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  Kid Hallow Winter News! 04:11 PM -- Mon December 20, 2021  

So much big Hallow news today. First of all, in a couple of days, we will be releasing the Editor Update. This is a major overhaul of how the editor works to improve it all around. New features and changes include:
  • Copy/Paste tool (pictured)! Select regions and paste them elsewhere.
  • Flood Fill tool (you can see the button in the picture)! The usual, you know how it works.
  • All the menus have changed to cuddly icons (pictured too! What a handy picture).
  • Sound effects, fun!
  • Background music (change it by placing any costume to hear that costume's music).
  • Sound and music toggle buttons so you don't have to hear that stuff I just said!
  • Hold SHIFT to draw a line from your last click. Something I instinctively tried to do all the time, now actually works.
  • CTRL-Z to undo! SO handy!
  • Smoother/easier gamepad controls. I don't think anybody is doing any editing on their gamepad, but it's better now than it was.
  • The Grab tool ("G" key) is now smarter - if you grab a spot that only has an Overlay tile, it will switch you to that layer, or vice versa. Much easier to use.
  • A "Friends" tab, which just contains Kid, all the costumes, and Baby Penguin and Princess. Easier to find.
  • A "Recent" tab, which contains the last 25 tiles you used. Just handy for not digging through the menus to find what you were using over and over.
  • And lastly, the cursor now shows you the tool you're using, in case you forgot!
This update is just for the builders and it should make editing much more user friendly and fun! So what update do we have for the players??
The Winter Challenge! I think the picture pretty much explains it. On December 22nd, a whole bunch of new winter-themed levels are going to appear in Kid Hallow, all at once. You'll find them under the "Winter Challenge" button in the menu. Play them, do well, and you will win a Winter Medal!

The top 3 total scores on that set of levels will earn a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Winter Medal by their name, which will stay by their name until next year's Winter Challenge! Rub it in their noses all year! You have until January 10th to crush the competition. Good luck and happy holidays.
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  Kid Hallow: Sci-Fi Pack Update #5 06:30 PM -- Mon December 13, 2021  


The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.

Goo Valve
You know those levels in many platformers where you hop your way up a bunch of platforms, desperately avoiding the lava rising beneath you? It's time for that terror to come to Kid Hallow!

The good news is, as you saw in the video, Goo isn't actually immediately dangerous. It's just the same as water. But you still need to act fast because of course you can't stay in it for long without drowning. Unless you're the Penguin, then this is all just good fun.

You can Monster Flip Goo Valves if you want the level to begin with them open (and it will also start filled with goo up to the level of your highest pre-opened valve, so you don't have to start with an empty level).

Radical Ranger


The bonus for the ranger was a pretty obvious choice that probably took me much too long to realize: a quiver full of trick arrows! I DID create this ability (but not this video!) before the Hawkeye series came out. You get:
  • Rocket Arrows: Replacing your normal arrows, these work the same, but if you tap any direction during their flight, they instantly rocket in that direction (once). Their other feature is that they light stuff on fire when they hit. Fire is a new Sci-Fi Pack feature that several things use. As you might expect, it can spread (just a little though - we didn't want it to get insane), and it does damage over time. It also creates light, and if a burning enemy dies, the fire is left behind for the rest of its duration, so you aren't cheated out of your light (or the potential to ignite other enemies). And you may notice in this video that it can even burn up Crates! Very handy trick (unless you need the Crate, then it's not great). It can also burn up all those nasty tree enemies that have always been invincible.

  • Zipline Arrows: They create a zipline from where you fire them to where they hit. It's just a handy way to cross wide gaps. And of course you can only go downhill on them, so while you can fire the zipline upward, you'll have to get up to that higher point in order to ride the line back down.

  • Sonic Arrows: They reveal everything in an area for a little while. The coolest trick with them is that they will stick in enemies, so you can make an enemy carry your vision somewhere you can't reach! They're also supposed to confuse bats, but I haven't implemented that yet. In fact, I had forgotten about it until right now, so I'm making a note.

