerups" set to "Yes", picking up an armor plate, Dbot, or Lectroshield will now apply that pickup to all players. (thanks to @p685gq)

Fixes

Web

• Level attempts should now be properly recorded on level stats when the player dies after a checkpoint. This fix will result in a fairly strong rebalancing of difficulty rankings of levels over time, and levels with checkpoints will start seeing a lot more attempts visible on their stats over time.
  
• Fixed an issue with parsing failed stat sending requests to Rumpus.
  
• The stats of the levels in your recent graduates list in the Marketing Department should now be kept up-to-date more reliably. Previously, a level would graduate to the Tower, but its stats in your Recent Graduates list would be stuck at whatever they were when you saw it last. (thanks to @ref0kg)
  
• Fixed an issue with handling stat sending errors that would cause a crash.
  
• You cannot play a level if the level reverter is currently running.

Audio

• Toned down the volume slightly on explosions, punching enemies, and lock switches.
  
• Updated the Level Publish jingle to be tied to sound volume instead of music volume, so you don't end up with a wildly flailing level orb in a quiet, unsettling void.
  
• Slightly reduced the volume on successive rocket and bomb explosions that overlap each other.

Editor

• The white path movement indicator in the Editor should no longer get stuck in place when you cycle past the "Stop" option for its ending behavior. (thanks to @3719xx)
  
• Items that can be attached to paths are now version-specific, so they don't break with older levels. Spike Traps, Flippy Longswitches, and Lockswitches on levels made before prior to patch 0.6.10 will not attach to paths in those levels, since that feature didn't exist at that time.
  
• Updated the Jukebox to default to "Disaster Manager" music instead of "Death Executive", since "Death Executive" is not unlocked until later in the campaign. (thanks to @cgm03g)

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where Swoopadoops and Blopfush that emerged from prize blocks would travel through terrain before popping out the other side, and then they would teleport back to their starting location. Now, they just stay at their starting location. Non-flying enemies still move through terrain when emerging from prize blocks, as intended. This change does not affect Swoopadoops and Blopfush on levels published before this version. (thanks to @26kmgd)
  
• Fixed an issue with Swoopadoops that emerged from prize blocks starting in weird places. Now, they always emerge right out of the prize block.
  
• You will no longer cause Dense Fog to break through walls by hitting the walls super fast. (thanks to @rmyh5h)
  
• When you strike multiple Prize Blocks or Brittle Rocks at the same time (with your head or the package), all of the blocks you struck will react, instead of just one.
  
• Sky Wigglers (fans) now have a cap for how fast they will accelerate an object.
  
• Fixed an issue with items on Switch-controlled paths not being properly restored via checkpoint respawns. (thanks to @3719xx)
  
• Slightly extended the cooldown on re-entering the same blaster. Players on low-end machines were getting sucked back into the same blaster they launched from. (thanks to @7n4fnm)
  
• Updated physics of spinning platforms to use the new velocity inheritance model, to eliminate random player flings.
  
• Refined the physics of platforms moving on paths, so that spikes in frame rates won't blast the player sideways like a missile when they land on a platform or jump off of one.
  
• Platforms moving on paths should now move more smoothly and not have any jittering to them.
  
• You can no longer fire your Ripcord jets while inside a blaster.
  
• Levels published prior to version 0.6.5 will continue to have the less predictable jump height for GR18 that was fixed in version 0.6.5. All levels published in version 0.6.5 or later will have the more consistent jump height.
  
• Fixed an issue where Blopfush or Swoopadoops that respawned from checkpoints after coming out of a prize block would no longer be at the correct location.
  
• Fixed an issue where bomb and enemy generators wouldn't explode if they were restored from a checkpoint and then ran out of respawns.
  
• Enemy generators on paths will now spawn Swoopadoops and Blopfush at the correct location, and the spawned enemies will not be attached to the path. (thanks to @cgm03g)
  
• Updated jump timers to remove inconsistencies where, at a full 60 FPS, random jumps would put you just enough pixels higher that you could barely clear one more tile. These random extra-tile jumps should no longer be possible.

Tower Trial

• If you report a level during the Tower Trial, you will exit that tower trial.
  
• If you attempt to play a Tower Trial that has a level in it that you have reported for a code of conduct violation, you will be met with a message stating that you cannot play this Trial.
  
• If you have reported a level in the Tower Trial, you can no longer play the Tower Trial for that day.
  
• Fixed some issues with displaying page change buttons at the bottom of the Tower Trial. (thanks to @rmyh5h)

UI

• Fixed an issue with long hovertext popups where they would temporarily display two lines of text and then go back to displaying one line of text. Now each hovertext toolip should consistently display the same number of lines of text no matter where it is at in its bouncy animation.
  
• Fixed an issue with display of level names in the Infostream when you report the level.
  
• Fixed text overflow in full-bodied UI mode in non-English languages in the headers of the profile page.
  
• Fixed text overflow on the Tower Trial and Daily Build buttons in non-English languages.
  
