Rhythm Doctor Patch Notes

Hello interns! First of all: a huge thank-you to all of you for the support and kind words we've received since our 1.0 launch! It's been great, and surreal, to see everyone's reactions to the end of the story and the very ambitious final boss that we worked on for a long while.As you might imagine, most people on the team have been taking a well-deserved rest and getting back to work at their own pace. Aside from some quick bug fixes, we haven't really made any big changes to talk about.Although we're done making Acts of Story Mode, there are still some standalone levels that we're working on. One of them is a collaboration with Beatblock, which we recently posted a teaser of.Today's update includes a new Accessibility setting, various fixes to Story Mode, and a bunch of new options in the Level Editor. We look forward to supporting Rhythm Doctor bit by bit throughout the year with smaller updates like this! New Accessibility Setting: Reduced FlashingIn this patch, we've added a Reduced Flashing setting in the Accessibility menu. It weakens and reduces the amount of flashy effects across Story Mode, like full-screen white flashes. This will hopefully make the game much more comfortable to play for players with photosensitivity.To be clear: this setting reduces many instances that may cause eyestrain but does not remove every effect that may cause eyestrain entirely. If you've played the game, you'll know how intertwined some of the effects are to the overall experience and concept of some of the levels. Our goal is to reduce overall eyestrain while still retaining animations and distractions in the levels, so that users of the setting don't get a lesser experience. Players who struggle with epilepsy should still exercise caution while playing the game.As with all of our Accessibility efforts, this will be an ongoing project and an ongoing conversation. If you try the setting, please send us feedback on what you think about it. You can let us know what you think on our official Discord server or by sending an email to kyle@7thbe.at with "accessibility" in the subject line. We would love to know what you think of the toggle and if any levels are still causing discomfort for you.We are still discussing a strategy for making the "window dance" levels cause less eyestrain, which might require a more thorough reworking of those levels and a separate toggle.You may be wondering if the Reduced Flashing setting affects Custom Levels made by the community. It does, but only if the creator of the custom level you're playing has properly tagged the events that cause eyestrain in their level. Because the feature is brand new, this will likely be a small minority of custom levels at first. Please keep that in mind if you decide to try custom levels while using this setting. We encourage all custom level creators to apply these tags to their levels, in order to make them more accessible. General Improvements and FixesTweaked the timings of all beats for a section of 5-2N to be more accurateRemoved redundant cues in 2-XN 2PFixed visual issues with the heart entry animationFixed Rhythm Weightlifter changing your preferred player mode to 2PFixed a case where you could incorrectly get a perfect rank on the final levelFixed some mistakes in 7-X2 2PFixed narration saying "row length -1" in some casesFixed narration announcing boss health in levels that don't have itLevel Editor Improvements and Fixes:Updated the list of keyboard shortcuts while holding tabAdded preset conditionals that work in every level, so you don't need to create them yourselfAdded autocomplete and descriptions for custom methodsAdded various new custom methodsAdded a button to automatically create nurse cues for a oneshot beatAdded a button to convert one!/two!/three!/etc cues into the Set Counting Sound eventAdded "closed" variant of the Samurai Ward themeAdded Scanlines, Pixelate, Embers, Heat Distortion, and VHS Rewind effects to Set VFX PresetAdded heart customization to Paint Rows, and the ability to disable the electric sound effectBorder, tint, and opacity properties can now be individually toggled off in Paint Rows, Hands, and SpritesFixed outdated heart sprite in the freetime beat editorFixed capitalization of "UNBEATABLE" in the character pickerInternal changes to Show Dialogue and Set Counting Sound. Functionality is unchanged but the UI might look differentInternal changes to how file picking is handledThank you for playing!X/Twitter: @RhythmDrGameBluesky: @rd.7thbe.atOfficial Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/

