Sep 15, 2019

Major UI and Quality of Life improvements

Try To Fall Asleep - Amberdrop

Hello there!
The fall is finally setting in the season, and so is our next major 1.3 update which includes the next night! Before we share an update on the overall development of the 1.3 update, we'd like to show some cool UI and Quality of Life improvements that we've implemented in the game.

"SETTINGS" option in the main menu

Finally, a highly requested and essential feature is coming to the main menu. Without restarting the game, you'll be able to adjust your screen resolution, window mode, V-sync, texture and shadow quality and more!

New Textbox for the dream sequences

As part of the new voiceover feature, we've updated the textbox which displays subtitles for the voices as well as for interacting with objects. The clean and simple design is easy to read, and when the player is using the walkie-talkie, an actual model of the walkie-talkie will pop up.

New Pause Screens

Another handy updated feature that's coming to the game is the new pause screen. Press "ESC" whether you're in the falling asleep or dreaming sequence and you can go back to the menu, toggle subtitles, quit the game or change your graphics settings.

Improved textures in the lab facility

We've updated the main corridor and room wall textures to make them look more realistic and more interesting.

Development Update

We're happy to announce that the 3rd night is now compatible from beginning to end, but we still need to polish and add a few missing things to the levels. In the following weeks our team will start to test the new 3rd night and try to improve the gameplay and catch some potential bugs. At the moment, we're not quite ready to share a release date for the 3rd night, but we'll be ready to share more details about a release date in October. ;))

Thank you for checking out this post!

Martin

Jul 28, 2019

Sneak Peek of the 3rd Night

Try To Fall Asleep - Amberdrop

Hello players,

Today we’d like to share a few new exciting details about the next upcoming 3rd night in Try to Fall Asleep. Along with it, we’ll be sharing an update on the development process. So let’s dive in!

NIGHT 3

Falling asleep phase

We try to do something new and different in each night to make them more unique from one another and more interesting. The 3rd night is where things really start to get tricky… First of all, the help tutorial texts that light up when you either need to turn on your light or hide in the blanket are disabled by default, but can be re-enabled via the pause menu. Second, faster and more intense - things will start to happen more frequently and could raise the stress level faster than before. Third - there are a few new surprises waiting to be discovered in the darkness.

Dreaming phase

The dreaming phases have always been a huge part of the game and therefore we’ve tried to spend and adequate time on them as well. This time, we’ve decided to challenge ourselves and go in a totally new direction.

The dream itself will take place in the Cottage Town area.

To not spoil anything that happens in the 3rd dream, let’s just say that you’ll end up in situations that have never happened before in the game and in order to survive the dream, you’ll have to act accordingly and put your mind to it. This is going to be one of the most unique dream levels in the game yet.

NEW MONSTER

Another big part of the upcoming 3rd night will be a brand new monster. Made completely from scratch, its appearance is really something to behold and its menacing presence will cause a true disturbance, even in some of the more braver players.

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Currently we’re also working on the voiceover work for the entire game. The script for the dialogues is almost finished and it only needs some further polishing before we can hand it out to our voice actors. Speaking of which, we’ve found some really great talent in the voiceover community and we can’t wait to start to work with them eventually and put some of that talent in our game. The hope is to launch the voiceover stuff together with the 3rd night, but because it involves working on all the dreaming phases for all nights, it might take a while to implement it properly. We’re aiming to release the next major update with the 3rd night and voiceover work in early fall.

That's it for now! Btw, if you have the time for it, please consider to share this game around and give it some more love and attention. We'd really appreciate it :))

Martin

P.S. Sorry for posting this a bit late... Had a few issues with the GIFs :P

May 27, 2019

Update 1.2.2 + Development Progress

Try To Fall Asleep - Amberdrop

Sup players,

Today we're launching another hotfix with a few cool extras!

Falling asleep sequences

Added a new falling asleep sound effect.
Night 2 has new lighting.

1st dreaming sequence

Addresed the performance issues after loosing a minigame.
All the jumpscares are now rendered in real time.
Fixed an issue where some objects would be brighter than they should be.
Fixed an issue where the dusk light would preduce bright reflections inside the lab.

Development Update

After this update, we're diving deep into the next levels! Thanks to summer vacation, I'll be able to spend way more time on developing the game than I used to during my studies. You could almost consider this as a fun summer job :))
Because we're moving on to develop the next nights, that does not mean that we'll abandon the first two nights. We do have plans to revisit them at some point before transitioning into a full release. There are still a few tiny things that we'd like to add/improve in those two nights, especially in the second one.
One of our goals for this game is to hire some voice actors who could do some epic voice-over work for our game. That would be a huge plus for the game, of course. Whether or not we'll be able to add it in the next major update, it's really hard to tell... There still needs to be a few dialogues written for the game and ideally it would be better to record everything at once rather than doing a peace one day, then another after a month or two etc.
So by the end of the summer, we're hoping to release two brand new nights or, one at the end of this summer and another one around Halloween. Honestly, we don't know how things might go so please don't consider these statements to be set in stone. It is our main goal though, and we'll try to reach it as best as we can. Of course, we'll do teasers to keep everyone interested and hyped about the project as well as small updates on the development.

So far everything is shaping really nicely! We're quite happy about how things are shaping up and damn, we've got a lot of cool things in store. Can't wait for you all to experience it :))

Martin

May 3, 2019

Update 1.2 is now LIVE!

Try To Fall Asleep - Amberdrop

Hello players,

Today we’re ready to launch a pretty cool update to the game! After listening to the feedback of the community, we’ve implemented some of the most requested features from the players in our game. In addition to this, we’ve also fixed some of the most important bugs in the game.

Let’s get into the details!

New mini-games for the 1st night

We kept our main promise of improving the nightmare sequences after picking up a fuse in the first night. The old “flee” mechanic was cool at first, but it quickly got plain and repetitive. With the new update, we hope to address that repetitiveness and add some variety with this cool game mechanic. Here are short descriptions of each new nightmare minigame…

Flee to the exit
“Flee to the exit” is based on the original “flee” nightmare mini-game. The main level has been kept the same, but now rather than just fleeing from the enemy, your objective is to flee until you can find the exit and escape the horrific nightmare.

Close the doors
The objective of “Close the doors” is as simple as it sounds. You spawn in a room with 8 doors that will randomly start to open, one by one. The more doors you close, the faster they’ll start to open one after another. The aim is to keep them closed, otherwise the game will be lost if too many doors open at once. If you’ll succeed, the 8th door will open and you’ll be able to leave this nightmare for good.

Follow the light
You spawn in an unknown bunker-like facility in pitch black darkness. One after another, the wall mounted lights will start to turn on, leading you to the exit of this nightmare. Don’t slow down and try to reach the next glowing light in time, otherwise it’ll power down and you’ll get lost in the darkness.

Reach the end
You end up in a peculiar cave. The goal is to reach the end of the level before the time runs out. Overcoming obstacles and navigating through elevated platforms might get dangerous as you might fall into the deep pits of the cave.

Although we’d also like to improve the “flee” sequences in the 2nd dream level, we decided that it would be better to focus more on the next levels/nights for the game. There could be a small update that could improve this part of the game, so once we’re ready, we’ll share more details.

Bug fixes and QOL improvements

In addition to the new mini-games, we’re also bringing some bug and Quality of Life improvements…

Main menu

Volume of the menu music is now lowered.

Falling asleep sequences

Improved depth of field post processing effect. When objects come too close to the camera, they won’t get blurry as they used to.
Improved lighting on the hallucinations in the 2nd night.
Fixed Pause screen. Now when you hit pause, AB will pause as well.
Fixed an issue when the player would press the M key while being in the pause screen and the game would load into the main menu without any buttons.
Fixed an issue when the player would experience jittering/trembling after using the pause screen.
Fixed an issue when the player could use the blanket while being jumpscared.
Reworked jumpscare animations for Copper in the second night.

Dreaming sequences

Improved flashlight with crisper light cookies.
Improved footstep sounds.
Minor performance improvements.
Adjusted post processing effects for the first nightmare minigame for better readability and less eye fatigue.
Added a navigational map of the main island in 5 locations. It’ll detail the basic layout of the island. If you interact with it, it’ll tell you your approximate location.
A few small surprises…

Current status of development

The pace of the development of the game is fine at the moment. It would be nice to have a bit more time that we could use to spend on developing the game, but life is life, and along with the game we have to manage our jobs/studies as well as our time for families along with it.
The whole story of the game is finished and the last thing that we need to do is to plan out some of the level design elements for next major levels.
We’re really eager to continue our work on the game and we can’t wait for you all to experience of what’s to come in the future. We have some incredibly cool ideas in store!
Although it would be nice to pump out new content as soon as possible, at the same time we want to take our time and give it the polish that it needs. We believe having a balance between keeping a productive pace of development while giving the game the time that it needs is the way to go and we will try to do our best to maintain that balance.
It’s not easy to set any dates on anything yet, but rest assured, that once we’ll be ready, we’ll share more details about the next upcoming night in the game.

Thank you everyone for playing our game and sharing your support! We are very excited to continue our work on the rest of the game and eventually share what we have in store. :))

Martin