The Uncertain: Light at the End hotfix Patch Is Live
Hello everyone! We have deployed a hotfix based on your feedback. List of resolved issues:
1) Fixed issue when you could get stuck at the security PC at the first level. 2) Fixed issue when you could get stuck in Geekspot's security room. 3) Fixed errors where some parts of the menu weren't working if you use Dualshock controller. 4) Fixed glitches on credits
If the update didn't appear, try restarting Steam or verifying the game's files' integrity.
We continue working on the improvements of the game; thank you for your suggestions and feedback!
The Uncertain: Light at the End is live now!
Hello everyone. It was a long journey, filled with joyful and interesting events. And today is the culmination of that path.
We are proudly announcing that The Uncertain: Light at the End - is finally available! Our beloved community - thank you for your never-ending support. You helped us fuel our passion and made this day possible.
Enjoy the game!
The Uncertain: Light at the End Launches for PC on 8 October
[previewyoutube="xCbYREupO6E;full"]
The Uncertain: Light at the End is a story-driven third-person sci-fi adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been replaced by machines. A young girl named Emily must survive as a lone outcast and unravel the mystery behind humanity’s disappearance, travelling through the abandoned world while pursued by the same machines which once served humankind.
Created by independent developer New Game Order (formerly ComonGames), The Uncertain: Light at the End presents an all-new adventure set in the universe established by 2016’s The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day, which has achieved more than 1,000 reviews and a Very Positive rating from the Steam community.
Game Features
Welcome to a lonely Earth. Jump into an all-new and original story, in a world inexplicably abandoned by humans and dominated by robots.
Discover deep lore and embedded storytelling. Learn about the past and present of a machine-dominated Earth world through exploration and interaction.
Explore an abandoned world. Guide Emily through an empty and lonely city, filled with intricate details and hints at life before the disaster.
Solve entirely unique puzzles. Every puzzle in The Uncertain: Light at the End is a unique challenge with unique mechanics.
Lose yourself in Emily’s world. Immersive audio and a rich cinematic score bring The Uncertain’s lonely world to life.
Dev Diaries: shooting mocap
Hello, this is New Game Order, formerly known as ComonGames. We’ve been working on the game called The Uncertain: Light at the End since 2016. It is a sequel to our first post-apocalypse game The Uncertain: Light at the End about a world that has been conquered by AI. We will talk about building this universe in our further blogs, but now we want to begin with sharing the difficulties we stumbled upon shooting mocap.
As our team has grown to more than 20 people and our ambitions have grown with us, we knew we wanted to go further with our storytelling for The Uncertain: Light at the End. That meant creating a truly indie solution for performance capture.
Our goals are ambitious and our developers are great, but we are still a small studio that doesn't have the kind of resources AAA studios can throw at a project. Small studios have to use a lot of tricks big studios don't think about, and our greatest strength is our creativity when faced with big problems.
We worked with a very simple mocap setup, but even that simple setup made our animators' work way easier and allowed us to achieve excellent results. We are sure that many small studios have similar ambitions to ours, and we would like to share some experience in this space.
The Setup
The setup we worked with featured multiple tracking cameras, costumes with reflective markers, crashmats for actors to fall on, regular chairs, and some props that allow us to simulate surfaces in the game.
First, a preliminary calibration was done, then the in-game characters are calibrated so that their markers match the markers of the actors. Then the game characters inside our game scenes are put onto the 3D model. Of course, everything was unrealistic and without textures, but it is still more convenient to work directly with our character than with an abstract dummy.
In addition to the actors, we had a director on the set who has a general vision of the scenes with a list of animations in his head, and an animator who understands how to work with the finished material. Everyone worked together to help with props, placement, etc. We would say that this is the minimum required to make our setup work, along with some of the studio's staff who were responsible for filming.
Mistakes and advice
Large studios shoot everything: facial expressions, eye movements, lip movement and lip-synching, and sometimes even finger movements.
With that level of performance capture your actors need to play full-fledged roles like in a movie, but we didn't have this level of fidelity. Facial expressions would be hand-animated, and the voice track was recorded separately in a studio.
The end result is not perfect, but it is good enough to provide our animators with good references and achieve a better scene as a result.
As newbies to all this, we made many mistakes that will be useful to know about those who follow in our footsteps.
Study all possible materials on the topic in as much detail as possible to become experienced yourself. Do not rely on the knowledge and experience of other people entirely, because your project can be unique in many ways.
