Huge thanks to the Beta testers and Early Access players! Your feedback and bug reports are crucial for driving improvements to the game.
We are a tiny team, with 1 to 3 people working on the game any given week. We have no QA staff and limited hardware configurations. So, we can't find all the problems ourselves, even with the significant amount of internal testing we do.
The Beta and Early Access were the first time so many people have tested the open world game. Many new issues were reported using the in-game tool (from the pause menu) and many were collected through automated reporting. You have been a tremendous help.
For this update, we attempted to fix all known "player can't proceed" type bugs (as well as a lot of other stuff). You reported a lot more of these than expected, and some were quite difficult to reproduce locally. Some only happen on a full Steam build, or only for certain hardware, or only for certain play styles. Those are a real nightmare to capture and debug. Hopefully, after this update we can more focus on gameplay and content improvements. We plan to generally have quicker updates moving forward.
That said... There is a new build for you to play, with a ton of improvements! With these fixes, most players should now be able to access most of Content Chunk 1. Find the full list of fixes at the bottom of this post.
I also want to provide more context on a few points.
Wormhole Run: This game option, available from the main menu, is a mostly linear sample of play where the player jumps through wormholes to access various locations in the game world. It is an experimental speed run mode of play. Here you will find some things not yet unlocked in the main open world game Content Chunk 1, you will be given some items directly, and some items and upgrades are combined into one. A bug in the previous build prevented Wormhole Run from launching properly and instead sent you to normal content after leaving the home ship. Try this mode if you would like to sample some equipment, vehicles, biomes, and characters, without too much difficulty or exploration required.
Suit Upgrades: In the full game, the player can collect Chips to plug into their suit, and customize their equipment for specific challenges or to better fit their style of play. An incomplete version of this system could be accessed at Checkpoints in the previous build. Some players got stuck after opening an unfinished GUI, with no obvious way to exit. We have temporarily disabled Chip and Socket pickups, and the ability to interact with this system at Checkpoints. We plan to turn this back on in a more complete state, maybe with content chunk 2.
Home Ship and Seed Cores: Although Seed Cores can be found, home ship upgrades are currently (still) locked out. Later, these will unlock several game changing capabilities and additional content. Planting one of the Seed Cores is meant to be a unique event, but this doesn't currently persist. Feel free to ignore this mechanic for now.
Content Unlocks: The full game world has been been in development for years and only a handful of zones have been made available for testing so far. The next large chunk will be unlocked, along with major gating bosses, once we've resolved enough existing bug reports. That said, many of you have only unlocked a tiny fraction of the available content. Please retry after this update.
Day / Night Cycle: This affects some spawns and puzzles, but for Content Chunk 1 the main gameplay consideration is heat damage if outside when the Sun is high. There is currently an unresolved bug related to this system, and so sun damage is turned off meanwhile. You may see some confusing related GUI that should make sense and work properly in a forthcoming update.
Game Balance: We hear your feedback and will be making some adjustments for game difficulty and pacing. Respawn rates are obviously way too fast in many places. Major tuning needs to occur in the context of the full game, and after the Day / Night Cycle effects are back in play, but we'll be making targeted adjustments based on your feedback too.
Ultrawide Monitors: We don't have this hardware and haven't validated the game on it, but it should at least currently run in a full vertical 16:9 or 16:10 window, or a fallback mode on your monitor with a similar aspect ratio. We'll try to get black vertical side bars at full screen for native ultrawide resolutions, and we may offer an unsupported option to turn the bars off, which could negatively impact game performance and may spoil some pacing, puzzles, or reveals
What About X?: Some have asked for various game features typical to this genre, many of which will be available once the full game is unlocked. The game is designed to be playable without a game manual, but if you read it, you will have a better understanding of how the finished game is meant to work. As the game nears completion, most of this should become self explanatory through gameplay.
Find the game manual here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1540197718
What's Next? We plan to address any remaining bugs that prevent progress through the game (please report them) and do a quick pass to get appropriate respawn rates. The next update will hopefully come quicker than the last. Then we'll have an update that turns on a few boss characters and unlocks the next major content chunk.
The change list follows.
v0.0821_B - 10/8/2021 - Content Chunk 1 - Update 2
- Early Access should now be available in Australia
- Fixed a variety of cases where the player could respawn in an effectively locked room trap
- Fixed a game flow problem where a door unlock couldn't be reached
- Disabled Suit Management at Checkpoints and various Chips and Sockets pickups (system isn't ready for evaluation and was causing player-is-stuck bugs)
- Fixed an issue that corrupted the player art mesh
- Fixed various bugs where the player could fall through the terrain, e.g. after using a Checkpoint
- Fixed various bugs where the player physics could behave inconsistently
- Scene-to-scene elevator transitions should now work reliably
- Fixed a bug that prevented "Wormhole Run" content from being playable (wormholes were missing!)
- Fixed various cases of Crystalized Material and Charge Container pick up objects respawning after being collected
- Fixed many various art issues
- Improved many terrain related player flow issues
- Fixed various text and localization bugs
- Improved "Early Access" title screen graphic to not be confused as a selectable menu item
- Fixed an issue where enemy kill requirement barriers leave a UI after being cleared
- Improved the "tutorial trap" around the first chunk detonator the player receives
- Fixed many dead enemy removal art issues
- A few surgical game balance tweaks related to specific characters
- Fixed save persistence on some barriers
- Disabled a sawblade trap where player could get stuck without dying, to be improved later
- Fixed an issue where the follow camera could stop tracking (related to camera shake)
- Fixed various cases where the player could get stuck in a slide tunnel before they acquire the slide ability
- Tweaked a couple of puzzles to make them more likely to be solved with intended method
- Improved availability of enemies that drop weapon charges (ammo)
