It's been a little over a week since we've released the last major update (#3), We've enjoyed receiving the overall positive feedback so far!
So we've got a pretty exciting minor update for you guys!
As always with minor updates I'll do my best to keep it as short and to the point as possible:
AI Animations - "Body Language" :
We've done some significant work on improving the AI's animations from a practical standpoint, which means it will now be more clear what the AI is thinking based on its body language.
A few quick examples:
When a guard has seen something suspicious, it will now turn its head to that location to have a look.
This might sound minor but it goes a long way in letting the player know that guard is on to something.
Another example when a guard has heard some noise he will have a look left and right (even if he's still patrolling) as well as throw in some voice lines letting the player know that guard is building up suspicion.
A guard's body animations become more excessive the more suspicious he becomes, showing that he is on edge.
Guard "Suspicion State" Thresholds Increased :
Guards will now take more time to transition between suspicion states allowing more time for players to recognize that a guard is becoming aware of their presence and take action.
(Stats for nerds: as an example, a guard will need to become about 60% more suspicion in order to transition into a phase where they physically go and check out a specific location).
Additionally guards will now have reactions to suspicious events while they are in patrolling/guarding state.
These reactions will kick in before they reach the point of stopping and turning around (you could think of this as new intermediary state between "idle" and "turning around"). This again means the player will be able to better assess what that guard is thinking.
Oculus Rift Key Mapping Changes:
As was requested for quite a while by many of our Rift players, we've switched around the Grip and Trigger buttons' functionality.
So now - for Rift users - the Grip button will be used for climbing and grabbing objects and the trigger for using the dagger. Enjoy <3
Other Minor Features :
AI Sight range increased by about 30% so they can now farther into the distance.
Fixed a bug with AI's sight which was causing the AI's field of view to be (in some cases) smaller than intended.
Guards chasing the player will now be able to catch up with him once that player is low on stamina and can't run fast enough.
Configured the game to be able to play sound even without having window focus (being on top) - this is a good thing to have in general but was primarily done to help players that had different issues with the game's sound not working for different reasons.
Fixed bug that caused game to crash in very rare cases, due to an infinite loop error :S
Alright, I hope you all enjoy these new features and fixes!
We'll be sharing our plans for the upcoming major content patch very soon in a discussion on the forums as usual.
Looking forward to you feedback on the recent changes <3 !
UNKNIGHTLY - "Major Update" #3
Hey everyone!
We're super excited to announce our third and long awaited Major Update ! I would like remind everyone that the reason this major update has taken longer than previous ones is due to the fact that we've finally taken on the daunting task of redesigning and rewriting a very large portion of the core game-play in order to evolve the game from "lose-on-detection" to a "chance-to-fight-back" model.
Major Features:
A Chance to Fight Back!
So as we mentioned above, this was our primary goal with this update and has thus set the tone for this update and pushed us to add multiple new systems to the game in order to properly support this new and ambitious game-play model.
Players will no longer automatically lose when detected but will instead be given a chance to escape and hide from guards.
However! Once detected, guards will start performing perimeter searches and become increasingly aware of the player's presence.
This makes getting detected a double-edged blade where on the one hand the player may gain a second chance, while on the other hand he loses the element of surprise and the odds turn against him.
Guards will be able to attack the player.
If the player takes a couple consecutive hits and dies he will restart from the his last checkpoint!
Make Assassinating Guards a More Challenging Task
So before this update, guards were basically sitting ducks if lured into areas of complete darkness since they could not see anything - at all...
This had created an exploit that made it possible to lure guards into these dark hiding spots and kill them off very easily, one-by-one.
We've made several advancement on this front and have every intent to keep iterating and improving based on your feedback.
While a guard is suspicious or alarmed he will gain the ability to see even in complete darkness but his field of view will be significantly reduced.
As long as the player sticks to the shadows and keeps a short distance from that guard he should not be detected.
Some guards will carry shields which they will use to protect their face and body when they feel threatened.
This makes them more challenging to handle in face-to-face combat and will instead require flanking and stealth tactics in order to pull off a successful assassination.
Note: Right now the guards with shields are not as powerful as we would like them to be and will buffed in an upcoming minor patch.
Increase Guard Cooperation
Guards are now aware of one another and will react to having heard or seen one of their allies who has a suspicion and come to their aid.
Guards will cooperate and perform more coordinated perimeter searches. Once a state of "perimeter search" is declared, guards will divide up the area between themselves and each guard will cover part of the area in a methodical non-random way.
Secondary Features:
Added Snap Turn Support
We've now finally added support for snap-turning for both Vive and Rift users.
Currently snap turns is set to 45 degrees with more options coming in a subsequent patch!
This was a (too) long awaited feature prioritized primarily for players who have a 180 setup, but also for the broader community as a quality of life option to avoid "cable-hell" and we're very happy to finally have it in-game.
Stamina System
This one we did not have planed at first, but we quickly realized we needed some way of balancing the climbing mechanic with the new combat system.
After brainstorming in-house and with community members we decided to go for a "stamina" as a finite but regenerating resource the player would have to manage in order climb, sprint, jump etc.