Hello! We have an update regarding Accessibility Features in the game.First off, we'd like to give a huge shout out to our closed accessibility branch testers. Their feedback and suggestions were invaluable. Most of our testers were able to finish the content currently available in Story Mode without sighted assistance. With that said however, there are some limitations that we hope to address in the Early Access period.New FeaturesScreen reader narration for navigating the main menu, level select, and custom levels menu. Use the F8 key to toggle this on or off.Context sensitive input instructions. Press F1 to hear these at any time.Audio cues and narrated text for patient status updates.Screen reader narrated story dialogue. For Story Mode day shift levels, there are also optional scene descriptions.LimitationsWindows onlyThe feature might function on MacOS, but may not follow system VoiceOver settings. It does not work on Linux at all. Pseudo-support for NVDARhythm Doctor runs in the Unity game engine. Due to how Unity handles UI information, we can't add "true" screenreader support that would work like a webpage or native application. Instead, we use a plugin that recreates functionality similar to a screenreader from scratch. Unfortunately, aside from Windows SAPI and MacOS VoiceOver, the plugin only supports the NVDA screenreader on Windows through the NVDA controller client. Some features of NVDA might not work inside Rhythm Doctor, and other popular screenreaders such as JAWS, Zhengdu, and Sense Reader are not supported.Missing Scene DescriptionsMuch of our storytelling is done through the art and animations. We've tried to make them more accessible by writing scene descriptions, but we still have more work to do! Currently only the main levels of the story (known as the "day-shift" levels) are described. Descriptions for optional challenge levels (known as the "night-shift" levels), collaborations, and other bonus levels will come at a later date. No Level EditorThe Level Editor feature for custom level creation is unsupported, as it is a mouse-driven interface. However, rdlevel files are encoded using JSON, and we have players who have learned how to create custom levels inside a code editor.Between now and the 1.0 launch of the game, our focus is on making Story Mode more accessible for visually impaired players, so we haven't looked into the Level Editor. Unfortunately we're a small team, so we won't be able to consider Level Editor improvements in that regard before the 1.0 launch. Other Known Issues Narration on MacOS might not follow system VoiceOver settings. The hotkeys for narration features (F8, F1, F5, etc.) currently do not have bindings for gamepad. Lyric subtitles might be narrated in large chunks, instead of line by line in time with the song.For Custom Level Creators: New Narration ToolsTo help creators make their levels more accessible, we've also added new events and new functions to some existing events in the level editor! In the Sounds tab, there are two new events: Read Narration and Narrate Row Info. Read Narration is a versatile event that can be used to send any text to narration. In story levels, it is most commonly used for scene descriptions. Be sure to check the "Narration Categories" section down below too.Narrate Row Info is useful for signalling many gameplay changes, such as a new patient arriving, or an existing patient's behaviour changing.In the Actions tab, the two events Floating Text and Show Status Sign have new toggle settings for narration. We recommend leaving these on in most cases. Exceptions include duplicate or unintentionally repeating messages, purely decorative ASCII art, etc..Dialogue events will always be narrated automatically. These new events and functions will only run if the custom level's player has enabled narration in their settings, so don't hesitate to make use of them.Narration CategoriesRead Narration and Floating Text events must be set to one of four categories. Notification: Meant for general on-screen text. Show Status Sign messages count in this category. Description: The default category for Read Narration events. Meant to be used for descriptions of visual-only information, like character animations and the background environment. Players can press F6 to toggle them on or off.Subtitles: The default category for Floating Text events. Meant to be used for subtitles of audible speech, like lyrics. Useful for translations. Players can press F7 to toggle them on or off. Instruction: Meant to be used for explanations of game controls. After an Instruction message is narrated, players can press F1 to replay it at any time, until overridden by the next Instruction message. We also have a guide on testing how screenreaders will interpret a level here. TL;DR: turn the speed up!Other changes2-3 Tutorial: Player Two's patient no longer shows up in single player mode.Two player mode: Fixed various intern arm positioning errors.As always, thanks for playing!X/Twitter: @RhythmDrGameBluesky: @rd.7thbe.atOfficial Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/

