Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion: HD Renovation update for 25 June 2019

Hello! We've been working on a bunch of stuff!

First off, Spooky's Dollhouse isn't ready yet - we're still plugging away at it. We're working with Akuma Kira on it and their time is split with working on updates to Lost in Vivo as well. This patch is a collection of fixes and improvements that we've been working on in the mean time. We realized we've actually done a ton of work and it's good stuff that we ought to share with you.

There were substantial enough changes to existing specimen/rooms/mechanics that we are doing a fresh new leaderboard for Endless Mode. It's called (uncreatively) Endless Summer 2019 and you can find it in the community hub.

The full patch notes contain spoilers, so read on from here if you're okay with that. Additionally Serious Sean made a video that covers most of the changes:

Full Patch Notes:

Specimen

General Specimen Updates:

• The ability to specimen reset has been removed.
• Specimen who break doors down now rattle the doors before breaking them. You can also see specimen coming through the area behind the doors after the door has been broken (regardless of how physically improbable the door position might be). Also fixed some minor logic around the direction the door got kicked in.
• New cool looking flow mapping shader on Specimen 7 and the boss fight for Specimen 9
• Ran a fine toothed comb over the specimen hit/hallucination effects. They were previously operating under incorrect timings and they've been restored (Specimen 8, 10, and 11 specifically)
• Same as above but with all the static effects in the game. They're much more pixel perfect and scale better with different resolutions.
• HUGE update on all the killscreens, went over them with a fine toothed comb to fix timing and visual issues. They also work a lot better in VR since they are now "attached" to your face so the 2D ones will play out like a movie rather than being a strange floating plane.

Specimen 3:

• Specimen 3 got a behavior review, new animations, and a killscreen. Hopefully his neck won't break anymore when chasing people.

Specimen 9 / Taker Boss Fight:

• Changed how Specimen 9 boss form picks attacks so if you reflect multiple fireballs at him it doesn't start a several versions of the next form. This way is also easier to maintain and/or change.
• Updated the Specimen 9 boss fight screen effect visuals to be better.
• Specimen 9 got an AFK killscreen that's different from the normal killscreen to hopefully clue people in on his behavior more.
• Added a new Specimen 9 Boss reveal cutscene.
• Updated the Specimen 9 Boss Good Ending sequence. It looks neato now.

Specimen 10:

• Specimen 10's little scare in the ducts works properly again and some ambient sounds were fixed.
• Updated Specimen 10's behavior. It now retains its form between rooms, when it is in parasite form it breaks doors down very quickly, however when the parasite catches you it gestates momentarily before returning to its walking form. This should make Specimen 10's mechanics more obvious to new players and make it more fair in Endless mode.
• Made Specimen 10's damage overlay more efficient. A few people on lower powered computers were reporting issues with it so it now operates much faster.

Specimen 11:

• Updated some of Specimen 11's area, new models for the meat in the freezer and new effects in the freezer. Fixed the mirror not "tracking" the player.

Specimen 12:

• Updated Specimen 12's behavior. He now has a stamina meter much like the player, and when it charges up he yells and sprints towards you very quickly. Once his meter is expired he has to walk for a little bit before he can sprint again.

Specimen 13:

• New whale in Specimen 13's area.

Mansion Changes/Updates:

• Added the "Did you think it would end serious?" message back before the credits.
• How rooms and specimen are loaded was changed to make it a consistent staged process, eliminating a lot of strange timing bugs that were difficult to track down. This also means that you no longer skip the fade-from-black in a room when a specimen has respawned.
• How rooms generate and store their geometry has been updated so they don't re-do it every time you load a room.
• Added a new set of rooms to Endless mode after room 500 that can potentially spawn that have multiple doorways that Specimen can enter through.
• Updated CAT-DOS. Switched it to work like the minigame room arcade machines and returned its old secret glitchy state.
• Reformatted & updated the credits. Everyone say hi to SeriousSean and Teshno in the credits.
• Updates to the in game HUD, a new damage animation, and some other under the hood changes.
• Doors you enter a room from no longer have a handle to signify you came from said door.

Options Changes/Updates

• Updated the Options substantially with a selection indicator and a number of small fixes to make them easier to use and navigate.
• Added smoothed FOV animations to the intro cutscene.
• Added an option to turn VSync off and to set your target framerate. Spooky's is a really light game so if we didn't have a target framerate option it can go over 1000fps and that breaks physics. Turning VSync off can help if you feel like your mouse inputs are slightly delayed.
• Added an in-game timer that shows how much time you've played a save. You can show it while you're playing via a new option in the options menu. It's still a little bit of a work in progress.

