Night Gate
Patch v1.0.4
-Fixed the audio slider in the settings.
-Fixed a bug where the glass windows wouldn't break.
-Adjusted the time on the ghoul cages, which would respawn too fast before.
Patch v1.0.3 - Buffs, Nerfs and Invisible gun bug
I want to say first thank you to all that have supported Night Gate. It has been enjoyable watching some of the Youtube videos that have come out about that game. There has also been some good constructive feedback. I am well aware of the game's shortcomings, and this was largely a big experiment for me to make a sandbox game coming off my more linear projects. This was a big learning experience and a fun project to work on.
Changes:
-Grendels final boss battle has been buffed on Hard. Now he is assisted by two Alpha Vampires.
-Alpha Vampires have been nerfed when not in "Boss mode" (when they don't have Boss bars their health is much lower).
-There was a bug with the guns turning invisible, not sure the cause but I put a check on that which I think should fix it.
-The Fan Boat has a bit more "bounce" to it when you stop and go.
-The throwing Axe impact detection has been improved before it showed blood FX when it would hit certain static objects.
-I fixed a bug where a journal message would cut in while examining an object in Dairy Town after you get the TNT.
Happy Hunting.
Patch v.1.0.2 Fixing some more reported bugs
Just a couple of tweaks.
-For the Battle of South Gate there was a pathing issue with enemies getting stuck on the ramp. This is fixed.
-In the Black Forest there was a misplaced b volume that basically puting an invisible box in the middle of the pathway. I remove that.
Launch Day Patch v1.0.1
Launch day patch changes:
-TNT ghouls now have a red light on them, making them easier to spot in a crowd.
-Fixed a bug with the crossbow where if you reloaded and switched your weapon mid-reload it would get stuck at 0.
-Fixed a bug with the green poison ghouls, when shot with the turret the hitbox for their poison would remain.
Launch crash fix
It seems there was an issue with the DRM on UE5.1 and I had to swap the exe.
You should see a small update and the game should launch correctly now.
Sorry about that one.
Launch v1.0.0 Updated to Unreal 5.1
Welcome to the official launch of Night Gate!
A few last-minute changes have been added for the release build.
Update:
-Film overlay that can be toggled. This allows players to make the game more cinematic.
-A glow stick has been added on Robin which lights up with the flashlight to brighten up darker spots.
-Revolver animation tweaked.
*Players can toggle a cool "FIlm Overlay" in the options menu.
Bug fix:
Enemies would slide if their vision was blocked, this should be fixed now.
Two new achievements added for launch!
-Hooky
Hunt some ghouls with the truck.
(This is for the 'vampire fishing' mini-game in Dairy Town.)
-Dead by Dawn
Defend the farmer's pigs until dawn.
(Talk to the farmer in the Vale during the day. You must save his pigs over the night.)
Happy hunting everyone and thank you all for the support on Night Gate!
Please be sure to join the DangerousBob Studio Discord for not just Night Gate but all my games.
Also, be sure to check out the game lore on the Wiki.
Release from Early Access May 18th
First thing first, Night Gate won't be getting to the Xbox at this time, so I will move forward with the release from Early Access.
The game will come out on May 18th, at 3 PM Eastern, 12 PM Pacific.
A big thank you for all the support from the DangerousBob Studio LLC community.
If you have not already please be sure to follow the Discord.
Also be sure to checkout the lore on the Night Gate Fandom Wiki.
Patch v0.5.9 holster that firearm soldier!
Hello, all you vampire-hunting fans!
In this patch, I added a requested super special ability. The ability to holster your gun!
You can now holster your weapon by pressing "H" on PC or holding the reload button if you are using a controller Controller.
Bug Fix:
The side quest where you help the pig farmer wasn't counting the surviving pigs correctly. That is fixed.
Patch v0.5.8 More tweaks, and Early Access status update
Changes:
-The "war timer" is turned off when playing on Easy.
-Fixed some bugs when the vampires "grab" the player. There were some issues when multiple vampires would grab the player at the same time and the player animations would glitch out.
-Bug where the Bats would not catch on fire if they walked over campfires that were on fire.
-Bug where the crossbow would show fire even if it had no arrows
-Bug, green poison ghouls would bug out when shot with the turret.
Status of Early Access
Right now I have Night Gate being reviewed by Microsoft for an Xbox port. If I can't get it ported I will release it for Steam sooner rather than later. If it does get the ok for the port, the game will release on both Steam and Xbox at the same time.
If MS does give it the green light, it normally takes about a month or two to do the port give or take. The actual technical part of porting isn't too bad, but it has to go through a series of reviews and quality checks at Microsoft, which they are notorious for.
Overall I feel the game is in a really good place. I will continue to make small tweaks based on feedback and polish the game in the meantime and keep doing posts.
As we approach the end of Early Access, just some reflecting on my first game of this genre.
What worked
The tone of the game, I really feel I hit the tone I was going for. I wanted this kind of Post-Post-Apocalpyse that was semi-normalized. The idea was that society had gone full circle, and things were like the "Middle Ages" only it was in the future. Fighting the Vampires had become a way of life, kind of like Attack on Titan.
The open world. For all my games, I try to make some level of "openness" to them. Normally by either player choices, or multiple endings. This one though, I can say is a "true" open-world game where the player can go where they want and explore. I think that part turned out well.
Grendel, is not exactly Krampus, but a really fun bad guy and villain. I had a lot of fun making his Temple at the end of the game too.
I finally got to make a big Defend the wall battle, something I've wanted to do since I played Helms Deep on my Xbox when I was a small kid.
What didn't work
Visually, I never really was able to hit that bar I wanted. I had to sacrifice a lot of visual elements to get the FPS I needed, and big open maps can be very challenging. Some maps look better than others, but I never did get the Black Forest to look good.
The controls still feel a little stiff. There is more of a learning curve with mastering the player than I would like, especially for new players.
I really like the Boomerang weapon and wish that idea was in the game from the start vs being added later on. It doesn't come into play outside of just cutting down enemies, it would have been nice if there were more puzzles for it and upgrades.
I ended up getting pretty far away from the original idea, which was that humanity was living inside giant domes with vampires outside. The domes would have auto locks that open during the day and shut at night. Some elements of this survived, for example, Dairy Town is still referred to as "that Dome" in the game text.
I'll keep everyone updated on how things pan out if I hear back from Microsoft.
Happy hunting.
Patch v0.5.7 Minor tweaks based on feedback
Some minor tweaks based on some feedback from the demo.
I dropped the prologue set piece and went back to the original start of the game.
I feel easing the player in is better vs dropping them into a climax.
Also, I added "journal" entries to help the players know where they need to go.
Minor tweaks:
-On controllers players use "A" button (Xbox) to reel in the fish now.
Bug fix:
-There was a bug where sleep/saving at South Gate would trigger the battle (big whoops). That has been fixed.
-There was a bug where the opening credits would always play in Dairy Town, that has been fixed.
I do not plan on updating the demo with every update I make on the main build of the game.