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This is a bugfix release. Demo was updated to this version as well from the ancient 0.6. Changes:
Last time I've said I wanted to start the work on the last major addition to the game before the release but before that I've decided to try out how's it going on the AI art scene. So after endless nights of prompting I present to you the art update. The ingame icons were not changed but I added a lot of art for ingame events, difficulty selection and improvements. While working on it I also decided to add images to most of the pedia articles to illustrate the points. And then I added the main menu background art just for the fun of it. This led me to notice the lack of decent fonts in the game so I added these as well. There are now more appropriate default fonts plus there is a font selector in the options menu. I continued tweaking the visuals until I think I got it right now so here it is. And after that was done, armed with the gajillion new art, I updated the store and library art as well. The woman on the cover is one of my two favorite images, I really dig how it turned out. Changes:
Sorry the new release took so long but it's a pretty hefty one. Firstly, the "engine" I used to draw the ingame entities has been removed in favor of low-level draw calls which made my life much, much easier (the usual scene with entities approach is amazingly ineffective and cumbersome for a procedurally generated open world tile-based game) and removed a whole class of bugs related to dynamically managing entities but it also exposed the ingame art in PNG format. You can find it now in the "resources/app/img/" folder along with the rest of UI images. Also this opens up the possibility of working on mod support in the future. I will create a sticky thread in the Steam forum where both potential mod authors and players can tell me their ideas so I can have a better understanding of the work needed to support that. Not only that, the "engine" change now allows me to do simple animations and particles. Now all ranged weapon shots will draw particles and blood splots. I will likely improve and increase their amount in the future but that is not the game's focus so don't expect anything elaborate. Secondly, the final mission of scenario A has been improved and reworked. There is now a new area type - corporate office floor. You start in the elevator and have to go through some hoops to go to your target. I won't spoil anything. Moreover, there are now two more variations of the final mission, so at the start of the game it will pick randomly what mission do you have to do to complete the game. NOTE: I'm not entirely sure whether the old savegames will be completable (or loadable even) due to the scenario changes so I advise you to start a new game if you encounter a game-breaking bug after loading an old savegame. It wasn't possible to make the savegames 100% compatible this time. Thirdly, some more QOL improvements to the game were implemented, read the full changes list below. Now let me share a few thoughts. The first scenario is now in a good shape so the game is pretty close to public release (though I fully expect some bugs from the engine change and new additions). There are two large gameplay expansions that I feel like have the highest priority. One is all about the combat and another is base building. The combat was always bare-bones and simplistic due to the survival focus of the game. However, many people expect it to be much more viable. Because of that, I've been thinking about not only enhancing the combat experience but adding a viable combat-heavy path through the game. OTOH, the base building feels a bit lackluster and would go very well with the "cult experience" which is a natural extension of the chat gameplay. Both of these expansions would also work best in separate scenarios that would have this new gameplay as a theme and focus instead of the basic survival of scenario A. So, I have three options to ponder upon: leave the expansions to be done after the game's release, implement one before the release or implement both of them. Tell me what you think. NOTE: The game is now much closer to the public release so in a week's time I will increase the base price by 1 USD again (or your regional equivalent). Changes:
Balancing changes to make habitats more permanent.
