The Art of Worm Update

**The Art of Worm Update** is the biggest content update that *Last Train Outta' Wormtown* has had so far. It is also the first major update to have a dedicated name and artwork for it. It was released on September 15th, 2023.

To access the test patch: Simply Right-Click Wormtown in your Steam library → Properties → Betas, and select the “public beta branch” from the drop down list. You should see Steam begin downloading the test patch. (To return to the default Wormtown patch, simply select “none” in the betas dropdown list).
Note: All players in a lobby will need to be running the same test patch to play together.
Guidebook: There’s a bunch of new additions in this update, with them comes a new “Guidebook” menu that will give further details about abilities, items, locations etc. You can access the guidebook from “How to Play” on the main menu or at any time via the pause menu.
To keep this update log as short as possible, you can check out the details on the new equipment and abilities in the Guidebook. (Note: The Guidebook isn’t finished/polished, expect it to be improved soon, but for now it has all of the pertinent information.)
8 New Worm Abilities: Worms now have a loadout of 3 abilities: The Sonar Scream, and two abilities of their choosing. When in the lobby, switch to the Worm team and a new “Worm Abilities” button will appear where you can select them.
10 Pardner Equipment items added: Pardner Equipment is a new type of item Parders can use. Pick up an equipment item and press the “inventory” button to equip it. Pardners can have one equipment equipped at a time. Pressing the “drop” button with empty hands will unequip and drop the equipment you have equipped.
There are different types of equipment. Some are pure passive buffs, others require you to aim and fire, or have specific requirements before they are usable. You can see all of the details on how to use them via in-game prompts, or the Guidebook.
Chests now always contain 1 random Pardner equipment, along with the chance to spawn their usual loot.
Lookout Towers: Lookout Towers are a new building type great for getting a high vantage point to scout the map. They always contain two chests, and thus a great place for guaranteed equipment. There are 3 Lookout Towers on the map. (edited)
Additional Smaller Changes/Fixes:
Removed collision from train tracks, so Pardners can walk through them now.
Fixed the “Breakdance” bug, where Pardners would sometimes rotate their entire body and no longer be oriented correctly. To fix this, I had to change how quickly Pardners face the direction they are moving, so it may feel slightly different.
Pardners now gain drag faster when stationary, meaning they are less slippery/slidey when they stop moving.
Fixed misaligned killboxes in houses. There were some “safe” spots in crumbling buildings.
Removed roof overhang on all buildings. No more bonking your head while trying to climb onto roofs!
With the addition of the new Worm abilities, Sonar Scream no longer does damage at night.
Explosions from dynamite in a Worms mouth will now light other Dynamite fuses.
Added screen effects for taking damage and being revived.
Changed the “Heart Jar” related pings in the QuickChat menu to “Equipment” related, since you now see Heart Jar locations in inspection mode.
You can now stand and jump off of small props and chests. Before they weren’t counted as valid ground and you’d push or slide off of them.
Fixed an issue with map generation only spawning a handful of the intended building interiors. (i.e. You’ll find more prop variety and building layouts now)

Known bugs in this beta patch:
Building destruction desync: Occasionally, a Worm will destroy a building, but the destruction won’t happen for all players. Leaving the building in a weird state, making it invincible for the players who still see it. I’m looking into it!
If a Worm eats a chair, it will lock them in place until it is fully eaten. Chairs OP.
Match settings sometimes aren’t synced in lobby, leading to some players having different rules when the game starts (like having more health, sundown timers off sync, etc.) (edited)

August 23rd, 2023 (Beta)
Fixed "super throw" exploit, which allowed Pardners to absolutely YEEEET objects. (this should also fix Heart Jars not always disappearing when their Pardner is revived.)
Pardners are unable to trigger a sandtrap for 5 seconds after escaping a Worm mouth OR escaping a sandtrap.
Ghosts no longer can get stuck in sandtraps.
Fixed furnace explosions and explosions from other Worms eating dynamite ignoring the Worms armor ability.
You now lose a little "grip" when jumping while climbing/clinging to a wall.
Renamed the "Ghost Board" to "Luigi Board".
Worm no longer sees unintended parts of Pardner equipment. (Label on the snake oil, letters on the Luigi Board, etc.)

August 24th, 2023 (Beta)
Changes:
The escape mini game now has “checkpoints” when you reach certain points filling the escape meter. A failed input will revert the escape meter progress back to the last checkpoint you crossed. On normal difficulty, you get a “checkpoint” after 3 correct inputs. This means you still lose progress for failed inputs but multiple quick failed inputs in a row won’t set you back all the way.
Lowered the grip loss when jumping while climbing from 22% to 8%.
The Armored Carapace ability is inadvertently blocking all damage sources, not just external ones. (i.e. it’s blocking damage when you eat a dynamite, too!) I’m going to keep this in for now and see how it affects balance, as Armored Carapace felt like one of the weaker abilities as it was. To counter some of it’s new strength, I’ve lowered the duration of the armor to 16 seconds (was 20).
Lookout Tower chests no longer contain normal loot drops (coal, fruits etc.) - They will only drop one guaranteed equipment.
Dynamite explosions will now destroy sandtraps in their blast zone.
Added a dithering effect for hats when in over-the-shoulder cam view, as they were blocking vision while aiming equipment. Big hat gang rejoice!

