Happy Tuesday! We've been a bit quiet lately, and wanted to share a quick update as to what we've been working on.
First the bad news... unfortunately we are still being blocked by a Unity engine bug that is preventing us from pushing an update. We understand that it is frustrating to keep hearing this, trust us that we're also frustrated at the delay and we're doing everything in our power to work with Unity and get this resolved. Due to the extensive nature of PAMELA's environment and the underlying lighting systems being used, we're stuck on a custom build of the Unity Engine, and require this version to be updated before we can get this next update live.
That being said, we wanted to share a sneak peak of what you can look forward to once this issue is resolved! In no particular order:
New Buildable Item: Solar Accumulator
This item will recharge nearby Power Transmitters during daytime, allowing you to power your outdoor base much more easily!
New VISRs
We've added 4 more VISR types, with different types of information displayed depending on the type.
New NPC Abilities
The Reaper and Widow have received some new abilities, such as the Reaper's roar shown below, which depletes your Stamina if you're caught in the blast!
Missions & Challenges
As part of the Story update, we've been adding various challenges and sidequests with xp rewards.
Environmental Traps
Explosive barrels, electrical conduits, and flammable oil slicks have been added throughout the world! Use these to your advantage during combat when using the correct elemental weapons.
EXP System & Genome Points Update
The exp curve has been rebalanced to be less grindy at higher levels, and when starting a new game, you now have the option to re-spec Genome Points.
Lot of Optimizations
Aside from the new Texture Streaming in the version of Unity we are porting to, we've made a bunch of other optimizations in Camera rendering, particle systems, text, containers, and item spawning. Combined with the Unity engine updates, these should all result in a nice performance improvement across the board.
After the Next Update - Story Missions
We've been putting a ton of time into fleshing out the main Story missions. New areas have been designed and built out, new dialogue has been written as is being recorded, triggers are being placed... things are coming together! We're super excited to be finally bringing this to the game after some unfortunate delays.
Stay tuned for further updates - the latest we've heard from Unity is that they are aiming to have this issue resolved over the next week. Thanks for the patience and understanding, we truly appreciate it and can't wait to get this huge update live for you as soon as the blocker is resolved.
Dev Blog #88: Development Update
Happy Monday! It's been awhile since our last update so we wanted to share what we've been working on, and why we haven't been able to push any updates in the last little while.
We've been quite busy on a few fronts lately! First up is Optimization & Porting to Unity 2018.3.
Optimization and Unity Version Porting
We've been pushing for some time now to port the game forward to the latest version of Unity, which we've largely finished, but are unfortunately being held back by waiting for some custom engine features to be ported forward alongside PAMELA.
Long story short - the folks at Unity added some extra bells and whistles to help us bring PAMELA to life on the previous version we were using (2017.2) and now those changes need to be brought forward to 2018.3
What this means, sadly, as that we can't launch an update using a "standard" version of Unity, and are waiting on Unity for these fixes to be ported forward. We could have stayed on 2017.2, but we REALLY needed access to some new engine features and optimizations to address performance concerns;
we were stuck between a rock and a hard place, so to speak.
The good news is we've done most of the hard work and are just waiting an a stable release version from Unity.
On the optimization front, we've also worked on reducing the amount of memory item spawning took up, as well as some music memory optimizations. Along with texture streaming (a new feature of Unity 2018.3) you should see some pretty significant memory improvements on the GPU and CPU.
NPC Abilities
The Widow and Reaper have received some love, gaining some nasty new abilities and attribute tweaks. Widows will soon have very poor eyesight but excellent hearing, as well as a deadly lifesteal attack.
Reaper are gaining a Roar attack, which will drain stamina if caught in the blast. This ability makes them an even more fearsome melee combatant!
Balancing
We've done a wave of item spawn balancing, including readjusting the game's economy to encourage exploration of higher-level areas to find rare items.
Story Mode
Last but definitely not least is Story Mode (which will be the default option when we hit 1.0 release). We've been working on a ton of foundations behind the scenes, as well as designing new items and areas. We're moving full steam ahead on this and are aiming to be getting it out into the wild later this summer.
That's it for now! As soon as we're able to resolve the Unity engine blockers we mentioned above, you'll be getting a pretty meaty update. We can't wait for that to happen, and want to say thank you for the patience while this gets ironed out behind the scenes.
Update: PAMELA v0.5.1.1 is Live: Optimizations and Game Balance!
