Lingo news & patch notes

Lingo turns two today, and what an amazing two years it has been! Thank you to everyone who has played and enjoyed this game. I hope you will continue to find new experiences in Lingo, if you're interested in continuing along this road.

Happy October! In the spirit of the season, Lingo has some (not too spooky) areas for you to explore! Since the release of Level 2 this spring, we have added: The Staircase - A hub area for late game content. This is accessible after completing (most of) Level 2. The Pumpkin Patch - The smallest map, focused on everyone's favorite color! The Library, Second Floor - Follow the clues to find a path forward. Level Secret - A capstone level which may or may not actually exist. The Afterword - A timed, randomized challenge map, authored in collaboration with Star "Hatkirby" Rauchenberger. This will likely be the last major addition to Lingo for the foreseeable future. I'm working my way through design of the sequel and look forward to begin sharing it with you as soon as I can. As always, I will continue to fight back against any bugs that might show their faces, and the custom mapmaking community continues to be an absolute treasure trove of Lingo content to participate in. Thank you for being here, thanks for reading, and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Brenton

Hi all! Lots to share with you today! If you're in the Discord, many of these items will be repeats from weeks prior, but I wanted to catch our Steam friends up on what's been going on. Steam Workshop Integration You may have noticed this already but if not - Lingo now has Steam Workshop support! This means you can subscribe to maps directly inside Steam, and they will appear in your maps list in settings automatically, shortly after booting the game. It will also allow mapmakers to push updates to their content automatically, without needing players to download the maps a second time. New Settings Due to very popular request, Lingo now has volume sliders for music and sound effects, as well as a slider for mouse sensitivity. Hints You can press the insert key during solve mode to replace the first space of the placeholder text with the first letter of the solution. Content Changes Level 1

• Hid a mastery that was available too soon.
• The doors into the Orange Tower are orange now. Tasty!
• Mint has been de-aquaed and re-minted in the perception room.
• De-eyed those pesky eyes in the perception room.
• Two puzzles in the maze basement were moved away from the walls.
• Something in the Room Room was resized to make it clearer what was going on.
• Added Mastery hints and tracking into the game. Thank you Deusovi for your spreadsheet page; it has worked hard and deserves its well-earned retirement.
• Changed the Pilgrimage indicator; now you can't miss it.
• Differentiated some entrances and exits.

Level 2

• Added a sign to the Orange room. 2 IS NOT 1. This sign has layers.
• Lavender Room got some ugly but important puzzle logic fixes to help denote how they work. If you've gotten them, I think you probably know what I mean.
• A thing at the end of the game got some new countdown panels.
• Five panels were added outside the Parthenon to help you find some extra hard puzzles late in the game.
• Math Room title was breaking one of our logic rules, so I found a ruler and overruled it.
• Kiwi Room became a little less magenta.
• A thing after the end of the game got some signs.
• A novice got lost and replaced with a rookie.
• Another issue with magenta in the southwest.

Library

• Way more paintings from the community were created and hung! A huge thanks to Brendan for organizing these additions and adding them into the game.
• A few other content tweaks and additions here and there, probably nothing to worry about.

Reviews As of writing this, we're almost at 100 reviews! I never in my wildest thought this game would get more than a handful of players. I'm incredibly appreciative of everyone's time and interest, of the people helping to make this game better and add new content, and everyone out there finding and playing it. If you see this and haven't yet, please consider leaving Lingo a review on Steam. Reviews are the best way to help small indies like this one compete for storefront exposure. I also read every review, always, and I always appreciate hearing your thoughts on the game. That's all for me today! Thanks so much for reading, enjoy the Steam Summer Sale, and I hope to hear from you soon! -Brenton

