Last Saturday Aryn Rozelle (who has been starring as Aryn Vance, the main protagonist of STARDROP) got married. I sadly wasn't able to attend due to how far apart we live. Ever since she took the part, she and all the others that are a part of the project, have been a blessing to work with. I was ecstatic when I learned she was going to get married to the love of her life, Alvin and they finally have joined so many others before them in this sacred bond of matrimony. I can speak from experience when I say only a few can be so lucky.

The funny thing is, however, that little over a week ago I asked her when the big day was and she told me it was next Saturday. It was late and I was like "Oh wow, that's so awesome I wish you all the best!" and I went to bed, as it was like 4 or 5 in the morning.

The next day I woke up and was like O_o. Hold on, next Saturday is the 14th of April... You see, I got married myself 6 years ago. It's pretty insane that out of all the days she could've chosen, she picked the exact same date as my own. I held out notifying her about this, as I didn't want her to feel like her day would be any less special. I know her well enough that this wouldn't be the case, but it was more of a matter of courtesy if anything else.





I'm incredibly excited for where the new chapter is headed. I've made and am still in the middle of adding in a few more alterations to the original story. In essence nothing has changed, what I usually do is add smaller details on top of what I already planned out and I'm still making some key decisions regarding these smaller details.



But there's already some proper progress and I think the new levels attain the level of quality I have been honing for quite some time. I'm also happy to report that even as I'm not able to work as I used to, I can still work in a solid manner and I haven't experienced any real changes in pace. which was a little bit of a concern.

I might also be able to get me a proper eGPU case very soon!!!




I've set up a Discord server for quite some time now but I never really mentioned it. I wanted to make up for that fact and bring it to your attention right here.

I'm online pretty much whenever I'mat my PC. I'm usually working so I don't initiate much chats, however I do drop some WIP screens on there before I show them in an update and of course I'm always there if anyone has questions or a problem. It's the easiest way to get ion touch with me and the other team members. Aryn and Robert, for instance, are in there. :)

And that wraps up this update. Things are going steady but I can't really estimate a release date just yet. The rate development is going it shouldn't be too long but I hope this update has shown some nice progress and I can't wait to get the chapter done and share it with all of you guys.

Please take care and I'll report back once I have something to, well, report.

Sincerely,
Joure & TeamV

It's been a while since the last update and I've been wanting to post something for a while now but a lot has been going on so I'll do my best to recap what has happened the past few months.

So a new update came out, is it chapter 4? Nope, sorry. I've updated a number of the older levels, adding new objects and small events which should add more stuff to discover while exploring.

Most of these contain smaller details that are meant to add more depth to the universe. Some Easter eggs and other things to discover as I mentioned above.

As I mentioned in the previous news post I took a break. After working on the game for so long it started to take a toll on me and the opportunity came up for me and my family to go back to Holland where my mom and brother lives and Spain where my dad resides these days.

I haven't seen them for about 4 years at that point so I had to go. I stayed there for about three months and it was something we really needed. On top of that my mom and dad haven't seen my daughter as well. The last time they saw her she was only one year old.

I tried to work on my laptop but it wasn't up to the task. I did some prototyping for chapter 4 and it's paying off. I wanted to do something a tad different from what you've guys been doing since the start of the game while making it work due to the ending of chapter 3 and I think you'll like it. It's nothing drastic and it won't last for too long but that's all I want to say about that.

It's coming. When I got back I was met with a PC that wouldn't work anymore. It would boot up for a bit and then it would blue-screen on me. I tried several fixes but nothing worked. It seems my motherboard just gave up.

With no money to replace my desktop PC (The game makes me able to survive but not much beyond that, plus the whole trip was exhausting my wallet as well (I have no regrets) but there was a blessing.

Someone at Intel reached out to the winners of the Level Up Contest, us included, and they sent me a NUC Skull Canyon. The overall specs blew my old PC out of the water, except for the GPU. It's good enough for me to continue work and this truly saved my life regarding being able to actually continue work on STARDROP. Because I'm paranoid when it comes to data I luckily backed up pretty much all the important work files on several HDD's including my external one, so I was able to pick right up where I left off.

