Major Content Update + Console Release Date Announcement
Hey everybody!
We are happy to announce that Rusted Moss' Major Content Update is coming out on June 20, 2024 alongside the console release!
While Rusted Moss will not have a sequel, it sometimes feels like this major content update might as well be one!
What you can expect from the major update:
2 new areas to explore
7-8 hours of more content
300+ new rooms
Boss rush
Maya mode (How mysterious... Ok not so mysterious - you can play the whole game again as Maya after you beat it the first time. Speedrun mode rules apply so no new dialogue or ending stuff but you'll be introduced to some nifty new ways to play! )
Announcing Rusted Moss Arena - a multiplayer platform fighter!
Hey everyone! Happy Valentine's Day!
We have an announcement regarding the Major Content Update coming soon so please stay tuned for that! In the meantime however, we do have an extremely exciting announcement about a fun side project of ours:
RUSTED MOSS ARENA
Rusted Moss Arena is a 2-4 player platform fighter you can play free on your browser. Bombard your friends with rockets and grapple-hook them off the arena all while swinging through a hectic mix of explosions and silly physics! (We also have rollback netcode!)
Copy the link generated and send it to others to play with!
Make sure they open the link in a compatible browser (ex. chrome, edge, opera) or the link will need to get generated again.
How do I find others to play with? This was just a fun side project for us so we are not going to be expanding this with matchmaking. Either play with your friends or try find others to play with on our DISCORD !
Thanks so much for supporting our game and hope you enjoy some Rusted Moss PvP action in the meantime. Nothing says Valentine's Day like murdering your friends!
We've been working hard on the major (and final) content update of Rusted Moss.
While Rusted Moss will not have a sequel, it sometimes feels like this major content update might as well be one!
What you can expect from the major update:
2 new areas to explore
7-8 hours more content
300+ new rooms
Boss rush
Maya mode (How mysterious... Ok not so mysterious - you can play the whole game again as Maya after you beat it the first time. Speedrun mode rules apply so no new dialogue or ending stuff but you'll be introduced to some nifty new ways to play! )
*No new achievements planned
As you can see, we have probably enjoyed making this update a little too much... and will need more time to add in and polish all these new features.
On the plus side, this also coincides with some exciting news: We are going to have a console release!
With all this new code needing to be finalised and QA tested for consoles, we plan on releasing the major content update around the time Rusted Moss becomes available on consoles next year.
Thank you all for your patience and support.
In the meantime, enjoy this small teaser we've put together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jy4Ay_Xyfs
Since I was young, I've always been interested in traditional faerie stories. I think modern day tales tend to paint faeries as benevolent beings - blessing those down on their luck or providing magical items to the deserving. This kind of sanitation happened throughout the years to make these tales more palatable towards children. Did you know the original ending of "Snow White" involved the evil queen being forced to dance at Snow White's wedding while wearing red hot iron shoes? Most children nowadays would probably be more familiar with the Disney version of the tale.
Though to be honest, I think a lot of kids would be more than ok with the original gruesome tale too.
I've put together some information for those interested in knowing more about the faerie tales and superstition that inspired Rusted Moss and to pass the time before the exciting final major content update we have in store!
IRON AND THE WORLD OF RUSTED MOSS
Iron is a metal long steeped in superstition, being said to keep evil at bay. It is the reason why iron horseshoes were hung upon doors as protective charms. In many superstitions, faeries hate the touch of iron.
The setting of Rusted Moss takes place far into the future where humanity is on its last legs and fae-kind have started to return to the world. An unspecified catastrophic event that took place long before the game starts resulted in a world where humans are no longer as populous as they are now. With the population in decline, they have been unable to maintain infrastructure like iron railways. The rusting of iron in the world is what eventually lets the faeries back in.
Iron hurting fae is a popular superstition that can still be found in modern media! I found it amusing that in Pokemon, steel-type moves are super effective against fairy-types.
CHANGELINGS
The main character of Rusted Moss, Fern, is a changeling.