Misc Changes/Updates

• The way weapons & offhands (like the flashlight & lantern) work was rewritten. Weapons now use real animations rather than being driven entirely through scripts. These changes don't have gameplay effects but are part of restructuring code to be BYOM ready.
• Use camera distance fog rather than camera near plane distance fog. This removes some high-FOV exploits and generally looks better. In rooms where people relied on using FOV exploits (the big abyss rooms) the fog distance has been increased so you can still check the path in front of you.
• Updates to how interactables are picked. This makes it a lot more consistent and cases like the Specimen 3 Lab key card behave more how you would expect plus removes some strange deadzones around Specimen 13's keys.
• Switched to doing color grading with a look-up-table (LUT) for specimen color effects, replacing old color filter effects. This means that if Lisa & Tirsiak chase you at the same time your vision is no longer almost black.
• Updated how the player moves when crawling to play the footstep noises and head bob properly.
• Steam now connects after the splash video so it shouldn't make the intro stutter anymore.
• Made UI Bleeps more consistent, especially in the options that were very bleep-less.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed the problem where you would lose sensitivity or button mappings for controllers if you started the game with them plugged in if they had been plugged in before. Now you should be able to plug, unplug, start the game with it plugged in, whatever your setup may be.
• Made the text on the note that spawns Specimen 2 less blindingly bright
• Pausing while Specimen 6 descends from or ascends to the ceiling no longer freezes/crashes the game.
• The combination lock in Specimen 13's area is actually blurry if you don't have the lantern
• Water footstep sounds weren't playing after exiting Specimen 13's area
• White Face has been fixed. Probably.
• Monster 2 has a back to the model.
• Flashlight wasn't showing up in the school sections.
• Doors in the lab caused a slight view jump when you used them.
• Bunk bed ladders have a back side now.
• Unknown Specimen 5's Specimen 1's weren't cleaned up if you died or exited to menu while they were active and they would persist through subsequent new/loaded games.
• Some menus were missing English localization.
• Some of Specimen 12's closet pieces were on the wrong layer and could soft lock the game/break everything.
• Pressing the UI Submit button on a controller from a game over screen would instantly select new game again.
• There was an incorrect navmesh in one of the hallway rooms with the railings that (non-incorporeal) Specimen would walk right through.
• You could get stuck in Otto's spawn room if you had specimen off. Now you can eat the floor pizza and move on, as is intended.
• Specimen 9 can no longer get you in Specimen 12's area while you're hiding. Enough people complained that we changed it.
• You can't get stuck behind the doors in the white room in the ending sequence anymore.

6/25/2019 Evening Quick Fixes
Pushed a quick patch with some stuff reported by the community:

• Tirsiak doesn't make dark fish rooms in Endless too dark to see.
• Specimen 6 no longer counts some time between room loads as time you not looking at him so he could attack you randomly in the next room rather than descending from the door.
• The Spec 9 boss cannot be walked through in his vulnerable form anymore.
• Fixed multiple duplicate specimen using the new LUT (Tirsiak, Lisa) clearing the LUT too early when one despawned but one was still active.
• Fixed a really weird navmesh on one of the ramp halls
• Changed the lower bound of target fps to 30 in the options when vsync is disabled.
• Fixed Monster 2's glitch effect (it had the wrong sprite).
• Fixed the 3d model of the whale popping in weirdly.
• Fixed a high FOV problem on Specimen 9's killscreen
• Fixed you being able to pause during the Specimen 9 boss fight intro
• Fixed Otto running through the door before breaking it
• Fixed the material on the fish tanks losing its shininess.
• Fixed white face breaking the game again if he "killed" you while a room was loading

07/08/2019 Patch

• Fixed ability to open the menu & be in control of the game at the same time (which was allowing for a lot of other really weird behavior like duplicate room loads).
• Fixed (a slightly different reason for) the issue where Spec 9 could come after you unexpectedly after hiding in Specimen 12's area.
• Prevent you from being able to swing your weapon while hiding in Specimen 12's area.
• Changed Unknown Specimen 1 (White Face)'s teleport to prevent him from teleporting directly on top of you (giving him a free hit).
• Fixed some misaligned stuff that was causing floating Specimen 2 puddles in Unknown Specimen 1's second phase.
• Fixed the Endless version of Monster 2's spawn room so if you skip spawning him or his sequence doesn't finish he still chases you as normal.
• Changed some of Endless Monster 2's logic so that he has a short cooldown between teleports - reducing the chance he gets a free hit on you if you have to walk close to the spawn door.
• Replaced the "50/50 Room" with an Endless-specific version that has a short hallway to make it less fatal.
• Now your Endless score is written when you save so the leaderboards should be easier to track your progress on.

07/22/2019 Patch

• "No Escape" text in endless is back when you're being chased (it was a text bug - the button still didn't work)
• VR menu un-broken in options
• Spec 9 Boss fireballs do damage again

Good luck out there all you fleshy live ones! :spookycloseup:

Also come talk to us on Discord in our official AMG server