Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy News

Happy new year! Things haven't slowed down since our last Sphinx announcement, and we have been hard at work expanding the font support, with improved glyph sizes and tweaks for all the six languages.

Also, for those wanting even more flexibility, we have made the dialog text scaling entirely configurable (take a look at the TextHudObjScaling option in the changelog below), in case you want to play on your couch without eye strain.

This Monday we added support for points of dynamic omnidirectional light. Which subtly enhance the mood when you open a chest, get a new item or there are fireflies moving nearby.



A bit more subtle is the expanded item rotator, now 1.7 times wider. The golden frame has been centered and the list extended, lending more space for the bigger typography. Previously, the overflowing text only displayed partial item names, causing problems like selecting the correct Portal Amulet while playing in Romance languages.




Many of you probably noticed the two new achievements we added in the middle of December, rewarding exploration. They cover getting all the health Gold Ankh Pieces for Sphinx and all the Onyx Scarabs found across the six mummy visits. The latter will require a new game to work properly, sorry about that.

We have also fixed a few typos, improving the flow of our Italian/Spanish/German translation of the game and achievements. Thanks to contributions by @LetsPlayNintendoITA and @MagicianMana.



You can now plug several gamepads at the same time and switch between them. Having things like joysticks, flight sticks or fight sticks connected while playing won't cause detection problems anymore. Also, Steam Controller users should be able to turn it off and on and still being able to play after idling.

The elephant in the room is contextual mouse/keyboard support. It is still being done, and it turned out to be slightly more complicated than all the other problems we have fixed so far. Hopefully, it will be out soon.

In other news, we are also working on releasing the original editor and tools that Eurocom used to make the game in 2003, so that people can make mods and custom levels. We will also try to include most—if not all—of the unpublished beta content, like the infamous worlds of Akaria and Sakkara, so that the community can fix and improve those incomplete levels, bringing them back to life, 15 years later.


Also, here is the complete cumulative changelog since our last announcement:

Remake all the default fonts for all the languages with more legible counterparts.
Fix the proportions of the amounts column in the artifacts/captured monsters list of the Book of Sphinx. With the new fonts there were some overlapping issues.
Make the game DPI-aware on Windows to hopefully improve the resolution limitations. Keep in mind that higher resolutions will make some parts of the interface unreadable.
Improve the alignment of the Circle/B button text in the contextual HUD to account for the bigger fonts in all the non-English languages.
Minor HUD tweaks.


Switch to a Clang/C2-based compiler on Windows instead of MSVC, this fixes the Abydos monkey-bars regression on Windows and probably several other subtle things.
Enlarge the internal memory pools to avoid crashing in Luxor after talking to Nefertiti and advancing to the banquet hall due to a memory compaction trigger caused by the bigger size of the new fonts.
Fix a few mistakes in the Spanish translation, mainly covering Horus lines in the Uruk intro.


Reduce the Fonts.edb size again from ~3MB to 280KB to try to mitigate the Luxor State Rooms crash after meeting Nefertiti. Export the internal font textures with very reduced resolutions and use the texoverride functionality to load them at their original size externally. Now the Fonts.edb is smaller than the original one, so this should work, in theory, to workaround those pesky EngineX memory limitations.
Minor V-Sync improvements. Switch to «standard» V-Sync if «adaptive» is not supported.

• Added two additional achievements to the game:
  
  • Golden: Get all the 12 Gold Ankhs and reach the maximum health.
    
  • Onyx Completionist: Get the 480 Onyx Scarab collection from the Uruk Castle. I have just tested it by scavenging them across all the six mummy levels and it works. You can spend them normally, no need to keep them all in the inventory/Book of Sphinx. Due to the way skarabs are counted it will require a new game, or at least starting from the first mummy level.
    
• Minor cleanups.
  

• Fix the «Practice Makes Perfect» achievement, unlock it only after improving a valid time.
  
• Correct the description of the «Acrobatic Ease» achievement, replace the 77 in «77 seconds or less» by 78 to make it match the game times.
  
• Use the LB/RB naming scheme in the HUD while using the Xbox controller button prompts, instead of L1/R1.
  
• Strip some superfluous trailing spaces in contextual strings of the French translation that caused text misalignment and artificial padding.
  
• Make the ability/item rotator 1.7 times wider and center the gold framing. The bigger font made it difficult to select the correct Portal God Amulet in some languages.
  
