As always, I want to start by saying how awesome this community is. When I started developing CAT Interstellar I had no idea how many people would be interested in a Science Fiction story where the aliens aren't hulking monsters trying to kill you. I've been very lucky to have the opportunity to meet a lot of like minded people interested in some of the finer details about humanities ascent to the heavens.
On that note, if you're interested in space dust, rocket nozzles, or hydrazine check out the podcasts over at Magnificent Cosmonauts. They were kind enough to invite me over for an interview and it was a blast. Assuming I didn't blow it we should have another one around the release date that dives into the story.
Update
Bad news is that there won't be an update this month. I'm getting married in 4 days and simply ran out of time. The nature of the next couple updates are essentially all or nothing.
The good news is that this is not a delay for the project as a whole and I'm still very confident in a June 1st release. I've been very protective of the story up to this point but since there's another update delay I at least wanted to give you a teaser of what you might find in the caves.
Gravitational Waves Detected!!!
I try not to fill the announcements with BS but this is a pretty big deal. The discovery of gravitational waves is on par with the Higgs Boson. We've not only explained how a fundamental force works but also gained an entirely new way of viewing the Universe. Up to this point astronomy has been based on observation of the electromagnetic spectrum (mainly light). Now we have another way. This vindicates a lot of Einstein's predictions and essentially proves that black holes do, in fact, exist.
Increased the cave size and opened it up so that you can see exactly how far the cave development has gone. I'm trying to find the balance of how unpolished an environment can be before people get upset. You'll literally be able to jump off the map...
Spaceship:
Added an orbiting spaceship to the opening scene (it's slow so keep an eye out for it). This spaceship will play a major role in the story and you will actually board the ship towards the end.
Roadmap:
The main reason I wanted to push this update early in the month is to give you a better idea of the scope of the game, the state of development, and a timeline for when to expect stuff. We knew we were pushing it with how vague we've been about the direction this game is headed in. While I don't want to reveal the story just yet I do want to tell you about the timeline we're looking at.
March Update: Completed back story on the monitors. It doesn't seem like a lot but there are 20 different displays scattered around the base and surface level and each will tell a portion of the back story. The Cave environment will also be flushed out and connect below the skylift anchor. This is the last stage of the terraforming process and involves them(the androids) trying to reignite the core of the planet.
April Update: The Cave environment will be populated with events and dialog similar to the first level. This will explain the importance of the bacteria. The spaceship level will also be available.
May Update: Will have the spaceship level events added. The spaceship is the last level and will bring everything together. On top of the major update this month there will also be a number of smaller ones as we work out all the bugs before the June release.
June Update: Hopefully a bug free version of the May Update.
I also want to cover something we were really hopeful about but failed to do and that is a 3D menu. This was really something that was important to us but we just couldn't pull it off. The problem rest mainly in the fact that you can not interact with Wigdets (UI) using raycasts in UE4. This basically means you have to use a mouse cursor. It's possible to do 3D menu but it would be severely limited in scope and you wouldn't be able to enter any custom text in the boxes (like resolutions).
Thanks for all the support and as always, we really appreciate any and all feedback about either the game or the development.
P.S. 'Num 7' will enable a spectator view. Someone requested it and we really need to redo the trailer. If you're interested in contributing a scene you think would be awesome for the trailer (besides throwing the androids around the map) just upload it to the videos section and we'll check it out. We'll obviously ask permission before we use anything but I'd love to see what areas you liked the most.
You can set the Field of view using the command line "FOV [new float]"
so pressing the '`' key and then typing "FOV 120" will give you a field of view of 120 degrees.
Update 1.6 (Gameplay, Content, Optimizations, State of Development)
Gameplay, Content and Optimizations
Gameplay: Dramatically shortened in-game dialog.
No more “missions” but instead encourages you to explore.
Reverted back to the original controls where dog sprints when you hold shift.
You can now toggle between your graphite sensor and flashlight in the caves using the ‘F’ key.
The menu now pauses the game like a normal menu.
Content: Splash Screen the accurately reflects the current state of the game.
