Grounded Reveals New Details on Make it and Break it Update

Developer Obsidian Entertainment has released one of the biggest updates yet for co-op survival game Grounded. Dubbed the Make it and Break it update, it brings a host of new features to the game, including the ability for players to come up with their own levels and challenges for other players to take on.

To kick things off, the update will allow players to build their own levels across two distinct sandboxes: the Backyard and the Grassbox. While the former is essentially the setting for the title’s core game mode, the latter is an empty backyard where players can start their levels from scratch.

As part of the new creative features, the update also gives players a host of tools to help them build their levels, as well as the ability to share their Playgrounds by using a unique code ID.

Aside from the creative options, the update brings a host of smaller quality-of-life features to Grounded, including expanded options for custom games, a change to how the game’s difficulty modes are balanced, and a cooldown for consumables.

The combat is also getting overhauled, including various aspects like combo damage balancing, and charged attacks getting buffed for nearly every weapon. The map also now has a completely new UI, coupled with a revamp of the game’s ramdomised repeatable BURG.L quests. Check out the complete patch notes below.

Showcase Feature: Playgrounds

Introducing Playgrounds: our ambitious new game mode that allows you to create, share, and play new Grounded experiences, using a new suite of tools built directly into the game. Populate your very own backyard with an array of items — Chunky Chubbs baseballs, toy army men, spiders galore — and that’s just the start.

Playgrounds are powered by these core elements: Design Mode, Play Mode, Publish, and Play:

• Design Mode
  • Design mode is where you create your Grounded experience by placing and arranging game objects and linking them up to make unique and fun play spaces.
• Play Mode
  • Test your creation at any moment by swapping into Play Mode. In Play Mode, your yard will look and play how others will experience it. When you’ve tested enough, you can switch back to Design Mode, resetting everything back to its unplayed state.
• Publish
  • Once you’ve built a Playground you’re proud of, you can publish it for the whole world to see. Each Playground has a unique code that you can share with others. This means your incredible game modes, obstacle courses, or scavenger hunts could become the next big thing in the Grounded community!
• Play
  • You can experience any Playground published by the community by entering the matching unique code to download a copy to play whenever and wherever!

Design Mode

When starting a new Playground, you will be placed in Design mode. In Design mode, you can run around as your selected teen or as Handy Gnat, placing and arranging game objects to make fun and unique experiences.

Place Most Game Objects

You have access to most objects that exist in the game, including:

• Over 300 objects used in the backyard: baseballs, army men, juice boxes, and more!
• Over 400 items, like equipment, resources, and consumables.
• Over 100 harvestables like acorns, pebblets, and berries.
• Over 400 buildings you already know and love.
• All creatures. Yes, including bosses.

Free Placement and Rotate Freely

• Objects can be placed anywhere in the yard (including labs and anthills) and even floating in the air.
• Objects can be rotated freely in all three dimensions. Objects can be placed sideways or upside down.
• Existing objects, including foliage, can be moved or erased.

Gizmos and Gadgets

Also introduced in Playgrounds are a host of Gizmos and Gadgets that will add interactivity to your designs. Gizmos are invisible during Play Mode. Gadgets are visible in both Design and Play Mode.

• Buttons, Switches, and Volumes
  • Button
  • Standard Switch
  • Lever Switch
  • Pull Switch
  • Timer
  • Transmitter
  • Receiver
  • Pressure Plate
  • Rectangular Trigger Volume
  • Rectangular Blocking Volume
• Gameplay Gadgets
  • Telepotty
  • Fan
  • Super Bounce Pad
  • Landing Pad
  • Laser Cannon
  • Laser Pillar
  • Shock Pillar
  • Power Up
  • Score Board
• Gameplay Gizmos
  • Time of Day
  • Speaker
  • Music Changer
  • Effect Spawner
  • Quest Marker
  • Creature Spawner
  • Player Spawn
  • Equipment Equipper
  • Inventory Filler
• Logic Gizmos
  • Counter with Condition
  • Switch Gate
  • Switch Gizmo
  • Random Chance

Trigger Events and Actions

Many of the objects listed above can “trigger” actions on another object.

