Psychic Isolation
The game will be remade from scratch
in my last update I said I will not be improving on the current quality of the game ... however, I just can't do that.
I put too much work into the game, so I decided to go all out instead.
Episode 1 will get a complete overhaul.
This means:
No more note based progression.
Better Visuals,
New Texts,
More story explaining the events of the game,
New Voice Lines,
New Models,
New Animations.
This will take some time to be done, but I am pretty positive that I can do this.
Contrary to the last update - I did increase the price but will not go any higher.
Make sure to follow the projects twitter account for updates - @Psychic_Isolation.
I hope you look forward to it.
Best regards,
thiefbug
Work on the game continues soon
It's been quite some time since I looked into this and I think not a whole lot of people don't see this anyway.
First of all: Let me clear things up and be as transparent as I can about everything regarding this project:
The reason I abandoned it was easily because I felt ashamed for the state the game is in.
My perfectionism got the best of me and I couldn't even watch videos of the game due to how little I liked the polishing in this game.
However, considering I am the only person working on the game and the fact that this is, and will be, an early access title, I might have been a little too hard on myself here.
I am currently still busy with all sorts of projects that I won't have time to work on this game up until November 2021.
After this, I will shift priorities again.
So what does that mean for Psychic Isolation?
Some of the 2nd Episode was done several years ago already.
This includes art, voice lines, code, story, puzzles and the map.
This is where I'll pick up again.
While I know that I, and a lot of you out there, won't be happy with the outcome of the game, it might still be better doing absolutely nothing.
As some of you know, the price was dropped a while ago to $1 - this won't change.
I will still pour lots of hours and money into this project, but I do not intend to earn anything with it anymore.
(I just don't make it free because I don't want to completely discredit the people that bought the game and I still want to give the impression that this is not completely garbage city)
No future DLC, no additional cost - just that one dollar.
I do want to note tho:
I have no intention to go down the rabbid hole of making everything else look like your average rushed unity game.
There is just so much I can do on my own and what I absolutely can't do, will be done by paid freelancers.
ultimately, this boils down to:
- I will not worry about high quality animations. The first episode already struggled with it and I am not going to bother with it too much... I know it breaks the immersion, but there's only so much I can do
- Less art, less voice acting... I worried a lot about those parts previously, wanted to have several voice actors for the second part.
This has to be ditched for the beginning.
There will be voice acting, it just won't be everywhere
- The levels will not be as detailed as the first part ... this is simply because I am not a level designer.
I struggle with making scenery seem believable and also had this done by a friend who is no longer working on the project.
I will do my best to get the quality of the game as good as I can.
But there's really only so much I can do...
Let's see where this journey brings us.
Game on semi-hold for a while
The game's release will be delayed for an unknown amount of time.
There is a longer text incoming that explains the current situation with the game - so if you don't want to read it, here's the short version first:
This game was not meant to become abandonware at any point but I just do not have the time to continue it properly as of now - but it will be released at some point, this much I can and will promise.
Here's the longer and detailed version:
When I put this game on greenlight, I wanted to see how people liked the idea of the story as I am a rather story inspired person myself.
As it got greenlit, it was a sign for me to try better with episode 2, which I ended up working on right as the game got greenlit.
In fact - there are working prototypes of both Episode 2 paths in a slightly improved quality of the greenlight demo.
Let's fast forward tho.
As I was working on those Episode 2 prototypes, I already had most of the characters written and the major ones even voiced.
Short: The majority of the Non-infected branch already have their voice.
We ended up back paddling to Episode 1 again tho as this one was not even close to what it could be ...
This means that the demo alone had three complete mechanic reworks from 2015 - 2017.
So where does it stand at the moment?
The Scripts of episode 2 are done, a good chunk of the art of episode 2 is done, the current build has actual puzzles and a more subtle story telling.
The notes are gone, the mechanics improved and every part will have 4 different endings with their own little twists.
However, the environment is not filled with furniture yet, several rooms are not aligned yet, triggers aren't set, sub titles not aligned etc - and I just can't find the time to fix this, let alone polish this.
How will it proceed from here
First of all: The game is not entirely on hold!
It's only on hold on my end.
But this doesn't mean that there's nothing happening.
Just like in EP1 / the demo, there will be unique art and music again.
Someone has to make this art, the music, the voice acting, the models and the environment.
I might not have time, but just like before, I am still sending commissions to artists I worked with before to work on the game - and this is still happening.
So my current plan is to use the time and energy I have to first get the art, the music and everything done - and once I have everything and finally find the time again to work on it properly, I will get to it and do my best with a proper come back - giving the project the time it deserves.
In addition:
Episode 1 will get a rework again as well, as the way the game progresses is far away from what I can do with the experience I gained over the years.
This only affects progress and story telling, as I do believe that it can do so much better.
So... when do you think will you release the game?
I have absolutely no idea to be honest.
My schedule is filled for at least another year, that I have to use to push myself forward.
So I don't see any release happening before summer 2019.
