Patch v1.02, Playable Demo, And 20% Off Halloween Sale

Sneaky Bastards is thrilled to announce that Patch v1.02 for Wildfire is now live! This patch contains some major performance improvements across the board, and addresses numerous raised from player feedback. Additionally, we're excited to participate in our first major Steam Sale by offering 20% off Wildfire throughout the Halloween Sale event! Be a spooky witch and get up to some elemental mischief this eve! Finally, we've also released a playable demo which gives you a unique accelerated look at a hand-picked selection of levels and elemental powers from throughout the game.

Patch v1.02

The patch notes for v1.02 are below, and you can also read them combined with the previous v1.01 update here:

> Read the full patch notes here

Graphics and Performance

Global performance improvements and optimisations

Fixed an issue that caused dedicated GPUs not to be used to render the game, in systems that also contained an integrated GPU

Slightly improved the performance of the fire fluid dynamics simulation effects

When Dynamic Fire Effects are disabled, the resulting fire visuals will now more closely emulate the full fluid dynamics effects

The game will no longer experience slowdown when breaking a lot of wooden objects in rapid succession

Steam Screenshot function now correctly works on all systems

Fixed a graphical error related to the Embrace Items Meteor Shard showing a green circle

Fixed an issue that caused vines thrown at gates to be drawn incorrectly

Vines thrown at single tile high corners will now correctly draw their single corner sprites

Incorrectly aligned objective arrows at the edge of the screen now show the correct angle

Meteor shards are no longer invisible when playing with Character Outlines disabled

Water fountains no longer display a red outline when water can be embraced from them

An issue which caused the dripping animation to not follow wet guards has been fixed

Korean text when confirming an upgrade to spend points on no longer goes outside the menu button

Russian text when highlighting an ability's cost on the Abilities menu no longer overlaps

Russian text when highlighting an empty Meteor Shard slot no longer goes off-screen

Russian text in menu buttons when reloading a checkpoint no longer goes outside the button boundaries

Crash Fixes

Fixed a crash that occurs after the generator is disabled in the Palace Laboratory

Fixed an issue that caused duplicate Kickstarter lockets to appear in New Game+ and cause crashes when finishing a level

Fixed an issue that caused duplicate Meteor Shards to appear in New Game+ and cause crashes when finishing a level

Fixed a crash that occurred when throwing ice at explosive barrel piles

Fixed a crash caused by restarting the game while being smelled by a bobcat

Controls

Gamepad joystick icons redesigned for increased clarity

Increased the pickup radius for Meteor Shards, and prevented players from dropping held objects while trying to pick them up

The Embrace Fire prompt no longer shows when aiming at a closed tesla coil with the Embrace Element gamepad cursor

An incorrect control prompt in the Ice tutorial has been fixed

The right-hand camera pan arrow now correctly disappears when no longer panning the camera

Instances in which incorrect controller prompts for closing a coffin were showing have been fixed

When using a controller, an issue that caused the gamepad cursor to not appear when aiming directly up or down has been fixed

The player will now face the correct direction when first throwing a chicken in the tutorial

Fixed an issue that caused the player sprite to face the incorrect direction in certain situations with Accessibility Mode enabled

Fixed an issue that caused the player to repeatedly mantle when mantling up ice blocks

Fixed an issue in which the player would enter a coffin hiding state without being inside a coffin after certain conditions

Player Abilities

The Rejuvenate ability no longer restores grass in the first water tutorial; as such fires will no longer infinitely propagate across rejuvenated grass

Ice can no longer be created in the same place as coffins

Ice created in water will now naturally melt away over time

Reloading a checkpoint after dying inside a Bubble will no longer cause the player's position to be affected by that Bubble after reloading

AI Behaviour

Enemies who spot the player at the edge of their vision range will correctly detect the player much more slowly

Enemies who are frozen no longer get suspicious about lights turning off

Villagers now correctly walk out of exit doors to be rescued

Rigel is no longer trapped by the player's Vine Trap

Enemies trapped in Vine Traps can no longer be picked up if sleeping or dead, until the trap ends

An issue that caused villagers to disappear when carried into crawlspaces in City 4: Tower Prison has been fixed

Enemies no longer say dialogue related to panicking about fire when attacked with water while the Hydrophobia meteor shard is equipped

Villagers following the player while above or below the player will no longer turn in place

Fixed an issue that made villagers wait too long to enter checkpoints or open exit doors

Fixed an issue that caused archer's arrows in flight to not pause when picking up a meteor shard

Levels and Environment

Terrain changed in Caves 4: Deira Falls to prevent players unlocking the second checkpoint shrine without fire

Tutorial text for the locked gate in Forest 6: Dubra Trench now correctly disappears once the gate has been bypassed

An issue that caused a softlock in the opening chicken tutorial has been fixed

An issue which caused the player and villager to get stuck in the Rejuvenate Spirit Trial has been fixed

Meteor shards in levels no longer get caught in bubbles

Fixed an issue that caused falling snow to not create new snow piles to hide in when immediately next to one another

Audio

Fixed additional cases where duplicate music tracks could be played at the same time

Fixed a spoken vocalisation that was still playing when the audio option was turned off

Fixed certain footstep sounds playing outside of the set volume level

Footstep audio effects when walking through burnt grass and creating audio disturbances are now louder

Save Data

A separate save file backup has been created when the player begins New Game+, which preserves their old progress in the map before looping into New Game+. This file is available in C:\Users\[NAME]\AppData\Local\wildfire

An issue preventing Spirit Points from correctly being allocated on beginning New Game+ has been fixed

Playable Demo

You will now find the link to a playable demo on the Steam Store Page for Wildfire. This demo contains the full opening tutorial, plus three levels which have been specially selected from throughout the game to give you a compressed idea of the depth and complexity that Wildfire reaches. Additionally, a special set of elemental powers is on offer to play with throughout those levels, allowing players to get a quicker sense of what a fully powered player could be capable of. Finally, the demo is fully playable in two-player local co-op, or across Steam Remote Play!

Halloween Sale: 20% Off

In celebration of this massive update's release, we're excited to participate in the Steam Halloween Sale by offering 20% off Wildfire! If the game has been sitting on your wishlist for some time, or you've already bought it and haven't convinced your friends to take the plunge, now is the time to do so! This sale only lasts for the Halloween weekend, so don't miss out!

Before we go, we'd like to draw special attention to Stealth Docs ' in-depth YouTube video examining the stealth mechanics and elemental gameplay of Wildfire. Stealth Docs is a brilliant channel that dives deep into classic and modern stealth games, and we couldn't be happier to be compared to such great titles as Thief, Dishonored, and Mark of the Ninja:

Social Links

For now, that's all from us! We hope you all enjoy the update, and we'd love to hear any feedback you have over at the Discussion Forum. You can also be a part of the community:

> Join The Sneaky Bastards Discord > Follow us on Twitter @WildfireGame