Alright, a small patch update has dropped to address some of the issues that have caused mid-game crashes, but we'll see to what degree. Through playtesting I experienced no crashing whatsoever but we'll see if that is the case for the rest of y'all. If you crash - do not hesitate to send us your log files!
The update has also decreased the severity of rubber-banding, increased the reliability of physics objects in the maps (such as barrels, pallets, and all carried heist objects). We also decreased the weight of unconscious/dead penguins, meaning it's a bit easier to carry penguins through escort missions (however, expect this to be further improved come the next update).
A side-effect of this patch is that you'll be seeing some of the new areas we are working on (I won't say where or what these new areas are!). A lot of the areas are empty and/or blocked off, but the daring ones can start exploring and trying to find them if they are starved for content.
We are currently in full swing developing the Blueprint Update, which will feature over 100 new quests/puzzles/things to do, spread across all current heists. It will be our most ambitious update to date! So stay tuned!
List of fixes
Reduced likelihood of random crashes and/or game-breaking bugs
Improved networking reliability
Reduced severity of rubber banding
Improved synchronization of networked physics objects (such as carried heist objects, pallets, and barrels)
We'll see you at the Blueprint Update!
Stay safe and keep nooting!
News Regarding Blueprints
Hey everyone, That Fish here! You might have heard a lot about these "Blueprints", but what's it really all about?
When Penguin Heist was released into Early Access almost a year ago, we had a lot of plans for the game. However, as we're only 2 people working on the game, we couldn't do everything at once. With time and a lot of input from you - the community - we managed to shape the game into something a lot better than it initially was.
Thank You Everyone!
By now we've sold more than 50 000 copies, and the game has been played by several well-known streamers! Wow! We could not have imagined this when we started. Thank you so much to everyone for supporting us!
It's really inspiring to see so many people enjoying the game, and it makes us want to work even harder on making the game the best it can be!
Regarding Current Bugs
Before we dive into what's to come we'd like to clarify what's going on with some of the bugs currently present in the game. We're working on fixes, but some of them are harder to crack than others.
Controls and multiplayer lag is a common issue. This is something constantly being improved on, but is one of the harder parts to get right. The reason is pretty simple, and that's because Penguin Heist is a physics game with multiplayer, so every limb of every penguin has to be simulated and synchronized. This can be a bit tricky, but That Other Fish is on the right track to smooth it out with some smart ideas.
Also, since the optimization updates came out, you may have noticed some weird lights and flashes. This is due to issues with the lightmapper in Unity, which can go wild when you have intersecting geometry, especially objects that are partly underneath the terrain. We're looking at more advanced solutions to this, because there's no quickfix for this. By the Blueprint Update this should be fixed.
New Level Design
Part of the Blueprint Update is to remodel all maps to include a lot of additional areas, all of which will be optional to the main tasks. This is part of our way to make exploration fun rather than an obligation to complete a level. If you want the best weapons, most rare achievements, find out the real secrets behind the Penguin Heist lore, you'll have to explore. This means that there will be no grinding to get the cool stuff, but at the same time it won't be super easy and uninspired.
Furthermore, we're also laying the foundation for the NPC quests which will appear all around the maps, many of which may grant Blueprints or access to special areas. No more weird empty spaces in the maps, now they'll be filled with rewards, quests, content and lore.
Below are three examples of what will pop up in the update. In these cases the playable area has at least doubled or tripled. So, a lot more do see and do!
"The Blue Forest" is hidden in the fog beneath Dark Castle.
New part of Research Station hidded away in the mountains.
An old colonial fort sits on the cliffs of Playa del Sol.
The whole idea is to make Penguin Heist even more of a sandbox, so you have more freedom to heist, explore, sneak, slaughter in your own way. You can just go in, explore, do side quests, and then extract without touching the main objectives if that's what you want.
Another perk of this system is that we can divide the game into several difficulty levels by design. With this we mean that we can make the new areas and challenges much harder as they are optional and often hidden away, as it will not break the game for those who just want to blast through a level.