  • Decoy Arrows: These just create an astonishingly accurate model of the Ranger to distract enemies. They won't prefer it to you, but they will attack whichever one is closer. While making this video I was quickly realizing that decoys do not survive enough damage! I think I'll be raising their health. Their best use is probably just holding down pressure pads for you, as using them as actual decoys is pretty difficult.
You only get 3 of each arrow type (other than Rocket), but you can refill them at a Medbay, or you gain one of each type for each Candy Corn/Cane you collect. Use them wisely!
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  Kid Hallow: Sci-Fi Pack Update #4 12:15 PM -- Sun December 5, 2021  


The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.

Medbay
I am often racking my brain to come up with ways to lean Kid Hallow more towards easier levels. There's not much I can do, since any new obstacle will always be used to its most evil possible purposes by our builders. But here's one thing I came up with - you can include it in your levels to provide a sort of checkpoint (only sort of - if you die, you're dead!). As players screw up, they can come back to the Medbay for a full refill to try again.

Of course, it also has evil uses. The Medbay heals enemies just as effectively, so you can make semi-immortal foes. Another, sneakier, use is that the Medbay removes the effect of Black Hearts on enemies, so you could have an enemy with WAY too much health, and the player has to lure them to a Medbay to remove it before pummeling them.

You can of course Monster Flip Medbays to start them turned off if you want the player to have to work for it.

One thing the video completely skips, because you don't know about it yet, is that there are a couple of costumes which (in Power Pill form) use consumable resources (things like ammo). The Medbay also refills those.

Happiest Stick Ninja


For the first time, our resident ninja actually has a way to hurt enemies! And not just hurt them... Those backstabs and dives do 5 damage, which is more than enough to one-shot almost every enemy in the game! The backstab from the shadows was actually the very first move I came up with for the Power Pill. It's the basis of the whole idea that the pill gives everybody different new abilities.

The Happy Place is another new ability - the thought here was that he had Stickman abilities (fitting through grates, walking on clouds) and Ninja abilities (wall jumps, stealth), but no Happy abilities. So now he has a teleport target you can place anywhere you like (press Down+Action to place it), and return to at anytime. Well, anytime you can find solid ground to stand on (Down+Jump teleports you back to it). Imagine the puzzle potential!

And of course he has Air Dashes (Tap Action in midair). Classic ninjutsu. If you are concerned about being able to stick to the ceiling with this new ability, you can prevent Air Dashing by holding Jump or Up. It sounds complicated, but it's actually quite natural - holding Up+Action actually was how you stuck to the ceiling in the original Costume Party!
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  Kid Hallow: Sci-Fi Pack Update #3 04:03 PM -- Sun November 28, 2021  


The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.

Junction Box
Wires have always been an interesting, and high-tech, aspect of Kid Hallow levels. But they're a little bit limited in what they can do. The Sci-Fi Pack seemed like the perfect time to spice that up, since, you know, technology and whatnot.


The junction box turns wires into a real puzzle: first of all, it only works in one direction (and you can use it just for that, if you want to stop electricity from looping back to your switches). Electricity flows in from the left side and goes out the right side. You can also Monster Flip it to make it work right-to-left.

Then, if it gets a charge from below, it consumes that charge and switches, and now when it gets energy from the side, it sends it upward instead of sideways. So you can set up switches in your level that reroute electricity. What's it for? I don't know man, this is a deep cut for the hardcore level builders. Program a computer inside your Kid Hallow level!

Vicious Vampire

I'm really proud of today's video. Come on, that's a fun one! Behold the modern Vampire, with his sparkles and giant bats. To clarify a bit of what you're seeing: the bats normally seek out enemies and bite them up to 3 times, and then return to you. You heal up 1 heart for every 3 bites your bats have gotten. However, if the bats aren't smart enough for you, you can hold down the Action button to mind control your bat for a while, allowing you to engage in precision battery. I'm really looking to open the game up with new types of gameplay with these Power Pills, and this one is definitely doing that. This is not just a simple upgrade, it's a whole different set of problems and solutions, and as a level builder you can combine it with non-Power-Pill Vampires and all the other costumes in both forms to make an infinite number of puzzles and challenges.
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  Kid Hallow: Sci-Fi Pack Update #2 10:20 AM -- Fri November 19, 2021  


The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features.

