Shattered Haven:Beta Release Notes

Beta .809

(This hasn't been released yet. We're still working on it.)

• The default player 1 keybindings for the four action slots are now ASDF, rather than being 1234. This is far less confusing on the GUI, is more comfortable to reach on most keyboards, and is consistent with Valley 2, which is a minor plus.

• The keys -- color and regular keys -- now have their final graphics.

• Updated the Dark Creature Cave to note that killing any single enemy opens the portal (which was not clear that it was intended before).
  • Thanks to Telasro for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where the fire urns and water urns were not properly triggering switch points like they were supposed to, making some levels (such as Dark Creature Cave) unbeatable.
  • Thanks to Telasro for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where poison mushrooms were invisible.

• The Cancel button now jumps you straight to the end of the current line of dialogue. If you're trying to skip through a lot of text you've already read (hey, the devs test this too), then you can just hit cancel a bunch of times to get through it quickly.

• The Cancel and Open Menu buttons have been split out, so that they can be mapped more sensibly on gamepads. On the keyboard, these are both still Escape by default.
  • Thanks to Penumbra and Pepisolo for suggesting.

• The names of the characters in speech tags are now always colorized. Specifically:
  • Darrell: Same red as in the comic panel cutscenes.
  • Mary: Blue
  • Pierce: Orange
  • Lela: Yellow
  • Key NPCs (Willis, Jake, Arlene, and Jackson): Light purple
  • Everyone else: Light cyan.
  • Thanks to Hearteater for suggesting.

• "Empty handed action" is now simply called Interact.
  • Thanks to Hearteater for suggesting.

• Added two new story encounters with zombie mom in the deadlands.

• Updated the first tutorial level such that it doesn't make you replay the entire thing if you stop partway through. You still start back in the house, but it doesn't make you replay cutscene parts that you've already done.
  • Thanks to Hearteater for reporting.

• Improved the way Stantonsburg handles new grays; they are now much more smooth in their appearance when you go from sublevel to sublevel.

• Fixed an issue where if you had not visited the prison before you beat the boss in stantonsburg, you couldn't progress.
  • Thanks to mrhanman for reporting.

• Fixed an issue where Arlene was still hanging out near the warehouse even after the boss was beaten.
  • Thanks to mrhanman for reporting.

• Fixed an issue where a whole bunch of blue keys could be gotten in Stantonsburg.
  • Thanks to mrhanman for reporting.

• After you have opened and crossed the bridge once in Stantonsburg, it now remembers that and doesn't make you keep going back and reopening it.

• In Stantonsburg, the warehouse red door no longer blips open after you've opened it once and then reloaded the level. It's just open from the start.

• Invisible entities no longer leave a little distortion. That looked really odd for things like bridges in particular.

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the roofs would not lift off properly on really small buildings or in other isolated circumstances.
  • Thanks to Pepisolo and mrhanman for reporting.

• The warehouse boss level marker now acts properly in terms of turning gold and so on.
  • Thanks to nas1m for reporting.

• Exiting the warehouse boss level now takes you outside its portal rather than to the entrance to the sewers.
  • Thanks to nas1m for reporting.

• The overworld now shows how many levels out of how many levels you have completed, rather than a percentage.

• The "overworld 100% complete" message should now appear after you complete a given overworld section.
  • However, this has not been tested so do let us know if you don't see it!

• If you replay a level after beating it, it now acts like it did the first time in the status bar, rather than just uselessly telling you the level is complete (because, frankly, it is not on this playthrough of the level).
  • Thanks to Penumbra and nas1m for suggesting.

• Fixed that incredibly annoying hitch in the audio when rain sounds or other ambient tracks looped.

Beta .808 Stantonsburg Renovations

(Released March 13th, 2013)

• Added a non-voiceover comic panel cutscene for when the squid first appears during the tutorial. If you've already played through the tutorial, there's not a way to go back and see this in an existing savegame.

• Added a non-voiceover comic panel cutscene that is now part of the shadow man in-engine cutscene when you are first in the Phoenix Forest. If you've already played through that cutscene, there's not a way to go back and see this in an existing savegame.

• The edges of all the comic panels have been softened so that they look nicer in the context of their cutscenes on a black background.

