Finally, we are rolling out the Enhance content patch, with ironically little content but TONS of improvements done to the game, setting a strong foundation for future content.
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Now, let's hang out, chill, and go over the changes together with the video version of this announcement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP_l5uAzYrg
(video also includes talk about next Content Patch)
If you are in a rush, or are looking for all the little details, here is a full list of changes with this content patch.
Engine: Up to 4x performance. Migrated to a new engine which relies on GPU (OpenGL) instead of CPU to render graphics.
Engine: Now Steam Overlay is supported in game.
Engine: LEGENDARY FIX: F12 does not reset the game anymore.
Engine: Dropped support of in-game Screenshots. You can now take them using Steam Screenshots by pressing F12.
World Items: Improved underlying World Items deployment system to reduce chance of maps breaking when it’s contents gets modified in a patch (only applies to new saves after this patch).
World Items: LEGENDARY BUG FIX - Redone relinking system to prevent World Items to appear in weird spots, or look like other items, or simply not work when coming back to an existing map.
Engine: New Particles system with Emitters, Sub Emitters and Particles.
Visual Effects: Floating sparkles for indicating wind speed are now Particle based.
Sim Units: Campfires now use Emitters for fire and smoke, as a 1:1 representation of the flame size and fuel burnt. Smoke displacement is affected by local wind speed. Vapor will start to come out if local humidity is high enough.
Visual Effects: Rain impact on the ground is now displayed visually through a Particle Emitter.
Title Screen: Whole new title screen, now also with Credits.
Items: Corrected descriptions too long for the Item Inspector box.
Engine: Unified method for inspecting World Items. Now all items get benefited with automatic live updates of their stats when interacting with them, as time flows.
Items: New item! Humidity Condenser. Will slowly turn air humidity into water. Requires humid air to function.
Water Containers: Fixed issue on which filling a container would replace the amount of water in it, as opposed to adding to it.
Water Containers: Can now be refilled at Humidity Condensers and Holes.
Water Containers: Will now notify amount refilled and % full when refilled.
Scenarios: Added support for some scenarios to have multiple possible starting locations.
Settings: Added Scaling Method setting for upscaling pixels. Use Crisp for sharp pixel edges, or Smooth for blurried, softer pixel edges. Defaults to Crisp.
Wind feedback: Updated Air Sparkles, HUD Wind Indicator, Music and Sound Effects to more accurately represent the current speed of wind.
Notifications: Fixed issue that would display weights in KG with more than 1 comma decimal, which is the intended behavior.
Tiles: Corrected many issues in order to display the correct interactions depending on the tile features.
Water Containers: Now accumulated will evaporate by sun exposure, relative to the received sun heat (affected by shadowy areas).
Notifications: Fixed font size to better fit the box on some notification types.
Cactus: Fixed issues that would make harvested Cactuses look like ready to harvest.
Title screen: Custom made Title Screen music! by Adam Halpin.
Settings: Added Dynamic Shadows setting. This allows lower end computer users to uncheck this effect for an important performance boost when multiple light sources are on. Feature added upon Walter Cejas feedback.
Weather: “OMG SO SORRY” BUG FIX. Weather Events weren’t triggering since probably Early Access launch. Now they will trigger properly.
Weather: Added visual indicator for Current Weather Event when opening to Top Menu, including a progress bar of it’s duration.
Wind Indicator: New wind indicator with a tight 1:1 representation of the wind blow. It’s rotation is now drawn dynamically, since the new engine allows it.
Campfire: LEGENDARY BUG FIX. Solved issue on which a campfire my turn itself off when switching maps or loading a save game.
Rain splashes: Will now only impact the ground on areas without ceiling.
Rain sound effects: Polished audio levels.
Sound Effects: LEGENDARY BUG FIX (omg I am on fire!). Solved issue on which some background sound effects like wind or rain wouldn’t be able to play again once stopped.
Thank you everyone for your support so far. It is a pleasure to deliver new stuff for such an awesome group of people.
Have a nice day!
Enhance coming up! Subscribe to the Monthly Newsletter!
The new Content Patch, Enhance, is coming this week. Get notified of it's release by subscribing to the monthly Unveil newsletter!
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Also, further content patches will be delivered to your inbox through this. This is a low frequency mailing list, so feel safe to subscribe to it.
See you again this week!
