ENCHAIN is nearly ready to start Early Access, but again I have needed more time than expected. I want to use this post updating you all on the past year of development.
The year of 2023
Immediately, thank you for your patience in this drought of updates from me. It has been a long year and I have had to take the vast majority of my time away from ENCHAIN. Let me explain my situation a bit.
Since late 2022 I've slowly shifted focus from ENCHAIN to prioritize working, socializing, and taking care of myself. I was naive to believe this wouldn't happen, and I am sorry to delay the game for so long because of it. In early 2023 I had pretty much run out of money and energy working on the game, and it was time for me to get a full-time job to sustain myself instead. This is the reason I stopped posting updates. I never wanted to make it seem like I abandoned the game, I was just busy adjusting to a new job, moving to a new apartment, and so on. Luckily, I am very happy with the job I got. Unluckily, I now have very little free time to finish ENCHAIN.
I don't want this to sound like terrible news, though. The game is in a pretty good place and I only have a few more large pieces to put into place. I will continue working on ENCHAIN as my time permits. Please understand it will be a slow and sometimes silent process.
Why have I not committed to ENCHAIN full-time: getting a publisher, managing a team, running a funding campaign, etc.?
ENCHAIN is an extremely special project to me. I want it to be the best it can be. However, I never wanted ENCHAIN to turn into that kind of project (product). I never really planned for it to. It started from a 72 hour game jam entry. For years, before the demo, it was a sandbox of me messing around with things I thought were fun and cool. After trying to be more serious about ENCHAIN after the success of the demo, I feel that my enjoyment of game dev suffers when under the pressure of making money, or under the command of something else. I long ago made the decision to keep ENCHAIN a solo passion project.
Difficulties with the nature of ENCHAIN's world and design
It also might be good to have it on record that some parts of this game have become extremely challenging for me to work with. For example, all the regions being interconnected is a nightmare to put together. The freedom that the game's movement provides means designing meaningful levels is near impossible. On the bright side, I feel that nevertheless tying these challenging things together into a fun game will be really special. It will just take time.
It pains me but due to the above difficulties, it is necessary for me to complete ENCHAIN's development as soon as I can, regardless if it meets the original vision and scope. I'll do my best to update your expectations below.
Early Access
I will stick with my plans to first release in Early Access in order to get direct feedback from you, the community, to help me finish and polish the final game. I even may do a playtest right before. I will need to spend minimal time on this stage of development to ensure the game actually gets completed. So, by the time Early Access begins, the game will be more or less complete. I will likely be doing rebalancing, fixes, and one additional content update for full release. More info to come when I am ready to begin this stage.
Tentative Game Content
ENCHAIN will be a not be a large game. My goal is still to make a 3-5 hour replayable adventure experience. Let me run through some of the exciting things that early access will contain. "+" indicates things I'd like to expand on during early access. Please remember anything may be changed for any reason.
4+ interconnected explorable regions (size of demo = 2 incomplete regions)
a set+ of small standalone areas hidden throughout
a couple+ of weapons per ammo type (bullets, shells, chains, rockets, and no ammo)
a moderate+ cast of varied enemies
a handful of unique bosses
a set+ of bracelet equipment to modify gameplay
3 grapple lanterns
expanded player movement tech
more secrets and sequence breaks
more than one ending
tons and tons of minor improvements
Below is a video montage of some of the new stuff I worked on in 2023. As usual I am leaving most things out to keep them as a surprise for release. The clips are chronological, so a handful of new reveals are at the end. Enjoy!
Price
I no longer have the need to support myself with this game's sales, so the game will be priced at a more modest amount than originally planned. I want to still charge some amount as I feel I deserve the compensation. I also don't want to feed the trend of severely underpriced games. I will have this information decided by release.
Release Date
I do not have a release date to share at this time. I won't want to confirm anything until the game is completely ready to play. Something unexpected often manages to draw out development time. Please bear with me while I finish the entire thing to the best of my ability.
Demo Update
I plan to update the demo sometime near/after release as a free way to play the first few hours of the game (with some necessary limitations).
Thank you
That concludes all I can manage to disclose at this time. I wish I could do more but even finding time to put this post together was a challenge. I cannot thank you all enough for sharing, supporting, caring about this game, and waiting all these years now since the demo. I hope soon enough the full release will be finally available. Happy new year, and stay tuned for news in 2024.
