The last few years have been pretty quiet for Bit Kid, but this year we finally broke the silence with the announcement of our next title, WOLFHOUND. It may have seemed like it came out of nowhere, but its been in the works for quite some time now. It was honestly a bit scary to secretly work on something for so long, not knowing whether anyone would be interested in it when it was finally announced, but thankfully, the overwhelmingly positive response from you all and the world put that lingering sense of dread to rest. Now we can march towards the finish line with the confidence that were on the right track! The announcement trailer did a great job of getting across what WOLFHOUND is and how it plays, but I thought Id take a moment in this update to focus on a few key design decisions and gameplay details that may not have been so obvious.

WORLD

GAMEPLAY

ARSENAL

WRAP UP

A quick update with the latest libraries, as well as some small fixes & improvements. 1.093 ------------------ - fixed graphical glitches in NPC shops - tweaked CRT settings - added Italian translations for Race mode (thanks hexaae!) - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 24.11

You may have noticed that It's been a while since the last Chasm update back in January. Did Bit Kid finally throw in the towel after six long years of support? Heck no! In fact, it's the opposite. Briefly, Chasm was made with our own custom engine and toolset built on Microsoft's XNA Framework. Supporting multiple projects was never taken into account when things were first designed, so when I started WOLFHOUND I quickly began to see the issues with developing and maintaining multiple titles. To remedy this, I set out to revamp and future-proof the development environment by getting everything off the long dead XNA framework (hello, open-source alternative FNA!) and creating a shared content pipeline and set of libraries for all the games to use. That means that while Chasm may not appear any different, the process used to build this latest release is, and careful testing was needed to ensure everything worked just as it used to. Thanks to the help of community member extraordinaire Macktion, we've done our best to verify that every pixel is in its place, and the seeds are generating the same as previous versions. And during the process we actually discovered several bugs that had went unnoticed for years! While all that isn't particularly exciting for players, there is a bonus in this release. One of my goals on WOLFHOUND was to step up the available video filters for the pixel art. To that end, a new CRT effect (LottesRVM) and a smoothing filter (XBR) have been ported, and now you get a first look at them in Chasm!
(right-click and Open in New Tab to see at full resolution) The CRT effect has 3 different settings: "Pro CRT" with more accurate scanlines that are less visible in brighter areas, "Old CRT" with a slot mask and no scanlines, and, lastly, "Digital CRT" with vertical scanlines. And for those feeling extra nostalgic, there's a new option for a rounded tube effect. In addition to the CRT effects, there's also a Smooth option that turns those jagged pixels into buttery smooth edges. I know it's not for everyone, but more options can never hurt, right? I hope you enjoy the update, and as always thanks for your patience and continued support. And please be sure to let me know if you run into any trouble on your journey! -James 1.092 ------------------ - added new CRT emulation modes (Pro CRT, Digital CRT, and Old CRT) - added Smoothing video filter - fixed some jittery parallax effects - fixed Random number generator re-initialization - fixed crash on some PCs when switching soundtracks in-game - fixed several Italian translation issues (thanks LetsPlayNintendoITA!) - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 24.09

[previewyoutube=iWprFF0A-io;full][/previewyoutube] When a clandestine NAZI BASE is discovered in the otherworldly heart of the BERMUDA TRIANGLE, theres only one soldier for the job Capt. Chuck WOLFHOUND Rossetti, a wise-cracking, one-man army who never leaves a pal behind, is no stranger to war but his war is about to get stranger. After an Allied vessel vanishes, Chuck is deployed to infiltrate an uncharted island, discover the enemys secrets, and bring our boys home. Yet this evil, shrouded island has other plans. Pitted against the stuff of nightmares mutant insects, zombies, and other twisted creations of a mad Axis scientist Chuck finds himself on an eerie, perilous mission unlike any hes faced before. VENTURE FORTH INTO THE ISLAND, scavenging for weapons and ammo to dispatch the Axis soldiers and monsters that grow more grotesque and dangerous the further WOLFHOUND goes. Unveil the sinister experiments of Dr. Steiner, and turn his tech against him. Feel the unbridled power of the railgun. Reach new heights with the jetpack. Lace up gravity boots to traverse new areas, where castles pierce the sky and crystal caverns veil wicked, fascinating mysteries. . .
After more than 200,000 recruits ventured into the procedurally-generated depths of Chasm, Bit Kid sought to return to the Metroidvania genre, while eschewing procedural generation in favor of a single, intricately-designed world. Bit Kid brought together artistic talent behind the Shantae series, Freedom Planet 2, and Sparklite along with a heroic chiptune soundtrack courtesy of musician RushJet1 (Cave Story+, Alwas Legacy, PewDiePies Tuber Simulator).
While Ive always been a big fan of retro games and pixel art, I really wanted to dive deep into the style of NES and 8-bit gaming, said James Petruzzi, founder and lead developer at Bit Kid. Were aiming to be as authentic as possible, stylistically: an 8-bit color palette, 320180 pixel resolution, and a soundtrack composed in Famitracker which has enabled homebrewers to create authentic NES music for many years. WOLFHOUND will release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Steam for PC and Steam Deck. For more information, follow Bit Kid on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and join the official Bit Kid Discord server.

Another quick update with the latest game controller mappings and FNA libraries. 1.090 ------------------ - fixed ledge overhang in Catacombs bossroom - updated game controller database (now supports PS5 Access controller) - updated to FNA 24.01

This release is mostly library updates, but that comes with a couple much needed fixes! The audio popping issue on Windows should finally be fixed, as well as controllers sometimes not being detected without unplugging/replugging them. There are also some tweaks to Race mode to make it a little more fun. I've removed some of the rooms that make it less apparent which way to go, increased the player's level, and reduced the course length by about a third. Let me know what you think! 1.089 Change List ------------------ - race: removed rooms with more than 3 doors - race: reduced course lengths by roughly 30% - race: increased player level - race: reduced fountains to 1 in the middle of the course - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 23.10

I can hardly believe it, but Chasm officially turns five years old today! On top of that, it was over 10 years ago now that Chasm's Kickstarter was successfully funded. Where does the time go? In celebration of the anniversary, we'll be doing a giveaway today with our last copy of the Switch Deluxe Edition by Limited Run. Please join our Discord if you haven't already, and get your entry in! I'd like to once again thank both the team who worked their hardest to make Chasm a reality, as well as all the fans that helped make it such a success. But just how big of a success was it? Well, I'm honored to say that to date Chasm has sold 200,000 copies worldwide! That is a huge achievement for an indie game, and far beyond what we ever thought would be possible for our first major title. So, what have we been up to since launch? Immediately after launch in the fall of 2018 we focused on the Switch and Xbox ports, while trying to fix all the major issues that were reported by the community. New translations, game modes, content and much more were also released. Then in 2019, Chasm's engine & tool programmer (and longtime friend) Tim decided to leave the company. It was a major blow for me, but I continued working on Chasm throughout that year fixing bugs, adding content, and generally improving the experience until the last major update was released in the fall.
Engine Improvement: Vertical Transitions (Bonus: 8-bit style Daltyn!) Going into 2020, I was back on my own again with no clear path forward. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was starting over from scratch. During that period, I worked on a few different prototypes while I improved the engine with new features and optimizations to speed up content creation. Among the prototypes were a sequel to Chasm that picked up right where the last one left off, a "pick up and play" Spelunky-ish spin-off, and, finally, a hand-designed Metroid-inspired game.
A character creator for a scrapped prototype. While all the ideas showed promise, I was burned out on both fantasy and procedural generation, so the hand-designed idea seemed the most appealing at the time. All the pieces started to come together as I worked on it, and by the summer of 2021 I had a brand-new team assembled with a 30-minute prototype showcasing the intro and first area (similar to Chasm's that I used to pitch at GDC and the Kickstarter). After proving to myself the concept was solid and the new team could realize the vision, I decided to commit to it and officially went into pre-production on my next title. Jumping up to the present, the game is now a good way into development and I'm bursting to finally announce it to the world. However, there is still that pesky little problem of the right timing! Unfortunately, it's not quite here yet, but we're getting closer every day now. Thank you again for your continued support over the years, and I'll be back in touch soon! -James