Multipass (Red, Blue, Green)
Remember Pressure Pads? Ah, such fun. Well, at first a Multipass seems like the same thing:

Step inside the Multipass, stuff switches!
But it's called a Multipass for a reason! It's kind of the opposite of a Pressure Pad - instead of triggering when anybody steps on any of them, it triggers only once all of them are occupied (and untriggers as soon as anybody leaves). So it's about setting up a situation where you get somebody or something onto all of the Multipasses. Pressure Pads send a spark downward (if there's a wire below them) as soon as someone steps on them. Multipasses won't send a spark until all Multipasses of the same color are occupied. Also, it goes in the Overlay Layer rather than the normal Tile Layer. It's not the most amazing and unique element, but I think it adds a couple new types of puzzles you can build. That's the goal with this pack, to create things that open up new level design possibilities instead of just more monsters to bite you.
Kandy-Kraving Kid

We got a full-on video for you today! The Kid may not be the biggest powerhouse in the game (in fact, he is definitely the weakest, by a mile), but with a Power Pill, he can actually start to do some stuff that nobody else can do. I made sure to stay true to his complete inability to harm anyone, but at least he can get a little pushy now.
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  Kid Hallow: Sci-Fi Pack is coming! 05:41 PM -- Sat November 13, 2021  

Yes, I am still working on Moon Invaders 2! But that's a long, huge, project and we are currently on a fun little side trip to the world of Kid Hallow. So more to come on that, but here's some good news for Kid Hallow!

The Sci-Fi Pack is coming to Kid Hallow! It will be a free update with 20some new tiles/monsters/etc, 3 new costumes, one or two new backgrounds, new music, and some special features. Over the next... however long it takes... I'm going to reveal a new tile/element each week until it is eventually released! It is going to be a massive addition to the game with by far the coolest, most game-changing elements we've added since Costume Party came out. You'd think I'd start with the least interesting new thing, but I can't, because I'm going to share an element that is so game-changing, that I'm going to have to keep adding more information about it every single week!

Power Pill
Once you gulp down this unassuming medication, your whole world is about to change. The Power Pill will grant you fabulous new powers which vary depending on which costume you are using and completely change how the level plays out. The pill only affects the specific costume that eats it, so if you switch to a different one, that one remains ordinary unless it finds its own pill. So you may have interesting decisions about which costume to use to grab the pill, or you might find a level you have to travel through in ordinary form until you reach the pill and come back laying waste to everything. Because oh yes, the pill does make you powerful.

Along with revealing a new item each week, I'll also reveal one of the costume upgrades you get with the Power Pill. This week, let's see what Frank is up to!

Frightful Frank

First of all, when Frank is upgraded, his headbutts deliver a devastating shockwave that rips through all bricks in a row. In case you can't tell from the animation, this is fun.
This of course applies to his vertical headbutts as well. And you can smash Pine Trees, all that good stuff.
But wait, there's more! If Frank avoids being hit for 4 seconds, he gains Super Armor, making him immune to the next hit he takes. Slow and steady wins the race. Or more likely, evil level designers will require you to exploit the armor to maximum efficiency by diving into spikes regularly and getting out before you die (like normal hits, you get one second of invincibility when your armor shatters).
And last but most amazing: Tapping down when you have Super Armor causes you to get struck by lightning from above! Don't worry, that's something Frankensteinses actually enjoy. It doesn't hurt you any, but it deals massive damage to enemies, as well as triggering any electrical devices in the path (or anything that can be triggered by electricity - like opening Doors and Chests, toggling Fireplaces, etc), and smashing any easily-smashed objects like Crumbly Bricks, Pine Trees, and Crumbly Platforms. There is however some risk involved: lightning is dangerous stuff, and it will also do 3 damage to any of your friends in its path (except the Knight, of course, who conducts electricity!). Be careful where you shock!
So hopefully you're catching the vibe that this one item alone, the Power Pill, actually results in a whole world of new level designs, employing these new super powers. Also, I should add that none of this has been tested yet, so particular values and specifics are definitely subject to change. And the last thing I want you to take away from this is that, while I have written down ideas for every costume, I haven't implemented them yet, so if you have ideas for how the Power Pill should upgrade your favorite costume, share them in the comments! A lot of the cool new abilities added in Kid Hallow (from the original Costume Party) were actually suggestions (or sometimes jokes...) from the testers that sounded too cool to skip! What do you think could make for some really interesting new level designs?
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  Kid Hallow Insider Info #4 - New Stuff! 07:12 PM -- Mon November 1, 2021  



