Fractal Space News

[h2]0.600 Hotfix[/h2]
This post was originally written for 0.599 update. We have since then released a 0.600 hotfix, which adds the following important fixes over original 0.599 post below:

• Steam Integration Fixed: Leaderboards, Achievements should be working as intended again
• Chapter 2: A level bug was causing a wall to remain present, blocking the player
  

Hello dear Fractal Space players!

It's been a while - we've been focusing quite a bit on Pocket Edition updates recently, and there were many bugs reported in latest 0.598, so it was a lot of work to get this 0.599 update ready!

The goal of this update is mainly to reach a stable point for Chapter 1 in order to update Steam Demo and Demo on other platforms, about a week after this update is live for the Pre-Alpha PC players.

Let's talk about the major new changes in this post!

If you encounter a major blocking bug that prevents you from finishing the game, please report in-game with ALT+B ;)

Thank you for testing and reporting bugs!

IMPORTANT: RESTART CURRENT CHAPTER: If you were playing before this update and do not wish to start a new game / reset your save, please restart current Chapter from the beginning to avoid bugs, prevent softlocks, and ensure the new bugfixes are correctly applied.

The major new changes are discussed here.
[h2]CHAPTER 3 | Re-Design[/h2]



The first room of Chapter 3 has been completely re-designed and re-worked with new rooms:

• You should no longer be able to skip past the first Crows cutscene.

• There is now also new optional/secret area here, but we will let you find it for yourself :)

• You can no longer simply Jetpack to the first platform when getting out of the first room, in NG with Jetpack Level 1 - you’ll need to deploy additional platforms.
  • These platforms are optional from Jetpack Level 2, or from Jetpack Level 1 + Sprint (intended).

[h2]CHAPTER 2 | Even More Freedom[/h2]
Update 0.598 introduced more freedom for the player to explore the outside of the station, after going out from the first electrified water vent. It has now been improved even more, by giving that same freedom, from the moment the player acquires the Jetpack!

"With more freedom, comes a great chance of introducing game-breaking bugs. To be tested!"

[h2]SAW | Sparks[/h2]
Saws now have new particle effects to show sparks!



They also have physics collisions.

[h2]INTERACTION | Fixes[/h2]
After the major interaction rework, that was then added to Pocket Edition as well, interactions were more precise and most bugs related to them were fixed. In addition, interaction with a specific object when multiple ones were present, was made much easier and more intuitive.

However, a consequence was that interacting required the player to look more precisely at objects, even when there was only 1 interactive object available. Some precision is still required when there are multiple interactions available, but most cases will now be much more tolerant of where the player is looking at, than the previous update (more radial interaction):



In addition, the new interaction changes had broken a previous system: preventing picking up / dropping Cubes or Power Cores through Laser Fields and vent grids, etc.

This made some previously-impossible softlocks possible again in 0.598.

It should now be working as intended again, with some Laser Fields / Vent grids / small bars in vents, now preventing you from dropping/picking up “through them” again (as it was, prior to 0.598).

[h2]LEADERBOARDS | Improved[/h2]
This update required a FULL RESET of all Leaderboards. This is because new features to leaderboards were added, which made them not retro-compatible. Further changes should not require Leaderboards reset anymore.

Not only does leaderboards now fully support MILLISECONDS (even though they are not displayed in-game to avoid distraction of fast ms change), but you can now hover any Leaderboard entry to get more statistics about the player’s run!

Stats are per-Chapter for this run, except for Cycle, in which it’s the accumulated for the entire Cycle:



Obviously, this is a new feature, and requires some testing to validate all stats are correct (we have tested, they seem OK :) )

Navigation has also been improved on Leaderboards page. In addition to being able to navigate the Leaderboards Page with keyboard / gamepad, you can now also browse through entries / scroll using keyboard arrows to see more info about other player’s scores. Mouse scroll wheel also works.

If you are using a keyboard or gamepad, when changing Chapters, while looking at Top 50 / Top 100, it will automatically select ranks 10 and 50 respectively after loading the scores. This is to avoid scrolling down the first 10/50 scores when looking at Top 50 / Top 100, because these first 10/50 can already be seen in Top 10 / Top 50 respectively.

[h2]BUG REPORTING | Improvements[/h2]
Various improvements were made to the bug reporting system. It's possible that the first bug reports you send will not appear on the Discord server just yet, because there were changes to the syntax and how they are sent, that will require some changes from the Discord server's side.

However, we should be receiving all bug reports correctly even if they do not appear on Discord just yet.



We also made these changes in order to ensure that we would still receive all bug reports even if the Unity side of the system would fail, like it did during approximately 2 months when 0.598 was released.

Here's an overview of the new changes to the bug reporting system:

• Categories: Many new categories were added. This will make it much easier for us to filter / prioritize bugs and ensure Nitpicks don't slow down the development's process by requiring to be fixed now as they were same priority as "Gameplay Bugs". Please make sure you select the appropriate category for each reported bug. Thank you!

• Video Link: A new field for Video link was added! Bug reports are always much better with video links if possible :) Whenever you have a video available, please copy/paste the link in the video field, it will make it much easier for us to access it instead of having it directly in the description. Thank you!

• More details: The bug reporting system will now provide more details to the Discord server. Once the Discord server code has been updated to receive the new bug report information, it will be possible to show a few more stats on the bug report entries on the server.

• Longer storage: We used to only have 2 months to fix a reported bug. This was really impractical, because many minor bugs or nitpicks could wait for a future update instead - but if we did wait, we would lose all the data from this bug. We will now be able to keep them for much longer in order to push back minor bugs to future updates.

• More stable: Various edge cases that caused bug reports to fail to upload were fixed. You will still have failures in some cases but the retry should be OK. If after 3 or 4 retries you still can't upload a bug, please temporarily disable your firewall and antivirus and try again.

Reporting a bug will still take time, and the Discord upload will look like it froze on 0% for a while. This is normal. We are planning to change the Discord screenshot upload server in a future update, to greatly increase the speed of this step in the near future.

[h2]SAVE BACKUPS[/h2]
The game now makes backups of the save game regularly, mostly every time the game is paused. If later on, the saved data file gets corrupted or deleted, the player will now be informed when starting the game.

A popup will now allow to either start a fresh new save, or use the latest backup (if available):



This is different from save game compatibility after a major game update. There will be a separate system to warn players about their potential saved games incompatibility in the future, encouraging them to restart the current Chapter, if it was affected.

This is only for data corruption of the main save file. If a level checkpoint auto-save or quick-save is corrupted, it should result in automatically restart the Chapter from start. But in case of main save file corruption, this backup popup window system should at least allow players to resume their last checkpoint (if last checkpoint file itself is not corrupted), or resume from the beginning of the Chapter they had reached (which is still better than starting from Chapter 0)

[h2]CUSTOM | RESOLUTION[/h2]

This is only for very specific edge-cases in which players need to use a specific, non-standard resolution, that is not listed in the resolution options list.

If you wish to use a different resolution than the one officially supported by your monitor, you now can make sure it works by using -allowCustomResolution launch parameter on Steam.

If you use this, please make sure you add new add this new -allowCustomResolution as well, when using -screen-height and -screen-width to force a specific resolution.

This new parameter will disable all resolution fallbacks and resetting of the game, to avoid overriding your custom resolution, even when requesting to change graphics options.

This means the Resolution popup list will be completely ignored when using this argument!

