HorrorDriven: A story for the road
Patch 0.9.0 Biggest update yet! Controller support & Major changes to the demo!
We are very excited to finally be able to give you a major update to the demo as well as adding controller support!
Many changes and improvements have been made to the main game during the final testing phase and some of them also affect the demo. So a new update for the demo is in order to give players a more accurate picture of how the game is to play. The demo is now playable again after being disabled for a short while and these are the changes that has been made:
Gameplay changes
Controller support for xbox and playstation controllers has been added. The only time the controllers are currently not supported is in the settings menu.
Added cold as a survival stat. Players will slowly become cold when spending time outside in cold weather. Too much exposure will cause the player to become freezing which will cause damage over time. The player can warm themselves up by staying indoors, being underground or inside the car.
Added "reduced scares mode". Enabling this mode removes all enemies from the game, as well as most scares. This mode makes playing through the game a more peaceful experience while still maintaining the atmosphere.
Reworked the players map. Players can no longer see themselves on the map unless they are near the road. If a player is near a landmark in the woods they will be able to see their approximate position but not what direction they are looking at.
Changed so that the map can now be viewed while a storm is active but instead the player can't see their current position until the storm is over.
Added a new piece of equipment that you can use to localize your position easier now that the map is not always showing your position and direction at all times.
Added a radial menu which can be used to navigate to the other menus easier.
You can now queue equipment that you have in your inventory to instantly equip them by just a press of a button.
You can now specify which hand you want to put your equipment in.
Improved subtitles sync with audio.
You can now equip new equipment from your inventory to an equipment slot that is full. The equipment will then switch places with each other without needing an extra empty slot to transfer to.
Interacting with a locked door or container that is locked with a padlock will now make the player interact directly with the padlock.
Added more useful fauna to the forest.
Added another food item to make food acquisition a bit easier and more varied.
Added some gameplay tips to the loading screen.
Added a brake function for the car.
Pressing the jump button while in the car now applies the brakes.
Unplayed recorders now play a sound cue to help players locate them easier.
Added more stuff to interact with in the car.
Added another type of lootable container that has a special requirement to be opened.
The different difficulty settings will now display once you start a new game since some players missed these settings previously.
You can no longer use more than one first aid kit at a time.
Added an unstuck button in the main menu which will respawn the player without negative consequences if they get stuck. Many improvements to collision have been made in previous patches to prevent the player from getting stuck or falling out of bounds, however there is always a small risk of this happening so this button was added as an extra safety feature. It is entirely optional and should only be used if the player has gotten themself stuck and can't free themselves to not break immersion.
Radioactive storms are now shorter but happen more frequently.
Added more animations for the player.
Added more VFX effects.
The car key no longer disappears when you pick it up, since it was confusing to some players. However it only takes up inventory space until you unlock the car.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug which would prevent forest props from loading in if the player entered the car from outside the distance they are active while the car was inside that distance.
Fixed a bug which caused graphic settings to not save properly.
Fixed a bug which caused the player to not appear right next to the driver door of the car if they exited the car while turning left.
Fixed a bug which prevented the player from clicking on items in quickslots.
Fixed a bug which caused items to disappear when the player tried to add quick use items from their dropped backpack while all quick slots were full.
Fixed a bug which caused the anomaly proximity sensor to not disable its light once the detection was over.
Fixed a bug which caused the flashlight's light to not have the correct strength when it was equipped underground.
Fixed a bug which caused particles to sometimes be disabled.
Fixed a bug which could cause enemies to get stuck in objects when they were first spawned in.
Fixed a bug which would unpause the game with settings and main menu still active if the players pressed a button when adjusting brightness settings.
Fixed a bug which would cause contrast values not to update properly when starting a new game.
New artwork and information about the current state of the demo
We are very excited for our next update which brings some major changes and improvements to the game and demo. It is not quite ready yet but it is not that far away and until then some adjustments will be made to give a more accurate picture of how the game is to play.
So basically: Big update is coming soon and the demo will be disabled until then because it doesn’t reflect the current state of the game.
Also, as you might have seen here on Steam, there is new artwork for the game! It was made by the talented Tower Junkie Art, you can view their other cool post-apocalyptic artwork on their artstation page: https://www.artstation.com/towerjunkieart
Patch 0.8.1 Small update with fix for LOD issues from previous patch
Gameplay changes
Level of detail is now set to their correct values, previous update was accidentally uploaded with the lowest graphical settings for LOD which resulted in a very ugly looking game.
Reworked the colliders for the well props so players no longer get stuck inside them if they try to jump in.
Savepoints now make noises (except for the one in the car since it got annoying after a while).
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug which caused the mouse pointer to disappear after choosing the "No" button when the player was asked if they really wanted to quit the game.
Patch 0.8.0 - More graphics settings & more information about release date.
Some news about when the game will be released.
