Spirits of Xanadu News

-Changed the text on the "Communications" Auxilliary power unit as it's misleading, it enables the computers not the communications. The communications, external communications to HQ that is, can't be restored. Which may have led to confusion about the communications option in the save terminal. Lord that took a year to fix that mistake.

-Change a thing that can only be done once per sesson to a thing that can be done more than once per session.

-And ditto for another.

-Small lighting bugfix.

This is just a small update to address some things I forgot in the previous one, and a few other things I felt like doing.

-Updated to Unity 5.4 which was just released, its changelog indicates audio and GI improvements, as well as multi-threading performance improvements (I can't tell any difference).

-Hard Mode no longer resets you to your last save point when you die.

-You can now disable the key prompt display, in addition to the hint text, when hovering your cursor over something you can interact with.

-If your "Interact" key is longer than one character it will display a hand icon instead of the key's name (e.g. when assigning the third mouse button to "Interact", the on screen text would previously display obtrusive "Mouse3" text).

-Pressing the Escape key will cancel a key assignment in progress, and is no longer allowed to be changed from "Pause".

-Fixed the first pillbot being invulnerable.

-Fixed a rare bug that wouldn't allow you to unpause the game when leaving the controls screen.

-Stubborn shuttle ramp straightened out.

-Hopefully fixed the bug that prevents doors from opening (still can't reproduce it on my end, not 100% sure if fixed).

-Pistol fire-rate increased, shotgun fire-rate decreased and spread increased but deals much more damage, the SMG's fire-rate is the same but its damage is reduced.

-AI Balancing. Pillbots shoot faster, flybots move slightly slower, recreational droid exploding behavior modified a bit.

-More improvements made to improve the gamepad controls.

-Toned down the volumetric lighting a bit.

-Other misc stuff I can't remember because I didn't write them down.

edit:

You might have seen another update after this one, it was to fix a bug introduced in this patch as well as add the ability to scroll through options by holding down the mouse button or the analog stick. Makes it faster to go through the sensitivity options especially. Thanks Bigsybee for mentioning that in your Let's Play, it's something I've been meaning to do but kept forgetting.

This is just a small update to address some things I forgot in the previous one, and a few other things I felt like doing.

-Updated to Unity 5.4 which was just released, its changelog indicates audio and GI improvements, as well as multi-threading performance improvements (I can't tell any difference).

-Hard Mode no longer resets you to your last save point when you die.

-You can now disable the key prompt display, in addition to the hint text, when hovering your cursor over something you can interact with.

-If your "Interact" key is longer than one character it will display a hand icon instead of the key's name (e.g. when assigning the third mouse button to "Interact", the on screen text would previously display obtrusive "Mouse3" text).

-Pressing the Escape key will cancel a key assignment in progress, and is no longer allowed to be changed from "Pause".

-Fixed the first pillbot being invulnerable.

-Fixed a rare bug that wouldn't allow you to unpause the game when leaving the controls screen.

-Stubborn shuttle ramp straightened out.

-Hopefully fixed the bug that prevents doors from opening (still can't reproduce it on my end, not 100% sure if fixed).

-Pistol fire-rate increased, shotgun fire-rate decreased and spread increased but deals much more damage, the SMG's fire-rate is the same but its damage is reduced.

-AI Balancing. Pillbots shoot faster, flybots move slightly slower, recreational droid exploding behavior modified a bit.

-More improvements made to improve the gamepad controls.

-Toned down the volumetric lighting a bit.

-Other misc stuff I can't remember because I didn't write them down.

edit:

You might have seen another update after this one, it was to fix a bug introduced in this patch as well as add the ability to scroll through options by holding down the mouse button or the analog stick. Makes it faster to go through the sensitivity options especially. Thanks Bigsybee for mentioning that in your Let's Play, it's something I've been meaning to do but kept forgetting.

Been awhile since the last update, but we haven't been idle. Working on concepts and prototypes for the next game, as well as other side projects has kept us busy. Meanwhile I've been taking down notes while reading reviews and the forums, and watching streams and YouTube videos, and compiled a list of bugs, exploits, and improvements that could be made. And some of them made this update, which I think is the largest one so far.

Technical and Visual:

• Updated the game to the latest stable version of Unity.
  
• Updated/improved some of the post-processing effects. Ambient occlusion (SSAO) in particular should look and perform much better now.
  
• Added SMAA as an alternative form of anti-aliasing, looks better than FXAA and doesn't cost a whole lot more in terms of performance.
  
• Added volumetric lighting, enabled by default. It's a decently optimized effect and only incurs a small performance hit, largely on the CPU. If you experience a notable FPS loss this might be the likely culprit.
  
• Other minor adjustments/improvements to the lighting to compensate the changes for the volumetric lights, should the feature be disabled or otherwise unsupported.
  
• Slightly improved shadows using PCF5x5 filtering. Possible performance hit, couldn't detect one on my machine but your mileage may vary.
  
• Updated the material shaders for a few objects still using outdated legacy shaders.
  
• Some performance optimizations, which may not be noticable due to the upgraded shadows, lighting, and post-fx. However, turning off the more intensive options there should be a definite performance increase- at the cost of visual fidelity. Those options being resolution, shadows, ssao, volumetric lights, and bloom; the others have a relatively minimal impact but can also be disabled based on personal preference or to squeeze every last drop of peformance you can.
  

Game Balance, AI, and Exploits:

• Re-enabled enemy respawning (broken in the previous patch), and adjusted some of the spawning parameters.
  
• Adjusted the AI in various places. The flybot has slightly more health, and the pillbot will give up after chasing you for too long.
  