THE GAME IS OUT RIGHT NOW, GO BUY IT!!!!!

Today's the big day! We are currently doing some final tests before launch. There is some rickety code in here from 13 years ago, but we have knocked some of the dust out of it.

So what's new in Kid Hallow! Well, first of all, there are two new Level Flags - you can set a level to be either Dark, or Zoom, or both if you like. A Dark level doesn't allow the player to see anywhere except their immediate area. Walls block their sight. It looks pretty spooky:

That shot also serves as a handy example of a Zoom level! As you can see, everything is twice as big, so just like in a normal-person game, you only see what's near you and the camera follows you around as you move. Pretty normal stuff, but hey, it's new to Kid Hallow!

There are also 15 new Awards to earn (achievements on Steam), so there are 85 in total now. Some easy new ones to get you started in the game, and some monsters that'll be taking you a while. Of course, all Awards in Kid Hallow unlock new tiles for you to build stuff with, so you're gonna want to catch 'em all.

In other news, there are a lot of little new visual FX - better splashing in the water, screen shake on damage (toggle-able), a highlight to help you see where you are when the level starts, and a bunch of other little improvements. Some so little they are actually a single pixel big - look very VERY closely at the steel blocks when you're building a level, and you'll spot some tricks (depending on what's next to them).

And of course, it wouldn't be any fun if we didn't add a pile of new items! We tried to add a bunch of weird little items to allow for interesting new interactions and combinations in your levels, rather than just a bunch of new monsters that all just shoot at you.
No-Monster Zone - What a piece of artwork! How does he do it!? This item which looks suspiciously like the No-Costume Zone does exactly what it says - prevents monsters from entering the tile. Very very very handy.
Secret Room - I spent so much time fighting levels in Costume Party that hid things from players, leaving you to guess what was happening behind secret passages. Well, I gave up fighting! The Secret Room covers things up so you have no idea what's going on (of course, the new Download A Copy feature means you can just peek at it anyway). If you enter a Secret Room, every Secret Room touching it is revealed at once, so you can explore like a real adventurer.
Window - This is exactly the same as the Secret Room, and it even integrates with it. The difference is, since it's a window, you can see through it. It's about style.
Background Bricks, Background Window, and Background Torch - Just for looks! These go in the Overlay layer, but unlike all the other Overlay tiles, they show up behind everything else instead of in front. So you can make nice brick interiors to your haunted castles. One other little touch: the Background Torch (and any other tile that looks like it makes light) actually produces light in "Dark" levels, allowing you to light the way in areas the player can't see yet.
Rock Candy - This evil little treat is delicious - so delicious that you earn massive points for collecting multiples of it. Unfortunately, it's also quite fragile. Take one hit and you lose all the Rock Candy you're carrying (you score it when you bring it to the exit). Also, enemies will specifically attack and destroy it in the world!
Hallow Home - This tiny haunted house is almost the same as a level exit. Princesses can go there, and you can deliver Rock Candy there. There are just two differences: you can't win the level by going there, and Baby Penguins for some reason can also go here and score you 100 points.
Upside-Down Crate - Wait a minute, this isn't new! But it used to be exactly the same as a normal crate. Now, it's a little bit different... See if you can spot the difference! It adds a whole world of level design possibilities.
Bonehead - Nothing wrong with adding a totally normal, super weak enemy!
Eyeball Tree - PurpleKoopa's creation! These things are downright nasty, shooting bullets aimed at you directly through walls. Also, I did the art from memory before seeing them again, and realized that I made them purple because PurpleKoopa. They should be brown, but I was told purple was fun!
Earth Shrine - Of course, if the Eyeball Trees are too much for you, then light all the Earth Shrines in the level, and all plant-based enemies will stop attacking you!
Homicidal Plant - Even these guys! These serve a very specific function: they only kill players (and Princesses and Baby Penguins), so they allow you to make a space players can't enter, but monsters are perfectly safe. They also allow some interesting tricks because of both the Earth Shrine, and the fact that once a plant eats something, it closes up permanently.
Poltergeist - The most fascinating tile in the game. The Poltergeist works two ways: you either place it on a monster or a block. On a monster, it will possess them, making them twice as fast and immune to fear. That is very unpleasant. On a tile, the tile becomes possessed! You'll have to see that one in action, but it's fun.
Scarecrow - Very simple: this scares any monster that gets close!
Monster Flipper - The tool so useful we added a shortcut key for it. You place this on top of any monster or even some other tiles (like Statues for example) to flip them the other way. Simple as that! However, some tiles/monsters have special tricks with it. One example is the Eyeball Tree: if you Monster Flip it, it fires with alternate timing, making an Eyeball Forest twice as dangerous.