There is now a conversation mode ingame. The parasite can chat with its host and later with the other NPCs. How it works is you first need to complete the tutorial (open access to the timeline), then use one host for a period of time until the affinity between you grows to a high degree. At this point a new menu action "Converse With" opens up which leads into the conversation mode. The purpose of any conversation is to gain the consent of the interlocutor. Each turn the list of actions is regenerated from a list of possible ones. Using the analyze action you can gain information about what the target wants and their character aspects if there are any. These, in turn, influence the result of manipulative actions to be positive or negative. At first your chat attempts will fail due to the lack of skills but you can use the brain probe on hosts to get some, plus these skills are increased on each communication attempt. Once the consent is high enough, the rewarding actions open up. These may include questioning for information (gathering timeline clues), consulting for skill gains, requesting items (try to get a cop to give their gun to you!), de-escalation of area alertness and even some related to the --REDACTED--. In case of the host, the highest reward is maximum consent itself, since it makes the host agreeable to the parasite's presence, which results in a lot of energy-related benefits, the main one being that area movement will not spend any energy of the host. Maximum host consent also allows the parasite to use their mouth to speak with other NPCs. The conversation is, of course, not without inherent dangers. Some manipulative actions risk provoking a negative reaction, up to and including violence. Some can result in NPCs getting emotional with very negative results. The NPCs are still alerted by seeing you but the positive manipulation offsets this. The most important thing is that instead of the host energy, chatting requires parasite energy which means that parasite can exhaust itself and die while trying to communicate. There are more details about the mechanics in the ingame encyclopedia. Enjoy! NOTE: The price of the game was increased by 1 USD or your regional equivalent. Changes:
This release focuses on enriching the audio tapestry of the game. Essentially, it boils down to adding a lot of sounds where previously there was only silence. Plus, MaxStack has reworked his older work and added a couple more tracks to the game. The final addition is the About game window with credits. Changes:
This release brings the often requested sandbox mode into the game. The current plotted scenario is moved into a separate choice during the game start. There is no timeline, no clue gathering, no plot-related events and no NPCs in the sandbox mode, otherwise it plays the same. You can play the sandbox mode indefinitely, you cannot "win" the game. Two key changes were introduced to supplement this mode (they work with the scenario mode too): The first change is that now if you kill off all the ambushers in the habitat, it will not be destroyed. The Group goes into the timeout until they can spend more resources to gather another team of operatives. Same thing will happen with the street ambush. Successful killing of the team is not easy, especially once the level of the team raises but you do have the reward for that now. The second change is the addition of the Pseudocampus improvement into the game. It opens up the access to the organ which upon activation will plant the false memories into the host brain, and the parasite will then automatically leave the host. After that, it only has a short amount of time to slink off somewhere before the host is alerted. But if everything goes right, there will be no alert raised. In case of a common human this improvement is of limited use for a non-lethal gameplay style. But in case of a team member or a blackops operative the false memories will result in a significant raise of the team distance. Note that the blackops are especially juicy in that regard, doubling the base value. In short, this opens up the possibility of evading the antagonists indefinitely. You might have noticed that as usual I've neglected to describe how to gain access to that precious improvement... Well, I will continue the good tradition and won't say it :) The game is now much closer to the full release since the first Steam release so I'm raising the price by 2 USD or its regional equivalent. Changes:
The main focus of this release was scenario-related changes to the research labs. I don't want to spoil them but now there is an additional bit of gameplay that you will have to do once you reach the Parthenogenesis and rebirth
Now for the other big addition. After I was done with the planned changes I've noticed that I had a good chunk of time left before the release so I picked one of the features that is often requested by the players and did it. I'll just make the pedia article speak for itself:
After you evolve the Parthenogenesis improvement, the parasite gains access to the rebirth process. Normally, if it dies, it's game over but if you have the rebirth set up, the parasite will just move on to the "next life" with some losses. The first thing you need is to create the ovum object in region mode. It is a process similar to the microhabitat spawning. Go to the nearest sewers, pick a good spot on region map and activate the "Create ovum" action. Pick the place carefully because you will need to travel there to change settings and the parasite will be reborn there each time. The ovum itself is not in any danger from the antagonists at the moment and you can only build one.
Once the ovum is created, stepping on its tile will show you the info about its level and what improvements are marked for rebirth. There are two actions available. "Set improvements" opens the interface to lock and unlock which of the basic improvements you want to be reborn with. The second action, "Nurture ovum", allows you to feed your current host to the ovum, adding points to the next level. Each new level requires more points and there is a maximum ovum level. Different types of hosts will give you different amount of points. In general, the more dangerous the host type is, the more points the ovum will receive.
The rebirth process happens automatically on parasite death. At this point a new parasite will appear on the ovum location. The ovum level will be reduced by one. If the current ovum level is zero, it is the final death and game over. The basic improvements that were locked will stay with you, the rest will be discarded and you will receive another set of starting improvements. The basic improvements are the ones that can be received when you first open the evolution process in tutorial. All the ones that you've acquired during the gameplay after that will not be discarded. However, there is a large chance that some of them will degrade by one level to a minimum of one. Any evolution points that you've gained over the current improvement level will also be reset.
Pretty neat, huh?
