Another week done and another round of magical creativeness! This week GR-18 becomes a nurturing parent, nightmare slayer, dungeon explorer and of course A JUGGLER.

As always remember to click the level names to bookmark them for play later on - LET'S GO



Espurrator's engaging level Super Ocula Cave Adventure 2 brings out the nurturing side of GR-18. GR-18, baby proofs the cave to guide the Ocula through this cave adventure.



Speedrunner Flan has turned into a master creator this week. Brace yourself for the Dream Valley level. The clouds and whizblades can turn into a nightmare for the faint-hearted.



In SchuhBaum's level Ice Castle explore the scary dungeons of the long lost castle. The only companion is your SPIDY SUIT to help you climb through the cobwebs and enemies left behind in time!




Be ready to have all HECK break loose, as you steal the package from the boogey trapped cave in The Fire Stronghold level made by Cyra998.



Practice your juggling skills in Yuca's level Fly Through Whizblade Tree! This is a good starting level for a juggling act of 2 power-ups.

• Tim Conceivable's Way Of The Blaster is a fun puzzle of the blasters!
  
• Alexrd's Tomb Of Descend Hero! is a mix of different flavors and adventure in one level.
  
• MirrorTarget's Unbelievable Mine Trap Stunt makes you dance on the walking escalators to trap and kill the enemies.

WHOA. That was quite the break! Although it has been 3 weeks since the last Dev Blog, we've only had a couple full days of development, on account of 3/5 of our studio being gone most of that WHOOOLE time! Still, we are on track to deploy the next patch on Wednesday, December 18, and we've managed to squeeze in some nice updates in just the couple of days we've had since the last dev blog. So let's take a look!


Generally, our player community has been... mixed... on Boomboxes. Although they're cool conceptually and people like the idea of them, their implementation has made it more difficult than necessary to make cool music. So in this patch, we're working on some nice updates to Boomboxes that will make them much easier to use.



You can now set a Boombox's "Beats Per Minute", as well as how many beats its note lasts, and you can make it repeat on a beat count, too! This should make it far easier to turn your favorite songs into Boombox songs, since you no longer have to try to convert beats into seconds on your own.

We have some other potential updates in the works for Boomboxes, but we'll keep those a surprise!


I had mentioned in the last Developer blog that we've been doing some work on the game's interfaces to make them more cohesive and stylish. Just yesterday, we finalized some updates to the Settings page. Let's take a look!



We've even broken everything down into categories, so you can say goodbye to scrolling for 10,000 years of pain just to find the setting you want! Oh, and we have added a handful of new settings that have been requested for quite some time, like being able to have the Editor not spawn the default level template.


Up until now, our Levelhead launch plans have been to simultaneously launch on Steam (PC/Mac), Nintendo Switch, and Xbox (with Game Pass). And then, at some later date, we would launch on Mobile.

On Monday this week, we sat down to go over those plans, and whether we thought they made sense and gave the game the biggest chance of making an impact. After some deliberation, we had to ask the question: Why not launch on Mobile simultaneously with everything else? We think Levelhead has the capacity to make a huge splash on Mobile, because there simply won't be any other game like it out there. There are some design and business hurdles we'll have to jump over to achieve this, but as it turns out, we are much closer to clearing those than we had originally thought.

So it's now official: We will be simultaneously shipping on six platforms: Steam (PC/Mac), Nintendo Switch, Xbox (with Game Pass), Windows Store (with Game Pass), iOS, and Android. This is pretty atypical; most games will launch on one platform first, then, many months later, they will launch on another, and then another, etc... So you might be asking: "Launching on six platforms at once? Who does that?" We do. We do that. And we think that by having the game available literally everywhere all at once, we will give it the biggest chance of accumulating an absolutely massive following right out of the gate.



We also plan for all platforms to have full cross-platform features. Any level made on any platform should be playable on any other platform, and you will be able to bring your user data across all your devices.

We'll have more information about the mobile version of Levelhead in the near future!

And last, you're probably wondering: When is the launch date? WELL.. We don't know yet. We have about 30 ducks we have to get into a row before we can say for sure, and you know what they say about ducks. They're wily.


Last but not least... Levelhead is in IndieDB's Top 100 Indie Games of 2019! That puts us in the voting pool for the top 10, so if you haven't already, come express your love for Levelhead by giving us some votes!




The next patch is planned for December 18, one week from today! So get ready to... uh.. You know. Reboot your Steam client or whatever! And that's all we have for you this week. I have to get back to programming!


Want to stay tuned with updates in CLOSE TO REAL TIME? Check out our patch notes page to see changes to the game, even before they have hit Steam!

And if you want to get the changes a little earlier than the rest of the folks on Steam, hop into our Discord, where we've got information on getting into the Beta branch.

It's Friday, and that means its time to ROUND UP ALL THE GOODIES! This week we've got some downright delectable levels for your enjoyment, from danceable beats to sustainable treats!

As always, remember to click the level names to bookmark them for later on. HERE WE GO!



Msmiley's level Hardlight Music Double Time transforms Levelhead into a rhythm platformer! With fat beats and great platforming backing it up, the only question is whether or not you'll be able to dance along.



I'm a sucker for a good contraption, and Natari's level The Automatic Scrubb Machine shows how you can deliver Scrubb shells on demand! Use the shells to solve puzzling scenarios of increasing difficulty, or just investigate the shell-producing machine and steal it for your own levels!