• Added two new scripting commands:
  • ALTERP1INVENTORY
    • (args: FgTileType ItemCountToAlterBy) - Add or remove a specified quantity of an item to/from the player 1 inventory.
  • ALTERP2INVENTORYIF2P
    • (args: FgTileType ItemCountToAlterBy) - Add or remove a specified quantity of an item to/from the player 2 inventory only if two player mode.

• Updated the encounter with Arlene in Stantonsburg so that she puts the purple key directly into your inventory rather than on the ground. This way there's no way for players to ignore the key and then get permanently stuck, which was a very edge case before that nobody had run into yet (but we try to think of these things in advance).

• The text with Willis in the west part of Stantonsburg is now much updated to reflect the fact that he has no intention of leaving Stantonsburg.

• Updated all the grays in the sewers of Stantonsburg to properly be female, as they had been in pre-porting to the new engine.

• Updated lots of text throughout Stantonsburg to conform to the finalized story (there were still some outdated bits from 2008 here and there).

• Grays are now able to navigate better on narrow platforms near ravines.

• Grays no longer chase the player 2 follower NPC.
  • Thanks to nas1m for suggesting.

• Both grays and the player 2 follower NPC now center themselves properly when moving horizontally. This makes it so that they can properly go through narrow spaces between ravines or water or whatever without getting stuck.

• A new item has been added to the game: Blue Life Gems.
  • The green life gems can now only be used by player 1, whereas the blue life gems can only be used by player 2.
  • Otherwise the blue and green life gems are identical.

• The second green life gem (during 2 player play only) in the Stantonsburg and Alden Ridge boss rooms, and in the shops in those two towns, have both been switched to being blue life gems instead.

• The ivanwood marsh now uses its proper soundtrack.

• The southern warehouse building in Stantonsburg has been expanded, and you can now see the blue key in there as soon as you go there. Also the handguns and bullets.
  • However, a ravine blocks you from reaching them until the later trigger events that previously caused those items to appear.
  • All in all this prevents accidentally getting duplicates of the blue key, and it also makes it more obvious where the blue key is; we're not sure any players have even found the mines yet!

• Tweaked Willis's text in Phoenix Forest just a tad.

• Added yet more text at the prison scene, to show the motivations of the parents a bit better.

• Cutscene 3 with voiceover and a comic panel now plays when you leave the prison after seeing shadow man. If you've already passed this point in your current savegame, you can simply go back to near the prison entrance to trigger this.

• Comic panel #24 and #26 are now complete -- that's all 27 comic panels for the game!

• When you reach either the mines or the deadlands, you no longer encounter Arlene and Willis. Instead it's Arlene and Jake. The text has also been updated accordingly.

• The player characters now move the same speed on the overworld as they do in levels.
  • Thanks to nas1m and PattyG for suggesting.

• Fixed a bug where "preload" scripts were not logging their completion properly. This was a bug from shortly before the private alpha started, when we shifted around the execution order of the preload scripts.
  • This was causing things like certain cutscenes playing each time you went into a given screen.
  • Thanks to mrhanman and PattyG for reporting.

• The speed of text scrolling in during in-engine text popups now varies based on how long the text is. Also, holding down the confirm button now makes the text scroll 4x faster rather than just 4x faster.
  • The net effect here is to make it so that if you're reading something for the second time or more, you're not having to wait and wait and wait.

• If you go into the mines and meet Arlene and Jake, it now blocks you from going into the Deadlands beyond the first screen. There you find a ravine and a note left behind by Jackson.

• If you go into the Deadlands and meet Arlene and Jake, it now blocks you from going into the mines beyond the first screen. There you find a collapsed bunch of rubble and a note left behind by Jackson.

• Fixed several bugs with the EXIT W command not working properly.

• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to use the scripting "Sublevel" command to go to the main sublevel.

• If you have beaten the Stantonsburg boss, but have not yet found the prison, it won't let you go into the sewers or the mines.

Beta .807 I Can't Feel My Fingers!

(Released March 13th, 2013)

• Comic panels #20, #21, #22, and #23 are now done. Only two more to go!

