New "Anniversary Update" Adds Dev Commentary, Languages And Fixes To INDUSTRIA!
Dear Industrians!
Today we release something special we have been working on: the INDUSTRIA Developer Commentary. You can activate it in the Options Menu under the Gameplay Tab. As soon as you ticked the box, you will see these hovering and rotating questionmarks scattered around all levels. Simply walk up to one and press "USE". You will be granted with a commentary of either us two co-founders David and Steve, or our Sound Designer Clemens, our composer Lukas or even INDUSTRIA's animators Ben and Gabriel.
We talk about our thoughts when designing the game, as well as discuss the challenges we faced creating this game next to uni and work in our freetime. In some logs, we show a little slideshow with screenshots and photos of early levels, mechanics or references we used when building the levels. We also show scrapped content like old enemy models, concept art or level shots.
This tradition of developer commentary is something we always loved to see in Valves games and we hope you like what you see and hear. ❤️
Apart from that, we also added new languages and fixed a few minor bugs.
Changelog:
fixed a wall in the factory which was see through from one side
fixed a few holes in the level geometry
fixed various audio assets not having a sound class
fixed physics objects not playing their impact sounds
added Japanese language
added Korean language
added Chinese language
To all you Achievement Hunters: We hear your feedback. We are still actively hunting down the Hardcore Achievement issue where it just does not want to pop in certain situations. We will resolve this issue in a separate patch very soon. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and hope you can apologize our messy work on that one. We will keep you posted!
Also look out for a little something we added to the office level... a hint to something-new?
We hope you will enjoy this commentary and this intimate insight into our heads.
Happy listening and exploring, Dave, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
INDUSTRIA 1.2.1: Hotfix for bugged savegames and low performance on load
Dear INDUSTRIANS,
this is a quick hotfix for low performance on loading save games. Some players experienced low FPS when loading a save game, but this should now be fixed. We are sorry for any annoying situations here!
Changes:
Fixed a bug where save games would load with very load FPS (if at all)
Added an achievement tracker to the pause menue
Fixed floating pick ups
Apart from that, some of you report crashes on load, which should also be fixed with this update. Let us know if your issues persist, in case this patch does not help. Please check your drivers and also try running the game in DX11 mode (choosable on start up) if you have frequent crashes.
As always, thank you for playing and welcome to all the new players!
All the best, Steve & David
INDUSTRIA Update 1.2.0 is available: Weapon Balancing, Level Rework, and more!
Dear Industrians!
Update 1.2.0 is now available! And it's by far the most comprehensive update we've released for INDUSTRIA to date. We mainly focused on polishing or completely redesigning some unfinished looking areas in the levels. In places, INDUSTRIA is a completely new experience - especially in areas of the leves "Streets" and "Canal".
In addition, we've adjusted the balancing of the weapons, adjusted the amount of ammo distributed in the levels, reworked the save system and made a big bunch of general fixes and adjustments. In total, update 1.2.0 adds around 100 changes/additions/fixes/adjustments to INDUSTRIA:
Office:
Added white noise effects to the TV in Nora’s apartment
Skipping the cutscene now correctly sets the TV to white noise
Fixed the telephone hanging in mid air when skipping the cutscene
The Stasis car is no longer visible until required
Cutscene at the end now correctly fades to black (player was visible at the end)
Institute:
Removed Mr Bean
Fixed a bug where you could ride the elevator back down, soft-locking progress and trapping the player inside
Moved first pistol pickup into post-elevator room and out of the dark
Cleaned up old lighting actors
Coal in Boiler puzzle now correctly saves it’s visual state with save games
Supply crate added to the Brent cutscene
Streets:
Closed a whole in the landscape near the shop fronts
Fixed buggy crow ragdoll (once and for all!)
