The Anacrusis
Community Update gets Ultra Violent
You can join us by entering "WeBeTesting" in the beta section of Steam and have access to our external playtest.
Here are the notes on the latest update and what is being worked on for the Candidate build
Bug Fixes:
-> Removed collision for a cable (and rail) used throughout episode 2 which would kill non-host players on the alien team.
-> Adjusted Survivor AI so that a player caught by the grabber is rescued far more quickly and consistently.
-> Implemented a check to ensure a player cannot charge before their secondary melee attack finishes as the brute. Previously this would cause the player to lose the ability to swipe attack after finishing their charge.
-> There are so many new Game Settings options in Versus that they began to overlap the confirm button — this has been fixed.
Base Game Changes:
-> Ultraviolence difficulty now has unique events that happen at specific parts in each episode. In Versus there is a new option in Game Settings for experiencing these events as well.
-> In special events for Versus only, added a timer to the director that will allow players to begin spawning if survivors take longer than two minutes to prepare.
-> The “high” option for special weapons in Game Settings has been increased, as it previously felt underwhelming.
Ultraviolence Changes:
-> The Violent Spawner in versus can now direct its turrets to specific human players with alt fire. Turrets will also be harder to kill while rolling, as an attentive survivor could consistently kill incoming turrets before they had a chance to open and fire.
-> The UltraBrute in Versus accidentally behaved like the older brute model, and is now updated to the current version with an easier to use charge.
-> Fixed the first person material for the end cannon missiles to have the correct fov setting.
Still To Do.
[] fix ui bug where host sees cosmic bots burning
[] fix volatile gooper versus ai spawning in floor
[] grabber and flasher tiny arms when meleeing
[] maybe disable stasis launcher in bottomless clip option
[] ai keeps going back to charger with infinite ammo
[x] get uv episode events finished
Community Sale
We have dropped our game price down to the lowest price we will offer this year - 75% off!
This was at request of players wanting to be able to invite their friends to play and new players wanting to join our beta. To join our beta once you own the game enter - WeBeTestingInHere - in the beta code.
We also want to be clear, our online community is small. You most likely will not find many online matches to match into in the wild. Our game works great with friends, solo, or joining our community at Discord.gg/StrayBombay where people are regularly looking for games or joining our game nights.
If this means this game isn't for you - no worries - you can still join our community as we play many different games and even have modders testing their latest HL2, DoD:S, TF2, L4D2, etc mods.
Which brings us back to where we are on the Anacrusis.
We are working with the community and have expanded what is available for modding.
We just added New Weapons, New Grenades, and even Enemy variants! All of which the community can now add, modify and include as well!
We also are setting up to allow community weapon packs, where you can include a group of new grenade and weapon types.
With the UltraViolence mode being tested in the beta, you also now have a real challenge solo, but to counter that challenge you get new weapons and grenades!
All of this on top of the already existing 5 campaign game, with holdout and versus mode!
We be testing in here!
We don't have an ETA yet, but are well on our way to working on and playtesting so I thought we could share here. If you would like to test I would suggest joining our discord - discord.gg/straybombay
You can also test that branch any time by going into steam -> Betas and putting in the password WeBeTestingInHere
That will give you access to the External Playtest Branch.
Another big change is in the workshop we have areas for weapons and grenades. Those will be slowly added as we go through final versions - if you would like to make your own weapon or grenades, let us know. We are also working on a tutorial for this.
We play weekly to test the changes and an example of those changes - here is the changelist for tonight.
This change is for the core game and makes the Flasher more active in versus:
In the base game flasher in Versus has been changed to spawn ten common around the player when starting.
This fixing is a bug of specials not despawning but also not active:
To deal with wandering/stray specials that aren't despawning, BaseEnemy blueprint now checks every few seconds if the nearest player is too far away and said BaseEnemy will be forcibly killed if it both very far away and not player controlled.
This is a community made weapon adjustment - this is just one of many new weapons!
For the special weapon in UV mode → Stasis Launcher’s rockets will now do 0.5 seconds of stasis field if fired very close, then 2 seconds if still pretty close by (roughly blaster effective range), then 4 seconds if detonated further away.
As we test the idea of a new game mode - UV - we are also taking those elements and making them options in the main game.
Added Ultraviolent aliens and corresponding game settings option in versus
UV or Ultra Violent mode has also introduced new enemies and some of those are actively being worked on.
Changed the "Endless Grabber" into a "Silent Grabber".
Dive into The Anacrusis Pool Party
To kick off the summer, we've put The Anacrusis on its deepest discount ever! It's the perfect time to pick up some copies for friends, or dive in for the first time yourself.
Don't worry, you don't need to go it alone, stop by our discord - discord.gg/straybombay where you can find a bunch of folks lounging by the pool, playing games and helping first time players discover everything The Anacrusis has to offer (we also play many old source mods and other fun multiplayer games).
