Since the release, we've been working nonstop to address the reported bugs, thanks to your valuable feedback. The majority have already been fixed. We appreciate your support and patience.
PATCH NOTES v1.01
1) Fixed issue if the person stands over the hole directly when dropping 2nd eye. (Blue Knees Section) 2) Added Inventory Rotation Speed Option 3) Fixed issue with unsolvable solar puzzle and made it so players can swap medallion position without having to store in inventory first 4) Valve Index - Removed pause from SystemTouched as too many people were accidently pushing it when reading an item. Like other VR controls where the menu button is not available, use the alternate "Hold Crouch 2 for seconds" to pause the game. We will look to make this more intuitive in the future 5) Fixed issue with unresponsive menus when using Virtual Desktop - This was caused because of the forced resolution of VD clashing with Unity's window size. 6) Fixed some logic issues in the Video menu regarding AA, etc. Reset defaults to upscaling off. 7) Removed DLSS due to poor performance. Actually makes things worse. FSR is much better across the board in Unity.
PATCH NOTES v1.02
1) Fixed black photos bug / photos not developing.
We've noticed, many of you were not able to play due to the photos not developing. This is an issue caused by Windows when your monitor is in HDR.
In case the issue persists, please turn your monitor's HDR off and that's it.
PATCH NOTES v1.03
1) Reinstate DLSS. (In investigating the issues with photos not developing we were given some player logs that suggested Unity's implementation of DLSS wasn't stable. We thought it therefore best to temporarily remove. However, since we have found the cause of that issue and having heard from lots of players that DLSS was working fine for them, we have added it back.)
PATCH NOTES v1.04
1) Replaced tutorial images with brighter version (plus replaced clock as they are no longer magnifiers). 2) Fixed issue with middle solar puzzle slot. 3) Increased break distance. Almost impossible to get your hand through regular doors now. 4) Added ability to move with all inventory items. Changed scrollable items to Up / Down instead of Left / Right (to not conflict with snap / smooth turn). Recommended to hold scrollable items such as instant photos in your dominant hand. Removed Left / Right Arrows.
PATCH NOTES v1.10 - 05/24/2024
1) Remove alternate menu combination for HTC Vive controllers. 2) Moved Save Icon to be more visible. 3) Allow movement with notepad pages. 4) Remove erroneous footsteps near well. 5) Issue with candle hotswapping. 6) Added climbing sound on ladders. 7) Cutscene collider trigger is now full height making it easier to trigger if they have not figured out walkie talkie orientation. 8) Improvements to doors / drawers / bedroom and kitchen cupboards - completely solved fingers / hands getting stuck transitioning from grips.
OTHERS
For setups where the pause button is hijacked by SteamVR its possible to hold the crouch button for 2 seconds.
Thank you so much for your patience. Have a terrifying experience!
We will perform maintenance on the Closers World server according to the following schedule, based on your time zone:
UTC: May 8, 2024 from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM
PDT: May 7, 2024 from 10:00 PM to May 8, 2024 at 3:00 AM
GMT+7: May 8, 2024 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Please log out of the game before maintenance begins. During this period, you will not be able to access the game, and the website may not function properly.
To stay up to date with news and other information, please visit our website or follow us on social media.
It's been a while since our last update, but for a very good reason. Our dedicated team has been hard at work refining Avalon Lords, focusing on performance enhancements and the new Darkness faction. Previously, managing 100 troops saw frame rates between 40-60 FPS. Thanks to the relentless efforts of our small but talented team, we can now support up to 9,000 troops simultaneously with smooth animation at 120 FPS—a monumental achievement!
We're also thrilled to share that all structures for the Darkness faction are nearing completion, and a significant portion of the units are ready. Our roadmap includes finalizing Darkness, then shifting focus to hero units, aligning with our schedule to release Chapter 1 by late September or early October.
We plan to roll out this build for testing to current game owners in early June. Additionally, we've made significant changes to how structures are built and progress, allowing for more strategic flexibility from the game's outset. This update will enable players to adopt varying strategies, whether opting for quick, aggressive tactics or long-term, expansive builds.
Check out the latest screenshots below for a glimpse into the evolving world of Avalon Lords. We're excited about the direction we're heading and appreciate your continued support!
Stay tuned for more updates, The Avalon Lords Team
A little more polish & refinement before Genome Guardian's full release!
CHANGES:
I have once again tweaked the balance to be a bit friendlier to newcomers.
You're now guaranteed to see at least 1 weapon in the shop on wave 1, 2, 3 (in the full game it won't be guaranteed, but will be more likely!).
Items in the shop will be 5 Biomass cheaper in the prologue since it only lets you reach wave 20.
Both discovered and undiscovered weapons in ARSENAL / microbes in MICROBES will show their DNA letters on their button (so that it's easier to know which weapons to go for if you're trying to discover them all).
From the 10th to the 20th of May you can play the Demo of CRETE. This demo is based on our Alpha version and will be part of Steam's Endless Replayability Fest 2024.
Hello friends, it's time for our monthly project heartbeat development update, I have spent this month working mostly on PH, so phoenix got many massive upgrades and is inching ever closer to being released.
I don't know why but I have spent the last few weeks working HARD on Phoenix, squashing many editor bugs and improving things here and there.
The funeral
As you may be aware, diva is all but dead, which is very sad, this has incidentally led to a massive amount of new sales for me, so it's a bittersweet moment. I hope I can carry the project diva torch as best as I can. Of course my budget will never be anywhere near diva, but PH also doesn't cost nearly as much ;)
(P.S: If you are the owner of some music-heavy IP, like a music-focused anime or similar I'm open to negotiations of making a game using the PH engine, similar to miracle girls festival. I have console and mobile versions of the engine too).