• Fix some additional overlapping/misalignment problems caused by the bigger font, specially in the SWAP strings used while in triple mummy mode.
  
• Improved the gamepad hot-plug mechanism on PC to change the active gamepad used by EngineX, now the player can simultaneously plug various gamepads and switch between them at any given time, the game will always use the one you pressed last. Allow an infinite number of un/plugging combinations instead of the original 8 slots.
  
• Fix a defect in the SDL2 gamepad back-end that caused it to stop looking for valid controllers after finding a connected joystick, wheel or flight stick.
  
• Minor cleanups.
  

• Improvements done to the German translation, courtesy of @MagicianMana.
  

• Implement omnidirectional point lights in the OpenGL back-end. Happy new year!
  
• Let the player configure the text size for the font used in the dialog/cutscene/help window through a TextHudObjScaling key in the [Graphics] section of Sphinx.ini. Example:
  

  
  [Graphics]
  TextHudObjScaling=1.4
  

• Use the texture-based fallback technique by default for particle instancing, let's see if this is more compatible with Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 users.
  
• More German translation fixes and stylistic improvements, courtesy of @MagicianMana.
  
• Make the hardcoded button prompts bigger by default.
  
• Disable RTTI to improve performance, minor cleanups.
  

Happy new year! Things haven't slowed down since our last Sphinx announcement, and we have been hard at work expanding the font support, with improved glyph sizes and tweaks for all the six languages.

Also, for those wanting even more flexibility, we have made the dialog text scaling entirely configurable (take a look at the TextHudObjScaling option in the changelog below), in case you want to play on your couch without eye strain.

This Monday we added support for points of dynamic omnidirectional light. Which subtly enhance the mood when you open a chest, get a new item or there are fireflies moving nearby.



A bit more subtle is the expanded item rotator, now 1.7 times wider. The golden frame has been centered and the list extended, lending more space for the bigger typography. Previously, the overflowing text only displayed partial item names, causing problems like selecting the correct Portal Amulet while playing in Romance languages.




Many of you probably noticed the two new achievements we added in the middle of December, rewarding exploration. They cover getting all the health Gold Ankh Pieces for Sphinx and all the Onyx Scarabs found across the six mummy visits. The latter will require a new game to work properly, sorry about that.

We have also fixed a few typos, improving the flow of our Italian/Spanish/German translation of the game and achievements. Thanks to contributions by @LetsPlayNintendoITA and @MagicianMana.



You can now plug several gamepads at the same time and switch between them. Having things like joysticks, flight sticks or fight sticks connected while playing won't cause detection problems anymore. Also, Steam Controller users should be able to turn it off and on and still being able to play after idling.

The elephant in the room is contextual mouse/keyboard support. It is still being done, and it turned out to be slightly more complicated than all the other problems we have fixed so far. Hopefully, it will be out soon.

In other news, we are also working on releasing the original editor and tools that Eurocom used to make the game in 2003, so that people can make mods and custom levels. We will also try to include most—if not all—of the unpublished beta content, like the infamous worlds of Akaria and Sakkara, so that the community can fix and improve those incomplete levels, bringing them back to life, 15 years later.


Also, here is the complete cumulative changelog since our last announcement:

Remake all the default fonts for all the languages with more legible counterparts.
Fix the proportions of the amounts column in the artifacts/captured monsters list of the Book of Sphinx. With the new fonts there were some overlapping issues.
Make the game DPI-aware on Windows to hopefully improve the resolution limitations. Keep in mind that higher resolutions will make some parts of the interface unreadable.
Improve the alignment of the Circle/B button text in the contextual HUD to account for the bigger fonts in all the non-English languages.
Minor HUD tweaks.


Switch to a Clang/C2-based compiler on Windows instead of MSVC, this fixes the Abydos monkey-bars regression on Windows and probably several other subtle things.
Enlarge the internal memory pools to avoid crashing in Luxor after talking to Nefertiti and advancing to the banquet hall due to a memory compaction trigger caused by the bigger size of the new fonts.
Fix a few mistakes in the Spanish translation, mainly covering Horus lines in the Uruk intro.