Prepare detailed storyboards and animation lists for everyone to see. Don’t keep ANYTHING about the capture session in your head.
Strictly observe the nomenclature of files: names, dates, folders and files must be sorted like you are in a laboratory and keep all files on the corporate disk space in the cloud. It will save days or weeks of work later!
It is better to use the model of the character for which you are shooting animations. Repositioning the model takes time, and sometimes it seems that it is more convenient to shoot everything in one. Still, if some confusion and the nomenclature of files are not in order, it will be almost impossible to figure it out.
All props should be matte; otherwise, cameras will perceive glare as additional markers. Even rings and earrings can work so, so don’t forget to take them off before shooting. Use as many props as possible, it is more convenient for the actors to work, and the final result will be much better.
Use floor markings, try to make them on the same scale as in game locations and make sure the actors follow them.
As a result of the shooting, a particular pipeline is formed: the studio gives the files with the materials, the animators watch them, choose the most successful ones, transfer the characters to the game and start polishing. Without it, animations look flat and lifeless. Finishing takes a lot of time and the final result may differ from the preliminary one quite a lot.
Not so long ago, we allowed players to play an early version of the game, and there you can see what the animation is in the intermediate stage before the final polish. You will have a chance to see how significantly better they will look in the release version. Take a look at this playthrough of Light at the End’s first level before polishing.
[previewyoutube="w4gWmZIZpgw;leftthumb"]
Unexpected benefits
What were the other advantages are there in this activity? It's fun! Yes, the actions often have to be repeated 30 times and it is hot in the studio. You have to run a lot, move the props, and in the evening it feels like you spent the day unloading the truck. But in the process is exciting and ideas are often born that could only appear on the site. Perhaps your actor will decide to replay the scene in their own unique way or someone will make a joke or a unique gesture, and the result is not what we thought of initially.
Once, we had a funny scene where our actor playing Emily pretended to be a robot, saying "kill all people", and shooting Matthew with her finger. It turned out great, and found a place for this scene in the game, although we did not initially plan it, and there are many such examples.
Want to learn more? Follow our news!
The Uncertain: Light at the End. Demo play
First proper look on The Uncertain: Light at the End gameplay. This is a story driven adventure game set on post-apocalyptic Earth taken under control by AI. You are a part of a small group of survivors trying to figure out the reasons of the catastrophe.
This walkthrough shows the first level of the game and introduces some of the characters and basic mechanics.
NOTE: this demo contains unfinished parts of content and does not represent the quality of the release version of the game.
The Uncertain: Light at the End Demo postponed till June 16th
Dear gamers!
We know that you have been waiting for the demo to be released this week, but Steam postponed Summer Game Fest till 16th of June. But nothing to be worried about, we are still gonna be there and The Uncertain: Light at the End demo will be available to play during Summer Game Fest, so you all will be able to enjoy the post-apocalyptic future Earth atmosphere!
Wishlist the game if you haven’t done it yet and stay tuned for more and we promise you: the news are coming!
Though we are all affected by the ongoing COVID-19 crises, we are happy to inform you all that work on our project continues. As a matter of fact, our plans did not even change that much, after all, we are game developers, so our place is in front of a PC monitor - and that means we almost naturally self-isolate! So, March did not catch us off guard, and disruption to our plans was minimal!
So, what have we been doing? Let's jump into it!
Improvements/Quality of Life At this stage of the game's development, we are focusing mainly on finalizing the work, polishing the scenes, and adding a good layer of quality over everything.
For our first example, we're looking at what may be a familiar scene to you, after all, it was taken from a video that we recently shared (the opening cutscene/introduction video). Our work here involved improving the streets with tiny-but-visible details, improving the textures, lighting, and shadows.
For the image above, you can see our work by looking at the softer shadows, the surfaces that are now rusty, shabby, or even dirty (after all, this is a post-apocalyptic world run by robots). As it is autumn, we've also added in unswept leaves, a further indication that humanity has vanished.
Next, we move to the interior. Apartments have been long abandoned and we wanted to make this much more visible, so cobwebs, material stains, and general weathered furniture is the focus, as you can see in the image below.
Teasers We've got a small teaser section for you. The world has now been filled with useful items that you (the player) can interact with. Be sure to make a note of what these are, as when you play the game, you will want to use-or-collect them.
