Left-Hand Path
Left-Hand Path Legacy Announcement
I’m leaving LHP on Steam because I believe that’s what Hugh would want, and because I want people to have the chance to experience this magical story and dark world he created.
I am not a coder, though. Even if I was, I think Left-Hand Path has some very complicated code; I remember Hugh working on it, and how proud he was at the time of some parts in particular.
So I can’t provide updates or bug fixes: please don’t expect them.
The game is here as it is, as he left it. It’s part of his legacy. There should be more: he fell in love with VR and I believe he would’ve given the world more wonderful virtual experiences if he’d had the chance. He had just begun work on his next project* when he died, and it was already looking great. But that is not to be.
He did leave us Left-Hand Path though. Terrifying, cryptic, fantastic Left-Hand Path.
It is my hope that Left-Hand Path is remembered as a cult classic. Perhaps we will look back on it as a gem that helped figure out what VR was capable of, made in the mists of time before the medium became what sci fi tells us it ought to be.
Most of all, I hope you enjoy it.
- Becca
* A friend of ours is working on producing a (very) short demo of what Hugh had made for the next project. There'll be no gameplay - it is literally just a taster of the style and world-type Hugh was thinking of. I'll let you know when it's available and where.
Oculus Front-Facing Players: Smooth Turning Experimental Build
To try it out, right-click on Left-Hand Path in your Steam Library, go to "Properties", and then go to "Betas". In there, choose "smoothturnalpha".
Once you've got that beta (which also features a few other improvements and fixes, including the Teller Of Tales achievement now working for Nehemoth), you can enable Smooth Turning by going to the menu, then ticking the "Smooth Turning" checkbox.
Let me know what you think, and if it works for you!
Left-Hand Path Leaves Early Access -Now Including Low Terror Mode And Much More
After a year and a half of development in Early Access, I'm proud to announce that Left-Hand Path has left Early Access and is now fully released in 1.0.0. It's also got a whole pile of new features and polish!
If you've come from another site and are not aware of Left-Hand Path: it's a Dark Souls inspired VR horror/RPG where you learn spells and cast them by drawing runes in the air. It's also one of the rare full-length games in VR, totaling around 15 hours of gameplay, with replayability and achievements on top of that. It's had a great reception in Early Access, currently sitting at Very Positive - 85% Positive reviews on Steam.
Many A True Nerd called it "One of the most interesting and promising experiments in making large, complex games I've seen on the Vive." So that was nice!
In order to get Left-Hand Path up to scratch as a full release, I've worked for six months on polishing it, adding Quality Of Life features, and responding to community feedback. Today's update adds all that to the game and brings it out of Early Access.
Thanks to everyone who responded there, and to everyone who has been so supportive of Left-Hand Path on Steam and on Reddit. This has been an amazing experience and I'm super grateful to you all.
Changes from the Early Access version include:
<*>Return To Previous Zones - when you've defeated the greatest challenges in each area, you can now return there to find spells and story you missed. <*>Destructive Power - your spells aren't just dangerous to creatures any more! You can destroy most things in the game with arcane power, and sometimes that'll be useful in your journey. <*>New Ritual Of Husks - Find objects of meaning throughout the world of Left-Hand Path, and leech their treasured - or horrifying - memories dry for power. <*>Many, many, many bug fixes - I wouldn't be surprised if the bug fix list is in the thousands of bugs. It's certainly well into the hundreds. From difficult-to-navigate areas to weird spell interactions, I've been on a fixing frenzy.
I'd like to shout out to my awesome beta-testing team: Chilkoot, /u/Styggpojk, /u/arislaan, /u/countjocular, VR-For-Ever, Dave Lloyd, and especially my tireless QA tester Ian Mulliner who continued hacking through the release version looking for bugs even when he was nearly bedridden with flu. (And thanks too to the person I've inevitably forgotten to mention, and advance apologies if that was you!)
I hope you enjoy it - and as always, if you have any problems, comments or feedback, do let me know. I'm serious about that - contact me on Reddit, Steam or email (hugh.hancock AT strangecompany DOT org) and I'll get back to you!
We Who Watch The Well wish you success - enjoy Left-Hand Path!
Hugh (Developer of Left-Hand Path) will be doing an AMA on Reddit on Friday
I won't just be answering questions about Left-Hand Path, but also questions about VR, Machinima, my 20 years around the realtime 3D and games world, and anything else!
It'll be Friday, starting at 4pm GMT.
Should be fun!
Left-Hand Path Exiting Early Access November 10 With Story Mode And More!
(If you're seeing this from another site and you're not aware of Left-Hand Path: it's a Dark Souls inspired VR horror/rpg where you learn spells and cast them by drawing runes in the air. It's also one of the rare full-length games in VR, totaling around 15 hours of gameplay.)
I've worked for six months after completing the story and content of Left-Hand Path primarily on polish - that's what this release focuses on. But it's also got a bunch of new features in it, including the long-awaited Low Terror mode!
Changes from the Early Access version include:
The release version of Left-Hand Path will be available at 11am on the 10th of November - British time, in case you're wondering.
See you there!
Left-Hand Path 0.7.0 - Samael - Adds 5hr of Content!
They're part of the 0.7.0 release which is now live!
(If you're seeing this from a VR news site and you're not aware of Left-Hand Path: it's a Dark Souls inspired horror/rpg where you learn and cast spells by drawing runes in the air. You can buy it from Steam here.)
What's In This Release?
