CODENAME: Hippo

*This is an outdated update. This update was followed by CODENAME: Hungry Hungry Hippo*

This update was released on August 29, 2014.

## Release Notes

True to its name, the Hippo update is upon us, and it brings a lot of new additions, polish, bug fixes, and mysteries along with it. The release of Hippo marks one of our biggest updates to date and is a key part of what is our now the final phase of beta just before our release on Oct. 7. Here are some details around what Hippo brings with it:

### Highlights

Support for our upcoming Multiplayer Sneak Preview

With multiplayer poised to change the way the world plays Project Spark, there’s still quite a bit of work and fine tuning yet to go for the big day (Oct 7). We'll be sharing more information soon about the upcoming Multiplayer Sneak Preview.

### Unleash the power of the Champions!

A whole new way to play Project Spark arrives as Scarlett, Karlsnor, Haakon and Avalon emerge with new game mechanics and character leveling. Play your favorite Champion in a revamped Crossroads experience that streamlines the story while empowering more customization than ever before! As your Champions level, you can unlock new skills, evolve their appearance, and unlock clothing, weapons, and more to use in your own Create mode creations! In future updates Champion leveling will also be possible in Champions Quest and Community created games.

### Lineage Details (Contribution Value and Download Rewards)

Make your mark on everything you create, and remixing has never been better. Every action you take in Create mode is tracked and a contribution value assigned. If anyone remixes your game or saves objects from a game you create, this data goes with it. Every game has a record of all of the people who have contributed to its creation and when a game is downloaded, rewards are now distributed based on the contribution of each creator. Create, collaborate, share, and reap the rewards like never before!
To view your contributions and rewards, enter the Profile by clicking the profile box in the upper right or by pressing View on your Xbox One Controller.

### We Need You!

We’ve worked hard to ensure every creation from Beta until release would remain available and working. Along the way, we’ve had to make some tough changes in order to make some much needed improvements and make things smoother for the future. Hippo MAY cause several potential issues in levels you’ve created or are playing. So, keep an eye out for this in your creations.

Display family of Kodu tiles – in a past patch, we broke some functionality with these tiles. In this update, we corrected the broken functionality so the tiles would work like they did before.

Combat Balance Pass – We’ve done a pass to adjust/balance the default health and damage values of characters, weapons, hazards, etc. Any manual settings should be preserved (let us know if this is not the case).

Overall Audio Volume Pass – We’ve changed a great deal with how sounds play “under the hood”. Things you could hear from very far away might’ve had the way their sounds fall off over distance adjusted. Move through your levels and double-check to see if you’re still hearing what you expect—especially particularly ‘small’ or ‘large’ sounds, like torch flames and explosions. \*The audio team would love additional feedback, please join them at www.projectspark.com in the forums.

Character Rescaling – We found a bug that caused our default male and female human characters to be incorrectly sized. Already placed characters will not be impacted by this change but future characters and those created from Kode will be 120% larger.

Camera Updates – If there is no active Kodu camera, the camera will keep its last view and no longer receive input or track targets.
Updated Fresnel Lighting Effects on Props – This will slightly change the appearance of some props, and can cause objects with the “pitch black” sky to still get some lighting. This is a temporary problem and will be fixed in an upcoming update.

Updated Tags – We are midway through a series of tag revisions based on how the community has used tagging in their UGC and when searching in the galleries. This work will be finished in an upcoming update.

### Crossroads Revamp

All new Voice Over! The Creation Well is now played by the highly esteemed veteran voice actor Jim Cummings.
Some improvements made to enemies/AI
Side Quests are now available from the “blue” NPCs in the village
Side Quests are now “place-able” giving more choice flexibility
In game text is now editable by pressing RB in a conversation.
New Choices/Encounters
General bug fixes, polish, and performance improvements throughout.
New scoring system

### Additional Cool Features, Updates, and Additions

Dressing Room Enabled Goblins (dress up your Goblins!!!)
New Challenges
New Brain Tile descriptions
Snap to Grid improvements (bug fixes and better UI indicator for controller)
UI Updates including super awesome main menus and animating backgrounds!
New Feed/Level Thumbnail UI
Improved Screenshot/thumbnail presentation
Light Bulb added to show contribution value
Controller Icon to indicate downloads
More Levels displayed on screen at one time
More prominent display of creator
More room for level names
Feature Feed can now scroll to more than 5!
Enhanced environmental texture resolution (sooo pretty!!!)
Audio options so you can independently set sound levels.
Previewing sounds in the gallery should be a much more balanced experience now. Sounds auditioned in the gallery will all play at a nominal volume, so you can accurately pick the sound you want. When you drop it into the world, it will go in at a separate, pre-mixed volume so that you’re ready to play without too much fiddling.
Overall stabilization and bug fixing
General Performance Improvements (these are ongoing and expect more leading to or at release)

## References

1. ↑ http://forums.projectspark.com/yaf\_postst74280.aspx