The Blackwater Castle team is attentive to your feedback. We will continue to release patches to enhance your experience within the Castle. An overview of all new updates and bug fixes in the list below.
Castle of Blackwater 0.10.5 Release Notes
Castle of Blackwater is now publicly available on Steam (in demo form) for the first time since our inception, and we couldn’t be more excited! We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made and the amazing community that has formed around the game.
A huge shoutout to the dev team for going the extra mile, and working overtime to ensure the latest stability fixes made it in. And of course, a warm welcome to all new and returning players!
Game Development
○ Emote Syncing – Players performing the same emote near each other will now synchronize their animations and audio for a more immersive experience. Dance battles, anyone?
○ Next Fest Moderation Tools – Players in the demo will see informative pop-ups and UI guides directing them to Discord and the game night schedule. Server access can also be toggled on and off as needed.
○ Voice Chat Reconnect – If a player’s voice chat disconnects, the system will now attempt to automatically reconnect them after a few seconds. No more ghostly silence!
○ New Emotes! – Added Magical Broom and Stargazing emotes, among others!
○ Emote Spawnable Objects – We now support spawnable objects in emotes, meaning you can summon disco balls, instruments, and much more!
○ New Emote Music – Almost every emote now has sound! More ways to express yourself in the game!
○ Cancel Emote Button – Players can now cancel an emote so they’re not stuck mid-dance during the voting round.
Bug Fixes
○ Fixed visual glitches in the Book of Tasks.
○ Fixed a few ability-related bugs that caused some powers to stop working.
○ Fixed multiple player disconnect issues.
○ Fixed a critical bug where if the host disconnected at the end of the voting round, the game would freeze.
○ Fixed several bugs related to “Failed to BootStart” errors.
○ Fixed a spawning orb bug where orbs wouldn’t disappear as expected.
○ Fixed remaining voice chat issues.
○ Fixed the 5-day win condition not triggering properly.
○ Fixed player name length issues causing UI bugs.
○ Resolved multiple sound issues affecting immersion.
Castle of Blackwater 0.9.101
Release Notes
The focus over the past month—and for the next one—has been stability and overall improvements to the gameplay experience. We deeply appreciate everyone who has been joining our playtest evenings, helping us test these builds, and providing valuable feedback. Your input has been essential in getting us here, and we can’t thank you enough!
Game Development
○ Localization is here! Castle of Blackwater is now available in English, Turkish, Spanish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Russian.
○ Werewolf Adjustment – Prey targets no longer see the werewolf on the minimap when a soul is picked up (but can still hear him). Surviving just got a whole lot harder.
○ Anti-Cheat Upgrades – Two non-intrusive versions of anti-cheat have been implemented to keep the gameplay fair and enjoyable for everyone.
○ Voice Chat Overhaul – Simplified voice chat controls in the settings panel and added per-player volume controls in the right-click player options menu. Communication has never been clearer.
○ Player Analytics – A new version of player analytics has been added to help us understand how you interact with the game and improve it even further.
○ New Emote Sounds & Songs – Check out the latest emotes, featuring a variety of sounds and songs to enhance gameplay.
○ Automatic Ready-Up – Players are now automatically marked as ready when moving into a newly joined lobby.
○ Book Stack Improvements – Significant changes have been made to Book Stack, making it a much more balanced and engaging experience.
Bug Fixes
- – Fixed an issue where the sound manager wouldn’t destroy itself upon leaving the lobby, preventing multiple music tracks from overlapping.
- – Fixed various issues causing dead ghosts to get stuck or freeze in place.
- – Resolved a bug that prevented new players from saving their load-outs.
- – Fixed the recordkeeper note not displaying correctly during voting rounds.
- – Addressed frequent teleporting issues for dead ghosts that caused maps to fail to load.
- – Fixed player list breaking under specific conditions.
- – Locked player movement while interacting with the lobby inventory to -prevent unintended glitches.
- – Ensured the lumberjack ability cannot be used while in a minigame.
- – Implemented stability fixes for player disconnects during voting rounds.
- – Fixed several minor broken UI elements.
- – Resolved an issue where long player names broke non-dynamic UI frames.
- – Fixed a bug where the game wouldn’t end after five turns.
- – Resolved an issue causing the psychic ability to trigger twice.
- – Fixed the “You’ve been silenced” text not disappearing after a player’s death.
- – Fixed a bug where winning as Werewolf was not displayed on the victory screen.
- – Resolved an issue where emote sounds weren’t playing in the inventory.
- – Fixed layering issues and improvements in various minigames.
Work-in-progress
- – Addressing networking-related edge cases to improve stability during laggy conditions.
- – Continued UI cleanup to make interfaces simpler and more efficient.
