Huge thanks to the Beta testers and Early Access players! Your feedback and bug reports are crucial for driving improvements to the game.
We are a tiny team, with 1 to 3 people working on the game any given week. We have no QA staff and limited hardware configurations. So, we can't find all the problems ourselves, even with the significant amount of internal testing we do.
The Beta and Early Access were the first time so many people have tested the open world game. Many new issues were reported using the in-game tool (from the pause menu) and many were collected through automated reporting. You have been a tremendous help.
For this update, we attempted to fix all known "player can't proceed" type bugs (as well as a lot of other stuff). You reported a lot more of these than expected, and some were quite difficult to reproduce locally. Some only happen on a full Steam build, or only for certain hardware, or only for certain play styles. Those are a real nightmare to capture and debug. Hopefully, after this update we can more focus on gameplay and content improvements. We plan to generally have quicker updates moving forward.
That said... There is a new build for you to play, with a ton of improvements! With these fixes, most players should now be able to access most of Content Chunk 1. Find the full list of fixes at the bottom of this post.
I also want to provide more context on a few points.
Wormhole Run: This game option, available from the main menu, is a mostly linear sample of play where the player jumps through wormholes to access various locations in the game world. It is an experimental speed run mode of play. Here you will find some things not yet unlocked in the main open world game Content Chunk 1, you will be given some items directly, and some items and upgrades are combined into one. A bug in the previous build prevented Wormhole Run from launching properly and instead sent you to normal content after leaving the home ship. Try this mode if you would like to sample some equipment, vehicles, biomes, and characters, without too much difficulty or exploration required.
Suit Upgrades: In the full game, the player can collect Chips to plug into their suit, and customize their equipment for specific challenges or to better fit their style of play. An incomplete version of this system could be accessed at Checkpoints in the previous build. Some players got stuck after opening an unfinished GUI, with no obvious way to exit. We have temporarily disabled Chip and Socket pickups, and the ability to interact with this system at Checkpoints. We plan to turn this back on in a more complete state, maybe with content chunk 2.
Home Ship and Seed Cores: Although Seed Cores can be found, home ship upgrades are currently (still) locked out. Later, these will unlock several game changing capabilities and additional content. Planting one of the Seed Cores is meant to be a unique event, but this doesn't currently persist. Feel free to ignore this mechanic for now.
Content Unlocks: The full game world has been been in development for years and only a handful of zones have been made available for testing so far. The next large chunk will be unlocked, along with major gating bosses, once we've resolved enough existing bug reports. That said, many of you have only unlocked a tiny fraction of the available content. Please retry after this update.
Day / Night Cycle: This affects some spawns and puzzles, but for Content Chunk 1 the main gameplay consideration is heat damage if outside when the Sun is high. There is currently an unresolved bug related to this system, and so sun damage is turned off meanwhile. You may see some confusing related GUI that should make sense and work properly in a forthcoming update.
Game Balance: We hear your feedback and will be making some adjustments for game difficulty and pacing. Respawn rates are obviously way too fast in many places. Major tuning needs to occur in the context of the full game, and after the Day / Night Cycle effects are back in play, but we'll be making targeted adjustments based on your feedback too.
Ultrawide Monitors: We don't have this hardware and haven't validated the game on it, but it should at least currently run in a full vertical 16:9 or 16:10 window, or a fallback mode on your monitor with a similar aspect ratio. We'll try to get black vertical side bars at full screen for native ultrawide resolutions, and we may offer an unsupported option to turn the bars off, which could negatively impact game performance and may spoil some pacing, puzzles, or reveals
What About X?: Some have asked for various game features typical to this genre, many of which will be available once the full game is unlocked. The game is designed to be playable without a game manual, but if you read it, you will have a better understanding of how the finished game is meant to work. As the game nears completion, most of this should become self explanatory through gameplay.
What's Next? We plan to address any remaining bugs that prevent progress through the game (please report them) and do a quick pass to get appropriate respawn rates. The next update will hopefully come quicker than the last. Then we'll have an update that turns on a few boss characters and unlocks the next major content chunk.