• Three new original tracks by Pablo Vega have been completed, and one track has been pulled over from Children of Neinzul (originally called Deception).

• Fixed a bug where the screen would get distorted and stretched after changing your screen resolution, until you restarted the game. This was particularly confusing because it made it seem like the game didn't support whatever resolution you had switched to, as well as being annoying if you did know about the bug!

• Voiceover cutscene #2 is now complete, and now plays the first time you enter the Phoenix Forest. In existing savegames, if you're already past that point, going back to the screen in front of the Forsaken Home level will let you see it.

• Fixed a nasty bug in the prior version that would cause you to be unable to pick up items after starting a level from the overworld (versus just directly loading into it).
  • Thanks to mrhanman, PattyG, and pedrokof for reporting.

• The stun time of both the pickaxe and the small caliber bullets have been increased from 2 seconds to 3.
  • Thanks to nas1m for suggesting.

• When you shoot a gray with the small caliber bullets, it now makes them visually flash, and you can run past them without getting blocked or taking any damage.
  • This makes it so that if you have the gun, grays can't trap you in tight spaces.
  • Thanks to nas1m for suggesting.

Beta .806 Now I Know Where I Put Those Keys

(Released March 12th, 2013)

• More work completed on Alden Ridge.

• Added five new roof variants, mainly for use at the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility.

• Added a new inside light type of "Dimmer."

• The entrance to the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility is now complete.

• Comic panels #17, #18, #19, #27, and #28 are now complete.

• All of the comic panels have had their color and contrast adjusted to make them more dramatic and to bring out the details more clearly.

• The NPC versions of player 2 are now invulnerable, so that they aren't contributing to the difficulty (or frustration) of any sections of the game.
  • Thanks to nas1m, Winge, and mrhanman for suggesting.

• Previously, the encyclopedia would always revert all found entries to "new" status every time you exited and reloaded the game. Fixed.
  • Thanks to PattyG for reporting.

• A second small building as been added to the "Deadlands - Deep Thorns" screen, and the gray seekers have been moved there, away from the portal to the Venetian Buckets level. This keeps the player from getting trapped by them on coming out of the level.
  • Thanks to Professor Paul1290 for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where taking off the camouflage blanket made it look like you still had it on until you actually moved. Fixed.

• Added a new "ExplorableFogLessThick" weather type.

• Improved level 042 to be two screens high and have proper ceilings, as well as having more grays.

• Level 033, Dead Grassy Pass, has been updated to use the pickaxe instead of the shovel, and has been altered in general to be harder and more puzzling. This is on the advanced path, after all!

• Updated the "sliding around objects" code to vary in speed based on how far you are from the edge. For instance, when you are just barely clipping the edge of an object, it zips you around the corner as fast as it did last release. If you are very far from the corner (more than a tile or two), it doesn't move you at all. If you are more than about half a tile away from the corner, it moves you progressively slower toward the open space.
  • The idea is that it was rather "slippery" trying to walk up to a tree to chop it, or the same issue with things like dirt to dig or whatever. This solution is aiming to keep the nice and fast corner sliding without causing the slipping that was present last release.
  • Feedback is extremely welcome on how this feels!
  • Thanks to nas1m for reporting the issues in the prior version.

• Level 068, Desert Junk Outbuildings, has been expanded to a second screen and given proper ceilings, and more grays have been added to it at the same time.

• Two new music tracks have been added to the game.

Improved Inventory

• The inventory graphics have been changed up; there are no longer bubbles for each inventory slot and a green highlighted slot. Now it instead has a cleaner blank background plus a non-colored glass cursor.

• The size of the player inventory is now 7x6 per player rather than 5x5.

• The game now uses a fixed-position inventory, where items don't move around based on what order you picked them up in, but rather have permanent locations that you can build up muscle-memory for.
  • Thanks to Penumbra for suggesting.

• Fixed a bug where going into a level would sometimes cause double-mapping of a single item having two action slots to it.
  • This was a minor glitch caused by the addition of the two extra active item slots.
  • Thanks to Penumbra, Ipkins, and mrhanman for reporting.

• The act of picking up a green life gem now increases your life; you can't carry it around anymore, because of the risk of losing them when you leave a level and not being able to get them again.
  • Thanks to Ipkins for reporting.

