Hello everyone! It's been a few weeks since the last patch and so we wanted to share our progress on the game so far! This update may look rather small but contains lots of small changes to the way our UI works, alongs with more usability/feedback improvements!
As usual, we hope that the update will be to your liking, and feel free to give us feedback on the changes!
Patch Notes for Patch 0.1.5
✴️ ️Changes alongside this symbol means that they were made due to your feedback ! Thank you for helping us making Seth a better game !
Gameplay
New maps have been added! We are slowly reaching our desired number of maps for the first biome, expect a few more to add variety on the beginnings of each runs in the next updates still!
✴️ Enemies now drop roughly 50% more money on death. This change will probably still move around a bit, we're trying to hit that sweet spot that allows everyone to get at least a 50 coin heal on the first merchant without the need to go out of your way to farm the room rewards with gold
Melee attacks and Finisher will now lock your camera towards the targeted enemy, to guarantee a hit against the enemy you were targeting. This should also provides a more "cinematic" experience for finishers as we improve the animation over time!
✴️ Finishers can now be made from range! The goal is to allow players to more easily use the feature, by making you dash automatically to the desired enemy and finishing him instantly
Fang of Anubis bullet spread angle changed from 10° to 7° ! This along with the next change is to make it easier to understand what is the "ideal range" for using the Fang of Anubis. It will require a bit more precision but will take a slightly longer range before the Fang of Anubis becomes completely ineffective
Fang of Anubis and Bow of Neith max range before damage falloff has been increased by 200
✴️ Interaction range of most objects and doors has been doubled
The size of the Heralds of Apophis has been increased by 20%
Environment and Art
Various rubbles and stone elements have new textures
The animations of Blast Wings have been modified! No changes were made to its behavior, he still explodes
Added a "glitch" effect whenever the player takes damage
User Interface
The main menu has been modified!
The enemy healtbar and damage number display have been modified!
A new UI element, showing if an enemy is vulnerable to a finisher, has been added
The settings menu appearance has been updated! We're nearly rid of all the old UI!
The player's HP bar is now animated and will react properly when taking damage
Audio
The Corrupted Akh enemy has received proper SFX
Reanimated Corpses should grow less often. They ended up being very noisy in large numbers!
The sounds playing when picking up shields have been updated to better fit their upcoming lore!
Our deep dive series continues! Today, we're looking at the ongoing visual overhauls...
Contrast, Colour & Detail
Primal Carnage: Extinction was originally a very drab game that didn't feature much in the way of contrast or colour when it first launched. One of the goals of our Evolution overhaul is to further address this criticism by giving the game a dramatic makeover...
Although still working in the same engine, we've managed to push the visuals even further for 3.0 while finding a more natural brightness range compared to how PCE on PC used to look.
Most maps will appear darker than they used to in PCE on PC, without the nuclear hot sunlight that used to be blasting the environments. Aside from reducing the brightness of the sun itself, we've refined the post processing and overall look of the game, with more finely calibrated tonemapping.
Even though the actual colour grading is different, many bold colours actually come from the wide variety of flowers now found on the maps, which break up what used to be an almost uniformly green jungle.
Some areas have actually become even more detailed since our original before / after showcases at the start of the Evolution beta...
UtilityBase now has dirt filling in the cracks of its floor tiles and leaves piling up inside. New detail props that you can kick around, like traffic cones and boxes, make the game world feel more reactive.
In addition to improving the lighting and shading of the world, many assets have become more detailed over time. If you joined us long after the 2.0 update for PCE on PC, you might have missed that we gave our dinosaurs a 4k texture overhaul...
Since then, numerous other assets received updates too, including the polygons on Commando's head!
ANIMATION ENHANCEMENTS
Many new animations have been created over the past couple of years, such as completely re-animating the entire human team a while ago for 2.0. In the clip below, you can see the original moveset was quite stiff, with motions that often looked a little unnatural. For example, the Pyromaniac on the left seems more like he’s ice skating than sprinting (and his belly is just completely out of control).
Heading into version 3.0 with Evolution, many of the new animations we're now working on aren't just for visual polish - they directly affect gameplay.
Take the raptors, for example. Compared to the regular quick-tap pounce, it was felt that running around with a charged-up pounce could sometimes give a slight advantage. Consequently, raptors now have unique ready-up animations for charging their pounce and moving around with it held ready. While these new animations do assist gameplay… they’re also just really cool.
Elsewhere, all Tyrants now have low health animations! Their idle pose and movement style changes with low HP, helping humans to know when they can push to take them down. Keep an eye out for Spino’s dangling arm, Rex’s limp, and Acro’s lumbering. We may extend this feature to other classes in future, but figured it was most valuable when dealing with Tyrants.