Fixed clipping mailboxes inside apartments
Placed a rifle spawn at the Rosendal statue in Streets level
Visual overhaul of the Town Hall
Visual overhaul of Factory area
Fixed collision on suitcases in train station
Collision when going down the stairs into the townhall street has been fixed
Canal:
Fixed a hole in level bounds where player was able to get stuck (Beach)
Added missing collisions to railing near Train
Fixed the beach elevator so it no longer clips through geometry
Fixed the beach elevator so it no longer pushes the player into the wall
Visual overhaul/Layout change of the beach warehouse
Fixed inaccurate stair collision
Visual overhaul of the section when Nora falls down (bridge collapse)
Visual overhaul/Layout change of the underground corridors
Complete rescript of underground elevator puzzle + new meshes/design)
Visual overhaul of the underground puzzle
Visual overhaul of the section after the underground
Fixed Underground elevator shader
Underground floodlights are now shadow casting correctly
Added Scouts to the section after the underground
Fixed door in Brent’s building which would clip into walls
Removed the doorless door frame in Brents building
Visual overhaul of the rooftop area
Fixed some bad collision around greenhouses on rooftop
Visual overhaul of Brents shack
Fixed door animation when entering Brent’s shack
Fixed buggy glasg shader at Brent’s shack
Added missing railings to the gate control room
Fixed bright foliage lighting in Canal level
Added additional enemies inside Brent’s building
Added additional enemies after Brent’s building
Forest:
Removed floating grass meshes from tracks
The radio which acts as a music source, can no longer be switched off
Library:
Removed blockout mesh from Library
UI no longer notifies players of picking up weapons whilst in this level
General:
Fixed extreme white flashing artifacts in most interior spaces (inaccurate object occlusion)
Fixed Nora falling sounds
Fixed the hound ragdoll
Fixed the blue fog in lower shadow settings, and made shadow settings more consistent
Fixed some foliage lighting issues
Fixed an issue which prevented cloud saves being backed up
Fixed Rifle bug which make the weapon semi-automatic
Normalised several music tracks so they are more audible
Removed FOV horizontal clamping for Ultra Wide resolutions
Fixed Prophet footsteps not playing correctly
Fixed Hound footsteps not playing correctly
Added new Hound attack sounds
Fixed numerous light sources that caused player hands and physics objects to render black
Fixed various LOD meshes throughout
Added collision for tree meshes
Increased render distance for low shadows
Fixed supply crates not always awarding loot
Fixed various physical materials (for footsteps & impact sounds and effects)
Added a number of extra flashlight batteries
Hive Tanks now render correctly in RTX modes
Added occluders to windows and doors in apartments to improve readability and performance
Fixed numerous lamps that are off but show an illuminated lamp shade
Fixed inconsistencies with motion blur settings toggling on/off in various levels
Fixed pickup collision for vinyl records
Exile sounds are now spatialised correctly
Optic shooting sounds are now audible at a distance
Bullet impacts from enemies now correctly align to the surface normal they hit
First-person camera is now centered around pivot
Various fixes to weapon visuals and feedback
End credits now scroll at the correct speed in sync with music
Balancing:
Nerfed SMG damage per bullet
Lowered max ammo on all weapons
Pistol: 12/24
SMG: 32/32
Rifle: 4/8
Shotgun: 6/12
Reduced pick up ammo amount for all weapons
Increased scout damage and radius (particularly on Hardcore) meaning they must be dealt with rather than ignored
Supply Crates don't drop Health or Battery items anymore
Rifle is now less accurate in hip-fire
Save System: (Note: some save game fixes will only work with new save files!)
Doors now save correctly
Levers now save correctly
Planks now save correctly
Supply crates now save correctly
Spawned ammo pickups (from supply crates) now save correctly
Hound enemies will no longer multiply on loading saved games
Achievements:
New achievement: "Power doesn’t reside in the barrel of my gun" (Complete the game without shooting a single bullet, the Axe is allowed)
New achievement: "Shipshape and Shiny" (Complete the game without taking a single point of damage)
New achievement: "Bookworm" (collect all 25 notes)
Achievement fix: "The hard way" (now requires all levels to be finished on hardcore, not just the last level)
Known Bugs:
Sound becomes muffled for a second whilst riding the elevator out of the underground (Canal)
I know what you are asking yourselves now: "Why doesn't it work like that right away?". Time is the main reason. We are super happy with how successful INDUSTRIA is - that's not a given these days and we are very grateful to you all! But it's not enough for Steve and me to make a living - and that's why we both have "normal" day jobs, plus some private life. We optimize INDUSTRIA in our spare time. And that's why everything takes a bit longer.