Status update of July 8th
Hello guys!
I wanted to give you a heads up of what is going on behind the scenes.
After Cold Training was published, I had this itch. No, in my head. So at 1:30 AM I jumped out of the bed for a quick night time coding and started playing with things.
The day after, Friday, I finally succeeded to make the breakthrough I needed to make this really cool thing happen. I set out to repair the game (since that change destroyed a lot of it) and, now that is done, I am working full speed on taking advantage of that breakthrough.
I can't say exactly what will make it into the next Content Patch, coming in a week or two at most, but it is definitely something that all of you are going to love, for many different reasons.
At the same time, I will be revisiting Roots and Cold Training scenarios. I am getting a lot of feedback that they are really difficult and many simply cannot make it through. I want to ensure that everything meant to be learned is a challenge, but everything that is not, is instead offered for easy access to reduce the risk of failure for occurrences not relevant to the scenario's learning checklist.
That said, Unveil is all about true survival in nature. And it is meant to be hard.
If you are stranded, you don't mine a gold mine (chopping a tree down was already stretching it). You instead scout for anything that you may find useful, and use your super smart human brain to make the most out of it.
And also, I will be taking a look at quick ways to make the game more replayable in existing scenarios. I rather not use the cheap trick of Achievements just yet (although most people haven't found any of the easter eggs so far).
Back on track: even if you won't see new patches in the next week, I ask you for a little patience. The next Content Patch will most certainly surprise you.
Thank you everyone for your kind words, support, and great reviews on the Store page. And for understanding this is not just buying a game, but being part of the journey of making a pure survival in nature simulator.
Have a good evening!
- Pablo Neirotti
Bugspray: Disposing those bugs
Hey guys! Quick 2 patches today fixing some issues:
UI: Added safety net to prevent Disposed elements to be drawn, and if the engine fails to keep track of their status, the error will be catched and no crash should occur.
UI: Fixed issue that would leave a white screen on top of almost all objects when spamming the "Select" key during the initial Beta Splash screen.
Patch published on the evening:
System: Further checks to ensure game is saved properly before committing changes to main save file. This should reduce the chance of corrupt files.
Cheers!
Content Patch: Cold Training
Hello survivors of Unveil's Beta!
Today I am proud to announce you are getting the first Content Patch of Unveil, called "Cold Training".
Watch the video for more info about this Content Patch, future Content Patches, future features and enhancements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFXinMLj2FI
But as always, there is no patch without changelog, so here is the full list of changes. Worth reading!
<*>Scenarios: New Cold Training scenario. Survive 3 days in extreme cold to prove yourself and obtain the Cold Training token.
<*>Crafting: Now World Constructions (climbing vines, bridges...) will show all recipes available.
<*>Visuals: Now a slight tone adjustment is applied to the screen tone to reflect colder or hotter temperatures.
<*>Weather Simulation: Support of Astronomic Sun Angle, affecting both Heat and Photons reception on outdoor maps.
<*>System: Applied extra checks while saving to hopefully prevent "Errno::EACCESS - Permission denied” errors.
<*>System: Added support for auto-updating already created objects in game with latest item settings and values.
<*>Item Inspector: Improved readability of Wearables secondary page.
<*>Weareables: Rebalanced Dissipation and Sun Heat reductions.
<*>Flora simulation: Fixed issue that would freeze simulation for all flora in the map after four days.
<*>Crafting: New presentation of Crafted or Converted items.
<*>Items: Added High resolution version of some items.
<*>UI: Simulation will now pause while using the Top Menu.
<*>Placing items: Now when confirming deployment of item, it will skip the text, and display the correct item name on the top left corner (reported by Cristal).
<*>Cooking: Slightly reduced the amount of energy loss of food when cooking it (yes, food looses energy when cooked, it doesn’t gains more).
<*>Simulation: Environment now uses Sun Astronomical Light to define the actual Day and Night moments of the day (as opposed to a fixed time).
<*>Stability: Solved issue on which the game could crash when going hypothermic.
<*>Simulation: Fixed issue on which a Simulation Unit could reincarnate in a map object, even from another map. I am serious.
<*>Audio: Fixed issue on which ambient sounds would linger when going from indoor to outdoor and vice-versa.
