Did you know? Santa Claus and REDLINE CROOKS have a lot of things in common. For one, there is the fact that the color RED is firmly denoted in the game's title, and that Santa Claus wears RED. Some may say that this is actually where the similarities end. To this, I can only say that whoever this "Some" guy is should remember the time Santa Claus performed a sick 270° drift while riding over a lemonade stand in the classic Christmas tale "Santa Claus performs a sick 270° drift while riding over a lemonade stand". Maybe that will help in getting my point across.

The Milk and Crookies patch marks the second non-hotfix patch to the game and comes with a variety of changes ranging from bug fixes, balancing, and your usual dosis of Quality Of Life to iron out some of the rougher parts of the game.

• Added a variety of new Shopkeep Special effects to the game
  
• Increased Shopkeep Special usage HP cost

Shopkeep felt a little lacking as a character. The Special idea is only as fun as varied the effects are, and I felt like the current quantity of effects wasn't really enough to make Shopkeep replayable and fun. I've added 14 new effects, bringing the total up to over 40. A lot of the new positive effects are damage dealing ones to contrast the buffs Shopkeep usually gets. I had a lot of fun making some of these, which should lead to some funny improvisation down the line. Due to the new likelihood of Shopkeep rolling extraordinarily powerful effects, I have also increased the usage cost of the special to keep things in check.

• Removed Enemy-NPC behavior in which they would start boosting at rapid speeds after being ahead of the player for a prolonged amount of time.
  
• Added NPC "stall-out" behavior: When letting enemies stay ahead of you for a prolonged amount of time, shooting enemies will shoot more frequently, and melee enemies will fall back behind the player to activate their melee behavior.
  
• "CATCH UP" notification will now trigger with fewer enemies ahead.

To discourage "sleepwalking" through the game, if the player would permanently refuse to boost and just allow enemies to pile on ahead of them, enemies would previously start to boost rapidly after a certain amount of time has passed. The idea was that this would encourage the player to catch-up, as enemies would reach the level end sooner end remove precious amount of time. This mechanic was pretty bad: Not only did it not prevent "sleepwalking" through the game as the kind of players prone to do so (new players that don't fully understand boosting yet) would not understand the implications of letting enemies get really far ahead, but when it does trigger, the player would just be left alone with nothing to threaten them. Overall, horribly thought out mechanic. This update removes this mechanic altogether and replaces it with a "stall-out" protocol. If the player allows NPCs to bunch up in front without ever making an effort to get rid of them, enemies will now stick around in front more reliably, shooting more frequently to actually give a strong reason to get rid of them by boosting into position. Additionally, melee enemies will get in position to trigger their behavior more reliably, so they are more of a threat in situations like that.

• Added Milk
  
• Added Lactose Intolerance
  
• Tracking Jobs which disallow the taking of certain upgrades will now display an "X" over disallowed upgrades.

Something I wanted in the release build of game but couldn't get around to doing until now. There was a lot of confusion over what upgrades are valid and not for these kinds of jobs. This visualizer should hopefully make doing them less frustrating and nebulous.

• FLAVORED ANTIFREEZE will now darken the "unused" part of the Boost Heat Bar.
  
• Targets made invulnerable by the Loop Area 3 enemy now have a sign below them to aid visibility
  
• Augmented Rammers now play a globally-audible wind-up sound before launching themselves at the player.
  
• New Graphical Option: "Number Separator". When enabled, adds a digit after every 3 numbers so something like 56000 becomes 56.000.
  
• In-game Money counter in the top right of the screen will now grow if the player exceeds a certain amount of money, preventing overflow.
  
• Taunt, Slam, Special and Boost can now also be used as inputs to mash out of stun.
  
• Player momentum is now dampened when launching yourself far away from the track. You can now perform extreme rocket jumps at less risk of having to spend 1 minute to dig yourself back to the main track in case you miss your mark.
  
• The Final Boss will no longer receive half a second of guaranteed invulnerability after taking damage, allowing for more insane strategies.
  
• Updated visuals of Explosive Civ: Now is red with hazard tape and pulsates in color.
  
• When using the toggle gas option, there is now a visual indicator around the player portrait to show if gas is currently active or not.
  
• After entering/switching Shopscreens, there is now a brief period where all inputs are ignored to avoid misinputs.
  
• After switching, SEAN & HEYO will now experience a brief burst of weight, allowing them to "reverse ram" more reliably. This effect is even stronger with ELECTRIFIED GEARBOX.
  
• When playing as ABE, there is now a reticle showing what NPC is being targeted when shooting a rocket.
  
• After ramming an NPC as the player, the player is now granted a very brief period in which they cannot take ramming damage by the very NPC they rammed. This is to prevent jank-feeling situations in which very light characters (such as Deadlift) would boost-jump into heavy characters (such as Bosses), ramming then once and then getting damaged due to the massive weight different. Instead, this situation should now be resolved by the boss simply pushing the player "out of them" without causing any damage.
  
• Various textual changes.
  
• Added new Tips.
  
