Labyrinthine
Public Testing Updated with 4 new case files and monsters.
This update brings changes for the case files gamemode, a save system, a shop, daily objectives as well as an overhauled Chapter 5.
Yes, yes... we said we were happy with Chapter 5 in the last dev blog, however, I personally wanted to go ahead and rework it to reduce the overall length of time as well as to make it less confusing overall. It's more condensed and should be clearer as to what needs doing. Chapter 6 is coming along nicely, no news on that just yet.
Have fun with the new maps/enemies!
Changelog
- Chapter 5 reworked to be shorter and more linear
- Added new items (map, revive bracer)
- Added currency in the form of Jonny Honks Prize Tickets
- Added in-game store using the new currency (no microtransactions)
- Added drag-interaction, updated the cryptex to use it
- Added Trenches Map type
- Added Trenches Monster (new)
- Added Trenches Puzzle (new)
- Added a save system; Exiting the game will place a checkpoint that you can continue from
- Added Bamboo Forest Map type
- Added Bamboo Forest Monster (new)
- Added Bamboo Forest Puzzle (new)
- Improved animations for the flashlight
- Improved visibility of the lantern
- Added Manor Maze type
- Added Manor Monster (new)
- Added Manor Puzzle (new)
- Added a new puzzle to the sewers
- Added support for flashlight skins (coming soon)
- Added support for glowstick skins (coming soon)
- Added Daily Challenges board
- Added Hardcore mode
- Added Hardcore-only Cosmetics
- Added collectible currency in mazes
- Improved performance of custom occlusion system in cases (should improve fps a little)
- Improved performance of grass
- Added sounds for seal pickup and inserting
- Improved shadows
- Added [Redacted]
- Added [Redacted] [Redacted]
- Added the ability to create custom cases
- Added public lobby options
- Updated server list to include new options
- Reworked Difficulty formula
- Added a new generation algorithm that can generate the map differently in areas
- The Sewer map-type will now reduce the valves required if it can't fit the objectives
- Updated the burning well on the cornfields mazetype to now be a fire-zone (deters wickerman)
- Added loadout screen to lobby
- Fixed an issue where monsters wouldn't always target the nearest player
- Updated the swamp dogs to make them disengage when they don't have a direct line of sight to the player
- Improved visual quality of players, internally reworked to allow for clothing cosmetics
- Added randomised objectives for maps
- Added new "common" cosmetics
- Fixed a bunch of bugs
- Increased the level cap
+ Various other minor changes and fixes
Labyrinthine Easter Patch
This patch brings seasonal easter-themed cosmetics to the game, as well as reworks to maze sizes in the cases gamemode.
Easter Cosmetics
In total, there are 6 cosmetics to find. These will appear in place of regular cosmetics at a 50% chance. Existing cases will be elligible so if you have saved a rare case, it may now have a cosmetic! These will be findable until the 22nd of April but will be wearable all year round. Happy hunting!
Easter Eggs
We've added a little "easter egg" that will run until the 22nd of April. They should put a glow on your face.
Case File Size Changes
We decided to bring forward the map size changes we had planned for the case file update. This should significantly reduce the total map size so they should be much quicker to complete. This makes the cases gamemode much more beginner friendly.
Changelog
- Fixed Double interaction bug
- Fixed voice slider bug
- Changed glowsticks so if you don't have infinite glowsticks on, they will fade over time
- Added ability to right click cases to zoom (button press on controller)
- Fixed UI scaling in lobby
- Fixed a bug that prevented gates, roots and ghosts from spawning in cases
- Added Easter cosmetics (from the 15th until midnight on the 22nd).
- Added "easter egg" for easter
- Improved performance of glowsticks
- Updated sizing formula for generating cases to drastically reduce map sizes. (Only applies to new cases)
- Added new objective spawn points for several maps
Hotfix for objective items not being interactable in some cases
Small patch to fix a few issues
- Fixed some lighting issues
- Fixed an issue where cameras could be tilted
- Fixed an issue preventing you from choosing certain hats
- Fixed double highlighting when choosing cosmetics
- Enabled unique hat for sewers
- Changed corn material so it doesn't react weird with light
Several Fixes and Improved Controller support.
