It’s time for another GrowRillious spooky season! We've added tons of scary content to the game, so grab your silver arrows and garlic cloves and let’s jump into it.
Scary Content
New, supernatural inhabitants have invaded the GrowRilla islands and are hunting for fresh gorilla snacks. All new Halloween content and special areas will appear with high frequency during the next week or so and then less regularly afterwards.
We are not going to reveal too much, just leave you with a few teaser images and we'll let you explore all the little surprises.
A haunted mansion, guarded by the undead.
A graveyard, full of potential food and enemies.
Witches conducting their secret rituals.
We wish you the best this Halloween! Try not to get too spooked!
Cheers, Salmi Games
Sweet Surrender Launching September 30th 2021!
Hey friends!
We’re excited to finally announce that our newest VR title, Sweet Surrender, is coming out September 30th!
Sweet Surrender is our first fully budgeted game, and after 20 months of development we are really looking forward to releasing it to the public!
Post-Release Plans
The release is super exciting for us, but is also the start of a new development phase. We have gathered a great deal of feedback and wishes from players. This feedback (along with our own ideas) will form the foundation for future (free!) DLCs and updates. We will outline these details very soon in our upcoming roadmap!
Thank You!
Thank you for all your support over the years. We hope you will check out our new game.
We will naturally keep posting our updates on our Twitter, Discord and Steam page! In the meantime, remember to add Sweet Surrender to your wishlist, it’s a huge help for us.
Thanks, Salmi Games
Check out a demo of our new game during Steam Next Fest!
Hi everyone, exciting news!
We will be taking part in the Steam Next Fest, featuring our upcoming VR title Sweet Surrender! Not only will there be a playable demo available for all to try, but we will also be hosting a live stream on the June 18th (20:00 CEST/2pm EST/11am PST). Make sure to check out our Sweet Surrender page for details and further updates (and thank you for wishlisting the game).
For more frequent updates you can find us on Twitter and Discord!
We're excited to finally reveal our upcoming game!
Sweet Surrender, a Roguelite VR Shooter, will be coming out in late 2021. This is our biggest project yet: a fully-funded, action-loaded single player adventure set in a whole new world!
To celebrate this reveal, we are running a sale on GrowRilla and Ellipsis!
Thanks for your support! As a small indie team, we really appreciate it!
Update 8 Hotfix
Hello everyone,
We are releasing a small patch to address a floor/height/reset issue some players have encountered while playing GrowRilla with the recent patch. In some cases, upon growing to a certain height, the player would be stuck in the ground or potentially even be killed.
We heard about these issues over the week-end. After successfully reproducing the bug on our end, we've implemented a fix and pushed an update. We apologize for the oversight.
Thank you to the players who reached out to report the issue. Without you, we might not have known about the bug for even longer and it would've ruined the experience of many other players.
If you encounter a bug, please let us know via our email (contact@salmi.de) or by messaging us on our discord.
Cheers, Salmi Games
Update 8 - Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater!
Hello everyone,
Just in time for Halloween, we are unveiling a special feature today. We've used this extensively during development to help us test GrowRilla. Today we want to present to you... the cheats file!
Before we jump into that, a small reminder: make sure to check out GrowRilla during the Steam Halloween event - we generate extra spooky events in the procedurally-generated maps, which you can only experience during the Halloween week. And now back to the cheats file!
With the cheats file you can edit certain properties of the game to tweak the game's behavior and override various aspects of the level generation. For example, you can make yourself invincible or increase the spawn rates of certain enemies or spawn additional nukes in the game. Or even change gravity!
Currently, the number of supported properties that be tweaked is limited, but if you have any good suggestions for settings you would like to edit, let us know and we'll do our best to add them. For the level generation, we've exposed almost the entire system, so the number of things you can change is almost infinite!