Below are described the important changes from this version:

• Dodge: Upgrades were a bit overpowered. Slightly modified the Dodge upgrades. Level 3 is no longer 0.5 seconds, but now 0.8s recharge time.

• Respawn Spam Protection: Increased the respawn spam protection delay to 0.8s. This means that, if you die, with a Quick Save available, the game will ignore SPACE / LMB for 0.8s to prevent reloading the last checkpoint, in case you in fact wish to use F9 to load your Quick Save instead.

• Chests: The newly added chests in 0.598, will now unlock faster after shooting the associated generators. The bug in which they remained in locked state after destroying their generators, could not be reproduced, though. Please keep an eye on it, and report with a video for more specific steps on how to reproduce this bug. Thank you!

• Interaction: New interaction rework made it sometimes hard to pick up / interact with objects if a piece of broken glass was in the way. Broken glass pieces should no longer be a problem for interaction with objects, nor with picking up objects ;) This may have introduced new bugs, to be tested.

• Chapter 3 Double Cubes / Timed Boxes: At the beginning of Chapter 3, once you had placed both Cubes on the Pressure Plates to open the horizontally-placed door by taking Cubes from the Timer Boxes, it used to lock the Pressure Plates to Red state, and the door you come down from would close:

• This was originally designed to avoid various bugs in earlier versions of the game. It has now been changed to not do any of these things. You can then continue having fun opening the door / timed boxes as much as you want, before activating the platform with the far-away large button, and no bugs should occur. There will later on be an achievement planned here for some fun action to do, but it’s not implemented yet. This change should be tested for bugs :)

• Chapter 3 Large Button / Fast Platform: The big button to shoot for the fast Transport platform, just after the area mentioned above, has now been changed for you to be able to return to it after reaching the other side of the Transport. It will no longer relocate you. There is no purpose in backtracking here at this time, but this change was simply made to allow curious players to return there safely without encountering weird bugs ;) In addition, there is no longer a relocation if you fall from the transport platform - death is upon you in this case (intended). If you jetpack out of the level bounds, you will no longer relocate at the end of the Transport platform path (it was a skip). If you miss the Transport platform path (by jumping off it), you will need to reach the other side using the Jetpack (it’s possible by landing on the pipes on the wall in front). You cannot backtrack to that area again, once you have approached the Tower area (intended, like before)

• Chapter 3 Musical Hack - Hard of Hearing: In case some players might have missed that in an earlier changelog, or if I forgot to mention it: This puzzle was too hard for most players, and couldn’t find the combination once it was changed to not fail on every mistake (it was only doing so with Hard of Hearing enabled). So, it was changed back to always fail on the first mistake. This was changed because of too many reports of players not finding the solution. It will maybe be re-introduced later, but only if the player selects a harder difficulty setting. Then, the Hard of Hearing option, will override this specific puzzle to keep current behavior even on Hard difficulty (and other potential / future audio puzzles will be adjusted too). So, it means that currently, Hard of Hearing option no longer has any effect (intended).

• Jetpack Balancing: Jetpack regular cooldown before recharging fuel has increased from 0.3s to 0.5s. If Jetpack fuel becomes empty, penalty Jetpack cooldown before recharging has increased from 1s to 1.2s. This is to compensate for the fact that from recent updates, Jetpack is now much faster to provide the first 3s rise - so it became much easier to exploit it and remain for a very long time in-air, without having to worry about Fuel. Zero-G boost remains unaffected by these changes and is faster to recharge, and has no empty penalty cooldown (intended). If this change breaks too many speedrun strats, please report a suggestion with a video of the strat, we’ll see if we can fine tune it to still keep it.

• Relocation: It is fully intended that you cannot drop your current object, or pickup any other item, while the Relocation is active. This is to make the game safer, and avoid the player dropping important objects inside a non-reachable area. It also prevents the player from picking up items that should not be obtainable at this moment in the game. However, trying to pickup an object during relocation would display “Cannot Drop Here”. It now shows the appropriate message.

• Dropping Objects: Changed to have higher velocity from the player, when dropping objects while moving. This reduces the chances to “bump” into the Tablet / Power Core dropped while moving forward. However, when you are moving slowly, or stopped actively requesting movement, velocity transferred is now reduced, to avoid “throwing the dropped object forward” while you are currently stopping (could be irritating). You can still do so if you request to drop while still requesting movement, and stop requesting movement just after the drop request. But this is acceptable, as you are, in fact, moving, so it is natural that the object is “thrown forward”. It simply happens less frequently by mistake.

• Power Cores: Now held a bit further away from the player. This is to avoid bumping too much into it when dropping it while moving. You may still bump it while high-velocity sprints, but that’s acceptable.

• Power Core Slots: Power Cores are now inserted “further away inside” Power Core Slots. This is intended to ensure they don’t “stick out” too much from the front. They are now less problematic to the player, as they will no longer “push the player backwards” when inserting them while being very close to the Power Core Slot. Or when it still happens, it’s only “slightly” (while in Zero-G) and acceptable. In addition, this now makes it harder to “climb on them” while inserted (intended):

• Thresholds: Chapter 2 leaderboard threshold is now 3:00

• Destructible Walls: Broken pieces of Destructible Walls had very fully-black edges & borders. They should now look more normal and react more normally to lighting changes.

Below are mentioned the important level bug fixes:

• Chapter 1: Fixed “pure black” borders on obstacle crates in the Camera room at the end of the Chapter.

• Chapter 1: Fixed OOB when being pushed towards the wall using the moving platform in the room with the very first Camera ever. It should now be harder to get pushed through the wall, and if it happens, the player will die (intended, appropriately squashed).

• Chapter 1: Fixed some “purely black” moving platforms, and some platforms that were being rendered incorrectly and too dark.

• Chapter 2: Fixed a few pipe collisions with the new “Cozy Den” area of the first electrified water room.

• Chapter 2: Fixed various bugs related to the “more freedom” approach of Chapter 2, which included missing objects and not-yet active traps.

• Chapter 2: Fixed a possible trigger skip in the first Shooting Cameras room, when entering, that could cause multiple other bugs. Should not be skippable anymore by “hugging the wall”.

• Chapter 2: “Roof” slow inoffensive smasher will now close down much faster, to prevent you from squeezing through while it’s closing. It will also now only close behind you a bit later, as you get past the second laser field.

• Chapter 2: Fixed OOB by backtracking and seeing the door still open if you skipped a trigger, where you press the initializeRoom.cpp button (thanks Latte).

• Chapter 4: Fixed some cases in which the “Set all Solar Panels in Sunlight” would not accomplish correctly even if the puzzle was completed.

• Chapter 4: Fixed some misplaced buttons in some vents

• Chapter 4: Fixed some missing mines towards the end, that seemed to have been triggered by a ghost :)

• Chapter 4: Fixed a bug when you were standing on a retractable, you could get pushed through the ceiling of the vent. Player character should now be killed, as intended.

• Chapter 4: Some optimizations were made to texts in all Chapters in 0.598. This broke some Timers screens in Chapter 4 that were now displayed too big.

• Chapter 4: Train area: fixed a bug that caused a Power Core to be respawned when removed or re-inserted in the Power Core Slot.

• Chapter 4: Fixed various visual glitches (blinking walls, blinking vent entrances, etc.)

• Chapter 4: Fixed various softlocks in the very last room. Laser Fields in the last room now respawns Power Cores to prevent softlocks.

