# Corridor system
- As part of the massive rewrite of the mansion generation script, corridors and staircases can now appear as room transitions between the puzzle rooms.
- This serves as a good "airlock" between rooms, making sure that the engine doesn't overlap elements, and giving room designers (especially once the Workshop is open) the possibility to be more creative with their designs.
- We realize that this will make the mansion architecture even more "chaotic" but this is actually not a super bad thing to be honest.
- More corridor variations will come. Corridors will never contain riddles or puzzles, and are just ment as a segway between levels.
# Riddles
- Shaped up a couple of riddles.
# Clocks
- Removed the hands of some clocks during "free mode".
- Forced clocks to have no animation nor ticking sound during Free mode, enhancing the notion that time stands still.
- Added hint about missing hands on clocks in the hint randomizer.
# Game room
- Cleaned out some graphical errors.
# Controls
- Fixed bug where shift keys could not be set as a control key.
- Storing keys in a seperate save file. This should leave keymapping out of the corrupt save file bug.
# Multiplayer
- Implemented network cap on furniture and props being moved around.
# Dining room
- New rum bottle + rum location variations.
- Better etheral shader when placing items.
# Respawning
- Added system to improve the safeguard if the character is suddently not inside a room, to better detect and relocate the player.
# Guest wing
- Polished some letter shapes.
- New red indicator material.
- Puzzle adjustments.
- Changed light sources.
# Doorways
- Ensured that both doors creek open at the same time.
- Fixed door depth.
Pushing the episode schedule a bit
Greetings all good players out there.
Im sitting here with the pouring rain and streetlamps as a backdrop, throwing everything I have at fixing bugs in the game client. This weekend was supposed to be all about playtesting, but the schedule got hijacked by bug upon bug, that we admittedly should have caught sooner.
And tomorrow we were supposed to unveil episode 2, which is almost done, but woefully untested and balanced for difficulty.
I know people have been waiting eagerly for episode 2, but since the game client really needs some work, I have decided to push the episode launch plan four days ahead, giving us more time to playtest and getting stability to both the geometry glitches, the corruption on savefiles, the controlscheme and the multiplayer weirdness of the client.
It stings, but adding some time on the clock also have these benefits :
- The obvious extra polishing of the client, and thereby a better experience overall.
- Better experience for people joining the projekt now, since we can serve up a better small thing, than two unstable medium sized things.
- With the new release schedule, steam has promised to give each episode a small promotional umph, bringing players in once each episode is done.
- We will be able to spend the money we earned on presales on more voice recording and awesome artwork from our two resident artists.
- You will have the fine weekend to sink your teeth into the second episode.
- Any "spare time" will be spend improving on both Episode 1 and 2.
Now I know stalling in a game development project always makes thing sound shaky, and if anyone wants to just bail and claim a refund, I have no bad vibes coming their way.
But I do hope people will stick around, curious on learning more about the life of the professor, about the treasure that the mansion will hold, and wether they will crush the coming challenges with ease, or spend hours pondering over gears, rope, light beams, playing cards, typewriters, scrolls and fine wine (just to mention a few of the upcoming puzzle components)
So, the updated release schedule will look like this:
Episode schedule:
Episode 2 - The Path to Ruin
Release date : 8th of September
Episode 3 - The Man the World Forgot
Release date : 22nd of September
Episode 4 - Thy Kingdom Come
Release date : 6th of October
Also, we have decided to keep the rhytm going with a small little addition:
Bonus Episode/Patch - The Architecture of Madness
Release date : 20th of October
Containing extra riddles, puzzles and maybe a couple of extra rooms to the existing episodes.
In conclusion
Delaying is never fun, but I hope that on the whole, this will be for the best. It doesn't mean that we are just dazing in the sun, we are working hard and all workdays this coming week will contain at least one major patch a day.
So I will return to the coding cauldron, and I hope to present some good patches in the near future.
See you all soon.
Hard days in Hell patch
Been some rough days, and unfortunately the live build have not been very stable. We have set up some precautions going forward, to reduce the chance of this happending again.
I really appreciate people sticking by, even when bugs like these can be fustrating to the game experience.
I'm returning to my office tomorrow, so we can dig down and focus on episode 2, but that doesn't meen that this weekend has been passed idling.
# Item placement slots
- Fixed bug that could cause item placement areas to glitch during multiplayer, effectively replacing items with other items.
# Guest wing
- Fixed some faulty mosaic headlines.
- Rewrote the way the mosaics are generated, for more interesting combinations.
- Fixed blocky floor textures.
# Chess room
- Validation button now registers correctly over multiplayer.
# Game room
- Fixed some issues surrounding the dial pads, that made them seem inresponsive.
- Fixed some colliders that made you able to walk through furniture.
