Happy Thursday! We’ve got an exciting update today, not strictly PAMELA related, but one that we wanted to share with our awesome community here nonetheless.
Today we are announcing our second game: HYPERGUN! We'll be developing this new title alongside PAMELA; full details below!
Starting in January, a few team members here at NVYVE Studios have been tinkering with a small prototype we put together in between work on PAMELA. Since we were sidetracked a bit with level streaming (which we should have some news from Unity about soon), we had a bit of extra bandwidth to develop this into a fast-paced, arcadey rogue-lite FPS about saving the world through superior (if somewhat random) firepower!
If you’re into that kind of thing, drop by the HYPERGUN page and check out the trailer. Maybe join the community over there as well, if you’re really looking forward to it! While it’s quite a different game from PAMELA, we’d love to see you guys over there. Having another game in the works is a big milestone for our studio, and we truly could not have gotten here without your support.
While we’re super excited about this new title, we want to wholeheartedly reassure you guys that we’ve still been going full steam ahead on our path to finishing PAMELA the way we’ve always wanted to. We’ll be continuing our current bi-weekly update schedule leading up into the summer, in which we’ll be adding significant new story content (thank you for patiently waiting for this!), new areas, and new enemies to encounter! We think what we’ve got in store should flesh out some things that we’ve been missing for some time, and do justice to the foundation we’ve been building this past year.
We’ve been holding back giving you guys any firm dates on these updates, as we want to make sure we do them properly and bug-free, but we promise to share more info about what you can look forward to in the coming months.
Stay tuned for the next update coming week after next!
Update: PAMELA v0.3.3.1 is Live!
Happy Wednesday, we've got a meaty update ready for you this week!
First on the docket is a new area, Nascent Robotics! Access this new area through the north side of the Oasis courtyard, and track down several new Echo Logs, if you can make it through the cramped hallways of this robotics lab unscathed.
Next up is an absolute TON of balance tweaks. Find the full list below, but the highlights are improved resonance behaviors, damage buffs on a few weapons, and improved enemy visibility logic (for more accurate sneaking!).
We also managed to optimize a critical script that was used on a ton of our UI in-game; without getting too technical, this ended up saving us a chunk of memory usage without sacrificing quality or save files. :)
There's a few more bugs and improvement beyond those as well; give it a full read down below! And, make sure to let us know what your thoughts are on the weapon balancing. Your feedback really does help shape these things into the best versions they can be.
Stay tuned for the next update! Among other things, we'll be looking into Stalker balancing, since we know this is something that's been commented on quite a bit. They're intended to be difficult, but perhaps are skewed a little TOO heavily in that direction is it currently stands!
Features
New Area - Nascent Robotics: Access this robotics lab through the Oasis Courtyard!
Balance/Improvements
Butcher Blade - small increase to base damage, multiplier no longer decreases when you lower your arm, damage multiplier is now +50% base damage per stack
Resonance now cools down MUCH faster
Resonance buildup on continuous fire weapons now builds up much more slowly
Weapon Charge abilities now pause resonance cooldown (so resonance does not lower while charging the next shot)
Burn effects damage has been increased
Subverser - slightly reduced resonance buildup
Subverser - Special Ability 2 now functions correctly
Subverser - Sleep dart now clears agro and last longer, and uses an improved sleep animation
NPC no longer rotate to face target while asleep
Improved cues for when Beacons are activated/deactivated
Added tab as a universal cancel for all in-game menus
Heavily optimized a behind-the scenes UI script, which should save several hundred MB of RAM usage!
Decreased Widow's eyesight
Decreased Degenarated Afflicted's eyesight
Improved NPC/Player detection when sneaking
Improved NPC taunting animations and sound cues
Fixes
Breaking right arm now correctly decreases melee damage as a debuff
Increased brightness of text on Arc Welder
Flashlight being on now correctly affects player's visibility (turn it off if you're trying to be sneaky!)
Update: PAMELA v0.3.2.1 is Live!
Ready to try out some new Abilities and a shiny new weapon? We sure hope so, because we've got some new toys ready for you this week!
The headline of this update is definitely the Surgical Laser weapon; with a constant beam of energy (with burning effects) as the primary, and a powerful charge-up blast for the secondary, it's a powerful new addition to your arsenal!
We've also added 2 more Abilities, which happen to be the top-tier Abilities to the existing skill tree. Flurry provides a significant damage and attack speed boost on demand, and Conversion allows your to convert an enemy to your side and turn on their allies! Both very powerful abilities which we hope you have fun with.
As usual we've got a host of bug fixes alongside the new content; find more details on those below. Have fun, and let us know your feedback in the discussions!
