The Unwelcomed
May Update
While we were hoping to be posting a set of release notes instead of a general update this month, that is not the case just yet. We are on the verge of our parity release, to mark the completion of the integration of the new SteamVR and VRTK code changes into the game.
What does this mean to you, our players? It means that in the next few weeks, you should see a set of patch notes to denote our next release of the game. Unfortunately, for content, the game will be practically identical with a few changes here and there. However, it will provide our coders with a brand new subset of tools to continue forward for our next releases to support things like additional VR headsets, new locomotion systems, deeper menu integrations, and much more.
We appreciate the community's patience as we continue to work toward a completed game.
- The Unwelcomed Team
April Update
The time is getting closer for us to push out another release with all of our fun new updates and systems. We have been working diligently through the last month to ensure that everything is working the way we expect.
During this time, we've come to the conclusion that our team members are a bit on the perfectionist side, which has some interesting downsides. We want to ensure that our releases are polished and working to the best of our abilities, even in early access. However, if we spend our time just 'fixing that one last thing', we'll never get the next update out the door. It's a puzzle all on its own.
More info as we draw closer, but we are hoping to have the next iteration of our game available to our players by the middle of this quarter at the latest. Thank you all for your patience. We know that waiting for a game update can be grueling and hope that our next update will be worth the wait.
-The Unwelcomed Team
March Update
Wow, time has just been flying by! The new abilities and mechanics of the VRTK 3.1 and SteamVR 1.2.1 packages have been astounding.
Unfortunately, it has required us to start back at the beginning of our creation in regards to interactable objects. Our devs have been working tirelessly to get the new codebase integrated and working with the precision and immersion that we need in the game.
Because of this, we've had to rework a lot of our add-on scripts that were dependent on the older version of VRTK, so it's pushed us a little further back on our next release than we would have liked.
Since that was the bad news, here is the good news- while we are working on the base code of the game to make it better all around, our level designers and puzzle creators are hard at work to continue forward with additional rooms. This means that our next release may include more than just a single room for all you puzzle junkies.
More info as we get closer to release. Thank you all for your patience as we work through these new and uncharted waters!
-The Unwelcomed Team
February Update
Development slowed a bit over the holiays of the new year, but we're back on top of things and working hard to get our next release avaialble.
Some of the major updates in our next release include updates to the VRTK package, the SteamVR package, and updating to a new version of unity to support all the fun new abilities.
Because of these updates, there won't be a lot of changes that can really be seen by the players, but it provides a much better framework for us moving forward and provides support for things we couldn't in the past.
In our next major release, we hope to have a 4th room available, some new game mechanics, as well as support for new hardware such as the Oculus Rift.
We'll post more info as we get closer to release.
The Unwelcomed v1.00c Release Notes
This is a small update to hopefully fix the issues with keypad in room 1 being hard to access along with a minor patch for lighting on some systems. Please let us know if it's still being an issue for any of you.
The Unwelcomed v1.00b Release Notes
This is a small update to hopefully fix the issues with the button in room 2. Please let us know if it's still being an issue for any of you.
The Unwelcomed v1.00a Release Notes
Happy New Years!
This release fixes some issues we ran into over the holidays. Our apologies for the delay!
Updates and Fixes in this Release:
- Room 3: Fuse box can stop snapping fuses into place. It seems to happen to a specific fuse, rather than a specific slot. This should now be fixed. Keep in mind that the issue when touching two fuse locations at the same time when letting go still has issues (thus the gaps between the slots).
- Room 2: The button in the fuse box has a very, very small collision box and it makes it hard, if not sometimes impossible, to press the button under some circumstances. This is better, but it's still not where we want it to be. Reworking the fusebox all together in the next release.
- Room 1: Non-descript books (the identical ones that have no attachment to the puzzle) are not interactable. You can now interact with them as expected.
- Room 2: We've increased the light distance slightly on the candle to allow for better illumination.
- Room 3: Reworked keypad three puzzle to remove several red herrings that were throwing players too far off track.
