Hello. It’s been a while since we last updated you about the state of the 1.4 update. Since then a lot has changed. We added new features to the planned update that will make the update even more worthwhile to wait for. In this post, we would like to tell you more about what we’ve been working on.
More Details in the Environment
One of the new features we’ve been working on is adding much more details to the environment. Before this update, the environment looked empty and lifeless. Because we want to bring you the best gaming experience and because the environment is one of the most important parts of horror games we decided to dedicate even more time to it.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
We added more geometry into the environments to get rid of the emptiness and we added more decals. This will not only make the levels more detailed and realistic but also a lot more damaged and filthy. We also tried to add mini-stories through environmental storytelling. You might already have seen some of the screenshots that we shared on our social media. We are positive that this change will bring you the best possible experience. Especially in the second part of the game which wasn’t up to our standards when it comes to environment art.
New Narrative Focus
One of the new things is the narrative focus of our game and of our story. We decided to focus the game and its story around the topic of mental health. Our belief is that in today’s society, it’s more and more important to tackle this subject and we want our game to have a positive impact in this area. We are still at the beginning when it comes to the entire story of the game and the topics of mental health.
But you will be able to experience the horrors of mental health in the new 1.4 update. One of the new features is the mental health system. While not related to the story of the demo we wanted to showcase this feature in the demo as it will be part of the story in the full game. We have successfully developed a prototype under the watchful eye of our writer and psychiatrist by trait Zane Sexton to get the most accurate representation and as of right now we are implementing this feature into the demo level and optimizing it.
Website Update
Another small change is our website. The update section on our home page is now properly aligned and we added a new page – Roadmap. On the roadmap page, you can take a look at what we are currently working on and the status of that feature. We will be updating the page as the development moves forward. On the bottom, you can also find the R&D section. This is a section of features that we are experimenting with but that are not committed the in an upcoming update. Right now the roadmap page is made only for the demo given our situation but we plan to expand it in the future for the full game so that you can stay updated.
Future of Localization
As stated before we plan to support localization to other languages than English in the upcoming 1.4 update of the demo. The localization system is now finished. However, given our situation as an indie studio with no funding at this moment it’s hard for us to work on localizing the game and work on it at the same time. We don’t want to rule out the possibility of that happening – the system is in place, it’s just a matter of translation – but we don’t want to make promises either. However, if someone from the community speaks a other language than English and would like to help us with translation please get in touch with us on our Discord server!
Help us Make the Game
In order to finish the 1.4 update to the full extent that we planned we need your help. If you worked in the game industry and have expertise with game development please get in touch with us. Note that at this moment these are unpaid positions.
If you want to learn more you can click on each position or you can visit our studio website where you’ll find a list of all jobs we are currently looking for. If you are interested in working with us you can get in touch with us via email – info[at]pterosoftstudio.com – or via Discord – janbostl.
Thank you for your continued support and for wishliting on Steam. We just wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about you and that we are doing our best to bring you a great horror experience like no other.
1.4 Update is almost finished!
Hello.
It’s been an incredible journey developing Akolyta. This year we decided to release update 1.4 which will improve a lot of things and add new content. It took us much more time than we originally anticipated as we struggled with our lives and full-time jobs outside of Akolyta. But after so much we’ve been through we finally made it! The game is currently packaging – and getting ready for release.
After that, the game will be tested internally before it’s released to the public. We want to ensure that we release the game in the best technical state possible. If you want to be part of our internal testing team and play the game early please reach out to us on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/DnzGuzC
We hope you’ll like what we have created. As always we can’t wait for your feedback and reactions – that’s what keeps us going! In the meantime here are some new features you can look forward to!
Changelog:
New UI design
New settings options
Multiple language support
New/re-worked locations
New enemy AI
Better inventory system
More puzzles
Increased gameplay time
Batteries stored in inventory
Better optimization
Shadow view distance increased
New lens flares
New particle effects
More lore content
Re-recorded voiceovers
Investigation system temporarily disabled
Credits added
Czech Localization
Dear community.
To make Akolyta accessible to a wider audience we have decided to translate the game into other languages. The first is Czech.
This localization will be available in the new 1.4 update and will include the translation of the texts in the game. As a small studio, we are not able to make translations of the voiceovers. We also do think it would be inappropriate for the game story and location.
The website and all the posts from this point forward will be translated into Czech as well. However, already existing posts will stay in English.
If you would like to participate in translating Akolyta into your local language please get in touch with us on Discord. We would love to hear from you.
We hope you appreciate this decision and we hope we will be able to bring you more translations.
