Release Notes

The Castle of Blackwater team is attentive to your feedback. We will continue to release patches to enhance your experience within the Castle. An overview of all new updates and bug fixes in the list below.

Castle of Blackwater v1.1.0 Release Notes

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes, making Castle of Blackwater a smoother, more intuitive, and more stable experience for everyone, especially for first-time players stepping into the castle for the very first time.

From quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes to polish passes and UX upgrades, this update is all about boosting clarity and stability without compromising on the charm and chaos you know and love. We’ve also focused on continuing to improve the experience for our returning players with a mix of requested tweaks, fixes, and behind-the-scenes tuning. 

Chatting with so many of you in Discord has been awesome. Your feedback, bug reports, and spicy hot takes have been a huge help. We hope you spot your suggestions and ideas in this update, and if not, don’t worry; there’s more coming.

Without further ado, here’s what’s new in Build 1.1.0

Game Development

• Upgraded Unity Engine – We’ve upgraded our Unity version to improve overall stability and reduce random crashes. This also unlocks exciting new tech we’re looking forward to experimenting with soon.

• Upgraded Photon Networking – Our new Photon version comes with better networking performance and lays the groundwork for potential reconnect features in the future.

• Refactored Sound System – We overhauled our sound system for better consistency, performance, and creative flexibility in future sound design.

• Temporary Character Size Increase – Characters are now 20% larger, making it easier to traverse the map and show off your latest cosmetic drip.

• Safe Zone Minigame Fix – The Safe Zone pop-up no longer interrupts active minigames.

• Visible In-Game Lobbies – Players can now see lobbies that are currently in progress to decide whether to wait or search for another.

• Body Report Sound – A new global bell sound plays when a body is reported, slightly buffing the Sheriff and turning up the tension.

• Player Audio Settings – New settings UI allows players to individually mute or adjust the volume of other players.

• Ghost Projectile Diminishing Returns – Getting hit by multiple ghost daggers now has diminishing effects, reducing the chance of spam kills.

• Werewolf Sound Fix – Players in the Safe Zone will no longer hear the werewolf howl when a transformation occurs.

• Push-to-Talk Added – Now available in the settings for those who prefer more controlled voice chat.

• Musical Flames Rework – Slightly simplified and sped up: one fewer step and faster timing.

• Voting Round Duration Increased – Discussion time increased from 45s → 60s and defense time from 10s → 12s.

• Ghost Soul Economy Rebalancing – Reduced ghost soul spawn rate and increased prices for some ghost powerups to tighten the late-game loop.

Bug Fixes

• Vigilante Blood Effect – Vigilantes now get blood on their hands after a successful kill.

• Ability Use Bugs Fixed – Fixed several bugs where player abilities couldn’t be used in specific areas.

• Sound Glitches Resolved – A broad sweep of sound-related bugs has been resolved for cleaner, more immersive audio.

• Tutorial Stability Pass – Fixed multiple issues that could cause the tutorial to break or leave players stuck.

• Ghost Dagger Debuff Timing – Fixed a bug where the confusion effect lingered too long after being hit by ghost daggers.

• Room Names on Mini-map – Fixed display issues where room names weren’t appearing on the mini-map.

• Disconnected Bodies Reporting – Dead bodies from disconnected players can now be reported correctly.

• Book of Tasks Exploit – Patched an exploit allowing players to open the Book of Tasks just before teleporting after a vote.

• Psychic Ability Safe Zone Bug – Psychic ability now properly renders the correct map, even when used in the safe zone.

• Localization Fixes – Numerous language/localization issues across different UIs have been corrected.

• Record Keeper Note Bug – Fixed an issue where the death note would appear multiple times.

• Outfit Save Issue – Fixed a bug that prevented players from saving new outfits in the lobby inventory screen.

• Rematch Lobby Fix – Public games now correctly stay public after a rematch.

• Dead Ghost UI Bug – Ghosts can now properly interact with all components in the player list UI.

Known Issues

Just a quick heads-up: a few issues remain to be fixed. We didn’t want these to prevent us from uploading before the weekend, but keep this in mind and don’t worry about reporting these known issues:

• If the host player (the one who started the lobby) disconnects from an active game, the whole game will crash for everyone left in it. (this is a complex networking issue that we’ll fix next week)

• Sometimes, some players won’t see the time in the voting round

• The ghostly dagger, although better than yesterday, isn’t as smooth as we want it to

• The player menu in the settings panel doesn’t save your preferences when you close it.

