Mind: Path to Thalamus E.Edition
MIND: Path to Thalamus adds French, Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese and Turkish localization in its last update
“MIND: Path to Thalamus” is a First Person Puzzler that throws you into a fantastic and surreal environment. Bend the natural elements to your will in order to progress in this emotive, remarkable tale.
In addition to releasing regular updates, “MIND: Path to Thalamus” is being completely redone in the last installment of Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 4, for which Carlos Coronado was invited to Epic Games on April 2015. The game is to be released in current generation consoles and include Virtual Reality support.
MIND: Path to Thalamus has six nominations on Premios de la Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Interactivas which celebrates next June 25th in Gamelab BCN 2015 XI Games & Interactive Entertainment Conference. Also, MIND: Path to Thalamus has been highly acclaimed by international media, including The Telegraph and Eurogamer and has won the “Best Art and Design” award on Granada Gaming Festival 2014.
With over 70.000 players, MIND: Path to Thalamus is available on Steam Summer Sale saving 55%, from 12,99€ to 5,84€.
Congratulations german friends!! Now you can look for Sophia in german!!
Mind Path to Thalamus adds German localization in its last update
“MIND: Path to Thalamus” is a First Person Puzzler that throws you into a fantastic and surreal environment. Bend the natural elements to your will in order to progress in this emotive, remarkable tale.
In addition to releasing regular updates, “MIND: Path to Thalamus” is being completely redone in the last installment of Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 4, for which Carlos Coronado was invited to Epic Games on April 2015. The game is to be released in current generation consoles and include Virtual Reality support.
“MIND: Path to Thalamus” has been highly acclaimed by international media, including The Telegraph and Eurogamer and has won the “Best Art and Design” award on Granada Gaming Festival 2014.
Oculus VR Olive in MIND: Path to Thalamus!!!
I am Carlos Coronado, currently redoing MIND: Path to Thalamus in the UE4 and VR. In this thread I would like to show you something I've been working in the last months: my approach to first person controllers for VR. To sum up, I've been watching how we humans behave when we walk and turn and I've tried to imitate this process in the VR. No, this is not about realism. This is about a more natural way to control shooters in VR.
For me, moving the direction of the player's body with the left mouse or joystick has always been a problem, because when we do so, the feeling we get is the entire world is rotating, but our physical head has not moved at all and that may cause dizziness to a lot of people. In the other hand, as VR developers I think we want the player to move the head (but not too much so they don't feel tired) to get a better inmersion and this new system I've made is also a good way to achieve that. Let's get to the point.
If you want to rotate your body, first you look at the direction where you want to rotate, then you press the "rotate body" button (could be anything: left trigger, E, Q, a number, middle mouse button...) and then your body rotates where you are looking at. This button also have a second mode: if you constantly press the button, your body wil always rotate where you are looking at. Amazing for running! So... yes... you are moving the player with just one hand and rotating him with just one button! Then, what awesome stuff can be do with the other hand (the mouse hand or the right joystick hand)? Well, let's use it for shooting! Use the mouse to move a crosshair in the screen... just like in on-rails shooter arcade games such as Time Crisis or The House of the Dead. What about aiming? Well, I've done some tests and aiming doesn't feel good at all. I mean, it is indeed too realistic to work in a game. Fortunately, there're good news still. I have tested this with a lot of people and about 75% of them prefer this new way of controlling shooters. Of course, there is a 25% that still prefer the old school way. Don't worry. With this system the right button is free to use and while you hold it down, you will move your player as you have always been doing... but with 100% free screenspace to aim!
There is still a lot to do, but I think this is completed enough to show this to the world. A big company working in VR asked me to show this to them and so I did a month ago. No answer from them still so if they are not interested I hope you are! To sum up:
- WASD or joystick to move the body
- Look somewhere, then press the "rotate body" button to reorient your body in that direction
- Constantly press the "rotate body" button to always rotate your body where you are looking at
- shooting and aiming as in time crisis games
- gets rids of the tank mode problems in the old school method
- no limits, tricks ore workarounds like moving the mouse in the center of the screen is used for aiming and moving a lot the mouse is used for rotating
Well... here are three videos showing how the system works. Sorry for my English. This was all improvised and I didn't had time to make a script for it.
Movement
Shooting
Menus and Objects
Merry Oculus Rift Christmas
And a happy new wip Linux version!
Of course, everything is work in progress and no release date yet :)
The enhanced Mind update FINALLY
In the gameplay area, the most importer change is this one: the balls won’t be annoying anymore while you carry them. They become smaller and appear in the bottom of the screen.
The narrator
Now, the script. The narrator's voice is much less intrusive throughout the adventure and we have streamlined everything he says so that every last word is relevant; the fluff is gone, as is the overly complicated language that came off as pretentious. That said, the ending remains the same; the message or the point of the story has not been compromised. In fact, the streamlined script makes the meaning of the story much clearer.
Structurally, the narrator now only speaks at the beginning of most levels, before your mind is occupied with puzzles, or when you as the player approach certain parts of the environment, which have been reworked to visually tell a story which the script compliments.
Indeed, you read that right: new narrative layers have been crafted into the environments, something that was sorely lacking at release. Also, certain parts of some levels have been completely redesigned. Those with no great changes still have new details for those players who are particularly interested in the story. Meanwhile, if you only wish to solve puzzles or look at the environment, you are now free to do so. Also, as it has become obvious that many of you play for the sake of sight-seeing and taking pictures, all levels will now be unlocked since the beginning. You know that damn puzzle you can't crack? Well, if what you want is to take a good look at, for example, the Zen garden at the end of the game, now you can simply go there!
Big Picture & Utra HD
You wanted more control and you will certainly have it. The game is now controller-supported so you will be able to enjoy MIND in the living room, with Steam’s Big Picture. Of course, there is now an option to configure the vertical axis, and there is support for 4K resolutions . Now you will be able to see every grain of salt at the shallow sea. Literally.
Settings improvements
There are more enhancements coming along with this update. You will be able to set the level of grain and vignetting, including disabling them completely , which is perfect for taking photographs at crazy resolutions.
Achievements, bugs and exploits
Achievements have been fixed —now each and every one of them works. Also, most of the bugs have been put to rest. Why “most”? Two of them have been deliberately left alone, as they are used by speedrunners to quickly (and quite creatively) advance through the game. If you want to know who was the first MIND speedrunner , you can follow their steps and you will find their name!
Future
Generally, this is it. But there is still some more MIND to come. In the near future, there will be translations to new languages and a Mac version. Then, Oculus support. And much later, you may yet find new surprises if you stick around. Did someone say “MIND photography contest”?
CHANGELOG
Narrative
- Reworked and rerecorded the entire script
- Environmental narrative now present in almost each level
- Music added to certain key areas
- Mysterious something appearing somewhere now (shhh do not spoil anything!)
Environment improvements
- Added new models and textures.
- Reworked the entire level flow after leaving the old house.
Configuration Improvements
- Added support for xbox controller and any other kind of pc gamepad.
- Added the Big Picture feature.
- Added parameters to control Vignette, Grain and Y axis.
- Added support for ULTRA HD resolutions (4k).
- Unlocked all chapters from the beginning
Bugs erased:
- Zen Moment achievement
- Collision problems at the beginning of chapter 4
- Reespawn event glitching the game at flying rocks
- Audio non stopping at the final boss
- Sounds improved at the beach level
- Collision problems at the cave
- Cave achievement now working properly
- Grass now doesn’t spawn near the player
- 17 minor collision bugs
- Ball now doesn’t glitch anymore at the hospital level
Our warmest regards from the TEAM!
Reworked script, new content and bug fixes
We have received some great feedback for the game on its first week of release. Some of the technical aspects will be fixed on the coming weeks, but something we have heard loud and clear is that the voice acting and the script are too intrusive, repetitive, and pretentious. Basically: we hear ya.
The scriptwriter for MIND, Luka Nieto, has a few words for the community:
"When I wrote the script, I did it around a game that was already essentially done. Of course, the story had already been thought up during development, and the design of the game reflects it, but how much of the story would be explicit was still on the air. When I got the job, we decided to design the storytelling with a simple premise: you would get a snippet of the story each time you solve a puzzle. We were so much inside the box of development that we couldn't see it, but we got too carried away with that premise and resorted to way too much padding, repetition and off-the-point philosophical disgressions. All I can say is our intentions were good; we knew it was filler, in a way, but it was meant to accompany you while walking. Also, the pretentious text does tried to pay off in the end —I won't spoil the ending, but the early levels in particular were certainly supposed to sound annoyingly pretentious. Obviously, we went way too far. Essentially, the feedback is clear: neither the filler nor the disgressions worked as intended.
We aren't changing our vision of the game, but we are adjusting the script so that our vision of the story is clearer and also so that it's less intrusive to the gaming experience. Right now, you'll get an update that cut outs pretty much all the filler, the repetition and the unnecessary disgressions. But soon, in September, you'll get another update with a re-structured script and lots of redone voice work, which will have a more appropriate tone and register. Both I and Greg Nugent, the voice actor, are really, really eager to work on all of this. Although we already have plenty of ideas on how to improve the script, we would love to get direct feedback from our players, so we have created a Reddit thread in which you can voice your own specific concerns. As long as you are constructive, we accept any kind of criticism, however harsh. We really do want to improve the game.
We hope today's update and the more thorough update next month will greatly improve your experience of MIND: Path to Thalamus. As I am not the man who designed it, I can say that it is a beautifully designed game, both visually and in terms of the puzzles. The story was meant to support it, not detract from it, and we hope that that will be the case soon."
Also, with this update we will bring in new content from Dani Navarro. Check out those amazing new new skies!
Changelog:
- Fixed a bug that didn't let the player get an achievement the first time they discover the rain
- Added two new portals in the first part of the cave, so you will walk less in that puzzle
- Added new textures made by Dani Navarro
- Fixed some issues with the subtitles
- Fixed 6 bugs related to optimization issues
Regards,
MIND: Path to Thalamus Team
Reddit Thread
Website
MIND: Path to Thalamus Releases Today with a Launch Trailer
MIND: Path to Thalamus is priced at 13€ on Steam, available today on PC and eventually on Mac. It will soon be on DRM-free platforms such as GOG and Humble Bundle, thanks to SurpriseAttack. Later on it will be released with Oculus support and, if it all goes well, on consoles. MIND features more than 30 puzzles and 6 interactive environmental tools to solve them, such as turning day into night, covering the world in fog, summoning storms and traveling to the past. In the end, you will face down enemies by using everything you have learnt along the way. Interwoven into the gameplay itself, the story tells you about a father broken down by his mistakes, as written by Luka Nieto and performed by Greg Nugent. Additional coding was executed by Jose Ladislao.
MIND will release with additional features and bugfixes since the review copies were sent out. Predominantly, MIND will feature VSync to avoid reported ocurrances of screen tearing.
The release update!
To start with, MIND will have VSync, which it lacked before, resulting in some pretty horrible screen tearing. We have also fixed the subtitles, which were full of little typos both in English and Spanish (some may have still slipped through.) Finally, Steamcloud support has now been thoroughly tested and it works for everyone!
Now, Steamcloud. If you have acquired a review copy this last week, save games may be lost on release, as well as your personalized graphical options. However, I will post a simple fix for the savegame issue on the MIND Steam forums.
Here's the release notes:
Features:
-VSync support added.
-Steamcloud support added.
Bugs:
-Fixed typos in English subtitles.
-Fixed typos in Spanish subtitles.
-Fixed rain not triggering again at Lake level.
-Fixed design error that created a portal loop at Floating Rocks level.
-Fixed ending sequence not triggering if player is under 20 FPS.
-Improved teleport code. Spheres don't misbehave anymore if they are picked up soon after exiting a portal.
-Fixed infinite monologue loop at Cave, when throwing Sphere to the void.
-Light Sphere no longer intersects with the ruins' geometry at Hospital level.
-Fixed credits placement.
-Fixed collission issue in which spheres passed through the floor at the first Fog puzzle.
-43 other little fixes (lightning artifacts, LOD improvements, balanced audio, etc.)
RELEASE DATE: August 5
At last, yesterday I compiled the release version of the game. This means quite soon you will be able to buy it. Specifically, "MIND: Path to Thalamus" will release on August 5. Why the wait? There is still work to be done: a launch trailer has to be edited together.
If you are interested in a game-key to review the game for your magazine, Youtube channel or any other media, please contact me at carlos@mindpathtothalamus.com and we will provide.
Regards,
Carlos Coronado.