<*>Slicing: Fixed issue that would crash the game when trying to slice an item (reported by DeltaCain and Eversor)
<*>Maps: Fixed Free Roam’s east forest map, where spawnables where stuck in queue due to lack of space to appear (reported by Dijinn and Galroche).
<*>Scenarios: Now Hot training has a two step objective chain. First will require the player to craft a Conical Leaf Hat, very useful to stand under strong sun rays, also leading to less hydration loss to sweating. Second Objective remains the same: be rescued by Rescue Crew on the third day.
Happy surviving!
Bugspray Patch of June 29th
Hey guys!
Quick fix patch to kill those bugs. Here is a list of fixed issues. And as always, make sure to restart your Steam client to force the update :)
Fix: UI Component refresh issue that would crash the game when switching scenes.
Fix: Further checks on Layer Effects to prevent the game from crashing when switching scenes.
Logging: Now some errors will be logged into "Error Log.txt" in the game directory, to further help solve these issues in the future.
Thank you all for reporting these issues! You help Unveil become a more stable game for everyone.
Have a nice day!
- Pablo Neirotti
Quick Patch: "Stable Accounts" June 26th
Hi guys!
This is a quick patch to solve a very rare issue on which a user's game won't be able to start due to a corrupted Account file.
This patch will remove a faulty Account, allowing the game to run through it, and it has a new system to save Accounts that is more secure and cannot be corrupted by closing from the "X" button on the Window, as opposed of using Exit > Exit Unveil.
If any of you lost progress (like, their tiers got locked up because of this patch) please get in touch at the following e-mail: support (at) particle.com.ar
Thank you everyone's support so far. Much needed in these early stages.
New stuff coming next week, so stay tuned!
- Pablo Neirotti
Patch: Faster animations + Tokens + More — Late June 24
Hey guys!
Today I was only gonna do some minor fixes but like usual, once I start coding things get out of hand.
Ensure to restart Steam to get the patch. It's about 20 MB in size.
So you are also getting a new feature!
Read all of these, this is a great patch:
Settings: Animations. Use this feature to make animations slightly less smooth, but make the game more responsive. Make sure to set Graphic Quality to High, since it doesn't really have an impact on performance. But this will do!
Maps: Fixed two maps that contained a tree or just sea, that may get the player stuck in them when switching maps.
Maps: New! Now the system will attempt to relocate the player when switching maps and landing on an occupied tree (usually a tree). That way trying to ensure the player can move even if there is a map design flaw.
Saving: Now the game won't autosave nor allow the player to save if stuck on an non-passable tile, even if virtually impossible now. This will let the player Exit and come back to the latest state on which it could move. NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR BUG :D
Exit menu: Fixed bug that would crash the game when hitting the Menu key while on the Exit menu.
Death procedure: Fixed issue that wouldn't delete a temporary save, causing an infinite death loop.
Death procedure: Fixed issue that could crash the game when loading a Scenario on which the player was about to die.
Tokens: Now Hot Training properly delivers a Hot Training token when completing it.
Tokens: Tokens Manager will automatically grant Hot Training token to those who completed the scenario upon entering any Scenario.
Tokens and Weareables: Fixed issue that wouldn't allow equipping Tokens or Wereables on a loaded game, that is, if the item wasn't obtained during that play session.
I am working hard this week to kill (yes, kill) as many bugs as possible so we can later focus on the new content. Luckily the count is getting lower.
Thank you so much to everyone taking the time to report these, and even allowing me to follow up with e-mails or chat to get this ironed out for yourselves but also everyone else.
And one more time: If your game was running slow on your laptop, ensure you activate the "Faster" Animation setting, under Settings > Graphics > Animation.
Have a very good evening!
Patch: "Hot Training and Death" - June 24th, 4:40 GMT
Hello everyone!
Today a quick Patch has been pushed. Make sure to restart your Steam client to get it.
Fixed issue on which the game could crash after dying. Aka: The Ext_Environment one.
Hot Training: Slightly reduced sun intensity and air humidity to make it more viable to survive. Still a challenge though.
Thank you for providing feedback! New content coming next week.
- Pablo Neirotti
Patch: "Inauguration Patch" + Launch Day Developer Log episode
Hello survivors of Nature and Unveil's Beta!
All 3 issues reported today are getting fixed in a patch currently live.
Make sure to restart Steam to see the update.
And together with it, a Launch Day developer log episode!
