Greetings fellow Delvers!
It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?
First of all, we want to apologize for the long silence and the lack of updates about both the game’s future and to the game itself.
As some of you may know, Pale Abyss is being developed by a team of just three students. We’re incredibly passionate about this project, but we sadly still have to put active development of the game on the backburner until we’ve completed our respective academic degrees. We couldn’t really make any announcements in such a long time, because we had nothing new to share to begin with — until now!
The Future of Pale Abyss
We know many of you have been wondering what comes next, so let’s address the big questions directly. So let’s get the big questions out of the way:
Is Pale Abyss over?
Definitely not.
The project is still very much alive and running! We simply had to put development on hold while we’re still getting our degrees. What we have been busy with is planning out all the content we want to feature in a full release. Once we’re done with creating the full concept of the game beyond this prototype, we’ll do our best to start proper development on it.
Will this be the first and final major update of the Prototype?
Yes.
Well… Probably?
Instead of investing significant time into this prototype, we’d like to focus more of our efforts on developing the full game once we start production. There might be the occasional update here and there if we have something cool to show you guys in the prototype, but we’re not aiming to add much more content into this version of the game anymore. Of course we’ll also try to provide bugfixes and improvements based on your feedback.
When can we expect a full release of Pale Abyss?
At the moment, we honestly don’t know what the future might bring just yet. Since we have no publisher or other financial support for a full game, we’ll likely only be able to work on the game part-time. And since game development takes time combined with our very small team size, it’s difficult to provide a reliable release estimate for a full game.
As you might've noticed, we changed the title of this Steam Page to "Pale Abyss - Prototype". That is because we now have a Steam Page for the full release of the game!
So if you want to see status updates about the game’s production and be notified when the full game releases, please wishlist and follow the new steam page below ːer_heartː. It’s the best way you can stay up to date on what we’re working on:
The Year-One Patch!
So first off, The Year-One Patch sadly doesn’t bring any new content to the game (sorry). This update is mainly here to address many of the bugs you beautiful people have reported in the forums, on our Discord Server and in the Steam Reviews over the past year. We’re all very grateful for your feedback to improve Pale Abyss to the standard that you deserve!
Was this patch an excuse to work on Pale Abyss while working on an assignment about product patching and bugfixing? …perhaps.
But that aside, let’s take a look at the various bugfixes!
Patchnotes
New Additions
Added Remapping Keybinds
Added Controller Support (Gameplay, Inventory, Menus, Remapping, etc.)
Reworked Inventory System
Removed ‘Equip’ Button
Preview Stats on Hover instead of on Click
Equip Equipment with just one click
Added new tabs for Settings (General, Visuals, Controls, Camera)
Added Controller Rumble
Added Pixelation Filter Customizability
Added Film Grain Filter Toggle
Added Camera Sensitivity Slider
Added Setting for Y-Inverted Camera Controls
Added confirmation prompt for exiting without saving changes in Settings
A few small map changes for decoration
Gameplay Changes and Improvements
Charge Attacks now damage Enemies according to how much of the attack is charged instead of only dealing more damage on a full charge
Instead of not executing an attack when charging without the required Stamina, you now swing your weapon slower and only deal minimal damage for that attack
Enemies now take increased damage when attacked while stunned from a perfectly timed block
You can now cancel your spells being fired by blocking
Picking up the Chalice of Abyssal Dew now automatically slots it into your active consumable wheel
Tutorial Messages now mention the correct keybind even when changed in the settings
Duplicate Weapons don’t get separate Inventory entries anymore
Reordered Starter Classes (Unfortunate Soul is not the default anymore)
Bug Fixes
Fixed buggy Music Triggers
Fixed Bug where ‘Inventory Closing’ Sound Effects get stacked after resting at an Altar for the first time
Fixed Bug where Settings don’t get saved correctly
Fixed Bug where it’s possible to start the game with no name
Fixed rapid attack exploit (blocking just after attacking)
Fixed Bug where using a Candle of Respite during death respawns the player twice
(Maybe) Fixed Bug where the mouse cursor can leave the game window (We were never able to replicate this bug on our end, please report if it still happens)
Various performance improvements
Thank you so much to everyone who’s been submitting bug reports and reviews for Pale Abyss! Without your reports we would’ve never noticed a lot of improvements included in this patch. So please continue to give us reports and suggestions to improve upon! ːer_heartː
TL;DR
There’s a new patch with all kinds of Quality of Life features and fixes.
The game isn’t dead, we’re just very busy students.
Game Development is long and hard.
Please check out the new Steam Page for the full game and wishlist it to stay updated!