A few simple examples include:

• A placed Button can toggle a Plant Lamp on and off each time it’s pressed.
• A placed Timer Gizmo can trigger a Laser Cannon to fire every 3 seconds.
• A player walking into a Trigger Volume can activate a Creature Spawner to spawn five Black Widows around them.

An advanced example:

• A Basketball Hoop increments a Scoreboard and Counter with Condition each time a shot is made. After 10 shots are made, Fireworks shoot into the air and the Door blocking your way unlocks, letting you into the next room of the dungeon.

You can set up events by creating a “Link” from any object that has a Link Trigger to any object that has a Link Action. Once you have a Link between two objects, you can Customize the Link to set the triggering Event and the Action to take on the Linked object.

Many of the Gizmos and Gadgets above support Linking, as do a myriad of existing items, buildings, and objects already in the game.

Design With Friends

In addition to designing Playgrounds by yourself in single-player, you can also design in multiplayer and utilize Shared Worlds with this new feature.

New Playground Map: Grassbox

Not only can you design in the canonical backyard you know and love, we’re also introducing a new map called Grassbox for Playground mode. Grassbox is a smaller, blank-canvas yard for you to Design in if you so choose.

The Grassbox comes with some empty, premade areas for you to quickly design in including:

• Small bodies of water
• Empty lab spaces
• Empty ant hill spaces
• And more!

Additional New Features

New Custom Game Options

To help you customize your Grounded playthroughs (and your new Playgrounds!), we have added additional Custom Game Options:

• Building Enabled
  • Whether or not players can build and relocate buildings.
• Crafting Enabled
  • Whether or not players have access to the crafting menus.
• Time of Day Speed
  • How quickly the time of day will progress in the game.
• Thirst Burn Rate
  • Multiplier that affects thirst loss.
• Hunger Rate
  • Multiplier that affects hunger loss.
• Resource Respawn Rate
  • Multiplier that affects how quickly resources are respawned.
• Creature Health Scaling
  • Multiplier that affects the amount of health that creatures will have.
• Fall Damage Scaling
  • Multiplier that affects the damage received from falling.

On top of that, all of the custom game options have been grouped under sub-categories for better navigation and clients will be notified whenever the host changes a custom game option during gameplay.

Payback Attacks Reward Science

Defending attacks from Factional Reactivity or from the Waft Emitter will reward you Raw Science for each creature defeated. Stronger factions reward more Raw Science per kill.

New BURG.L Quest System

We are revamping the randomized, daily, repeatable BURG.L quests by introducing a series of “Apprentice Quests” that unlock sequentially. Once you complete the first quest, you’ll unlock the second, and so on up to the final, most challenging quests. There are roughly 100 in total! After you’ve tackled these milestones, that’s it for the Apprentice Quests—your journey is complete.

But don’t worry, daily quests aren’t going anywhere; we’re just changing how you unlock them. After you’ve finished the first 20 Apprentice Quests, a new Daily Quest section will become available in the ASL Quest menu. These dailies offer a mix of objectives based on your progress on Apprentice Quests. You’ll gradually unlock more options in your daily quest pool as you complete more of the Apprentice Quests, enhancing the questing experience for all players.

Quality of Life Features

Map Improvements

• Collected Milk Molars and SCA.Bs will show up on your map to help you know which collectables you are missing. Go ahead and cross reference those online wikis now .
• Each icon category can have the visibility of the entire group toggled on and off in the map so you can have your map as clean or as cluttered as you wish.

Name Ziplines

• You can now name individual ziplines to more easily find the right path to zip down.

Drop / Transfer / Trash Amount

• When doing drop, transfer, or trash actions on items, you can now specify a number of items to affect.

MIX.R Preview UI

MIX.Rs now display what creatures are involved in the defense attacks as well as the raw science reward before starting them.

“Place Many” Improvements

• Many roofs, stairs, and awnings can now be placed with “Place Many”.
• Spiral staircases will alternate correctly when using “Place Many” downwards.
• Buildings being placed using Place Many will be shown even if they are unsupported.