Destragon's level Scrubb Tree House Dive is a well-paced, lovely little romp through the woods. Provided your ideal woodland stroll involves climbing spikeblocks and throwing Scrubb shells every which way, that is.



Espurrator is taking up sustainability in Levelhead by creating a level that's 100% certified GREEEEEEN. Using only green components, Green Land has you completing challenges with the Tiptow power. After playing this level you'll be able to tell all three of your friends that you've been to Green Land!



Espurrator earns a double mention this week for the adorable Help! Ocula Cave Adventure! You've got limited tries to get one of these Oculas home - try not to burn them all up!

* Msmiley's Super Space Walk is a quick one that makes clever use of hardlights
* Syustel's GR-18 Go Small Test is an incredibly interesting use of rifts and terrain to make the player feel as though they've been shrunk
* Freact's Vacrat Crash And Dash makes great use of headbutts and timer switches, though it's not for the faint of heart.

This week the Butterscotch team is ON VACATION! That means we're all kicking our feet back, eating too much, and generally taking a break from the relentless pace of dev from last 7 MONTHS of Early Access. It's also THANKSGIVING here in the states, which is the time of year when we all take a moment to reflect on what we're thankful for, and then go into a food coma.

So before I pass out again from consuming 400lbs of mashed potatoes, in this brief lucid moment, let me say...




For this week's community spotlight, I'd like to celebrate the last 31 spotlights, and shine a light back on the players that have made our journey an incredible one. Enjoy taking a trip down memory lane with all of these, and rediscover some favorites from Levelhead's early days.

Thank you all - and happy Thanksgiving!

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Another Friday, another batch of ludicrous levels and a STAINED GLASS WINDOW?! WHAT?!

As always, remember to click the level names to bookmark them for later on. HERE WE GO!




ZLDFN101 somehow managed to find our prototype for Crashlands, buried deep inside Levelhead. Their level Crash Land 0.5 is an incredible display of metaphorical design - you'll need to find items and bring them back home to 'craft' more items and gain access to other parts of the level. It's great fun, and the creative leaps required to make it deserve all the applause our 10 hands can muster!




Spekio is at it again with the wonderful story of two unusual friends in a terrible place. Keep your Blopfush buddy alive in The Buddy System, and uncover the secrets to forging incredible friendship. (Spoiler: The secret is making sure your friend doesn't get shot by fireballs)




V02's level The Suspicious Heist gives you the hair raising feeling that you're walking into a trap. There's nothing quite like going deeper and deeper into an inactive-hazard covered area, knowing all the while that at SOME point, all of it is going to come roaring to life. There's a great balance of dread with rising action here, and good opportunity for replay!




Groversoup has crafted what feels like an entire special game mode in the level Flyblock Factory. You'll need to cleverly sneak and jump to make your way through the Flyblock Factory, carried all the way by your best bud, the Blopfush.




Willhyukister's level Power-Up Puzzle combines keys, chests, and ALL the power-ups into a deliciously fun level. Be careful how you use those keys!




In Tim Conceivable's level Dodge Flame, Find Treasure you'll find two of my favorite things - great level design and FIREFALLS! You're going to need some balm for the burns this level will give you. Make that ALL the balm.


This week we've got some FAN ART that's more than worthy of a highlight.

Scaleplexis is coming in like an angel with a legit stained glass window featuring the Package from Levelhead. It's so beautiful that we're tempted to build a shrine to On-Time Delivery!



Msmiley's been getting some animation time in with this wonderfully stretchy GR-18:



That's it for this week! Be sure to hop into the discord to chat with the creators of this week's levels, and show-off what you're making for the next round of the spotlight.

Hey, Levelheads! It's been two weeks since the last patch, so you know what that means! DEVELOPER BLOG! We've gotten a lot done, but we still have a long way to go before the patch. Things are going to be a bit quiet for the next couple weeks, though, as most of our dev team will be on holiday! Why? Because OUR WHOLE BODIES HURT AND WE JUST NEED A MINUTE. Or in this case, about 20 thousand minutes.

But in the meantime, let's take a face-first dive into what we've done so far!


First up is ICONS! Quite a while ago we added a batch of icons to the game. Players could use these icons to represent their levels, and they could also use them as avatars. At the time, we described these as the "starter" batch of icons, and we talked about how eventually, we would add more icons and the ability to unlock those new icons. Well, EVENTUALLY is coming right up!

Over the past couple weeks, we've added over a hundred new icons to the game.



BUT WAIT! Why are so many of them grayed out? That's because we've also added UNLOCKABLE icons. Many of the new icons are unlocked either through the campaign or through achievements. With this patch, you can show off how much you have achieved with your exclusive, beautiful icons!

But we also wanted to make the icons system more visible. After all, what's the point of having all these icons if you can't... you know... see them? So we added them to the Editor:



And to the workshop, too!



We wanted the icons to feel like something special -- a badge of honor that you can use to both express yourself, and market your levels. Our hope is that this next patch nails that!


As you may have heard, Levelhead is coming to Xbox Game Pass at launch (the date for which we are still pinning down). That means a huge wave of players will come pouring into the Levelhead division all at once, and we want to make sure they have the best experience we can offer. Unfortunately, most of our efforts throughout Early Access have gone into the web features and the workshop, and we haven't been able to give the campaign (now called Training) the time and attention it deserved. That would be a problem for all these new players, because the Bureau's Training Program is where all new employees start!