• The recreational droid has less health but explodes slightly earlier than before.
  
• Removed an exploit that let you attack flybots from vents with them completely ignoring you.
  
• In-game progress is erased after you achieve any of the game's endings (your settings/achievements/unlocks are unaffected).
  
• Disabled the speed run and balls of steel achievements when playing on Peaceful mode. Sorry speed-runners :(
  
• Shower achievement less likely to be triggered accidentally by a wandering cleaner bot or droid.
  

Controls and Misc:

• Added separate sensitivity option for the Y Axis. If you have changed the sensitivity previously you will have to adjust the y-axis to match or it will feel off. (Thanks for the heads up raven989.)
  
• Lowered the position of the pistol, it was much higher than the other weapons and took up too much screen space.
  
• Adjusted the movement of every weapon to be less "floaty", and instead to be more responsive. Less bob/sway/strafe movement and quicker transitions between states.
  
• Player run acceleration increased, and the move speed reduction for walking backwards and while using iron sights is removed. Crouch movement speed increased as well.
  
• Increased the hit-box size of computer/terminal buttons and other small items (fuse, screwdriver, etc) so they're easier to interact with, especially beneficial for gamepad users but also for keyboard/mouse as well.
  
• And finally a handful of minor misc small things were also fixed or altered. I don't remember them all and you probably won't notice, so who knows if I even did anything else (I did).
  

This patch currently has only been tested on Windows, if you are on OS X/Linux and experience issues you can always rollback to the previous patch by going into properties from Steam and opting into the previous_stable branch. If you encounter any issues, please post them in the bug reporting thread in the forums or you can email me at [email protected] and I'll get them resolved asap.

Thanks everyone for your all support, reviews, emails, guides, feedback, suggestions, and all that good stuff- it really means a lot. If you have any more suggestions/feedback on this patch, or anything else, feel free to post them in the comments or in the forums.

Been awhile since the last update, but we haven't been idle. Working on concepts and prototypes for the next game, as well as other side projects has kept us busy. Meanwhile I've been taking down notes while reading reviews and the forums, and watching streams and YouTube videos, and compiled a list of bugs, exploits, and improvements that could be made. And some of them made this update, which I think is the largest one so far.

Technical and Visual:

• Updated the game to the latest stable version of Unity.
  
• Updated/improved some of the post-processing effects. Ambient occlusion (SSAO) in particular should look and perform much better now.
  
• Added SMAA as an alternative form of anti-aliasing, looks better than FXAA and doesn't cost a whole lot more in terms of performance.
  
• Added volumetric lighting, enabled by default. It's a decently optimized effect and only incurs a small performance hit, largely on the CPU. If you experience a notable FPS loss this might be the likely culprit.
  
• Other minor adjustments/improvements to the lighting to compensate the changes for the volumetric lights, should the feature be disabled or otherwise unsupported.
  
• Slightly improved shadows using PCF5x5 filtering. Possible performance hit, couldn't detect one on my machine but your mileage may vary.
  
• Updated the material shaders for a few objects still using outdated legacy shaders.
  
• Some performance optimizations, which may not be noticable due to the upgraded shadows, lighting, and post-fx. However, turning off the more intensive options there should be a definite performance increase- at the cost of visual fidelity. Those options being resolution, shadows, ssao, volumetric lights, and bloom; the others have a relatively minimal impact but can also be disabled based on personal preference or to squeeze every last drop of peformance you can.
  

Game Balance, AI, and Exploits:

• Re-enabled enemy respawning (broken in the previous patch), and adjusted some of the spawning parameters.
  
• Adjusted the AI in various places. The flybot has slightly more health, and the pillbot will give up after chasing you for too long.
  
• The recreational droid has less health but explodes slightly earlier than before.
  
• Removed an exploit that let you attack flybots from vents with them completely ignoring you.
  
• In-game progress is erased after you achieve any of the game's endings (your settings/achievements/unlocks are unaffected).
  
• Disabled the speed run and balls of steel achievements when playing on Peaceful mode. Sorry speed-runners :(
  
• Shower achievement less likely to be triggered accidentally by a wandering cleaner bot or droid.
  

Controls and Misc:

• Added separate sensitivity option for the Y Axis. If you have changed the sensitivity previously you will have to adjust the y-axis to match or it will feel off. (Thanks for the heads up raven989.)
  
• Lowered the position of the pistol, it was much higher than the other weapons and took up too much screen space.
  
• Adjusted the movement of every weapon to be less "floaty", and instead to be more responsive. Less bob/sway/strafe movement and quicker transitions between states.
  
• Player run acceleration increased, and the move speed reduction for walking backwards and while using iron sights is removed. Crouch movement speed increased as well.
  
• Increased the hit-box size of computer/terminal buttons and other small items (fuse, screwdriver, etc) so they're easier to interact with, especially beneficial for gamepad users but also for keyboard/mouse as well.
  
• And finally a handful of minor misc small things were also fixed or altered. I don't remember them all and you probably won't notice, so who knows if I even did anything else (I did).
  

This patch currently has only been tested on Windows, if you are on OS X/Linux and experience issues you can always rollback to the previous patch by going into properties from Steam and opting into the previous_stable branch. If you encounter any issues, please post them in the bug reporting thread in the forums or you can email me at [email protected] and I'll get them resolved asap.

Thanks everyone for your all support, reviews, emails, guides, feedback, suggestions, and all that good stuff- it really means a lot. If you have any more suggestions/feedback on this patch, or anything else, feel free to post them in the comments or in the forums.