Traditionally, changelings are a type of faerie left in the place of a baby that had been stolen by faeries. Depending on the tradition, some say that faeries kidnapped babies to make them into servants while others say the child is meant as a sacrifice - a tithe to hell that faeries must pay every seven years.
Changelings themselves are portrayed to be like very unpleasant children. In some tales they are so ravenous that parents struggle to keep them fed and the household afloat. In other tales, they would be fretful babies that won't stop crying much to the despair of parents at the end of their rope. They would also often be portrayed as sickly, often dying before they grew older.
Many solutions to these changeling children were cruel. One solution was to throw these children into the oven or treat the changeling cruelly like whipping them. In doing so, they believed the faeries would return their real child to them.
Nowadays, it is easy to speculate that these folktales were invented to explain children that were neurodivergent or unexpected in some way. Either way, it was a way to find something else to blame when a child was not what was "expected" or "wanted" and to justify the way these children were treated - themes that the Rusted Moss story explores.
With Fern, feedback on her character has ranged from people finding her annoying and evil to those that find her relatable and sympathetic. Due to the nature and interpretation of changeling stories, I suppose it is rather fitting to see her be polarising!
MORALITY OF FAE
The morality of faeries changes a lot from story to story. Many don't have them as necessarily "evil" but more along the lines of amoral to the extreme. They're just as likely to do good or evil depending on their mood or whatever would amuse them. Faerie morality is just very different from humans that their values are not comparable.
There's different variations told about a story called "The Elves and the Shoemaker". A poor shoemaker discovered beautiful shoes being made overnight when he went to bed. He sold them and became very successful. One night, he stayed up to discover that it was tiny elves that were making these shoes. Noticing the elves were dressed in rags, he gifted them with clothes. The next day, they were never seen again and never again did they make shoes for the shoemaker. Some stories explain that the elves were offended by the gift while others claim the elves danced away joyfully and just never returned.
Though elves also possess amazing magic, many are appeased with an offering of milk by the hearth.
Dealing with faeries feels very much like dealing with nature - they're unpredictable and powerful, able to give great blessings and despair without understanding the good or malice behind their actions. They aren't a force reasoned with.
Faerie tales change a lot with time and have resulted in so many different variations of the same tale. It's fun seeing the inventions and embellishments that get added over time carried over to the present. It's common nowadays to see "Titania, queen of the faeries" as an addition to modern tales though Titania herself appears in no faerie tales - she's an invention of Shakespeare and first appears in A Midsummer's Night Dream.
It's been fun putting together a post-apocalyptic modern spin on faerie folklore for Rusted Moss. Though we kept the story minimal, hope everybody enjoyed (or hated) their time with our faeries.
I'm planning on putting together a grappling hook guide next so feel free to let us know of anything you'd like us to cover (or just your favourite faerie tales too!).
--------------
Thanks again everyone for all your support!
Our Discord is a great way to keep up to date with events we might run, stop by and say hi: DISCORD
Follow our TWITCH! Last time we streamed we did a giveaway for some Fern + Puck enamel pins, talked about some behind the scenes stuff, and showed some never seen before deleted content! We are thinking of doing more development streams so follow our Twitch to know when we go Live!
Thank you all for playing Rusted Moss! After hearing your feedback and bug reports, we have rolled out a hotfix which fixes several bugs that were affecting the playability of the game.
Bug fixes
Fixed inconsistent ichor sizes
Fixed MP upgrades counter displaying incorrect count on the Upgrade tab in the Map
Fixed death pits not activating properly in certain rooms
We truly appreciate everyone's support and we hear all of your feedback! We are currently working closely with the developer to try and squash more bugs and implement more QoL features to help you master the grapple! Stay tuned for more updates!
If you have any feedback or bugs to report, please post them on the forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1772830/discussions/0/3828664382481109031/
Rusted Moss' initial scope did not include a level editor and we only started thinking about it when the challenge courses became part of the game's scope. While the plans had always been to have the level editor be more on the minimalist side, we're really happy that we are able to expand it a little more with this update! (And on a personal note, it's been great playing the custom levels you all have made. It's a strange and fun feeling to play a game we made on a level we've never seen before!)