Cheat Guide
We've prepared a full cheat guide, which you can read here. Below is an overview of what you can change in the game:
allowCheating: true/false (allows / ignores the use of the cheats file)
addSecretWeapons: true/false (spawns nukes at regular farms)
invincible: true/false (turns invincibility on / off)
overwriteProbabilities:[{"name":"PoIName","probability":100.0}] (Overwrites the spawn probability of certain places of interests / enemies)
overwriteProbabilities is the "meat and potatoes" to hacking the level generation. We go into much more detail in the above mentioned cheat file guide. We hope you try it out and customize the GrowRilla islands to your liking. Hopefully you'll even discover new or funny configurations.
That sums up the major additions in this update. We've also made a few fixes and improvements based on player feedback, see the full changelist below. As per usual, we always appreciate your feedback on our games. You can chat with us over on our discord.
Cheers, Salmi Games
Changelist - Build 391
Improvements
Added a deadzone for joystick locomotion
Added the cheats file to the GrowRilla data root folder
Added a folder with cheat files examples to the root folder
You now no longer instantly die as a giant gorilla if you enter shallow water
Expose gravity setting in cheats file
Update 7 - The Gorilla's New Locomotion
Hello friends,
We are back with another update to GrowRilla. We are introducing a few highly-requested features to the game (thank you for all the feedback on our Discord). At the same time we are also releasing an update to our other VR game, Late For Work. To celebrate, both our games are going on a surprise sale! If you already own one, make sure to grab our VR Indie bundle to get the second game, as you'll save another 10%!
Without much further ado, here are all the new features:
Joystick Movement is Here
This has been probably the most requested feature we've gotten over GrowRilla's entire Early Access development. A lot of people mentioned that they prefer different locomotion systems. During Early Access, we wanted to stick with our direct Gorilla-like movement system. But now that we've released the game and completed the core gameplay, we can afford to take the time and implement Joystick movement correctly as an additional option.
We are a little bit purist and think knuckle-dragging is the best system but VR is about options. What works for one person doesn't work for others. We want as many people to enjoy our games as possible, so we are happy to finally add Joystick movement support. We hope you enjoy it!
For our next project, we want to include more locomotion options from the start, so it made sense to go back and also adapt it to GrowRilla. We hope you'll try out 'smovin' across the islands and let us know what you think.
The Smoothest of Camera Turnings
Continuing on our theme of VR options, we also introduced smooth camera turning with this update. Not as highly requested as the previous feature, we've still received several requests for it. Just like the joystick locomotion, you can toggle this feature in the menu settings as well as control the turning speed.
We've also updated snap turning with settings to edit the angle at which it turns. Please let us know what you think of these changes.
Finally all your settings are now stored so that you don't have to set them up each time you play.
Improved Windows Mixed Reality Support
The last improvement we've included in this update is a general overhaul to how GrowRilla interacts with WMR headsets. We've noticed a number of issues affecting some headsets which caused the game to position the camera incorrectly. We've worked hard to address these and hope we are supporting all headsets correctly. Thank you again to all our users who reported these issues.
And that marks the end of this update. We've also fixed a number of bugs, which you can find below in our full changelist. We hope you try out all the new feature and let us know what you think (join our Discord!)
Changelist - Build 375
Improvements
Changes to the setting will now be saved for future playthroughs
Joystick based movement can now be enabled in the settings. Made sure it works well with climbing and with throwing objects while moving.
Turning the camera can now be toggled between smooth and snap turning
You can now edit at which speed snap turning turns your camera
Fixes
The game now teleports you out from under trees if you grow while under a tree
Fixed missing collision in the lab level
Collision on the desert map mountains has been improved
Update 6 - The big 1.0 Release
Hello friends,
It's finally time! After 10 months and 5 massive updates, GrowRilla is finally releasing it's 1.0 update. Working on the game has been a lot of fun and allowed us to try out many new things we wanted to implement in a singleplayer VR roguelite game. We want to say a big "thank you" to all of our loyal fans, who encouraged and supported us throughout this time. Without much further ado, here are the big additions we've added to GrowRilla for the 1.0 update:
New Campaign Mode
Not only can you play through the regular GrowRilla islands (renamed to "free mode"), but we've also introduced a brand new campaign mode. How far can you make it through a barrage of challenging island with only one life? The islands are, as per usual, randomly generated and now come with a variety of goals to accomplish. From disabling military recruitment campaigns, to getting rid of nuclear bombs, all the way to the final boss in his snow covered fortress (hint: it's an enemy you've encountered many times so far, but with a new, much more menacing body).