If you find any other issues than the above, please let us know!!

What’s Next?

As always, while we’ve squashed a lot of bugs and made big improvements in this patch, we know the work isn’t done. Our next area of focus revolves around making a new smaller map, implementing a cool new system for environmental lighting, and making a lot of improvements to mechanics and abilities to increase their clarity in gameplay. After that’s completed, we’ll move on to the next phase, which will include host settings, new characters, and more retention systems

Thanks for being part of the journey and helping us shape Castle of Blackwater into the best version it can be.

We’ll see you in the castle!

Castle of Blackwater v1.0.6 Release Notes

Hello villagers!

We’ve been blown away by your response and enthusiasm. We’re dedicated to quickly addressing your feedback and ensuring everyone has a smooth and enjoyable experience in the castle.

Thank you for your patience and reports as we work to swiftly squash bugs and implement improvements!

Hotfixes & Improvements

• Ghostly Footsteps Silenced – Ghost players will no longer incorrectly hear footsteps from the living, improving immersion.

• Lobby Code Copying Fix – Fixed the issue causing copied lobby codes to show up incorrectly as “***”.

• Fixed Vigilante kills not showing as blood on hands from the Mentalist ability.

• Satanic Chat Notifications – Satanic chat now correctly displays notifications, making it easier to communicate secretly with teammates.

• Disconnected Stability Improvements – Fixed critical issues causing the game to break when players disconnected unexpectedly.

• Role Reveal Screen Bug – Addressed an issue causing the game to occasionally freeze at the role reveal screen.

• Public Lobby Rematch Fix – Public lobbies will now correctly remain public when rematching after a game ends.

• Cosmetic store animations are looping incorrectly.

• Various UI and visual glitches in the cosmetics and inventory screens.

• Items purchased sometimes not appearing immediately in inventory.

• Persistent Phantom UI icons on the home screen.

• Book stacking is more stable and less volatile

• Fixes to the FTUE to prevent players from getting stuck.

• Fixed mentalist ability sometimes targeting dead ghosts

• We temporarily removed “Confusion” and “Message from the Dead” from the Dead Ghost Powerup Shop for rebalancing.

Keep Your Feedback Coming

We greatly appreciate your reports and are actively monitoring our Discord channels. Please continue sharing any issues you encounter or suggestions you have. Your feedback is essential as we strive to perfect Castle of Blackwater!

Thanks again for your incredible support and patience. We’ll keep rolling out patches and improvements as quickly as possible. Join our Discord community and come play with us!

See you in the Castle! 🏰

Castle of Blackwater 0.10.5 Release Notes

Castle of Blackwater is now publicly available on Steam (in demo form) for the first time since our inception, and we couldn’t be more excited! We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made and the amazing community that has formed around the game.

A huge shoutout to the dev team for going the extra mile, and working overtime to ensure the latest stability fixes made it in. And of course, a warm welcome to all new and returning players!

Game Development

○ Emote Syncing – Players performing the same emote near each other will now synchronize their animations and audio for a more immersive experience. Dance battles, anyone?

○ Next Fest Moderation Tools – Players in the demo will see informative pop-ups and UI guides directing them to Discord and the game night schedule. Server access can also be toggled on and off as needed.

○ Voice Chat Reconnect – If a player’s voice chat disconnects, the system will now attempt to automatically reconnect them after a few seconds. No more ghostly silence!

○ New Emotes! – Added Magical Broom and Stargazing emotes, among others!

○ Emote Spawnable Objects – We now support spawnable objects in emotes, meaning you can summon disco balls, instruments, and much more!

○ New Emote Music – Almost every emote now has sound! More ways to express yourself in the game!

○ Cancel Emote Button – Players can now cancel an emote so they’re not stuck mid-dance during the voting round.

Bug Fixes

○ Fixed visual glitches in the Book of Tasks.

○ Fixed a few ability-related bugs that caused some powers to stop working.

○ Fixed multiple player disconnect issues.

○ Fixed a critical bug where if the host disconnected at the end of the voting round, the game would freeze.

○ Fixed several bugs related to “Failed to BootStart” errors.

○ Fixed a spawning orb bug where orbs wouldn’t disappear as expected.

○ Fixed remaining voice chat issues.

○ Fixed the 5-day win condition not triggering properly.

○ Fixed player name length issues causing UI bugs.

○ Resolved multiple sound issues affecting immersion.