• When you change the size of the UI, the buttons in the top-left corner of the game weren't changing size to match until you left and returned to the level. Now they do. (thanks to @4tlntf)
  
• Fixed an issue where your Stolen Crowns list wasn't purging levels that you had retaken your crowns on.
  
• Fixed some issues with the Tower Trial interface sticking around after it is finished.
  
• When you aren't subscribed to anyone or have nobody on your buddy list, you will get messages explaining these facts when looking at those lists in your profile, rather than the cryptic "no results found" message, or nothing at all.
  
• If you weren't subscribed to any creators, then your Feed in your profile would load up whatever tab's content you were last looking at, instead of showing you nothing (like it should). This has been fixed.

Localization

• Fixed the text overflow issues for Chinese in the settings menu.

File Management

• Fixed some issues with handling of buffers. Should notice no change generally, but might fix some platform-specific bugs.

Campaign

• Badge counts on the new campaign interface were showing an incorrect number of badges. This has been fixed! (thanks to @kdkswt)
  
• Your campaign progress percentage will now update in real-time when you unlock a badge.

Developer

• Added a failsafe to keep from publishing levels with unfinished content onto the beta server.

Visuals

• Updated icon of Prize Block to reflect the new color scheme.

Text

• Fixed a capitalization issue on the confirmation window for reverting levels.

This week marks the 7th year of Butterscotch Shenanigans existing. We formed this studio during a long road trip from our hometown in Iowa to St. Louis. Back then our dream was to create a creative company that could house whatever zany things the three of us individually produced: Adam was going to make science apps, Seth was going to make games, and I was going to write stories.

Fast-forward a few years later and the three of us brothers found ourselves enthralled by the problems and opportunities in game dev. No matter how much we learned, it seemed there was always more to uncover. We've now got 6 games available, hundreds of thousands of fans, a weekly podcast, and our own little office with Shi (our platform specialist) & Sampada (our Operations Engineer) here in St. Louis! To all of you who have been part of our journey, big or small, thank you for letting us do what we do! WHAT A RIDE!






HOOHOO SEGUE'D! Spekio whipped up a sailing adventure for GR-18 in Jungle Top Ferry Ride (click any of these links for bookmarking!). Take yourself sailing this weekend and enjoy one of the fanciest hobbies there is, you fancy sailor you.




Taking inspiration from both Bob Ross and the Building with Sam youtube series, Play has been producing timelapse build videos with smooth, bassy vocals and chill music. His series tackles the Daily Build challenge, so if you've missed out on any of those and want to see what others came up with, this is a great place to start.




Community Paragon and resident speedrunner Retrophile has kicked things up another notch by successfully beating campaign levels while wearing a blindfold. What. How... just watch.




Making great use of sharps and a clever path system that allows for eight-notes, MeiDerMon's music level GR-18 Does Wildly Music is an impressive display of musical talent - so much so that we blared it from the office speakers repeatedly. Check out the Music Boxes tag in the Tower to see more levels like these!

• Gkar created a Pac-Man series, paying homage to an old classic bookmark
  
• Bmiclock, not to be outdone, created a thrilling Legend of Zelda level bookmark
  
• Ursagames got real creative with jem gates and package throws in this quick, fun platforming challenge bookmark
  
• Awesome Games made a level almost entirely out of invisible prizeblocks, creating a level-building-itself effect bookmark
  
• TalkGibberish's Fire at Blopfush had us feeling like a battleship commander bookmark

HAPPY THURSDAY, LEVELHEADS!

It's been six weeks since the launch of Levelhead into Early Access, and we've deployed a patch every Wednesday since launch. This rapid feedback cycle has allowed us to be extremely responsive to unforeseen problems in the game's design, fix bugs, and pump out little improvements here and there.

But now that we're past that initial batch of updates and the game has become more stable, we thought it best to take a step back and evaluate how we're doing. After doing some math on whiteboards and deliberating while gesturing wildly, we've learned that the weekly patch cycle is actually doing some harm to our development process, and that we need to change things up. So although this is about the time we'd be dropping patch 0.7 right onto your faces, like a mama bird feeding her weird, bulging-eyed babies, we're going to hold off on that. Instead, we're going to shift from a one-week dev cycle for patches, to a two-week dev cycle, which means patch 0.7 will come next week instead of today, and it will be much, much larger.

But don't worry! Although this means patches will be more spread out, this will enable us to do much bigger things with each patch. So as a player, this means you'll get more content over time than you previously would, in the long run. Curious about the HOW and the WHY? Read on!


Under the one-week model, we frequently had to pause large features and then come back to them later, so we could guarantee we had some batch of content to release. But that meant rushing things out the door at the last minute, which is not a great idea.

Plus, bouncing back and forth between working on major, unfinished features like this will increase the likelihood of introducing bugs or missing important aspects of the feature, and the compile times and switching times add up, too. So a large feature that might take three days to implement will actually end up taking five, and it'll be less stable and under-tested.

