This is a bugfix release. Demo was updated to this version as well from the ancient 0.6.
Changes:
Changed menu theme to a new one (Maxstack: "I've never really liked the old one, pls update")
A few more menu backgrounds
Added short sandbox mode pedia article
Changed wording for event on ambush evasion (when not in microhabitat)
Fixes:
Fix for black screen after rebirth with potential game crash
Hosts with maximum consent will not be discovered on despawn
Police will always have clues in event area
Area draw exception (another black screen fix)
Panicking hosts will not run when parasite is attached to them (from panic gas, etc)
Disabled mouse inventory actions when inventory is not yet learned about
v0.18 - Pickman's Model
Last time I've said I wanted to start the work on the last major addition to the game before the release but before that I've decided to try out how's it going on the AI art scene. So after endless nights of prompting I present to you the art update. The ingame icons were not changed but I added a lot of art for ingame events, difficulty selection and improvements. While working on it I also decided to add images to most of the pedia articles to illustrate the points. And then I added the main menu background art just for the fun of it. This led me to notice the lack of decent fonts in the game so I added these as well. There are now more appropriate default fonts plus there is a font selector in the options menu. I continued tweaking the visuals until I think I got it right now so here it is.
And after that was done, armed with the gajillion new art, I updated the store and library art as well. The woman on the cover is one of my two favorite images, I really dig how it turned out.
Changes:
All-new event, difficulty selection, pedia and improvements art
New ingame fonts and font selection in options
Lots of small UI tweaks with fonts and colors
Options do not need game restart now
You can now throw money for a single-use temporary paralysis cloud
Fixes:
Disabled keyboard HUD actions while any windows are open
v0.17 - Extremely hostile takeover
Sorry the new release took so long but it's a pretty hefty one. Firstly, the "engine" I used to draw the ingame entities has been removed in favor of low-level draw calls which made my life much, much easier (the usual scene with entities approach is amazingly ineffective and cumbersome for a procedurally generated open world tile-based game) and removed a whole class of bugs related to dynamically managing entities but it also exposed the ingame art in PNG format. You can find it now in the "resources/app/img/" folder along with the rest of UI images. Also this opens up the possibility of working on mod support in the future. I will create a sticky thread in the Steam forum where both potential mod authors and players can tell me their ideas so I can have a better understanding of the work needed to support that.
Not only that, the "engine" change now allows me to do simple animations and particles. Now all ranged weapon shots will draw particles and blood splots. I will likely improve and increase their amount in the future but that is not the game's focus so don't expect anything elaborate.
Secondly, the final mission of scenario A has been improved and reworked. There is now a new area type - corporate office floor. You start in the elevator and have to go through some hoops to go to your target. I won't spoil anything. Moreover, there are now two more variations of the final mission, so at the start of the game it will pick randomly what mission do you have to do to complete the game.
NOTE: I'm not entirely sure whether the old savegames will be completable (or loadable even) due to the scenario changes so I advise you to start a new game if you encounter a game-breaking bug after loading an old savegame. It wasn't possible to make the savegames 100% compatible this time.
Thirdly, some more QOL improvements to the game were implemented, read the full changes list below.
Now let me share a few thoughts. The first scenario is now in a good shape so the game is pretty close to public release (though I fully expect some bugs from the engine change and new additions). There are two large gameplay expansions that I feel like have the highest priority. One is all about the combat and another is base building. The combat was always bare-bones and simplistic due to the survival focus of the game. However, many people expect it to be much more viable. Because of that, I've been thinking about not only enhancing the combat experience but adding a viable combat-heavy path through the game. OTOH, the base building feels a bit lackluster and would go very well with the "cult experience" which is a natural extension of the chat gameplay. Both of these expansions would also work best in separate scenarios that would have this new gameplay as a theme and focus instead of the basic survival of scenario A.
So, I have three options to ponder upon: leave the expansions to be done after the game's release, implement one before the release or implement both of them. Tell me what you think.
NOTE: The game is now much closer to the public release so in a week's time I will increase the base price by 1 USD again (or your regional equivalent).