- Attaching a sticky note to a corkboard no longer causes unintended consequences for the sticky note.
Known Issues:
Collision events on some objects can loop indefinitely under some circumstances.
Floor height Calibration does not take effect in rooms that have vertical movement (Room 3 and Foyer)
If you manage to touch two snap points with the same supported object, it can confuse the system and attempt to snap to both locations simultaneously, thus causing the fuse to drop out of the slots. After this happens, the fuse is bugged and will not snap into place (leaving it resting against the side will work however!).
(KB/M) There is no current way to 'zoom' the view to read or inspect objects that are out of reach (a sticky note in room1 is an example).
(KB/M) There is no menu system for keyboard/mouse users (or for VR for that matter). To exit the game, ALT+F4 if you are in full screen or simply click the X in the upper right corner if you are in windowed mode.
Currently, the player has the ability to interact with objects inside closed/locked objects using other objects (mostly for KB/M) but I could see VR having an issue with this as well.
v1.0 Bugs and Issues
We've had some reports of a few bugs in the current build of the game and I wanted to take some time to outline them as well as let you know we are working on them, but due to the holidays, it may be a short while before we are able to publish an update to fix them.
Known Issues / Suspect Issues:
Room 3: Fuse box can stop snapping fuses into place. It seems to happen to a specific fuse, rather than a specific slot. A work around to this is to toss the fuse that's causing issues and use one of the others in its place. Any fuse will power the slot, and they can be moved once a keypad is unlocked.
Room 2: The button in the fuse box has a very, very small collision box and it makes it hard, if not sometimes impossible, to press the button under some circumstances.
Room 1: Non-descript books (the identical ones that have no attachment to the puzzle) are not interactable. You can move them out of the way by picking up another object and applying force direclty to them.
Thank you to everyone providing feedback on these issues, we appreciate your comments!
The Unwelcomed v1.0 Release Notes
Happy Holidays to everyone! To celebrate the holiday season, we're releasing our third room along with a multitude of tweaks, fixes, and other additional game mechanic updates.
This release marks the availability of the third puzzle room as well as our first formal save system (and if we got it right, the steamcloud save!). This is our v1.0 release, as it marks the first time we consider the game to at least mostly look and feel as we intended when we started.
We are learning by leaps and bounds and everyone at The Unwelcomed Studios would like to say thank you all for supporting us thus far, and your continued support as we continue to make this game great!
As always, please let us know what you think of this update in the forum. Also, make sure you post any improvements, puzzle ideas, or most anything you'd like to see in our next release.
Updates and Fixes in this Release:
- Added Room 3! Enjoy the Library!
- Hands now have grab and point animations and colliders to go along with each.
- Created an 'out of bounds' script to keep players from accidently removing items from the room. If you attempt to remove an object from the room, it will respawn at its previous location.
- There are now flammable objects - Be aware that lighting too many things on fire at once can cause FPS loss!
- Items that are flammable have two major settings, exposure and burn time. We tried to keep them both somewhat realistic so don't expect a chair to immediately catch on fire.
- Added new fire effects to work with burnable objects and generally increased the quality of the fire effects.
- Sticky notes now work as expected. You can now pick up and place sticky notes.
- Cork board now work as expected. You can now attach 'lighter' items to corkboards to help organize your thoughts.
- Objects now cling to drawers to make it easier to work with drawers that contain objects.
- Reworked starting apartment for easier movement and better flow as a tutorial.
- Added tutorial notes and interactable objects to apartment.
- Added keyhole to anything that is legitimately locked by a key.
- Lowered some of our puzzle placement and puzzle items to allow for shorter players to work with them easier.
- Removed teleport collisions with most meshes. This helps with navigation around a cluttered floor.
- Fixed teleport collision with objects that are held.
- Steam Achievements are now working as expected.
- Added a few new achievements and removed a few to keep it simple.
- New Grab pickup point is the palm, while interactions are still centered pointer finger when pointing
- Interchangeable objects. You can now place an object into a snap point and retrieve it again.
