This is totally random but, if you want to try something totally different check out our new game The Backrooms
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1825160/The_Backrooms/

This wasn't exactly planned but when working on Episode II there were a number of new features we were trying to implement surrounding dozens of AI perceptions operating in a single environment


And of course dynamic water


A single player horror survival game that places you in a maze of rooms and hallways with terrifying creatures. Run through a dozen unique rooms to stay alive as long as possible... and maybe even escape. Keep your camcorder ready to capture some of the horrors of The Backrooms. Maybe the next unfortunate soul will find the recordings... for better or worse.

This patch focuses on bringing some of the effects and systems like footprints, trails, volumetric effects and lighting, and IK kinematics used in CAT Interstellar: Episode II
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1572950/CAT_Interstellar_Episode_II


The Androids have all been upgraded to be a little more... life-like... with a series of features like IK kinematics and better animations.

• They've been optimized to allow for dozens of them to be interacting on screen at once.
  
  
• The trail system tracks a distance of 500 meters and changes how fast it fills in based on the type of weather.
  
  
• Oh, and you might experience some different weather on the surface.
  
  
  
• This is not a content update but there is additional dialog and some environmental enhancements...
  

There is currently an issue with the Linux build affecting Chapter 6. I have isolated the issue between the AI aspect of the new cat character and a potential memory leak associated with the collision particles in the ice caverns. Resolving this issue is the #1 priority right now and I will update this post immediately once it’s fixed.


The Androids have been dreaming. We gave them consciousness as a tool and they had the audacity to embrace it. Like watching a child l reach toward a hot stove the Androids have no idea what kind of pain and terror they'll face.


Update Sep 21: Disabled visual line trace of DOGVI

This is the first major content update in a while.
I've been primarily focusing on CAT Interstellar: Episode II but development has taken a little longer than I expected so I thought I would push some more content to the original in the mean time. So,

The Cat character in Chapter 5 has been totally revamped from the ground up. New meshes, new logic, and even a new fur system.

• Chapter 0 has an additional level select terminal so you don't have to walk the full length on each play through.
  
• Chapter 1 has a substantial increase in destructible meshes and dynamic objects.
  
  
• Chapter 2 has some new lighting and sky features with more to come.
  
• Chapter 3 has new lighting and additional destructible meshes.
  
  
• Chapter 4 has a number of optimizations to the destructible aspects and increased texture resolutions.
  
• Chapter 5 has a number of improvements to the level flow and an extended ending.

As far as CAT Interstellar: Episode II, I have some wild stuff to show but you'll have to wait a little bit longer. A lot of these features will absolutely make their way into Episode I.


If you want to support this series even more follow us on Twitter @IonizedGames and share this update. We have a ton more stuff coming down the pipe.
As always, thank you to everyone for supporting this game. I'm so excited about this future of CAT Interstellar!


with regards to beta branches - The default branch has all the content from the _ue5 and beta branches currently. If you want faster updates and don't mind the occasional bug or two I would recommend using the beta branch "beta".

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684710/CAT_Interstellar_Recast/

So, CAT Interstellar: Recast was an effort to explore and learn all the new features in Unreal Engine 5 in the hope of using it for Episode II...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1572950/CAT_Interstellar_Episode_II

I don't want to say this effort was a mistake (it wasn't) but:

• It took a lot longer than expected due to bugs in the early access version of the engine
  
• Ultimately doesn't offer as solid of a build even with increased system specs
  
• Higher system specs exclude a large part of the community

What it does offer is some incredible leaps in visual fidelity using tech like nanite meshes and lumen global illumination.



I am glad we did this little side project though because I was ~100% convinced this was the right approach to take with Episode II. What I should have known and what became obvious over the development cycle was increasing the minimum requirements to support nanite and lumen excludes a large portion of the supports of the first game.



I had a lot of pride in how optimized the first episode was but with this new tech there is less room for optimizations and a higher barrier of entry. Even without the current chip shortage I don't want to leave behind a portion of the fan base simply for flashier graphics.

• The newest update has further optimizations to the Chaos system.
  
• More detail added to Cave and Glacier environment
  
• Additional story content
  
• Stability improvements
  
• Dialog
  
• Speech bubbles enabled by default

One more positive thing this little deviation did was give me some serious practice at managing an indie project along with a full time job and a family. The remastered version took about 6 months to complete while working around my other obligations. I got a lot better at formulating a development plan and executing tasks given little pockets of time here and there.