State of Development: 1.4 Update
Hello. It’s been a while since we announced our 1.4 update for the demo of Akolyta. We did encountered some roadblocks and for a while we didn’t had a clear picture of what we wanted to do. That’s now mostly resolved and the development is coming along more nicely. In this post however I would like to talk about those setback and the development of that update in general.
The Roadblocks
In the game development and while doing creative things there are days for me when I’m completely lost. Those are really dark days when I just don’t know what I want to do. Days where I loose my vision and taking a pause from the development or working on more technical things just to get a better perspective. Honestly those are the darkest days for me – not actually making torture rooms filled with blood … Days where I want to do anything else but game development because I think I lost it all. I can’t really tell you what helped me to overcome this but I finally made it and I was able to start developing the update again fully – not just the technical parts but doing actual creative work. If any developer or creative person reads this and you have the same problem – let me know in the comments or on our Discord and let’s share the depression together … One of the new edition to the 1.4 update is a use of new great looking lens flares
Great Development Community
When it comes to game engines people have often times reservations when it comes to CryENGINE. But there is a huge advantage when it come to using this engine and that is the community. We try to share most of our work in progress stuff with that community and we got some great responses and some great feedback and suggestions. Recently we got a great feedback when it comes to lighting in our level and it pushed us to create something even better. Furthermore there are some great community contributions that every developer can use for free. Example of this are those great looking lens flares that were share in the Facebook group of CryENGINE. The last thing I would like to mention is that because of the community around the engine is smaller then the competition you can get in touch with the team behind the engine itself! Overall the community in around CryENGINE is something really unique in the engine space. New options – including multiple languages support – along with new UI style will be available in the 1.4 update
What Can You Expect
We made a post in the past explaining what you can expect in the 1.4 update. But in this post I want to be a little bit more specific. Before I list new features that are currently in development I want to promise one thing – improved technical state of the game. In the previous version the game could be broken if certain steps were taken. We watched every gameplay video put our there and we were able to see how the game breaks in some of them. The reason for this was that we are indie studio with no funding so far. We don’t have a lot of testers and we were too excited to share our work with – and not trying to do proper stress test of the game. This is something we would like to change with the new update. It seems like it’s becoming a trend to release unfinished or broken games in the industry. That’s something we don’t want to participate in and we want to bring you the best experience possible. We also have a lot of new features that we want to implement. Here’s a list of those features:
New UI Design
New Settings Options
Multiple Language Support
New Locations
Re-Worked Existing Locations
New Enemy AI
Better Inventory System
More Puzzles
Increased Gameplay Time
Batteries Store in Inventory
Sound Effects for Physics Interactive Objects
Dolby Atmos Implementation
Credits
Re-recorded voiceovers
Better Optimisation
Shadow View Distance increased
New Particle Effects
New Lens Flares
More Lore Content
That’s all the features we have planned for the 1.4 update. I hope you’re excited as we are. We can’t wait to show them to you. A little disclaimer not all of those features might make it in the end to the update – in very extreme conditions – but we tried to select the features according to our abilities, so that we are able to deliver them to you. If you want to see the status of those features (in development, implemented, cut) we have a #roadmap thread on our Discord server – so feel free to join! One of the new puzzles will include one of the real world secrets of the cold war!
The Future
As of right now our biggest priority is to release the 1.4 update for the demo and make the demo even more polished and better experience. We can’t specify a release date yet as we don’t want to disappoint you by setting a release date and then postponing it. We also want to bring you a new trailer showing you the new parts of the game before the update is released. But I would like to be completely transparent about what are our plans for the future. We of course want to get feedback from you after the release. But after that we have two options moving forward. Our preferred option is to get funding from a publisher or investor so that we can continue the development not in our free time but full-time in one office bringing you the game as soon as possible. If this option will fail we will have to think of plan B. We briefly played with the idea of crowdfunding but there are two main problems with this approach. First – we don’t have big enough community to pursue this and second – Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are not available in my home country – the Czech Republic and I’m not in a financial situation to be able to afford services like Stripe. Therefore Plan B is making the game available episodically and getting the funding from the sales. It’s the most rough path forward – one that we hope to avoid but we can’t completely rule it out. A new wallpaper for Akolyta
If you were able to digest all that text and read it all the way down here thank you. I would also like to say a huge thank you to all the people who has supported us throughout the journey. Before you go consider following us on social media and be sure to let us know what you think down in the comments or on our Discord server. And if you’re new to Akolyta definitely join the server as we are trying to build a community not just around this game but community of people who love horror and video games. Stay tuned and I will speak to you soon!
What To Expect in 1.4 Update
Hello. In this post, we will tell you more about our plans for the upcoming 1.4 update, what you can expect, and the challenges in the development.
