We Happy Few [Upcoming]

Patch 44776 (31 August 2017)

This is the second PC hotfix for the Life in Technicolour update, and contains a bunch of code and content fixes to improve the game.

Encounters:

• Fix case where player could get stuck after riding the Jubilator in I Sing Body Electric.
• Fix case where an objective would not complete in Mystery House.
• Fix case where NPCs would be missing upon returning to Mushroom Log.
• Fix an issue with map marker not updating correctly upon posting flyer at 1st location in Speaker’s Corner.
• Fix the map marker for finding Margery’s diary in Give a Pig a Pancake.
• Fix for unexpected failure of Speaker’s Corner quest.
• Mysterious chest will now open again after finding a bell in it.
• Fix case where Faraday would not talk into the window after you drop off the bucket in House of the Inventor.
• Make sure eviscerator will spawn on reload if it is needed.
• Fix for the dealer not being invisible inside his cart.

Gameplay:

• Create recipe for metal tubes - can be used to create some hard-to-find items.
• Using any health/stamina/regen boost will now give you back an empty syringe in your inventory.
• Fix detection direction on worship animation.
• Canteens no longer disappear after use.

UI/HUD:

• Allow button hold to move stack of items in a single action.
• Fixed HUD status effects not updating while in the inventory screen on Downer and Birdwatcher.
• Fix missing bound key for consumable items in inventory.
• Fixed problems with time passing and stat calculations when fast travelling.
• Fixed an issue with key binding displays not updating after they are changed.
• Fixed double clicking to track quests on quest screen.
• Fixed an issue where some of the input displays weren't always updating.
• Added mouse over sounds for the player sub menu buttons.
• Fixed a problem where an invisible UI element was blocking legend entries from being selected.
• Crop status effects in the status effect screen if they are too long.
• Fix for some icons not showing up in the map.
• Fix an issue causing journal entry tracked and unread icons to overlap.

Engineering:

• Fix a few more cases where HDR support could be enabled in old configuration data.
• Add loading screen videos while streaming in-game.
• Fix cases where interaction between vomiting and using a Joy Booth would cause the player to be stuck inside the booth.
• Fix crash on talking to NPCs in Shibboleth quest.
• Fix a number of other crash cases.

Patch 44631 (23 August 2017)

• This​ ​ is​ ​ the​ ​ first​ ​ hotfix​ ​ for​ ​ the​ ​ Life​ ​ in​ ​ Technicolour​ ​ release​ ​ and​ ​ addresses​ ​ some​ ​ of the​ ​ crash issues​ ​ players​ ​ were​ ​ encountering.​ ​ A ​ ​ second​ ​ hotfix​ ​ to​ ​ address​ ​ blocking​ ​ issues​ ​ in​ ​ quests​ ​ will​ ​ be released​ ​ in​ ​ the​ ​ near​ ​ future.

Hotfix​ ​ 1 ​ ​ Changes

• Fix​ ​ a ​ ​ number​ ​ of​ ​ crash​ ​ points​ ​ while​ ​ moving​ ​ around​ ​ the​ ​ world.
• NPCs​ ​ should​ ​ no​ ​ longer​ ​ have​ ​ ridiculous​ ​ quantities​ ​ of​ ​ loot.
• Some​ ​ NPCs​ ​ that​ ​ should​ ​ not​ ​ be​ ​ out​ ​ in​ ​ the​ ​ day​ ​ (or​ ​ the​ ​ night)​ ​ should​ ​ now​ ​ better​ ​ respect​ ​ their schedules.​ ​ ​ The​ ​ plague​ ​ wastrel​ ​ invasion​ ​ should​ ​ be​ ​ no​ ​ more.
• NPCs​ ​ should​ ​ no​ ​ longer​ ​ slide​ ​ all​ ​ over​ ​ the​ ​ place​ ​ for​ ​ no​ ​ good​ ​ reason.​ ​ ​ Any​ ​ sliding​ ​ should​ ​ now​ ​ be intentional​ ​ sliding.
• NPCs​ ​ in​ ​ Mystery​ ​ House​ ​ had​ ​ a ​ ​ weird​ ​ backward​ ​ cone​ ​ of​ ​ vision.​ ​ ​ Cones​ ​ now​ ​ face​ ​ forward.
• Disabled​ ​ in-progress​ ​ support​ ​ for​ ​ HDR​ ​ displays​ ​ that​ ​ was​ ​ causing​ ​ washed-out​ ​ graphics​ ​ for some​ ​ users.​ ​ Players​ ​ may​ ​ need​ ​ to​ ​ restart​ ​ the​ ​ game​ ​ if​ ​ they​ ​ still​ ​ see​ ​ issues​ ​ after​ ​ this​ ​ update.​ ​ HDR displays​ ​ will​ ​ be​ ​ supported​ ​ in​ ​ our​ ​ 1.0​ ​ release.
• Fix​ ​ some​ ​ issues​ ​ where​ ​ players​ ​ couldn’t​ ​ remap​ ​ key​ ​ bindings.
• Joy​ ​ use​ ​ and​ ​ coin​ ​ collected​ ​ statistics​ ​ are​ ​ now​ ​ reported​ ​ correctly.
• Fix​ ​ for​ ​ infinite​ ​ loading​ ​ screen​ ​ at​ ​ the​ ​ end​ ​ of​ ​ the​ ​ Escape​ ​ quest.
• Tab​ ​ key​ ​ now​ ​ closes​ ​ the​ ​ inventory​ ​ menu.
• Fix​ ​ some​ ​ of​ ​ the​ ​ loading​ ​ screen​ ​ movies​ ​ that​ ​ weren’t​ ​ displaying​ ​ properly.
• Added​ ​ extra​ ​ checks​ ​ to​ ​ localization​ ​ tool​ ​ to​ ​ catch​ ​ some​ ​ issues​ ​ with​ ​ submitted​ ​ files

Patch 44443 (16th August 2017)

Gameplay

• Joy has been overhauled. Joy now has five stages: regular, on Joy, overdose, crash and
  withdrawal. Each stage has its own lighting, visual effects, and audio, and we hope you love the
  changes as much as we do. Enjoy safe experimentation!
• Joy mechanics have been changed. This is still a temp implementation, but there is now a
  penalty associated with every time you use Joy. Eventually, you will crash. There are also
  gameplay restrictions and impacts as you lose control of your character, so Arthur may be a little
  less effective than you’re used to.
• Stealth/Conformity rework. All AI archetypes have a new approach to conformity:
• There is now a conformity window during which an NPC will ask you to conform. If you do,
  they will let you go on, if not, you’re a dead Arthur. (Does not apply during curfew, obviously.)
• Conformity AI reworked to be more consistent depending on where the player is, what
  they're wearing & what they're doing. NPCs should more accurately describe what is causing
  them to be upset.
• The reasons your character fails to conform are now easily accessible in the status effect
  menu.
• All AI archetypes have a new approach to searching, and hiding spots have been slightly
  reworked. Bobbies are particularly good at searching.- Stealth AI reworked for vision, noise, & distractions. NPCs no longer instantly see the player at
  long range and will investigate. Noise distractions will also cause NPCs to investigate.
• Peeper AI has been reworked to path and detect better. They are now unlikely to follow you
  into the wilderness.
• All AI should now work significantly better inside encounters. This overhaul may result in
  some weird cosmetic issues for this update.
• New dying behaviour for the “second wind” game style. Dying now causes you to reload your
  latest save, rather than respawn in your shelter/on a bench. This was a tough decision to make,
  but there are too many technical problems caused when we respawn characters. Permadeath
  you still die permanently.
• New manual saving ability. Have you been out collecting resources for hours and not run
  across any encounters? Well now you can save manually, so if you do get struck by lightning,
  you won’t lose your progress. Note that this still uses the slot based save system we have
  previously, so you’ll only have one save in each slot.
• New AI archetype: The Jubilator! These guys trawl the streets just trying to keep things clean.
  Of Downers, that is.
• New AI archetype: The Headmistress! I don’t really know what we were thinking with this (it
  was originally called a Peeper Pooper) but it’s pretty weird. I don’t know, let’s call it a tribute to
  Cuphead.
• Item prices have been rebalanced.
• Loot has been redistributed.
• Looting plants is now instant (no quick loot screen).
• Plague will no longer kill you. Just game things.
• Crafting tables are now tiered, and need to be upgraded in order to craft higher quality items.
• Birdwatcher does not have this requirement, just to keep it simple.
• Sunshine now has its own UI status effect, separate from Joy.
• Downer mode now pauses the game in the background when the player menu is open.

