This update is mostly about co-op. Our latest playtest found a long list of things the host could do and guests couldn't, and every item on it is fixed. There's also a new safety net when your health runs low, smoother movement and camera, and a fix for laptops that ran the game on the wrong graphics card.
Co-op
- Guests get everything the host gets. Altars, weapon caches, pickups, power-ups and boss drops now work for every player in the party, and everyone sees the same altars and objectives on the map.
- When a teammate completes an objective, guests now see the reward, the floating text and any perk card it grants.
- Guests now get the speed boost when the exit portal opens. The portal also always appears for guests now, so no more running around forever after the boss.
- Fixed guests' characters snapping and rubber-banding during play.
- Fixed guests' shots looking stuck on walls and enemies.
- The end-of-map replay now shows every player, including where each of them went down.
- Click the room code in the co-op lobby to copy it to your clipboard.
The party levels up together
- XP is now shared. Everyone in the party levels up at the same moment, no matter how much permanent progression each player has unlocked.
- XP bonuses from upgrades, perks and passives are pooled across the whole party.
- Downed players keep earning XP and picking level-up cards as long as a teammate is still standing.
- Level-up and reward offers open on their own after a short pause, and the game now pauses for the whole party while anyone is choosing. A Choosing tag above a teammate's name shows who you're waiting on.
Gameplay
- New: Brink of Death. When your health runs low, you take less damage the closer you get to death. A killing blow will sometimes leave you clinging on with a sliver of health instead. That last part takes time to come back, so don't count on it twice in a row. This works the same way solo and in co-op.
- Fixed the class ability firing when you picked a perk card with Space or the gamepad's A button.
Feel & Visuals
- Smoother player movement and camera, especially on high-refresh-rate monitors (up to 240 Hz).
- Your character no longer twitches while standing still.
- Tweaked the look of the fog at the map's edge.
Interface
- Keyboard and gamepad button prompts are now the same everywhere: perk, weapon and shop cards, weapon select, and the ability icon on the HUD all show matching keycaps and pad buttons.
- The level badge now sits on the top edge of your class portrait.
- The bottom HUD elements now line up along a shared baseline.
Performance & Technical
- Laptops with two graphics cards now run the game on the powerful one. Before, Windows often put Nekomancer on the integrated GPU, which cost a lot of frame rate. If you'd rather save battery, add --force_low_power_gpu to the game's Launch Options in Steam (right-click Nekomancer → Properties → General).
- Moonlight shadows now draw in one pass instead of three, a cheaper frame with no visible difference.
- Engine update with general fixes and improvements.
- Nekomancer.exe and the game window now show the cat-skull icon.
Thanks to everyone who played co-op with us and sent feedback. Keep it coming!!