If it wasn't for Intel I would have a really hard time trying to work on my laptop. I am currently saving up some cash to get a eGPU case so I can use my Galax Geforce 1060 GPU which should fix my graphical woes.

On top of that one of my homies, Dec Doyle from Digital CyberCherries stepped in and set up a SVN server to host my project files, so that was an incredible weight off my shoulders.

So while I don't have that much to show just yet I am finally back into action with STARDROP and in full dev mode once again. I have a lot more to announce soon but will have to wait until it's all settled and official.

Well, I have a new screenshot to show of one of the new areas I'm currently working on.



Lastly before I go I want to say sorry for the lack of updates and perhaps giving the impression the game might be abandoned or something. This will never happen. I have too big a stake in this to give up. The game, story and everything means too much to me. A lot of myself is in this so I hope this should reassure anyone who might be in doubt.

So I hope this cleared up some confusions etc, and also sorry if anyone thought this was a chapter update. I'll do my best to get that done ASAP.

Again thank you all for your support. A few new let's plays popped up and have been enjoying them quite a great deal.

So, I'll stop right here and get back to work. I have a lot of cool stuff planned and I really want, no ,need to get the game finished.

So please have some more patience and thank you for understanding and all your support for allowing me to get this far. :)

Sincerely,
Joure & TeamV

It's been a while since the last update and I've been wanting to post something for a while now but a lot has been going on so I'll do my best to recap what has happened the past few months.

So a new update came out, is it chapter 4? Nope, sorry. I've updated a number of the older levels, adding new objects and small events which should add more stuff to discover while exploring.

Most of these contain smaller details that are meant to add more depth to the universe. Some Easter eggs and other things to discover as I mentioned above.

As I mentioned in the previous news post I took a break. After working on the game for so long it started to take a toll on me and the opportunity came up for me and my family to go back to Holland where my mom and brother lives and Spain where my dad resides these days.

I haven't seen them for about 4 years at that point so I had to go. I stayed there for about three months and it was something we really needed. On top of that my mom and dad haven't seen my daughter as well. The last time they saw her she was only one year old.

I tried to work on my laptop but it wasn't up to the task. I did some prototyping for chapter 4 and it's paying off. I wanted to do something a tad different from what you've guys been doing since the start of the game while making it work due to the ending of chapter 3 and I think you'll like it. It's nothing drastic and it won't last for too long but that's all I want to say about that.

It's coming. When I got back I was met with a PC that wouldn't work anymore. It would boot up for a bit and then it would blue-screen on me. I tried several fixes but nothing worked. It seems my motherboard just gave up.

With no money to replace my desktop PC (The game makes me able to survive but not much beyond that, plus the whole trip was exhausting my wallet as well (I have no regrets) but there was a blessing.

Someone at Intel reached out to the winners of the Level Up Contest, us included, and they sent me a NUC Skull Canyon. The overall specs blew my old PC out of the water, except for the GPU. It's good enough for me to continue work and this truly saved my life regarding being able to actually continue work on STARDROP. Because I'm paranoid when it comes to data I luckily backed up pretty much all the important work files on several HDD's including my external one, so I was able to pick right up where I left off.

If it wasn't for Intel I would have a really hard time trying to work on my laptop. I am currently saving up some cash to get a eGPU case so I can use my Galax Geforce 1060 GPU which should fix my graphical woes.

On top of that one of my homies, Dec Doyle from Digital CyberCherries stepped in and set up a SVN server to host my project files, so that was an incredible weight off my shoulders.

So while I don't have that much to show just yet I am finally back into action with STARDROP and in full dev mode once again. I have a lot more to announce soon but will have to wait until it's all settled and official.

Well, I have a new screenshot to show of one of the new areas I'm currently working on.



Lastly before I go I want to say sorry for the lack of updates and perhaps giving the impression the game might be abandoned or something. This will never happen. I have too big a stake in this to give up. The game, story and everything means too much to me. A lot of myself is in this so I hope this should reassure anyone who might be in doubt.

So I hope this cleared up some confusions etc, and also sorry if anyone thought this was a chapter update. I'll do my best to get that done ASAP.