New Maps
With the campaign, we've also released a completely redesigned new island type: the desert island. Just like the snow island, it's a harsh environment which will make surviving and growing big even tougher. It also has a variety of new enemies and secrets to discover. We've also experimented quite a bit more with vertical structures. The desert map can only be encountered in the campaign, so make sure to give it a try.
Along with the desert map, we've redesigned some of the other maps to add new variations as well as some new Points of Interests (some of which you can only discover in the campaign). These range from simple Stonehenge formations all the way to nuclear power plants.
Redesigned Menu
Additionally we've completely reworked the in-game menu. This has been a sore point for a long time, but until now we we've focused on the gameplay. It wouldn't be an 1.0 release without a proper menu. The new menu features a slick, high-tech computer monitor straight from the sixties! With new icons, new options and many Quality-of-Life improvements. We hope you'll enjoy it!
LIV Integration
Also part of the update is new support for LIV. LIV is a tool that lets you easily record and stream your VR experiences (with mixed reality support). You can now use LIV to record yourself playing GrowRilla and even insert yourself into the game. We're also now listed on the officially supported list of games. We've also added a way to quickly toggle your GrowRilla avatar's visibility. Simply press the J key to toggle it between visible and invisible. If you stream the game, please make sure to let us know, we're always excited to see what funny things you come up with.
The Future of GrowRilla
GrowRilla has been an incredible learning experience for us. Compared to Late For Work, it's a huge step forward, not just in terms of performance but also for gameplay and usability. Everything feels more intuitive and we've built up a sophisticated pipeline and VR toolset.
With this 1.0 release, we are going to take a step back and watch how it's received by the community. We've got a few other projects brewing in the background and can't wait to share them with you. Make sure to join our discord to stay updated.
Changelist - Build 362
Campaign
Added a campaign mode, with multiple missions and a branching progression system
Added themed islands for campaign; the further you go the more unique islands you'll encounter
Added 14 different goals as random objectives
Added desert island with plateau mountains, as well as unique enemies and plants
Added new PoI to campaign maps, such as new military bases and nuclear power plants
Added a jungle map, as an alternate forest map
Added a jungle specific base
Added an easy farmland island
Added a Stonehenge themed island
Added a Global buff system for campaign
Added a super secret final boss to the campaign mode
Added a new result screen for the campaign, as well as a trophy for beating it
Menu
Updated the menu with a new slick design and layout
Improved island visualization
Added extra options to the "settings" sub-menu
Reworked the design for the buttons in the menu
Added a campaign section to the menu
The quit button now properly takes you back to the lab when you are ingame and closes the game when you are already in the lab
Improvements
Improved the loading screen layout
You can now find food and potions on top of the grain tower
Tanks now attack you from further away
Turrets can now turn their gun 360° and will do so faster
Adjusted shotgun shots to be more precise
Adjusted the volume of animals sounds
You can now knock over fences when you reach the 3rd size
Improved the map previews
Added a tip to toggle your weapon the first time you shoot one
Removed the "empty magazine" sound from spiders
Made bears attack faster
Added a farm variant with bulls
Fixes
Adjusted the weight of the windmill, so you can no longer pick it up and eat it
Fixed an issue that would cause the game to crash when resetting your save
Fixed a bug that would set your height too low to the ground after increasing in size
Fixed the pivot point of snow covered trees
Bananas on top of tanks are no longer floating
Objectives no longer spawn above water
The view cones of jeeps are no longer floating
Fixed an issue that would cause floating hp bars to appear in the sky
Updated the victory texts for free mode
Upcoming Update, Sale and a VR Bundle
Hey everyone!
We've been quiet the last few months, as we are working on several projects in parallel, but we most definitely haven't forgotten GrowRilla. We are still working on a massive update for GrowRilla as well as a smaller update for Late For Work (which you've already grabbed, right...right???). More details on the GrowRilla update coming in a future post.
