As a quick side note, thank you again for all of your support! We hit an all-time high of player count today at 673 concurrent players. Talk to you all in the next announcement!
BET Journeys and Junctions Update, Part II: Releasing October 1st
Hello again! I'm beyond excited to announce an official date for the second part of the Journeys and Junctions update. As the title states, it will be released on October 1st!
This update will bring 3 more levels for you all to explore among other hidden secrets. Below is a sneak peek of one of the levels, I think you all can guess which one it's going to be :)
As one final note, we just released a new small update for BET that fixes some bugs and brings new features, read more about it here.
BET is also 20% off for the next week! Now is a good time to get the game if you don't already own it and be treated with a new update in just 3 short weeks!
FAQ
There have been many questions lately surrounding this update, so I figured I would answer them all here.
Summer ended x weeks ago, I thought the update was coming out "End of Summer"?
I take full blame for this. I didn't realize many people have a different idea of when Summer ends. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer officially ends on the 22nd of September; Many assumed it would come out when their school's summer vacation ended. We didn't want to give an official date to give us breathing room, but it just caused more confusion. That being said, the update will be one week late as far as the official "End of Summer" goes. This gives us time to fully polish everything and deliver the best update possible.
I thought there were going to be 7+ new levels, it is a "Part 2" after all.
This is another misconception I saw a lot, I should've been more careful with the wording as other Backrooms games call their updates "Parts". Part 2 refers to the journeys and junctions update, not the game. The update was large, so we decided to split it into 2 updates. Part 1 of the Journeys and Junctions update was released in July of this year.
This game has been out for almost 2 years, why are there only 7 levels!?
All of our levels are procedurally generated, (hopefully) visually lifelike, and unique from a gameplay standpoint. All of these things mean each Level takes around 500 hours to complete. Currently, I am the only full-time dev on this, along with Ethan who is working part-time. We try to prioritize quality over quantity. That being said, I read every review, comment, and discord message. I hear you all! More content is our highest priority. Every copy sold is going right back into the game. I am working tirelessly to hire and scale up operations to meet demand. Your support directly funds additional levels, and recently it has given us the resources to expand to a full team. I plan to scale up to 5+ developers by the end of the year which should mean lots of new levels will be coming soon!
Is Journeys and Junctions Part II a new game or DLC?
No, it is a completely free content update. We will always stick true to our founding promise that anyone who purchases the game in Early Access will be treated with tons of free content updates. Hopefully meeting our goal of 20-30+ levels. We have no plans for any paid DLC or new titles. All of our resources are being put into BET to make it the best game possible.
Thank you
Lastly, thank you all. Truly. None of this would be possible without everyone's unwavering support. I am fully committed to making this the best multiplayer experience on Steam. We obviously have a long way to go, but I, the current team, and the future team will be working tirelessly to make this reality.
Excited to bring some amazing content to you all, Blake
Journeys & Junctions Part I: Update 13
Change List:
Movement keys can now be rebound to support AZERTY and other layouts
Fixed bug that made players invisible when spectating
Small performance optimization of Medium settings
Increased hitbox size for all item interacts
Added dance emote!
Small performance optimizations for Level 0
Part II Release Date!
Part II of the Journeys and Junctions Update will be released on October 1st! Mark your calendars and get excited! See this announcement for more details on what the update will bring.
Journeys & Junctions Part I: Update 12
Hello all! First off I wanted to say thank you and welcome to those who are new here! BET's player count has exploded over the past week and we even reached the top 500 best-selling games on Steam at one point! We are so happy you all are enjoying Part 1. Even though we are still hard at work on Part 2, I wanted to polish up some bugs that could potentially impact your experience.
Change List:
Spectators can now see the ending cutscene
Potential fix for bug that causes players to not load the map and be frozen in-place on rare occasions
Potential fix for bug that causes voice chat to become non-spatialized after entering a new level
Potential fix for bug that causes inventories to disappear for non-hosts
Fixed not getting the achievement for Level ! if you were spectating
Fixed crash on startup for Steamdeck/Linux-Proton Users
Increased quality of hazmat mesh material
Leaving Level 1 and 37 now requires an interact with the door to avoid confusion
Fix input microphone not working or saving if the previously saved input devices is no longer on the computer
Fix for players sometimes being invisible on load
Small menu QOL features and fixes
Updated Localization
Journeys and Junctions Part I: Hotfix 11
Change List:
Fixed bug that blocked leaving Level 2 if no items were picked up during the level
Fixed camera having the chance to clip into objects when crouching
Increased Level 2 table size
Journeys & Junctions Part I: Hotfix 8
Hey all, it came to my attention 30 minutes ago that there was a bug with the Level 2 clocks not showing the time after turning the valve if a non host was the one who turned the valve. This is fixed in this hotfix. I wanted to personally apologize to all impacted players. It somehow slipped through our testing and I wasn't aware of the issue. They seemed to have broken in last night's update. Very sorry again.
