Hey everyone!
This update has honestly been an insane push to get out the door in time for Christmas, but this won't be the last update before Christmas.
I feel like I've finally gotten the game to a stage I feel happy with, and I really, really can't wait to see what you all think once you've gotten your hands on it, I'm absolutely loving the support from everyone, I know this update took over a month to put out (and for hopefully obvious good reason), but the fact that I can take a month to put out and update, and still have people supporting me and stopping by every day to get involved honestly warms my heart, so thank you so much to every one of you!
Along with this update, I'll be doing a 40% off sale, honestly just as an early Christmas sale, and to celebrate me finishing such a massive update, I hope this helps out people who have been on the fence, or are wanting to play with friends, but just can't quite afford it.
If you don't feel like scrolling, or reading through this, the main things you should know about in this update are:
- New Equipment Models
- New Exorcism Steps
- New Main Menu
- New Lobby
- New Journal
- Full Controller Support
- Ghosts appearing
- New Ghosts
(this has been changed to be gray)
All the models here were made by Kanitusa not only has he done an insane job, but he also managed to create all the equipment models in less than a month with revisions, I'd highly recommend looking into hiring him if you ever need 3D modeling work.
The new Jesus statue was created by our awesome community member Tiyshen, and she absolutely killed it, I'm working on getting a proper photo of it looking pretty and rendered, and it will be up there soon with the others, again, she did an amazing job, and I'd highly recommend hiring her as well!
I know a lot of people really liked the Main Menu, so this would seem like a pointless change for the sake of change, which a lot of game companies like to do, I promise there was a meaning behind this one.
Firstly, and most importantly, it felt completely disconnected from the game, it didn’t make any sense actually being there, especially considering the background photo wasn’t even from a place inside Obsideo, it felt like a generic asset, which it was, and I didn’t like that being everyone’s first impression of the game, and I wasn’t happy with the menu myself.
The new menu addresses this by incorporating the new equipment models and giving them a stage to be properly shown off, not only that, but it’s also reactive, which I feel adds a nice extra level of depth that the previous flat photo was lacking.
The previous menu also had a few issues such as settings labels not saving upon restarting or simply going back to the main menu, this threw a lot of people off, as it was also incorrectly displaying settings upon the first startup. This has now been fixed on the new menu.
There isn’t too much exciting to say about this, it’s almost entirely just a graphical change, but I hated the previous loading screen, which was just a black background, with “Obsideo” at the top, and a helpful tip, you’d have no idea if it was loading, or it crashed, regardless of that, it was also pretty bland to look at.
This has now been changed to add slightly more depth graphically, but this loading screen will now put you through once you’ve finished loading, whereas previously the loading screen would sit there until you, and all your friends had finished loading, which meant you could be waiting a while on that one friend with a potato PC.
Let’s be honest, the previous lobby sucked. It was just a room, with a whiteboard, a couch, and a TV, I’ve watched countless twitch streamers become irritated at the game, and confused as to what they’re meant to be doing, and rightfully so, because the game gave no real indication of what you should be doing, and the whole process just felt… disjointed?
Hopefully, this new lobby will clear those issues up, as it immediately puts all the information right in front of the players in (hopefully) a non-overwhelming way, instead of adding extra buttons, and steps to selecting a contract, and sending yourself to the next round, it’s now been reduced to a simple on-screen button, along with a much needed “What is hard mode?” button, to help players confused with the arbitrary tick box, that previously didn’t give players any information on what it did.
This new lobby also easily paths the way for the new few extremely necessary updates such as different player models, and a skill system. So, expect to see those added soon 😊
I feel like I keep coming back and saying this, and I really hate to over-use phrases, but the previous journal didn’t feel like it actually fit the game, I don’t think it would fit any game. It was quite simply just a flat image with some text over the top, pasted into the middle of the screen, every time I’d see it, it would honestly just make me cringe, so I knew it needed to go.
Unfortunately after creating it, I realized it’s very similar to another game in the genre but unfortunately, I don’t think there is any real way around that, and it is necessary for me to pursue this style/layout as I have a lot of ideas for incorporating the tablet more into the game, through heart rate reduction, interaction viewers (so you can actually see the interactions, and know what you’re looking for), and much more so this style has to stay until I can find another way to display the information better, I hope you all understand.
Albeit not the most impressive thing in the world, this new journal also comes with something that you’ve all been requesting for a while, a way to know when the ghost is in hunt while you have the tablet open, so here’s the new “Ghost Hunt Warning”:
These feel like the most important changes for actually enjoying the game, and ensuring you get those ghosties gone.
The reason for these changes is because I wanted to break up the cycle of just going between the ghost room and the equipment room. I really wanted to force players into exploring the whole house and seeing all the interactions.
Ghost Orbs: The exorcism step for that was basically non-existent, “put RemPod in the room” …but you’re going to do that anyway, so what’s the point of even checking? Ghost Orbs now appears throughout the entire house, they’re no longer confined to the ghost room and will possess random household objects, this could be a plate, a chair, or a vase, anything in the house can be possessed. The way to find out if an object is possessed is by walking up to it with the night vision camera and you’ll see the orb floating up and down above it, the new exorcism step is to burn it away with holy water this means walking up to the orb, and throwing the holy water onto it (just by dropping it), if it’s successful you will hear a sizzle-burning sound, and you’ll no longer see the orb floating above it.
Ghost Writing Book: This one didn’t need to be changed as much as the other two, but I still feel this step will be a welcomed quality of life update, instead of standing over the ghost being exorcised holding the book, you need to find a fireplace in the house, and turn it on (done by clicking on the wood inside of it), and throw the book onto the fire, if it works the book will disappear, and you’ll hear a sizzle-burning sound.
Freezing Temps: This one was the one I feel players had the most issue with, as it was extremely boring gameplay-wise, it became “sit in a room on your phone, until you get past 140 heart rate”, which isn’t engaging at all. Unfortunately, the new step isn’t extremely engaging either, but it’s significantly better than forcing players to sit around for no reason, you now need to light 3 candles in the house, these are the small red candles you’ll see littered around the houses, you light the candles just by clicking on them, no lighter required. This to me still doesn’t feel like a massive step in the right direction, but it’s at least a baby step that way, so this could change again in the future, but for now, it achieves my goal of forcing players out of the cycle I talked about at the top of this section.
RemPod: This is no longer throw in room and wait for a beep. You must hold it in your hand, and walk around the ghost room, asking it to touch the RemPod, it will still touch the RemPod if your mic doesn’t work, or isn’t connected, but you have a higher chance to get it to work if you prompt it too.
The houses in Obsideo weren’t exactly believable and didn’t do a good job of making you feel like someone actually lived there, and I feel a lot of this was because the entire house was just flat plain white walls, every single house fell victim to this, which to me made it feel like there was no real difference between any of the houses, and they all started to blend together after a while. To fix this, Potts Road, Farm Lane, and Wilson Drive have all gotten a (graphical) interior re-work, this makes them stand out a lot more, and sets them apart from the others, here’s a few examples:
Another way I’ve worked to making the houses feel like they’re real, and actually lived in, is by overhauling the outside, previously it was just a small, awkward looking, wooden fence that didn’t even properly keep you inside most of the time, I’ve fixed this by giving the houses proper fences, along with gardens, vegetation, proper driveways/paths and even a lil truck for Gary to sit in before he comes and helps you load everything back into the truck, there’s no real way to take good photos of these, so I’ll leave them as a surprise for when you get in-game 😊
Quick run-down of the changes I’ve made to their A.I. and the way they interact with the houses: a lot of people have requested to see the ghosts “appearing” more throughout the house, instead of just within a hunt, so the ghost can now appear in 3 different ways randomly in the house, they can either just stand in a room, looking at you from the corner of the room, or appearing in a hallway as you walk down it, another way they can appear is seeing them walk into the room you were just about to enter, or seeing them walk past outside the room, the third and final way they’ll appear is by appearing and then walking off into a wall or through a door and disappearing as they pass through it.
They work on the same logic as the ghosts during a hunt, they’ll only appear as a shade, unless you select a ghost, then they will show their true form.
I’ve adjusted their movement speed during hunts, they all have different movement speeds to change them up, but the fastest one, isn’t as fast as the previous running speed. The shades are the slowest, meaning hunts will be quite tame until you select a ghost, and make it show its true form. It's up to you to find out which ghost is the fastest.
I’ve added a new interaction for the Effigy, this should hopefully make it easier when you’re stuck with the classic “Effigy/Demon Split” and don’t know which one to choose, the Effigy can now make fires around the house.
Previously only the host could select a ghost, now everyone can, this will become voting-based very soon.
Wraith:
The wraith is one of the new ghosts that will be added to Obsideo with this update, according to folklore this is grim-reaper-esque so the interactions were based around that, and he has some really, really unique interactions that I’m excited to see you all experience!
Jinn:
The Jinn is the other ghost being added to Obsideo with this update, according to the Jinn’s folklore, they’re like genies, and also enjoy toying with the humans they haunt, so the interactions are based around that.
I’m not going to be adding photos of the new ghosts in this update log, as I want to start keep the mystery around them, and let you experience them for yourself first-hand!
- Stronger networking backend
- Sound effects when dropping equipment
- Full controller support
- New Spirit box sound
- Better logging for problem investigation
- Can update key bindings during game
- Default keyboard and mouse, and Xbox controller key bindings
- Not being able to join friends’ lobbies
- Settings not saving
- Outside ambiance audio missing
- Not all players around exorcism
- Weird issues with being able to get on-top of certain furniture
- Super small crouch height
- Heart rate not high enough
- Collision with ghost interactions
- Collision with equipment
- Collision with ragdolls
- Only spawns a single corpse when killed
- Stuttering player movement over multiplayer with poorer connections
- Requiring dead people to stand around the exorcism
- Requiring dead people to take radiation pills
- Host unable to select ghost after death (now, anyone can)
Again, honestly, you guys have no idea how much it means to me that you've all stuck around for this, I was extremely nervous to take on such a big update as I didn't feel like I had to power and momentum to actually do it, but the fact that we're still having new people join the Discord every day (https://discord.gg/obsideo) absolutely blows my mind.
You are all the reason I keep wanting to do this and keep pumping out updates.
Thank you!
