Hello there. Since the demise of the Discord, I've not had a place to post development details for SH2, but I've now adopted a spot at BlueSky.

Larger updates will be posted here on Steam, but if you're the kind of person who likes to see the little bits of progress, please feel free to follow me at @catsmeatstudios.bsky.social

This BlueSky account will only post content relevant to my games, don't worry - I don't update 16 times a day with every thought that crosses my mind.

Link[bsky.app]

A small demo of the update in progress, featuring a track from volume two of the soundtrack.

Hello! You might have noticed it's been a while since the last update, but here's the reason why - 0.13 is a massive change and as I work on SH2 single-handed in my spare time, it's a little slow on progress.

However, so you're not completely in the dark here's what's coming.

0.13 will be the final early access update and features many new gameplay elements in SH2 as well as cosmetic changes. This is not a complete list of everything that's changing but should give you the idea.

First off behind the scenes, most of the random elements are being replaced. The Investigators for example will largely no longer visit houses at random but now analyse patterns (the Detective is the best at this of course) of your murders and attempt to ascertain where you might strike next - so if up to now you've systematically murdered a whole street as a strategy, that's not going to work any longer as they will spot what you're up to and may order the Lookout to guard that street. However, you can of course use that against them - by appearing to be following a set routine and then giving them the old switcharoo!

All roles now have many more events attached to them as well as changes of behaviour dependent on what's been going on. RNG is as far as possible being replaced with behaviour that reacts to your actions.

New shader and particle effects have been added to make things look nicer. As a caveat the following images are very much work in progress - there are placeholders in the following images and things may change drastically before release.

Onto cakes - there are now twice as many of these and their effects are buffed up if you put the flesh of a best friend into them.

The roster is completely overhauled. You can scroll around, zoom in and out and pin post-it notes onto it for little reminders. You can also sort the roster in various ways, such as A to Z, known roles, addresses, species, gender, friendship and status (as pictured).

Baking cakes now takes place in a little 3D physics world kitchen.

When you send Snapper to the crematorium you now can get him to choose which flesh to steal rather than he brings back something at random. Here he is in the crematorium in glorious first-person gatorvision.

Something that's been requested almost since the game first appeared, you can now make your own custom ponies to populate your town with. You can also share individual ponies or entire towns with QR code images.

You can have up to 16 different sets of ponies. with up to the game maximum of 40 ponies per set.

You'll then see your ponies wandering around town as little 3D paper sprites.

And there might be a few other new surprises too.

I'm working when I can to bring this out, but at the moment it's very much 'when it's ready'. Happy horse hunting!

A tiny update for the weekend.

* The Spy Hunter challenge should now work correctly and award the achievement if you win with it active.

Sorry folks, I made an error and left in a testing line which meant the "Weedkiller" challenge didn't activate properly. Should now be fixed.

Hello folks,

This is a smallish update earlier than was intended, primarily to address the video issues some players were experiencing.

Bugfix: Snapper's green marker now appears next to house numbers again to show he has been there before.

Bugfix: Gamepad now works correctly on the setup screen.

Bugfix: Love icons were not being properly revealed on the roster screen.

Feature: Option to disable videos added on the initial warning screen. If the codec fix still doesn't work for you, you can use this option for now.

Feature: Four "Challenge Modes" added. These will make the game harder, but you'll get special achievements if you win with them! More will be added in future updates.

Feature: If your game is running faster than intended, you will be notified on the title screen (I've seen a few streamers playing at 120fps!)

Feature: Friendship is now factored into invitations in the cake shop. A pony must be at least an 'acquaintance' to accept an invitation. If you offer an invitation to a pony who doesn't rate as a friend you will lose that cake shop turn but you will retain your rejected invitation.

Cheers and all

Catfood

Caught a couple of bugs post update, including a real stinker.

* If your game is running too fast and you switch to FORCE SYNC on options, it *should* now take effect immediately instead of on a restart.

* There was a bug where if you saw the lynch screen and the game tried to show the town screen afterwards, it would snow all over Snapper and the game would crash. Fixed!

Much gratitude to Twitch streamer Partycannons whose stream helped me track these down!

Hello Horse Hackers,

Here is update Early Access 0.12. Which includes:

Bugfix: Alicorns roster images didn't turn into Alicorns after transformation. This also affected the Spy's glitch.

