We are accelerating toward the conclusion of the game and reach the point where we will be leaving Early Access and launch the game in its final version.
For this reason we have thought that rather that making announcements based on some features, to focus on showing what has changed in the course of the last month. Since this is the first of this new formats, we will probably bring a couple of things that were introduced during December.
A clear example of hard closing a game can be, and when you try to close a bug that was making the box displacement shaggy, only to find that in the process you have reopened two bugs long time ago closed.
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Fine tuning some visual details to bring the game visuals to a more immersive level of details, by integrating some cloud movements that will cast some shadows on the level. In the current view, yo can see the clouds with different shapes and speeds (based on the z axis) overflying the level.
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Some tests being done to improve the feeling of velocity while moving the game characters. Using Unity Post Processing version 2, we are updating in realtime the effects for the motion blur and for the depth of field as to blur everything in the background based on the speed of the character, and restauring them as the speed decrease to an halt.
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The boxes mechanics have been giving us several problems over the course of the development, and in several occasions, although we thought that every had been correctly implemented, some strange conditions within the game eventually ended generating inconsistent feedback from the boxes.
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Although the characters are not seen from a very close range, we always thought that it could bring an enhanced empathy if we would be able to implement some face animations. This what we have done because we think that little details count a lot in a game.
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The combat system has been evolving too, both from a point of view of direct attacks as the feedback of all the strikes.
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As to better balance the difficulty level, introducing the Yari samurai, a type of samurai that throws his spear fiercely.
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We are updating more frequently our twitter and our youtube channel so follow us or subscribe for more frequent updates. @upsidedown_game HIE Youtube Channel
UPDATE #16: Objects transparency
Although we have not been making a lot of communications, we have been working heavily on the game by creating new characters and new sections as to bring the game to the original vision that we had at the beginning of the development, and also fixing bugs or improving performance.
One of the things that was creating a lot of problems to players, was when the action was happening behind some of the elements in the scene, which in some cases are quite big. With intense melee battles happening all around, loosing for a couple of seconds the view of the action, was having some negative impact on the ability of the player to actually have a good time fighting off enemies.
A couple of months ago, we had developed a shader to actually make all the elements between the game characters and the camera, transparent, but its implementation due to the complexity of the environment elements was quite difficult and was having some huge impact on the framerate and there so in the game performance.
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We have spent some weeks fine tuning the overall effect and we thing that we have been now able to maximize the effect while saving memory and drawcalls.
You can wishlist the game on steam as we are getting closer to come out of steam early access, or
if you want to support our development buy your early access release.
We have been slower that we would want, as we have had to migrate from versions of the unity game engine. We have been using the Unity version 5, and we were being bugged by some problems that in order to be solved required us to upgrade the version of unity used, up to the 2018 or 2017.
In the end, we had to landed on the 2017 versions, as the particles systems, above 2017 are no longer compatible with some of the early particles that we implemented in the game, and would require a major rework that would be above our current possibilities.
With the new version of the game engine, we have been able to improve some of the elements of the game that were being used, which allowed us to improve some of the effects and some of the mechaniics being used in the game and integrate one the new enemies that we had been working on the Yamawaro, a mythological creature in the japanese legends.
Dressing up the final segment of the game is also one our priorities as to be able to finally come out from the early access in steam, and get finally into full sales and all platforms.
Stay tuned for more news in the upcoming weeks.
UPDATE #14: General update and apologizes
First of all,
We would like to apologize for the last of feedback over the LAST months, but we have had some spike of work, that we need to keep funding the game development, plus we have had to commit the game engine migration to the 2018 version of Unity in order to try to improve the game overall performance and finish integrating some of the last features in UDD.
One to the last mechanics that we are finishing integrating is the origami fight where you are able to transform some of the enemies into origamis and later on summon them to help you fight in the melee combats.
We are also finishing the final boss fight that will take the game to its logical conclusion and allow us to finally come out from early access.
We will be posting on a more regular basis as we move forward in the weeks to come ahead, so stay tune to the next announcements or visit our website for the development blog.
UPDATE #13: Combat, controls and camera improvements
Again a long period of time between updates, as we were trying to fine tune a couple of elements of the game that we thought needed more improvement, mainly with the camera, the combat and the overall visibility of the characters while playing, controls and animations.
Added:
<*> New Jump Animations. The animations that were being played while jumping or jump running where not taking in account the last modifications that we performed on the jump function, causing a rather strange effect of freezing and sliding when ending the jumps.
<*> Controls optimization. The controls used for the combos where failing randomly to detect a sequence of keys that could generate a combo, and from time to time, the controls where freezing any combat strike. We have improved the overall system to try to achieve a more fault-tolerant system.
<*> Characters visibility. The depth of the level is limited and because of its construction and level items, when the player was fighting or moving behind and object, the lack of visibility was causing problems in actually controlling the characters. We have implemented a transparency function as used in some strategies games, that causes objects between the player and the camera to become slightly transparent.
<*> New game Over screen. We have implemented a new game over screen that we think just looks cooler than the old one.
Fixed:
Camera optimization. We have make some adjustments on the camera focus, that now lets some empty space to the right of the game character as to allow a better visibility on the challenges to come.
Combat optimization.