Features
New Weapon: Surgical Laser - A repurposed Ark Medical device that can burn and blast enemies with powerful laser beams
New Ability: Flurry - Provides a short term attack speed and damage boost
New Ability: Conversion - Convert an enemy to fight alongside you for a short period of time
Balance/Improvements
Tweaked Arc Welder resonance build up for improved balance
Improve the Butcher's Blade alternate fire visuals
Fixes
Can now correctly open AARM and Crafting menus when in Build Mode
Fixed several issues with hyproponics crops not being replaced when attempting to swap crops
Enemies now correctly register when they enter/exit doors and kiosks
Cyano Reprocessor now correctly charges when asleep
Kiosk restock times now correctly recharge
Fixed several instances of Hyproponics and Water Condensor not recognizing input
Fixed repair icons clearing incorrectly on +/++ items
Update: PAMELA v0.3.1.3 is Live!
Happy Wednesday! We've got another update ready, including several new Abilities and a bunch of bug fixes.
We've got some pretty exciting new Abilities rolling out this week - both Disappear and Frenzy have great utility in tough situations, while Adaptability and Exploitation grant useful passive bonues across the board. Check out the list below for the details on what exactly each ability does.
Let us know your feedback on the new content, as always, and have fun!
Features
Disappear - Become invisible for several seconds, removing enemy aggro for the duration
Adaptability - Gain the ability to use certain abilities in zones without power
Frenzy - Fire an AOE blast that causes all enemies to enrage for several seconds
Exploitation - Abilities are more effective in full power zones
Fixes
Fixed an error occasionally caused when breaking player bones
Fixed several audio sources not respecting audio volume settings
Fixed several bugs relating to enemies not respecting player cloaking abilities
Fixed several incorrectly scaled props in the Promenade district
Properly Blocked off unfinished Youth Academy area
Hotfix: PAMELA v0.3.1.2 is Live!
Happy Wednesday! We've got a quick hotfix update ready in between our major updates. This fixes a few behind the scenes errors which could be causing slowdowns (or even crashes) in certain circumstances.
The Kinetic Mortar has had its visual effects improved a bit as well! We're looking into balancing it further, such as making the flame effect a bit longer ranged, set enemies on fire more frequently, etc. based on some of your feedback. Keep it coming!
We're aiming to have the next update out later next week so stay tuned for that, and have fun!
Balance/Improvements
Improved visual effects on Kinetic Mortar
Fixes
Logic hacking tutorial now triggers properly
Doors are no longer permanentaly stuck open when an enemy dies within it
Fixed an error spam and all Shield Doors and Shield Pylon +/++
Fixed error on death when Impact Catalyst is equipped
Fixed error on Observer searching for (and not finding) player
Fixed bug in map menu which could cause it to not show correctly when openned and closed repeatedly
Update: PAMELA v0.3.1.1 is Live – New Weapon, Abilities, and Fixes!
Happy thursday! We've got a new update live and ready to go, just in time for the long weekend!
The main highlights of this update are definitely the new weapon (Kinetic Mortar), and the 6 new PAMELA Abilities that have been added! The Kinetic Mortar offers both crowd control and some pretty nasty burning damage - hope you guys have fun with it. The new Abilities include several new passives, which grant you nice buffs to slots some points into, as well as 2 new active abilities to play with. Let us know what you think about this new content in the forums!
We've laid out some internal roadmaps for this spring/summer, with a 2-week update schedule. Each update will include some new content, bugfixes, and polish. We've got a larger "Story Update" that we have planned for later in the summer, which we'll talk more about as we get closer to that timeframe. Until then we'll be keeping up a steady stream on improvements and content for you guys to enjoy!
Last but not least, we spoke again with a few members of the Unity team last week. They took some time out of their GDC schedule to dig into this issue with us which was pretty awesome of them to do. It sounds like we're getting closer to resolving this lighting issue we've been discussing for some time now; still no exact ETA, but as soon as they share that info with us we will let you know (and get out this level streaming update, finally!).
Hope you all have a great weekend and have a chance to try out the new goodies! As always, let us know your feedback so we can make sure the balancing on the new weapon and abilities is just right.
Features
New Weapon: Kinetic Mortar - With a powerful knockback and burning alternate fire, this weapon adds a great deal of utility to your arsenal!
New Ability: Flash - emit a blinding flash, momentarily blinding all NPCs in vicinity
New Ability: Drain - convert an amount of energy reserves into health
New Passive Ability: Brevity - reduces cooldown of all Abilities
New Passive Ability: Unyielding - increases the duration of Defensive Abilities
New Passive Ability: Tenacity - increases the duration of Offensive Abilities
New Passive Ability: Conservation - reduces the amount of Power in a district required to use Abilities
Fixes
Crafting components are no longer free in kiosks
Fixed certain logic hacking puzzles being unusable
Fixed geometry dissappearing strangely in a few areas in the Promenade and Nirvana
Turrets can now be correctly upgraded
Fixed several pop-in issues in Nirvana
Added collision meshes to several areas that were missing in Arcadia
Dev Blog #84: Update on Optimization & Unity Bug
Hi all, we wanted to post a quick update so we're not keeping you in the dark on our progress. Unfortunately there's not a TON to say on the level streaming front, but nonetheless, here's the latest:
We're still in a bit of a holding pattern regarding the level streaming update we've been discussing for some months now (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this - we've been held up by some Unity Engine bugs blocking our progress in this regard). In positive news, we're lining up a call with some folks at Unity soon, to drill further into this and get an idea when we can expect a fix.
