Last Train Outta' Wormtown news & patch notes

I updated Wormtown's engine version back in October for the Unity vulnerability. Despite that being a small little update, I've received some weird bugs over the last few months caused by that engine upgrade. I apologize for not patching them sooner! I wasn't aware of many of them and was having troubles reproducing the others. This is why it's so scary to upgrade engine versions for games already made/in production... you never know what fun surprises will crop up :c Anyways, this update: - Previously, if a player left the game during the lobby phase, map generation would completely break for the other players. Fixed! - If a player left the game while grabbed by the Worm, it would softlock the Worm. Fixed! - Players wouldn't drop their inventory items on the ground when leaving. Fixed! - and fixed a few other bugs related to disconnecting players Please let me know if you run into any other game breaking bugs!

Howdy! Over the last year, I've been working on two projects, and it's time to finally reveal one of those today!

Introducing: Berry Bury Berry

a juicy and absurdist first-person physics incremental game about growing berries and putting them down an ominous hole.

Head over to the store page to try out the DEMO now!

And don't forget to WISHLIST the game - it really helps out!

(p.s., I'm also working on my next multiplayer game - but not *quite* ready to reveal that one yet! :D)

Howdy!

Happy Birthday Wormtown! Let's celebrate with Proxy Chat and a Daily Deal!

It's crazy to think that Wormtown released into Early Access 2 years ago - so Happy Birthday Wormtown! To celebrate, I've added (after many many many requests) proximity voice chat to the game! On top of that, Wormtown will be a Steam Daily Deal for 40% off from April 18th - 25th! It's the perfect time to wrangle up the crew for some rowdy games of Wormtown.

Patch Notes:

+ Added Proximity Voice Chat and Lobby Voice Chat

- There are 2 "channels" for proxy chat in game, living and dead. Living Pardners and Worms can hear each other, and Ghosts can hear living players but can only be heard by other ghosts - unless a Pardner has the Luigi Board equipped, that is! - You can checkout the new voice settings from the options menu, and choose between open mic, push to talk, or disable it all together. - You can find individual volume controls for each player in the pause menu Note: If you're hiding from a Worm and they say "Marco", you're obligated to respond with "Polo". Sorry, thems the rules :p

Bug Fixes/Misc Changes:

- Lowered the Worm rumbling and building impact noises slightly, as they were especially loud in first person - Fixed the puzzle map being stuck open if you died while it was open - Rebalanced fuel objective scaling values with higher Pardner counts, as 10+ Pardner games required a bit too much fuel

What have I been up to?

Since the 1.0 Release in January, I've put Wormtown on the backburner for a bit while I focused on some other projects. I've got a couple games I've been tinkering with, one being my next full-fledged multiplayer game and a few smaller game projects as well. My plan is to release a smaller multiplayer game in the next few months to help fund the larger, more time consuming project. So keep your eyes out for announcements about those games soon! If you want to keep up with the all my future development, join the discord at Discord.gg/Wormtown Thanks! And I hope everyone enjoys the Proxy Chat update, it was a TON of fun to playtest and adds a whole new layer to the game :D Stay safe out there, Pardners

Howdy! Just a small, mostly bug fix patch! Changes: 🌵 Worms using the Stealth ability no longer make noise or particles when breaching the sand surface 🌵 Increased Lobby search range 🌵 Changed the "Bullyworm Rifle" achievement to only require 3 shots on a Worm, instead of 5 Bug Fixes: 🐛 Fixed Lobby Browser panel issues: - Lobby Names could overlap player count - Player Count and Game State not updating/displaying correctly 🐛 Fixed the Train Key indicator (similar to the big red arrow pointing to players Heart Jars) not being visible when it should 🐛 Fixed getting stuck in the Guidebook if you have it up when the round starts 🐛 Fixed cases where the tutorial could remain active when joining a normal game, causing a handful of issues

Howdy, Pardners! After more than 2 years of development, Last Train Outta' Wormtown has officially left Early Access! As a dumb little project I started back in 2022, I couldn't have imagined the tremendous support everyone has shown Wormtown. From the bottom of my heart jar, THANK YOU!! And a massive shoutout to Diggc for additional coding help and our community manager Beariff, your help has been invaluable.

Full Change log:

Additions:

⭐ Added Airdrops: When it's 66% of the way to sundown, Ed throws 5 chests randomly from the sky. Look for the parachutes! ⭐ Rock Spires: - Added 3 large rock structures to the map generator. These cannot be destroyed by dynamite, but do get affected by Sinkhole. These structures are great places to shoot ziplines from, or to store cactus fruit/kit/items on top of for safe keeping... until the Worm Sinkholes it, that is. ⭐ New platforms added on the West side of the map (behind train), for additional platforming opportunities ⭐ New Map Theme: Aquarium ⭐ New Kit Added: Slingshot - Passively increases your throw power by 50% while equipped ⭐ New cosmetics for both Worm and Pardner ⭐ Added new camera effects for Worm - These include underground digging effects and slight FOV shifting based on the Worms speed. Just little bits of polish that make playing Worm feel a bit better - Added SFX for burrowing through the sand layer

Balancing/Gameplay Changes:

🌵 Sinkhole Changes: - Sinkhole drags down objects faster, but it's duration has been halved - Sinkhole cooldown reduced to 70 seconds, was 90 These changes were made to target the new Rock Spires, needing roughly 2-3 casts to fully sink the tallest of them. 🌵 Moved the Train forward on the tracks to be closer to the Water tower for additional platforming options 🌵 Slightly changed the concoction healing values to be in line with their equivalent damage rolls. (You used to gain 40 health with the good roll, but could lose 50 health with the bad roll, for example. Now they are both 50.) 🌵 rebalanced fuel requirements and scaling (was nearly impossible with high player counts on anything other than normal difficulty)

Misc. & QOL Changes:

🌵 Shortened the join codes considerably 🌵 Increased Steam lobby search range in the lobby browser, should help with finding public lobbies 🌵 Changed first person bilebomb particles to be a little less obscuring 🌵 Added better shiny-ness to objects that should be shiny (Winter baubles, train key, Rudolph nose cosmetic, etc.) 🌵 Moved the "building map" UI so it no longer blocks the Worm player names in the lobby

Bug Fixes:

🐛 Fixed a handful of issues with Steam lobbies, including lobbies you've left not showing on the browser, and connection issues 🐛 Fixed sand particles not always displaying the correct color based on map theme 🐛 Fixed some translation issues 🐛 Fixed a handful of cosmetics that were visible to the Worm always. (oops!) 🐛 Fixed player count not updating correctly on the Lobby Browser panels 🐛 Fixed Broken Shield icon not going away when you die 🐛 Modified terrain generation around Quarry to fix unwanted gaps 🐛 Moved Pardner status panels UI, since they were going off screen with lots of players connected 🐛 fixed ghosts gaining the "sundown health boost"

So... What now?