UI

• Fully overhauled player menu: new Inventory, Journal, Map, Status, and Crafting screens! It’s
  much more lively, with much improved art, animation, audio and ease of use.
• Overhauled interactions: new bartering, new quick loot, and new container screens!
• New weight-based inventory. No longer will you need to play menu Tetris. Items now have
  weight, and are categorised so you can filter based on what you’re looking for (survival, clothing,
  etc).
• Quest items have no weight and are not droppable. No longer will the Motilene Harvester fly
  into the sky when you drop it. (Technically it will actually still do that if you manage to drop it,
  but that should be impossible.)
• Inventory expansions now increase the weight you can carry.
• There is currently no space limit in containers, although this may change in the future.- The inventory screen has hat and shoe slots and these items are no longer equipped from the
  quick slots.
• The inventory screen also has more useful functional descriptions of items (work in progress),
  alongside the old flavour text system.
• New quick slot system! You now have two quickslots that are automatically populated. The
  top slot is for healing items, and the bottom slot is for other useable items. The idea is that
  these auto populate so that when you need them in a pinch, you can use them.
• New quick slot HUD that doesn’t look butt ugly. Finally. God we were sick of those things.
• New in-game 3D waypoints! Now you no longer have to keep looking at your map to get
  where you want to go. We are genuinely shocked at the improvement this has made to the
  game. You can turn these off in the options menu if you like.
• "Show quest location on the map" option available in the journal menu.
• New stat tracking system! You can now find out how many people you’ve killed (or not killed),
  along with a wide range of other statistics. This should be just a first pass, so we’d love to hear
  what you’d like to track. This is current in your notes screen, but hopefully it will have its own
  home one day.
• New telemetry (data feedback) system! In case you were worried that you hadn’t given us
  much feedback, worry no longer! When you start the game on PC, you will now be given a
  prompt to either enable or disable our player telemetry system. Basically the stats that you see
  in that menu, as well as a couple of other things, can be sent directly to us so that we can
  review, and balance/adjust the game. No pressure, but if you could help us with this
  information, it really will help a great deal. (Note that we do not currently collect this data on
  Xbox.)
• Fast travel is now available! When you complete each shelter’s challenge, you will unlock fast
  travel. This allows you to travel more easily back and forth between each island. You will need
  to unlock each door in order to use it.
• A large number of new tooltips have been added to the game, to help explain some of the
  more esoteric game mechanics. If you can think of a loading tip that might be good, let us
  know!
• When an NPC is bleeding, a bleeding icon will appear next to their health bar.
• Sleep widget tells you what sleeping for ‘X’ amount of time will do to your vital stats (e.g.
  thirst/hunger). It also won’t let you sleep if it would kill you.
• Dying UI icon shows you how close to death you are in the dying state.

World

• New encounters!
• The Slaughterer’s Apprentice
• Start Spreading the News
• Cub Reporter
• I Sing Body Electric
• The Great Stink
• My First Jubilator- The wonderfully named “Odds and Ends quest 3”
• Old Soldiers
• Speaker’s Corner Redux (reworked version of Speaker’s Corner)
• Headmistress
• Ruined Church (simple location)
• Cellars (simple locations)
• Bee Hives (systemic)
• New shopkeeper: The Dealer! He’s a bit of a grouch.
• Arthur’s arms now change based on the clothing he is wearing. We call these “arm variants”.
• New tree variants! We’ve reworked our old trees and created new ones, so there is more
  variation in foliage.
• Upgraded filler buildings in the Garden District! We’ve gone back and retextured our old
  fillers/made new ones, so that there is more variety/believability in the GD world generation.
• New fake global illumination!
• Better fog! We have a new, cheap fog implementation which means more fog at night and on
  certain states of Joy.
• Plants now move slightly in the wind.
• Histoplasma mushrooms now have less-placeholder visual effects.
• The Doctors make a surprise appearance. However, they’re not really all there yet. They will
  become full AI later on, but for now enjoy the sneak peak.
• Minor improvements have been made to the intro shelter, to help players fully understand
  where to go and what to do.
• Keys now actually distinguishable from one another.
• Various (too many to list) improvements and fixes to existing encounters.
• Facial animation added for NPC grunts.
• Female compliment machines now join their male companions. They are not any less creepy.
• An ungodly amount of NPC audio variation has been added.
• A huge range of audio events have been added, to increase ambiance.
• Improved dig spot variation.
  

  General / Technical

• New level streaming system. Instead of loading in full islands, we now have a dynamic
  streaming system that loads levels in/out based on your distance from them. This is a major
  technical change, and should mean that you no longer have loading screens between islands.
  This may be a little imperfect on Xbox One systems for now.- New video streaming system. In order to improve performance, we have built our own video
  streaming system. Video should now work seamlessly, and Windows N or K users will no
  longer need to download the Windows Media Framework in order to play the game.
• New animated loading screens. In the rare cases that we still use loading screens (eg fast
  travel or loading into new games), you’ll see some nice little stories from Clara and Sarah.
• New intro loading video.
• Tentative support for HDR rendering. If you have a HDR TV or monitor, we would love to hear
  your feedback on how this is looking.
• New publisher (Gearbox Publishing) and release date (April 13, 2018). Surprise!
• A number of very rare crashes have been addressed.
• Various performance improvements, including significant reduction in memory footprint and
  general improvements to framerate.
• Many more smaller bugs have been fixed.

Patch 39095 (19th April 2017)

• New LOD system to allow for better performance. Includes (finally) a fix for bridges popping one piece at a time, although still needs refinement for draw distance generally.
• Significant optimization on shadow generation.
• Fixed some load issues with save games.
• Fixed attempting to load very old (and incompatible) save games.
• Fixed some crash issues related to inventory.
• Fixed the Church of Simon Says not being enterable if you had visited it before meeting Nick.
• Optimized the scaffolding and other geo in Nick's house.
• Optimized the House of the Inventor.
• Optimized the electricity VFX.

Patch 38678 (04th April 2017)

• Fix crashes related to the liveness manager and recent optimization
• Fixed a performance regression that was affecting some PCs

Patch 38616 The Maidenholm Update (29 March 2017)

• Hello everyone,
• We are delighted to present to you: The Maidenholm Update for We Happy Few!
• The Maidenholm Update is an exciting collection of new content that drastically changes the way We Happy Few is played.
• This represents the biggest change to the meta gameplay of We Happy Few since we launched on Games in Development, and potentially the biggest since we made permadeath optional in 2015.
• We would love to receive your feedback on what you like or don’t like. We are particularly interested in feedback on the new loot balancing, the playstyles and the general level of difficulty inside Wellington Wells. We’ll look forward to hearing from you, so please come and visit us on ​our forums ​, or on your social media of choice.