• Chapter 4: The Processing Center could have strange, deadly respawn points for some checkpoints in specific cases. Should now be fixed.

• Chapter 4: Processing Center giant crushers should now kill the player more often, when squashed against vents, like the one towards generators / maintenance, etc. In addition, lower FPS now has much less chances to push the player to clip into the Bonus area / outside (will die more often instead)

Below are described the important general bug fixes (many more in the full changelog below):

• Buttons: Fixed a rare bug that could cause button states to become invalid and break some areas, thanks to Latte’s discovery

• Pressure Plates: Fixed a Game Error when dropping Power Cores / Tablets on Pressure Plates

• Pressure Plates (Player Activated): Will now correctly push up / down the objects dropped on them, as they move up and down (objects used to clip through them).

• Cameras: A new bug allowed Cameras to revive after being destroyed. This was fun, honestly, should probably have remained - but should be fixed :D

• Vibration: Many fixes were done to gamepad vibration: sudden vibrations stop while using jetpack should now be fixed, and Sprint vibration should now resume correctly after jetpacking. In addition, sprint vibration should be paused while jumping and resume when on the ground again (intended)

• Heal / Damage Effects: Fixed a bug that caused them not to be displayed correctly during Chapter 1, after coming from Chapter 0.

• Hover: Fixed a new bug with latest changes, that caused to fall down rapidly for 1s, if you were to engage Hover instantly after requesting a vertically-upwards Dodge (without prior Jump / Jetpack in the sequence). Hover engagement should feel smooth and working as expected in all combinations.

• Sprint: Fixed bugs that allowed Sprinting in mid-air, if the key was sprint was pending before falling while in crouched stance, or if key was held while jumping in place from a crouched stance.

• Bug Reporting: Fixed a bug that caused the bug reporting window to not react to user input, when reporting a bug in Chapter 1, after coming from Chapter 0.

• Propellers: Fans could be bugged after quick load / quick save and could be incorrectly stopped / turned on when they shouldn’t be after loading. Audio could sometimes continue when they were off.

• Encryption Keys: Changing language should now properly update the Encryption Key’s language instantly.

• Dodge: Fixed exploit which allowed to have infinite Dodge when trigger cutscenes after Dodging (while still in-air). To be tested for potential new bugs related to this fix.

• Mines: A new bug from 0.598 was causing Mines to react as if you had detonated them by direct contact, when you pushed a Power Core to the Mine Beam. This bug could cause you to be damaged from very far away when pushing Power Cores into the beam from a distance. Should now work as intended again.

• Power Cores / Cubes: A new bug allowed the player to drop and pick up Cubes / Power Cores behind areas that shouldn’t allow it (through Laser Fields, vent grids, small gaps, etc). It should now work as intended.

• Power Core Slots: New interaction rework changes introduced a new bug that allowed the insertion of Power Cores / Tablets through walls
• * and windows. Should now be fixed.

• Power Cores: Inserting in Zero-G could provoke Power Cores to flip 180 degrees visually before inserting. This should now be fixed in 99% of cases. It could still happen, but if you manage to, please report the repro steps as visual bug, as it should now be rare and considered minor or nitpick, and would need precise reproduction steps to be fixed. Thanks!

• Saws: Most of the time, Cubes and Power Cores are pushed away correctly by Saws. Only very fast moving saws, while Hyper-Speed is disabled, can cause strange bugs when pushing them. From now on, some very-fast moving saws will selectively respawn Cubes and Power Cores, when Hyper-Speed is disabled.

• Damage: Lasers and Saws will now have the same delay between hits, when Hyper-Speed is ON or OFF. It used to allow longer invincibility time between hits in Hyper-Speed.

• Terminals: Will now react and glitch when shot at with the Taser :)

• Timers: Fixed an exploit that could reset speedrun timers to 0 when quick loading during the final end of chapter fade-out.

• Power Cores: They should no longer go through windows when thrown fast vertically from above (using Hyper-Speed + Dodge downwards, kinda Latte’s trick :) )

• Screenshot Mode: Enabling Screenshot Mode with either the Options menu or F4 Shortcut, will now hide the FPS counter, and display it again it was meant to be ON originally

• Screenshot Mode: Its state is now saved when using the Shortcut, to be kept in sync with the checkbox in the Options

• Audio: A new bug could cause undesired sound effects to be played upon respawning (electrified water sound, for example).

• Audio: Colored Pressure Plate won’t make the “pressed down” sound if you walk on it multiple times while it’s already being pressed down with Hyper-Speed enabled (thanks Latte & ChrisLP!)

• Audio: Fixed a bug that could cause music to play, when music volume was set to 0. This might still occur in some remaining rare cases. Please report as Audio bug, if it occurs again, with as much info as possible on what happened previously, as these are generally very specific.

• Screens: Fixed various bugs with signs / screens, which could cause some screens to not show their associated texts after quickload sometimes, or vice-versa, showing them when they should be OFF. Keep an eye out for new bugs with them, though ;)

• Taser: Fixed a bug that showed “Switch” on the Taser screen, while in fact, aiming at a regular non-interactive Laser.

• Taser: Shooting at buttons would make the shot’s shadows show some incorrect shadowing (lighting was “going through the button”). It is now more accurate. It can still happen in some angles, but it’s now much more rare.

• Menu: Fixed a “tiny crack” in the Main Menu area

• Cables: Collision bugs with the new hanging cables prevented you from shooting through them. Now fixed and working as intended ;)

• Return to Menu: Quick loading while the game is returning to the main menu (after completing Chapter 4) is no longer possible.

• Performance Guide: Button now correctly localized

• Reported Bugs: Many more in-game reported bugs and suggestions implemented.

Thank you for testing! We'll continue working on the various remaining bugs, and re-update over the next few weeks for the next bugs ;)

Hello, dear players!

The new update 0.598 is now LIVE on Steam for Pre-Alpha testers! It includes over 100 reported bug fixes, many gameplay and Quality of Life improvements, and a full Lighting & Static Reflections rework!

Once it has been tested for major issues in Chapter 1 New Game, we will update the Steam Demo.

If there are only minor bugs, or major bugs exclusive to New Game+, or later Chapters than Chapter 1, a hotfix update will be made in 1 or 2 weeks, but the Demo will still be updated before that (if these issues do not impact Chapter 1 New Game).

In this post, we'll talk about the major changes that were done for this 0.598 update!

The reason why players awaiting for Steam keys have still not yet received them, is because we have run out of Steam keys and have reached the authorized limit.

We will be migrating the game to the Steam Playtest system to override this limit. This will likely change the way you access the Pre-Alpha, even for existing Pre-Alpha testers.

We will keep you updated on when and how this migration will take place.

Once this update is stabilized for the first major bugs in Chapter 1 New Game, and the Demo is safely updated on Steam to 0.598, we will take some time to work on a maintenance update for the Pocket Edition. It will include many bug fixes and some first visual improvements.

We'll keep you posted on that, but you can expect a BETA very soon!

First, we'll highlight below the most important new elements from this update.


One of the major changes for this update, that took a long time to implement, is a full rework of the lighting system.

