Alpha 2 is now available

[Pyren]

We've just pushed the latest build to Steam! This version contains new parts, new puzzles, and some new music! One big piece of feedback we've been hearing is a desire for new puzzles, and now that we're making fewer adjustments to the physics, it's time to turn our attention there!

Enjoy! Keep on posting your bugs, feedback, and suggestions!

New Puzzles!

• There are now 30 official puzzles in the game.

New Parts:

• Incline, useful for controlling your puzzles (placeholder art)
  
• Power strip, extend the range of your plugs, and plug more things in!
  
• A light bulb, that is powered by plugging it in.
  
• Milton the Mouse, He runs from the cat and to the cheese. He'll stop and eat the cheese unless he's being chased, and has a home to use as a goal.
  
• Remote Bomb & Remote Bomb Trigger! Set these off by hitting the plunger, or pull the rope.
  
• Domino. Set up long domino chains and knock them over (placeholder art).
  
• Wooden Planks (long and short) -- Tie these to ropes or knock them over.
  
• Solar Panel. Generate power by shining a light on this!
  
• Wrecking Ball. A massive wrecking ball can be attached to ropes for maximum mayhem.
  
• Invisible Walls! Allow your puzzle to interact with the scenery!
  
• New Scenery Parts! Alien Forest and Underwater scenery has been added.

Performance Enhancements

• Reduced draw calls by a factor of 10 on some levels.
  
• Reduced Texture memory requirements by 75%.

New Features & Art:

• Added a new puzzle complete dialog
  
• New end-of-movie dialog that allows opening up the windows / osx explorer and selecting the just-recorded movie.
  
• Voting on Community puzzles & contraptions -- There is now a vote dialogue when you complete a puzzle, and you can also vote in the stash.
  
• The first pass at background animations are done! Add one-off or looping animations to the scenery pieces.
  
• Scale of sprites can be animated
  
• Sprites can be scaled independently in x and y
  
• Nodes can have a delay
  
• Text nodes can be animated
  
• Opacity can be animated
  
• New Iron Ball artwork
  
• New Balloon colors
  
• New Music
  
• Scenery order adjustable within each layer

Bug Fixes

• Fixed multiple belt bugs
  
• Vacuum does not absorb parts when it is turned off
  
• Adjusted how Rope slack works so there is no slack when either end is attached to a static body
  
• Fixed bug where locking a part removes all other actions icons around it
  
• Fixed crash bug with plug sprite
  
• Added in some Missing Text Messages
  
• Fixed flipping on quite a few parts so the multi-selection flipping works correctly
  
• Fixed dragging multi-selection box that has unattached Rope and Belt ends in it
  
• Kept Pulley from rotating way too fast
  
• Fixed snap point on Intersection Pipe

Physics & Part Adjustments

• Adjusted force needed to trigger Steam Whistle
  
• Teeter-Totter snaps to grid so it can line up with walls
  
• Waldo is now affected by explosions when walking

Usability Changes

• A new option to disable vsync
  
• Doubled resize area for resizing windows
  
• Tooltips now appear when you hover over a button
  
• Reworked tabs for the parts and scenery bins, including new art and new tabs
  
• Move to back / move to front buttons for scenery
  
• Restore saved position for windows.

[Strucol (Brian)]

good stuff, I'll see how I can break it now :)

[Ikx_1]

Awesome! Thanks!!

[GaryCXJk]

Already sort of broke the rope, using a wrecking ball. I don't even know what exactly breaks this, and I've only tried it with the short plank. Basically, tie a rope to an anchor point, route it through a pulley, and then connect it to a wooden plank. Next, tie the wooden plank through the pulley to the wrecking ball.

Apparently it also breaks when you attach a blimp to a pulley, and then attach it to the wrecking ball. The ball tries to pull the blimp towards the pulley, but the blimp wants to escape.

I haven't tested it yet with other heavy objects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkbgtaiYebI

[Pyren]

Yeah, that's the infinite rope stretching bug -- that one proved resilient. We've got a fix for it in the works, but it didn't make the cutoff for this release.
You can even see it in one of the official puzzles for now (Bright Idea).

Thanks for the post! Getting a video of the bugs you're reporting definitely helps with reproduction and fixing.

[ShinDigPig]

enjoying the new puzzles (Didn't buy for the making ability, all for the puzzles, was really psyched to see more)

[GaryCXJk]

Well, I've noticed while trying to add text that... I can't add text. With that I mean, I can't alter the text. Basically, the Move to front button is placed in my setup below the Edit initial state button, confusing the game.

http://i.imgur.com/aLaVInG.png

[Pyren]

Yep, that's exactly what's going on there. Thanks for catching this! Looks like there's no workarounds available either.

[Кошачий Депутат]

This is good update, glad to see Newton mouse.
Little request. Can you make unsubscribe button, so I can see if I subscribed to concret level? So if I not subscribed there will be subscribe button, if I alredy subscribed there will be unsubscribe button. (Now to subscribe to all levels I press subscribe to all what I see, this is long time.)

[Pyren]

We've got a fix out for the text button issue. The new update moved the buttons slightly so they won't overlap anymore. Enjoy!

[Кошачий Депутат]

Originally posted by Pyren:

We've got a fix out for the text button issue. The new update moved the buttons slightly so they won't overlap anymore. Enjoy!

What are you talking about?

[GaryCXJk]

Cool, now I can finally add notes to my contraptions, making it clearer for people to show where the focus should be!

Although I could have done it with annotations on YouTube as well... Why didn't I think of that earlier?

[Retodon8]

Originally posted by K.I.S.A.:

This is good update, glad to see Newton mouse.

He's called Milton actually.

Originally posted by K.I.S.A.:

What are you talking about?

The text issue GaryCXJk mentioned just a few posts earlier of course. :)

[Retodon8]

Nice update; thanks!

A quick comment: the toaster could really use some kind of feedback mechanism for when the lever is bumped. :)
I originally spend much longer than necessary on "Knock Tim Out" because I thought I was misplacing the toaster slightly, then assumed I was just doing something wrong somehow.
This patch reset some puzzles, so I just did it again, remembered this puzzle was really easy, didn't remember the lever, and only solved it again when I accidentally left it running a bit longer.
I'm sure it's planned already, but please change this before changing something more trivial like Milton's House's door opening again for subsequent mice.

I really should invent some machines and upload them now I have these extra parts. :)

[Retodon8]

In Revenge of the Clones if you place a Hamster Cage next to the top floor of Tim clones, it'll snap to that floor so it basically becomes part of the floor.
If you mirror it, it no longer seems to want to snap properly.
It will snap when you put the top right corner below the floor, but at a point where it gives you the can't-place-here sign.
As soon as you let go, it will place the cage, but at a slightly different spot to avoid the actual overlap.

[GaryCXJk]

I thought it was a feature or something, that it didn't snap at the back, only at the front. Would be nice though if both sides snapped to the platforms.