Demo Update 0.3.11

Hello Fellow Penal Colony Workers,

Update 0.3.11 brings a bunch of changes as I've both been working on getting the game closer to launch in 2 weeks and address demo specific issues. (We skipped versions as I validated build candidates)

I want to thank everyone who's played the game so far and shared their feedback and experience. I especially wanna shoutout our testers on discord who have been testing builds and sending me bug reports. This project is mostly a solo endeavour so I could not get this far without ya'll <3

I also want to re-iterate it since I got some questions from people who didn't see the formal announce but when the game launches on March 10th (PST) it will cost 7.99 USD with a 10% launch discount.

I also plan to keep the demo up after launch to let people try the weird controls before the commit to a purchase. I am well aware they aren't for everyone and that's ok. I do however want to do everything in my power to make the game more comfortable to play where issues like animation or navigation cause problems.

Highlights

Demo Saves and The Full Game A "completed" demo save will now be able to carry across to the full game. Unfortunately this does come with a save wipe as all older demo saves will be invalid in this build.

Navigation Stability

Older versions of the player/enemy navigation worked fully in worldspace and lead to many subtle physics and floating point desyncs. I have fully converted to a local space solution, this has been thoroughly battle tested and resolves some subtle nav bugs but in particular the edge cases where players can get stuck in space on or above the stairs. This change also comes with a small CPU perf boost.

Culling Lights/Props on the Ship

When I'm talking about culling and pop-in here I'm exclusively referring to ship related props, the world uses a different system. Anyway I've further optimised the culling system and addressed many glaring pop-in issues as you navigate around. However there's certainly still a few so if you notice any please do let me know.

Full Change Log

Threat Indicators

• The ships computers will now do an idle beep when the ship has a hostile threat

• Additionally in the case of flooding a different tone will play if the ship is >25% flooding

• Added another Ship computer to the middle deck

• Changed the light on the ship computer so the indicator is easier to spot visually

• The navigation hotspot in the bridge now also has some helpful ship status indicators added

Tutorialisation

• Prevented some tutorials from showing in bad context

• Show item raise and item use 3 times before hiding fully

• Fixed inventory close tutorial never showing

• Made edge of screen turn tutorial clearer

Gameplay/General:

• The game now has a death screen that allows you to reload your save or return to the menu, this should make whats happening on death very clear

• Smoothed camera pop when setting new destinations for movement, also softened jerkyness in walk, run animations and transitions to and from idle, Generally moving around should just feel smoother

• Fixed head bob slider not working in some cases

• Fixed being able to nav to the deck from inside the bridge ladder area

• Fixed visible move marker when you started from bed

• Fixed the hopper disabling it's gate triggers when the player is not on the hotspot

• Made nav around ship engine a bit tighter to prevent players head from going inside

• Added a nav based way for the enemies to get down if they get stuck on the crane (assuming they actually reach the top), it's not ideally but should prevent them getting stuck up there in some cases

• Icebox renamed to deck locker to match key and

• Made enemy attacks only ever damage the thing they're trying to attack(also uses cheaper math)

• Fixed map not reset to ship center when the game loads up

• Winch hook will now not hook to traps if they would be at max dist and snap off the winch the next frame anyway

• Buffed blow torch min and max range slightly

• Decreased the out of bounds timeout slightly

• Crab trap now works like the bait supply, clicking on the base will act as a move target, and the top will open the lid, the bait bucket will not now auto open the lid when you try to fill the trap

• Fixed navigating on the ladder not being used if you click on the ground at the bottom of the ladder but not the ladder itself

• Fixed camera moving a bit after you load a save in bed, in the rare case the game will load you back on deck instead of from the bed, the player should no longer turn around on start up

• Tweaked hook gun accuracy to be a bit easier and handle overshoots easier

• Juiced up the hook gun but also added a bit of a delay between shots

• Prevented the player from taking damage inside the cabin

• Moved the axe and fuse box locker on lower deck to better location for opening flow

• Fixed boundary visual and test out of bounds not actually lining up

• Refill station now blocks refill until bait supply is fully repaired

• Fixed not being able to mouse over stuff on ship computer hotspot (unsure how long this has been broken for)

• Fixed bad pathing if you click to move on dropped bait

• Fixed insane upper limit on hook gun

• Fixed Paralomis taking a few seconds after death to remove itself from the attached hotspot

Art:

• Fixed low health green flicker (at least in the case i was able to reproduce)

• Fixed IK weights on hands not reverting if you weren't holding an item

• Added a new unlocked cabinet up on the upper deck and tweaked visuals near the bridge entrance

• Fixed LOD issues with some world props that were set too aggressive

• Cutscene cigarette is now correct (thanks tyler....)

