Hey folks! We're still grinding away addressing all the feedback we've received on the demo so far. While we are making these changes, we have disabled the demo -- and we will reactivate it once the new patch is ready! The updates are taking a bit longer because the team is takin
Hey folks!
We're still grinding away addressing all the feedback we've received on the demo so far. While we are making these changes, we have disabled the demo -- and we will reactivate it once the new patch is ready!
The updates are taking a bit longer because the team is taking some time to recoup from our day jobs and dev work. But we will have an update out in the next couple of weeks!
The two primary changes we are doing are graphics/lighting updates to improve visibility and make key moments clearer AND tutorialization to better explain core mechanics. There are also other changes to:
Improvements to doors and drawers.
Improvements to clarity for traps.
Scare improvements.
I'll be putting out another post with details on the changes closer to the demo patch!
Make sure to join our discord to provide feedback and get early updates: https://discord.gg/v5sXwn3ZvC
Hey gamers, As mentioned, here is our first batch of bug fixes and adjustments for the Schwarzwald alpha demo. Patch Notes: Changing tip for doors to be more clear about how to open doors. Doors are click, hold and move forward/backward to hold which allows for you to quickly ope
Hey gamers,
As mentioned, here is our first batch of bug fixes and adjustments for the Schwarzwald alpha demo.
Patch Notes:
Changing tip for doors to be more clear about how to open doors. Doors are click, hold and move forward/backward to hold which allows for you to quickly open doors. Additionally you can click and drag to open doors slowly which allows players to peek through the door first.
Panic heartbeat now starts much later.
Panic doesn't go up from just holding shift (run key). Instead it goes up specifically if you are moving while running.
Panic stages adjusted so that spooks happen less frequently.
Autosave info screen added.
Bug Fix - Kitchen save point now works properly.
Bug Fix - Fixed toilet collider so that its easier to aim at things inside the toilet.
Bug Fix - Various smaller audio improvements and fixes.
We will continue to watch playthroughs and keep an eye out for community feedback to actively improve the horror experience in Schwarzwald. There will be more adjustments coming based off the feedback we've already seen including a tutorial sequence.
As many of you know we have a small team who are work in their spare time after their day jobs so we appreciate your patience as we work to make Schwarzwald the best horror game it can be!
If you wish to give feedback or get info earlier, we recommend joining our discord channel! https://discord.gg/v5sXwn3ZvC -
Hey gamers! We're really happy to see so many people playing the demo already after launch! We are however aware of a number of issues currently as well as some gameplay elements that aren't clear. There will be a number of patches coming soon to address these issues. Some of the
Hey gamers!
We're really happy to see so many people playing the demo already after launch!
We are however aware of a number of issues currently as well as some gameplay elements that aren't clear.
There will be a number of patches coming soon to address these issues.
Some of these issues include:
Clarity around use of doors.
Clarity for one of the traps.
One of the save points around the kitchen not working properly
Panic going up when it shouldn't
Potential lumen crash when changing Global Illumination settings
In addition we are working on adding a tutorial sequence in the near future. In absence of that we'd like to clarify the Panic mechanic so you can better enjoy your gameplay:
Panic goes up slowly when you either have the flashlight on or are running (holding shift). If you do both it goes up faster.
When neither is being used, it starts to go back down.
We are happy to announce the demo is now live! You can go get it for free on the Schwarzwald steam page! Demo Notes There are some important things to keep in mind playing the demo as it is an alpha demo. You are encouraged to use this as a good representation of the following: G
We are happy to announce the demo is now live! You can go get it for free on the Schwarzwald steam page!
Demo Notes
There are some important things to keep in mind playing the demo as it is an alpha demo.
You are encouraged to use this as a good representation of the
following:
Game Mechanics
Art Style
Level Design
Overall concept
Sense of Horror
Soundscape
Do expect the following:
Bugs
Less Polished Assets
Limited Content
Ongoing Changes & Early Playtesting
Being a small and new indie studio, we know we have a lot to learn. We are constantly reviewing feedback and making changes so that we can make Schwarzwald the best horror experience possible.
