The Collaboration Update

Collaborate

• the game now supports 2-player cooperative multiplayer

• local & online

• two new co-op exclusive modifiers that stack on top of existing ones

• cool point +1 (you get it for being cool)

• available across all existing gameplay modes

• supports custom levels

• can be found in the multiplayer submenu

• pass&play gameplay mode has been moved from main menu to multiplayer submenu

Tech Stuff

• the web browser that was previously running the game is now gone, underlying systems have been rebuilt to run fully natively

• it runs much much faster! and it's much easier for me to extend with weird cool tech type of stuff (like core features of this update)

• also a kinda cool side effect of this is that the entire game's size is now less than 90mb (you only need like 60 floppy disks to store it)

• the game logic now runs at fixed 120 ticks per second

• the game is now consistent and behaves the same way for everyone, regardless of the PC configuration and performance

• fallback controller support (for when the game is launched without Steam) supports more controllers

• keyboard remapping

• keyboard remapping have been moved to settings

• mouse buttons now also can be bound to stuff

• remapping menu can now also be used to bind the controls for the 2nd player to play local coop on the same keyboard

• default binding for Quick Reroll (F5) have been removed (but can still be bound manually)

• Discord Rich Presence is now supported, including support for game invites

• menu items are now clickable

• mouse cursor will now only hide when no mouse activity is detected

• Level Pack list now has a search bar

Recording

the old video recording system, while convenient, was a technical nightmare!! it severely impacted performance and was frequently crashing the game whenever the game have been running for a while

• because of that, i'm extremely happy to get rid of it!! its place will take two new systems:

• Steam Recording

• it works basically as the old thing did: it constantly records the gameplay and allows you to make "clips" of it afterwards

• BUT! when compared to the old thing it is dramatically less buggy, it uses a more widely supported format and (most importantly) it can utilize the hardware acceleration to offload the video processing cost away from CPU making its impact on performance way less noticeable (if at all)

• also it has a nice UI that allows you to, for example, save your entire run, or like a specific funny moment rather than limiting you to just clipping the last level

you can learn more about it at https://store.steampowered.com/gamerecording keep in mind that right now this feature requires using the Beta version of the Steam Client (check the link to find out how to enable it!) - but in my own experience it's been very solid so far!

• gif thing gif thing gif thing

• regardless of how you pronounce them, after playing a level you can now save a .gif of your playthrough

• you will see a "press Enter/Y to GIF" prompt in the bottom-left corner whenever you can save one

• unlike the old video thing this new gif thing does not affect the gameplay performance at all(!) as it only needs to record a "replay" of your actions - then it can quickly play this replay back whenever you choose to save a gif

Gameplay Changes

• general

  • fruits are now always collected when player jumps off them

  • fruits don't get heavier if you jump when you collect them

  • switching aim types at the same frame as shooting no longer misplaces the reticle

  • mobilise / vaporize / upgrav projectiles no longer randomly push objects away when colliding with them

  • explosion collision detection is more accurate to its visuals (esp. on long objects)

  • explosions, vaporise and impulse now properly affect rotation-pinned things

• big levels

  • two wombat-made boss level setups that were previously disabled ||due to a typo|| have been readded to the pool

  • boss levels have more protection from spikes that instakill you on spawn

  • boss level parts no longer spawn on top of a random portal / moon

  • some boss level objects that were supposed to spin but never did due to a bug now have a random chance to start spinning again

  • boss level camera no longers jitters when moving

• random portal modifier

  • random portal modifier will try to not spawn at super impossible places

  • non-super kinds of impossible places are still allowed

  • random portal modifier will no longer destroy itself when obstructed

• de/stabilise modifier

  • de/stabilise no longer tries to stablise stabilised objects and destabilise destabilised

  • de/stabilise modifier's stabilise now also removes the rotational pin

• directors cut off

  • backflip

    • now every flip gets a full circle of rotation

    • rotation speed is increased to account for this

    • backflip no longer fumbles when the previous one wasn't in the same direction

  • moon will now try its best to spawn in more interesting places

  • DC-off de/stabilise modifier can now affect multiple blocks (kinda like pre-DC update but cooler)

  • turtle can now spawn facing left

• speedrun mode

  • speedrun timer is now more monospaced than ever

  • help screen no longer appears in speedrun mode

  • boss level previews are now skipped in speedrun mode

  • all the UI animations no longer require mashing a button and can instead be advanced by holding it

• raw random

  • raw random big level item boxes are now rawer and randomer

  • Rich Presence now also shows the highest score in a current session

  • there's now a score screen that shows up when Raw Random run is over

  • nice

• tentacle

  • tentacle part spawn speed changed to behave as it did in 60hz mode

  • it used to spawn way too fast on high-refresh rate setups

  • tentacle no longer gets holes

  • tentacle "muscle power" changed to behave as it did in 60hz mode

  • it had way less power on high-refresh rate setups

  • tentacle ray no longer randomly decides to become visible

  • tentacle growth direction logic is changed to have more logic

• butterfly

  • butterfly doesn't grow on spawn now

  • this also makes the butterfly's mass constant, making pushing it around more consistent

