Kentor and also Bloby in: Part 1 - The Krookening
Kentor Version 1.5 Update!
The updates and improvements in Version 1.5 are too numerous to list like we have before. Sorry about that!
Our focus was finally fixing up the unreliable animators and sound effect players while improving performance and playability.
Here are some bullet points:
- There should be no remaining instances of animations not starting and music not playing. This problem plagued Toughtor's conversation and the music during the ending movie which is kinda important to be able to hear.
- Every line of dialogue in the game now has perfectly readable subtitles. Movies, conversations, narrator and character dialogue. All of it.
- Most objects in each level, particularly poly-heavy objects, utilize proximity management with Kentor to disappear when they're offscreen. We were doing this plenty in previous versions but not strictly enough for our liking.
- Cutscenes and animations have been revised. There are fewer noticeable instances of characters not moving or just standing in place, particularly where the ending is concerned. Sounds have been added and presentation has been cleaned up a bit.
- The awful screen tearing in previous versions should be a thing of the past, depending on your monitor of course.
- The visuals should be smoother and less jagged than last time thanks to some shiny new 2x Anti-Aliasing. 2x isn't much but we didn't want to overdo it until we can feature a toggle switch for it after Unity removed the Resolution and Quality dialogue in 2019.
We still plan for a few more updates to the game over time, so if you find anything odd please bring it to our attention. It'll get fixed up fast!
Kentor and Bloby come to Mac!
Hello everyone! Kentor and also Bloby is now available for Apple's Mac computers!
This is our first Mac release so we had to make some tough decisions. Our only Mac computer to test with is a 2014 Macbook that had to be updated to a version of MacOS that was a bit too high for it. We got the game running very well on this dated hardware but it came with some compromises. It's locked to 1080p and shadows have been disabled. We know more modern Macs can handle much more than this but without higher end hardware to test the game on this is the best we can manage while making sure that as many people as possible have a smooth experience playing the game.
Once we've figured out how to implement our own graphical settings menus, since Unity decided to remove the perfectly functional built in one that they had for years, we will update the Mac version with the ability to choose from higher graphical settings.
Hotfix Patch Ahoy!
We noticed a few issues introduced with yesterday's 1.1 update and got to fixing them right away! If you haven't checked out what changed in 1.1 please give it a look! Here are today's patch notes:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Version 1.2 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=- TOUGH TOWN
Lowered the volume of one of the ambient sounds from 0.5 to 0.35.
-=-=- THE SPOOKY WOODS
(SECRET) Added a component to Spooky Woods scene that stops Tough Town's music and ambiance when the fast-forward code is used to skip that stage.
-=-=- BATTLE 2 - THE KROOKERY CRACKDOWN
Fixed Krooktor's ominous employer, who now is properly shrouded in darkness up in the sky above the castle.
-=-=- ENDING
Fixed Krooktor's arm rotation when he high-fives Mischeevious Blob.
Version 1.1 is Here! Bug Fixes and Game Improvements!
There's still some work to be done on the game's content so we hope you look forward to it!
Here are the full patch notes:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Version 1.1 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=- GAME WIDE
- Lights and shadows have been improved game-wide, sketchy dragged shadows should no longer appear.
- Quit Message added to the pause screen and start menu.
-=-=- BRUSHY STREET
- Kentor's sidewalk is now visible prior to leaving Kentor's house.
- Kentor will now properly cast a shadow on the sidewalk throughout the stage.
- Fixed subtitle and audio mismatch in Viridian's introduction speech bubble.
- Museum's interior backdrop "matte painting" is no longer visible from the outside.
- Brushy Street's sidewalk is no longer missing wooden border past the 2/3 point of the stage.
- Kentor's house has been optimized and improved, eliminated Z-fighting on the door, polycount reduced from 2156 tris to 2063.
- Barely visible trees behind the energy barrier building have been replaced with sprites, lowering the total polycount of the stage by 22,698 tris from V1.0.
- Tree trunk mesh has had a polycount reduction from an unreasonable 1656 tris each to only 348, reducing total polycount by another 21,528 from V1.0.
- 15 hills behind and around the generator building have been reduced in detail, lowering the polycount by another 14,400 tris.
- Slightly stretched the first set of red bricks further to the left on the museum's front wall to keep from being able to see the interior through the seam.
- The sky gradient present in most other stages is now also present here.
- Clouds no longer begin to fade 2/3 of the way through the stage.
- Added a Weather Barrier Generator to the side of Blarvin's Museum. Those exhibits aren't waterproof.
-=-=- MUSEUM + Revealing the Invention + Chase Krooktor
- The ten shapes making up the painting stands have been replaced with one mesh, lowering the polycount from 1380 to 760 tris each while being far nicer visually.
- Adjusted the placement of the cynical Tor's (second from the right, black colors) left arm to no longer clip into his body when he lands in the balcony.
- Aligned a cutscene Camera's placement with it's first frame of animation, eliminating a jarring single frame jump cut-like effect.
- Changed balcony railing to metallic red to match the other elements of the show floor interior.
- CHASE KROOKTOR's background music should now loop properly in the post-cutscene variant of the scene.
-=-=- SHORT 1 Rising into the Hold + Barrel Jump + Short 2 Anchor Shot
- Fixed the hole that could be seen when Kentor stands up to the crew near the end of the first scene.
- Lowered the cage to make it easier to barrel-jump over it without the extra height of a running jump.
