ENCHAIN News

[p]Incredible news for skeletons! On February 12th, ENCHAIN will be available for Early Access release. If you were a fan of the Demo, this will be more of that, with expanded mechanics, movement, and features. This has remained a solo project for the many years following the last Demo update, and I am thrilled to finally share the game again.[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]The game will have a base price of $20 USD. Not planning to increase the price for the full version.[/p][p]Please understand that the game is not completely finished or bug-free. Wait for a later time if you want to experience the game in a more polished state.[/p][p]The Early Access game will contain:[/p]

• [p]4 wide, interconnected regions to explore, along with 2 side regions as well as hidden mini-levels[/p]
• [p]a complete "main" questline in the main regions[/p]
• [p]expanded movement systems[/p]
• [p]more key pieces to collect[/p]
• [p]a hidden map to collect in each area[/p]
• [p]10 weapons to find[/p]
• [p]upgrades and bracelets to modify your abilities and playstyle[/p]
• [p]imposing encounters[/p]
• [p]ambient music to go with each main area, as well as themes to go with boss fights[/p]

[p][/p][h2]Demo status[/h2][p]Since it feels like a separate game sometimes I have given the demo its very own Store page, which you can view right now. I would be grateful to anyone taking a moment to leave a review specifically for the free demo version, as that wasn't possible when it first released.[/p][p]I will not be updating the demo until a later time to help me focus on release. The demo areas are contained in the full game and kept mostly the same, but the full game of course has more features available in those areas this time around.[/p][p]There will be some limited support in Early Access to load saves from the demo version and roughly continue where you left off, so long as you still have the save files.[/p][p][/p][p]This is just a rough estimation of what I'll be working on for Early Access following release:[/p][p]1. bug fixes and balance adjustments[/p][p]2. polishing existing areas and content, finishing side areas[/p][p]3. QoL - improving menus, controller support, Steam Deck compatibility, optimizations, etc.[/p][p]4. new weapon: bolt-action[/p][p]5. introducing new side area(s)[/p][p]6. adding a final area[/p][p]... all up to the 1.0 full release.[/p][p]Latest info will be listed in the appropriate section of the store page.[/p][p][/p][p]As a final note, I want to confirm I am (so far) working full-time on ENCHAIN in 2026, which is a first. For many years I have been preoccupied with school and work, until now I've saved enough to give this overly-ambitious passion project a good chance to be completed. So long as Early Access sales support me, I'll continue the work until I consider it done.[/p][p]I hope this makes up for the long wait many of you have sustained since playing the demo. Thank you very much for your patience. I am excited for what is to come.[/p][p][/p][p]Until next time![/p]

Hello skeletal spawn,

ENCHAIN is nearly ready to start Early Access, but again I have needed more time than expected. I want to use this post updating you all on the past year of development.


Immediately, thank you for your patience in this drought of updates from me. It has been a long year and I have had to take the vast majority of my time away from ENCHAIN. Let me explain my situation a bit.

Since late 2022 I've slowly shifted focus from ENCHAIN to prioritize working, socializing, and taking care of myself. I was naive to believe this wouldn't happen, and I am sorry to delay the game for so long because of it.
In early 2023 I had pretty much run out of money and energy working on the game, and it was time for me to get a full-time job to sustain myself instead. This is the reason I stopped posting updates. I never wanted to make it seem like I abandoned the game, I was just busy adjusting to a new job, moving to a new apartment, and so on.
Luckily, I am very happy with the job I got. Unluckily, I now have very little free time to finish ENCHAIN.

I don't want this to sound like terrible news, though. The game is in a pretty good place and I only have a few more large pieces to put into place. I will continue working on ENCHAIN as my time permits. Please understand it will be a slow and sometimes silent process.