So as of the past couple weeks, we've been putting a lot of energy into making sure the campaign is a fantastic experience.

First, we've added new "On-Time Delivery" goals to all of the campaign levels, so you can earn some extra achievements by showing off your speed running skills. After Sam set all the speed targets, the first thing I did was dive into the levels to replay them and try to beat the times. And I have to say, speed running the campaign changes everything about the experience. It's intense!



As I mentioned earlier, we've also added icon unlocks to the campaign, so you can show off once you've beaten some of the harder challenges on offer.

And aside from the On-Time Delivery system, Sam has been hard at work reimagining certain aspects of the campaign so that it hits the targets we laid out when we first started making Levelhead. Our goal with the campaign was to teach players how to play the game and provide some cool challenges, but we also wanted to introduce some characters, expand the lore of the game, and make it feel like you're progressing through the Bureau of Shipping's Training Program. Oh, and we wanted to tell a lot of dumb jokes. We definitely hit that first target, but we haven't put time into the rest. That's all changing now, but that's a really big update, so it may not be done for this patch. But we're working on it!


Since we're getting ever closer to launch, we took a step back to ensure that we've not left any stones unturned when it comes to making the visual experience of the game smooth and silky.

One of the least smooth and silky parts of the game so far is... the interfaces. More specifically, we've basically ignored many of the game's interfaces since we launched it into Early Access. The Settings page, pause menu, downloads page, and a whole bunch of other interfaces just kind of existed and never really got much love. They did their jobs just fine, but they weren't much to look at. For this patch, we're taking the time to ensure that we cover all of these areas, so the game gets a more consistent look and feel. I'll wait until we're closer to deploying the patch to show any visuals, though, since they're continuing to evolve. I'm pumped to see the response!


The next patch is planned for December 18. As I mentioned above, most of our team will be gone for the next couple weeks, so the next Developer blog will be on December 11, three weeks from now. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our community for being understanding and treating us like real people, and not giving us any guff about having a vacation. It's been really fantastic having the support of such wonderful people!


Want to stay tuned with updates in CLOSE TO REAL TIME? Check out our patch notes page to see changes to the game, even before they have hit Steam!

And if you want to get the changes a little earlier than the rest of the folks on Steam, hop into our Discord, where we've got information on getting into the Beta branch.

Time for the best part of the week, playing and talking about Levelhead Community Levels! This week GR-18 becomes a lock-picking escape agent who rides a PATH DRAGON!

As always, remember to click the level names to bookmark them for later on. HERE WE GO!




Pane has created an enchanting world full of purpleness in the level GR-18, Ouch!. Determination and perseverance will see you through this one!




Espurrator creates a thrilling escape scenario for GR-18 in the level Cold Cabin Zipper Caper. Be ready to climb through every floor and its traps with only the zipper power-up and your wits!



In Spekio's level Keycard Quickly!, GR-18 continues the lock-picking training. Mastering the colored key matching under time-pressure is the KEYYYY to his package delivery!



BrambleGaming's level Glorious Blizzard Quest brings memories of a cozy home on a snow-day. But corporate duty calls, and GR-18 must brave the blizzard to do the work!



In BookMouse's casual level Flyblock Friend Forest, GR-18 gets to ride a PATHDRAGON while killing enemies to deliver the package to its destination!

• SchuhBaum's Tall Tree has you find Nirvana by exploring a tall tree.
  
• WaddlesTNT's Train GR-18 To Manage will make you work on your management and organization skills.
  
• CJ5boss's Spike Trap Cavern is all about speed and precision. Hurry up but also be precise!
  
• Doesy214's Hardlight Jump Level! is a well-paced jumping level! Practice those high and long jumps to win this one!

Another week done and another round of enthralling imagineering by the community! This week GR-18 becomes a marathoner, astronaut, and an AVERAGE JOE!

As always remember to click the level names to bookmark them for play later on - LET'S GO




Make sure to stretch your thumbs before playing Almost There! by Omikron. You'll need that preparation for this fun-filled marathon (psst - the finish line is a lie).



The Fallen Legend has created a beautiful yet lonely space experience in the level Awakening Awe Space Cavern
Explore the depths of the space and return the package safely. God Speed, TRAVELER!




Msmiley has recreated a usual routine in many households in the level Time Change Ritual. I have only one thing to say about it: Day Light Savings - YOU MAKE NO SENSE!




In Sigmund Froid's thrill-filled level Zipper Mission, be careful which button you press! You might get an unpleasant travel companion!




TalkGibberish has created an aesthetically beautiful level Exercise In Spike Block. It's hard not to stare at the flashy spikes, and also hard to not get impaled on them!

• Johnny0798's Chamber 17 is a fun puzzler! Blast your way through to win this one!
  
• Flux's Unbelievable Spinny Platform has a hypnotic effect on you. Don't be caught staring for too long.
  
• Skyrobot's Kampftor: Schnell Traurig! is a great brawler level to take out the day's frustration.

Hey, Levelheads! Welcome to our LARGEST PATCH EVER. Our focus these past four weeks has been on bug fixes, optimizations, and overall improvements to what's already in the game. But just for good measure, we squeezed a couple new toys in there, because WHY NOT? Let's take a look!