  • butterfly no longer makes the ticking sound once it is destroyed

• frog

  • frogs can jump off of other frogs

  • hahaha yesssssss

  • frog no longer confuses its jumping direction when launched while turning

  • super secret frog mode

• gungun

  • gungun now bounces off surfaces in a more predictable way

  • gungun now consistently triggers a physics response on bounce

  • gungun no longer randomly bounces off of player when launched which used to result in a lower launch speed

  • gungun no longer gets stuck in midair if picked up mid-backflip

  • gungun restores ammo if picked up

• instabox now spawns close to walls instead of inside them

• clamp

  • clamp unfreezes itself when attached

  • clamp no longer randomly decides to clamp multiple objects

  • clamp gets its mass back when the object it's attached to gets destroyed

  • clamp is now cooler

• fish

  • fish can no longer turn invisible

  • using spear on fish kills the fish (so please avoid doing this)

• spear is now cooler

• delete

  • using delete tool on yourself when gungun is detached teleports you instead of gameovering you can delete delete with delete

  • delete that's deleted by delete triggers the delete's deletion as it gets deleted (rather than when it was supposed to)

• bomb stops its fuse sound when destroyed

• ball

  • balls no longer destroy themselves when there's another ball that haven't finished growing

  • balls no longer flickers when spawned

• bamboo

  • tools that use raycast-based reticle (like ladder) are now less likely to slip in between the bamboo pieces

  • multiple bamboos are no longer connected

  • restored missing bamboo spawn sound variation

• phaser now can be triggered with frog pellets / mobilise pellets / upgrav pellets / poms

• spikes

  • feetbox colliding with spikes doesn't make floor unjumpable

  • cannon projectiles are no longer counted as a jumpable surface

• crumbling blocks

  • crumbling blocks now always break when jumped off of

  • explosions make crumbling blocks start crumbling

  • crumbling blocks frozen by vaporise mid-crumbling no longer unfreeze themselves

• portal

  • player's head now also enters the portal

  • players no longer can teleport out of a portal

  • portal can now show up to 6 fruit indicator dots

  • if there's more, it will have a "+" indicator and only show dots for the last 5 fruits

• other stuff

  • mobilise and upgrav visuals+sound multiplication is gone

  • black border no longer resizes itself

  • hinges' invisible physics objects don't intercollide now

  • gray filter now doesn't affect the UI

  • rotation/pivot dots now correctly disappear when their parent object is deleted

  • mismatched background colors and fruit types on a bunch of levels are no longer mismatched

  • hitting the Discord block will no longer cause the game to freak out on Steam Deck

  • top-left tool indicators are now a bit more readable

  • locked items get grayed out a bit more

  • sound/music icons once again correctly dim when muted (oops)

  • modifier icons for the selected level appear on "3 tools" manager screen

  • speeding up system animations by holding the jump button no longer has a delay

  • score things can now also be skipped by holding the jump button

  • stabilizer hint is now a camera hint

  • frog hint is a bit clearer

  • that one block on the left side of bluerush 1 have been removed

  Level Editor Considerations

  while the Level Editor have not received any significant changes (yet!), the game's underlying systems have changed dramatically and some levels that were relying on specific object interactions (around 2% i think) have been broken at least partially there are a bunch of bandaids applied to make less things break, but some stuff just can't be fixed by me (at least not without spending an extremely unreasonable amount of time)

  most important things to look out for:

  • spike attachment points

  • spear attachment points

  • object layering works differently

  • frogs created on an older version will not jump when on top of other frogs

    • if you want them to be able to, you can replace them by newly created frogs

  these tricks should still mostly work fine but you might want to check/modify levels that feature them to take advantage of the fact that the game simulation is now deterministic, meaning that your level will now always behave the same way when it loads, regardless of the player's system:

  • wombat merging trick

  • rotating rail trick

  • antimatter kind of things

  • rotating things clampo'd to other things

  • physics-based mechanisms in general

  i'll be keeping notes on levels that got broken parts as i play the game myself so i can notify people that made them via Workshop's "developer comments" thing hopefully this is the only time we'll be making breaking changes like these! really really sorry for inconvenience!!

afterword: hello! i’ve been sneakily working on systems for this update ever since The Performance Update released! it’s been 9 months now omg - even more if you count all the prep work that i did as a part of making the Level Editor, that’s more than a year at this point!! it doesn’t feel fully real haha i really really love this game, this whole update was born from a desire to make Mosa Lina just a tiny bit cooler - and (in my super unbiased opinion lol) it totally does that! upgraded performance and the QOL stuff is nice, sure, but the multiplayer!!! it’s crazy cool, i’ve been playing it a lot with friends and ppl on Discord and now even if i’m looking back at all the work and stuff along the way i know it was totally worth it! i love this game a tiny bit more now hope you’ll do too

thanks for playing