There's a lot more to say, but we'll save it for later after the Blueprint update has been released. As always, we're happy to receive any suggestion, so feel free to share what you think about the game, the updates, and where we're heading. After all, we're here to make the game as good as it can be. It has come a long way since the Early Access release one year ago, but we want to go even further to make it even better!
Until then, Stay safe, and keep nooting!
Small Patch
Noot noot!
Work on the Blueprint Update is in full motion, but we wanted to drop a patch with some stability improvements.
Improvements
Remade the save system, so it only saves at important points, which means returning to the main menu from the shops, completing heists, going out of the lobby, etc. to improve stability.
Added a backup save file for the save system in case it would fail to load it somehow.
Massively improved networking to make it even smoother
Fixed issues with equipping and dequipping in the clothing store
Improved rigidbody synchronization
Improved PvP stability
We'll be back with more news on the Blueprint Update soon!
Stay safe and keep nooting!
Optimization Update Part 3
Noot noot! That Fish chiming in with a new addition to the optimizations updates!
The blueprint update is soon here, and this update marks the last one before we switch over to blueprints and rework the maps for them. A start of this is already shown in Research Station that has had the docks reworked to look more fitting for the environment, along with a new boat to steal, replacing the old one we've had since a year back. We've also added a few new scoped items to make use of the new feature. Other than that we've fixed a bunch of bugs reported by the community, and made several quality of life improvements to the game itself and the menus.
Additions
Major redesign of a large portion of the outdoor section of Research Station (including new enemies, and a larger and way fancier boat!)
Added Scoped Tranquilizer Rifle
Added Flashlight
Added Spyglass, with variable scope settings (up to x12 zoom!)
Added the ability to reset keybindings
Improvements
Changed the Gun Store to show what construction is required for what weapon
Changed the "Energy meter" to now be a percentage for more consistency between UI
Fixed the Flyswatter, Metal Claws, and Chemistry Beaker, and Toaster not being assigned to a construction
Fixed First Aid Kit counting as "used" before healing
Improved issues of clients "disappearing" mid-play
Fixed issue with Survival AI breaking
Improved shooting accuracy for clients
Improved aiming for Wings of Death
Fixed heist payouts such that they are no longer always 1000 Fish Coins
Fixed issues with the Soul Jar clipping through geometry
Fixed issues with clipping through the elevators in King Pingnar Mines
Minor improvements to networking smoothness
Decreased rotation speed of weapon previews in the Gun Store
Vastly improved the reliability of the save system
Improved the clothing store
Improved scaling and responsiveness of UI elements
Made the scared Pudding penguin less likely to wander off into the cliffs
Now it's time for us to put the blueprints into action. Once finished, we will have a much more stable foundation to work on and add all the other features we've been looking to add. It will also mean several new heists, but with the new features already present, so we won't have to remake them later on.
Thanks for all the support and feedback we get every day. We're happy to see so many people enjoy the game, and we hope to make the game even more fun. Feel free to reach out here on Steam or via Discord (we prefer this as we're reachable there most of the day) and tell us what you think, if you have any suggestions, or just want to share cute penguin pictures with everyone.
See you at the next update!
Stay safe, and keep nooting!
Optimization Update Part 2
Noot noot!
That Fish here coming in with another optimization update. This time we've reduced the CPU load to about 25% of before, and some people who tested has their FPS go up 4 to 5 times! In addition to that we've added weapon scopes and a sniper rifle to test it out. The laser pistol has also gotten itself a scope. In the coming updates we'll be adding more scoped items such as binoculars, a spyglass, and more ranged weapons for extra tactics. Right now you toggle the scope with TAB, but you can rebind it in the new keymap menu we've made. Now all controls should be featured there in a nice list.
Additions
Added item scopes! Zoom in on your prey and get the perfect shot.