Reusable BUDD-E's!

Many of our level builders have been making levels with a sort of "check-in" spot, where the player could re-save their progress each time they returned to the same location. But previously, the only way to do this was to place two BUDD-Es (checkpoints) side by side, which took up a lot of space and made a lot of noise. So we fixed that, by introducing a new style of BUDD-E!



Now, you can toggle whether your BUDD-E is reusable. Reusable BUDD-Es gain a blue tint and have round protuberances on their heads, so you can tell them apart. If a BUDD-E is reusable, every time you re-touch it, it will save the level state at that moment -- even if that BUDD-E was already active!

Plus, we changed the color of the BUDD-E's face from green to cyan, which so far has worked out great, and we haven't gotten any pushback at all from our players on that one. Nope. Not even a little bit! It's just been... Just smooth. Smoooooooth sailing.

Rain Rain Windy Windy!

As soon as we added weather to Levelhead, we knew we wanted to add some way to control the weather. Thanks to Levelhead's switch system, we had an easy way to do it, so we just needed to find the time! AND THIS PATCH, WE DID!



Now, you can drop a Weatherbox into your level, which will allow you to control the weather via switches! Want to start a sandstorm when the player leaves a cave? Or have the sun come out when the player clears out all the enemies? Weatherboxes give you control over that FLOOOOW.

Jingle jangle!

Speaking of having cool things happen when the player achieves something... What about MUSIC?



We now have JINGLEBOXES, which are little one-tile, invisible items that you can connect to switches to have little jingles -- short songs -- play when events occur. Want to celebrate the player finding a secret room? Or perhaps celebrate the player making a huge mistake by taunting them with a sad song? Now you can!

Switches got me in Stitches

Key Doors and Key Chests have always kind of lived in their own little key world, doing key stuff and generally not participating with the rest of society. But we reached out to the Key Embassy and sat down with some of their Key Diplomats and Key Personnel. We talked about Key Performance Indicators and brought up some key talking points, and eventually we found the key issue.



Now, Key Doors and Key Chests can send a signal when opened! That means you can directly tie level events to the usage of a Key Card, without needing some kind of elaborate Key Switch contraption. In conjunction with the Jingles, this little feature opens up a lot of fun "secret reveal" and celebratory opportunities.

Japanese and Korean!

Just yesterday we got our first translations for Levelhead in Japanese and Korean, so we added it to the game!



This is a FRESH translation, so we want to hear from our players about things we can do to improve it. We've already heard that our Name Combobulator needs a lot of work with Japanese, so we'll be figuring that one out. But we want your feedback! FEED US YOUR FEEDBACK!

Mostly because we can't read this stuff. What even is this? WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?


Fully half of the changes that have gone in to this patch are fixes to existing systems, and most of the other changes were general improvements or rebuilds of game systems that were misbehaving. We scoured the whole thing from top to bottom and put time into some of the more elusive bugs that have been causing our players (and us) headaches. Some of the greatest hits from this patch include:

• Proximity switches should now actually work properly in the first frame of a level. No more Jems appearing and then instantly disappearing!
  
• If you liked a level, you would sometimes later return to find that your "Like" hadn't actually been applied. Now they actually stick to levels!
  
• The Wiki exporter is a lot smoother and no longer causes the game to hang forever.
  
• When you log into the game or change users, you now go to a loading screen that makes sure everything is square. Previously, the loading would happen on the main menu, which meant you could go into the campaign or do other stuff before the loading was actually finished. WHOOPS!
  
• If you were falling super fast, you would sometimes slide past a 1-tile gap that you were trying to horizontally move into. The physics have been updated so that if you're moving at higher speeds, it becomes easier to slide into these gaps. NICE!
  
• You can now hold buttons on the controller while inputting text into the on-screen keyboard. No more carpal tunnel for you!
  
• Some items had hitboxes that were 2 pixels too wide, which allowed you to, for example, go through a Rift even if it was inside a wall. These have all been fixed. NO MORE CHEATING!
  
• Tons of items, like cannons and some enemies, weren't fully restoring their states at checkpoints. This made for inconsistencies that shouldn't have existed. We've fixed all of these that we've found, but if you find more, let us know!

Aside from all the fixes, we also put time into optimizing the game by profiling which items were using unnecessary CPU, and we trimmed the fat on all of those items. Overall, you should notice frame rate increases in just about every scenario. So... that's nice!


The next patch will come December 18, since Adam (the web programmer) and I (the game programmer) will be out for two weeks around Thanksgiving. We'll have a developer blog for the next two weeks, and then we'll have a couple weeks of silence while we're on our Thanksgiving break, although we'll still have community spotlights during that time.

The focus of this next patch will be making the campaign more robust and interesting, and making it an overall better experience for new players to get introduced to the game. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I'll just LEAVE IT AT THAT!

If you want to know more about patch 0.42, read on!



See the full patchnotes.

New Features

Localization

• Levelhead now features Japanese and Korean translations.
  
• Added Japanese and Korean language support.

Editor

• Added seven new jingles to the Jinglebox.
  
• You can now rearrange the words in the Name Combobulator using left/right arrows underneath the words.
  