One reason we specifically wanted to touch base about our progress on this issue, is that with this recent update, we've added a lot of content to the game. Which is great! Except when it causes the game to load a bit slower, run a bit slower, and (on min spec machines) potentially even crash a bit more often. Initially we were planning on launching level streaming alongside Nirvana, knowing that with the content increase, we needed to do some optimization work to maintain ideal performance.
We made the call to push out Nirvana without streaming, as holding it back further would have meant an undetermined amount of further delay which we did not want to put you guys through. All this being said, we're aware that some of you are experiencing more issues with performance than average, and we're sorry about that.
Getting this level streaming functionality up and running with the Unity team is an extremely high priority for us, and rest assured we'll keep you guys up to date whenever we make any headway on it.
On a positive note, we do have some new content in the pipeline (a weapon and some new abilities!) that we're pretty excited about. We'll share more about that as soon as we're able.
Until next time, have fun!
1 Year Anniversary Sale
To celebrate our 1 year anniversary on Steam, and our huge Nirvana update, P.A.M.E.L.A. will be available 25% off all week!
We've got a lot more in store as we head into summer, including new weapons, abilities, enemies, and story content. This is a great time to jump in if you haven't already.
Thank you so much to those of you who've supported us throughout this first year, and welcome to those of you who are just getting into the game! Your support and feedback mean the world to us and help us to shape PAMELA into the best game it can be.
We'll be sharing some plans and milestones for the next few months soon, so keep your eyes out for that, and have fun!
Update: PAMELA v0.3.0.1 is Live – MASSIVE Update: New District, Crafting Overhaul, and a mountain of fixes
Hello everyone! As promised, we've got a huge update ready for you to dive into. We were able to successfully implement a workaround to the Unity bug we've been struggling with (thanks to James from the NVYVE Team!) which means we're able to put 90% of the features that we've been working on live.
The largest addition is Nirvana, a massive new District located beneath the surface of Eden. You can access this huge new area by accessing an entrance in the Oasis courtyard, opposite from Arcadia. Let us know what you think of this new area - it is by far the largest environmental addition to the game since launch! Here are some tasty screenshots to take a look at before you jump in:
We also launched a huge crafting system update! Instead of reiterating all of it here, I'll link to this blog post we wrote previously that sums up the changes nicely: http://steamcommunity.com/games/427880/announcements/detail/1468600276419638783
This is a pretty massive overhaul which is intended to make the crafting experience more streamlined, and involve less memorizing of components. One big change is the removal of harvesting. We debated quite a bit internally about this, and along with your feedback on our last post, we decided that it was ultimately the right option.
Harvesting, while fun in short bursts here and there, was not really an interesting activity to do long term. Along with the streamlining, we've made crafting more loot based, in which you need to find components from the environment and enemy bodies. The goal is that this will be a more natural and engaging way of collecting components . Please give us feedback on these changes as we want to make sure the balance is just right!
Aside from those 2 main points, we've fixed an absolute TON of bugs, and implemented a ton of improvements as well. As always, find the full list below.
So, the only thing that's NOT in this update that we were planning on, is level streaming. We've been hyping this up for some time now, and are unfortunately still in the process of resolving a Unity Engine bug with Unity's bugfixing team. Luckily we were able to implement a workaround to let us push the rest of this update, but for now we're still unable to release the level streaming functionality. When this does do live, you'll see a big loading time improvement, as well as performance improvements during gameplay. We've super excited about it still, and will keep you guys updated as to how things are progressing on that front.
Phew, that was a big one. We've got lots more in store coming soon to look out for (a new weapon, PAMELA abilities, level streaming, and eventually more story content, enemies, and area to explore). Thank you all so much for bearing with us these last couple months while we've been pushing to get this update out. We'll be aiming to get back into a more regular update cycle, especially once we smooth things over with Unity.
Enjoy!
Features
New District: Nirvana! It can be accessed via an elevator at the far end of the Oasis courtyard, opposite from Arcadia. Have fun exploring this huge new area!