The impact may not be noticeable to all players, but the decision to rework this came from the following reasons:

• G.Round Playtest was very positive, but the most frequent complaint was that the "Flashlight was too bright and hurt the eyes"
• Some areas had lights with too strong intensities, which could be a strain on the eyes as well

As a result, in general, the following changes can be noticed:

• All shaders and textures of the game have been modified, in order to less exaggerate the "lighting highlights" from objects, and have a more neutral rendering. This was the main source of the issue, as having a light source next to an object or flashlight would result in very strong metallic highlights, that could be a strain on the eyes
• Every single light in the game has been manually re-balanced to avoid being too bright
• All textures and shaders are now slightly darker, which means that in general, the game feels darker in many areas (lighting highlights are no longer / much less exaggerated). Many more lights were added to counter-act this in some areas.
• Extremely bright/white metallic highlights are greatly reduced to avoid strain on the eyes (door frames, cube frames, vent walls, etc.). They still remain, to give a metallic feel, but are less exaggerated.
• Grounds and ceiling tiles are now slightly darker, which adds contrast, and reduces the over-bright lighting in many areas.
• White pipes (ones attached to various fans) are now much less reflecting white/bright colors, meaning they will have less situations in which their lighting is "too bright” because of a nearby light. They also now feel more metallic with a real-time light source nearby.

Below are a few screenshots to illustrate these differences mentioned above

Door / Vent Frames | OLD:

0.597: Door and Vent frames were often very white when lit by any lights, especially the flashlight

Door / Vent Frames | NEW:

0.598: Door frame is now still metallic, but is no longer purely white even with flashlight. Bloom is less intense.

Cube Borders | OLD:

0.597: Cube borders / edges were reflecting extremely bright white light

Cube Borders | NEW:

0.598: Cube borders are still highlighted, but more realistically, less exaggeratedly white even with flashlight active

Inside Vents | OLD:

0.597: Vent walls were reflecting a lot of white lighting - could be blinding

Inside Vents | NEW:

0.598: Vent walls are reacting more realistically to reflected light, and less blinding. You can actually see the light source.

In addition to the lighting system rework, here are a few new changes worth noting related to it:

• Shooting a dynamic light (not static lights) with Hyper-Shot will now completely turn it off forever. Later on, a light destruction effect will be added (not yet implemented). In addition, regular shots and Hyper-Shot will now also reduce the associated reflections to make the area significantly darker (as it should, because less light present means less visible reflections).
• Bloom has been reworked to be less intense than before, to avoid overbright areas with some lights. In addition, many lights in all Chapters were changed to be less intense, in order to avoid overbright areas next to them.

Now that the game is less blinding, and more realistic, we will likely add a few more highlights in the future, but they will remain less intense and not on large surfaces.

Another major improvement which the Lighting Rework allowed to achieve, is to significantly reduce the presence of the white reflection circles, that you may have noticed on the grounds and ceilings.

In reality, these need to be somewhat present, to be accurate and provide a metallic feel to surfaces.

However, before this update, they were extremely strong, very large, and present in every single area of the game, and on every object. This could be too disturbing and a strain on the eyes as well.

From this update, the white reflection circles are now:

• No longer present on all surfaces:
• Some grounds/ceilings do not have them, when they are too distracting
• When present, they are significantly smaller than before and less distracting
• They are less intense, which avoids the strain on the eyes
• They have a grain/stained effect, instead of a perfectly white circle
• They are no longer present on many other object types
• The flashlight’s light reflection (or any other light source), will no longer result in a big white circle when reflected in the windows and other objects. It is now a more diffused, larger reflection highlight from the light source across the window, avoiding to be a “too bright white reflection circle”.

Below are a few example comparisons from 0.597 / 0.598 to see the differences with these light circles

OLD:

0.597: Large white reflection circle on the ground

NEW:

0.598: White reflection circle not visible in this area (fully disabled)

OLD:

0.597: Windows reflected light as a concentrated white circle, very strongly

NEW:

0.598: Window reflects light in a more subtle, diffuse manner, and the ground circle is no longer distracting

OLD:

0.597: White reflection circles for 2 lights on the ground in this room, ceiling light reflection is very strong

NEW:

0.598: White reflection circles are not visible anymore, and the ceiling light reflection is less intense

OLD:

0.597: There were 2 strong white reflection circles on the grounds

NEW:

0.598: Here, the 2 reflection circles are intentionally kept, but you can notice they are much less distracting, and have a dirtiness effect instead of a perfect circle, which looks more realistic


You may have noticed that in various Chapters, quite often, Static Reflections could be greatly distorted:

0.597: Example of some inaccurate reflections

This was the result of many optimizations. For this update, all static reflections of all Chapters have been significantly improved, in order to reduce the noticeable inaccuracies, and reduce distortion.

They will now, most of the time, have less visible inaccuracies:

0.598: More subtle, and significantly more accurate reflections on the ground. White reflection circles are also much less distracting (but intentionally still present).

Here's another example of an area with distorted / inaccurate reflections:

0.597: The ground has distorted, inaccurate reflections, and the walls as well

NEW:

0.598: More accurate reflections on the ground, no distortion on the walls

It's important to note that some distortion and inaccuracies are still present, as is the limitation of those static reflections, which are very optimized and can run smoothly even on integrated GPUs.

If you search and analyze, you'll always find inaccuracies / distortions - and that's okay, because they are now considered "good enough" for most areas.

Some areas cannot have good Static Reflections, and cannot be solved - these areas now have less visible Static Reflections, or no static reflections at all.

The only way to have better reflections from this point in these problematic areas, is to use Dynamic Reflections mode.

Please report areas in which even these new Static Reflections are way too distracting, and they will either be improved or made less visible.


Another major visual improvement in 0.598 is the lights' lens flares rework. Many of the existing lights were using a simple "star shape" lens flare effect, which didn't always look good.

All light lens flares have been reworked, then adjusted individually.

These new lens flares now add a visual effect on most lights, of "horizontal line lens flare". The further you are from the light, the more visible the effect is:



They all have been adjusted to avoid being too strong / blinding, but you might still find some that are too intense. Up close, they might still look like “small stars”, which isn’t great, but they still look significantly better than the previous light flares, which were simple circular spherical points.



In addition, it’s now more consistent, as all lights have the same effect (previously, many lights were missing them) - even though it's now more or less visible based on light intensity and light “importance”.




Since the addition and rework of the new Lens Flares - which are now present on all lights - you can now also select adjust how many of them you want:

• None: Will disable all lens flare effects (select this if you don't like them!)
• Partial: Only Dynamic Lights and important objects will have them (Color Packs, Ammo Packs, Lasers, blinking lights, lights which change colors, and some other important lights)
• Full: Every light has the new reworked Lens Flare effect

You can now click on the new Monitor option to change on which monitor the game should be rendered.

Doing so will apply any pending graphics options changes, and instantly change display and update the available resolutions accordingly.

It will always default to maximum resolution after switching. This option is unavailable if you have a single monitor attached:

0.598: New Monitor option

The game will now show less options in resolutions. This is normal, as previously it could list resolutions that your monitor couldn’t handle at the regular refresh rate.

This helps reduce the chances of selecting a resolution that would result in lower framerate. Now, only the resolutions that your screen supports at maximum refresh rate are displayed.

This update includes major changes to the object pickup / interaction system. This will very likely provoke new bugs with certain objects, so it is to be tested!

This rework was done to finally solve some old problems that were considered minor, but are welcome additions.

