Deluxe Edition, DLC, + Russian and German translations!
The Eyes of Ara patch 1.2.00 is now live, and with it comes some big developments:
Introducing The Eyes of Ara Deluxe Edition
This combo pack includes a copy of The Eyes of Ara, plus both new DLC packs: The Original Soundtrack and Castle Maps (details on these below). Get them all together in this bundle pack for a 10% discount!
New DLC: The Eyes of Ara Original Soundtrack
Experience The Eyes of Ara’s beautiful, sweeping score with this Original Soundtrack by the game's composer, Matt Caradus. Provided in both high quality 320kbps MP3 format and uncompressed FLAC format.
New DLC: Castle Maps
Delve even deeper into the mystery of The Eyes of Ara. Hunt down lost secrets and explore the castle like never before with these beautiful, hand-drawn maps of the game's three primary chapters. Each map comes in both a full-colour poster version and a printable black & white version with ample space to note down clues, secrets, and hidden rooms.
Patch 1.2.00: Russian & German Translations now available!
The Eyes of ara patch 1.2.00 just dropped, and with it comes one of the most requested features: the Russian and German translations.Click here to read the full patch notes.
The Eyes of Ara Free Demo has also been updated with all of this patch’s features, including the translations.
Happy gaming!
The Eyes of Ara patch 1.2.00 - Russian and German Localisation
Good news! The two most requested translations for The Eyes of Ara are now available. Russian and German speaking players can now enjoy the game in their native language. A big thanks to Alexander Preymak for the Russian translation, and Nina Neuwirth for the German translation.
Along with the new languages, this patch also includes a few minor tweaks and fixes, full details as follows:
Patch Notes
General
Added dust mote particles to many rooms
Game window will no longer minimize when clicking outside of the game window
Camera will no longer auto-rotate when mousing outside of the game window, such as onto a second monitor.
Mac: Mousing over the edge of the screen will no longer cause the dock to appear
Localisation
Russian and German translations now available. Languages can be switched in the Display settings from the main menu.
Demo
The Eyes of Ara Free Demo has also been updated with all of this patch’s features, including the translations.
The Eyes of Ara patch 1.1.00 - Helpful Hints
I have always thought of The Eyes of Ara as a game of two parts. The first part being the main story line and critical path of puzzles, and the second being the hunt for all of the bonus pickups.
My design philosophy for the first part was that solving the puzzles should be the challenge, not finding them, and so all of the rooms in the game are designed to draw the player’s attention to the most important elements. Conversely, the bonus pickups are designed to be hidden (indeed I often used tricks with the art and room designs to misdirect attention away from hidden pickups). I’m a big fan of hidden collectables, but understanding that not everyone shares the desire to seek out that elusive 100% completion score I made these completely optional.
It has been great to see that a lot more people have been determined to find all of the pickups than I anticipated. However some of the pickups can be particularly hard to locate, and on dark or high-contrast screens a few have proved to be very difficult to see. Given that everyone has a different level of patience for how long they are willing to search for hidden pickups, these two things combined means that (understandably) some players become frustrated with the pickup hunt.
Patch 1.1.00 aims to rectify this with new Hint Settings added to the Gameplay Settings menu. From top to bottom they are designed to give progressively stronger hints for finding hidden pickups.
Adaptive Hotspot Cursor: Causes the mouse cursor to change to a magnifying lens when mousing over a hotspot. This option has been available since launch and has simply been renamed in this patch. On by default.
Hidden Pickup Chime: Play a sound when entering a room with hidden pickups still to find. Off by default.
Pickup Highlight: Causes pickups to have a gold shine effect pass over them, making them easier to spot. Includes individual settings for Inventory items and Hidden Pickups (coins, figurines, and photos only). Off by default.
In addition, many puzzles and pickups have been re-lit to accommodate dark and/or high-contrast screens. There’s a few other changes in this update as well, read the full patch notes below.
1.1.00 Patch Notes
General
Greatly optimised the file size of many assets. This has reduced load times significantly, as well as reducing the download and install size.
Puzzles
Re-lit many hidden pickups throughout the game that were difficult to see on dark/high-contrast screens or in bad lighting conditions.
UI
Added Hint options to Gameplay Settings
Added a Gamma Slider in the Graphics Settings.
The Up and Down arrows on the keyboard can now be used to zoom in on notes and journals. This change should help players without a scroll wheel, such as those using trackballs or touch pads.
