NEW HUNTER IS HERE: The Contortionist

Hello everyone!

We are back with another major update for Carnival Hunt!

This time The Contortionist joins the hunt. Thank you for playing and sharing your feedback. Take a look at the teaser, then read on for the complete list of new content, balance changes, interface improvements, fixes and technical updates.

New

New content & systems

• New Hunter: Contortionist
• Two Carnival Passes
• Player Tasks: Daily and weekly player tasks with targets, rewards, Carnival Pass tasks, a refresh timer and update notifications replace the old daily tasks, and can be viewed during a match.
• Health: Bunnies now have health: damage sources hurt them and healing restores it, with a new health bar and a new death.
• Lost Hats: One for Bunnies (on floor 4, can be found without a radar) and one for Hunters (on floor 1).
• Astral Projection: Astral Projection gear is finished: the hunter leaves the body as a spirit, and a bunny whose Madness fills up from the spirit is controlled by the hunter for a while instead of going mad.

Audio

• Audio: Footstep sounds for all surfaces.
• Audio: Heartbeat volume can now be adjusted separately from Sound Effects in the sound settings, and it is quieter by default.
• Audio: New and improved sound effects, including the nest idle sound.
• Audio: The Imposter placement sound plays again, new Sisters ping, High Striker alert and chest lockpicking sounds, improved sound cues and health icons.
• Audio: Voice-over added and improved.

Gameplay, customization & quality of life

• Bunny: All players now get an alert when a Bunny dies.
• Bunny: The Adrenaline state is complete.
• Cosmetics: All color variations for the Clown and Morning wigs.
• Customization: New bunny head cosmetic for the competition winner with color variations for everyone else, and adjusted bunny color brightness.
• Customization: Two legendary masks for the Magician.
• Easy Mode: Easy Mode highlights more objects and highlights teammates.
• Hunters: Hunters get a reward for evading the marbles stun.
• Main Menu: Quick Play button added to the main menu.
• Player Messages: In-match messages with rewards when progress is made: opened shortcuts, earned badges and a completed Puppet Master wish.
• Settings: Graphics settings have an auto adjust option.
• Tutorial: New players go straight to the Bunny tutorial instead of the main menu.
• VFX: New elimination effect.
• Voice Chat: Bunnies now hear each other across the whole map, while the Hunter still hears them only nearby.
• Voice Chat: Each player's voice volume can now be adjusted from the player list.
• Server Authoritative Skill Checks: Cheaters can no longer complete skill checks in fractions of a second.

Balance

• Bunny: Bunnies no longer gain madness in panic, in a cage or in Le Box, and picking up a gear consumes a charge.
• Bunny: Bunnies no longer panic from fall damage, but any damage that breaks a gear, fall damage included, now causes panic.
• Gears: Scissors cooldown 5 s → 7 s, and the cannon requires both a gear and a charge.
• Magician: Magician cards reworked: Unchargeable deals 20% damage per charge, Oil Leak makes a sprinting bunny leave oil and take 1% damage per second, Faker Seeker deals 5% damage per failed skill check while playing dead or in a pile, Snitch gives madness to the nearest bunnies and highlights them, On Command shows the bunny's state and can force it to play dead, and the dissolve card deals damage.
• Magician: The Magician is no longer slowed while picking a card, aims more precisely while holding the hat, and pulls out and puts away the hat and the Imposter faster, so these abilities can be used sooner.
• Sisters: Mannequins can no longer be placed too close to each other.

Interface

• Audio: New sound for the "player died" notification.
• Audio: New sound for the High Striker notification.
• Audio: The Imposter catch notification now uses a softer sound.
• Common: Improved confirmation windows.
• HUD: Bunnies see their team's map progress on the HUD: reached floors and opened shortcuts.
• HUD: The match status shows when the small gates are opened, and Adrenaline has its own status icon.
• Hunters: Hunters can see how much damage they dealt to bunnies.
• Inventory: Recipes show the image of the crafted item, and item widgets show the available role and a Recipe tag.
• Lost Hat: New Lost Hat availability icons for Bunnies and the Magician.
• Main Menu: Main menu visual improvements.
• Match HUD: Match status icons are now shown next to the timer (Lost Hat revealed or destroyed, big gates opened).
• Pings: New ping icons and an Astral Projection gear icon.
• Sisters: The Sisters "Dominators" outfit set is now called "Goth".
• Skill checks: Skill checks are no longer drawn over the settings and pause menus.
• Voice Chat: Bunny HUD now shows which teammate is talking.
• Voice Chat: The voice pitch option was removed from the voice chat settings.

