Fractal Space News

We hope you're all doing great since last time! We had quite a lot of updates of the PC version since the last article - I'll try to summarise them all up here!

It took a great amount of time to get this new, exclusive Chapter 4 ready for you to play and test to help improve and find bugs, but it's finally available in an early, experimental version! This new Chapter features quite a lot of new gameplay mechanics - we sincerely hope you'll enjoy them!



It's currently missing objectives and voice-over dialog; even if they are silent, subtitles are displayed to help you understand what to do as you play.

There was a very first release of Chapter 4 a few weeks ago, but it had various bugs and was missing some rooms, that have since then been added in the latest update v0.4.2c_EXP. In addition, the first version wasn't optimized; the latest should now run better on low-end computers.



Even if the ending of Chapter 4 is still missing the latest version, most of Chapter 4's playable content is now here. Chapter 4 will then be available on the main Default branch for all players only once the final ending of the Chapter is implemented. This is estimated to be for the end of May 2019.

I would like to thank all the early testers that have already tested the new Chapter through our official Discord Server!



I'm not going to provide more details of this new Chapter to avoid spoilers :) If you're interested in trying out the current Experimental version of Chapter 4, head to the Official Steam Guide for accessing Experimental Builds!



New Upgrade available, with 3 upgrade levels! You can find it in all Chapters. This new upgrade is called Hover: It allows you to hover in-air for a short duration while you aim your taser, making it easier to shoot while airborne. This upgrade is meant to be functional before picking up the Jetpack, which is why it's a separate system than the Jetpack. However, it does prevent the Jetpack from recharging while in use (intended).

Check out a video of the new Upgrade here!

Health Backpack and Taser Backpack upgrades are now considered Abilities until first unlock to Level 1. Then, can be upgraded to Level 2 and finally, Level 3. Until now, there were only 2 upgrade levels possible for these upgrades - we have now brought it up to 3 in order to carry up to 3 of each item types (Healthpack or Taser Battery).


The game now has a new Display Type option in the Graphics tab: Select either Fullscreen, Borderless or Windowed mode.



We have added a new Depth of Field option in Graphics tab: Enable or Disable the hit blur visual effects (high performance impact on low-end integrated graphics cards)


We have started to rework the sounds of the game! Philip, a good friend of mine and sound designer, is working on his free time to replace gradually the sound effects of the game, and he will help with some new music sound tracks.



We already have quite a few new sounds implemented: taser shooting sounds, heal, healthpack / taser battery pickup, taser reload, ui notifications, and a few more.

More will come over time as he has time to work on them!


In the previous major updates of the game, we had already made big optimization improvements, making the game more playable on low-end computers.



With this latest update, many of the rooms that were still a bit more demanding have now been adjusted, re-structured and optimized to be easier to render on integrated graphics cards.

• Use Dodge ability into it a Fragile Window to blast through it without consuming Taser ammo!
• Many Dodge ability improvements: Smoother + Verticality in dodge movement now more accurate in Zero-Gravity. Dodging temporarily interrupts Jetpack, but Jetpack resumes correctly if Jump button still pressed. You can now dodge while crouched, but will be forced to stand up if dodging up vertically
• Linux builds should now launch properly in both Default and Experimental branches.
• Many level design and visual bugs were fixed
• Fixed: Various Taser aiming laser bugs: misalignment when aiming laser switches from "far away empty space" to touching an object, and sometimes going through objects should now all be fixed. Makes it easier and more precise to aim far away objects.
  
• Changed: If cutscenes are disable OR speedrun mode, first intro of the game is automatically skipped
• Changed: Disabling Cutscenes, OR enabling SpeedRun Mode will always automatically skip the respawn animation
  
• NEW (EXP only): New additional rooms at the end of Chapter 4! The ending is still missing, but the transitional rooms towards the ending of Chapter 4 are now here. It's not very long, and they will be improved a bit since this is a first version, but please tell me if you find any problems or bugs already :)
  
• Changed (EXP only): Optimized more rooms in Chapter 4: A lot of areas should now run fine on integrated graphics cards. Still some rooms are required to be optimized (50% done)
  
• Changed: Optimized Destructible Walls: Some Areas in CH3 were heavy on performance due to presence of 2 or more destructible walls; should now be much better. It is a known issue that the "interior" sides of wall parts have a texture visual bug - ignore it - it will be fixed later.
  