• BUDD-Es (Checkpoints) now have a "Reusable" toggle. Reusable BUDD-Es are blue and have round protuberances on their heads, instead of pointy.
  
• A new item is available in the Editor: The WEATHERBOX! The Weatherbox is an invisible item that controls the weather by listening to signals. When a Weatherbox is changing the weather, the level's current weather will fade in or out over 1/3 of a second, which is fast enough that you can make it feel like the player is exiting a building into a storm, but slow enough that it isn't jarring. If your level has a Weatherbox in it, the level's default weather settings will be ignored.
  
• Key Chests now have an optional Sending Channel, and an optional starting state for that signal. Getting hit by a matching key will cause the chest to toggle its Sending Channel signal. (thanks to Brainmop Wippabumble)
  
• Key Doors now have an optional Sending Channel, and an optional starting state for that signal. Getting hit by a matching key will cause the door to toggle its Sending Channel signal.
  
• A new item is available in the Editor: The JINGLEBOX! The Jinglebox is an invisible item that can play short tunes when activated with a switch. These can be used to emphasize certain moments in your level, such as surprises, secret reveals, or the player acquiring a special item. Jingleboxes will play once per switch activation, with an internal 0.5 second cooldown (so they can't be played every frame). Normally, Jingleboxes are Global, which means their sounds can be heard from anywhere in the level. Global Jingleboxes will dampen the game's music temporarily while they play their tune. Alternatively, they can be set to "Positional," which allows you to play a tune from a location (if the player is close enough). Positional Jingleboxes do not dampen the normal game music.

Audio

• When enemies are roasted by Wildfire, it now makes a unique sound.

File Management

• When you first open the game and when you log into or out of a Rumpus account, you will now see a loading screen. Previously, all loading and syncing was done on the main menu, but this could lead to problems, such as your save file not being fully synced or loaded by the time you clicked on the campaign ship. Now, everythign will be loaded first, and then you will go to the main menu.

Web

• Levelhead now uses compression for sending files to Rumpus over 256 bytes. This should result in faster web functions and less data usage, especially for syncing player saves and large levels.

Improvements

Audio

• Updated the sound of the Tense Success jingle.

Editor

• Added to the Name Combobulator: Once, Twice, Thrice (thanks to cprice)
  
• Added to the Name Combobulator: Unknown (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
  
• Added to the Name Combobulator: Currency
  
• If you place a Weatherbox but have weather effects disabled, you will get a warning popup message. (thanks to msmiley)
  
• Added Pressure Plate and Lookswitch to the Daily Build defaults. (thanks to TimConceivable)
  
• The Sign now features a Key Chest icon.
  
• Added words to the name combobulator: Height, Heights, System, Systemic, Draft. (thanks to Spekio)
  
• Rifts can now have their Rift ID and Destination Rift ID set to "None" (which can be accessed by setting their IDs to -1). This allows you to make true one-way Rifts that can only send or only receive, without needing to do weird workarounds.
  
• Jingleboxes now have a "Repeatable" setting, which lets you decide whether they play only once, or can play each time they are switched back on. By default, Jingleboxes are set to non-repeating.
  
• All of the Enclosure tiles had the same flavor text. Now they each have unique flavor text!
  
• Added to the name combobulator: Beep (thanks to Johnny0798)
  
• The name combobulator now supports hyphens as a punctuation mark. (thanks to Johnny0798)
  
• Added "Lost" to the name combobulator. (thanks to Spekio)
  
• When GR-18 is being dragged in the Editor, it will pose as if it is falling.
  
• Added a "Sprint" icon to the Sign. (thanks to Steek Hutsy)
  
• Added to the Name Combobulator: Generator, Juice, Power, Energy, Electricity, Energize, Repeat, Loop, Actually, Actual.
  
• Added to the Name Combobulator: Color, Gallery, Channel, Raid, Aurora, Chump, Destroyer, Colorful, Wondrous, Fragile, Cube, Symphony, Paradise, Workshop, Caution, Case, Sewer, Conveyor, Family, Dome Structure, Torrent, Poison, Palace, Magical, Underground, Parallel, Wide, Warm, Enchanted, Automatic, Heavy, Narrow, Limited, Celestial, Cosmic. (thanks to Johnny0798)
  
• Added unique Editor selection sounds to all enemies, not just the Scrubb and Ocula!
  
• By default, new levels created from this version forward will have their camera side boundaries defaulted to "On." You can still disable the horizontal camera boundaries in the level details.

UI

• The first loading screen into the game is now the spinning Rumpus logo (as before), while the user swapping loading screen is the new GR-18 box art loading screen.
  
• Updated the "Tip Amount" icon to be a coin going into a slot, instead of that weird hand thing.
  
• Added an icon to the "Language" setting in the Settings page, so you can tell which setting to change if the game is in the wrong language and you therefore can't read it.
  
• There is now a confirmation window for resetting all your settings via the Settings menu.
  
• Language selection is now the very first thing in the Settings menu.
  
• Updated the Rumpus login page to use icons instead of text. This will also allow us to fit more login buttons on the screen at once without it feeling cluttered or needing to add scrolling.

Web

• If your Rumpus credentials expire, the game will now handle this more gracefully. It will load up the Guest account, and then prompt you with a message that your credentials have expired, and it will ask you whether you want to log back in.
  