- Made sure that people with colorblindness or those that don't see color very well still can solve the puzzles.
- Removed purple and Orange ball, to reduce confusion.
# Doors
- Fixed gaping whole that could occur underneath doors.
# Game over / Restart
- Fixed disappearing cursor bug.
# Dining hall
- Fixed walkthrough wine rack.
- Added more variations to the puzzle algorithm.
# Spawn points
- Fixed spawn point glitchery.
- Resolved some issues about respawning during load.
# Multiplayer
- Fixed some inventory bugs.
- Lightened up the shadow shader.
- Grabbing items is now proclaimed to the rest of the group.
- Chat now announces when rooms are solved.
# Library
- Fixed some issues regarding light switches.
- Ingraved reset handle to hint more to what it could do.
- Added a bunch of new book names.
# Misc
- A whole lot of code cleanup and much cleaner processing during mansion generation.
Echos of the Creaking Floorboards patch
# Game room
- Added the Game room to Episode 1 : The Game Room.
- New item type: Safe.
- Bunch of new artwork added.
- New clock types.
- Fixed some "etheral" and disappearing props.
# Movement
- Made it so the player will have a harder time climbing furniture he was not intended to climb.
- Made the controller much more responsive.
- Reduced delay when changing walking direction.
- Ensured that an open notebook would not conflict with the game over screen.
- Adjusted running speed while carrying heavy items.
# Office
- Fixed bug that could make tarot cards unresponsive.
# Guest room
- Cleaned up some letter shapes.
# Hint system
- Improved certain room hints.
- Hints are now unlocked across multiplayer.
# Study parlor
- Piano now plays across multiplayer.
- Some items are now movable.
- Adjusted sound of electric buttons.
# Riddle system
- Strengthened riddle randomizer.
- Doublecheck on matching riddles in multiplayer code.
- Added a few more riddles.
# Achievements
- Fixed neat freak achievement.
# Office
- Fixed some multiplayer glitches.
# Dining room
- Cleaned up the item placement code, making it slightly less laggy.
- Fixed some code up that could cause conflicts during multiplayer sessions.
# Misc
- Fixed some rogue colliders that could appear without any visuals.
- Cleaned out some graphical junk for cleaner room transitions.
- Fixed bug that could cause the cursor to be stuck on a fist.
- Fixed some typos and sentence structuring.
- Adjusted some high-pitch sound effects.
- Fixed bug that would cause certain clocks not to ding.
- Fixed blur backdrop on investigations.
- Blur is now disabled on lowest quality setting (to enable more GPU power)
- Some debug-only actions (like force-resetting the mansion) are now locked safely away.
- Fixed bug that would make multiplayer characters stand in their default T shape, with no animations.
The Day That Followed patch
# Randomization
- Tweaked the occurance chance of each room.
# Lighting
- Tweaked shadows in multiplayer a bit, for smoother performance.
- Improved lighting caching on higher quality settings.
- Tuned up the lantern light radius and strength a bit.
# Hint system
- Tweaked the triggers of the hint system.
- Hints can now be discarded by just clicking the mouse.
- Some hints will now no longer trigger, until you aquired the item they are talking about.
# Dining hall
- Smoothed out the stairs to the kitchen and the wine room, hopefully preventing some glitches and make walking sound less jittery.
# Cellar stairway
- Tooltip now tells that the exit door is there.
- Some glitches surrounding the exit door cleared up.
# Chess room
- Tweaked the mechanics regarding pushing chesspieces around.
- Fixed creepy bug where another chesspiece would fly through the room to greet you.
# Multiplayer
- Fixed some weird issues that could occur when playing multiplayer games alone. The engine now treats all solo multiplayer games as singleplayer, until someone else joins the game.
# Client
- Linux and SteamOS build brought up to date.
- Cleaned out some gunk code, slightly decreasing the cpu use during loading.
- Strengthened some safety parameters surrounding saave files.
# Episode 2
- We are hard at work on episode 2, and have just added a new room and some new tracks to the second episode, making sure that each episode has its own look and feel.
Day 1 Patch
Phew, it's been quite the launch, but there were still some kinks. We are still on track on getting Episode 2 out the 5th. and will push out patches daily.
// FEATURES //
# Multiplayer
- It is now possible to decide if you want to have timed mode or not.
// BUG FIXES //
# Cellar entrance
- Fixed bug where the victory screen would not correctly trigger, causing the player to be stuck in the tiny room without purpose.
# Guest wing
- Fixed broken rose bug.
# Entrance hall
- Fixed nightmare scenario where players could get trapped in the walls by accident.
# Dining hall
- Fixed bug where a hidden scroll would also be invisible.
- Some hints added.