Version 0.18.1 GeneralUpdated translations.Added text to clarify which direction to change input offsets in the pause menu.Fixed 2P mode visual issues in 2-1N and X-0.Fixed the black background and Lucky's incorrect positioning in 5-2.Level Editor Bug Fixes and ImprovementsFixed event keyboard shortcuts also triggering other global shortcuts (like toggling frame offsets).Play Sound event: Updated dropdown to include recently added sounds.Set Clap Sound event: Fixed values sometimes getting overwritten.Move Room event: Fixed behaviour of empty pivot fields.Move Room event: Fixed room position being reset while scrubbing.Move Row event: Fixed UI issues when changing target from heart or character.Added a cap of 100 recursive tag calls to prevent crashing from an infinite loop.Fixed support for variables in various angle fields, like in Move Row.Scrubbing now works past bar 1000.RDCode: Added "isScrubbing" boolean variable.

Hello, interns!As you may know, Rhythm Doctor allows you play through its Story Mode in 2-Player Co-Op. After selecting a level, use the left and right arrow keys to toggle between 1-Player and 2-Player before pressing "Start!"With today's update, we've made improvements to 2-Player Co-Op across the board in Story Mode. Certain levels' gameplay have been tweaked to make them more fun for 2-Player, tutorials have been reworked to better include both players, and some dialogue will be changed when playing in 2-Player.We're still hard at work on Act 6, the next chapter of Story Mode. We hope you enjoy these patches in the meantime!Go grab a friend and see if they can survive Act 5 nightshifts with you.You can view the full patch notes here.A lot of this update is thanks to two new team members! We have GDColon working on Programming and Level Design (he handled a lot of the 2P level changes), and thefinals as a Summer Programming Intern! Couldn't have done it without them joining us.🎮 Main Game ChangesTweaked the design of the pause menu and reorganized some settingsAdded a first-time setup menu when beginning the gameAdded an option for “Detailed Discord Presence”Allows you to customize if and when Discord displays level names on your activity statusAdded an option for muting the game in the backgroundAdded a sound glossary submenu that allows you to preview and learn about each game soundGameplay sounds in 2P mode are automatically panned left/right depending on player position (The strength of this can be adjusted in the new advanced audio settings submenu)Fixed being able to click pause menu buttons with the mouse when inputs should be disabledFixed certain camera movements revealing off-screen handsFixed hold catching behavior for certain hitsVarious sound adjustments across Story ModeVarious optimizations and performance improvements during gameplay, especially in levels with plenty of image assets and/or RDCode👥 2-Player Story ImprovementsThis update tweaked, polished, and reworked the 2P variants for many story levels and their tutorials!Most tutorial levels now alternate between Player 1 and 2Many levels now contain a “Switch!” cue to announce player changesAdded new clap sounds for Player 2Fixed certain tutorials (such as 5-X) looping endlessly in 2P mode, and CPU-controlled rows not workingFixed several issues with hand positioning when playing with swapped sides1-1: Offbeat section now alternates between P1 and P21-1N: Beats now alternate between both Samurai rows1-2: New section in tutorial to teach switch cue, row switch timings adjusted1-2N: 2P chart overhauled entirely1-XN: Fixed P2 beat sound being too loud2-1, 2-1N: Made the SVT beats funkier2-3: Fixed mistake bubble not appearing for P23-1, 3-1N, 3-2, 3-2N: Adjusted row assignments and switches3-3N: Added row switches throughout the level5-2: 2P chart overhauled entirely5-2N: Tutorial changed to be consistent with the special 2P gameplay1-CNY, 1-BOO: Added 2P chartsVarious bugfixes and visual improvements📝 Level EditorAdded Custom Shake eventAdded Reorder Row and Reorder Sprite eventsAdded Blend Sprite eventAdded speed and intensity control to Wavy Rows VFX presetAdded a button to test how the preview song loopsChanged keyboard shortcuts for many events to be cleaner and consistent across tabsMoved location of the bookmark navigation buttonsAdded Fisheye VFX presetAdded more hover tooltips to many events, especially Sound onesAdded 2P and alt characters to the character pickerAdded indicators to collab and custom characters in the character pickerAdded duration preview to Sprite and Room eventsAdded "Switch", "Watch", and "Listen" voice cues to Say Ready Get Set Go eventAdded Shake Type option to Shake eventAdded the ability to disable all color and opacity fields in Custom Flash, which causes them to automatically use the current flash colorAdded a text effect picker to Show Dialogue eventAdded "One or Two Players" option to Change Player Rows eventAdded Player Two variants of all Clap Sounds.Added speed and ease options to Text Explosion eventAdded custom text input to Play Expression eventAdded mistake count to the "No Event Selected" panelAdded navigational undo/redo keybinds (J and K) which scroll to previous locations without affecting historyImprovements made to scrubbingTweaked the order of the properties in Custom Flash and changed its opacity inputs to use a sliderFixed Volume, Pitch, and Pan getting reset or overwritten in Sound tab eventsFixed dark colors on Show CommentFixed custom character animation speed so it correctly scales with visual speedFixed tags and conditionals not working correctly with Set Row X and certain sound eventsRemoved the colons after all editor property names for consistency📋 Level Editor (advanced)Added the ability to bulk-edit the tags for eventsAdded an option for tagged events to also be run normallyAdded special \ and \ tags which affect shadow row behaviourAdded several new mistake and judgement-related RDCode variablesAdded support for “Not” and “IIf” (ternary operators) in RDCode expressionsAdded “noPopHitstrips” and “noHitParticles” modsAdded negative indexing support for custom character loopStart value (e.g. loopStart of -2 means second-last frame)Added negative relative bar support for Set Play Style eventScrubbing past tagged events no longer triggers them (can be re-enabled with the “runTaggedEventsWhileScrubbing” legacy mod)Improved showHitstripOnlyOnActiveBeats mod behaviorOkay! That was a lot to type.Once again, we're hard at work on Act 6, so we're very thankful for your patience. We're happy with how the game is shaping up as we get closer to the 1.0. We'll have more info about that in the coming months.Thanks for playing!X/Twitter: @RhythmDrGameBluesky: @rd.7thbe.atOfficial Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/