Major Changes

• New island! The long-awaited second island of the Village of Hamlyn has arrived:
  Maidenholm. (“Holm” is an old British word for an island in a river, by the way.) Read the in-game newspaper for more information.
• Playstyles have arrived! When starting a new game, players can now choose the Birdwatcher, Downer or Vigilante Playstyles. While these settings affect difficulty, they vary gameplay more significantly. This is a first pass implementation and will evolve over time:
• Birdwatcher: No hunger/thirst, game pauses in the menu, items are instantly equip,
  NPCs are easier to kill and aren’t as bloodthirsty, more resources (only partially
  integrated; more to come on this). Designed for more casual players.
• Downer: Hunger/thirst at normal levels, game does not pause in menu but items will
  instantly equip, normal resources/NPC threat.
• Vigilante: Hunger/thirst intense, game does not pause in the inventory or shops, delay on equip, more dangerous NPCs. Designed for the masochists among you.
• Permadeath remains available as an option for all three playstyles.
• Procedural music has been implemented. The in-game music has been redone, allowing for better blending and more variation and combinations across the various states of the game (suspicion, combat, Joy/non Joy, etc).
  World Generation- Support for regions in the Garden District has been added. Regions such as hamlets, forests, meadows, etc will be dotted around the place, as opposed to the island consisting of just one big town. Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress. It is a little empty for now, but this will change.
• As a result, Garden District 1 island is now unintentionally shaped like a dick 70% of the time. That’s what Matt says, anyway.
• Scavenger cars should no longer spawn very close to one another.
• Bridges have been refactored to require you to “open” the gate to go through to the next island. This helps us control the loading experience a bit better.
• A number of generation bugs have been fixed, so there should be fewer instances of filler buildings overlapping with encounters or interactive houses. Having said that, with the new region system, we expect a bunch of visible bugs to exist (although these shouldn’t affect gameplay or block your progress).

Gameplay

• The Peeper has arrived in the Village! These little mobile alarms are quite shocking.
• Plague Wastrels roam the Garden District. They speak a very curious dialect. Bonus points for guessing what it is. These guys are not nice.
• Hooligans will now patrol the Garden District at night, and guard some water pumps all the time. You may know these guys from such encounters as Shibboleth, and now they roam free.
• Second Wind repurposed. Instead of “dying” and waking up in the dying state, you now just fall into the dying state as your health/needs gets low. This applies whether you are on Permadeath or not.
• Dig spots have been fully refactored, with many new spots added! Across each island, a range of dig spots are available to be dug with your trusty shovel. You’ll need to find the maps to track down the dig spots though.
• Compliment machines have been added throughout the Village! These creepy robots love telling you exactly what they think of you; the only issue is, they have very loud voices. Male machines only so far; female machines will come in a later update.
• Certain bushes, flower pots and carts can now be used as hiding spots, for all your
  comic-stealth needs.
• Infection/Bleeding changes:
• Wastrels no longer apply Infection, but instead apply Bleeding.
• After 5 minutes untreated, Bleeding has a 1% chance every second to cause Infection. And then you're bleeding AND infected.
• Infection has 2 tiers now: Infection reduces your max health by 20%, Septic Infection
  reduces your max health by 50%.
• If Bleeding causes infection, the 5 minute timer resets for the next tier, so you can't go
  from nothing to septic in a few seconds due to bad rolls.
• Dirty Bandages have had their probability of causing infection reduced from 50% to
  10%. It's still a risk if you cure Bleeding that way, but at least you'll be infected and NOT bleeding.- Recycled bandage now available.
• Reverse polarity devices have been tuned. These now last a certain amount of time, as opposed to indefinitely. This makes Street Blockades substantially less powerful, so plan your polarity reversals strategically.
• NPCs grab items better now.
• Toxic fog has been improved. It still looks ugly, particularly the transitions, but it should be much more effective.
• A loot balancing pass has been done across all random spawn containers (everything except quest rewards). This dramatically changes the resource availability across the entire game.

UI

• New “new game” flow. While the style of UI is still temporary, we have implemented a new
  “new game” flow to make sure that players get the information they need to start the right type
  of game. Aka, “now we won’t get people yelling at us when they chose Permadeath without realising it, because selecting Permadeath requires a conscious choice”.
• Five save game slots are now available.
• Improved subtitle support has been added. We now use a scrolling subtitle system similar to Source engine games, where lines area displayed sequentially. You can also customize the size, background or outline.
• The cleaver and enhanced cleaver icons have been upgraded.

Encounters

• New encounters! A whole raft of new encounters have been added to both the Village 1 and 2 islands:
• Mother’s Little Helper.
• The Church of Simon Says. Following orders has been elevated to an almost religious
  experience.
• Super Meat Boy. Ever wonder what being a butcher’s apprentice might be like? No?
  Well it turns out that it’s violent but not in the way you might expect.
• The strange saga of Nick Lightbearer, including But I’m On The List and Sympathy for
  the Devil. Go behind the scenes with Wellington Well’s resident rock star.
• What Have We Buried.
• The Butcher quest line. It appears that the butcher has an agenda. The agenda involves you.
• The Odds and Ends quest line, including the Hoard House. There is a house full of
  hoarders and their hoard and you have to find a singular item. Along the way discover
  the secret lives of Criers. Do not get caught.
• The Chemist is now open for business.
• The Pub is now open for decidedly not-business, and there are colourful characters to
  meet there.- A new house variation has popped up. This one has multiple paths through it to better allow you to avoid those pesky home owners.
• Speaker's Corner (more to come later on this one).
• New, more challenging shelters have been added to:
• St. George’s Holm
• Maidenholm
• Lud’s Holm
• The water pumps in the Garden District are now guarded by hooligans. It’s almost as if they think the water might run out and want to keep it all for themselves.
• Street Blockades have been visually improved in the Brutalist architectural style.
• Mystery house containers now have loot so don’t forget to search thoroughly before you exit the house.
• The House of Curious Behaviours has been refactored to allow for more varied gameplay scenarios. Break into the house using a jimmy bar, conform your way in or find that sneaky vent to bypass the bobby. (Antoine loves vents.) And there is a new quest involving Madame’s Magic Wand. It’s not what you think. Well, okay, maybe it is.
• Mine Mine All Mine! has been refactored to feature a better stealth/combat scenario. The hooligans have taken over the location and are digging in--observe their actions and exploit them.
• Plague! Plague! has been refactored and improved with a cutscene. This encounter now better
  explains the dangers of plague on the island.
• The Odds and Ends shop has been refactored.
• The 30rpm record houses have been refactored.
• The Walkabout ghost is slightly ghostlier, and now does what it’s supposed to do.
• The Yam is even more cosmic and appears to be emerging from a wormhole.
• Fixed a bunch of bugs in the older encounters.

Engineering

• Improved graphical autodetection settings. The game will now attempt to optimize for
  framerate (60fps), at the cost of visual quality. You can always reset it to the quality/framerate that works for you.
• Added "auto" selection in graphical options menu.
• Rebalanced the low/medium/high/ultra settings to show a bigger quality/framerate
  improvement between each setting.
• Optimized lighting for low spec machines.
• Added support for mixed rendering quality (where the world is rendered at a different
  resolution to the HUD).
• FaceFX, audio and animation streaming on demand has been implemented (again lowering memory footprint).

