When is the New Update Coming?
The release of the two new chapters of Breathedge will be on September 5.
The following video shows you the approximate content of the upcoming release (there might be spoilers, so stay alert and close your eyes at the right moments):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SAI_qmUhmA
This information was for the League of Lazyheads so that they wouldn’t make an effort to look for the most important information in the long scroll of the text below. For all the rest of you: welcome to the world of letters!
First of all, a few words about the date of the release. Is it an exact one? Yes. There might be some exceptions, though. We might of course say that September 5 happens in November, but this would require a very good explanation. On the other hand, the release of the chapters may take place a week earlier or later, depending on the schedule of major releases of our rivals’ games, the sales of which we nobly do not want to ruin with our masterpiece. But in general, the date is final and not subject to major changes.
Secondly, we would like to warn you that below we are going to tell you in detail and show you what kind of work has been done during all this time, and therefore, some spoilers and various other indecent things might pop up, so please move away from your screen if you think your feelings might get hurt.
As we mentioned earlier, we chose the path of making updates in the form of large, complete episodes, rather than small frequent updates. This has its advantages, but there are also disadvantages (most of which you can read in the negative reviews about the project on Steam). In any case, things are as they are, and in September two large chapters will appear, inextricably linked to each other so that it would be blasphemy to separate them.
Before starting a boring listing of all the innovations, we would like to demonstrate the difference in volume between the first chapter and the two new ones. We will resort to comparison further on, but for now, we will show just the general chart.
We are not so good at making charts, but believe us, the difference here is quite impressive.
The Plot is too Short!
The new chapters of Breathedge will smoothly continue the narration from the same point when the first chapter of the game ended. This is logical, and even the saved files should not crash (if someone’s saves commit suicide and terminate themselves, then most likely, we are not the ones to blame, you should blame the eighth season of the Game of Thrones in this case). We will not tell you about the details of the plot, but in general, it’s about the Man in space... um, no! John Snow could have used his influence in Westeros much better! Ok, alright. The Man will continue to deal with the same vastness of space, his spacesuit, survival situations, and will find many small pieces of the history of the large liner “Unnamed”. There will be much more vastness of space and many more pieces of history compared with the first chapter. The total volume of the first chapter is 6000 words (counted according to the localization files). The total volume of the two new chapters is 40,000 words. This is a lot, we suppose. At least we were tired of writing all this with a chisel on stones, and the papyrus was not yet invented at the time when we started to work on the second chapter.
We will also add a lot of interesting areas in space that are not connected with the plot. In the first chapter there were only 17 places with some debris and stories, but in new chapters there will be about 120 of them. And there will be 6 more cutscenes, compared to just one in the first chapter, and 530 voiced phrases in the new chapters, compared with the 96 phrases in the first one. So there’s that!
The World is too Small!
The events of the second and third chapters will unfold in some new places in space. The beginning of the game will not change in any way, therefore, there’s no sense in exploring the starter shuttle. However, the space beyond the captain’s bridge will stretch out to several cubic kilometers of debris, emptiness, and boredom. This is space after all. This is what awaits the Man:
Engineers Cemetery. There will be no tombstones here, of course. But you will see the rest, even robots.
Cooling Gel. There will be a lot of cooling gel and few places where you can defrost the helmet. It will be difficult to explore the surroundings, because there’s no point it making it easy.
Electrical Fields. An unusual area with an unusual story that no one will understand. You can get electrocuted or lose your means of transport in some especially unpleasant places.
Mayonnaise, which is not so easy to swim in, but you will have to. We could have poured this substance everywhere and made an underwater game out of it, but this was already done by someone.
A Communication Point. There’s no communication or point without it.
Military Modules where something valuable was transported apart from military men themselves. The place is dangerous, populated by security robots, turrets, and dead men in uniform.