An experimental feature that we're still unsure will make the final cut is floor alignment, which adjusts a dinosaur's rotation to match the surface angle when going up and down hills. This feature has caused some *interesting* bugs so far. Hopefully it can be tamed, since when it works it really helps immersion.
On the human side, the stungun has some new animation tweaks coming up. Regular shots have the same wimpy motion as ever, but charged stungun shots have much more kick, feeling suitably powerful. Also, new motions when fully charged convey that it’s a struggle to keep this thing from popping off.
There are of course plenty of changes that are purely aesthetic, but which go towards making the experience feel more polished. Many of these are 3rd person human anim tweaks, such as making sure guns don’t float out of their hands and fixing the last few missing equip motions.
That said, being able to properly SEE a human doing a melee attack when viewed in 3rd person is quite helpful as a dinosaur, especially if it’s a pathfinder winding up a heavy machete slash!
WEATHER EFFECTS
A new “weather system” has been added, which applies special effects on maps that have it enabled. When you’re outdoors on Airbase, Downpour, etc. you’ll now see your character appear wet and shiny with raindrops pattering on them.
Humans will see their weapons being rained on as well, but go inside and you’ll slowly dry out over time. If you look up while standing in the rain, droplets will also appear on the camera lens.
For now, the only weather type is rain - but we’re looking at adding new snow effects for winter.
NEW OVERLAYS
Similar to standing in the rain, go stick your camera under a waterfall and your view will become distorted as the water washes over you. There are many new post process screen overlays like this, but one of the more complex is the new Roar Ability effect! When deploying a roar, glowing veins now quickly trace across the screen to better communicate the buff...
Other post process additions include Tyrant roars now spraying spittle onscreen if you stand too near to them, and close-up melee kills will splatter your victim’s blood on the camera!
Classic effects such as getting poisoned or being blinded by spit / flares are also receiving upgrades. Flares are now more obscuring when seen by dinos (but hopefully not bright enough to give you a headache), while spit now has different overlays for charged vs. uncharged spit.
We think these adjustments make for a much more visceral experience - but if it’s too much for you, many effects such as screenshake can be adjusted to your liking or turned off entirely in the expanded game options menu.
STAY TUNED
Keep an eye out for more deep dives coming soon, exploring more of the changes and improvements coming with the FREE Evolution Update on PC. You can try out many of these changes already in the Open Testing beta, but there are even more juicy features we've yet to fully reveal!
Join us on Discord
Join the the Official Primal Carnage Discord to keep up with all the latest sneak peeks and take part in the Autumnal-themed screenshot contest, winners receive special spooky items this Halloween!
The Crater will now be available and accessible from the town after having cleared the game
Fixed an issue causing the level 5 Crater activity to be available earlier than intended
Polished and redesigned visually the level selection screen of the memory system
Updated Crater activity memory thumbnails to also include the duck events
Added thumbnails to the epilogue memories that were missing them
Added CG viewer functionality to the Nube gift social event memory
CG Viewer button will no longer appear when the selected memory doesn't have its CG viewer function implemented
Fixed PUB persistent NPC event not being available when replaying the PUB work activity through the memory system
Fixed an issue during the level 5 PUB persistent NPC event that caused Hana's maid bikini to not appear when the back sprite was in use when seeing the NPC event after the cleaning event
When viewing a previous unseen level of the level 5 PUB persistent NPC, Hana will now temporarily revert to the uniform that is intended for that event for the duration of the event
World sprites will now adjust their brightness based on the current time
Fixed the level 1 standing split event memory being broken after v1.5
Fixed an epilogue memory removing the 2000 silver once again when replaying it
Fixed Hana's hat remaining on her sprite after replaying the last epilogue memory
Changed the warmth social event from a level 3 event into now being a level 5 event
We want to thank you all for the support, feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. A special thanks to the content creators, the players in Start Over's Discord, and the Steam community hub. We also deeply appreciate everyone who has supported the game, even if you haven't played in a while or simply believed in the concept.
We've been working incredibly hard on this update to address complex hardcoded issues that were almost impossible to solve—but we've done it.
On a more personal note, I’d like to share a bit about our journey as developers. We started the development of this game as a small group of family members. As time went on, we were reduced to just two developers working on this project. Eventually, it became just me, and now the game can't even financially support my work alone. Despite this, I've decided to pour everything into this major update, making the game as stable and polished as possible. I deeply appreciate the community for supporting us through this journey.
Moving forward, I will do my best to fix any game-breaking issues that arise post-update. Thank you all for being part of this journey.
Save System Changes:
We’ve completely reworked the save system. This means that old saves will no longer be compatible with the new update. However, to access your old saves, you can go to Steam, right-click on "Start Over," click Properties, then Betas, and select [old save system]. This will allow you to continue using your old saves while playing on the updated version of the game.