Most importantly, it solves the following issues:

• Pickup transition of objects is now smoother than before
• Picking up a Cube or Power Core would make the object rotate a lot during pickup, and often rotate the wrong direction (not taking shortest path for rotation). If you drop a cube, then pick it up from the opposite side, it would rotate 180-360° during the pickup transition. This won’t happen anymore. Well, to be precise, it can still happen in some specific cases of Power Cores, but it's much more rare, and will be finalized later.
• Cubes can now be picked up from any of the 4 sides! This helps a lot with the issue above. It will now only significantly rotate if it’s placed on its sides or is upside down, as it should still always require to be standing upright while in your hands (intended)
• Power Cores can now be picked up from any of the 2 sides - they won’t rotate 180° to be picked up anymore!
• Cube Stacking: Does not take longer anymore to decide to stack while Hyper-Speed is enabled
• Cube Stacking: Requesting to crouch while holding a Cube above another one (stacking), no longer creates a Cube vertical jitter glitch
• Crouched Drop: The Cube is now held a bit higher than before while crouched, to allow to still drop the Cubes on Pressure Plates while crouched (would previously clip through the Pressure Plate and would not allow to drop). Maybe some Pressure Plates will need to be adjusted for this to work everywhere as expected - to be tested.
• Crouch: Tablets are now also held slightly lower when crouched and in Zero-G

You can see examples of this new interaction rework in this video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]0.598: New Interaction System Rework Examples


A few important improvements were made to Dodge and some bug fixes as well.

Requesting to Dodge downwards vertically while standing on a breakable window, or while in mid-air, was functional. However, doing the same when trying to get down a horizontally-placed vent, or Dodging down from a Ledge, would always result in a horizontal Dodge if you were on the gound.

This has now changed, in order to allow you to more easily Dodge down vents or from ledges, without the need to jump beforehand.

Dodging while looking downwards, while standing close to a ledge or next to a horizontally-placed vent, will now Dodge vertically downwards - This should make Dodging down through vents below you much easier during Speedruns.

Please note that you must request either no movement, or forward-only movement, otherwise you will Dodge horizontally in the requested lateral directions as usual (intended).

Please also note that this new behavior only works when close to a ledge/gap, and while looking downwards (intended), to avoid unintended downwards dodges in all other situations.

You can see an illustration of these new Dodge changes in this video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]0.598: Dodge improvements examples

This new change now also works with Destructible Windows and Destructible Walls ;)

In addition:

• Initiating a horizontal-only Dodge while standing on a horizontally-placed Fragile Window will no longer break it - you need to Dodge downwards towards it (intended)
• Dodging over a horizontally-placed Fragile Window will no longer break it - you need to Dodge downwards towards it (intended)
• Dodge can now be upgraded up to Level 3!

Chapter 2: From this moment, the player has more freedom and less relocations

Significant changes were made to Chapter 2, in order to add much more freedom once the Jetpack is acquired:

• As you get out of the vertical vent just after the very first electrified water room, you will now be allowed to drop down to get the Upgrade Terminal if you missed it and noticed it from here.
• You will now also be able to go further back to grab other Health / Ammo Packs. Before this update, Relocations would prevent you from doing so (it was intended). These changes should not create new bugs if you go there (to be tested!).
• The first Electrified Water Room has a few small changes: electricity pylons coming down from the pipes, and cables are powering up the water electricity.
• In addition, a new Tablet has been added in Chapter 2. We’ll let you find it :)

NEW: Some tablets are now "enclosed". You’ll see ;) There will be various ways to unlock them in the future.

The previous update already introduced a first version of the Cube-Surfing / Tablet-Surfing prevention system - but it was not working as intended. It now should.

This system should make it much harder to perform Tablet / Cube jumps while the object is in freefall.

It should now push the objects downwards instead of allowing you to jump from them (this push is only done if the Cube is not too close to the ground already).

In addition, it should be harder to pick them up while in the air to chain drop-walk on top of them. You should be able to do this once, then, you probably won’t have the object anymore.

This change might create various new bugs, so it is to be tested.

IMPORTANT: Cube-Surfing prevention system is automatically disabled when Hyper-Speed is enabled. This is considered acceptable, as no Cube-Surfing tricks should allow you to reach/skip anything that you wouldn’t be able to do with Dodge/Hover/Jetpack in NG+ anyways.

Please report any cube-surfing which seems illegal, i.e. areas that couldn’t be reached with Dodge/Hover/Jetpack in NG+, and that is reachable thanks to Cube-Surfing only.

If that situation creates a major issue, then Cube-Surfing might be prevented at all times. But the idea is that Cube-Surfing is only an issue in NG in early Chapters (before Jetpack), so I would like to still allow you to have fun with Cube / Tablet-Surfing in NG+ using Hyper-Speed, if it does not break the game ;)

Flashlight intensity has been reduced. Its radius is now smaller (less spread out across the screen):

0.598: Smaller radius of Flashlight, and more realistic intensity

This is primarily because if it was turned on in not-so-dark areas, it would overly brighten up the scene to a point where reflections of lighting would be painful to the eyes.

This is based on various G.Round players reporting flashlight is way too bright. It is meant to be used in dark areas, in which case it lights up enough - but obviously, it’s now much harder to notice in bright areas (now intended).

In addition to that, the Flashlight system was reworked to:

• Have small sideways movements as you walk, instead of always being perfectly centered
• Now animated for a small, slow flashlight movement when standing still
• Slightly more noticeable latency as player looks around / moves arounds / crouches for a “less robotic” feel of the flashlight movements

A first version of Tooltips for all the options that are not self-explanatory have been added!

They should also work with a keyboard or gamepad, with a slightly longer delay. Translators might want to take a look at the sheet to localize them - Thank you! ;)

After a lot of additional work that was made on supporting more refresh rates and framerates, it was decided to remove the Framerate option.

The reason behind this, is that now that the screen has a proper support for changing the active display, there are various combinations which could result in problematic settings, and many of them could cause screen tearing or other unwanted bugs.

Some other edge cases could cause inaccurate physics / framerate calculations if you were to define specific frame rates.

The best way to handle this, is to allow the game to select the appropriate framerate (always the maximum possible framerate based on your system’s connected monitors).

With these changes, you should now be able to safely play on any monitor, with any resolution, in borderless/fullscreen/window - without any screen tearing, even if you are duplicating your screen or playing on screen set to be a secondary monitor.



You can now start a New Game+ Cycle directly from the Chapters Page. This also allows to quickly view the Cycle Leaderboard directly from the Chapters Page, and stats for the Entire Game:

0.598: New Cycle Button in the Chapters page


A few additional new features worth noting here:

• Screens: Screens will now react to Taser shot and jitter a few moments. Maybe later Hyper-Shot will fully destroy them, just like lights? We’ll see!
• Generators: They will now damage the player if they explode while the player is close to them.
• Cables: Some parts of Chapter 1 have new small hanging cables here and there.
• Screenshot Mode: The F4 key (only while Debug Mode is DISABLED) is now a new default hotkey to toggle Interface ON/OFF to allow easy screenshots without any user interface. This hotkey and Interface option will only be available if the game was completed at least once, in the final release.

Currently, the F4 hotkey for Screenshot Mode is always available in the Pre-Alpha (but not in the public Demo).

Just like Performance Mode, it’s customizable ;) Changing via F4 hotkey should not be saved when the game is closed (in contrast to going to enable / disable Interface in the Options). It’s possible later on the Screenshot Mode will pause the game and allow custom camera placement (but this is for later).