Food Compartments. At first it may seem that there is a lot of food there, and no secrets at all, but this is untrue. However you still can eat your fill here. Here you can probably find some meat, greens, and a side dish.
Rampant Turrets. There were a lot of anti-asteroid turrets on the liner, and although most of them died along with the plating, some still function. However, they do not function normally and react strongly against unfamiliar Men approaching them.
Other Stuff. Many different smaller areas where you can get electrocuted, freeze, burn, be shot or beaten, suffocate, or get stuck in textures.
The game will have quite a lot of interiors, where you can take a break from weightlessness and wander along narrow corridors, as well as small caves, where in complete darkness you can take a break from narrow corridors and all this beauty.
For illustrative purposes, here’s a comparison of the size of the first chapter and the two new ones. This is not a chart so everything is clear here.
The World is too Big!
Maybe just a bit, although it is difficult to fill it with stuff. Not only interesting additional points help in doing this job, but also more than a hundred new collectible items. All of them are very logical and without jokes. Whoever finds everything is a clever cookie, but most likely they will not know about it.
In addition to the old metal balls, and rolls of cloth, the space spat out about 15 more new resources, from which you can assemble various junk. Helium cylinders, diamond ore, foam rubber, ivory, a pacemaker, and even modelling clay — all of this is not in the game and, most likely, will never be.
You can also replenish your collection of tools, by getting 16 new ones. Here you will finally find the crowbar everyone was looking for in the first chapter. Although it is not exactly a crowbar, but it will be there. There will also be more durable handy scrappers, beef grenades, a blaster, a dispenser, an analyzer, a scraper, and even bribes.
We will add some new types of accelerators and oxygen cylinders. There will also be some new types of spacesuits, which will not just be some lazily made reskins, but will be lazily made reskins with additional unique protective functions. One spacesuit will save from the heat, the second one from the cold, the third will do something else too, and the fourth one will exit the game to the desktop and format your hard drive (just kidding, we didn’t notice anything like that connected with the spacesuit, although there were some similar cases). In total, there will be 11 new types of equipment.
The more different places and objects in the world are, the harder it is to explore it, especially if there is no oxygen or health, and the speed of movement is slightly faster than a cobblestone in the garden. To finally solve this problem the game will have some means of transport, or rather two types of transport. Although everyone already knows which ones they will be, we will remind you that this will be a fast and maneuverable vacuum cleaner motorcycle and a slightly slower, but protected and oxygen-filled car, ZAZ-1. As in real life, you will have to refuel and repair your transport if you knock its bumper on asteroids for a long time, but it will be much easier to survive with it.
Ah, almost forgot. Many players burned our non-existent portraits and tried to send curses on us through rice and buckwheat (ha, that’s a fail, because Chickens are not subject to magic), and all because of the Man's oxygen starvation. We understood these hints, and immediately created the following game modes:
Standard. Everything should be clear here, this is the current mode. It is moderately complex, with the parameters which are important for survival. Oxygen is enough for one breath, and the Man consumes too much food. Everything here is in the same state as we thought of initially and we consider this to be the most balanced and realistic mode.
Story. This mode is for those who suffer from lack of air and do not like to eat every 2 minutes, but at the same time would like to enjoy the uncomplicated history of the world, without cheats, ready-made tools, and open locations. Here you can die from radiation or electricity, for example, but at least you can breathe freely.
Impossible. Everything is the same as in the standard one, but you have only one life. No saves will save you if the Man dies. Why play this? We do not know either.
Free. In the free mode, all parameters are turned off altogether, all blueprints are given, no resources are needed, and there is no plot or tasks. You can build the largest station in the world and drop your FPS to zero, accusing the developers of poor optimization with proofs and screens. That’s marvelous!
There’s no Construction!
Speaking about the largest station: we have already managed to tell you about the possibility of constructing it, showed you some screenshots and even let you pretend to be the greatest architects of all time. In the new chapters, the construction of your own station will be fully implemented for free, no adds, and no need to download the constructor! The space station is not just one of the possibilities of the game, but an important component of survival. Theoretically, you can do without it, but why?