• Levels now carry metadata for which platform they were published on. This will later allow us to give players the option to only play levels published on the same kind of device they are currently using.
  
• Rumpus now features internet pits filled with internet sticks to e-impale any e-intruders.
  
• Levelhead now uses "Just in Time" level delivery! When playing a playlist, the game would previously download all of the playlist's levels at once. This was pretty wasteful for bandwidth and file writing, because you might only play the first level and then decide to go do something else. Now, each level is downloaded when you first enter its loading screen right before you play it. If you want to download levels in bulk, you can still do so via just clicking on their "Download" buttons without playing them.

Optimization

• Textures are now prefetched during the level loading screen instead of during the first frame of the level. This should reduce hitching that might occur on the first play-through of a level after loading.
  
• Optimized Hardlights to use less CPU in general, and to use quite a bit less CPU while in the Editor.
  
• Found numerous optimizations in Flippy Longswitches, dramatically reducing their impact on frame rates.
  
• Levels with a large number of switches should now load dramatically faster.
  
• Found several optimizations in Battle Switches, reducing their impact on frame rates.
  
• Optimized several aspects of Jem Switches, so they should now have less of an impact on frame rates.
  
• Found several optimizations in placeable Fireballs, lessening their effect on the game's frame rates.
  
• Found several optimizations in Spiketrons and Whizblades, giving them a dramatically reduced impact on frame rates.
  
• Optimized Wait Switches, so their effect on fps is substantially reduced.
  
• Boomboxes have had much of their code optimized, causing their effect on the frame rate of a level to be generally halved.
  
• Tempswitches no longer run any rendering code while offscreen, which should result in a mild frame rate boost for levels that have a large number of Tempswitches.
  
• Optimized many of the game's texture pages, which should increase performance in devices with weak GPUs.
  
• Purged a number of old, unused sprites.
  
• Found some heavy optimizations in the rendering of pickups such as Jems and Powerups. These items will no longer run any draw code when offscreen, and they have had some other unnecessary calculations removed. Levels with large numbers of Jems and Pickups should see a performance boost.
  
• The game should no longer iterate over input channels that aren't associated with active players. Monitoring those input channels was using unnecessary CPU.
  
• Dense Fog no longer renders if it is off-screen. This should lead to a performance boost on levels with a lot of Dense Fog.
  
• Optimized some of the rendering of text in the Gameplay Interface.
  
• If something were to ordinarily spawn the "whiteflash smoke cloud" animation (as when enemies are defeated), that animation will now only spawn if it would be visible on-screen.

Gameplay

• You can now hit the "Retry" button during a powerup acquisition animation. (thanks to RetrophileTV)
  
• The top camera boundary is now the actual top edge of the level, instead of a half grid space above the level. This will make it easier to create a feeling of enclosed spaces. Note that the player can still go up there; they will just have to navigate using the on-screen arrow that indicates their location.
  
• Sped up the acceleration of Scrubbs and Oculas so if they get knocked back, they don't slide away for 10,000 years.

Wiki

• The in-game Wiki export function no longer freezes the game while it is exporting.
  
• The in-game Wiki export function now includes information about campaign levels. (thanks to Spekio)
  
• The in-game Wiki export function now includes all of the words in the Name Combobulator. (thanks to Spekio)

Workshop

• Workshop cloud level downloads are now force-saved to disk, ignoring normal file write limits.

Console

• For consoles with rate limits on file saving, it was possible to have your downloaded levels fail to get "locked in" to the device's storage if they were stuck waiting in queue to save to disk. Now, when the level downloader is done downloading all the levels you have queued up, it will guarantee that those downloaded levels ignore the normal file write limits so they don't get lost.

Campaign

• "Storm of Regret" has been updated.
  
• "Deliver the Package, GR-18!" has been updated.
  
• "Fly, GR-18!" has been updated.
  
• "Sting Like a Bee" has been updated.
  
• "Grand Theft Grotto" has been updated.
  
• "Spike Pop Experiment" has been updated.
  
• "Pow Pow Magic" has been updated.
  
• "Under Pressure" has been updated.
  
• "Hollow Mountain Hike" has been updated.
  
• "Go Go Rumble" has been updated.
  
• "Chamber of Magic" has been updated.
  
• "The Heist" has been updated.
  
• "Sacrifice the Box" has been updated.
  
• "Bop Jump" has been updated.
  
• "Temple Gauntlet" has been updated.
  
• "Bomb Traveler" has been updated.
  
• "An Unusual Time" has been updated.
  
• "Four Point Plunge" has been updated.
  
• "Hollow Mountain Hike" has been updated.
  
• "Only Air" has been updated.
  
• "Battery Gauntlet" has been updated.
  
• "Sproing time" has been updated.
  
• "Fire Jungle" has been updated.
  
• Think Dangerously has had cheese removed from its third puzzle.
  
• Home Run is now called Triple Trouble and is better.
  
• Ouch Cart has been slightly updated.
  
• Temple Gauntlet has been updated.
  
• Under Pressure has been updated.
  
• Blopfush Trap has been updated.
  
• Hide and Sneak - Proximity switches updated to not misfire and softlock players when the multiplayer camera zooms out.
  
• Uh Oh - level updated to include music all the way through and be slightly spookier.
  
• Jem Jazz Ordeal has been overhauled and is now Turn It On!
  
