The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 25 new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, 3 new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
HOLOGRAMS, SNOWMEN, & PENGUINS
The Sci-Fi Pack is almost here! This is our second to last video (oh, I'm so glad...). Behold the snowman's apocalypse beam, and the flaming penguin of doom! Also a really cool hologram. And hey, is that a new Snowman song? Well, not super new - it's music from Dr. Lunatic.
I've also been hard at work on Candy Quest (very hard - 143 levels are done so far!), and have nearly finished. I only have the Dumb Pack Power Pill levels left to do, plus the Vampire, and then any extra Challenge Levels I want to squeeze in before release. We are really finally getting close to this massive undertaking being complete. I'm glad I made Candy Quest for many reasons, but a big one is that it made me really test out the new features and abilities in real level designs, which led to an endless stream of tweaks and bug fixes before the features went live. Every day I make another few changes that would've been a nightmare if people had already made their own levels relying on the original way these features worked.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 25 new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
You may have noticed that it's been a while since the last Sci-Fi Pack update... well, we are a little bit delayed, but, it's because there is a gigaton of extra content being added!
When adding the 3 new costumes, I knew I would have to add training levels for them. However, we also have power pills for 18 different costumes, which really need training as well. And then on top of all that, I sent the game to a whole collection of streamers and got to watch them play... and let's just say that wasn't pretty. Kid Hallow is a game of thousands of complex interactions between various blocks and monsters. If you don't already know what does what with what, a level is just a mess of random pixels and you die for no reason. And our training levels were woefully inadequate - they'd introduce an ability, ask you to use it once, then immediately give you another (and still left lots of things out!). Nobody could remember all that.
So we are introducing Candy Quest! It's a collection of well over a hundred levels, slowly introducing every single element and trick move in Kid Hallow. It starts off incredibly easy and ramps up to involve all the complexity you know and love. There's nothing forcing you to engage in it, but it is definitely the easy way into the game, and even veterans will enjoy the high score and low time challenges on each level. We also have a Candy Apple hidden in every level that usually requires some sneaky tricks to find. We're removing the existing training levels, so enjoy them while you can!
There's an overworld to explore in Candy Quest too! And we're bringing back Farley The Ghost Bat! Yes, you can still disable him when he annoys you, just like in Loonyland.
I'm currently making level 112. I don't know how many there will be in the end, but I'm about halfway into the Sci-Fi pack stuff now (all other packs are done), so I'm getting there! I expect somewhere around 150 levels at the end. The big part is making sure we cover all of the Power Pill abilities.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
PUSHBOT
A mighty new Sci-Fi enemy, the Pushbot is pretty tough to destroy, but that's okay - you might want to keep it alive, since every time it bumps into something, it tries to push it. It might just solve crate puzzles for you!
YERFDOG'S POWER PILL
Yerfdog has an extremely unique Power Pill effect. It does nothing, except to give him the power to get powers when he inhales enemies and objects (makes sense, right?). Whatever he inhales, he inherits some portion of its power as long as it is in his mouth. There are some duplicates (like both Gargoyles and Bats give you the Air Yerf power), but there are still 35 different powers you can gain! It will be an interesting challenge for level builders to figure out exactly what to include since each new item means Yerfdog has access to one more different trick.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
INSULATED WIRES
This one's simple enough, but it's still my WIRE OF THE YEAR! It's always been tough to build wire layouts in Kid Hallow just because wires will connect to anything around them that they can. With insulated wires, you have more control and you can make much more compact builds. They only go horizontally, but let's not get crazy or anything. Who needs vertical wires anyway?
INSULATED WIRES
The Spaceman Costume offers some new things nobody else can really do. First of all, he has a laser which ignites things. He's not the first to do that, but he is the only costume that can set things on fire without using a Power Pill. Fire is very versatile, as you can see in this video. It can burn down normally invincible enemies like the Star Trees. As long as they're flammable! It can also burn up things like Crates which you might not want to burn up, so use with caution. Less flammable objects, like the Hovercrate in this video, get ignited but don't actually burn up. That allows them to ignite other things around them.
He also has a Drone he can control to use as a platform anywhere you like. It's permanent and he can use it for his own reach, or to help out his teammates.
With his Jetpack, he can fly quite a ways, but the fuel is limited (look closely at his helmet to see the fuel gauge!). The Jetpack can also light things on fire, incidentally, which can make platforming in wooden areas quite dangerous.
