The Gallery: Episode 1 - Call of the Starseed
Heart of the Emberstone is almost here!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/526140/The_Gallery__Episode_2_Heart_of_the_Emberstone/
We can't wait to share the next step of the adventure!
Finish Call of the Starseed to unlock Elsie's Glove in Heart of the Emberstone!
Anyone who has already finished Call of the Starseed, or finishes it this summer (such as while the game is 50% off), will unlock an exclusive new glove skin for use in Episode 2. The Gallery has always been about putting YOU in the adventure, and we feel this new customization option will add a little flair to your journey. Your sister may be missing, but that doesn't mean her style has to be!
For reference, here's what the gloves currently look like in the game:
And here's the new glove skin you'll unlock for finishing Call of the Starseed:
If you're looking to add a little adventure to your summer this year, you know where to start!
-Cloudhead Games
The Gallery Episode 2 Will Release In September
That’s 3 months from now, or the videogame equivalent of a third trimester—but I’ve been advised not to take the pregnancy metaphor further. Or use at it all. Shit.
The good news is that we’ve got a big beautiful project in the oven. Heart of the Emberstone is a much larger experience than Episode 1—in both playtime and scope—even larger than we expected. This new date will allow us to add in all sorts of extra details to really flesh out the world the way we want to. Heart of the Emberstone is a story-driven, non-linear adventure game built for roomscale VR. There’s not a whole ton of those out there right now, so we’re taking the opportunity to do it right the first time.
If you already own Call of the Starseed, and haven’t yet played it, we’re going to have to sit you down and give you “The Talk.” If you don’t have Call of the Starseed (or you’re just a very generous friend), we can neither confirm nor deny that Starseed will be at a significant sale price during a sale that may or may not be related to summer. I don’t have a PHD in statistics, but we have an 87% positive rating here on Steam, which means there’s a decent to good chance you’ll enjoy the game. Plus, you get our original soundtrack, composed by Skyrim’s Jeremy Soule, for free.
If you have played the first episode, we’d love to give away a couple keys for Emberstone when it releases this September to some of our fans. Just comment your favourite moment playing The Gallery and we’ll send a message to our favourite commentor at the end of the day. We’ll also give you an extra Starseed key to gift to a friend or trade for the hide of a rare Scandinavian leopord.
Without the support of our fans and the Steam community, we’d never be able to make the kind of ambitious project that Heart of the Emberstone is. We’ve received a ton of love and support here on our Steam forums in the multitude of “where is Episode 2” threads, and we’re pumped to finally confirm that it’s coming. For real. This September.
Thank you for sticking with us through this adventure. It’s going to be freaking rad.
- Cloudhead Games
Happy Vive Day - Starseed 40% off and official Soundtrack release!
Holy Smokes! It's been an incredible year since we launched Call of the Starseed, and an exciting first year for VR and the HTC Vive! Thank you all for your love and support.
As part of the celebration, Call of the Starseed is now 40% off, so those who have yet to join the adventure can experience The Gallery before the release of Heart of the Emberstone. It's also the perfect time to gift the experience to a friend! ːsteamhappyː
Second, due to popular demand, we've finally released our Original Soundtrack (composed by the remarkable Jeremy Soule) on Steam for FREE. If you own Call of the Starseed, just visit our store page and find the "DLC" section to download it. All new purchases will receive the soundtrack for free as well. To launch the Soundtrack, go to the music tab in your library. If you installed the DLC and don't see the soundtrack, go to Settings > Music > Scan Now and it should appear.
And last but not least, we've just launched a contest for a chance to win a signed Call of the Starseed poster and some Heart of the Emberstone Steam keys when it launches later this Spring. Due to Canadian contest laws, we're required to ask you to embarass yourself on social media to enter, but we promise it'll be worth it to be one of the first people to play Heart of the Emberstone. You can get more details on the contest by visiting us on our social media channels @CloudheadGames.
