An exciting few weeks are behind us. And with the prologue's official release, we wanted to share information about all that came your way. And of course, other news about things that are just a bit further away.
And so, we would first want to elaborate on our prologue. The first chapter of Edward's story has undergone quite a few improvements. A massive free update comes with this re-release for everyone to experience. Be them previous players or new ones. The amount of changes made is enormous, and we would urge even those who have played before to download the prologue. You may very well find the experience improved since last you visited Edward's story.
Secondly, in the coming hours, we would reveal never before seen footage of scenes from the game's future. Things that are still a while off yet. Just a taste of what you might experience in the full game that is coming later on. New sights and horrors for you all to face in the future of Dark Fracture.
Lastly, we want to share some of the improvements that Dark Fracture went through from the demo version we release a few months ago to this new Prologue version (for the sake of avoiding spoilers, we removed more than a few items from the list), many of these changes happened only due to your feedback as players, and for that we thank you. It is quite a massive list of changes, fixes, and updates.
So without further ado, here are the patch notes:
TEXT & UI
- Over 50 subtitles, text and descriptions adjustments, and fixes.
- Added tutorials to the pause menu.
- Significantly reduced the time tutorials that stop gameplay would remain before they could be closed.
- Fixed a bug that could cause notifications to force the descriptions of items in inspection to disappear.
- Fixed a bug that could cause players to get stuck in the pause menu when spam opening the menu and clicking “resume” multiple times in a row.
- Fixed an issue that could cause players to miss the final scene of the prologue while looking at their inventory. The inventory would now properly close when the scene plays out.
- Fixed an issue with tutorials, main menu and the ending screen on different aspect ratios, all of these should now work properly on all monitors.
- Enhanced some of the tutorials for better understanding the usage of certain items.
- Added a tutorial when approaching the mirror in the men's bathroom. Explaining to players that they need to open inventory and consume it from there. This is due to some confusion as to how to actually take the facility mandated pill.
- Shortened the length of one of the letter’s description. As it was too long and went out of bounds. Added a small tutorial in writing to explain how to fully read the letter.
- Fixed the texture on one of the notes to address some grammatical issues found while reading it.
- Updated the pause menu and its visuals.
- Updated the credits.
INVENTORY & INTERACTION
- Added new functionality to locked doors that allow them to be unlocked with the left mouse button. Opening the inventory and allowing players to unlock the door this way. The right mouse button option is still available and can be used to lock doors if needed.
- Increased the duration of all candles in the prologue.
- Increased the camera intensity and radius, to make it more attractive to use and more effective as a whole.
- The fusebox can now be opened at any given point during gameplay. To that end, the logic behind the fusebox's triggers has been altered to take this possibility into account. Triggering the relevant event either when approaching it or when opening it.
- The sanity increase granted when consuming pills is no longer static. Pills would now restore sanity at a slightly different rate each time.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the camera to become stuck.
- Changed the camera's model to one of a higher quality and smaller size. This is to reduce the amount the camera takes from the screen.
- Added a system to ensure that if a player didn’t press TAB within the first 8 minutes of play. The player would be notified to read their journal notes. As well as reminding the player about TAB, more than a few players chose not to read the journal notes, which led to a very difficult playthrough.
VISUALS & LIGHTING
- Added a light to the light switch in the office. This is to prevent players from getting trapped in utter darkness if they just so happen to turn it off.
- Minor level design improvements.
- Fixed an issue where some players could accidentally open the freezers in the freezer room when trying to turn on the lighter.
- Increased the lights intensity inside the office at specific locations.
- Decals and decorations improvements.
- Fixed some texture loading issues for weak machines.
- Improved the lighting inside the fusebox to make it more realistic.
- Increased intensity of the emergency lights in various parts of the morgue to assist with visibility.
- Fixed an issue that would cause one of the emergency lights mesh to flicker awkwardly.
- Lowered the amount of blood trails in the morgue to ease up some of the confusion.
- Increased the material brightness of the exit key in Edward's locker. This change was due to the key sometimes being impossible to spot due to a difference in gamma and brightness between monitors.