Animation/3D Modelling Last week we shared a post on r/animation (over on Reddit for those that do not recognize the link) and the reaction there was fantastic! Check it out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/animation/comments/fyezsp/having_fun_after_a_long_motion_capture_session/
So we thought that it would be a good idea to share some more general 3D Animation improvements with our community so that you can all enjoy it!
Video 1: Here we see a visibly frustrated Alex as he beats his hands on the table. I wonder what has gotten him so mad, are there any guesses?
We've teased flying cars for a while (after all, this game is in the future) so we'll continue to do just that! Though the car is not yet flying, here you can see Emily, along with two other human survivors, getting into a car - so yes, you will be able to interact with them!
More basic - but perhaps more important - is the animation of Park looking through his backpack (this will get used in many places).
And finally, a special clip showing an in-development Claire as she receives a full set of emotions! [previewyoutube="dlPLyqtFmfU;full"]
Steam Cards
Steam cards are still very popular, so don’t worry we’ve got you covered! Do you enjoy these samples?
And that brings us to the end of this update, thank you for staying with us and we hope that you've enjoyed catching up with what we have been doing.
All the best to you from the ComonGames studio
Development diary.
Hello everyone!
Another month has gone by so it's time for our monthly news blast! This month we've got some exciting news, so sit back and enjoy!
Before we begin, we'd like to publicly announce our new publisher, the Independent Game Publisher - META Publishing! Please give them a warm welcome as they are vital to our long term success.
Now let's look at the game development progress! The release date is gradually creeping upon us and we are really excited about it. However, though we've entered the home stretch it's still not time for us to sit back and relax, instead, we are spending our time on some much-needed Quality Assurance!
What have we been working on you ask? A good question! We've played through the game a few times and have found a handful of glitches that need fixing (better to do this now than post-release!) As well as that, we noticed that in some cases the graphical assets needed improving, so we've been sending tasks to our art team to bring the quality up to a high standard!
Next on our list of tasks was optimization as with better graphics comes the need to optimize the game. After all, what's the point in having a great looking game if the game plays poorly, we want everyone to have a good gameplay experience!
If you follow our Social Media platforms, you may have also seen some motion capture videos (it really is fun to use). In that department, we've almost finished recording everything, but the task did not end there. Our designers and artists need to touch up the recorded animations - fixing the few hiccups. Once that is done, we'll add it to the game!
Now that we've covered what we have been doing, let's look at what needs to be done. The main thing that we are working on now recording the voice actors and adding in the animations that we've captured from the motion capture sessions.
As we mentioned before, the story and plot are complete (which was the biggest task by far), and we've now finished adding in the final chapter description.
This leads us nicely to what we're doing with Steam - the much-loved achievements, Steam cards, and easter eggs!
One last thing before we end this update. Last month we told you that we changed Emily's appearance, s today we're going to show you what she now looks like, along with the new model of Matthew. A short background on Matthew: He is a risk-taker and like all the other human survivors, he has had a rocky road so far - though his may have been harder.
We'll add some images of Matthew - the 3D model, his face, and his textures. Do note that this isn't the final version (we're still working on him) so please don't judge us too much just yet!
That's all for now, we hope that you've enjoyed reading this. Now, check out the art!
Matthew, v.2.0
His new face.
Emergency communication in the Sewers
Portable record player of the future. Some devices remain the same throughout the years
Sticker concept: this glass isn't easy to break
The new Emily! This time, everything's final.
Thanks for your support. You rock!
Love, ComonGames studio
Yearbook 2019
This is the traditional review of the past year. May the New Year's Eve bring many miracles into your lives. In the meantime, we're going to review ComonGames studio's year 2019. Coming up with a review is always challenging and intensive. We browse through our developmental archives and journals, recalling what we were up to, and planning for the future. This is the usual pace of the game development industry: as we're finishing this article, you must be setting the New Year's festive dinner! However, this is the only way to get the most honest review of the year.
It was the fifth year of working on The Uncertain universe. The year's been challenging, full of ups and downs. We redesigned many things. The more we throw ourselves into work, the closer we get to the release, the more things to improve and redesign we find! Something that's been there from the start might feel uncomfortable now. Sometimes we find better solutions and change the game, trying to make it as high-quality as we can. As is often the case in game development, deadlines were miscalculated, and the team has changed again. At the end of the day, we're good, but deep changes like these never go easy. The studio has grown bigger. Now that there are more of us, and we reorganized the process of development, we're looking to the future with confidence.
We developed a range of different skills and practices what we were good at. There were a lot of new fields that we tried out for. You can read more in the series of articles about the team, which will be continued in 2020.