A quick patch with more framework updates, as well as updated controller mappings. 1.086 Change List ------------------ - removed redundant loading of gamecontrollerdb.txt - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 23.07

This update includes the latest FNA framework libraries and gamepad database. I've also been made aware of new audio issues in Windows with popping, crackling and other strange artifacts. This is due to a recent change in Windows, and has made some trouble with SDL-based games like Chasm. A proper fix should be coming along, but this update contains an optional fix if you are experiencing this. First, make sure you are on 1.085 since it is required (check in the main menu in the game if you are unsure). With the game closed, right click it in Steam and go to Properties. Under "Launch Options" paste in the following: /audiodriver:wasapi Please let me know if you have any trouble! 1.085 ------------------ - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 23.04

This update includes the latest FNA framework libraries, a couple Steam Deck improvements, as well as the ability to set a custom key for the console. Tilde is not convenient for everyone's situation, so now you can set your own key via the game's config file in the Steam folder. I will try to eventually add an in-game option to change it, but in the meantime just browse to your Chasm folder (default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Chasm), open the config.ini file with Notepad, and add the line "ConsoleKey=F5" to the bottom and save. 1.084 ------------------ - added detection for Steam Deck - added customizable key for console - added 2.0 Stereo hint to SDL audio for better sound driver compatibility - removed "Disable Gamepad" option when played on Steam Deck - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 22.12

In this update I've rewritten the video scaling logic, and made some modifications to the available Video Options. Most notably, the Resolution option has been replaced with a new "Fit To Screen" option that will max out the game to fit the screen (while keeping a 16:9 aspect ratio). Pixel art can be very tricky to resize without causing ugly artifacts like uneven text, squished character features, etc. so the game has only ever supported even scaling factors before (1x, 2x, 3x). For some non-16:9 monitors, this can unfortunately leave huge areas of wasted space around the playfield. The Fit To Screen method in this release was borrowed from our Vita version, which has a very odd screen size (960x544). The method we use upscales the pixel art to one scaling factor larger than what the screen can hold, then downscales it with bilinear filtering to fit. This means less wasted space and no weird artifacts, but it has the trade off of a slightly less sharp image (this may not even be detectable on high-dpi setups). NOTE: If you are using a less common setup like an old CRT, you can still force a custom resolution by modifying the config file located in Documents\Chasm. Just add the following lines with your required resolution (these are at the game's native resolution). CustomResX=384 CustomResY=216 I also took the opportunity to fix some other bugs I found, noted in the change log below. Please let me know how it works out for you, especially on the Steam Deck! 1.083 ------------------ - added "Fit To Screen" option for PC monitors & Steam Deck - fixed wrong Fullscreen resolution sometimes being used when moving game to another monitor - fixed Window Scale multiplier not going high enough on some high-dpi setups - fixed crash when switching music styles on some systems - removed area hub rooms from exploration percent calculation - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 22.06

This is just a quick patch with more framework updates for the Steam Deck, as well as new controller mappings. 1.082 Change List ------------------ - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 22.01

I noticed the majority of players aren't able to complete the course on Race mode, so I've added a melee weapon back in to help out. The weapon is chosen randomly for the course based off the seed and area, so all players will receive the same one. This change shouldn't affect the players with the fastest times since they will still prefer to avoid enemies over engaging. -James 1.081 Change List ---------------------------- - race: added randomly chosen melee weapon - race: fixed practice screen title - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 21.12 - includes more graphical fixes for Steam Deck

I'm excited to announce that Chasm 1.080 has been released on Steam. This release started as just a quick update to fix Steam Deck compatibility, but eventually ended up with some new features including a brand new game mode! The new mode is called Race, and similar to Arcade it features Daily and Weekly leaderboards to compete on. Also like Arcade mode, it uses a unique door randomizer system that builds the map as you play it. But that is where the similarities end! Race is a high intensity sprint through a segment of generated dungeon, focused on your speed navigating the rooms and avoiding danger. The rules are simple: you start with all powerups and basic spells, but no melee weapons. You must get through a procedurally generated course as quickly as possible, avoiding the enemies and traps. If you have the fastest time, you take the top spot on the leaderboard for the day or week. Just like with Arcade mode, the Daily can only be run once, while the Weekly gives you unlimited tries to improve while keeping your best time. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for your continued support! -James 1.080 Change List ----------------------------

• added Race mode
• added mouse button mapping support
• improved timing leniency for sliding after landing on ground
• updated game controller database
• updated to FNA 21.10 - includes fixes for Steam Deck and various improvements including input latency

Apologies for all the controller issues recently! There are 2 different problems going on, one of which is hopefully fixed for good now. 1) Steam introduced Steam Input which changes how gamepads are handled. Steam Input creates a virtual gamepad that interfaces with games to help with cross-platform and gamepad compatibility. Unfortunately, there have been some weird side effects with some setups including input lag, double inputs, and more. You can disable this and use Chasm's built in gamepad support by disabling Steam Input. Right click Chasm in your library, go to Properties, then Controller. In the drop down select "Disable Steam Input". Note this will only apply to this game and not the rest of your library. 2) Chasm uses SDL for low level functions like input handling, audio, etc. SDL's gamepad mapping file has entries for nearly every controller out there, so if you start the game up there's a good chance it will work right away. Problems began though when the community started adding new mappings for the PS4 controller and others that were incorrect. This caused the d-pad and other buttons to stop working or be mapped incorrectly. An update has just been released to remove the duplicate invalid mappings. Please let me know if you still having trouble after updating to the latest on the community forums! Thanks, James

More library updates for the latest graphics, sound, and input improvements from SDL2 and FNA. 1.078-1.079 ------------------ - updated game controller database (now supports PS5 controller) - updated to FNA 21.04

Chasm 1.077 is now available on Steam! This patch contains a few requested tweaks, as well as a large overhaul to the graphics system. OpenGL has been replaced on Windows and OS X with their own native systems, D3D11 and Metal respectively. Linux is still on OpenGL for now, but will eventually move on to Vulkan. This change should greatly increase system compatibility. Chasm is also on sale 50% Off as a Steam Weekly deal, so grab it before its too late! 1.077 Change List ---------------------------- - increased item drop rates - adjusted boss health levels - forced Fire Crawler to always appear to fix rare Bestiary bug (new games only) - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 20.09. OpenGL has been replaced on Windows with native D3D11 and on OSX with native Metal. System compatibility should increase from this, but there may be minor problems found like graphical glitches.

We're happy to announce that Chasm turns two years old this week! On July 31, 2018 we flipped the switch and launched the game on Steam and PS4/Vita. It seems like it was just yesterday, but time certainly flies as they say. Wed like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans for their continued support over the years. We couldnt do it without you! In celebration of the occasion, we have a steep 60% Off sale going on right now so don't miss out!

Chasm 1.075 is now available on Steam! This patch contains a few more fixes to bugs discovered by the community, FNA framework updates, as well as Linux and Mac OSX compatibility updates. Chasm is also on sale 50% Off as a Steam Weekly deal, so grab it before its too late! 1.074 - 1.075 Change List ---------------------------- - custom player map markers now pulse to differentiate from others - fixed animation pooling bug in Bestiary - fixed buying multiple potions at a time not counting towards gold spent achievement - linux: removed deprecated 32-bit support - mac osx: updated packaging to adhere to new apple guidelines - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 20.02

Chasm 1.073 is now available on Steam! This patch contains a few more fixes to bugs discovered by the community, improved keyboard remapping, and a fix for a possible missable quest goal. The game is also on sale 60% Off for Steam's Winter Sale, so grab it before its too late! 1.073 Change-list ------------------ - added safeguard for flour drops in innkeepers sidequest - fixed flambard special move on thumbstick - fixed eyebat getting stuck in ground - fixed equipment items stacking when purchasing multiple of a type - fixed throwing sword not throwing when holding down - fixed bird hat icon positions - improved keyboard remapping logic