Changes:
Replaced the "engine" used to draw the game graphics (in-game images are now in resources/app/img/ folder)
New graphics, AI, generator, gameplay and music track (thanks MaxStack!) for corporate office area type
Updates to scenario A for the final mission to take place in new corpo area
Two more variations of the final mission of scenario A
Custom difficulty presets: creating new ones, editing, saving and deletion
Animated particles for ranged weapons shots
Blood splashes
Bullets hitting glass will produce a sound (no breakable glass, sorry)
Ingame minimap (accessed through mutation that is not that hard to find)
Team members will not be spawned in the very first area of the game (to make life easier for the new players)
Weapon can be marked as active in the inventory (it will be used for attacks instead of the first one in the list when no active weapon is set)
Dog host can bark to attract humans
Corporation area cannot be entered without a host
Fixes:
Uncommon AI now spawns as correct law type for the area
Fix for maximum alert and cannot leave logic (alertness will not go down once raised to max in corp)
Ambush will also finish after the last AI is under player's control
Nurturing ovum is disallowed once it reaches max level
Installing on is now an agreeable action (energy cost reduced to 1 when the host is agreeable)
H-HEYYY, IT'S M-ME AG-GAIN?
Balancing changes to make habitats more permanent.
Watchers will now give distance bonuses when habitats with them are destroyed
Level 2 watcher significantly reduces max energy loss (depending on the group difficulty level)
Max affinity tutorial message added
Advanced option - show/hide mouse cursor on map
Spoon mode option - no limit for saves
Fix for dog name
v0.16 - L-LET'S HAVE A C-CHAT...
There is now a conversation mode ingame. The parasite can chat with its host and later with the other NPCs. How it works is you first need to complete the tutorial (open access to the timeline), then use one host for a period of time until the affinity between you grows to a high degree. At this point a new menu action "Converse With" opens up which leads into the conversation mode. The purpose of any conversation is to gain the consent of the interlocutor. Each turn the list of actions is regenerated from a list of possible ones. Using the analyze action you can gain information about what the target wants and their character aspects if there are any. These, in turn, influence the result of manipulative actions to be positive or negative.
At first your chat attempts will fail due to the lack of skills but you can use the brain probe on hosts to get some, plus these skills are increased on each communication attempt. Once the consent is high enough, the rewarding actions open up. These may include questioning for information (gathering timeline clues), consulting for skill gains, requesting items (try to get a cop to give their gun to you!), de-escalation of area alertness and even some related to the --REDACTED--. In case of the host, the highest reward is maximum consent itself, since it makes the host agreeable to the parasite's presence, which results in a lot of energy-related benefits, the main one being that area movement will not spend any energy of the host. Maximum host consent also allows the parasite to use their mouth to speak with other NPCs.
The conversation is, of course, not without inherent dangers. Some manipulative actions risk provoking a negative reaction, up to and including violence. Some can result in NPCs getting emotional with very negative results. The NPCs are still alerted by seeing you but the positive manipulation offsets this. The most important thing is that instead of the host energy, chatting requires parasite energy which means that parasite can exhaust itself and die while trying to communicate. There are more details about the mechanics in the ingame encyclopedia. Enjoy!
NOTE: The price of the game was increased by 1 USD or your regional equivalent.
Changes:
Conversation mode
Host affinity and agreeableness
Skills are now sorted and grouped in the lists
Security now has radios (I wonder why they didn't...)
Energy word replaced with 🅴 icon everywhere
Paper clues in generic locations are reduced in number
Blackops now have bonus attributes
Spoon mode: No ambushes in habitats flag
HUD now has "team is very close" text marker when that happens
Reverted colors for team distance and changed wording in the body window
Fixes:
Clicking on self in region mode does not skip a turn now
v0.15 - More sounds and music updates
This release focuses on enriching the audio tapestry of the game. Essentially, it boils down to adding a lot of sounds where previously there was only silence. Plus, MaxStack has reworked his older work and added a couple more tracks to the game. The final addition is the About game window with credits.
