Greetings hackers!

This update wraps up the first day of the tutorial together with a few more bug fixes and quality of life features. We added a currency and banking system, e-wallets to decipher and the apartment building hallway, which is also explorable in-game.


We also exposed a few debug features to the users who would like to be more involved with the game, for more details join our discord server.

Furthermore, we started working on the second day with more activities for the player to do, so stay tuned for updates.


On a side note, we also tested the newly released/freshly out of beta version of Unreal Engine 5.2, which resulted in disappointing visual and performance results. For now, we will stick with 5.1 for the time being until performance improves.

Full changelogs below:

Version: 0.1.1734
Date: 21.05.2023

Features:

• apartment building is now explorable:
  
  • procedural floors for buildings
    
  • apartment building entrance(s) with functional intercom to unlock (currently locked since the exterior is WIP)
    
  • motion-triggered hallway lights and intractable (openable) hallway windows (no, you cannot jump from them)
    
  • procedural mailboxes
    
  
  
• new demo missions: deciphering
  
  • introduction continues with player leaving for work and the outcome of the hacking mission
    
  • (internal) quest scripting timeframes have been implemented so quests can impose or limit the flow of time to better suit the narrative.
    
  
  
• attachments can now be downloaded as files on the player computer and deleted from player-made (composed) mails
  KNOWN ISSUE: you can attempt to delete attachments from received emails as well, but it will do nothing
  
• banking and money system added:
  
  • banking server
    
  • popups on both pc and in-world for money amounts
    
  
  
• e-wallets added:
  
  • linked to a bank server
    
  • player has an account as well
    
  
  
• all files and programs can now be opened from the terminal
  
  

  Graphics:

• highlight outline now properly scales with higher (lower) resolution scaling settings and is a bit more subtle
  
  

  Optimizations:

• all lights throughout the level have been tweaked in both distance and resolution to help alleviate the performance impact
  
  

  Changes:

• minigame 2 now used for deciphering wallets (formerly unused but accessible for training via the start menu)
  
• notification and wifi pop-up menus now change focus order similar to other windows instead of being always on top
  
• the laptop can now fulfill the same quest objectives as the desktop
  
• rewritten descriptions from the terminal "help" command to make them more useful and include a few examples as well
  
  

  Bugfixes:

• fixed video options not saving consistently between pressing escape and clicking the "back to menu" button
  
• "Hack all ports" quest doesn't complete if the ports are already hacked
  
• fix computers still booting up if crashed (BSOD) mid-bootup sequence
  
• fixed displays in multi-monitor setups not updating their backlight texture when shutting down via the start menu compared to pressing the power button on the case
  
• fixed player hair groom doesn't cast shadows
  
• changed the hacking target user name for the mission to not have the same surname as the landlord (oops)