Episode II is planned to release to Early Access this summer with the first 2 chapters relatively complete and access to the mechanics of the later game like rovers and... I don't want to give too much away but it's gonna be awesome!


As always, Thank You for your support and feedback. Now here's a clip of the next generation of game developers.



All owners of this application can access CAT Interstellar: Recast FOR FREE by going into your Steam library >> Right clicking CAT Interstellar >> Select Properties >> BETAS >> Selecting UE_5 from the drop down.

We commissioned Ionut, the original designer of DOG, to make an ultra hi-poly version that leveraged Unreal Engine 5's nanite mesh Technology. The resulting model is about 500,000 polygons and is a huge improvement in terms of fidelity and detail.




We were able to implement PULSAR BYTES Cine Cam as a screenshot tool so players have a lot more control over their in-game screenshots.

You can see the screenshot tool in action here:


Even though this game has substantially higher minimum requires over the first -

I think it's still important to keep optimizing where we can.

• We've reworked a number of the lighting components that should improve Chapters 1 and 5.
  
• We've made some improvements to the Chaos Physics System. This allows us increased collision resolution and almost double the number of debris while still hitting 120fps.
  
• We've also totally reworked the navigation system which will prevent a number of navigation issues.

Screenshot Competition

What you've all been waiting for!!!
The winners will get an in-game achievement added based around the screenshot they took, a free Steam gift key, and a call out on the next update! The two categories are:
The Surface - best screenshot capturing Chapter 2: The Surface's environment
DOG VII - Best screenshot capturing the new DOG model

This Event is open to everyone that ones the game. Additionally, I'll be offering 20 free game keys on our twitter account. We've also invited invited the the members of Beautiful Screenshot Lovers to take part in this.

All you have to do is post your screenshots to the community page. Good Luck!

We are accepting screenshots of the base game but highly encourage you to use the _ue5 beta branch with enhanced features and environments or the separate application available here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684710/CAT_Interstellar_Recast/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684710/CAT_Interstellar_Recast/


We're going to be live streaming development of the upgraded CAT Interstellar. Working on the cave environment.


We're gonna stream here for an hour then switch to RECAR

CAT Interstellar: Recast
is now available on the Steam store.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684710/CAT_Interstellar_Recast/

https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561198165474704

We'll be doing broadcasts for most of the day so feel free to drop in even if it's just to tell us what we did wrong. Seriously, If you've followed this game for any amount of time you know that I genuinely appreciate your feedback even if it's bad and respond to everything.... You could also just say "Hi". I don't want to tell you what to do.

Otherwise, we'll be highlighting some of the development that went into the revamped version of the game like:











If you have any technical questions on how we did anything definitely ask those too.

As always,
It's a blast interacting with the community and that wouldn't be possible if... you know... there wasn't a community so thank you.

So, you might have noticed we launched a Steam store for a Remastered version of CAT Interstellar using the Unreal Engine 5. I will now attempt to explain

• Why we decided to remaster the original
  
• Improvements made to the game
  
• Why we made it a separate application
  
• How owners of the original can get access before release

This post goes out to GraVE. Feel free to comment on any of his three separate threads but please spread them equally.
Remastered? Episode 2 ?
Remastered? Episode 2 ?
Remastered? Episode 2 ?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684710/CAT_Interstellar_Remastered

Why Waste Your Time Remastering Trash. We want Episode II

Remastering the first game was definitely not in the original plan... but then Unreal Engine 5 was launched. We knew the sequel, CAT Interstellar: Episode II, would almost certainly be developed using the new engine and the original CAT Interstellar game was a perfect candidate for learning this engine. Even though I made a whole post about why it wasn't worth it to fix/update/add to the original game I now stand before you... writing this announcement. There are some areas and events where I thought the story could be a laid out a little better. Not changed but just presented better. Remastering the game gave us a unique opportunity to do that while also working on the sequel.

Improvements

This is gonna blow your mind. We've totally revamped The Surface level using Unreal Engine 5's nanite technology. There are billions of polygons on this level now and we're using photoscanned models:




We've even added our own scans to the environment:


And posted them for you to download too
https://sketchfab.com/models/c8cdc54f321645d2bc673f8a385cebde/embed?ui_theme=dark

It's not just visual fidelity either... We've added some more interactive elements as well to further bring the world to life.