Hi all! Happy Lingo Day! This week brings a slew of new additions and enhancements to the game, and I'm very excited to share them with you! But first, I need to thank Chris for creating so much of this. He has once again elevated this game beyond what I could accomplish, and I am immensely appreciative. New Custom Map: Lingo Level Mint - With Friends! I hope you recall Level 1, because mint has taken over the game! Play through Level 1, but every block is mint, and every clue only tells you its first letter. Sound like too much of a nuisance? Share a New Game name with your friends, and you can fight through this mint-strosity as a team! New Custom Map: Nerds Onvy Thank you Brandon for this very small and very challenging new map! New Graphical Style Lingo has shaders! Now, it can look even more like a game it had already acquired a lot of its style from. Try it out in the options menu! Custom Texture Pack Support Texture overrides can now be set by creating a folder in Game Data and setting up images with the Lingo block names. I'll be making a guide and loading it to the website for those interested in making and/or using texture packs. I also intend to create some menu options that help make the game more graphically interesting and/or amicable to those who have trouble distinguishing between the colors used in the game. Stay tuned for more! Better Font & HD Font Setting Fonts in game should now look a lot crisper, and less like they came from a font junkyard. If you want an even better looking font, there's a new setting to effectively double its resolution. Panel Unsolving Want to share a puzzle with your friend without giving away the answer? Looking at a panel and pushing the delete key will now return it to its prior state. Puzzle Fixes A handful of puzzles have been given new clues or blocks, per community request. No more laughing at me about trough, sorry to disappoint. More Paintings Thanks to Brendan, we have 100 new paintings in the gallery! I'm looking forward to putting them on display as we roll out new maps and challenges. That's all for now! Thank you for being here. I am continually overwhelmed by the kindness of this community. Thanks for reading; until next time! Brenton

Happy Lingo Day! This update has been on the to-do list for a while, and is for our friends without QWERTY keyboards. And anyone who doesn't like WASD, really. Movement keys can now be remapped from settings. I'm also pleased to bring you a very cool map from Kiwi today. Every answer in CODE is a four digit number. This map also hosts more guest designers than any other map, including LL2. I even had the opportunity to design one of them myself! The guide for adding custom content is available at https://www.lingothegame.com/custom.html. There's also a dedicated forum post in our Discord available for chatting about your time with CODE. Many thanks to Kiwi, our newest multi-maker, for this fun addition to Lingo's multiverse. We're also midway through Puzzlefest and have added about 100 new players - if you're new here, welcome! Thanks for reading! Until next time! Brenton

It's Bigger! It's Brighter! It's Back!

Lingo: Level 2 is available now!

This free content update adds a brand new map with 10 achievements, 40+ rooms, over 800 puzzles, and a few secrets. Explore pyramids made of cubes, schoolhouses made of cubes, trees made of cubes... you get the idea. I even included a couple plain white hallways, for old time's sake. This map has been stitched together over the past five months, and I am very excited to share it with you today. A huge thank you to the beta testers and guest room designers who helped bring this space to life. And a big thank you to you for checking it out! Welcome Back! Brenton

Hi all, and welcome to our new players! We've seen a huge spike in our userbase this week and I'm so glad to have you with us. Many thanks to my friend Icely for the awesome promo video. The primary feature addition today is an in-game achievement spotlight that our custom map creators (and I) can tap into. You'll know it when you see it! New players shined new light on old problems, so I spent some time smoothing some edges (and in one case, adding some). Once again I want to thank the community for finding and in some cases helping solve these problems. Random Player Floating - The good news is that you shouldn't randomly float upwards any longer. The bad news is that I'm pretty sure this prevents our most acrobatic players from jumping two blocks instead of the typical one. Sliding Off Corners - Changed the player collision hitbox to a cylinder from a pill, which should make the hedge maze less irritating. Panel Selection - There was a glitch where two panels next to one another would allow you to keep old partial answers on one of them. The text should now clear on exiting solve mode. Incorrect Answers Flooding - Typing really fast would let you extend the allowed word in length checking mode (the default for the game). Now it pauses for the brief duration where there's red text, which makes the whole thing feel a little snazzier. Side Panel Logic - There wasn't any. There still isn't, but I removed the side panels to sidestep the issue, as is my way. Inconsistent Nonstandard Panel Types - Hopefully this is something that nobody will ever need to think about again; suffice to say, it fixed a weird bug. Dynamic Credit Scene Text - Another request from our content creator community, the credits for their maps can be different than mine. Panel Transparency - Panels on glass behaved weirdly, thanks to Chris for this fix. Achievement Goalposts Moved - There wasn't a lot of logic behind what was required for one of the achievements. It hadn't changed while the world changed around it. If you're mid-playthrough, you may find one of your countdowns has counted back up. But, it should seem a little smarter when it does count back down now, so, hopefully that balances out for you. Okay, I think that's probably about it. Once again, I want to thank the awesome people playing this game; those who are just finding it now and those who keep coming back. I've really enjoyed getting to see this game and community grow and evolve, and I so appreciate your time and attention. Happy February! Brenton