• Switch Karma now has music.
  
• The Heist now has music and a few updates.
  
• Home Run now has music.
  
• Now That's a Rift has been updated and now has a few coins.
  
• Package Jump Challenge has been updated and now has secrets and a GR17
  
• Be Sneaky GR18 has been updated, now has a blopfush flock
  
• Thorncloud Delivery has been updated to reinforce package jump mechanics.
  
• Dense Fog Ridge has been updated to include blopfush tantalizers.
  
• Bop Jump has been updated to include blopfush, fire, and golden key/doors
  
• Deliver the Package, GR-18! Has been updated to include blopfush and fire, among other things.
  
• Regret Gate Compilation has been updated to include a keychest, fireballs, tile variety, weather, and better design.

Visuals

• BUDD-Es no longer show an exclamation mark on their chest when active. Instead, they show the "Replay" icon that matches the Replay button in the top-left corner. Also, you now get a "Ring Pop" visual when you activate a BUDD-E, making it easier to tell that you activated it.
  
• Sky Wigglers are now much darker when "Off," making them easier to identify.
  
• 3x3 Fireballs have been made more circular, so their tails don't extend 1.5 grid spaces beyond their hitbox. They need to be hot, but not THAT hot!

Developer

• Hiding the interface with the developer override will now remove hotkey overlays on buttons.

Rumpus

• Updated the Rumpus login flow to be more clear about what is happening when you are linking a Steam, Nintendo, or Xbox account to an existing Rumpus account.
  
• Updated Rumpus placeholder email text to use "example.com" instead of weird made-up domains, in case those domains actually come into existence at some point.
  
• If Rumpus only has one login method available on a given platform, the "Login Method Selection" page will no longer appear.
  
• Updated the account creation screen for when you log in to a new account via a non-email method (like Steam, Xbox, etc).
  
• The "User Manager" Rumpus screen no longer appears on Xbox, since your profiles will be managed via the Xbox interface.

Nintendo Switch

• The Switch should now automatically adjust graphical settings depending on whether it is in Boost Mode or Normal Mode.
  
• Added "Tabletop Mode" support to the Switch, so one user can play in Handheld mode while another user plays with a separate controller.
  
• Updated saving on the Switch so level saving in the workshop is always forced, to minimize data loss that could be caused by file write speed limits.

Saving

• Your campaign progress will be saved when you trigger a GR-17.
  
• Player campaign data is always force-saved without timers on all platforms, to ensure campaign progress isn't lost due to file write speed limits.

Xbox

• Updated visual display for the "Menu" and "View" buttons on-screen when playing on Xbox, to match the icons shown on the controller.

Fixes

Gameplay

• Squished Scrubbs and Oculas should now reliably trigger pressure plates if they hit the pressure plate as their last bounce before they explode.
  
• Wildfire should now properly destroy enemeies offscreen. (thanks to TimConceivable)
  
• Squished Oculas and Scrubbs will now trigger pressure plates in the frame that they explode from hitting a wall for the final time. (thanks to Intuition?!)
  
• If a Burny Whirler, Fireball, Spinny Platform, or other rotating or swinging object is set to "All Inactive" or "Any Inactive" and it has no associated switches, it should now always be on. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
  
• If a Blopfush got knocked off a track, it would retain a tiny amount of residual movespeed when it returned to the track, causing it to vibrate slightly. This has been fixed.
  
• It is now far easier to squeeze into horizontal gaps while falling.
  
• Flipwips should now properly maintain their attack and leap directions when restored from a checkpoint.
  
• Previously, if you hit the "Jump" button while Waylay punching, your jump would attempt to trigger, but nothing would happen, since you were mid-punch. Now, the jump input will be stored and will trigger at the end of your punch via input buffering. This fixes the "lost jump" bug and also introduces some new movement techniques. (thanks to TheViralMelon)
  
• If you were ceiling-hanging with the Tiptow and bumping up against a wall, your animation would stop and then get all twitchy. Now it will play smoothly.
  
• If you were invincible and standing inside something that would harm you, your "Retry" button wouldn't work. Now it does!
  
• If you hit the "Retry" button right when GR-18 respawned, no retry would occur, and your next death would count as a retry instead of a death. This has been fixed. (thanks to TheViralMelon)
  
• If "Players Share Powerups" is active in a level, players in Respawn Bubbles will now properly have their visuals updated when their living friends acquire powerups.
  
• The package now properly restores its facing direction at checkpoints.
  
• For levels made in version 0.40 or higher, Rifts will have their hitboxes tucked in by 1 pixel on each side, so you should no longer be able to enter them through walls or corners. (thanks to Johnny0798)
  
• Weather machines now start with weather in the correct state when the level first boots up.
  
• Dying in multiplayer will now clear the timer on your Dbot, Lectroshield, and Armor, so you won't have them when you respawn.
  
• GR-18's grappler now passes through invisible Prize Blocks.
  
• Blasters and Trigblasters now use a 1x1 hitbox, so you should no longer be able to enter them diagonally through corners. This change is not retroactive, so it should only apply to levels made in Version 0.39 or higher. (thanks to TimConceivable)
  
• Blasters and Trigblasters had slightly differently-sized hitboxes. This should no longer be the case for levels made in version 0.39 or higher.
  
