The 7th Early Access update is now live! Please excuse the delay: due to some pretty significant changes and upgrades, additional testings, tweaks and fixes were needed.
First off a note regarding the available languages: to avoid misunderstandings only English will now be shown as the available language on the Steam store. We recently received a review which hurt the games overal rating, with the biggest crit being lack of Chinese, whereas on the Store the game only has(up until this writing) „interface” listed to be in Chinese (which to my understanding would not be the game itself but only GUI /settings/etc), with the other options (full voice & subtitles) not being available. Despite this, the review indicated the game was expected to be fully translated into Chinese, hence to avoid similar situations in the future, only English is going to be displayed as the playable language. New languages will only be added to the Store description when they are complete 100% (which in Project Downfall's case would be „interface” and „subtitles”).
We will most likely be dropping a few updates between the next major 8th update. Due to the new, rewritten core systems this build will be a case of 3 steps forward, one step back. For example, the rewritten AI logic ought to greatly improve AI in nearly all aspects, besdies a few instances(ie shotgun wielding enemies wont have a reload animation or melee enemies will attack without moving), but generally the positives outwiegh the negatives by a huge margin. We will be addressing theses smaller issues within the above-mentioned smaller updates.
Last weekend we recently showed a Work In Progress build of the 7th Update at Poznań Game Arena and gathered valuable info/feedback/observations. Unfortunately, most likely due to the new, rewritten systems, we noticed a few new issues
Known issues:
-The station after the Genesis mission would sometimes crash. Possibly this has already been fixed with todays tweaks, but please let us know if this would happen to you and at what point.
-The start of the „Another Day at the Office” mission would either black out or have serious visual issues when close to the first self-medication hint popup. This was most likley due to the PC running on stock GPU drivers. Once updated on the following day, the bug did not reoccur. If you would, happen to experience this issue, please let us know where/when.
-Melee wielding enemies are a bit easier to avoid now, especially minibossess due to the melee attack working a bit differently. This will be addressed soon with one of the smaller updates.
-New player controller doesnt work well with oxiprofen booth. It is still usable but the headest will clip through player(as if the player could walk into it). This will be tweaked/adjusted soon.
-Once again, unfortunately, due to non linear logic expansion (especially after the witness level), old saves might act out and make the home apartment extremely buggy. A new game would be recommended in this case. To avoid further similar issues, currently the project has been adjusted for remaining non-linear logic including remaining 6 endings/endgames(1 is currently available). So now we will be focusing on tweaking and adding the remaining content as well as further improvements/tactics/behaviours to the AI, special moves, crouching, improving GUI and so on.
Now on to the fun part, with what's new!
NEW FEATURES:
-Completely rewritten First Person Controller: significantly improves player movement and fluiditiy and collisions. This will open up further possibilities for some cool adjustments (ie hopefully we will be able to soon re add the post-death physics to dead bodies similar to DarkSould/Bloodborne which we had to disable before the release wince with the old conroller, it would lead to level breaking moments, effectively blocking the players movement). This was also mandatory for implementing crouching and leaning, which can now be worked on.TLDR: this was a long overdue and much needed update.
-Rewritten AI logic: this is another big one. Although still quite a way from perfect, this one ought to prove a significant improvement over the last itteration. Now AI will no longer have the aim loop
-New levels with dedicated dynamic audio tracks:
-Cab (post Witness branching stage): one of the first examples of effects of your choices in the game. If you crossed the pill threshold and vomitted all over Olgierd's bar, he won't call a cab for you so you will be forced to take the longer route home via the small overpass to the maintenance tunnels leading to Cloudbreak Heights...home.
-Shortcut. Directly connected after the Cab level. Travel through the manitenance tunnels to get back home from the initial night out where it all started. Can be initiated by corssing the self-medication threshold when reaching the bar (the barman Olgierd will be angry with the player for vomitting all over his place and will order him to leave).
-Pleasure dome hub: You will be able to access the pleasuredome entrance hub connected with your apartment. If you would like to proceed to the Pleasuredome from this entrance, you will need to discover and finish th Blowhard level.