Hello everyone! Made a few improvements today! - Check that a custom map exists in the maps folder before trying to load it. If not, it sends you to the settings page. We can file this one under "things I should have thought of sooner." - Cross Tower: Moved the panel on the back to become a panel on the front. Can't believe I'm still finding these. - Cross Tower: Added some view obstruction to the central area, because it was REALLY confusing which section you were in, the way it was. - Inverted mouse setting. Per request! Technically not tested on controller, so if you play on controller let me know if it works. It should, it's essentially just one negative sign and identical logic. - Scoreboard text resizes after reaching 999. If that doesn't make you nervous, I don't know what will. - Hitting the menu key while solving no longer brings up a copy paste menu. I spent like twenty minutes trying to script this and it turned out it was a single checkbox on the node I had to uncheck. #ProgrammerLife - New Paintings! Courtesy of two members of our awesome community. They're hanging in the library. If you'd like to claim a library puzzle with a painting, I'm still taking them. 10x10 - Bigger reticle option. Also has better contrast: a white cross with an outline. I think it looks pretty nice. Already trying to figure out how to work it into a puzzle... - Auto sprint wasn't persisting through game loads, now it should. I forgot to load it back in on game start. These were all brought to me from players, and I want to take another second to say how grateful I am people are finding, playing, and enjoying the game. It's been basically three months since this kicked into gear and it's been incredibly rewarding, and the input from players has made this a much, much better game. Thanks for everything! Brenton

Hi all, pleased to announce the release of a new map, The Library. You'll need to unlock this in Level 1 before it will be available to quick load into in the settings menu. You must have attained The Master achievement to be able to find it inside Level 1. This was a quick project and is not Level 2, which is still in development. There are no Steam achievements for it yet, but I intend to add one when I have a few more. Since the last patch notes, there have also been a few other smaller changes, as listed below: - Support for windowed mode, from Settings > Graphics. - Added extra non-answerable panels to make the existence of extra vertical cubes functionally irrelevant to a given puzzle.* - Updates to a handful of puzzles in Level 1 (and The Library, if you had already found it). Bye, SURRENDER ROOMMATE. Bye, WALNUTS. Goodbye, I. - Made several gray puzzles green bottoms. - Added a performance troubleshooting tip to the Tips page. Please do reach out on Discord if you continue to have issues. *For example: a middle white TRUE no longer needs a top white to be "technically" accurate, and a top white TOO no longer needs to not have a middle white to become TWO. In the places where this is relevant (looking at you, WHEEL) there are extra copies of the puzzle word on signs that tell you explicitly that it's important there. This only actually affects about 20 puzzles of the more than 500 in the level, it added very little in terms of puzzle interest/complexity, and it was a huge pain to work around in terms of design. Finally, if you'd like to design a painting to hang above your favorite puzzle in The Library, send me a 10x10 pixel art image, and I'll create it in the game (assuming the usual reasonable things, like that you made it yourself and it's appropriate for all ages). I think that's all for now! Thanks for playing and I hope you enjoy the new map. Brenton

Hi all, just a small update to add a couple new options that let you better fine-tune your experience. View Clip - Added options for clipped distances of 50 and 125. Was 75 or none. Use SSAO - Added a new environment setting that gives a little bit of a shadow effect to corners. This actually improves my FPS a little, but your results may vary. I hope this helps improve your experience. As always, please reach out to me via Discord if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks and if I don't get another update out tomorrow, happy new year!

Fixed and added a couple small things that should not impact gameplay. - New type of sign/panel component for use in customs. - Bugfix, answer label auto size. - Level 1 Legacy is available on the website. Custom Map HQ A bigger announcement regarding player made maps will be coming soon.