Reworked Systems
Reworked the world save system
Reworked player data and game data saves
Reworked vehicle and AI saves
Major improvements to saving and loading times
Bug Fixes:
Fixed Bunkers targeting bug
Fixed a bug where hotbar and quickslots items disappeared after entering a vehicle
Fixed lighting and shadow bugs
Fixed performance issues
Fixed NPC AI shooting and targeting bugs
Fixed issues with the spawn system
Fixed a bug where hostile animals spawned near the player
Fixed a bug with the Buggy controls
Fixed a bug related to storage slots
Fixed minor UI bugs
Fixed random event bugs
Improvements and Changes:
Improved all loading times
Improved particle performance
Improved AI behaviors and performance
Improved lighting and shadows
Improved the overall look of the game
Improved player projectiles
Improved weapons recoil and accuracy
Adjusted bullet drop behavior
Increased the speed of the ATV, Buggy, Horse, Player character, Attack Helicopter, and Cargo Helicopter
Balanced weapon damage
Balanced NPC stats
New Features, Content, and Additions:
Major map changes with more details, water sources, and landscape improvements
Added new POIs, loot, and areas to explore
Reworked Wave and POIs NPCs
Reworked the vehicle flying system for helicopters (controls, maneuvering, behavior, speed)
Added storage to helicopters and horses
Added the ability to zoom in using the gunner mode in the Attack Helicopter
Added the ability to destroy hostile AA Iron Domes
Added the ability for the horse to sprint
Thank you again for all your support and for being part of this incredible journey!
Tomagata had sacrificed his childhood and teen years to the divine realms. To study the mysteries of the land, the spirits, the gods, and the language of the long-gone ancestors, he didn’t play, he didn't drink and, while it was not prohibited, he was yet to know the embrace of a woman.
All these sacrifices were not asked from him by the spirits, the gods of even doctrine. He sacrificed all of that willingly so he was able to study at the Cuca near his town; a sacred precinct where priests received their sacred knowledge from elder holy men.
But years had taken their toll. He felt lonely, sad, and longed for the things he missed because of his stay at the Cuca. However, soon he would be a chyquy, a priest in his own right.
Tomagata only had to attend his teacher with the burial rites of their chief’s daughter, who was sadly put to death by a mysterious disease. It was easy, he just needed to carry himself respectfully and attend to whatever the priest requested.
Tomagata had everything ready. With the help of a goldsmith he had made a Tunjo for the dead woman. It was a golden representation of her. Alive in a way, it was both an offering to all spiritual beings and a representation of the woman. He would also bring, at his teacher’s request, some emeralds and yopo seeds.
The emeralds would serve to placate any angry spirits, including the dead woman’s, and to ensure her safe passage to the worlds beyond. The yopo seeds were for his teacher. Consuming them would allow him to see the spirits and guide the girl.
Tomagata smiled. When he got the seeds, the man who sold them felt very comfortable with Tomagata, and confessed consuming some, even without the proper training. He claimed it was the most fun experience he had in his life. Absolute ignorance!
Night fell, and Tomagata and his master walked to the site. His master explained the rite was to take place inside a nearby cave, with an opening to a beautiful lagoon. His master reminded him that all Muiscas came from the water and that caves served as portals; veils to other worlds. A spirit touched by the water, and then guided through a cave, would have an easy time finding its way beyond. Not only that, but with the help of the yopo seeds, he could talk to any spirits, be them of dead people, of the land, or the gods themselves.
For the Muisca there was not much difference between gods and other spirits. The land itself was full of them. The only difference was power and rank.
Before arriving, Tomagata was already feeling as if he were about to doze off. He knew all of this. It was boring, it was repetitive. And so, when they arrived and the priest started to work, Tomagata could only fantasize about finishing his studies and doing the fun things people did, like getting drunk which chicha...
And that’s when he remembered the merchant and what he said about the yopo seeds. What would be the harm in taking a handful and consuming them inside the cave? No one would notice!
And so he did. At the start, nothing happened. But progressively as minutes passed, he noticed how the cave’s walls began to breathe, how the lagoon sang outside, and he felt the earth, the rock, the soil; caressing him. The earth was alive, and the spirits of the land were greeting him! And then, suddenly… Black, followed by a thousand colors.
Chía, the moon, descended and entered the cave. With a luminous flash appeared Chaquén, god of cities, and Bochica; god of civilization and protector of humanity. They talked in booming voices about an upcoming threat that had already reached the lands of the Muisca, but Tomagata couldn’t keep up with their words.
The visages of the gods vanished and Tomagata was engulfed by visions of steel, fire, smoke, disease, and treason. He screamed, full of horror and despair, and started to claw at the vision, wanting nothing but freedom from this knowledge.