And that's what we've got! Our biggest sale ever (I sound like a mattress commercial writing that), our official OST, and a chance to be one of the first to play Heart of the Emberstone.
We want to thank everyone who's been with us since the beginning, and everyone who's yet to join the adventure. We've been part humbled and part blown away by the response to The Gallery this past year, and it's been an honour being a part of this new medium.
Here's to year two, with all of you.
-Cloudhead Games
Rift version now available for bundle owners
To opt out of the update, or to remove the OVR runtime from your game files, simply right click Call of the Starseed in your game library, choose "properties", and then select "openvr_only" as your beta branch.
-Cloudhead Games
Welcome Oculus Touch!
The OVR version of Call of the Starseed also features a number of bug fixes, as well as our new Hand Presence update with new hand poses, inclusivity options, Blink features, and more. Call of the Starseed with Oculus Touch supports standing 180, limited 360, and roomscale playmodes. If you have your sensors set up to support Oculus roomscale, you’ll be able to play Call of the Starseed just as you would with the Vive. If you don’t, we’ve added a few new features to make the game more comfortable for forward-facing mode as well, such as a new force grab and frustum fade.
As well as the new Oculus Touch support, developers and businesses will also notice a new arcade licensing option to bring our mind-blowing first episode of The Gallery to VR Arcades.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be continuing support by adding haptic feedback and additional Touch controller hand poses for OVR, plus we’ll be bringing the Hand Presence Update and new features to OpenVR for Vive owners. If you come across any bugs while playing in the meantime, please submit a report using our online form. You can find our full changelog and notes below.
Adventure awaits!
Changelog v1.2 (Native OVR in Steam w/o Oculus DRM)
- Upgraded to Unity v5.4.2f2, using most recent Rift SDKs
- Oculus Achievement support added with in-game toasts (butter not included)
- Removed DRM/Entitlement check for this Native OVR version on Steam (note: using this build with the Rift still requires logging into Oculus Home, it just doesn't require a purchased Home key)
- Complete hand system overhaul
- Improved hand poses, additional new poses for some items
- Improved hand physics and interactions with items
- Customizable hand sizes and textures in settings
- HDR support for improved visual quality with Rift in settings
- Performance boosts in scenes and systems now can run on GTX 960 or equivalent
- Fixed bug when starting a new game would sometimes go to an empty skybox with sound (good for meditation, not adventure)
- Ability to switch between grip/trigger/both for use and grab functions
- Mirrored option for lefty/inverted controller mapping of every game function
- Added new Blink mode for Rift called "Consolidated" (default but can change in settings)
- Added new Blink presentation called "Projectile" (default but can change in settings)
- Added comfort mode for consolidated Blink mapping when not actively Blinking
- Added comfort mode turn degrees in settings
- Added Rift room configurations on first play (camera setup)
- New Standing 180 configuration has a floor indicator and frustum fade if turned away from forward direction
- Limited standing configurations make grabbing distant objects much easier
- Fixed bug with chomper persisting in other levels
- Fixed GUI selection issues
- Fixed up some backpack GUI item alignment issues
- Temporarily disabled flick gesture on lighter (will be fixed in future Oculus SDK)
- Added better notification for keeping HMD steady while about to load into a level
- Temporarily disabled "Ocean Lullaby" achievement until we make the tent larger (kudos to those who attempted!)
- Fixed issue with two instances of headclip checks existing on the player
- Renamed "HMD Resolution" to "Supersampling" in settings
- Changed the wording for intro tutorial and listening to the correct inputs now
- EULA will only ever pop up once for the user instead of every load (use trigger to grab scrollbar and drag down to accept terms)
- Fixed issue with hex not rotating in final scene
- Fixed missing background geo in cave scene
- Improved magnet gun issues
- Fixed missing cable textures in lab
- Fixed issues with hand textures missing in final scene
- Added some missing ramp components that made Blinking difficult
- Fixed some broken textures in some scenes and objects
- Moved some blink colliders back to improve reaching for non-roomscale configurations
- Disabled Persistent Blink Bounds temporarily until Guardian bounds data is integrated
- Fixed visual clipping issue with settings menu inside of geo (now is overdrawn)
- Added new system to calculate accurate user height without explicit calibration
NOTE: To prevent unwanted clipping on scene initialization, user must put on HMD and keep head relatively steady before the game will fade from a black screen.