That said, we are super happy and proud with the results of the INDUSTRIA update 1.2.0! And we are really looking forward to her you feedback on it. You can reach out to us in the Steam Community Hub or on our Discord Channel - whereever you want. We are looking forward to hear from you! ❤️
Have a great and sunny day everyone! David & The Bleakmill Team
Lost Remnants of Hakavik: INDUSTRIA Steam Community Items available now! ⛏️
Hey there fellow Industrians,
we hope you all had a good start into the new week! And we hope to make it even better: It took a little while, but the Steam Community Items for INDUSTRIA are available now! ːsteamhappyː
The INDUSTRIA Steam Community Items include:
7 Emoticons
5 Profile Backgrounds
8 Trading Cards
Badge (6 Levels)
And as announced with the latest update 1.1.0: We are working on a balance update that will make INDUSTRIA more challenging, as well as more visual updates for certain areas like the underground in the Canal. The plan is to drop this update later this week, we keep you posted!
Cheers and all the best! David, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
INDUSTRIA Update 1.1.0 is available: Hardcore Achievement & Performance
Dear Industrians!
We know, its been a while. As we explained before, we had to go back to our day jobs after INDUSTRIA came out, limiting us how much time we can spend on updates. Apart from that, we also try to get the next project rolling as well, but we finally found time to drop version 1.1.0 which includes:
A fix for the
long* awaited Hardcore Achievement not popping up
Better performance from the Street Level on
Various small cosmetic fixes
Corrected brightness issues in Streets and Canal levels
Main menu now supports game keybindings
Fixed a bug with 'Restore Defaults' keybind option which wouldn't correctly reset under specific circumstance
Keybinds now support non-english keys and will be displayed as text fields
In order to realize the performance update, we had to change the sniper rifle scope from a in game scope to a full screen traditional scope. Although we liked the in game scope more aesthetically, its a necessary trade off which can bring some scenes from 25 FPS to 50-60 FPS, even if the sniper is not equipped. Apart from that, we found its much more fun to snipe with a clean big scope and see where the actual shots land:
Be sure that we deeply care about INDUSTRIA. We are emotionally very attached to it, and our heart bleeds to see some of you having a bad experience with it. We have to admit that its an imperfect game. A first try to enter the games industry. No one of us ever made a game before, and players felt that in various ways.
Yet, we are proud of our work! The countless positive reviews and comments motivate us every day to soon reach for the stars again. INDUSTRIA's full story has not been told yet.
Thanks to every single one of you, we know you care about the game, even if you write angry posts in the forums. We hear you, and we appreciate your interest in INDUSTRIA, also if you are a passionate critic of its flaws.
Exciting news for you: We are working on a balance update that will make the game more challenging, as well as more visual updates for certain areas like the underground in the Canal. We plan to drop this update next week!
We hope this weeks update will solve two big issues the game has. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the patience! ❤️
Cheers and all the best! David, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
INDUSTRIA Update 1.0.7 is available: Performance, UE version, fixes and more!
Dear Industrians!
Since the announcement of the new update for INDUSTRIA almost another whole month has passed. We know some of you are disappointed for it taking so long. We would have loved to patch earlier but the game crash bug most of you experience forced us to upgrade the whole project to the new engine version UE 4.27.
This can bring in its own new bugs and problems, so we tried to be careful with that. This patch is mainly about fixing the crash, but also features a few other cool things.
Here are the patch notes for 1.0.7:
Upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.27 for improved stability (fixing the train crash)
Performance optimisations to streets (level 3) and canal (level 4)
Added additional resolution options (3440x1440, 5120x2160, 5120 x 1440, 7680 x 4320 and more)
Hardcore chapter selection fixed
Fixed brightness and contrast reset bug
2021 was an exciting and very emotional year for all of us. INDUSTRIA is our first game and we will never forget our hearts beating us nearly to death on release night. We know that INDUSTRIA is not perfect, and we want to be honest: it will never be. But we heard so much feedback on how it struck a nerve for many of you. It surealy was the greatest and best learning for us ever and could not be a more ideal skill test for our next game.
All of you, happy new year! Stay healthy and safe. Thank you for your support!
The beautiful shot of the library is by @pino44io, here is his/her twitter account: https://twitter.com/pino44io
Cheers and all the best! David, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
We are working on a new INDUSTRIA Update: Performance, UE Version, and more!
