Hey there! It’s been a while since our last Rivals of Aether update, hasn’t it? We’re overall pretty happy with where the game is at, with 18 characters meticulously adjusted over the course of 10 years! We’re here today with a big update for the workshop community that has been creating non-stop since the feature was introduced. Today’s patch has a ton of requested features that should make the lives of Workshop creators AND players more fun and much easier to navigate - stage searching, thick platforms, disabling hitbox shaders and more! I expect to see a demake of Hyperborian Harbor on my desk this evening.

In addition to a long list of Workshop support additions, we have also fixed up a few characters with some unintended interactions from the base cast of the game. Check out everything as we dive in:

Regional Pricing Updates

We’ve made some adjustments to our regional pricing to make the game more affordable. We currently use Steam’s default regional pricing already, but one of the things we did for Rivals II was make even further adjustments to certain regions to better reflect purchasing power in those countries. We’re porting those same calculations over to Rivals 1, and you’ll be able to see the new prices in your region reflected on the Steam store starting today.

Euros 28.99 > 24.99
Brazilian Reals 88.99 > 79.99
Australian Dollar 43.95 > 37.99
New Zealand Dollar 43.59 > 37.99
Polish zloty 138.99 > 105.06

A New Buddy

In case you missed it in the return of our classic April 1st Direct, there’s a new game in the Aether universe! Led by our friend Giik and his team at Lepioid, with music by flashygoodness and RESOFORCE, this talented team took the helm and created a brand new adventure centered around microgames You can pick up the game for just $2.99 HERE, and if you do (or if you already own it), we have a special gift for you in Rivals of Aether! Añi is here as the latest crossover buddy to accompany players in their many adventures.

Gameplay Updates

• Added a failsafe for projectiles that have a missing owner, causing a crash (ex. forsburn clones that fire the O-rune projectile and disappear).
  
• Added an Añi buddy for owners of Dreams of Aether!
  

• Bug Fix: Fixed bubbles popping vs. Clairen's plasma field at an unusually large range.
  

• Bomb bonk hitboxes no longer pass through fast-moving players in hitstun if the bomb is primed.
  
  • Passing through fast opponents is there to prevent a bonk from stopping a strong or lethal hit. If the bomb is primed, this could feel bad when you wanted it to interrupt that hit with an explosion.
    
  
  

• Neutral Special now has a hard cap of spins, 44 (the amount you get after absorbing 6 spirits).
  
  • This is to prevent an infinite in free-for-all and doubles where Hodan could be endlessly fed spirits from another Hodan while keeping opponents in place.
    
  
  

• The standard alt palettes now have much brighter jacket colors. Fashion, baybeeeee.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed Neutral Special notes falling off on attacks that don't cause hitstun, e.g. Ori Neutral Special taps.
  
  • This makes it more consistent with other lose-on-hurt effects like Ranno poison stacks.
    
  
  

Workshop Updates

WORKSHOP GENERAL:

• You can now search for stages in the same way you can search for characters. Hit Backspace (or Back/View on controllers) when on the stage select screen to type in a search term.
  
• You can now make platform articles "thick" by setting `solid` in them to `true`. Players will not be able to fall through or drop through these, similar to how Hyperborean Harbor's base platforms work in Rivals of Aether II.
  
• You can now set `uses_shader` in hitboxes and hit FX to false, disabling recoloring.
  
• Replays on workshop stages now properly apply rule overrides for disabling the timer.
  
• Players now have the variable `col_jumpthrough`, which stores the ID of the platform they're currently standing on (Note, this does not include solid blocks.).
  
• A sprite with duplicate files (like "idle_strip4.png" and "idle_strip5.png") will now unload the already-loaded file and inform you of the duplicate files.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed a crash that occurs when more than 12 player objects exist at the same time.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed a crash when running `user_event` in `init_shader` on the results screen while a base cast character won alongside a workshop character in doubles.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed crash when using `print` in a playtest NPC (or any character above certain player numbers for that matter).
  

WORKSHOP CHARACTER BEHAVIOR:

• In workshop characters, `window_attack_pressed` is only set to `true` (triggering cancels and such) when `can_attack` is true, bringing them closer to base cast behavior.
  
  • Because of the above note, workshop characters can now buffer reversed Forward Tilts like base cast characters can.
    
  
  
• Workshop characters now properly react to being buried, flashbanged and crystalized (buried will use the file "buried" if found, otherwise using "hurtground".).
  
• The crystalized sprites now rely on the owner's small_sprites, not the victim's. This fixes unusually small crystals on some workshop characters.
  
• Hit FX now use image_alpha for drawing, meaning manually changing it in scripts now lets you make them transparent.
  
• Workshop characters now have the variables "dust_shade" and "hit_shade" that control which color slot dust FX and generic hit FX use.
  

SCRIPT CHANGES:

• Draw scripts in players are now ordered like so: `other_pre_draw -> pre_draw -> regular drawing -> post_draw -> other_post_draw`
  
• `other_init.gml` now runs on playtest NPCs.
  
• `css_update.gml` now no longer runs if the player slot is inactive or loading.
  

NEW FUNCTIONS:

• `will_die_from_kb(instance, power, angle, hitstun)`. This lets you simulate a single launch angle to see if it kills.
  
• `trigger_hit_shockwave(instance, disable_hitstop)`. This lets you manually trigger the event that runs on strong hits, spawning the VFX and checking if the hit is a guaranteed kill on the player (using their horizontal and vertical speeds), spawning the galaxy effect and increasing hitstop if it does.
  
• `set_kill_bg(x,y,type)`. This lets you manually trigger a galaxy effect just like a guaranteed kill does. the `type` lets you use different galaxies as well (normal, sylv-red, tetherball, etc).
  

CHANGED FUNCTIONS:

• Added `event_user` as an alias for `user_event`.
  
• `set_hit_particle_sprite()` now has an optional argument that lets you toggle off recoloring for particle sprites. The formatting for that is `set_hit_particle_sprite(num, sprite, uses_shader)`.
  
• `get_color_profile_slot_r`/`g`/`b` now returns `-1` if the color slot is out of range, instead of crashing.
  
• `get_local_player()` now returns `noone` instead of `0` when offline.
  
• `spawn_hit_fx()` now skips sprite initialization if the hit fx type is set to `noone`.
  
• Fixed `get_state_name()` returning `INVALID_STATE` for buried, flashbanged and crystalized.