Hi everyone! Thank you for your patience as I worked on the biggest Demo update yet!!
Localization
The largest task was to set the game up for localization, and this update includes translations for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean. I'd like to welcome all the new players to Reality Break!!
At the bottom of this post you can find the full v0.16.0 patch notes, but here are a few highlights:
Pilot Aptitudes
This update includes the first pass at Aptitudes, a new system that adds unique playstyles and gameplay features to Reality Break. You can unlock new Aptitudes by challenging yourself on certain side missions, then Break your profile to choose an Aptitude for use during the next Cycle.
Each Aptitude has multiple traits that unlock as you level up your pilot. The Demo Version includes three Aptitudes and their Major and Minor Traits, with more variety to come in the Full Version!
Revised Analysis System
By popular request from players of the demo version, items that are being Analyzed can now immediately be Retrieved and used however you like. Once Analysis completes, the Quantum Frame will remotely Discover the item's new affix. As Angelie and Brin like to say: "Hooray for quantum entanglement!"
Improved Reality Stream Visualization
In a continuing effort to make the Reality Stream easier for players to parse, I've added multiple new visuals and color/opacity changes to Talents so that they do a better job of communicating whether they're available to buy, maxed, mutually excluded (if a sub-talent), and so on!
Boosted Performance
Lots of systems were improved in an effort to make the game operate more smoothly in the midgame and eventual lategame, particularly focusing on projectile performance with high levels of Twinbolt and Multishot. This work also spread to other systems, such as speeding up the determination of whether items are upgrades, as well as additional pooling for important gameplay elements.
Upgraded Ship Armor Visuals
Nearly every existing player ship armor visual has been updated with improved meshes and textures. There will be a lot more polish in this area in the future, but enjoy the increased fidelity!
Additional News
Something else I am announcing is that, after careful deliberation, I've decided to convert the game from Early Access into a Full Release and postpone the game by a few months. Here are some additional thoughts about things I anticipate players might want to know, but feel free to ask additional questions!
- "Why remove the game from Early Access?" In various ways, the Steam ecosystem is biased against Early Access games. Launching a Full Version is usually a good way to give a game the best chance of succeeding, which will increase the resources I can pour into it as I shape the game alongside the players. So, rather than launching in March with an Early Access period afterward, I'll take a few additional months to release a polished Full Version.
- "Does that mean the updates will stop after v1.0.0?" Absolutely not. In fact, once I've launched Reality Break and more players have gotten the opportunity to provide feedback, I'll have even more bandwidth to implement player suggestions and continue improving the game. As you've seen with my numerous demo updates, I've been eager to implement community feedback, and will continue to do so after the full version launches.
- "When is v1.0.0 launching?" The Full Version of the game has been coming along great, and will be launching later this year: Q3'24.
- "Anything else?" Given how Reality Break has evolved over the years since I began development, I've decided to postpone implementation of multiple pilot characters. Reality Break has become intertwined with the story of the specific character that you play. There are other stories to tell and other gameplay styles to explore for other characters. Those characters will be awesome, and I'll be super excited to announce the playstyles and gameplay mechanics those characters bring when it's time, but to do them real justice would require far more work than just implementing an extra character type in a vacuum. So, I'd like to save them for the future! In their place, I've already implemented the aforementioned Pilot Aptitudes system, which will allow me a lot more flexibility in delivering cool new class-like mechanics to players, and there will be other components of class variety that I'll be bringing into the game over time so that the experience feels awesome and complete.
And, Speaking of the Full Version...
Enjoy this sneak peek at what's coming to Reality Break later this year ;)
Once again, thank you very much for playing Reality Break!!
~Courtney
Reality Break Demo build v0.16.0 has gone live!
Courtney's Dev Notes: First off I want to thank you all for the incredible feedback! Your positivity and thoughtfulness continue to provide me with boundless energy to continue improving the game for you. As you may have seen in the event post, this update brings with it full support for localization to other languages, starting with Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean. This was a substantial undertaking that touched every piece of the game. Welcome to all of our new players! In addition, I've fixed a bunch of bugs and included some other treats for you, such as the addition of the brand new Pilot Aptitudes system, described below; a substantial performance overhaul, especially with more powerful ship loadouts; and another round of improvements on making the Reality Stream more legible. Let me know what you think, enjoy the update, and thank you for playing Reality Break!
Content
- New feature: Pilot Aptitudes. Aptitudes introduce new gameplay mechanics and playstyles via a Major Trait and multiple Minor Traits. Unlock new Aptitudes by challenging yourself on missions, then Break your character's profile to choose an Aptitude for your next run! (Courtney's note: three Aptitudes are unlocked in the Demo version, but that is just the starting point for this feature - it will eventually be far more fleshed out and interact with other game systems, including the Reality Stream.)
- Revised: Analysis system. You can now Retrieve an item while it's being analyzed. When analysis completes, the Discovery will be processed immediately, regardless of where the item is (ship inventory, equipped, storage). (Courtney's note: 😘)
- Added input binding to slot an item for analysis. The defaults can be changed in the Rebinding dialog.
- Updated all ship armor visuals with higher-quality meshes and textures.