- Lowered the amount of blur that happens when the player loses sanity during the final event. This is due to the screen becoming too blurry too often.
- Fixed a hole in the corridor leading up to the final room that could allow players to look through it. And thus peer out of bounds of the map.
- Increased intensity of the lights inside the freezer room.
- Slightly increased the brightness of the prologue.
- Fixed an issue with the blood decal on one of the women's bathroom stall doors. Previously, the door could move away from the decal, making it look rather strange.
- Fixed an issue in the main menu for monitors that use the ClassicTV aspect ratio as they could see the edges of the landscape.
SOUNDS
- Removed the vocal screams/gasps from all random paranormal events and from most story-based events.
- Increased the distance from which the camera flashing is audible. This is to make it easier to hear it and guide the player.
- Fixed a bug which caused one of the radio songs to still be audible even when music was set to 0% in the sound settings.
- Slightly increased the volume of both the main menu and the credits.
- Slightly lowered the buzz of electricity coming from the lights.
PHYSICS & COLLISIONS
- Fixed the collision of the movable trolleys, making them more predictable and less troublesome to operate.
- Fixed the kg ratio of the unmovable trolleys in the morgue. They can now barely be moved by the physical trolleys to prevent strange interactions.
- Fixed an issue with the trolleys that are being tossed around during their specific scene while also enhancing their trajectory.
- Physical objects could now be picked up with the use of the right mouse button. This can be used even when using the camera, allowing the player to still use the right mouse button to cause a flash.
- Fixed a bad collision in the men’s bathroom garbage bin.
- Added a flashing effect to the valve when it is needed. This is to help make locating it easier as it could be unintentionally difficult to spot in the later stages of the prologue.
- Increased the freezer's room door width to help with moving the trolleys out with greater ease.
- Fixed an issue where the phone handset did not have a proper collision at the start of gameplay.
- Lowered the time for opening the metallic drawers and cabinet drawers in the office.
- Fixed collision: Radio.
- Fixed impact sound volume: Cup.
- Fixed throw ratio: Books.
STORY-BASED
- When trying to open the correct locker in the changing room, players will be forced to look at the locker, that’s to help in identifying which one belongs to Edward in case they tried to open several lockers in a row.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent players from triggering the event where Edward notices the missing body when opening the correct freezer. The event would now properly trigger when players inspect the empty freezer.
- The timer on taking the facility mandated pill starts immediately upon noticing it. Allowing the player to simply not pick it up. To pick it up and take it, or toss it away. This leads to somewhat different journal entries and dialogue from Edward. This also gives players who didn’t understand to pick it up a chance to continue playing. As before this change, not picking up the pill would stall progression. Also, this leads to better branching and story opportunities. The game would remember the choice you made.
- Fixed a bug that allowed the “Am I certain...” line to play repeatedly when attempting to open the freezers without removing the trolleys. The line could now only be repeated twice to allow for some warning in case players do not want to disobey.
EVENTS & RANDOM PARANORMALS
- Paranormal events can no longer trigger while the player is in the inventory, pause menu, or in tutorial mode. They can still trigger when interacting with inspectable objects.
- Added more paranormal ambient music to increase auditory diversity when playing.
- Fixed issue that the lighter's paranormal event could happen during crucial times that require specific lighting.
- Stopped any random paranormal events from happening before entering the final moments of the prologue. This is to prevent players from getting hit by one and unintentionally getting killed.
- Removed any effect preventing the players from using their lighter upon first entry to the freezer room. This is to help players find their way around inside of it as it was intended to be played with a light source.
- Natural sanity regeneration will no longer be by a set amount.
- Fixed a bug where the radio paranormal events could happen while in the stairway leading to the exit.
- Lowered the frequency of paranormal events that prevent the use of the lighter and increased the amount of time between such events. This is due to such events happening too frequently to some players.
- Lowered the amount of time the camera is fixated on the radio after the phone call event.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1389160/Dark_Fracture_Prologue/