• Fixed longstanding issues with the visibly carried item not properly switching when you use that item, change items in your inventory, or pick up an item.

• Players are no longer allowed to drop "color keys" from their inventory, since that could theoretically lead to some story situations where the players get stuck.

• There is now a "rare items" panel below the regular inventories, which is where the combination papers (Which can't be directly used) go.

• When you have a key in your inventory, you no longer have to equip it and then use the action button tied to that key in order to open a door. Now you can just use your "empty handed action" (keyboard button E by default) to use the key without having to equip it first. This also works for color keys.

Beta .805 Corners Like It's On Rails

(Released March 11th, 2013)

• Lots of work on the Alden Ridge overworld section has been done.

• Nine new music tracks by Pablo Vega have been added to the game.

• Updated overworld 004-F Deadlands - Tangled Shore to have player 2 not follow you around and fall in the water a bunch.

• Finalized the music tracks in levels 001, 002, 004, 006, 007, 010, 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, 018, 019, 020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026, 027, 028, 029, 030, 031, 032, 081, 091, 092, 095, and 096.

• Updated the music tracks in levels 017.

• Several pieces of art updated by Heavy Cat.

• Added ten train cars, and two train tracks.

• Fixed an issue where, on levels with the lighting model in place, the screen could flicker (particularly if vsync was off, but even outside of that depending on your hardware).
  • Thanks to Mick and greywolf22 for reporting.

• Implemented "slide around background object" logic for the player characters, which makes maneuvering in tight spaces feel way more natural. This is something we'd been planning from the start, but hadn't gotten to until now.

• Level 042, Upstairs At The Green Hotel, has been updated to be two screens instead of one, and thus to have proper ceilings and so forth.

• Previously, if you touched a frozen gray on one screen, they would not be woken up on other screens in the same level. Now they wake up throughout the entire level.

• Fixed a bug with the game not being able to find the graphics for the hot air balloon.

• When you die in the overworld, or in an overworld-connected level, you no longer lose all your consumables.
  • Thanks to Ipkins and nas1m for reporting.

• The second player NPC now waits on the far side of the flower path rather than venturing in and getting beat up.

• To avoid confusion, bonus objectives that say "do not do [X]" now show up as complete (green) until such time as they are failed. Previously, they were showing up as incomplete until you left the level, which was really uncertain-making.
  • Thanks to Ipkins for reporting.

• Fixed a visual bug where the "complete all objectives at once" bonus objective was never showing as complete until the level was exited, and another bug where possibly it was not always triggering.
  • Also fixed an issue with it not showing green or displaying an icon when actually completed.
  • Thanks to Ipkins for reporting.

New Weapons

• Added a new weapon to the game: Handgun (plus small caliber bullets as a separate pickup).
  • These don't hurt grays, but let you shoot other enemy animals and such. However, grays that are shot are stunned for two seconds, so that's also useful.
  • These will be used in a variety of overworld areas in place of the traps that can kill grays, for thematic reasons (it's scarier when you can only slow grays, but not kill them) as well as to keep players from farming gray-killing weapons in the overworld and then taking them into levels. Also, because the gun is just plain fun. ;)

• The shop in Stantonsburg now carries handguns for $200 each. Also, in two player mode it now contains a second green life gem, too.

• In Stantonsburg, the warehouse now contains handguns for free after you beat the boss, instead of the other weapons that were there.

• All of the other weapon drops in Stantonsburg are now small caliber ammo drops instead.

• All of the weapons in the Deadlands are now small caliber ammo, except for two semi-hidden sets of grenades. There are also a couple of handguns in the old barn in case you missed the handguns before.

• The weapons in the Ivanwood Marsh are now small caliber ammo drops instead.

• The hammer handle has been visually shrunk so it's more visually distinctive from the other weapons.

• Added a new weapon to the game: Steel Pickaxe.
  • This is another weapon used in the overworld primarily. It's steel, so it doesn't harm grays, but it's sharp enough to stun them for two seconds like the bullets do.
  • The pickaxe can be used to dig like the shovel, or can be used to kill non-gray enemies.
  • Like iron sickles, the pickaxe breaks a bit with each use.