Gee whiz I did it again. World's longest blogs. We added SO MUCH STUFF to this game it makes the blogging alone exhausting.

Speaking of taking a break because I'm done, THE GAME IS OUT RIGHT NOW, GO BUY IT!!!!!
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  Kid Hallow Insider Info #3 - The Costumes 04:50 PM -- Sun October 31, 2021  



So don't get too excited, there aren't any new costumes in Kid Hallow (yet!), but all the old costumes have gotten upgrades! Let's run them down:
The Kid - Of course, you start every level with no costume on. The Kid has only had one minor upgrade since you last met him: he can duck now, which is not low enough to dodge any bullets at all. It's just for fun.
Frank - Classic Frank! He too has gained the mystical power of ducking. It has a slight advantage here because you can smash bricks beneath you without any risk of hitting the ceiling above you (which might be spikes, who knows?). You just hold Down and tap Action and he instantly hits the ground without having to jump first. There is also a new situation for Frank to interact using his pushy powers, but that's a tale for tomorrow.
Ghost - Spooky as ever! The Ghost has gained - say it with me - the ability to duck! Totally useless. He also now has the power to descend rapidly, which is new (it's like ducking, but in midair!). Another minor touch to his flight is that you can now hold down the jump button to continuously go upwards (not quite as fast as if you pounded it at the right speed, but decent).
Witch - Would you believe the Witch can now duck? Other than that, and major cleanup to how her powers affect the world (objects no longer get stuck inside each other, they push apart neatly), she hasn't changed. She's very puzzle-based so we couldn't mess around too much. I kept wanting to give her the ability shoot up and down, but it would completely change every puzzle for her. That feature still may come in the future though, in a very special new way.
Vampire - Now we get some interesting stuff! I know what you're expecting, but let me blow your mind: the Vampire cannot duck! Nay, pushing down when using this costume instead makes you turn into a cloud of mist for a very short time. Very short. With this, you can dodge bullets (even Dragon Statue laser beams if you do it right), and with excellent timing, even dodge right through a Screamer. It's the Dark Souls of Kid Hallow moves.
Santa - Santa could always duck, to drop Gifts. What's so great about him now is that he can also do this in midair! It's a huge change that has made him a ton more fun to play. In addition to that, dropping Gifts is a lot better now. If you remember way back (uh, 13 years ago...), you previously needed to drop each one carefully so that it was in an empty spot. If there was already a gift too close, it wouldn't appear. So now instead, you can drop them all over the place, and they simply push each other aside for maximum explosivity. Santa has truly become a lot more jolly.
Snowman - The Snowman doesn't exactly have any new tricks. It's more that he is much easier to play now. Previously, if you froze somebody too close to you, you'd get stuck inside the ice block with them until they thawed. It was really annoying. So now, anybody caught in an ice block is gently nudged out (same feature as the Witch has when she transforms things).
Penguin - More ducking fun! But this time there's a good purpose. If you crouch as a Penguin, any Baby Penguins that reach you will stay underneath you to stay warm, just like real life. They also change their direction to match yours, so you can use this trick to steer babies away from danger and toward any Igloos you want annihilated. We've also improved how splashing out of water works and looks, which affects everybody but is most notable as a Penguin.