Last, with every Wednesday going into patch deployment, we lose at least a half-day of development every Wednesday, but typically more than that, due to things like final bug fixing, writing and proliferating blog posts about the patch, and monitoring community channels for any major problems.

The two-week model, by contrast will have the following benefits:

• Every other Wednesday, we can just continue developing for the full day, instead of deploying. This means we get nine days of dev time instead of eight, every two weeks. That's a 12% increase in pure dev time, which means more features, more bug fixes, and more improvements to the game overall.
  
• We can work on large features and get them finished and tested in one go, even if they take five development days, without having to stop work on them to rush something else out the door. These features will be more stable and get finished faster as a result. The kinds of features that take a long time are major UI overhauls, new biomes and tile sets, powerups, web features, and major new mechanics that change gameplay in interesting ways. Under the one-week cycle, we wouldn't be able to do as many of these things.
  
• We will have time to test new features more thoroughly, leading to more stable patches.
  
• We have breathing room to experiment and prototype new items, which is important for the long-term feature set of the game. We need time to try bad ideas, so we can find the good ones!

So, all in all, we should be seeing much meatier patches, with a better flow of content and updates in the long run. If you're curious about what we're working on and what's coming in the next patch, you can see the unreleased patch notes over at https://www.bscotch.net/games/levelhead/patchnotes.


It's been a wild ride so far, and the Levelhead community has been incredibly inspiring and understanding as we get our footing and figure this whole Early Access thing out. You have all given us the confidence to strive to make Levelhead into something truly great. Big things are ahead!

We'll see you next Wednesday for patch 0.7!

• Seth, the Game Programmer

Levelhead is a community game at its heart. The thing that makes it special isn't just the game - it's the unique collection of people who play it.

Today we'd like to cast a special spotlight on some select members of the Levelhead community, as we congratulate them for being the first cohort of Levelhead Paragons. You may have seen their names in previous spotlights - and for good reason!


A Paragon is a model of excellence. As Levelhead has grown since the start of Early Access, there have been several community members whose contributions to both the game and the community have gone above and beyond anything we anticipated. And, on top of that, they've been enduring sources of positivity for the community as a whole.

Beginning today, the following community members have been given a special role as Paragons on Discord, displaying their radness for all to see.

• Quantum Anomaly - for streaming to the Steam store page during our launch weekend and for pushing the boundaries of Levelhead's creative tools such that his creations have inspired others.
  
• 9joao6 - for pushing us, as a team, to further embrace the Contraption aspect of Levelhead, and providing us memorable highlight material in the form of Pokemon, an Arcade, and the first Levelhead Calculator
  
• RetrophileTV - for creating the Speedrunner's Guild and evolving it over time with deeper systems and a sustainable community-run model. May you ever be fleet of foot.
  
• Popdonk Baggycool - for creating the one and only Levelhead level review site and guiding new level creators in making better and better levels. Butterscotchrecommends
  
• Cprice - for starting the Levelcup community building competition (first challenge is still accepting levels) and pushing the dev team toward an open API for Levelhead.
  
• Trillionaire - for creating video of all campaign levels and keeping them up to date amidst all the changes of Early Access.

Thanks to all of you for making the Levelhead community what it is. We seriously can't wait to grow the game alongside you and see who else joins you in the hallowed halls of the Paragons!




Y'all have been suggesting we try out Parsec with Levelhead to see if it works well for online play. WELL, I'm pumped to say that we gave it a whirl from our homes last night and found it worked beautifully. For those who want to play Levelhead co-op but don't have someone nearby, grab Parsec and hop in the discord to fish up a friend to play with! (This has also been added to the Steam FAQ)


This week the community closed in on over 3 months of playtime on user-created levels, and more than 1500 levels published! We've got a handful of level highlights that made us go WOAAAAAAH, including our first Co-Op level highlight!




Using Parsec, Seth and I dove into this cave (bookmark)as a pair of rascals and emerged as a pint-sized Seal Team 6. It requires teamwork, precision, and very few mistakes. Kudos to MarioBoo for making such a solid co-op level. Grab a friendo and go for it!

BG's level playthrough is straight-up exhilarating to watch. You can bookmark it here: https://lvlhd.co/+jh5fcxd




In the spirit of Trap Adventure, Sephy created Unfortunate Adventure (bookmark). This one had me busting up in stitches as every single move I made was instantly rebuffed by a surprising, painful death. It's a troll level, but one that is remarkably sticky and fun to stumble through.




Recreating the Mission Impossible (bookmark) theme using boomboxes is impressive enough, but designing an entire level to feel like you're pulling off a heist - complete with slow descent package-grab - put this level by Stratonian over the top.




Contraptions are one of our favorite parts of Levelhead. Using the randomness generated by portals, TalkGibberish managed to recreate the classic memory game Simon Says as Vacrat See, Vacrat Do (bookmark)! Each run presents a different memory challenge, and the finale lets you do a fly-by of the off-screen logic required to make the contraption go.

It's been a whirlwind of a week over here, with more levels, more players, and more updates in the works. Thanks for playing and have a great weekend!