Hey there fellow Industrians,
We've been pretty quiet over the past weeks, but don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you and INDUSTRIA. But life goes on, and currently we are in the process of figuring out what happens next for Steve, me and Bleakmill. Exciting, but also tough decisions.
But as I said, we haven't forgotten INDUSTRIA and you, of course. And as promised, we are still working on improving the game - especially when it comes to performance. That is why, among other things, we have decided to update the Unreal Engine version once again.
Here is a list of what to expect from the upcoming update:
Performance Optimization for the Streets and Canal level (level 3 and level 4)
Updating Unreal Engine to Version 4.27 to fix crashing issues and increase the performance
Adding additional Ultrawide Resolutions
Fixing the End Achievement not being given when finishing the game in hardcore
Fixing a few holes in the Street level (level 3)
Unfortunately, we cannot yet give you a date when the update will be released. This is because an update of the engine version often brings with it small but very nasty errors in detail. And we would like to clean up all of them beforehand.
Thank you for your patience and understanding! And for all the feedback we have received from you over the last weeks and almost two months. It is very valuable and means a lot to us! ❤️
Cheers and all the best! David, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
INDUSTRIA Update 1.0.6 is available: Chapter Selection & Skippable Cutscenes
Hey there fellow Industrians,
its time for another patch. Important: this patch is not an optimization patch. That will happen in the upcoming 1.0.7 patch.
In 1.0.6 we focused on the long awaited Chapter Selection (that ultimately helps people that have bricked saves from older versions) as well as adds more easy replayability. The game now also saves in the Library and Office in case you want to stop to play when being in one of these environments. On top of that we added the ability to skip cutscenes for those who play the game through a second or third time and dont want to wait for the cutscenes to play through. Aside that we fixed a number of smaller bugs including a game breaking one where a roll up door in the Institute would not save and lock you in when loading the auto save.
Here are the patch notes for 1.0.6:
BUG FIXES:
Fixed Rollup doors in Institute which did not save and would lock the player inside the Steam Room
Added missing collisions to walls in the Library
Fixed swaped RIlfe/Shotgun Achievements
Added missing collisions to walls in the Library
Removed Autosave from the restaurant near the second relay on the Rosendal Plaza (which would spawn you next to enemies leading to a quick death again)
Updated the Turkish Localization
Fixed Diary Entries getting mixed up after loading a save game or after completing the game
Removed a random door in the Library floor
Made Spotlights in the Theatre brighter
Made sound and image fade out correctly when leaving the Institute
Fixed a typo in the Forest diary entry (number 17)
Added missing collisions to walls in the Library
GAME CHANGES:
Added the Chapter selection (can be accessed from the Load Game Menue and Continue Menue
Added the option to skip cutscenes (press ESC in a cutscene will skip it along with the dialogue)
The game now saves in the Library parts and in the office
Added multiple loot objects in empty corners throughout the Street level
PERSISTING BUGS (not yet fixed!):
Brightness/Contrast settings sometimes dont want to properly save
On low shadow settings a very blue fog appears everywhere
Graphical light glitches (flickering) in DX12 mode
Performance in the streets level is still not where we want it to be
Some sound design and music additions to the canal
Some visual upgrades to the underground part in the Canal
Adding Japanese translation
Adding Chinese Translation
Hardcore will allow autosaves
Auto saves on each new level start (even in hardcore)
We still want to drop at least one more patch concerning performance and try our best to make it run a little better, especially in the Streets section of the game.
As we saw some more frustrated and very demanding comments in the forums we want to be honest with you: we are not able to make this game run perfectly on all systems, otherwise we would have did this before the release. We are doing our best to improve performance while we have to go back to our day jobs. Bare in mind that we are not swiming in INDUSTRIA revenue money. The little amount that will come through after all cuts wont be enough to pay our rents anyway, so for now our development situation does not change at all. Still, we are just a handful of people doing their best in their freetime. The look and feel of INDUSTRIA has raised expectations that we cant deliver. This is not a smart marketing trick but something that organically happened over the years of us just trying to get the best out of the Unreal Engine. This is not an excuse, but rather the attempt to talk to you dear players at eye level.
With this out of the way, have fun with the latest patch and let us know what you think in the forums, wer are listening and answering <3
Cheers and all the best! David, Steve & The Bleakmill Team
