Of Lies and Rain News

[p]Hi everyone!

Thanks a lot for the overwhelming support we received for this early access launch. Of Lies and Rain sits at 100% positive review, (for now), not too many in number to be honest but I would say good enough for now, after all we're still in early access.

The support has been amazing, most of you loved the game and many said we could have release in full and skip early access, we might have been too cautious here but hey, we're not experts and a lot of games don;t come out in good shape when they release so we decided to be carefull with this.

We got some feedback, there are no game breaking bugs for now, and most of the issues can be solved loading a previous savegame. We'll be fixing stuff in the coming weeks until full release, this is our first update, many more to come.

Update Log:[/p]

• [p]Added some more inhalers and masks throughout the levels
  Some of you found themselves stuck with heavy breathing after you got into some toxic areas, It is by design to have ot for a few minutes maybe but someone had it for one + hours. That not good so we added some masks and inhalers through out hte levels where this happened.[/p][p][/p]
• [p]Added a volume slider for the breathing
  On top of adding some more inhalers we also added a slider in the options to change the breathing volume, so you have more control over your gasps.
  [/p]
• [p]Lower reflection on some material to lower aliasing problems
  Some objects like the train poles, some metallic objects, blood on the skeletons etc where too shiny and creates some aliasing artifacts on some headset and... it didn't make sense, after 20 years the abandoned stuff shoudn't look shine, let alone the blood on the skull it would have gone dry along time before the game starts.
  [/p]
• [p]Laser interaction menu visibility
  Small bug that happened when closing the menu, the lasers point that help you go through the menu stayed up for a bit longer than expected, they don't do it anymore.
  [/p]
• [p]Hand on the opposite side when grabbin bin
  Small fix on hand grabbing on the bin.[/p]

• [p]Russian translation improvements[/p]

[p]Thanks a lot to everyone who played our game, we will keep updateing the game, we're aiming at an update every week while we gather feedaback untill we get out from early access and move to final release in a few months.

Best,
Castello Inc Team.[/p]

[h3]Important Advice: TRY THE DEMO BEFORE BUYING THE FULL GAME[/h3][p][/p][p]Hey everyone,[/p][p][/p][p]We strongly recommend NOT purchasing the full game until you've given the demo a spin.[/p][p][/p][p]At the very least, fire it up to check if your controllers are responding correctly and you can interact with everything smoothly. Any performance hiccups you notice in the demo they'll likely show up in the full version too.[/p][p][/p][p]The demo has the exact same core code as the final game, but it wraps up after the first level. So, if the demo struggles on your setup, the full game will face the same issues. On the flip side, a smooth demo experience means the full game should run just fine![/p][p][/p][p]Just a quick session—maybe a few minutes of play—will tell you everything you need to know about compatibility with your hardware.[/p][p][/p][p]With all the variables like drivers, software layers, background apps, runtimes, and different headsets out there, it's tough to guarantee it'll work on every single config.[/p][p]That's one more reason for the demo to exist: to let you dive into the first hour of gameplay and verify it runs well on your specific system.[/p][p][/p][p]During the early access we'll try to make the game compatible with most headsets and configuration so that we can ensure everyone can enjoy the game when the game launches in full.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for checking this out and thank you for playing our game![/p][p][/p][p]Best,[/p][p]Castello Inc Team.[/p]

[p]We made it, Of Lies and Rain is finally ready for early access.[/p][p]For anyone here who followed the development you know that this has been some pretty crazy 2 and half years for us.[/p][p]
The release date has moved a lot during the last months of development and sicerely we can't afford to push it further. From january 2024 our team has been developing without any funding and the development process has taken its toll on our personal lives already, some of us had to take a second job during development to pay the bills, the other related on on family and friends, it has not been easy.[/p][p]
At least in our experience there is always one more thing to add, one more thing to polish, one more thing that could be better.[/p][p]
We've been testing the game with our playtesters since october last year and as always we welcomed feedback and had to change quite a lot of things during the process. We feel the game is now in good shape for release at least in early access.[/p][p]
The early access will include the full campain and all the features of the final game, we just wanted to make sure to have a few months of early access to polish it even more. In our experince the full campain will is about 8 hours long for the most experienced players but there's people who took like 3 hours to finish the demo and that was around 45-60 min in our calculations so we relly don't know I guess it depends on the player.[/p][p]
[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]