Update - The Groundwork One Hi all! Today's update incorporates a lot of small changes, and a few bigger changes. Big news first: - Length Hinting now also displays as placeholder text. No more typing a bunch of random letters just to see how long something is! Unless you really like that sort of thing; in that case, feel free. - Settings menu overhauled. New Level Select setting added, as groundwork for custom maps and Level 2. - Custom maps are currently in development from some of the members of our community. If you're interested in creating your own map, please reach out to me via Discord for more information. - False walls have been made more obvious, without the use of cheats. The cheat is likely to be removed. You've been warned! And then the smaller things. If you're still mid-playthrough you may want to avoid some of these, as they're a bit spoilery. - Added Welcome to Wonderland sign. - Switched HI in the synonym room to its "correct" location, forward-left as you enter. - Split Runt:Turn and Runt:Return to separate cubes. - Replaced Teacher:Substitute with Spoon:Fork. - Replaced You:Ewe with Ewe:You. - Replaced Toucan:Bird, Two:Toucan, Primate:Mammal, and Mate:Primate in the blue room. - Removed unused snowman painting from extending blue hallway area. - Scaled GUI to better fit extra wide screens. 1920x1080 is my default, but it should degrade more elegantly for extra wide screens now. - Moved several panels slightly higher to maintain consistency throughout the map. LIES, HIDDEN, TRACE, STEADY, TENACIOUS, and both of the panels outside the purple room. - Fixed a bug where getting an answer wrong would keep your answer displayed until you started your next guess. - Switched OBSERVANT *non* achievement panel past Wonderland to SHARP. - Reduced size of text in the text entry fields on very large answers. - Added shortcut from Pilgrim Room to heteronym room (The Seeker). I think that's it for now! I know it's been a bit since the last update; I am full speed ahead on Level 2. Never ask a programmer how long something will take - we're always wrong - but I'm happy at how it's coming together, and I'm looking forward to getting it in front of everyone. Thanks! Brenton

Update - A Better Player Experience Hi all! Excited to bring you some improvements to the player experience, focused mainly on the early game. - Bulldozed and rebuilt the Crossroads area, what I call internally the Shuffle Room, near yellow. Now if you turn left, it's not totally pointless! - Fixed that ugly jump issue. I think. If there's still problems with it, now they're different problems. - Added something for the end game. Not much of a reward for it yet though, so be prepared for that. The journey is its own reward! - Removed some more hidden backside puzzles that gate progression. - Couple changes to a couple of purples in and near the gemstones room. - Couple changes to the LOOK room to make one of its worst puzzles more bearable. - Updated our trusty game engine to its newest stable version. Ironically, this is the biggest potential cause for instability. Let me know if you have problems! - Added some more signs, to help players find their way. - Added a challenge room puzzle, see if you can do it without the hints on the back! - Rubikium was the first to solve the Giant Floating Cubes puzzle, nicely done! They've been immortalized in Champion's Rest. - Edited end game credits to reflect work done by some of our guest puzzle designers. That's it for now! I'm feeling pretty good about the current place the game is in and will be slowing down on updates to Level 1. Aside from bugfixes, I'll be shifting attention to Level 2. Thanks for playing!

Two small changes that are a long time coming. - Implemented Steam Leaderboards for Levels 1 and 2. Obviously, Level 2's leaderboard is hidden right now. Steam rate limits leaderboard score uploads so your score will only upload once you leave the level, and should only keep your highest. - Added a Load Screen! Finally! This was the oldest requested change for the game, except for deleting all traces of it. Thanks everyone!

**Content Update - October 2022** Hi all! Pleased to announce a substantial set of updates and additions to Lingo - Level 1. Many thanks to our awesome community for their input, efforts, and energy. It's been an AMAZING month for Lingo! *New Stuff* - New mid-sized midgame room, codename Ceiling Room. You'll know it when you see it. - New small-sized endgame room, codename Smiley Room. - New small-sized endgame room, codename Hangry Room. - New large-sized endgame room, codename The Lab. Getting here is a little painful. - Expanded Challenge Room. If you ace the test, you're not properly tested. - Nine New Achievements. Go for it, you overachievers! - New Mastery Panels. Still not sure how many! *Updated Stuff* - Performance tweaks. Performance continues to be a source of much pain and frustration, but the fixes here should help. - Persistent settings. Settings now save to disk so you don't need to update them every time you play. - False walls mode is now properly referred to as a cheat. - Clip View will reduce the distance you can see, but doesn't seem to make any difference on my machine. I'd leave it off unless you have a weaker GPU. - Discord button in the main menu. To celebrate the new achievements, I'm starting a new leaderboard for this "season." Once you've gotten all challenges completed, send a screenshot of your complete achievement list from Steam to Verifications Screenshots to get added to the leaderboard. Thanks all and happy puzzling!