Hand Model and Animations
We've replaced the previous "place holder" models with proper hand models which not only look way better, but also include beautiful idle, grab, climb animations !
Shout out to our community member "Captaindickhook" for offering to make the model and animations for us - he's undoubtedly done a fine job.
Conclusion and Special Thanks
This update is undoubtedly a major mile-stone in the game's development process.
We're extremely fortunate to have such an amazing and supportive community that keeps pushing us forward and takes an active part in shaping this game by providing us with constant constructive feedback on what they believe we should focus on and where we can improve - for that we are deeply grateful !
Special thanks to a few veteran community members who've played a major role in providing feedback as well as play-testing of the pre-public versions of this update:
SupaDave, WMan22, Caldor, Hoshi, Barba-Q.
As well as a few newer yet very involved community members:
Goblia, Maozee.
It's a true privilege to have such amazing community members on board! <3
So everyone enjoy the new update and as always looking looking forward to your feedback!
UNKNIGHTLY - "Minor Update" 26.12.17
Hello everyone!
We've released a minor but significant update for you guys.
I'll keep this one short and to the point:
Significant CPU Performance Improvement :
Long story short, we've integrated a new plugin which dramatically reduces the CPU cost of rendering a scene ("Draw Calls").
This is significant because not only should this makes the game run noticeably smoother for most players, but it also make the creation of more dense and complex levels possible - as you can expect to see in the "Village" levels we have planned for the near future.
Guard Voice Lines Improvements :
So most of you probably know we've hired a professional voice actor and are taking guard voice lines much more seriously going forward.
We've added over +100 voice lines to guards including some entertaining "idle" voice lines :)
This minor patch is a major update in this respect with many more improvements to guard voice lines to come.
More minor tweaks and changes over which we'll not go into detail here.
We're working towards the next major patch, and I hope it will come out as amazing as we imagine it :)
We will of course share the features of this major patch in the coming days so we can get your guys thoughts on them before we dive deep into the development process.
Stay tuned! <3
UNKNIGHTLY - "Major Update" #2
Hey everyone!
I'm happy to announce our second significant update.
This update brings you new content as well as important improvements.
I'll keep it short by pointing out the "Top 4" most significant additions: (there's more but these are the most important / significant ones)
Dungeons: Chapter II !
In the next chapter you are going to venture deeper towards the dungeon exit in your attempt to escape it (You might discover some dark things are going on down there).
This is a full blow chapter which varies quite significantly from previous chapters and is said to be more difficult in nature.
It could take players anywhere between 45 and 70+ minutes to complete ( estimates based on real player data) depending on skill and experience.
I won't give away much here but I recommend you play it through and find out for yourself :)
Improved Climbing
Haptic Feedback - Touch Start soft rumble that when hand is within grabbing distance of a climbable surface.
This is intended to convey the human sense of "touch" and act as a cue for letting the player know that a particular a surface is climbable and within climbing range.
Haptic Feedback - Grab: Play intense rumble on successful grab.
Visual Cues Add a very gentle soft light / outline to the player's hands that lights blue or red depending on if a surface is climbable (blue) or not (red).
This will serve as a visual queue for the player when climbing and also help with making surfaces a little more visible when climbing in darker parts of the map.
Tolerance & Snapping Increase tolerance for player putting his hand through a wall and make hand model snap to walls up to certain wall penetration depth.
AI Voice / Barks
We're hired a professional voice actor to do the voice acting and completely replace the temporary voice-lines the AI currently has!
At this point we've added only a handful of lines but we've already written a sent the voice actor a script of over 200 words - with more to come.
We'll add many more lines in the upcoming minor patch!
Lighting Improvements
We’ve made subtle but noticeable changes to the lighting in all levels so even the darkest corners should never be pitch dark.
It was important for us to keep the over-all atmosphere dark while at the same time making it possible for players to still see walls and other objects in the darkest corners (even if ever so slightly).
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Personal Thanks
I'd like to personally thank the community members who've agreed to part-take in our internal testing rounds and were supportive enough to play through the game, raise bugs and suggest improvements before it was publicly released:
WMan22, Supadave, amandagreenway, HOSHI82, NerV, Captaindickhook. You guys are amazing, thank you so much <3
What's Next
We'll soon be posting our "What's Next" discussion so you guys know what we plan to work on next (just as we did last time).
Please feel free to jump in, suggest ideas or re-prioritization if you feel there's more pressing matters that need our attention, or simply let us know what you're most excited for!
Hope you enjoy this patch and, as always, we look forward to your feedback!
Much love! <3
UNKNIGHTLY - "Major Update" #1
Hello everyone!
I'm happy to announce our first significant update,
and hopefully after reading the update's highlights you'll be happy as well :)
It's worth to quickly mention that this major update has turned out to be very different than we had originally planned (in a positive sense) seeing as
we were overwhelmed by the community's responsiveness and feedback. So we went on and changed some of our priorities to fit some of most requests you guys have put forth!
Major Features:
Trackpad (Onward-Style) Locomotion !