Bug Fixes

• Bridges should pop uniformly, as opposed to piece by piece. Still a work in progress.
• Sporadic, rare crash fixes.
• The Campfire duck no longer falls through the world. It gets thrown to a new, safe, location.
• Collecting the junk in Biological Hazard before the 'Tidy the pond' objective will no longer break the encounter.
• Mrs. Marley's body should no longer disappear in Bring out your Dead.
• Middle mouse button can now be bound to controls other than 'Shove'.
• Note: AI will be a major part of the next update, so non-game breaking AI bugs remain in this update.
• Corner pieces on sidewalks in the Village of Hamlyn should display properly and no longer flicker.
• Many, many more minor bugs.

Miscellaneous

• Updated credits
• Updated welcome screen text

Patch 34857 (19th December 2016)

• Fix crash when consuming items while inventory is full.
• Fix crash when respawning a second time with permadeath off.
• Fix crash when accessing resolution list on certain multi-GPU configurations.
• Fix crash when starting game on certain Steam installations.
• Fix game mode information (Day & Time, Permadeath, Second Wind, Map status) getting reset on continue.
• Fix player getting stuck in conversation mode when loading if on the diary step of "If You Give a Pig a Pancake".
• Fix ghost not moving during "Walkabout".
• Improve pathfinding of hostile wastrels near "Where's the Power".
• Fix rare crash in video decoding.
• Fix rare crash when carrying corpses.
• Fix attempt for rare issue where terrain is invisible when continuing.

Patch 34540 (08th December 2016)

• Hi all,
• It has been three months since our last game update and we are excited to announce that the wait is finally over! Today we are releasing the Clockwork Update on both PC and Xbox One!
• We created a video which introduces the new changes present in the update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ssRHbJdNU. For a more detailed list of the changes, head down below to the patch notes!
• This update introduces a number of technical systems that we’ll explain more below. We also address the disconnect between the intro and the beginning of the game by implementing a new shelter, which shows how Arthur got to where he is. There are also too many bug fixes to list, but we have listed a few of the major ones below.
• We hope that this will provide a much higher quality experience to all players out there, and will allow us to focus more on new content and better gameplay moving forward.
• PSA: Please be aware that due to the wholesale quest/save system changes, previous save games are incompatible.

Under The Hood

• Quest state system: Every encounter/quest in the game is now built using a new quest state system. This system changes quest tracking from a scripting-based system to a code based system, where the game knows at all times exactly where you are in any given quest. This makes it much simpler for us to create encounters, and also much more reliable. We no longer need to have complicated scripts tracking save/quest/item situations, and instead can focus more on gameplay and making cool things.
• Improved save/load: The quest state system also ties into a new save system, which should allow for much more robust saving. Please keep in mind that when you load a game you may find Arthur on a bench reading a paper. Likewise there are some areas (eg the Mystery House) where you will no longer be able to save, as to do otherwise allows exploits and errors when completing encounters.
• Faster save/load times: As a consequence of the new quest state/save systems, autosaving is now significantly faster, and loading is faster too.
• Conversation mode: When talking with an encounter NPC (eg someone with specific dialogue and purpose, rather than the systemic NPCs), you will now enter conversation mode. Little black bars will come down around you, and you will effectively be isolated from the outside world while you talk to them. This means we can place better animation with the VO, and quest givers can’t be interrupted by other NPCs, or you, or them. Aka, the game won’t lose the plot as much any more, and it’ll be slightly better more cinematic.
• Puppet system: NPCs can now have highly scripted behaviour, instead of their normal systemic behaviour. The puppet system allows us to remove their systemic brains and give them specific actions to do, rather than having the two systems fight (which led to all manner of crazy shit).
• Consistent map marker behaviour: Map markers should now be reliable and operate consistently. When you see an encounter, you will see an encounter marker to let you know that something is over there. Once you are given the first stage of the quest, you will have encounter markers telling you where to go.
• Improvements to manual quest tracking and map markers.

Encounters

• New shelter! Arthur now has a new starting shelter, which provides a cleaner and more streamlined introduction to the basics of crafting and combat.
• Refactored encounters: The following encounters have been refactored by re-implementing them with the new puppet, conversation and quest state systems:
• If You Give a Pig a Pancake
• Mushroom Log
• Looks Like Rain
• Biological Hazard
• Fine Cuisine
• It's A Terrible Life
• Crazy Legs
• Lovebirds
• Blood in the Streets
• House of Faraday
• Walkabout
• Moon Juice Leech
• Campfire
• Lilies of the Field
• Bees
• OD Wellie
• Record Location 1
• Record Location 3
• Altar of the Yam
• The Dollhouse
• Cult of Jack
• Hallucinogenic Salad
• Wounded Wastrel
• Mine! Mine! All Mine!
• Bring Out Your Dead
• Where's the Power
• Public Works
• Shibboleth
• The Vandals Took the Handle
• Altar of the Yam
• Mystery House
• Popped Popper
• Improved realization: Along the way, the following encounters have had their realization dramatically improved, by introducing better animation, better VO, better tool tips, better art, and/or working map markers:
• Mysterious Chest
• Mystery House
• Doll House
• Fine Cuisine
• Biological Hazard
• OD Wellie
• Public Works
• Mushroom Log
• It's a Terrible Life
• Where's the Power?
• Walkabout
• First Marriage
• Hallucinogenic Salad
• Green Thumb
• Altar of the Yam
• If You Give a Pig a Pancake
• TV Altar
• Campfire
• Crazy Legs
• House of Faraday
• Popped Popper
• Moon Juice Leech
• All encounters should now be completable.
• Faraday should no longer be capable of blocking your progression. This is so important that it deserves its own line in these notes.
• The House of Curious Behaviours and the bridges have not been refactored, but will be next time.
• Tea Time and Lovebirds have been removed for now, because they were not good enough. We will rebuild them. Better. Faster. Stronger.
• The can of grapefruit juice in White Tree Park can now be picked up.

Environments

• The houses in the Village of Hamlyn have been dramatically improved.
• Additional house variations in the Village are available.
• Village houses now have exterior signs to add a little bit more happiness to the environment.
• Archways and other decorative elements have been added to the Village.

Animation

• Integration of “Turn in Place” animations. In certain AI states, the NPC will play an animation to face the player instead of sliding.
• New corpse interaction animations for picking up, dropping and throwing corpses.
• Added interaction animations for trap controls when using the trap disarm tool and polarity device.
• More talking animations for encounters. Mostly to fit new initial postures, like sitting on the ground, sitting on benches, laying down, etc.
• Improved sitting animations for certain NPCs. They now pull the chair out and slide it back in.
• Allows us to compact the chairs and tables closer to each other for more room around these objects.
• New two-handed combat animations for NPCs for cricket bats, shovels, etc.
• Added down-to-up melee animations for the player, for more variation with one-handed weapons.
• New base animations for plagued wastrels (walking, idle, etc).

UI/HUD

• Throw/Drop corpse interactions switched.
• Aim acceleration settings are now saved.

Gameplay

• NPCs now have a very short delay window between when you walk into their line of sight, and when they notice you. This means stealth is now more forgiving, and more viable.
• Histoplasma mushrooms now have a (temp!) visual effect, and are required to enter certain areas. Take a look around for clues.
• The Advanced Electro Lock Shocker should now operate on any lower tier objects.
• The materials required to craft certain items have been generally reduced.

