Chasm News

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When a clandestine NAZI BASE is discovered in the otherworldly heart of the BERMUDA TRIANGLE, there’s only one soldier for the job…

Capt. Chuck “WOLFHOUND” Rossetti, a wise-cracking, one-man army who never leaves a pal behind, is no stranger to war but his war is about to get stranger. After an Allied vessel vanishes, Chuck is deployed to infiltrate an uncharted island, discover the enemy’s secrets, and bring our boys home.

Yet this evil, shrouded island has other plans. Pitted against the stuff of nightmares — mutant insects, zombies, and other twisted creations of a mad Axis scientist — Chuck finds himself on an eerie, perilous mission unlike any he’s faced before.

VENTURE FORTH INTO THE ISLAND, scavenging for weapons and ammo to dispatch the Axis soldiers and monsters that grow more grotesque and dangerous the further WOLFHOUND goes. Unveil the sinister experiments of Dr. Steiner, and turn his tech against him. Feel the unbridled power of the railgun. Reach new heights with the jetpack. Lace up gravity boots to traverse new areas, where castles pierce the sky and crystal caverns veil wicked, fascinating mysteries. . .



After more than 200,000 recruits ventured into the procedurally-generated depths of Chasm, Bit Kid sought to return to the Metroidvania genre, while eschewing procedural generation in favor of a single, intricately-designed world. Bit Kid brought together artistic talent behind the Shantae series, Freedom Planet 2, and Sparklite along with a heroic chiptune soundtrack courtesy of musician RushJet1 (Cave Story+, Alwa’s Legacy, PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator).



“While I’ve always been a big fan of retro games and pixel art, I really wanted to dive deep into the style of NES and 8-bit gaming,” said James Petruzzi, founder and lead developer at Bit Kid. “We’re aiming to be as authentic as possible, stylistically: an 8-bit color palette, 320×180 pixel resolution, and a soundtrack composed in Famitracker which has enabled homebrewers to create authentic NES music for many years.”

WOLFHOUND will release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Steam for PC and Steam Deck. For more information, follow Bit Kid on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and join the official Bit Kid Discord server.

Another quick update with the latest game controller mappings and FNA libraries.

1.090
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- fixed ledge overhang in Catacombs bossroom
- updated game controller database (now supports PS5 Access controller)
- updated to FNA 24.01

This release is mostly library updates, but that comes with a couple much needed fixes! The audio popping issue on Windows should finally be fixed, as well as controllers sometimes not being detected without unplugging/replugging them. There are also some tweaks to Race mode to make it a little more fun. I've removed some of the rooms that make it less apparent which way to go, increased the player's level, and reduced the course length by about a third. Let me know what you think!

1.089 Change List
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- race: removed rooms with more than 3 doors
- race: reduced course lengths by roughly 30%
- race: increased player level
- race: reduced fountains to 1 in the middle of the course
- updated game controller database
- updated to FNA 23.10

I can hardly believe it, but Chasm officially turns five years old today! On top of that, it was over 10 years ago now that Chasm's Kickstarter was successfully funded. Where does the time go? In celebration of the anniversary, we'll be doing a giveaway today with our last copy of the Switch Deluxe Edition by Limited Run. Please join our Discord if you haven't already, and get your entry in!

I'd like to once again thank both the team who worked their hardest to make Chasm a reality, as well as all the fans that helped make it such a success. But just how big of a success was it? Well, I'm honored to say that to date Chasm has sold 200,000 copies worldwide! That is a huge achievement for an indie game, and far beyond what we ever thought would be possible for our first major title.

So, what have we been up to since launch? Immediately after launch in the fall of 2018 we focused on the Switch and Xbox ports, while trying to fix all the major issues that were reported by the community. New translations, game modes, content and much more were also released. Then in 2019, Chasm's engine & tool programmer (and longtime friend) Tim decided to leave the company. It was a major blow for me, but I continued working on Chasm throughout that year fixing bugs, adding content, and generally improving the experience until the last major update was released in the fall.

Engine Improvement: Vertical Transitions (Bonus: 8-bit style Daltyn!)

Going into 2020, I was back on my own again with no clear path forward. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was starting over from scratch. During that period, I worked on a few different prototypes while I improved the engine with new features and optimizations to speed up content creation. Among the prototypes were a sequel to Chasm that picked up right where the last one left off, a "pick up and play" Spelunky-ish spin-off, and, finally, a hand-designed Metroid-inspired game.

A character creator for a scrapped prototype.

While all the ideas showed promise, I was burned out on both fantasy and procedural generation, so the hand-designed idea seemed the most appealing at the time. All the pieces started to come together as I worked on it, and by the summer of 2021 I had a brand-new team assembled with a 30-minute prototype showcasing the intro and first area (similar to Chasm's that I used to pitch at GDC and the Kickstarter). After proving to myself the concept was solid and the new team could realize the vision, I decided to commit to it and officially went into pre-production on my next title.

Jumping up to the present, the game is now a good way into development and I'm bursting to finally announce it to the world. However, there is still that pesky little problem of the right timing! Unfortunately, it's not quite here yet, but we're getting closer every day now. Thank you again for your continued support over the years, and I'll be back in touch soon!

-James

A quick patch with more framework updates, as well as updated controller mappings.

1.086 Change List
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- removed redundant loading of gamecontrollerdb.txt
- updated game controller database
- updated to FNA 23.07