But we want to hear from you, is there anything annoying you or missing from the game that you really would like us to fix. Please let us know down here in the comments or on the forums.
We're running a small sale this week-end on both our VR games and just to sweeten the pot, we've created a "Indie Supporter" bundle where you can grab both games for a bigger discount (or complete your bundle):
Thanks as always for your support and for continuing to rate Late For Work as one of the top VR party games. It means a lot to us.
Stay Awesome, Salmi Games
Update 5.1: A Growing World
Hello friends,
Shortly before Christmas, we rolled out Update 5. We unfortunately had to roll it back due to problems that some players experienced. We are now back with the originally-planned Update 5 + a few more fixes and improvements (that's why there are two changelists at the bottom).
So let's just jump into it.
New Islands to Discover
We've heard you. Playing on the same map with the same stuff is bound to get stale after a while. We're excited to finally introducing new islands to the game, all with unique environments, enemies, cuisine and places to discover.
A new fall themed map with plenty of farms and pumpkins.
This new winter map is just right for this time of the year.
Some content is shared across islands (e.g. the military is present on all of them), but they are still quite different from one another. We hope that you will enjoy discovering what they all have to offer.
Bigger Cities And More Places Of Interest
Additionally to the new island types, we've also added bigger cities to the higher difficulties. These will offer more city blocks to randomly spawn and will increase the number of cities you can encounter. There are also some entirely new blocks as well!
As well as a bigger city, you can now also find new places of interest. Go and wreak some havoc at the military's laboratory or a car factory. Or perhaps you'd always wanted to steal donuts from the local donut shop (which the police will certainly not appreciate). There's also new grain towers and windmills, which you can find randomly near farms.
Balancing Adjustments
We also made a fairly significant change to the health system: we dropped the auto-regen health system for the player. This will obviously seriously affect the balancing of the game.
We originally liked our Halo-esque health recharge system. It was an easy way to make the game accessible. You may get smashed in the face if you jump into a hairy situation, but you'd still have a chance to run away and catch your breath. Unfortunately, we've noticed too many players abusing this quick recovery. We don't want players to run into a heavily-armed base, smash a few things, run away and repeat. Players should not get a free pass for reckless actions.
The primary way to recover HP is by eating. It feels right. You can still recover health quickly, but it requires an intentional action, and you can't keep feeding off one small area endlessly. We also added two new potions to pickup: a health potion and a regen potion (regenerates over time).
We've of course adjusted enemy damage accordingly and we think overall the balance of the game has improved significantly. Now it's less "always being full hp and only dying when you're getting one shot" and more "managing your hp as a Resource and planning your next move strategically".
Gameplay Improvements and Bug Fixes
We've improved several aspects of the game that have been bothering us (and players too, thank you for your feedback).
Getting stuck under a tree: this was happening way too often. You'd eat an apple under a tree, grow a bit and get stuck. The "solution" was to duck down and pull yourself away but this was both unintuitive and pretty clunky. We've done two things: reduced the likelihood of food spawning under a tree and automatically push the player out from the under the tree if they get stuck. It's the least inelegant solution we found (other options considered were "automatically ejecting the tree" and "disabling collisions temporarily", but each of these introduced a slew of other problems)
Object pickup is easier: previously you could only pick up objects by aiming your palm at them or the outside of your arm (surprisingly many players hold their hands like this). We added another orientation: aiming your fingers towards an object. It's a subtle improvement but it makes a difference. Combined with our intelligent prioritization of objects, picking up objects should more often do what you expect it to do.
Slope-Based Movement: we had this in an early build but disabled it at some point because it was simpler without it. But it's been bugging us how it feels to walk on the roof of the barns and other buildings. Now when you move across the roof, you'll automatically be pushed up/down based on the slope of the surface you're on. We're really curious if other players enjoy this. We feel it's more consistent but it's also potentially less comfortable for some players. We'd really love to hear your feedback on this point. This may eventually transform into a comfort option. Currently it's enabled only for certain buildings (barn, farm, military barracks, some trees)
New Spawn Point in the City: we added a new spawning point possibility inside the city that occurs randomly if the map includes a zoo. It adds a nice little twist. We may add more of these in the future.