Bug Fixes

• Low spec PCs should no longer crash every 10-15 minutes.
• Various crash fixes.
• Floor materials have been mostly corrected across the entire game, so the correct footstep sounds should occur.
• Too many quest/encounter bugs fixed to list here. At this point, we have very few known bugs that block progression, and some minor ones relating to animation etc.
• The game should no longer reset to day 1 randomly.
• Looted pickups no longer reappear after save/load.
• It is now safe to place items in containers other than the personal safe.
• Items dropped on ground will be deleted after save load.
• The final island now always appears.
• Thanks for tuning in!
• Compulsion Team

Patch 29962 (19th September 2016)

• Fixed some respawning issues where the game could crash or the player could fall through world.
• Fixed a crash for games that were autosaved while NPCs were in combat.
• Fixed a crash related to inventory getting corrupted when the stash was full and the game was saved.
• Fixed a crash related to some status effects getting removed twice (fixes toxic fog crashing).

Patch 29664 (12th September 2016)

Changelog:

Encounters

• A blanket pass on creating the “indoor lives” of Wellies was implemented. Now you will not always find them standing around their foyers just waiting on you to walk inside. They move around their houses with what appears to be an agenda. This lays the foundation for the stealth playthrough axis of house looting - eventually you will be able to observe NPC behaviors, hide in containers or side rooms and avoid detection while you explore their houses.
• Ongoing bug fixes related to map markers not appearing, dig spots not getting map markers, encounters breaking in annoying or mysterious ways.
• House of the inventor: Added speakers and intercom so Faraday can yell at the houseboys from her cage. Faraday now completely sealed in her cage. Objects are exchanged with Faraday via a new pneumatic tube system with a port to the right of her cage. Addresses issues with quest objects sometimes falling behind Faraday’s cage window and being unobtainable.
• Fixed TV Altar "Uncle Jack" not sitting on his chair.
• Victory Garden now overgrown with vines rendering it more secret which is good since it was supposed to be secret in the first place.
• Lilies of the Field: fix the first bark from the crier that was not playing. Also, mission giver should no longer lose her mind if the player perpetrates violence nearby and thus allowing the quest to be completed. She will still be angry if you hit her however.
• I Need a Pipe: removed most suspicion stimuli from Floyd so he doesn’t aggro unless being attacked. You can now "greet" him as much as you want while the quest is not finished and he'll repeat his VO.
• Lovebirds: tweaks to animations (WIP). Fix pop-in with the bouquet prop notify.
• Unkind Dead: fix the missing loot after loading a game. Added a savegame variable to remember if corpse was already looted or not.
• Motilene spills now exude tenacious motilene fumes which are toxic. Use a gas mask to avoid taking damage while in these areas.
• Crazy legs and Misery Parade fixes: support for higher liveness radius for specific characters, fixed follow patrol behavior to persist even without a navmesh.
• Hey, what’s this Misery Parade anyway? It’s an encounter that has been in the game but completely invisible since launch. Now it should start to show up. And probably kill you. Let us know if it shows up and kills you.
• Altar of the Yam: slight improvement of the begin play logic and repopulate script.
• Fixed objective not appearing as being completed when it was completed in Sweets.
• Disabled refrigerator POIs globally since the NPCs were pretending to look inside refrigerators that do not actually open.
• Created the Village desk writing POI.
• Player and NPCs can now sit on most chairs and couches in Village houses.
• Villagers now cook on stoves.
• Tweaks to continuous suspicion for Village radios/TVs so that they work as intended. NPCs should walk over to the radio/TV now if they hear it or come into range.
• Linked Village house TVs with couches and chairs in front of them so they can be opened/closed when NPCs want to watch television.
• Added the Look In Mirror POI for male + female NPCs in Village houses.
• Added some gramophones (temporary model) that can be used to play 45 RPM records and attract multiple NPCs.
• Wellies should start to use “wipe countertops” POIs.
• Wellies freak out less when a TV or radio is turned on in another room and simply go to enjoy Uncle Jack or music.
• Set all Village house TVs and Radios off by default.
• Can now also use Village house bookcases to search inside as well as take visible objects from shelves.
• Playability modifications to second Garden District island houses: adjusted layout, added beds, added tripwires and alarm, increased loot value for alarmed areas.
• Added open/close sounds for Village loot containers (cupboards, stove, shelf tables, etc.). They didn’t have any. Tripwire alarms use instant suspicions targeted towards the player. Generally ensures that nearby AI are alerted to the player’s presence.
• Iron chest digging spots now available.
• Improved drinking at sink animation.
• Lowered outdoor televisions so that Wellies watching them no longer appear to be staring at a wall.
• Wellies will sometimes knock on house doors as if hoping to find their friend’s home. They are not home even if they are home. They are just ignoring the knocker because they might be selling something. Or they’re dead, but you probably knew that.
• More hunting down and fixing map marker bugs including adding the correct text for labeling encounters.
• Fixes to prevent bypassing bridges in some cases. Sorry speedrunners :/ It was breaking our streaming systems.

Gameplay

• NPC health bar prototype added - still a prototype, but I cannot stand the eye anymore [Marc, the programmer]. Will also communicate NPC status effects such as bleeding in a visual way.
• Gifting cannot be done from behind. Choking is done from behind.
• Suspicion reduced for when player forces coin box.
• Changed the drowning detection to be based on height (Z==0) and the absence of a gameplay volume.
• Bleeding uses different rates on NPC compared to the players, much more punitive on NPCs (2% per second).
• Increased probability of contracting infection from a bare hands attack to 25% for wastrels on second Garden District island.
• Updated/created hold sockets for a few pickups such as tea cup and canned juice. Makes the sight of a character holding these pickups less unintentionally comical.
• Wardrobes in Village houses now function as hiding spots.
• NPC health bar prototype added - still a prototype, but I cannot stand the eye anymore [Marc, the programmer]. Will also communicate NPC status effects such as bleeding in a visual way.
• Certain Village and Garden District houses have new dressers. Floating candles now no longer float.
• Set map marker to use new toxic fog category for toxic fog zones.
• Set map marker to use new motilene category for sources of motilene.
• We have finally tracked down the elusive “can’t enter your shelter” bug. It should be fixed.

Weapons/Tools

• Player weapons can now impart some of the same status effects as weapons when used by NPCs. What? Right. Remember how an NPC with a cleaver could whack you and cause you to bleed? Yes. Now you can use the same weapon to make them bleed too. First pass implementation.
• Jimmy bar now breaks after 4 uses, up from 3.
• Renamed psycho dart to berserk dart.
• Berserk dart applies berserk effect for 30 seconds, berserk syringe for 1 minute.
• Added a transition to berserk behavior (same animation as the feral wastrels) for berserk syringe use; fixed getting stuck for a short time after injecting someone.
• Added berserk syringe to the list of pickups for the crash syringe combat move.
• Crash syringe: Added instant suspicion of "suspicious" when Arthur yells that the injected target is a downer.
• Increased durability of rusty shovel.
• Reduced rubber duck suspicion lock to 5 seconds.
• Power cells now stack in lots of 5 (same as empty power cell).
• Pump repair recipe now requires 2 adhesive, down from 3.
• Vinegar now only takes up 1 inventory block.