Chasm 1.072 is now available on Steam! This patch contains numerous fixes for our last big update and also a few tweaks that the community suggested. The game is also on sale 40% Off for Steam's Autumn Sale so now is the time to grab it if you haven't yet! 1.072 Change-list ------------------ - fixed unintended achievement unlocking when playing Arcade then Story mode - fixed secret detector beeping for elixirs already picked up - fixed dire rat aggro when on platform above or below - fixed input buffer size growing every room change - fixed Misc category notes allowing paging for translated languages - fixed executioner walking into oil - increased mana particle acceleration - increased enemy mana drop rate - updated game controller database - updated to FNA 19.11

[previewyoutube=c3igphtIGU0;full][/previewyoutube] Hello again everyone! Since 1.066's release I've been sneaking out updates here and there while the porting studio worked on catching the console versions up from 1.035. It added up to be quite a bit in the end since we ran into a few delays along the way and I had extra time to fix and tune things. The above trailer is primarily meant for consoles that were farther behind than Steam, but it should give anyone who hasn't been paying close attention a good idea of what we've been up to for the last year! 1.066 -> 1.071 Change-list:

• adjusted area sizes and improved generation by moving a couple rooms (new games only)
• fixed glitchy archer sprites when killed during spawning in Trell battle
• fixed tiling errors in several rooms
• fixed walljumping up mines elevator shaft
• fixed escape key on PC builds
• fixed player being able to attack if gooped by hanging spider while attacking
• fixed button labels glitching on some menus
• fixed save icon not displaying correctly when saving after credits
• fixed frozen familiars during ending
• fixed rumble on certain controllers on PC
• fixed CRT shader on non-16:9 aspect displays
• fixed king trell spawning archers behind gates
• fixed some dark rooms missing doorway light
• fixed bug in unique drop bonus stat picking
• fixed dark catacombs entrance sawblade damage
• fixed various map errors
• merged latest console optimizations
• increased drop rates slightly
• increased mana orb acceleration
• increased mines crushers speed
• increased controller rumbling intensity
• reduced max spawns for spawner enemies
• improved late game basden encounter scripting
• improved fullscreen behavior for setups with multiple monitors
• Arcade: increased lantern light radius
• Arcade: misc tweaks to drop rates, area lengths, etc
• Arcade: doubled time bonus multiplier
• Arcade: fixed possible crash on map screen
• Arcade: status effects reset at end of level
• updated game controller database
• updated to FNA 19.09

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyORwRhyDNE We're excited to announce that Chasm is having a Weekly deal this week at 35% off! In addition to the sale, a community member has created a quick introduction video to Arcade mode for anyone that is not familiar with it yet. After you learn some tips and tricks, test your mettle against today's Daily Challenge and go for the high score!

This week marks the one year anniversary of Chasm's release! After over five years of hard work, Chasm was released to the world on July 31. In celebration, the game is 50% off on all platforms, and we will be doing giveaways every day this week (including cool new swag bags!) on our Facebook, Twitter and Discord. Thanks so much to everyone for their continued support, we couldn't do it without you!

We released an update today with a new feature request from the community, as well as a few bug fixes and tweaks. It can be tricky figuring out where that last few percent is when trying to 100% the game so we've added a checkmark next to the names of areas that are fully explored. I also made button presses a little more lenient while your character is attacking. Each weapon has a certain amount of frames you are locked into the attack, so if you push Backdash or Jump too soon it might not register. I extended the window a few more frames, so it should feel a little more responsive now if you press too early. Change-list:

• added checkmark for fully explored areas on map screen
• fixed hit stun on crawlers
• fixed necromancer teleport logic
• fixed player not cancelling out of attacks when crouched
• extended buffer for button presses during attacks for more responsiveness
• updated to FNA 19.05
• updated game controller database

Chasm's showfloor demo is now available on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux! It's a quick peek (~10 minutes playtime) of the first area of the game and should give a good idea of how it plays. Please note, in the demo the intro area is skipped and saving is disabled.

Thanks to our community member lostprophet.hu, Chasm now supports Hungarian! I also fixed a few more bugs that were reported, and made some tweaks to Arcade mode.

• added Hungarian translation
• arcade: adjusted dark room and spell drop rates, increased scavenger inventory size
• arcade: fixed flying enemies sometimes spawning on top of each other
• fixed glitching of left stick horizontal movement in menus
• fixed font styling for characters in extended range

We've released a few small updates over the past few days with various bug fixes and another polish pass on the rooms. Change-list:

• extra room polish
• updated to FNA 19.04
• fixed points for bosses in Arcade mode
• fixed slimes jumping off platforms
• fixed ladori warrior getting stuck on rails
• fixed HP on load with various equipment

We released a couple patches over the weekend, including a brand new alternate Chiptune soundtrack! The soundtrack can be changed in the Audio options and works with both the normal game and Arcade mode. If you dig it be sure to check out the composers Bandcamp page! Change-list: - added alternate chiptune soundtrack - added glow effect for arcade lanterns containing spells - added alt powerup and levelup sfx for chip soundtrack - added missing translations - various fixes and adjustments for arcade mode - fixed HP not refilling fully after loading game with augmenting equipment - fixed several enemies detecting player through ground

We released two small updates today back to back, mainly dealing with enhancements the community requested for Arcade mode, as well as the option to skip the intro if you already completed the game. 1.057 + 1.058 Change-list:

• added option to skip game intro (requires completed game)
• arcade: added end of stage score screen
• arcade: added no hit boss drops
• arcade: added illumination scroll
• arcade: added parachute to magma area
• arcade: changed 'no hit' bonus to per stage
• added more palette variations for pedestals
• fixed several new rooms

We're back with another update! The focus on this one was expanding the core room set for more path variation, as well as adding in some new background graphics for more visual variation. I also took some time to revise and clean up older rooms as well. Change-list:

• added over 60 rooms for more path variation (new games only)
• added new background graphics to all areas
• revised rooms and improved styling
• updated game controller database
• updated to FNA 19.03
• balancing tweaks
• fixed several enemies walking off platforms
• fixed backdashing into push blocks
• fixed poison damage cancelling warp scroll

Happy Valentines Day! We thought wed do something a little special this year to show our appreciation for everyones support. As a token of our gratitude, we present to you the official Chasm Instruction Booklet! Inspired by the games we grew with, it contains everything from control diagrams to tips and tricks (and dont forget that all important Notes page). We hope you enjoy! Download PDF

Happy Lunar New Year! In celebration, Chasm is currently on sale for 25% off. But wait, that's not all! In addition to the sale, we have also released version 1.054 which contains new items, improved controller support, and many tweaks and fixes. The full change-list: - added new items Throwing Sword, Summon Scroll, and Luck Scroll (new games only) - added new Ladorian font for tablets with improved translation effect - added profile icon for completed games (must be resaved to take effect) - added FX for Learning scroll - added random dark rooms to arcade mode - updated to FNA 19.02 - updated game controller database to support several hundred more controllers - increased speed of time slow potion - fixed rare crash in final boss battle with time slow potion - fixed area connection symbols drawing under room borders Thanks for all your support, and happy new year!

Chasm has been updated again with another often requested feature: mappable gamepad controls! We also took the opportunity to revamp the button graphics and tidy up a few input related things. Here is the full change-list: - added customizable gamepad controls - added new button graphics for all platforms - added button graphics to control mapping screen - adjusted drop rates - fixed rare crash with enemy status effects - fixed enemy getting status effect after death - fixed crusher collisions - fixed treasure chest spawning animation for boss no hit in arcade mode - fixed yes/no prompts sometimes overflowing convo bubble - fixed keyboard key labels sometimes overflowing button graphic

Happy New Year! We're excited to announce that Chasm 1.050 is now available. While the major feature is language support for 5 new languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese), weve also made improvements to the world, backtracking, item drops, and much more. A huge thanks goes out to our community for all the feedback and support! Here is the full list of changes:

• added translations for Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese
• added chance for Unique and Legendary item drops with bonus stats
• added new shortcuts in Mines and Catacombs to help with backtracking (new games only)
• added Savepoint to Mines shortcut hub
• added Inventory sorting by Name, Value, and Type
• added 4th treasure chest room to Mines, Catacombs, Gardens and Keep areas (new games only)
• added several new rooms (new games only)
• updated to FNA 19.01 with new audio engine (fixes "Out of Memory" crashes on some machines)
• changed Portals to ask for destination after more than 2 unlocked
• changed Map screen Area connection labels from words to icons
• various improvements to UI
• various tweaks to drop rates, player speed, spell upgrades, etc
• fixed rare glitching into ground when walljumping in corners
• fixed interaction status message spamming
• fixed item descriptions sometimes overflowing box bounds
• fixed stray character on Name Entry screen when opened with keyboard
• fixed Temple Guards glaive not being destroyed on death
• fixed missing boss flag before final boss
• fixed wasp buzzing playing after death
• fixed crouching in spikes without taking damage

It's 1992, and the arcade is the place to be for the most advanced and challenging experiences around. A mysterious new game has appeared that has all the kids at school talking. This game is different every time you play it, and the leaderboards reflect only those with the quickest wits to combat its twisting dungeons, ferocious enemies, and unpredictable nature. When people first play Chasm, many dont realize that there is a robust world building engine powering it. After all, it plays like a good old fashioned dungeon crawling Metroidvania. We had tons of ideas of ways we could leverage the procedural dungeon creation engine, so we set to work and built our first DLC for Chasm: the Guilean Arcade Pack. And best of all, its free! Unlike the main mode, which generates a full world map when you start up your campaign, the new Arcade Mode generates a new layout of the world on the fly. Leave a room and come back, and itll be a completely new room. You have 8 minutes to explore each area of the world. If you dont reach the next area or die along the way, your game is over. The Arcade Mode is really three modes in one:

• Daily Challenge: Every day you get one shot to leave your mark on Karthas history. Stay alive, progress as far as you can, and rack up your kill count and reach the next area as quickly as possible for maximum points to earn your spot at the top of the daily leaderboard.
• Weekly Challenge: Same idea as the Daily Challenge, but you can take your time and get to know the map. Play through as many times as you like, finding the best shortcuts, loot, and power-ups along the way. Your highest score for the week will be recorded for posterity.
• Practice: No ones keeping score but you, so just have fun in this mode. Use the randomly generated seed to explore a new dungeon just for you, or enter your own seed number to explore a dungeon youre already familiar with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTHtaF4ASA That’s a wrap everyone! Chasm is done, and it’s now being played by people worldwide. To say that it’s a surreal feeling would be an understatement. I’ve done pretty much nothing but Chasm for the last 5-6 years and now it’s out of my hands. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. Some of you may have heard about us years ago and some just recently. Regardless of when you became a part of this community, you were part of something special. Even in the indie scene, it’s rare for a ragtag group of aspiring developers to be able to keep hammering away at a project year after year until it was done right. We learned a ton along the way and never compromised. With the help of my best friends and teammates, we all made Chasm the best we could. I wrote a retrospective recap of our development journey for the PlayStation Blog, which you can read here. If you’re too PCMR to check out a PlayStation blog, the tl;dr version is that the Bit Kid team is composed of old friends. Our lead programmer, Tim, and I have been friends since high school. Our composer, Jimi, and I have been friends since college. And the rest of the team - Glauber, Dan, and other Dan - have all become lifelong friends too. Even though Chasm is now officially out, we’re not done yet. We’ve already got ideas for new game modes we’d like to add. New platforms to be on. We’ll be sure to keep you in the loop every step of the way. Thanks for being a part of this journey, and stay tuned for more! James

Chasm is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!*

Explore the depths below a remote mountain town in this procedurally-generated Adventure Platformer. Taking inspiration from hack 'n slash dungeon crawlers and Metroidvania-style platformers, Chasm will immerse you in a fantasy world full of exciting treasure, deadly enemies, and abundant secrets.

*Offer ends August 6 at 10AM Pacific Time

Unlike some other games that are developed in secret and then announced about 6 months before launch, Chasm has been in the public eye pretty much from the beginning. Our first post about the game was on IndieDB.com back in January 2013, and we launched a successful Kickstarter campaign just a few months later. It is with a combination of pride, exuberance, relief, and fear that I am hereby officially announcing that we will be launching on July 31, 2018 for $19.99! We’ll be doing a week 1 discount on Steam so keep an eye out for it. And if you haven’t done so already, please add us to your wishlist! (And be sure to tell your friends!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BL162RQXKg As you probably know, one distinctive feature of Chasm is that the world map is procedurally generated when you start up a new campaign. That feature has led to a lot of questions and confusion, so I’d like to address exactly how it works and why we designed it that way. The latter part is easy to answer: Our entire team is composed of Metroidvania fans! Whether it’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Axiom Verge, we’ve played through our favorite games so often that we’ve long since memorized the maps. We love how those games play but wish we could wipe our memories so we could get that experience of exploration all over again. It’s our hope that people who love Chasm the way we love our favorite games can play it over and over and still have it feel fresh. But at the same time, people who only play the game once should have no idea that there’s anything procedural about it.
Wake up Daltyn, it's almost time! But that’s not to say that everything’s completely random. The way our system works is that there is a fundamental structure to the game that never changes. If you’re familiar with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night you may recall that first you get the Jewel of Open, then the Leap Stone, then the Soul of Bat - in that order. As you get these upgrades, new areas of the map become accessible. Chasm, like all Metroidvanias, follows this structure. When you start up a campaign, the game always has these key upgrades and plot points in the same place. What’s different is how you get from one key point to the other. Chasm has a bunch of pre-designed rooms that are slotted in modularly in different combinations. So you won’t have any rooms that feel like they were designed by a computer - instead, you’ll encounter rooms in a different order and even encounter new rooms you never saw the first time, and your path will be different each time you start up a new campaign.
Getting that to feel right was way easier said than done. There was a ton of balancing we needed to make sure the procedural engine took into account when it builds a world map. There’s pacing - you don’t want to have a string of combat rooms with lots of enemies and no platforming to break it up, nor do you want the opposite. You don’t want the system to block your progress by requiring a certain ability upgrade that you don’t have yet. You don’t want to have the save points too far apart. (To address a common misconception, Chasm is not a roguelike with permadeath, though there is an option for that for veteran players. Permadeath combined with the changing dungeons makes for a tense experience since you never know how many more rooms you need to make it to the end.) And you want to make sure that there’s just the right amount of treasures and surprises along the way to encourage exploration of every little nook and cranny of the game. There are some people who like the comfort of getting to know a single map by playing it over and over or being able to follow their favorite YouTuber’s walkthrough of the game. We have an option for that too. Everything randomly generated by the game engine is based off of a seed number. If you enter a specific seed number, you can guarantee a specific map. So if you want to follow a walkthrough, just check their seed number and enter that when you set up your campaign.
We’re very excited - and not a little bit nervous - to send our baby out into the world. We’ve polished and fine tuned every little bit of that game to make sure there were no compromises to our original vision over 5 years ago. We can’t wait to hear what you think on July 31st!

A look at the latest updates to the Tavern. I can’t tell you how excited I am to let you know that we’ve achieved a major milestone - PRODUCTION IS FINISHED! Here’s what still has to happen between now and launch. First, we've already submitted the game for certification on PlayStation 4 and Vita. While that's in process, we are taking care of pre-launch tasks like prepping all of the text for localization (which might be released as a post-launch update), getting our public bug reporting system back up and running, catching up on paperwork (and a million other small tasks) we've put off for the last few months while we crunched, and, most importantly, coordinating with Sony and Valve to pick the ideal launch date so that we’ll be able to give Chasm the exposure it deserves. The primary factors that we’ll be looking at are dates that are relatively not too crowded and making sure we give ourselves time to reach out to press so they can write up reviews in time for launch. We’ll make a follow up announcement once we lock the final date down. In the meantime, if you have any friends who haven’t heard of Chasm, please be sure to let them know to add it to their Steam wishlist!
Gotta collect them all! It’s been a little while since our last update since we were just laser focused on finishing up everything in the game. Here’s a quick recap of some of the tasks we completed in the last few months:

• Lots of sound effects added. With the boss and enemy SFX finally completed, we turned our attention to environmental and scripted SFX. It's always amazing to see how much more immersive just a few sounds can make a scene.
• Weapons and items improved. We added a bunch of new weapons and items, as well as re-animating the majority of the weapons with more detailed and higher frame rate animations (around double the original frame rates). In addition to the visual side, several improvements to gameplay have been added like the often requested attack cancelling (cutting your air attack short so you can immediately attack again after landing on the ground for two quick hits), as well as new Rod and Pole weapon classes.
• Remaining environment art completed. The town was the first area created for the game, and fittingly enough, the last we worked on at the end. Room had to be made for a bunch of new NPCs, as well as some re-organization to make your trips to town as convenient as possible.
• Tons of detail in NPC side quests. I think the NPCs really bring the story and game to life. All of their quests are optional, but completing them all makes the town of Karthas feel alive.
• Bestiary completed. The Bestiary is a fun little side addition with extra information about the enemies you fight. Each enemy will take a pre-determined number of kills to unlock, and if you unlock all of them you will receive the Zoologist achievement. Please note their item drops cannot be seen until you've gotten them!
• We got our ESRB rating! We’re officially E10+ with Fantasy Violence, Simulated Gambling and Alcohol Reference descriptors. So if you were 5 when we did the Kickstarter, you’re old enough to play Chasm today. (ha ha… ha ha… sigh…)
  First look at Rod weapons and attack cancelling. That’s not even to mention all of the little plumbing details - improving load times, fixing edge case bugs, testing achievements and trophies, etc. - that are part and parcel of releasing a polished game. We plan on getting Alpha-tier backers access to the full game as soon as possible. As mentioned above we have many post-production / pre-launch tasks to wrap up first, but we are moving as fast as we can. We're looking forward to everyone finally getting their hands on the game and giving us feedback for fine tuning. We anticipate it will be a couple more weeks, but we're not far off now.
  Taking a break from adventuring with a card game. Our next update will be a confirmation of the official launch date. That update could come next week, or it may come a few weeks from now. As soon as we know, you’ll know. Thank you again for sticking with us over these many years!
  
  [ 2018-06-22 03:57:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today’s a big day for us. After years of work, we’re finally confident enough in our estimates for the remaining tasks that we can officially confirm a release time window of this summer! To commemorate this occasion, we put together our first new trailer since around the days of our Kickstarter. Hope you like it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ihs1Sd9ILk The good folks at Sony were nice enough to let us announce the summer release window on their PS Blog, which gets tons of visitors every day. I know this is the Steam forums, but if you have any friends who play consoles, be sure to point them there. And of course, please let your Steam friends know to add Chasm to their Steam wishlist! Speaking of Sony, I should also mention that they were gracious enough to include Chasm in their booth at PAX East. So if any of you are going to be in Boston next week, please be sure to stop by and say hi to Dan, our business and marketing guy! Even though only the PS4 version will be playable on the show floor, the full game will be the same on PC. For those of you who are curious about what we’ve been up to since our last update from a game development perspective, all of the spawn system changes are now done, as is the key background art, placeholder animations and enemy sound effects. We still have to polish the sound effects for the final boss and final cutscene, beef up the items, and polish out NPCs and side quests, along with general balancing and game polish. And then we’re done! This has been an incredibly arduous undertaking - one that I’ve loved (almost) every minute of, but one that wound up being an even bigger challenge than I expected. I’m grateful for everyone’s support and patience. This community is what has been driving me. I know you guys are all looking for the most kick-ass action-adventure ever to grace a gaming system, and we’re doing everything we can to deliver on that promise. And now, we’re almost there!

Time flies! Between the holidays and cranking away at our task list, I just realized it’s been 2 months since our last update. Lots of progress has been made, so here’s where we are right now.
Working on my cannonball in the Gardens. As I described several months ago, the entire team was given a couple weeks to play through the full build and write up all of our comments, required features, bugs, etc. The agreement we had as a team is that we would synthesize all of that, discuss what’s really important, and put together our final task list out of that. No new features were to be added beyond that list. We went through that exercise back in August and have been working off of that list ever since. I’m happy to say we’re ticking tasks off of that list at a very steady pace, and we’ve been disciplined about not adding anything new. Just to recap the progress that’s been made, here’s a partial list of what we’ve completed since going through that exercise:

• Improved backtracking and world traversal system
• Implemented a system for players to upgrade their Spells
• Implemented auto-formatting text system for multi-lingual support
• Programmed and animated the final boss battle
• Animated all boss intros and deaths
• Animated custom deaths for most enemies
• Reworked and improved Minibosses
• Sound FX for all bosses (except the final) and half of the enemies
• Improved Visual FX
• Improved scripted scenes
• Polished the Map Screen and other UI elements
• Improved pacing by interspersing some “breather” rooms with less challenge and more resources, as well as balancing combat, platforming, and puzzle rooms throughout the game

• Replacing all remaining placeholder animations and background art
• Improving the enemy spawn system to make sure that every enemy type shows up in every game, as well as maintaining a healthy variety
• Sound FX for the enemies in the second half of game, the final boss, as well as environmental sounds
• Beefing up secondary quests
• More Items & Weapon system improvements
• Additional variation in environmental art & Landmarks
• Populate secrets in all areas
• Polish NPC dialog and sidequests
• Main Menu art
• Economy improvements
• Difficulty balancing (this will be one of the last things we do)

Hello once again Chasm fans! We've had a very busy fall and have quite a few things to show off in this update, so let's dive right in.
Battling a Phantom in the dark. In the last update I mentioned Glauber was working on death animations for all of the existing enemies. He wrapped those up in the early part of November, and then we began working on the final set of enemies that would fill in some of the sections you backtrack to later in the game. I'm proud to say we now have 90 fully animated creatures (including bosses) in the game for you to battle! With the enemy animations completed, Glauber will now turn his attention to animating the final boss battle, as well as some lower priority stuff like the boss intro and death sequences.
Getting pwned in the Arena by a Gelatinous Cube. Dan has been working away on the last of the large backdrop pieces, and I'm happy to announce that the Arena has been completed! I mentioned it briefly in a previous update, but rather than make the Arena an additional mode, we decided to make it an optional challenge in the main game. If you want to work your way up to Grand Champion and win the grand prize, you'll have to battle through waves of beefed up enemies, as well as a couple unique creatures. The only remaining crowdfunding feature that hasn't been completed yet is the Crafting stretch goal, which we plan to tackle after the new year when we revisit the weapons and items.
The final look of the Map screen. In addition to all the new content we've been adding in, we've also been doing final revisions to various UI elements like the Map screen. It received a bit of a visual overhaul making it more compact and easier to read, while also getting a couple new features. One in particular we're excited about is items or journals that you may have missed or couldn't reach are now marked on the map with a dot ala Super Metroid.
Translation friendly bubbles, signs and journal entries. One other slightly less glamorous thing we've been working on is full support for other languages. Many of the in-game text interfaces like the conversation bubbles, journal entries and signs were being manually formatted for display while we figured things out, but now that all the designs are finalized Tim began adding pre-processing routines to automatically format text for each of them. This mostly entailed adding automatic line breaking and key term highlighting, alignment options, and scrolling support. Now it should be fairly trivial to support any Latin-based language!

PSX 2017

Wrap Up

Hello again everyone! I hope this update finds you well. Last month we were working on several large tasks, most of which we can't really show you without spoiling things (backgrounds for the final boss, level design for late-game sections, etc) so I decided to just hold off on the update until this month.
Various improved FX A few exciting things have been in the works though. When we analyzed the game back over the summer and made our final list of improvements, one of the things we realized we really needed to improve was the visual FX. This meant going back through everything and beefing up FX for various things like hits, deaths, breaking props, picking up items, leveling up, etc. Check out the GIF above for a preview of this work (please note it doesn't look as smooth as the real thing since it's running at half the framerate). Right now the team is mainly focused on finishing up the core content. Dan is working on various pieces of background art for late-game rooms, Jimi is working on boss and enemy sound effects, Glauber is working on enemy death animations, Tim is optimizing engine code and tackling the remaining programming tasks, and I'm going through the main path of the game with a fine-toothed comb to find all the stuff we missed and wrap up work on the areas.
A new platforming challenge in the Gardens I know everyone is anxious for us to reach Beta, but we still have a little further to go. Once this core stuff is done we will focus on the secondary content tasks like beefing up the backtracking and adding more weapons, items, and secrets to find. Lastly, once all the content is completed, we'll turn our attention to the final polish tasks like balancing, text cleanup, UI polishing, and of course testing. Well, that's it for now! We'll be in touch again this fall to let you know how things are progressing as we steadily march towards the finish line. Thanks again for your support and patience!