Early Access Gameplay
Early Access release still planned for 2022, or as soon as possible. Stay tuned for updates. (most development clips will be seen on Twitter)
Thanks for your patience everyone!
Demo Update 0.3.0 - Holiday 2021
Hey crypt dwellers, a new 0.3.0 update has been published for the demo. As you know, Early Access has been delayed to 2022. To make up for that (and to get feedback) I wanted to release yet another "final" demo update before the new year, with all the core redesigns I've worked on since summer. My goal was to fix all major issues and streamline gameplay to make the experience as pleasant as possible. I'm pretty happy with the state of the demo now, and I should be able to move on to making mostly new content again. The major changes are grouped into either Combat or Movement below.
Combat Overhaul
Something I definitely wanted to polish up before release was the combat system. This was one of the earliest things I developed in the game, making it a couple years old by now. The roots have been stripped out and redone to be more fun to play with and less awkward.
Stamina has been refactored to be more consistent and balanced. Expect the combat to feel slightly different. Also including a redesigned stamina bar with stun, knock, and launch thresholds shown as darker colored bars: For those who want details, here's how the redesigned stamina system works: [expand] All attacks and weapons have separate base damage, knock damage, and launch damage values.
At full stamina, enemies can move and attack freely; past the red stun threshold, enemies will be stunned for a moment, opening themselves up to knock damage; past the knock threshold enemies will be juggled in the air and become grapple-able; dealing launch damage past the final launch threshold will throw them until either they hit a wall or slow down. [/expand]
Enemies now always use the full physics system (instead of being stuck to the ground/navmesh) meaning they can get pushed off ledges and generally move around more.
The enemy attack system has been improved, giving me more tools to make interesting attack patterns.
Lantern parry is redesigned. Before, you just had to hit an enemy with the lantern at any point during their windup animation to instantly stun them. Now, parries only work during parry-able attack frames, included in certain enemy attacks. There is a visual to indicate this mechanic:
Lantern melee attack is added, which is automatically triggered when throwing the lantern at close range. It has slightly more damage and knockback than normal lantern hits. Also instantly grabs enemies out of the air.
Movement Features
There were many movement quirks that players have had trouble with that I wanted to address before release. Fixing these really just required a bit more additions to the system, rather than uprooting everything. Except for the grapple hook pull.
Grapple hook physics have been redesigned. For the pull, a more simple calculation is made that always pulls the player in the actual direction of the hook, rather than some arbitrary upward direction. Plus, the strength of this pull is tied to the player's movement direction and speed, allowing the pull to be useful in a variety of orientations (also gives some pretty ridiculous speed boosts if you know how to time it). I also made it so that the hook range is longer when thrown horizontally, but still the same length thrown vertically. This change to the grapple is a large part of why I wanted to spend time on yet another free demo update. I want to hear what you all think of this new grapple pull, and what still might be able to be improved. So, please try it out.
A hook stick move has been added to aid platforming. Simply touch the hook while it is embedded in wood. Jump or crouch to get off the hook.
Kick has finally been moved to a dedicated keybind, "F" by default. I used to think the "hold down" behavior of the Jump key style added something to the game feel, but honestly I now think it just hindered movement in most cases. I feel I found a good balance with the new "F" key style, do try it out. Otherwise, the old style is an option in Settings if you want to keep it that way. Something you'll notice is that if you're on the ground, tapping the kick key will automatically "hop" you into the air so that you don't have to do a full jump. I hope to make this less overpowered in the future, but for the demo I think it's fine.
Dive-sliding will only happen when holding down crouch. Otherwise, the player will stop for a moment right at the point of landing.
Movement on steep slopes has been made to be pretty difficult. Essentially, if the floor is too inclined, jumps will be very weak, movement will be weak, and you'll slide down the surface. Similarly, wall jumps and kick jumps are harder to exploit on corners.
And now, a few of the minor additions:
New Enemy: Ribble
As teased previously, a new enemy has been in the works called Ribble. It was mainly intended for starter areas to widen the pool of enemy types a bit, so I ended up adding it in to the demo. You'll find a handful of them in the crypt. They only have one move currently: an aggressive roll towards the player. They're pretty easy to deal with in this state, hopefully in the future they'll get another attack or two.
Barrels
There are a few fully featured barrels in the demo now. Like coffin doors, they can be knocked around and thrown. The red ones are completely safe, not explosive or anything.