Reduce the Fonts.edb size again from ~3MB to 280KB to try to mitigate the Luxor State Rooms crash after meeting Nefertiti. Export the internal font textures with very reduced resolutions and use the texoverride functionality to load them at their original size externally. Now the Fonts.edb is smaller than the original one, so this should work, in theory, to workaround those pesky EngineX memory limitations.
Minor V-Sync improvements. Switch to «standard» V-Sync if «adaptive» is not supported.

• Added two additional achievements to the game:
  
  • Golden: Get all the 12 Gold Ankhs and reach the maximum health.
    
  • Onyx Completionist: Get the 480 Onyx Scarab collection from the Uruk Castle. I have just tested it by scavenging them across all the six mummy levels and it works. You can spend them normally, no need to keep them all in the inventory/Book of Sphinx. Due to the way skarabs are counted it will require a new game, or at least starting from the first mummy level.
    
• Minor cleanups.
  

• Fix the «Practice Makes Perfect» achievement, unlock it only after improving a valid time.
  
• Correct the description of the «Acrobatic Ease» achievement, replace the 77 in «77 seconds or less» by 78 to make it match the game times.
  
• Use the LB/RB naming scheme in the HUD while using the Xbox controller button prompts, instead of L1/R1.
  
• Strip some superfluous trailing spaces in contextual strings of the French translation that caused text misalignment and artificial padding.
  
• Make the ability/item rotator 1.7 times wider and center the gold framing. The bigger font made it difficult to select the correct Portal God Amulet in some languages.
  
• Fix some additional overlapping/misalignment problems caused by the bigger font, specially in the SWAP strings used while in triple mummy mode.
  
• Improved the gamepad hot-plug mechanism on PC to change the active gamepad used by EngineX, now the player can simultaneously plug various gamepads and switch between them at any given time, the game will always use the one you pressed last. Allow an infinite number of un/plugging combinations instead of the original 8 slots.
  
• Fix a defect in the SDL2 gamepad back-end that caused it to stop looking for valid controllers after finding a connected joystick, wheel or flight stick.
  
• Minor cleanups.
  

• Improvements done to the German translation, courtesy of @MagicianMana.
  

• Implement omnidirectional point lights in the OpenGL back-end. Happy new year!
  
• Let the player configure the text size for the font used in the dialog/cutscene/help window through a TextHudObjScaling key in the [Graphics] section of Sphinx.ini. Example:
  

  
  [Graphics]
  TextHudObjScaling=1.4
  

• Use the texture-based fallback technique by default for particle instancing, let's see if this is more compatible with Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 users.
  
• More German translation fixes and stylistic improvements, courtesy of @MagicianMana.
  
• Make the hardcoded button prompts bigger by default.
  
• Disable RTTI to improve performance, minor cleanups.
  

We have just pushed a tentative update that should make things easier on the eyes by improving the glyph sizes for things like the dialog-heavy cutscenes, inventory and HUD. Let us know what you think and provide screenshots in the likely case you find something wonky or misaligned.

If feedback is positive we will do the same thing for the other languages, if not we can roll it back.

Take a look:



Also, here is the complete cumulative changelog since our last announcement:

Add five graphics options (FOV, particles, anisotropic filtering, multisampling, vertical sync) and one sound option (reverb toggle) in the pause menu of the remaining languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian and Korean).
Better alignment for the graphics options of the English/Italian main menu.


Localize the "degrees" suffix in the Field of View display of the graphics menu.
Attempt to fix the occasionally black dynamic object, due to invalid ambient light.
Always use the highest quality 3D model for each character and object by disabling LODs. Should reduce the geometry pop-in and improve graphical fidelity.
More grammatical corrections done to the Italian translation by @LetsPlayNintendoITA.
Tell the player how to close the version information window by pressing F10, in case it was opened by mistake.
Minor cleanups.


First attempt at fixing the root of the problem that causes the pure black objects and the black screen/teleport issues.
Add colours to some of the new toggleable graphics options (Particles/V-Sync).
More in-deep Italian translation fixes courtesy of @LetsPlayNintendoITA.
Minor cleanups.


Second attempt at fixing the occasional player/NPC teleport floating point NaN issue. The black objects issue (due to invalid ambient light coloring) at least seems to be fixed.
Fix several logic defects with the help of a static analyzer.
Turn down the debug switches a notch.


Replaced the existing title screen logos with HQ versions that combine original sources ("SPHINX") with remastered subtitles ("and the cursed mummy" in various languages).
Minor cosmetic changes done to the oxygen bubble indicator.
Minor tweaks done to the Italian translation for consistency.


