Well, it's been over a year since A-Escape VR released on Steam. Since the game's release, it's received multiple updates, tweaks, and even a complete texture overhaul. All of you have been busy, too! You've made plenty of gameplay videos for the game, and even helped each other overcome the more difficult puzzles. I couldn't ask for a better community of players, you've all been great!
So, as a thank you to the community (and just in time for Halloween, too!), we're lowering the price permanently from $9.99 to $4.99, effective immediately. Now you can enjoy an escape room experience designed by a real-life escape room business for less than a quarter of what it would cost to go in real life!
One more thing. I would just like to take a moment extend a sincere thank you on behalf of everyone at A-Escape and myself. It's been a long road: From pre-production, to the very first demo release, to the full game's release and beyond, you've all been there with us every step of the way. Thank you!
Anyway, we hope you all enjoy the game at its new price. Thank you so much for playing the game!
Cheers,
- Thomas
A-Escape VR - Update for February 6th, 2018
Hello again,
I've recently been informed that the current build of A-Escape VR was no longer working for Vive users, while Oculus users were unaffected. This was due to an old version of VRTK and an incompatibility with what I can only assume was an update to SteamVR.
This patch for the main game and demo addresses those issues, among other things.
Patch Notes:
Updated the game to Unity 5.5.4p3
Patched a vulnerability caused by building the game from an older version of Unity
Fixed an issue where the grip buttons for Vive users were not working
Fixed an issue in the demo where the right-hand controller for Vive users in the hub room did not activate the teleport beam
Submitted prices for the new currencies on Steam
Thank you for playing A-Escape VR. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused; if you have any other issues, please contact me directly using the form on my website:
http://www.theneptune.site
I receive emails from the contact form instantly, which will notify me immediately to address any further issues.
Thanks again,
- Thomas
Buy A-Escape VR this weekend to help with Hurricane Harvey and Irma!
Hello escapees!
This weekend, A-Escape is pledging to donate half of the proceeds from sales this weekend to aid with Harvey and Irma relief efforts. At the end of this month, A-Escape will be donating half of the proceeds from this weekend (9/15 to 9/18) to relief funds for both Harvey and Irma. (We weren't allowed to run a sale this time due to the sale we had four weeks ago, unfortunately)
If you're itching to play a VR escape room game this weekend and also wanted to help with hurricane relief, hopefully this sale can kill two birds with one stone for you.
In case you'd like to donate to these relief efforts directly, here is the direct donation link to the charity A-Escape will be donating to: https://www.habitat.org/donate/?link=858&keyword=hero--home
Thank you.
- Tom
A-Escape VR is now compatible with Oculus Touch! Now 25% off!
Hello again!
First off, thank you all for playing A-Escape VR and for supporting the game through the forums, videos on Youtube, and by telling your friends about the game. It really does mean a lot!
Unfortunately, Oculus users have not had a chance to experience A-Escape VR for themselves for the first five months after the game came out. This is because we did not have access to an Oculus Rift to test on. They've been left out in the cold for too long; today, we change that!
Oculus users rejoice; you can now play A-Escape VR! To celebrate this update and offer the same launch discount that Vive owners had, we're running a week-long sale of 25% off. Even if you weren't waiting on Oculus support, you can still pick up the game for yourself or even a friend!
Again, thank you all so much for your support. We welcome all the new Oculus players, and hope you all will enjoy the game!
Best regards,
- Thomas
Oculus Support now in Beta!
Hello everyone!
Thanks to the recent Oculus sale, I was able to pick up an Oculus Rift for A-Escape VR. After a couple days of re-mapping buttons for the Touch controllers, re-drawing and re-recording the tutorial, and adding seated/front-facing support, the Oculus-ready build of A-Escape VR is now in the beta stage for anyone who owns the game that is interested in playing with the Oculus Rift.
Support for Touch is not completely ready for the main branch though, as I haven't had the opportunity to play test the game as vigorously as the Vive build. Oculus support will stay in Beta for one week; if there are no issues after that, then I'll move the Oculus build into the full release. I'll be sure to post an announcement when Oculus support goes live in the full release as well.
To access the oculus build of A-Escape VR, right click on A-Escape VR in Steam, then Properties, then go to the Betas tab and use the password "oculustesting" (without quotes) to enable the Oculus Beta branch, where you can start downloading the Oculus build. Once it's completed, browse the local files (by going into the Properties window again, then the Local Files tab, then Browse Local Files) and start A-Escape VR - Chapter 1 (Oculus).exe. Make sure you enable running third-party sources in the Oculus application before running.
