This post details a new release from the unstable "preview" branch of Panoptic, which contains work-in-progress features. If you wish to experience these builds, see the instructions at the end of this post.
Hey all!
Here is a new "preview" build of Panoptic! As with the previous ones, we have fixed a bunch of bugs, but also added some new gameplay features, now that we are nearing the release of our next "full" update. Exciting times!
So, here is what changed :
New Features
The Overseer is getting some help in the form of the Watchers! These special Beings roam parts of the Sanctum (the rightmost level in the selection screen) and try to detect the Challenger. They shine their light on suspicious Beings, and should it turn red, it means they found the Challenger! We are still finishing them, and there are a few bugs in the lighting system we use that prevent them to be as visible as we would like from the Overseer's side. They will also make sound in the future. There is still more to come, but you can already see their intimading presence for yourselves!
The Watcher has been incorporated in the tutorial, to demonstrate their behaviour.
The in-game menu (accessible via pressing Escape, or through Start/Options/similar gamepad button) has been completely revamped, allowing you to change some gameplay options without having to come back to the main menu. The look and feel of that menu has also been improved.
The lighting in the Crucible (the leftmost level in the selection screen) has been improved. We added more lights in the section inside the cliff behind the lava falls, to better help player navigate this section.
Bugs Fixed
Sensitivity handling has been improved, the default setting is more reasonable for both controllers and mouse, and the range of settings is better adapted for both.
In the Crystal Mines level (the central one), the Challenger is now able to push other Beings around, as in the other levels.
Activating the Lens and looking towards certain spots caused lag in the Crystal Mines, this is now fixed.
Going back to the main menu from the level selection and back does not break level selection anymore.
In the tutorial, the lens of the fake Overseer on the Challenger side does not change size depending on the VR player's hands anymore.
In the tutorial, the final Orb on the Challenger side did not show its position as expected when the player stands still, it does now.
The Challenger can no longer get stuck if they get under an elevator platform that comes down from above them.
We look forward to hearing from you about all these changes! Let us know what you think of the Watcher :)
Until next time, have fun playing!
-Team Panoptes
HOW TO GET THE PREVIEW BUILDS:
Warning : the preview builds contain some features that are deemed not ready for wider release yet, and are intended to gather feedback on new additions and validate bugfixes. Some things may not work as intended, so try at your own risk.
In your steam library, right-click on the entry for Panoptic.
Select "Properties".
In the window that opens, open the "BETAS" tab.
In the dropdown, select "preview".
Let the game update, and that's it!
Follow the same steps, but select "default - Opt out of all betas" at the end if you want to revert to the stable builds.
Preview build for 2019-05-30
Hey all!
A new build has been released on the "preview" branch for Panoptic!
While it is pretty light on content, only including a couple of quality-of-life fixes, it is because we have been busy preparing the main gameplay addition for the next main update. It will be included in the preview builds soon, but it needed a little more time in the oven!
Enjoy the new build, and see you soon with more content!
Fixed controller detection during play (before, you had to have the controller plugged in before starting the game to have it work properly.
Enabled the in-game menu in the level selection scene, in case you want to go back to the main menu or quit the game.
A sneak peek, and some words on Early Access
Hey all!
Panoptic has been available on Early Access for one week now! We are very grateful for all the kind words, the feedback, and the support we got during that week :)
But let us not stop there! As part of Early Access, we decided to release frequent preview builds for the community to test, if you are eager to see new features as soon as possible, even at the risk of a few bugs here and there. These builds will feature some work-in-progress features, some early tweaks to existing mechanics, and basically help us prepare the bigger releases.
And the first of these builds has been deployed to a "preview" branch you can select in your properties.
The changes for this preview build are :
Improved the feedback when the Challenger gets shot by the Overseer.
Improved the way bloom interacted with the brightness setting in the options.
Fixed a bug where shooting at the feet of the Challenger would give it away by making it jump.
Edit : As promised, bugs were present. As one was fairly problematic, we just released a fix :D
Fixed the Overseer not being able to shoot the Challenger. (ahem. Thanks Nicky for reporting it!)
Removed a superfluous information in the Challenger's tutorial.
If you would like to try these changes, feel free to update your game to the new build on the preview branch! Happy playing!
-Team Panoptes
Panoptic is AVAILABLE NOW in Early Access!
Hey all!
Today, we at Team Panoptes are extremely proud to announce the Early Access release of Panoptic! This is a very important milestone for us, and something we have been building towards since starting this incredible journey more than 2 years ago.