I've been asked a lot about the future of Wormtown after the 1.0 release. Will there be more updates? Patches? My honest answer? I don't know! Wormtown has been the main focus of my work and life for the last 2+ years. The original scope of the game grew (as they always do lol) as development went on, but I've reached a point where all of the features - and then some - are in the game now. I have many ideas on how to expand on the core concept of Wormtown, but a lot of those ideas are so large or complex, that they'd basically be an entirely different game at this point! Not to mention the other game ideas I want to put some time into. Whether I end up making more Wormtown related updates/games, or entirely new games - rest assured I'll have some dumb silly fun for y'all in the future. (You can keep in the loop by checking out the discord, Discord.gg/Wormtown, or my socials!) But for now, I'm going to take some time off and celebrate the release of Last Train Outta' Wormtown, this silly little game I've worked so hard on. I genuinely hope you enjoy the game! Have a blast with your friends! And if you do like it - spread the word! Thanks again to everyone for the tremendous support for the game, it genuinely has changed my life. as always, Stay safe out there, Pardner 🤠

Howdy, Pardners!

I'm super excited to announce the 1.0 release date for Last Train Outta' Wormtown -

January 17th 2025!

I've been working on this game for the last 2 and a half years, so it's wild that it's finally leaving Early Access.

What to expect for 1.0?

- New gameplay changes: including new environmental landmarks, and a late-round event that delivers more loot for Pardners! - A new Kit item for Pardners - A new map theme - New cosmetics - and a bunch of bug fixes, requested QOL features, and polish!

Price Increase

As with most Early-Access games, the price of Wormtown will be increasing as it moves to 1.0, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on that! The price will be increasing to $11.99 USD - with The Friend's Pass (ALWAYS) remaining completely FREE! The price change doesn't go into effect until Jan 17th, so if you want to pick up the game for the current EA price, now's your chance! Not to mention, you'll gain access to an exclusive "Early Access supporter hat" for both Pardner and Worm when 1.0 drops! (Anyone who has played during the Early Access period will unlock the hat) The store page has also had a (much needed) revamp with a brand new trailer and feature information!

THANK YOU!!

Other than that, I wanted to give a huge thank you to everyone for the tremendous support they've given this game and myself over the years. It's been a wild ride! I can't wait to celebrate 1.0 with the community. Stay safe out there, Pardners!

Howdy!

Balance Changes:

Sandstorm:

- Normalized Sandstorm Tornado's pushing and effects. Basically, Pardners and Items should behave more consistently when being affected by the tornado. Previously you may have been thrown halfway across the map OR just a few feet depending on how the physics calculated. - Fixed the Tornado not affecting Pardners who entered the AOE while it was still growing.

Tar Wall:

- Tar Wall duration reduced to 12 seconds (was 18) Design Insight: Tar Wall has always been a lesser picked ability, so I was basically buffing it until it was actually picked - but I may have overdone it recently. Slowly over the development of Wormtown I've removed a handful of what I refer to as "stalling abilities" (old Sandstorm and Scorching Sands, as examples). They seem to be the biggest point of frustration for Parders as *waiting isn't very much fun*, despite the clear strategic advantages it has for the Worm. Tar Wall will still remain as the only stalling focused ability, but with that said the previous 18 second timer *was* a bit harsh.

Gilbert's Safe/Puzzle Map:

- Puzzle Maps now share their recorded symbols/numbers with all other maps. While I originally thought this would trivialize the objective, it's clearly a divisive objective and wasn't much of a "team" objective, as one Pardner would usually take it on by themselves. This should make it easier and less daunting overall! - Removed the red diamond symbols from the playing cards, since it was needlessly confusing

Misc Balance Changes:

- Worms can no longer push Heart Jars with their body. (because EMPIREVSREBLES was mad about it :p) Heart Jars can still be affected by AOE abilities like Body Slam, but can no longer be pushed across the map by Worms easily. - Necronomicon self-burn on use now does 35 damage over 1 seconds (previously was 3.5 damage over 10 seconds). The total damage remains the same, but this should fix Pardners at low health reviving multiple Pardners in the 10 second window before dying. - Drastically reduced the fuel values required for "Worm Food" difficulty. They were pretty ridiculous before, my bad! - Added a "Recent" panel to the Lobby Browser that has clickable buttons to rejoin lobbies you were in recently. There's currently a bug where if you leave a lobby it will no longer show that lobby on the Lobby Browser (until the lobby is remade). We're working on a fix for that currently, but until then, this should be a decent work around!

Tutorializing and Player Onboarding

Design Insight: One of the biggest struggles with designing Wormtown has been teaching players the various, and sometimes, complex mechanics well. Recently I've discovered many players weren't even aware there were tutorials, and the guidebook information wasn't as straight forward as I thought. Because of this, I've taken a few steps to hopefully put the relevant information front and center to players. - Rewrote multiple Objective pages in the Guidebook with step-by-step instructions to complete them - Added "Hold H for Help" prompt next to the Objectives on the HUD. Doing so will bring you directly to the Guidebook page for the various objectives - Added a first-launch pop up that will direct players to the Tutorial page (playing them is still optional!) - Renamed "How to Play" button to "Tutorials" for more clarity

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed Health Gain at Sundown display text showing a bunch of decimal places - Fixed Public Lobbies saying they were Private when restarting a match. (This was just a visual bug, the Lobbies were still Public) - Modified the chat filter to not include some accidental cencoring - Fixed the "Remaining Objectives" Spectator UI not updating during a match as intended Stay safe out there Pardners!

The issues involving the new version of the Friend's Pass has been resolved and the "Full Steam Ahead!" update has been reinstated. You can see all of the changes in the previous announcement here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/2318480/announcements/detail/4551542855324139740 Hope you enjoy!

Howdy again! As we get closer and closer to Wormtown's 1.0 release, there was a big laundry list of bugs, polish, and QOL features that needed addressing first. This update is a big "spring cleaning" patch, but with a handful of exciting changes and new features, too!

Steam Servers:

We have now swapped over to using Steam servers for the network traffic. What does this mean for you? + Lag has been noticeably reduced + Joining/Inviting directly through the Steam Friend's list + Player panels in game are now associated with the Steam user, and clicking their name will show their profile NOTE FOR FRIEND'S PASS PLAYERS: This required some changes to how the Friend's Pass was implemented, and as such, there is an updated version of the Friend's Pass available from the Store Page you'll need to download to play on this patch!

Gameplay Changes:

Worm Ability: Armored Carapace Changes:

Armored Carapace, while very effective in certain situations, didn't have many general use cases aside from that. Which has lead to the following changes: + Surfacing with Armor active now creates a Sand Blast at the Worms location. Pardners hit with Sand Blast will lose 30 Stamina and will be debuffed with 30% additional stamina consumption and bonus 30% damage taken (from all sources) for 15 seconds. + Armor has had a complete visual rework with new art, SFX, and shattering effects!

General Gameplay Changes/Balancing:

+ Worm grab initial damage increased to 7 (was 5) + The Train Key, after being dug up, now has a large arrow indicator (similar to Heart Jars) when in inspection mode.

Lobby and Match Setting Changes:

New Match Settings:

+ Added Heart Jar Digestion Time to match settings + Added Digestion Time Per Fruit to match settings + Removed "Vanilla Mode". It was very rarely used and felt irrelevant now Note: With these new settings, players can make games with the OG Wormtown respawn rules.