It's been a BOMBASTIC week here at Bscotch HQ! We have some big features cooking, but we still managed to squeeze in one or two teeny tiny changes into the game this week. Nothing major. You know... no big deal. Our focus for this patch was to give players more control over the general mood of their levels, and to take care of some higher-leverage things that we've been wanting to take care of for a long time. Let's dive in!


Have you ever thought, "Oh dang, it'd be great if I could make the music in my level get really intense during a boss fight!" Or, "I wish I could make this part of my level more relaxed"? Well, now you can, with the power of the JUKEBOX! Just drop this little buddy in your level, and activate it at any time using a switch for a dramatic mood shift!



You can have as many Jukeboxes in your level as you want. We've also made two new songs available through the Jukebox: "Disaster Manager" and "Death Executive". These songs are pretty intense, so... use them sparingly. Or just go crazy. It's your level, you can do what you want!


Along with the ability to control the music in your level, we wanted to give you more control over the visuals of your level as well. So this week, we are releasing the weather options for the Tree of Maarla biome (Rain) and the Aquadunes biome (Snow).



Between this and the Jukebox, we're pumped to see a FLOOD of new levels with cool and interesting vibes!


YEP. You didn't misread that. It's a thing.



ALL RIGHT. This one will take some explaining. Our number one player request since the Early Access launch has been the ability to unpublish or delete levels that you have published. We pushed back against this, because we are planning out some features that will essentially cease to function if we can't count on levels... you know... existing.

For example, one feature we're hoping to implement down the road is something called "Playlists." The idea is to allow players to compile levels together into playlists, and share those playlists with each other. However, if you made a playlist, and then half the levels in your playlist just vanished (because their creators unpublished them), then the Playlist feature is essentially broken.

However, we realized that we could solve this problem by taking advantage of the fact that levels spend the first part of their lives in the Marketing Department. If we allow you to unpublish a level only if it's in the Marketing Department, then we can integrate all of these future features -- features that rely on your level being permanent -- into the Tower. So, another way to think of it is, the Marketing Department is a pretty volatile place, where levels are popping in and out, while the Tower is a permanent archive.

A fair warning, though: If you Revert a level back to the Workshop and then republish it, it is effectively a brand-new level.


It's graduation week! And you know what that means. It means it's time to do a BETTER JOB of celebrating your levels when they graduate to the tower! Or at least, saying something about it.



Now, in the "My Levels" tab of the Marketing Department, you can see a list of your five most recent levels that have graduated to the Tower. You can even copy their share codes from there, in case you want to pass them around to your buddies!


We've got a whole bunch of other great improvements this week, all in the patch notes below! Oh, and be sure to read the part about Cromblers. That's going to be... something.




See the full patchnotes.

New Features

Workshop

• You can now revert your Marketing Department levels back to the Workshop, by visiting the "My Levels" tab. Any level reverted to the Workshop will be unpublished. All of its Exposure Bucks will lost, its stats and records will be lost, and its Lookup Code will cease to function. Effectively, the next time you publish it, it is a new level. Alternatively, you can just delete the level once it has been reverted into your Workshop, using the normal Workshop level deletion method. Once a level graduates to the Tower, it can no longer be reverted.

New Item

• Introducing the JUKEBOX! You can use it to change the music in the middle of a level. Jukeboxes are invisible during gameplay (like camera anchors), and they require being activated by a switch.

Improvements

Campaign

• Campaign levels with Bumpers have been updated to fit with the new Bumper physics a little better.
  
• New Badge "Hyper Reactive" in the forest region. This badge contains the Jukebox, the song "Disaster Manager" (for the Jukebox), and the Proximity Switch, which has been moved up from later in the campaign.
  
• New Badge "Downpour" in the forest region. This badge contains rain.
  
• New badge "Leadership Training" is now available after achieving 100% on Nope Cart. This badge contains the song "Death Executive" for the Jukebox.
  
• The badge "True Grit" has been renamed "Wind Chill," which gives the Snowstorm weather effect for Aquadunes levels.
  
• "Sandstorm" weather is now available after beating Dune Doom Dream.
  
• Firefall is now an Aquadunes-biome level.
  
• The Jukebox system for changing music mid-level has been integrated into more campaign levels, including Mad Vacrat Nest, Be Sneaky, Swoopadoop Gulch, The Way is Through, A Quick Delivery, Pow Pow Magic, and That's an Incredible Gr-18.

Gameplay

• Updated physics of wall jumping and bumpers to be more responsive to your control inputs, so you don't "drift" in midair when you don't want to.
  
• Bumpers now knock targets away in 8 directions (45 degree increments) instead of down to the single degree. This should make Bumpers more predictable and easier to play with.
  
• Cromblers now trigger pressure plates. (thanks to QuantumAnomaly)
  
• Pressure plates have had their detection width increased slightly, so they should detect blocks and objects toward their edges more easily.