Changes:
Around 50 new sounds
Music updates and two new music tracks
About game window
Fixes:
Disabled background ambience in new game menu
HUD fixes for multiple timeouts and timers
Fixes for mouse clicks on game view
Fix for area alertness stuck at the same value
Possible fix for rebirth exception
Fix for player entity on loading a region mode save
Fix for completing the uncover more events goal if the player stumbles on REDACTED randomly
Returned close button to main menu
v0.14 - Sandbox Mode and Pseudocampus
This release brings the often requested sandbox mode into the game. The current plotted scenario is moved into a separate choice during the game start. There is no timeline, no clue gathering, no plot-related events and no NPCs in the sandbox mode, otherwise it plays the same. You can play the sandbox mode indefinitely, you cannot "win" the game. Two key changes were introduced to supplement this mode (they work with the scenario mode too):
The first change is that now if you kill off all the ambushers in the habitat, it will not be destroyed. The Group goes into the timeout until they can spend more resources to gather another team of operatives. Same thing will happen with the street ambush. Successful killing of the team is not easy, especially once the level of the team raises but you do have the reward for that now.
The second change is the addition of the Pseudocampus improvement into the game. It opens up the access to the organ which upon activation will plant the false memories into the host brain, and the parasite will then automatically leave the host. After that, it only has a short amount of time to slink off somewhere before the host is alerted. But if everything goes right, there will be no alert raised. In case of a common human this improvement is of limited use for a non-lethal gameplay style. But in case of a team member or a blackops operative the false memories will result in a significant raise of the team distance. Note that the blackops are especially juicy in that regard, doubling the base value. In short, this opens up the possibility of evading the antagonists indefinitely. You might have noticed that as usual I've neglected to describe how to gain access to that precious improvement... Well, I will continue the good tradition and won't say it :)
The game is now much closer to the full release since the first Steam release so I'm raising the price by 2 USD or its regional equivalent.
Changes:
Sandbox mode, current plot scenario can be accessed by choosing SCENARIO A at game start
Pseudocampus improvement for planting false memories
Brain probe on team agents/blackops will now also give Group knowledge (in addition to event NPCs)
Repelling the ambush will now result in team deactivation
Fixes:
Agents will not spawn in wilderness anymore (ambushes still can, actually probably not a bad place to handle one, now that I think about it, no witnesses...)
Fix for sound effects volume changes not working until game restart
v0.13 - Labs Update Two and Parthenogenesis
The main focus of this release was scenario-related changes to the research labs. I don't want to spoil them but now there is an additional bit of gameplay that you will have to do once you reach the . Nothing too serious, just a little more meat on the bones. This also served as a test of sorts for the amount of work needed to implement special scenario logic with custom ingame objects. The results are promising and after some changes to the low-level code I can now spawn objects on the region map, move area objects between areas and make logic that is related to multiple objects. I won't go into any technical details here, this post already promises to be quite large.
Lab areas now feature ventilation covers which the parasite can use to go "through the walls" in some places. This is very risky and situational since you will have to leave the host outside. Sorry, no man-sized ventilation shafts, hehehe. Another thing that was added are the security guard spots. Now security often guards the outer building doors and sometimes inner ones. If they leave their spots due to alert, they will try very hard to return back once they calm down. Another change done to the scenario lab area is that now if you raise the area alertness high enough by not being careful, you will not be allowed to leave the lab until you complete the related goals. This is only for the scenario lab, the other ones work as usual.
I have to warn you, there might be problems with savegames due to the changes. I couldn't think of a way to make them fully compatible with the scenario changes. In the best case the old savegames won't have the new gameplay available. If nothing changes in the lab once the plot leads you to find the , wait until the next game. There is another labs-related update planned, and that one will be about the additional location-based gameplay with unique player rewards. Sorry, but no details until it's implemented.
There were two small but important changes that deserve a mention. Previously, there was no limit to the amount of security/law enforcement that responds to the alerts and often you'd be swamped by infinite cops. There is now a cap to this amount so that the total amount of law response is limited by the area type.
The second change is more of a fix. While testing something with two nearby security guards I noticed that no matter how much I shot one of them, the other one just didn't care. Well, it turned that I had a nasty bug in the ingame sounds code that didn't use the given sound radius to propagate. Essentially the radius was always zero. It wasn't that apparent because on receiving damage the alert propagated to nearby AI by different logic. So I've fixed it and added the "sounds" to all of the weapons. Both this fix and the change are pretty low-level so I'm hoping I didn't make the game harder for the more aggressive playstyle (it's not like it wasn't already too hard before, heh).