This marks the first time Panoptic is made available as more than just a demo, but this is only the beginning! In the coming months, we will continue working hard on the game, and you can be a part of this process by sharing your thoughts with us (see below). But before we look to the future, let’s see what’s in store for today's release :
A 1v1, local, asymmetrical VR game pitting a colossal Overseer against a tiny Challenger.
3 distinct environments to play in.
A powerful laser and a scanner lens for the Overseer to seek and stop the Challenger.
Multi-tiered levels for the Challenger to traverse.
The option for the Challenger to blend in with other NPCs by mimicking their actions in certain spots.
A tutorial explaining the nuances of the game.
An optional locomotion system for the Overseer, so the game can be played in smaller spaces, or by people who cannot, or do not want to, move around as much.
This is, at its core, a continuation and expansion of what the free demo of Panoptic has been offering until now.
During Panoptic's Early Access, we plan to increase the amount of content in the game, as well as improving what is already available. To keep the conversation going with the community, we are sharing a public board listing the main features currently planned or in progress.
While we are somewhat conservative regarding game features, with Team Panoptes being a very small team of just 3 people, here are some key items that are planned(in no particular order) :
Several additional maps.
More customization options to let you tailor the gameplay to your liking.
A new type of NPC.
Improve the balance of the game.
Support for multiple languages (at the very least English, French and Dutch).
Better support for different VR setups (non-roomscale, etc.).
Add a few surprises :)
We hope you are as excited as we are about the coming months! We’ll be keeping you updated on our progress and are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and comments!
Because Panoptic is our first commercial release, we are still learning a lot. Team Panoptes would not exist as a studio today without all your support since publishing the first version of the demo in August 2016. We are deeply grateful for all the well-wishes and help we got along the way, and even through some difficult times, and if at times it seemed as if the project was inactive and dead, we have never stopped working and believing in it.
And so here we are. Ready to embark on this new part of the journey with all of you! Have fun! :)
Ever since we made Panoptic available as a free demo, you have had the same level to play. Now, for the first time, we replaced this level with a brand new environment.
This new demo is around one third of a much bigger level which is going to be available in the game's Early Access version, available later this month.
While the core gameplay stays the same, there have been a whole bunch of new features and mechanics implemented. Here is a list of the main changes :
The graphics have been overhauled.
The PC player now has several Orbs to destroy, making the levels more complex.
The PC player can try to blend in with NPCs by mimicking the actions of the other Beings in certain spots.
The VR player can find the general location of the PC player by pressing both triggers and using a new power.
The game now has a tutorial explaining all mechanics, accessible from the main menu.
The VR player can reposition themselves using the grip buttons, the trackpads and the menu buttons. The controls are explained in detail in the tutorial.
As the PC player, be careful of falling from too high, as you will lose your balance and get stunned!
A new, dynamic music track that changes as the PC player progresses through the level.
A slew of other changes and improvements, thanks to an almost complete code rewritten.
Hopefully you will enjoy the new mechanics and level, and will be excited for the release of the Early Access :) As usual, please let us know through the Steam Forums or Discord !
-Team Panoptes
We need your help to prepare for Early Access!
Hello!
As we said in a previous post, we are hard at work on the finalization of the Early Access release of Panoptic. As we are reaching the end of that task, we find ourselves in dire need of some more preliminary testing and feedback.
To this end, we have prepared a brand new demo version for you all to try.
What's new?
First is the exciting part: there are a lot of new elements in this demo, which comes from an almost complete reworking of the game. We want to give you a few highlights:
A brand new map (one-third of an actual level from the upcoming release)
Multiple objectives to reach for the Challenger!
A refined graphical style.
A new (optional) locomotion system for the Overseer, for smaller or less mobile players, or if your play area is not big enough.
For the Challenger, a new ability to mimic the actions performed by NPCs in certain spots, to better blend in with them..
As the Challenger, be careful of falling from too high, as you will lose your balance and get stunned!
A new, dynamic music track that changes as the Challenger progresses through the level.
And a whole lot of other improvements!
And all of this is of course not the full extent of what will be featured in the initial Early Access release.
Why do a beta for a new demo?
The goal here is to make sure that our wide-ranging code rewrites and improvements work on as many configurations as possible. As a three-person studio, it is hard to gather a lot of data regarding different hardware configurations and compatibility. Thus, we thought that reaching out to the community was the best way to help make sure that as much as possible is in order, before moving forward with the actual Early Access release. And in the process, you get an even earlier peek at what is coming, especially after such a long silence from us!