Editor

• Added new words to the Name Combobulator: Sky, Space, Star, Hear, Arcade, Game, Listen, Deep, Change, Spend, Buy, Sell, Win, Lose, Forget, Trigger, Boom, Plateau, Island, Cavern, Cliff, Rain, Storm, Thunder, Blizzard, Blues, Play, Little, Bail
  
• Added the verb "Stop" to the name combobulator.
  
• Sproings can now be placed inside Brittle Rock, Prize Blocks, Enemies, and Hard Clay. (thanks to QuantumAnomaly)
  
• Cromblers can now be given a Receiving Channel, so they can listen to switches. (thanks to QuantumAnomaly)
  
• Cromblers can now have their cooldown customized in their properties.
  
• The minimum cooldown on Cannons and Lookannons has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 1 second.

Web

• Logging in to Rumpus clears all previous timestamps for web operations, so you should be able to sync data more reliably after a login.
  
• Your Stolen Crowns now come in more reliably from the web, so you will be notified in-game fairly quickly after someone steals one of your crowns. Under the previous system, many stolen crowns were falling through the cracks. This change is not reverse-compatible, so you may end up seeing some different levels in your stolen crowns list than were there before, while others may be missing. Don't be alarmed! We're just cinching things up.
  
• Created a notifications checker system that will be able to more reliably pull down stolen crowns, and will know when levels you have made have graduated to the tower.

Workshop

• The Daily Build level list now shows all of the most recently-published Daily Build levels, instead of only the levels published that match today's build.
  
• There is no longer a limit on how many levels you can have in your workshop.

UI

• When you hover over a Rumpus lookup code on a player's profile page, it now changes color to indicate that you can click on it.
  
• Added a section to the "My Levels" part of the Marketing Department, to list your most recently-graduated levels that have been moved the tower.
  
• The number of coins in a level is now displayed in the top-right corner of the screen, even on player-made levels. (thanks to OneOfThreeNames)

Fixes

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where if you pressed jump right after coming off of a wall slide, your wall jump would send you straight up instead of off the wall.
  
• When you are hanging on a ceiling but going super fast (like after being shot out of a Blaster), it should now be much easier to get your speed under control. (thanks to Cammymoop Mowvary)
  
• You can now acquire coins and other pickups while inside a Blaster. (thanks to Egietje)
  
• Gently placing an object down on the ground will now put that object at your center, instead of weirdly off to the side.
  
• If a guided missile cannon was attached to a switch and was active right at the start of a level, the first missile would always shoot to the right. This has been fixed.
  
• Fixed some issues with collision detection of invisible Prize Blocks.
  
• The package will now trigger invisible prize blocks when it hits them from the correct angle.
  
• If you grab a Flingo after being fired out of a Blaster, you will regain control of your character.
  
• When Cromblers attached to switches start in an "On" state at the beginning of a level, they should no longer have a weird smear frame on their eyeball while the level is starting.

UI

• Fixed an issue where the marketing department would continue to flash to notify you that you have a new graduated level, even if you've already seen the level.
  
• Choosing tags no longer resets your sorting and filtering dropdown menu selections in the Tower.
  
• Fixed the display of the Joystick Deadzone setting to always show percentages.
  
• Fixed an issue where the name of a recent level graduate could overlap with the plays counter.
  
• Fixed an issue where the marketing department would keep telling you that you had a recently-graduated level, even though you've already seen it.
  
• You can now skip the Made with Game Maker splash screen with a controller by pressing Start.

Web

• Updated cooldown for notifications checking to 3 minutes.
  
• Made level reversion more robust and less prone to errors.
  
• Made the level publisher system more robust, to avoid problems with uploading stages and catch more failure cases.
  
• When you go to change your name, the game will load in your Levelhead alias instead of your Rumpus alias as the default.
  
• Made the save syncer more reliable in the event that you have to log back in after your credentials expire.

Editor

• Fixed some issues with entering numbers outside of bounds on the item properties Numpad. You can now enter whatever you want, but in the properties window it will be bounded by the min and the max.

Controls

• You now have to move the mouse 2 pixels or more to switch from Gamepad mode to Mouse mode, instead of 1 pixel. Some users have misbehaving mice that wiggle by a pixel every now and then, and this was pulling them out of Controller mode.

Loading

• Fixed an issue with loading of files containing non-ASCII characters, that would result in odd results being shown in search results from time to time.

It's the building competition to end all building competitions! The Levelcup is a community-run creative competition, wherein players build levels, submit them to the contest, and can then win prizes.

WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS? Cprice, of course. He dug into the API that powers Levelhead and reverse-engineered it to be able to scrape level data from our servers. After a quick chat with us to make sure he wasn't going to get himself permabanned for his cleverness, we decided this is pretty rad and something we'd love to support, if only in a technical capacity. While we don't yet have an open API, which would make constructing things like this easier in the future, this has placed that target steadily on our radar.

If you want to participate, go check it out!




Youtuber Ceave, known for his exploration of the finer mechanics of Super Mario Maker, took our title for a spin and compiled a video of the 5 things Super Mario Maker can learn from Levelhead. Seeing someone who so thoroughly got what we're trying to do was great to see... and it brought a fresh wave of players into the game, making us hit our highest concurrent player count ever! WAHOOO!




