Umurangi Generation News

Umurangi Generation and Hades are officially ‘the best’ at the IGF and GDC 2021 awards

The Independent Games Festival awards and the Game Developers Conference awards were held last night in cyberspace. Like a Zoom meeting for the soul, the ceremony hopped between the winning game developers’ living rooms, with host Victoria Tran (community director on Among Us) stitching it all together with a remarkable combination of enthusiasm, sincerity, and silliness. She gets an IGF from me.

The big winner was Umurangi Generation by Origame Digital. The photography sci-fi game won the 'Seumas McNally Grand Prize' and the narrative prize at the IGF awards. Hades was also recognised as the game of the year at the GDC awards. The rest of the winners, and the whole darn ceremony, are below.

Umurangi Generation Update June 2021

Hi Everyone Ves here,

Umurangi Generation has been updated. I would like to be transparent with the game over the last few days having a few updates pushed to everyone's machines. It has been a while since I updated the public branch because I have been working on the Nintendo Switch Build and the new modes. These modes required translation so they were something I couldn’t make live immediately. In the meantime I worked on fixing as many bugs as possible and improving the game with things like slippery movement. Unfortunately that introduced some new bugs, which hopefully should mostly be squashed. However, there is still more work to do as the game grows over time. I have set up a beta branch (password: betabranch2021) which I will update more regularly with fixes to individual bugs which come through on the discussions thread and then put out an update to the public branch with these fixes every few weeks. This is because updates are always going to be 400-600MB and constantly pushing these updates is annoying and something I am sure everyone would rather not get spammed with.

[h2]Why are updates 400-600mb? [/h2]

This is largely due to compression. With Unity you have the option to compress assets as an uncompressed build of the game is 3.5GB, with the assets compressed the game is 600-800MB. The reason updates are 400-600MB is most of these assets are combined into one during the compilation process, so this ends up being much much smaller in the long run but something that is annoying to constantly get updates on. Thank you for understanding.

Because of this I highly recommend you only opt-in to the beta branch if the game is currently having an issue on your machine. One of the issues which slipped through was that players with high refresh rate screens (120hz, 144hz) would have extremely slow movement and jumping. This was due to the new creative mode changing how movement works due to the ability to now slow down time. This issue is fixed now but it is something I was unable to test with my current machine. Another issue is that the game became very pixelated. Something that should be fixed now.

[h2]A few notable notes[/h2]
-AMD Processors Fix. Players with certain AMD Processors were having issues running the game.
-Less Slippery Movement. Movement is much more rigid than before. With the player sometimes slipping down stairs or off objects.
-Creative Mode Added. Express your creativity by going back to old levels and changing the time of day, fog, sun colour and more.
-Speedrun Mode Added. Run through the whole game. Note: for users who do not have the Macro DLC this will just be the base game only.
-Speedrun Mode (Single) Added. Run through a single level as fast as you can.
-Speedrun Mode (Macro Only Added). Run through the Macro DLC levels only as fast as you can. (Requires Macro DLC)
-Speedrun Mode (No Macro Added). Run through the base game levels (requires Macro DLC)
-Performance fixes. Certain levels should run better now. We made certain objects less intense by turning off settings which are not even visible. One of the benefits porting to less powerful hardware is seeing where bottle necks are and everyone getting those improvements retroactively.
-Bug fixes. We fixed a load of bugs with certain things. For example screen flicker when saving the game.
-Unity Updated from 2019.4.3 to 2020.

[h2]Whats to come in the future?[/h2]

For the PC community I want you all to know I have not forgotten about you. There are some really cool things which I plan on adding here, things like a customisable config file and eventually some custom level support which will be exclusive. You will be able to build your own custom levels which can be side loaded into your documents folder.

Thank you once again for all your support. Things are sometimes going to be rocky and I appreciate everyone's patience.

IGF's 2021 nominees announced, mostly correct

Videogame awards are good for three things: they encourage people to continue creating new work; they direct attention towards particular pebbles among the otherwise amorphous landslide of new game releases; and they give bystanders like me something of mercifully little consequence to gripe about when nominations don't align with our personal tastes.

I'm sad to report that the Independent Games Festival has delivered only two out of three in 2021. The nominations for this year's IGF Awards were announced yesterday, but they have left me little to gripe about.

Our favourite games of 2020

What’s up gamers? It’s 2021 and that means it’s time to round up the team’s favourite games of 2020. You’ll already know our selections if you read our annual Advent Calendar, but this post gathers all those words and games together in one convenient package.

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Umurangi Generation Macro Released

Umurangi Generation Macro is finally here!

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Umurangi Generation Macro is here. An all new gameplay expansion to Umurangi Generation. Extend your creative potential with 4 new levels and 9 new pieces of equipment to unlock. Adjust ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed manually to create refined images. Take a look at some of the new features below and be sure to share your best shots with us on Twitter at @UmurangiGame

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1435580

Inventory Screens

One of the other great things we've added in for Umurangi Generation Macro is an Inventory screen at the main menu for you to check out all the great gear that you've acquired.

You can also see what equipment you haven't unlocked from the Select Level screen now

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New equipment

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[h2]Roller Blades[/h2]Move quickly and stylishly through levels with the new Roller Blades. Hold shift to activate them. Combined with the Jet boots these skates can do tricks based on what lens type you have equipped.

[h2]Spray Can[/h2]Tag the town with Spray Paint. Almost everything that is Property of the UN can be tagged. It glows a bright colour and can therefore be used to light shots.

[h2]Scrape Pads[/h2]Get down low to the ground to take photos from a completely new angle. The scape pads allow you to get low to the ground.

[h2]Box Lens[/h2]Take photos with a new form factor. The box.

[h2]Selfie Lens[/h2]Take photos of yourself. Just don't be too hard on how you look.

[h2]Cartridge Lens[/h2]Use an 8 bit handheld console and special cartridge to take photos with a distinctive visual aesthetic.

[h2]Aperture Hack[/h2]Override the aperture of the Camera. Aperture controls a bunch of complicated stuff. But for now just know that a lower aperture is a higher depth of field and vice versa.

[h2]Shutter Speed Hack[/h2]Override the Shutter Speed of the Camera. Shutter Speed controls how much time the image sensor is exposed to light. Slower values like 1/30 will make the image bright but will also capture ghosting.

[h2]ISO Hack[/h2]Override the ISO of the Camera. ISO can make an image appear brighter in exchange for some more grain in your shot. For some photographers grain can complete the look. For others it is a repressed nightmare.

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New Levels

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[h2]Gamers Palace[/h2]Travel to the Gamers Palace where the rich and powerful wait out the lock down.

[h2]UN Hangar[/h2]Make a delivery at the UN Hangar where the Peace Sentinel.

[h2]The Depths[/h2]Travel below to the Depths where line runners check in between deliveries, the victims of UN collateral hide and a city of tents grows every year.

[h2]Underground City[/h2]Make your voice heard at the Underground City.