Chasm and Tutorial Improvements
I'm sure it is clear that the Great Chasm is pretty undercooked compared to the crypt. I had some time to improve it a bit with more relevant challenges and minor layout adjustments. Most notably, I modified a very basic parkour section on the far end to be a brute arena with the key locked away. I do have other major changes I'm planning to make to the chasm in the full release, so stay tuned.
You'll also see a bit more tutorial elements in the Crypt of Descent now. I wanted to have more explicit text shown for the most important mechanics. A couple of rooms are revamped, like the grapple hooking section or the rooms that introduce ribbles. Not really much different in terms of layout or visuals though.
Improved Settings
A few technical options have been added as requested. Things like resolution and an fps limit have been added to graphics, as well as an interpolation mode that should smooth out motion on higher refresh rate monitors. Speedrun mode has a quick restart button now, which I'm sure many will appreciate.
2022 Roadmap
I've said it once before, but NOW this should be the last major demo update. Will be focusing on new content for Early Access again from now on. The roadmap is essentially the same as seen in the delay announcement:
Better tutorials for core mechanics (WIP)
Improvements to stamina system and clarity (Done)
More variety in enemy behaviors (WIP)
Dynamic difficulty mechanic (WIP)
Improvements to boss battle design and gameplay (WIP)
A few NPCs to meet
Mechanics that help build lore
More weapons/enemies/bosses/areas
Polish for movement feel (Mostly done, want to improve wallruns next)
Player moveset/grapple improvements (Done)
Special stuff/upgrades you can buy with the "lantern juice"
Bug fixes, polish, better options, assist mode, etc. (WIP)
I'm super appreciative of the understanding you all had with the delay announcement. I don't respond to every comment on here but I do enjoy reading them. I also want to say it is insane how much the community has grown recently. I really appreciate the engagement and I'm happy that many of you like the demo.
Until the next major announcement, see my Twitter for progress videos and such.
Thank you all for your support, and for your patience on news about the full game. ːbonfire2ː
Full change notes:
[expand type="details"] Hotfix changes (9PM PT 12/30/2021) Fixed quick restart breaking game Weakened ribble/zombie stamina Weakened brute wyvern and boss slightly Made boss dirt throw attack more likely to happen Increased ammo drops for all gun types Strengthened revolver charge up Shortened jump kick link stacks Brought kick jump strength back to how it was before Buffed kick damage Added small wall jump aid to Abandoned Battlement in Chasm Added info sign to crypt before wyvern room Changed new info sign text to mention kicks
Boss fight bug fixes
Brute and wyvern made tougher and also resistant to being grabbed
Brute arena added to Chasm
Ribble enemy added to Crypt
Shoveler charge attack added
Combat info signs added
Barrels added to Chasm and Crypt
Chasm region additions to far end
Wall-jumping adjusted
Dive/wall-jump cooldowns modified
Minimum ammo now given on respawn for each ammo type
Grapple swinging/pulling tutorial modified
Tutorial text added to revolver room
Enemy blocking behavior modified
Stamina system redesigned
Stamina bar design improved
Enemy sounds improved
Lantern parry mechanic improved, parry-able frames added to some attacks
Hook sticking added, where player touches the hook while it is embedded in wood
Ledge climb improved
Hook magnetism improvements
Tree wood in marshes ignore magnetism
Grabbed enemy/prop can no longer be shot with gun
Air control bug fix
Slopes prevent full movement
Leg animation bug fixes
Dive will only dive-slide if holding down Crouch
Kick jumps made a bit weaker
General movement feel and sound improvements
Slides will only enter slow-mo when successfully knocking up enemies
Surfing now has slight movement control on ground
Enemy movement control refactored
Settings menu improvements and bug fixes
Keybinds menu improved
Kick keybind added
Hook* keybind added to remove need for holding down RMB
Old jump kick charge option added
Double click hook option added
Controller input option added
Resolution setting added
Slow-motion setting added
Camera interpolation setting added (for higher end PCs or >60 hz monitors)
FPS limit setting added
Blood/gore settings added
Speedrun timer fixes
Speedrun mode quick restart button
Save file type changed from ".GDF" to ".ed"
Options file type changed from ".ODF" to ".opt"
Load/save system bug fixes
Stamina bar bug fixes
Enemy distinct turning speeds for attacks
Enemy combat bug fixes
Improved debugging tools
[/expand]
Early Access Delay
I've made the decision to delay ENCHAIN Early Access to 2022. I'm really sorry about this. I would like to explain my reasoning and talk about what it means for the game in a bit of detail.