On the plus side, the Spaceman's suit is fireproof! As is his drone. He also has an oxygen supply (I mean, he'd have to, right?), so he can stay underwater indefinitely.
With the Power Pill, the Spaceman gets a menu when he presses Down+Action - from the menu, he can clip wires from the level, and place them anywhere else he likes (he has separate supplies of Wires and Insulated Wires, and can clip either one). It gives him a very unique capability to modify the level itself, and the potential for some very devious puzzles.
The Power Pill has one other effect, not shown in the video: it makes the Drone produce pressure waves when it's close to the ground, which act almost like a wall. Enemies (or friends) trying to walk underneath it will be pushed back. I'm not entirely sure how level designers will use that, but I anticipate some tricky surprises to come. It definitely will be used to hold the Princess back from falling to her death, I know that!
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
MORE NEW STUFF
The pack is coming soon, but we still have weeks more previews to preview! So I'm jamming them in at high velocity, and here's your latest funjection(tm) straight into your brain.
Security Lasers are pretty much vertical Dragon Statues, though how you deal with them is quite a bit different. They will vaporize anybody, and they don't have to recharge after doing so. But you can turn them off with electricity, or you can block the beam with something indestructible like a Crate.
The Knight gains amazing new Golden Armor when he takes a Power Pill (plus... emerald weapons? I guess? Jade?). This protects him from one hit and gives him the power to drop his shield, which apparently was stuck with his normal suit of armor. The shield works as a bullet blocker, an electrical conductor, and of course as a handy stepladder. But of course you won't have a shield anymore until you go pick it up again!
The Wizard actually gains two new forms of magic, making him one of my top 3 Power Pills! With Nature Magic, he can wrap enemies in vines permanently (one at a time), effectively turning them into crates, and he can summon Magic Beanstalks which are extra handy since any character can take advantage of them. Or even badguys.
With Wind Magic, the Wizard can summon his own column of upward wind anywhere he likes (one at a time), and he has the ability to levitate in mid-air, calming all the winds in the level at once. This power is very niche, but it can be used to stop things from getting pushed around, or just to hover in place in order to time your fall into a dangerous situation. It can also stop your upward momentum to avoid hitting spikes, but that requires some serious speed (so you know level builders will definitely make you do it...).
I am considering adding a "Wizard Limiter" to the level options, because once the Wizard gets a Power Pill, he can do just about anything, and it will probably be tricky for level designers to design around that. You can make a beanstalk, then make a wind column on top of that beanstalk, and end up miles high in the air (and then teleport sideways from that height!). So I think it might be nice to offer settings to define which powers your Wizard will have access to, if you want to rule some out. It seems a little strange to include level settings just for one specific costume, but if it means you can make better levels, tailored to specific wizard powers, it might be worth it. Plus it means the wizard costume alone is really 15 (slightly) different costumes! So that's something I'm mulling over right now.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
STRAIGHT FACTS
The pack is coming soon, but we still have weeks more previews to preview! So I have to start jamming them in. No more fun, just straight facts. Check out the video to see all the action.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
BOUAPHA AFTER DARK
I'm sure everybody is familiar with Bouapha's late night talk show, but in case you missed this episode, I've pulled out a clip to show you info on Bouapha's Power Pill abilities, the new Light Switch tile (which is heavily featured during the talk show, in a sneaky way), and two new level modifiers which light the level up (or not) in different ways.
Since the video is basically insane and mildly embarrassing for me personally, here's the deets:
Bouapha's power pill gives him two upgrades: triple hammers (that fly faster than normal), and skeleton keys. That means that any keys he picks up will be replaced by Yellow Keys, which open doors of any color.
The Light Switch is triggered by anybody touching it, or by electricity from a wire. Either way, what it does is very simple: it turns all Light tiles in the level to Dark, and vice versa. Lots of possibilities there for dark levels as well as Vampire funtimes/torture.
One new level lighting option is Line Of Sight, which is fully lit, but you can't see through walls (and items do not create any light - there's no way to see past a wall except for the Sonic Arrow the Ranger fires).
The other new one is Pitch Black, which is like the normal Darkness mode, except that your character doesn't produce any light. So they will have to use Light Switches, Candles, electricity, torches, fireplaces, and all sorts of things to see where they are going.