Let the player skip most of the cutscenes in the PC port by pressing the Back/Select button, this is now enabled by default. Dedicated to speedrunners like Remi and turothking.
Add a HQ version of the Book of Sphinx section pointer texture, repainted with added details that didn't exist before.
Changed the localized versions of some achievement names to match with their original in-game names.
Minor fixes.


Add a bigger, more legible default font for the English version of the game, this is a tentative change to test the waters and get some feedback before doing it for other languages. It works in the ability rotator, HUD, cutscene teletyper, Book of Sphinx and several other places.
Check that either the {GL_ARB_multisample + GL_ARB_texture_multisample + GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample} extensions or OpenGL 3.2 are available before enabling multi-sampling and alpha-to-coverage. This should mitigate possible black screens and opaque objects that normally should have cutout transparency, as seen in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1500126447388546792/
Minor fixes.


Thanks for reading!

PS: The much-needed bindable mouse/keyboard control rework is underway.

We have just pushed a tentative update that should make things easier on the eyes by improving the glyph sizes for things like the dialog-heavy cutscenes, inventory and HUD. Let us know what you think and provide screenshots in the likely case you find something wonky or misaligned.

If feedback is positive we will do the same thing for the other languages, if not we can roll it back.

Take a look:



Also, here is the complete cumulative changelog since our last announcement:

Add five graphics options (FOV, particles, anisotropic filtering, multisampling, vertical sync) and one sound option (reverb toggle) in the pause menu of the remaining languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian and Korean).
Better alignment for the graphics options of the English/Italian main menu.


Localize the "degrees" suffix in the Field of View display of the graphics menu.
Attempt to fix the occasionally black dynamic object, due to invalid ambient light.
Always use the highest quality 3D model for each character and object by disabling LODs. Should reduce the geometry pop-in and improve graphical fidelity.
More grammatical corrections done to the Italian translation by @LetsPlayNintendoITA.
Tell the player how to close the version information window by pressing F10, in case it was opened by mistake.
Minor cleanups.


First attempt at fixing the root of the problem that causes the pure black objects and the black screen/teleport issues.
Add colours to some of the new toggleable graphics options (Particles/V-Sync).
More in-deep Italian translation fixes courtesy of @LetsPlayNintendoITA.
Minor cleanups.


Second attempt at fixing the occasional player/NPC teleport floating point NaN issue. The black objects issue (due to invalid ambient light coloring) at least seems to be fixed.
Fix several logic defects with the help of a static analyzer.
Turn down the debug switches a notch.


Replaced the existing title screen logos with HQ versions that combine original sources ("SPHINX") with remastered subtitles ("and the cursed mummy" in various languages).
Minor cosmetic changes done to the oxygen bubble indicator.
Minor tweaks done to the Italian translation for consistency.


Let the player skip most of the cutscenes in the PC port by pressing the Back/Select button, this is now enabled by default. Dedicated to speedrunners like Remi and turothking.
Add a HQ version of the Book of Sphinx section pointer texture, repainted with added details that didn't exist before.
Changed the localized versions of some achievement names to match with their original in-game names.
Minor fixes.


Add a bigger, more legible default font for the English version of the game, this is a tentative change to test the waters and get some feedback before doing it for other languages. It works in the ability rotator, HUD, cutscene teletyper, Book of Sphinx and several other places.
Check that either the {GL_ARB_multisample + GL_ARB_texture_multisample + GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample} extensions or OpenGL 3.2 are available before enabling multi-sampling and alpha-to-coverage. This should mitigate possible black screens and opaque objects that normally should have cutout transparency, as seen in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1500126447388546792/
Minor fixes.


Thanks for reading!

PS: The much-needed bindable mouse/keyboard control rework is underway.

As many of you already know, we have been busy since launch day updating the game with several stability fixes and gameplay improvements as they were reported by the community.

Now that the game is in much better shape we will start implementing some of the most commonly requested things: scalable text during cutscenes and remappable keyboard controls.

We know that some of you don't read the discussions section, so here is the cumulative changelog to date:

• Fixed an off-by-one bug in the resolution selector that skipped one entry while going to the left, never showing the biggest resolution unless pressing the right key again.
  