Recipes and Resources

• Generally made key resources more plentiful (if only you search, you shall find), streamlined recipes, and improved the yield for recipes that create “batches” or items when crafted:
• Garden District stoves have increased chance to contain rare mushrooms. Added more charcoal.
• Garden District fireplaces have more charcoal.
• Garden District toilets and bathtubs may contain rare mushrooms.
• Added doctor doll and doctor doll recipe, tweaked recipes to yield three dolls. Doctor will only accept doctor dolls as a gift. Added dolly recipe to crafting manager. Foundational work for ways the player can deal with the dreaded doctor soon to come.
• Black powder recipe is now one saltpeter + five charcoal to yield three black powder.
• Food Poisoning cure: removed berry ingredients requirement.
• Tweaked dolly recipe to require two cloth and one sewing kit.
• Adjusted bandage recipe to yield five bandages from five dirty bandages and one alcohol.
• Added berserk syringe and recipe to crafting manger.
• Removed red pills which did…nothing. Goodbye stupid artifact object.
• Added a pickup spawner for 45 RPM records on top of the table in Village houses but under the book.
• Made adhesive common and power cell uncommon in Village houses.
• Tweaked yield amount of berserk dart recipe and berserk syringe recipe from 5 to 2 (and adjusted required amount of components to craft).
• Adjusted breakdown bomb recipe: replaced mechanical parts ingredient with phytosteroid.
• Added charcoal to series of crash recipes (dart, syringe, bomb). Charcoal absorbs the toxins as charcoal tends to do.
• Crash effect (forced downer effect) is now permanent (neutralizes joy in an character’s system).
• Added crash bomb and crash dart recipes.
• Added explosion and trail effect for crash bomb.

AI

• Many more lip synched lines of VO added.
• Wellies accept 45 RPM records as gifts.
• Character attacked event (beginning of attack move, independent of hit).
• Bobbies place “nothing to see here” sign immediately on beginning corpse investigation; reviewed placement of sign so it spawns more reliably.
• Wellies ignore corpse as soon as a bobby starts investigating it…because there’s nothing to see there. The sign says so.
• NPCs are not attracted to POIs based on their needs anymore, but on a schedule, per need; POIs only define the need type which keys what schedule to use, no more thresholds, advertised need, etc.
• Fixed issues with characters ping ponging between the same two POIs.
• Improved reliability of POI usage, including bed usage.
• Fixed (hopefully once and for all) unsynched NPCs (floating next to bed) and “no collision” NPCs that were immune to death but totally capable of killing you. Which they really seemed to enjoy doing.
• Addressed liveness issue with restoring collision and movement when unpausing NPCs when they're still using a POI.
• Improved NPC access to the ludicrously gigantic round beds POI so they're actually usable. POI can now define a specific target point for navigation different from the animation entry sync point.
• Integrated begging animation for beggars.

Art

• New lighting! Wellington Wells now looks better, generally.
• New jerky (food) mesh.
• New juice can mesh.
• New toilet and sink assets for Village.
• Updated brick material.
• Reduced explosion glow.
• Improved hit impacts.
• Fix moonlight not being used as atmospheric light.
• Fixed position of water VFX in Village bathroom sinks. Made variation of water stream VFX that - doesn’t go through the sink.
• Properly placed floating toilets. They are now on the floor. No more air toilets.
• Minor fixes to visual artifacts such as low resolution textures on some characters and objects, floating signs, floating boards, etc.
• New and jaunty signs added to Village.

World Generation

• Added mountains/terrain towards the horizon.
• Added new cliff geometry so that edges of islands do no longer resemble grassy brown whale skin.
• Cleaned up shore planner and handle selection of pieces in planning stage (rather than spawning) to avoid weirdness in-game.
• Allow foliage planner to plan overtop of extra terrain features from static meshes (only specific ones--allows foliage to go over top of cliffs).
• Check for bridge overlaps when placing cliff pieces so we ensure that we don't protrude through the bridges themselves.
• Removed Village fillers with only a single corridor or staircase. Basically, building interiors that led to nowhere have been removed.

Miscellaneous

• Implemented method of partial game updates eliminating need to completely download a new version of the game for most updates. Expect greatly reduced download times/sizes, especially for hotfixes.
• Subtitles: removed all action descriptions from subtitles.
• New shell music!

Patch 29174 (22 August 2016)

Shelter Hotfix

• This is a very small hotfix to address an issue where players would need to use a Jimmy Bar every time they exited their safe house. Using the Jimmy Bar now correctly unlocks the hatch permanently.

Patch 29020 (16 August 2016)

Hi guys
The first update to the game - the Community Balance Update - is now live on the main branch on the Galaxy client. The offline installer has been updated to this version.

In this update, we make a large number of changes designed to address player feedback from our GID launch, from addressing the survival mechanics and day/night, to encounter/quest issues, and even a few bits of new content (although don’t expect too much in this regard).

We recommend starting a new game to avoid potential save game incompatibility issues. In addition, we want to draw specific attention to two things:

The survival needs rebalancing is intended to bring down the difficulty to what is likely going to be the “medium” difficulty setting. For those of you who like more difficult survival, this will return in a future update when we implement difficulty settings.

There is a known issue where some map markers will not have description text when you hover over them. We have implemented a more reliable map marker system to solve issues raised by you guys, but while our level designers have worked very hard to re-implement all the descriptions, some have not made it in yet.

Otherwise, here is a gigantic list of changes for you to peruse:

Core Gameplay / Balance

• Needs and timescale rebalancing.
• Changed timescale to 48 (from 72): This means 30 minutes per day instead of 20.
• Changed the threshold at which the need icons appear to 50% instead of 75%.
• Hunger fully depletes in 40 minutes (instead of 32).
• Thirst fully depletes in 30 minutes (instead of 20).
• Sleep fully depletes in 45 minutes (instead of 20).
• Change sleep hours required to fully restore fatigue to 12 hours (instead of 8).
• Increased durability and damage for branch.
• Increased durability, damage, attack speed, and reach (to the point of absurdity) for pointy stick.
• Increased durability, damage and heavy attack charge time for head knocker.
• Increased durability, damage and heavy attack charge time for double knocker.
• Increased Joy duration.
• Player does not start with inventory expansion kit, jerky, healing balm and purified water if playing the game a second time.
• Searchable corpse: tweaked the lootable interaction pitch and yaw max/mins to avoid weird player view interp when searching corpse.
• Prevent double hit from throwables on the same target in the same frame.
• Caltrops last much longer.
• Basic rubber duck is now throwable.
• Electrocution by shocker grenade lasts longer.
• Cannot sit on benches during combat.
• Beds that should not have been usable are now really not usable.
• Weapons not automatically dropped on NPC death; player must loot the body.
• Only activate proximity suspicion when player is not moving.
• Player cannot greet NPCs while brandishing a weapon.
• Picking up a dropped object is not considered stealing.
• Fewer enemies can be hit through doors.
• Reduced angle of walkable slopes for NPCs.
• When set on fire, NPCs scream.

World Generation/Resources

• Added new shell house variants to the Garden District.
• Removed second instance of chemical crafting table on first Garden District island.
• Reduced repetition of shell houses in Garden District.
• Automatically stream in zone data based on player position rather than depending on threshold volumes.
• Adjusted spawning of phone booths so that they block doorways or other objects less frequently.
• Increased frequency of tough linen spawns in the Garden District.
• Reduced ludicrous bobby loot drops.
• Bug fixes for joy overdose respawn including respawn support on the two connector islands.
• Reduced the insanely overkill number of phone booths on the connector islands.
• Added warning light to player tracking televisions (night time television observers).
• Primitive food poisoning cure now requires gilead petals and cures one tier of food poisoning by causing you to purge “the bad stuff inside.” Neximide now spawns less frequently as it is a powerful food poisoning cure and too plentiful.
• Primitive food poisoning cure now unlocked from start of game.
• Darts, elite hammer pipe, shocker grenade, and other recipes now unlocked by finding all required ingredients.
• Plain darts now craftable in lots of five (much less costly to craft darts).
• Breakdown and exhaustion darts now require significantly fewer chemical components.
• Phlash recipe now yields five Phlash.
• Plague cure syringes now less costly to craft. Now craft in lots of five. Take less space in inventory.
• Cricket bats require less space in inventory.
• Pump repair patches now stackable in lots of five. Recipe unlocked by having all required ingredients.
• Rowan berries stack the same as blue currants.
• Tree collision modified to allow better “sliding around trees rather than being stopped by trees” feeling.
• “Welcome” park relocated from second to first Garden District island.
• Randomly generated lootable plants now saved properly.
• Invisible Village building now visible.