- Fixed an issue that caused several AI to break
- Fixed an issue with animations that likely caused a crash when spectating
- Fixed an issue causing the cabin in chapter 2 to act like a safe house
- Fixed an issue that could cause the crocodile to go invisible
- Fixed an issue that could cause the player to be invisible when looking in certain angles
- Fixed an issue with czech localisation
- Fixed cosmetics sometimes not spawning in at the start of a case
- Fix a bug where you could die multiple times
- Fixed leech over-stretching
- Fix for the audio popping at the start/end of a match
- Crocodile no longer heads to the players last position
- Removed "blood" screen effects when being killed
- Fixed an issue where the leech would appear "stiff"
- Added glowstick collision noises
- Fixed monster kill animation ground detection
- Smoothed the kill animation transition for the swamp dog
- Fixed an issue where leeches didn't disengage properly
- Fixed some minor localisation issues
- Removed a couple trees from Chapter 5
- Added more colliders to the 2nd water area (no more climbing on the sides )
- Altered player camera position (may change, fixes an issue with interactions being an issue)
- Mosquito is now faster but disengages quicker
- Fixed font in localisation
- Fixed clothes lines in chapter 5
- Rebaked lighting
- Fixed several bugs with AI
- Disabled wrapping on the "reviving" text
- Fixed an issue where pigman's AI could break
- Massively improved controller support
- Enabled full steamdeck support
- Fixed Dutch translations turning to French (still missing part of the translation for Chapter 5, will have that out soon)
- Fixed a few issues with Chinese translations
March 2022 Developer Update
Hey Everyone!
The latest Developer update is now live. We talk about why chapter 5 feels so different, the design choices behind it as well as clearing up a few misconceptions. Aside from the chapter 5 stuff, we talk about a bunch of the upcoming cases gamemode reworks, including 3 new maps and monsters, currency, an in-game shop and new exclusive items that will be available.
As always, make sure to join our Official Valko Games Discord and thanks everyone for being supportive of us as we work our way through Early Access!
Enjoy!
Developer Update:
Labyrinthine - March 2022 Developer Update
Chapter 5 Has Arrived!
It's Finally Time!
After a very busy few months, we are now happy with the feedback and performance of Chapter 5. It's time to release it onto the main branch. Continue to follow in Joan's footsteps after she fled the crypt and into the swamps surrounding the Fir Residence...
This chapter has more enemies, more interactables, more animations and more lore notes than any of the previous chapters. For those achievement hunters out there, we've also added 4 new achievements. One for completing the chapter, one for hunting 10 collectibles and two of which are secret achievements that will require you to think outside of the box...
We *HIGHLY* recommend playing with infinite lives on for your first playthrough as this is by far the longest chapter and follows more of a chapter 3 style of play, having a much slower approach than Chapter 4. Expect 1-3 hours of playtime!
And finally, for those who have already played chapter 5 during public_testing, a big thank you for all of the feedback you gave us on discord. For those who played early-on, we recommend giving it another go! There's been some significant changes and many of the issues people had, have since been addressed.
The Sewer
We are also releasing the sewer for the cases gamemode. This map is dark and claustrophobic like the crypt. Expect to see some familiar faces as well as a new monster!
Labyrinthine OST Available on Youtube
Players have heavily requested that we release the music from the game on youtube. We took some time out to fulfill the request and you can now find the entire (current) soundtrack here: Labyrinthine OST Playlist
[previewyoutube="HamKDYBTsMo;full"]
Discord, Discord, Discord!
Finally, we just want to extend our discord invites out to more players. Quite a lot of players don't realise that we have an official discord. It's a great place to interact with us directly as well as meet other players and discuss the game. We love hearing what people liked and disliked as well as what they want to see in the game. We regularly chat to players about their suggestions and many things have been taken on-board for the game. So if you're a fan of the game, please hop in and say hello!
Valko Game Studios Official Discord
Changelog
** Please note, these are just the changes we've recorded. There has been a ton of smaller performance tweaks and bug fixes that have gone under the radar **
- Chapter 5 released
- Added the sewers map to the cases gamemode. It is available from level 5
- Added new monster to cases, found only in the sewers
- Changed how light sources work. They will now follow the direction the player looks much more accurately while being smoother and less "clunky". The lantern will now swing and act more like a real lantern
- Fixed skeletons in Chapter 4 not moving
- Player heads now rotate when looking up and down
- Added a small light that appears when being killed so you don't just see a "black screen"
- Reviving is now much more consistent
- The male teen character has been re-rigged to look less like a gorilla
- To help reduce the disparity in sizes, we've added a very large and very small size
- You should now only ever have one Large / Very Large / Giant maze. You will also always have at least 1 Small or Very Small maze which makes quick runs easier
- Reworked how we handle networking once in-game, should fix issues with "endless loading screens"
- Fixed issue where the fog could intensify when going back to the lobby
- Improved jumping so players should "float" less
- Nameplates now only appear when close
- Localisation should now default for some system languages
- Added a black plane to pumpkins to make them look less "derpy" when worn
- Slightly raised the chance for Cornfields/Sewer to appear at lv5