NOTE: Some users may experience slight hand jitter during slow yaw rotations with decent framerate, please file a bug report with your system specs so we can resolve this issue.
NOTE: Touch haptics are currently disabled in this version until we can properly port the Vive haptics and clips we've established prior to this.
NOTE: Added notification on title screen to notify users without any sound to switch audio playback to "Rift Audio" in Windows.
It's awards season! We won Best Narrative and more nominations.
This year, we were nominated for two Proto awards: Best Game, and Best Narrative Experience. For Best Narrative, we were up against some of the best-told stories in VR, including Google Spotlight Stories’ touching film Pearl. On top of that, we were the only game to be nominated for the Narrative award (the other nominees were films and passive experiences), an absolute honour in and of itself. While Space Pirate Trainer deservedly took home Best Game, we were proud to have won an award so dear to us as a narrative-driven experience.
We’ve also been nominated for a 2016 TIGA award—one of the biggest videogame awards to come out of Europe. There, we’re in the running for Best Debut Game, as well as Audience Choice Game of the Year which you can vote for over on the TIGA website. Voting closes on October 31, so go quick!
Lastly but not leastly, Call of the Starseed is a finalist for nine, count ‘em NINE, Canadian Video Game Awards across a whole whack of categories, including Best Game Innovation and Game of the Year. It’s been an amazing six months since launch, and to be recognized by both our VR peers and our countrypeople is an unbelievable honour. Thank you to everyone who’s supported us along the way.
You can check out Denny’s Proto Awards acceptance speech over on Youtube; and don’t forget you can vote for us as your Game of the Year on the TIGA website, or as your favourite Canadian-made game on the CVA website too. We’d do it ourselves, but we’re only allowed one vote. ːsteamhappyː
Love, Cloudhead Games
Ninteen ninety nine.
It’s been six months since we launched Call of the Starseed, and with new ports and platforms right on the horizon, it’s time to adjust our price. For our fellow Canadians, we know our dollar is in the hole, but we’re an optimistic bunch; we’ll be bringing the price in the Canadian store down to $19.99 as well. Keep your ears warm through the winter, you hosers.
We hope all you new Vive owners have been enjoying your content bundle, and we hope this new price allows those of you yet to experience The Gallery a chance to join us on our adventure.
-Cloudhead Games
Well, that was quite the secret to keep...
Needless to say, this is an incredible honour. This dream of Virtual Reality has consumed our lives for the better half of five years, and now here we are, the Duck Hunt of VR. This is an enormous milestone for our team, essentially guaranteeing that every future Vive owner (while supplies last™) will get to play the game that we’ve poured our hearts and lives into.
It means that our head-first dive into the murky waters of an unknown tech has found fruition. There’s no bigger validation than knowing that the remarkable people at HTC, Vive, and Valve—the developers and innovators who have shaped our passions and our careers—want to show us off. And to be included with the wonderful people at Acceleroto and Google is simply humbling.
But it’s not just HTC to thank. It’s the incredible reception we’ve received since launch from players like you that’s kept us on the map. We get notifications in the studio every time a Steam review comes in, and we read each one.
Sometimes we get just these strings of positive responses saying things like Call of the Starseed is the “best experience I’ve ever had in a game, with any device.”
Here are some of the most touching reviews we've received:
[Call of the Starseed] reminded me why I love gaming.
On paper it's a straightforward adventure game but, if The Gallery is any indication, VR will be transformative for the genre.