Team Management

+ Hosts can now lock the teams in the lobby and manually move players to specific sides. Simply press Esc and use the new UI buttons to lock/swap players

New Cosmetics and Challenges:

+ Added 11 new Halloween related cosmetics! (Had some delays getting this patch ready - whoops! better late than never, I suppose) + Added 5 new Challenges (and Achievements) related to the Mysterious Concoction and Coffee Kit items

Spectator Mode Improvements

Spectator mode has always been notorious for it's bugs and desync issues, but the majority of those issues have been fixed! While it's still not perfect, objectives now sync properly, and spectators can see which objectives remain.

Misc. Changes and Bug Fixes:

+ Pardners no longer briefly ping their location when they spawn in + Changed Dandylions colliders so they don’t roll endlessly + The copy lobby code button now also works when in a LAN game + Fixed the ghost push challenge not updating + Increased score gained from depositing scrap to 10, was 6 + Spectated games no longer count as a “game played” for challenges + Players kicked from a lobby can no longer rejoin the lobby (The kicked players list gets reset when a new lobby is created) + After digestion, if a Heart Jar is directly spawned inside of the revive zone, it will be placed just outside the revive zone instead. Prevents Worms from reviving a Pardner and grabbing them immediately + Fixed some UI issues on cosmetic unlock grid + Fixed issue with unburrowing sand particles not being placed correctly + Increased the size of the signal fire igniting trigger, should be a bit easier to light them now + Can no longer join games that are building the map or in post-game (this caused the lobby to completely break). Players attempting to join during these phases can wait a few seconds and join again + Fixed the exploit where you could instantly Bodyslam without the upward leap first + Fixed players able to switch teams right as the game started, ignoring Worm limits + Zipline posts can now be moved by Worms (just slightly). This should help with players using the posts to block off the Train doors + Occasionally, Pardners can get stuck in an airborne state with very specific terrain under them (like in holes). I’ve added a system to hopefully detect when this happens and after a certain amount of time, will replaced the Pardner in a grounded location + Fixed Worm tutorial not showing the tutorial text, and also choosing all of the objectives to spawn + Added a symbol to the UI when the Snake Oil buff is active + Fixed Worm cosmetic eyes not spawning correctly in game + Added an Ace Pride flag cosmetic + Refactored Worm camera logic, should fix issues with non-stop spinning camera as Worm (Note: due to this change, the Worm camera sensitivity has been reset!) + Well water no longer visible to Worm underground (it looked weird) + Added a series of “Did you know?” game tips that appear at the bottom of the lobby + Updated the Worm Ability picker pop-up panels for each Ability + Fixed a few challenges/achievements that were unlocking at incorrect times + Increased the ambient brightness at Sundown during the Halloworm theme + Fixed visibility issues of the inspection mode “compass directions” for the different map themes + Unburnable objects, such as crates and Kit, are now pushed out of the Train furnace. This should help with players barricading themselves next to the furnace with crates + Added a slight wait before the “play again” button appears, hopefully fixing some lobby breaking timing issues + Can now press enter after typing a lobby code to join, instead of clicking the join button + Added a system to check for desynced objects, should fix the bug with floating objects on map spawn + Added particle effects for Worms impacting buildings, Worms eating Pardners, and Bilebomb spit + Added additional SFX and polish for various game elements and UI + Fixed the second hat not being “ghosted” in end game dioramas + When disabling a worm ability slot in the match settings, it no longer locks that ability from being chosen for another slot + increased the range of the hat tilt sliders, allowing for more placement options + modified the chances for to spawn I hope you enjoy the update! Stay safe out there, Pardner

Howdy!

The recent changes to Cactus Fruits in the Seismic Shift update had very split opinions on it. The ones who liked it simply *liked* it, while the players who disliked it *really disliked it*. With that in mind, I wanted to try out a more middle-ground approach that still interacts with new digestion system, while also trying to minimize some of the original frustrations I was trying to solve.

A new balance patch is live on Steam with the following changes:

⭐ Cactus Fruit Changes: - Removed the 3 stacks and +move speed bonus for Cactus Fruits - Cactus Fruit now heals for 15 health - Each Cactus Fruit eaten adds +20 seconds to the digestion time of your next Heart Jar. The additional digestion time ONLY resets when eaten by a Worm (and not from dying by any other means) - Cactus Fruit spawns reduced back to 8 per game on normal settings. (they were doubled for the previous patch) Note: One of the design issues was that a Worm could grab a Pardner many many times without them getting a kill, because the Pardner would escape and then heal off all the damage with Cactus Fruits. It felt very unsatisfying for the Worm player. These changes not only slightly reduce the healing, but also mean if a Pardner is healing over and over they'll at least be out of the game for longer once the Worm does eventually kill them off. It also adds another layer of strategy for more experienced players who want to weigh the pros and cons of healing vs taking a shorter death cycle and reviving, saving the cactus fruit healing for a later time. Balancing Changes: 🌵 Base digestion time reduced to 60 seconds (was 90) 🌵 Coffee moved speed buff increased to 45% (was 35%) 🌵 Concoction health gain values reduced slightly Note: with bringing consistent healing back and removing the move speed bonus with Cactus Fruit, it felt right to buff the coffee move speed up to a similar level as before and reduce the potency of the Concoction, especially considering the Concoction buffs can heal you past full health. While you're still slightly more likely for a worse outcome with Concoction, the benefits are worth the risk. Thanks for all the feedback and support on the new update! If you feel like I missed the mark with these changes, please let me know in the Discord (Discord.gg/Wormtown)

The Seismic Shift Update is now live!

This update is aptly named, as it contains: + Reworks and significant changes to core mechanics of Wormtown + 2 New Pardners Kit Items + 2 Worm Ability Reworks + QOL features + more! It's a doozy, so let's get right into it:

Mechanic Reworks

With this update, I wanted to focus on the core gameplay systems of Wormtown and how changes could fix a handful of the friction points players have with the game. While I know change is scary - and this patch has significant changes - I hope everyone can give it a fair shot before grabbing the proverbial pitchforks. The community has been testing these changes on the Beta branch for weeks now, and overall I'm confident it's solves many of the frustrations players had with the game. Friction points this patch attempts to solve: - Games were going on waaaaaaaay too long - If you were eliminated early on as Pardner, you had to sit and spectate - or leave the game, which is what happened most often. (This being made worse by the long match times) - Playing Worm felt static and less fun & satisfying than Pardner - Healing was OP on Pardner side - Some Objectives were vastly more easy than others - Sandstorm... boy did every Pardner hate Sandstorm...

Heart Jar Changes:

Pardners now always drop a Heart Jar on death and can be revived an unlimited number of times. What's the catch? - Every revive lowers the Pardners maximum health by 25%, with 10 Health being the lowest they can get down to. - You can only revive Pardners at the Church when the sun is up. After Sundown respawns are disabled. Note: A new match setting has been added for number of revives, where you can set the exact number to your liking, too!

Ghost Changes:

Ghosts pushing abilities got a big buff this patch. They will now see a large aiming arrow when attempting to Ghost Push an object and can now charge up their throw by holding down the interact button and releasing. This makes ghosts great team medics and can revive others and themselves much more consistently than before! Fling those Heart Jars towards Church! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/9fe46bae3edca2e3453d4ee333499e8ee7caf43e.png

Sundown Changes:

Sundown now is defaulted to 15 minutes (was 25), but the Worm is a bit less oppressive at night than before. Worm cooldowns are increased by 50% at night, instead of 150% previously. The changes to Heart Jars and Sundown means games take less time, the action keeps moving, and players of all skill levels get to actually *play* the game and not be stuck on the sidelines.

