For more than two years now, Manufacture 43 started working on a new game, of a totally different genre. What came to be named City Ambulance: Rescue Express, or City Ambulance fort short, or CA:RE for extra short, will be a fun and positive minded driving game!
Heavy work is undergoing as we add more missions, characters, ambulance customisations, streets and parks to our big european city!
We don't have a release date yet, but what we have is a nomination for France's Game Cup! This contest saw us selected amongst two other finalists to be voted by the public in order to win 20000€ (21,699$US) to finance the game in a KissKissBankBank campaign (a french crowdfunding platform). Not only this is quite the honor, we now would love to have your help winning!
We recently announced our new game: City Ambulance: Rescue Express!
It's an open-world driving adventure game set in a climate-friendly future city. Hit the streets as Jakub & Mishra, our paramedic duo on duty to rescue locals. Face traffic, storms and more, the clock is ticking!
Pawarumi is now certified on Steam Deck! We only had to fix a tiny UI bug where some texts where cut at the bottom of the screen. The game was fully playable already. Enjoy! :)
Maintenance Patch
Fixed graphical glitches on enemies on Linux/AMD (Steamdeck) and macOS (M1)
Update #9 Blast Gallery
With the PS4 release and the incoming Switch update, months and MONTHS of optimization work has been done on the game. We are updating the Steam version too so that your old computer in the attic can be yet another machine you can play Pawarumi on!
But this update is not just about running faster, it also has a few user experience improvement. Most notably, we've added an achievement gallery!
Patch Notes
Display achievements in the main menu and unlock images in the gallery!
Added Traditional Chinese thanks to our partner Eastasiasoft
Reduced timeout of Industrial Complex mid-boss
Improved main menu UI
Added option to skip cutscenes between levels
Renamed "Easy" difficulty to "Discovery"
Renamed "Hard" difficulty to "Heroic"
New font for Chinese (simplified and traditional)
Improved graphics in levels "Ocean Dune" and "K-7Z4-COA7L"
Globally improved performance (TONS of improvements)
Bugfixes
Update #9a: fixed broken rendering when antialiasing is off.
Update #9b: fixed ship not moving when using d-pad diagonals with some playstation-usb adapters.
Update #8: Major Performance & UX Update!
As you may have noticed, Pawarumi has been released on Switch and Xbox One on July 24th. Major Performance has been hard at work to make it come to life and also took some time to make some slight user experience improvements in the process!
Many optimizations have been done in order to make the game run smoothly on consoles. This update brings all those changes to the PC. What for, you may ask? They make the game run much much smoother and should even bring 120FPS rendering to those of you with 120Hz screens! And if you have an old computer, behold the smoothness that comes with those changes! Our 10 year old iMac can now run the game easily in 1280x720!
Patch Notes
Added possibility to display the points won by destroying each enemy
Added many sound effects
Added visual special effect when shield is fully recharged
Added visual special effect to Industrial Complex boss setup animation
Fixed missing shots while firing the Super Attack for the first time
Improved Industrial Complex boss explosion animation
Made trucks colors clearer in Dune Ocean level
Keep Xibalba Boss order on screen while player did not answer
Fixed camera when destroying Alaska boss too fast
Made pillar rings slightly easier to destroy in K-7Z4-COA7L in hard mode
Stop trails when breaking
In-game dialogs now have full texts with glitch effect
Improved arcade difficulty selection screen
Added training level unlock message
Added messages to top left of Tutorial
Prettier UI highlights in Tutorial
Made Game Over screen more friendly
Prettier leaderboards
Start button now validates name entry immediately
Loading icon instead of black screen
Loading icon while loading in cutscenes
Loading icon while downloading leaderboards
Improved "skip" button display for cutscenes
Show custom ship in main menu
Fixed UI opacity setting being reset while juggling weapons
Fixed some dropped network and offline mode issues with Steam
New Japanese font
Fixed some overlapping texts in Russian
Better shadows
Massive rendering performance improvements to special effects
Upgraded post processing to v2
Replaced Temporal Anti Aliasing with Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing
Interpolated rendering for smooth gameplay on low as well as high framerates
New collisions, much faster
Tons, TONS of code and graphics performance improvements
Better use of multithreading
Minor bugfixes
Game is now 200MB smaller, yes, smaller :)
Any many small other changes we probably missed while reading the thousands of commits since the last update :)
Update #7: Minor bugfixes
The image text might ring a bell to a few musicians but it's just a joke, the music of the game didn't change, I just had no idea what to write :D
This update addresses a few very small bugs we noticed since the previous one.
