Demo Update 0.11.2

Development continues on Memory's Reach with a lot of little tweaks and improvements making their way into the demo with this patch. But also some big changes to the level design and progression.

Most notably: the Virishal Depths section has been removed from the demo. This was a semi-hidden section accessible after completing the main portion of the demo. However it's inclusion required a bit of custom work and as development continued and changes were being made, it was becoming difficult to maintain two different versions of the game. So I have made the decision to remove it from the demo, which will allow me to focus a lot less on maintaining parity between the demo and full game, and more time focusing on development.

There's a few other little level design and progression changes in this update, as well as a host of tweaks and improvements.

Level Design Changes

Note: Due to extensive design and progression changes in the patch, you may encounter odd inconsistencies if you load a save from a previous version. Old saves should still work without causing any softlocks, but do let me know if you find yourself stuck.

• Removed Virishal Depths region from the demo. If you load a save with the player location somewhere in the depths you will automatically be teleported out to the mines entry in Kogil Rainforest.

• Some other behind-the-scenes changes to the data structure of Lagash Valley may mean that if your saved position was in certain locations in this area your position may be moved to a safe location in the Temple Plaza.

• Added new section to Lagash Valley to contain the Decryption Key upgrade.

• Various other minor changes to level design and progression.

• Reduced the shard cost required to access the Translocator upgrade. I decided to leave this in the demo even though it can no longer be used to access the Virishal Depths, as it allows players to explore a little more of the accessible areas and collect a few pickups after completing the main portion of the demo.

Gameplay Changes

• Removed Energy Surge's AOE blast function from the demo. This is now a separate upgrade you'll get later in the game.

• Energy Surge no longer requires a minimum charge to use a level 1 surge. Simply tapping the trigger will fire a surge. As a result it is also 33% fast to charge up a level 3 surge.

• Significantly reduced the speed penalty while carrying a dodecahedron and enabled running while carrying. It's still slightly slower compared to not carrying anything, but not annoyingly so.

• Allowed throwing of dodecahedrons before acquiring the Energy Surge ability, however the throw is limited to the minimum (zero charge) distance.

UI

• Holo-puzzle UI: Renamed "Bypass" button to "Puzzle Assist". This window now provides and explanation of the puzzle mechanics in addition to the skip function.

• Removed the language option from the demo. All localizations were (often bad) machine-translated placeholders intended to test implementation and help gauge audience interest from non-English speaking countries. I'm satisfied I have the information I need from that now so I have decide to disable the language option until such time as the game is professionally translated closer to release.

• Other little improvements to the settings menu and UI more broadly.

Additional Display and Graphics Settings

• Added FSR 3.1, DLSS 4.5, and XeSS 3 support (DLSS and XeSS are Windows only). Additionally, DLSS now actually works correctly.

• Added additional granularity to several Lights, Shadows and Volumetrics settings. Additionally, Volumetrics Quality settings should give far more visually pleasing results at lower quality settings while providing better performance improvements.

• Added Tonemapping settings which are useful for adjusting the brightness on HDR displays.