Steam: Episodes v.21 BETA

This BETA includes two significant changes:

  • 2-player games (local co-op)

  • Steam Achievements

Main things to watch out for while testing:

  • Ensure that your career and high scores have been correctly upgraded from v.20

  • Test the two-player game. I realize that in most cases a second player will not be available, but at least try it out with one hand on the mouse and the second on WASD+LeftShift. Each player should have their own separate score/medals/high score. However, note that the results from both players are added to the overall career and key balance.

Other notes:

  • Some phrases are still untranslated (waiting for v.152 to be released)

  • Only Episodes 2-5 for now. Episode 1 is coming soon.

To join the BETA

  1. Restart Steam (to receive the latest changes).

  2. Right-click CI2-3-4-5 in your Library (alternatively, click the :gear: icon on the game’s page) and select Properties.

  3. Select the Betas tab.

  4. Under “Beta Participation”, select episode_beta.

  5. Close the window and start the game. From the launch options that appear, select NEW! Episode 2-3-4-5.

9 Likes

2nd player’s huds are hidden when entering screenshot mode and pausing

also, no way to change player 2’s spaceship or something

1 Like

Also 2nd player’s are orange not green

left shift to shoot as p2 doesn’t seem to be alright to be default

ik the expectation is use little finger to press

i feel like the game should be end when 2 player ran out of lives, it’s a offline game anyway.

make it as a feature :))

Fixed in v.21.2 :medal_sports: Bug

I didn’t want to complicate the UI just for a seldomly-used case.

The color is automatically selected to be different from first player.

Both players could be using the keyboard. By default, the second player is restricted to keys on the left side. The right side is reserved for the first player.

Personally, I hate it when games stop in this case. You just want to carry on playing with your friend, who cares if you’re both out of lives?

13 Likes

My friend noticed that Episode 4 isn’t visible on the Steam Deck for some reason. You can play the OG but not CIep4. For comparison:
CI4:


CI5:

It’s hard to say i agree bringing back if you lose all your extra lifes while playing with 2 players then your run is over from the original games to the episodes is going to be an huge mistake especially playing on later difficulties with 2 players you will recognize what ssh painful really is than the original games.

so yeah, i always hated this mechanic in multiplayer and 2 players from the original games but nice to see 2 players is finally brought back with more qol and tweaks in the episodes that the fans really wanted to!

nice addition.

Did you try enable proton in the game’s properties?

because if you try install ultimate omelette without proton enabled then it will install the obsolete native linux version that does not include episode 4.

keep in mind you also have to reinstall the game with the proton enabled as well to see if episode 4 is right here.

1 Like

Yeah, it worked. Thanks!
But it’s still weird that this happens only to CIep4 of all things.
Friend had installed CI2, 3, 5 and Universe and it automatically switched to Proton. And yet you have to check that by yourself with CI4.
Also, apparently all the games except CI4 are verified by Steam as “playable” on Steam Deck and yet UO is marked as “unknown”. Not sure if it depends on the devs or Valve itself to decide on that.

Hard to tell what’s causing it, but I tried to install the latest beta for CI5 and upon opening it, all I got was the profile upgraded pop up, along with a black screen underneath as well as music playing, it then proceeded to close. The log file doesnt seem to have anything of interest, either. I turned steam cloud off, removed the save files, then tried again, and all I got was a black screen once more, without the pop up, and also no music. It feels like it stays for longer, but not too much longer, then closes as usual.

Edit: Same happens with CI3 and CI4 betas. CI2 only had a slight visual bug on the profile upgrade pop up when it comes to its text:

Hm, might be a false alarm. Im not actually sure what’s going on, but resaving the .cfg files in ProgramData fixed the issue for CI3 and CI5, can’t exactly do the same for CI4 because the .cfg file is just not there entirely. What’s weird is that if I attempt to remove the CI5 cfg and then open the game again, it just… starts. Wow.

Edit: I just copied over CI5’s cfg to CI4’s directory, and after a few attempts, it decided to open. It might also be that its not just resaving that fixes the issue, but also setting bEnableFontCache to Yes. It also looks like you can set it to No afterwards and the game still works…

That’s memory corruption. There was indeed a memory corruption bug I fixed in CIU after the Episode BETA was out on Steam. I didn’t bother back-porting it to the Episodes, because I thought they were unaffected. I thought wrong.

Fixed in v.21. :medal_sports: Bug

Will issue an update within the hour.

8 Likes

When unpausing in 2 player mode the Ship of P1 teleports to the bottom middle of the screen. (checked in CI5 as well and the same thing happens.)

1 Like

Fixed in v.22 :medal_sports: Bug

8 Likes

Maybe the text should be squished.
Screenshot_203
list of bugs I found during the “2-player” run,

  • no music playing during the cutscenes
  • during fake bosses (like Egg Cannon Confrontation on w30) gives the same amount of charity of a final wave.
  • if the 2nd player dies, the entire mission counts as defeat for both of the players.

Fixed in v.22 :medal_sports: Bug

That’s unlikely. Can you hear music during the mission?
Also, which Episode?

6 Likes

CIep4, only the cutscenes are affected.
Reloading the game doesn’t work, not sure if this is also happening to other Episodes.