This one isn't too exciting if you're not in the level designer crowd. But the things the level designer crowd will be able to do with this IS exciting, or will be very soon, so there is that. ;) Release notes: https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Release_Raptor:Pre-Early-Access_Release_Notes#Pre-EA_Demo_8 That said, the lighting system has been overhauled AGAIN. The adaptive lighting stuff was being a surprising pain and didn't feel natural to me. Overall I was not able to get the effects I wanted with dramatic contrast areas AND sufficiently light general areas. So I had to redo a bunch of stuff, and try a lot of things that didn't work, and finally I have something that works. The raptor itself has had some visual upgrades as part of this, in terms of its texture work and having a new custom shader I made for it. More will be done in the future, but for now that's plenty. The raptor is also better about being able to get through small doors without moving around funkily, since she rears back now instead. I'm sure that will be tuned substantially in the future, because it can look slightly goofy at the moment at times, but it's a lot better than before, and sets the basis for fixing the rest of it later. In the meantime, there are bigger fish to fry! The "apartment building" plan has actually grown thanks to ambitious folks on the level design team, and then my own ambition with that. I don't want to spoil anything with that, but some of the level pieces that are there are already pretty incredible, and we have a bunch more planned prior to the EA launch. Getting really close to finally tying a lot of this together now! Oh, and in terms of the new lighting stuff, there are more useful tools for tuning that to your taste now. The ambient light setting from the last release is still here, but the old brightness/contrast settings are gone. Instead you can now set the overall exposure (essentially a form of brightness or gamma), and you can also set the amount of light that is just in the area right around the raptor itself. Using those tools you can actually get a hugely varied set of looks, from things that are very bright and cheerful to very dark and moody. I'm okay with that. :)

• Be a velociraptor.
  
• Feel like a velociraptor -- this is our central design goal.
  
• Procedural levels: a pleasing blend of hand-crafted locales and randomization.
  
• Fight robots! Tear giant ones limb from limb, pounce on small ones, and try not to die.

Sell Me The Idea In One Sentence

What’s The Point?

• 1. For the pure fun of the thing. In 1993, a certain game let you be a raptor. The controls were iffy. The levels were short and static. It's very dated. Yet many of us still dust it off periodically -- just to be a raptor. Release Raptor gives you a far more satisfying, modern, dynamic experience.
  
  
• 2. For the challenge. Brutal Mode approximates what a real theropod might experience when attacked by robots. Aka, if you get shot by a rocket that's the end. You'll need to use all your raptor skills to tear your foes to shreds.
  
  
• 3. To play with kids. I want to be able to play this with my 5 year old son, but still have dismemberment (because that's cool). How to do that without blood or gore? Robots! Little robots = pouncing targets; giant mechs = dismemberment targets.
  
  
• 4. For a power trip. Brutal Mode is only fun for some. So we have Power Trip Mode, where you're on an invincible rampage. It's not about IF you can do it, but how WELL you do it. Speedrunning is encouraged. Your performance is scored and rated (avoiding hits, etc), so mistakes still have consequences.
  
  
• 5. For daily runs — maybe. My hope is to build out some daily leaderboards for both play modes, but no promises on that yet.
  
  
• 6. For the strategy of it — probably. The idea is to make these branching mazes kind of like AI War: Fleet Command maps in terms of how they provide you with opportunities. Each opportunity may increase the heat you take while moving forward, but at the same time net you some good things (thematic secondary goals like blowing up part of the facility, etc). I think I have figured out how to avoid excessive backtracking or frustration with this, but I don't want to state that as a definite feature until I have it prototyped in.

• OS: Ubuntu 10.10 or later. although other unsupported distros may work
• Processor: Dual Core 64bit CPU (2.2+ GHz Dual Core CPU or better)Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce 8xxx+. Radeon X2400+. or Intel G45+
• Storage: 5 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Important: final specs may substantially differ. but this is our best guess for now.

• Processor: Any Quad Core or 3.0+ GHz Dual Core CPUMemory: 5 GB RAM
• Memory: 5 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD 7870 2GBAdditional Notes: Important: final specs may substantially differ. but this is our best guess for now.