We released our most massive update to date! We know that last update was already pretty big, but this one is possibly even larger and more crucial. These are all a huge addition to the final gameplay experience. We've updated the game page and filmed a new trailer to reflect all this! You can see many of the changes in action here:

• ARTPASS:
  • Lighting pass on all rooms and scene
  • Colors now swap for all loot, furniture, and house surfaces with every house generation - making a visually distinct house every time.
  • Fixed backwards props bug
  • Added Breaker, Wire, Phone final props
  • Replaced all greybox assets with actual furniture
  • Fixed bathrooms using the wrong rugs, having bizarre alignment
  • Added doorframes, window frames to all rooms and walls
  • New sounds and animation for Garage
  • Added models for all ladders
  • Cop Car updated to be pseudo-final. Needs some work but identifiably a cop car.
  • Updated DarkRoom to look more like a darkroom with hanging photos
  • Fixed corner of rooftop spawning oddly on single-story houses

• PLAYER GAMEPLAY:
  • Walls now usually spawn paintings, posters, and photos.
  • Reduced amount of bathrooms spawning on the second and first floors, added office and office hallway to the second floor pool of rooms
  • Updated Tutorial with new mechanics, props
    
  • Ladders now spawn in the Garage and Carport
  • Fixed ladders spawning in the ground during use.
  • Shoes added to Loot Pool. Players no longer start with ties, they have to loot them from picking up Shoes during the game.
  • Added Chips soundtrap. Chips make a noise when stepped on and can be heard by nearby AI
  • Added Alarm clock soundtrap. Alarm Clocks go off when picked up, and have to be turned off before pickup with the Wirecutters
  • Added TV soundtrap. TVs can be turned on and off by players to distract AI, and can be turned off by AI. TVs are automatically turned off on pickup.
  • Fine tuned tying animation and experience - tying is now faster, longer range, and generally easier to manage on AI moving away from the player.
  • Car now slightly resets position when entering, reducing number of moments where car can get stuck in a "ditch" and can't be moved.
  • Updated failstate for the player to show an Arrest Report with details of their arrest
  • Added Devlog, Discord to main menu
    

• AI UPDATES:
  
  • Aggressive AI added to the game. These AI differ from regular AI in that they will shoot you before calling the police. They have a shorter range Shotgun than cops with their revolvers.
  • Added second Male NPC model for Aggressive AI
  • AI now have sound awareness of the player and ingame objects
  • AI now hear and move towards recent nearby sprinting footsteps and gunfire
  • AI now avoid ladders, stepladders, and cars
  • Added AI voicelines that convey their states of awareness audibly
  • Fixed Cop firing speed, firing animation speed to align with their actual fire rate.

Importantly, though secondary to the game's major mechanical and visual overhaul, we've changed our name from The Neighbors to Keepsake County. A lot of thought went into this decision, and we've been considering it for several months. With Steam Next Fest around the corner, we realized the time is now to make the jump before we have a new batch of players playing for the first time. It's not one we made lightly.

1. First, we found the previous name to be mysterious... but a bit too mysterious. There's not a particularly strong idea of setting, gameplay, or theme imparted from it. We wanted people to rapidly understand and get a feel for the game just from hearing the name of it, even if they didn't know the premise of the game.
2. Secondly, and just as importantly - it's also exceptionally close to the name of another game franchise with a somewhat similar theme to ours. As a result, it made it very hard for anyone to find our game instead.
3. Last - the game hasn't been covered extensively. If we were going to change the game's name, it should be now - before we go on Steam, before we get covered by news outlets (and, let's face it - we'd really have no idea we were even mentioned due to the previous difficulty of searching for our game), and before we get a lot of new eyes on it.

So the new changes! This update is a huge artpass. A big part of that was making the props for the Phone, Wire, and Breaker visually distinct for players to be able to read regardless of the theme or environment they're in.

Continuing on - houses now pick a visually distinct theme on creation, and are stocked with actual, real adult furniture. AI can be distracted or attracted by mistakes and soundtraps set off by the player, and furthermore we've introduced the LONG REQUESTED (and planned) aggressive AI civilian that will attempt to blow you away the moment he realizes you're burgling his house.

A big part of this update was tightening up the game mechanically as well - things like tying AI are no longer a guaranteed tool going into the house, instead a reward for keen eyes, but the actual act of tying is easier than ever.

While there's still loads of work to do - keep eyes out for things like doghouses, multiple houses in one map, daily seeds, and new rooms and levels of difficulty. Now that we've opened up the can of worms that is sound traps, we're excited to start really pushing the game mechanically to vary up the player's approach and add more variety.

Happy burgling!