First of all, thank you for your patience while we worked on this update.

Primitive Shades had a rougher launch than we wanted, and since release we have been paying close attention to the feedback, bug reports, and criticism from players. A lot of the issues raised were completely fair, and this update focuses heavily on making Part 1 clearer, less frustrating, and more polished from beginning to end.

Thank you especially to everyone who took the time to explain what went wrong during their playthrough. That feedback helped shape a large part of this update.

Major Gameplay Changes

• The entrance key is now much easier to find. Its visibility has been improved significantly, and its location is now also shown on the map.

• The Cuboos chase has been rebalanced. The overall difficulty has been reduced and several sections have been made more forgiving. During testing, players unfamiliar with Part 1 were generally able to complete the chase within a few attempts.

• Added additional forgiveness during parts of the chase. In certain sections, making contact with Cuboos once will no longer immediately end the run.

• Added another save point near the end of the chase. This should make failing during the final section considerably less frustrating.

• Added a new map system. Press Tab at any time to open the map, which now highlights important locations and points of interest throughout the school.

• Improved player guidance. Additional voice lines and other adjustments have been added to make objectives and progression clearer without removing the exploration aspect of the game.

• Some objectives have been replaced with hints. This should provide players with useful direction without explicitly telling them exactly what to do.

• You can now repeat your last objective. Press Q at any time to hear your most recent objective again.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed progression issues that could cause softlocks or hardlocks during the breakfast puzzle.

• Fixed progression issues involving the apartment lights.

• Fixed localization problems affecting Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian.

• Fixed several visual bugs throughout Part 1.

Improvements and Additions

• Lunchboxes can now be found throughout the map. Picking one up temporarily increases your sprint speed for around 10 to 15 seconds, making longer routes quicker to travel.

• Improved several cutscenes.

• Made additional improvements to the map and its readability.

• The intro cutscene can now be skipped.

What We Learned

The biggest issue with the release was our playtesting process.

Before launch, most of the game was tested by friends and people who were already somewhat familiar with the project. That was not enough. When you already know how a puzzle works, where an item is located, or where the player is expected to go, it is very easy to miss problems that become obvious to someone experiencing the game for the first time.

We have changed that process moving forward.

Future content will be tested by a wider group of players, including people we do not personally know and players from different countries. Getting feedback from people with no prior knowledge of the game gives us a much better picture of the actual first time experience.

Localization was another important lesson. Some of the problems with the Korean localization, for example, were caused by the font not supporting the required characters correctly. It is a relatively simple issue once you know what caused it, but it is something that should have been caught before release. We will be checking this much more carefully in the future.

What Happens Next?

For now, I am going to keep a close eye on how this update performs and on any new feedback that comes in.

If everything works as expected, this is intended to be the final major update for Part 1. That does not mean bugs will be ignored. If new problems are discovered, I will continue fixing them.

Once I have had some time to see how the updated version of Part 1 is received, I will make a separate community post discussing the future of Primitive Shades and where the project goes from here.

Thank you again to everyone who played, reported bugs, left constructive criticism, or simply gave the game another chance.

The launch taught us a lot, and Primitive Shades is in a much better state because of your feedback.

Thank you for playing.