And that's it! You can then start playing the game with the Oculus Rift and Touch controllers. Keep in mind that Oculus Touch is required; there is no gamepad support.
If you experience any issues with the Oculus build of A-Escape VR, please leave a post in the forums and I'll do my best to address them. Have fun!
Until next time,
- Thomas
Patch for July 15th
First off, I need to apologize. This patch addresses an oversight I had when fixing the magnifying glass in Chapter 1, where upon starting the room your view would be attached to the magnifying glass. What was supposed to be a routine camera adjustment ended up completely breaking the majority of the game, and I can't apologize enough for those who picked up A-Escape VR with the hopes of playing through Chapter 1 and ended up experiencing this problem.
The issue is now fixed, and you should be able to play through Chapter 1 as usual. Due to some technical difficulty behind the scenes the update was not available to clients until earlier today.
Thank you so much for your patience.
- Thomas
Update for July 5th
This small patch addresses issues present in Chapter 0.
Patch Notes:
Set the no-teleport flag on the magnifying glass so players can't teleport on it
Set the no-teleport flag on the bottle with screws inside it
Fixed the glass in the magnifying glass from showing a black texture
Fixed the magnifying glass so it shows a magnified view when viewing from both sides
Thank you for playing A-Escape VR. If you have any issues, please let me know by either contacting me directly or by leaving a post in the forums.
Best regards,
- Thomas
A-Escape VR is 50% during the Summer Sale, the new update is live, and Trading Cards are now available!
Hello again!
First off, Happy Summer Sale! A-Escape VR is 50% off during the summer sale. If you've been thinking about picking up A-Escape VR for yourself or a friend, now is a great time to do so!
Today we're pushing out the newest update to A-Escape VR which adds new textures for the game. These textures have been recreated from scratch from their original size to high resolution 4k textures. Both the full game and the demo will be updated with the new textures found in Episode 0: Julia. The hope is to bring Episode 0: Julia to the same visual fidelity as Episode 1, so this update will hopefully be a step in the right direction towards that goal. The game should automatically adjust the textures according to the quality settings, so if you experience performance issues after the update you can adjust the quality by holding down the control key when launching the game.
That's not all though, trading cards are now available! Now you can collect trading cards, craft badges, and get some fancy emotes and profile backgrounds!
We hope you all will enjoy this new update along with the trading cards. If you experience any issues, please feel free to use the community discussions to report bugs and we'll address them as soon as we can.
Until next time,
- Thomas
Patch Notes:
Recreated the floor, wall, ceiling, and table textures in Chapter 0 into 4k textures with improved bump+normal maps (applies to demo and full game)
Added a button to skip the intro for Chapter 1
Added trading cards
Official Chapter 1 Walkthrough Now Available!
Got to a point where you were stuck and couldn't continue in Chapter 1: House in the Woods?
Good news: You can now refer to the official Chapter 1 walkthrough in the guides section of A-Escape VR's community hub! Whether your "friend" got stuck and couldn't solve a puzzle, whether you're trying to speedrun the room, whether you're trying to wrap up a video for youtube, or whether you're wondering what else A-Escape VR offers that you might have missed, you can now look at the guide and get detailed explanations for each puzzle and escape!
You can find the walkthrough here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=930431727
Thank you all for playing A-Escape VR, we look forward to bringing the next update for you all to enjoy.
Until next time,
- Thomas
Commercial licenses now available, and a look at the road ahead:
Hello again!
First things first: Commercial licenses for A-Escape VR are now available! The license is only visible to licensees and can now be purchased on the game’s store page - directly under the regular end user price.
If you run a VR arcade and wanted to show A-Escape VR at your location, be sure to check it out!
Here's what we have planned in the future for A-Escape VR:
First, texture work. I'm currently in the process of remaking as many of the textures as I can into high-quality 4k textures. You can see the progress below:
As you can see, it's all very crisp and looks much better than it did before (especially in VR!). Many users expressed their dissatisfaction with the low-resolution textures, so I'm dedicating my effort to improve this aspect for you all.
There are a lot of textures to sort through and remake, but you can expect this update to arrive sometime in early June. The texture update will also include an option to skip the intro section of Chapter 1 for those wanting to go straight into the room.
I'll also be writing up an official guide for Chapter 1 as well over the next couple of days. You all have worked together to arrive to solutions for this chapter in the forums, which is incredible! The official guide will be made available so you can all get past that one part you needed help with, whichever part it may be.
Trading cards are also in the works, which we'd also like to have finished for the texture update. We'll let you know when they're ready so you can start collecting them!
We thank you sincerely for your patience as we continue to improve this experience for you all. Enjoy your summer!