Since announcing Early Access, I planned to spend most of my time making new stuff for ENCHAIN. However, I have fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole of fixing what's already there. Many of you have given great feedback about the grapple hook, the movement, and the stamina system. I felt it was important to address those issues before launching. Unfortunately, they have proved to be complicated problems for me to solve, slowing my progress on actual new things for the release (i.e. new bosses, areas, weapons, and so on). This only caused me to get more anxious about the deadline. A few weeks ago, I seriously considered delaying, and plans started to make sense again. I feel like I know better than to crunch out the release. If that were to happen, I know the end result would be pretty sloppy, just leaving me more clean-up work later. That's why I feel a delay is the best decision I can make right now.
Still, I don't think it's accurate to say that the quality of the game is the only reason for the delay. Personally, I just don't have enough time to both stay healthy and release a game before the end of the year. My life responsibilities have grown more than I expected, having moved a couple of months ago. My university is in-person again, and I have needed to commute frequently. This new lifestyle is not something I'm used to and it makes it really hard for me to find the time to develop games. In other words, I'm just super busy lately. I wish I could work on games full time, but I have to finish my degree first I suppose.
I really should have anticipated these problems earlier and not announced a December release. It bums me out to have to change plans like this. I'm sorry!
I do feel like I owe it to you all to describe what I have gotten to add to ENCHAIN, and my thoughts about it recently. As explained above, I've been stuck doing little other than quality improvements, but I am really happy with the progress I've made there. Some of the changes include reworking the entire enemy physics system, simplifying the enemy stamina system, redesigning the grapple hook, adding a dedicated kick-jump key, and a bunch of minor things. It does feel like these fixes took way more effort than they should have, and I wish they didn't take so much time. On the bright side, I've felt really good about the game lately, better than I have in the past. I feel more excited about it the more time I have to let my ideas mature, if that makes sense. By taking it slow, I've already thought of a few interesting concepts I want to experiment with. I am sure the final game will be better this way.
Here's a peek at a revised Early Access roadmap, including what I have worked on:
Better tutorials for core mechanics (WIP)
Improvements to stamina system and clarity (Mostly done)
More variety in enemy behaviors (WIP)
Dynamic difficulty mechanic (WIP)
Improvements to boss battle design and gameplay (WIP)
A few NPCs to meet
More weapons/enemies/bosses/areas
Improvements to movement feel (Mostly done)
Player moveset/grapple improvements (WIP)
Special stuff/upgrades you can buy with the "lantern juice"
Bug fixes, polish, better options, assist mode, etc. (WIP)
Given some of the the core changes I made are pretty major, I want to update the demo again to gather feedback. Expect a new demo soon if all goes well.
Plus, this was one of the few new things I have made and tweeted about recently: a new enemy! Calling it "Ribble" for now.
That's all I can say so far though, sit tight a bit longer for the release and in the meantime there should be a little demo update!
Thank you for reading, and for supporting the game.
Early Access Announcement
Greetings lantern wielders. ENCHAIN will release for Early Access on Steam this December 2021. See the announcement trailer:
[previewyoutube="x0E6Hy5mQSo;full"]
This release will not be the final release. Think of this release as just the first episode of the full game, with much more to come in 2022.
Why Early Access?
After spending some time developing and improving the game this summer, it was clear to me that I'd want more time to work on the full game. Life obligations were a bit more intense than I expected! My original 2021 release date unfortunately won't cut it. Still, I feel that Early Access is the next best thing. The great thing about this is that I can take my time on the full game to make it into what I want. If I were to stick to releasing the full game by the end of 2021, I would have to cut many of my planned features. I don't want to rush too much on development. On top of that, I can continue to get direct feedback from you all as I develop the game. This is very helpful for me to fix issues I would miss otherwise. The downside of Early Access is that this first release will not be the complete experience. When Early Access is near I will be giving details about the state of the game so that you know what to expect. This will hopefully not disappoint too many players, as that's the last thing I want. Please have patience for the full release as always, I'm working hard to make it happen as soon as possible.
More Early Access details are on the game page
Roadmap
With Early Access you can expect me to give more detailed updates on the content I'm working on. Over the past few months, I've been testing new mechanics (you can see some in the trailer), and polishing out some issues players have mentioned.