OBJECTS
Grapple ring
Moving grapple ring
Moving grapple fae
Simple buttons and doors
Elfame elevators
Ichor
PLATFORMS
Thin platforms
ENEMIES
Wheel enemy
Sniper enemy
MISC
Decorative sprites
-------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks again for all your support!
Our Discord is a great way to keep up to date with events we might run, stop by and say hi: DISCORD
Follow our TWITCH! Last time we streamed we did a giveaway for some Fern + Puck enamel pins, talked about some behind the scenes stuff, and showed some never seen before deleted content! We are thinking of doing more development streams so follow our Twitch to know when we go Live!
Looking for more Rusted Moss? Check out these player-made levels!
Have you played any of the player-made levels for Rusted Moss? We had a lot fun checking some of them out over the weekend. (We were unfortunately not able to play ALL the levels so it is very possible we might have left some excellent ones out of this list.)
Here's some that we recommend in no particular order:
I think it is no surprise to anybody that having a level editor in the game will result in players making the most brutal painful levels you can imagine.
We felt SPEED TUNNEL is one of the few exceptions to that rule and we really enjoyed its take on custom levels.
As the name suggests, the level itself is a long tunnel and the challenge comes from trying to get to the end of the tunnel as fast as you can. It's a nice change of pace to have a level where the challenge is more about breezy moment rather than precise platforming.
We were very impressed with Hop's design as some of the hardest levels to make are those that might be easy to complete but take much longer to master.
LEDGER on the other hand features a mechanic that we did know about but many players either do not know about it or thought it was a bug.
To be honest, it did come up as a bug in QA but we thought it was really funny and decided to leave it in. We even added in a visual effect to make it more "official".
And speaking of other things that started off as bugs, this level shows an interesting mechanic that was initially a result of bad programming.
Though it was unintentional, we found out about it during our demo and designed later levels to have shortcuts that revolved around it as we thought it was quite cool.
Fun use of a “secret” Rusted Moss mechanic that allows for creative level design and challenges.
And now, this is the level that we found the hardest (because we were not able to complete it).... we think we were not able to do the very last part of it so we'll recommend it to as far as we got to!
It was really fun, very smart, and well-made. The tech it features is the horizontal slingshot you can do with the grapple. It was really neat to see that be the main gimmick in the level. Throughout playing it, we wondered how good at the game the creator. The level design really seemed like it was made by someone with a very good grasp of the game's mechanics.
TOWER OF MOSS is one of the player made levels that is deeper in difficulty. It's a pretty map that requires some puzzley thinking to proceed.
Though it starts off mellow, there's a jump in difficulty and it is quite punishing with respawn points so a little mistake can set you back pretty far.
It is a really fun map with shows how fun precise ledge jumps can be. There's just something so satisfying about them...
If it is something you enjoy, you should also check out the player's other maps that feature this kind of ledge jumping.
Something to check out for those interested in pushing their limits!
Straight up just a really fun map to move around in!
A lot of the jumps are very comfortable with the timing and range. Not really about precise jumps but more a smooth flow and chaining jumps that are just so very satisfying.
Map with some great flow - some jumps carried over to other rooms quite smoothly.
Good map to chill out on. The use of room transitions being more vertical is also interesting.
A map to be patient on. It is very chewy and explores a lot of Rusted Moss' depth of movement. It's fun and quite open-ended with mobility options and level design.
It's always fun to try something that has more than one solution or approach to it.
[table] [tr] [td]Difficulty[/td] [td]1/10[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Upgrades[/td] [td] - [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Guns[/td] [td]Rail[/td] [/tr] [/table] This was the only map we played where the grenade was the main star. It is a fun, short, and relaxing level that lets you experiment with the trajectory of the grenade.
It's also the only map we played that didn't really focus on the platforming and is essentially more of a shooting range (or grenade range I guess!).
A level that focuses a great deal on the intricacies of rocket jumping.
It also included this mid-air rocket jump trick where after awhile the rocket detonates and lets you jump without a floor. This kind of subtlety and focus on rocket jumping isn't something you see a lot of in the main game.
If you enjoy this level, definitely check out the level creator's other works like "LOVE IS SO FALL" - a creative level that requires the use of a precise grenade throw.
But decided to mention this here for those unaware!
Faxdoc (our main dev) actually made this one herself. It's a painful finger exercise that utilises rocket and shotgun jumps. No grappling!
If you didn't already know, the next major update for Rusted Moss is going to be.... a level editor update! (Check out what our last major update was HERE.)
So we are looking forward to seeing what new levels players come up with!!
Thank you all for playing Rusted Moss! After hearing your feedback and bug reports, we have rolled out a hotfix which fixes a crash bug that was affecting the playability of the game as well as some text issues.
Crash
Fixed crash bug that occurred when reading certain lore.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
Fixed several text issues
We truly appreciate everyone's support and we hear all of your feedback! We are currently working closely with the developer to try and squash more bugs and implement more QoL features to help you master the grapple! Stay tuned for more updates!
If you have any feedback or bugs to report, please post them on the forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1772830/discussions/0/3828664382481109031/
We always wanted Rusted Moss to have flexible accessibility settings. The initial release did have an accessibility menu inspired by Celeste with ways for a player to customise their experience rather than the typical "easy", "medium", "hard" options. However, player feedback coming in pointed out that our "invincibility" option is very drastic without much in-between. Using that feedback as a starting point, we put together a list of changes meant to give players more ways to adjust their game experience.
This update expands the accessibility options to make them more than just allowing a player to finish the game. A player might be able to defeat a boss with "invincibility" on or complete a challenge course with "flying". However, there's still a lot of room to give the player the option to adjust the game to their liking. It isn't just about being able to finish the game; it is also about being challenged.
Our default difficulty is based on how we personally like to play the game as well. I don't think it is possible to have a "one size fit all" solution for every single player so we also added the ability to increase as well as decrease certain stats. We just wanted to be more flexible.
I don't think it is perfect and ideally it would have been nice to give more flexible grappling hook settings too. However, we didn't expect Rusted Moss to become such a big game and it was coded as though it were a two month long project. Some foundational code makes some of these settings impossible to implement without reworking the whole system.
Check out the Rusted Moss Accessibility Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqf6GvrmTNs
We also have some QoL stuff bundled in this update!
Accessibility Updates
Option to disable challenge course timer
Players can now increase and decrease base starting health/mana
Added health/mana regeneration option
Players can adjust boss base health percentage
Players can adjust enemy base health percentage
Ability to turn off death pit damage
Quality of Life
Mana stones now heal player fully on use
Added journal to keep track of lore found
UI also has a way to look at trinkets when not at a save point
Can view current upgrades a player has on the UI
Added ability to rebind the grapple and shoot button
Puck/Robin boss fight: Trinket combination now saves between tries.
Disabling screenshake now also removes camera movement caused by gun recoil
-------------- SPECIAL THANKS: Just wanted to also give a special shoutout to Riuku who helped us put this update together! Wouldn't have been possible without him.
You can check out his website HERE to see his game dev stuff. -------------
Thanks again for all your support!
Our Discord is a great way to keep up to date with events we might run, stop by and say hi: DISCORD
Follow our TWITCH! Last time we streamed we did a giveaway for some Fern + Puck enamel pins, talked about some behind the scenes stuff, and showed some never seen before deleted content! We are thinking of doing more development streams so follow our Twitch to know when we go Live!
Just a few of the amazing player-made palettes we have seen! (Palettes made by Izzy, Ukiyo, Blizihguh, Magic Mad Man, DarkOnyx171)
Rusted Moss was developed in a rather casual way. We aren't a game studio or full-time devs so often times things get added to the game more for "fun", just to try things out rather than as a fleshed-out feature. These additions are not made available by playing the main game; they exist somewhere and we are pleasantly surprised to see players discover them.