• Dbot no longer protects you from being crushed to death by doors. (thanks to Impflake Grinnyfunk)
  
• Cannons and Lookannons now properly restore their rotation and timing at checkpoints. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
  
• Fixed an issue with placed throwable items not receiving signals from proximity sensors in the first frame of the level.
  
• Fixed more issues with proximity sensors interacting with certain items at first spawn on a level. Affected items fixed: Boombox, Lookcannon, ZOOM-R, Sign, Arrow Hologram, and Secret Eye.
  
• If a proximity sensor (battle switch, eyeswitch, or package cam) is within range of something in the first frame of the level, the following items now handle receiving that signal properly: Hardlights, Regret Gates, Burny Whirlers, Fireballs, all Pickups, Spike Blocks, Spike Chainers, Cannons.
  
• Package Cams now properly detect the package in the first frame of the level's existence.
  
• Baddie Eyeswitches now properly detect enemies in the first frame of the level's existence.
  
• Eyeswitches now properly detect GR-18 in the first frame of the level's existence.
  
• Fixed a legacy issue that was causing the game clock to run twice as fast.
  
• Your powerup refresh animation will no longer show up if you don't have an active powerup.
  
• Flipwips now properly restore their attack states at checkpoints.
  
• Throwable items on paths should now properly detach from the path and gain physics when blown up by a bomb.
  
• Keys should no longer fail to trigger Keydoors or Keyswitches if they hit them vertically (up or down), even if they just roll across them. (thanks to BlueSheep3, msmiley)
  
• Popjaws now have their attack states properly recorded and restored at Checkpoints. (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
  
• Projectiles being shot from cannons would break on deactivated fireballs. Now they don't! (thanks to TheViralMelon)
  
• If you placed a path node exactly on top of the same path but earlier in the path, the item on the node would latch onto the earlier path point instead of the intended node. This has been fixed for all levels made in this version and later. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
  
• Enemies now store their "grounded" state in checkpoints, which should eliminate scenarios where, for example, Scrubbs or Oculas would slide backwards momentarily if respawned from a checkpoint onto a Toe Slider. (thanks to Dappalol Abember)
  
• If you are currently touching a Purge Gate, you can no longer grab items -- they will just flash with the red effect of the purge gate, and they won't move.
  
• If a Purge Gate knocked a Sproing off your back into a tight corridor, the Sproing could get stuck in walls. This is because Sproings have a full Grid Space-sized hitbox, so they had to fit perfectly into a grid space. The "find an open spot" algorithm wasn't taking this into account, so the Sproing would instead just get stuck. The open-spot-finding algorithm has been updated, so this should no longer be occurring.
  
• Springs that emerged from enemies or prize blocks would disappear after a checkpoint respawn. Now they persist! (thanks to Brainmop Wippabumble)
  
• When GR-18 kicked something while also firing Ripcord jets, the "Kick" animation would play but the fire would continue to shoot, even though the jet-arms were no longer present. This should now be fixed.
  
• Enemies now award points when defeated by being CRUSHED BY A DOOR. (thanks to TimConceivable)
  
• Punching or exploding a Scrubb/Ocula with an item inside it would result in the Scrubb/Ocula not spawning their "flying away off screen" animation. Now they do!
  
• The last Ocula or Scrubb to emerge from a Robo Factory would have odd behaviors when being restored at checkpoints, such as turning into the other type of enemy. This was due to an item lookup error relating to the Robo Factory being destroyed, which has been resolved.
  
• In certain rare cases, the game would get confused and think you were playing a published level when you were in the campaign. This should no longer occur.
  
• Wildfire projectiles no longer revert into Hot Fire projeciles after a checkpoint reload. (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
  
• Key Chests now properly store (and restore) their states at checkpoints. (thanks to msmiley)
  
• Throwing a Scrubb or Ocula at Jems would pick up the Jems even if they were deactivated with a switch. Now it doesn't! (thanks to Crushnoil Varkzapee)

The rest of the patch notes are too long to be included in this announcement.
See the full patchnotes.

This spooky week we present you with levels just bubbling with hotness, built and guarded by the creepy-good creators of this community!

As always, remember to click the level names to bookmark them for play later on - LET'S GO.




Dark Brick demonstrates the true glory of fire in the level Fire, Fire, Fire... Fire. Don't be too mesmerized by the glorious fire, or you shall be faced with its FURY!




TalkGibberish has continued the Vacrat saga in the level Locate Dangerous Vacrat. GR-18 must turn into a detective to solve this puzzle and find the dangerous vacrat, and finally get his vengeance against the thief!




TheGlock521 has created randomized chaos in the level Monster Smash. Get ready to brawl and win this street fight!



DNin has passed around the enemy platter in the level Project Enemy: Second Battle. Enjoy the taste of victory against this enemy sampler!



In GooGroker's intense level Madly Fallthrough Spookstone, you will be running (and screaming) your way through a spooky maze. Hurry up, or be left behind in darkness!

• Not that Kevin's Purge Gate Tangle is a puzzling head-scratcher!
  
• Spekio's Up Lift Endeavor will have you hop skip and jump to get through the end!
  
• WILLHYUKISTER's Ocula & Scrubb Spooky Forest is filled with spookiness and enemies!
  
• The Trick-or-Treat event hosted by PureKnickers celebrated its 31st and final day. Check out all the terrifying creations over on Steam!