-=-=- THE KROOK-PLANE + Captor Conversation + Krooktor's Frustration
- The propellers have been replaced with a new mesh lowering the polycount from 4088 tris to 1496 tris, reducing the stage's total by 25,920.
- Unreachable elements in both the pre and post conversation with Captor variants of the scene have been disabled, improving performance.
- Added triggers to further remove necessary early stage elements after dropping into the ship's hold.
- Fixed the missing materials on Captor's hand cuff chains.
- The blocky subtitles have been replaced with clearer and bigger handwritten subtitles.
- Altered Kentor's "Confused" animation to obscure less of his face while he talks.
- Fixed the top of Captor's head clipping through his captain hat.
- Gave Blobino a captain hat.
- Removed Blobino's mischievous eyebrows.
-=-=- TOUGH TOWN + Toughtor Convo
- Swapped all 23 Tree Trunks out for the new mesh, lowering the polycount by 30,084 tris.
- Removed trees altogether from Captor's Conversation lowering the polycount by 40,078.
- Removed 19 obscured hills in Captor's Conversation lowering the polycount by 24,320 tris. Yup. I looked at these numbers and said "All good, ship it".
- The blocky subtitles have been replaced with clearer and bigger handwritten subtitles.
- Redesigned the backdrop in Tough Town to remove 21 hills from there as well, lowering polycount by 26,880 tris.
- Closed gap in farthest to the right door frame.
- (SECRET) Added a component to Tough Town scene that stops The Krook-Plane music and ambiance when the fast-forward code is used to skip that stage.
-=-=- THE SPOOKY WOODS
- The Pause Splash now renders on top of the leaf and crystal borders rather than behind them.
- All 22 trees have been updated with the new mesh, lowering the polycount by 38,778. These trees, man.
- Removed redundant components from the spooky cave, lowering the polycount by 34,560 tris.
- Removed an extra bridge component hiding past the level ender, lowering the polycount by 3,061 tris.
- Removed an unused gate into the Krook Castle, lowering the polycount by 12,052 tris.
- The (Former) Krookery Crew now appear properly by the elevator into the Krookery Castle.
- Fixed misspelling of the word "ceiling" in the underground cave.
-=-=- THE KROOK CASTLE
- Removed two disconnected candles and accompanying light sources from the far background.
-=-=- START MENU
- Made visual alterations to Windzen picture frame.
- Altered the rodotic endoskeleton mesh, lowering the polycount from 6,834 tris to 4,454 tris.
- Kentor can no longer move left through the wall the moment the game begins. Sheesh, we're bad at this.
- Quit Message placed in the bottom right hand corner once the player is in control.
Thank you for playing Kentor and also Bloby!
First and foremost I want to thank you with all of my heart for buying and playing Kentor and also Bloby Part 1. The game is a labor of love and we hope you and your family love the Tors and their goofy world as much as we do.
I first drew Kentor and Bloby on paper in 1998 when I was six years old. I spent the better part of a decade making comics about them in collaboration with my little brother Jeremy (Now the composer at Windzen) on silly stories for the two of them to play out and characters for the two of them to meet. In adulthood I worked a few years in retail around video games and grew increasingly frustrated having to tell parents that their Xbox and PlayStation consoles didn't have much in the way of family friendly content. I realized that there should be more family friendly games in the world so I dusted off our old Kentor and Bloby comics and we got to work.
Now the first chapter is done but what comes next? Kentor and also Bloby Part 2 is already underway! With the engine and assets complete it will take us only 4-6 months to create and release new chapters here on Steam. They will always be cheap and playable by even your youngest! We hope you and your family stick around to see the story to its conclusion and beyond!
- Nathan
Kentor and also Bloby Part 1 will be patched regularly to fix up any bugs we were unable to find during development. If anything unexpected happens during game play you can leave us a post here on the game's Steam Community page, you can email us at NEH@Windzen.net, or you can send us a message at www.gab.com/Windzen and we'll get back to you as soon as we can!
A list of free features in development that will be added in upcoming updates:
- Storybook Mode! Just pick your page, hit play and off you go. The story will play itself out with no player input required.
- Page Picker! Right now there's a sneaky way to move through the game quicker. Just type "next" on your keyboard during any stage and the next time you move and jump Kentor around he'll be teleported to the next scene of the game. In truth this was a cheat code we used for debugging the game's audio managers but it's should be fully functional... for a little bit, at least! We're adding a real menu-based page selector so you can jump to whichever page you like and continue the game from that point.
- New User Interface. At the moment there are no official means to select your screen resolution or quit the game. This is due to a Unity update removing a lot of previously standard features that developers now have to create themselves. We're working on it but for now resolution can be changed by hitting Alt+Enter to move to Windowed mode and adjusting the screen size from there. Quitting the game is done by pressing ALT+F4 at any time while the game is running. We aren't thrilled with Unity removing these easy to use buttons but we have replacements in the works.
A list of known issues that you may encounter, with fixes already on the way:
(Any additional bugs brought to our attention will be added to this list)
- Sometimes in The Museum there will be a missing Tor in the queue line at the start of the stage (Don't worry, his Blob will be holding his place in line for him).
- Sometimes Kentor and Tough Tor will stop moving their mouths in line with the dialogue towards the end of their conversation.
- Sometimes the outline around a character can be seen at inopportune times.