Hey Skaters
Thank you for all your support so far, seeing everybody play and hearing feedback about Despondent has been awesome!
I have compiled a list of bugs and additions I want to address in the first patch coming sometime next week, just to give you guys an idea of what to expect.
---Additions---
Save points
I have been getting a lot of feedback about the difficulty of the game and the lack of save points in the longer chapters. While the game was made hard by design, it was never meant to make players have to replay it over and over again to progress. That is why I have decided to implement 2 other save points in chapter 3 and another 1 in chapter 5. Where they will be I am not sure of right now, but I can promise there will be one after the radio tower in chapter 3! I will have all the locations listed in the patch notes when it is released.
Objective clarity
I have also received reports of players struggling with where to go and what to do, the objectives are vague and not telling of which direction the player should take to progress. I was trying to walk a fine line in not creating a 'yellow paint game' but in doing this, I had not made it clear enough. That is why I have decided to create objectives that will give you a better idea on what you should be looking for to steadily progress through the game, instead of wandering because I know how frustrating that can be! I will still try to restrain myself from making it too obvious, as I want to stay true to the type of game I wanted to make.
---Fixes (Major Bugs)---
Equipment duplication- When the player loads a game or transitions between levels, the inventory component can sometimes get confused about whether the player has equipment or not, and can at times give duplicates of each starting item. This can be game breaking as there is no drop feature in despondent, the game depends upon having free space in the inventory to pick up key items to progress. This will be rectified in the patch but as of now there does not seem to be a solid fix. With a little bit of luck, you may not need to pick up any items to progress and transitioning into a new chapter should fix it.
Position error on load- The game can sometimes get puffed and not load the players saved position when loading a checkpoint, this puts you out of bounds of the playable area and you will be stuck there for eternity. A quick fix for this while waiting for the patch is reloading the checkpoint and waiting 10 seconds before pressing an input to load, this gives the game a bit of time to catch up and should fix the positional error.
Game over reload black screen- The game can sometimes throw a black screen when the player hits the 'TRY AGAIN' button on game over and not reload as it should. A quick fix for this while waiting for the patch is hitting pause and going back to the main menu, from here you can press continue and it will load you back to the last checkpoint.
---Fixes (Minor Glitches)---
-Player having the flashlight equip in the prologue when they start a new game
-Collision on graveyard office & wall in Chapter 3
-Freezer door animation not playing in Chapter 5
-Player getting caught on geometry
-Acheivement for finishing the game not popping
-Flare sprites visible through the wall at the ending of Chapter 6
-Pale lady not glowing in Chapter 6
-Objective update audio being cut off if another sound plays during it
I will continue to add to the list as bugs are found up until the patch is released, I appreciate all your patience, I am just a one guy team and I know despondent is not perfect, but ill do all i can to make sure the game is not impossible to pass or a pain to play.
Until next time, Later Skaters!