I saw The Danger Swing bookmark in the discord, stared at it for a few minutes, and couldn't fathom how the heck it worked. It turns out that if you put multiple Spike Chainers on a path, then set the path to STOP when objects reach the end, you can stack them up and make intricate, horrfiying designs. Thanks for teaching me something, Cammymoop!

P.S. - if you see this in the campaign you all know who to blame




Every so often we see a bug that makes us think - is that really a bug, or is it just an accidental feature? In GR-18 the Light Machine bookmark, Anihilator uses batteries and the power of Valhalla to make us feel like Thor. The old Thor though, not the one from Avengers: End Game.




The Path Style can be used not just for paths, but also for decor! In Popjaw City Rush bookmark, Pure Knickers builds a great feeling city, complete with a cable bridge.

• The Speedrunner's Guild, run by RetrophileTV, got some process improvements with a form for submitting levels for consideration, and a Season concept to bracket out the runs. Get involved over on the discord!
  
• Popdonk's level review blog completed its first Weekly Challenge - dig in and bookmark levels till you burst!
  
• In an homage to arcade games of old, Bmiclock's Blopfush Bop 4 bookmark had us thinking about quarters and game tickets.
  
• SleetSdf93's Puzzle Escape bookmark level is a beautifully short puzzle that'll have you scratching your noggin'
  
• Sarcastrophe's Ouch, That Wild Tower bookmark restored karmic balance to the world by making me play a Dune Doom Dream-like level
  
• Enzonaki's Bomba Do Suco De Maracujoia bookmark teaches a new mechanic - lateral bomb jumps!

Until next week!

-Sam

It's been a busy week! Sam ran off gallivanting in San Diego, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves while he basked in the gray skies and luscious rainstorms. Without his guidance, we had to just make up a bunch of stuff and hope for the best. Is this how you game dev?


This week we're introducing the LECTROSHIELD as a new workshop item! When you touch it, lightning surges through your body, and any enemies you touch -- even bosses -- are instantly sent to a farm upstate. It's really far away. You know what? Don't even worry about that part.




Now, we wouldn't be so stingy as to give you a new Lectroshield without giving you a seemingly endless number of enemies to use it on. The time was right, so alongside the Lectroshield, we're introducing the ROBO FACTORY! It's a spawner that can summon different types and sizes of enemies. It can even be hooked up to switches and paths!



We're a little uncomfortable pondering what kinds of horrifying contraptions people are going to make with these, so we just won't!


We have a TON of optimizations for the editor this week. In our tests, we saw extremely large and complex levels go from 15 frames per second in the editor to over 200 frames per second. Building giant levels has never been easier! Just kidding, it's just as hard as it ever was. But now it's smooth!


This is fine. Frame-rate wise. Morally, it is not fine.


See the thing is, we got this Item Properties window. You can use it to tweak all kinds of stuff. Want to point a blaster somewhere? How about setting a portal color? We got you! At least, we had you. Right up until your fingers went numb from clicking a billion arrows a billion times.

When you've got numb fingers, you need numb solutions! Introducing the NUMB PAD!



Now you can click on the numbers for certain properties to summon a Numpad, and type exactly the value you want. Aside from being much faster to use, this also makes it possible to set values that were previously unreachable. For example, you can now tell a blaster to spin at 3 degrees per second, where previously, you could only change it in 90 degree increments.

We also squeezed in some extra quality of life features to the properties window, including visual dividers so you can better parse what you're looking at, and Receiver/Sender numbers that gray out when they aren't connected to anything. IT'S MAGICAL!


That's all we've got this week! OH WAIT... No it's not. Patch notes below!



See the full patchnotes.

New Features

New Item

• You can now use the "Robo Factory" in the workshop once you unlock it in the campaign. The Robo Factory is an enemy generator object that can continue respawning enemies, and can be attached to switches and paths.
  
• You can now use the "Lectroshield" in the workshop once you unlock it in the campaign. The Lectroshield is a temporary powerup that causes you to become electrified. While electrified, you are impervious to damage from direct contact with enemies, and any enemy you touch is instantly blasted into oblivion with powerful lightning bolts.

Campaign

• New levels have been added to the campaign to unlock the Lectroshield and the Robo Factory.

Controls

• Added a new setting where you can change the deadzone of your controller's joystick. By default it is 20% (which is what it was), but you can now set it between 10% and 80%. (thanks to Morrison)

Editor

• You can now manually edit the values of some item properties. Available properties have a button next to their number. Clicking the button will pop open a numpad, which you can use your controller or mouse to click, or you can type numbers using your keyboard. This is the first iteration of this feature, so it is subject to change quite a lot (functionally and visually), but we wanted to get it into people's hands early to get feedback. This will also allow you to give values to some item properties that were previously not possible. For example, you can now tell a blaster to rotate at 13 degrees per second, where previously you could only change it in 90 degree/second intervals.

Improvements

UI

• The tower no longer has "Past Day" filters, but instead has "Past Week", "Past Month", and "All Time". It defaults to "Past Month."
  
• The Tower now defaults to sorting levels by "Newest" instead of "Most Played." Having a Most Played list is great for finding good content, but bad for finding fresh content. Sorting by "Most Played" is still an option in the dropdown.
  
• Added new sort options to the Tower: Least Played, Most Played, Easiest, Hardest, and Spicy. What are Spicy levels? They are levels that have a lot of spice.
  
• Updated the "Claim guest save" prompt to have it better explain how claiming a save works. (thanks to rednos)
  
• Updated the Level Creation interface to better match the Workshop interface.

Web

• Newly-published levels will store their size and weather in their metadata, for future uses.
  
• Added logging to failed login attempts. Logs will be output to a text file for easier debugging.
  
• Updated the daily build checker to have a 10-minute cooldown, so it doesn't check too frequently.

Editor

• Added faded divider lines between rows in the Item Properties window, to more easily connect properties to values at a glance.
  
• When you enter values into the Properties Window numpad, it will now auto-update the item's property value in real time, instead of requiring you to press "OK". if you enter values outside the min or the max, the value will shake and will not be accepted.
  
• When assigning Sending/Receiving Channels in the Item Properties window, the channel ID will be greyed out if there is no current connection in that channel.
  
• Added color-coding to the "Any/All Active/Inactive" text in the item properties window, to make it easier to parse.
  
• Renamed "Switch ID" to "Sending Channel" and "Receiver ID" to "Receiving Channel" to make it more clear what is happening.
  
• Removed the numpad spawning buttons that were in between the arrows. Instead, you can just click on the number to summon the numpad (where applicable). The buttons everywhere were messing with horizontal alignment, making it hard to visually parse values.
  
• When you place a portal, it now takes on the color of the highest-ID portal, as well as auto-incrementing the ID.
  
• The Editor will now remember your zoom state between plays. (thanks to Choyawp Cehappy)
  
• Added words to the Name Combobulator: Shop, Market, Awe, Thrilling, Operation, Almost, Barely, Methodical, Revenge, Thaw
  
• Added the ampersand ("&") symbol to the puncuation list in the Name Combobulator. (thanks to QuantumAnomaly)
  
• Added "Choice" tag to the editor, for levels that feature some kind of meaningful decision the player must make. (thanks to ThePatchWorkHoax)
  
• Renamed "Container Block" to "Prize Block", because... it's destiny. (thanks to RetrophileTV)
  
• Massively optimized numerous items in the editor. Levels that contain large numbers of these items will see frame rate boosts in the editor by 5x-15x. Items optimized: Spike Trap, Trigblaster, Blaster, Powered Gate, Camera Anchor, Whizblade, Battle Switch, Burny Whirler, Spike Chainer, Boombox, Package Cam, Purge Gate, Sky Wiggler, Charge Switch, Clockswitch, Flippy Longswitch, Jem Gate, Flingo, Jem Switch, Blopfush, Lookannon, Bumper, Swoopadoop, Eye Switch, Spinny Platform, Crombler, Cannon, Balloog, and Regret Gate.
  
• Updated how the editor handles wall-mounted items, to behave in a far more optimzed fashion. You should see the editor's performance improved on levels with a large number of Spike Traps, Levers, Lockswitches, Clockswitches, and Battery Switches.
  
• The Editor numpad now allows you to input "-" as the first character to type out a negative, instead of just having "-" invert the currently displayed number.
  
• Some visual improvements to the placement of buttons in the properties window with the new Numpad.
  
• Expanded the width of the properties window a bit on Full-Bodied UI mode, to give the text more breathing room.

Campaign

• Pow Pow Magic's arrows are now better placed to guide the player's first charge-jumps.
  
• Dang Sky Wiggler's final jump has been reworked to be less punishing.

Fixes

Editor

• The Editor now is instantly zoomed to the correct level when you exit play mode, instead of starting zoomed in and then zooming out.
  
• The enemy generator was allowing players to spawn enemies they hadn't unlocked yet in the campaign. This has been fixed!
  
• The numpad now goes away when the properties window goes away, such as when you open the Level Details page.
  
• Boombox sharps no longer move position in the item properties window when you change instruments.
  
• When you have a numpad open but click a modifier for a different property on the same item, the numpad will no longer get confused and update the wrong property.

Gameplay

• Turned off the gamepad rumble from Blasters, since they are currently the only thing in the game that uses rumble. Rumble will be added back in later!
  
• It should now seriously be impossible to get stuck in the space between two closed doors that are adjacent to each other. This will now lead to GR18's death, for real this time.
  
• Enemy drops should now properly restore at checkpoints, instead of always turning into Blopsacks when you pick them up after a checkpoint respawn. (thanks to Retro Banana Man NL)
  
• Lizumis will now only bounce violently off a wall if they have their spikes out.
  
• Extended the cooldown on re-entering the same blaster by 1 frame. In some cases, players were re-entering the blaster they were fired from right as they exited it, trapping them... forever.
  