Although there has never been a set release date the goal was to release the game in 2022. Unfortunately this isn't going to work out, the main reason being the time it takes to polish and also test the full game. Instead of forcing a release now with a game that isn't fully ready, it will instead be released next year in 2023 in order to give you the best experience possible when playing it. Further information about the release date will come at a later time. Hope you understand and that we still have your support going forward.
Gameplay changes
Added pixelation filter. You can now adjust how many pixels you want the game to display and be able to give the game a more retro look if you want.
Small foliage will now be destroyed when run over by the car.
You can now enable screen space reflection in the graphics options.
Reworked the brightness settings to also include a slider for adjusting contrast values.
Improved rain particle system to increase performance.
Made the battery inside the house with the car easier to find since some players were missing where to find it.
There is now an additional sound for when the car is out of battery to make it more clear to the player why the car isn't running anymore.
Added the option to adjust the intensity of the bloom post processing effect in settings.
Increased the distance from which enemies can detect players while they are inside the car.
Increased how fast enemies can detect the player inside the car on all difficulty levels.
Enemy difficulty now also changes for how far enemies will chase the player.
Players will now also be notified if they select an upgrade that can't be crafted for other reasons than the player missing the required items.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug which caused the stamina bar to move too far to the left when the player was out of stamina.
Fixed a bug which would cause bloom values to be stuck in a very high value after looking at the infected light.
Fixed a bug which caused some audiosources to not adjust to the volume set in game by the player.
Fixed a bug which would prevent the player from crafting the maximum amount of extra inventory slots.
Fixed a bug which sometimes caused fps drops due to colliders for the car interacting with colliders for props in buildings.
Patch 0.7.2.2
Fixed a bug which caused ambient occlusion to be disabled after encountering a monster.
Fixed a bug which would incorrectly show that all crafting recipes could only be crafted at the car after clicking on a recipe that can only be crafted at the car.
Patch 0.7.2.1 - Puzzle & survival difficulty settings
As always your feedback is very important so please let us know what you think of these changes.
Gameplay changes
Enemy difficulty and survival difficulty has been split into two different settings. You can now set different difficulties on each of those two parts if you prefer either part to be easier or harder.
Survival difficulty has three different settings to choose from and affects stress gain (in the full game), the amount of damage you receive from other sources than enemies, hunger rate, and amount of items dropped on death. For survival difficulty: "Normal" difficulty setting is the previous default values.
Puzzle difficulty settings have been added. You can now also choose how challenging you want the puzzles to be. As of now there are three different difficulties,"easy","normal" and "hard". The previous default value for the demo is now the "normal" difficulty setting. This gives you the option to also choose to play with more difficult puzzles than before, or easier, if that is what you prefer.
Added more sounds to the enemies and reworked many of the enemy sounds to make them scarier.
Optimized materials loading during runtime to remove some fps drops.
Players will now be informed if they have unsaved settings in the settings menus.
Bug fixes
Fixed an animation bug for when an enemy gets caught in the same beartrap twice.
Fixed a bug with the container which holds the players lost items after death not behaving correctly while using quick transfer.
Patch 0.7.1 - Placeable bear traps & Balancing changes
Added bear traps as a new defensive item. They can be placed on the ground and will hopefully give you more time to escape your pursuers if they step in them.
Increased the amount of time monsters are trapped in bear traps to make them more viable as a means to escape.
Added geiger counter radioactivity ambience. The intensity changes depending on what the player is doing and what is going on in the world.
The player can now craft an upgrade to increase the amount of quick item slots they have. The default amount of quick item slots has been reduced from 2 to 1.
Enemies now detect the player faster on Hard difficulty.
Blueprints are now sorted into different sections based on their type in the crafting GUI.
Increased the hunger rate but reduced the rate at which players take damage while starving.
Reduced the amount of hunger removed from eating raw food.
Reduced the amount of materials needed to craft upgrades for the car.
A larger amount of the more advanced crafting recipes can now only be crafted at a workbench.
More workbenches have also been added to the buildings to not slow down crafting too much.
Added more sounds for when the player opens different containers.
Bug fixes
The "Settings saved" text now properly disappears after a few seconds once the player saves their settings in options.
Fixed an issue with the saved brightness settings not applying correctly when loading settings.
Patch 0.7.0 - New defensive items, quick use slots & GUI rework!
As always your feedback is very important, so please let us know what you think of these changes.
Thank you!
Gameplay changes
Added quick use for usable items. They can now be placed in the quick use slots and be used without opening the inventory. The keys for using each slot can also be re-binded so each player can customize it how they want.
Added two new items to the demo. These new items are designed for the quick use slots and will help the player to easier survive dangerous encounters.
Stamina booster: Instantly restores the players stamina so they can escape pursuers.
Flare: Can ward off predators from an area for a limited time.
You can now drink alcohol, it slightly reduces hunger.