• Don't show a message-box showing GLSL compilation errors when the compilation was successful but the error string was not zero; this only happened under the Intel OpenGL driver.
  
• Mitigate the occasional sound-looping problem. A more comprehensive fix is in the works.
  
• Added a workaround for people reporting black screens and framebuffer issues: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412207725225/#c1483235412209019801
  
• Minor cleanups.
  

• Rename «Antialiasing» to «Anisotropic Filtering» to make it less confusing.
  
• Make the windowed mode bigger by default.
  
• Add five graphics options (FOV, particles, anisotropic filtering, multisampling, vertical sync) and one sound option (reverb toggle) in the English version of the pause menu. More languages coming up.
  
• Don't make the window resizable to avoid possible sprite misalignment issues. Disable Alt+Enter for the same reason.
  
• Lock the mouse within the window bounds while the game is in the foreground.
  
• Added a configuration key to let the player choose PlayStation-style button prompts: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412206736841/#c1483235412208681177
  
• Added a Sphinx.png icon file for the Linux version of the game, it will be used in the game window.
  
• Move the Sphinx.ini configuration file to the following folder, ensuring that settings are always writable:
  
  Windows: %appdata%\Sphinx\Sphinx.ini
  macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Sphinx/Sphinx.ini
  Linux: ~/.local/share/Sphinx/Sphinx.ini
  
  

• Fix the Crocodile Scales Steam achievement.
  
• Make it so that players can also unlock the Crocodile Scales achievement if they beat their best time in the Heliopolis swimming course. Avoiding having to start a new game just for this.
  

• Second attempt at fixing the sound loop problem.
  

• Fix the Harvest Moon achievement. Trigger it the last time the farmer gives you what they found while digging in the farm instead of when marking the last plot of land. All the achievements should now be obtainable.
  
• Fix the occasional sound loop problem once and for all. Tested in the Anubis wall entrance and verified various times. But one can never be completely sure.
  
• Always disable the original 'fake' widescreen option on load, as the option will be inaccessible very soon.
  
• Don't store the music/sound effect volume, gamepad rumble or camera axis inversion options in each savegame. Instead make them global across the game and persistent in the Sphinx.ini configuration file, just like the new graphics settings.
  
• Minor cleanups.
  

Improve validation in the OpenAL 3D sound back-end, should mitigate the segfaults on Linux. Thanks to the GOG Linux Team (and THQ Nordic) for providing a backtrace and core dump.
Set the correct depth mode every frame to ensure that overlays like MSI Afterburner don't get away with their bad behavior, should fix the reversed depth issues where Sphinx appeared with googly eyes: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1486613649677545884/
Add a custom DT_RUNPATH attribute in the Linux version and include the two fallback libraries we depend on, ensuring that the game loads even if they aren't installed system-wide, a bit like a mini Steam Runtime. This will be used as a basis for the GOG version.


Fix and thoroughly test Steam achievements on Linux. The Linux version should be on the same level as the other versions now. Feature parity for the three platforms.
Fix the Italian translation of «Game Over», as seen in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412217494149/
Translate all the new menu options to Italian, as reported in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1486613649677940682/#c3183345000077535623 (Kudos to @LetsPlayNintendoITA)


Workaround the reversed depth bug introduced by the injected commands of RTSS (Riva Tuner Statistics Server), just re-enable depth testing at the start of every frame. See this thread for more info: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/3183345176707449697/
Make DoubleChannelPL2-type sounds appear to come from the 3D center. Fixes the funky, quickly-panning sounds from the moving metal bars that surround the death ray hole heading to the main Uruk Castle hall and several other places.
Fix a typo in the Italian script: "T prego, trova mia moglie!" should be "Ti prego" (I beg you). See this Steam Community thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412217494149/#c3183345176707080476


Fix the monkey bars traversal issue in the Temple Trials of the Uruk Islands. Sphinx was bound to fall every time at the L intersection. The level geometry has been tweaked. See this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412217187622/#c1483235412217385225
Lower the OpenGL context requirements to 3.0+ Core Profile and GLSL 1.30. macOS still has a minimum of OpenGL 3.2+ Core Profile and GLSL 1.50. Players with standard GL 3 cards should now be able to launch the game on Windows and Linux. At least I hope so.
More grammatical corrections done to the Italian translation by @LetsPlayNintendoITA (gendering problems mainly). Kudos to him, these were pretty bad too.