IMO This game is to VR what Half Life was to PC Gaming. Polished, Innovative, story driven and ahead of its time.
If you like adventure games (Gabriel Knight, Kings Quest, Myst, etc) then prepare to never play one of those ever again. This is the future.
It just goes on and on...
One guy even said that our game "needs a Nobel Peace Prize"
It's just nuts.
So thank you, everyone, for your amazing reviews. Thank you for engaging with us in the forums, sharing your unique experiences, asking us questions, and offering suggestions. Thank you for sticking with us and appreciating our efforts to deliver to you a meaningful experience worthy of diving into this newfangled medium. And yes, thank you for submitting bug reports, too. That latest patch was for you <3.
From everyone in this little studio, on this little island, off the coast of little old Canada, we thank you.
Love, Cloudhead Games.
1.1.2 - Faster, Smoother, and On Sale!
Thanks so much for your continuing support. As always, please let us know in the forums if you find issues, and be sure to file bugs here if you find em.
v1.1.2 Changelog
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-General performance enhancements using Unity 5.4.0b17 ( native OpenVR )
-Rebaked lighting to fix some visual issues
-Better OC bake for tighter geo culling
-Fixed performance issues with realtime GI in credits
-Fixed broken level transitions that were loading asynchronously ( also should load faster )
-Fixed broken level transitions if tracking was lost or player escaped elevator bounds
-Added ability to use either controller for engaging blink system
-Optimized visible bounds that were being processed outside of frustum
-Removed redundant checks in blink system
-Fixed hands not being able to pick up items
-Fixed reset checkpoint not working in the Professor's elevator control room
-Reduced performance hitches from spammed error messages
-Fixed elevator events not firing in certain cases
-Added intensity fadeout on flares to fix popping
-Fixed blink destination cursor to fix popping
-Optimized some lights in beach
-Fixed blink mode settings not saving
-Fixed issues with other quality settings not reverting properly
-Introduced a minor lighting issue near the end of the Lab, this is out of our control until the next Unity update unfortunately.
-Added reset checkpoint in tent in case of tracking loss during sleep
-Added head stability check in output log ( NOTE: Upon saving a checkpoint and going into the next level, the screen will remain dark until you keep your HMD steady. This is so you'll be
aligned to the view we'd like you to first see )
-Prebaked collision meshes for faster loading
-Removed spamming error msgs after opening beacon case
-Optimized some interactions for stability
-Prevented some random popups from showing
-Professor should not be offset while throwing fuses in certain cases
-Improved door interactions that were difficult to open
-Fixed issue with some characters being offset in scenes
-Fixed backpack so that it is easier to grab and stow
-Fixed initial backpack opening stutter
-Fixed some issues with error spamming
-Global GC alloc optimizations
-Reduced VRAM requirements
-Fixed global fog in end scene
-Removed troublesome geo on beach
-Fixed issues where blink bounds colours would be stuck as red
-Upgraded and optimized legacy flame particles
-Optimized shadows and particles in Sewer level
-Optimized some materials in unreachable areas
-Fixed issue with no reverb on footstep foley
-Removed double geo in Tutorial level
-Fixed issues with animation timing errors
-Fixed issues with dropping important items
-Fixed negatively scaled colliders
-Fixed reset sector issue and allowed blink areas in Lair level
-Improved the fog particles in the Lair and Lab level
-Removed some additional unused assets and plugins
-Fixed flare spawning issues
-Fixed rare issue with flare offset in flare gun
-Removed unused checks in blink system
-Fixed some broken ramps
-I can't believe you're still reading this
-Fixed issue with the Professor not respawning if revisiting the Sewer
-Fixed ghost shader on player hands
-Fixed cooler geo on Beach level to help with visibility and reach
-Altered backpack tutorial UI for visibility on Beach level
-Fixed fog graphics and some lens flare offsets
-Note: There are some graphical glitches with Unity 5.4.0b17 that cause some light popping in the Lab and the second fog layer popping on the Beach