Basketball Improvements

• New “Basketball” items to craft.
• Dribbling and shooting animations.
• New shooting mechanic that adjusts your shot distance based on how long you hold the attack button.
• Basketball hoop now has reactive physics and has new audio.
• Making a basketball shot can be used as a triggering event in Playgrounds.

Improved Stickied Quest Display

• Stickied Quest Objectives on your HUD will now cycle between the different types instead of showing a wall of quest objectives in extreme cases.

First Person Handy Gnat

• You can now toggle between Third Person and First Person while using Handy Gnat.

New Content

New Equipment / Items

• Berry Basketball and Pupa Basketball
  • Two new equippable basketball items that are made from different materials. While a basketball is equipped, holding the attack button will start a charged basketball shot that goes farther the longer you hold it.
• Three new early game trinkets added for various play styles
  • Each new trinket corresponds to a classic RPG role—so whether you fancy yourself a tank or an archer, you’ll find a trinket tailored to your playstyle.

New Buildings

• Gnat Lamp
• Pupa Leather Ottoman
• Target
• Standing Target
• Target Dummy
• 2 Broodmother Décor buildings
• 2 Mantis Décor buildings
• 2 Wasp Queen Décor buildings

Over 40 Half and Quarter Wall/Floor/Stair Pieces! (Trumpet fanfare)

• 6 Vertical Half Walls
  • Grass
  • Grass Crenelated
  • Stem
  • Palisade
  • Mushroom
  • Ash
• 2 Half Awnings
  • Clover
  • Crow Feather
• 2 Half Foundations
  • Pebblet
  • Clay
• 10 Half Stairs
  • Grass
  • Corner Grass
  • Interior Corner Grass
  • Mushroom
  • Mushroom B
  • Corner Mushroom
  • Interior Corner Mushroom
  • Acorn
  • Corner Acorn Stairs
  • Interior Corner Acorn Stairs
• 3 Half Floors
  • Grass
  • Stem
  • Bur
• 4 Quarter Walls
  • Grass
  • Stem
  • Mushroom
  • Ash
• 4 Quarter Triangle Walls
  • Grass
  • Stem
  • Mushroom
  • Ash
• 3 Quarter Floors
  • Grass
  • Stem
  • Bur
• 3 Quarter Roof pieces
  • Clover
  • Crow Feather
  • Pinecone
• 3 Quarter Flat Roof pieces
  • Clover
  • Crow Feather
  • Pinecone
• 2 Quarter Foundations
  • Pebblet
  • Clay

New Mutation

• Battle Buddies
  • Reduces friendly fire damage dealt and received.

New Signs

• Added new sign set to the Forgotten BURG.L Chip found in the Brawny Boy Bin.
• Added a new sign that automatically unlocks after a certain point in the story. The sign is the Grand Prize Winner from the Grounded Sign Art Contest.

Other Changes / Tuning

Difficulty Mode Changes

Medium Mode

• • Reduce all enemy damage by 10%.
  • “Pets Invincible” is now enabled by default.

Woah Mode

• • Player damage buffed from 75% to 80%.
  • Building health buffed from 50% to 100%.
  • Item durability buffed from 75% to 100%.
  • Durability penalty on death from 10% to 30%.
  • Creature health increased from 100% to 120%
  • Time of day speed decreased from 100% to 80%
  • Fall damage multiplier increased from 100% to 120%
  • Death behavior changed to drop all items on death

Creative Mode

• • Creative With Bugs and Creative with no Bugs have the following options enabled by default:
    • Unlock all Mutations
    • Fully Yoked
    • Pets Invincible

Consumables

• Some consumables now have a 4 second cooldown before they can be used again.
  • Bandages, Smoothies, and Meals all respect this new cooldown
  • Snacks and all other miscellaneous consumables ignore this new cooldown
• Doubling the effect of all healing items.
• Bandages now provide a burst heal when used in addition to their heal over time.
• Bandage heal over time heal per tick tripled.
• Bandage heal over time duration reduced.
• Quesadillantlion and Omelant thorns damage has been doubled.

Smoothies

The “default” smoothie has been changed to help better communicate its purpose as a basic healing potion.