Bug Fixes:
Added “spam protection” to dropping objects.
Fixed issue where Pardners were sliding around longer than intended from push-back effects (Rifle recoil, body slam etc.)
Fixed being able to enter the over-the-shoulder camera view while in a Worm mouth, and thus allowing you to shoot rifles/crossbows.

August 25th, 2023 (Beta)
Tar Wall Rework:
* Now spawns a ring of tar around the Worm, instead of a line in front of them.
* Drastically increased size of tar spikes.
* Added dithering effect on the tar spikes for the Worm only, so you can see through them at close range. (Also means you can hide inside of a tar spike and leap out onto an unsuspecting Pardner.)

The Quickchat equipment ping will now display what Equipment you have in the event feed message.
Sandtraps will now be destroyed if any part of their radius is in a Dynamite explosion. (Before it had to be the center of the trap)
Added the Sandtrap/Dynamite interaction to the Guidebook.

Fixed ragdolls having equipment items still on their body.
You’ll now fall off of ziplines if the zipline post has moved since grabbing it. (No more flying through the air on an invisible zipline!)
Fixed issues when grabbing a wall and climbing a ladder at the same time. (Thanks, @Digg¢ !)
Can now jump from a ladder to another ladder (previously, you wouldn’t grab the second ladder).
Fixed issues when “burrowing” while using the Body Slam ability. You'll now burrow and cause the Slam effect when passing through the ground.

August 28th, 2023 (Beta)
Pardner Status Effects: Added a new status effect system for Pardners to help balance and add fun new interactions. These status effects are visible by particle effects directly on your Pardner character. This opens up a whole lot of creative options for various effects in the future!
Status Effects:
Tar Wall Slow: Touching a Tar Wall will slow your Pardner by 50% for 5 seconds.
Scorching Sands Burn: Scorching Sands now adds a “burn” status effect to the Pardner touching the sand. This effect deals 2 damage per second, and lasts for 1.5 seconds. The status effect gets reset when touching the sand. (The previous damage was 5 per second, and jump spamming would essentially mitigate nearly all of the damage. This new status effect version will guarantee at least 3 damage every time you touch the sand, but overall the damage has been nerfed.)

Sandstorm + Scorching Sands combo ability balancing:
Sandstorm Changes:
Reduced wind push force while airborne. This should make it much easier to get off of the sand during the storm.
Scorching Sands Changes:
Time between the Worm using the ability and the sands starting to heat has been increased to 3 seconds. (was 2 seconds)
The sand must be fully red before damaging Pardners.
Camera Fixes:
There’s been annoying quirks and issues with the camera (especially the over-the-shoulder Pardner view) for a while now. Multiple camera changes are included in this patch to hopefully resolve the lingering issues. (Thanks,@Digg¢!)
Bug fixes:
Fixed not resetting additional zipline momentum when grabbing a wall.
Fixed issue where Pardners would occasionally stay holding onto a ladder that was moved.
Misc changes:
Reduced the intensity of the “taking damage” screen effects.
Added event feed messages for Pardners dying to Bile bomb, Scorching Sands, and Body Slam.
Lantern material is now bright and fancy
Added the new Tar Wall and Scorching Sands changes to the Guidebook

August 31st, 2023 (Beta)
Added the Adrenaline status effect:
Adrenaline grants 50% damage reduction and 100% stamina reduction. Lasts 10 seconds. Whenever a Pardner escapes a Worm mouth, they gain Adrenaline.
This should fix two problems, One being Pardners with very low health (and thus low stamina) not being able to reach a safe spot before the Worm heals, and the damage reduction nerfs some Worm ability combos like placing a Bilebomb right when a Pardner escapes their mouth. The Bilebomb combo does take some guess work and prediction, and it’s an intended strategy, but Adrenaline should make it feel less punishing and cheap for the Pardners.
New Pickup Information Display: Instead of the panel that pops up above the object you’re looking at, the information will instead display on the right side of the screen. This will also indicate if an item is an Equipment or Objective item (aka, the Train Key).
Misc Changes:
Added custom death event messages to the Worm abilities.
Removed all status effects and their particles when a Pardner dies.
Made the Church hill smaller.
Previously, Pardners that climbed too high would lose all of their grip immediately. As an unintended side effect, this also was happening when climbing the top of the church. This “grip loss” has been completely removed, and new colliders have been added to the red rock walls to handle it now.
Backpacks and Equipment items have a dithering effect when playing as Worm, so they will no longer block your vision when gobbling a Pardner with them equipped.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed multiple control prompts shown when holding a usable item and having usable equipment (Items take priority in these situations).
You can no longer take items out of your inventory while in a mini game (Worm mouth or Sand Trap).
Fixed building destruction getting de-synced (for real this time!)
Fixed the Worm being able to grab objects and Pardners through walls.