How did we get here?
Campaign Status and Next Update
Unfortunately, we're still not quite ready to unveil the new campaign mode. We're continuing to work on it in parallel to all the new content we've been adding. It's starting to take shape and we're kind of excited for its potential. We think it will really add depth and replayability to the game. We're having a lot of fun coming up with new maps and goals. Here's a small tease.
Another area we plan to improve in our next update is the Menu system. It hasn't gotten much love since we first implemented it. It's a bit clunky and there are clear and easy improvements we can make to it. We have just not focused on it because gameplay and content are/were higher priorities. But the menu will soon get some proper love.
We look forward to sharing these with you in our next update in February 2020.
Thank You
As always, we'd love to read your feedback on this, how you feel the game plays with these changes and what other improvements you'd like to see.
And if you're enjoying our game, we'd really appreciate if you could leave a review.
Cheers, Salmi Games
Changelist - Build 278
Improvements
You now no longer regenerate health when out of combat
Added Health max and Regen Potions
Random chance to spawn on a new autumn map on two highest difficulties
Random chance to spawn on a new winter map on the highest difficulty
Added new snow/autumn tree's / bushes / animals
Bigger cities with 2x3 and 3x3 blocks have been added to the game
Added military blocks to big cities
Added donut police city block
Added gas station city block
Added new factory block for big cities
Added new content (windmills, western houses, grain tower)
Improved Farm points of interests
Added windmill points of interests
The menu layout has been adjusted for clarity and the upcoming campaign mode
Tutorial billboard text has been adjusted according to the new menu layout
The slow-motion effect when you finish a round has been made less slow-motioney
Powerups now display their remaining duration and their effect
Improved labels and sounds for powerups
Added jumping spiders
Spiders now poison you with their attacks
The cliffs now have better looking LoDs
Nukes and grenades now display some small text on how to trigger them when you pick them up for the first time
The unlock shelf has been moved to the left in the laboratory and improved visually, showing all the content you've unlocked permanently
Military jeeps have been added to the game
Helicopter rotors spin faster now
The military base on the hardest difficulty now contains slightly less units
Added new military outpost using the vans (they are currently underrepresented in the game)
Increased the range for picking up objects when holding your hand straight
Improved healthbar (Damage/Heal Fade, half transparent after time)
Added recursive checks for multiple islands and connecting them with land bridges
(Internal) Added new visualization for random object generation
(Internal) Achieved the incredible score of 96 words per minute on a typing competition
Added healthbars to gas tanks
Added chance to start in the zoo
Added walking on slopes (only for certain buildings, should improve the rooftops of the barns, farms, some trees, the military barracks)
Fixes
You are now pushed away when you grow under a tree to prevent you from getting stuck
Nukes no longer have a health bar
Bazooka missiles now have a maximum distance they can fly
Chickens now drop a more realistic amount of eggs
Horse mass has been adjusted
Artillery shells now properly blow away nearby objects
The explosion effect for the nukes no longer uses the bombs rotation
Health bars no longer sometimes display 0
Objects no longer are visible in the victory screen
Activating a nuke for the first time and activating a grenade for the first time no longer have the same achievement name
Gas tanks now properly take damage and explode
Put measures in place that prevent the player from falling through the map
Hunters no longer shoot their own dog
Fixed Oculus SDK log error (trying to connect to steam api)
Fixed bug that lead to farms sometimes spawning partly on the water
Fixed eternal movement upwards on climbing exploit
Changelist - Build 288
Improvements
The game now appears less saturated the lower health you are
Fixes
Fixed an issue where the game would not start properly for vive players
The quit button now always properly quits the game
Fixed a bug that prevented you from activating your first grenade
The first map you load into now doesn't always feature zombies
The voiceover doesn't skip on the first time playing the game