Early player feedback from our demo mentioned it would be cool if there were cosmetics for Fern to collect. While we knew we would not be able to deliver that feature as our team is very small, Faxdoc ended up playing around with a simple palette swap tool.
She placed it into the game files and we kinda felt that was that. (We probably should have told somebody about this feature even if it was made just for fun...)
In the end, we were very surprised by players who did discover this feature by snooping around in Rusted Moss' local files! It was super exciting for us to see it get used and see players make some really really cool palettes.
Here's how to get started if you're interested:
HOW TO CHANGE FERN'S PALETTE
Navigate to Rusted Moss' local files
Right-click on Rusted Moss in your Steam library and click on "Properties..."
Navigate to "Local Files" on the left navigation and then click on "Browse..." This should open up Rusted Moss' local files.
Find the files to edit
The previous step should have opened up Rusted Moss' local files. You should see a folder called "Fern_custom".
The information on how to change the palette is in the "read me" txt file. But to go into a little more detail...
How to enable a custom palette
enable_custom.ini
Opening up this file in notepad should show this:
This file determines whether the game should use Fern's default palette or a custom one. Setting enabled to "1" will tell the game to use the custom palette.
This is what your file should look like after setting enabled to "1":
If you save this and load up Rusted Moss, you will notice that Fern no longer uses the default palette and she is using the example palette made.
The enable_custom.ini file also specifies which images to use instead of Fern's default palette. The image below shows that in Fern_custom, there is already an example palette that the enable_custom.ini file is referring to. Editing this palette will change how Fern looks in-game. You can also make your own images, place them in this folder, and edit the enable_custom.ini file to refer to your own palette images rather than just editing the example palette.
How to create a custom palette
As shown in the example above, the image file used as an example is palette_data_custom_example.png.
It should look something like this:
Notice that it has a left side and a right side.
The left side are the default colours of Fern and they should NOT be edited.
The right side are the colours of the custom palette that will be shown in-game.
If you compare palette_example_reference.png to the file palette_unedited.png in the custom fern folder, you can see the unedited one has the left and right side of the image be the same as no changes would have been made to show a default Fern sprite.
This is a reference image of the default Fern sprite you can also find in the folder to help show which colours correspond to which part of the Fern sprite:
Reference image of the example custom palette (Note that the left side of the palette is the same as the default sprite's palette):
Note that the reference images are ONLY reference images so should not be used to change the palette. Making the notepad file refer to a reference image will not work.
Either edit palette_data_custom_example.png or create your own image in the same format and have the notepad refer to that.
Changing Fern's hair colour and length
Custom Fern palette shown below is made by one of our players, Ukiyo!
Fern's hair is actually a gradient and made up of two different colours.
Again, it is the enable_custom.ini file that tells the game where to look for this custom palette.
The example inside the custom_fern folder is called: "hair_data_custom_example.ini"
You should see something like this when you open the file in notepad:
The hair length value tells the game how long you want Fern's ponytail to be.
The start_col and end_col values are the colour gradient of her hair.
The numbers are GML hex format, so it doesn't use RGB but rather BGR. You can use an online tool like this to convert your colours to GML hex format. In that tool linked, the number to use is the one labelled "GML RAW".
Very helpful tool to edit Fern's palette
One of our players, blizihguh, made this really convenient tool you can use in your browser to create a custom palette for Fern.
blizihguh tool: http://udonge.reisen/code/fern/
They've mapped out what each of the squares in our palette's image represents on Fern's sprite and you can freely edit those to preview what Fern will look like. It's a huge help! As you can see, the PNG our code references breaks the sprite's colours down to just squares which makes it difficult to know what you're changing. With this tool, you can easily plan out your Fern's palette!
Now that the cat is out of the bag, we are looking forward to seeing more of your cool and unique color palettes!
Due to player interest in this feature, we also have plans on expanding the number of customisable colours for the palette! So keep an eye out :D