Phoenix Beta 3
I released Phoenix Beta 3 last week, I could pad this post by copying and pasting you all the changes (and there are a loooooot of them) but I think it would be better if you read it straight from the source here.
The important changes, besides the massive amounts of fixes are:
UI is now true 3D, saving power and looking better, plus I added a frosted glass effect to transparent elements
Modifiers are fixed, including hidden
New console -> arcade conversion modifier, experimental
Input map migration from old PH to Phoenix
Disabled dx12 support (for now)
Workshop now shows a gameplay type display
Some changes to menus, specially pregame
Phoenix Beta 4
Today I'm also releasing beta 4, well, I've been releasing it as I worked during the week, but there's yet another shit ton of changes to the game and fixes to make it work better. Not much new stuff, but as I said before, phoenix is in a bit of a feature freeze until it's all sorted out and relatively bug free.
God I fear for the day Phoenix is released and I have to write the changelog for all cumulative changes... Anyways here they are:
The controller dilemma
I was thinking about non-standard controller support in PH, and I came to a dilemma, I am considering only officially supporting non-gamepad-style controllers (like the xbox controller) and letting people use steam input to remap it. What do you guys think? (specially considering phoenix supports steam input, unlike stable PH).
Multiplayer
I've worked hard on some phoenix multiplayer stuff, it's almost ready, most functionality is restored but I want to give it a good do-over. Either way, it should be made available soon.
Unfortunately phoenix MP uses a different, newer, Steamworks P2P API for communication, so you won't be able to do crossplay between stable and beta.
Results screen rework
I redesigned the result screen, thanks to input from NeoRash from the PH server, the new one looks way nicer adn shows more info!
3D UI improvements
(It totally looks like wallhacks lol)
Good news, I've revamped how the 3D UI system introduced last update works, it's simpler and does clipping properly, yay. I also managed to do away without dynamic canvas operations, unfortunately I've also managed to break DX12 and OpenGL whoops..
I may just drop OpenGL support entirely, but i could reimplement it if needed quite simply.
DJA rework
In another episode of EIREXE tries to fix direct joystick access, I think I've finally done it this time.
I replaced how inputs behave, with the empty slide sound playing always, even when hitting.
I also used a multi band compressor to try and make the slide empty sound less annoying, let me know what you think!
Finally, I reworked how DJA behaves in general, including some funky deadzone intersection code that should make fast flicks more consistent.
Previously, when you hit a direction and then flicked back the opposite way there was a chance your input would "skip" the deadzone and thus never re-trigger the slide/heart action, now the game checks if a line drawn from the previous joystick position to the current joystick position would intersect the deadzone, if it does and if it would end up outside the deadzone again it takes care of triggering actions and releases the way it should.
Interval tree accelerated gameplay
After many long years of pain dealing with inconsistent note clipping I decided to go the nuclear way. The new interval tree method the game uses allows for very fast lookups of what note groups are actually visible on screen with none of the issues that plagued old PH, specially regarding custom time out values.
Other fixes/small changes
Fix MM+ song loading
Fix sine wave gimmick effects
Fix editor right click lockout
Fix editor timeline scale being wrong in some circunstances
Adjust slider piece particle and note hit effect
Fix difficulty creation
Fix editor settings selector
Fix creating variants
Improve mouse trap
Fix potential loading screen error when downloading UI skins
Fix workshop media auto downloads
Fix editor help links
Fix data race in get_song_select_sprite_set
Fix editor help links
Fix some timing point deserialization (intro skip, lyrics etc)
Fix song metadata editor question marks
Fix resource pack editor open pack window, scaling and inspector.
Adjust main menu scaling and theming
Fix practice mode layout
Fix lyric clipping
Fix error loading content dirs section
Fix ofsetting timing points in the editor only offsetting notes even if that setting is unchecked
Hide tempo change dialog by default
Optimize editor inspector updates by deferring them whenever possible
Optimize copying and pasting notes
Fix PPD song loader not loading YT json
Fix PPD video selector dialog
Make script editor dialog a normal window instead of a Popup
Fix script editor behavior and syntax highlight
Fix editor background scaling
Make editor playtest UI scaling match the game's
Optimize results screen
Fix some album art scaling issues
Fix workshop browser pagination wraparound and backing from detail view
Fix start menu party hat
Fix editor note layer order
Fix playtesting charts
Fix editor playtest not playing video at the correct time
Fix multi note deletion breaking
Fix audio loudness for MM+ variants
Fix DJA heart sustain note transfers
Fix "the save as button doesn't seem to do anything" and "after going into the song selector in the editor and then going back to a chart you can no longer press space to play until restarting the editor"
Rework some pre game screen architecture
Fix missing async task queue thread joins
Optimize song list container by using visibility notification rects
Fix note usage deserialization and related menu elements
Add CSV timing dumping
Swansong
Honestly haven't worked much on swansong, but I've made an execution system and switched to ghost of tsushima style GPU blood, it's fast as fuck and I think will look better once I add more randomness.
I'll post a video of the blood in movement on Patreon right after this post goes live.
After the combat and assassination system is semi-working, I would like to go work on parkour again, I have some ideas on how I'm going to do it.
I've also been drawing some concept art, it's not good but it shows an idea i had for a hanging city inside of a rock formation (a ravine?).
I also asked Guinii to make me some concept art for the protagonist, i'll showcase it here as soon as there's something done! I think you'll love the ideas I came up with.
Future
It's all looking very good, it's all going well, suspiciously well, this means we are well on our way to exiting early access relatively soon! Target is before august.
On another personal note, my car finally passed inspection (which cost me a pretty penny) and I unfortunately had to reject a job at a company for personal reasons, but oh well, at least I will always have frieren... except someone forgot to put the base in the box for the figure, ffs.