Bugfix: Raycasting fixed on the town screen, so now the closest house is selected on a click rather than the raycast deciding you want a house in the distance.

Bugfix: Pony Horse has been evicted from your house.

Gameplay: At the start of the game the Spy now has three files on hand rather than two, so if you manage to kill the Changeling on night one, you still have to make a choice. The Changeling will still add a file every so often, until she has gathered a maximum of twelve.

Gameplay: There are now additional special events linked to specific townie roles, as well as hidden special characters.

Gameplay: If you send your pet out to plant evidence, you can now choose how much of your stock to send him with. This allows you to keep some back for cakes. The more evidence he plants at a house, the longer it will last.

Gameplay: Previously your sanity was restored by 10% if you murdered a council member but there was no bonus for townsponies. You will now get a small sanity bonus for murdering them too.

Gameplay: The Disciple was a bit too laid-back and seldom got mad with you. This is no longer the case. Once you have killed half the town, the risk of them turning on you kicks in.

Feature: There is a new building on the town screen, a crematorium. On the days when a pony has been cremated, this will be pouring out pony barbeque smoke in the morning.

Feature: If a pony has been killed, the survivors will immediately put up a little memorial stone by the church. What kind of stone depends on their role.

Feature: Once the Changeling Spy is dead, their roster image changes to that of a Changeling.

Feature: The game is now compatible with most gamepads. Please note that the gamepad must be connected before you start the game, pads connected after the game is running will not be detected.

Feature: You can now save and load up to nine Death Letters using the icons on the Death Letter screen, so if you type a real zinger you can use it again in another game. Bear in mind a letter that was super effective on one horse might not work as well on another, and repetition (in the same game) reduces letter efficacy.

Feature: The back of the tarot cards have had a facelift and now feature the Night Mare.

Feature: You can now set the quality of shadows in the options menu. Shadows considerably affect performance, so if you find the 3D scenes laggy try turning these down or off.

Feature: Your house is now a unique model in the town.

Feature: Two new knives have been added, which you can obtain via specific achievements. If you already have the achievement, the knife will be unlocked.

Feature: The gallows. As the town's rage increases, you will notice they start putting up a gallows in the town square. Once this is complete, the town might start with some lynchings!

Feature: The background music is now complete, featuring 20 original tracks. It's possible There might be extra music available as a DLC in the future.

Feature: A music player. Access this from the 'customise' option on the main menu. You can use this to play the tracks outside of the game and remove any from the playlist that you don't dig on.

Feature: The town now has little ponies wandering around. These are just grey placeholders at the moment. How many of them relates to the current population. They are not very bright right now and clip through things, but at least it makes the place look a bit more lived in.

Achievements: The achievement for Pony Horse turning up on the roster has been renamed from "The Horse, The Legend" to "The Losty Legend" in honor of the YouTuber who made Pony Horse a thing.

Known bugs: The Wiki is outdated and doesn't work very well, nor is it gamepad linked. This will be replaced in a future update.

Known bugs: Bug reporting via the options screen is currently offline. You can report a bug by emailing directly to mail@catsmeat.com

TTFN!

- Catfood

Greetings. The Slaughter Horse 2 original soundtrack has been updated, and at 21 original in-game tracks that span for over an hour, it is now considered complete.

All the main tracks have been remastered so you should be able to hear them with a little more clarity than previously.

Track 9, "Ticking off the Hitlist" I was never very happy with as it had a few audio issues too annoying to correct and besides it didn't feel like it belonged with the rest of the tracks. It has been replaced with new track "Murder Funk". However, you can still find it on the bonus tracks.

There are ten new tracks added to the OST:

• Murder Funk
  
• Genocide in A#
  
• Then You Disappear Forever
  
• (Horse Noises)
  
• Nobody Here But Us Ghosts
  
• The Night Mare Rides Again
  
• Windchill
  
• Ponymonium
  
• Tastes Like Yellow
  
• Requiem for the Mares

These won't appear in the actual game until the next update which is probably a couple of weeks off, so if you bought/buy the OST consider your early access to the new music a thank-you bonus.

Musically yours,

Catfood

Greetings again. The OST is now available to buy here on Steam. Many thanks!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2450910/Slaughter_Horse_2_OST/