A massive bug-fixing update and a promise that we’ll continue to deliver

Hey friends!

Big news today, as we just released a massive content and bug-fixing patch for Ultimate Sheep Raccoon!

We’ve got so many new things, read on to learn about:

a ton of bug fixes
character control changes
party mode / power-up changes
new levels
new blocks
a completely rebuilt camera system
…and much much more.

This update has a number of big changes that respond directly to player feedback and reviews, and much more beyond that.

We did a deep dive of every single review on Steam, and realized that almost all of the negative ones talk about bugs that are hurting the player experience, especially the first-time experience. A lot of these reviews also mentioned wanting to try the game again when bugs are fixed so read on below.

The quality of USR at launch did not live up to the expectations that our fans had after playing Ultimate Chicken Horse. You’ve come to expect a higher level of quality from Clever Endeavour, and that’s really appreciated. We didn’t meet those expectations on launch, but we are committed to reaching that bar, and we’re delivering on those expectations.

How are we delivering? 👇

We did a bunch of bug fixes in December, made the Skunk update in February, and released this massive bug-fixing patch today. We’re not stopping there! You can look at the USR Future Work Page to see all of our plans for the near future to continue delivering on the promise that we’ve made to you.

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon will be one of the staple party games that people have in their rotation that they play with friends, and we’re putting more time and effort into the game to ensure that becomes the case.

Without further ado, let’s jump into the changes in this update, other than the mountain of bug fixes.

Changed the physics of character movement to make it easier to stop and start (after testing with the community) — we plan on doing even more work on the character controller to live up to our plan of making the best 2D bike controller ever made.

Made power-ups into their own “game mode”, removing them from the main Party Mode. There’s a whole other blog post about this which we’ll be posting soon!

Before:

After:

Added two new blocks

The zapper

The pillow block

It’s not only mosquitos that get zapped here—don’t stay in the zapper’s range for too long or you’ll get got!

Bounce your way to victory with the new springy pillow block! It can be used to spring upwards, get a boost forwards, or create dangerous situations for your fellow animal cyclists.

Added a billion new levels (okay only 4)

Roswell

Nothing strange to see here, just your average highway in the desert…

Castle

Ride swiftly on thine steel stallion, fearsome beast! Careful though, the castle shifts every round!

Compound

If you use mass and velocity then everything is a path… or a portal.

Waterfall Redux

One of the classic levels from Ultimate Chicken Horse gets a remake, with more sunset and an equally amazing song

Rebuilt the entire camera system from scratch, making it much more stable and less janky
Lengthened both Pasture and Bagel City to be longer levels
Slightly improved tutorial
Improved training grounds by making sure the tutorial icons always show, and adding more interactive objects like the frog or pillow so players can learn how they work
Fixed the UI disappearing bug, which caused players to fall and never respawn!! I looked for a video of this, and it’s fitting that we don’t have a recording of it. It happened so often and yet was impossible to reproduce, and the fix was a deep, deep dive into game networking which is far too complicated for me to understand. But it’s FIXED.
Improved the game for various resolutions, including the ultrawide complaints about black bars on the sides — this required rebuilding the camera and a bunch of other tweaks to UI
After:

Before:

Overhauled the UI to make everything more consistent in the UOS (menus)
Improved the keyboard and controls layouts
Added invincibility flash indicator on character sprite
There’s now a notification message when the host disconnects and a client becomes the new host

That’s it?? Well no, not at all. We also made 70+ bug fixes, many of which you can check out in the USR Change Log page. And reminder to check the USR Future Work Page to see what we’re prioritizing next!