Bouapha - The Gourdslayer is back and probably has the most upgrades of any character. He couldn't do much originally, just toss hammers. Well now he can duck! Surprised? It's slightly useful in that it allows you to stay in place while tossing hammers downward instead of running around. We've also added a new feature to disable pressing Up to jump (there's a jump button now, you can play either way). If you do that, you can throw hammers in all 8 directions without accidentally jumping, which makes him easier to control. But that's not all! His rate of fire has also been doubled - he's got some Pants of Power now. And biggest of all, when he ducks, he can pick up Baby Penguins or Princesses, and then throw them around like he throws hammers! Oh it is fantastic fun, I assure you. The princess doesn't appreciate it much though.
Happy Stick Ninja - He could already duck. Aside from a small simplification to his controls, he's the same flippy jumpy maniac as ever.
Yerfdog - Oh you bet this dog can duck! It's actually very very useful, because it used to be very difficult to enter small passageways, with the way he would constantly bounce up and down on the ground, and he almost couldn't operate Gears at all. Now with ducking, you just hold down and crawl around. It's very weird looking, like he's some kind of mutant slug dog. In addition, like the Ghost, he can hold down in mid-air to descend faster, which is a great control improvement. On top of that, he has massive improvements to how sucking up and spitting out enemies works. And lastly, he has a whole new trick! He can suck up water and spit it out too. Use this to put out fires, charge up batteries, or a few other weird tricks. It gives Yerfdog an entirely new dimension.
Elf - Just one little change for the Elf - he shoots faster than before.
Wizard - Wizard's teleport was a subject of much consternation. So we cleaned that up a lot. He now aligns his destination with a whole tile, so if you are a pixel off, you don't end up with the very top of your hat stuck in a wall. Along with a few other tweaks, his teleport is vastly more reliable now, but it'll still kill you if you end up inside a grate!
Knight - Last and just about least, the knight has gained a really nifty duck move in which he hides behind his sword (odd, since he's holding a shield, but also it was an accident, and I loved it so I kept it!). That's all the new stuff he's got that I can recall... He's still really fun though, with his pogo-jumping and electricity-conducting and bullet-deflecting.
Phew. That is it. I had no idea that was going to be so massive. There are just a lot of characters in this game. And I don't even remember all the little tweaks we did, so I missed some stuff in here (also, I am about to go experiment with making Frank's headbutt faster right now, a day before we ship! Foolish but potentially fun). See you with another insider info tomorrow, discussing all the new monsters and items we added. And of course... you can also play them all tomorrow because it's gonna be release day!


HAPPY KID HALLOWEEN!
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  Kid Hallow Insider Info #2 04:20 PM -- Sat October 30, 2021  



I forgot to add any links last time, I should probably be advertising the game while I do this... Let's talk about the new art in Kid Hallow! All the stuff that looks good is by Ben Rose as usual. It starts with the awesome new title screen which you can see in miniature above, but here's a juicier taste:

From there, we see the good ol' Costume Party menu:

Probably some level names that old Costume Party fans remember in there. The new stuff here is mostly subtle, but also we have these walls on the side. That's what goes up in order to cover up the dead space because nowadays, monitors are wider than they are tall, and back in my misspent youth (2008), they were square(ish)! So you always have those on the sides in full-screen, but they don't just sit there. You'll see what they do! It's nothing important, but it's fun.

Then there's also a game in there (click for bigger)!