Again thank you all for your support. A few new let's plays popped up and have been enjoying them quite a great deal.

So, I'll stop right here and get back to work. I have a lot of cool stuff planned and I really want, no ,need to get the game finished.

So please have some more patience and thank you for understanding and all your support for allowing me to get this far. :)

Sincerely,
Joure & TeamV

So, initially I planned to do a full public content update however as I am currently away from home, my laptop seems to have issues packaging the game for 32 Bit. I really wanted to share something around Christmas so I figured that I will release this update under our public developer branch.

If you want to play the updated game then make sure you set the game to: Public Dev Branch. You can read how to opt into the public dev branch HERE

So yeah, time for another content update, sort of. I'll move the update to the public branch when I'm sure there aren't any issues. This means that the base game / default public branch will remain unchanged for now.

The reason for this update, well, while I was working on the new chapter I also went back and went through chapter one and two and basically replaced / updated and added content. I have and will continue to alter early game content and see what I can add to it that helps build the game's universe.

I also didn't want Christmas and New Year's pass by without having anything to show for it, so here you go. While it's not a new chapter I do hope it's something some of you will enjoy. :)

While in general the changes aren't incredibly significant and in one or two cases not yet finished I wanted to put this out and see what the reactions are.

I added a number of easter egss regarding my kitty game as well as expanding on things that were already there. For instance I always wanted to have a cat on board the ship, a very big nod to Alien but it also adds a little bit of character to the game. So I want to introduce to you: Rascal. A small kitten that you'll find in a few areas throughout the game. :)

Little Rascal


I also added an NPC that doesn't do very much except looking at Aryn if she comes into his view. I guess we can call him, Mike, the security guard. He's stationed at the STARDOCKS and he's there make the game feel just a tad less lonely.

Hi Mike, or is it Ted? Maybe it's Luke, oh well, he's a friendly fella and very loyal to his duty !!!


I also went through Deck one on board the SD-01 and I added some more stuff to Aryn's apartment. You might even miss some of the changes because they're simply meant to add more detail and depth to the areas.

I will continue to add more little things like these throughout development and most likely before chapter 4 is released. Oh, and you can also check out the revamped UI of computer interfaces. I have a ton of stuff planned for the final chapters I just need time to get it all done.

Purdy?


All these changes should be LIVE right now. So those who have been looking for an excuse to replay the game, this might be a good time but keep in mind, more new stuff will be added over time. ;)

Joure & Team V

P.S. I also fixed the fruit bowl. I know it was driving some of you bananas....

So, initially I planned to do a full public content update however as I am currently away from home, my laptop seems to have issues packaging the game for 32 Bit. I really wanted to share something around Christmas so I figured that I will release this update under our public developer branch.

If you want to play the updated game then make sure you set the game to: Public Dev Branch. You can read how to opt into the public dev branch HERE

So yeah, time for another content update, sort of. I'll move the update to the public branch when I'm sure there aren't any issues. This means that the base game / default public branch will remain unchanged for now.

The reason for this update, well, while I was working on the new chapter I also went back and went through chapter one and two and basically replaced / updated and added content. I have and will continue to alter early game content and see what I can add to it that helps build the game's universe.

I also didn't want Christmas and New Year's pass by without having anything to show for it, so here you go. While it's not a new chapter I do hope it's something some of you will enjoy. :)

While in general the changes aren't incredibly significant and in one or two cases not yet finished I wanted to put this out and see what the reactions are.

I added a number of easter egss regarding my kitty game as well as expanding on things that were already there. For instance I always wanted to have a cat on board the ship, a very big nod to Alien but it also adds a little bit of character to the game. So I want to introduce to you: Rascal. A small kitten that you'll find in a few areas throughout the game. :)

Little Rascal


I also added an NPC that doesn't do very much except looking at Aryn if she comes into his view. I guess we can call him, Mike, the security guard. He's stationed at the STARDOCKS and he's there make the game feel just a tad less lonely.

Hi Mike, or is it Ted? Maybe it's Luke, oh well, he's a friendly fella and very loyal to his duty !!!


I also went through Deck one on board the SD-01 and I added some more stuff to Aryn's apartment. You might even miss some of the changes because they're simply meant to add more detail and depth to the areas.