- Fixed an issue where looking at effigies could leave a spyglass on screen
- Fixed a bug where bleedout UI could disappear when reviving other players
- Improved player camera control
- Tweaked player animations when being killed
- Altered camera positions
- Removed patrol points from main corridor of Chapter 2
- Fixed a crate being the wrong scale in Chapter 2
- Fixed several issues around reviving
- Added collision detection during animations (you shouldn't be thrown through a wall now)
- Fixed an issue with the spectate cam during kill animations
- Fixed an issue where you could be killed in spawn
- Added flashlight animations for other players
- Added checks to prevent monsters killing you when a solid object is between you and them
- Added blood to most monster kills
- Fixed the stalk music in spectator mode
- Improved the AI when there is no available spot to move
- Added light "zone" around cauldron in the forest
- Removed "danger" from the contracts (confused people too much)
- Added lives to case files in lobby
- Improved fall detection to try reduce the amount of floating
- Improved player controls to prevent getting stuck in a lot of situations
- Fixed an issue where sometimes your player would disappear when looking at certain angles
- Changed the "cannot interact" cursor from a magnifying glass to a cancelled cog (inspect icon is still a magnifying glass)
- Fixed an issue where it was difficult to get through certain doors or under objects
- Fixed an issue where Thai (possibly some other) players would have issues with no xp at the end of a contract
- Fixed an issue where monsters could "get inside you"
- Fixed an issue where exits could sometimes be unreachable
- Fixed an issue where snow could stop when being revived in certain places on the snowy hedges
- Fixed an issue arising from being in a menu when spectating
- Added snow footsteps for most monsters
- Fixed an issue where you could get stuck examining
- Fixed some navigation issues in the tight hedges
- Made the seed text more obvious at higher resolutions
- Fixed a navigation issue that could occur near the safe zones in the crypt
- Added analytics so we can see where players struggle
- Fixed several issues with lighting in the crypt
- Added a lobby filter (only a few racial slurs currently)
- Fixed an issue where cases could re-roll when exiting back to the lobby
- Fixed an issue where you could become immune to monsters
- You no longer get the chapter 4 achievement for completing chapter 3
- Fixed players floating above ground slightly
- Reduced sway on crouch animation
- Reduced cooldown on stunning the snow witch
- Fixed weather for spectators (currently only in the snowy hedges)
- Fixed a navigation issue in the cages landmark in cases gamemode crypts
- Fixed an issue with pigman's charge cooldown
- Added an angle check for the pigman's stun
- Added a new puzzle to the crypts in cases
- Fixed an issue that could cause examinable objects to get "stuck" in the world
- Improved player's ability to climb onto objects
- Fixed an issue that could cause monsters to get stuck in an animation loop
- Added Reflections to the options menu
- Added a cooldown to monster screams to prevent situations where there's a constant amount of noise
- Several changes to options when using lower quality settings
- Fixed some animation issues when respawning
- Fixed a problem with the camera being tilted for the host in Chapter 4
- Fixed bug where examining could make you float in air.
- Fixed a few materials
- Fixed a crash that could occur
- Improved examining and made the return animation smoother
- Added Czech language
- Fixed the "shininess" of the fur hat
- The mausoleum floor in chapter 3 now falls for everyone
- Added stone material to Mausoleum in Chapter 3
Chapter 5 now available on the public_testing branch
Hey all,
Many of you will be happy to hear that Chapter 5 has just gone live on the public_testing branch. we just want to clarify, this is not definitive and things could change based on feedback so if you want the "full" experience, please wait for us to bring it over to the live build. We haven't finished optimising it, so you may have performance issues if your specs are fairly low. We also haven't done any localisation yet either so it is only available in English *for now*.
This chapter is large and open, we recommend having at least an hour spare to play it. There are several different monsters throughout and each has it's own mechanic. We **highly recommend playing with infinite lives** if it's your first time. There are also 4 achievements obtainable in this zone, 2 are hidden though so you will have to figure those out ;).
We hope you enjoy it; we've taken a different route to chapter 5, similar to how chapter 3 broke up the two mazes and we hope people enjoy this change of pace.
Also, along side chapter 5, we've got a host of nifty changes coming too.
Let's start with the first one, the Sewer map. This will appear at level 5 in the case-files gamemode. It has it's own unique monster which some private-testers have **hated**.
We've also changed how the light sources work on players, the flashlight will now follow the direction players look much smoother and it overall feels less "clunky" while still physically coming from the flashlight. The Lantern now swings and acts more like a real lantern which adds a good bit of immersion.
Players will now also rotate their heads when looking up and down which makes them look and feel more alive.
A dim light will appear when being killed by monsters (no more "black screen" when dying in a dark area).
Reviving should be much more consistent.
The male teen character has been re-rigged to look less like a gorilla.
To help reduce the disparity in sizes, we've added a very large and very small size.
You should now only ever have one Large / Very Large / Giant maze. You will also always have at least 1 Small or Very Small maze which makes quick runs easier.
A bunch of bug fixes and performance changes.
Make sure to join our discord to send us your feedback, bug reports and suggestions!
discord.gg/valkogamestudios.