There will still be some bugs here and there for sure, please do not expect a AAA quality game.[/p][p]
Of lies and rain is a work of love of 5 people, we don't have the budget nor the experince to make a AAA game. Maybe in a distant future if this one gives us enough to pay the bills.[/p][p]The demo will be online at least until release so you can try the game before buying it, we're gamers as well and love demos, it's the best way to give players an idea on what they're going to invest their money. We don't want anyone to buy it and regret so please play the demo first!!![/p][p]
On a final note please let us thank you all for the feedback, critiques and more in general the support that kept us going for the last couple years! To all the people that supported us in every little internet corner thank you, it makes us feel we're lot more of 5 people making this, I know it's just a feeling but believe me it really makes a difference! We definitely woudn't be here without you.
[/p][p]Thanks a lot everyone,[/p][p]release is close,[/p][p]back to work![/p][p]Castello Inc team.[/p]

Hello everyone!

We're thrilled to share the first update for our Demo!

A huge thank you to all of you for your valuable feedback. We’ve taken your input to heart and used it to guide our development. Over the past few days, more than 2,000 players tried the demo, an incredible response we didn’t anticipate. Thank you for your amazing support!
The demo ran smoothly overall, with no major bugs, but we identified several small issues that needed attention.

Here’s what we’ve updated:

• No more pockets: Pockets were just too much in the way and worked just really bad with the gravity grab. We have now implemented a backback! It works just like the pockets but you'll be able to reach it putting your hand over your shoulders.
  
• Visual Feedback for Widows: Added visual effects (VFX) and small animation to widows to show hit feedback when they take damage. We're also working on a more spidey death animation. :)
  
• Breakable Boxes: Wooden boxes now break more easily, including when thrown to the ground. It should hurt you arm trying to break a box!
  
• Gun Handling Improvements: You can now grip guns with two hands (using teacup or thumbs-forward grip), and recoil adjusts based on your grip style.
  
• Blackboard Fix: The blackboard now functions much more reliably.
  
• Memory Interaction: Memories now stick to your hand for easier reading. We initially had this right, changed it during playtesting, but have reverted to the original sticky behavior.
  
• Performance Boost: Low-quality spectator mode is now default to improve FPS. We’ve also added DLSS support for systems that can use it, providing an additional FPS boost.
  
• Health syringe now work as expected.
  
• Gamma Adjustment: We tweaked the default lighting for better visuals and added a gamma slider to adjust camera exposure.
  
• New Gloves!
  

Regarding movement, we’ve decided not to make changes, despite requests for sprinting, stamina, or jumping. As a slow-paced, story-driven shooter, the game’s dialogue timing, enemy behaviors, and puzzles are designed around the current movement speed. Altering this would basacally break the gameplay significantly, so we’re keeping player movement as it is now. It's crazy how many things a little moment speed increase can break! :)

We keep working tirelessly to polish and complete the full experience. We're closer and closer to full release.

Thanks again for the amazing support!

Best,
Castello Inc Team.

Demo is finally out! :)

Thank you to everyone who helped us with the playtest!

This is a complete redesign of the first level based on your suggestions for improving the game!
This demo comes after two years of development. We’ve poured our hearts and souls into this game, and we hope you’ll love it. It’s not perfect, and it’s a small game compared to major titles, but we’re a tiny studio, and this is only our second game ever—so please be gentle!

In the meantime, we’re working tirelessly to polish the other six levels of OLAR. We’ll definitely release this year, but we don’t know the exact date yet. We’re taking our time to polish as much as possible to ensure the game launches in the best shape.

Over the past two years, we’ve worked incredibly hard with almost no funding. The only thing keeping us going has been the support of our amazing community on Steam, Discord, Reddit, and Twitter! We love you all. Your feedback and the dedication of our playtesters over the past months have made OLAR what it is today. Without you, we wound't have made it!

Here are some improvements we’ve implemented since the last playtest:
Level 01 redesign

- New visual effects for GPU and Gravity Grab
- New health tutorial
- Dataworld teleport tutorial
- Button crouching set as default
- Added trigger sensitivity calibration
- Added left-handed and switch movement options
- Added controller calibration settings
- Can now grab hand slider from different positions
- Added PS controller compatibility
- New train, now an actual locomotive
- Added shootable and breakable locks
- Fixed crawling head offset bug
-Added mantas at the level’s beginning
- Fixed widow disappearing on death
- Added memory menu to read previously collected memories
- Full Virtual Desktop Support

We believe you should try our game before spending your money, not buy a mystery box. One hour of gameplay should be enough to immerse you in the post-apocalyptic world we’ve built and help you decide if it’s worth your investment.

Thank you again to everyone who has been part of this journey and continues to help us test the game! We couldn’t have done it without you!

Love,
The Castello Inc. Team