September 1st, 2023 (Beta)
Worm Ability Balancing
Bile Bomb:
Radius Increased to 10 units (was 8).
Detonation time reduced to 3.3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
Scorching Sands:
Damage per second increased to 3 (was 2).
Escape Balloon Changes:
Once the Balloon has flown into the map, if a Pardner gets revived, the Balloon will lift up the ladder and fly to the center of the map. When there is only 1 Pardner remaining again, the Balloon will pick a new landing spot and move there. (No more Pardners camping the Balloon ladder, waiting for their buddies to get eaten!)
Added a toggle in the match settings to disable the Escape Balloon.
Misc Changes:
Moved the new pickup item information HUD display. It is now centered above your Pardner.
Added map boundaries for ghosts.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed issues with zipline velocity and ladders.
Fixed an exploit where you could get unlimited uses of an Equipment item.

September 1st, 2023 Hotfix
Fixed issue with restarting lobbies.
Fixed Worms seeing adrenaline particle effects when Pardner is invisible.

September 8th, 2023 (Beta)
Pardner Cosmetic Save Slots:
There are now 5 save slots for Pardner cosmetics. They will appear on the main page of the Pardner customization menu.
This required a rewrite of how the cosmetics were saved, and when you launch the game, you should see a default Pardner - but don’t worry: There’s an additional button on the save slot sidebar to load your Pardner from the previous save system!
Additionally, the Pardner cosmetics will now sync to the Steam Cloud.
New Worm Ability Icons and UI Polish:
The very placeholder ability icons have been replaced with finalized art! I’ve also added some additional visual polish to the Worm Ability HUD.
Guidebook Changes:
I’ve added additional pages, images, and content to the Guidebook, including pages for the basics mechanics of Pardners, Worms, and general gameplay.
Cymbal Monkey Changes:
Increased the Cymbal Monkey Worm stun duration from 10 seconds to 12.
Worms under the effect of the Cymbal Monkey stun now have their camera controls reversed for the duration.
Added particle effects above the Worm’s head while they are stunned.
Bile Bomb Changes:
You can no longer fire a Bile Bomb when something is in your mouth.
Fixed Bile Bombs firing below the ground when aiming downward.
Armored Carapace Changes:
You can no longer cast Armored Carapace when something is in your mouth. (You can still use the ability before grabbing something, just not while something is in your mouth. This should fix an overly strong strategy of Worms reacting to accidentally eating dynamite by armoring immediately.)

Misc. Changes:
The Jump you do when completing a mini-game no longer takes stamina.
Worms no longer see cactus seeds being held in Pardner hands. (When they are aiming to throw the cactus seed).
Pardner “Equipment” has been renamed to Pardner “Kit”, as typing “equipped equipment” felt silly.

September 13th, 2023 (Beta)
New Music Tracks:
Added 3 new music tracks for the different game endings.
New Accessibility Options:
These new settings should hopefully help players with colorblindness and other visual impairments. These settings can be found in the options menu.
Added custom Worm "ping" color settings.
Added a toggle for the "first-person Worm mouth" visuals when playing Worm (The teeth/mouth around the camera).
Vanilla Mode:
Added "Vanilla Mode" in the match settings. This is the classic Wormtown gameplay, with no Pardner Kit Items or additional Worm Abilities. You can find the checkbox for Vanilla Mode in Match Settings.
Note: The Worm still has Sonar Scream.
Misc. Changes:
Cactus Seeds now spawn small barrel cactuses when thrown close to the train (The tall cactuses still spawn when not close to train). This should help with Pardner's blocking the train doors with cactuses.
Chosen Worm abilities will save between lobbies. (Will reset when you relaunch the game.)
Added Vsync option in the Resolution dropdown.
Made the Orange spectrum in the color picker more "orangey".
Misc. Bug Fixes:
Fixed Worms getting stuck in place while eating chairs.
Additional Camera fixes when exiting menus and quickchat. (Thanks, @Digg¢ !!)
Fixed cosmetics not saving in the Friend's Pass.
Added safeguards for altering Pardner cosmetic save files.
Fixed "Player Left" messages popping up when someone attempts to join a full game.
Fixed desynced Buildings in the Tutorial maps.
Fixed a latency related bug where players could add multiple duplicates of an item into their inventory.

September 15th, 2023 (Beta)
Added new intro screen when you load up the game, mentioning the new content/update
Fixed an issue where Pardners can get softlocked, unable to drop or throw an item they're holding. (also added a safeguard to reset your Pardner after 10 seconds if you do somehow get softlocked)
Fixed being able to select multiple of the same ability as Worm