A rather strange update as we had not time to integrate any of the new fixes and changes that we were planning for the game, but that we had to accelerate as to solve an issue with the game loader in some systems that was causing the game to crash on transitioning from the intro to the start menu.
Added: Nothing
Fixed:
Fixed (we hope) the intro loading issue that was causing the game to crash in Linux, Mac, and Windows 7.
Wound Animations and death of the Archer enemy. The Archers was not displaying correctly the wound animations when being hit by Ryuu and when dying was spawning the Paper life out of the correct position. We have been able to identify both problems and implement the fix.
No performance improvement in this version, as we worked more focused to toward the crash problem.
Don´t forget to share any feedback or suggestion to us on the discussion board, it will be for us a pleasure to discuss about the game and to share ideas with our players.
Well, time for a new upgrade. The good thing is that bugs are harder to solve and harder to find, which is quite normal in the process of stabilizing the game. Each time that we have to work on solving the bugs that we have still open, we are in the need to spend more and more time analyzing it, and trying to understand what can be causing it. Sometimes we are able to do so, and in other cases, we just have to postpone and keep working on other aspects of the game.
This week, we have tried to improve a couple of things that we felt were still in need of some improvements
Added:
Character locomotion tilting to the leading characters. When Ryuu or Keiko were turning the effect was a little harsh as no one is able to turn without tilting slightly as to keep the center of gravity in balance. So we introduce a very slight tilt effect when the characters are turning, we didn't want something too exaggerated as it was only to improve the overall feeling.
Detachable parts of some enemies. As to bring more diversity to the combat and some humorous situation we have added to a couple of enemies detachable parts that will be blown away by attacks from Ryuu. So, don't be surprised if you see helmets, or other things, flying around.
Fixed:
Rolling Knives Bug, that were hitting the player even if not touching directly the character as he crossed the the trap.
Parallax Error when switching to the Princess Keiko Side. Occasionally, the parallax in the Princess Keiko ‘s side was not working correcting and was lagging behind the actual position of the character and the camera.
We have made some improvements on the performance by caching more elements in the level and managing more strictly the scripts running in the background of the game. We have fined tune where the Garbage Collector should be running ( Usually when Frame Rate is high the game could hold some memory cleaning).
As always any feedback on the discussion board or by email is greatly welcomed as it allows us to keep improving the game and cleaning it from bugs that sometimes we were not able to spot correctly, or to check on fixes that failed to solve them. Also we are open to suggestions or requests that could help us make the game even better.
A minor upgrade this time as we are consolidating on the last changes that we have introduced and trying to stabilize the build.
Added: Nothing added this time:)
Fixed: Single Player selection bug. There was a mistake in the UI of the build that made it to go to the coop mode. The bug has been solved to allow the player to go either to single mode or coop mode
Combos deactivating. A bug that had different ways to occur, and that we have now close all of them, which should allow the player to activate the combos every time after they have been unlocked.
Enemies rotation. In some of the cases, the enemies were rotating in the wrong direction when being hit by the player.
No, we have not made any improvement on the performance this time, as we focusing in making the build stable towards a release candidate.
As always any feedback on the discussion board or by email is greatly welcomed as it allows us to keep improving the game and cleaning it from bugs that sometimes we were not able to spot correctly, or to check on fixes that failed to solve them. Also we are open to suggestions or requests that could help us make the game even better.
Well, this time it took us a little bit longer than week, but the last modifications to the game as to be able to integrate a first version of the coop mode, were harder than initially we assumed. The main complexity was with the need to cope with the players selecting which are the characters they would like to integrate, plus some of the core functions that had several dependencies that were not working correctly when having the two players controlled simultaneously.
We have also performed some other slight modifications in the RPG mode of the game, as to bring it closer to the genre by making more visual the gain of experience that the player is having while defeating enemies, and at the same time depicting how much remains to upgrade the life/experience/energy ( in UDD all is depicted by the paper bar).
