Before we write more about upcoming Barotrauma updates, we wanted to lend a hand to fellow indie developer Cogwheel Software and their debut Hidden Deep, which begins its Early Access journey today.
You may know already that Hidden Deep is published by Daedalic Entertainment just like Barotrauma… and you may also know that our two games look uncannily similar at a glance! So what’s the deal with that?
Are Hidden Deep and Barotrauma made by the same people, or inspired by each other?
Short answer: no. Long answer: also no, mostly – we have the same publisher, but both games are developed independently by people who are not in regular contact with each other. We’ve said hi to each other on Discord (and our official servers are known to have many of the same people).
There are many similarities in our games’ lifespans, though: Where Barotrauma began as a one-man project, Hidden Deep has also largely remained a solo developer’s endeavor. Other things both games share are a custom engine, simulated physics, a development history spanning a number of years before being released on Steam and an ambitious roadmap ahead of them. As we’re further along on that road, we wish Hidden Deep tons of luck and can’t wait to see how it will evolve following its release today!
So how come they look so similar? Are they set in the same world?
The similar look is simple coincidence (and in large part probably also due to the constraints of both being third-person side-view two-dimensional horror-esque games set in an environment devoid of sunlight), and today not even quite as striking as it was when we first discovered Hidden Deep in 2018.
At that time we seriously worried we’d stumbled on a direct competitor for the then-unreleased Barotrauma, but looking into it a little more, we discovered that the setting, premise and gameplay are hardly identical with ours… but as you can guess if you’re still reading, there are indeed many similarities. If you like Barotrauma, you should definitely give Hidden Deep a try!
Since you have the same publisher and are so alike, is there going to be a crossover?
Considering that Barotrauma and Hidden Deep take place a couple of hundred years and approximately 628.3 million kilometers apart, a crossover might be tricky to arrange, but you never know.
Last but not least
To celebrate Hidden Deep's release, we are offering a limited time bundle deal starting tomorrow, 25 January – get the Supporter editions of both Barotrauma and Hidden Deep in one go. Without further ado, check out Hidden Deep's release trailer below, and get ready for a thrilling, sunless adventure on both Earth and Europa!
Each Codex is a small puzzle or challenge that the player has to complete in order to unlock the Codex and earn whatever's inside. The first one is simple, you just have to walk around in a circle. I've been working on the progress indicator for it. It doesn't grant anything yet, that will be next up.
(Before I do that I'm going to fix up a slew of bugs to get ready for the February release.)
Folks, I'm posting on behalf of Toby who wishes to share some updates and thoughts on Dream Cycle today, enjoy!
Hello!
It’s been a little while since I last posted here. After the winter break, we are back hard at work on the next big update.
The high level goal for Dreamcycle has always been to create a portal into infinite adventures. At the close of last year with Update 1 under our belt, it was a great time to take stock of the game. Thanks to community feedback and discussion, it is clear to me that Dreamcycle is falling short on a few fronts. While that’s to be expected in Early Access, one particular issue stands out as not a result of roughness, but as a fundamental design problem, and that is the lack of meaning.
As we continued work of story adventures, it became increasingly clear that the other levels started to feel like filler. Because they only offered basic objectives to encourage exploration, the lack of story points by comparison ended up with the unfortunate sense that there are 10,000 filler levels and only X real ones. This was absolutely not the intention.
Every Adventure should be worth playing, so the way we implement the story needs to be reworked.
This has sent us back to the drawing board at a fundamental level. Update 2 will be focused on giving every Adventure its own Context, Story and Objectives. Each Adventure will be a mystery you are there to solve, with the addition of a ton of new interactables, puzzling and other gameplay surprises, we hope to make every one a satisfying story of its own.
To support this new focus, the map is being reworked. It will be much simpler, the choices less overwhelming and more informed about the type of experience you might expect. Despite this simplification and paring down of the map, the upshot will actually be a total lifting of restrictions. Every adventure will be replayable any number of times, generating a new story and layout each playthrough, legitimately delivering not 10000 adventures but an infinite number of them.
I look forward to revealing more specifics about this major change as well as a host of other features we will be adding in the next update. As always, thanks for supporting the development of DreamCycle and I hope to see you in the Beta when it opens soon!
Firstly, we're really excited to share that we have some huge news coming very soon! We're incredibly thankful for our fans' support for us and for Imp of the Sun, and we're constantly looking at ways to show our appreciation for this continued support :D So we're really looking forward to sharing what we've got coming up as we think it will be something you will all love!
We'll be posting the news here on Steam and our other social channels very soon, so be sure to keep checking in for updates!
In the meantime, we wanted to give you a glimpse into some of our original character artwork so you can see the development journey, and also give you sneak peeks at some of the significant changes to the character designs! So let's kick things off :D
Significant changes made to the character designs so far!
Our original thinking behind the character designs was to have a more realistic and dark theme, which resonates with the story tones. However, this changed over time as we felt that having cuter and vibrant designs suited the game more!
It was important for us to have the NPC's personalities reflected in the character design!
Izhi is a sassy yet wise old lady, so we used purple tones for her maturity and pink for a playful spin on her character.
Tui is honourable and competitive, a lot of texture and polish was used on his design to reflect his elegance and regency.
Ruku is one with nature and independence, the blue tones represent her wisdom and freedom.
Llanthu had the most significant changes to his design, originally he had a quite animalistic design from living in the caves. But in the end, we wanted to portray his power and might with sharper sculpting and neon lighting.
Suyana is very determined and resourceful, the contrast of cool and warm tones show her head-strong attitude being cooled by her sweet and caring outlook.
We hope that you enjoyed a glimpse into our creative vision for Imp of the Sun! We really like how our cast has turned out, and we'd love to hear if you have any favourites! So do let us know in the comments :D
Also, there's a load of different ways you can stay in touch with us, including our brand new TikTok channel! You can also join our community on Discord or follow our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages! Give us a follow for future updates.
Thank you so much again from all of us here at Sunwolf! <3
New year, new patch. This patch brings some new features, changes and bug fixes. However, the main focus was on optimizing the performance. Especially slower CPUs benefit from the performance tweaks.
Additions:
Added haptic feedback for gamepads
Added a new section for game statistics to the main menu
Added Foot IK to all characters for correct foot placement
You can now skip the intro sequence
Each area now has its own lighting mood
Changes:
UI backgrounds now have a frosted glass effect
Main menu colors, contrast and saturation have been adjusted
The map layout was slightly adjusted
Adjusted the spline for progress tracking based on all recent map changes
Improved the roof colliders of the first section of the map
The camera controls have been improved
Decreased the slope limit of the magic cubes
Improved the appearance of the green circles
Performance:
The view distance has been reduced by 93%
The map has been divided into different occlusion areas and occlusion culling is now active
Similar and adjacent static meshes have been merged into combined meshes to reduce drawcalls (before: 547 meshes / now: 85 meshes)
Additional minor performance tweaks
Bug fixes:
Fixed a bug where the physical impact on the character (for example, from cannonballs) was stored beyond death
Fixed some minor object clipping bugs
Coins are now tracked correctly
Removed an invisible collider in the pirate area
I wish you a lot of fun with patch 1.3.
The next major patch will add a new game mode and a new map.
Space Crew: Legendary Edition - Missile Trajectory
“Listen up! This isn’t going to be easy…”
Welcome to Athena Station, Cadets - Wing Commander Winters will be putting you through your paces in the next few days…
That’s right - with a HUGE 60% OFF the Space Crew: Legendary Edition and 80% OFF Bomber Crew, there has never been a better time to pick out your crew, your ship and fight the good fight!
However, we know it’s not easy taking on Phasmids, a new android threat, embarking on deadly away-team missions and recruiting legendary crew when you’re green behind the ears.
That’s why we’re also giving out a FREE Legendary Space Crew Crewmate to everyone via our Space Crew and Bomber Crew Discord for a limited time!
Just join using the link below and once you have accepted our server T&Cs, you’ll be able to see the Cadet Reward channel under the Discord Rewards section which has instructions on how to unlock your latest crew member.
Not only will this unique crew member help you on your missions, but the helpful members of the Space Crew Discord community will also be able to help with any questions you may have through your first couple of sessions.