Added Sniper rifle
Added Gavel
New keymap menu to a scrollable list with all keybindings
New redesigned crosshair that works will all background colors
Added Dingus Cola
Improvements
A whole 75% reduction in CPU load, meaning higher FPS, less lag, and better overall performance
Made AI less likely to get caught in objects during pathfinding
Made walking sounds less likely to be "spammed"
Fixed unwalkable surfaces
Remade the clothing store so you can dequip clothes as you wish instead of having to clear the whole outfit
Increased AI speed, especially for escort missions
A bunch of other small fixes reported by the community
Buffed Pongo Juice
So, what's going to happen now? We're going to make some further improvements for a smaller update soon, and then we're going full out on blueprints which will transform the maps a lot. Some maps will get more than double the playable area, filled with puzzles, weird places, lore, and whatnot. The bigger maps will get filled up a lot more, and finally be used properly. We've decided to postpone the in-game maps until then too, as we'd have to redraw them otherwise.
As for items, we're saving up on some goodies for the Post Office launch, so that there will be more than enough to ship home with your penguin stamps.
Until then, stay safe and noot like there's no tomorrow!
Fixes and Stuff
Hey everyone, That Fish reporting in with a new patch!
If you haven't seen already, we've updated the achievement icons to be more clear and fit in with the tone and style of the game. Other than that we've made several fixes to the lag issues and black screen on startup. Skins now work well in the clothing store.
Additions
Potato Mini Gun
Afro
Fixes and Changes
Fixed not being able to select skins properly in clothing store
Fixed skin preview not working
Improved reliability on initialization, preventing most black screens on startup
Improved AI reliability
Increased AI speed
We're currently adding maps back into the game, so you'll have a hand-drawn map of the current level, and we're also fixing the remaining bugs. There will also be improvements to the clothing store so that you can wear and "unwear" clothing items instead of clearing everything.
We hope you are all enjoying the game this far. If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to write them out, and we'll hear you out.
Noot noot! See you at the next update :)
Multiplayer and Performance Fix
Hey everyone, That Fish here!
We've been working intensely on finding what has been causing a lot of lag for people, along with the game not launching after the splash screen, and some weird behavior for multiplayer. Today we found the causes and they've all been fixed according to our tests. We hope you'll be able to dive into the full Penguin Heist experience now!
If, for some reason, you are still experiencing bugs, please let us know so we can fix it. We really want all of you to enjoy the game, so don't hesitate to contact us about any bugs or suggestions.
That's it for now. We're going to add some features during the bugs fixes now too, so stay tuned for that!
Noot noot!
Multiplayer Quickfix
This quickfix changes the multiplayer backend to the old one while we look for causes for rubber-banding and other lag issues. You should experience much smoother multiplayer now, and we'll try to get to the bottom of the lag issues once and for all.
Thanks for your support, and remember that we're online most of the day on the Discord if you want to get in contact with us!
Incoming multiplayer fix
Hello, everyone and welcome to all of you new penguin-heisters! That Other Fish here.
We have heard the concerns with regards to the multiplayer stability. Rubber-banding and unreliable movement specifically. For this we are extremely sorry, and we know a lot of you were excited to noot, slide, and bonk around with your friends the past few days.
We have spent the past day making changes to the networking code which will essentially all but solve the current issues at the cost of some added input delay for movement. It won't be like this forever, but it's a band-aid that will make the game's multiplayer much more playable and reliable for the time being.
Expect an update with this multiplayer fix to drop within the next 24 hours or so!
In other news, I (That Other Fish) just finished my masters degree in Computer Science which will allow me to engage with Penguin Heist full-time. So hopefully fixes and updates will be picking up pace come the next few weeks.
Stay safe and keep on nootin'
Optimization Update Hotfix
A small hotfix that fixes too high water levels around spawn in Et tu, Bingus. Olive trees have also been added along with more vegetation while reworking the terrain to solve the water level issue.
Additions
Olive trees and vegetation to Et tu, Bingus
Fixes
Fixed too high water level in Et tu, Bingus spawn area
Fixed missions ending prematurely due to an exfiltration bug
Keep on nooting, and more sure to pop in and tell us what you think about the updates!