If you want to dig through a bunch of screenshots, you can visit the Kid Hallow Press Kit. But there are some cool new things going on here. Obviously the display at the top is all new and cracked up. But there are also new backgrounds (the only returning one is the brick background in the middle shot. It's iconic and already pixelated), and a bunch of new stuff I should be saving for the next update... but it's hard to ignore: yes, levels can be dark now, only letting you see stuff that's not behind walls. There are also Purplekoopa's Eyeball Trees, which are pure evil. And Boneheads! Other new stuff in those shots too, but that comes in the next update. I guess in the realm of "just art" we have those brick walls in the middle and right screenshots, with torches and windows - those are new background tiles. They go in the overlay layer, but they show up under everything instead of on top of everything.


Definitely something for tomorrow, but look - there are some new animations for most characters! Specifically, ducking. Every character that used to not be able to duck, now can. For most of them, this is completely useless, but it feels nice (squats are healthy). For a few, it has real important functionality. Guess you'll find that out tomorrow when we talk about the new tricks the characters have!
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  Kid Hallow Insider Info #1 01:24 PM -- Fri October 29, 2021  

You may have heard Kid Hallow is coming Nov 1st...

It's pretty awesome. But since anybody who actually finds their way to this blog is a true Hamumian (probably, that is. If you're not, get out before you are discovered), I figured we can talk about the true details of what's new vs. the original Costume Party. We can get into the meaty details that aren't appropriate for press releases, or too nitpicky for "normal people", or just require that you remember playing the original game.

Big thanks to SpaceManiac for his huge role in reviving this game - he did all the real techno mumbo-jumbo, while I scribbled new pixels and goofy stuff (but speaking of pixels, we also have HSB on the project who did the awesome new title screen and backgrounds, like the title you see above!). So let's start with new features that are techno mumbo-jumbo:
  • You can now play the game offline! Of course you can't play any online levels when you do that, but what this means is that you can save your levels offline, and just share them with other people as normal files (you can find them in the /local folder of the game's installation folder - in Steam you can right-click on a game and select Properties/Local Files to explore the installation folder).

  • What else it means relates to our new pause menu:

    As you can see, you can just click to download a copy of any level you play! This means you can figure out what all the secret tricks in the level are, or tweak it to practice different parts, or make an offline copy for your own use or for a historical archive, or make a remix of it with your own twist.

  • Also new in that menu is "Die & Rate Level" which is kind of dumb - you can always just use Restart to die and play again. But Die & Rate Level was added because in rare cases, someone might make a level that is near-impossible to finish, but also prevents you from dying (it can't be impossible, because they have to win it to submit it, but close enough). In that case, there's no way to rate the level and warn everybody about how terrible it is. So we added this button. Yeah, we have to plan for people being terrible.

  • We've also got a bunch of tech under the hood to make the online experience more functional and tidy than in the past. It automatically logs you in with your Steam or Itch.io account depending on which platform you use, and just works magically. And - fingers crossed - we hopefully have better tools for handling bad players who are ruining the experience for others.

  • Speaking of that, now when you see your friend is playing Kid Hallow (on Steam), you can click to take on the exact level they're playing! Make it a contest. We also have a discord bot coming who will announce newly made levels, and you can click the link it shares to instantly play that level. We'll see how spammy that gets (I guess we should hope that it IS too spammy!).

  • I may be misremembering, but I think the original Costume Party would only run in a window. True or not, it's not true with Kid Hallow! You can seamlessly swap between full-screen and windowed mode any time, even while playing (Hit F11), and everything scales quite nicely, including our lovely new smooth fonts as you see in the picture above.

  • There's also a variety of new and improved menu elements and smoothness - cool transitions that make a clunky noise, decently highlighted buttons in the editor (that was hard to see before!), and a bunch of changes to the menu flow and function to clean it up.

  • And of course, the game now has 100% gamepad support everywhere! Play from your couch! You can even type in level names with a handy onscreen keyboard. Level editing with a gamepad is far from ideal, but that's about as good as you can expect. Gameplay with a gamepad is fantastic.
There's a lot more new stuff, but we'll get to those things in our next installment of Kid Hallow Insider Info!
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