Patch time! v1.2 is now live. Major update & more to come...
Hi everyone!
Thanks for your feedback and patience over the past few weeks. We've been working through everyone's comments, bug reports etc, and are happy today to launch an updated version of the game with many of the problems people have reported fixed - including an optimisation sweep!
We've also had lots of requests for localisation into different languages. Of course, as a tiny indie developer, we can't commit to all of them. But we HAVE started to work on our localisation system and are pleased to say we hope to have The Piano available in other languages soon!
The next patch after this one will resolve a couple of legacy saving issues, improve some graphical problems. We thank you for your patience while we've been sorting this out; it shouldn't be too much longer now.
For now, v1.2 patch notes!
- Added controller detection and auto-switch to controller if present
- Adding controller message at the start
- Crouch camera polished
- Added additional Seeker to graveyard level
- Invisible walls deleted
- Polished vision in House level
- Polished visual FX
- Inverted Y axis defaults to 'off'
- Performance improvement/optimisation in almost all areas
- Missing colliders in level darkalleys fixed (Out-of-Bounds Bug)
Patch time! v1.1(fixed) is available now
Hi everyone!
In typical game dev fashion, the patch we released last week to fix a few issues, ended up breaking a few other things. So we've released a very minor update today that sorts those out.
- Inverted mouse settings added*
- Fixed issue with corruptible save files
- Loading fixed and optimized (faster and bug-free)
- Death cam now moves slowly and is polished
* This is mistakenly set to 'on' by default; to be fixed in next patch.
Thanks for your patience, guys! We have a significant update planned for next week and we'll keep you posted.
Patch time! v1.1 is now live
Hi everyone! Thanks for your patience while we put this patch together. As promised, we’ve gone through the bug reports people have submitted over the past few days, and pieced together an update that should solve them all.
If you find any other issues, please don’t hesitate to let us know at support@mistaken-visions.com and we’ll get them fixed as soon as we can!
In the meantime, here are the patch notes for v1.1.
Fixed issue that could prevent player from leaving Garden area
Fixed issues where John could fall out of the level in certain parts of the game
Added ‘invert y-axis’ option
Fixed issue where game would occasionally freeze on a black screen
Moved ‘red key’ in tutorial to make it easier to find
Fixed issue where part of the car puzzle in Dark Alleys could be skipped
Fixed issue where ‘oil drenched torch’ would appear twice in inventory
Ensured that game auto-saves at start of each new area
Optimised Garden area to prevent framerate drops
Prevented erroneous ‘laudanum’ and ‘pills’ use from inventory
Refined lighting on John character model
Amended placement of ‘floating’ blood textures in certain parts of the game
Fixed issue where certain items didn’t appear in the Memento
Fixed a typo in the credits
Edit: We've found an additional bug in this version so we're going to temporarily roll back. Patch back live ASAP!
Thank-yous, bug reports, and upcoming patch
Thanks so much to all our early players! As a tiny developer without a QA resource, it can be difficult to pick up on all the bugs before launch -- you simply become so close to your game. Then, when hundreds of people start to play it, you end up slapping your forehead. So we really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to get in touch with issues they've discovered (and if you were put off the game by early bugs you found, we hope you'll return and give it another go!).
We've been hard at work since yesterday fixing up all the problems that have been reported, and we're pleased to say we expect to have a patch live no later than Thursday 7th June. This will fix a range of issues including some clipping issues, some save-state and inventory problems, as well as adding invert-y functionality across the board.
Please do continue to send us any bug reports and we'll continue with regular patches until we've eradicated things to the best of our ability!
If you've played and enjoyed The Piano, we'd really appreciate if you could leave a Steam review.
Thanks again!
Mistaken Visions
The Piano is out now! (Plus patch info / notes)
We’re absolutely delighted to announce that The Piano is now available right here on Steam!
This marks the culmination of five years of hard work, by a tiny team in our spare time, and we’re super pleased with what we’ve managed to put together. It’s been an incredible journey, and we really hope you enjoy the game as much as we’ve enjoyed making it.
A Favour To Ask
If you enjoy The Piano, there are two things you can do that will be a particularly great help.
1) Tell your friends! Tweet about the game, post about it on your Facebook, talk to your friends. Word of mouth is an incredibly powerful tool and it would be utterly brilliant if you could help us out with that.
2) Leave a Steam review! Steam reviews have been shown to measurably impact players’ purchasing decisions, and having positive reviews on our Steam page will make more players decide to give it a go. So if you like the game, and think others will too, leave us a review!
Patching Plan
As some of you will know, we had to move the release date by a couple of weeks due to some last-minute unexpected technical hitches. We’ve managed to get the majority of these resolved, to the extent that we’re happy to launch the game, but we do want to make you aware of a few small issues and what we intend to do about them.
We’ve done our very best to make the game as stable and bug-free as possible -- but as a tiny unfunded team without a QA department, we know we’ll have missed some stuff. As such, we plan to issue regular patches over the first few weeks, to iron out any final creases that might be found.
We’re already working on the first patch, which is due to be released within the next week. Below is a list of issues that will be addressed by that patch. If you find any other bugs, please email them to support@mistaken-visions.com and we’ll add them to the patch list!
Known Issues
Below is a list of issues we’ve found over the past few days, for which we are already working on fixes to be patched in the coming days.
Game very occasionally freezes / black-screens on level transition. Closing the app and re-loading will allow you to start from the point at which the game froze.
At the end of the ‘Garden’ area at the boat, when asked ‘Do you wish to leave this area?’, selecting ‘no’ will make you permanently stuck. Please always say ‘yes’ here until the first patch!