We have recently just updated our mod package to allow more extensive modding, so make sure to saunter on over to the workshop and pick up the latest mods - including the new game mode - ultra violence for versus or the popular snowy Ascension Level Test!
From everyone at Stray Bombay, including Guion, Liu, Lance, Nessa, Boris, and Barry - let's break out the corndogs and start the summer gaming today.
Update 62 - Happy New Year!
- Fixed multiple areas where players or aliens could get stuck in the Ep5 stadium event
- Fixing collision on a handful of doors in Ep4 and 5
- Reduced the chance that common will get stuck on the first Ep5 door event, reducing the intensity of the event
- Extended length of Ep3 Apartment and Medbay events to make them more impactful
- Did backend work required to make the mod tools available publicly (coming soon)
Update 61 - A Very Festive Holiday Update
- Dramatically increased the intensity of the Episode 5 Stadium finale. Getting those corn dogs off the Isolode should now be as challenging as we intended
- Redesigned the barrier at end of the gantry at the start of Episode 5
- Fixed several lighting bugs in the Episode 5 finale
- Fixed several holes in the world in Episode 5
- Fixed a variety of forced spawns in Episode 5 that would allow aliens to spawn in front of players
Update 60 - A Brute-al Update
Update 59 - There Are No Small Fixes, Only Small Bugs
- Generally increased the intensity on the first level of each episode
- Prevented Mr. Brute from despawning in the holdout finale
- Fixed the closed door that players can traverse in Ep4
- Increased the maximum volume for music in all levels. You can adjust the volume in settings to suit
- Versus AFK penalties are adjusted down
- Disabled the ability to turn the Brute during a charge in Versus
Version 1.0!
And yes, we’ve improved performance so much in the last 22 months we’re not even sure how to effectively quantify that improvement. The game runs really well on a shocking range of hardware now.
We’ve made some big behind the scenes changes too. Last year, we switched from dedicated servers hosted in a handful of data centers around the world to peer-to-peer hosting, so that people who lived far from those data centers can still get good games. We improved our back-end systems this October, giving us more reliable matchmaking.
And we’ve done it all with help and constant feedback from our community. Without the thousands of players on Discord and the Steam forums, we wouldn’t have been able to make the game that The Anacrusis is today. Whether you were a regular in our daily playtests or just left a note about something you loved at launch, we really appreciate your help. It’s been a long road, but we’re so proud of the game that we’ve built together.
All this hard work has culminated in a 1.0 version which is a great place for both new and old players alike. It’s fun! Everyone, regardless of skill level can have fun with it, and we’re ready to bring more players into the fold, take more feedback, and keep building out this game that we’ve made together.
What’s New In 1.0
- Episode 5 - Episode 5 is our first take on a fast map. It’s designed to be a playground for Versus players, but it plays great in Co-Op too, of course. One of the things Chet learned working on L4D was that players love having different length campaigns to play. Ep5 is designed to pack all of the intensity of one of the other Episodes into a 30 minute Versus session. It’s difficult but we’re excited about where it’s at. We’re going to do some more difficulty tuning in coming patches, so please join the Discord and leave feedback!
- Versus – Stop the Survivors from reaching the end of the map, then try your best against the Alien team as a Survivor. Play with 1-8 players, the Survivor bots will handle the rest. Learn to play all five Aliens classes in a private game against the bots in Training Mode
- Steam Workshop Support – We support modded campaign maps, character skins, character hats, player emotes, gun charms, sound packs, holdout maps, and more!
- Added more than 40 achievements – Unlocking many of the achievements unlocks a cosmetic item as a reward. Get new player skins, gun skins, gun charms, and emotes by achieving!
- Episode 4 – We launched Episode 4 in beta last October. It shows the late-stage alien overgrowth and shows that The Isolode is in a state of alien-created disrepair
Update 57 - The Last Early Access Update
- Enhancements to eggs in Versus mode
- General performance improvements that should show gains across the entire range of supported hardware
- Significant performance improvements during large hordes
- Changed graphics presets to be more aggressive at the Low and Medium settings. If you’re using a 3GB GPU and experienced crashes when you ran out of memory, you should run on the Medium or Low setting depending on available memory
- Preliminary support for audio mods that can replace any sound in the game. Try the mouth sounds shotgun mod in the Workshop!
- Using Discord rich presence shouldn’t result in a ghost member of your party anymore
- Bots should be less talkative when they’re shooting each other by accident (don’t worry, bots don’t do damage to each other)
- Grabbers can no longer fire their primary attack if they’re not on the ground
- Added a UI toggle to disable audio mods in-game.
- Updated episode thumbnails for Episode 4 and 5
- Final fancy lighting render and previs enabled on Episodes 1, 2, and 3. Episode 4 will be done in time for next week
- Fix occasional massive hitches that were especially prominent in Versus mode. If you see significant stutter in this release, please send us logs!