Happy Tuesday! We've got a fresh new update ready, including a major rendering optimization and a whole ton of game balancing.
Performance optimization has always been high on our list of priorities, and lately we've been doubling down in this area to alleviate some of the issues plaguing many of you. This update includes a pretty significant optimization that deals with some back-end distance culling of dynamic objects in the game. In our testing, we saw a pretty signicant reduction in object drawing cost.
On top of this, we've been working with the fine folks over at Unity to get PAMELA upgraded to the latest version of the engine. Since we rely on some custom engine code to bring PAMELA to life, this process is a bit more involved that it would be for a game running on vanilla Unity. The good news is that we've made some solid headway towards this goal, and (fingers crossed) should be able to push a live build on this new version (Unity 2018.3, specifically) in the near future. Other than benefiting from a bunch of engine bugfixes and stability improvements, we will be able to implement some awesome new features such as Texture Streaming which should net us even more performance improvements.
Aside from optimization, we're working towards the next, most meaty update of all time – the Story update. This has been a long time coming, going through multiple iterations on the drawing board, and we're as anxious as you are to get it out the door. Once we finish up some of the remaining optimization tasks and get the core foundations solidified, we'll be moving full-force onto this major update.
We want to thank everyone for their support and patience. It's heartwarming to hear from those of you who've been with us right from the beginning over a year and a half ago. Although the path to getting PAMELA 1.0 out the door hasn't been a straight line (when is it ever, in game development?) we are commited to making it happen as soon as we're possibly able.
Hope you enjoy the update! Let us know your thoughts on the balancing tweaks in the comments, and stay tuned for the next update.
Features
Added Genesis and Nirvana themed versions of Sec-RTs
Balance & Improvements
Implemented a rendering modification which uses more efficient distance-based rendering for dynamic objects, yielding a 20-40% reduction in amount of (unnecesary) objects drawn
Reduced enemy senses slightly to make sneaking slightly more forgiving
Nerfed shields slightly – recharge delay and delay penalty after overloading shield have both been increased slightly, and shield now drains slowly over time when activated
Enemy spawn rate has been modified so that after “clearing” an area of enemies, you will have a brief window of calm before enemies start spawning back in
Base fist melee damage has been increased slightly, with a slight reduction in knockback strength
Added flytext to indicate a level-up
Slightly reduced item drop rate
Increased base thirst and hunger drop rate slightly
Increased sprint stamina depletion rate
Increased base NPC damage, and reduced base NPC health
Fixes
Fixed bug with randomized weapon starter upgrades not instantiating correctly
Fixed bug with randomized weapon durability not applying correctly
Fixed flashlight type & description not saving correctly in some instances
Crafted items will now (correctly) spawn with full durability
Fixed infinite Sonar Pulse audio cue
Fixed a dye bug in which player's dye color would affect NPC weapon color as well
Fixed a bug in NPC pathing that prevented them from crossing doorways
Fixed an unreachable keycard in Arcadia
Patch 0.5.0.2 is Live - Holiday Bugfixes
Happy Tuesday! We've got some pre-holiday bugfixes ready for you to enjoy, all to do with the recent Geist update, along with a deadly new trap to craft.
The most egregious bug that is resolved in this patch pertains to buliding not being allowed in certain areas - build away to your heart's content!
Check out the full list below, and enjoy! From the NVYVE Studios team, have happy holidays and an excellent New Year!
Features
Added Blaze Trap
Balance
Shock trap deals less damage but also stuns enemies
Electicity damage now deals 1.5x damage to robots
Fire damage now deals 1.5x damage to Geists
Fixes
Fixed certain zones which were incorrectly blocking buildable items from being placed
Fixed a blockaded area in which player could get stuck in new Geist area
Fixed several props overlapping with level geometry
Fixed several floating item spawn points
Fixed an FX texture which was not scrolling correctly
Revenants now correctly trigger traps
Eletricity attacks will now correctly buff the Revenant's damage
Update 0.5.0.1 is Live - Geist Update
*This update will wipe saves due to the large nature of what's been added*
Hi everyone!
Today we are very excited to release our long-awaited Geist update. We've been working on this one for quite a while now and there's a lot to cover, so let's dive in!
New Area
We have a large new area what was previously unreachable, the contaminated nanite area on the other side of the red glowing fence in Oasis. You won't be able to get there right away without being injured, you'll have find some new items to craft the new Hazmat suit. The new area is full of never before seen dangers, low visibility and new challenges. This isn't for the feint of heart.