• Changed: Optimized Destructible Windows: Destructible Windows should be much less heavy on performance than before. Still some optimization to do on them once they are broken, that will come later.
  
• Fixed: Dodging into a breakable window during Zero-G will also break it (used to work only in non-Zero-G)
• Many gameplay bugs reported by the Discord Community were fixed. Check the #solved-bugs channel of our Official Discord Server to know more.
• Changed: Smoother Jetpack: Short jetpack impulsions while falling used to create a "jump" - no longer the case. Acceleration is faster after long fall (used to take up to 4 seconds to start going up again)

Now that most of Chapter 4's content is functional, we have the ending of the Chapter to create. This will be done in a future update, as it's going to require a lot of additional work. We will now be focusing on that.


Once we have implemented the ending of Chapter 4, the chapter will be out of Experimental build for all players to test, and we'll start working on Chapter 5, which will be a longer, improved version of the mobile version's Chapter 4.


Currently, the mobile version's updates are on hold as we focus on the PC version. However, we're planning to fix a few additional bugs, and improve performance and quality even more within the next 1 or 2 months.

We are aware you all would love a Level Editor. We still haven't announced anything yet, as we are still researching the possibility of adding a Level Editor in the PC version of Fractal Space.

Yes, we are experimenting, in parallel of creating the ending of the game. However, we will only start focusing on a Level Editor once we are closer to releasing the final version of the PC version.



Once experiments are concluded and if they are successful, we'll officially announce a Level Editor and start a beta-testing phase for the feature. However, at this stage, we still cannot confirm there will be one, and when it will be released.

One thing is sure: if there will be a Level Editor, it will be completed and available to the public only after the story mode is completed, as we are too small a team to work on the game itself and a fully-fledged Level Editor.

Thank you all for playing, for your endless support and for reading! Talk to you soon,

It's been a while since the last Development Update! We've been updating the game through Steam and posted news on our Discord Server, but not here.

We have been (and still in the process of) moving from France to Canada, so it has been very busy around here, and we didn't have much time recently, but here is a summary of the improvements that have been made the past two months!


The builds of the last two months were primarily focusing on many visual improvements and performance optimization; the game now runs much better than before, while looking better as well! These changes were in Experimental Builds for a while, they are now in the default, stable branch for all players.



We've reworked most of the visual effects and post-process effects; Ambient Occlusion, Motion Blur, Antialiasing and Bloom are more realistic, and a lot of work was done on lighting to increase realism and performance, while making all scenes brighter.



Finally, we've added a Performance Guide here to help tweak / customize the Graphics options available in the game's Options page:




Good news for testers! If you encounter a bug or want to make a suggestion, you can now do it directly in-game:

• Press ALT + B shortcut anytime, enter information in the form and click Submit
• Or click the Bug / Suggestion button in the Main or Pause Menu
  

This is very helpful for us, as it will upload the log files, save game files, and screenshot directly with the report! Discord integration will be added later:




This has been requested for a while by our community; a way to help Speedrunners and compare scores; it's now possible from the latest update! You can check out the Speedrun Mode guide here to know more about this mode:



When this mode is enabled, you can press Tab (or Dpad Down) anytime to see your current stats:

• Current time for this level
  
• Current time for entire game
  
• Current best time for this level (if any)
  
• Current best time for entire game (if any)
  
• Current rank for this level (if any)
  
• Current rank for entire game (if any)
  

In addition, Discord Rich Presence will now display total time elapsed for current level, and show if in speedrun mode for current level.

