- Too many button clicks? Let's simplify some of that. - 23 September 2026
Additions:Quality of Life:Added some accessibility features:Simplified Interactions:This new toggle simplifies the interaction system by auto completing most interactions in one button click instead of having to manually equip certain items to use them. For instance, normally unlocking a door requires you to equip the correct key first, then left clicking on the door with the key. Now, as long as the proper key is in your inventory, all you need to do is press the interact button to unlock the door. Changes:Base difficulty:Modified some values to make base difficulty a little easier.Door lock probabilities have been altered. Interior doors and back doors will not be locked as often as they used to be.Flashlights:Flashlight battery life has been doubled from its original rate, lasting closer to 10 minutes instead of 5.Flashlight visibility and brightness has been changed so that instead…
- Enter: Susie Black (Ghost Personality Update Part 2) - 18 September 2026
Additions:New Death RoleUpon death in a multiplayer game, you no longer spectate other players. You are now able to walk around and help locate items as an entity.New ModifiersChange the Candle Spawn RateChange the Lighter Spawn RateChange the Scrap Spawn RatePresets for different difficulties / challengesUser InterfaceQuality of Life Changes to Graphics SettingsAdded brightness slider.Added gamma slider.Note: With the addition of the brightness and gamma settings, I've went ahead and reverted my own custom settings per mapExpanded the raytracing options to allow for full disabling of ray tracing.Off: No Raytracing (New Default)Low: Software RaytracingHigh: Hardware Raytracing (Requires NVIDIA RTX or AMD Equivalent)Changed the text on the invite friends button to reflect that you can close the friends menu.Alphabetized friend list for ease of finding who you're looking for.Added new mus…
- Introducing: Nocturne Hollow - 2 August 2026
Welcome back to the neighborhood! Today is very exciting because for the first time in this game's history, there is a brand new map / location to be explored. Nocturne Hollow (a map idea suggested by @cathedralnocturne on Twitch) is a backwoods trailer park community, complete with a hillside cemetery, community church, and mysterious underground hideout.Also new to the game is the new modifiers system that allows you to customize your experience by making it easier or harder, depending on the values you set. Wanna make the ghost fast or give yourself more stamina? Now you can. Currently, the difficulty modifiers do not alter XP / money gained (not that the progression system is really prevalent currently, changes and additions to progression will come later). There will be more modifiers added later, as well as developer presets for various types of experiences.Additions:New Map: Noct…
- Inventory Expansion Update (+ Code Optimizations) - 21 June 2026
Introduction:Welcome back to the neighborhood! Since the game's launch the amount and diversity of items have had it's ups and downs, with some updates removing items and later updates adding new ones. There are now certain types of items that have persistent state, like flashlights with limited battery power, and items that are stack-able, like Candles and Scrap. With all these changes, I thought it would be fitting to dedicate an entire update to managing these items in a way that isn't just pointing and clicking on a grid of icons in a menu.Additions:Major Inventory OverhaulThe inventory has been overhauled, now having a dedicated carousel wheel instead of a Tab Menu. This rotating wheel is used by holding "R" (or your custom bound key), and using Left Click to equip and right click to drop where your cursor is pointing (or if there is no reachable surface, dropped at your feet).When…
- Neighborhood Expansion Fixes - 23 March 2026
Fixes:Fixed an issue where a few held inventory items would not drop properly when a player died.Potential fix for crafting table not allowing non-host players to craft items.The fix has been tested locally on a machine running two instances of the game, but I'll need confirmation that it has worked in a real network multiplayer match.Added a temporary method to be able to drop inventory items that have been picked up.To drop an item, open your inventory (default button: Tab) and all key items in your inventory will have a "Drop" button next to it. Clicking this will drop the item at your feet. This should help keep the Crime Scene side quest from being soft locked by multiple people picking up different necessary tools and key items and not being able to use them, as one player needs to have all necessary items in their inventory at once to finish the quest.