The game is way more advanced and developed than part one. It's only natural: we gain experience, and The Uncertain universe grows up with us. Perfectionism might be a slippery slope, but still, we hope you'll appreciate our effort. We transformed and improved Emily's appearance almost a dozen times. Not to mention her hair... but you must have heard this epic story :)
We found a publisher, who also brought out some issues in the development process. It's always good for a project to acquire not only investments and marketing opportunities, but also "smart money": the past experience on different projects, the ability to identify gaps and deficiencies, and the knowledge of how to fix them.
While completing part two, we've already started part three! We're really looking forward to showing you a little something in the upcoming year. So far, this is as much as we can tell you. All in good time. We wouldn't want to spoil it for you!
We did a great job together with our new narrative designer Sergey Chekmaev. We finalized the story and narrative in 2019. Sergey worked outside his standard duties: together, we visited several showcases and events—our script even received the prestigious German award "The Greatsword of Northern Lands". We also went to the 108 Minutes space festival and fantasy and sci-fi festival Starcon in Kaluga and Saint Petersburg in Russia.
The game world is coming to life. Characters get animations and voices. We recorded Tatiana Sheetova for some of the VOs: she's the official Yandex Alisa's voice and Tissaia de Vries in the Witcher series. She's also the official Russian Emily's voice in our game.
We came to like writing long reads, and created over ten articles about the development process, the studio team, and the game universe. We hope that you like them too! Here's a question to our most dedicated readers: tell us what you'd like to read about in the upcoming year. Leave your comments in the comment section. Our news readers, our players who play part one and is waiting for the release of part two—all of you are our community, who supports us and guides us through our work. We have a pretty big treasure by the end of the second decade of the XXI century: 1100 subscribers on Steam, 4600 followers on VK and 12 000 on Facebook. Thank you for your support!
We couldn't ignore the fan art we've been receiving from you! Just like other large-scale projects: we have drawings, paper models, and 3D-printed models. Seeing the game world growing beyond the virtuality is very important for a game developer. We deeply appreciate your creativity.
A thorough development is only one side of a project. Apart from that, it also needs testing. Otherwise it might become obsolete even before the release date and accumulate tons of glitches and bugs. We completed a Beta, which revealed some weak spots. There's a lot to do, but we aren't discouraged: we know exactly what we need to do.
Last but not least, here's some real-life news: we rented and equipped an office space in Moscow. It's a big step for us. Until now, the whole ComonGames team worked remotely. The project will surely benefit from our offline meetings. We won't lie to you, it's very nice to see our colleagues in person! :)
This is the end of the year 2019. 2020 is coming. The release date is planned. In 2020, we'll work on part three and complete the story of the universe. There's so much to do. We're very grateful to all of you who's been following the development of the game universe with us. It doesn't matter whether you can recall the very first demo versions of the game or have followed us just recently. Every player matters. May the New Year bring happiness to each and every one of you. Let the scary stories about the future remain a fantasy. May the real life keep your families together, and each day brings you hope. Happy New Year!
Lots of love, ComonGames Team
Development diary. November.
Hi all! November is over, and we're glad to show you what we did over the past month. The characters are coming to life and learning to move. We animated Brian, Emily, and Matthew in the locations of the second and third levels. All characters' animations on the third and some of the fourth levels' locations are polished. Follow us on social media! We might be able to show them very soon ;)
We moved on to finalizing the narrative. Artem Netyagin and Sergey Chekmaev reviewed and finalized most of the dialogues. We're almost done! The final checks are underway. The proofreader's touch will be the last thing before we record the voice-over. Level six acquired the logical framework. Numerous logical inconsistencies that were piling up are also fixed. The seventh level was assembled from scratch. And we're already working on level eight!
What else? Oh, we came up with the level nine Sewers, took a good look at them, tried them in the game... and immediately created version two! Emily's character is at the advanced stage. This time, we're overhauling her textures. Model topology and hair are undergoing some minor edits: we're almost ready to give you the final version of our protagonist.
In the meanwhile, here are some objects that are ready to go public!
The backpack is something that doesn’t change over the years.
Several lockers for different purposes
Medical appliances of the future might look like weapons of our time
Cargo ship. What cargo does it hold?
What's the purpose of these circuit boards? This is not the Water Chip!
Billboards of the future and VR addiction.
We also believe that 3D printing has a bright future.
This is all for now. Stay tuned for our review and summary of the year 2019.
