Caffeine
Release of Episode One imminent! - Details
Well the introductory episode one is mere hours away, I wanted to take some time here to let you all in on the details of the release in a few hours.
Platforms
Caffeine - Episode One will be available on Windows & Max OSX at launch, while the Linux version will be up as soon as I crush some unforeseen last minute bugs (should be within a day or two).
Issues & Bugs
If you experience any bugs or issues please let me know via support@incandescentimaging.net and feel free to suggest features / settings that you feel would add to the usability of the game.
On that note, this is our first game release on multiple platforms so don't fret if you find a bug, we will attempt to crush it asap!
VR Support
On release Caffeine will have full in-game Oculus Rift support by hitting alt+tab while in-game. The main menu and settings menus are currently displaying incorrectly while in stereo mode, this will be patched into the game along with OSVR & SteamVR support later on in release week so we can iron out gameplay related issues first.
Anyway that's enough for now, back to bug fixing!
Cheers
Dylan
Brand New Caffeine Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwhaR24pSlA
Caffeine will be on show at AVCon 2015!
I am pleased to announce that Caffeine will be on show at AVCon 2015 in Adelaide, Australia!
Caffeine development is coming along well and a lot of things are now falling into place for the first episode's release.
In addition I am pleased to release to the public today a bunch of screenshots showing off some of Caffeine's environments.
You will be pleased to know they have all been captured at 4839x2706 for your pleasure!
http://incandescentimaging.net/2015/06/17/caffeine-4k-screenshots-now-avaliable/
Be sure to check them out!
New Caffeine Trailer!
I hope everything is going very well with everyone and that you all had some great holidays!
Be sure to check out a nice little Caffeine trailer featuring sound from our new SFX sound designer Jonathan Wachoru of Outlast fame!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQFPnVbhKBo
In addition to this we have a small IndieGoGo for some extra development hardware to get the game to you on time!.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/caffeine-a-caffeinated-sci-fi-horror-game/x/6491162
The Caffeinated Episodes
A small FAQ for you.
Q: Are you becoming evil? Don’t become the big publishers, charging for each part of a game!
A: Not to worry, the game will still only be sold as one unit. when the later two episodes are released the game will update itself with the new content free of any life sucking charges or fees.
Q: But why?
A: Releasing like this will allow me to get the first one to you sooner rather than later, not only allowing you to experience the first third of the game but also will allow me to tweak the later installments based on your feedback.
Q: Won’t this butcher the story?
A: Quite the opposite actually! The story itself up until now has had three distinct sections so the transition to an episodic release will suit the main story and in my opinion make the game better in the long run.
Please stay tuned for a release date window and information on the upcoming alpha access in the coming months.
In addition, be on the lookout for some big “platform” related announcements *wink*
If you have any concerns about all this please contact me.
I would like to also touch on the status of backer rewards, we had a slight delay and will now be getting all of them together during January of 2015.
Once again, thank you for your time and support for my passion project, Caffeine.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Dylan
Vote for Caffeine in IndieDB's Indie of the Year awards!
Thank you all for your survey responses and support for Caffeine in recent times!
I will have some detailed information coming within the next few weeks about Caffeine.
In the meantime it would mean the world to me if you could vote for Caffeine in IndieDB's Indie of the year awards.
Even though Caffeine is not released yet, we can still try to nab a mention as one of the most anticipated titles.
So if you are game, please head over to http://www.indiedb.com/games/caffeine and scroll down to the Indie of the Year section.
Don't forget to share it around once you have voted!
Cheers
Dylan
Caffeine and the tale of two failed hard drives..
Turns out in a weird evil twist that my backup drive had also failed…
I have managed to recover some parts of the game since yesterday but it is really not looking good in terms of the chances of getting a sizable amount of it back. I know what you are thinking, “you should have had it backed up in the cloud!”, I should have but living in Australia and being stuck on ADSL 1 I chose not to at the time, which I have learned was a grave mistake.
Fear not though! I am not stopping development of Caffeine now, I have come way too far for that, this is a huge passion for me and I will be working extra hard to get this game done in time.
This got me thinking about the release date for the game and the way I have been planning on releasing it. It is very tempting at the moment to switch to an episodic release , but that can be quite controversial to some so I would like your honest opinion on the matter.
The advantage to an Episodic release would be that I can have the first part out in the wild earlier than expected, since my story is structured in sections it may end up suiting this release schedule. If by chance Caffeine did end up going down this route, don’t worry about pricing etc, the ENTIRE game will still be $20 on release of the first part and the other parts would just seamlessly come in an update to the game, no extra cost to anyone.
However that may not be to your taste and you might prefer having the full game all at once, the only bad thing about this is I may have to delay the release date depending on how much more work I can salvage from my data loss.
In conclusion please please fill out this quick survey located here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1iDGPhWfO3fzQiXt6voIf52s-bi-oS4NSMAdNDjZkE_w/viewform and let me know your thoughts on the issue.
Please note, I have not made any decisions yet as I wanted to see your opinions first on the matter.
Find An Easter Egg? Win A Pre-Order For Caffeine!
Late last night I pushed an update to the Steam demo, it contained some performance fixes etc but it also has a small little Easter egg embedded in a certain section of the station.
Be sure to be up to date on Steam and the first person to email me with an image of the Easter egg will win a pre-order for Caffeine!
Send images to: dylan@incandescentimaging.net
*first come first serve*
Caffeine Available For Pre-Order On The Rift Arcade Market
I just wanted to drop all of you a line and say thank you for the feedback so far.
I have chosen to put Caffeine up for Pre-Order first on The Rift Arcade!
You can go check out that page here: http://theriftarcade.com/market/downloads/caffeine/ which I will be updating over the next week with more information and images.
Have a great week!
Cheers
Dylan
Caffeine Pre-Release Demo Update - 7/11/14
Non-Oculus Features
<*>Implementation of Distance Field Ray-traced Shadows - Awesome penumbra, no shadow-map aliasing and better performance!
<*>Large performance boost - R9 280 hits up to 80fps on max settings at 1080p (Level streaming still causing some jarring hiccups).
<*>Menu system is in development - Very basic at the moment (does not render correctly in Oculus at this time).
Oculus Features
<*>Hotkey to switch between Oculus appropriate settings - Dynamic shadows are currently disabled for Rift settings as the DFRT Shadows have some strange issues in stereo at this time.
<*>Hotkey to reset orientation / head position.
Another patch will be released sometime in the next month with more performance and the inclusion of a shadow method that will work well in VR.