Change List:
Fixed clocks in Level 2 not turning on if a non host player opened the valve
Fixed rare crash when opening the audio settings
Journeys & Junctions Part I: Update 8
Changelist:
Fixed items sometimes not showing in inventory after map travel
Added microphone input selector
Fixed voice chat not being spatialized sometimes
Fixed LiDAR spectate mode to not just be the void
Fixed not being able to use items with a controller
Changed LiDAR control confirmation to continue on keypress, bypassing enter requirement
Entities can no longer grab you through small slits or holes
Made Level 2 hallway valves stop turning when the correct threshold is reached
Fix rare crash on startup for Intel Integrated GPUs
Updated localization
Journeys & Junctions Part I: Update 7
Hi everyone. Apologies for the delay between updates, adding the new precompile step took me a lot longer than anticipated but it will hopefully fix startup crashes and bring performance improvements.
Change List:
Added PSO Precompiling step to first launch to improve load times and dramatically reduce stutters
Fix crash causing certain GPUs not able to launch the game since the 0.8 update
Increased quality of low settings with no performance impact
Optimized rendering to improve performance by 1%-4% (Depending on hardware)
Reduced VRAM spikes causing OOM crashes on certain GPUs
Reduced banana sanity drain
Slightly changed jump dynamics
Fixed lights being off on Level 2 when switching between low settings
Reduced CPU Usage on Level 2
Fixed statues on Level 6 only playing audio once
Fixed things spawning inside mattresses on Level 0.11
Fixed Scratcher getting stuck on Level !
Fixed revive speed stat showing wrong color
Updated Localization
Journeys and Junctions Part I: Update 6
Hey all! Blake here, back with another hotfix. I suppose these aren't much of a hotfix anymore considering the update has been out for a week so let's change the name to update. This update focuses on optimization. I've gone through all of the areas of the game where performance seems to drop, and have optimized those sections. We've also done the usual QOL updates, bug fixes, and tweaks. The full change list for this update is below.
Change List:
Added refresh button when in the lobby search tab
Slightly increased Level 2 item spawn rates
Optimized overgrown area in Level 0, eliminating any performance drops
Increased FPS when inside Level 1 storage rooms
Increased Level 37 performance by 10%
Reduced needed shader compilations on initial load of the game
Fixed grainy clouds on Level 4
Soup now gives you sanity
Made Level 6 monster's appearance more random
Doubled the time Chewing Gum lowers sanity drain
Removed railing collision on Level 0 elevator to avoid players floating on them
Disabled DLSS Frame Generation by default as it has some performance issues when getting below 90 FPS
Known issues we are (still) working on:
Instant crashing on some hardware for the first few launches of the game
Use item button not working on Steam Deck
Incessant prerequisites install prompt on Linux
Keybinds are not saving for some users
Journeys and Junctions Part I: Hotfix 5
Hello all! Blake here, back with another hotfix. This one mainly focuses on fixing bugs with the item system and some tweaks to the levels players have the most difficulty on. Thank you all for your crazy support for this release. Our north star for BET is to delight players and we are thrilled to be hitting that mark thus far.
Change List:
Fixed being able to clip teammates through the elevator by crouching
Fix some clutter on level 2 being out of sync with the host
Made keypad interact box larger on Level Run
Lowered alarm sound on Level 2
Polished sector 2 on Level 6 for more intuitive puzzle solving
Fixed inventory items sometimes not showing on non-hosts
Fixed Purgatory saving items after leaving to the menu
Fixed not being able to revive players in lockers
Added loot to Level 6
Refactored loot system to eliminate spawning issues/desync with host
Optimized level load times
Fixed Skin Stealer getting stuck on downed players
Fixed crash if someone is talking when leaving a game