Fixed a variety of cases where the player could respawn in an effectively locked room trap
Fixed a game flow problem where a door unlock couldn't be reached
Disabled Suit Management at Checkpoints and various Chips and Sockets pickups (system isn't ready for evaluation and was causing player-is-stuck bugs)
Fixed an issue that corrupted the player art mesh
Fixed various bugs where the player could fall through the terrain, e.g. after using a Checkpoint
Fixed various bugs where the player physics could behave inconsistently
Scene-to-scene elevator transitions should now work reliably
Fixed a bug that prevented "Wormhole Run" content from being playable (wormholes were missing!)
Fixed various cases of Crystalized Material and Charge Container pick up objects respawning after being collected
Fixed many various art issues
Improved many terrain related player flow issues
Fixed various text and localization bugs
Improved "Early Access" title screen graphic to not be confused as a selectable menu item
Fixed an issue where enemy kill requirement barriers leave a UI after being cleared
Improved the "tutorial trap" around the first chunk detonator the player receives
Fixed many dead enemy removal art issues
A few surgical game balance tweaks related to specific characters
Fixed save persistence on some barriers
Disabled a sawblade trap where player could get stuck without dying, to be improved later
Fixed an issue where the follow camera could stop tracking (related to camera shake)
Fixed various cases where the player could get stuck in a slide tunnel before they acquire the slide ability
Tweaked a couple of puzzles to make them more likely to be solved with intended method
Improved availability of enemies that drop weapon charges (ammo)
Update 1
Fixed bug with shield pickup not persisting
Fixed bug with sun damage VFX playing while disabled
End-of-Year Dev Update
Happy New Year!
We hope you are having a nice break and finding opportunity to spend time with friends and family.
It's been a long and hard road, but we are pleased to announce that we are confident in a 2021 delivery for Anew: The Distant Light on PC. Consoles will follow.
We can also share that this massive and diverse open world will have over 40 hours of gameplay (probably much more). We're designing for exploration, skill play, replay, collection, speed run flow, and hard core options, so many styles of play should find tons of extra value. This amount of content and layers of depth in game mechanics, music, and fiction is quite an undertaking! It has been an insane amount of work for our tiny indie team. There is still work to be done, but we can see the finish line and we hope to share a more specific launch date soon.
As we approach our Beta, please join our Discord for regular updates and a forum to chat about the game with us and other gamers. If you are fluent and literate in a non-English language please direct message @Steve after joining the Discord if you would like to help out with localization for Anew.
We will also continue to post development updates and news on our Facebook and Twitter sites.
Thanks for your continued support, feedback, and encouragement. It helps us improve the game and helps us through these final months of (unpaid) work!
The Dev Team
Developer demo livestream - Steam Autumn Game Festival
Hi folks! There was a bit of a technical hiccup in Steam's system during our original livestream yesterday, and our stream wasn't promoted at all in the Autumn Festival. So, we're going to give it another go on Tuesday, 10/13 at 11:00 am EDT. Swing by our store page to watch and interact with the dev team!
Thanks, and we hope to see you Tuesday.
PAX Online 2020!
We are honored and excited to announce that Anew has been selected for the PAX Online 2020 Indie Showcase! Several hundred games on Steam were considered for the event, and a short list of 20 games were selected by the PAX event organizers. We are thrilled to be a part of this group of fantastic titles.
You can check out all of the finalists here: https://online.paxsite.com/indie
Since PAX West and PAX South were cancelled this year due to COVID-19 concerns, PAX Online was created as a replacement event. It is completely free and open to the public, and runs from September 12-20.
Development on Anew continues to progress well. Our small team is busy at work on all of the remaining characters and enemies. We are fixing up and polishing older ones, as well as creating brand new ones to fill out our huge game world. We will continue to pass along development updates here, on our Discord, Facebook, and Twitter.
Thanks again for your support and patience as we work towards our Beta milestone.
Jeff Spoonhower and Steve Copeland The Dev Team
Demo updated with tons of improvements and fixes!
We are very happy to announce that our free playable demo, which is available to download on our Steam store page, has been updated with a long list of improvements and fixes. Steve Copeland, our wizard-like game director and programmer, has been hard at work over the past few weeks making a ton of improvements to the demo and the overall game. We've also fixed up quite a few visual and design elements as well, making for a better play experience.