New Enemies
There are two new enemies that you'll encounter, the Shade and the Revenant. Both were once human, but due to the extreme concentration of nanites in the area, are now only husks of their former selves. You'll have to figure out what their weaknesses are before engaging a group of these!
The Shade is the more common of the Geist creatures, keep your eyes and ears open as they fade from cloud form back to physical in the blink of an eye.
The Revenant is a powerful new flying creature that has control of the nanites around him. He can materialize Shades around him and cast destructive projectiles from a distance.
Contamination Spread
There's a new mechanic that's been added that will come in to play several game days into each play through. The nanite contamination is beginning to spread throughout Eden and you'll begin to find the Geist characters in new places other than just behind the red wall in Oasis. They might be worth exploring if you have your Hazmat suit handy.
NPC Combat
NPCs have been more more aggressive across the board and numerous tweaks have been made to help make combat feel more responsive, faster and fun.
And Much More
As always, check out the full list of changes below! We hope you love this update and we can't wait for your feedback on it. Have fun exploring the new areas and trying to master the new enemies and combat.
Features
New Geist area outside Oasis.
New Shade NPC.
New Revenentant NPC.
New Geist growths that spread throughout Eden.
Afflicted can now play dead.
You can now press the 'IVG' button (default 'R') to pick up all from a container.
New Blood FX and sounds.
New Hazmat suit armor.
Added death effect for Observer.
Balance/Improvements
Melee weapons are now more responsive.
Weapons are now more common.
Weapons have been made weaker by default.
Equipment now have randomized durability when spawned.
Upgrade core drop rate has been increased.
Equipemnt can now be found in the world with some upgrade nodes already in them, be sure to check equipment that you pick up, it might be better than what you have now.
Javelin has increased rate of fire.
Javelin has faster draw back time.
NPCs now pull allies from a much further distance when in combat.
Ranged NPC projectiles have been sped up and made easier to see.
Halved resonance damage from 10 to 5.
Map icons have been made smaller so they don't block the map as much.
NPC combat has been tweaked, they are far more aggressive now.
Fixes
Enemies could attack themselves to death after getting blocked by a shield.
Fixed some issues with aror set bonuses.
NPCs should now despawn correctly when the world resets in a permadeath game.
Fixed a bug where you weapon could stay in its overcharged state.
Added some extra save/load protection on the player corpses.
NPCs would misjudge distance to the Observer because it's a flying character and sometimes would run in to it forever without attacking.
Stage 1 and Stage 2 NPCs were giving out the wrong amount of XP.
NPC inventories were not clearing on respawn.
Tweaked the values on some prefab pools to help lower memory.
Update: PAMELA v0.4.7.0 is Live! Ranged NPCs & Combat Improvements
Hi everyone!
Today we have a pretty exciting update that includes a number of exciting improvements as well as a big new feature! We've added ranged weapons to both the Seekers as well as Stage 1 afflicted which should definitely change up combat quite a bit. We've also made the player motor feel more responsive and a little bit faster, especially when walking sideways and backwards. You will also notice that punching has been sped up significantly. All of this put together is a big improvement on combat, and you'll be seeing quite a bit more of this in the next update or two.
To give you a little taste of what's to come in the next update, we're currently tweaking weapons to be more common, spawn with random durability, random upgrade nodes already slotted as well as a larger difference between a non-upgraded and a fully upgraded weapon. We'll also be improving the new ranged NPCs, so please comment about any feedback you may have about them!
Other than all of that, there are some nice fixes which you can read about below!
Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the update :)
Features
Added ranged weapons on Stage 1 Afflicted and the Seeker.
Balance/Improvements
Made punching faster and more responsive.
Made the player movement more responsive.
Changes were made how NPCs choose a new target, they shouldn't bounce back and forth between targets anymore.
Quick melee feels more consistent, your fists will stay raised.
Fixes
Fixed NPC gravity so that they no longer hover when coming down the stairs or falling off a ledge.
Fixed a bug where stomping could cause the player's fists to stay raised forever.
Removed a few NPC door triggers that shouldn't have been there in Arcadia.
Loot now clears off corpses correctly.
Hotfix: PAMELA v0.4.5.7 is Live!
Hey Everyone!
We have a small fix for our hardcore players this week.