Below are listed the major changes in the game, which are worth noting:

• Switches: Slightly improved required precision to shoot Switches. You could previously shoot slightly next to them, and it would be registered as a successful shot. Collision detection for Switches is now more precise. Please report a Suggestion if you now think it’s too hard to shoot at them, or if this change is annoying / problematic.
• Cubes Pushing Player: It was intended (not a bug) that moving Cubes in mid-air push the character when they collide with him. This was to prevent various bugs, and add a feel of weight to the Cubes. This has now changed, and the player will no longer be pushed around by Cubes that are in mid-air. The player will either block the Cube’s movement, or push them slightly depending on current player velocity. This may create new bugs, but should remove the strange feeling of being “bullied by Cubes” :)
• Cubes Forced Physics Clipping: Pushing Cubes through walls should now be near impossible / very hard to achieve.
• Chapter 1: Restarting Chapter 1, only skipped the “Shortest Distance” text and wake-up cutscene if Speedrun Mode was enabled, or if Cutscenes were disabled. It will now always skip it when Restarting the Chapter. This might be reverted later on, to be still played when restarting Chapter 1, but only when this cutscene is made skippable. The issue with it is that it’s not skippable currently, so that why it may be annoying for testers.
• Chapter 1: The rooms just after the 6984 Code are now taller, which allows for jumping without touching the ceiling, to make it more comfortable while playing. Various changes were made on the way to the Taser Room vent / Bridge button path with big saws (removed the first slope next to the window, new edge that requires a jump on the roof, etc.)
• Chapter 1: The Lasers Cage Room for Cubes after 6984 Code, has changed to make the laser cages look more dangerous (more lasers, crossed lasers, and lasers pillar added), to discourage trying to squeeze through individual lasers without activating the switch. You will no longer survive trying to do so. Added screens, and wires as hints to find the vent, as quite a few new G.Round players were unable to find the vent below to invert the laser's state. The lower-part of the left-side cage (when entering) allows to go through if you block the lasers with a Cube (like previously), but the upper part doesn’t allow to go through (intended).
• Chapter 1: The Orange Structure, that appears only on your way back after acquiring the Taser, will disappear as you will go outside after the “Cracker Room”. This is intended, for both performance and consistency with the fact that this structure strangely appeared out of nowhere and disappeared as well (intended).
• Chapter 1: “Chapter 1” 3D text title is now placed next to the first door in front of the player, when Speedrun Mode is enabled or Cutscenes are disabled. In normal situations, it’s still on the right-side wall. This is to ensure it’s visible in all configurations.
• Chapter 1: The optional area for Recording pickup, behind the breakable window next to 3600 code, is no longer requiring you to complete the deployable platforms puzzle to get back up in New Game+, in case you dodge up trying to skip it (authorized in NG+). In New Game, however, solving this puzzle manually to get back up remains mandatory.
• Chapter 2: First Room with platforms / lasers / crushers: A gap was added between the vertical moving platform (activated by Pressure Plate surrounded by 2 saws) and the top ground towards the Bridge. This gap does not require you to jump (you can simply walk over it). However, if you do so, you will be damaged because of the new laser. In addition, the entire room was made slightly taller, to allow jumping without being stopped by the ceiling, to make it more comfortable (this room was designed a long time ago, when jump was not as high as it is today). There is now a glass window to allow picking up the Taser Ammo from only one direction (intended).

This post is too long and exceeds Steam's character limit. Please check the full list of Changes and Bugfixes on the update changelog on our Official Website.

Hello, dear Fractal Space players!

The latest update 0.597 is now ready for testing, and fixes many of the in-game reported bugs.

However, there were many reported bugs, so only around 40% of them are fixed. We will gradually work through them all and fix over the next few updates.

We focused mostly on the important major bugs for this update.



Here are a couple of changes in this update:

• Power Cores: Interaction ranges to remove / insert Power Cores has been slightly reduced, as you could remove them from very far away.

• Cutscenes: Black top/bottom cutscene bands now remain visible when the game is paused (but behind the menu)

Here's a short list of most important fixes in this update (many more in-game reported bug are will be mentioned on the Discord server):

• Chapter 1: Fixed “Tablet Destroyed” in Chapter 1 after the “I’m not your shrink” lasers room.

• Infinite Jump: Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause the Player to be able to indefinitely continue jumping from the air, after repeatedly jumping from Moving Platforms / Lift buttons surface. Thanks Latte, Chris & Aidan for the videos ;) The infinite flying / jetpack bug is separate than this though, so fixing this bug doesn’t mean the other cases are solved as well yet.

• Power Cores: Latest update that improved Power Core physics collisions, also made it much harder to insert them into Power Core Slots while in Zero-Gravity. This has now been fixed, and it’s easier, as it was before 0.596

• Object Respawns: Latest 0.596 update made many/all respawn systems areas for Power Cores / Cubes to be non-functional. This has been fixed, so respawn areas should be functional correctly again.

• Pressure Plates: When multiple Cubes are placed on a pressed down Pressure Plate, removing 1 of them would deactivate and reactivate the Pressure Plate within 1s. Should now no longer react this way and remain pressed down, when another Cube is already actively pressing the Pressure Plate down, and the other second one is removed.

• Pressure Plates: Fixed a new bug with Pressure Plates, introduced in 0.596, that could cause Cubes to be ejected / catapulted fast from Pressure Plates upon deactivation (return to unpressed red state). Should now behave normally, pushing them gently upwards instead of sending them off flying in the air.

• Zero-G Boost: Fixed a bug that could cause being able to Zero-G boost indefinitely, after a Last Checkpoint load with Speedrun Mode disabled.

• Crouching: Fixed a rare bug that could cause crouch/standing up transition to provoke the Player to die on some moving platforms / lifts.

• Saving: Dying while reloading Taser, and while a save is happening, wouldn’t always save the Taser as full upon loading the save later on. Should now work as expected.

• Reported Bugs: Hundreds more in-game reported bugs and suggestions implemented.

Thank you for testing! We'll continue working on the various remaining bugs, and re-update over the next few weeks for the next bugs ;)

Hello, dear Fractal Space players!

We have worked on a new 0.596 update for Fractal Space on Steam, in order to fix most of the remaining bugs reported by players in 0.595!

Now that this update is live, the Demos will be updated on both Steam & Xbox within the next 7 days, except if players find new major bugs in Chapter 0 or Chapter 1 in New Game. We'll also finally be sending more keys to players that were still waiting for them!

Various balancing changes and dangerous changes were made, so it's a good idea to re-test a few core mechanics that we'll discuss here.

If you encounter a major blocking bug that prevents you from finishing the game, please report in-game with ALT+B ;)

Thank you for testing and reporting bugs!

Since the Demos will be updated soon to 0.596, if you don't have much time to test, you may focus on New Game only, in Chapter 0 & Chapter 1, as the Demo content is limited to this.

Let's talk about a few new additions in this update.

[h2]ACHIEVEMENTS[/h2]
This update now adds a few new Achievements for:

• Death by electrified water
• Destroy first Camera
• Destroy 10 different Cameras
• Stun first Camera
• Stun 10 different Cameras
• Enable Zero-Gravity the first time

Some of these new achievements are currently missing icons, but that’s OK for now ;)

[h2]CHAPTER 0[/h2]
First, the Red Platform now uses an animated red volumetric light beam, and is now taller than before. It also now gradually disappears (intended) when the box is placed.

Here's an image of the new red volumetric light beam in Chapter 0:

Then, a few additional improvements:

• The word "presents" is now more readable in the introduction sequence

• Fixed some potential softlocks in which the player could get stuck in corners. Some might still remain.

[h2]PRESSURE | Plates[/h2]
Pressure Plates have been reworked in order to make them more accurate:

• The slightly higher edges are now taken into account in the Cube’s collisions, and they now need to be placed more to the center to be considered valid:

• They remain tolerant, as to not be frustrating, but a small part on the corner, or too much on the outside, will no longer activate it:

This change, behind the scenes, is a big change: as a precaution, all pressure plates should be tested after this change.


The game already has many systems to ensure jumps are reactive and never ignored (height tolerances, jumps from ledges have tolerance, higher jumps when moving upwards on slopes, etc).

However, a new security system has been added that could be the root cause of some ignored jumps: When the player requests a jump up to 0.15s too early (while in air, just before touching the ground), the game will now still jump as soon as the character touches the ground.



This should fix all the remaining “why didn’t I jump when I asked for it?” situations - except, obviously, if you miscalculate your timing and request to jump too early (0.15s timing precision required from the player, instead of previously frame-perfect).

Prop Flying & Cube Surfing: Still possible, but made much harder to achieve with Power Cores and Cubes.



You’ll be allowed to jump from an airborne Cube / Power Core only once in most cases, as it will be pushed downwards properly (this was added 0.594 but wasn’t always working as expected).

They can act as a single-use temporary platform instead of a chain-cube-surfing exploit. In addition, simply walking on Cubes in-air by repeatedly dropping and grabbing it should be much harder to exploit, as it should now try to prevent you from doing so.


This update includes quite a few notable changes that should be tested too:

• Chapter 0: Show HUD no longer plays any sound (whether the first Objective will be shown or not). This is now intended.

• Chapter 0: Current upgrades display on Pause Menu is now fully hidden in Chapter 0, even if you have started from Chapters page - they should remain hidden in that sequence. They will be restored when you reach Chapter 1.

• Chapter 1: Added a new Checkpoint, when the first Taser Battery is retrieved in the Lockdown room. If you die before retrieving it, it is intended and normal that you see the “wall explosion” moment again. This new Checkpoint is to be tested!

• Chapter 3: Musical hacking minigame is now too hard for some players, as new players are unable to get past it and report “bugs”. This puzzle is now reverted back to the previous logic, that fails upon any mistakes in the code.
  Later on, when the difficulty system will be implemented, the 0.595 logic for this puzzle (fail only on first mistake), will be used when Puzzles Difficulty is set to Hard.

• Chapter 4: Flames corridor before Processing Center: Now damages significantly more, as it should not be survived in most cases of NG. You’ll now need at least 1 Healthpack in your Backpack + Sprint + Dodge + Speed Level 3 + Health Level 3 to survive it consistently. Missing any of the last 2 mentioned upgrades is still theoretically possible (especially at low framerate), but harder to do consistently (not recommended), and will still require you to Sprint + Dodge.

• Power Cores: Fixed inaccurate collisions between Power Cores and pillars in the game. They should now be greatly improved, and collide properly with walls and pillars. This is a dangerous change, though - Power Cores functionality should be tested:

• Switches: Reduced manual interaction range slightly, for all switches in the game. To be tested if any issues occur in specific cases.

• Mines: It was possible to stand on Mines. It’s no longer possible - they will now explode.

• Recordings: Listening to a Recording from the Recordings page will now pause the Menu or Chapter music, and resume it correctly when finished.

• Chapter 2: Fixed visual black shadow bug on an Exit vent.

• Chapter 4: Fixed Solar Panels distorted texture. These Solar Panels will be reworked in the future to look better. This is just a temporary fix.

• Chapter 4: Fixed various Power Core related softlocks and issues with being able to pick them up from too far away

Most of the in-game reported bugs have been fixed, and some suggestions have been implemented:

• Taser: Fixed a case that would result in reloading an invisible Taser, if you were to reload after / while using Scope.

• Taser: Pausing the game while holding the Aim button, would remove the Taser, and quickly show it again upon resume.

• Taser: Pausing the game while Hyper-Shot is currently charging, would continue the charging animation while paused.

• Taser: Pausing the game while charging Hyper-Shot would reset the Hyper-Shot charging to zero.

• Taser: Fixed a case that would cause Module Management to not work properly after using Scope.

• Laser-Equipped Cameras: Depending on your framerate, many hits from the shooting cameras would not properly register. This has been significantly improved, and you should now be more accurately damaged when hit by the Camera’s shots.

• Breakable Walls: Aiming exactly between small bricks of the wall, would not register the shot to destroy it. In addition, the screen will no longer show it’s a breakable wall, once it has been damaged at least once. In addition, remaining flying wall pieces should now happen much less frequently than before.

• Zero-Gravity: Fixed a bug that could cause indefinitely keeping “upwards gravity”, if a Quick Load occurred to load a Zero-G state save, while the game was already transitioning from Normal Gravity to Zero-Gravity. To be tested if this doesn’t provoke new bugs with checkpoints in Zero-G, etc.

• Quick Load: Fixed an exploit that could allow to spam Jump during Quick Load, and resulting in an additional (illegal) jump even while in the air. To be tested, and to verify if this doesn’t introduce new bugs with Quick Load in normal conditions.

• Game Saves: Switching from a Chapter to another would sometimes keep previous run’s quick save and checkpoint autosaves. All these cases should be fixed, and saved data should be cleared properly, thus preventing various exploits.

• Taser Batteries: Saving the game after picking up a Taser Battery, then exiting to main menu, and resuming again, would result in the Taser Battery being respawned and present instantly. It will now correctly not be present, and will only respawn after the intended delay.

• Reported Bugs: Hundreds more in-game reported bugs and suggestions implemented.

Thank you for testing! We'll continue working on the various remaining bugs, and re-update over the next few weeks for the next bugs ;)

Hello dear Fractal Space players! The new 0.595 update is now ready to be tested, and focuses on stabilizing the new changes introduced by 0.594.

In the next few days, we will be sending Steam keys to the players waiting to access the Pre-Alpha up to Chapter 4.

We are still not showing / detailing much the newly added Chapter 0 introduction scene, as it was only limited to Pre-Alpha testers.

This 0.595 update will also be set live for the Steam Demo and Xbox One Demo, provided we do not receive major bug reports in fresh New Game runs in Chapter 1 (bugs in next Chapters, or in New Game+ only, do not impact the Demos).

All players will be able to see the new introduction in the Demo by the end of next week.

Let's take a look at the new changes & improvements of this update!
What's new in this latest update?

[h2]CHAPTER 0 | Improvements[/h2]
A few improvements were made to Chapter 0. If you haven't seen it yet in 0.584, do not read this yet.

• First of all, some players were confused about the child’s voice in the introduction, and thought it was only IG speaking. It is not only IG. It’s a conversation between IG and a different voice (a child). It is now a bit clearer in both audio and subtitles.

• Animated volumetric fog has now been added to Chapter 0! Having fog was always planned in Chapter 0, but considering both performance and complexity, it wasn't ready yet. It should be well optimized already, but is still a heavy addition for some older machines with integrated GPUs.

• Performance Mode keeps the fog enabled, but since Performance Mode is now more effective in Chapter 0 from this update, it should allow older machines to run smoother in this scene. Later on, an option for Fog Quality will be added to reduce its performance impact.

