DYSMANTLE News

Update time! In this update you'll be entering deeper into Narrows Vale, avoiding trapping pits, investigating Sanctuary Farm, and melting some iron at Pike's Steel Manufacturing to fix that broken Link Tower. You will be using your very own Smelter -- one which you've built with your own greasy hands.

This new update finally introduces one of the missing major features: building, Do note that this is the initial implementation of Builder's Kit. We will be fine tuning everything and opening up more build categories in the upcoming updates. But it's finally here!

[h2]Highlights[/h2]

[h3]Builder's Kit[/h3]

You can unlock Builder's Kit invention only in Narrows Vale at the moment. Building itself is pretty simple. Just equip Builder's Kit, pick an object to build, and place it in any allowed position. We'll be unlocking more building categories and improving the tool in the future. You'll be eventually building more machines, furniture, decorations, simple walls, and defensive structures like turrets. But that is not available yet. At the moment you can simply build Smelters and Saw Mills to enhance your Iron, Steel, Titanium, and wood production capabilities.

You can build pretty freely anywhere you want, but we may need to tweak this too when you guys figure out how to completely break the game... again.



[h3]Accessibility Options[/h3]

We're adding new options tab for accessibility. Not sure how you feel about the emojis being there, but it seemed a better place for them than the game play tab. We'll probably be adding more options as we get better sense of what you need and want.



[h3]Borderless Fullscreen Window[/h3]

Sadly, the previous update with exclusive full screen tweaks broke the game for some people. The game screen could just freeze with sounds and music still playing. We're very sorry for this. Luckily many of you were kind enough to help us debug through it and come up with a solution.

So everything should be better now as we've moved to a borderless fullscreen window implementation which should work a lot nicer in all situations. Alt-tabbing is now swift and pleasant. The performance should be better than before as you don't have to run the game in your desktop resolution to take advantage of this. Let us know if you experience any issues with the new code!

[h2]Change Log[/h2]

[h3]ADDED[/h3]
- Access to new area 'Narrows Vale' (Part II, west side)
- Builder's Kit (accessible in Narrows Vale near the smelter).
- New Skill: Builder.
- Level Cap is now 28.
- New craftable: Material Magnet (level 27).
- Accessibility Options tab.
- Accessibility Option for color blind mode.
- Accessibility Option for reduced blinking effects.
- Accessibility Option for trypophobia.
- Reset to Defaults buttons for Options screen.

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]
- Gamepad cursor focus is moved to Cook button after clicking already cooked recipe button to automatically fill in the ingredients.
- Default UI scale is smaller on PC.
- Save slots now show player level, play time, and location.
- Clearer wording on both Checkpoint Terminal quests.
- Improved player's melee targeting. Target locked enemy is now always the primary target when attacking.
- Fullscreen mode is now always borderless fullscreen window.
- Link Tower scanner now shows all monsters in the area (even those you haven't discovered yet).
- Buffed "Magnifying Glass" with an extra effect.
- Improved invention tree readability and changed some invention positions. (Already unlocked inventions will stay so)
- Thumb up emoji not shown in inventory screen if emojis are disabled.
- Outdoorsman outfit only equippable at a campfire.

[h3]FIXED[/h3]
- Bug report screenshot with low detail settings.
- Graphical glitch when toggling shadows in graphics options.
- Graphics options presets affect all the settings.
- Skill change text now only shows effect for the skill and its previous levels.
- Hundreds of issues relating to floating objects and graphical glitches.
- Decals shake with the object actors when they're hit.
- Decals deleted when walls turn into rubble.
- Quest tab now correctly hides tracking checkboxes for completed quests.
- Incorrect descriptive text relating to some items and inventions.
- No longer showing invention number bubble for recipes you need to first find on the island (like katana).
- Opening the map does not reset filters anymore.




The island development is progressing in schedule so far. We're still on track for Summer 2021 release. As we've mentioned in the Early Access box, we will also be increasing the game price at least in some regions. This will happen likely before the next update. (One (rather embarrassing) reason for this is that our EUR price was actually lower than we planned, but another one is simply that the game is moving towards the full release and is slowly missing less and less features / game area.)