- The Neighborhood Expansion Update (Complete) - 20 March 2026
Additions:New Tutorial Mode:This mode is a guided playthrough of a real round, with the exception of death being disabled. All the usual scares and hunts are still enabled, however. The tutorial map will include question mark triggers that explain various items in the game.This "Guided Playthrough" system can be enabled for regular single player games, as well as in multiplayer and is used per person, meaning anyone or everyone can use guided playthrough.While working on this complex tutorial system, I ended up overhauling the path finding and navigation a lot, so the ghost may act differently depending on certain factors, such as doors being locked, players hiding in hiding places, etc.New music player on the menu to play music from the game (and some other IRL music of mine).WARNING: I added a new slider to separate the volume of in game music vs the volume of music in the menu, so yo…
- The Neighborhood Expansion Update (Part 3) - 15 March 2026
Additions:New Side Quest: Scene of the CrimeSomewhere on the map will be the scene of the crime, only locatable by using UV to find the blood pool.By using 5 burn materials and a lighter, you can burn the confession note at the crime scene for extra XP, as well as gain an extra bonus perk for the round.The ghost lowers power level down a few points.Added New Usable Items:Scrap:Scrap will spawn throughout the map inside drawers and cabinets. Each scrap box will yield 1-3 scraps, unless you are using the new perk Handy, in which case it will yield 2-5. You can only hold 8 (12 for Handy) at a time so you have to drop them off at the crafting station as you go. The amount of total scrap on the map is semi-random, but there is a high probability that you will not have enough to craft every type of gear, so choose wisely. Crafting Station:The crafting station is where you can craft any of the…
- Even MORE Fixes! - 8 March 2026
Changes:Burial site is now just a mound instead of a fire ring.Sheds can now be locked, with the key spawning somewhere inside the house.Ghost AI tweaked.Most percentages for chances of attacks have been increased. This change in addition to the fixes with power level not modifying correctly and the ghost's inability to move most of the time should hopefully ramp up the activity in most cases.Fixes:Fixed a major cause of some of the lag.Fixed a naming error where the white house bathroom was called office.Fixed sometimes getting stuck in the bathtub.Fixed red house back door being able to be unlocked from the outside without a key.Fixed an issue with the ghost not being able to move.Fixed an issue with the ghost not increasing power level properly.
- The Neighborhood Expansion Update (Part 2) - FIXES - 7 March 2026
Changes:Drastically reduced the amount of foliage in the level.Doors have a slightly lowered chance to be locked, and can now be unlocked without a key if opening from the inside.Increased shovel spawns to 4.Reduced the amount of dirt piles that spawn overall.FixesFixed a bug where the flashlight wouldn't spawn for your player.EngineEnabled Nanite for most objects in the game.Depending on performance testing, this may be reverted if performance worsens.
- The Neighborhood Expansion Update (Part 2 / BETA BRANCH ONLY) - 6 March 2026
Welcome Back!It's been almost a year since my last update, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of it and trying to bring Cul-De-Sac up to speed with some new ideas I've been collecting for a while.This update is a continuation of the Neighborhood Expansion Update. I've made some drastic changes (and some potentially controversial removal of features), but I do have a plan, and there will be more major changes before this major update is complete. Unfortunately, in my honest opinion, this part of the update might have made the game a bit worse in terms of fun factor, but I've gone too long without having people test newer features which is why this part of the neighborhood update will be beta branch exclusive and will move over to main once the Neighborhood Expansion update is complete.Thanks for your understanding!Additions:Added a new side mission: Murder WeaponSomewhere on the m…
- Neighborhood Expansion Fixes - 29 June 2025
Fixed:Key pickup sound effect now localized to area instead of being played uniformly to everyone, regardless of position on the map.Items could sometimes be thrown under furniture / vehicles. Now there are blocking volumes to ensure that items don't become unreachable.New stalking ghost event is now only visible and audible to the player being affected.
- The Neighborhood Expansion Update - 29 June 2025
Welcome back to the neighborhood! This update revolves around making the map a little more interactive, while also preparing for a potential map expansion / new exploration mechanics. In addition, I've upgraded the game from Unreal Engine 5.3 to 5.6. Big jumps in versions are always a little risky, but I think I've ironed most of the glaring issues out. If you come across crashes, please feel free to send me the crash dumps (generally saved in "AppData/Local/CulDeSac/Saved/Crashes"). Also, the cause of the black screen at start up is still unknown, so if you run into it, please let me know. Try verifying game files and restarting the game, 99% of black screen cases have been fixed doing that, the other 1% are still unknown. Obviously best case scenario is getting the issues resolved completely so it doesn't happen at all but at least most cases can be remedied at this point. Thanks agai…
- The Personality Update - 14 June 2025
NewVoice LinesThe ghost has a few more voice lines and there are some new circumstances in which specific lines will play.The player now has a few voice lines that play to help guide the player along with certain tasks (such as indicating when enough burn materials have been collected, when the nexus activates, etc.)Behaviors / AttacksAttack - Behind the Door:Similar to a regular phantom attack, the ghost will spawn a jump scare attack, but this attack spawns on the opposite side of a door from where you're standing. If the door is open, it will automatically close. Attack - Fake Burn Material:The ghost has a chance to spawn a fake burn material. This burn material will trigger a jump scare when picked up and will not count toward your burn material count. There is a way to know if the burn material is fake.Attack - Fake Ghost Item:The ghost has a chance to spawn a fake ghost item. This…
- Minor UI Fix - 25 May 2025
Minor UI Fix Fixed an issue with the master volume slider not working as intended.