Added:
The coop mode. Yes Finally the coop mode as a lot of players asked us, and that as promised, we have finally added to the game. We had to make some choices on how to set it up, and we have decided to go with a horizontal slit screen, as it allows for a more complete side view of the game level, which in UDD is critic. We have also decided to implement some new menus to allow the players to select who is Player One and Player Two and who controls each of the characters.
The changes needed to make it work ( and it is still buggy) where complex, due to some of the mechanisms that we had implemented for the single player and specifically for the performance, like the level streaming, which had to modify to cope which characters that will now move separately when playing cooperatively.
We are thinking also on the new possibilities of the mode by itself as to see if it can raise even more the fun level.
-Experience Increase Visual Effect. As we commented in the descriptions of the game, one of the genres that we have blended in UDD, is the ARPG, and while playing the game over the last weeks to stabilize it and remove bugs, we have seen that we were missing a clearer indicator to the player, that his experience/energy was being raised while defeating the enemies or solving puzzles, and that after a certain level was reached, increase the level of the paper par, which allow to call more origamis or make them more powerfull. We have add a visual indicator in the Star of the game UI; that will be surrounded by a Blue Glow showing the current level of experience toward increase the life.
-Roll Animation. With the same reasoning, and to increase the combat skills of Ryuu, we have added a roll animation, that allows to break a part from melees attacks with several enemies without taking too much injuries.
-Interactive elements of the environment. To increase the sense of immersion in the game, we have added some interactive elements that will will react to the player movement or attack. We are still testing the possibilities and for now we have add, some bamboos and grass.
Fixed:
-Noria Animation- The Noria in the Princess side, wasn´t rotating when blocking the path of the princess.
-Parallax Bushes assigned to the wrong dimensions,
-Jump frame speed dependency. We thought that we had solved this problem, but apparently from some feedback that we have received,not yet totally, so we have been making some more adjustments as to be as consistent as possible.
-Stealth paper consumption. We have also detected that the Stealth ability from Keiko was not consuming any paper. So we have fixed as to deplete the level of life based on the usage of the character special skills.
As well as many other small bugs...
And yes off course, Yet Another Performance. As always, performance is at the heart of our work, we have been improving the streaming mechanism that will disable all of the objects not visible, and now split per character as each character will move separately.
As always any feedback on the discussion board or by email is greatly welcomed as it allows us to keep improving the game and cleaning it from bugs that sometimes we were not able to spot correctly, or to check on fixes that failed to solve them. Also we are open to suggestions or requests that could help us make the game even better.
Another week bring us right into the start of autumn, that is one of the seasons featured in the game, as both characters are split by space and time, while one lives in spring, the other stands at the doors of autumn, allowing us to play with different settings and different colors schemas in the game.
Development has not been straight forward because a couple of bugs with the boxes and the jump, that we thought were fixed, reappeared in different cases but with the same overall result of blocking the progression or, in the case of the jump, block or allowing to overcome most of the puzzles. We have worked hard in discovering the reasons why the solutions that we applied in the previous build were not working, and we think that we are heading in the right way.
We have been also fine tuning some mechanics as to integrate it more consistently in the gameplay without creating a dissonance
Added:
-Linked the box reset mechanism to the paper life bar. This makes that every time the players uses the box reset the life/energy bar will decrease forcing to have a strategic view on how much time resets should be performed versus the level of dangers and enemies that will have to be faced through level.
-Linked the Stealth mechanic to the paper life/energy bar. Similar to the box reset mechanism, but in this case only applied to Princess Keiko, which in the previous versions could basically stay for ever in stealth which allowed her to unnoticed with the enemies. We think that this was affecting the overall game for the character and though that since it is a mechanism that can be used to gain an advantage over the enemies, it should be consuming paper as all other power ups or combos in the game. This will make the character more interesting to play with while in stealth, as it will be affecting directly the possibility to perform further origami actions or to take damage against other enemies.