• The Deadlands and Ivanwood Marsh now also contain some pickaxes in addition to small caliber ammo.

Beta .804

(Released March 9th, 2013)

• Fixed a bug with one screen in the Deadlands (ravine north) where your character would disappear.
  • Thanks to Winge and Professor Paul1290 for reporting.

• Fixed an issue where there were some weapons that the parents could pick up in the yard when their house is being overrun. These tools then caused confusion and so forth in the Phoenix Forest if players actually went back for them.
  • Thanks to Diazo and Winge for reporting.

Beta .803

(Released March 9th, 2013)

• Recent fixes to the Phoenix Forest to no longer let you get the sledge hammer prematurely accidentally busted part of Stantonsburg.
  • Now Arlene gives you a purple key instead of a regular key. If you've already spoken to her and gotten the regular key, you can go speak to her again for the purple one.
  • If you've already unlocked the house in the far northwest corner of the town, then that's where the purple key was supposed to be used. Simply go back into the level inside that house, and then come back out. You'll then find Arlene next to the warehouse like she was supposed to be.
  • Thanks to Winge for reporting.

• The speed on the overworld was really excessive, and actually making things harder rather than more convenient. That has been toned down so that it is still higher than the in-level speed, but is no longer quite so fast.

• Fixed an issue in the Crazed Meadow where grays could sometimes get stuck by the water and you'd be unable to get them. The grays can still get stuck, but now you can easily drop them into a hole if they do.
  • Thanks to retnuH, Ipkins, and Penumbra for reporting.

• Previously, the game did not pause when you had the encyclopedia open. Fixed.
  • Thanks to Ipkins for reporting.

• Fixed some textual references to AVWW in the updater screens.
  • Thanks to retnuH for reporting.

• Fixed an issue with the Canoe Trip level where if you brought any tacks with you to the level you could not get past the rocks in the river. Now it lets you get past the rocks before they pop up.
  • Thanks to Winge for reporting.

• Fixed an issue where XBox wireless controllers were not being detected as xbox controllers and thus used generic button names.
  • Thanks to mrhanman and nas1m for reporting.

Beta .802

(Released March 9th, 2013)

• The key bindings for the two original action buttons have had their default bindings (and current bindings) reset, and are now to 1 and 2 instead of Q and W.

• There are now four active inventory slots on the HUD, rather than two. The two new ones map to 3 and 4 for player 1, and multiply and divide for player two.
  • Note that both the P2 defaults, and the gamepad defaults for both players, could stand to be better for these new controls. But for now these are serviceable, and are definitely good for player 1.
  • Thanks to madcow, mrhanman, and Teal_Blue for suggesting.

• The various refinements that were made to the axis noise canceling indexes in Valley 2 have now been ported to Shattered Haven.
  • The default noise canceling for the movement directions has also been increased dramatically, but that will only take effect for new players (or if you delete your settings.dat and settings.bak files).
  • Thanks to mrhanman for suggesting.

Beta .801

(Released March 8th, 2013)

• Fixed a bug with the timing of cutscene playback if you're running at anything other than 60fps.

• The offsets of the characters in their sitting-in-boats poses were all a bit hilariously off after the recent upgrades to their graphics. Fixed.

• Previously the game would default to your desktop resolution, which could easily be wildly too large, making the game tiny.
  • Now the screen defaults to 1440x900 if your graphics card supports that, or 1024x768 if your graphics supports that, or whatever your smallest supported (by both the game and your GPU) resolution is. Only if unity for some reason can't detect any supported screen resolutions at all will it now use your desktop resolution.
  • Thanks to madcow and Misery for inspiring this change.

• The description for "Small Red Life Gem" in the Encyclopedia was out of date. Fixed.
  • Thanks to Aklyon for reporting.

• The second-player stand-in NPCs that are just waiting for you to complete the level no longer attract grays in quite the same pathfinding way. This prevents the grays from getting annoyingly distracted with player 2 in The Farm, mainly.

• Adjusted the checkboxes to be colorblind friendly as well as clearer in general.
  • Thank to madcow for suggesting.

Previous Release Notes

Shattered Haven - Pre-Beta Release Notes