• Finishing a level will now display how much money you've earned in it at the end of the level sequence.

• HAMMER'S SPAWN now has slight variation in speed and turn-rate, as opposed to only having size differences.
  
• The BULLET MAGNET Status effect now has a visual effect and has a stronger bullet attraction.
  
• Updated USED STICKY HAND: Now has a stronger pull, flashes when dealing damage, and has an audible damage SFX even if the target is off-screen.
  
• Rebalanced SLAM TYPES:
  
  • Diagonal Forward: Slightly increased attack cooldown. Slightly reduced momentum gained from whiffing. Whiffing will now incur a slightly longer cooldown than usual.
    
  • Diagonal Backward: Increased attack speed. Drastically increased attack distance. Reduced attack cooldown. Whiffing will now incur a slightly shorter cooldown than usual.
    
  • Front: Reduced attack speed. Reduced push force gained from whiffing. Drastically increased cooldown on whiff.
    
  • Backward: Increased attack distance.
• Augmented PETROL PETE's Spin Attack is now a bit faster.
  
• Reduced M.A.L.D.'s HP by 50
  
• Kamicarze Cops (Loop Desert Enemy) now deal slightly less damage, take longer to explode, and have a longer minimum fuse time (so even in higher loops, they shouldnt explode quite as fast anymore)
  
• Reduced ABE Boost Speed and Movement Speed by 1 Star.
  
• Slightly increased ABE Special HP cost.
  
• When hitting a side-slam with the PRESIDENTIAL TOWEL effect active, "eagle.mp3" will now play.

ABE felt a bit too powerful previously, sporting a powerful statline with little drawbacks and an amazing Special ability. Both of these changes are meant to push him more towards the power level seen in the rest of the cast.

• Rockets fired by Rocket Gunners will now have their explosions spawn at the tip of the rocket, rather than the back. Rockets hitting walls should now be a bit deeper in the walls as a result, taking less space in the track.
  
• PROPELLER BEANIE will now cause a longer attack cooldown if the SPIN ATTACK whiffs.
  
• MORAL COMPASS now also grants a slight healing bonus for each target hit by the SPIN ATTACK.
  
• Updated CERTIFIED HOOD:
  
  • Added visual effect in the form of a rapidly pulsating blue overlay that scales in intensity with the speed boost gained.
    
  • Increased maximum speed boost gainable.
    
  • Effect will now decay in effectiveness, recharging when effect is not in use.

CERTIFIED HOOD allowed the player to basically "skip" a level for free due to its effect having indefinite run-time, allowing for some rather cheesy strategies that I didn't intend for, trivializing a lot of challenges by allowing for some rather uninteractive gameplay.

• Updated SWORD-VAN:
  
  • THRUST will now slightly pull nearby NPCs into the sword.
    
  • MACHIAVELLIAN SHIV now has a shorter charge duration, shorter range increase, but grants bonus damage at max charge.
    
  • When using AUTO-SLAM and pressing ATTACK while the Sword is not positioned in-front, SWORD-VAN will now perform an attack positioning the sword 1 90° arc towards the frontal position. If the SWORD is in the backwards position, the sword will retract the way it came from.
• Updated TOOTH AND NAIL (BIG TUNA's second Starter Upgrade choice): Removed "Boost Heat" reducing effect. Instead, HARPOONED vehicles will now also be pulled towards BIG TUNA when active.
  
• Reduced explosion/melee/tumble-causing damage (30 > 27.5)
  
• Reduced base ramming damage (10 > 8, can scale up to x2.5 this value, so max damage is now 20 instead of 25)
  
• NERVE-WRACKING BALL now has a visual effect when active.

• Fixed ONE PIN breaking some Shopkeep Effects
  
• Fixed being able to receive healing on the exact frame the player should've died, entering a sort of zombie state with no music. (Don't play REDLINE CROOKS at 3AM)
  
• Fixed the first daily of the week having an (almost) equal seed to the weekly.
  
• Fixed UPTURNED HAIRPIN not causing the overlay effect associated with improved healing.
  
• Fixed active Turbos not destroying Wallbullets.
  
• Fixed the overheal healthbar appearing very briefly when taking damage.
  
• Fixed Confetti from the Bonus Upgrade Screens staying on screen when switching from the screen fast enough and triggering TWILIGHT-COLORED AVIATORS.
  
• Fixed Bullets despawning in the Final Boss arena when the player was extraordinarily far away from the Final Boss.
  
• Hopefully fixed unintended daily-score submissions. Maybe.
  
• Fixed countering PETROL PETE's SPIN ATTACK with a SLAM counting as a miss when having LONELY HAT active.
  
• Fixed logged highscores in Leaderboard runs (Daily/Weekly) not including the Gear played in.

----------------------------------------------------------
Also: Did you know? REDLINE CROOKS is 25% off this Winter Sale.
Happy Holidays to those that celebrate, and once again a heartfelt thanks to everyone that has played the game and submitted feedback, art, and whatever else.

See you next year!

Join the Discord[discord.gg]
Follow on Twitter/X

- Alexander