-Coop. Not yet enabled, but we have been working on the new UI and menus that will deal with the new game flow and we are currently making some testing on the different combinations of controls allowed for the game as players play with the different characters.
Fixed:
-Grab Box. We have fine tuned the box grabbing feature, making it working in a smaller distance to the box, to avoid the possibility of grabbing and pushing the box.
- Jump frame speed dependency. We thought that we had solved this problem, but apparently from some feedback that we have received, not yet totally, so we have been making some more adjustments as to be as consistent as possible.
- Yet Another Performance. As always, performance is at the heart of our work, trying to stabilize the framerate as high as possible. We have been working in avoid the much threaded Garbage Collector ( the nightmare of Unity games) and we have improved the stream functionality of the systems that are disabling everything that is not seen in the game.
As always any feedback on the discussion board or by email is greatly welcomed as it allows us to keep improving the game and cleaning it from bugs that sometimes we were not able to spot correctly, or to check on fixes that failed to solve them. Also we are open to suggestions or requests that could help us make the game even better.
Well, weeks are short when you work so hard trying to bring the best game experience our game and make all players that have trusted in us by buying our early access version like each week a little bit more the game, and indirectly our work as developers.
The development in the last days has been even more complex, because we like to deliver what we commit too, and there so, we have started to bring into the main build the coop multiplayer features. For now only in local, but that we think to be able to make work correctly too in remote.
For now, we have tried several configurations of the screen, and we thought that an horizontal split screen was the best experience. Do you agree? We would love to listen to your opinion.
At the same time, we are thinking that the flip mechanism could become a kind of help me feature, or a kind of action that you could launch to the other player ( even if he don´t wants it, as a way to drive the fun factor while playing. We are not sure if we will be able to include it in update #5 but we will certainly try.
Added: - We have seen that in some occasions the player sends the box in the incorrect place, or due to a problem ( reading bug), the box gets lost in the level, which makes the player unable to progress without restarting the game. To avoid that situation, we have added a reset mechanism to the boxes. To activate it, the player only needs to stand to one of the illuminated tiles where the box can be sent to the other world and press the combination “Right Trigger” + “B” button on the gamepad. We are still evaluating it is the best combination of buttons, and don´t hesitate to share with us your thoughts on it.
In the next build we will integrate it in the tutorial.
Fixed: Jump dependent on frame rate. We have been trying to solve this bug through the last iterations of the game, and we think that we have finally been able to make the jump independent of the frame rate which allows for a better control of characters.
- The boxes were not able to get into the water or fire. When sending the boxes to the fire or the water, as to enable to cross over it, sometimes the boxes were getting stuck mid air, which blocked the path to move other boxes to the other side.
- Pile of boxes. In some cases a pile of more than 2 boxes were not able to move correctly.
- Jump pause in mid-air. When jumping, if the Right Trigger was pressed, then the player would freeze in mid-air.
- Princess Parallax. When the Princess Keiko when to the end of the platform, the parallax layer for the sky, was popping out in front of the wall.
- Roof Parkour. In the some situations, when some objects allowed it, the characters were able to make parkour through the roofs.
- Yet Another Performance. Fine tuning on each build small fractions of CPU and GPU code to improve the performance of the build, and as we bring the co-op modes in, it will become even more crucial to gain in this point.
And we our recurrent invitation, remember that we would love to listen even more our community and get your thoughts, requests, suggestions, extra features or anything else that the community think could be interesting for the game.. We have come to steam early access to have the opportunity to make this last mile in the development with you ( our players) so, come on, let’s fire up the community hub.
Hello All,
time for a new update on Upside-down Dimensions, trying to make it more stable, fluid and trying also to solve some potential flaws in the game itself that could impact on the game.
