Steam News15 May 20233y ago

Major Demo update: v0.5

This update to the demo brings it to a new level of polish and performance that we're very excited about. Things should look and feel a lot less janky than before.

In this update3

Full notes

Full Valley of Shadow update

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What changed

5 fixes7 additions4 changes0 removals

Performance
Gameplay
Security
UI and audio
Balance
Maps

addedThis update to the demo brings it to a new level of polish and performance that we're very excited about. Things should look and feel a lot less janky than before.

addedNew Features & ChangesYou can now cancel your spell cast! If you've already placed a perfectly-positioned Light, and you accidentally right-click, press escape to cancel the cast (while right-click is still held down).

addedNew Features & ChangesNew "Real Memory" post-processing effect for when certain scenes play out, such as the Pup-Pup scene on the back porch.

addedNew Features & ChangesYou can no longer jump in the Home. We decided to remove it because it didn't add anything interesting to the scenes, and only served to uncover & exploit collision bugs.

addedNew Features & ChangesAdd Poetry Plaques to the Temple. Written entirely in the rune language, deciphering these plaques adds an extra layer of depth to the story.

changedImprovementsThe beginning of the demo has been completely polished , with a better-looking UI and therapy hallway.

Valley of Shadow changes

addedThis update to the demo brings it to a new level of polish and performance that we're very excited about. Things should look and feel a lot less janky than before.

addedYou can now cancel your spell cast! If you've already placed a perfectly-positioned Light, and you accidentally right-click, press escape to cancel the cast (while right-click is still held down).

addedNew "Real Memory" post-processing effect for when certain scenes play out, such as the Pup-Pup scene on the back porch.

addedYou can no longer jump in the Home. We decided to remove it because it didn't add anything interesting to the scenes, and only served to uncover & exploit collision bugs.

addedAdd Poetry Plaques to the Temple. Written entirely in the rune language, deciphering these plaques adds an extra layer of depth to the story.

This update to the demo brings it to a new level of polish and performance that we're very excited about. Things should look and feel a lot less janky than before.

Here are the itemized notes for this update:

New Features & Changes

You can now cancel your spell cast! If you've already placed a perfectly-positioned Light, and you accidentally right-click, press escape to cancel the cast (while right-click is still held down).
New "Real Memory" post-processing effect for when certain scenes play out, such as the Pup-Pup scene on the back porch.
You can no longer jump in the Home. We decided to remove it because it didn't add anything interesting to the scenes, and only served to uncover & exploit collision bugs.
Add Poetry Plaques to the Temple. Written entirely in the rune language, deciphering these plaques adds an extra layer of depth to the story.
Diskettes now move to the bottom corner of the screen to dissolve. This doesn't have a major impact on the Demo, but has been put in place for future content starting in Chapter 2.
The staff animates out of the way when inspecting something. This is really just a workaround for some weird transparency issue with VHS tapes.
In-game menu now shows your current framerate.

Improvements

The beginning of the demo has been completely polished, with a better-looking UI and therapy hallway.
Cover up many imperfections in the Temple, primarily where snow mounds intersect with other objects. The intersections should be much less noticeable now.
"Song of Innocence" is now more obvious and dissolves when inspected. This is a relatively important aspect of the story that a lot of players were missing.
Footstep System has been entirely rewritten, and it should bug out less often. The new system requires significantly less manual setup compared to the old system.
Player breath now looks more realistic.
Game posters stick to the wall more believably, and are anchored by their scotch tape now. Previously they were anchored semi-randomly, and looked a bit wonky as a result.
VHS tapes now slide into a sleeve before they dissolve. Similar to the staff animation issue above, this is also to get around a weird transparency issue with the tapes themselves.
Improve performance in Home scenes. Many thanks to the latest version of Unity for newly-added terrain features that made these improvements possible!
Slightly shrink the default reticle. It was just ever so slightly too big for our liking.

Bug Fixes

Shadow Creatures now properly render on top of (and underneath) other transparent things.
Objects that dissolve look much more realistic now; they were previously not correctly normal-mapped.
The Subtitle setting actually does something now, and defaults to Off.
Fix bug that caused Quality to show as "Low" even though it wasn't.
Fix bug that caused therapy door to sometimes not close.
Fix animation bug when staff un-hides (after teleporting to each next floor in the Temple)

Source

Steam News / 15 May 2023

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