New Features
We want to introduce more new features in the 1.4 update. One of the new features is a new enemy with better animations. We removed the enemy with the gun, reworked some of the already existing locations and we are working on adding new locations and puzzles - making the playtime longer. A new better looking UI will be introduced in the 1.4 update and batteries that will be usable will now be stored in the inventory. The complete list of features is in the #roadmap thread on our Discord server and will be updated throughout the development so if you want to stay up to date make sure to join us!
Feedback
We have been watching all of the gameplay videos and listened to every feedback we got from you. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who played our game, made a gameplay video, or provided constructive criticism. We noted that the technical state of the demo is not the best at the moment. It is because we are a small indie team without any QA department and therefore it's hard for us to find all of the bugs. If you want to help us playtest our demo we would be more than happy to work with you. The best way is to contact us on our Discord server. We will also implement some of the feedback we got from you in the next update.
Development
We have announced a 1.4 update last month and we are still working on it. There are several reasons for taking that amount of time before we release it. The first reason is that we are a studio with no funding, working on the game in our free time which is limiting in terms of the time we can put into it. The other reason is the size of the update. In this update, we want to introduce systems like new AI which is the most challenging feature to develop and we are also re-working big portions of the level and adding new content. We also want to make sure the technical state of the update is better than in the previous releases. That's why it will take some time before we are ready to release the update.
Once again we would like to thank all the players who spend time with the demo and we can't wait to release the new update! Stay tuned!
Demo Update 1.4 In Development
Hello.
We are working on a new update – 1.4. This will be another big update for the demo. In this update, we will add new gameplay features, remake some of the content and add new content. Some of the features we can announce right now will be a reworked UI, the ability to store the batteries in the inventory, and adding an entirely new and scary location. After we replayed all of the Penumbra game we have some great ideas that we would like to implement into the demo. We hope this will make our demo even better.
As it stands right now we can’t tell you more features we want to add as some of them might not make it into the update and we don’t want to create expectations that won’t be delivered. We have also added a Roadmap thread to our Discord server so that you can see what we want to implement. Features posted there are confirmed to be in the demo and the feature list will be updated along the way.
Once again thank you to all the players who downloaded the demo and we hope to bring you an even better experience. Check out the links below to learn more about Akolyta!
Based on your gameplay we have decided to release a new big update - 1.3. In this big update, we recreated the RPG system, polished a few things, and fixed known issues.
Now you will get XP for every battery, document, audiologues, investigation dialogue, and ammo found and for completing objectives. If you find enough you will level up and get 1 upgrade point that you'll be able to use for acquiring a special ability of your choosing. We have also replaced the sharpshooter ability with a new ability called Charger.
Now the batteries, ammo, and health kits might be empty and non-usable. We hope this can create more tension in the game. This can be removed using the new Charger ability.
Change list:
Recreated RPG System
Jumpscare effect time decreased
Recreated level lighting
Added new ability - Charger
Removed sharpshooter ability effect
Added news screen before the main menu
Added version number to the main menu
Game size decreased
Explorer ability now has only 1 level
The game now includes only 2 endings
Better performance
Videos are now packaged in .pak - decreasing the size
Intro video length increased
Bug Fixes:
Intro grammar fixed
Memorandum 'Racial Profiling' grammar fixed
Personal profile grammar fixed
Controls grammar fixed
If you find any bugs or want to share your feedback with us please use the form on our website or join our Discord server where we have a dedicated thread. We are grateful for every entry we got from you!
Because of file management error the game couldn't be launched. We release this patch to fix this issue and make the game playable.
Bug Fixes:
File management error
Demo Update 1.2
Hello.
Based on the amazing feedback and bug reports we got from you we’re releasing patch 1.2 for our demo. This implements some of your feedback, adds new features, and fixes some of the bugs.
Change list:
Tutorials Added
New option added to settings menu allowing players to disable the tutorials
Brightness increased
SVOGI more optimized
Audiologues and Documents view UI changed
Bug Fixes:
Using buttons for menus while in menu causing UI element overlapping
Player not teleporting while using investigation overview
If you find any bugs or want to share your feedback with us please use the form on our website or join our Discord server where we have a dedicated thread. We are grateful for every entry we got from you!
Demo Update 1.1
Hello everyone. We released update for the demo that will fix some of the bugs.
Change list:
Disappearing doors - fixed
Sprinting camera FOV stays enlarged - fixed
Enemy is not aware of the player when shoot - fixed
Enemy can't be harmed if not aware of player - fixed
Thank you for the gameplay videos that helped us spot the bugs that we weren't able to find in our playthrough. We will keep the demo updated if any new bugs are found and we will implement some of your feedback as well in the future. Stay tuned!