• Questionable Slop is no longer craftable.
• Unlocking the smoothie station will now also unlock the “Soothing Syrup” smoothie.
• Soothing Syrup provides a basic heal and is cheap to craft.
• All smoothies have had their healing amount doubled.
• Smoothies respect the new 4 second consumable cooldown.

Dandelion Tufts

Dandelions no longer need to be equipped, and players no longer have to decide between equipping a tuft or a trinket. Instead, tufts are single-use items with no durability. To balance this change, tufts can be stacked, and dandelions yield more tufts when chopped down.

That being said, the “Fluffy Dandelion Tuft” trinket now has unlimited uses, enhancing its value and making it more of an interesting accessory choice.

Combat

Combo system overhauled:

• Combo damage of weapons changed from 50% → 100% → 150% to 100% → 100% → 125%.
  • First and second hit of the combo now deal the same amount of damage.
  • Third hit now deals 25% bonus damage compared to the other hits in the combo.
  • All weapon damages adjusted with this change
• Charge attack damage increased for almost every weapon.
• Players now have a default chance to crit without any crit chance boosting effects.
• Most Thorns effects have been increased substantially.
• Increased base damage of all turret ammo types.
• Two-handed swords and the two-handed axe have new attack animations with slightly faster timing than before.
• Two-handed club attack animations are slightly sped up and updated, and the first-person camera movement on them has been heavily reduced.

Movement

• On Gamepad, players sprint by default. Pushing the sprint key will toggle you into walk mode. This can be changed in the options with the new Sprint Mode option.
  • Keyboard / Mouse players will still default to Hold Sprint to run but can change to the new toggle modes in the options.

Animation

• Two-handed swords and axes come with new and slightly faster attack animations.
• Two-handled club attacks have faster animations now. The first person camera movement during these attacks has also been reduced.
• Third person throwing animations have been updated.
• Third person diagonal crouch walking animations have been added.
• Stagger animations for ladybugs and larva have been updated, they will no longer move back to their original position after being staggered.
• Sit on the Broodmother Throne as if you are destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.

Creatures

• Black Widow Changes:
  • Resistant to Spicy, Mint, and Salty
  • Weak to Sour
  • Neutral to all other damage types
  • No longer immune to poison damage
  • Now has 2 new attacks in its arsenal
    • Can shoot a ranged web at the player, which spawns a black widowling
    • Can consume a living black widowling to heal and temporarily increase its attack speed

• Wave creatures take even more damage from turret attacks.
• Larva and Ladybug stagger animations have been updated
• RUZ.T flat damage reduction reduced
• RUZ.Ts now have a smashing damage weakness
• Stun cooldown on most non-boss creatures reduced

Faction Attacks

• Anger thresholds for certain factions to send a base attack have been adjusted.
• Wave cooldown and spawn variance has been adjusted.
• Number of creatures that can be active in a wave during multiplayer games has been increased.
• Spawn weights for various creatures have been adjusted.
• Spawn weight thresholds for wave defense difficulty brackets have been adjusted.
• Total number of creatures that can spawn in each difficulty bracket has been adjusted.
• Maximum number of creatures that can be active in a wave has been adjusted.
• Termite Kings can now spawn in termite faction raids.
• Additional faction waves are now able to be angered via the Waft Emitter.
  • Stinkbug
  • Roly Poly
  • Ladybug
  • OMINENT
  • Moth
  • Black Widow

Bosses

• Infected Broodmother drop rates improved.

Mutations

• Sour Sensation thorns damage increased sixfold.
• Substantially increasing stamina restored by Parry Master.
• Spore Lord
  • Quintupled the chance for the damage up effect to proc.
  • Doubled the chance for the Heal over Time and speed up effect to proc.
  • Added stack caps of 50 to all buffs provided by Spore Lord.
• Apex Predator effect added for Blaster of the Moldy Matriarch.
• Sharpshooter now increases crit chance with bows and crossbows instead of reducing sprint stamina.
• Chopper defense down proc duration reduced.
• Javelineer thorns damage doubled.

World

• A pre-cracked Milk Molar in the Hedge lab has been added to help players get their first Milk Molar earlier in the game. The Milk Molar in the Minotaur Maze Chest has been removed to compensate for this new Milk Molar.
• Dandelions now drop triple the tufts.
• Acorns are now guaranteed to drop their top.
• Small Feather nodes are now guaranteed to drop at least 2 feather resources.
• MIX.Rs and Super MIX.Rs now reward more science on completion.
• Improved the Hedge Ascent. Our goal was to smooth out the difficulty curve in this area.
  • A new quest objective has been added to the Hedge lab quest to point to the area where you enter the hedge.
  • Spiderling spawns in the Hedge Ascent moved off of the branches and into the various lab outposts.
  • Removed one of the two RUZ.Ts from the resource surveyor outpost in the hedge.
  • Added hedge trimmers and additional lights in the lower hedge area to improve visibility and navigation.
  • Added a bed in the first outpost lab.
  • Added and changed branches to help navigation in the area before the Hedge lab.
• The small Pond Lab Outpost will now be locked by default when exploring the pond.
  • The doors will open automatically now at a later point as a result of progressing through the main Pond Lab.
  • The doors further inside these smaller outposts will remain locked behind the assistant manager key.
  • The loot found in the initial explorable area in the outposts has been improved.
• Added REDACTED to REDACTED for REDACTED.

Armor and Weapons

• Elemental upgrade paths now provide the same amount of damage boost as the Mighty path.
• Black Ant Armor set bonus “Pincushion” thorns damage has been doubled.
• Prod Smacker’s damage increased.
• Pinch Whacker now triggers its lightning AoE on its combo finisher instead of having a chance to trigger every hit
• Unique elemental melee weapons now have a proc effect on their combo finisher unlocked after getting to +6
  • Mint Mace: Area of Effect mint attack.
  • Coaltana: Increased parry window buff. If an attack is parried while this buff is active, your next attack gains a significant damage increase.
  • Sour Battleaxe: Increased attack speed.
  • Salty Morningstar: Applies a bleed to the target.
• Mother Demon and Moldy Matriarch armor sets
  • Increased DR.
  • Increased durability.
  • Now considered heavy armor.
• Moldy Matriarch Armor set
  • Dynamighty proc chance doubled.
  • Dynamighty explosive resist down debuff duration halved.
  • Explosive Stun has been replaced with Big Boom.
    • Explosive attacks have a chance to provide a stacking crit damage buff.
• Shield Changes
  • Tier 3 shields now provide even more block strength
  • Having a shield equipped now lowers the damage you deal
• Acorn armor set crafting ingredients changed to require the player to venture to other tier 1 biomes
• Grub armor status effect changed. Now increases damage dealt to tier 1 creatures.
• Clover armor status effect changed. Now increases defense against tier 1 creatures.
• Clover armor set bonus changed to trickle regen.
• Mosquito Needle and Tiger Mosquito Rapier can now be used underwater
• Spider Fang Dagger and Widow Dagger now poison enemies underwater
• Rusty Spear now applies infection to enemies underwater
• Black Widow armor set bonus Death’s Impetus effect changed
  • Old: Movement Speed increase on kill
  • New: Trickle Regen + Attack Speed increased on kill
• Black Widow armor status effect values normalized so they’re all equal instead of being different per piece
• Aphid Slippers sleek effect changed from sprint stamina to Aphkid
• All club weapons now attack 15% faster
• Widow dagger now applies venom instead of poison
• Added new animations for 2 handed sword and axe attacks, increasing their speed by about 20%
• Dropped weapons and equipment in the yard will no longer despawn over time.