[h3]Why have I not committed to ENCHAIN full-time: getting a publisher, managing a team, running a funding campaign, etc.?[/h3]
ENCHAIN is an extremely special project to me. I want it to be the best it can be. However, I never wanted ENCHAIN to turn into that kind of project (product). I never really planned for it to. It started from a 72 hour game jam entry. For years, before the demo, it was a sandbox of me messing around with things I thought were fun and cool. After trying to be more serious about ENCHAIN after the success of the demo, I feel that my enjoyment of game dev suffers when under the pressure of making money, or under the command of something else. I long ago made the decision to keep ENCHAIN a solo passion project.

[h3]Difficulties with the nature of ENCHAIN's world and design[/h3]
It also might be good to have it on record that some parts of this game have become extremely challenging for me to work with. For example, all the regions being interconnected is a nightmare to put together. The freedom that the game's movement provides means designing meaningful levels is near impossible. On the bright side, I feel that nevertheless tying these challenging things together into a fun game will be really special. It will just take time.

It pains me but due to the above difficulties, it is necessary for me to complete ENCHAIN's development as soon as I can, regardless if it meets the original vision and scope. I'll do my best to update your expectations below.


I will stick with my plans to first release in Early Access in order to get direct feedback from you, the community, to help me finish and polish the final game. I even may do a playtest right before. I will need to spend minimal time on this stage of development to ensure the game actually gets completed. So, by the time Early Access begins, the game will be more or less complete. I will likely be doing rebalancing, fixes, and one additional content update for full release. More info to come when I am ready to begin this stage.


ENCHAIN will be a not be a large game. My goal is still to make a 3-5 hour replayable adventure experience. Let me run through some of the exciting things that early access will contain.
"+" indicates things I'd like to expand on during early access. Please remember anything may be changed for any reason.

• 4+ interconnected explorable regions (size of demo = 2 incomplete regions)
  
• a set+ of small standalone areas hidden throughout
  
• a couple+ of weapons per ammo type (bullets, shells, chains, rockets, and no ammo)
  
• a moderate+ cast of varied enemies
  
• a handful of unique bosses
  
• a set+ of bracelet equipment to modify gameplay
  
• 3 grapple lanterns
  
• expanded player movement tech
  
• more secrets and sequence breaks
  
• more than one ending
  
• tons and tons of minor improvements
  

Below is a video montage of some of the new stuff I worked on in 2023. As usual I am leaving most things out to keep them as a surprise for release. The clips are chronological, so a handful of new reveals are at the end. Enjoy!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Price[/h2]
I no longer have the need to support myself with this game's sales, so the game will be priced at a more modest amount than originally planned. I want to still charge some amount as I feel I deserve the compensation. I also don't want to feed the trend of severely underpriced games. I will have this information decided by release.

[h2]Release Date[/h2]
I do not have a release date to share at this time. I won't want to confirm anything until the game is completely ready to play. Something unexpected often manages to draw out development time.
Please bear with me while I finish the entire thing to the best of my ability.

[h2]Demo Update[/h2]
I plan to update the demo sometime near/after release as a free way to play the first few hours of the game (with some necessary limitations).


That concludes all I can manage to disclose at this time. I wish I could do more but even finding time to put this post together was a challenge.
I cannot thank you all enough for sharing, supporting, caring about this game, and waiting all these years now since the demo. I hope soon enough the full release will be finally available. Happy new year, and stay tuned for news in 2024.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Early Access release still planned for 2022, or as soon as possible. Stay tuned for updates.
(most development clips will be seen on Twitter)

Thanks for your patience everyone!

Hey crypt dwellers, a new 0.3.0 update has been published for the demo.
As you know, Early Access has been delayed to 2022. To make up for that (and to get feedback) I wanted to release yet another "final" demo update before the new year, with all the core redesigns I've worked on since summer. My goal was to fix all major issues and streamline gameplay to make the experience as pleasant as possible. I'm pretty happy with the state of the demo now, and I should be able to move on to making mostly new content again.
The major changes are grouped into either Combat or Movement below.

[h3]Combat Overhaul[/h3]
Something I definitely wanted to polish up before release was the combat system. This was one of the earliest things I developed in the game, making it a couple years old by now. The roots have been stripped out and redone to be more fun to play with and less awkward.