So what's up next? The next area after this one will be a completely new biome located south of Narrows Vale.



We're hoping this to be available in two weeks as well. Meanwhile, remember to consider joining our Discord Server #dysmantle to hear occasional feature leaks and whatnot: https://discord.gg/bhJds2R .

Thank you for all the dysmantling!

🛠️

New update is now here! This one expands the game area in the south by opening up the Checkpoint Rho. Among other things, you'll be checking in to Blue Ponds Motel, kicking tires at Fincher's Auto Salvage, and wondering when you'll be able to get to that broken Narrows Vale Link Tower (spoiler: in the next update). And yes, that's a katana in the update banner above.

As usual, to avoid more spoilers I'm not going to say much about the area itself, but I do want to make clear that this is Part I of the new area Narrows Vale. The next part will be available in the next update. So expect to see some under development barriers there.

In terms of overall progress, I'd say the island is roughly 40% complete now, and we're making good progress with the next areas as well.




[h2]Update Highlights[/h2]

[h3]Modifier Categories[/h3]

Modifiers are now listed in more user friendly manner in the inventory screen and organized under offense, defense, and misc categories.




[h3]Sharper Textures[/h3]

You may have noticed the game build size increase with the latest update. The biggest reason is that we now have 4x sharper textures included. You can finally drool after that pizza billboard in sharp 4k. (Spoiler: we also have a new non-pizza billboard now, and more coming soon.)




[h3]Quest HUD[/h3]

Quest HUD items can now be minimized and maximized by clicking the icon with mouse. This interaction is not available with gamepads, but you can of course toggle tracked quests in the pause menu Quests tab.




[h3]New Monster[/h3]

There's a new monster type/variant added in the new area. Don't want to spoil it, but here's an anonymous teaser.






Here's the full change log:

[h3]ADDED[/h3]
- Access to new area 'Narrows Vale' (Part I, east side)
- More radio messages to replace static.
- Level Cap is now 27.
- Graphics options / resolution screen has display index selection.
- Showing Material names when hovering mouse over game screen material slots (mouse only).
- Showing Material names in Carried Materials screen when focus is over a material slot.
- Showing Material names in Collection Material grid.
- Quest HUD items can be minimized by clicking the icon with mouse.
- All Modifiers listed in categories in Inventory screen.
- Audio option for pausing sounds and music when app window is out of focus.
- Gameplay option for pausing the game when app window is out of focus.
- Audio option for playing copyrighted music (streamers can use this to avoid having to clear the copyrights for videos).
- New player character remarks for different situations
- Higher resolution textures.

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]
- A message is now played when the player tries to destroy an object that is required for a quest.
- The player is now able to throw the monster lure.
- Modifiers now listed in more compact form.
- Another slight change to "Tomb of Timing".
- Low health indicator isn't triggered as easily.
- Skills now shown in the order picked in Collection.

[h3]FIXED[/h3]
- Saving options controller type selection. (Note that both controller types can still be used simultaneously.)
- Fixed cases where quest related objects would become indestructible for good after completing the quest and quitting the game.
- Showing player hit points bar properly when resuming game.
- Alt-tab crash fix and improved fullscreen mode handling.
- Several cases of positions in "Canaveral" where people were getting stuck.
- Some rare cases where the player could still trigger miniboss cutscenes after initiating the fight.




The next update will bring you the second part of Narrows Vale. You can expect it to be available within two weeks. Stay tuned!

🚗

After a very nice and refreshing holiday break, we're back on track with the updates! And this is a big one.

Version 0.6.6 brings access to a new area called ⚓Frore. It's linked to Hibernus (beyond checkpoint Kappa), and can be entered now that most of those blue transparent dev barries have been removed. Note that there are still some of them left blocking the way.