He begged for release and got it. Everything suddenly turned black and with a gasp, he breathed, noticing himself wet. On top of him, surrounded by angry people, was his master, who had just thrown water on him.
Our September DEATH STRANDING Community Showcase is now LIVE!
Spotlighting Porters to applaud their creativity is something we enjoy hugely. As we head into our 5th year since launching DEATH STRANDING onto PC, we want to do more to celebrate our fans! While our #DSPorterSpotlight series might have come to an end in 2023, we're excited to run an all-new DEATH STRANDING community showcase video series, designed to celebrate the talents of our fans. (And celebrate more of you!)
The response to our first DEATH STRANDING Community Showcase was truly incredible! Thank you Porters, for taking part.
Whether you’re a cosplayer, artist, illustrator, or virtual photographer, we want to invite you to get involved in future showcases.
Submit your best work here and who knows, you may just see your creations in one of our future videos: https://505games.com/uploads/
ENJOY 50% OFF DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT FOR A LIMITED TIME!
Fluff's Adventure: A Tale of Fur and Steel - K_FI_I
Hello dear Fluff fanatics, Here's another sign of life from me. The last few weeks have been very successful and have really catapulted the game forward. I also had the fantastic opportunity to show my game at Gamescom! But first things first.
Gamescom and Fluff's Adventure
Gamescom - the biggest games fair in the world. Hundreds of exhibitors, games and game enthusiasts in one place. And Fluff's Adventure was right in the middle of it all this year! I never thought I would be there as an exhibitor to present my own game, but that's exactly what happened. You had the opportunity to try out the game at the Jugendforum NRW stand, and I got the space myself via the Indiehub. A big thank you to both of you! I made a video for the Gamescom appearance that gives you a little insight into Fluff's adventure on site:
I also had two appearances where I could talk about my game and the game development itself. In the first appearance at BASF Gaming I was able to show Fluff itself:
The second appearance was more professional: At the NRW Youth Forum, there was a panel discussion on the topic: From Passion to Profession. Here I spoke together with other development teams, all of whom have approached games at a much more professional level than I am currently doing.
How is Fluff's Adventure coming along?
But let's get to the important topics. Gamescom gave me the opportunity (similar to the Indie Game Fest) to let you loose on the game. My personal conclusion: the changes and improvements have paid off 100%, players are much more motivated to solve the puzzles and have also got through the levels much better. There have also been many bug reports and feature suggestions via my Discord or in person. The new version of the demo, which is published with this post, has all the things built in that were important for the single player. Some bugs in the multiplayer have also been fixed. Now the second level really gets underway! So check out my Twitch channel to make sure you don't miss anything. And as always: If you've noticed anything in the demo, let me know in my Discord! Have fun with the new version of the demo (changes below) and best regards Your Kai
Patch Notes
Fixed Bugs:
Multiplayer - speech/thought bubble not aligned with second player's camera
Fluff idle animations in main menu broken
Memory slots 2 and 3 do not save the game correctly
Castle puzzle - entry possible with two Fluffs at the beginning
Fluff can still be controlled after interacting with the rotating bar
Castle puzzle - bar pressure plate reacts too early
Castle puzzle - bar pressure plate does not react correctly to cubes
Missing collider on castle
Not accurate collider on walls
Fluff on buildings can be trapped between grid and platform puzzles
Multiplayer - Second player character controllable in cutscene
Bypassing the first gate around the wall possible
Patrolling NPC Fluffs no longer move after a while
Grid puzzle - When entering the puzzle short popup of input hint without reason
Grid puzzle - With frame-perfect column movement towards each other, the columns can slide into each other
Grid puzzle - Collider of the right wall is missing
Level skip possible via starting house
Path behind the first gate is too high - Green Fluff gets stuck on the path and has to jump
Change Fluff during the fall -> Fluff does not respawn
Puzzle-relevant objects can fall off the map and then not respawn
Platform puzzle: Chaos if you spawn a new cube while already holding one
Texture error on the plateau next to the bell tower
Simon-Says puzzle: Cage with wooden plank can block a Fluff that is directly underneath it
Missing collider on the way to the first gate
Multiplayer - double jump possible by jumping on top of each other
Treetop colliders block paths
Multiplayer, grid puzzle: Only one indicator for column movement displayed
Large Fluff gets stuck on paths and trees
Infinite “feelers/antennas” when antennas get stuck on objects
Parts of the castle at the castle puzzle do not reach the ground
Vegetation floats in the air
Level skip past final elevator possible via canopies
Implemented features:
Activated cables - Shader-based “wave movement” of light from the trigger
Display antennas of following Fluffs in the color of the followed Fluff
Place cables on pressure plates to gates
Y-axis inversion for camera control
Grid puzzles - enable dragging of columns
Transparency of assets (trees) in the field of view
Make the rotation speed of the camera customizable