This has been pretty much the #1 request in the forums, and we quickly understood that trackpad locomotion would have to be a thing and that it couldn't wait - and let me tell you it turned out to be amazing!
You'll now be able to choose between Arm-Swing and the by-now-standard onward-style trackpad locomotion (with a sprint ability!).
Arm-Swing Locomotion Controls Remapping
We're received multiple requests from existing players who did happen to like the Arm-Swing locomotion but had troubles with it's key mappings.
So we've taken the feedback and made some quite significant adjustments.
In short: Left hand is now used for controlling movement, it is now the dominant hand in determining direction.
Also"Walk" and "Backwards-Walk" have moved the the left controller while jump has remained on the right controller.
AI Hearing Improvements
This one was painful in the last version especially that part in the tutorial where the AI would often seem to ignore the logs you would throw at him :P
This system has been significantly improved and the AI is now much more responsive to noises.
Additionally we've increased the AI's hearing radius so it's now much more convenient to kite an AI guard away from his post.
Some Minor Improvements & Fixes:
Noise Indicator has been tuned to provide better feedback.
Crates, Barrels etc. are now climbable as well.
Dead guards' bodies make less noise when dragged/fall and this noise can now actually alert other guards!
Added "Pause" button for Vive users, we will add it for Oculus in an upcoming minor patch.
Fixed: Dagger bug, would still have collision after being withdrawn.
Fixed: Checkpoint bug , would sometimes load player at the start of a level with data from another level / play-through.
Much more behind the scenes but this announcement has been a long enough read already :)
We can't thank you guys enough for providing the constant feedback, requests and bug reports.
Hopefully you are as excited as we are to be part of shaping this game.
Thank you all so much <3 !
Quick Post Launch Fixes #1 (Updated)
Hello everyone!
First off thanks to everyone for supporting us on our Public Beta Launch,
you guys have been incredible!
We're releasing a patch with some important bug fixes that some players had experienced.
The two major fixes in this patch are:
Keys would sometimes not open their locks - We've switched to another pairing system which should be much more reliable
UPDATE Dec 02:
After making the system more reliable didn't solve the issue we were able to have a deeper look and are confident we have found the root cause.
Another fix has been uploaded where the bug does not seem to reoccur. -- Thanks to everyone for reporting <3
Oculus users had issues launching the game due to "Oculus Entitlement Check" - the check has been removed until further notice.
UPDATE Dec 03:
Fixed a minor bug where sometimes the player would spawn inside a wall (if you have a small VR space you probably have no idea what I'm talking about :) ) -- Thanks to Filip for reporting <3
Thank you guys for reporting these issues!
We'd like to apologize for any inconveniences caused by them.
We are in bug hunt mode and we got our spears ready and sharp!
Keep that feedback and those suggestions headed in our direction! <3
UNKNIGHTLY “Public Beta” Release
Hello everyone!
We’re happy to finally announce the “Public Beta” (Early Access) release of UNKNIGHTLY,
a nerve-wracking medieval VR stealth game,
with full room-scale support for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift!
Purchasing UNKNIGHTLY at its "Public Beta" (Early Access) phase
grants you full access to the product and all of its future updates.
Before Purchasing
Please consider spending a moment reading through the implications of choosing to opting in to play UNKNIGHTLY in its "Public Beta" phase.
You should get this game at its current state, assuming:
You are excited for VR stealth games and VR in general and are eager to get your hands on new and innovative VR games, even at the expense of experiencing the occasional bugs due to early development state.
You believe in the premise of this game and want to support and contribute value to it by opting in early and providing feedback from your game play experience.
You are satisfied with the amount of content described below as long as you know that more content is on its way.
The Current State of the “Public Beta” Version
The Good
Core Mechanics
All core mechanics are in place to give the full experience
of the game as presented in the trailer.
This of course also includes assassinations! :)
Current Content Includes
Game Play Tutorial A tutorial with actual challenging game play content
that offers 30-40 minutes of game play to complete
depending on player skill and experience.
Escape the Dungeons "Dungeons: Chapter I" is a full length level
that offers about 35-50 minutes of game play to complete.
This level features much more interesting and challenging
encounters for the player to think and work through.
More Content on the Way "Dungeons: Chapter II" set to release within ~5 days of launch.
"Dungeons: Chapter III" set to release within ~9 days of launch.
The Ugly?
Potential Bugs / Edge Cases Stealth game levels are intriguing and complex by design.
Bugs and edge cases could manifest themselves.
Please do report them in mails / discussions!
AAA-Quality Polish While the game's overall polish is considered high
as featured in the trailer and screenshots,
sounds-design and guard animations will require and receive
further polish in upcoming releases.
Story / Lore Story is a topic that is largely lacking at the current state
and will be emphasized significantly in upcoming releases.
If you are in it for the story elements please consider revisiting the game
in a few weeks.
Final Note:
If you should decide to post-pone your purchase or are still on the fence,
please consider subscribing to our mailing list to receive continuous
development updates as UNKNIGHTLY keeps evolving.
Also consider adding this UNKNIGHTLY to your Steam Wishlist!