As with the camera management, the combat system is a recurring action that we have been performing in the game as to try to have the best possible experience. In this case, we have tried to have the game character to keep as close as possible to the enemies and that to keep a better orientation toward the enemies. We have also increased the stunning state of some of the enemies as to give the player a little edge on attacking and defeating the enemy.
The game has now a steady frame rate and improvements in this section are becoming harder and harder to achieve, but we will keep fine tuning the game in the next releases.
Our next actions will be now focused to the sound manager, that is lagging behind in the overall stability that we have been introducing into the game. So we will try to integrate a more flexible system that will allow us to control the mood of the system, the narrating voices and the overall sound effects of the game.
We have just discovered that there was a file corruption in the uploading process for Update 12, that was causing the game to get stuck on the loading scene. We have uploaded a new build that should correct that problem.
Sorry about the inconvenience and we will keep working toward a release candidate stable version.
UPDATE #12: Cameras and Artificial Intelligence
UPDATE #12
This update has taken longer than we were expecting mainly because we have been addressing two things that were not working correctly and were giving to the game some usability and playability problems.
We are referring to the Camera management system and to the enemy pathfinding that is described below.
Added:
New Game Over transition that works better than the existing one and that allows for a smoother transition to the respawn position.
Although not visible in this build, we have started to work in the destruction of the world as the dark forces of evil are getting the edge of the victory and their influence grow stronger. The visual effect of burning down the level is starting to take shape and will be one of the new mechanics that will force the player to move forward with both characters, while finding a way to progress between burn and tear down parts of the level.
Fixed:
Camera Management
The camera was causing some problems and in battles with the enemies or when jumping, as the camera instantly moved creating a visual impact on the game that was not really great, and in the case of the battles, making the player to lose the focus on the enemies. We have worked in a system similar to the camera systems that you are able to find in games like Super Mario, where the camera features a dead zone that will cause it not to move while the player is inside the area, and then to smoothly follow the player and focusing on it.
Enemy Pathfinding and character detection
The enemy pathfinding was harder to solve, as the some of the enemies were correctly finding and chasing the main characters, but others were or totally ignoring them or killing themselves in the process of reaching him, even if the path was blocked with fire or water. We think know that the enemies are more aware of the environment and of the player position in the map and act in more clever way.
By improving the camera and the pathfinding we have been able to address some improvements on the stability of the framerate and we think that we have achieved a build that is always running above 30fps.
As always, don't forget to share any feedback or suggestion to us on the discussion board, we are counting on your help to make Upside-Down Dimensions a great game and we need your feedback.
We have started to upload videos of all the changes that we are doing to the game to our Youtube channel which will allow to keep a better track on the progress that we are doing to the game.
In the last update there was a problem with the jump that affected some higher end computers, we have fixed it and released a small update as it was breaking the game flow when playing from the Ryuu's side ( Ronin Samurai).
UPDATE #11: Game Flow Fixes
UPDATE #11
It took us a little bit longer this time to update the game as based on a couple of comments from a reviewer, we were able to find some bugs with some of the puzzles originated by the recent changes that we had to implement on the pathfinding. We have been testing it, and apparently ( cross our fingers and knock on wood) we think that we have been able to fix it and the puzzles should not represent a problem for the game.
Added: Nothing, Purely a fix focused build.
Fixed:
Boxes puzzles problems. We the changes made to the pathfinding we introduced some conflict with the box detection controls that were causing the boxes to act strangely again when interfering with the navmesh grids.
Princess Jump Fix. Although the jump was already working more or less well, it was not very consistent with the animations as the Princess on the vertex of the jump opens up her umbrella which should affect the speed of the fall. We made the adjustments to reduce slightly the fall speed of the Princess Keiko when outside of a wind zone.
Rolling Knives Trap fix. We have fixed the Rolling Knives trap as to allow the Princess Keiko to jump over it without taking damage.
No performance updated this time was we were concentrated in improving the game flow.
As always, don´t forget to share any feedback or suggestion to us on the discussion board, we are counting on your help to make Upside-Down Dimensions a great game and we need your feedback.
Update #10: A Travel to AI and Pathfinding
UPDATE #10
This time, a little bit more than one week has gone since the last updated, but we have been double checking the AI system in the game, as some players were reporting bugs with the ability of the enemies to find their way through the level without getting stuck in the environment.
This has led us to remap most the pathfinding grids in the level as to try to catch the reason why the enemies were not calculating correctly their way. This led us indirectly to a more in depth revision of some of the AI Systems in the game and some more fine tuning in the hope of improving the combat and at the same time to get some extra CPU Cycles for the stability sake of the game.
Added:
New AI Behaviours with some of the enemies like the samurais and Mini Samurais that are now, able to navigate through the level with more precisions, and some new chase and quit behaviours, or in the case of the mini samurais a distinct way to face the player.
Fixed:
Pathfinding, improving navigation grid. The navigation grid for the A*Star pathfinding used in the game, was generating some problems with some of the obstacles. We have improved the overall mapping but there are still some critical points that causes the enemies to stop finding the best path toward the leading character.
With the improvements in the AI systems and in the pathfinding calculations we think that we have been able to squeeze a couple of extra frames which should make the game running more smoothly without some of the variations caused by the calculations performed by the AI..
As always, don´t forget to share any feedback or suggestion to us on the discussion board, we are counting on your help to make Upside-Down Dimensions a great game and we need your feedback.
