Contraption Kaiju Update 1.5.0

This update is so big, it’s Godzilla big. Because now you are the monstrous, lazer-breathing beast that hovers over Fantastic Contraption levels, the contraptions and wee Neko so tiny and innocent down there on the ground. Yes we do love room scale, but there are times and places where you just want to reach over your entire contraption without walking across the room.

And so we present: Kaiju Scale:

We’ve packed a ton of new features into this update. Read on, or watch this TL;DR video to get brought up to speed!

Kaiju Scale

You can scale from 50% of regular room scale size, which can be comfortably played while standing in one place, way down to 10% roomscale which feels like playing with a miniature set of contraption pieces about the size of Lego. The controller flowers shrink down to smaller precision buds so you can more easily see what you’re doing in this tiny, detailed little world.

If your VR hardware is configured for a small space, the Room Setup menu will appear automatically the first time you play. You can force Fantastic Contraption into Kaiju Scale and reconfigure your space via the companion menu on your monitor:

During Room Setup two batons appear in the middle of the level. While wearing your HMD you can grab these to scale, raise and lower, move or rotate the world to fit your play space.

We’ve made some changes to the dark world to make everything more easily reachable. The Trashcan Frog has some new friends who proudly hold up the credit statues and other toys to play with. At the smallest scales everything appears in miniature. The tiny table filled with tiny tiny models is soooo cute.

Playing as a giant in a miniature world can give you a different perspective on levels. My favorite way to play is to scale the world down to about 25% and place it right on the floor, then I sit down on the carpet cross-legged and play like a toddler stacking blocks. I’ll let Colin illustrate:

Companion Eye-Cam

You could always tear your eyes out of your head, but now you can switch the companion-camera to follow your eyes around! Great for giving your viewers ringside seats to the entertainment.

Rating Contraptions

There’s a new way to keep track of your favorite Contraptions both local and online: give them a smooch to favorite them! This bedazzles them with hearts and will cause them to rise in the ranks on the “Online Contraptions for this Level” shelves.

Neko Modding

Our favorite toolbox-cat Neko’s been given a bit of a makeover, with a toothy new grin. We’re also using him to test out Steam Workshop modding, by letting players provide a replacement skin texture to change Neko’s color and appearance. Try it out! Here are the Modding Instructions.

Those teef!!

New Languages

We’ve started localizing Fantastic Contraption into other languages. First up is Japanese, which we needed last month when we showed the game at the Tokyo Game Show (where we won an award for Best Tech!). You can switch languages via the companion menu on your monitor. We may be adding more soon, or you can make your own using the Steam Workshop (see modding instructions here).

New Avatars and Hats

We’ve been having a bunch of fun bringing new 3rd person avatars and hats into the game. Change avatars or hats by grabbing the maquette and pressing the directional thumb pad left/right/up/down. Switch to 3rd person view (camera icon on the companion menu on your monitor) to show these off to people watching in the room, or use the Twitch tools or GIF recorder from our Social Update to share online.

Twitch Avatar Voting

New for Twitch: people in chat can now vote for the avatar or hat you’ll wear by typing !avatar wolf or !hat viking. Votes are tallied every 60 seconds and the avatar and hat changed to the crowd favorite. Full usage:

Twitch Command	Effect
!avatar {NAME}	Vote for an avatar by number {0-18} or name {sheep, wolf, frog, cat, unicorn, rabbit, walrus, monkey, fox, snake, mouse, elephant, pig, beetle, pegasus, pony, gorilla, dog, otter}. After 60 seconds (the default), votes are counted and the winning avatar selected. If typed by a chat moderator, the avatar changes immediately.
!hat {NAME}	Vote for a hat by number {0-19} or name {crown, princess, gentleman, viking, catHead, fez, tiara, dog, party, halo, laurels, hardhat, headphones, pirate, dogPrincess, constructionCat, anglerFish, bamboo, chef, unicorn}
!avatarvote {COMMAND} {TIME}	Chat mods only: possible commands are {enable, disable, once} and time is in seconds. !avatarvote enable 300 changes voting rounds from 60 seconds (the default) to 5 minutes. !avatarvote once 10 gives everyone 10 seconds to vote once, then disables voting. !avatarvote disable turns it off.

Full Changelog

There have been quite a few other changes to improve stability and prepare for the upcoming Level Editor (next major release!). And there’s more yet to come…

• Kaiju Scale: full support for playing in smaller spaces including seated. (Re)configure world size and orientation via the companion menu on your monitor (settings > standing scale > configure standing). Config will automatically run once if SteamVR is set to “Standing Only”.
• Steam Workshop support for modding Neko skins. See our Steam Workshop and Modding Instructions
• Workshop support for other languages. See our Steam Workshop and Modding Instructions
• Japanese language support. Change language via the companion menu on your monitor. Other languages coming eventually and/or create your own using Steam Workshop.
• Rate and fave saved contraptions by giving them a smooch
• Throw level from maquette to frog to delete autosave and revert
• New avatars and improved avatar model physics
• Change avatar by using the touchpad while grabbing maquette
• New avatar hats and improved existing hat models
• Twitch chat voting on avatars and hats with “!avatar wolf” or “!hat 5”, defaults to 60 second rounds. Twitch mods can disable, trigger rounds, or force a change immediately.
• Avatar shadows
• Command-line arguments to run in demo mode, eg “-demo”. Contact us for full list
• Rearranged things in dark world
• Combined level and contraption save tables into one
• New look for Neko
• Highlight Neko’s parts when you’re close enough to grab them
• Improve Neko animation performance
• New look and animation for victory spheres
• Improve stereo shader rendering
• Tweaks to tutorial messages
• Hourglass loading indicator
• Fade out effects
• Selection highlighting on camera bug and some other things
• Sound tweaks
• Tweak and tune all haptic responses
• Added arrows to tutorial umbilicals
• Minor tweaks to several levels (must delete autosaves to see)
• Hide online contraptions made with newer incompatible game versions
• Fix helmet obstructing first person companion view
• Fix error on loading corrupt save files
• Fix Twitch panel error and bloat
• Fix SteamVR init crash
• Fix physics issues caused by variable framerate
• Fix respawn delay after taking items from Neko
• Fix hitting start/stop while loading
• Fix several levels so they’ll break less
• Fix snaps disappearing or being where they shouldn’t
• Fix and tweaks to camera bug
• Fix Neko’s missing eyes on blink with helmet
• Fix spelling “comfortably”

Fireside Chat

Andy Moore sat down with our friend and fellow VRnaut Kayla Kinnunen for a little fireside chat to discuss all the above features in a much-too-long-winded fashion. If you want to experience the thrill of awkward pauses and dry jokes, check out the 15-minute epic on youtube!