Encounters

• House of Curious Behaviors now set to spawn randomly, i.e. not always in a world generation.
• Mysterious Chest set to respawn new contents every twenty-four hours.
• Minor realization improvements and objectives changes to Thirsty Wastrels. Still a work in progress.
• Faraday now gives you items by placing them on her workbench. You must loot them to put them in your inventory. If your inventory is full, be careful not to drop any items while standing near the cage window. There is a chance that the dropped items could knock the quest item off the work table and you might not be able to reach it. We will have a more reliable method of giving you quest items in the future.
• Realization improvements to Faraday’s Workshop. Repaired broken POIs (Roger should now pole dance again).
• Realization improvements to Blood in the Streets.
• Realization and objective changes to Poisoned Wastrel.
• Biological Hazard no longer causes plague but may cause infection.
• Walkabout yields more power cells on completion.
• Added objective to Shibboleth to point players towards searching the suitcase.
• Lovebirds active only during the day. Fixed twitching/teleporting characters.
• The Broken Police Box now gives you metal bits and mechanical parts; tweaked interaction duration and added save game support.
• Mrs. Stokes encounter no longer always spawns after you have played the game previously.
• Increased damage done by bees - no more stealing honey without a padded suit.
• More difficult to murder/incapacitate Crazy Legs.
• Cannot open the same chest three times to complete TV Altar objectives. Wastrels cannot be led too far from the encounter area.
• Simplified paying the toll interaction with the honey bridge bandit.
• Tripwire alarms in the Garden District are now better balanced for risk vs reward, i.e. they tend to be less frequent in general but also generally summon angry wastrels if triggered. Also, they do not zealously guard the bathrooms, which was funny but unintentional. Sprung tripwires now deleted appropriately after save/load.
• Added shopkeeper functionality to Hermit Treehouse allowing for sale of some collected items and purchase of desired items. Among other things you can now choose to spend sovereigns on are a couple of required quest items if you do not wish to search for/cannot find those items.
• Players should not be able to get stuck in Quarantine Bridge any longer.
• Public Works now requires the player to assist the worker. Player can no longer drink motilene.
• Bobbies should tend to stick to the Tea Time encounter rather than go scouting for possible picnic locations.
• Worshippers in Altar of the Yam convulse 45 seconds; reduced from 1.5 minutes.
• Cannot kill the chef through the bars using a melee weapon.
• Bug fixes! Including but not limited to progression blocking, save/load game errors, missing/not deleting map markers and dig spots, potential/confirmed crashes and unintended weirdness to House of Curious Behaviors, Campfire, the first safehouse, Altar of the Yam, Walkabout, TV Altar, Faraday’s Workshop, Lovebirds, Cutty’s Shop, Odds & Ends Shop, Lilies of the Field, Mushroom Log, Where’s the Power, Bobby Investigation, Mrs. Stokes, Thirsty Wastrels, Doll in The Dollhouse no longer falls to the floor, annoying “why are these dumb ropes still here?” bug fixed.

AI

• Hostility of wastrels heightened when players are inside their houses.
• Bare handed wastrel attacks chance of giving infection reduced. Now at 10%.
• Bobbies have a chance of dropping items when drunk.
• Worker NPCs have greater health than normal Wellies.
• NPCs react with VO to distraction objects.
• Wellies do not accept gifts (we need to determine which gift a Wellie would like).
• Bobby charge attack now warns more clearly by their shouting.

HUD/UI

• Crafting now split into five logical categories.
• Active quest tracking
• Objective markers now drawn on top layer of map.
• Toxic waste spawners now marked on map.
• Adjustments to multiple pickups that should prevent them from falling through the ground/floor if dropped.
• Updated inventory icons for clean bandage, antiseptic, sewing kit.
• Long subtitles split properly.
• New option to change subtitle size.

Visual/Audio

• Constrained repetitive wastrel barks to trigger only when player is in proximity rather than in LOS.
• General fixes to in-game text for clarity and typos.
• Fix to fresnel glass material for telephone booths (graphical glitch fix).
• Added missing beds, chairs, stoves to houses in second Garden District island.
• Vomit decals now show up in the environment more frequently.
• Multiple new NPC skin/wardrobe variants.
• Added new NPC barks/VO.
• Tweaks/improvements to select vfx.
• Added some new weapons breaking vfx.
• Visual improvements to banger tripwire explosions.
• Disabled foliage dithering (caused black splotches on trees).
• Reduced emissive properties on some vfx so that they do not blind you at night/in the dark.
• Added new sewing kit model.
• Performance optimizations for PC (already in Xbox build).
• Retargeted animations for crier weeping.
• Tweaked hand pose for some encounter props.
• Additional encounter facial/mouth animations for dialogue.
• Created flashlight hold animations, tweaked socket on mesh.
• Updated OD animation.
• Music box distraction object animates.
• Player can no longer see outside the world in the intro sequence.

Controls

• Gamepad aim acceleration tunable.
• Separated X and Y aim sensitivities for both mouse and gamepad (symmetric by default).
• Added gamepad aim dead zone setting.
• Reduced gamepad rotation smoothing.

Tech

• Crash reporting now automatic. This change has been implemented to increase the number of crash reports we receive on PC, which should give us more data to solve issues. Modified splash screen to alert players to this use.
• Added save game compatibility warning for saves carried over from previous versions.

Patch 28596 - Community Balance Update - Preview Branch (Galaxy only)

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our first preview branch update, where we are testing the next update for We Happy Few. In this update, we have a large number of changes designed to address player feedback from our Early Access launch. Predominantly, these focus on addressing the survival mechanics and encounter/quest issues, and the full list is below.

To access this build, you will need to access the preview branch inside the Galaxy client (click on We Happy Few in your Library -> More -> Settings -> change Channel to Preview).

We want to draw attention specifically to two areas:

• The survival needs rebalancing is intended to bring down the difficulty to what is likely going to be the “medium” difficulty setting. For those of you who like more difficult survival, this will return in a future update when we implement difficulty settings.
• There are three known issues in this build. The first is that some map markers will not have description text when you hover over them. The second is that the bridge between the second Garden District island and the splinter island is temporarily broken - you can get to the splinter island, but not back to the Garden District. You will have to go back out through the Village. The third is that you cannot talk to Faraday with a full inventory - if you do, you will drop the motilene harvester and will be unable to pick it up through the bars. We hope to address all of these issues before we push this update to the main branch.

Otherwise, here is a gigantic list of changes for you to peruse:

Core Gameplay / Balance

• Needs and timescale rebalancing.
• Changed timescale to 48 (from 72): This means 30 minutes per day instead of 20.
• Changed the threshold at which the need icons appear to 50% instead of 75%, because very few players realized they don't have to EATDRINKSLEEPNOW as soon as the icon comes up.
• Hunger fully depletes in 40 minutes (instead of 32).
• Thirst fully depletes in 30 minutes (instead of 20).
• Sleep fully depletes in 45 minutes (instead of 20).
• Change sleep hours required to fully restore fatigue to 12 hours (instead of 8).
• Increased durability and damage for branch.
• Increased durability, damage, attack speed, and reach (to the point of absurdity) for pointy stick.
• Increased durability, damage and heavy attack charge time for head knocker.
• Increased durability, damage and heavy attack charge time for double knocker.
• Player does not start with inventory expansion kit, jerky, healing balm and purified water if playing the game a second time.
• Searchable corpse: tweaked the lootable interaction pitch and yaw max/mins to avoid weird player view interp when searching corpse.
• Prevent double hit from throwables on the same target in the same frame.
• Caltrops last much longer.
• Basic rubber duck is now throwable.
• Electrocution by shocker grenade lasts longer.
• Cannot sit on benches during combat.
• Beds that should not have been usable are now really not usable.
• Weapons not automatically dropped on NPC death; player must loot the body.
• Only activate proximity suspicion when player is not moving.
• Player cannot greet NPCs while brandishing a weapon.
• Picking up a dropped object is not considered stealing.
• Fewer enemies can be hit through doors.
• Reduced angle of walkable slopes for NPCs.
• When set on fire, NPCs scream.