Localisation (Because I know you will ask :P )
This patch also includes a lot of back-end code to support localisation into other languages. All of this is invisible to the user, but it means that the game is now ready for language options to be switched on once the text files themselves have been translated.
The Eyes of Ara Free Demo now available for download
Haven't yet bought The Eyes of Ara and want to know what all the fuss is about? Well now you can find out by trying the free demo, available for download from The Eyes of Ara store page!
The demo includes a series of rooms and puzzles from the main game, re-arranged into a custom sequence and designed to give you a condensed experience of what it is like to play the much larger full game. Versions of this demo have been shown to excited players at conventions such as GX Australia, AVCon, and PAX Aus, and is now available for everyone to download and enjoy!
Note: If you already own The Eyes of Ara Steam may not allow you to download the demo, however if you still want to check it out you can grab a non-Steam version from the 100 Stones website.
Trading Cards Are Now Dropping!
I am pleased to announce The Eyes of Ara now includes Steam Trading Cards.
There are nine trading cards to find, granting five profile backgrounds and five emoticons. Happy trading!
Save 25% During the Steam Halloween Sale
Don't yet own The Eyes of Ara? Now's the time to pick it up for 25% off during the Steam Halloween Sale... plus jump in now to play the new Haunted Halloween bonus content before it vanishes again until next year!
Welcome to the Haunted Halloween!
The Eyes of Ara invites you inside for an extra-special Haunted Halloween! The old castle has been decked out with all manner of creepy skeletons, spooky spiders, and grinning Jack-o’-lanterns.
Rumour has it, the Pumpkin Lord has hidden out a collection of eerie blue Jack-o’-lanterns for adventurers to find scattered throughout the castle, and those brave enough may even find a way into his ancient crypt itself.
The Eyes of Ara: Haunted Halloween will run from October 27th to November 2nd and features all new art, puzzles, and two new Steam Achievements. Grab the latest update from Steam today and enjoy your Halloween weekend!
The Eyes of Ara has been nominated for "Excellence in Art" at the 2016 Australian Game Developer Awards
It is with great excitement that I say The Eyes of Ara has been nominated for the Excellence in Art award at this year’s Australian Game Developer Awards. The AGDAs are an annual celebration of the talent that makes up the Australian game development industry, and I am incredibly humbled to have been nominated for the award.
This year’s ceremony takes place next week on November 2nd. Wish me luck!
The Eyes of Ara wins a spot in the Made With Unity Showcase
Big news! The Eyes of Ara has been selected as one of the games to be exhibited as part of the Made With Unity Showcase at Unite ‘16 in Melbourne! The Showcase games are selected for innovation, creativity, beauty, and fun, and I’m excited and humbled that The Eyes of Ara has been chosen as one of the winners.
There’s some stellar work in the showcase, which you can check out at the link below.
The Eyes of Ara patch 1.0.03 - New Invert Camera options and Bug Fixes
The ability to invert the X and Y axis of the camera independently is a feature that a lot of people have been asking for. I admit it was probably a mistake implementing this the way I did, and I should have split them from the very start, so I apologize.
For those wondering why it was done the way it was, the answer is it wasn’t actually an oversight: The idea behind the camera controls is that you are clicking-and-dragging to drag the view around, just as you click-and-drag objects in the world to manipulate them, and click-and-drag items from your inventory. So the default setting had you dragging the camera around as well, while the “invert” option effectively made you drag the view, in a way this creates an extra layer or separation between the game and the player. It was never meant to function like an FPS mouse look, which removes the click-and-drag layer and has the player’s mouse represent the camera movement directly.
In hindsight, this clearly confused people and I will happily admit that it was a mistake. With the change in this latest patch you can check any combination of Invert X and Y. Both off or both on will function as before, while checking only one will allow you to play using something closer to more traditional FPS style manipulation.
Also included in this patch are a few minor bug fixes for things that have been discovered since launch. Read the full patch notes below:
Patch Notes
Puzzles
Turned off the hotspots for the three ship’s wheels in Chapter three once all three lights on the fourth wheel are active. This should help to provide some more feedback that you’re on the right track while working on this puzzle.
UI
Split Invert Camera into separate check boxes for X and Y
Sound
Adjusted the volume of the Eyes’ flyby sound effects.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a note in Astra’s room not being readable (this note automatically turns off after solving the puzzle in the bathroom, but a bug was causing it not to be readable prior to this either).
Fixed the lever puzzle in the Chapter 2 hallway being useable before the lever is actually inserted
Fixed the planetarium projector misbehaving the first time it is used after loading the game in certain circumstances.