We have found and fixed a problem where Cryobay selection buttons stopped updating in a permadeath game if you died more than once in a single play through, which caused all sorts of unintended respawn issues.
Thanks to those who helped us track this one down (Keep those bug reports coming!), and we look forward to sharing more news (and content) with you next week!
Fixed
<*>Respawn Menu buttons update properly after multiple permadeath deaths in a single play through.
Update: PAMELA v0.4.5.6 is Live!
Hey Everyone!
This week’s update adds some much needed love to our poor NPCs. On top of our standard bug fixing Part 1 of our NPC update includes a much higher range of NPC diversity, new death ragdoll effects, and the (very) much requested ability for turrets to be able to target Stalkers.
Wait, you said Part 1? You haven’t said anything about a Part 2.
It’s a heck of a tease isn’t it? Feel free to speculate wildly if that’s a thing you’re prone to doing! In the meantime, here is a breakdown of what is in part 1…
Features
NPC Randomization - We have added new variants to the randomization pool of many NPCs and smoothed out the logic for a much more interesting (and creepy) population of Eden.
NPC Ragdoll on Death - NPC death animations were proving “problematic” with changes in elevation and world geometry. But thanks to the power of physics and joints NPCs will now bounce, crumple and fall in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. If you want to push the higher limits, look for items that increase Force.
Balance/Improvements
Turrets are now able to target Stalkers once they are visible.
Sprint stamina costs have been reduced and speed has been increased.
Added sound effects for the medical station and augment station.
Added sound effects for Surgical Laser charge, activate and deactivate.
Lowered Observer threat level (so Afflicted won't stare at the blinking floating ball while you punch them in the back of the head).
Bumped up the running speed for Afflicted and Widow, as well as overall Reaper move speed.
Added a slight slowdown effect to player melee attacks when they connect to make them feel more impactful.
Fixes
Fixed an issue with our animation blending causing phantom hits when the NPC was clearly doing something else.
Added a collider that was missing from a wall in Garrison Armory.
Fixed an issue where the wounded effect and sound didn’t apply after continuing the game from main menu.
OK, that’s it for me for now, but I’ll be back soon.
Thanks everybody, and as always, let us know your thoughts in the comments and forums!
Dev Blog #87: October Update
That’s a pretty lame title isn’t it? …Is this thing on? …Oh …
Hey Everyone!
It’s been a while since we talked. I wanted to touch base with you and let you know what’s been going on recently.
Firstly, as some of you have probably noticed, our development roadmap is a little off. We had originally planned to have both the systems and Geist update out by around now with the Story Update coming later this year. That was… optimistic so I wanted to give an update on that:
The systems update is still trickling in. There are a couple of things we need Unity’s help in finalizing, but we’re getting there!
Then we have the Geist update. It’s going to add some new NPC’s and open up the area in western Oasis for exploration. It’s a pretty big addition and one I’m really looking forward to for reasons I don’t want to spoil just yet… We are aiming to have this for you some time in December.
Starting in 2019 we will be going all-in on the Story Update, major bug hunting, and localization as we move towards Pamela’s full release (more on all these things once we have something concrete to share)!
Ok, housekeeping over. What have we been up to recently?
Aside from our standard bug fixing we have been working on a few new things for the next patch:
We have rediscovered a number of extra NPC skins which have been added to the existing NPC randomization options.
NPC death animations have been removed and have been replaced with ragdoll physics when they die. NPCs will no longer be able to back through walls or plank at odd angles/places when they die. It is also incredibly satisfying to score a head shot with the Javelin or crank up the force on the Warden’s Fist.
--->>> I’m just going to leave this extra line here in the hopes that one of my coworkers will replace it with a .gif of sweet, sweet ragdoll physics.
Turrets can and will target Stalkers once they are visible and within range(!)
These things (ragdolls in particular) need a little bit longer to cook before they are ready but expect them sometime around the 23rd/24th.
Ok, that’s it for me. Have a good weekend everyone (no pressure), and thanks for stopping by!
Patch: PAMELA 0.4.5.2 is Live
Hi everyone! Today we've got a quick little patch for you today that addresses a few issues that our community reported. Thanks and keep those reports coming!
Fixes
A door in North Oasis could be opened if an NPC got too close to it, but it was never meant to be opened and led to the void beyond.
SW33-PR's light was casting shadows and we believe this had an impact on some player's performance so has been turned to non-shadow casting.