This is a huge patch with:
- Two new areas, Samael and Xanadu, totalling around 5 hr of play time!
- 6 completely new enemies to confound and murder you.
- 5 new spells and rituals.
- A complex interleaved plot and brutal ultimate antagonist to overcome in Samael.
- New, powerful talents to choose to aid your path through the Well.
- The end of the Left-Hand Path story, complete with fully-voiced and motion-captured NPC interactions.
- Quality-Of-Life improvements including health recovery at new heads and run option on locomotion.
Don't Want To Play Gamichicoth again?
If you don't want to get to the end of Gamichicoth again, there's a hack to get around it:
Go into your Left-Hand Path directory, edit the .json file with your current character name, and change the "headlevel" to "Samael/Samael"
If you're not confident doing that I'm happy to update your save file for you - send me an email at info@strangecompany.org with your json file if you'd like me to do that.
Bugs?
We're still in Early Access, so it's possible you'll encounter some bugs. Please let me know if you do!
On very low-end systems near minimum spec, I'm aware of one performance bug related to unusually long play times. If you find your system starting to lag badly, get yourself killed or restart Left-Hand Path once you hit a Screaming Head. That will completely reset the lag. I'm looking into this bug actively, and please do let me know if it affects you.
And that's it! Please do let me know what you think, and enjoy your trip through Samael and Xanadu.
If you'd like to discuss the game with other players, feel free to jump on the Steam forums, or I've started a discussion of the latest patch over on Reddit's /r/vive subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6k0lt9/lefthand_path_070_released_5hr_more_playtime_2/
Samael and Xanadu Soft Launch!
This is a "Soft Launch", meaning that I won't be publicising it outside this page for a bit, as I'd like to hear from you that everything's OK first!
So, please do download over the next day, try it out, and let me know how the new areas are working for you!
If you don't want to get to the end of Gamichicoth again, there's a hack to get around it:
Go into your Left-Hand Path directory, edit the .json file with your current character name, and change the "headlevel" to "Samael/Samael"
If you're not confident doing that I'm happy to update your save file for you - send me an email at info@strangecompany.org with your json file if you'd like me to do that.
Features of the new release include:
- Two new areas, Samael and Xanadu, totalling around 5 hr of play time!
- 6 completely new enemies to confound and murder you.
- 5 new spells and rituals.
- A complex interleaved plot and brutal ultimate antagonist to overcome in Samael.
- New, powerful talents to choose to aid your path through the Well.
- The end of the Left-Hand Path story, complete with fully-voiced and motion-captured NPC interactions.
- Quality-Of-Life improvements including health recovery at new heads and run option on locomotion.
This is a soft launch, so it's possible you'll encounter some bugs. Please let me know if you do!
On very low-end systems near minimum spec, I'm aware of one performance bug related to unusually long play times. If you find your system starting to lag badly, get yourself killed or restart Left-Hand Path once you hit a Screaming Head. That will completely reset the lag. I'm looking into this bug actively, and please do let me know if it affects you.
If that bug or any other bugs prove to be too severe or frequent, I'll roll back this release until I can fix them. Otherwise, I will be doing a full release tomorrow!
Looking forward to hearing what you think of Samael and Xanadu! Enjoy, and do let me know!
Official Release: Left-Hand Path 0.6.0
Left-Hand Path 0.6.0 Soft Launch
I've just released Left-Hand Path 0.6.0 to Steam! This is a Quality-Of-Life release, so no new areas, but new and improved features.
If you've not heard of Left-Hand Path: it's a difficult, Dark Souls inspired VR horror/RPG. You play a wizard and cast spells by learning and drawing magical symbols with your hands. As you explore a wierd place called the "Well of All Reward", you'll fight dangerous creatures, piece together the story of what happened to you and others stuck in this place, and try hard not to die.
Major features to look out for in the new patch include:
Smaller quality of life improvements include:
And there were a bunch of bugfixes too:
So grab the update (or Steam should grab it for you!), let me know how well it works for you (particularly the gesture recognition), and enjoy! If you have any problems at all please do post in the discussion forums and I'll see them immediately.
P.S. I'm aware of a couple of minor bugs in 0.6.0, including the Ignifer bug on Touch, and will be working on them this week. Stay tuned!
0.6.0 Soft Launch - Let Me Know What You Think!
This is a "Soft Launch" - meaning that I'm releasing it and giving it a few days before I do the big song-and-dance, announce on Reddit, call press, etc. The reason for that is there are several semi-experimental features in this release, and whilst I and Playtester Ian have tested them as hard as we can, I'd still like to get broader feedback from the Left-Hand Path community before I really publicise them.
So: if you'd like to help me and Left-Hand Path out, please do have a play, have a test, and let me know if you hit any problems, big, small, or moderate sized.
If the Path is reasonably smooth over the weekend, I'll let the General Public and the Oculus community know that the patch is out on Monday!
With all that out the way - major features to look out for in the new patch include:
So grab the update (or Steam should grab it for you!), let me know how well it works for you (particularly the gesture recognition), and enjoy!
Patch 0.6.0 coming next week!
Major new things in this patch:
- "Memory Palace" rituals to allow you to recollect everything you've read or heard in the Well, so that you can piece together the story more easily.
- Neural Net-based gesture recognition. Should be much more accurate now!
- Official Oculus Touch support. Customised controls for the Touch.
- Onward-style touchpad movement - move forward, backward or sideways with the touchpad.
Plus lots of bugfixes and maybe one or two other features if I manage to get them in!