Cactus Fruit Changes:

One of the complaints with playing as Worm was you could grab a Pardner many many times and not get a kill on them. The Pardner would escape, and then simply chow down on their stockpile of Cactus Fruit nullifying your efforts. So, Cactus Fruits no longer heal you. Instead: - Consuming a Cactus Fruit gives you one stackable buff of +5% move speed and -15 seconds digestion time (more on that later!) - Pardners can have up to 3 stacks for a total of +15% move speed and -45 seconds digestion time - Stacks do not time out, but you lose one stack per death. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/cc443a5dcdd267eda0acd382a169c6c747ddd727.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/60019dab245205a81c9cdfaa4639c5571d56e005.png

Worm Changes:

Ability Cooldowns:

The Worm now recharges their chosen abilities by gaining "Nutrients" and can store charges for their Abilities, storing multiple uses for the right time. Note: Innate abilities (Sonar Scream and Sinkhole) still work on timed cooldowns. Nutrients are gained by grabbing Pardners, eating objects, and entering a new healing zone while underground. Grabbing a "Fresh" Pardner earns you more nutrients than a Pardner you've continuously grabbed over-and-over. This should alleviate some frustrations with Pardners being focused or "tunneled" by the Worm. (or at least be less beneficial for the Worm to do so)

Worm Movement:

The Worm now has "free cam" style controls underground. It feels more like you're swimming through the soil than being stuck on a flat plane underground. The lower you swim before surfacing the higher your leap will be! Fly you majestic Worm dolphin, fly!

Worm Digestion:

The Worm now digests the Pardners they eat, making their Heart Jars not spawn immediately after dying. Instead, it takes a base 90 seconds for the Jar to appear. After the digestion timer is up, the Jar will spawn at the tail of the Worm. Both the Worm and the Pardner will see a new UI element on screen to show when the Heart Jar will become active. Additionally, each stack of the Cactus Fruit Buff that Pardner has will reduce the digestion time by 15 seconds, taking it as low as half the normal time, 45 seconds.

And those are the big changes to the mechanics of Wormtown. I hope you try them out and, as always, let me know what you think in the Discord.

Worm Ability Reworks:

Sandstorm:

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/6f30fde039a248bc93641ddb151003f8a7915298.png If there's one ability that gets the most hate by the community, it's Sandstorm. It was very annoying to play against and was basically impossible if more than one Worm had it equipped at a time. It's now been replaced with a Sandstorm Tornado! The tornado moves forward in a line from where you aim it and pulls objects and Pardners into it before flinging them out in a random direction. Pardners caught in the Tornado become visible to the Worm for a few seconds after.

Tar Wall:

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/80b6f514ff4213206ab46090c7215acff5132de1.png Tarwall, despite receiving multiple reworks in the past still is under performing with the general consensus being that it's too easy to escape. Tarwall now creates large blocky outer walls with no spaces between them. After a second, the floor of the tar arena now fills with tar as well. Touching the tar drastically reduces your move speed for a few seconds. With the removal of the global Sandstorm effect, the major "stalling" ability is gone, so I feel more comfortable pushing Tarwall into the go-to stalling ability.

New Pardner Kit Items:

Coffee Tin

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/83d725a614256c65bc1b47364819aa54bfebc54b.png - Drink to gain a whopping +35% move speed and -80% stamina consumption buff for 15 seconds - Due to overly-caffeinated jitters, you'll also be visible to the Worm for 20 seconds Great to use when trying to take attention off of a fellow Pardner or when you're confident you're safe from the Worm!

Mysterious Concoction

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/d88d5421dab55d15da7adba54f60bba3fa37c83e.png - Drink the concoction to gain a random effect. It can heal, it can harm, it can teleport you randomly across the map! Drink at your own risk!

Pardner Kit Changes:

Necronomicon

- Necro now has unlimited uses, instead of the 1 it had previously. - To balance this, Necro now burns 35 health from the user. (yes, this can kill you!) - Necro still works after sundown and in games with limited revives! Making it a vital tool in those situations.

Pardner Objective Changes

Train Key

One issue with the Train Key objective was that it had no way of scaling with difficulty, making it one of the fastest and easiest ones to complete - especially in games with lots of Pardners. There are now "dummy" dig spots that will ping your metal detector just like the Key spot does. When dug up, the dummy spots will spawn a new 1/1 junk item, the Horseshoe. More dummy/Horseshoe spots will spawn based on the Objective Difficulty setting. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/bc8cf34559c9fd79801a4a7fa4759295ab3d7cdc.png

Cattlebug Wranglin'

Cattlebugs were also a bit too easy to complete, since they were one of the least "involved" Objectives. Cattlebugs no longer run away from Pardners and instead are attracted to their favorite treat and new throwable Kit item, the Dandylion. Dandylion bundles can be found near the rear of the Train (where you bring Cattlebugs back to). Throw Dandylions and lure the Cattlebugs back to the Train! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/1d9834a47ac9236f487f5832d98643806441c4c8.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43845004/07cd0cc735978cafb56b7543dda1c7a338ee4f5b.png Additionally, other Objectives received smaller balance tweaks to try and normalize them a bit.

Misc. Features and Changes

Added Text Chat

- Pressing Enter will enable/disable the text chat, available in lobby and during gameplay. - Can fully disable the text chat in the options menu

Added LAN support

- You'll find the LAN options at the bottom of the "Play" menu. - Instead of Lobby Codes, LAN games use your local IP of your machine on your network, which will display in the top right of the lobby for you when hosting.

Added an Auto-Escape feature for the Worm Mini-Game

- pressing your "drop item" key when grabbed by a Worm, it will put you in a timed auto-escape mode that will complete in ~5.5 seconds. While this is a bit slower than the average player manually escaping, it's a great option for those who dislike the mini game or have accessibility concerns.

New Worm Eating Effects

- Out with that janky old shrinking effect when chomping an object, it's much prettier now!

Multi-Worm Ability Scaling

- Multi-Worm games can be oppressive for Pardners, especially with their abilities. By default, the max number of ability charges scale with the Worm player count. With this, there's a new match setting to remove this scaling if you really want the chaos!

++ a bunch of bug fixes and smaller changes!

If you want to read every teeny tiny minute detail and change in this patch, you can also check out the Patch Notes channel over at the Discord (Discord.gg/Wormtown), but that about summarizes this huge update! Thanks again for all the support for Wormtown, and I hope you enjoy the new gameplay changes! (and please, no pitchforks!) Stay Safe out there, Pardners!

New Features:

Player Progression

Level up and Earn XP while you play and unlock a bevy of new cosmetics!

Challenges and Achievements

150 challenges have been added to the game to complete! Challenges reward you with in game currency as well as Steam achievements! (Note: Don't worry, there are absolutely NO microtransactions)

Cosmetics

On top of a bunch of new cosmetics for both Pardner and Worm, try out the new silly "Noise Makers", too! This update took a bit longer than expected due to the number of new systems and art assets needed (not to mention I had to take a few weeks off to move!) - So I super appreciate the patience! Player Progression has been on the roadmap for a long time now, so I'm excited to have it in-game so I can focus on more gameplay related content next. We're pushing closer and closer to that 1.0 release, but I have some fun and experimental ideas I want to play around with before then, so keep an eye out for that soon! Stay safe out there, Pardner

Howdy!