# Controls
- Tweaked sensitivity of controls a bit.
- Mouse invert is now possible.
# Multiplayer
- Leave room button is now easier to hit.
- Adjusted chat window in multiplayer lobbies to be less blocking.
# Client
- Cleaned out some unused assets to make the client lighter.
- Fixed bug that had a chance to wipe some save files.
WE ARE LIVE :D
I am super excited to announce that Last Will is now available on Steam :)
We still have a long way to go, with 3 episodes and a lot of patches coming up. But we are relieved to see that the game can now be downloaded.
Some finishing touches
We are bracing ourselves to go live on the Steam Store in about half an hour. And as one could expect, we have fixes and additions put in today as well.
I can not describe how excited I am to finally show you all this project. And we will head on to finish up the Episode 2 to have it ready for the 5th.
Some additional rooms for Episode 1 is also in the backlog, so look forward to future patches.
# Main menu
- Added load game directly from the level select.
- Time limit not shown when in casual mode.
- No load/save warning on escape room mode.
# Kitchens
- Fixed some cabinet interactions.
# Library
- Added an additional clue system to help hone in on the magic word.
# Load / save
- Reassured some steam cloud save issues.
- New save icons. Old polaroids instead of snow globes.
# Victory / Defeat
- Better display of player progression.
# Settings
- Resolutions and windowed mode selectors.
- Improved settings view visuals.
- Added anti-alias slider.
- Improved UI on lowest quality mode.
- Fixed text anti-aliasing bug.
- Added a clean reset button.
Getting ready to roll Patch
The last 24 hours have set in, and we are slowly getting ready to release this baby to the world.
Servers tightened, steam giving thumbs up, just ironing out some bugs and installing last minute features.
# Settings
- The notebook hotkey can now be configured.
# Chess room
- Fixed some dragging issues.
- Fixed up some materials.
# Riddle bank
- Added 6 riddles to the bank.
- Rewrote the clues of some existing riddles.
- Cleared out a bunch of typos.
- Improved system to ensure fresh riddles after playthroughs.
# Library
- Added some better book titles to the mix.
- Added some rare easter egg book titles.
- Upgraded globe mesh and texture.
# Dining hall
- Upgraded the prop system, and added some freedom to item location.
- Added some new props and variations.
- Fixed floating item bug (this time rewrote the code, so the bug should be all gone now)
# Entrance hall
- Added a bit more freedom to the location of clue papers.
- Fixed cornercase bug that could lead to jittery spinners.
- More varieties in statue selection.
- The music box (from version 0.68b) is back.
- Fixed a randomization chance that could lead to crashes or hard graphics tearing.
- Lamp next to the exit is not lit up once all riddles are solved.
- Added some riddles into the mix.
# Multiplayer
- When players join a game late (or reconnects after being thrown off) they are now correctly pushed forward to the current room, instead of starting over.
- Tightened up some multiplayer physics mechanics.
- Added "Lowest ping" as a server option.
- Victory is now unified throughout all playsessions.
- Fixed bug where two people picking up the same item would lead to dupe.
# Misc
- Cleaned up some graphical errors that could occur during the transitions between rooms.
- Fixed some issues considering doors moving and "crushing" players.
# Achievements
- Two new achievements "Full House" and "Did someone say Scooby snacks?" for multiplayer effort.
- Altered the savefile format. This might mess with old saves, but will enabled sharing of save files across client platforms.
# Multiplayer
- Complete overhaul of the server security setup. SSL up, ports reduced to a minimum, much stronger machines actually doing the business.
- It is now possible (in settings) to change which multiplayer server you wish to connect to. This enables you to play with friends from all regions.
- Japan and Australia have been given their own dedicated servers.
- Chat is now available from the game lobby.
- Chat is now easier to disable.
- Better error catching.
# Guest wing
- New room (well, actually old buggy room that has been fixed)
- Combinatorics and hidden object puzzles.
# Settings
- Intro animation is now toggle-able.
# Client
- OS X client brought up to speed.
- Initial loading is now black instead of white, for smoother transition.
- Reskinned doors.
- Shortcut for hiding interface is now alt+Z instead of just Z.
# Unity
- Finally got my licence crossed over to the project. Which means no more hideous while splash screen.
# Props
- New prop loading system for bigger prop diversity.
- Teapot is no longer identified as "silver" since it isn't.
- Expanded collection of game props.
- Currently only the guest wing utilizes the new prop system. Dining hall will be upgraded soon as well.
# Achievements
- Fixed the "Down in the basement..." achievement.
- New achievement : "A sunday stroll" - Complete the first episode with over 30 minutes to spare.
# Misc bugs
- If the accident should happend and a player glitches through the floor, the player is now teleported to the last safe location.