Another factor here might be that I might attempt to put Episode 2 and the plans of Episode 3 into one episode, doubling the play time (Meaning 4h in total) and going from there.
I have several ideas for the game that I can't wait to show off (That already worked well in the prototype) - some planned and written down already, some only outlined so far.
I hope you can bear with me and I am really sorry that his had to happen.
Best regards,
Ricky
Quick status update
Before anyone claims we're abandonware - nope, not the case at all.
We are still working on Episode 2 - however, both of our lives took a rather unexpected turn which led to Noc (3D Artist) and me having to look for new jobs and rearrange our lives a little, so things are progressing slower than originally expected.
However, we are trying to work more effectively on this game now as a lot of our workflow in Episode 1 was rather experimental and far from optimal, due to us first having to figure out how to sync our workflow.
We used the time we had for the project to figure this out - and while this might sound like a cheap excuse, we actually managed to come up with a solution that should increase our efficiency by a lot.
But let's talk current progress and plans a little bit:
- Episode 2 will be a lot longer than the first episode - obviously.
- It will aim for a playtime of around one hour per branch and should actually be able to achieve that.
(at least if our predictions work as we couldn't get any test results in yet) - Both branches differ heavily in their style of gameplay - Episode 1 already teases the directions already.
- Episode 2 will contain more cutscenes and actual puzzles.
- We learned from our mistakes - less exposition dumping in our writing!
- While having about 5 times as much text, Episode 2 does not rely on notes anymore - in fact: there are hardly any to be found
- Episode 2 is WAY more optimized code wise, which also means: less game breaking bugs
- Due to this experience we've gained - Episode 1 will get another overhaul with the games release - just no major design changes (But the way the entire game progresses will change)
- The current layout of one of the branches is about 4 times as big as the building in Episode 1
- The Prototype of the first Episode 2 branch can almost be finished and already has all its core functions running stable.
We are funding this project entirely on our own in our free time, so please bear with us if we say that we still need some time.
We can not show any screenshots right now - you can see some of the old prototype screenshots in the screenshot section already, but both models and levels do not exist like this in the game anymore and are completely remade.
Also, depending on our financial situation in the future and our workflow, we are considering to combine Episode 2 and Episode 3 into one episode.
Obviously, this would delay the release of the game by quite a bit, but it would also double the length of each branch - and as their setting is quite similar to each other (spoiler), this would actually make sense - but this will come down to several factors we can not decide on yet.
We also noticed this "trend" to get the game, test it and return it.
Obviously, that's fine - the game in it's current state can easily be completed within less than 60 minutes including both paths and seeing everything (which, by the way, was not achieved by anyone so far).
Feel free to return the game as soon as you've seen everything - we launched early access for those, who enjoyed the game and want to support us.
But keep in mind - once we leave Early Access, all future episodes past Episode 2 will cost a small amount extra, while they're all included in the Early Access version already.
However, we will announce the release at very least one month in advance - so there's plenty time to just get it again without paying extra for future content.
Before we close this one off:
Thanks a lot to everyone for their feedback - may that be in video form, in the forum, leaving a review or anything like that.
It really does help a lot and we will work on some of those heavy weaknesses.
Thank you for checking out our little game and look forward to what we have to offer in the future aswell :)
Best regards,
Ricky
V 0.7 is up!
I just didn't have the time to post, the day was loaded and I was traveling for three days right afterwards...
But the update is live!
The journal works as intended, lots of issues are solved and it should be running better than before.
We will update Episode one here and there in the upcoming days, mostly replacing voice over files or changing minor things as we will now start redesigning Episode 2.
We still want to change a couple of textures, redesign a few rooms and give Jess / William a voice.
This will take some time as they are key roles in future episodes, I just didn't have the time to cast them yet and want to make a decision carefully as the characters are being fleshed out more.
The redesign will only be minor redesigns as we learned a lot within the last couple of months we want to integrate in Episode 2, other than that we will be using the script and texts that were already worked out.
Episode 2 will aim for one hour of playtime per branch - one branch will be harder to progress, the other one a little easier, so playtime may vary.
Thanks again to everyone for trying out the game and leaving feedback.
We hope you enjoyed the first little bit of game we produced so far, which hopefully gave you an impression on what we are aiming for.
If you have any feedback or issues (It could come to loading issues apparently? Not too sure), please let us know.
We appreciate every bit of constructive feedback we can get to try and improve the experience as much as we can.
Small edit here: Despite Unity offering the option to compile for linux, we couldn't really get it to run properly on linux, which is why that one will have to wait.
We will try some more in the future, but I want to apologize to all linux users at this point for not supporting it yet.
Best regards,
Ricky
We aren't dead! We just need a few more days...
We really thought this would get through faster... but we also didn't think to get this much done.