Changes:
Fixes:
The vacation is over and the update is ready. This release marks the addition of the thing that has long been on my radar. I'm talking about ingame encyclopedia. A lot of people ask questions about this and that part of game, or end up confused or even wrong, and before there was no place they could receive the basic information apart from my answers and Steam discussions. Since I'm not all that good at keeping details in my head, some of the answers had me consulting the code and that took valuable time. Don't stop asking questions and giving feedback since that makes me think hard about the game. But now you can also read the explanations and intent behind some of the design. I've intentionally left off anything related to the mechanics and sources of actual evolution improvements (apart from the habitat growths and brain probe), this information is best discovered on your own. I think I've covered all the topics but there might be something I missed. Side note: you can actually write decent code even if there are people drinking, chatting and watching movies around you if you use brown noise and music combo to keep focus. Small kids are harder to ignore but thankfully, there was only one. After I finished working on the encyclopedia I've had some time left so I went ahead and added one of the requested features into the game: now you can store hosts in your habitat and return to them when needed. For that you must evolve and build a preservator growth. The amount of hosts that can be preserved with one of these is calculated from the level and assimilated hosts gain benefits to starting control value. That leaves only one question: how would you gain access to that improvement? Well, that's easy, just find a --REDACTED-- with --REDACTED-- somewhere in the --REDACTED--. Anyway, have fun. Changes:
Fix for loading game when AI has adipose tissue body feature
I've started working on this update by fleshing out the expanded design for the labs areas. At that point, labs were not much different from other locations, civilians and security, and one lab holding the event goal for timeline progression, the -REDACTED-, of course. There are three parts that I wanted to expand the labs in, these are adding the unique art and location generator, the unique optional gameplay with rewards and unique required gameplay for timeline. After I was done with sketching out the design, I realized that each of these has enough work in it to keep me busy for the amount of time I usually reserve for a single update. To make matters worse, I fell sick with cold for a week or so (in the middle of the hot summer, I know, but drinking much cold beverages daily does that easily for me). So I started work on the first part - the generator and finding unique art. iwanPlays supported me earlier with scientist tiles. So after some weeks of work I got the basis of the new "buildings with indoors" generator working that will be used for locations like this. Actual windows, tables and doors are there. The clue spawning was revisited, too, the clues have more art in there and they spawn only on tables. Also labs have floor drains, the larger of these the parasite can use to get into the sewers if needed. The generator was slow enough in coming and after I was mostly done with it, my vacation came up. It'll take three weeks and I'll try working but it's unlikely that I will get much done (I intend to start writing ingame encyclopedia). I didn't want to keep the game without any updates for another month so I'm making an intermediate labs update with the intent on following with more. Hope you'll like the new look. Note: I'm not fully confident that all savegames from the previous versions will load correctly, there could be potential cases where the game might not be completable due to the labs changes. Changes:
The focus of this update is on a long overdue writing for the improvement texts. I think the placeholder improvement names are from... 2019? 2018? I don't remember. Anyway, the improvements were also in need of rebalancing, since there were clear winners and a lot of very clear losers. In general, not a single one was nerfed, but some were buffed to improve their usability. Any attacks now have a consistent energy spend between them. Firearms still have a clear advantage once you get the relevant skill up for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the ammo isn't there yet (it will be at some point). And secondly, the basic improvements set is not designed to be combat-competitive, all of these are to improve your survival chance while you're running away. The combat set of improvements and aggressive playstyle support is incoming in the future but I've no date to give you. There are a few interesting additions to the improvements section. Neurotoxin projectiles (previously paralysis spit) now has a small instakill chance to differentiate it from the slime spit (which is now called mucilaginous fluid, cheers if you can say it fast three times in a row). But the most interesting addition is for the decay accelerant improvement. I recall how I painfully researched some biology to come up with a good description, spent some time working on the body despawn implementation and raising the alertness/group interest from it, and in the end it was all made obsolete by the fact that the player can go drop a body in the sewers. First I wanted to remove it altogether but I came up with an idea that it could give you a healing item. At this point in the development, it's the only way you can stock up on heals (and the only way to heal a host) so the improvement now has good value IMO since the body feature is also pretty cheap to grow and made even cheaper. While iterating on the improvements I've realized that it was a good time to implement some needed restrictions. The amount of body features on a single host is now limited by the constitution. The amount of inventory items by the strength stat and you get bonuses from assimilation. I've also noticed another glaring hole in the design and now