It took a while, but the final & biggest update (dubbed Fake Illusions: Encore Update) is finally here! It brings four new illusions, a new shuffle mode with some extra distractions, and other bits of polish to make this truly the final version of the game. Let's take a look at them!
Are the lines in the Ehrenstein illusion straight or bent? The white lines surrounding the red lines create an illusion of the line being bent! Of course, you'll select the faker *straight* away, right?
The Munker illusion that toys with your perception of how bright certain colors are! With just three colors, you can make it seem like there are a lot more colors than there actually are. Because of the contrast between the white and black background, you might perceive different gray luminance for each.
The Jastrov illusion has bent shapes that sometimes look longer than they actually are. Except for one, of course. If you have ever played with wooden train tracks, you might recognize this curved shape!
If you have ever looked at a tiled wall before and couldn't figure out if the lines were straight or diagonal, that's not just you! Gregory was the first to identify this "Cafe Wall" as an illusion. (I originally planned this illusion for the initial release of the game, and I'm super happy I managed to make it work for this final update!)
There's now a Side B to the level select where you can find all post-release illusions, plus a mysterious, extra difficult version of the Shuffle mode... If you want to attempt the new illusions right from the beginning of the game, you can use the new Unlock All feature to instantly get access to all illusions and Endless Mode (look for the lock icon on the settings menu).
The new keymap menu allows you to change the keybindings as you'd like! You can map a keyboard and a controller in this way.
Thus comes an end to the three year long development cycle of Fake Illusions! Compared to the original release of the game last year, the game now has almost double the illusions and a large amount of accessibility features added. I've had a lot of fun working on this game and I'm very proud of what I produced. I hope you'll enjoy this final update! Changelog (v2.0.0):

• Added Jastrow, Ehrenstein, Gregory (Cafe Wall), and Munker illusions.
• Added a B-side to the level select. Moved some illusions there.
• Added Ultimate Shuffle, which shuffles through the original & new illusions with some new distractions. (The original Shuffle mode now only shuffles through the original ten illusions.)
• Unlock All button: This will instantly grant access to all illusions and modes without the need to unlock those. Can be toggled on & off at any time from the settings. (Enabling this option will also cause the Shuffle modes to shuffle through all their illusions, even those you might not have played yet.)
• Added keybinding for keyboard & controller. Access it using the icon in the top right of the level select. You can assign up to nine keyboard or gamepad keys for each action.
• Improved keyboard and gamepad controls: most notably, directional input will now repeat if a button is held down, and directional input on gamepad sticks should be more consistent now.
• Most of the existing illusions have received polish to fix graphical bugs, remove issues on higher zoom levels, fix things not being visible on low/high brightness settings, improve clarity, fix hitbox oddities, and much more.
• The buttons to toggle different distractions in Endless mode should now be labeled & more noticeable in general.
• Improved audio quality of music & sfx. Added two new pieces of music.
• Lots of other minor bug fixes, performance optimizations & other tweaks to improve the gameplay experience.
• Added some easter eggs.
• Final notes:
• This update reduces the range of available brightness level, because too bright/dark options that were not comfortable for playing & would make illusions either too hard or easy. However, if you have selected a higher value before the update, the game will still respect your setting until you change it in the settings menu.
• For new save files, dark mode is now enabled by default. This does not affect existing saves. You can toggle between the light & dark theme in the settings.
• Due to some changes to how save data is handled, it could be possible your current difficulty setting will reset to the default after the update. You can change it back in the settings menu.

[ 2021-11-19 17:59:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello illusionists! Today I'm launching another update for Fake Illusions. This update adds controller support, and it will have two new illusions for you to play!
The Cornsweet illusion is a neat trick to create illusory contrast between colors. Except for one of the colors, of course! The monochrome rainbow falls apart once the black & white lines separating them disappear!
Secondly, we have the flash lag illusion! If an object is constantly moving, and an object flashes in and out next of it, you'll see that flash in an entirely different spot from where it actually turned up! Various variations of this effect are explored in the game. Controller support builds on the keyboard support that was added in the last update. On Windows, joypads using either DirectInput or Xinput can be connected, which should cover most common controllers. You'll still need the mouse in rare cases, but this should make playing the game more comfortable if you have a joypad lying around! For Steam players, aside from adding achievements for just the two new illusions, there are some completely fresh achievements toobut they don't have any descriptions, so you'll need to guess what exactly you'll need to do! Good luck figuring these out. Additionally, Fake Illusions will be 20% off during the grand winter sale! That makes this update 20% more stuff for 20% less cash. I'm planning to release at least one more update, so stay posted and I'll see you next time! Fake Illusions v1.2 - Brainbreaker update NEW: Flash Lag illusion (MacKay et al.) added. NEW: Cornwell illusion added. NEW: Controller support added for DirectInput or Xinput gamepads. NEW: (Steam) Five achievements added. NEW: Two new songs (for a total of 13). TWEAK: Improved how the variation toggles in endless mode work with keyboard/joystick controls. FIX: Improved performance for the Kanizsa et al. illusion. FIX: Fixed some oddities with deleting your save file. FIX: A number of other fixes and tweaks.

[ 2020-12-19 01:25:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello illusionists! I've prepared an update for you, just in time for Halloween. The full changelog is at the bottom of this post, but here are the highlights:

Two New Illusions!

Enjoy the new Poggendorff illusion, in which you'll need to spot secretly disconnected lines, and the Pinna et al. (or "Watercolor") illusion, where a tricky effect will make objects seem discolored, but only one actually is fully chromatic. You can unlock these after unlocking all main illusions.

Keyboard support

QWERTY, AZERTY, and DVORAK users rejoice! You can now use the keyboard controls to jump from object to object and fully play the game this way, as an alternative to the original mouse controls.

Dark Theme

Were some illusions a tad too bright for your eyes? With the newly added Dark Mode, you can now play most of the illusions with more eye-friendly colors. And it looks kinda stylish, too! That's all for this version. I am planning to make a few more updates, so I'll keep you posted! Until then, take care & enjoy!

Fake Illusions, version 1.1.0

NEW: Poggendorff illusion added. NEW: Watercolor (Pinna et al.) illusion added. NEW: Dark mode added for a majority of illusions. NEW: Keyboard support added. Supports QWERTY, AZERTY and DVORAK keybindings by default. NEW: (Steam) Achievements added for the two new illusions. NEW: Two new songs added to the rotation (for a total of 11.) FIX: Some invisible buttons from the settings menu could be clicked, causing incorrect sound effects to play or settings to be toggled. FIX: Under rare conditions, you could start a new difficulty of an illusion with some % already obtained. TWEAK: Many small graphical tweaks and gameplay fixes to make the game easier to understand & more consistent between the different illusions.

[ 2020-10-28 22:45:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you all very much for your patience. After a year and a half in development, Fake Illusions is finally out! It will be discounted at 10% for a week after launch. There's also a new launch trailer: [previewyoutube=wNmDVjBYjIs;full][/previewyoutube] I can also announce that I'm going to release at least a couple of content updates for this game, starting with new illusions to play. So you'll have something to look forward to! More announcements coming whenever they are ready. That's it for me. For now, please enjoy the game!

[ 2020-08-20 18:03:37 CET ] [ Original post ]