Everything isn't perfect yet; but the system basics are here and we'll add a few missing features soon! Currently, you cannot view the Leaderboards (coming soon), but you can see your best times and rank by selecting Chapters in the Main Menu:




For testers who know the game well and want to speedrun it, you can now completely disable cutscenes using the "Cutscenes" button in the Options menu:



Please note that in any case, even with cutscenes enabled, the timer stops counting seconds during cutscenes, so this option is really just here to smooth out the speedrun experience, and avoid spamming the "skip cutscene" button as you speedrun the game, but won't affect your speedrun score.
 

We have now a brand new version of the Debug Mode, which is more stable and much easier to use. If you want to test out Debug features, get your upgrades back after a Reset Save, or test the new God Mode to reach a specific point, I invite you to check our new Debug Mode guide here:



You'll be able to see all the available commands in the guide ;)

• Fixed: In Chapter 1, the door opened by the pressure plate next to "Go Left, Go Right" labels could be force closed in some cases
  
• Fixed: Using God Mode and reloading the level could create a bug in which collisions were broken
  
• Changed: Timer for speedruns stops when the game is not focused
  
• Changed: If you enable Debug Mode in a level, your end score for the level and entire game will be randomly set to a much higher value. if you do so and want to speedrun the level, you must restart the current Chapter from the beginning.
  
• Fixed: In some cases, a cube on a pressure plate could incorrectly activate linked objects
  
• Change: When cutscenes are disabled, respawn camera animation is now ignored after last checkpoint reload
  

We've also been fixing various bugs on the Android version of the game; Fractal Space FREE and Fractal Space HD. Also, we have finally been able to publish an update for the iOS version, in Beta channel using Testflight! You can subscribe here the test the current iOS Beta v2.0.4!

We'll fix a few more bugs that some testers have already found in the mobile beta version, then this update will be live for all players on iOS and Android before end of December!

Thank you everyone for playing, reading and supporting us! Talk to you next time!

We are happy to announce a partnership with Alienware! Fractal Space supports AlienFX LED lighting technology on Alienware computers! Below is a demo video to show examples of how the lighting reacts in realtime to in-game events:
https://youtu.be/PlZFt6yLQF0
And a few photos of the LED lighting while running the game:



A huge task for us the last 4 weeks has been to focus primarily on the PC version's new Save System for Fractal Space. You can read more about how it works and why it was necessary in our previous news here.

The great news is that the new system is now functional with Chapter 1, 2 and 3! We had testers finding many bugs concerning this feature using Experimental Builds on Steam's Experimental Branch. Thank you again, Adam, Promidius and Fractal Space Fan for your help!

Thanks to extensive testing and many updates, we now have a new save system which saves the entire level state; if you play the game again, you will notice that there are many additional checkpoints, especially in Chapter 3!

As of today's update on Steam, from v0.3.0, everybody testing the Pre-Alpha is now using the new Save System.

IMPORTANT: Previous builds save files are not compatible with the new update; you will lose all current progress. After the update, you must press TAB on game launch to show the main menu, and select to perform a !RESET SAVE! using the button. If you tested latest Experimental Builds, your save should remain compatible.


Currently, Fractal Space: Pocket Edition is not available to download on the Google Play Store; This is TEMPORARY; we need fix a couple of important issues with the game before we can upload an update again.

Lately, we have been focusing on the PC version of the game. We will work on the mobile Pocket Edition to provide an update for the end of June, and it will then be back online where it has always been ;)

This means we hope to finally deliver the update v1.7 of the Pocket Edition around the end of June / beginning of July, in which we'll have many bug fixes, better controls and controls customization, along with a couple of reworked visual 2D and 3D assets to look more like the PC version.