- Small Change - 3 January 2025
Added a mandatory EMF spawn that shows up in the world and can be seen on the map UI. Early Look: The next update will be addressing new ghost abilities / behavior. There is one new sub-type of phantom attack that may appear now.
- The Progression Update - 26 December 2024
Today is a very exciting day! This update brings new content and features to Cul-De-Sac. This has been a very long awaited update for me because up until this point, I've been in optimization purgatory trying to get the game in a stable state, running decently enough and functionally well in a multiplayer setting. Now we're on to the fun stuff that will flesh the idea of the game out even more and make the experience more enjoyable. Keep in mind, there will be lots of balancing and re-balancing of XP and currency rates, as well as how currency is spent throughout Early Access. Later down the line there may be an option to reset ranks back to level zero. New Progression Leveling and XP New leveling system added! Every game you play you can gain XP to raise your level so that you can unlock equipment and perks to use in game. Death will grant you a base amount of XP, plus a fraction of th…
- Multiplayer Improvements Update (2/?) - 4 December 2024
Today's patch will be continuing the focus on multiplayer improvements, as well as some general game optimizations not related to multiplayer specifically. With this patch I'm officially taking multiplayer out of "Experimental" and putting it into "Beta"! There will of course still be further improvements and tweaks to the net code but I think I'll be comfortable with calling multiplayer an official feature no longer in testing if this patch holds up well enough for a few weeks or months. I'd like to thank everybody who has helped test multiplayer with me, both friends and the few players who have purchased my game and supported me to this point. The game would not be in as good as condition if it weren't for everybody's fantastic feedback! Unless there are game breaking bugs that I've missed in this update that needs to be addressed, you can expect the next update after this to be a co…
- Multiplayer Improvements Update - 24 November 2024
Hey everybody! It's been a busy last few weeks/month. I've been trying to wrap my head around all this multiplayer / networking shenanigans, attempting to reduce network bandwidth usage to allow for a more playable experience on multiplayer. I've combed over all the network code trying to figure out any optimizations I can make, mostly offloading a lot of functionality to client side, only trying to update properties server side where possible. There are a handful of complex systems behind the scenes, all of which never took multiplayer into consideration so over time I'm hoping I can start simplifying systems so they can work better with multiplayer. After a handful of testing sessions, it's become clear to me that the multiplayer is still not stable enough to play properly. I've changed a lot under the hood and have laid the groundwork for things to improve, and this has made small im…
- Tutorial Update - 2 November 2024
It's been a while! Now that the Halloween season is over, the game has had a small boost in players in the last week. This has given me an opportunity to get more feedback, and today's update mostly revolves around the game's tutorial. There are also a few game play and UI tweaks in this update too. Tutorial Tweaks You can no longer die during the tutorial. Instead, a pop-up info box will let you know that you would have experienced death, and immediately begin to lower your heart rate back down. Tutorial triggers are now floating bubbles that can be interacted with instead of walking through to trigger, allowing the player to freely walk through the map without their view being disrupted by accidentally walking through a tutorial trigger. Adjusted the boundaries of the map so that you can exit the back yard through the gate closest to the driveway, allowing you to walk around the side…
- Minor UI Fix - 30 July 2024
Hey all! It's been quite a while since last update, and unfortunately today's update is very minor, only including a small UI fix to allow the Mouse Sensitivity option to be lowered than it used to be able to. I'm hoping that once the summer is over I can get back into the groove of working on Cul-De-Sac again (I've been spending a lot of time doing IRL work at home). I do plan on having at least one major update ready for October for the spooky season! I'm hoping the next major update will be either a new map or major mechanic changes / improvements. If anyone has any preferences to what type of changes / additions the next big update should have, please feel free to let me know! Thanks, Ryan.