If you would like to pass over feedback, we recommend joining our discord and adding feedback in our bugs and feedback forum channel. https://discord.gg/v5sXwn3ZvC
Some feedback we've already received:
Trap/challenges activating can be unclear - We're looking into add a more clear indication of when these happen so the player can figure out that there is a death challenge going on.
Can't bind arrow keys for movement - We are aware of this and will be putting in a fix for it soon.
Unclear on how to use certain mechanics like doors - We are working on better tutorialization for mechanics to explain how they should be used. We are also gathering info from players on how they use mechanics so we can improve them as well.
Here are some improvements we have already made from our early playtest:
Improved direction for one of the traps so its more noticeable when it activates.
Added sound cues to kitchen and key hallways to help identify a couple of important moments.
General sound improvements all around.
Added ability to have a permanent reticle for aiming.
Greatly improved aiming both with and without the reticle -- now you should have no issues aiming with no reticle as well.
Removed the older school on-screen text in favor of indicator reticles.
Removed some drawers/cabinets or made them "broken" so there is less to search through since there isn't a lot of stuff to find in the demo specifically.
Doors now have two styles of opening available. You can swipe and drag to open/close them to "peek" in before entering OR you can move with the door to open/close them allowing you to "barge" into rooms without investigating as much. We'll probably add some gameplay around this for the full game.
Adjusted color of the Panic heart indicator so it fits better with the color theme.
Panic heart now has stages where it beats noticeably faster as your sanity gets worse.
First bedroom door now opens after you read the flashlight manual with tutorial info instead of when you grab the flashlight.
Fixed a number of gameplay impacting bugs found.
Death and Schwarzwald
One note we want to make clear is about death and its place in the game.
Death is an important part of the Schwarzwald experience. The idea being that periodically you may find yourself in death challenges that test your ability to fight your instincts during the overall spooky gameplay. Schwarzwald has smaller game loops all over so that you don't lose too much progress and can learn and try the challenges again OR go somewhere else instead.
The first death challenge happens right out of the gate to teach you that you need to fight your instincts or it results in death (If your instinct is to face the danger, then try running away for example). The choice is up to you in those situations so if you want to close a door that opened then close it, if you want to investigate then do so -- but be prepared for the consequences! :)
As mentioned above, we have some changes that we want to do to make death challenges more clear and will be introducing patches in the coming days and onward to improve that. Though larger changes will be reserved for the full game, we want the demo to better represent what the full game will be like.
Hey everyone! First off we want to apologize for the delay getting this over here! As some of you are aware, we are all working on Schwarzwald as a second job and things have been hectic between end of last year and now unfortunately! That said, we're still working on getting inf
Hey everyone!
First off we want to apologize for the delay getting this over here! As some of you are aware, we are all working on Schwarzwald as a second job and things have been hectic between end of last year and now unfortunately!
That said, we're still working on getting info over to you guys and in that spirit here is the next devlog we are transferring over from our Youtube channel!
Immersion
We had to think a lot about how we want the environment in Schwarzwald to feel, primarily with how you interact with the environment to make it more immersive while still falling under our capabilities.
The best way to make the world feel immersive was to let the player interact with anything they would normally be able to interact with. So door, drawers, lamps, etc needed to all have working functionality -- but not only that, they also needed to be tied into the game itself! This means that anything could AND should be used in scares and aid in making you feel like you are being messed with by the demon.
Spooks
Introducing a general spook system was our main way of breathing life into the Schwarzwald world. It allows for there to be potential interactions all around the level and activate to create creepy moments or scares without us needing to command it each time.
These spooks range from small interactions with common objects on the level to full on creepy occurrences and appearances, all of which have a lot of varying conditions to occur. Everything can happen at slightly different times and attribute towards the player being caught off guard and feeling like the world is more alive around them.
This also leans into the idea we brought up last time, about going for a different type of replayability! Instead of Schwarzwald being made to be played over and over with lower quality and higher quantity, your playthrough will feel different from your friends and the streamers you watch with these slight variances so you can still appreciate it and we can still provide higher quality horror moments!
Cel-shader
Being a small team means that creating a realistic look was difficult. With realistic appearances, you need to work out level of detail, super tuned lighting and also just performance (which Schwarzwald already struggles with due to the amount of content per space). But that said, in order really make you feel like you are in the game, we needed a more realistic feeling world.
