We have some exciting news! We just updated The Crimson Maid demo with a new version that includes lots of improvements. Excited to find out more? Here are some of the changes:
- lots of UI improvements and animations to make the game more intuitive
- new interaction icons
- proper Steam Deck support, including specific graphical settings for the best on device quality with a playable fps
- UI adjustments for Steam Deck to make it easier to read texts
- added vibrations for various interactions and cutscenes
- more tutorials for the game's actions
- the intro cutscenes were renamed to Prologue and the playable acts are now Act 1 and Act 2
- you must now find the bird seeds in Act 2 to be able to feed the robin
- improved the well puzzle with animations, vibrations and extra hints
- journal is now opened automatically in key moments
- character movement improvements, including overall speed, head bobbing, different speed for strafing
- improved controller support
- interact icons now appear from further away
- changed how character names are displayed during dialogues to make it easier to follow who is speaking
- journal entries now fade in when they've just been unlocked to make it easier to track your progress
- lots of bug fixes, including the LOD distances for the characters, subtitles not showing on Steam Deck, bird cage inside the car not being hidden during Act 1 intro
Steam Deck and Unreal Engine 5.4
Regarding Steam Deck, there is an important note. While the game works perfectly fine on it, you will need to install the UE prerequisites when you boot the game. If you've previously installed them, then you'll need to uninstall them. This is a known issue and it happens because we had to update Unreal Engine to version 5.4. Unfortunately, there is no current fix as far as we know and we're waiting either for Epic to solve this on their end or for Valve to update their redistributables list with a newer version of Visual C++. In the meantime, you can run the game as long as with each run you either install or reinstall the UE prerequisites.
More demo content
While we're not sure of the timing, we do plan to add more content to the demo at some point. It's likely going to be sometime closer to release, but in the meantime be sure to wishilst and follow the game so you can stay up to date with all future announcements.