One of the main sticking points for a VR game is performance, and so we are particularly interested in knowing if the game runs smoothly for you, and whether it does or not, what kind of setup you are running the game on.
We have already been extensively testing the game as it is now, and tried our very best to make it as robust as possible. We did end up recently encountering some issues, due to a specific Unity (game engine) bug. While that bug is being worked on by Unity as we speak, we have in the meantime replaced a lot of Panoptic's special effects at the last minute. Which means that, as with everything else in this version, things may be subject to change even before properly entering Early Access.
Even at this early stage, we would like to ask for your help to find what we should tweak. And things are bound to have slipped by, so we do expect game-breaking bugs to rear their ugly heads. Again, the goal of this Demo Beta is to put the game through its paces, and your help will be highly appreciated! Creating a game true to our vision is of course important to us, but an even better achievement would to make the game the closest to what you, the players, would feel is the best version.
We think it will greatly help to have a more direct way for us to interact with the community, especially for this beta demo and the continued development of the game. We invite you to join our brand new Discord server to chat with us and other fans!
This was a long post, but there was a lot to cover. We hope you will enjoy what we have been working on so hard, and the only thing left is to give you the instructions to get your hands on that beta demo!
How to get the beta demo
Step 1 : In your Steam Library, right-click on the Panoptic Demo entry, and in the menu, select Properties.
Step 2 : In the window that opened, navigate to the BETAS tab, and from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into:" dropdown, select Early Access Demo Beta. You do not need any password to access this branch.
Step 3 : The build should update automatically, and you can see that in your library, the Panoptic Demo entry now has [noparse][earlyaccessbeta][/noparse] behind it.
Step 4 : Enjoy the new version of the demo, and hop over to [link to thread] to give us feedback or anything goes awry!
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Team Panoptes
Panoptic is coming to Early Access!
Hello all!
We hope you are well in this end-of-year period, and that 2018 has treated you as well as it could!
While we have been in a unfortunate and prolonged "stealth mode", we feel it is time for us to step back into the light, and give you all some exciting news!
Two years ago, we embarked on a journey, by creating the first demo version of Panoptic at a game jam during Gamescom 2016. We then spent the following year updating that demo in our spare time.
Now, during the last year, we have been hard at work starting to turn that demo into the fully-fledged game that we had envisioned. This is still our main focus going into 2019, and we still have a ways to go. But at the same time, all this work is starting to pay off, and after some tribulations, we think we are almost ready to show you where we are at.
We will delve deeper into how we arrived here in a later post, but the important news is that Panoptic is finally coming to Early Access! We are finalizing the Early Access version as we write this, and plan to release it in the coming weeks!
As the days before the release wind down, we will give you more details on our plans, but here is the executive summary:
The Early Access version will contain the first 3 maps, giving you a taste of the full content. We will add more maps during Early Access.
The demo will be updated to accurately reflect the quality of the game, so you will still be able to try before you buy!
The game will still be 1-on-1, local multiplayer only. We will take some time later to delve into that decision in more details.
The game will support Vive (& Vive Pro), Oculus Rift and WMR headsets, and will require tracked controllers.
Of course, the main objective of Early Access will be for our very small team to gather as much feedback from you, the players, as possible! Which means that we will regularly update the game and the existing content while continuing to develop new parts of the game.
We really wanted to finally let the community see what we have been up to behind closed doors, and that time is almost upon us!
So, while we are putting the finishing touches on the game for its Early Access debut, we want to leave you with some screenshots of what awaits you! Stay tuned in the next few days for more info, and bear with us just a little longer!
Panoptic Demo 0.13 - Oculus Rift support!
Hey there, masks of all shapes and sizes!
We have been in stealth mode for a while now, working on the promised final major demo update as well as continuing development on the full game. We are excited to share our plans for that, but it will have to wait a bit longer!
But on to the content on this update! The star of the show is Oculus Support!
Panoptic is now fully playable using Oculus Rift, using the Oculus remote for input.. Since the VR gameplay is mainly gaze-based, we felt this was the best input for the Overseer, but you can also use the Oculus Touch if you prefer.
Those of you who have been asking for Oculus support can now finally enjoy the game, and hopefully this will also help the game reach new players.