Massive Crafting system overhaul; see this post for full details, there are a ton of changes: http://steamcommunity.com/games/427880/announcements/detail/1468600276419638783
Added craftable Canteens
Added craftable Ion Cores
Added character sliding on steep ledges to prevent player reaching undesireable areas
Balance/Improvements
The Map Menu now shows POI icons for kiosks, locked doors, Power Stations, Power Switches, and more
Shield Pylon walls now flash red to indicate when they are taking damage
Improved positioning on pop up icons when looking at items in the world, for increased legibility, as well as smoothed out their on/off transitions
Sleep menu now fades on and off more nicely
Added Guaranteed items to each type of Kiosk so that player does not rely completely on RNG for items like Power Cells, etc.
Improved flashiness of spending a point in the Genome Point upgrading menu
Improved melee weapons' hitboxes for more reliable hit dectection
Improved melee weapons' camera shake
Added controller button for Pickup All in containers
Controller vibration can now be disabled
Added ability to revert to default settings in control menu using controller
Added callouts for LB / RB on controller in Inventory menu to switch tabs
Added radius display when in deploy mode for Power Transmitters to get a better idea of their build radius before placement
Fixes
Stalker's pathfinding has been improved to react better around buildables
Fixed bug with Vanishing Shield not properly making player invisible to NPCs
Fixed rare input bug that could occur in the tutorial menu
Added invisible colliders to prevent player from falling into certain undesirable areas
Fixed weapons not always deactivating properly when switching from fore to dorsal attachment slot
Fixed some typos on Power Stations
Fixed bug with Cyanotubes in which they sometimes spawned in as repaired rather than destroyed
Fixed some typos on elevator UI
Removed unused radial menu for NPCs
Fixed bug in which if the player died during looting something, the overlay would never disappear and not allow any further interaction with the game
Fixed a bug with dying while inventory is open
Discharge PAMELA Ability upgrades now properly upgrade the force and radius of the attack
Guidance PAMELA Ability upgrades now properly upgrade the strength of the light
Enhance PAMELA Ability upgrades now properly upgrade the damage of the ability
Fixed bug with shield idle not playing properly
Fixed bug in which hands would not properly lower after combat
Fixed obscure bug with opening IVG quickly while looking at an item breaking it
Added camera bob to Warden's first
Fixed bug with Butcher's Blade that hit enemies multiple times with one swing
PAMELA Abilities now correctly use up District power when used
PAMELA Abilities are now correctly unavailable in "No Power" mode; make sure to stay at least in Emergency Mode to be able to use abilities!
Status menu now correctly updates with game time
PAMELA Abilities can now be used while running
Fixed bug in which opening and closing radial menu quickly can block primary attack input
Fixed a delay in melee weapon attack input
PAMELA Abilities now display a flytext notification when they come off cooldown
Weapon sounds now correctly follow player to sound more accuracte when used
Arc Welder alternate fire SFX now properly despawn
Tutorial popups now work correctly with controller
Fixed instances of player cursor appearing when it is not supposed to
Fixed certain buttons not being available in certain menus even though they are not being overriden by that menu (for example, you can now turn on/off the flashlight with the IVG open)
Fixed some movement inconsistencies between keyboard and controller
FIxed inventory text to properly display contoller controls
Tweaked cryo bay brightness
Thumbsticks now correctly allow menu navigation in all relevant menus
Fixed bug with player corpse menu sticking on screen if inventory is opened with "I" key while menu is already open
Smoothed out icon transition between inventory and crafting menus
Fixed bug with pausing while sleeping
Fixed loading issue with pylons not connecting to walls properly
Fixed bug with game displaying incorrect version number in main menu
Fixed bug where switching aim more from free aim to fixed during gameplay would break aiming until game is reloaded
Fixed containers missing their colliders
Fixed one of the Garrison cryo bars not properly unlocking Garrison spawn bay
Promenade district is now visible from slightly further away to reduce visual inconsistencies
Fixed blood on screen effect not showing up properly when game is reloaded
Fixed many misc issues with doors locking and unlocking
Dev Blog #83: Update Coming Very Soon
Hello all, we've got a short but sweet news update for you today; we're smoothing out some final details, and once that's done, we'll be pushing a huge update including Nirvana, new crafting mechanics, and much, much more! This is the largest single update to the game since we launched into Early Access and we're super excited about finally getting it out to you (thanks for patiently waiting while we dealt with some Unity Engine related hurdles!).
For those of you familiar, we are still battling with a Unity Engine bug which is preventing us from releasing our level streaming update, which will massively reduce load times and should improve performance as well. We were able to devise a workaround which will enable us to push out the Nirvana update, but for the moment we are still stuck with regards to streaming. We'll keep you guys updated as that progresses.
Please note that this update will wipe saves, due to the sheer amount of additions and fixes across the board. We're sorry, but promise it will be worth it!
Keep your eyes peeled for the update later this week. We'll post the full changelog when that goes live.