Side story: in addition to having 4 lighting options, we've also upgraded the 2 camera options into 4, which I'm not going to make a video about since, you know, it looks the same, just bigger. We've now got 3x Zoom, and a different version of 2x Zoom that should be popular: it tries to capture all the Kids in the level at once, instead of focusing on one. If they got too far apart, it's not going to show any of them, but if your level is designed appropriately, this will let the player keep an eye on all their kids at once.
Bonus story: this week I've sponsored a bunch of streams of Kid Hallow (search for it on Twitch and Youtube!), and one big thing I've noticed is that every one of them that tries the Bouapha training level asks "What is a Bouapha?" (only without being able to pronounce Bouapha). So I was inspired to make the Bouapha After Dark video, you know, to make it even more confusing!
But look for those streams, it's pretty fun to see them gradually begin to understand the madness.
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
STAR WARPS!
I admit this is not the best of my Sci-Fi Pack videos... but it is definitely the best new Sci-Fi Pack feature! With Warp Gates, you now have the power to swap between two universes while editing. They can be completely different in every way if you like. But the player will be able to warp between them at the Warp Gate locations.
Some fun facts and perhaps future FAQs:
Placing or removing a Warp Gate in one universe affects the other one as well, Warp Gates are always in identical pairs.
When the player is in one universe, the other universe is frozen. This can be useful in puzzles. For example: get a Gargoyle into position under a Warp Gate in one world, then swap to the other, making your way to that first Warp Gate, and dropping down onto the Gargoyle who will be right where you left him.
If you have multiple Kids, you won't swap universes until all of the Kids have either exited the level or traveled through a Warp Gate to join you.
You have to collect all the Candy Corn/Canes in both universes for Exits to open.
Sorry, Princesses and Penguins cannot warp (neither can any monsters). Imagine if they could - they'd all just pile up on the gate, since the other universe isn't moving until you get there!
Your level only has 2 universes if it contains Warp Gates. If you want the player to only use Ghost powers to swap between universes, you'll just have to stick a Warp Gate in a corner of the map they can't reach!
We also cover the Ghost Power Pill in the video. As you can see, he has 3 new powers:
Gravity no longer affects him at all (and BOOing now kicks you straight back instead of up and back), which should make Ghost Mazes somewhat more relaxing. Somewhat.
He can pass through walls, as long as they are only 1 tile wide! Just hold the Jump button and push against them to do that.
And most importantly, if there is a second universe, you can simply hold down for 2 seconds to transubstantiate yourself over to it! This only works on the ground, in places where both universes are completely empty. Not even overlay tiles can be there. This allows builders to limit where you can do it without having to put anything solid in the way.
Hopefully the concept of the KHU multiverse is getting your brain juices flowing for all the insane level building possibilities! At the very least, you can make levels that are twice as big now!
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
ROBOT WANTS CANDY!
Robot, of Robot Wants It All fame, is Kid Hallow's newest costume! Robot plays in a totally different way than any other costume - initially, he can only move left and right (not even jumping!). But collecting a Power Pill doesn't turn him into a super beast like every other costume. Rather, it just gives him one new ability. He can collect up to 14 Power Pills to get all of his abilities, and the person who created the level has a way to decide the order in which you get abilities. Check out the video and see what Robot is up to lately!
And by the way, if you find this costume intriguing, be sure to check out Robot Wants It All - 6 games in one, and in each one Robot has an entirely different array of abilities! And yep, he starts out only being able to move left and right (in the first game anyway).
The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.
Hovercrate
This began life as the idea of a crate that Frank can shove, which doesn't stop moving (and ignores gravity). But then I realized it was basically a moving platform, so I added the ability to trigger it via electricity, so you can do all the moving platform tricks you like in games. Make an elevator, a jumping puzzle, or a smasher. But remember that Frank (and some others) can undo all your hard work with one quick headbutt!
Scary Santa
Santa has had enough of you flinging him to his death over and over, and he's not taking it anymore.
Obviously the best Power Pill of them all, and it doesn't need any explanation. Except maybe that the Stockings turning green is when Santa puts coal in them. If an enemy collects a Stocking filled with coal, they catch on fire, and you get double points, and a flaming present is dropped, which you can of course detonate at will.
Hovercrate