• Stamina has been refactored to be more consistent and balanced. Expect the combat to feel slightly different. Also including a redesigned stamina bar with stun, knock, and launch thresholds shown as darker colored bars:
  
  For those who want details, here's how the redesigned stamina system works:
  [expand]
  All attacks and weapons have separate base damage, knock damage, and launch damage values.
  
  At full stamina, enemies can move and attack freely;
  past the red stun threshold, enemies will be stunned for a moment, opening themselves up to knock damage;
  past the knock threshold enemies will be juggled in the air and become grapple-able;
  dealing launch damage past the final launch threshold will throw them until either they hit a wall or slow down.
  [/expand]
  
• Enemies now always use the full physics system (instead of being stuck to the ground/navmesh) meaning they can get pushed off ledges and generally move around more.
  
• The enemy attack system has been improved, giving me more tools to make interesting attack patterns.
  
• Lantern parry is redesigned. Before, you just had to hit an enemy with the lantern at any point during their windup animation to instantly stun them. Now, parries only work during parry-able attack frames, included in certain enemy attacks. There is a visual to indicate this mechanic:
  
• Lantern melee attack is added, which is automatically triggered when throwing the lantern at close range. It has slightly more damage and knockback than normal lantern hits. Also instantly grabs enemies out of the air.
  

[h3]Movement Features[/h3]
There were many movement quirks that players have had trouble with that I wanted to address before release. Fixing these really just required a bit more additions to the system, rather than uprooting everything. Except for the grapple hook pull.

• Grapple hook physics have been redesigned.
  For the pull, a more simple calculation is made that always pulls the player in the actual direction of the hook, rather than some arbitrary upward direction. Plus, the strength of this pull is tied to the player's movement direction and speed, allowing the pull to be useful in a variety of orientations (also gives some pretty ridiculous speed boosts if you know how to time it).
  I also made it so that the hook range is longer when thrown horizontally, but still the same length thrown vertically.
  This change to the grapple is a large part of why I wanted to spend time on yet another free demo update. I want to hear what you all think of this new grapple pull, and what still might be able to be improved. So, please try it out.
  
• A hook stick move has been added to aid platforming. Simply touch the hook while it is embedded in wood. Jump or crouch to get off the hook.
  
• Kick has finally been moved to a dedicated keybind, "F" by default. I used to think the "hold down" behavior of the Jump key style added something to the game feel, but honestly I now think it just hindered movement in most cases. I feel I found a good balance with the new "F" key style, do try it out. Otherwise, the old style is an option in Settings if you want to keep it that way.
  Something you'll notice is that if you're on the ground, tapping the kick key will automatically "hop" you into the air so that you don't have to do a full jump. I hope to make this less overpowered in the future, but for the demo I think it's fine.
  
• Dive-sliding will only happen when holding down crouch. Otherwise, the player will stop for a moment right at the point of landing.
  
• Movement on steep slopes has been made to be pretty difficult. Essentially, if the floor is too inclined, jumps will be very weak, movement will be weak, and you'll slide down the surface.
  Similarly, wall jumps and kick jumps are harder to exploit on corners.
  

And now, a few of the minor additions:

[h3]New Enemy: Ribble[/h3]
As teased previously, a new enemy has been in the works called Ribble. It was mainly intended for starter areas to widen the pool of enemy types a bit, so I ended up adding it in to the demo. You'll find a handful of them in the crypt.
They only have one move currently: an aggressive roll towards the player. They're pretty easy to deal with in this state, hopefully in the future they'll get another attack or two.



[h3]Barrels[/h3]
There are a few fully featured barrels in the demo now. Like coffin doors, they can be knocked around and thrown.
The red ones are completely safe, not explosive or anything.

[h3]Chasm and Tutorial Improvements[/h3]
I'm sure it is clear that the Great Chasm is pretty undercooked compared to the crypt. I had some time to improve it a bit with more relevant challenges and minor layout adjustments. Most notably, I modified a very basic parkour section on the far end to be a brute arena with the key locked away. I do have other major changes I'm planning to make to the chasm in the full release, so stay tuned.