World Generation/Resources

• Added new shell house variants to the Garden District.
• Removed second instance of chemical crafting table on first Garden District island.
• Reduced repetition of shell houses in Garden District.
• Automatically stream in zone data based on player position rather than depending on threshold volumes.
• Adjusted spawning of phone booths so that they block doorways or other objects less frequently.
• Increased frequency of tough linen spawns in the Garden District.
• Reduced ludicrous bobby loot drops.
• Bug fixes for joy overdose respawn including respawn support on the two connector islands.
• Reduced the insanely overkill number of phone booths on the connector islands.
• Added warning light to player tracking televisions (night time television observers).
• Primitive food poisoning cure now requires gilead petals and cures one tier of food poisoning by causing you to purge “the bad stuff inside.” Neximide now spawns less frequently as it is a powerful food poisoning cure and too plentiful.
• Primitive food poisoning cure now unlocked from start of game.
• Darts, elite hammer pipe, shocker grenade, and other recipes now unlocked by finding all required ingredients.
• Plain darts now craftable in lots of five (much less costly to craft darts).
• Breakdown and exhaustion darts now require significantly fewer chemical components.
• Phlash recipe now yields five Phlash.
• Plague cure syringes now less costly to craft. Now craft in lots of five. Take less space in inventory.
• Cricket bats require less space in inventory.
• Pump repair patches now stackable in lots of five. Recipe unlocked by having all required ingredients.
• Rowan berries stack the same as blue currants.
• Tree collision modified to allow better “sliding around trees rather than being stopped by trees” feeling.
• “Welcome” park relocated from second to first Garden District island.
• Randomly generated lootable plants now saved properly.

Encounters

• House of Curious Behaviors now set to spawn randomly, i.e. not always in a world generation.
• Mysterious Chest set to respawn new contents every twenty-four hours.
• Minor realization improvements and objectives changes to Thirsty Wastrels. Still a work in progress.
• Realization improvements to Faraday’s Workshop. Repaired broken POIs (Roger should now pole dance again).
• Realization improvements to Blood in the Streets.
• Realization and objective changes to Poisoned Wastrel.
• Biological Hazard no longer causes plague but may cause infection.
• Walkabout yields more power cells on completion.
• Added objective to Shibboleth to point players towards searching the suitcase.
• Lovebirds active only during the day. Fixed twitching/teleporting characters.
• The Broken Police Box now gives you metal bits and mechanical parts; tweaked interaction duration and added save game support.
• Mrs. Stokes encounter no longer always spawns after you have played the game previously.
• Increased damage done by bees - no more stealing honey without a padded suit.
• More difficult to murder/incapacitate Crazy Legs.
• Cannot open the same chest three times to complete TV Altar objectives. Wastrels cannot be led too far from the encounter area.
• Simplified paying the toll interaction with the honey bridge bandit.
• Tripwire alarms in the Garden District are now better balanced for risk vs reward, i.e. they tend to be less frequent in general but also generally summon angry wastrels if triggered. Also, they do not zealously guard the bathrooms, which was funny but unintentional. Sprung tripwires now deleted appropriately after save/load.
• Added shopkeeper functionality to Hermit Treehouse allowing for sale of some collected items and purchase of desired items. Among other things you can now choose to spend sovereigns on are a couple of required quest items if you do not wish to search for/cannot find those items.
• Players should not be able to get stuck in Quarantine Bridge any longer.
• Public Works now requires the player to assist the worker. Player can no longer drink motilene.
• Bobbies should tend to stick to the Tea Time encounter rather than go scouting for possible picnic locations.
• Worshippers in Altar of the Yam convulse 45 seconds; reduced from 1.5 minutes.
• Cannot kill the chef through the bars using a melee weapon.
• Bug fixes! Including but not limited to progression blocking, save/load game errors, missing/not deleting map markers and dig spots, potential/confirmed crashes and unintended weirdness to House of Curious Behaviors, Campfire, the first safehouse, Altar of the Yam, Walkabout, TV Altar, Faraday’s Workshop, Lovebirds, Cutty’s Shop, Odds & Ends Shop, Lilies of the Field, Mushroom Log, Where’s the Power, Bobby Investigation, Mrs. Stokes, Thirsty Wastrels, Doll in The Dollhouse no longer falls to the floor, annoying “why are these dumb ropes still here?” bug fixed.

AI

• Hostility of wastrels heightened when players are inside their houses.
• Bare handed wastrel attacks chance of giving infection reduced. Now at 10%.
• Bobbies have a chance of dropping items when drunk.
• Worker NPCs have greater health than normal Wellies.
• NPCs react with VO to distraction objects.
• Wellies do not accept gifts (we need to determine which gift a Wellie would like).
• Bobby charge attack now warns more clearly by their shouting.

HUD/UI

• Crafting now split into five logical categories.
• Active quest tracking
• Objective markers now drawn on top layer of map.
• Toxic waste spawners now marked on map.
• Adjustments to multiple pickups that should prevent them from falling through the ground/floor if dropped.
• Updated inventory icons for clean bandage, antiseptic, sewing kit.
• Long subtitles split properly.

Visual/Audio

• Constrained repetitive wastrel barks to trigger only when player is in proximity rather than in LOS.
• General fixes to in-game text for clarity and typos.
• Fix to fresnel glass material for telephone booths (graphical glitch fix).
• Added missing beds, chairs, stoves to houses in second Garden District island.
• Vomit decals now show up in the environment more frequently.
• Multiple new NPC skin/wardrobe variants.
• Added new NPC barks/VO.
• Tweaks/improvements to select vfx.
• Added some new weapons breaking vfx.
• Visual improvements to banger tripwire explosions.
• Disabled foliage dithering (caused black splotches on trees).
• Reduced emissive properties on some vfx so that they do not blind you at night/in the dark.
• Added new sewing kit model.
• Performance optimizations for PC (already in Xbox build).
• Retargeted animations for crier weeping.
• Tweaked hand pose for some encounter props.
• Additional encounter facial/mouth animations for dialogue.
• Created flashlight hold animations, tweaked socket on mesh.
• Updated OD animation.
• Music box distraction object animates.
• Player can no longer see outside the world in the intro sequence.

Controls

• Gamepad aim acceleration tunable.
• Separated X and Y aim sensitivities for both mouse and gamepad (symmetric by default).
• Added gamepad aim dead zone setting.
• Reduced gamepad rotation smoothing.

Patch 28047 (28 July 2016)

• We have just pushed live build 28047. This build adds two options in the menu:
• Frame Rate Limit. This allows you to set your frame rate cap - including removing the limit altogether. 144Hz away!
• Mouse smoothing option. The game does not use mouse acceleration, but it does have mouse smoothing which may have been causing some players concern. This option allows you to turn it off.
• In addition, 21:9 resolutions will now also be correctly categorized in the graphics options.