each attack will require a small amount of energy. The firearms are still deadly (and they should be) but this is a limitation for the future. Now the final change that I want to address separately is called early invasion. I've received a suggestion that there is an unwinnable state in the game and on how to give the player a chance in that case. Since the parasite requires at least 30 energy to harden the grip and invade the host, if it has less than that number, it's a dead, erm, creature, uh, slithering. So upon thinking I've implemented a new action, called "early invasion". If the parasite is attached to the host and its energy is low, this action appears in the list. It allows you to invade the host "early" while its not fully subdued. There are two caveats: first, it has a chance to succeed which is dependent on the grip amount (basically grip is a percentage chance) with modifications according to the survival difficulty setting. And secondly, every attempt costs life for the parasite. A failed attempt costs more. This way if the player manages to find a host while dying, they now have a few final desperate attempts before dying. Hope you like it :) Well, that's all I've got to say, now I can work on adding some new content to the game. Have fun! Improvements changes:
When I started working on this update, my initial plan was to make save/load support and then move on to the basic evolution rebalance. Unfortunately, that was not meant to be. I knew that savegame support was a serious task but it turned out it was even more serious then I thought. Without going into too much technical details, my favorite highly dynamic method of programming does not gel well with serialization/deserialization (in fact I will have to keep that in mind in the future). The saving wasn't that hard but restoring the correct state after loading the game was a much harder task. In the end I've had to rewrite chunks of low/mid-level code to make the game state serializable and properly restorable so I fully expect there to be savegame related bugs. iwanPlays helped a lot with the QA so it seems stable enough but there's just a myriad of possibilities some of which may result in the game not loading correctly. If you notice any bugs after you've loaded the game, please send the exceptions.txt file and the savegame itself to me with the description because we all love these broken savegames, do we? :) Anyway, following my general philosophy on this game, saving has an associated difficulty. That's right, you've read me correctly, easy difficulty allows the player up to 10 saves per game in any point, normal only up to 3 and you can only save in the sewers, while hard difficulty limits you to a single save total, also only in the sewers. Bonus points to you if these numbers - 10/3/1 seem familiar... Speaking of difficulty, now you can select overall difficulty in the options menu and the game will automatically choose it for you when necessary. At this point you're probably wondering, what's this spoon mode that was mentioned earlier? Well, it's the result of a short discussion on the Steam forums with the players. The game is brutally hard for some and they want to relax some of the gameplay restrictions just to have some fun. This would, of course, break the balance so I've decided to add a hidden options menu where you can enable these changes in the game. It's hidden mostly because the new players are not supposed to enable anything in it right from the start. After enabling any of the two flags, the game gets officially spooned and you will have to disable the flags and start a new one to play like you're supposed to again. To get into the spoon mode options, you need to click on the OPTIONS menu title letters to form the word SPOON. At this point the hidden menu opens. There are only two options there now but I encourage you to ask for more on the forums. If it's not too hard or problematic, I'll implement it. That's all I have for now. Changes:
There are no gameplay changes in this one but a lot of maintenance stuff that should make playing the game more comfortable. The one small feature I'm most proud of is that you can now shift-click or shift-press number to auto-repeat harden grip and reinforce control actions. Players brought their inherent spamminess which made them a source of mistakes to my attention. Sound and music subsystem was changed, that will increase the sound quality and also restore the remaining three music tracks that I did earlier. Sound/music will require another pass at some point in the future. More sound effects are needed, the ambience should be enriched and my music mixing skills are now significantly better than they were in 2019 (as in I had almost none, hehehehehe) so I want to redo all of these music tracks and start working on the new ones. UI had two big changes. Firstly, there is now the main menu that the game starts with. Options window and quit menu items are now in there and these buttons are no longer in the HUD. Options window was expanded with the advanced section which features some useful and interesting flags. I've also fixed more bugs in the body/evolution window that I missed earlier. Check out the full details below, there is smaller but important stuff there, too. More players have asked about the save system so this will be incoming in the next big update, please wait a little longer :) Oh yeah, the Linux version should now be working. Changes:
This is a release focused on bugfixes with some changes to the difficulty settings. There is a new difficulty selection called survival. Important bugs with habitats dying multiple times and too many AIs on screen on high resolutions were fixed. Many visual bugs for UI windows were fixed, too. The game now has correct mouse cursors. Changes:
This is the first release that is available to Steam players (pre-release at the moment of writing). The major focus has been on changing the underlying platform for easier development and on making the UI prettier.
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