You'll also see a bit more tutorial elements in the Crypt of Descent now. I wanted to have more explicit text shown for the most important mechanics. A couple of rooms are revamped, like the grapple hooking section or the rooms that introduce ribbles. Not really much different in terms of layout or visuals though.



[h3]Improved Settings[/h3]
A few technical options have been added as requested. Things like resolution and an fps limit have been added to graphics, as well as an interpolation mode that should smooth out motion on higher refresh rate monitors. Speedrun mode has a quick restart button now, which I'm sure many will appreciate.


I've said it once before, but NOW this should be the last major demo update. Will be focusing on new content for Early Access again from now on. The roadmap is essentially the same as seen in the delay announcement:

• Better tutorials for core mechanics (WIP)
  
• Improvements to stamina system and clarity (Done)
  
• More variety in enemy behaviors (WIP)
  
• Dynamic difficulty mechanic (WIP)
  
• Improvements to boss battle design and gameplay (WIP)
  
• A few NPCs to meet
  
• Mechanics that help build lore
  
• More weapons/enemies/bosses/areas
  
• Polish for movement feel (Mostly done, want to improve wallruns next)
  
• Player moveset/grapple improvements (Done)
  
• Special stuff/upgrades you can buy with the "lantern juice"
  
• Bug fixes, polish, better options, assist mode, etc. (WIP)
  

I'm super appreciative of the understanding you all had with the delay announcement. I don't respond to every comment on here but I do enjoy reading them.
I also want to say it is insane how much the community has grown recently. I really appreciate the engagement and I'm happy that many of you like the demo.

Until the next major announcement, see my Twitter for progress videos and such.

Thank you all for your support, and for your patience on news about the full game. ːbonfire2ː


[h2]Full change notes:[/h2]
[expand]
Hotfix changes (9PM PT 12/30/2021)
Fixed quick restart breaking game
Weakened ribble/zombie stamina
Weakened brute wyvern and boss slightly
Made boss dirt throw attack more likely to happen
Increased ammo drops for all gun types
Strengthened revolver charge up
Shortened jump kick link stacks
Brought kick jump strength back to how it was before
Buffed kick damage
Added small wall jump aid to Abandoned Battlement in Chasm
Added info sign to crypt before wyvern room
Changed new info sign text to mention kicks

• Boss fight bug fixes
  
• Brute and wyvern made tougher and also resistant to being grabbed
  
• Brute arena added to Chasm
  
• Ribble enemy added to Crypt
  
• Shoveler charge attack added
  
• Combat info signs added
  
• Barrels added to Chasm and Crypt
  
• Chasm region additions to far end
  
• Wall-jumping adjusted
  
• Dive/wall-jump cooldowns modified
  
• Minimum ammo now given on respawn for each ammo type
  
• Grapple swinging/pulling tutorial modified
  
• Tutorial text added to revolver room
  
• Enemy blocking behavior modified
  
• Stamina system redesigned
  
• Stamina bar design improved
  
• Enemy sounds improved
  
• Lantern parry mechanic improved, parry-able frames added to some attacks
  
• Fast-fall hitbox added, fast-fall strength modified
  
• Lantern hook melee added
  
• Grapple hook physics/range redesign
  
• oldgrapple command added
  
• Hook sticking added, where player touches the hook while it is embedded in wood
  
• Ledge climb improved
  
• Hook magnetism improvements
  
• Tree wood in marshes ignore magnetism
  
• Grabbed enemy/prop can no longer be shot with gun
  
• Air control bug fix
  
• Slopes prevent full movement
  
• Leg animation bug fixes
  
• Dive will only dive-slide if holding down Crouch
  
• Kick jumps made a bit weaker
  
• General movement feel and sound improvements
  
• Slides will only enter slow-mo when successfully knocking up enemies
  
• Surfing now has slight movement control on ground
  
• Enemy movement control refactored
  
• Settings menu improvements and bug fixes
  
• Keybinds menu improved
  
• Kick keybind added
  
• Hook* keybind added to remove need for holding down RMB
  
• Old jump kick charge option added
  
• Double click hook option added
  
• Controller input option added
  
• Resolution setting added
  
• Slow-motion setting added
  
• Camera interpolation setting added (for higher end PCs or >60 hz monitors)
  