Aside from the Oculus support, we have also been tweaking the NPCs behaviour. Now, you are able to push them away as the Challenger, making it a little easier, though riskier, to traverse the level without getting stuck. We are still on the fence about that change, so we decided to put it out there for you all to test and tell us what you think!
Here is a formal changelog, and thank you for your patience. We hope you will feel rewarded when we have more to show on the full game later on!
Changelog
Oculus Rift is now a supported platform
We designed the gameplay for Oculus around the Oculus Remote, but you can also use the Oculus Touch
The Challenger now pushes the NPCs away while walking
Some navigation bugs where NPCs would suddenly jump were fixed
And that is it for now! Once again, thank you for your patience, and hopefully see you soon for a glimpse at the next steps for Panoptic!
-The Panoptic development team
Panoptic Demo 0.11.4 has been released!
Here comes a new update for the Panoptic demo! We have been listening to your feedback, and have been working on some often-requested features. This should hopefully kickstart a more timely update release schedule, too. Without further ado, here is what you can expect with this update:
Game Modifiers!
We have implemented several optional modifiers that can be toggled from the Vive's main menu screen. This is a first step towards letting you customize the difficulty level, and the first three options are:
Setting a limit to the number of "innocent" NPCs the Overseer can shoot and kill before losing the game. Make sure you know who you are aiming at!
Setting the reload time between consecutive shots. This can be made less than, or more than the default value.
Choosing whether NPCs should respawn when killed. This avoids just killing all NPC’s in specific areas; which made it way too easy to spot the PC player.
Analytics
In order to let us gather as much feedback as possible, we have implemented some analytics reporting. In the interest of transparency, here is the (anonymous!) data the game will report :
The values of the various game modifiers selected
The number of games during each play session
The duration of each game
The winner (Overseer or Challenger)
The number of shots and kills made by the Overseer
We plan to use these data points to balance the game as best as we can. Again, we stress that the data is completely anonymous, and we will do our utmost to communicate appropriately if we need to add more data to the reporting. We know data collection is a sensitive issue, and we take it seriously, but the game will benefit a lot from it!
Other balance tweaks
Since game balance is something we really need to improve, we have included a number of smaller, but important changes:
The vision of the Overseer is blocked when peeking into buildings.
The walking speed and patterns of the NPCs have been tweaked to match the Challenger speed more closely, making it a bit easier to blend in.
NPCs will be a bit smarter and try to avoid the Challenger, making moving around easier.
There is now a roof on the starting elevator.
Controller support
Controllers are now fully supported. While you cannot yet reassign buttons, the setup is fairly standard:
Right stick for looking
Left stick for moving around
Any face button (A/B/X/Y or equivalent) to jump
Any shoulder button to sprint
This means the underlying input code has been completely overhauled, and should hopefully solve the problem with constant rotation certain users were encountering.
And there is more!
We also have some other tweaks and fixes for you all:
Pressing ESC (or Start on a controller) will no longer dump you back in the main menu. Rather, it will bring up an in-game menu on the Challenger's screen with options to resume, go to the menu, restart, or quit the game. Be warned: the game is not paused, so you are still vulnerable!
Some navmesh bugs have been solved, removing some "jumps" from the NPCs.
That is all for this update. Hope you will all enjoy these new features, and do not forget you can reach us through these forums, or through Twitter or Facebook! Talk to you all soon!
-The Panoptic development team
The Panoptic Demo is now available on Steam!
We have decided to publish a demo version of Panoptic, for free, on Steam. Why not Early Access? Well, there are several reasons :
VR is still a new and developing field. We want to gather as much feedback on the game as possible, while experimenting with solutions to various game design problem.
We wanted to get the game in front of players as fast as possible, and reach the widest possible audience without forfeiting all chances of releasing a succeful commercial game.
The content of this demo is not huge, and we feel it would not yet warrant an Early Access version. Once we add to said content, we will feel more comfortable using Early Access.
That said, we will be treating this demo as kind of an alpha version, so you can expect a lot of changes in the next few months. We plan on working on the demo until something like February 2017, and the first few items we are tackling are :
Expanding controller support (including Steam controller)
Online play
Rules modifiers to increase replayability
...
If you want to give us feedback, please do so in the brand new Steam community hub for the game! Or you can always reach us @panopticvr on Twitter or Facebook. We also have a subreddit over at /r/panoptic if you prefer to use Reddit.
Thanks for your support, and we hope you enjoy Panoptic!