Initial work has started on the PC version's Chapter 4, in parallel of the new Save System! There's still a lot of work, but we will have more time to work on it now that the new Save System is stable :)

We've created about 25-30% of the content for Chapter 4. Below are a couple of screenshots of the work in progress; we won't show you too much, it's best to keep a bit of the surprise :)

We currently have 2 rooms in very early playable stage, and we are prototyping the new gameplay elements that will be introduced during this fourth Chapter:












v0.3.0 is available on default Branch! If you are on Experimental Branch, you can switch back to default.

In-game UI Improvements

• Smaller in general and more readable.
  
• Removed "Data Saved" Notification: Replaced by discreet icon at the bottom right while saving.
  
• Fade in / Fade out on Checkpoint reload and Quick Load
  

New Save System

• Instant Load Last Checkpoint after dying, no longer reloading the scene!
  
• Many more checkpoints in all levels!
  
• QuickSave/QuickLoad Feature with F5/F9! For testing, it is enabled currently. It will be disabled for first run of the final game, as it will be a special end-game upgrade available only for NewGame+
  

General Visuals

• Scenes look now brighter than previous builds. This is to reduce the amount of time spent with Flashlight ON. I'll be happy to have your feedback, as maybe the general increased brightness now looks too pale, and some lights might now be too bright. I didn't have time yet to rework all areas; feel free to post screenshots of too bright/dark areas in #visual-bugs !
  

Debug Mode Change

• Now auto-disabled when a chapter to play is selected from menu loading, and on checkpoint load / dying / quick load. You don't have to think about it anymore when you chose a chapter to play.
  

Steam Controller

• Official profile now uses Right Pad touch for Gyro input. Set to low sensitivity.
  

Below are listed the currently known issues in the build v0.3.0; if you encounter them, there is no need to post a bug report:

• On Show Stats (TAB), current objective sometimes will not be displayed. Will be fixed in later build.
  
• Taser Power might be reset to full capacity when changing to the next Chapter naturally. Will be fixed in a later build.
  
• In Spanish language, a Zero-G related Tutorial might spawn an error. Please send a screenshot if it occurs while you are playing.
  
• Character is sometimes "pushed through walls" instead of being crushed when provoked by a Horizontal Moving Platform.
  
• Performance issues in CH3 in some rooms with Destructible Walls. In addition, before dialog is played, a small freeze can sometimes be felt.
  

If you have a bug or an error that is important, please press F5 to Quick Save, then upload the files FractalSave.dat and Chapter_X_QuickSave.dat in the #general channel of our Discord.

These files are located in: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Haze Games\Fractal Space\

___________________

That's it for today! Join us on our Discord Channel to test the game, post bugs and chat with us!

Charles from Haze Games

There has been no new updates on Steam the past 2 weeks. That's because we have started a new task that's still Work In Progress: reworking the entire game saving / loading system. It is a huge task, and it will still be the current priority for the next three weeks.


 

Since the latest Steam update, the game has reached a point in which Chapter 1, 2 and 3 are now stable; only a few bugs are present, and they are not game-breaking. This means that we could start working on Chapter 4... ? Yes, but we have one big issue we've been pushing back and that is... the current save system.

The current save system is very limited and requires a lot of additional level design work to function properly. It also does not allow to save specific elements that are required by the game's new features, like destroying cameras.

You may have noticed already that in some areas, there aren't many checkpoints. This is caused by the current save system; it would require a big amount of time to setup checkpoints in some specific parts of the level.

For example, in Chapter 3, you must remove 2 Power Cores in order to access the button to enable The Cube. You can potentially either remove Power Core A or Power Core B first. Currently, the game cannot save in between both actions and "remember" which one was removed first. This kind of limitation makes some gameplay situations impossible to create, but also becomes frustrating as when you die in these areas, you are forced to re-play the entire room, which can be long and repetitive.

Because of this inefficient save system, it's very dangerous (from a game design perspective) to create hard and skill-based rooms, because there's a good chance the player will be frustrated of starting the entire room again if this challenge requires 2-3 attempts.

Last but not least, some of the future features of the game, and especially one big and exciting one (that we will talk about in a future development update, when there is more progress), will require this new save system in order to work correctly.