Hi all! I'm excited to share a new content update today. I'm so glad more people are finding and enjoying Lingo. I love making it and having an excuse to work on it. Changes:

• Game price permanently reduced. Thanks to everyone for their support!
• Added the Hall of Fame to the Champion's Room, immortalizing the first three players to earn the title of The Master.
• Added a few signs to help players locate some obscure content.
• Added a new hint mode: show false walls. This will recolor hidden passages in the game so they are easier to find. I actually strongly recommend not playing with this mode enabled unless you've made it decently far into the game and have gotten stuck. This mode breaks immersion in a couple of places and is probably not necessary with the signs but, you know, I had already built it, so, might as well let you decide that! You'll need to enable the first hint mode and then reload the settings screen to see it. Even the options menu in this game is sneaky.
• Added a new midgame-tier blue room.
• Added a new midgame-tier black room, with special thanks to my new friend Naps. Search near the hedge maze for these new areas.
• Added two new puzzles in the early game black room. If you have already completed this room and the associated achievement panel, it should stay completed (for purposes of mastery), but will display a 2 until you solve them both.
• Added another endgame panel or two. Or three. I'm not good at keeping track of them!
• Fixed issues where some of the labels were too long for their panels.
• Fixed a bug where panels that were correctly solved with letters ending in WAS or D would move you in that direction after they triggered completion. Some puzzles were just too exciting for the keyboard to handle!

Thanks everyone for the kind words, the positive reviews, and the support for the game. There's still space for another area or two and I intend to fill it out once I land on a good use for it.

This update fixes the following issues with Lingo:

• Scoreboard puzzle was sometimes unsolvable. That one hurt.
• Visual jumps in two sections of hallway. This was actually something I fixed before, but in the wrong place, causing two problems instead of one. #development
• The clock room had lost one of its blocks. It made the rest of us lose one of our marbles.
• The paneled room allowed you to escape before completing the game. That's literally the opposite of what a paneled room should be doing.
• Rainbow hallway achievement pre-emptively achievable by excessive jumping. Not anymore, excessive jumpers.
• Scoreboard was duplicating your solved count when loading, dropping to the menu, and reloading. So people were seeing scores that exceeded the numbers of puzzles in the game, and thinking I had made way more game than I had. But don't worry, there's still a lot of game.
• That paneled room? Now it saves your progress. It's like I barely tested that one at all.
• The gallery was brick-able. Should be fully de-bricked.

If you encountered any of these issues, I apologize, but I'm also a little proud of you. None of these are easy to get to, and this game is pretty tough. If you encounter any other problems during your playthrough, please reach out.

Winter Sale Giveaway It only comes once a year - the Winter Sale kicks off today! Lingo is too new to participate, but I still want to get in on the festivities. To celebrate, I am giving away one free key each day until Dec 31. Anyone interested should email [email protected] - one entry per person per day. Duplicate entries (from the same day) will be deleted and blacklisted, sorry. Lingo Grandmasters I also want to take a moment to introduce the Lingo Grandmasters contest. I will immortalize within the game the first ten people or teams who earn the title of The Master, as well as the first who solve a few secret challenges I've sprinkled throughout. If you think you've solved a secret challenge, please send me a picture of your solution. Happy hunting!

This update brings two new features to Lingo: Move with WASD Overwhelmingly the greatest dislike in Lingo (besides the infamous Hedge Maze) involved the control structure. Controls have been revamped, and the new controls are reflected in the Controls page under the New Game menu. Here's a breakdown: 1. Walk with WASD, look with Mouse 2. When you light up a puzzle panel, press ENTER to begin Solve Mode (it adds a little border to tell you when you're in solve mode). 3. If you want to move on, just press ENTER again to exit solve mode. Solve mode automatically closes when you get the answer right. Assistance Mode - Length Hinting Assistance Modes are disabled by default, but you can go to the Settings page to enable them. This assistance mode will tell you if you're wrong when you've entered the number of letters of the correct answer. For example, if you typed in "BW" into the first puzzle panel you encounter, the BW would flash red and then clear itself. As with all puzzles, spaces are irrelevant to Length Hinting. Thanks for reading and happy puzzling!