Added a main menu level to set options and toggle VR (this was inspired by the lobby in Natural Selection 2).
Expanded the cave section.
New DOG Model!!!
Additional effects when hovering over water.
Recorded new audio dialog (is isn’t good but it’s better).
Optimizations The levels now stream in from the main-menu level, drastically cutting down on the initial load time.
Loading screens.
Fixed some problems with the AA so VR experience should be a lot smoother.
Added Vsync options to the Main menu.
Updated to UE4.10.
A number of back end improvements to how menus and variables are passed from level to level.
State of Development
I wanted to include a statement about how development is going, the status of the game, and also try to get feedback on what you think.
Development Currently I couldn’t be happier with how development of CAT Interstellar is going. It is the work of myself and another writer and started off as a gamejam submission that just grew. This is not the conventional type of development since both of us have normal jobs and do this on our free time. The downside to this is that development is much slower. The positive is that we actually get to make the game we set out to make without having to worry about financing it or compromising the original story. We’ve learned a lot over the last couple months of development and I’m happy to confidently announce a release date of Jun 1 2016.
Status With this latest update the core gameplay, game mechanics, state machines, animations, AI, shaders, and modelled assets are complete. The rest is primarily level development of the caves and a “master” texture used on the base’s monitors to explain the back story. On the Steam side we are 1 review short of 100 positive reviews and currently sit at a 78% recommendation rate (an overall thumbs up). We’ve also gotten incredibly lucky with the vast majority of negative reviews in that they are mainly (and understandably) complaints about the length of current game. I think a lot of those reviews could possibly change to positive recommendations when the full game is released.
Sales of CAT Interstellar have essentially dropped to 0. Normally this would be detrimental for a developer and is usually when people jump ship. For us, it’s literally the best thing that could happen. We have a very healthy community that provides consistent feedback on updates. Until the game is complete there really isn’t any reason to market the game. We have everything we need to make an awesome game and none of the pressures that seem to lead to a rushed release. For the next couple of months we'll be developing in the shadows of Steam.
Feedback I say this every time but I sincerely want your feedback. Not just on the updates but also on how we prioritizes updates or handle announcements like these. We had a little hiccup with last month’s release because it was flagged by AVG but we should stay on track from here on out. I’m also going to try to get the other writer, slowmath, active in the forums. He’s been creeping for a while but could probably give a little more insight into some of these discussions.
Thanks again for all your support-
Ionized Games
Community update (Pre-update)
Thank you
First off I want to thank everyone for the support. When a friend and I originally started developing this we couldn’t have anticipated the amount of interest people would have in the game. What most of this post deals with changes to better facilitate (organize?) that interest.
Updates
From now on updates will be monthly regardless of how much or how little we get done. This is mainly because of the number of abandoned Early Access games. It is also is the most honest and transparent way of showing how the game is progressing. If the game isn’t updated each month I’m dead.
The update for this month is almost done and just needs a little polish. It’s actually already uploaded as a beta so if you’re interested in checking it out you can access it by going to the “BETAS” tab in the game properties and entering the password “opensesame12”. It’s obviously an incomplete build so I don’t recommend switching to it unless you’re prepared for some major bugs. Otherwise it should be publicly released this weekend.
Community
User feedback was the whole point of releasing to Early Access and we want to leverage it as much of possible. One of the problems we’ve run into is organizing the feedback in the forums. It’s almost impossible for people to scroll through either one of the pinned posts and follow everything. Because of this I’m no longing going to respond to posts made there. I will read any new posts but if you want a response I’m going to ask that you start a separate thread. All of this will be posted at the top of each of the pinned threads.
December 22 update
The update has been delay because the executable has been flagged by AVG. The patch is still accessible through the beta options by using the password "opensesame12". There is no risk to your computer trying out the beta and I am 100% confident this is a false positive. It has been scanned by 55 separate anti viruses and only avg flags it. The executable has been submitted to AVG but it is unclear how long that process takes.
While this delays the patch it does not delay development. We are currently working on the next update and it is all content.
Vive la France
Our thoughts and prays are with the people of France after the events of Friday night.