Hello again everyone! As summer comes to an end we're working hard to complete our first month-long sprint of Beta tasks. There's a lot of general cleanup, polish, and bug fixing to do, but we've also been tackling a number of improvements identified from our testing.
The 3 levels of the Knife spell. A new feature we're pretty excited about is upgradeable spells. Each spell can now be upgraded twice to improve its effectiveness. Above is an example of the Knife spell where the second and third levels add more projectiles and magical FX. When you reach the third level of a Spell you're also given the option of using a screen-filling Spell Crash that consumes half of your magic meter. We're still working on the visuals for the crashes and upgrade menus, but we'll show them off in a future update.
Collecting some resources. One thing we heard a lot in the backer builds was how punishing the platforming was. Not only were pixel perfect jumps everywhere, but most of the drops ended in spikes making things even less forgiving. We also had enemies and traps jam packed into every space - partly a side effect of our early dungeon generator not having a good sense of how to pace things with different kinds of rooms. I went back through the rooms one by one and improved the flow, pacing, and difficulty. A lot of the tall rooms now give you a much needed breather with some light platforming and resource collection after fighting through hallways of deadly enemies.
The Death Knight miniboss. Finally, we've also reworked and improved the game's minibosses. A couple just weren't up to snuff and were completely redone (like the Keep's miniboss seen above), while others were just tweaked with some new patterns and improved timing. We also changed our approach to them a bit so they feel more like tough-as-nails enemies versus weak bosses. It may seem like a pointless distinction, but in practice it feels much more organic and varied.
We also want to give everyone a heads up that Chasm will be at PAX West 2017 as part of the Playground! The Playground is a new space to hang out and play games, and we'll be sharing the space with others like Vlambleer, Finji, and Indiebox. Our biz guy Dan Adelman will be running the booth along with Musician James Stevulak and Environment Artist Dan Fessler. So if you'll be there too please stop by Booth #6111, say hi, and play some awesome games! We'll have more updates on our progress towards the finish line next month. Thank you once again for your support and patience while we refine Chasm into the best experience possible!

Hello again everyone! We hope you're having a great summer, and staying cool inside playing some games. This month is just a quick update to let you know what's been going on the past few weeks. First off, we're happy to announce that aside from the Crafting, all the Kickstarter Stretch Goals and Backer Rewards have been designed and programmed. We have just a few pieces of art left to wrap up, and we'll be getting to the Crafting when we revisit the weapons and items in a few weeks. We've also done our best to make the extras part of the main experience where possible. For instance, instead of the Arena being a separate mode it's an actual place in the world you can visit when you want to compete.
Running into Jinx in the Catacombs. One of the rewards we thought turned out especially cool is our $2500 Backer's reward. It was listed as "Design your own enemy", but the backer thought a minigame of chance would add some more variety to the experience. Working together with him, we developed the character known as Jinx. For those with a sharp eye, you may recognize Jinx from the box art we had done a while back. Unfortunately, the character was cut after some story changes rendered him unused, but when we heard the backer's idea we thought he would be the perfect match for it. Jinx will appear at several locations throughout the world, and offers players a spin of his wheel for a chance to win a range of things from gold to stat points and items. Careful though, not everything on the wheel is a reward! You also run the risk of losing your hard earned stat points and gold to Jinx.
Before (top) and After (bottom) dungeon generation changes. One other thing we're very excited about is some recent improvements to the dungeon generation. As you may remember from our previous updates, we've put a lot of effort into it to make sure the game feels varied and well-paced. One of the major breakthroughs that really helped us achieve that was breaking down the areas into "sub-areas" that consisted of about 10-15 rooms with a save point at either end. This did wonders to get things under control, but on the negative side we were left with a mess of a map that had lines drawn all over connecting these sub-areas together. One of our polish tasks was to hide these seams and make the areas feel like one large, continuous location. The save rooms are also inside the area itself now as normal rooms, so it should feel more like a classic Metroidvania experience than ever before! Lastly, while we worked on the Kickstarter rewards we were playing the game over and over, fixing things, and building our final Todo list to reach Beta. I believe we have identified the weakest and most problematic areas of the experience, as well as what needs polished or is unfinished, and we now have a solid plan to reach the finish line. I know everyone is excited to hear dates, but we're not quite there yet. There's still a few tricky tasks remaining we want to make sure we don't rush. As usual, thank you so much for your support and patience. We'll have some more updates next month on our progress to reaching Beta!

I feel like I need to start off every update with an apology for how long the game is taking. Many of you have told me not to worry about the time and just focus on making the game as good as it can be. A few others have expressed frustration about how long things are taking. As I’ve mentioned probably a million times before, this project turned out to be way more ambitious than what I expected when I started down this path. Thanks to the team's perseverance and everyone's patience though, we've been able to overcome every obstacle before us and create something we're all very proud of.
The exclusive Blue Canary familiar for $50+ backers will attack foes and retrieve dropped items. So where are we now? The game has been fully playable for a couple months. It is a game with a beginning, middle, and end. There’s a ton of polish we’re working on now to take it from being a functional game to a great game. Maybe one analogy is that we’ve just built a skyscraper, including all of the electrical, plumbing, elevators, etc., and now we’re going through floor by floor adding the furnishings.
Some old enemies have gotten bigger, more detailed designs. One must-have bit of furnishing is the Kickstarter rewards! We've been working hard on them for the past few weeks, but here’s where they stand right now:

• Exclusive items for $15/30/50 backers - Done
• Backer’s Tome (name in the game) for $50+ backers - Done
• Backer's Tavern (Hidden room) for $1000+ backers - Done
• Special gameplay feature for $2500+ backer - In Progress
• Stretch goal: Achievements for all versions - Done
• Stretch goal: Extended Soundtrack Album - Done
• Stretch goal: Alternate Chiptune Soundtrack - In Progress
• Stretch goal: Arena - In Progress
• Stretch goal: Crafting - In Progress

It’s been a busy couple of months since the last update - and we’ve got some good news!

Happy Kickstarter Anniversary!

We’ve Hit Alpha!

Shows and Travel

Kuwait? Kuwait!

Hello again! I know we've been extra quiet lately, but I promise it's for good reason. We've been working our hardest to make it to Pre-beta (a true Alpha build of the full game) for several months now. In the last update I said I was hoping to finish it by the end of 2016, but as they say the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
New features have been added like scripted animations to liven things up. We're finally closing in on the "point of no return" where the base of the game is being locked down, so I decided to use this time to revisit things one last time and work out some final kinks in both design and storytelling. In addition to creating new content, we've also been focused on getting rid of old baggage that isn't needed anymore (the boss jewels for example), and improving the narrative since it wasn't quite as strong as it could be. It's been a difficult balance trying to have an interesting and well-paced story, while not taking the focus away from the gameplay. We want this to feel like a classic experience, so it's taken a lot of refining to find the right amount of each ingredient.
The Keep area was improved in December with bigger enemies and revised rooms.
Experimenting with some new puzzle elements. I can't stress enough how grateful we are for your patience. It's proven to be a massive challenge designing a game that can hold up to our influences, but each day I'm surprised at just how well it's coming together. We anticipate to be done with the remaining Pre-beta tasks in the next few weeks, so we'll keep you up to date as we close in on our next milestone.

Conferences

Bloodstained Community Podcast

Happy December, everyone! We’ve been hard at work on reaching our next milestone, but we thought we’d come up for air with a quick final update for 2016.

PlayStation Experience!

Dev Status Update

Wrap Up

I try to put out an update at the beginning of every month, but we’ve been so busy, I just didn’t have time to write up everything we were doing! My apologies for sending this out so late.

ROADMAP UPDATE

DEV UPDATES

PAX WEST 2016

Hello again everyone! While everyone has hopefully been out and enjoying the sun, we've been hard at work shaping Chasm into a fun and challenging experience. We still have a lot to do before we hit Beta, but we're getting closer every day! Here's an update on just a few of the things that we've been focused on lately.