I don't want to spoil anything, so no comments on the area itself -- besides that it does include The Ark, which is NOT accessible yet. #soon(ish) #ark #ark-life

All in all this means we're almost half way there in terms of the island surface area. Not everything in those areas is accessible, so wouldn't dare to say we're actually half finished. But making steady progress I think.




As usual, the level cap has been increased +1. You'll be able to craft yourself a fancy new Winter Coat and pick up one new Skill if your XP is already hanging around the cap area.

We've also done one scary thing that we should have done in the first Early Access release... The game binaries are now 64-bit only. This fixes tons of issues and greatly improves the game stability on some systems. Looking at (opt-in) Steam hardware stats, nobody is playing this on 32-bit Windows, but if you are, please contact us at dysmantle [at] 10tons.com and we'll work something out. Meanwhile, you should be able to continue playing the previous build available in 'previous_default' branch.

[h2]Highlights[/h2]

There's also tons of other tweaks and improvements. Highlighting a few of them here.

[h3]Monster Radar[/h3]

After the previous Link Tower Ascension update some of you have had problems locating the remaining monsters in the areas. You'll hopefully appreciate the new Scanning functionality which shows the remaining monsters on the map.




[h3]Unified Options[/h3]

The new Unified Options screen now combines the several options screen (Gameplay, Graphics, Controls Audio) under one life-embracing experience.



[h3]Depth of Field[/h3]

There's also a new experimental Depth of Field effect, which works kinda nicely most of the time. However, if you find it distracting, you can always disable it in Graphics options. We'll probably be tweaking this further.



[h3]Material Stacks[/h3]

Some of you tricksters have tried dropping your whole Orange Storage Box worth of materials on ground at the same spot and... it doesn't end well ːsteamfacepalmː So materials are now dropped in stacks (if you drop more than 5 at the same time). This makes the save file smaller and reduces the amount of actors (in game objects) on screen, which helps performance-wise. This feature isn't very photogenic.

[h3]Map Point of Interest Filters[/h3]

Then there's a brand new Map Filters menu which can be used to customize your view on map Point of Interests. That should be helpful when trying to find all Fishing spots for example. You can also hide all completed icons which makes the remaining items pop out better.



[h3]Tree Stumps & Wall Rubble[/h3]

There's also one rather embarrassing thing that we've noticed. We've spent MONTHS and MONTHS designing and carefully crafting the island, and now you guys are suddenly just smashing everything to pieces. The problem is that the environment looks a lot less attractive with all the objects gone, so we're now making sure parts of that stuff remains after the destruction. For example we added some wall rubble before, and we've now added tree stumps - nature's own gravestones.



[h3]Localization Preparation[/h3]

Behind the scenes we're also preparing for the upcoming localization process. But alas, the support for the Turkish language is not coming any time soon. But I think we've been able to solve all the issues of localizing this sort of open world game, so all is well in those regards.



But I think that's more than enough feature highlighting. Here's the full change log:

[h2]ADDED[/h2]
- Access to new area 'Frore'.
- Level Cap is now 26.
- New craftable: Winter Coat.
- In-game cutscene skip support (not all cutscenes support this yet). Hold down mouse buttons, space, or gamepad A/B to skip.
- Map point of interest filters menu.
- Depth of Field effect (simple approximation) in Graphical Options.
- Showing completed Quests in pause menu.
- Added Unified Options menu.
- Added Gameplay Option to remove Material Tracking Notification Animation bouncing.
- Showing farmed plants on world map and minimap.
- Key combo Control+U shows/hides UI. Useful for grabbing screenshots without the UI elements.
- Slightly reduced miniboss colliders sizes, so they should fit through narrow doorways.
- Material stacks. Dropping bigger amounts of materials results in tighter stacks and doesn't bloat the save file.
- Link Tower now has 'Scan Monsters' button option after you've installed the Radar. It shows remaining monster locations.
- Cut down trees now leave tree stumps.