I want to throw out a little changelog on what will change with the upcoming v0.7 and am asking those, who are waiting for performance or bug fixes to just wait a liiitle longer :)
Okay, here we go:
Changes from 0.6.5 to 0.7
- Added Voice acting for mom's notes
- Added Voice acting for Finn
- Improved the overall ambience
- Added the option to disable Voice Acting
- Added Mumbling
- Added a journal which shows which notes are found and all of them can be read again
- Added a few more visual atmospheric effects
- Changed the font and UI of the letters
- Changed the pause menu UI
- Added the option to lower texture size while playing
- Removed the function to change Anisotropical Filtering as it was useless.
- Using Mipmaps for better looks over distance.
- Improved SSR and SSAO performance
- Redesigned a couple of rooms in the basement
- heavy performance boost for high end pc's (up to 5x as many fps in some areas)
- heavy performance boost for low end pc's
- Improved loading times by quite a bit
- Fixed a bug that would constantly lower the fps into the abyss
- Gave the pause menu a new design
- Low end graphics cards now also support shadows
- Fixed a bug that would make progress from the tutorial on impossible
- Lowered the overall mouse sensitivity
- Minor changes regarding the flashlight and shadows
I'm pretty sure that I forgot a few things...
But yeah, a few things changed and we just need a few more days to complete implementing the voice acting and making sure it works properly (which it mostly does, just not everything's in and configured yet)
Here are a few screenshots of the changes:
(No more long term FPS drops. This is the worst amount of FPS I could find)
(New Fonts and UI for notes)
(Boiler room redesigned with a tilewall and properly looking boiler)
(Pause Menu - still not as good as it should be, but we're getting there)
(Journal - showing which notes have been found and which haven't)
These will be the last big updates for EP1 before we start working on EP2, as our EP1 deadline is reaching its end.
We will continue to fix bugs and improve it slightly here and there, but after v0.7, our focus will be on bringing you episode 2.
Thank you for reading.
Regards,
thiefbug
Big thanks to all of you and a tiny update.
First of all a thank you to all of you who bought the game in Early Access or played the demo and for your feedback.
(Even that negative review isn't all so negative and encouraged us, thanks a lot for that aswell :) )
Also a BIG thanks to everyone streaming the game or uploading a video.
We know that there have been issues we didn't catch yet, but your videos make it so much easier for us to find and fix them.
Just a tiny announcement to say that we're not pushing any updates the next days as we have a few things in the works.
On one hand - the visuals are getting a little upgrade.
A few models didn't look as good as they could at the moment and are getting a few more textures and animations.
The other thing is voice acting.
Mom and Finn will get a voice plus some random mumbling inbetween the passages.
The mumbling will also help guide the way to the next objective a little more as it was hard to remember everything - especially if the texts popped up while being chased.
Mom will get all letters voiced plus action sounds... and a couple of changed notes as the ones in the current build are just not as good as they could be.
Also - We are going to add a journal so you can keep track of the notes and read them again where you want.
For the ones just looking for story and play without scares, it will also show which ones are missing.
As Early Access states already, we're planning to have Episode 2 fully playable and ready for an actual release in Summer next year... but we're not too sure how realistic that is (Early Access should have access to them... earlier)
The prototype of Episode 2 mostly worked already, voice acting of some characters is already done and the story outline mostly finished.
If you have any wishes, suggestions, complaints or questions - make sure to let us know.
We're happy to answer them as we still have looots of plans for the game.
Thanks for reading,
Ricky
Demo coming in time - just the steam demo will be delayed.
I'm currently trying to stay calm cause I'm really, really nervous about this.
The demo on the steam page itself will be slightly delayed - however, you can get it on our homepage as soon as the game releases.
The demo will feature the entire game except for one story path - so instead of two different story and gameplay aspects, you can only experience one which will still give you a huge general impression on the direction the game is aiming for.
Once you purchase the game, you obviously will get all content and all future content for free aswell.
Thank you for your interest and we hope you enjoy our game.
Kind regards,
Ricky
Early Access on August 15th, Demo a week later.
In August 2016 the project was first posted on Steam Greenlight and actually got greenlit within only 9 days!
Thanks to so much interest, I wanted to proceed as well as I could on the game and started working on Episode 2.
As time passed, more people joined and helped me with the game.
In february this year, we decided to redesign Episode 1.
What was only planned as a minor design upgrade, turned out to be a complete rework of the episode.
So what have we done in this year?
I can not deliver the promised Episode 2 yet.
The prototype exists in quality of the old Episode 1 and while it is fully playable, we are also completely redoing that part.
While Episode 1 has a playtime of 20 - 40 minutes, the total playtime of Episode 2 should be at around 2 hours.
About the demo:
The concept still stands.
A week after release on early access, we will post a demo build that can be tested for free.
This will be all of Episode 1 but won't get updates anymore except for bug fixes.
Getting the game in Early Access will include all future content, as anyone getting the game after Early Access will have to pay a fixed price per episode.
Linux and Mac builds will also follow within the next month.
Thanks a lot again for checking out the page, we're always open for constructive criticism and hope you enjoy our game.
Regards,
thiefbug