• The volume of the waves is now increased. You should now hear them more on other shores.

[h2]CHAPTER 1 | Dialogs[/h2]
The update 0.594 introduced all-new re-written and re-recorded dialogs for Chapter 1. One major change is that we wanted to try a more feminine voice for IG, and make it feel like her voice was coming through speakers.

However, we understand IG's voice may have been a bit too high-pitched and could feel irritating. We have adjusted them all in order to try and reduce this effect, but still keep a mild "coming from speaker" sensation.

Hopefully, the irritating aspect of her voice should be now reduced. We'll continue working on that to improve it.

In addition, some of the new dialogs are planned to be re-recorded, because even though, we feel most of them are better than their older versions, some still aren't good enough - so you can expect them to be improved across the next few updates (In this update, already a few of them were re-recorded, but not as much as we hoped).

[h2]SHOOTING | Lights[/h2]
The previous update added the ability to shoot at blinking lights to temporarily disable them (small visual enhancement).

From this update, shooting at dynamic lights that do not blink (most of the time, the ones that can change color, for example lights for buttons, Power Core Slots, etc.), would not react. They now will, just like other blinking lights. Static lights do not (and never will) react, as those need to remain on at all times, for optimization purposes.

[h2]SPEED | Upgrade[/h2]
Speed upgrade was already affecting crouched movement speed. However, this update now allows the player to crawl faster than it used to, after upgrading Speed.

[h2]ACHIEVEMENTS[/h2]
Achievements were added for acquiring Hyper-Speed, and breaking walls with Hyper-Shot.

You’ll need to reset your save for Breakable Walls related achievements to work!

What was changed in this update?

[h2]CHAPTER 0 | Changes[/h2]
A few changes were made to Chapter 0. If you haven't seen it yet in 0.584, do not read this yet.

• White light next to the Red Platform has been removed to make it darker and more mysterious. If it’s too dark and hard to get there, it will be restored. Let us know if you want it back ;)

• Water visual edges are now less noticeable than before - they can still be noticed, but should be significantly better.

• Interface option, is now ignored during Chapter 0, and will be applied when reaching Chapter 1 (intended)

• Changes to reduce CPU usage after dropping the box on the red platform. This could help older machines with low-end CPUs during this cutscene, but might also result in longer transition time to Chapter 1. Most players won’t feel any difference.

• Performance Mode should now much further increase performance in Chapter 0, as the lighthouse light will now be disabled as well.

[h2]OTHER | Changes[/h2]

• Health Packs: Standing on a Health Pack, will now pick it up properly even if you don't “move out from it”, if you get injured while still standing on it - or if you now have available space in your Health Backpack (use one from Backpack while currently standing still on it).

If you are full health, standing on a Health Pack, and then enable Hyper-Speed, it will NOT pick it up instantly (intended, to avoid wasting it to heal just 1 HP). It will instead wait for you to disable Hyper-Speed, or be injured externally, to pick it up. These improvements are not applied to Taser Batteries. It will be done for them in the future (less urgent).

• Chapter 3: Shorter relocation to make less visible a visual bug when trying to go around / above the “bigger on the inside door”, just after the Leaf sequence.

• Chapter 3: Optimizations for the area with the musical Hacking minigame have been done (still an expensive area to render, optimizations not finished).

• Chapter 4: The first jetpack path with retractable pillars, will no longer kill the player if he falls slightly lower than the building. It will now relocate instead. In addition, if you try to enter from below, when the laser field isn’t present yet (if you didn’t go through the vent to the bonus area below), it will activate to prevent you from reaching it from outside (as you are meant to use the ground vent from inside).

• Power Core Slots: Slightly improved the self-shadows for those.

• All Chapters: Various optimizations for first-time use of most shaders - should prevent some mini-freezes while playing on older GPUs. If you still have mini-freezes on first usage of game features, it is most likely linked to first audio loadings, on older CPUs.

• Chapter 0: A bug was causing water to be very bright and white, when Chapter 0 was started with Water quality set to Low. Should now be fixed with proper Low quality water.

• Chapter 0: The Beach music would not properly loop and have small “skips” in some cases. Should now be solved and play perfectly.

• Chapter 1: If the box from Chapter 0 was placed too far away from the center of the red platform, it will now fallback closer to the center to avoid having it too close to the player as he wakes up in Chapter 1.

• Chapter 1: Power Core was not always respawned properly when dropped in the Laser Field in front of the time-related keypad for the vent.

• Chapter 2: Recent changes to the Bridge area introduced a new Last Checkpoint softlock when dying on the Bridge (locked in between the double doors). Now fixed.

• Chapter 2: Various static reflections improvements / bugfixes after the “Heads Up” lift, and Bridge areas.

• Chapter 4: Added security system for ending the Sun Control sequence: it should make sure you cannot move the sun at the very last frame when it’s in the correct angle. You could potentially end up with the Power Beam enabled and not all Solar Panels in the sun without this security. To be tested.

• Mouse / Gamepad Rotation: Looking around with mouse or gamepad had a bug that caused it to be framerate dependent. The speed of looking around with gamepad and mouse, should now be fully independent from framerate. Having a mini-freeze can still cause some jittering, but this is hard to fully solve (should be reduced now).

• Camera Smoothing: The smoothing of looking around (enabled by default) is now slightly smoother.

• Mouse / Gamepad Rotation: In addition, when Camera Smoothing is disabled, the camera rotation movement should now feel more reactive and more instantaneous (less input lag), especially at 144+ FPS.

• Moving Platforms: There was still a case in which jump reception on a moving platform could push you a bit too far for 1 frame, offsetting you from the platform at every jump landing on said platform. Should now be fully solved (to be tested with different machines and framerates, though)

• Aim Stabilizer: The automatic movement to aim at the stabilized object, was also framerate dependent, due to a bug. Now fully framerate independent.

• Leaderboards: Exiting Leaderboards page while the active tab was Cycle, and coming back, would result in an in-game critical error. Now fixed.

• Tablets: Current tablet held in hand would become invisible when a cutscene started, but the text would remain in the air, flying. They are meant to be fully hidden during cutscenes, and should now be fully invisible as intended.

• Tablets: A bug would allow picking up the same tablets in NG+ in order to incorrectly increase the completion of the Chapter (Tablets found).

• Crosshair: After or during a cutscene, the crosshair could sometimes be visible again, even if the player currently had an object in his hands (should be hidden in this case)

• Graphics: Changing Graphics Options during a cutscene would provoke unintended flying lights above the player’s hands, and for other various lights in the game during that specific cutscene.

• Chapter 1: Fixed various small lighting and reflections bugs that were reported.

• Catwalk Achievement: Could sometimes be unlocked even if the player walked in water in the first room. Now fixed.

• Reset Save: Improved this system to clearly explain in case the game is not allowed to delete its own save files (antiviruses usually do this). In addition, ensuring that requesting this while the game was already saving, would still successfully reset the save.

• Forced Pause: Fixed a case in which out-of-focus forced PAUSE overlay would remain visible when returning to the Main Menu.

• Film Grain: Could sometimes remain enabled even if it was requested to be disabled. Should now be fixed, but to be tested as there may be edge cases.

• Reported Bugs & Suggestions: Many additional in-game reported bugs have been fixed, and various suggestions have been implemented or planned for future update.

Thank you for testing! We'll continue working on the various remaining bugs, and re-update over the next few weeks for the next bugs ;)