Thanks very much for all of the feedback you've sent us over email, on our Discord, and via our Steam discussion forum. We appreciate the time you've taken to play our demo and to let us know what you think. Through your feedback we were able to fix several critical bugs as well as make improvements to a variety of important game systems and features which will be included in the full game release. So again - THANK YOU!
Click HERE to check out the full release notes for the updated demo.
We'll have more news in the coming weeks on the development of the full game.
In the meantime, please be sure to wishlist us on Steam and follow us on social media:
We've got one more announcement related to the Steam Summer Game Festival, which runs next week from June 16 - 22.
In addition to the free downloadable demo and the developer livestream event we've got scheduled, we are also going to host a live Q&A/AMA session on Wednesday, June 17 from 4-5pm EST, right after our livestream event. This will take place on our Discord. You can click here to join in advance of the event and/or click the blue SET A REMINDER button above:
We'd love to have you swing by, say hello, let us know if you played the demo, and ask us anything you want about Anew, working on indie games, or our long careers as senior artists/engineers/designers on AAA games (we worked on the Bioshock, Borderlands, Star Wars, Saints Row, Lord of the Rings, Uncharted games, and more before "going indie.")
Thanks again for your support and we'll see you next week,
We are excited to announce that Anew: The Distant Light will be taking part in the Steam Summer Game Festival from June 16th - 22nd!
During the festival, you will be able to play our alpha demo, which was previously available exclusively to games media/press and our Kickstarter backers. From June 16 - 22, everyone on Steam will be able to download and play the demo for free! We can't wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think.
Our alpha demo is a linear experience which is intended to show off a variety of world locations, vehicles, weapons, and enemies in a brief play session. The full game will feature a massive, open-world, non-linear play experience with tons of mysteries to solve, enemies to defeat, and zones to explore.
We will also host a developer live-stream of our alpha demo on Wednesday, June 17th from 3:00 - 4:00 pm EST right here on our Steam store page, followed by a developer Q&A on our Discord. We hope you can stop by both events!
Click the blue "Set a Reminder" button for the live-stream, and click here to join our Discord for the Q&A: JOIN THE ANEW DISCORD
Thanks, and see you next week. Steve and Jeff The dev team
World Map Reveal!
We are thrilled to reveal the game world map for Anew: The Distant Light!
Each of the ten zones in the game are hand-crafted and feature unique enemies, challenges, puzzles, and mysteries to solve. This map image is an abstraction of the game world, so what you see isn't a one-to-one representation of the actual play spaces. Rest assured though, there is a huge amount of content to play through and will take dozens of hours to complete from start to finish.
Showing off this overview of the game world is a big milestone in our game's development and we hope you enjoy checking it out. We've got a lot more news and content to share very soon. Please remember to wishlist us here on Steam if you haven't already, follow us on social media, and join our Discord!
Hi folks! Thanks for stopping by to keep an eye on our game.
We've been working super hard on Anew since our last update. Our new round of enemies is coming along really well and we are also improving the original enemies we designed and implemented a while back. Once completed, we will have a huge, diverse cast of characters for you to interact with. Some creatures are innocent, and others are intelligent and deadly. You'll need to hone your combat skills, upgrade your abilities, and discover all of the hidden gear in the game world to survive. Also, the AI on almost all of our characters has been re-factored, which will should help to accelerate development leading up to our Beta.
A recent optimization pass on the game world has gotten our frame rate up to a staggering 300 fps on "best" hardware, and around 60+ fps on regular/modest hardware. This will allow PC gamers with a variety of machines to have a smooth, responsive gameplay experience (which is super important to us).
Over the next few months, our talented composer, Wilbert Roget, II will compose all remaining music for the game, which includes some secondary exploration music, boss battle music, and a variety of one-shot cues that will coincide with dramatic moments in the game.
We'll have more news soon on the impending open-world Beta!
If you like what we're doing, please share our Steam store page with your friends, wishlist Anew, and follow us on social media. Your help in spreading the word about our game is much appreciated:
