Mid February Update: Pirates, Treasure and Content
A new build is live on Steam for Windows! The third update of 2019 brings brand new story content.
Continued Story Content
The fisherman's adventure continues! The new story content includes brand new scenes, more recordings from new characters and more.
To jump directly to the new content, use the cheat "map thebase#sp07" (though I'd recommend starting from Chapter 3 on the New Game menu if you haven't played in a while).
Uncover more of the story of Act II, and origins of the modern day infection on the island!
More Detailed Textures
Most areas in Estranged have now received a pass with more detailed textures, leveraging a technique known as "detail textures". This allows existing surfaces to mix lower resolution textures with higher resolution patterns when the player is closer to them, providing more detail up close.
That's it for this build - my focus from this point on is content, working towards the ending of Estranged: Act II.
As ever, thank you so much for playing - join me on Discord if you'd like to chat, report bugs directly, and get updates about Estranged! https://discord.gg/estranged
Alan
Late January Update: Story Content, Death Poses and Rubber Ducks!
A build is now live on Steam for Windows and Linux! The second update of 2019 brings brand new story and level content, polish and more.
Brand New Radio Messages
After receiving feedback about the radio scenes with John, and thinking about what and how story should be discovered by the player, I have re-recorded all of the radio scenes with John.
Since finding a radio and talking to him directly is a little too convenient to be believable, you can now listen to John as he broadcasts out in an effort to escape the Arque signal jammer. There are 7 radio messages to listen to in all, with a few more planned for future content.
Death Poses
The human enemies now play animations just before death. This is an effective way of making the death look more realistic, and prevents the "flop" into physics simulation, which looks very unnatural.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcg_3D7L13E
Rubber Duck Technology
There have been a few visual tweaks to the Prelude level, including the addition of high tech rubber ducks! There may be an achievement around these eventually, however for now they're just fun to play with. This is my personal favourite part of this update!
Pacing Tweaks and Level Additions
The forest infected ambush has been tweaked slightly, and the Fisherman no longer encounters the lone Sokol guard at the train tracks. Instead the guards are introduced later on.
In addition to the changes above, there's now a small lab section in Arque East's lower level.
HUD Tweaks
Previously the health and battery displays would hide a section of the health and battery, so between 85-100% and 0-15% health was not visible. This has been fixed, along with some changes to reduce fall damage.
Subtitles have also been revamped, now scaling with the screen resolution as the other HUD elements do, and now have some sleeker animations. The subtitles also hold for an extra second after dialogue finishes, to provide an opportunity to continue reading it.
CEO Bear Cheat
CEO bear can now be spawned using the cheat "spawn bear"! This will never be part of the game itself, but this Easter egg allows you to spawn in a strange looking furry friend, who will run around in areas that include AI.
As ever, thank you for playing Estranged, and thank you to those who are involved with the project - whether it is providing feedback, translating or just playing through. Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/estranged
Alan
Early January Update: Animals, Insects and Birds!
Happy 2019! A build is now live on Steam for Windows and Linux! The first update of 2019 brings visual updates and new wildlife to areas of the game.
Animals, Insects and Birds
There's now a plethora of wildlife in Estranged - crabs, moths, birds, rabbits, snails, ants, fish, rats and eels throughout the game. See if you can find them all!
Graphical Improvements
Estranged: Act II now supports ambient occlusion, enabled by default.
This can be disabled in the Advanced Graphics menu (Options > Graphics > Advanced).
Motion blur is now disabled by default to make the game feel a lot snappier.
There is now subtle eye-adaptation in the game, meaning that darker areas get brighter, and brighter areas get darker depending on the current brightness levels.
Development Blog Videos
I published three development blog videos since the last update, covering some of the animal AI and foliage culling!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImbCvbX_U4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwRaZBPhpDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjIatHHLZck
I have a lot more content planned for 2019, so stay tuned to continue the adventures of the fisherman!
If you'd like to provide feedback, you can do so in the comments below, using the in-game feedback, or join https://discord.gg/estranged to chat in person!
Thanks for playing Estranged!
Alan
Late December Update: New Infected, Music and More!
A festive build is now live on Steam for Windows! This update will be the last Estranged: Act II update of 2018 - watch this space for a 2018 roundup!
New Infected
There are new infected characters in town!
The visuals have been overhauled, but the infected sounds have been changed too - they now make sounds while chasing you, and different sounds when attacking.
Chapter Titles & Save Game Thumbnails
There are now titles for each Estranged: Act II chapter. This provides a more polished experience while playing, and an insight into the theme of each chapter.
I would highly recommend playing from the start to experience all of the changes!
A long requested feature, the save game menu now has thumbnails! To find out how, here's a dev blog video giving the technical overview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSaAiYBTJKM
More Content & Music in Chapter 3
There are now new music tracks in Chapter 3 to accompany the street and base areas. There's also a glimpse of the next set of content - this will be extended in the new year.
New Bug Tracker
This will help to organise Estranged bugs and allow the community to also raise them directly (with screenshots, videos and other media attached). Anyone can register (just poke me to approve your account). See here for currently open and closed bugs.
Thank you for playing Estranged - if you have feedback, I'm available on discord.gg/estranged :)
I wish you a very happy new year!
Alan
Early December Update: Underground Content
A new build is live on Steam, for Windows and Linux!
Underground Content
This build includes new explorable content following on from the previous Street & Apartments update, following the continual adventures of the fisherman!
Opening Titles
A small but important detail, the opening titles now show the location of the fisherman in the prelude level, revealing the location of the wooden house and dock. Titles also exist after the fisherman falls, describing the location in relation to Act I, and the location in the world(!).
New Community Wiki
Community member Martin has been maintaining a wiki on Wikia ( http://estranged.wikia.com/ ), which I am now working with him to transfer to the official Estranged Community Wiki: https://wiki.iamestranged.com/
This wiki is full of community compiled references to the lore and world of Estranged. If you're interested in the story of Act I and Act II, it's definitely worth browsing!
If you're interested in becoming an editor, reach out to Martin on the Estranged Discord server!
-
I would also like to thank the Estranged volunteer translators and testers for their help with quickly translating and testing this update.
Stay tuned for more updates - if you'd like to provide feedback, head over to https://discord.gg/estranged where you can chat with me, and meet the rest of the community!
Thanks for playing Estranged!
Alan
Mid November Update: Street, Apartments & Rifle
A new build is live on Steam, for Windows and Linux!
Street and Apartments
This build includes new content - the street is now explorable content, leading to an apartment block. I'll be continuing this content in future updates.
New Guard Type
There's a new Sokol guard in town with more armor, and a different weapon!
Playable Rifle
The rifle is now a playable weapon in Estranged: Act II! This can be found in the street level, and is also used by the new guard type.
Save System Overhaul
I have re-written the save system to make it more robust. There should be no notable change to the game itself, but under the hood each item in the game now has a unique ID to identify it.
The previous system used the names of the items, but because items can move between levels, name collisions could occur. To combat this, I introduced a tag to the item to describe the level that the item came from - but this system was far from perfect and often resulted in incorrect items being restored. This should no longer happen!
-
As ever, please let me know what you think! I'm around at alan [at] alanedwardes (dot) com, or on discord.gg/estranged.
Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
Late October Update
A new build is live on Steam for Windows, with a Linux build following soon!
Pickaxe
The pickaxe is now a usable weapon in the game! This update adds the pickaxe, and destructible boards in some areas.
I would like to add more breakable elements to the rest of the game, as they're very fun to play with!
Water Fog
The water in the game has been slightly tweaked so that the fog does not follow the camera. This is a small detail that improves the appearance of water from some angles.
There's a development blog video explaining how the effect is achieved for those that are interested in a behind the scenes view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X46DHOhwvCA
There are a few fixes included in this release too - please note the cheat to spawn the pistol is now "spawn pistol" (rather than just "pistol"). If you have any feedback, let me know in the comments, or directly on Discord - https://discord.gg/estranged
Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
Mid October Update: Melee Weapon Preview
A build is now live on Steam for Windows!
Pickaxe Preview
There's a preview of a new weapon - the pickaxe! This can be spawned using the below cheat:
spawn pickaxe
This will be available to play with in the story campaign at a future date.
Weapon Modifications
The weapons have been tweaked - with some small changes to the pistol, rifle and shotgun. The pistol is available to play, and the rifle and shotgun can be spawned using the cheats "spawn rifle" and "spawn shotgun".
Development Blog Video
If you're interested in Unreal Engine 4 development, I posted a new development blog documenting how to tweak skeletal meshes in blender, and import them back into Unreal!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTJ0tm6GscQ
If you have any feedback, Discord is by far the best way to send it! I'm available at alan [at] alanedwardes (dot) com too.
Thanks for playing, and see you around for the next update!
Alan
Early October Update
A build is now live on Steam for Windows, with Linux coming later this week!
Master Water Collector
The bucket achievement returns to Act II after being wildly popular in Act I! Take John's bucket to the end of the game to unlock it. Please note that if you cheat, you can't unlock it!
Spawn Object Cheat
It's now possible to spawn various items as cheats using the code "spawn x", where x can be: guard, rabbit, infected, rifle, shotgun, pistol, bucket, brick, coffee, cone, paper, teapot, bottle, box, fence, crate, mug, fan, computer, toolbox and barrel.
Ambient Sound Changes
The ambient sound system has been overhauled in preparation for future content. There should be no significant impact on the game - but please let me know if you hear anything out of the ordinary.
A major improvement is that water now muffles level sound, regardless of the type of water. Previously this was error prone as it had to be manually added to each water volume.
Another improvement is that different soundscapes can no longer bleed into each other, so you can't hear birds outside when close to an outer wall of a building.
Various Fixes
New: Iron sights for rifle model (only accessible via cheats)
New: Backspace can now be used to navigate backwards on menus
New: Spawn cheat extended to support above items
New: Removes focus border from menu buttons, replaces with a pulse
Fixed: Estranged News not loading on the main menu
Fixed: Ordering of control options
Fixed: Range awarding too many points
Fixed: UI sounds are now no longer affected by reverb and muffling
As with the previous few posts, there is a known issue with certain hardware and long loading times on chapter 3: https://steamcommunity.com/app/582890/discussions/0/3338746335339497349/
Thanks for playing Estranged! I'm around on Discord if you have any feedback: https://discord.gg/estranged
Alan
Late September Update: Ansel, Aiming and Preview Weapons
A build is now live on Steam for Windows. A Linux update is currently on the staging beta and will be pushed live later today.
Aiming Changes
While aiming with weapons down the sights, the amount of weapon movement has been vastly decreased. This makes it feel a lot easier to shoot enemies, and makes the aiming a lot more useful in combat.
Varied Infected
The infected characters can now have varied limbs along with the existing variations of clothing and hair. I would like to be able to support a larger set of infected humans from all walks of life eventually.
New Cheats & Weapon Previews
There are more cheats to play with in-game, which can now be accessed using the (re-bindable) backtick key:
spawn rabbit
spawn infected
spawn guard
spawn rifle
spawn shotgun
spawn pistol
The weapons are not finished and not available in the main game, but are fun to play with!
Nvidia Ansel Support
Ansel is now fully supported in Estranged for taking high quality screenshots! Hit Alt + F2 in-game to enable to Ansel UI.
Full Change List
New: AI can now open doors
New: Nvidia Ansel support
New: Infected variations
New: Added rifle and shotgun implementations
New: It is now possible to spawn characters using the cheat "spawn guard/rabbit/infected"
New: Bindable cheats key (default is ` backtick) which focuses the cheats input box
New: The specimen count puzzle now counts live specimens only
New: Impact effects are now delayed depending on how far the bullet travels
New: Ragdolls now keep their exact bone positions during save/restore
Fixed: Blue highlighting around edge of level in storage/parking area
Fixed: Movement buttons being held down when loading screens disappear
Fixed: Some doors not being locked in the Arque quadrant offices
Fixed: Cameras being able to see through walls
Fixed: The turret can no longer see through walls
Fixed: Picking up pillow causing physics issues in sleep/wake scene
Fixed: Re-sampled some audio to fix sound issues on Linux for certain configurations
Fixed: Getting stuck in the parking garage
Fixed: Turret batteries not being saved/restored correctly
Fixed: Water fog not clearing after a save/restore
Fixed: Infected variations are now saved/restored
Fixed: Sprinting is no longer permitted whilst scoping
Fixed: Idle movement of weapons now reduced while scoping
And localisation updates thanks to the Estranged translation community!
There is a known issue with a hang on load for certain machines. There are also a couple of minor bugs around save/restoring, where your ammo count might not persist properly, and AI may duplicate when restoring.
I would especially like to thank the Discord community for suggesting a bunch of features for this build, and for helping to find and report bugs before it was released.
Any feedback you have, I'm available at alan [at] alanedwardes (dot) com and on Discord! https://discord.gg/estranged
