Challenge Update

[Kenzie]

Discussion & feedback thread for the new Challenge Update.

[Proton]

Just fixed a bug where a Custom Arena occasionally wouldn't load if it contained more than one of the same room type. Restart Steam to make sure you get the update.

[Proton]

We raised the number of rooms from 8 to 9 today, but you guys are just too good, so tomorrow it will be 10!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=346179337

[Proton]

Fixed the 'question mark' bug. Also added room preview images to the clone room map to help with planning the strategy of attack:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=346234590

[travisisgood]

This may only be loosely related to the thread, but is related all the same. Is there any way you could implement a way to test rooms before uploading? I didn't see it, so forgive me if it's there and I missed it. Creating a room, then creating an arena, and then uploading it just to test things out seems tedious. That being said, other thoughts I had were to make some sort of "flying" mode available for creating rooms. All things considered I think the daily challenge is awesome and I hope one of my creations gets featured some day!

[Proton]

Good ideas. BOLL was interested in those features as well.

Kenzie & I just upvoted your room:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=350884588

The Daily Challenge is currently generated like this:
- The top 100 trending rooms are requested. Trending is based on upvotes I think, it's done by Steam Workshop behind the scenes.
- Those 100 rooms are split into 2 groups
Group 1: Puzzle Rooms - These rooms have at least 1 pressure plate in them (jump pads don't count as pressure plates)
Group 2: Challenge Rooms - No pressure plates, can have jump pads & forcefields

Only 1 puzzle room is chosen per day, and it is always the first room. This prevents them from getting annoying and dictating the strategy.

And that 1 puzzle room that is chosen must have at least 2 up votes. If a puzzle room doesn't have 2 upvotes, it is put into Challenge Room group so that it might randomly appear anyway somewhere else. Then if people like that puzzle they can vote it up, and it would show up again as the first room potentially.

This 2 votes system was needed to prevent the first room from being just a trigger. Well in theory anyway, Today's daily challenge is exactly that, just 1 trigger, 1 forcefield and 1 white block. But it has 3 upvotes. So maybe people like it because it is simple, not sure.

It's entirely possible that people prefer non-puzzle rooms to puzzle rooms. If that is the case, the voting system may show this in time. Experimenting with user generated content is pretty fun :)

To have the best chance of getting a room in the Daily Challenge, it would need to be a non-puzzle room. Since 9 non-puzzle rooms are chosen every day, but only 1 puzzle room is typically chosen.

[Zek]

I'm not sure if this is intended, but when you stand as close to the wall as possible next to a red circle lock and shoot with the rocket launcher, it hits both locks on double lock doors.

[Master Cheese]

I dont liek rooms where you have to jump all the way to the top to get into the next room instead of getting through a door. You're on a timer, have to pull off a few fiddely jumps and if you fail once you can restart the whole thing because you're not getting that 100% this time.

[Zek]

If I were Queen I'd banish all locks everywhere!

[BOLL]

Just got to playing this again, now every other day! :D Mostly the daily challenge, I still haven't finished episode 2 and 3 with 100%, I played and played but always failed. But yeah, someday, maybe. But, regarding arenas!

The door colors on the map could be more helpful, perhaps, I keep looking at the map and still get surprised when doors apparently are missing or something...

• Green : unlocked
  
• Sky blue : you have to jump up the wall
  
• Red : locked from either side
  
• Orange : locked from the other side

A suggestion for a flying mode when designing rooms. Just move the floor for the player in one block increments, you could use the digi-pad on the gamepad to adjust that.

Lock to axis, hold a button and the direction you draw in, vector between first and second block, will be fixed no matter where you look. Kind of like holding shift when drawing a line in Photoshop. I would use the shoulder buttons now used for angle snaps.

Toggle overdraw and erase mode. Now we can toggle distance and type, we still have clicky sticks to use though. It's a bit messy trying to erase and draw with the same tool, and sometimes you just want to draw over something without having to first delete. Might be one toggle too much though but it''s an idea ;)

As mentioned above, the ability to play test a single room feels quite interesting... might be a lot of work though, I guess, depending on how things are built :P Just a +1 there.

Oh, and all my suggestions for controls etc, it's just so it will seem more possible to add, that's my motivation for adding those details :P Haha, I have no idea if they're the best buttons to use or if people can even keep track of more buttons but yeah, eh.

Thanks for adding this mode :) Definitely keeps the game alive, even after having gotten PTSD from the normal episodes :x

Edit: Browsed more of the forum and played some more so adding a few things :3

It would be super neat to either have "Play random unplayed daily challenge" or some kind of marker if I have played a certain day or not. And if so, it would be nice to be able to flip between dates easier. Just saw a post about 17th of December 2014, and it took a while to blindly flip back to that date :D Cheers, and thanks for still updating this game!

[Spoopy]

Idea for challenge rooms build mode: make a block activated by triggers that spawn blocks like in campaign, but activated by you.

[BOLL]

Uhm, got back into this game again, has become my go to game to get a VR fix just because it... just works.

New pistol, it's great, now actually a viable option :P I finished Episode 2 (for the first time) using only pistols xD BUT! I think the scatter particles are actual geometry, if I pump up scatter and fire away, the game will sink to 3-4 fps even on a 970, pretty funky in VR. Not sure if this is already the case, but perhaps change them into flat particles at a certain distance o_O At least with acid on they're always full bright green so sprites would work fine I think.

Oh, and a small pondering... when doing an arena I am most interested to see if I have missed any, and now I have to stand still and then look to my left. I would love if that number was straight down, so I can still run around and just glance down to see if I missed a cube. I do this mid game just to know in which part of the level I need to catch an escapee with the next character :P Just a thought!

[BOLL]

I will continue with my wishes ;)

When editing, it would be great if killable blocks would not overwrite physical blocks, so that I can build a level to walk around in, and then fill it with enemies without fearing to destroy my geometry.

Also when editing, it would be fantastic if I could hide my body, as I usually stand still and look around and working downwards is nearly impossible :P Well, I have a work-around, I stand up in VR and walk away from my body, haha.

Oh, and a feature anyone would want, which probably everyone has requested before. An ability to test-play a room and/or arena without the need to upload. I understand the underlying systems might not be meant for it, but currently I'm building a bunch of rooms just to fill up an arena so I can get to play them :D I could, I guess, delete an arena after uploading it, but that process in itself says something more is needed :x

[Kenzie]

One of those should already be solved, in Options / Quality there's a flag to turn your body off.