Bug Fixes

Gameplay & presentation

• Achievements: The hunter's achievement for killing all bunnies is now unlocked once, when every bunny of a ranked match is killed or has left without escaping.
• Anti-cheat: Players who speed up their game clock with cheat tools no longer move faster: the server takes the extra time back right away.
• Bunny: Panic is no longer removed when a bunny goes mad.
• Camera: Fixed the camera not moving up and down in some matches.
• Cannon: A bunny caught by a mannequin while flying from the cannon no longer takes the cannon landing damage.
• Cannon: Fixed the invisible cannon seat interaction point.
• Carousel room: Fixed a spot on the Carousel second floor where players could get stuck.
• Contortionist: The Contortionist's web now affects bunnies in every state.
• Easy Mode: Fixed the gates in Easy Mode.
• Graphics: Fixed a crash caused by an outdated material on the violin and scissors props.
• Graphics: Fixed GPU crashes caused by volumetric fog quality being raised above the player's graphics settings near fog volumes and smoke.
• HUD: Fixed the HUD sometimes not being shown.
• HUD: The hunter's Kill and Deal Damage prompts no longer overlap.
• Hunter: Fixed a crash in floor actor highlighting after the hunter was removed.
• Hunter: Fixed a crash related to teleporter booths when the enter animation event fired outside the teleporter.
• Localization: All game text is now translated into every supported language, including new perks, recipes, interaction prompts and the updated Terms of Service.
• Localization: Interaction prompts, mannequin warnings, settings options and ban reasons are now translated, and broken placeholders, icons and key labels in translations are fixed.
• Magician: Fixed a bug with the Magician's booth and cards.
• Magician: The Imposter can no longer be returned while it is working on someone.
• Mailbox: Fixed a crash when reading or claiming a mailbox message that was removed while the request was in progress.

Maps & environments

• Map: Fixed collisions, stuck spots, skips, Imposter places, ziplines and visuals on many floors and connection rooms.
• Map: Fixed god spots, stuck spots, bunny spawns and hat visuals on Fracture, Circus, Organ Hall and Nocturne.
• Map: Fixed Le Box and bunny spawns, ziplines, skips, god spots, hiding spots, hat grab places and collisions on many floors.
• Map: Fixed stuck spots, a god spot, a floor skip and a hiding spot on Nocturne, Amusement, Chess, Organ Hall, Ring, Circus and Fracture floors, the Carousel safe drop, a floating lamp in the Ring and a floor visual in the Circus.
• Map: Fixed stuck spots, skips and collisions on Nocturne, Amusement, Circus and connection rooms.
• Map: Fixed stuck spots, skips, collisions, chest and bunny spawns and bunny holes on many floors and connection rooms.
• Map: Fixed stuck spots, skips, hiding spots and collisions on many floors and connection rooms, and floor settings updated.

Matches & matchmaking

• Match: Fixed hunter awakening at the match start.
• Match: Fixed players having no control at the match start.
• Matchmaking: A party can start a new matchmaking search right after cancelling one, no matter which party member cancelled it.
• Matchmaking: Matchmaking no longer shows a stale search after it was cancelled, and a cancelled search no longer resets a new one started right after it.
• Matchmaking: Matchmaking search can now be cancelled right after it starts, and the Play and Cancel buttons no longer flicker while searching.
• Matchmaking: Restarting the game after a crash no longer leaves the matchmaking search running in the background, and rejecting a found match this way is punished like a regular rejection.
• Matchmaking: Starting a new matchmaking search right after cancelling one no longer fails with an error.
• Matchmaking: The matchmaking search no longer gets stuck on screen after a connection drop, and a search that is still running after restarting the game is shown and can be cancelled.

Ring room

• Ring room: More Ring room fixes with new fence and arch props and updated fabric materials.
• Ring room: Ring room fixes (V1–V5).
• Ring room: Ring room fixes (V6–V11).
• Ring room: Small layout fixes in the Ring room.

Settings, stability & communication

• Settings: Frame generation settings work correctly.
• Shop: The weekly shop timer works correctly.
• Sisters: Fixed the Sisters' legs in animations.
• Skill checks: A new skill check zone no longer appears in the same place as the previous one.
• Stability: Fixed a client crash after interacting with objects showing input hints (e.g. slot machine).
• Stability: Fixed a crash when a commend or report response arrived during map loading.
• Stability: Fixed a crash when the game window was resized, recreated or switched display mode.
• Stability: Fixed a crash when travelling to the main menu.
• Stability: Fixed a rare crash when outline highlighting was removed from objects.
• Statistics: Fixed match player statistics.
• Tutorial: The match timer is shown correctly in the tutorial.
• UI: Fixed the Protection Gear icon.
• Voice Chat: The bunny's mouth moves again while its player is talking.
• Voice Chat: The talking icon is shown only while the player is actually speaking, not for as long as the voice chat button is held.
• Voice Chat: Voice chat is no longer too quiet.

Technical

• Ring room: The Ring room is optimized for better performance.
• Server performance: Server replay checkpoints are saved over several frames, removing a ~170 ms server hitch every 30 seconds.

Thank you for being part of Carnival Hunt. See you in the carnival!