Patch Notes
Tutorial is not mandatory anymore
Fixed confused trinity UI when firing the super attack
Fixed reset local leaderboard button not working
Fixed very rare case of boss warning staying stuck on screen
Added more kickstarter backers to the in-game credits
Update #6: Cleaning the cockpit
There is good news here! We were waiting for more bug reports but we only got so few. Looks like we did a good job right? We even took the liberty of improving a few things that we didn't notice and we had our heads buried in all the work needed to get the official release done.
I'd like to take the time here to give a big thank you to everyone who reviewed the game so far on steam: 100% positive reviews is totally heartwarming! :)
Patch Notes
Allow unlocking of no-miss achievements in training mode
Added spaces in the score for easier legibility
Improved text reveal animation
Improved legibility of crush FX on enemies
Render shield/super UI FX below bullets to improve legibility
Fixed overscan issues with cutscenes on non-16/9 screens
Fixed jittering of missiles' locks when the environment is moving very fast
Mac/Linux: fixed distortion effect
Level: Xibalba
Fixed infinite point leeching on midboss in easy and normal mode
Brighter colors for swarm introduction sequence
Moved down some enemies in boulder sequence so that they don't appear behind dialog in certain languages
Boss: Removed unwanted attack prior to last attack
Level: Dune Ocean
Fixed random FX in the sky in normal mode
Level: K-7Z4-C0A7L
Fixed stuttering at the beginning of the labyrinth
Properly positioned explosion for blast launchers
Improved framing of 3 big lasers on top of the spaceship
Minor bugfixes and improvements
Added more kickstarter backers to the credits
Update #5: Confront the Neo-Aztec Apocalypse!
Stress has been off the charts for us this last week! But we made it, right in time, the final version of Pawarumi! Well, truth be told, some things we wanted didn't make the cut. But they might come in an upcoming update. A colorblind mode would be helpful to many right?
But we are very happy with how Pawarumi turned out! As you can see from the very long patch notes, we've been very busy putting all our best efforts in polishing the game. Most notably, our sound designer, musician and friend, Grégory Desmurs managed to finally get the time to raise the quality and it's stunning!
Patch Notes
Added 30 achievements!
Golden Chukaru for Kickstarter backers!
