Caromble! News

This update contains many small bug fixes, graphics improvements and a few new achievements!

Dear Caromblers!

Ever since we saw the first announcement of the Steam Deck, we knew we wanted to make sure Caromble! could run on it. Today we're excited to tell you that not only does Caromble! run on the Deck natively (at the best graphics settings), we might have to admit that we enjoy the game best on the Deck.

The work on supporting the Deck began this summer. Since we didn't have our own Steam Deck yet, we used a Steam Controller and a laptop with similar specks for our first beta versions. After we got our own Steam Deck in August, we spend many, many hours optimizing the game, the graphics and the controls. This took a little more time since testing the game on the Deck was simply fun!


Got some extra testing help - forget about that Switch!

Trying to beat a mouse as input device is no easy task. While I'm still a bit better with a mouse, I am able to get very close to my high-scores on the Deck (but it does take some practice).


My main goal: getting the controls in shape so I could finish the Race skill level om the Steam Deck. Yeah, beating VanAlphen is hard even with a mouse :)

Not have a Steam Deck yet? Don't worry, this update improves the game for everybody:

• Better controller support (especially controllers with track pads like the Steam Controller/Deck)
  
• Performance improvements
  
• Better anti-aliasing on best graphics settings
  
• Fixed many graphics glitches
  
• Fixed many small bugs
  
• Fixed selecting wrong (lowest) graphics settings on first startup
  

If you have a Steam Deck, please give us your honest feedback! Did the controller input mapping got applied correctly? How did you like the controls (trackpad) input? Did your run in any issues? Let us know!

Does this mean we stopped working on getting the game in shape for release? Definitely not! But more on that later...

Dear Caromble! friends,

It's been a long time since you've heard from us, but we are very happy to share great news with you! We released the final chapter of Caromble! into Early Access. Chapter 6 combines everything we have learned as developers into great gameplay and a final boss fight in which you have to apply all your skills. After victory, there is a final Epilogue level that awaits you.



We believe with Chapter 6 we were able to push the limits of what a brick breaker can be further than we had ever done before; e.g. how can there be gameplay when there isn't even a paddle? We hope you enjoy this final chapter as much as we do.

Besides new gameplay content, with this update we fixed all bugs reported on the forum, did a lot of performance optimization and added Linux support. We are still waiting for our ordered Steam Deck to arrive. If any of you have one, please let us know whether it runs on it. We can't wait to play Caromble! on it ourselves :)

Also, we added a story introduction before the Prologue is started. If you already played the Prologue, you can also check out the mythology intro below. If you haven't and rather want to experience it ingame, don't watch it here :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfmyXFcG9c4
This intro is part of the narrative, which is the final thing we have planned to build before we leave Early Access. It's the last piece of the Caromble! puzzle, which will make our intended Caromble! experience complete.

We really hope you like Chapter 6, the Epilogue and the new story intro. We are very happy to hear your feedback, remarks or anything you want to share about this update. Let us know on the discussion forum

We are almost there!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Raymond
Thomas D.
Thomas S.
Peter
Pascal

We're very happy to announce that we've released another Caromble! update!
No, no chapter 6 just yet (for the Caromble! conclusion you'll just have to wait a little longer - we need to get the narrative elements up and running first).

What you do get is a ton of bug fixes all over the game and the first set of achievements!

While we are working towards the final release, we're wondering how you want to be involved in further development: would you like us to release very early versions of the narrative+chapter 6 (maybe as a dev-build you'll need to select in steam), or do you want to wait until everything is more polished (to get the 'real' experience)? Let us know!

Enjoy!

The Crimson Owl team

Dear Caromble! friends,

Since our last update, another baby was born in the Caromble! team! Also, Thomas the artist has married and became insta-dad of two. Furthermore, I (Pascal) am about to become father for the second time next October. This means, that since we started working on Caromble!, at the end of this year we will have transformed from fatherless chaps, to all five a father of two. Wow! You might think, if we weren't so busy procreating, we would have have completed Caromble! way sooner...

Anyhow... we have made some progress in Caromble as well. We have completed parts of the story and even included a narrator. For a small sneak preview for the atmosphere, check the video below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The skybox is still dummy art here, but this intro part is complete now. Last announcement we mentioned that we are gameplay complete. Since then, Peter has worked his magic on prettyizing the final level and the last boss fight. That is almost done now too.



The last big task is completing the story narrative, for which we had shown some concept art before. Unfortunately, our story helper artist was too busy to continue on Caromble!, so that has delayed us a bit. I am currently working on it with programmer art, adding animations and making compositions, so Thomas S. can later replace it with pretty stuff. If you want to see how glad we are with a real artist, look at the next image to see how Caromble! would have looked if I'd make the art:



That's it for now. I hope the next announcement will be for the release of Chapter 6 and the narrative. Hopefully until then!

Kind regards,

The Caromble! team!