Items

• Ammo base stack size increased.
• Plank and log clusters can despawn after some time like loose planks and logs do.
• Crafted equipment and tools will no longer despawn when left in the world for a while.
• Wasp Queen trinket arrow refund chance increased.
• Fancy Fletching now speeds up exhaustion recovery even more.
• Broodmother and Infected Broodmother trinkets now double the damage dealt by player summons on top of their other effects.
• Mantis Trinket effect changed:
  • Combo finishers grant a stacking crit chance buff until you crit.
• Most Ominent Employee Badge trinkets have had their numbers increased for either the positive or negative effects:
  • Biomedical Badge
    • Heal over Time value tripled
    • Food drain tripled
  • Entomologist Badge
    • Attack up effect increased
  • Defense Badge
    • Damage Resist up increased
    • Attack down effect increased
  • Intern Badge
    • Hauling amount increase
    • Movement speed slow increased
  • Compliance Badge
    • Damage resist reduction increased
  • Health and Safety Badge
    • Lifesteal percentage increased
    • Damage over Time changed to damage resist reduction (same value as compliance badge)
  • Doubled proc chance of rotten berry charm
• Speed Droplet no longer reduces sprint stamina.

Crafting

• Lint Rope is now crafted at a 1 to 1 ratio at the spinning wheel.
• Whetstone cost for mighty globs and jewels lowered

Building Placement

• Palisade Gate can no longer be placed unsnapped and overlapped with other buildings.
• Wall-mounted buildings cannot be placed on player backpacks.
• It’s now easier to control the depth of buildings that are placed partially in the ground.
• Buildings can be zooped farther at one time, but only along a single axis.

UI

• The Map will now show an icon on the legend for players who have hidden their map markers.
• The Building Facing arrow has received a glow up.
• Pets, Summons, and Fellow teens will be prioritized lower than hostile creatures when it comes to what health bar is shown on the UI.
• The “Select a Teen” interface has had a makeover.
• Peeping an O.R.C creature will now properly show Sour as one of their weaknesses
• Improved the enemy health bar priority system so your pet or summon no longer shows instead of the enemy or boss health bar.
• The Koi fish now has a creature card you can PEEP to unlock.

Audio

• The teens will chat less frequently about the bug they are looking at.

Accessibility

• Colorblind modes will now adjust the game view in addition to certain interface colors.

Optimization

• When large numbers of buildings are collapsing, dropped items will be grouped together to improve performance.
• Clients loading into worlds with large bases will experience less lag and desyncing.
• Improved performance in the Pond and Stump labs.
• Improved performance around the BBQ area.
• Reduced CPU usage across the game.
• Reduced GPU usage across the game.
• Reduced memory usage across the game.
• Reduced Auto-save hitching.
• Reduced loading saves time.

Bug Fixes

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a random crash that could happen when processing physics collisions.

Major Fixes

• You can save and load again while playing with no internet connection.

Other Fixes

• Gotta Peep Them All achievement now unlocks the moment you peep your final creature as opposed to the next time you load your game after peeping all creatures.
• Achieving 100% on the Report Card properly checks for gold creature cards.
• Fixed some cases where buildings can be built into configurations that will cause a collapse, without any error message.
• Half Corner Stairs can now be replaced by other types of half corner stairs when standing alone.
• Hit droplets from dew collectors will now fall off on clients.
• Floors can no longer be placed directly into unsupported configurations in some cases while using Place Many.
• Fixed the first building placed using Place Many sometimes not being placed when Place Many was started in an unsupported position.
• Blaster of the Moldy Matriarch now has a HUD marker when dropped.
• Rough Reload now properly delays stamina regen.
• Corrosion status effect now has proper tags (should have no change on the effect itself).
• Sickly Roly Poly now displays its weakness information.
• [REDACTED] Gong can now be repaired.
• Well Rested buffs now have a max stack size of 1 to prevent them from stacking in rare cases.
• O.R.C. creatures now properly inherit the weaknesses of their base creatures in addition to being weak to sour instead of only being weak to sour.
• Lifesteal provided by Mosquito Rapiers and Tick Macuahuitl now only applies to attacks made by those specific weapons.
• Chopper defense down proc icon changed to red to reflect it’s a debuff.
• Infinite spawning boss adds can no longer give gold cards.
• Characters will no longer make backpack comments about certain other types of containers.
• The Join Game browser now has better layout in Arabic.
• You can no longer place sap catchers on trash cans.
• Teens no longer break their ankles walking on Weed Stem floors.
• Fixed the game getting locked to 60 FPS when closing the game options window in a certain way.