Well, 16 new mutators to be more accurate, but 5 of them are basically the same thing. I actually spent the bulk of this update working on the level loading improvements that I started during the last update cycle, but most of my changes weren’t ready for public consumption, so I left them out of this build. I’ll start drip-feeding these changes slowly over future builds, since there is lots of potential for these to cause new bugs, and I don’t want to break TOO much at one time. More Uptown content is still coming. I’ll be away for a few days over the weekend visiting my grandmother for her 100th (!) birthday, but hopefully I’ll get to spend most of the next update cycle focused on Uptown. Also, speaking of mutators -- that is the topic of this week’s Fortnight Discussion!

Alpha 45

• Added “Remove Levels” mutators for Slums, Industrial, Park, Downtown, and Uptown. These will remove the specified level theme from the game.
• Added “Random Level Themes” which randomizes each level variety you enter (Slums, Industrial, etc.)
• Added “Exploding Bodies”, which causes people to explode shortly after dying or being otherwise neutralized.
• Added “No Cops”, which removes patrolling Cops, Supercops and Cop Bots from the game. Cops can still be found in Police Stations, and Supercops can still be called via Alarm Button.
• Added “Full Health For All”, which calculates health for players and NPCs the same, rather than reducing NPC health by comparison
• Added “Infinite Melee Durability”, which does what it says.
• Added “Infinite Ammo”, which again, does what it says
• Added “Infinite Ammo for Common Weapons”, which encompasses mostly bullet-based weapons like Pistol, Shotgun, etc.
• Added “Random Mutators” where each level contains a new set of mutators
• Added “Continue?”, which gives the player 2 Continues. This means that if the player dies, they can start at the beginning of that level, with everything reset to its original state. On the third death, the game is over. This doesn’t work in online multiplayer yet.
• Added “Mixed-Up Environments”, which can result in Lakes appearing in the Slums, Manholes appearing in Industrial, Upper-Crusters appearing in the Park, etc.
• Added “Quick Game” which makes the game 10 levels long instead of 15.
• Extreme Time Limit renamed to Time Limit EXTREME to make it easier to find alphabetically amongst similar mutators
• Fix for bug in New Character Every Level where the character’s special ability from the previous level could remain on the screen
• In Rogue Vision mode, player can no longer use the cursor to highlight items that are not visible to the camera

• Fix for shadows appearing under certain objects in Rogue Vision mode when they were not supposed to
• Fix for pink objects appearing on multiplayer client in Rogue Vision mode
• Fix for shadows caused by walls near doors occasionally appearing in the wrong spot

• Fix for countdown timers not appearing on multiplayer client
• Fix for multiplayer client not being able to auto-teleport to the Exit using the Ctrl key when all missions are completed
• Fix for multiplayer chat log sometimes disappearing if it became too long. Older text is now removed manually if the log gets too big.

• Fix for Mine Cart tracks sometime spawning in the wrong position on multiplayer client
• Fix for Turret sometimes not activating when Security Cameras spotted the player when there were multiple Security Cams

• Cocaine is now known as Sugar, and Steroids are now known as Muscly Pills. These were the only real-world drug references in the game (except for cigarettes/nicotine, which is bad for you in the game), and I decided to replace these due to A. Parents finding these references a little jarring, B. ME finding them a little jarring since they don’t quite fit with the weird nonsense world of Streets of Rogue, and C. I feel like something like that could take the game from a T rating to an M rating when the ESRB eventually does its thing. Overall, it didn’t seem worth keeping this stuff in the game. Also, the idea that drug dealers sell bags of sugar to willing customers is pretty funny.
• Musician no longer carries items that do not exist in the game code

• Modern Warfarer now works on NPCs

• Fix for music not fading out properly at the end of levels
• Fix for music sometimes not playing when reaching a new level

• Soldier players will not receive missions that take place in Military Outposts

• Various fixes to the new level loading system from the last build that should result in an overall decrease in weird bugs
• Lockdown Walls can now be placed next to Fences

• Changed text descriptions for No Guns mutator to mention that all guns would be replaced with equivalent melee weapons. Did the same for No Melee mutator.
• Added notification to “End Game” prompt that saved progress will be destroyed

• Lots more work on level-loading performance, though most of these efforts aren’t bug-tested enough for me to activate them in a public build

Alpha 45b

• Fix for Downtown levels (possibly others) sometimes not loading properly for multiplayer client
• Fix for issue where the player could close the “select a trait” interface if it appeared directly after the player achieved an Unlock and the player clicked outside of the interface
• Fix for Refrigerator sometimes running through walls and objects without destroying them