- Room progress now saves. Sorry, those of you who already completed room 1 and 2, you get to do it again - invite a friend over, let them experience it :)
- Keys now spawn in the foyer after completing a level.
- Progress and player options are now saved between sessions and are stored in SteamCloud for easy access wherever you game.
- Audio VOs for Stuck, Locked, and Item needed have been sorted better to ensure players understand the current state.
- Background music has been added to the title room, foyer, and the three puzzle rooms.
- An annoying new neighbor has moved in to the apartment next to yours and likes to listen to loud music.
- Player options now include:
- Hold to pickup
- Floor height Calibration (-2, off, and +2) - new*
- Music On/Off - new*
- KB/M - Interaction between objects has been refined. Keys and doors, among other things, should work much better than before.
- KB/M - Crouch has been added (Left Shift) to allow access to lower spots in our rooms
Known Issues:
Collision events on some objects can loop indefinitely under some circumstances.
Floor height Calibration does not take effect in rooms that have vertical movement (Room 3 and Foyer)
If you manage to touch two snap points with the same supported object, it can confuse the system and attempt to snap to both locations simultaneously.
Attaching a sticky note to a corkboard can have unintended consequences for the sticky note.
(KB/M) There is no current way to 'zoom' the view to read or inspect objects that are out of reach (a sticky note in room1 is an example).
(KB/M) There is no menu system for keyboard/mouse users (or for VR for that matter). To exit the game, ALT+F4 if you are in full screen or simply click the X in the upper right corner if you are in windowed mode.
Currently, the player has the ability to interact with objects inside closed/locked objects using other objects (mostly for KB/M) but I could see VR having an issue with this as well.
What you need to know about this release (KB/M Users):
For Keyboard and Mouse users, the key mapping options do not currently work.
Keyboard binds are as follows:
E – Use/Interact: Any object that can open, such as doors, drawers, or lids are openable by targeting them with the crosshairs and pressing this button. Additionally, some objects require another object to work, such as grabbing the keys from the hanger and 'using' them while in contact with the door handle in the apartment.
Right Click – Pick Up Object: Any object that can be picked up, target with the crosshairs and hold the right click button to grab it.
Mouse Wheel +/- While holding an object, scroll the mouse wheel to move it closer or further away from the player.
Alt – Rotate object with mouse: While holding an object, hold ALT and move the mouse to rotate the object in space in front of you in order to inspect it
F – Flashlight Toggle: Once you have picked up a flashlight in a room, it will be available to you. You can turn it on/off by pressing this key.
L.Shift - Crouch Toggle: You can crouch to reach lower spaces by pressing and holding Left Shift. *NEW*
Development Roadmap:
These are things we want to see implemented at some point. Some are also refinements of existing mechanics. If you have made a suggestion via our discussion board, it will probably end up here!
These ideas and features are in no particular order and we'll be adding and removing them from the list as time goes on, but we'll post the most current items with our release notes.
- Room editor mode for users (workshop compatible)
- Save state in case you have to bail in the middle of a room
- Menu system to allow access to settings and things while in game
- Reset button for the current room in case you destroy or lose something important
- A library of puzzles to use interchangeably in the rooms to support some of our other features
- Procedurally generated rooms and/or puzzles
- Multiple endings based on room solve rate/time
- Continued improvement on the hands and movement models
- More Puzzles!
- Puzzle randomizations and mutations
- Additional and deeper storyline content
- User Options:
1. Movement style - trackpad walk or teleport
2. Button Assignments for both VR and KB/M
3. Pick your voiceover - Male, Female, other?
4. More Robust Floor Adjustment - VR floor adjustment as we all know not all rooms calibrate the same
5. VO Toggle ability along with subtitles
6. SFX Toggle
December Update
I know it's been awhile since we posted, so we wanted to drop a quick note and let you know that we are still hard at work on the next major updates to the game, including room #3!
The next update will provide animated hand models as well as updated puzzle interactions and a few other items detailed to us by you, our players!
Look for info to come as we get closer to releasing our next update.