Version 0.16.1 Story Mode Improvements Added new Steam Achievements related to Act 5 2-Player support added for Kingdom of Balloons. If you’re playing with a single controller, you can now play two player levels by each player being controlled with the buttons on each side of the controller. This is especially useful to play 2P levels on devices like the Steam Deck. While in menus, un-focusing the game window will mute game audio. Playing Rhythm Weightlifter now shows as a Discord status Bug Fixes X-1 is now unlocked after beating 5-X instead of 1-XN Fixed various graphical glitches. Improved macOS controller support. Level Editor Bug Fixes and Improvements Settings Menu is available right from the Level Editor’s main menu. Added a preview for event duration on the timeline. Timeline height is now remembered between sessions. Brightness/Contrast/Saturation VFX Presets will now disable properly. "Show Rooms Horizontally" now scrubs properly. Sound selection now has an Edit option (you can also toggle between dropdown and edit with right-click) Fixed room selection for some VFX Presets. You can specify a room for the Show Dialog event. Various fixes related to the "Matrix" VFX preset. Improved the behavior of many events when scrubbing. Various UI improvements. Bookmarks can now be traversed using the buttons available at the right side of the timeline.

We've made some small fixes. Version 0.15.1 Fixed X-WOT crash on fail Updated localisation First mistake in a level now always cracks the heart Fixed gap in row glow visuals Fixed hand position in Intro sequence at the beginning of the game New "syncopation style" toggle on Set Beat Modifiers Fixed X-FTS missing mistake sounds. Fixed behaviour of empty room masks. Fixed behaviour of opacity in decoration tint events. Fixed window dance "shake" behaviour. Fixed dialogue text animation for vector fonts. Fixed 5-X song volume being multiplied twice. Attempted fix at 5-X and 5-2N first load desync. Fixed missing glitch sfx in 5-X on Linux systems. Fixed button and hand animations on level start. Lucky no longer moonwalks in the CLS background. Fixed floating text events not being able to be called by tag action. Level Editor: Fixed CPU marker selection in the level editor. Level Editor: Fixed event control hover tooltips persisting after changing tabs in the level editor. Thanks for playing!