• FPS limit setting added
  
• Blood/gore settings added
  
• Speedrun timer fixes
  
• Speedrun mode quick restart button
  
• Save file type changed from ".GDF" to ".ed"
  
• Options file type changed from ".ODF" to ".opt"
  
• Load/save system bug fixes
  
• Stamina bar bug fixes
  
• Enemy distinct turning speeds for attacks
  
• Enemy combat bug fixes
  
• Improved debugging tools
  

[/expand]

I've made the decision to delay ENCHAIN Early Access to 2022. I'm really sorry about this. I would like to explain my reasoning and talk about what it means for the game in a bit of detail.

Since announcing Early Access, I planned to spend most of my time making new stuff for ENCHAIN. However, I have fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole of fixing what's already there. Many of you have given great feedback about the grapple hook, the movement, and the stamina system. I felt it was important to address those issues before launching. Unfortunately, they have proved to be complicated problems for me to solve, slowing my progress on actual new things for the release (i.e. new bosses, areas, weapons, and so on). This only caused me to get more anxious about the deadline.
A few weeks ago, I seriously considered delaying, and plans started to make sense again. I feel like I know better than to crunch out the release. If that were to happen, I know the end result would be pretty sloppy, just leaving me more clean-up work later. That's why I feel a delay is the best decision I can make right now.

Still, I don't think it's accurate to say that the quality of the game is the only reason for the delay. Personally, I just don't have enough time to both stay healthy and release a game before the end of the year. My life responsibilities have grown more than I expected, having moved a couple of months ago. My university is in-person again, and I have needed to commute frequently. This new lifestyle is not something I'm used to and it makes it really hard for me to find the time to develop games. In other words, I'm just super busy lately. I wish I could work on games full time, but I have to finish my degree first I suppose.

I really should have anticipated these problems earlier and not announced a December release. It bums me out to have to change plans like this. I'm sorry!

I do feel like I owe it to you all to describe what I have gotten to add to ENCHAIN, and my thoughts about it recently. As explained above, I've been stuck doing little other than quality improvements, but I am really happy with the progress I've made there. Some of the changes include reworking the entire enemy physics system, simplifying the enemy stamina system, redesigning the grapple hook, adding a dedicated kick-jump key, and a bunch of minor things. It does feel like these fixes took way more effort than they should have, and I wish they didn't take so much time.
On the bright side, I've felt really good about the game lately, better than I have in the past. I feel more excited about it the more time I have to let my ideas mature, if that makes sense. By taking it slow, I've already thought of a few interesting concepts I want to experiment with. I am sure the final game will be better this way.

Here's a peek at a revised Early Access roadmap, including what I have worked on:

• Better tutorials for core mechanics (WIP)
  
• Improvements to stamina system and clarity (Mostly done)
  
• More variety in enemy behaviors (WIP)
  
• Dynamic difficulty mechanic (WIP)
  
• Improvements to boss battle design and gameplay (WIP)
  
• A few NPCs to meet
  
• More weapons/enemies/bosses/areas
  
• Improvements to movement feel (Mostly done)
  
• Player moveset/grapple improvements (WIP)
  
• Special stuff/upgrades you can buy with the "lantern juice"
  
• Bug fixes, polish, better options, assist mode, etc. (WIP)
  

Given some of the the core changes I made are pretty major, I want to update the demo again to gather feedback. Expect a new demo soon if all goes well.


Plus, this was one of the few new things I have made and tweeted about recently: a new enemy! Calling it "Ribble" for now.


That's all I can say so far though, sit tight a bit longer for the release and in the meantime there should be a little demo update!

Thank you for reading, and for supporting the game.