• HUD and Inventory UI brightness now capped at 95% to bring style into alignment

• Brachy and paralomis death now crossfades shader out and lasts slightly longer

• Added some VFX when the bait supply contents change

• Fixed clock not rendering time at appropriate times

• Added a more diegetic output to the button panel on the winch and crane

• Disable player body while on hook gun and hopper to prevent player from seeing their body

• Tweaked ocean wake compute shader to reduce GPU overhead

• Fixed item shimmer shader using worldspace instead of boat space to animate causing it to speed up when the boat was moving

• Added a bit of motion to the ship map marker to help draw the players eye

• Added some prop polish in opening cutscene

• Made the button panel animated rope slightly use a line renderer fallback when in motion, instead of a runtime generated mesh, when it was active this was a 4-5ms overhead so it's a nice saving to remove it and I think it's pretty close visually

• The sink now has an actual animation

• Added a tiny bit of juice to refill station pour

• Fixed missing shimmer on ammo box

• Fixed security camera rendering (and made it cast fog on the water so it looks a bit better to)

• Fixed coffee mesh visibility

• Fixed micro animation jitter on bed loop which if you left the game running long enough would cause the player to rotate slowly around axis (this would fuck up the get off animation)

Audio:

• Ocean ambience sounds when you're near the outside edge of the ship tweaked, now there's 3 sounds that crossfade based on the intensity of the water instead of just one

• Improved some audio fade in issues from any non game state into the game

• Added demo end sound when you "win"

• Improved enemy aggro sound

• Added death sound that plays into the death screen

• Added movement sounds for paralomis

• Added scuttle sound for crab inside deck locker

• Fixed winch up loop sound finishing too early and re-added missing finish sound

• Ensure player footsteps stop playing sounds if player has already stopped

Saves:

• Decreased default auto save frequency from 5 to 2 minutes

• Previously using many hotspots would block auto save while in use, now only the bed and ladder do this

• Save validation improved

• Added a message next to the continue button if the game attempts to load a save but rejects it for some reason

• The game will no longer write non-default save files to disk until the first save occurs

• Saves now blocked when ship has >.25% water to prevent soft lock

• Fixed an issue where if you have items/crabs in the crab hopper and reloaded a save they would disapear (actually they just fucked off into nowhere)

• Fixed race condition on startup that would stop dropped bait from respawning when loading a save

UI:

• Options UI, Made font sizes more consistent, made float labels always be format 0.00

• Cutscene dialogue is now centered, tweaked opening cutscene dialogue slightly

• Pop up notify when new items added is now clearer, handles multiple at a time, doesn't overlap with lock UI and pops up when ammo, and items are added

• Added option to fully disable tutorials

• Made "Hold To Raise" option label include seconds in subtile

• Improved UI clarity when mousing over ammo and bandages

• Added a QA section to credits and added additional playtesters

• Opening cutscene contract now requires you to draw a little more before buttons appears to continue

• Made tutorials generally easier to read with a background image

• Improved text readout on bait supply, so both the move target and open target display the same info and properly handle damage states

Known Issues

• At high framerates physics can still cause issues for the Crab Traps flying away when dropping from the Crane or Crabs dropped into the hopper missing their target. This is something I'l be attempting to address ahead of launch for obvious reasons.

• It is possible for ammo or bandages to be fully consumed but appear in the inventory again in a bugged state.

• The game is not auto saving when you first boot the game and finish the first cutscene. Auto saves after you leave the dock all work fine however.

Happy Crabbing,

Nick