-Benefactors: Another brnaching level, this one is after The Exchange. In the final game, once completed it will be only possible to progress to the Benefactors level if the player picks up a level2 clearance at the police station level (i'll be back). This is currently WIP, so as of now, both the exit back home and to the Benefactors level is available
Multiple new languages! Still Work In Progress, but for the most part the game ought to be fully playable in Italian, Portugese (Br), Spanish (latin American & European), French. Japanese has most of the initial ciritical game text added should be playable until completing the witness level. Polish has a bit more translated but less chronologically. These translations will be contiuosly worked on and new languages added with time
-Footsteps surface audio: Now depending on the type of surface footstep sounds will vary. This is done manually and selectively so will still take some time but ought to work in most places in initial levels.
-The throw. A crucial element to combat is now ready to be fully used. We encourage you to try it out! :)
GENERAL UPDATES:
-increment game ver 0.9.6.0->0.9.7.0
-added new bg ads anim
-General update to initial levels/stages. Including but not limited to :
new interactables at apartment, including flushable toitlet and shutters
witness details and props
updated level select hub to extend to pleasure dome with logic
added surface type sounds to mulitple levels
another dya at the office added mutliple smaller details ie camera that tracks player, signs, layout etc
station lighting optimisation
detail to interior of train in genesis level and updated layout an AI tweaks
and more more more
-new chats/interactions (ie in shortcut level, blowhard etc)
-Add akimbo to combo system
-Updated combo system both in visual and audio
-added posterize shaders with variations (not implemented yet. Will be added soon. Final game will have this as an extra/unlockable)
-added BurgerKing death/show conditions
-updated weapon throw logic
-multiple adjustments to AI logic
-multiple adjustments to new First Person Controller
-Update enemy animator. Reorganize ai behaviour trees.
-created animator overrides for all selective idle anims
-updated enemy conrtollers with animator overrides
-updated newsfeed in tv news anim
-added Call to Action dilaogue after 4hours of gameplay.
GENERAL FIXES AND TWEAKS
-Remove old PlayerController and related source code.
-updated DMR pickup positon in slumlow
-Fix AI Walking Distance condition abort.
-Fix weapon range measuring.
-Updated Score font
-station tweaks (ie hint event toggle off to avoid constant repeat on triger enter, lighting optimisations, visual tweaks ie train bg, sound ground update etc)
-kc lobby added exit to benefactors without level2 keycard (to be re-adjusted when lev2 keycard pickup active at police station)
-updated kick and fist range-updated hub post volume brain chat fade
-blowhard sniper ammo amount fix
-cod final music switch on end event
-bar remove chick pipe-added throw hint to witness event
-multiple fixes in cab (exit home cab not working, fix fallthorugh map start, sounds etc)
-removed pipe BK in tunnel to avoid chat bug/exploit at chav chat trigger
-fixed nut shot combo registration
-fixed petrol first gate mass/physics
-Make state machine observing easier and more generic. Fix AI stop after aiming start.
-Fix combo kill observer null pointer.
-Fix bug with wrong projectile spawn position.
-Fix COD problem with shooting through doors.
-Change AI line of sight check logic.
-Fix combo notification NullPointerException.
-Don't count combo points from kills made by other enemy.
-Fix enemy melee attack and missing ranged sound.
-Fix starnge weapon reloading after switching to weapon.
-Change mele seek distance from weapon range to min attack distance.
-Fix default AI speed.
-Ignore thrown pickup collisions with projectiles.
-Fix weapon throw position.
-tweaks to intro brain introduce event
-updated combo bar layout
-font selective change for point not possible (overrided by loc-kit reference)
-added new combo activation sound
-Fix combo system injection.
-updated train tutorial sounds 3d and footsteps sound
-passingthrough height stiarwell fixed, otherwise player would get stuck with new controller
-level select hub updated with passage tu pleasure dome details
-Fix menu and tutorial dependencies.
-updated pipe attack anim to avoid clipping
-journeyman 2 surface update
-updated bonus highlight audio/visual
-extended combo time to 2
-Add throw to input hints.
-Optymize AI target finding.
-Add shape sprites. Fix bullet time bar.
-Fix AI corner shots.
-updated conditions for witness first branch
-updated connections between levels
So that's more or less it for now. Hope you enjoy and let us know what you think! Thank you for your patience and your support,
Till the next one!
The Downfall Team,
Mike, Dawid
Changed files in this update