Improved sound mixing and performance
Added a sound effect when shield bar gets full
Added a sound jingle to level ending and game over
Added sound effects to story cut-scenes and dialogs
Added sound effects to tutorial
Added a small delay when unpausing game
Exponential increments on Super Attack's combo
Made center of shield more transparent while active
Raised computations from 50Hz to 60Hz for smoother movements
New statistics screen
Improved animation when firing weapons
Improved menu animations and icons
Updated credits screen to properly include Kickstarter backers
Support for more controllers
Improved input behavior of virtual keyboard
Improved resolution of important textures in low resolution mode
Require pressing the button for 1.5 seconds before resetting the local leaderboard
Brang back shortcut to training screen when getting out of a training session
Bigger default scores in local leaderboard
Removed "Early Access" message from the top right corner
Fixed glitchy rendering of explosions when setting of Special Effects was set to High
Level: Alaska
Improved explosions and animations of barrage
Moved jaguar enemy below dialog
Wait a little more before starting "cliff" cutscene to let fight jaguar enemy
Hard & Normal boss: bottom satellite will now move upwards if top satellite gets destroyed
Fixed music not playing if restarting level in training mode
Level: Xibalba
Added sound effects to the boss
Added sound effects to environment
Improved lighting quality
Fixed swarm enemies ending up shooting like crazy in hard mode
Fixed camera sometimes going though big boulder on game over
Level: Industral Complex
Added sound effects to the boss
Made boss eyes scary
Level: Dune Ocean
Added sound effects to the boss
Removed a buggy blue condor tank at the beginning of the level
Simple water animation in the city
Improved lighting quality
Level: K-7Z4-C0A7L
Added big bonus for beating the boss in hard mode, based on shield and super available
Improved collider of energy balls
Improved balancing on final boss and last fight
Added sound effects to labyrinth
Added ending musics
Added sound effects to the boss
Improved behavior of enemies between pillars
Darkened wormhole in last fight for better legibility
Darker skybox to improve legibility
Fixed scoring when defeating boss in normal mode
Fixed super attack trying to attack enemies on the other side of the ship
Fixed labyrinth hitting player while it shouldn't have
Fixed music loop
Various performance improvements and bugfixes
Update #4: Let me tell you a story...
Two years ago, some french dudes started a small video game project that was supposed to be a very simple shoot’em up, no original gameplay, no risks taken. Time passed and the small simple game became a much more original one, discovered its identity and developed its game system way beyond what it was supposed to be. Two years later, Pawarumi is now ready to unravel its story.
Starting today you can discover what is the narrative behind the universe of the game. Who is Axo? Who are you fighting against? Why are you fighting? The story answers a lot of these questions while leaving you other ones to find on your own.
Shoot’em up are clearly not a genre suited for narration. But we tried to develop something that is interesting and not overwhelming, for those of you that are here just for the explosions and scoring! :)
And I’m taking the time once again to thank Alexandre Chaudret, who made those awesome illustrations which allowed us to tell you the story of Pawarumi.
But it’s not the only thing we’ve been working on those past weeks. We improved a lot of things in the game thanks to your feedbacks, from user interface to Chukaru’s design, level balancing and final touches on animations. We hope that you will appreciate all of these. We honestly think that they are pushing Pawarumi out of the beta state nicely. That means that the next update will be for the final release! In a couple of weeks, January the 30th!
Patch Notes
Story cutscenes!
Improved in-game text dialog (top-left corner instead of bottom, longer, prettier)
Ship design upgrade
Easier to read Super level UI
Jaguar Missiles Lock now more visible
Condor enemies are now more bluish and less whitish
Updated Game Over animation
Added titles of every level when they start
Added ability to set opacity for the trinity interface
Improved enemy introduction animations in various levels
Fixed current weapon being stopped if trying to use the super attack without enough Energy
Fixed enemies firing while in cutscenes
Level: Alaska
Improved bulwark animations
Thicker lines on boss to help read coloring
Level: Industrial Complex
Explosion of boss parts in the background now easier to see
Improved boss explosion
Improved lava colors
Level: Xibalba
Improved design of boss' cups
Level: Ocean Dune
Added some enemies from city entrance up to pyramid introduction for better pacing
Reworked pyramid enemies to ensure that the same score can be reached with every possible combination of enemies coming out of it
Added conditional enemies on pyramid for better pacing
Improved environment lighting
Fixed trees popping out in the background while fighting mid boss
Fixed some enemies passing through each other
Level: Sector K-7Z4-C0A7L
Updated design of Blast enemies
Swarm shoots more in hard mode
3 big lasers now also shoot bullets in hard mode
Added bullet cancel after 3 big lasers
New explosion animation for final boss
Improved cage explosion animation
Improved boss animations
Fixed game sometimes moving on without killing all 3 big lasers
Fixed camera sometimes passing through enemies in the cutscene before the labyrinth
Fixed spaceships highlights being too bright
Fixed debris of first laser sometimes going through player's ship
