Surrounded News

V0.6.5

Updates & Enhancements:

• Added some more mechanics to the hidden easter egg.
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed where the easter egg would not sync in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed where the map props would be a bit off center.
  
• Fixed where "EXIT TO MENU" would not work in singleplayer.
  

Optimization:

• Minor improvements to Echofield to help boost FPS.
  
• Updated the DirectX version of the game to potentially decrease the amount of crashes.
  
• General improvements to FPS.
  

Features:

• Added proximity voice chat as a feature in game. (Push to talk: Hold V) (Fireworks rebound to B)
  
• Revamped the entire lobby backend system to increase stability.
  
• The Carnivorous will now roar to indicate if he's going in chase state.
  
• New arm model.
  
• New easter egg on the map.
  
• Upgraded task system to showcase tasks better.
  
• Completely new lobby scene & look.
  

Updates & Enhancements:

• You will now be able to see how many players that's in a lobby.
  
• Revamped the look of the knockout screen.
  
• Removed a lot of floating objects from the map.
  
• Made all buildings fit the terrain in Echofield South.
  
• Revamped the entire fog & atmosphere of Echofield.
  
• The notes now look more realistic.
  
• Made soundtrack stay consistent through level traveling.
  
• You can now discard fuses as well in the inventory.
  
• Reduced the size of the sound icon at the bottom right.
  
• Added blowing leaves around the Echofield.
  
• New ambiance for the Asylum.
  
• All jumpscares have been redone.
  
• Rebranded inventory screen.
  
• Rebranded main menu screen.
  

Balancing:

• The Mother's peripheral vision reduced.
  
• The Mother's now more dependant on hearing.
  
• Creatures will now lose aggression after a certain amount of time.
  
• Easier to escape creatures.
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed where you are unable to walk up stairs in the school.
  
• Fixed an issue where the creatures would be floating in the air for clients.
  
• Fixed where players would time out from lobby screen to the main game.
  
• Fixed where players could not see other players lobbies.
  
• Fixed regional blocking on lobbies.
  
• Fixed general connection issues.
  
• Fixed where the game would become very blurry if joining an in game session.
  
• Fixed where Carnivorous's idle sounds were really loud.
  
• Fixed where you could find spots to fall out of the map around RDUM.
  
• Fixed where interaction prompt would be stuck on screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could trigger the lever several times in RDUM (ending spoiler)
  
• Fixed a but where creatures would go in the water while the player being on dock.
  
• Fixed where playernames would only show for players themselves.
  
• Fixed footstep sounds on certain surfaces.
  
• Fixed where "BACK TO MENU" button wouldn't work.
  

Optimization

• The main menu scene should now be more optimized.
  

DISCLAIMER
It has been three long weeks for everyone involved at Nightmare Studios, as we've been diligently working to resolve the issue with lobbies. We have conducted numerous tests with this new system, and it is designed to function just as you would expect. If you continue to experience any problems, kindly open a support ticket on the discord and provide the log along with a detailed description of the encountered situation.

Dear Steam Community,

If there's anything we've learned the past few weeks, it's that transparency is key. This blog post series will be an attempt to keep the community up to date with what we're doing behind the scenes, and include you in this journey.

First of all I would like to give all of you a massive thank you for the support, bug reports, streams and kind words you have given us since launch on behalf of the entire team.

[h2]Launch Day[/h2]
As you all may know, launch day wasn't the most stable launch you could've imagined. Performance was a little wonky, people had trouble joining and hosting games, AI were stuck floating in the air and games would crash.

While most of these issues had some pretty obvious fixes, one issue did not. The matchmaking system didn't allow all people to host or join games, and only restarting the game a great number of times seemed to resolve the issue temporarily, if at all.
As soon as we saw the first bug reports of this problem we started digging into the code.

[h2]The Multiplayer System[/h2]
To give you some context I will quickly explain how the multiplayer system works:
Unreal Engine allows for the use of plugins. The build you are all playing on right now uses a plugin called "Steam Advanced Sessions".

