The Demo Performance Update

This is (likely) the last major update to the demo and contains a huge amount of optimizations so that the game can run smoothly on lower spec GPUs. I was able to get my hands on a Steam Deck so I'm using that as a benchmark and have been able to get the Demo running at 60* fps on the Steam Deck specific graphics preset.

*= Technically, the area with the trees runs between 50-60fps on the Steam Deck preset but can go up to a smooth 60 if you turn down the amount of trees that are drawn (i.e. set Foliage Quality to Low). But I think the forest looks better with more trees so, yeah.

The rest of the Demo's updates concern tweaks to some of the puzzles, especially the Guest Bedroom, and the Garage. Where relevant I also mention which Twitch demo playthrough I was watching when I wrote down the bugs to investigate.

Performance Fixes:

• Performance improvements for the forest area around the house

  • Lowered LOD bias, lowered texture resolution, activated virtual textures, custom visibility triggers when entering/exiting the house area, reducing shadow casting on lights, more aggressive culling of lights that aren't visible, more aggressive culling of sublevels that aren't visible

• Performance improvements in puzzle rooms

  • Guest Bedroom light radii reduced, shadow casting for point lights tweaked

  • LivingRoom Lava Lamp shader disabled when offscreen to prevent GPU melting

Other Fixes:

• Updated GUID for gate in basement of temple

• Added 50 point letter spacing by default to all subtitle widgets

• Added 50 point letter spacing by default to deduction entry widgets

• (From FuryForged stream 6/12/26) Mouse wheel scrolling down to close eyes was ambiguous, so replaced it with a slightly bigger icon

  • I.e. the arrow indicating movement is larger, might still be ambiguous?

• (From FuryForged stream 6/12/26) Added knowledge for laptop password in guest bed

• Removed "keep office supplies organized" clue from cardboard box

• Added GuestBedroom_BedroomDoorClue2 "keep office supplies organized" to second drawer of right side of desk

  • Has its own specialized BP

  • Includes child actors for the formatted text and the time visible trigger for the observation

  • Added observation for aforementioned GuestBedroom_BedroomDoorClue2

• (from BougieBlackChick stream 6/1/26) Have lightswitch be more obvious in guest bedroom? Fixed this by adding a custom POI for laptop when power is off

  • Added loc key for powered off message

  • When lightswitch is turned on, the message disappears and allows access to the camera angle changer to click on the laptop buttons

  • Consequently, the lights near the office supplies no longer do anything until the laptop is powered on

• (from BougieBlackChick stream 6/1/26) Controller's Y button was too sensitive, dismisses deduction menu almost instantly

  • Added 250ms delay for Deduction and ToggleMenu input actions using a timeline to time the cooldown period

  • AdjustedSide noteInput actions retrigger when the IMC is changed; can't figure out a way to *actually* flush the inputs between changes

• (from iamThePizzaBabe stream 5/29/26) Entering the deduction menu forces the camera to zoom out now

• Garage: Cabinets now show as red outlined interactables that change to blue when solved

  • Also, the cabinets "render custom depth" is set to false once opened as they can't be interacted with again after that

• (from BougieBlackChick stream 6/1/26) Added light to garage start area, as people tended to walk backwards and fall without realizing it since it was pitch black in the room initially

• Hand statue now changes color only after 2nd cabinet is opened

• When objectives are spawned StartObjectiveCanBeDismissedCooldown event is triggered to prevent accidentally (and instantly) dismissing new messages

• Information stands now scroll their text when looking up and down if the text overflows