Any station consists of basic modules. There are 11 of them at the moment. (a service module, a transport one, a habitation module, some corridors, and some other ones).
Each module has several replaceable blocks, 22 to be precise, which are the main active elements of the station. A block may not have any useful functions, for example, a window. But it may also expand gaming possibilities, for example, a bed or a processor for crafting stuff. To make it all work, you will have to provide the station with electricity, monitor the oxygen level, protect it against holes and patch them in time, otherwise you can lose the station. At the station, you can relax and replenish your air supplies, get food and resources, study blueprints at the science desk, use a food processor for crafting, collect and put a dozen collectibles on your stands, create your own means of transport, conveniently store things, and throw yourself out of the airlock.
You can not only upgrade the modules with blocks, but also decorate them. In the two new chapters, you can find 34 blueprints of a variety of decorative objects: starting with a TV and a table, and ending with an aquarium and a piano. Some objects can be fastened tightly while others can be kicked around the station. You can even gather collectible items to achieve better interior decor. All these bottles, cigarette butts, and soft toys can be not only dumped in a heap on the outskirts of space, but also beautifully arranged around the module (until you scatter all this beauty around while dragging another nameless corpse with its limbs jerking about).
There are no Enemies!
Space is dead. So it goes. Completely dead, we aren’t kidding, we learned about that from television. Breathedge is a realistic and almost documentary game, and therefore we cannot add any swans or butterflies to it. But on the other hand, it’s about the future, and therefore space will be filled with robots. Most of them died in the crash, but some lucky ones remained intact and are now waiting to encounter the Man’s Handy Scrapper:
Garbage Collector Robot — it may sound corny, but this robot gathers garbage, you’ve guessed right. Having a big bag and a large supply of optimism, these cute guys scurry around the debris, collecting small items. Breaking such a peaceful creature is not only cruel, but also useful, since they have lots of loot.
Cleaner Robot — that very same Buratissos that we mentioned in our previous news. Peaceful, rare, and stupid. There’s nothing remarkable about it, although it is the only robot that will allow itself to be grabbed and dragged along.
Repair Robot — a big beautiful, and also very useful robot, not for the Man though. Repair robots diligently try to repair the remains of the liner, and sometimes make it difficult to pass. It is not recommended to beat them with a stick, because they can electrocute you for this, but you can shoot them or divert them by making them do some minor repairs, and this is safe.
Security Robot — this is the most unpleasant type of robots at the moment, following the coffin robots. The security robots are fast, strong and very aggressive. They will shoot at you if you are far from them. If you are close to them, they will beat your spacesuit with their batons. These robots attack you for no reason and can pursue you for a long time. It’s difficult to destroy them, but it’s possible, although it is easier to bribe them or run away if you are fast enough.
Turret — we have already mentioned it. It’s difficult to call it a robot, but it’s still an enemy. A turret can be destroyed or disabled.
Gatekeeper Robot — this robot is unique and immensely cool. We will tell nothing about it, but let it be here, together with the other ones.
No Chinese Language!
All of the above mentioned things are great: the plot is important, construction is needed, and the resources are useless. However, it would be even better if all this could be explored and understood without a dictionary. The new chapters will be fully localized in Russian and English, for sure, along with voice acting and textures, as in the first chapter. Before the release of the new chapters in September, we will have time to add three more new text localizations (subtitles and an interface with all the descriptions of the items). The new languages will be: German, Chinese, and French. We will expand the number of languages in the future, but for now the local library doesn’t allow us to have more than three phrasebooks at a time.
There’s not Much to Do Here, is There?