Improved some enemy animations.
First aid kits now restore health over time when they are used instead of instantly healing the player.
Reworked the overall look of the GUI. It no longer completely disappears in very dark environments.
Reworked the look of the stamina bar. It is now much less intrusive and disappears faster when stamina is not being drained.
Bug fixes
Adjusted height and minimum distance to forest for some buildings to prevent them from not being accessible to the player.
Fixed an issue with the mouse sensitivity settings not keeping the saved value.
Fixed an issue with loading saved settings when one or more saved values were missing. If any saved settings are missing the game will automatically revert to the default settings to prevent unexpected behavior.
Fixed an issue with the tip about players' lost items only displayed for a very short time.
Patch 0.6.2 - Stamina bar, Accessibility changes and some extra game juice.
Gameplay changes
Added a stamina bar to the GUI so the players can now see how much stamina they have left. The goal has always been to keep GUI to a minimum but some compromises have to be made in order to make game mechanics more clear to the player. The stamina bar can be toggled on or off in gameplay settings for those who still want the immersion of no GUI.
Slightly reduced the amount of stamina drained from jumping and sprinting.
Improved the flashlights shadows, the flashlight no longer shines through objects.
Improved collision handling for the player to reduce the risk of the player getting stuck in objects while crouching.
Added an option for having the aiming reticle always turned on in order to combat motion sickness some players have experienced while playing the game.
Adjusted currently equipped equipment models position so they scale much better when changing FOV.
The GUI for objective updates no longer blocks the players inventory.
Added sounds for when the player eats food.
Added sounds for when the player uses a first aid kit.
Added something extra upon completing the demo.
Added more effects for when the player leaves the road with the car.
Patch 0.6.1 - Reduced loading times, Updated graphics, QoL features and more!
Meanwhile a lot of changes has been made to the game and many of these also affect the demo which warranted another update for it as well.
This is quite a large patch which is why it took some extra time to complete and we hope you will enjoy these changes. Please let us know what you think or if you have any suggestions, either in the discussion forum for the game here on Steam, or in our discord.
Thank you!
Gameplay changes
Quality of life
The game is now more responsive when the player tabs in and out of the game during loading. Previously the player would sometimes have to wait for loading to complete entirely before being able to tab back in.
Greatly reduced loading time for when starting a new area. More than 30% reduction of loading time during tests!
Players can now highlight important locations on the map by hovering over the name of the location while viewing the map. This also includes the players' lost items that they drop on death.
Objectives will now show additional information when the player hovers over them while viewing their current objectives.
When an objective is completed the player will now be notified of it and be able to see the name of the objective that was just completed.
When the player gets a new objective they will also be notified of it and be able to see the name of the new objective that was just added.
The house with the car is now displayed on the map.
Added feedback texts for when the player tries to equip items and all equipment slots are full.
Added feedback texts for when the player transfers items but the target container is full.
Added feedback texts for when the player tries to equip an item that can't be equipped.
Added a small blinking light to the players backpack so it can easier be found once it is dropped.
The transition point to new areas will now be marked on the map once the player finds it.
Updated loading screen descriptions to further improve the granularity of the loading screen.
New features
Reworked monster behaviors on roads to stop players from having to wait to progress due to monsters walking slowly on the roads. They will now appear for less time on the roads, but instead move faster (so watch out!)
A new animation was also added as part of this change.
Added "otherworldly fragments" to the demo. The otherworldly fragments can be found scattered through the woods. The player can equip them in their suit and gain attribute boosts. There are different kinds of fragments and each fragment has unique effects. However the demo is quite early in the game and at this point the player hasn't found the suit yet so it is more like a teaser of gameplay mechanics from the full game.
Added additional effects to when the player strays too far off the road with the car.
Added something scary to the car
Added short animation for when the player lowers their equipment if they are too close to a wall to make it look a lot smoother.
Visual
Added motion blur to post processing (you can ofcourse disable it in settings if you do not like it).
Updated loading screen screenshots since daytime have been reworked to be much darker and because of graphical improvements made since when they were taken.
Reworked fog so nights will be a little less dark when facing away from the moonlight.
Added more (rocks/branches/leaves) to the roads.
Improved visual effects for when the player looks at the infected light.
Improved the looks of several of the house models as well as the underground bunker area.
Readjusted the brightness on a lot of textures to make environments look better in the dark.
Improved the model for the torch.
Difficulty changes
Slightly reduced damage from monsters on all difficulties.
Monster attack cooldowns slightly increased on all difficulties, attack cooldowns now also scale with the chosen difficulty setting.
Monster sight range has been reduced and now also scale with chosen difficulty settings with "Hard" now being the previous default range.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug which caused some equipment to disappear when the player tried equipping it with their equipment slots full.
Fixed a bug which caused a small area near the center of the map to behave as a pool of water, preventing players from running while inside of it.