I will continue to add more little things like these throughout development and most likely before chapter 4 is released. Oh, and you can also check out the revamped UI of computer interfaces. I have a ton of stuff planned for the final chapters I just need time to get it all done.

Purdy?


All these changes should be LIVE right now. So those who have been looking for an excuse to replay the game, this might be a good time but keep in mind, more new stuff will be added over time. ;)

Joure & Team V

P.S. I also fixed the fruit bowl. I know it was driving some of you bananas....

Hi everyone. So it's really time for me to post another update. I have quite a lot to say and I can hope that you guys can understand where I'm coming from.

So the image above is from "Play with Gilbert". A newly released game made by myself, on my own. After I finished chapter three I was ready, or so I thought, to dive into chapter four but fatigued started t settle in.

I didn't notice it at first and I was trying to work on updating the computer interfaces and trying to fix the scrollbar issue. I still haven;t found a solution yet btw. So yeah, I simply couldn't think straight. I knew what I wanted to do but it was difficult to focus. You see, I've been working on STARDROP pretty much non-stop since 2015 and while I have taken one or two small breaks I always kept going and I think it reached a boiling point so I decided to just take a few steps back and just do something else for a bit.

So I turned to a personal project I was fiddling around with, which was a small little game for my daughter to play with. And while I was playing around with some new ideas my wife basically asked me, why don't you turn this into a game you can put on steam?

And it made sense to me. It's a small project I already had some good work done on it and I haven't seen that many children's games on Steam either. I figured I could take some time off from STARDROP, hone my skills in UE4 and try some new things. Things that have helped a great deal. I am now able to fix the HUD issue regarding different screen resolutions.

I also figured I could really use some another revenue stream. STARDROP's been doing fine for a small relatively unknown exploration game and it's kept my head above the water but as you can understand I want to make this the best game I can and not go under while doing it.

Lastly I just needed the break and I have had a lot of fun making this silly little kitty game. My daughter's now basically addicted to it I certainly did not expect her to love it so much. She now plays it every night before bed time and she's stil not bored.

Well, basically I'm done with Play with Gilbert. There's a few issues I want to iron out but I managed to finish this thing a little over a month's worth of effort.

I had to share all this info because I owe it to all of you to at least know what's going on and that I haven't ran away or something like that or if someone comes across my kitty game thinking, hey wait a minute why is this new game released and STARDROP isn't? STARDROP is the main project the big one for me, and Play with Gilbert is a small little game I made for my daughter. the two games cannot be compared in terms of scope and complexity.

And now I feel re-energized and am so ready to get back to STARDROP. My focus will be on getting localization working again and then I'll be off finishing the last two (maybe three?, idk yet) chapters. After that I will go and deal with the smaller bugs.

I'll also attempt to fix the scrollbar issues but since it's an engine feature related problem (somehow the hist detection gets messed up if you arrange widget elements in a certain way) and I'll need more time to figure out a setup that works.

So, my sincere apologies for the down-time. I can only hope you guys can understand but the most important thing is that I haven't left the project (NEVER) or anything. I'm merely a human and I guess I just reached a limit. But I feel refreshed like mad and I'm so ready to finish the story.

So while I don't have much to show other then PwG (Play with Gilbert) I do want to share the new look of the computer interfaces.





So yeah, that's it for now. I'll make sure the next update won't tale as long but I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Take care everyone and for those curious you can find my little kitty game over here:
Play with Gilbert on Steam

Thank you for understanding and as I've said so many times, I cannot wait to share the rest of the game with you all.

Joure

Hi everyone. So it's really time for me to post another update. I have quite a lot to say and I can hope that you guys can understand where I'm coming from.

So the image above is from "Play with Gilbert". A newly released game made by myself, on my own. After I finished chapter three I was ready, or so I thought, to dive into chapter four but fatigued started t settle in.

I didn't notice it at first and I was trying to work on updating the computer interfaces and trying to fix the scrollbar issue. I still haven;t found a solution yet btw. So yeah, I simply couldn't think straight. I knew what I wanted to do but it was difficult to focus. You see, I've been working on STARDROP pretty much non-stop since 2015 and while I have taken one or two small breaks I always kept going and I think it reached a boiling point so I decided to just take a few steps back and just do something else for a bit.

So I turned to a personal project I was fiddling around with, which was a small little game for my daughter to play with. And while I was playing around with some new ideas my wife basically asked me, why don't you turn this into a game you can put on steam?

And it made sense to me. It's a small project I already had some good work done on it and I haven't seen that many children's games on Steam either. I figured I could take some time off from STARDROP, hone my skills in UE4 and try some new things. Things that have helped a great deal. I am now able to fix the HUD issue regarding different screen resolutions.

I also figured I could really use some another revenue stream. STARDROP's been doing fine for a small relatively unknown exploration game and it's kept my head above the water but as you can understand I want to make this the best game I can and not go under while doing it.

Lastly I just needed the break and I have had a lot of fun making this silly little kitty game. My daughter's now basically addicted to it I certainly did not expect her to love it so much. She now plays it every night before bed time and she's stil not bored.

Well, basically I'm done with Play with Gilbert. There's a few issues I want to iron out but I managed to finish this thing a little over a month's worth of effort.

I had to share all this info because I owe it to all of you to at least know what's going on and that I haven't ran away or something like that or if someone comes across my kitty game thinking, hey wait a minute why is this new game released and STARDROP isn't? STARDROP is the main project the big one for me, and Play with Gilbert is a small little game I made for my daughter. the two games cannot be compared in terms of scope and complexity.

And now I feel re-energized and am so ready to get back to STARDROP. My focus will be on getting localization working again and then I'll be off finishing the last two (maybe three?, idk yet) chapters. After that I will go and deal with the smaller bugs.

I'll also attempt to fix the scrollbar issues but since it's an engine feature related problem (somehow the hist detection gets messed up if you arrange widget elements in a certain way) and I'll need more time to figure out a setup that works.

So, my sincere apologies for the down-time. I can only hope you guys can understand but the most important thing is that I haven't left the project (NEVER) or anything. I'm merely a human and I guess I just reached a limit. But I feel refreshed like mad and I'm so ready to finish the story.

So while I don't have much to show other then PwG (Play with Gilbert) I do want to share the new look of the computer interfaces.





So yeah, that's it for now. I'll make sure the next update won't tale as long but I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Take care everyone and for those curious you can find my little kitty game over here:
Play with Gilbert on Steam

Thank you for understanding and as I've said so many times, I cannot wait to share the rest of the game with you all.

Joure

Dear Community
As you may well have seen from the image above I took some time to create a new logo for Team V. It's a simple logo but it does it's job adequately I think and I think it's a nice upgrade from the old one.

I have also created a new startup video which is pretty much the same in length. But this is hardly the most exciting news I wanted to share.

For quite some time I have wanted to improve the very first intro sequence. It starts good enough with the text but the lighting and the station itself always felt a bit flat. This has been tweaked and I think it's a major improvement. I won't spoil anything, you'll just have to see it in motion for yourself.


Another thing that bothered me was Aryn and John's introduction. It wasn't conveying their personalities properly nor their relationship as two friends and colleagues who have a shared history together.

Again I won't spoil anything but this has also been addressed and I think this new opening is a much more gradual intro. Instead of just dropping the player at some starting area, it now starts with a nice first person animation sequence which was pretty tough to pull off but I am pretty proud of it.

But wait, there's more!

The first person view has been improved. Aryn's hand has been changed to a more natural position and the DataPad is now closer to the players view which increases detail as well as it being properly centered towards the screen.



Echoes has been given some attention too. In this new updated the warning has been fixed. So now when you venture deeper into the station, you won't have to be staring at it for the remainder of the mission.


Other tweaks is a lighting polish, I think the level looks a whole lore better. Merry has been tweaked to not be the god of blinding light. (It's still bright but it's within bounds). And the overlapping dialogues have also been fixed.

There are still a few minor bugs that need to be fixed but the major annoyances has been deal with.

In the future I plan to add achievements. A portion of these will be tied to the crew logs you find throughout the game. You might have to collect a number of logs from a certain crew member in order to unlock an achievement, or simply by collecting them all. Because of this Whenever you started a new game or by selecting a chapter from the chapter selection menu, you would retain all of these logs.

This has now been changed. Whenever you start a new game, the logs will be cleared, except, for when you select a chapter from the chapter selection menu.

This means that you can use the chapter selection menu to search for logs you might have missed in a previous chapter. You can also now manually delete your logs through the game options.



I have added the option if turning the mirrors on inside the options menu. I tweaked my old system and it works pretty solid. Now, it's not a true mirror but more of a camera that mirrors the environment.

This has been done to keep performance in check but turning them on will come at a minimal cost. By default they are turned off, but it's only a click away from being activated.






Keep in mind that the game has not been designed with these in mind. You might catch Aryn talking but there's no lip sync feature in the game and the character model of Aryn needs an update which I hope to be able to attend to sometime in the future.

I will be putting my focus on getting the localization back working. Our French customers have been waiting far too long to be able to play the game in their native language so I will have to take the time and figure out what's going on.

We will also be working on getting chapter 3 localized. Besides that I will try to fix a few more bugs and what not but after that I will be heading onto the next chapter.

The game is in such a good place right now that I feel I can start moving forward again having done a ton of legwork in terms of fixes and additional polish in content, visuals and gameplay.


I hope you guys will enjoy the new stuff in this update and as always feel free to share your thoughts.

Joure & Team V

Dear Community
As you may well have seen from the image above I took some time to create a new logo for Team V. It's a simple logo but it does it's job adequately I think and I think it's a nice upgrade from the old one.

I have also created a new startup video which is pretty much the same in length. But this is hardly the most exciting news I wanted to share.

For quite some time I have wanted to improve the very first intro sequence. It starts good enough with the text but the lighting and the station itself always felt a bit flat. This has been tweaked and I think it's a major improvement. I won't spoil anything, you'll just have to see it in motion for yourself.


Another thing that bothered me was Aryn and John's introduction. It wasn't conveying their personalities properly nor their relationship as two friends and colleagues who have a shared history together.

Again I won't spoil anything but this has also been addressed and I think this new opening is a much more gradual intro. Instead of just dropping the player at some starting area, it now starts with a nice first person animation sequence which was pretty tough to pull off but I am pretty proud of it.

But wait, there's more!

The first person view has been improved. Aryn's hand has been changed to a more natural position and the DataPad is now closer to the players view which increases detail as well as it being properly centered towards the screen.



Echoes has been given some attention too. In this new updated the warning has been fixed. So now when you venture deeper into the station, you won't have to be staring at it for the remainder of the mission.


Other tweaks is a lighting polish, I think the level looks a whole lore better. Merry has been tweaked to not be the god of blinding light. (It's still bright but it's within bounds). And the overlapping dialogues have also been fixed.

There are still a few minor bugs that need to be fixed but the major annoyances has been deal with.

In the future I plan to add achievements. A portion of these will be tied to the crew logs you find throughout the game. You might have to collect a number of logs from a certain crew member in order to unlock an achievement, or simply by collecting them all. Because of this Whenever you started a new game or by selecting a chapter from the chapter selection menu, you would retain all of these logs.

This has now been changed. Whenever you start a new game, the logs will be cleared, except, for when you select a chapter from the chapter selection menu.

This means that you can use the chapter selection menu to search for logs you might have missed in a previous chapter. You can also now manually delete your logs through the game options.



I have added the option if turning the mirrors on inside the options menu. I tweaked my old system and it works pretty solid. Now, it's not a true mirror but more of a camera that mirrors the environment.

This has been done to keep performance in check but turning them on will come at a minimal cost. By default they are turned off, but it's only a click away from being activated.






Keep in mind that the game has not been designed with these in mind. You might catch Aryn talking but there's no lip sync feature in the game and the character model of Aryn needs an update which I hope to be able to attend to sometime in the future.

I will be putting my focus on getting the localization back working. Our French customers have been waiting far too long to be able to play the game in their native language so I will have to take the time and figure out what's going on.

We will also be working on getting chapter 3 localized. Besides that I will try to fix a few more bugs and what not but after that I will be heading onto the next chapter.

The game is in such a good place right now that I feel I can start moving forward again having done a ton of legwork in terms of fixes and additional polish in content, visuals and gameplay.


I hope you guys will enjoy the new stuff in this update and as always feel free to share your thoughts.

Joure & Team V

Hello there!
A new update has been released today finally launching Retron One. A new model has replaced the old one for the SD-01 and I've added volumetric fog to a number of levels with the ability to turn it on or off in the video options.

The Inspection mechanic has been tweaked slightly so that you can still zoom in a bit when not wearing your suit along with some other tweaks and I also tweaked the volume and attenuation of the Android's voices.

A number of other tweaks have been made which I will list below as well as going into a number of these in more detail. Read on!

Here's the full list of tweaks and fixes:

• Replaced the model for the SD-01.
  
• Added Volumetric Fog to several levels. (turned Off by default)
  
• Retron One now playable.
  
• Tweakeded the inspection system.
  
• Added a zoom notification to the HUD when inspecting.
  
• Added zoom ability while inspecting without helmet and added vignette.
  
• Reduced Android voice volume as well as the range they can be heard.
  
• Changed Earth's rotation.
  
• Added in new STARDROP Background Info at Aryn's Apartment.
  
• Fixed door triggers in Aryn's Apartment

The SD-01 has been upgraded. As much as I loved the old model it had to be replaced by something that is in line with the recent STARDROP ship model. The two now truly look aesthetically the same. As if made by the same company.

I hope you guys will love the new model just as much as I do but I know not everyone likes certain kinds of changes but then again, it was a long time coming. Let me know what you guys think.


Finally Retron One is now playable. There is only one arcade abailable currently but more will follow. I have a new arena map in the works and it will be added inside the STARDROP Cafe at the office section.

I just played it a few times again in the new build and it's still more fun then I thought. Keep in mind that Retron One is never meant to be a full fledged game, it just tries to emulate being one. It's also not finished.


I still need to tweak some stuff and I want to expand on it some more but for what it tries to do I would say it does it adequately. It's just a simple arena shooter that ramps up the more kills you make.

I am working on a small guide for it, so keep an eye out. The guide will go into the game mechanics, how stuff works etc. But you can have some fun yourself and just see what its like.


I've added in volumetric fog on a number of levels, mostly the ones in space to add more depth to the scenes. I personally am pretty excited with the changes but I didn't want to force it on anyone.

So by default Volumetric Fog is turned off. You can enable it inside the Video Options. The changes ar noticeable but I tried to keep it subtle. So far the PT's have reported no extra strain on their GPU's so it seems it won't be a taxing feature. Below is a comparison between the "OFF" and "ON' states.

Volumetric Fog: OFF


Volumetric Fog: ON

As you can see there's a difference but it's not incredibly different. Just an extra touch of awesome. ;)


The object inspection system has been updated yet again. I noticed that some people didn't use the zoom function when inspecting, making it harder for themselves to read some of the reports. Therefore I have added a notification on the HUD that basically says "PRESS Z TO ZOOM", or whatever key you have bound the zoom function to.

On top of that I have also added a milder zoom function when inspecting objects when your not wearing your suit. This is to make sure people can still read documents even without the helmet.

I have also added a nice vignette around the edges of the screen while inspecting. This has been done in the least intrusive way possible and it help to put the focus on the object that you're looking at. It blends in and out nicely when you pick it up or put it back.

And this segways into the next topic.

I felt that the email inside Aryn's apartment simply wasn't enough. I've added a new document that covers more of the background regarding the STARDROP. I also added two neat photo's that you can check out yourself.




I hope that with this you'll understand a bit more about what's what before heading there. It tells just enough but still not all that much and it raises even more questions even if you've played chapter 3 already. :)

So, that's it for today. I hope you guys enjoy the new updates and as I mentioned in the previous post I will put my focus on updating Echoes and Odyssey as well as trying to get the translations working again.

Of course there will also be more fixes and changes before I will continue work on the main campaign. But I think the game is in such a good state right now I am super happy with it.

Take care everyone and stay tuned, I hope you guys are glad to have been supporting the game. I can't thank you enough for all the support !!!

Joure & Team V