We agree. The world of Breathedge is not only space and stupid robots. In the new chapters, it will be possible not only to craft new items, to shoot a bit, and urinate on the TV in the room, but also to open coffins (you won’t be able to get the corpses out, no, but instead you can get some useful data), throw grenades, plant a bomb, get ice from a vending machine with soda, cause a short circuit, stick photos on all the walls in the cabin, set a corpse’s ass on fire, launch some mayonnaise, see some outdated technologies, study a cow’s insides, get the Breathedge core, get more than 20 new achievements, play Clickedge II, see a mutant, learn some more secrets of the Chicken, get an SMS from Babe, say hello to coffin robots, shoot from a giant cannon, launch some obsolete space ships and much more. Space is versatile for sure.
Settings, Bugs, FOV, Refund!
Despite the multiple testings, the players still noticed some errors and bugs in the game, although it’s good that only a very small percentage of them had this. This is what we fixed and added:
- The spacesuit’s sentences are now interrupted less frequently. Now it can remember the next sentence, and starts saying it only after the previous one ended.
- The buggy inversion of the mouse is now not so buggy now.
- Now you can choose the monitor without consulting a fortune teller.
- FOV added. Everything will be more fun on wider screens. We didn’t find any narrow ones, but we guess everything will be ok there.
- Sometimes the game didn’t correctly identify the monitor resolution in the settings, but we fixed this.
- Now you can adject the sound volume of the irritating “BEEP BEEP BEEP” sound of your suit when being low on oxygen. That’s great!
- We changed the autosave system. You probably noticed some lagging every time you entered or exited the shuttle . This was the autosave. Now the lagging will remain, but it will occur less frequently (whoa, what an innovation, that’s a great job done!)
- We fixed some fatal errors that had to be detected and discussed separately via Discord. Maybe someone will remember them, and shed a tear:
- an error connected with NVidia aftermath;
- an error with D3D11Query.cpp;
- an error with a black screen on Windows N series;
- an error with AMD FX processors;
- an error of the game exiting to the desktop after launching it;
- an error with ShaderCompiler.cpp;
- an error with the saves being lost because of the StartupData.sav file
- We also don’t give up our attempts to improve the optimization to the level of “wow, it works!” especially since the new chapters have a lot of new objects and mechanics which devour FPS with gusto, and do not even choke on them. There is still room for maneuver, so we will continue to work on this.
The Trailer is Crap!
Yep. The trailer is crap. But only if it’s not made by our friends from Anvil Frame Studio. By the way, they finished the work on the live-action trailer, which is dedicated to the release of the second chapter. And yes, they built a full-sized coffin, the one that was in the last piece of news. And it’s not the only thing they built...
What’s Next?
What comes next is a very busy summer. By the end of it we have to manage to finish all the unfinished points in the locations, balance the game, optimize the result, refine thousands of small tasks, like icons for some items, and tags; align the collectible items in the viewer, localize textures and texts, refine various sounds, effects and other things. After that, most likely in the middle of summer and in August,we will start the most active and large-scale testing process, refinement, and testing again. Most likely, it will be possible to ask us for a new version for reviews on YouTube and Twitch.
The first chapter of the game was an independent episode, with few bugs and maximum elaboration of all the gameplay stuff. The second and third chapters shouldn’t be any worse, although there will be a lot to explore and find there, due to the volume of work.
Most likely the price of the game will increase by $5 on August 1. Please go easy on us and try not to buy the first chapter at an inflated price. This is necessary due to some technical points. The release of the two new chapters will be sold at a discount price, and if you want to buy the game, it will be better to do this either before the price increases, or right at the start of the sales in September at a discount. It’s rather complicated, we know.
Here’s a list of future regional prices. And yes, the prices are set by Steam, we use only standard currency conversion and do not touch anything.
So everything is fine, the deadline is close, there is a lot of work, our mood is chicky, and we love you all. So it goes.
Don’t forget to join our discord channel for quick feedbacks, as well as for sharing your ideas, solving life problems, or just informal communication with emoticons.
https://discord.gg/uezQcU7