As a summary, the new save system will allow:

• Easier checkpoint system to setup for us, while building levels
  
• We'll be able to place checkpoints to save at anytime, anywhere in the game (without additional work)
  
  
  • This means we can make challenging areas less frustrating
  
  
  
• The game won't have to reload the scene after each death / checkpoint reload
  
  
  
  • Close to instant reload after first loading!
  
  
  
• Previously placed checkpoints will be easily moved or removed
  
• A large amount of level design bugs due to reloading at checkpoint will be fixed

We are currently in the middle of the implementation for this new save system. After a lot of work, late nights, and extensive testing, it's starting to work correctly (yay!), and we can save most objects of Chapter 1. This is a good start, and theoretically the implementation will be easier for Chapter 2 and 3, as most of the work has been done during Chapter 1 implementation.

I hope to deliver an experimental build (with Chapter 1 only) to players who are interested in helping out finding bugs with this new save system. It will be available through Steam using a special code (easy to setup).

When the first players have tested (and broken!) the new system applied to Chapter 1, we will see how stable it is. I'll then fix all the bugs found. When we reach a point where Chapter 1 is stable with this new save system, I can switch to Chapter 2 and 3's new save system implementation. We'll do an experimental build for each Chapter ;)

When all 3 Chapters are stable with this new system, the Pre-Alpha "public" channel will be updated to use it. I hope that this save system will be stable and finished for the entire game, around mid-May, so about 3 weeks from now.


I'll soon make an Experimental Build available for testers through Steam who which to help us find bugs with the new save system. If you're interested in opting in for the Experimental Build, simply notify me in the #general Discord Channel.



Please read and follow the steps written in the very last section "New Save System" of this guide to access the build and start testing ;)

In this Experimental Build, you'll be able to Quick Save (F5) and Quick Load (F9) at anytime (only for testing the new system). This way, you can check if everything is restored to correct states after reloading the save game.

However, the game will now be using the new save system for all checkpoints; upon death, the last checkpoint saved is reloaded (normal behavior).

When, the build is available, I will add a section in the Steam Guide to explain the steps for correct testing of the Experimental Build ;)


We've updated the localization files and font systems to support the following new languages:

• Polish
  
• Hungarian
  
• Italian
  

The game now supports Steam Achievements! They are not yet all implemented, thus won't all be unlocked - but there are quite a few already that you should unlock as you play! We also started the work on Steam Leaderboards; for now scores are being gathered, but there is no way to view them currently. We'll add this in a future update ;)



That's it for today! I hope that in the next Development Update, we will have finished the new save system :)

Hi there, dear Fractal Players! We have a small new update v0.2.1!


From any variant of version v0.2.1, the Steam Controller should now work nicely with Fractal Space. A specific profile has been created with the following specs:

• Improved aiming: Mouse movement using the right trackpad movement
  
• Gyroscopic Controls: Pull Left Trigger fully to enable Gyro for more precise aiming 
  
• UI Navigation: Mouse cursor with right trackpad movement + mouse click with right trackpad button
  
• Left Rear Button: Crouch
  
• Right Rear Button: Jump
  

Various bugs were fixed with the controls remapping window and associated tutorials. It should now work better and be more stable :)


We have a couple of issues that will be fixed for the next update:

• If you can only move the camera, and other inputs are not working correctly, please restart the game. Make sure the Steam Controller is connected before launching the game.
  
• If you have a errors, at start or later, simply enter the pause menu and click "Close" next to the console. Ignore them, they are harmless and will be fixed in next update
  
• You might have errors FormatException: Index (zero based) on display of some tutorials when using the Steam Controller. You can ignore those too.
  
• Please do not use the right trackpad (mouse) in the game's controls remapping window for now - you might have some issues (navigate with left stick or Dpad)

That's all for this small update! Thanks for reading us. Have a great holiday, and Happy Gaming!

Charles from Haze Games