[h2]CHANGED[/h2]
- Timed Chests are not hidden from the map after opened to make it easier to track them.
- Made the "Hibernus" tomb a bit easier.
- Made "Hedgefield" tower area slightly smaller so all enemies needed for ascension are encounterable.
- Nerfed "Dentured Fangs".
- Enemies don't just blindly follow animals any more if there are other targets.
- Fishing quest now takes previously fished fishes into account.
- Now using 64-bit binaries.
- Slight wording change to "Endless Trash" to avoid confusion re: digging.

[h2]FIXED[/h2]
- Crash that could happen when opening up the map.
- Window cursor being offset after starting the game or changing display config.
- Critical hit damage increases are now calculated correctly.
- Oddly placed broken wall pieces are now also destroyed when nearby walls get destroyed.
- A bug that permanently prevented materials being collected.
- Shadow cast rendering bug.
- Various crash bugs that happened when playing longer sessions.
- Ruthless Pitcher should not respawn any more when ascending.
- No longer possible to change secondary item while aiming a throwable.
- Sleeping now increases the related medal progression correctly.
- Fixes to option saving.
- Tab key doesn't change pause menu tabs if bound to inventory or map.
- Usual fixes to graphical bugs and glitches.
- UI optimizations for screens with lots of items.



After these two northern areas, the next area update will grant access beyond the southern Wall Checkpoint Rho. You can expect this area to be available in the next three weeks. We may also drop another feature/fix/feedback update before that, but we'll see. The next area after that is also being worked on, (spoiler: it's a new environment type), so you should expect that to be released very soon after the next one.

⚓

The new version 0.6.5 is now available in the main default branch! It contains tons of smaller fixes and tweaks, but there's also a couple of more noticeable features.

You can now Level Up the Link Towers by killing all monsters in the area and installing a special Transmitter. This will restore the monsters to the area. They come back tougher but with better rewards. You can repeat this cycle two times (per tower) in this version. There's a new Medal Goal for leveling up the towers as well. Leveling up will also unlock some more functionality in the future, but more on that later.



The minimap now shows the remaining monster count per area. After you've installed the Scanner Radar to the Link Tower that is.

The work is also well under way on the next BIGGER update. We're simultaneously working on TWO new areas at the moment. We've expanded the team a bit (+1), so hopefully we'll get these updates out a bit faster in the future. So more stuff is coming, but probably one new area at a time.

Back to this update at hand. Another feature I want to highlight here is the manual aiming for grenades, throwing knives, and such.



It works simply by holding down the throw button and moving the mouse cursor / pushing gamepad right stick. In addition to the obvious benefit here, this will also enable some new kinds of puzzles in the future.

You can also re-enter completed tombs now. This will be useful in the future updates where you can go in and check those big stone tablets in case you've already completed the tomb.

Full change list follows! (Well, mostly full, we're not including all the minor tweaks and fixes in this list.)



[h2]ADDED[/h2]
- Link Towers can be Leveled Up by installing a proper Transmitter. Leveling up brings the monsters back as tougher versions with better rewards.
- Medal for leveling up Link Towers.
- Level Cap is now 25.
- Throwable items can be aimed by long pressing the throw button (default Mouse Right or Gamepad Y).
- New Link Tower Transmitter Scanner Radar which shows area monster status in minimap and Link Tower screen.
- New trinket: Denture Fangs.
- Mana Shard material.
- Turning animations for the player.
- Completed tombs can be re-entered.
- Sawmill UI Stop button.
- Broken walls show some rubble.

[h2]CHANGED[/h2]
- Lowered lumber requirements for bridge repair (20 -> 12).
- Some object damage masks.
- Tweaked quest xp rewards to be in line with level xp requirements (mostly raised).
- Spirit deers should no longer run away after finishing their path and are more clear in indicating the correct spot.
- Tweaked material drops from trees.
- Low health indicator (red blinking) slowly becomes less intrusive after 3 seconds of taking hit.
- Can now cook on diner stoves (If they haven't been dismantled yet, obviously).