• Fixed an issue where collision masks of Rifts were larger than apprpriate, and offset to the side somewhat.
  
• Fixed an issue with throw blocks now being 1 pixel too tall.

Web

• Fixed YET ANOTHER issue with retrieving page 2 and beyond of stored lists in your profile!
  
• Pages 2 and beyond in your Favorites and Bookmarks lists should now properly display their contents. (thanks to Popdonk Baggycool, Zivix)
  
• The searcher should more accurately restore your bookmarks list when you return to it after playing a level inside it.
  
• The Daily Build updater should now stay up-to-date more reliably with the day's build. It shouldn't ever be more than a half-hour out of sync. (thanks to Reallyzamma Etkayuppa)
  
• Fixed an issue where, in rare cases, Rumpus would think an old file is up-to-date when it isn't, and then not download. (thanks to Retro Banana Man NL)

Visuals

• Removed the 1px gap that sometimes appears when GR18 is standing on top of a package.

Campaign

• The Armor in "That's a New Crisis" should now appear at the correct time.

UI

• You will no longer see multiple columns of levels in the Marketing Department if you are using an ultrawide monitor. (thanks to ROUS)

Developer

• It is no longer possible to publish levels on the public server that contain work-in-progress items.

Data

• Fixed a problem with saving/loading of the player save file that was causing the Beaten Levels list to load improperly, which was making save syncs not function.

It's been another week in Levelhead land, and things are GETTING WEIRD over here. This week saw the release of the Daily Build feature, which has already spawned a cascade of wacky levels.



Right out of the gate, Popdonk Baggycool (@6rad6u) took it upon himself to turn the Daily Build into a COMMUNITY CHALLENGE! Popdonk's challenge: Utilize the Daily Build to create a level that is themed around the adverb "Reasonably."

This challenge will last until Sunday, when levels will be submitted into a poll to be voted on by the community for favorite level. At the end of the voting phase the community favorite will receive a highlight on the Popdonk Blog, alongside another level that Popdonk recommends.

Want to participate? Submit your levels in the Bscotch Discord channel levelhead-sharecodes or in the Levelhead Subreddit Weekly Build Challenge thread. So git on out there and get building!


Do you want to be... the very best? Now you can, thanks to Joe Ah Oh's (@2x7lcg) level Pocket Buddy!



This level simulates a battle in the style of the early Pokemon games, using Levelhead objects to create health bars, a creature selection screen, and a real turn-based battle system. As is common in a Joe Ah Oh contraption, Joe left an opening at the end of the level so you can inspect how the machine works. Let's peek behind the curtain!



A combination of balloogs, throw blocks, switches, and rifts allow for the battle buddy selection.



Crates on conveyor belts hit pressure plates to manage the battle options.

Although we could go on about the intricacies of this incredible level ALL DANG DAY, you can just check it out for yourself! And if you've been interested in making music in Levelhead, Joe even managed to recreate the battle music using Boomboxes!




Get that ancient ruins heist feel without leaving your house, in the level "Explore the Hidden Temple" (qbxn1z9)! This level is a suitable challenge for all skill levels, with a bit of treasure hunting, falling traps, and puzzles. With almost 24 full hours of playtime generated across 1400 attempts, this level is bound to become a classic. Bookmark the level here, and be sure to give Sjosz (@rswljz) a subscribe!




Short, simple, and forgiving! Moogthedog (@26kmgd) throws together a variety of interesting elements in "Bad Jump? No Problem!" (zq9rkjt) without punishing the player. It’s almost as if... you must throw yourself onto the spikes to progress... but we’re not fooling anyone here. We died on the spikes even without even trying!


The early days of Levelhead saw the birth of the Speedrunners Guild led by RetrophileTV. Not to be outdone, Quantum Anomaly (@ya0lqh) has taken up the mantle and formed the very first Levelhead Builders Guild! Members of the Bscotch Discord have declared their allegiances via carefully-selected emojis tacked on to the end of their names.



What guild will we see next? Speed-builders? Campaign trotters? Slow-slappers? The Emoji Wars... have begun.


BUT WAIT! Before you go... Here are some of the highlight levels of the week!


ngspr55 | "Waylay Temple Of Spike Block" by spooderdooder @0kqn33 | Precarious, Waylay, Paths


n0h9n3j | " 6 Golden Gate Hurtle" by Ant @k1bhyn | Beginner-Friendly, Switch-Heavy, Well-Paced

d7061lq | "Just Move The Flyblock" by Misery @5djb5j | Puzzling, Complex, Switch-Heavy

gvx2gxc | "A Small Bumper Run" by Shaggath @4mgftc | Casual, Powerups, Quick

cm6q0dw | "A Mysterious Puzzle Box?" by Cammymoop @cgm03g | Puzzling, Secrets, Complex

b9c23gg | "Squad Level Episode 1" by spooderdooder @0kqn33 | Complex, Powerups, Secrets


This week's Community Spotlight was compiled by Christine Schaper and edited by Seth Coster.