DUNGEON GENERATOR IMPROVEMENTS

BALANCING FIRST PASS

SOUNDTRACK MASTERING

WHATS NEXT?

• Core Map Revisions: Last month a second pass was completed for the maps in the first half of the game, but the second half of the game still needs some attention.
• Boss Revisions: We've had some time to play the boss fights over and over and figure out what we like and don't. Powerups have also been shuffled around leaving some bosses expecting you to have abilities you don't. A big list of changes has been made, we just need to start working through it.
• Improve spawning system: We're not totally satisfied with how enemies are placed in maps, and would like to possibly improve things and add some additional features like definable groups of enemies that work well together.
• NPCs and Side-quests: We still have a little design work left nailing down the final list of town NPCs you will rescue, as well as their side-quests. Once that is complete we can start programming them.
• Cut-scenes: There's only a handful in the game, but we are in the process of planning out the scenes and figuring out what new assets we need before they're scripted in-game.

Hello again everyone! While everyone has hopefully been out and enjoying the sun, we've been hard at work shaping Chasm into a fun and challenging experience. We still have a lot to do before we hit Beta, but we're getting closer every day! Here's an update on just a few of the things that we've been focused on lately.

DUNGEON GENERATOR IMPROVEMENTS

BALANCING FIRST PASS

SOUNDTRACK MASTERING

WHATS NEXT?

• Core Map Revisions: Last month a second pass was completed for the maps in the first half of the game, but the second half of the game still needs some attention.
• Boss Revisions: We've had some time to play the boss fights over and over and figure out what we like and don't. Powerups have also been shuffled around leaving some bosses expecting you to have abilities you don't. A big list of changes has been made, we just need to start working through it.
• Improve spawning system: We're not totally satisfied with how enemies are placed in maps, and would like to possibly improve things and add some additional features like definable groups of enemies that work well together.
• NPCs and Side-quests: We still have a little design work left nailing down the final list of town NPCs you will rescue, as well as their side-quests. Once that is complete we can start programming them.
• Cut-scenes: There's only a handful in the game, but we are in the process of planning out the scenes and figuring out what new assets we need before they're scripted in-game.

Last month Dan announced that we hit a major milestone. Rough cut 1 is complete! What that means is that Chasm is fully playable from beginning to end. That might not seem like much, but it’s a huge milestone for us and one definitely worth celebrating! Chasm is a bit of a weird game. On the one hand, there’s a storyline to it – a storyline we’ve kept pretty quiet about. On the other, because of the procedurally generated world maps, each player’s playthrough can be quite different from anyone else’s. The entire team has spent the last month playing from beginning to end and identifying what needs to be fixed. The good news is that, aside from quirks here and there, the game is performing as expected. No one is getting to a point where they’re blocked from moving forward, and everyone is able to get to the end. In addition, we've began analyzing the mechanics, enemies, area layouts, dungeon generation, music, and much more to figure out what is working and what still needs to be improved.
Example player data from the first two areas of the game. We've also begun the hard task of tuning of the game, which consists of setting enemy stat data (like Level, XP, HP, attack ratings, etc), dungeon lengths and difficulty, player leveling rate, amount of gold and items received, amount of enemy spawns, and much more. In order to facilitate this difficult and time consuming work, Tim has been developing a metrics component for the game that records player data and uploads it to our server for analysis. Using custom data views, we can easily spot trouble areas and then correct them. For example, the graph above shows some play data from the first couple areas of the game. You can see that the Level line flattens out around the 1 hour mark, so we know at that part of the game the enemy data needs fixed. It won't be a quick process to get things perfectly tuned, but we're already making great progress towards it.
Creating a custom path for Basden to follow in our editor Apparatus.
Basden following the path in-game. We've also been working on a lot of the secondary systems, as well as advanced scripting tools. We'll have some more updates next month on some changes for the play systems, but today we'd like to show you one of the newer features we've added that allows NPCs to navigate difficult terrain. The example above shows one of our tests rooms with a path we drew out for Basden to reach the top block. The path functionality makes it possible for us to create scripted sequences that require NPCs to do more complex tasks than just run in a straight line.
A prototype of a secret nook. Crates aren't too exciting, but chests will be! We’ve also got the fun task ahead of us of putting in lots of secrets throughout the game. Above you can see a prototype we created for what we call secret nooks. These secret areas are hand placed into the rooms by us, and when a new game is started it's randomized which ones are used and which are blocked off. The curious player may find extra treasure chests, elixirs or even unlockables like extra profile icons in these secret areas. On a broader level, right now pretty much every room is required to get to the end, but my favorite aspect of Metroidvania’s is the reward for exploring and finding the hidden stuff. The team is sick of me talking about the example of the Holy Glasses in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. If you explore and find the gold ring and the silver ring (neither of which are required, and require even more items to obtain), you can get the Holy Glasses. (SPOILER WARNING!) When you fight the “final” boss (Richter) while wearing the Holy Glasses, it turns out that he’s just being possessed. Discovering that secret reveals an entirely new mode to the game. Now that the core of the game is done, albeit in need of some more testing and balancing, we’re all talking about ideas of what kind of special things we can add to encourage that additional level of exploration. After all, the whole point of Chasm is for the biggest fans to be able to play an entirely new world every time they start up a new game, so we want to make sure there’s lots of good reasons to explore!

Trade Show Season

James Petruzzi is busy getting us closer to the next milestone (see below!), so I’m filling in for him to write this month’s update. My name is Dan Adelman, and I do the biz dev and marketing for Chasm. If my name sounds familiar (and I’d honestly be surprised if it did to more than a handful of those reading this), it’s because I’m also the guy doing biz dev and marketing for Axiom Verge. Also, if you’re a Nintendo fan, I used to run the indie business there for about 9 years. But enough about me.

First Rough Cut Complete!

• Main narrative
• Finalized World Layout & Powerups
• Fully-functional Procedural Area Generator
• Playable (but rough) Bosses & Minibosses
• Core enemy set (over 70!)
• Core room set (over 400!)
• Completed Area Tilesets
• Completed Soundtrack
• Completed In-game HUD and UI

• Locking down secondary systems like the spells and item drops
• Design Puzzle/challenge rooms
• Improve the enemy spawning system
• Script complex events and cinematic sequences like the ending / epilogue
• Create the rest of the NPCs, and how the town will change as you restore it
• Finish up the boss battles
• Custom backgrounds (ie. bossrooms & other unique backdrops)
• Extra content like more rooms, items, enemies, and sidequests
• Sound effects
• Secrets
• Balancing & Polish

“Why do indie games take so long to make?”

PAX East Recap

Environment Artist Dan Fessler explaining the game to some new fans at PSX

PlayStation Experience

Outpost Armory

New Enemy Reveal

Backer's Tome

(in-game screenshot) Over the summer we announced that we were adding a new intro area to start off Daltyn's adventure, and now we're excited to reveal the opening scene! Daltyn likes to sneak up to the watchtower at night to stargaze and dream of adventure beyond the Outpost walls, but on this fateful morning his good friend Jareth awakens him with orders to report to the Commander at once. I hope he's not in trouble for sneaking out of his bunk again!
(original composition) This fall has been a very productive time for Chasm. For the past few months we've focused all our energy on finishing up many of the core components of the game like the enemies, mapping, tilesets, and more. We're not quite there yet, but hopefully around the end of the year we'll be very close. From there we still have a lot revising, extra content, cleanup and polishing to do, but we're inching ever closer to the finish line. We'd like to thank you for your patience again as we continue to toil away perfecting Chasm. We know it's been a much longer wait than originally intended, but we're confident that it will be worth all the extra effort. Stay tuned for another detailed production recap in the coming months!

Playstation Experience 2015

Discord Plays Axiom Verge

Chasm at IndieCade!

New Display Modes

• Pixel: The default mode, raw pixel output for the fans of blocky, sharp pixels that everyone has seen.
• Smooth: We also wanted to include a good smoothing algorithm, and after some research we found the newer xBR algorithm to be hands down the best option at this time. We combined it with a subtle 2nd pass blur filter for an incredibly smooth image.

• PVM (Pro Video Monitor): A softer image, closest to a high-end tube TV running at 240P with nice visible scanlines.
• Arcade: Similar to PVM, but also includes a visible aperture grille for a more arcade feel.

We're very excited to announce that the soundtrack has been completed! It was quite the challenge to find the right sound for the world of Chasm, but our talented musician James Stevulak did an amazing job capturing it. He experimented with many different styles, tempos, and instrumentations all in search of the perfect atmosphere and pace for Daltyn's exploration of the world. We looked to Castlevania and Metroid for direction early on, and we learned that Chasm's sprawling areas were much more suited to Metroid's dark and atmospheric tracks than Castlevania's jazzy, high-tempo fare. We also wanted to keep the instrumentation grounded with things that could exist in Chasm's world such as horns, acoustic guitar, strings, hand drums, flutes, bells, and chants. In some cases we did use more modern sounds like synthesizers and electric guitar, but only when we felt it fit right with the track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYBG3tE3M3g In celebration of this milestone, we put together a video previewing 9 of the soundtrack's 20 tracks. Hopefully it gives you a feel for the world of Chasm, and the sights and sounds you will experience there. We hope you enjoy, and will join us in applauding James for his stunning effort! Be sure to check out the latest Kickstarter Update for details on our PAX Prime excursion and upcoming additional Twitch streams!

Latest Gardens tileset revision with improved details, lighting, and readability.

Production Update

Chasm at PAX Prime

Ever since the original prototype, Chasm has begun with a short text crawl followed by Daltyn entering the town of Karthas. We've always tried to stick to a "play it, don't say it" philosophy, and after studying up on Joseph Campbell's hero's journey we realized that the Outpost that Daltyn is stationed at was the perfect place to begin an epic adventure. The Outpost lies on the border between the rival kingdoms of Guildea (Daltyn's homeland) and Delkath, and is an important strategic position in the long-running war between the two. Starting there will not only give you a taste of Daltyn's life before the journey, but also help establish the lore of the world more deeply. We'll be showing off more of the Outpost in the coming months, but for now enjoy the first look at its courtyard!

GIFs

Hello again Chasm fans! This month marks the two year anniversary of the Chasm Kickstarter, so we decided to do a huge recap Update of the past couple years to commemorate it. It also goes into what we've been up to lately and our next goals, so check it out now on our Kickstarter page!

Game Devastation Podcast

Screenshots

We've been incredibly busy this past month working away on the game, but we're happy to report that things are progressing smoothly! With the Alpha completed and all the design problems out of the way, we've been able to dedicate 100% of our energy to content. We were planning on doing a big production update this month for everyone, but there are so many things wrapping up in the next few weeks that we thought it would make more sense to just hold off until next month. In the meantime, here's a look at a few cool things we've been working on:
Achievements are now working on all platforms, both Steam and DRM-free! The framework has been set up and the unlocks work, so we're basically just down to creating the list itself. We're looking forward to brainstorming some fun and challenging feats for you to perform!
Secret areas have been prototyped! We went back and forth on how to do them for a while, but we ended up with something inspired by one of our favorite series about an Italian plumber. Walls, floors, and ceilings can be fake, and you can move behind them to discover hidden treasure and passage-ways!
We've been thinking about fancier transitions for a while now, so we tried out something reminiscent of our favorite 16-bit games. What do you think?

PRESS ROUNDUP

• Chasm was picked as one of 9 Intriguing Indie Games to Watch For by PC Magazine.
• GamenGuide published an excellent interview they did with us at Indiecade East.
• Qubetubers did a great preview article about the Alpha.
• Gamer Assault Weekly picked Chasm as one of their Most Anticipated Indie Games of 2015.

Alpha Feedback / Final Patch

Indiecade East

PC Gamer Feature

Next Steps

We'll be having an informal livestream tonight for the Chasm Alpha 0.5 launch with the team! Get a first look at the final Alpha release, ask the team questions, and maybe even win some prizes. We hope to see you there! JANUARY 27TH, 9:30 PM EST http://www.twitch.tv/discordgames

We're excited to announce that Chasm Alpha 0.5 is finally coming on January 28th for our Alpha backers. This final Alpha update was a long time coming, and we want to apologize for the wait. We decided to make some final changes to the gameplay after analyzing the feedback our amazing Alpha backers gave us, and it took a bit longer than expected to get it out the door. It was a hard decision to go back to the drawing board on some different facets of the game instead of moving on, but we feel that what we have now is finally up to our expectations and much closer to our initial vision. It was also important for us to get things right so we can move on to the final content push without worrying about systems changing. We think the Alpha access phase was a huge success, and we can't thank everyone enough for participating and giving their honest feedback!

• Changed Essence back to classic XP and Gold currency systems.
• Changed Level Ups to happen automatically with health refill & random stat increases for auto-balancing.
• Changed dying in Normal mode to require loading last save file.
• Changed save system to PSX-style slot system with animated profile icons (more unlockables!).
• Changed NPCs so all except Crone are captured when you first arrive in town and must be rescued.
• Changed Innkeeper to collect Treasure, will reward you with Elixirs for so many pieces of treasure turned in.
• Changed Spells to scale with player's power and stay useful as you progress. Gotta collect them all!
• Changed Scavenger to always be in Save Rooms after rescuing him.
• Changed Altars to only have one item, priced at extreme discount for blind buy.
• Added 5 types of elemental Gems (Ruby/Fire, Sapphire/Ice, Topaz/Lightning, Emerald/Poison, Diamond/Holy) with various quality levels (Chipped, Flawed, etc) that can be added to weapons and armor to customize gear (ie. Fire Chain Whip or Holy Brass Knuckles).
• Added more portals to areas and removed inter-Area portal travel.
• Added canary NPC that will carry you back to town from Save Rooms, and vice versa.
• Added breakable Hanging Lights that provide player with Mana for magic weapons and Gold drops.
• Added progressive enemy respawning in previously cleared rooms.
• Added Shrines back into the game with several types (temporary stat buffs, restore health/mana, Gem, etc.)
• Added Undead Crusader enemy and Wraith miniboss to Catacombs.
• Added new hint to Catacombs puzzle and fixed symbols causing unintended confusion.
• Added new Magic Molotov spell.
• Added new game intro.
• Added base support for Marcel's Fan Translation tool.
• Removed plant ingredients. Finding Recipes unlocks new potions in Crone's shop.
• Improved game text with single sans-serif font family for visual consistency.
• Improved dialogue and note text with custom formatting, keyword highlighting and new graphics.
• Improved area layouts and pacing.
• Improved parallax depth effect.
• Improved dungeon generation with stronger core paths and less long branches to dead ends.
• Improved combat with new enemy strafe behaviors and more combat areas.
• Improved Pause menu design and function.

We just wanted to take a second to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! 2014 was a big year for both Discord and Chasm, and 2015 is only looking better. Thank you so much for your continued support and patience while we make Chasm the game we've all been dying to play! We're still working away on the last Alpha update, but we're getting close to wrapping it up now. We'll have more news soon about the exact date it will go live, but in the meantime here's a few new screenshots!
A new enemy, the Undead Crusader, lurks in the Catacombs.
The Wraith miniboss awaits you in the depths of the Catacombs.
Improved text rendering, journal, and keyword highlighting.

Hey everyone! Just wanted to drop a quick note that the Chasm Steam Store page and Community are up and operational. I'm hoping everyone who followed the Greenlight gets this announcement, but I haven't been able to find any info one way or another about that. A couple quick things to mention:

• Alpha Access launched a couple weeks ago for Kickstarter Backers and Humble Pre-orders with the game's first two areas. We've received tons of great feedback from the community since then, and we feel grateful to have such passionate fans to help us make this game as good as it can be.
• As of this moment, we have no plans for launching on Steam Early Access. After talking with several industry people, we feel it would be a mistake for us to launch as an Early Access title with a game that's not really "sandbox" in the way other EA games usually are. This is not to say we will never go Steam Early Access, only that we have no plans to at the moment.
• The old 1.06 demo has been removed from IndieDB in order to prevent any confusion with the Alpha we recently launched. A couple previews popped up using that, so we decided to just remove it to keep people from checking out the wrong thing.