- – Adding custom logic to support hosting Next Fest events.
Next Fest is 2 weeks away!
We’re thrilled to showcase Castle of Blackwater to a wider audience during Next Fest. This is a major milestone for our community, and we can’t wait to see you all supporting the game! A huge thank you to the entire team and our amazing players for making this possible
Let’s keep the momentum going and take Castle of Blackwater to new heights!
Castle of Blackwater 0.9.73 Release Notes
The focus for the past month—and the next one—is all about polishing and stability. While this means you’ll see fewer new features, we’re doubling down on fixes and improvements to ensure a smooth and polished experience for everyone. Let’s dive into what’s new in Build 0.9.7:
Game Development
○ New Skins, Cosmetics, and Emotes – Added support for a wide variety of new visuals to let you customize your in-game look even more.
○ Anti-Cheat System – We’ve implemented a new anti-cheat system that actively monitors player activity to detect impossible actions and ensure fair play.
○ Visual Tutorial Page – A brand-new tutorial page has been added with a fresh visual design.
○ Tutorial Progression System – You can now track your progress in the tutorial as you learn the ropes of Castle of Blackwater.
○ New UI Sound Triggers – Additional sound effects have been added to improve the feel and feedback of interacting with the UI.
○ Window Size and Resolution Setter – Players can now adjust window size and resolution directly in the settings menu. Perfect for fine-tuning your game experience.
○ Updated Player Pop-Up – The player pop-up has been moved from left-click to right-click, making it easier to access options like “Add Friend” and “Report.”
Bug Fixes
○ Resolved several game crash issues for more stable gameplay.
○ Fixed various bugs by wearing and selecting cosmetics, ensuring they load and display correctly.
○ Addressed issues where players could select the same color, making lobbies visually clearer.
○ Improved the functionality of the friend’s system with many fixes.
○ Fixed several voting round bugs to ensure smoother gameplay.
○ Resolved a bug that prevented movement as a dead ghost in some cases.
○ Fixed bugs where alive players could sometimes see or hear dead players.
Fixed UI Issues
○ Some UIs could not be closed manually. Fixed.
○ Some UIs refused to close automatically during events like cycle changes. Fixed.
○ Fixed a bug where the psychic barrier sometimes failed to disappear.
○ Resolved an issue where kills under laggy conditions created duplicate bodies. No more extra corpses.
○ Fixed a bug with cosmetics that occasionally turned players invisible.
○ Improved and fixed numerous issues related to the tutorial.
○ Resolved audio bugs when switching between input/output devices on Mac.
Work in Progress
○ Continuing to improve and expand the tutorial.
○ Addressing additional stability-related issues to reduce crashes and hiccups.
○ Progressing on the shop system and in-game payments.
○ Begun working on localization and translation to bring Castle of Blackwater to more players around the world.
Game Nights with Our Brand Ambassadors
We’re thrilled to announce that each of our two amazing brand ambassadors will now be hosting one game night per week. This is your chance to hop into the latest build, experience all the new updates, and share your feedback.
We can’t wait to see you there!
V0.9.3 build (all platforms) – December 5, 2024
Features:
○ New Back-End Infrastructure – Completely revamped back-end. You now need to create and verify your account through email (the process is now functional!).
○ Player Profile – Access your player profile by clicking your profile badge in the main menu. Customization coming soon!
○ Friends List – Invite friends, track their online/offline status, and enhance your social experience with the new friends list.
○ Change Colour – Players can now select their default colour in the inventory. More color management coming soon to prevent same-color lobbies.
○ First-Time User Tutorial – The first two chapters of the 3-part interactive tutorial are now available! Test it out via the settings menu (look for the Twitter bird icons).
○ Custom Player Names – In-game names are now based on your email. Steam username integration coming soon.
○ Lobby UI Overhaul – A cleaner, simplified lobby interface for better navigation.
○ Inventory Access in Lobby – Access your inventory directly from the lobby by interacting with the changing rooms and the “Q” object.
○ Lobby Text Chat – New feature allowing players to chat while waiting in the lobby.
BUGS FIXED
○ Fixed issue where dead players’ voice chat wasn’t muted.
○ Resolved multiple game-breaking crashes.
○ Refactored voting round code to prevent game freezes.
○ Addressed various bugs from recently introduced features.
WORK IN PROGRESS
○ Steam Playtesting Review – Currently working on getting the build through Steam’s playtesting review process.
○ Cosmetics NFT Integration – NFTs now integrated! Finalizing front-end for the new account management page.
○ Shop UI – Work has started on the new Shop UI.
○ Additional Cosmetics – More cosmetics are being implemented into the game.
○ General Polish – Continual improvements and clean-ups across several parts of the game.