I was hesitant about whether this was an appropriate channel to express my sadness, grief, and anger for the attacks across Paris but I'd rather be inappropriate than silent.
As an American, the French are our oldest alley. They helped us carve a nation out of an otherwise hostile world. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people, stands as one of the most iconic symbols of America. After terrorist attacks struck us at the heart the President of France ran the headline "We are all American" in a national act unity.
As a soldier, I can speak from personal experience of the honor, professionalism, and resolve of French Frogmen. I would hate to be on the receiving side...
As a human being, I believe these attacks on the French are attacks on all of us. On the universal values that we share. The purpose of these attacks is to divide us and to instill fear in our hearts. We must not fear. We must maintain our humanity. We must remain united
Update 1.5 (Gameplay, Bugs, Community, and Forums)
Gameplay:
Walk/run has been inverted.
Target cursor will now toggle blue when you hover over an interact-able object.
Experimental POV now only effects FOV.
Added particle effect to fertilizer containers to make it more obvious.
Moved greenhouse Android closer to fertilizer unit to avoid confusion.
Bugs:
Significantly optimized of sky effects shaders.
Exit button on main menu now works.
Collision boxes for props.
Collision of water planes.
Community
This update was not as substantial as we would have liked. The delima was whether to push a monthly update regardless of progress or wait until we felt the update was substantial enough.
Because of the current state of Indie games in early access being abandoned we felt it would be better to continue pushing updates at least once a month. This gives much more transparency to the community on progress of the game and reaffirms that we have, in fact, not abandoned the game. Please let us know how you feel about this or if you think we wait to release more content in our updates.
We say that a lot but we are sincerely interested in your opinion of the development process.
Forums
From this point forward I'm going to lock the story feedback thread and try to divert the traffic to the "Story and Development" sub forum. This will make it much easier to manage and give direct responses to players without sifting through a massive thread.
I also want to thank everyone who has supported us this far. As you may know there are only two people working on this game as a labor of love. The interest and support we've gotten is already beyond anything we ever hoped for. It's very hard to express the amount of gratitude we have for you but thank you for everything.
- :ionizedgames:
Update 1.4 (Mars, VR optimization, and Fixes)
Fixes: Optimized VR - addressing "judder".
Fixed skylift not going all the way up.
Gameplay: Adjusted AutoPOV - effects FOV instead of camera boom length.
Adjusted lighting and audio in the Cave scene.
Decreased ground friction - It takes slightly longer to stop.
Increased angle you can traverse - This makes movement over the different terrains much more fluid.
Dramatically shortened the beginning dialog.
Story: The largest change was to the story. Because of the recent discovery of flowing surface water the planet has been changed from Kepler 452b to Mars. This gives us a number of benefits but the main one is that we get to stick to a much more "hard" version of science fiction.
Community: Another sub forum was created, Story and Development , for players who want to get more involved with the story. The pinned post on story feedback is just too bloated. By creating a separate sub forum I can respond to posts on an individual level.
Like always, we'd love to get your feedback and thanks for your support!!!
Changes to story (planet)
I wanted to make a post about possible changes to the story to get feedback from the community. Because of NASA's recent discovery of flowing water on the surface of Mars we want to change the stories location from Kepler 452b to Mars.
The gives us a couple of benefits but most importantly the ability to stick to "hard" science fiction. Up to this point we've been smudging it with the FTL drive while all other aspects were at least theoretically possible. All the backstory on how the terraforming would take place is already based on models of Mars. It would also let us shorten some of the dialog and expand on the backstory. This is because there is a lot more common knowledge about Mars as well as research done into the atmosphere and geology of the planet.
This wont have any effect on the core story or what you find in the caves. The main reason Mars wasn't the original planet was because I personally believed they would never find flowing water. I am very glad I was wrong.
I want to include the community in these decisions so I'd love to know what you think about this change.
Water on Mars
I'm sure most of you have heard the new but NASA has found flowing water on the surface of Mars.
If you're interested here's a really good article about it:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/28/nasa-scientists-find-evidence-flowing-water-mars