I’ve been a bit quiet the last few weeks getting a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff setup for the upcoming Player Progression update! This will include unlockable cosmetics, leveling up your player profile, completing challenges, Steam achievements, and rank rewards! While there’s still a bit of work to do before the full update is out, there is a new patch on the Public Beta branch for testing now.

This test patch includes: New cosmetics to unlock A bunch of challenges to complete Leveling your player profile

To access the public test patch, Right Click on Wormtown in your Steam library → Properties → Betas → and select the public beta from the drop down list.

A few notes:

- Anything unlocked/completed in the test patch will carry over to the full player progression update. - Stats and Challenges are saved for Friend’s Pass users, but won’t be rewarded with XP or currency until running the full version of the game. - This patch does not include the full list of challenges or cosmetic unlocks - we’re still working hard on the additional content for the full update. - Every challenge will have an associated Steam Achievement. The Steam Achievements are not setup for this test branch, but will be for the full update. (which will automatically unlock if you’ve completed the challenge previously) Additional Changes: - Added Noisemaker cosmetics. Press H or Right on the D-pad to use them by default. *honk* Aside from that, I do have big gameplay balancing and reworks in the pipeline as well. You can expect these changes after the Player Progression update. I know many players are excited for new gameplay changes, so I appreciate your patience! Do expect a few rough edges and bugs with this test patch! We’re already aware and working on some tweaks. If you have any feedback or bug reports, swing on by Discord.gg/Wormtown and let us know! Stay safe out there, Pardners

Howdy! Today is the 1 year anniversary of Wormtown launching in Early Access - and booooy has it been a crazy year! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has played, streamed, made/shared content, for the game and all the rest of the overwhelming support over the past year of development. So much has changed and I've been able to add way more content and features to the game than I ever imagined. THANK YOU! To help celebrate Wormtown's birthday, the game is currently featured as a Steam Daily Deal! From April 20th - April 27th, Wormtown will be 30% off - so it's a great time to pick up the game or gift it to a friend! And for those curious about what's next for Wormtown, I'm currently working on player progression, challenges, unlocks, and Steam achievements - so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks. Thanks again for all the wild support this last year! It's been a blast! Stay safe out there, Pardners

Howdy! The Objectively Better Update is now live! Thanks again to everyone who playtested the beta branch these last few weeks. This update has a bunch of new additions, changes, and bug fixes - here’s the TLDR:

New Pardner Objectives:

Pardners now have 7 unique objectives available (with a few reworked objectives too!). These get chosen at random at the start of the game, with Fueling The Train being the only consistent one. The number of objectives and which ones can be chosen can be set in the match settings in lobby.

16 Player Lobbies:

The lobby cap has been doubled from 8 players to 16. Great for streamers or larger gaming communities! (Our playtests in the official Wormtown discord (Discord.gg/Wormtown) were pure chaos!)

Wormtown Goes International:

Wormtown has now been translated in 9 languages! Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Latin American Spanish. You can swap your language at any time from the main menu.

New Scoring System:

With all of the new gameplay additions, the scoring has now been simplified. Gain points for completing objectives, reviving Pardners, damaging the Worm etc. - on the Worm side of things, you’ll gain points for damaging and eating Pardners and props. And we finally have Worm stats that appear at the end of the round, too!

The Town Well:

Is the map running low on fuel items? Head to the Town Well and fish out a fuel item from it. This new mechanic is a way to always ensure there’s enough fuel on the map to complete the objective - especially in those new 16 player lobbies!

Revamped Pardner Tutorial:

The old Pardner tutorial was very outdated and difficult to add additional content to - so it's been remade with cutesy video tutorials!

Terrain Updates:

Additional smoothing passes have been added to the terrain during map generation. This not only makes it look and play much better, it also means those annoying sand berms around the train are finally fixed!

Host Moderation Changes:

Everyone can now see all connected players from the pause menu. This also allows Hosts to kick players during a match if they ain’t behavin’.

Additional Balance Changes:

- Cactus Seed Pouch uses increased to 7 (was 5) - Snake Oil random health gain rescaled to 2-8 (was 1-10) - Magma Trail damage increased to 6 per second (was 3) - Lowered minigame inputs required to escape Sandtraps to 8 (was 12) - Increased zipline acceleration - Escape minigame changes for better readability And lots of bug fixes! If you’re curious about any of them in detail, you can check out the Patch Notes channel in the Discord (Discord.gg/Wormtown). Enjoy! & Stay safe out there, Pardners!

Howdy! Today's patch is for the new Pardner objectives beta branch. Thanks again for everyone who's posted their feedback on the new content as your feedback is vital in shaping Wormtown! To access the beta branch: Right Click Wormtown in your steam library -> Properties -> Betas, and choose "publicbeta" from the drop down list. You should see Steam begin downloading the new patch. note: The beta is available for both the full game and the friend's pass.

New Additions this update

New Scoring System/End Game Stats:

With the addition of the new objectives, the old scoring system and the end game stat screen needed to be reworked as many of the tracked stats no longer exist in the same way they used to. The individual objective scores have now been condensed into a simple "score" value. Pardners gain score points by: Progressing and completing objectives, damaging the Worm, and reviving fellow Pardners. Worms gain score points by: Eating Pardners, eating props, and damaging Pardners with their abilities. - and finally!! Worms have stats shown at the end of the game! (sorry this took so long!)

Objective Match Settings

Added the ability to select/deselect each objective in the Match Settings panel, for those who want to further customize which Objectives can appear in game. Note: Train Fuel is still designed to be the "main" objective in every game, and as such will always be chosen unless it's specifically checked off in match settings. All other checked objectives will be randomly chosen.

The Town Well

One of the issues we ran into testing 16 player lobbies is the scaling on the train fuel objective meant in some situations there wasn't enough fuel on the map to complete it (lol woops). The Town Well is a way to always ensure there's enough fuel to complete the objectives. Walk up to the Well and "use" it to fish for an item at the bottom of the Well. The Well can only contain lower fuel items (2-3 fuel), and if used too often will only retrieve tin cans (1 fuel) until it's cooldown resets. This mechanic is designed to be used at any part of the game when you need an extra bit of fuel, but the slow retrieval time of the Well makes it so it shouldn't be your primary source of fuel. The Well can always be found at the center of Town.

Misc. & Minor Additions:

- Polished the "usable" UI and key prompts when standing near something you can "use".

Balancing Changes

- Cactus Seed Pouches now have 7 seeds (was 5) - Snake Oil random health gain changed to 2-8 health. (was 1-10) - Magma damage increased to 6 per second (was 3). *note: this might be an over buff, it was just far too weak before! - Lowered the number of inputs needed to escape a Sandtrap to 8 (was 12).

Bug Fixes

- Fixed the pick up display info occasionally staying on screen when no item is in front of the Pardner - Fixed gravestone spawning issues with more than 8 players - Worm can no longer push Gilbert's Safe (lmao) - Fixed a handful of small errors causing performance issues. As always, feel free to leave your feedback over at Discord.gg/Wormtown Stay Safe out there, Pardner!

Howdy! Today we have an exciting (and also experimental) change in the beta branch: 16 player lobbies! I say experimental, because I'm not sure how well the game will even handle that many players and chaos - but that's why we have test patches and betas! I know most groups won't have 16 players to play with, but hey! If you do, let me know your feedback and how it goes. To access the beta branch: Right Click Wormtown in your steam library -> Properties -> Betas, and choose "publicbeta" from the drop down list. You should see Steam begin downloading the new patch. Additionally, another beta branch update was pushed a few days ago and I totally forgot to post the patch notes here on Steam! (woops! You can always see the up to date patch notes on the Discord, too.) Here are the changes in that patch as well: New Additions: ⭐ Pardners cannot have less than 40% max stamina. Stamina is still tied to health up to the 40% threshold, but below 40 health, your max stamina will always be 40%. ⭐ Added a ramp to quarry ⭐ Added the new objectives and the shovel to the guidebook Changes: 🌵 Tumbleweed burn duration increased to 55 seconds (was 50) 🌵 Tumbleweeds get destroyed when lighting a signal fire 🌵 Doubled the dig radius of the key. (aka, it's easier to find the exact spot now) 🌵 Recorded puzzle map numbers now display in a vertical column to fix overlapping issues. Map symbols also grey out when recorded, so it's easier to track which ones you still need 🌵 Successful minigame inputs now are sorted behind the rest of the mini game UI, making them not obscure the upcoming arrows/inputs 🌵 Reverted the difficulty change to the firepit objective (i.e. made it slightly easier) and added lighting effects to them Bug fixes: 🪱 Worms no longer always see Sassperilla crates when they are on the sand 🪱 Fixed issue with stats saving to Steam (not used yet, but will be used for achievements etc. later) 🪱 Fixed metal detector not being visible after being revived 🪱 Fixed issues when climbing a ladder and digging at the same time 🪱 Worms no longer see the light aura on blinking metal detectors 🪱 Fixed Sandstorm and other external forces absolutely yeeting Pardners 🪱 Fixed various bugs with softlocking Pardner inventories 🪱 Fixed the "Start Game" button so it, well ya' know, actually starts the game And as always, feel free to leave any bugs, feedback, or just hang out with some cool people over at the Discord. Discord.gg/Wormtown Stay safe out there, Pardners!

Howdy!

New beta patch, New Pardner objectives!

It's been a little while since the last development update, it's been a hectic couple of months! I'm excited to announce a new public beta patch available to try now! The beta patch includes a handful of new Pardner objectives and reworks for the old blocker train and key objectives. These new objectives drastically change the Pardner side of things. While there is still a lot of work left to do with the remaining features, bug fixes, and changes coming in the next official patch, the beta should give plenty of time to gain vital feedback and testing. Under the match settings panel, you're able to choose the number of objectives you want for the round as well as the difficulty of the objectives. By default, the objective number is set to scale with Pardner count - more pardners, more objectives. It will randomly choose from the pool of objectives. In the future, you'll be able to select which specific objectives you want. The beta can be accessed in both the standard game and the Friend's Pass. To access the beta branch: Right Click Wormtown in your steam library -> Properties -> Betas, and choose "publicbeta" from the drop down list. You should see Steam begin downloading the new patch. Notes: - This is a beta patch, so you may run into bugs and unfinished/unpolished content. Everything is subject to change! - but, the objectives are in a fully playable state. - The new objective system broke the Pardner tutorial, and it's disabled for this update.

How to complete the new objectives?

While the objectives are in game, they're not tutorialized yet. Most of them are fairly self explanatory, or can be figured out easily, some are more complex. I'm also aware many players would like to try and figure them out on your own, so

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Fuel Train: unchanged. Get fuel, throw in furnace. Fuel scaling has been adjusted (lowered) now that there are more objectives to balance things out. Train Blockers Reworked: The train blockers have been removed and replaced with broken segments of the track that need repaired. Find scrap and throw it into the designated area around the broken track. Scrap can be found by blowing up abandoned train cars (placed randomly throughout the map) and buildings. Train cars drop 3 scrap, the church drops 2, and normal buildings drop 1. Train Key Rework: The key is now hidden and buried underground. You'll need to find it's location and dig it up with the new shovel equipment (spawned on train). The shovel has a metal detector attached to it, and the bulb will ding when near the keys location. It will ding faster the closer you are to the buried key. When standing directly over the key spot, the detector light will be fully illuminated and a distinct noise will play. Note: Dynamite will also unearth the key - which can be helpful when finding the exact spot is difficult. Additionally, The key can be buried under a rock or house, in which case you'll need a dynamite. This is intended (aka, not a bug) but may change with player feedback. Sarsaparilla Delivery: Around the map are broken down stagecoaches that were once delivering sarsaparilla to the townfolk. Retrieve the cases of sarsaparilla and bring them back to the train (drop them near the bottle + arrow in the enclosed train car). Sarsaparilla crates are fragile and bottles will break when dropped or impacted. When fully broken, a new crate will spawn at the stagecoach. Cattlebug Herding: Cattlebugs are flying around the map. When you get close to one, it will flee away from you. Guide all of the Cattlebugs to the back of the train (a sign post will designate the area) to complete the objective. Note: Since the cattlebugs don't touch the ground, the Worm won't see them unless they use Sonar Scream nearby. Light The Signal Fires: Around the map are large signal fires you'll need to light (large triangular piles of sticks with a red flag poking out of the top). Tumbleweeds can be "used" near the train furnace to ignite them. Once ignited, throw/drop/roll the burning tumbleweed into the signal fire pit. But be quick! The tumbleweeds will only burn for so long before crumbling to ash. Retrieve the Train Manual from Gilbert's Safe: Inside one of the ranch houses (the houses outside of town), there is a large Safe with a series of symbols on it. This is the code you'll need to figure out to open it. On the train, you'll find a new special item: the "Puzzle Map". Press the use item button while holding to toggle the map view. The map shows the Safe's location as well as a series of symbols. Head to the symbols shown on the safe to find a playing card sticking out of the ground with a number on it. That symbol = that number. Press your pickup key ("e" by default) in front of the safe to begin entering the code, the dial will begin spinning and pressing "e" again will lock in that digit and move to the next one. Once open, pickup the book that falls out of the safe to complete the objective. Note: If you're holding a map in your hands and you "use" a playing card, it will record it's number on the map so you don't have to remember it! (the map numbers will be stored for others if they pick up your map - but it's specific to that map. It will not update on other maps). And as always, feel free to leave any bugs, feedback, or just hang out with some cool people over at the Discord. Discord.gg/Wormtown Stay safe out there, Pardners!

Howdy and Happy New Year!

This update marks the official end of the Winter Wonderworm event. The winter map theme will still be available in the match settings panel, but will no longer be the defaulted theme. Aside from that, this is a small patch that lays the groundwork for some big changes coming to Wormtown soon! Most of the development work near the end of 2023 was focused on localizing the game to other languages (I had no idea just how much work it takes to localize a game! OOF) So I'm excited to be able to get back to significant gameplay development soon! A mini-development roadmap for 2024 includes: - Significant gameplay changes (don't want to spoil too much yet!) - The 1.0 release of Wormtown - Achievements, stats, and player progression - Increased lobby player count Lots of fun stuff to look forward to!

Now, for THIS update:

New console and "cheats":

We've done a complete overhaul to the debug console. Okay, cool, so why is that exciting? Well, it makes it much easier for us to find and fix bugs - but also means we've added fun commands and "cheats" for you to play around with! Now, don't worry, these cheats are strictly for having fun in private lobbies, and CANNOT be activated in public games. When cheats are enabled in a lobby, a yellow icon will appear on the left side of the screen, so all players in a lobby know they're on. To activate cheats: * Be the host of the game * Press F3 to open the console * Type "cheats true" and hit enter After that you can type "list" in the console to see all of the commands at your disposal, including: - forcestart: Want to run around solo? Want a game where everyone is Pardners? All Worms? This command forces the game to start with any configuration of players. - endless: the game won't end when there's no Pardners left alive (good for silly custom games!) - and more, including resurrecting yourself (any number of times!), spawning props/kits/dynamite, flying, teleporting! Note: once cheats are enabled by the host, clients can also use the cheat commands via the console. We had a lot of fun messing around and creating fun little game modes (Pardner Dynamite Dodgeball!) while testing the cheats out :D

Misc Changes:

- Now displays a props fuel percentage next to it's actual fuel value on the pick up UI. This directly corresponds with the percentage on the train furnace, so no more guessing! - Added a "leave game" confirmation pop up when leaving a match. - Starting with this update, we're storing basic stats for wins, fuel items deposited, and others. This means you can start gaining progress towards these stats now, for the inevitable achievements for them once they're officially added to the game later in 2024.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed Snake Oil giving Pardners health when escaping a Sand Trap. (woops lol) - Fixed unstable camera issues when looking directly down with the Pardner aim camera. Again, this small update lays the groundwork for significant gameplay additions and changes coming soon! Lastly, Thank you everyone for such a crazy 2023. The support you all showed for this silly little game was more than I could have ever dreamed for and I truly appreciate it all. 2024 is going to be a great year for Wormtown!

Howdy! Changes: + Crossbow shoots 20% farther + Sandstorm visual effects now match map theme colors Bug Fixes: - Fixed Ed's (The Balloon Pilot) festive hat being visible to the Worm. (oops!)

Small Hotfix for yesterdays Winter Wonderworm patch: Changes: + The Train Key is now gold in the Winter theme. (The silver key blended in with the environment way too much!) + Added festive lights to the Church. Bug Fixes: - Fixed the snowman cosmetic's eyes and mouth being always visible to Worm - Fixed Winter decorations floating in the air after their connected buildings were destroyed

Howdy and Happy Holidays! The Winter Wonderworm update is now live!

Features:

+ A new holiday Map Theme! + A handful of new festive cosmetics for both the Pardners and the Worm to get into the holiday spirit! (note: As with the Halloworm event, all of the new cosmetics are unlocked for everyone - including the Friend's Pass for the duration of the event.)

Misc. Changes:

+ Added a backer image to the mini game arrows for easier readability. I wanted to express my heartfelt thanks for all of the support for Wormtown this year. I saw countless Wormtown nominations and reviews from the Steam Awards and I can't express my gratitude enough! It's been a wild year for Wormtown, and I'm excited to continue supporting the game with new content and features in 2024! Have a happy and safe holiday season, everyone! - Vyv

Changes: - Sandstorm no longer pushes ghosts Bug Fixes: - Fixed the "anti-tunneling" mini game mechanic that was broken in the previous patch. - Fixed flickering texture issues on Pardner ghost heads and hats when sandstorm is active. - Fixed being stuck in place as a ghost if you died while climbing. - Fixed the skybox not resetting on the main menu if your last game ended during sundown. - Fixed a handful of miscellaneous under-the-hood bugs that were throwing errors.

Howdy Pardners! It's been about a month since the last update, as I took some time off after the Halloworm Update - but now we're back in the full swing of things here in Wormtown! This update brings a whole slew of new additions, reworks, changes, overhauls, and bugfixes.

Netcode Overhaul:

We've completely reworked a lot of how the game handles various network interactions - from Worm grabbing Pardners, inventories and more. But what does this mean for you? It means: - A noticeable difference in Worms "lag grabbing" Pardners from far away. (Unfortunately, we can't fix latency completely, but this really helps!) - Object interactions are *much* more responsive. Everything from picking up objects, throwing objects, adding and removing things from your inventory, equipping Kit, etc. should now feel as quick and snappy when playing as a client as they do on host. - Fixes bugs related to network timings, such as the Worm occasionally pulling Pardners underground, items disappearing from inventories etc. While these changes might not sound super "exciting" - it improves the "feel" of the game tremendously!

Worm Changes:

One of the main focuses of this patch was to help with some "friction points" while playing Worm. I want the Worm to feel fun, powerful, and have a decent win rate - but that was rarely the case when playing against experienced Pardners. (and gets more pronounced the more Pardners there are in a match.)

New Worm Movement Mechanics:

Sneaking: - The Worm can now move slowly and "sneak". (Default Right Mouse Button) While sneaking, the Worm doesn't make ground rumbles or noise while moving. - Holding down the "sneak" button mid-air will act as brakes, and slow your momentum down. Air Control: - The Worm now has slight "air control" when pouncing, airborne, or on top of a non-sandy surface (i.e. the train/rocks/houses/etc.) The Worm will redirect it's momentum slightly in the direction the camera is facing, allowing you to do curved pounces and adjust your angle mid air. - It's also useful for when you're "stuck" on the train, simply aiming towards the side of the train will move you in that direction. Design insight: A big frustration point when playing Worm is feeling a lack of precision and control. Missing a pounce and flying off in a random direction you didn't intend can get annoying quickly. Both the sneaking and air control mechanics should help with this, as you feel much more in control of the Worm and can readjust much faster when you do get an unlucky bounce or missed pounce. Not to mention, sneaking underground when Pardners think you left is always fun! (Note: Abilities are now categorized by "Innate" and "Choosable". Innate being abilities, like the Sonar Scream, that all Worms have be default. Choosable being the ones you pick between at the start of a match). New Innate Ability: Sinkhole - Sinkhole creates a vortex underground the slowly pulls the surface rocks downward into the sand. - Primarily used to clear out troublesome rocks, it also slows Pardners by 80% if they walk inside of it. - Cooldown: 2 1/2 minutes Design Insight: After listening to a lot of feedback from the Discord community, it seemed that rocks were very frustrating for the Worm. Pardners could stay on rocks safely for long periods of time, and it was common for the map generation to create some "god-tier" formations that were nearly impossible for Worms to play effectively around. This innate ability for all Worms should help alleviate the frustrations with rocks, as well as give them some additional utility. (It's also terrifying being a Pardner standing on a sinking rock!) Scorching Sands Removed, Replaced with a new Ability: Magma Trail - Only usable underground, Magma Trail creates a trail of... well, Magma, on the surface above the Worm. - The magma burns Pardners who walk through it. - Places patches of Magma for 10 seconds after using the ability, with each patch lasting 12 seconds. - Cooldown: 2 minutes Design Insight: Removing Scorching Sands may be a controversial choice, but it easily has the most negative feedback of any ability in the game. I tried many times to balance it, with it receiving near constant nerfs, but it was still despised by the majority of the community. Ultimately, the root issue seemed to be that it stalled the game and was boring to play against (players even said they would sit on a rock and then hang out on their phones for the 30 seconds until it was over... yeah, not ideal.) Magma Trail, while not a direct replacement, still has a lot of functions and utility that I liked about Scorching Sands. It can be used underground while healing, it can be used to stall Pardner movement, and can be very decent damage when cleverly combo'd with other abilities. Magma Trail is much more interesting to both use as Worm and play against as Pardners - and I hope you agree too! Tar Wall Rework: - The spikes of the Tar Wall now spawn further out and then pull inward to create the ring. - Tar spikes no longer ignore rocks and buildings when spawning (and thus will always spawn. No more gaps between the spikes!) - Tar spikes last for 15 seconds. - Cooldown increased to 65 seconds. Design insight: Tar Wall was already a fairly effective ability - but it was also somewhat boring and not used much. My intent was to make the ability more exciting to both use and play against as Pardner. The moving spikes now force Pardners to move and interact more than the previously static wall, while also creating some fun chaos as the wall pushes and pulls objects and Pardners. As a Pardner, do you try and run through the gaps in the wall as it's closing in on you? Or find a safe rock near the center to wait it out? Forcing these quick decisions from Pardners makes it a much more interesting ability. Note: With the additional of the new movement mechanics and innate ability, the default gamepad controls have changed for the Worm. If you play on Gameplay/Controller, make sure to check the options menu to get acclimated with the changes!