Parthenogenesis and rebirth
Now for the other big addition. After I was done with the planned changes I've noticed that I had a good chunk of time left before the release so I picked one of the features that is often requested by the players and did it. I'll just make the pedia article speak for itself:
After you evolve the Parthenogenesis improvement, the parasite gains access to the rebirth process. Normally, if it dies, it's game over but if you have the rebirth set up, the parasite will just move on to the "next life" with some losses. The first thing you need is to create the ovum object in region mode. It is a process similar to the microhabitat spawning. Go to the nearest sewers, pick a good spot on region map and activate the "Create ovum" action. Pick the place carefully because you will need to travel there to change settings and the parasite will be reborn there each time. The ovum itself is not in any danger from the antagonists at the moment and you can only build one.
Once the ovum is created, stepping on its tile will show you the info about its level and what improvements are marked for rebirth. There are two actions available. "Set improvements" opens the interface to lock and unlock which of the basic improvements you want to be reborn with. The second action, "Nurture ovum", allows you to feed your current host to the ovum, adding points to the next level. Each new level requires more points and there is a maximum ovum level. Different types of hosts will give you different amount of points. In general, the more dangerous the host type is, the more points the ovum will receive.
The rebirth process happens automatically on parasite death. At this point a new parasite will appear on the ovum location. The ovum level will be reduced by one. If the current ovum level is zero, it is the final death and game over. The basic improvements that were locked will stay with you, the rest will be discarded and you will receive another set of starting improvements. The basic improvements are the ones that can be received when you first open the evolution process in tutorial. All the ones that you've acquired during the gameplay after that will not be discarded. However, there is a large chance that some of them will degrade by one level to a minimum of one. Any evolution points that you've gained over the current improvement level will also be reset.
Pretty neat, huh?
Changes:
Parthenogenesis improvement and rebirth-related changes
New art for courtesy of iwanPlays
Scenario-related research labs changes
Each area type now has a modifier to the base area alertness raise formula. The labs and military bases have the highest.
You cannot leave the scenario-related lab if you raise the alertness high enough until you complete the appropriate scenario goals
Ventilation covers and the ability to pass through them when not on host
Lab security now sometimes guards doors, new AI state and logic for that
Law response is now capped to maximum according to area info
Weapon sounds now propagate into the world and alert AI
Fixes:
Ambushes in normal areas will now also set a "cannot leave" timer
Ingame sound code propagation radius fix
Fix for save/loading AI alert timer
Fix for save/loading backup arrive event
Fix for leaving the host during shift-action
v0.12 - Ingame encyclopedia and host preservator
The vacation is over and the update is ready. This release marks the addition of the thing that has long been on my radar. I'm talking about ingame encyclopedia. A lot of people ask questions about this and that part of game, or end up confused or even wrong, and before there was no place they could receive the basic information apart from my answers and Steam discussions. Since I'm not all that good at keeping details in my head, some of the answers had me consulting the code and that took valuable time. Don't stop asking questions and giving feedback since that makes me think hard about the game. But now you can also read the explanations and intent behind some of the design. I've intentionally left off anything related to the mechanics and sources of actual evolution improvements (apart from the habitat growths and brain probe), this information is best discovered on your own. I think I've covered all the topics but there might be something I missed. Side note: you can actually write decent code even if there are people drinking, chatting and watching movies around you if you use brown noise and music combo to keep focus. Small kids are harder to ignore but thankfully, there was only one.
After I finished working on the encyclopedia I've had some time left so I went ahead and added one of the requested features into the game: now you can store hosts in your habitat and return to them when needed. For that you must evolve and build a preservator growth. The amount of hosts that can be preserved with one of these is calculated from the level and assimilated hosts gain benefits to starting control value. That leaves only one question: how would you gain access to that improvement? Well, that's easy, just find a --REDACTED-- with --REDACTED-- somewhere in the --REDACTED--. Anyway, have fun.
Changes:
Encyclopedia articles and UI
Preservator improvement and habitat growth
Additional visibility code to better draw walls when the player is close to them
More starting control on assimilated hosts after invasion
Fixes:
Fix for brain probe action when attached to host
Loading AI mask bug fix
v0.11.1
Fix for loading game when AI has adipose tissue body feature