This plugin allows our netcode to work with steam. Such plugins provide us with a handful of handy functions for hosting games, joining games etc.

[h2]Trying to fix the problem[/h2]
When we first started looking into the problem we took a look into the code, seeing if there was anything we overlooked. After confirming this was not the case, we tried updating Unreal Engine to the latest version, also to no avail. That's when we made the decision to swap to a new plugin which makes use of entirely different netcode and has many more features.

Hoping this simple swap would fix the problem we implemented the system. On a first glance, the problem seemed to be fixed. We were able to see all lobbies, host one, and join eachother without a problem!

We rolled out a quick test version of the game to a separate channel and gathered a few testers to see if they could get in. To our surprise, no one was able to either host or join a game, except for the developers of the game.

The week following after that, we have worked with many people trying to figure this problem out. To get into the more technical side of things for those interested, this is a small part of the fixes we have tried this far:

• Tried using IpNetDriver & SteamProSockets, neither worked.
  
• Tried numerous different DefaultEngine.ini combinations
  
• Tried changing the QueryPort to 27015, 27023, 27019:27049
  
• Tried changing the port to 7777, 27015, 27023
  
• Tried enabling normal SteamSockets
  
• Tried doing a full rebuild
  
• And many more.
  

[h3]Closing words[/h3]
Even though it may seem like we are inactive at the moment, be assured we are working our hardest on this problem every day. As soon as we get the matchmaking system functioning the way it should, the community can expect a lot of fun, exciting, and scary updates. For now the priority lies with making the game accessible to everyone, meaning the matchmaking should work the way you'd expect it to.
In the meantime, please keep sharing your funny moments, bugs, jumpscares and everything in between with us and the community. We truly love to see it!

Again thank you all so much for the patience and support, and we'll see you in the next dev update. You can join the discord here.

We just want to update you all on how it's going, since if there is one thing we've learned, it's that being close to our community is the best thing we can do. We're working on our biggest update yet, which will include features & updates such as:

• Totally new visuals to the main menu.
  
• A more smooth experience.
  
• New backend for the lobby system.
  
• More optimization.
  
• Interaction system revamp.
  
• Less stuttering.
  
• Proximity voice chat.
  
• & so much more.
  

All coming to you all as soon as possible, it's been a process as we've had to upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.2, which broke a lot of textures, models, etc. However, we're currently in the process of remaking all lost data, and we're very close to being done.

We must thank you all once again for the patience, we promise the wait will be worth it ❤️

Cheers,
Nightmare Studios

Features:

• Revamped sliding system.
  

Updates & Enhancements:

• You will now see an icon indicating whether or not a lobby has a password.
  
• The carnivorous will now only do its failsafe teleport when it does not have a line of sight with the player to prevent breaking immersion.
  
• Players will now be teleported back to a random respawn location in case they fall out of the map.
  

Balancing:

• Reduced the Carnivorous sight range, hearing range and vision cone
  
• The Mother and Carnivorous will now run away instead of walk away when being scared by fireworks.
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed keybinds not working.
  
• Possible fix for monsters floating in the air and desyncing.
  
• All players should now get the “Finish Surrounded” achievement when finishing the game.
  
• The “Stamina Efficient” achievement now works correctly.
  
• Fixed players being able to walk through walls in the ending.
  
• Added a notification in the ending saying all players are required to interact.
  
• Fixed monsters being able to spawn on the roof of the ending location.
  
• Fixed monsters being able to spawn on top of the powerstation.
  
• Fixed the medkit not restoring or depleting health.
  
• Fixed players being able to get stuck between the terrain and the ending location.
  
• Removed some floating objects throughout the map.
  
• Fixed the interact key prompt getting stuck on the screen after dying near an interactable.
  
• Fixed the inventory permanently staying on screen after dying with the inventory open.
  
• Possible fix for the backpack despawning.
  
• Possible fix for players not being able to move after being revived.
  

Optimzation:

• General improvements for a smoother experience.