Pardner Changes:

Pardner movement has been reworked internally to be more consistent and smooth. - Pardners can now run on sloped surfaces without speed loss. This makes running up stairs, sloped rocks, roofs etc. feel much better. - Improved landing "sticky-ness", so landing on top of cactuses and other small platforms should feel less slippery and frustrating. - Improved standing on props of all sizes.

New Mechanic: Train Horn

The Train Horn is a usable pull-chain next to the Train furnace. Activating the Horn will disorient all Worms in a wide area around the train for 10 seconds. - The disorienting effect is the same as the cymbal monkey, in which the Worm won't see any props, Pardners, or ground pings, and will have their camera controls inverted for the duration. - The Horn has a 3 minute cooldown. - For balancing reasons, the Train Lever cannot be pulled for 12 seconds after the Horn has been activated, and you cannot use the Train Horn after the Train Lever has been pulled. Design Insight: While stalemate situations are less common with the introduction of the Worm abilities a few updates ago, there are still times when Pardners are too afraid to leave the Train and the Worm, knowing the Pardners are on the Train, will sit nearby and wait. The Train Horn should help with these stalemates and give the Pardners 10 seconds of safety to run and get away from the Train.

Zipline Changes:

- The endpoint of a zipline (the arrow part) will now fall if it's not supported. (for example, if you shot it at a building and that building has been destroyed.) - You no longer fall off a zipline if it's end points are currently moving. - Riding a zipline now makes an audible noise. Worms can hear this too! Design Insight: Ziplines were a little too powerful when it came to escaping a nearby Worm, and many times the Worm was unaware you were even gone. With the new zipline sfx, the Worm can now try and blindly guess where the sound is coming from with a pounce, or at worst, know you've ziplined away.

Snake Oil Rework:

- The Snake Oil buff now gives you a random 1-10 health back whenever escaping a Worms mouth. - The amount is rolled at the time of your escape (the amount you heal will be different each time). - No longer heals you for 20 health, and no longer gives you the max health increase. Design Insight: I always wanted the Snake Oil to be some kind of healing related item, but the original implementation didn't fit the game. On paper, having increased max health sounds great! But in reality, when does that come into play? The only real benefit of the old Snake Oil was gaining 20 health, which made it essentially a slightly better cactus fruit. This new buff gives usable and relevant health gains throughout the game, that over the course of a match may save you from an additional Worm grab. The random health gain is mostly just exciting when you get lucky and funny when you don't. I like random. :D

Luigi Board Changes:

- Luigi Board now grants a move speed bonus based on how many ghosts there are. - Max move speed bonus is 30%. - Bonus move speed is only for the Pardner that has the Luigi Board equipped. - The bonus is calculated by the percentage of Pardners who are ghosts (not including yourself). Which means: If you're the last Pardner alive, you'll always have the full 30% movement speed. This percentage keeps the item balanced, even with 7 Pardner games. - Note: These changes are in addition to the old effects of the Luigi Board - it still buffs ghost cooldowns and makes ghost visible to you. Design Insight: I wanted the Luigi Board to feel like you're helping your ghostly teammates, and by adding additional move speed, it may motivate a Pardner to go for revives if available, or give them a slight advantage to clutch out a game.

Fuel Objective Balancing:

- Reworked the algorithm for how much fuel is needed per Pardner player, for all difficulties. This should make lower Pardner games a bit easier and more Pardner games scale harder.

Misc Changes:

- Added a texture to the rocks - Mouse cursor can now leave the game window when in menus - Added a small UI to the Train Lever when it's usable or not - Any speed bonus or speed reduction is now visible below your Pardners stamina bar - Ghosts are much speedier now - Worm ability cooldown timers are displayed on the Hud icons - Additional forces for Pardners, such as Sandstorm wind and rifle recoil knockback are more consistent - Added an "are you sure you want to quit?" prompt when exiting the game - Worm can no longer use Sonar Scream underground - Attempting to equip a Kit item while already having one equipped will now swap the Kit (before you had to unequip and drop the previous one) - Pressing drop with an equipped Kit will now place the Kit in your hands instead of immediately dropping it on the ground. - Normalized object throw distances per item size class (all small objects should throw similar distances, and all large objects should throw similar distances) - Added new match settings to disable each Worm ability slot. (Disabling certain abilities can make multi-Worm games much more balanced)

Bug Fixes:

- Kit usage has been moved serverside to fix multiple exploits (like infinite use, etc.) - Fixed being able to pick up backpacks from far away - Fixed dynamite explosions resetting the fuse timer of already lit dynamite - Fixed jittery ladders constantly pinging Worms - Fixed the Worm head/teeth models being hidden when underground - Fixed saving/loading issues when using "none" Worm cosmetics and the Friend's Pass

Known Bugs:

- Rocks that have been moved via the Sinkhole ability don't sync in spectator mode - There's a rare bug where the train leaving doesn't end the game, and the train timer loops. If this happens, restart your game. We're hoping to have a fix soon! And finally, this update marks the official end of the Halloworm Event. Thanks so much for the kind feedback and I'm glad everyone enjoyed the new map theme and Worm cosmetics! For the event, I unlocked all of the hats for the Friend's Pass players so everyone could dress up and enjoy the holiday. I realize now that by removing those hats I may frustrate some players who spent time customizing their Pardners and Worms. I've decided to stick with my initial plan and remove the hats from the friends pass, but I'm going to keep the current set of Worm cosmetics available for Friend's Pass users. I'll consider handling the cosmetics differently for future events, as I may not have fully thought it through this time around! OOF, well if you've read this far, thank you! I hope you enjoy the update! It's definitely got a lot in it, and I strongly believe there's some really healthy changes for the game implemented in this update. Today also marks the 1-year anniversary of when I started working on Wormtown, so thank you to everyone who's made this last year such a wild ride! As always, you can leave any comments or feedback under this post or over at the official Wormtown discord: Discord.gg/Wormtown Stay safe out there, Pardners! - Vyv