The story of Rhythm Doctor continues! Today, we've added Act 5 to Story Mode. This is a free update that continues the story right where Act 4 left off. When you start up the game and continue your save file, you'll notice a new hallway in Middlesea Hospital: the Physiotherapy Ward. Have fun! We had a lot of fun making it. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31513904/9d5ea4d05514de9e51a786a2df8751d9353637da.png New Features Act 5: Enter the Physiotherapy Ward, meet our new patient, and play 4 new Day Shift levels and 2 new Night Shift levels. New Night Shift level added to Act 4, "4-4N Murmurs" New Level Editor Features: New heartbeat types and a new character seen in Act 5 have been added to the Level Editor, to use in your own custom levels! Visual Updates to 4-2, 4-2N, and 4-4 Added two new options to the Settings: "Drum Mode" and "Tap to Hold." Full detailed changelog coming soon! Act 5 FAQ Q: What is Act 5? A: Act 5 is the next chapter of Rhythm Doctor's Story Mode. It's a free update, added as part of our Early Access, to continue the story of Ada Paige and everyone else at Middlesea Hospital. It takes place immediately after the conclusion of Acts 1-4, which have comprised the game since we first released on Steam. Remember when you saved the hospital from that virus? Q: How do I unlock Act 5? A: It is unlocked after you complete Acts 1 through 4, including the Night Shift boss level "Super Battleworn Insomniac." You will also need to complete, or have already completed, 2-1N "wish i could care less" in the SVT Ward. Q: How many Acts will Rhythm Doctor's story have? A: We're aiming for one or two more, but we're not quite sure yet. Act 5 is not the conclusion of the story! We are not currently planning to do any more "main story updates" to the game until the rest of the story is completely finished and we're leaving Early Access. We feel this is a good place to leave off for now, and we'll continue working quietly towards the conclusion! Q: I'm going to stream the game on Twitch or Youtube. Should I record my whole desktop again? A: Yes, you should probably record your whole desktop instead of just the game window. Or you can adjust your settings in the Settings menu, where it says "Window Movement." If you've played the rest of the game, you probably know what this means. Thank you so much to everyone who has played Rhythm Doctor, streamed it for people around the world, made custom levels, posted fanart and fanfic, and cheered us on during our continued development! When making a game like this, it's hard to know how much it'll click with anyone else, but we've been surprised and delighted to see how much love there's been for this game and our characters. Act 5 has some challenging levels in it, so if you're rusty with your rhythm skills, you might want to warm up with an earlier level. Good luck, and thanks for playing! Twitter: https://twitter.com/RhythmDrGame Official Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/ Cohost: https://cohost.org/7thBeatGames

Hello everyone! We are so close to done, but we need a little more time! Act 5, our free story update to Rhythm Doctor, will now launch on November 4th, 2023. As always, we're trying to maintain a healthy workflow without having to overwork anyone on the team. We're very excited to show you what we've been working on. Thanks for playing, we'll see you soon! Official Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RhythmDrGame Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/ Cohost: https://cohost.org/7thBeatGames

Hello everyone! As you know, Rhythm Doctor is still in Early Access. We launched in Early Access so that we could continue the story, add new levels, and flesh out different mechanics and features before considering the game "complete" by our original vision. Our first major story update, the Act 5 Update, is coming soon! Very soon, actually. We plan to release it on October 21st, 2023. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31513904/a8a906be35b9e5b64aa7a2b3ccb208b4d5191fbf.png Act 5 picks the story up right where we left off, after you've established yourself as an integral part of the Middlesea Hospital team. The update will feature a new ward with a new patient, new type of heartbeat, and new levels. We've been working hard on this for a while, so we're excited for everyone to see what we've been working on. We'll have more to say in October! Official Discord Server: https://7thbe.at/discord/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RhythmDrGame Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.doctor/ Cohost: https://cohost.org/7thBeatGames