[h2]FIXED[/h2]
- Graphical glitches.
- Fixed dead body placement around chasms.
- Navigation keys do not close inventory or map tabs anymore.
- Crash in Collection when clicking an unexpected button.
- Enemies can now properly walk on fixed bridges.
- Enemies now try to avoid pits like they avoid falling into water.
- Tapping throw button quickly does not create extra grenades anymore.
- Likely fix for a bug where enemies could get stuck into doors.
- Doors show correct health bars, destroying a door does not destroy its doorway.
- Sawmill fuel amount is now shown correctly.



DYSMANTLE launch and this month(ish) following the launch has exceeded our expectations on so many levels. It has been amazing to show you guys what we've been working on for almost three years now. This has been a nice ending for 2020. So I can't stress this enough, but thank you everyone for your kind words, critique, improvement suggestions, reporting bugs, and... everything.

As discussed in the previous post, we're just about to embark on Xmas holidays. We'll be getting back to the remote offices early January 2021 -- probably around Day 7, 2021. So you could maybe expect the next update mid-January at earliest. I know it's not... optimal that there's such a long break between the updates, but the next one should probably maybe perhaps be a bigger one (access to a new area etc). We'll keep you posted on this, and hopefully make a bit more concrete post about our future update roadmap in early 2021.

Note that we're probably not going to be very responsive during the holidays. We may check out Discord once in a while, but mostly we're trying to do that recharging thing everyone is talking about.

Happy Holidays!

🗼

PS. Remember this one? Happy holidays to you too, Rudolf! This is not in the game, so do not try and look for it :D

The first update expanding the game area is finally here! It's called Beyond Checkpoint Kappa, and as some of you might guess, it expands the game area in the northwest corner of the current game area by giving you means to get past of that barely guarded checkpoint. You'll find a new quest there. It should explain everything. So.. Good luck?

I don't want to say too much about this update as I don't want to spoil anything, but you will be fixing stuff, visiting a diner, going through trash, making some woodwork, and maybe finding some more hints about the 👑Crown Station.





[h2]ADDED[/h2]
- Access to the new area beyond the Checkpoint Kappa.
- Level Cap is now 24.
- New invention: Rare Compressor
- Players can now rebind Map and Inventory buttons.
- Option to take 5 materials out of the storage box at once.
- Locked doors now show the required key / lockpick in the Point of Interest Info screen.
- New material 'Lumber'.
- Sawmill.

[h2]CHANGED[/h2]
- Doors are now connected with doorways and both get destroyed at the same time.
- Lonely doors without any nearby walls can always be destroyed.
- Scrapper monster AI tweaks and buffs to movement speed.
- Puker monster AI tweaks.
- Taking materials out of the storage box now costs XP based on the material rarity level.
- The material previously known as 'Wood' is now 'Scrap Wood'.
- The material previously known as 'Timber' is now 'Wood'.
- Arrows on road signs now show regardless of emoji option.

[h2]FIXED[/h2]
- A bug that allowed attacking through door.
- Path planning crash bug.
- Minimap north marker position is now resolution independent.
- Destroyed Locked Doors and Radios are now marked as completed POIs. If you had already destroyed a door/radio before this update, click the lock POI info in Collection to unlock it.
- Exploding barrels now work while situated on top of "wooden piers".
- Eating carried materials now actually uses the buttons it shows tooltips for.
- Digged up Treasures now show up in Collection properly.
- Item triggering quest Buried Treasures now can't be destroyed until you have taken the quest.

This update is available in the default branch now, so it has probably been already stealthily updated for you by those tiny people working inside the steam engine. That's how I imagine it works, but I'm no tech expert.

If you find major issues with any new update, note that you can go back to the previous build by changing your branch to 'previous_default'. However, this time it's probably not a good idea with this update as there are slight changes in the save format. The Timber material is missing, and it could cause some weirdness here and there.

A few words about the future updates. We're hoping to push out one new update within the next two weeks, and then take a two week Xmas holiday to recharge our 🔋batteries, and get back ⚡electrocuted early 2021. But more on that later!

🥶