Added:
- New effects in the spots where the player can send the boxes to the other dimension. When in lateral view, the current system allowed to view it correctly, but when moving perpendicularly to the camera toward the back of the level, or toward the front, the box would occlude the spot making a very difficult task to know exactly when to stop moving the box. Now the new system, makes it more easy to keep reference of the spot even if the box is obstructing the field of view.
Fixed:
- Box Collision and box movement. The boxes when dropped before reaching a unit distance, would some times collide with the player and trap it inside of it. The characters were also stopping their animation making it incoherent with the movement.
- Sword Attacks into thin air. We are adjusting the distances for the sword strikes as to make sure that hits are only impacting at the right distance.
- Enemy deaths effects and paper spawning. A tough bug to solve, but we have been able to improve and make it more stable, as when the player was hitting the enemy in the last attack before killing the enemy, the death particles and the Extra Paper roll were spawning at the wrong place.
- Mini Samurais Invincibility. Due to a problem with the activation system (that allows to disable all elements not in view of the camera) when become active the Mini Samurais missed the activation of the routines that allow them to receive damage, making them invincible.
- Performance, (Yes Again performance). We have been fine tuning the pathfinding and other heavy CPU consuming functions as to save some extra fps in the most heavy parts of the level.
As always we invite you to throw away any shyness of talking with us, and to start engaging with us in our discussion groups. You can talk about anything that you can want, but specially any thoughts, requests, suggestions, extra feature or anything else that would make you more happy to play the game. We have come to steam early access to have the opportunity to make this last mile in the development with you ( our players) so, come on, let’s fire up the community hub.
Quite an intense week since last update. We have been working hard to prepare the game for the Mac and Linux Platforms while working in fixing the bugs that are still affecting the game in the more complex systems in the game and mainly caused by the dual reality of the two dimensions used to balance the game between the two leading characters.
Added: - First version of the Mac and Linux Versions 32 and 64 bits
- Instant Flip, now the player can skip the world flipping by pressing two times the flip button.
Fixed: - Box Collision when character stopped pushing the box, which caused the characters some time to get inside the box. The characters inside the box will be a mechanic used in upper levels but in this way :)
- Lighting orientation, in some cases when flipping the world, the lights were taking an incorrect orientation, causing the lighting in the scene to corrupt.
- Paper Spawning, in some cases the paper spawned after killing an enemy took an incorrect position.
- Combo activation, the combo was failing to activate after being unlocked near the dojo, which made impossible to use any of the combos that can be unlocked through the game.
- Performance. Again performance, which will be something that will be always present in any announcement until we are able to stabilize it in the 60fps.
Again, any bug found and reported to us will be addressed in the weekly releases that we are planning to make until this version of the game is stable. We are also open to suggestions on modifications to game mechanics or to new features that our players would like to have the game. So don't be shy and share with us on the community hub, your thoughts, likes and dislikes, or things that we would like to see in the game to make it evolving into something impressive.
In this line of work and communication with our players, we have already started to increase the priority of the co-op multiplayer mode and we hope to be able to share news in the upcoming weeks about it.
Well it is time for the first important update, with some bugs related with the intro video, combat, boxes and performance:
- Intro video quality, the intro video loosed some quality with the first export of the games toward the new platforms. We have raised the quality and now it should be watched in a better quality.
- The combat includes now a new animation when the enemies are about to be killed. The animation was not being played due a change in the combat system to improve the responsiveness of the strikes. We have also improved the capacity for the enemies to find their way through the level.
- Boxes, are an important part of the puzzle platform mechanic, and one needs to work perfectly as to balance correctly the game. We have improved the interaction of the box with the environment as well as improving its movement.
- Performance is always important in a hack'n'slash game with melee combats and we have made some changes that has raised the framerate and made it more stable. This will be a key aspect of the game that we will be working constantly.
We will be listening to all feedback, requests or suggestions, so don´t be shy and share your thoughts about the game in the forum and we will be very glad to engage with our community.