Occasional framerate drops in ‘Garden’ area.
It is possible to skip part of ‘The Way Is Blocked’ puzzle in Dark Alleys.
Using ‘laudanum’ from inventory screen sometimes erroneously uses ‘pills’ instead (only once per inventory open). This issue does not affect keyboard/controller hotkeys.
Two ‘oil-drenched torches’ appear in the inventory on collection - should only be one.
The Piano gets launch trailer ahead of Monday's release!
Hi everyone! We're absolutely delighted today to unveil our launch trailer! You can watch it right here on our Steam page, or via that lovely little YouTube link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52w7jWX3BHk
It's been an absolute blast working on The Piano for all this time, and we can't quite believe the big day is almost upon us. The Piano will launch this coming Monday, 4th June, at 8AM PT / 11AM ET / 4PM BST / 5PM CEST. It'll be $9.99, except it won't, because it'll be 25% off during launch week.
If you're reading this, it's probably because you've been following The Piano or are interested in it in some way, so we have a favour to ask you.
If you know you'll be picking up the game but aren't sure if you'll be playing it just yet, it will really help us if you buy on day-one. Early sales help to push games onto the front page, where more people will find out about the game.
And if you want to support us even more, please do tell people about The Piano. Show them the trailer, lob them a link to our Steam page, and so on and so forth. Word of mouth is still one of the best tools we have in spreading the word, and any help we can get with that would be massively appreciated.
And... that's it! 'Til Monday. The game has been approved by Steam, and it's all in the system ready to go, although we're working on a final day-zero patch just to make sure the game is as good as it possibly can be.
Thanks to everyone for their support. We can't wait to hear what you think of the game.
Release countdown & new screenshots
Today's a big day. Why, I hear you ask? Well, it's the day we hit 'Ready For Review' in the Steamworks back-end. That's right: The Piano is finished, uploaded, and being checked over by the guys at Steam as we speak!
We're incredibly, astonishingly pleased with what we've managed to build over the past five years. The Piano may have humble origins, but with a budget of essentially zero and a lot of hard work, we've managed to create a 6-10 hour long, fully voiced acted single-player experience, which fuses genres and styles, and tells a deeply personal story. The Piano isn't perfect, but it's beyond anything we could have dreamt of back in 2013. We owe so many thank-yous to those who've supported things along the way.
A lot of our recent work has been on polish, so we wanted to show you some stuff. We've uploaded a bunch of new screenshots today -- you can check them out in the gallery. And next week, in the run-up to launch, we're going to release a brand new launch trailer -- which will also showcase the wonderful voice actors who helped bring life to the various characters (living and dead!) in the game.
If you're excited at the prospect of The Piano, please, help us to spread the word! Wishlist the game here on Steam, and encourage others to do so. Follow us on Twitter and retweet our posts.
The Piano will release right here on Steam on Monday 4th June at 8AM PDT / 11AM EDT / 4PM BST / 5PM CEST. The regular price will be $9.99, and during week one there'll be a 25% discount.
It's happening. Get ready to sit down, and play The Piano.
Release date change
Hi everyone!
OK, we're going to cut to the chase right away: we've taken the difficult decision to delay release of The Piano just slightly. The game will now release on Monday 4th June.
Why? Because game development. At the start of the month, we thought we had a release candidate. We hit 'build', crossed our fingers, and... something broke. We found ourselves butting our heads against a last-minute technical problem that stubbornly refused to back down. By the time we finally managed to fix it, we were only a couple of weeks out from release, and with barely any time for final-stage testing.
So we were left with a tough decision: stick with the 24th May, and run the risk of shipping a product that didn't meet our high standards... or delay the release by one week to make sure we could really put the build through its paces and ensure you get the highest quality game we're capable of. In the end we decided there was only one sensible option... but then we realised that Weather Factory's excellent Cultist Simulator is coming out on 31st May, so we went with the next best thing: Monday 4th June.
We know this isn't the first time we've delayed The Piano. And we know it's dreadfully last-minute. But having worked on the game for five years, we know we would always regret rushing out a sub-par product. You deserve better, and frankly, we should demand better of ourselves. So that's what we're doing. We hope you understand, and that you're looking forward to playing The Piano at the start of next month.
Thanks to everyone for your support so far!
Mistaken Visions
8 minutes of gameplay footage!
Thanks to everyone for their overwhelming response to our new trailer and release date announcement! We've been delighted to see so many people getting in touch to tell us they're excited about our game. <3 <3 <3
To say thanks, we thought we'd show you a bit more of what's in store come May 24th. The footage in this video is all pre-launch (and there's a typo in the disclaimer - oops!) and in particular there are a couple of graphical and sound bugs on display, but the video - a montage of a few sequences from throughout the game - should give you an idea of the tone and gameplay of The Piano.
After five years of hard work, we're incredibly delighted today to be able to announce a release date for The Piano!
The game will hit Steam on Thursday 24th May 2018. That's a little over six weeks away!
The Piano will retail at $9.99 although we'll likely include a small release discount during the first week.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, we thought we should treat you to a brand new trailer...
We're hard at work killing those pesky remaining bugs and working through the last little bits of balancing. This week we're hoping to have our first full start-to-finish holy-crap-the-game-basically-works-all-the-way-through build, which is a very exciting milestone that most people would call 'beta', but we prefer the term above. In any case, just a few more weeks and we should be there!
If you like the look of The Piano, then please do help us to spread the word. Wishlist us here on Steam, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook - and we can be friends forever!
Thanks for all your support so far. Not long to go now!
