9 Years of Shadows News

Hello everyone!

We hope you're all doing well. It's been a month since our last update, and since then, we have continued to work on improving performance and stabilizing the experience on Steam Deck.

We thank you again for your patience, empathy, and feedback while we fix and enhance the game experience.

If you want to talk with our dev team, report an issue, or join the community, please join our Discord! We'd love to hear from you all!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]
[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a bug that caused videos to crash on Steam Deck.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused armor unlock cinematics to not show.
  
• Fixed numerous bugs that prevented the text from displaying correctly during the prologue and epilogue slideshows.
  
• Some elemental outline effects were not displaying correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the sound volume level and settings UI to not report the same value.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused text to fade in incorrectly during elemental animations.
  
• Fixed some placement errors for localized text on the status screen.
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Minor room layout fixes in Area E.
  
• Art adjustments in various rooms across all areas.
  
• Missing sound effects were re-added for some of Europa’s actions.
  
• Missing UI sound effects were added.
  

Hi everyone!

We're excited to announce that 9 Years of Shadows will be showcased at DreamHack Beyond on August 18th-27th, 2023!

Check out the Summer Indie Showcase at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40157993/sale/DreamHackBeyondSummerIndieShowcase . We’re super excited to see you!

If you want to join the community, follow us on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and join our Discord!

Thanks for your support and we’re super excited to show off all of our hard work!

Hello everyone!

Thanks for all the support and continuous feedback you are giving us. We have another small patch today to continue our efforts of giving you all the best experience.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• A bug causing Europa in the Portrait of Demise to soft-lock by shattering a crystal ability vase is now fixed
  
• A new fix for the achievements of "Big Kitty" and "No More Nightmares" has been applied to be unlocked by entering the correct save file
  

Hello everyone!

Support and feedback from all of you guys have been incredible after the patch from last week!

Thanks for being patient while we create new fixes and solutions for the game. We've got a new small patch today to continue our efforts of giving you all the best experience.

[h2]Game Adjustments[/h2]

• Added support for VSync and fixed frame rates.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• A bug causing Europa in Serpent Form to be blocked in a tunnel path in Sector E has been fixed.
  
• A fix has been applied for missing Japanese and Chinese font characters in dialogue and menus.
  
• A fix has been applied to retroactively unlock missing achievements "Big Kitty" and "No More Nightmares" by entering the save log with the progression.
  

Hello everyone! We hope you're all doing well. It's been a month since our last update, where we shared that we have been working on some performance fixes and optimizing general assets throughout the game.

We thank you for your patience and empathy while we work on new fixes and ways to make the game feel better.

If you want to talk with our dev team, report an issue, or join the community, please join our Discord! We'd love to hear from you all!

[h2]Bug fixes:[/h2]
[h3]Game Balance Adjustments[/h3]

• A new visual aid for the light bar has been added when Europa is performing Lullaby or Radical Acceptance.
  
• Radical Acceptance "sweet spot" is now always positioned in the middle of the recovery bar.
  
• Radical Acceptance now recovers less light if it is used immediately consecutively.
  
• The shield recovery speed values have been adjusted for the final armor set.
  
• Health and damage values have been rebalanced and adjusted for all bosses, mid-bosses, and enemies.
  
• The Final Battle and Logon Duck boss fights have been rebalanced based on changes to health recovery mechanics.
  
• The Hekate's Illusion boss has a new attack.
  

[h3]Visual Updates[/h3]

• Painting portals have been updated.
  
• Incorrect elevator cinematic animations have been fixed.
  
• Fixes for some of the art assets in the Theater / Workshop.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• "Falling Stars" attack in the final battle has had a crash bug fixed.
  
• A crash bug related to particles spawning on heat currents has been fixed.
  
• A bug causing the shield recovery bar to appear while Europa has the final armor upgrade has been fixed.
  
• A fix has been applied to ensure the Tantalus Roach boss arena door opens consistently.
  
• A fix has been applied to prevent the Heart of Talos from spawning a shield effect during battle.
  
• The music looping bug in the painting area of Sector E has been fixed.
  
• The animation delay when saving the game has been corrected.
  

[h3]Performance Enhancements[/h3]

• Enemy sprite sheets had compression improvements.
  
• Object Pooling has been enhanced to reduce lag by pre-loading common objects (such as attack slashes).
  
• Reduced build size on disk by 6.2 GB thanks to optimizing files, sprite sheets, textures, and materials.