We plan to do this type of photoscanned high fidelity upgrade to the cave system (Chapter 4) and Signals (Chapter 5). Beyond that, you'll immediately notice some additional content and android dialog. Again, THE STORY HAS NOT CHANGED, but based on the loads of feedback which can be summarized as:


We've decided to flush out a few areas with more story content and to tie up loose ends. As an example the ending of Signals will be extended to make it clear the cat doesn't die... In fact it is actually on the same "team" as the humans... Speaking of the cat... one of the barrier we faced when updating the game was our cat animations sucked and with UE4.16 the fur plugin we relied on was abandoned. Alas, a new day has risen and like the Phoenix... something, something, THE NEW CAT MODEL IS GREAT!

The GD thing can even swim! So expect much more verticality on that level.

ALSO!!!

We recommisioned the original artist who made DOG VI to make an updated DOG VII with no poly limits and it's turning out great! Here's a sneak peak:

Why a Separate Application

THE MONEY!!!!

Just kidding. I've made it pretty clear we make very little money with these games. Maybe next time I'll remaster a ghost hunter multiplayer game....
Anyway, the real reason is because CAT Interstellar is a finished, published game on multiple platforms. UE5 only supports 64-bit windows and we can't/won't drop support for 32-bit Windows, Linux, and PS4 for what is essentially a glorified learning project. As to where the profits to this game will go - we never post about donations and charity work until afterwards so you're just gonna have to wait and find out.

It isn't just OS support that's an issue either. The barrier of entry for UE5 is a GTX 1070 MINIMUM. We painstakingly optimized the crap out of the original game to get 1080p@30fps on a GTX 750ti and 1080p@60fps on a GTX 970. Again, we can't/won't alienate that portion of the player base that's already purchased the game. Which brings me to the last, and possibly most important portion of this post...

How to Access the New Version

Go to your Steam library >> Right click CAT Interstellar >> "Select Properties..." >> Select "BETAS" >> Select the _ue5 branch >> download >> play game

This branch will be updated along with the Remastered application so everyone who owns the original game will have access to the remastered version.

How you can help

Also, this is likely the first game published using the Unreal Engine so any feedback on your frame rate and graphics card would be incredibly helpful.

P.S. I need the Fancy Pants, Super Star, Mind Blow, Heartwarming awards to win them all.

Sergeant Gary Freeman, your leave request has been denied indefinitely. I’m sure you expected as much but I hate to be the one to officially decline it. I understand you have a son back on Earth but we require your immediate attention. We do not yet know all the details that led to the collapse of our Martian SkyLift network nor the likelihood of the complete planetary destruction of Mars. Stabilizing the degradation of the plant and analyzing the potential of orbital debris impacting Earth has been rightfully allocated to the Army’s Corp of Engineers. Our responsibilities, as usual, are more direct in nature.


The catalyst that started the destruction of our SkyLift network began in Sector 17 and cascaded around the equator of the planet. Military Intelligence has discovered several unusual work orders and taskings in that sector but, most notably, the commission of a DOG-IV unit to assist an android in recovering some surveyor drones. Given these drones are disposable by design we think this may have been a cover. We cannot yet prove the Androids purposefully caused this catastrophe, but tensions have been rising and this incident certainly ensures a large portion of forces will be occupied.

Your mission is to travel to Sector 17, deactivate Android 42 and recover his data log. As you know your Marine Transporter has a planetary drop pod capable to breaching the debris fields and reaching the planet’s surface. Extraction will be a more difficult task but, as you’re reading this message, the U.N.S.S. Gabrielle is positioning herself in orbit around Mars. The Gabrielle has a dozen ships capable of surface extractions.


Given your current orbit, the drop pod can only get you as close as Sector 15. From there you’ll have to navigate through the B.13 Passage. Your power armor should make traversing the terrain possible. We’re also looking for any equipment cache in the area. A pair of jump-jets would be very useful.


That passage terminates at a water processing plant. Assuming the emergency power is still on you’ll be able to take the elevator down to Turing Canyon. There’s an unmanned Marine outpost there where you’ll be able to get whatever weapons and equipment you think you’ll need. I’m not sure if the Osprey VTOL is practical since the massive increase in meteor strikes but the Puma Rover should get you to the Power-Station at the edge of Sector 17. This is the last location we Android 42 accessed the network.

Your mission is to find Android 42.

P.S. Thanks to the 40+ people that made it to the live stream last night! That was a lot more fun than I expected. I'll keep the store front open to anyone who wants to stream until the sale is over. We'll definitely do it again with some key drops (I'll make sure the chat works this time ːsteamhappyː ). To the other 7.5 billion people who couldn't make it... you're dead to me.

I've never done one of these live streams before but we have to gin up support somehow so... Let's do a Face Reveal!?!

Join The Discord Server!!!