Hey everyone!
It’s been two weeks now since Q hit Steam’s store shelves! While this has certainly been a nerve-wrecking time, we are happy to see and hear you all having fun.
Today we would like to talk about the future of Q and what to expect in the coming months.
What's now?
Today’s update should bring some quality of life improvements and address some minor bugs we’ve noticed in playthroughs. You will find a detailed description [here], but the most important changes are:
- Adjusted the difficulty and accessibility of various levels While Q is and always was meant to be a difficult game, we realize that we may have gone a little overboard with some of the challenges. You will notice some updates to the levels - we especially tweaked the dark ice world. It’s less slippery now.
- Added brightness, intensity, and gamma sliders to the graphics menu One of the most requested features was the ability to dim the screen a bit, presumably as to not attract *every* mosquito in a 3-mile radius. Thus, with today’s patch, we have added an “appearance” menu to the graphics options to allow you to tone the neon down a notch.
- Added the ability to open the menu on the start screen A little quality of life improvement to skip the initial jump when re-opening the game.
- Collectables are now displayed faintly if already collected. Also, they can be collected multiple times now If you want to relive the rush of getting that one tough collectable again, you no longer need to reset the game!
Again, the full change list can be found [here]
What's next?
Of course - this is not the end of the journey. In the coming months, we’re looking to add some more requested features – and some we feel will make the game even better.
July
As already announced last week, the soundtrack to Q will be available on steam very soon. Drive, work, game or vibe to the sound of 17 slapping tracks!
This is the one where you can hold directions in the map to navigate! The second Quality of Q update will address even more quality of life issues – such as, but not limited to:
- Better Support for all the fancy monitors (HDR, 4K and Ultra-Widescreen)
- Improvements to menu navigation
- Performance boosts
This update is scheduled for mid july. Further info will be available soon.
August
Accessibility features have been a part of Q’s development from early on. Unfortunately, when the time came to release the game, these have been left on the cutting room floor. But with this update, we seek to rectify that and really give this the consideration it deserves. Look forward to these features:
Visual Accessibility
- Color Blind Modes We will add all-new color themes to each chapter that are specially designed to maximize visibility for the visually impaired while still looking fancy.
- Highlighting Danger Q is a game filled with peril. And while we tried to make all the deadly stuff stand out as best as we could, this feature will allow you to color code it with a color of your choosing.
- Outline Thickness With everything glowing and the game moving fast, it can be easy to get lost in the action. In the accessibility menu, there will be an option to change the line thickness, which will make the game look sharper overall
Gameplay Accessibility
- Difficulty adjustment This will add a couple options to allow you to adjust the difficulty of the game to a level you are comfortable with. These include invincibility, making pits bounce you up again, multi-jumps and extended wall running
- Gamepad Button Remapping The update will introduce the ability to remap controller buttons to allow you to customize your playstyle
Finally, we want to really make Q as speed runner friendly as we can. This update will add a lot of features to help you improve as a runner. The features here might still be subject to change, but here’s a little preview:
- A Speedrun Mode allowing you to start a run without resetting your save file
- Extended statistics on level and chapter times - personal bests and more
Finally
We hope that you will continue to provide us valuable feedback as Q evolves. If you’re interested in testing these new updates, want to share your thoughts on the game or just chat a bit about it, consider joining our discord server [here].
Also, thanks for reading this all the way through.
See you soon!
~ The Manateam