Here's a general list of what I'll be making for the Early Access release:
Better tutorials for core mechanics
Improvements to stamina system and clarity
More variety in enemy behaviors, with a dynamic difficulty mechanic
Improvements to boss battle design and gameplay
A few NPCs to meet
More weapons/enemies/bosses/areas, as you would expect
Improvements to movement feel (hoping to make it less floaty)
Player moveset/grapple improvements
Special stuff you can buy with the "lantern juice"
Bug fixes, polish, better options, assist mode, etc.
If I can hit all of these points then Early Access should go fine. If you have any reasonable suggestions beyond these points, feel free to use the Steam Forums and Discord!
Anyways, I just want to say I'm really happy with how much the game has grown recently. Thank you all for the activity, it's a strong motivator. Still, the community is already far beyond what I could have imagined, and it's getting hard for me to keep up with it. Between working a job and going back to college soon, I may go quiet from time to time. Just know that Early Access is cooking!
Thank you for reading and for your support.
Demo Patch 0.2.1
Change notes:
Replaced unreachable chasm key with a large link
Added dive-slide sign in chasm
Lock in crypt now has tutorial prompt
Gun charging bugs fixed
Wall jump polished: cancels velocity if you're not wall-running to make wall jumps easier
VSync no longer breaks when changing quality setting
Fixed new game button bug
Thanks for all your reports! Other gameplay suggestions that didn't make it will likely need to wait until the final game.
ENCHAIN Dev Stream - Advanced Tricks and Sequence Breaking
Featured in the Next Fest, ENCHAIN is an upcoming mix of action, FPS, platforming, and souls-like gameplay! Still early in development, much is subject to change Drop by the live stream to see the solo developer play the demo and answer your burning questions.
Going to probably focus on showing some sequence breaks and previously unknown movement tech, as that's what I expect to be most interesting for you all.
ENCHAIN links snappy platforming and hack & slash juggling with fast-paced retro FPS gunplay. Inspired by the competitive fighting genre and Quake, combo and smash the undead into pieces with your lantern hook and punchy arsenal of guns. And, with progression and verticality influenced by Metroidvanias and Dark Souls, tackle a single interconnected world chunk by chunk, retreading old paths and secrets.
Grapple, swing, and impale enemies with the lantern hook
Shoot, kick, and dive between platforming and combat
Break open and harvest the bones of the undead
Explore an intertwined, non-linear underworld
Master an arsenal of explosive firepower
Demo Update 0.2.0 - Next Fest
Welcome back, chasm climbers. Since the last demo patch, improving the experience for new players has been at the forefront of my mind. At the same time, I've been adding brand new features pulling from all your feedback in the Discord. Demo Update 0.2.0 is up, and you can read about all the new changes below.
Wyvern
A new enemy has been added, and it can be found in a secret arena in the crypt! The "wyvern" mirrors the functions of the chaingun with its heated nail breath, only the nails stick into the ground as hazards for your movement. Expect this one to show up ready for even more action in the full game.
Enemy Stamina Bars "Bone Bars"
Due to even myself not knowing the complete inner workings of the combat physics system of ENCHAIN, stamina bars that reveal qualitative information about the status of enemies are now added in by default. They will appear above the head of any targets you attack. I hope you will notice these stamina bars (or maybe I should call them bone bars) make the combat a bit more readable. The design of the stamina bars was also carried over into a new boss health bar design (more about boss changes below). The bars can be switched off in options if you prefer.
Starting Areas Overhaul
In the crypt starting areas, many players had difficulties I hadn't gotten around to fixing: the dirt wall after the revolver, the first lantern room, the slide and dive room, and so on. Finally, I can say most of this issues have been addressed, with a new popup text feature used to indicate points of interest during tutorial sequences.
Beyond the tutorials, lots of the visuals in the demo areas have been revamped! The crypt got several little tombs added into the walls using a fancy stencil trick I learned. You'll see many rooms in the crypt with more detail than anything seen in the demo before. I do try to keep myself to a limit on these details, due to the overall lo-fi art style. Still, I hope this gives an idea of the standard I will keep for new environments in the full release.
Blood Decals
Gibs paint the walls, as they should.
Boss Changes
Players often had trouble with the boss battle of the demo. To address this, mainly stamina bars have been added to clear up how fighting actually works, along with many tweaks to the boss itself. I also snuck in a few visual tweaks to the boss as you fight it, just to give a taste of future bosses.
Move List
Inspired by "Action Guide" menus of other platformers, the Move List menu gets its debut! Find it on the pause menu.
Keep track of the many actions of the basic moveset and how to perform them. The entries of the move list will not update based on player actions; instead, they are currently triggered by specific points in the tutorials. For the full game I will make the list respond closely to player actions. All supported entries will be revealed for you upon completion of the demo.
Summer 2021 Plans
So, that's the bulk of the update. There were lots of other changes in there that I can only mention in the notes below. Lots of these were suggested by the Discord community, thanks again to you all!
This is going to be the last major demo update, as my focus truly needs to shift to making the planned areas for the full game. Like after the last patch, I will be working on new areas, mechanics, and story elements, with even more focus on the full game now that the demo is polished up. Expect much more content now that I've created a sturdy foundation.
There were many things I wish I could have finished with the game by now and had in this update. However, I've been busy with school the past few months, and I only recently got the time to make this update happen. Fortunately it has given me plenty of time to consider the different paths in front of ENCHAIN. As always, I'll take my time to make what I want to make. Thank you all for sticking around, I only ask for your patience on news about the full game.
Thanks for reading!
Full change notes:
Move List basic functionality added
Hand of the Child visual changes
Boss fight balance adjustments
Boss fight health bar improvements
Chasm areas adjusted
New optional route through Rooted Tomb added to crypt
Environments improved
Some textures adjusted
Tutorials improved
Anchored text popups added
Enemy blocking system, currently used with shoveler enemy
Enemy stamina bars added (w/ toggle in Game options)
Stamina system improvements
Additional combat sound effects added
Various grapple hook fixes
Enemy head turning added (very subtle)
Grapple pull head-hitting prevention
Made kick-jumping knockback weak after successive hits (sorry speedrunners)
Wyvern enemy added
Improvements to playermodel/viewmodel (leg fix)
warp command fixes
Sub-areas show up in pause menu
Blood decals added (w/ max tied to quality setting)
Greetings crypt dwellers! After getting your feedback, I have put together the first post-demo-release patch to improve the experience for everyone, available right now. Read about the most important changes below! See the final comments for an idea where the project is headed next.
First up, Hook Magnetism
This new feature allows the lantern hook to attract itself into enemies and grapple points automatically or on command. Many of you found that hook throws were easy to miss during gameplay, so this should help more of you connect with the main mechanic better. Full magnetism is enabled by default, with alternate options found in Settings>Game.
Full - Hook throws will have a constant large hitbox around the lantern that immediately snaps the lantern toward enemy/prop targets for either a grapple or a hit.
Hybrid - Hook throws work as normal but will have the hitbox passively checking for targets. If you pull the lantern (press the [Burden] button or double tap the [Hook] button) while the throw is still out in the air, the lantern will then snap to the last nearby target.
Off - Hook lantern will work exactly as in 0.1.0 without any magnetism.
I will clarify that I don't consider this a handicap to the gameplay, which is the reason why it is now set to Full as the default option. Hook magnetism brings the game closer to my intended feel (it's probably the best idea to come out of the demo players), so don't be afraid of being impure by having it on! I expect this behavior can use some fine tuning for all players, so please let me know your thoughts in the Steam Discussion board, or on our Discord.
Movement
After many comments about the feeling of the movement, I have done a lot of small things to make running, jumping, and everything involving platforming a bit more pleasant and natural.
Improvements to wall running: sticking to walls is now a thing of the past! You can now slide down walls normally unless you start moving into them; moving away will immediately end the wall run. This is how most games work and it already makes platforming feel a bit more natural. Try it out to see if it works for you.
Another change to note is a bit more advanced: lantern air-cancelling will now only happen while air-crouching (throwing out some movement vocab). Lantern air-cancelling where you throw your lantern while in the air and your fall is cancelled for a moment. This is done to help with platforming, but many of you did comment that it was confusing your movement. With this patch, air-cancelling will not occur unless you are also air-crouching (air-crouching is where you hold the crouch key in the air). This might be hard to work into muscle memory, but I hope this will allow more control over air movement.
Many other changes were made to movement: slightly increased ground friction, fast-falling improvements, wall climbing nerf, dive-slide shortening, general sound effects to different air moves. The full details on what is different can be found in the below change notes.
(Partial) Controller Support
Initially promised for the full game, I went ahead and overhauled the input system to support gamepad input as well as keyboard input (I do not guarantee that the game is designed well for controllers yet! This is for those who wish to try it out). In order to set up controllers, go to Settings>Controls and rebind each action to a corresponding controller input.
Speedrun Mode
There's now a speedrun timer that can be turned on in game options. This will count in real-time while the game is unpaused, just like the game timer shown on the pause screen. Perhaps later I can add in a completion counter/percentage if that would help your runs!
Bug Fixes
It goes without saying but this patch crushes a lot of small bugs and issues. High refresh-rates should be supported now. There is one out-of-bounds glitch that has been patched out (sorry speedrunners!) and doors have a glowing thing on them now. Signs also glow now. A handful of debug/cheat commands were added. Coffin lids (is that what they're called?) are less glitchy now. Again, I tried to note everything at the bottom, feel free to ask for clarifications about any changes.
What's Next?
While there are still plenty of things I want to polish further (the boss, teaching mechanics), my priority will now shift to developing the rest of the game. Consider the demo to be a rough preview of the beginning of the game that will be polished over time for the full release. First priority now is more content like new areas, mechanics, and story elements that will be part of this full release.
With that in mind, please be patient for progress updates! I'm back in university for the time being so my free time will be very limited. Please join the Discord to keep up to date on each milestone I make, and to chat with other fans/friends (perhaps even get involved with playtesting in the future). Supporting me in any way will help me a lot in the next few months. I'm also happy to hear feedback as always!
So, that's the whole deal. I apologize for the long wait for this seemingly small patch, but the past few months have been super busy for me (school). ENCHAIN will kick into full gear eventually.
Thanks for reading and have a good day!
Fan Art by crimebaby envy
Full change notes:
Choppy camera on higher refresh rates fixed
Hook magnetism added
Chasm reverb lowered
Console commands added (full list of cheats are on our Discord):
fov [1-200] - sets field of view of camera
slowmo - toggles ultra slow motion (might cause some glitchy effects)
viewmodel - toggles arms/guns in front of camera
hud - toggles screen UI elements
warp [2-4] - sends you to a new area
Help signs emission texture added
Pause menu tweaked
Gamepad input for controls menu support fixed
Short dive slide (when not holding crouch after a dive landing) added
Air-cancels happen only when crouching, not when falling normally
Air-cancels now cancel all motion when not diving
Movement sound effects added
Pickup ambient sound effects added
Slide bump under ceiling clipping glitch fix
Ground friction increased
Wall climbing weakened on second wall jump when on the same wall
Demo end trigger fixed
Jump platforms in crypt tweaked
Door emission detail added
Lantern room coffins improved
Keybind prompts fixed to account for custom controls
Great Chasm entrance area slightly tweaked
Coffin jumping fixed
Boss can now be knocked up by fire-dirt-ball projectile
ENCHAIN Demo Release
The demo for ENCHAIN is finally LIVE for Windows PC on the Steam page with three areas for you to explore, just in time for Halloween! See for yourself what this retro-inspired "hack-and-hook" platformer has to offer. [previewyoutube="6CRlwX_yOvQ;full"] I’ve worked super hard to build this game for the past two (almost three) years, so I am super excited to have it finally go live! See how quickly you can beat the demo and share! Let me know what you think, and what I can improve for the full release planned for 2021.
About ENCHAIN:
Control a lantern hook wielding skeleton to attack, grapple, and gib the undead into the air while jumping, kicking, and diving around a decaying, interlinked underworld. While normally you would just shoot your way out of hell, the stubborn bones of these undead can only be put to rest through some convincing force (i.e. literally throwing them into walls to break them open). Think Quake crossed with the fighting genre and a dash of Metroidvania.
Now, this isn't what ENCHAIN was planned to be all along. When I started making the game for Ludum Dare back in 2017, I was mostly going for a Quake clone with a grapple hook. Since then, the game has expanded quite a bit, now complete with a grapple moveset that augments combat movement, and a Dark Souls inspired world design.
Demo Features:
First three areas that introduce most of the core mechanics, i.e. grapples and swings.
Battle with a mix of aggressive projectile-based enemy types that keep you on your toes.
Master a layered moveset including slides, dives, air kicks, kick jumps, wall runs, and wall jumps.
Carefully track your progress with souls-like checkpoints between dangers.
Collect key pieces in platforming and combat challenges to unlock doors and explore the world through whatever path you can find.
Prepare to escape the afterlife. Play the demo now!