- Completed support for localizing the game, and added translations for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean. The game will auto-detect your Steam language, but you can also override it in the Options dialog > Misc section.
- Removed Specialist upgrades that were marked as NYI from view. (Courtney's note: it was just confusing to players)
- Added custom icon for Epic Turbolaser ""Oncoming Storm"".
- Added Colossus map type to Excursion map possibilities.
- Added particle fx for Ancient Illuminator Anomaly's Illumination buff.
Performance
- Added caching for ""total stat"" calculations to speed up their lookup.
- Converted many tweening hotspots to create reusable tweens rather than stopping old ones and playing new ones.
- Pooled many more ability effects, projectiles, and UI objects.
- Significantly sped up initialization of projectiles when they set up their combat transaction structure.
- Sped up initialization of all entities that are spawned at higher levels by combining all upgrade notifications into one.
- Sped up inventory sort by not notifying the game after each item was moved, but after they'd all been sorted instead.
- Sped up area scan with lots of loot and currency overlays so that they no longer constantly remove and re-add themselves from/to area scan.
- Significantly sped up Twinbolt and Multishot style effects by amortizing their projectile launches across multiple frames.
- Amortized item compare delta indicator calculations to make Ship dialog faster. (Courtney's note: you might notice some occasional lag in recomputing these; I plan to improve this system further.)
- Sped up item compare delta indicator calculations when lots of downgrades are present.
- Sped up computation of ""item upgrades available"" hint.
- Sped up ship dialog open/close, both by not forcing recomputation of all item compare indicators, and by making sure that all the graphical assets for equipped items and inventory are preloaded.
- Further amortized enemy targeting to reduce its load when many enemies are present nearby.
- Added more preloading to various skill and item icons as well as spawned item visuals to remove more hitches from moment-to-moment gameplay.
Quality of Life
- Many improvements to Reality Stream visualization of talent status, in an ongoing effort to make that screen easier to parse: hide RP cost if talent is maxed; changed talent outline frames and colors based on their current level; added a star icon after talent level # to make it faster to scan for maxed talents; added an idle particle effect behind talents that can be purchased; brightened the connector to subtalents that are purchased; substantially dimmed UI for subtalents that are mutually excluded because the other subtalent has points in it.
- Pressing the Rewrite input binding on a rewritable construct that is already open in the Rewrite dialog will close the Rewrite dialog.
- The game now preserves the Area Scan Overlay mode's visibility when warping to another sector.
- Added Multi-Eject, Multi-Scrap, and Multi-Favorite: press and hold the Eject, Scrap, or Favorite input binding while sweeping the cursor across your inventory to perform that on every item the cursor enters.
- Improved the tooltip for Tech Specialist upgrades to provide more info, including a detailed cost breakdown.
Balance
- Reduced power of Overload elite affix by 60%.
- Increased the effect of the Barrier stat on Shields by 200%. This included changing its conversion rate into Shields 1 to 10, which is equal to the conversion of Structure into Health.
- The Ancient Illuminator Anomaly's buff to Haste and Energy Regen now also deals 200% of its Power in damage per second, and it now despawns if its warship is destroyed.
Bug fixes
- fixed the outer frames on certain yes-or-no dialog boxes
- fixed '0' input binding showing up instead of 'Ctrl' in break profile tooltip
- fixed certain UI input binding icons not refreshing when bindings were updated or changed
- fixed Ship and Stash dialogs responding to certain input bindings, such as Sort Inventory, even while closed
- fixed Colossus Reactor armor plates being passable to enemy ships
- fixed being able to exceed ship inventory limits by stacking items larger than 1x1 along the right side of the inventory (Courtney's note: sorry not sorry Belberith et al 😂)
- fixed Current Mission showing ""None"" on front end screen if player Quit To Main Menu while in the Chaos Vortex
- fixed Resource items in ship inventory not dimming when hovering an equip slot or equipped item (since they can never be equipped)
- fixed Colossus Interior maps occasionally spawning the dungeon too close to the arrival jump gate and causing players to warpfrag themselves
- fixed enemies that are impulsed by certain abilities regaining control far earlier than intended
- fixed bug in story mission Into the Nexus that prevented closing the Rewrite dialog
- fixed front end menu accent light and ambient weapon aiming not working with gamepad virtual cursor
- fixed visuals when enemies are destroyed by an ability that causes a physics impulse, where the destruction fx did not stay with the despawning enemy
- fixed several ability physics impulse amounts
- fixed enemy engine thruster fx turning off while they're being physics'd
- fixed tween engine not using safe mode correctly
- fixed being unable to launch a side mission if it had generated the same target map type as the player's current location
- fixed being unable to change screen resolution and other screen options
- fixed Asteroid Barrage activation playing the ""skill activation"" effects twice
- fixed integer overflow when currency pickup flyouts display large amounts
- fixed random anomaly unintentionally spawning on station map if Fate Core was rewritten to Common while there
- fixed points of interest on the area scan not always showing the correct/updated position
- fixed Colossus Fencer linked beams sometimes blinking out of existence due to projectile collisions
- fixed enemies attacking through dungeon walls