By adding a cel-shader, we managed to bridge the gap! This shader allowed for visuals to still retain a more realistic appearance up close but softened details to achieve this with less-detailed models and lighting techniques that didn't require as much time to do. We also love how the cel-shader works with our LUT to provide a very painted realism look, and on a gameplay level, feel a false sense of comfort while the demon sets up traps around you.
Doors
Yes, DOORS! You may be asking why doors are anything special, but we are here to tell you just how troublesome doors are in games.
Doors don't sound complicated right? You open and close them so what else is there? Well, that's where things get tricky in games. Because you need to be very explicit in how you want the door to behave. Some things you need to manually program in are, how the door should collide with you if you are too close, where should the door stop when you open or close it, when should it be locked and how can it be unlocked, and much much more.
Even just on the type of doors, there are several options. Some such as:
Click to automatically open/close - Pretty simple because its automatic but not very immersive.
Collide to open - Somewhat simple but very prone to breaking depending on collision logic, plus can just look silly if you are running into doors constantly.
Animate to open - One of the most complex depending on how detailed you want it. Requires custom animations for each type of door and tech in order to ensure the door/player pair line up for it.
Click and Drag - Complex on a technical level but does not require complex animations. You need to think about a lot parameters for controlling the door since the player can move it however they want.
Our choice was Click to Drag doors! But why does this matter to the player and to Schwarzwald?
This allowed us to make the experience interaction with the world more immersive, make the player feel more in control (so the demon can take it away later hehe) and so that we didn't need to dish out more funding towards custom animations for it.
Not only were we able to do that but we also have completely procedural audio for all doors, drawers and door like objects! This allows the audio to also be immersive and pull you into the game as you play... all the better to scare you with!
You can see the work we did around this tech on our Youtube page with a technical breakdown:
That is everything for this one! Our biggest focus right now is to get heads down into development so we can get the demo to you all! But as mentioned, we'll try to keep more in touch here!
Don't hesitate to join our discord for more frequent info and twitch stream notifications: https://discord.gg/v5sXwn3ZvC
Hey folks! We figure its about time to get our devlogs over to Steam so you can all stay up to date with progress on Schwarzwald! We're moving over our existing devlogs for everyone to check out first. Once that's done, we'll be getting unique dev updates out so you can get some
Hey folks!
We figure its about time to get our devlogs over to Steam so you can all stay up to date with progress on Schwarzwald!
We're moving over our existing devlogs for everyone to check out first. Once that's done, we'll be getting unique dev updates out so you can get some exclusive information only available here and on discord!
How we started Schwarzwald
This original began as a Halloween gamejam idea! We wanted to come up with a horror game that brought continuous spooks and a unique art style.
Schwarzwald, like all games we set out to create, is intended to break the meta of horror games. Instead of giving you busy work or long winding gameplay it gives you the experience of playing through a horror movie. A shorter more polished horror experience with ramp ups and ramp downs, exploration to discover lore and of course, plenty of scares!
Why Schwarzwald? It was an inspiration taken from the Grimm Brothers and other reference to the Black Forest. A place where creatures roam and things never go well. Which is also just stunning in real life!
Gameplay Pillars
Your choice matters
Schwarzwald makes you feel like the choice is in your hands, just be weary of the consequences! If you want to close a door, close it. If you want to ignore something, ignore it. If you want to go somewhere, you can go there.
Your choice may be limited to help pacing and improve spooky situations but you'll always have the chance to do what you want.
Less Busywork
There are some great horror games out there, but a common theme is that you are give busywork or repetitive tasks in between scares. This helps to keep the game going and also give you a false sense of security as you get used to the pattern.
Our goal with Schwarzwald is to give a short but fun and clear horror experience. Rather than give you busy work, we fill that time with more potential scares and pacing.
Your Instincts Can Betray You
Schwarzawald is set to adapt to the type of person you are. While you can choose to do what you want, the game will play on your instincts to trick you. Your survival will depend on you making the right choice against your initial reaction.
We did a full Q&A on our Twitch channel a while back! We recommend you check it out here:
