- Custom tracks have a much smaller track.json file
- In the world editor, the set piece list on the right can be scrolled with the mouse wheel
- Fixed a bug where the target bar would disappear before the track ended.
- Fixed a bug where the player's combo would disappear before the track ended.

Development is going ahead at full warp. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to keep you all updated on what I’ve been doing. I’m going to try to post more regular updates with a quick snapshot on what I’ve been up to, as well as some more details on particular aspects of the game.

The game has been through 2 small rounds of closed betas at this point and the feedback I’ve been getting is very positive. I’m aiming to do a larger beta once the next batch of features and content are polished to my satisfaction, probably around the first week of September (fingers crossed).

In the past month, I’ve worked on:

• Started working with the composer, Moritz, on music for the game
  
• Crew UI work, started working with the portrait artist on crew character portraits
  
• Implementing player controls for secondary weapons
  
• Missile and beam improvements and technologies
  
• Heat dissipation and simulation
  
• Shipbuilding updates
  
• Lots more minor tasks and features

I mentioned in the announcement that the shipbuilding system has undergone a significant overhaul, so I thought I’d give a little more detail on that.

In Starcom: Nexus ships were built on a hexagonal grid with module prefabs. In the game logic, a ship consisted of a hex coordinates and the corresponding module. Each module only occupied a single hex in the ship layout data, but some modules had special logic to “fake” being larger than a hex.

For the sequel, I had a few changes that I wanted to try to implement: modules of different sizes and shapes, support for module rotations, and a unified set of modules for both player and NPCs with faction coloring being handled in the shader, rather than each faction needing their own set of module prefabs with their own materials.

The first step was to produce a prototype of the new module layout logic, shown below:



Getting this working was a bit harder than I envisioned: modules needed to define both the hexes they occupied, as well as the edges that were valid connectors. With these definitions, the ship-building logic needed to transform both the occupied hexes and their edges by their rotation, as well as handle “reflection” for asymmetric modules. It also needed to maintain a map of connections so that if a module was removed (or destroyed in the case of NPCs) any modules that no longer had a path to the bridge would also be removed.

Once I got the prototype working, the next step was to find out how it would look with actual 3D models. In Starcom: Nexus, I made all the modules myself in Blender. They came out “okay” but it was obvious I think that they weren’t made by an artist. And it took me a ridiculous amount of time to make them.

For Starcom: Unknown Space I was able to work with a concept artist and 3D modeler to produce much better models in much less time.

It took a lot of work upfront to figure out what kind of module shapes and designs “worked” with this system, and how to create a shader that could make them a) look good, b) distinctive, and c) not overload the GPU.

The very simplified workflow was I described what modules I needed along with a very bad sketch and some reference art, Ruslan (the concept artist) would come up with some more detailed sketches and then Povilas (the modeler) would use these as a guide for creating the final model:



Here is a small ship being built in the shipyard with some of the new modules:



The modules use a custom shader which has a number of color multipliers for the various layers (plating, detail and underlying). I can modify these for the different factions (and players with Chromaplating tech can customize their own colors).



One new feature I’ve been working on in the past week is thermal dissipation. In Starcom: Nexus, players got a small boost to their weapon fire rates for every empty space they were next to. I’m now experimenting with high-energy modules like plasma and lasers generating heat as they fire. This heat flows to cooler modules and into space. When modules are too hot, they suffer an efficiency penalty. This creates a trade-off between compact well-protected layouts and layouts that can sustain intense
energy use.



There’s more new features and changes to shipbuilding, but I’ll leave off for now. Thanks for reading!

Don’t forget to wishlist and follow on Steam so you don’t miss any important announcements!

- Level 46 movement bug fix

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Stable channel, and includes all the changes that have been tested in the Beta channel. You can opt into this in Settings > System > Steam Update Channel.

We're continuing to look at making the user experience of playing games without an Internet connection a better, more intuitive experience.

• Fixed issue where rebooting while in Steam Offline Mode would cause games to fail to launch
  
• Fixed the Cloud Sync error notification popping up when offline
  
• Disabled Steam Offline Mode button when not connected to the internet, as trying to do this currently gets Steam Deck into a bad state.
  
  • This change disables this button but does not in any way affect your ability to play games without an active Internet connection.

• Fixed styling for CJK keyboard glyphs so everything appears centered correctly on keys
  
• Fixed Recommended Layout not always showing up for the author of controller configuration
  
• Fixed CJK font issues in SteamOS updater when running on Steam Deck
  
• Fixed focus issue when tapping the show/hide password button
  
• Removed the gap between keys on the virtual keyboard for improved typing

• Temporarily disabling hot / cold temperature notifications while we address issues with false positives

Thank you so much for your great support! It means so much to me as a solo developer working on my first public video-game. As on writing this article with your help I have reached:

• Twitter 100 followers,
  
• 81 people Wished listed the game
  
• Thanks to the Discord community for your constant active support and interactions.

This game was originally going to be a 'Free' game, however due to the length this has taken me by a miscalculation of my own ability, Its taken me longer to learn some specific things with the game engine I am using.

I am in need to get a return on the investment so I can continue with making the game other games!

This also means I will be upgrading this game more than originally planned since you are the paying customer I want you to benefit from doing so. Updates will include adding in content, adding achievements (release may not contain achievements but eventually I will add them in after) Adding cards, adding other languages and improving the game overall and more. I will also lengthen the game naturally to suit the price so you can play longer for the paid product without it feeling forced.

Q. Will I start a "Early Access" ?
A. I currently don't want to but this could change, however I wish to sell the game as originally completed and then add additional content later on as I improve the game while looking at your feed back.

Q. How much will this game now cost?
A. The game price range I am thinking is from £6 to £8 so we can all benefit from the pricing.

Q. Will price increase when you add new things?
A. Only if the changes are big enough to take that type of time from me, but the types of updates I loosely mentioned won't be big enough to increase to price so there it is most likely a No as I would like to provide you a new game over increasing a price for the game you already bought and possibly recommending friends to try out.

Q. Is there a release date yet?
A. No, the reason is because I currently work full time out of game developing this game and all of my spare time I have to plan when I work on this game vs gaming myself vs spending time with family. I do not want to make a promise and not meet that promise, I prefer being truthful to you as the potential customer, I want to earn your respect and fix the confidence towards indie gamers on steam that has been broken by other steam indie developers that broke their promises hindering your confidence within our indie dev community.

Q. Where can I keep up to date with your progression and when do you update progression?
A. The best place is twitter @FunSizeIndieDev I only post progression when there is something to report, if there no progression or much of a progression to report on that is different than the previous tweets then I won't post, If I go on holiday or take a break from developing I will mention it there so you know what is happening and that I haven't "abandon" the game.

Q. Will this affect the 'full story' game that you've mentioned before?
A. No, the game will still be separate but cannon between the two and set up as sequel, so If I end up doing a sale deal I could be selling both together in sale but the prices between the two will most likely be different but the theme is the same and storyline will be different with the same protagonist.

Thank you so much for your interest in my first public game, this means so much to me and highly motivates me to improve the game as I build it without you it would be harder to be motivated after work and my days off so thank you so much!

Hello alchemists!

As always we're prioritizing bugfixes and balancing on our way to the game's full release, and on this latest update we're bringing the following changes:

• Balanced the Plantora and Morhk Savage encounters.
  
• Fixed a bug where the game could freeze after attempting to discover a recipe with 7 or more reagents.
  
• Improved handling save files - This is a critical issue. We don't want anyone losing progress over this, so if it happens to you please warn us.
  
• Fixed a few tooltips appearing when they shouldn't - We think we've got them all this time, but if any are still appearing let us know.
  
• Fixed damage dealt by burning reagents.
  
• Improvements on the Knowledge Administration screen - Some players didn't immediately recognize the sliders and were stuck on this screen without knowing how to proceed, hopefully the slider's new visuals will resolve this.

Those are the most important changes for now, but as always any problem with the game you can reach us here or on our Discord server!

New game bugfixes has been made to allow work properly.

Patch #2

Big gameplay improvements

Game Over
Game over system completely redone, now after dying, the player loses all inventory items (hotbar items, equipment slots remain saved), also the player loses some XP.

To recover the items just go back to the point where you died. CAUTION!!! if you die again the previous items will be lost forever!!!

small improvements

Screenshot
Now it is possible to take screenshots of the game, just press the steam screenshots button

BUGS

Fixed issue with animals no longer spawning
Fixed duplicate chests issue in Sacred Grove
Fixed Sacred Grove map not working

It's finally here! In less than 24 hours, The Doll Beneath will finally be released to the public for everyone to enjoy. Upon launching, the game will feature the first two episodes:

Episode 1 - You wake up inside an abandoned research facility with half of your memories completely wiped. Follow the story of Akio Takashima as he traverses through a forgotten crypt of lost memories.

Episode 2 - Escape the Losinglight, and fight through endless swarms of Darkening within the confines of Kemden City.

Episodes 3, 4, and 5 will all be released at a later date. Don't worry, it won't be TOO long. In between each release, I plan on adding even more content and side activities accessible via the extras room.

The game will also be completely free. No purchase required. I don't really feel like a game like this merits a price tag, especially since it isn't too long to begin with. I've done my best to test for any bugs and typos, but I'm sure I managed to let some slip. Make sure to let me know if anything needs to be changed or fixed.

As of now, the game only supports English, but I may try to incorporate additional languages down the line --- MAYBE.

I hope everyone enjoys the game. This is pretty much my first official launch (not counting The Broston Saga), so I will do my best to fix anything that needs to be fixed.

Hello folks, patch 11.2 is here! Full changelog is at the bottom if you wanna see what got fixed.

But it's not just bugfixes - On top of this, we are delighted to say the U11 SDK is finally ready. ːpraisesunː Modders who were stuck and unable to address issues in their U11 mods should finally be able to fix those issues, and as well as modders being able to access all the new components of U11, there are a slew of modder goodies in the SDK. Some examples being:

- A new ProtoLevel for modders to mess around in, introducing all the new changes
- More examples of how to use stuff, like Doors, Levers and Portcullises
- Event Linkers, which allow you to do stuff like perform an animation when you press trigger with the weapon held (easy example: lightsabers turning on)
- Item Spawners, which allows you to pair it with Event Linkers and create more complex mods without any external code - example could be guns.

We are very, very close to wrapping U11 and then finally being able to fully move on to what's next. This patch is just about bugfixes, but there is one last missing piece of the puzzle for U11; new player faces / skin tones / hair options. This will be the last U11 feature and is coming soon, then anything after that would be just a U11 hotfix. I'll drop some little previews of this on social media in the coming days.

That's it for now, guys!

Modders resources:
SDK: https://github.com/KospY/BasSDK
Wiki: https://kospy.github.io/BasSDK


- Fixed culling issue in library room
- Fixed invisible colliders in Ruins
- Fixed External View Lock not working on Nomad and PC
- Fixed low ocean quality splashes appearing way above the ocean surface
- Fixed some holder functions being inaccessible for modders
- Fixed dungeon debug data (seed and room name) not showing if the level is loaded from the console
- Fixed not being possible to reload the same dungeon level, using its seed, if the level was loaded from the console
- Fixed some locomotion issue in dungeon room LostCove
- Fixed wrong rotation handling of the Falchion
- Fixed handle length on greatswords
- Fixed some lighting issues with the new blood
- Fixed new messages spawning from the last message object anchor position
- Leather Nerf ; Made Stabbing/Slashing/Axing easier on Leather
- Fixed gravity bubble shader issue
- Fixed some canyon navmesh issues
- Fixed Arcwire (lightning staff use) decapitating when gore is not allowed
- Fixed potion decals flashing too large
- Added cosmetic slash and blunt collision effects to leather
- Added cosmetic slash effects to plate armor
- Fixed map board options text not resizing
- Reduced force needed to show blunt impact on armors
- Added loading progression
- SetPhysicModifier methods can now take a negative gravity value, to allow antigravity
- Fixed weird item lighting in Hallway_01
- Fixed holes in Transi_Courtyard
- Fixed walking in to the Dungeon area of Citadel sometimes being invisible