Hello Fellow Penal Colony Workers,
Update 0.3.11 brings a bunch of changes as I've both been working on getting the game closer to launch in 2 weeks and address demo specific issues. (We skipped versions as I validated build candidates)
I want to thank everyone who's played the game so far and shared their feedback and experience. I especially wanna shoutout our testers on discord who have been testing builds and sending me bug reports. This project is mostly a solo endeavour so I could not get this far without ya'll <3
I also want to re-iterate it since I got some questions from people who didn't see the formal announce but when the game launches on March 10th (PST) it will cost 7.99 USD with a 10% launch discount.
I also plan to keep the demo up after launch to let people try the weird controls before the commit to a purchase. I am well aware they aren't for everyone and that's ok. I do however want to do everything in my power to make the game more comfortable to play where issues like animation or navigation cause problems.
Highlights
Demo Saves and The Full Game
A "completed" demo save will now be able to carry across to the full game. Unfortunately this does come with a save wipe as all older demo saves will be invalid in this build.
Navigation Stability
Older versions of the player/enemy navigation worked fully in worldspace and lead to many subtle physics and floating point desyncs. I have fully converted to a local space solution, this has been thoroughly battle tested and resolves some subtle nav bugs but in particular the edge cases where players can get stuck in space on or above the stairs. This change also comes with a small CPU perf boost.
Culling Lights/Props on the Ship
When I'm talking about culling and pop-in here I'm exclusively referring to ship related props, the world uses a different system. Anyway I've further optimised the culling system and addressed many glaring pop-in issues as you navigate around. However there's certainly still a few so if you notice any please do let me know.
Full Change Log
Threat Indicators
The ships computers will now do an idle beep when the ship has a hostile threat
Additionally in the case of flooding a different tone will play if the ship is >25% flooding
Added another Ship computer to the middle deck
Changed the light on the ship computer so the indicator is easier to spot visually
The navigation hotspot in the bridge now also has some helpful ship status indicators added
Tutorialisation
Prevented some tutorials from showing in bad context
Show item raise and item use 3 times before hiding fully
Fixed inventory close tutorial never showing
Made edge of screen turn tutorial clearer
Gameplay/General:
The game now has a death screen that allows you to reload your save or return to the menu, this should make whats happening on death very clear
Smoothed camera pop when setting new destinations for movement, also softened jerkyness in walk, run animations and transitions to and from idle, Generally moving around should just feel smoother
Fixed head bob slider not working in some cases
Fixed being able to nav to the deck from inside the bridge ladder area
Fixed visible move marker when you started from bed
Fixed the hopper disabling it's gate triggers when the player is not on the hotspot
Made nav around ship engine a bit tighter to prevent players head from going inside
Added a nav based way for the enemies to get down if they get stuck on the crane (assuming they actually reach the top), it's not ideally but should prevent them getting stuck up there in some cases
Icebox renamed to deck locker to match key and
Made enemy attacks only ever damage the thing they're trying to attack(also uses cheaper math)
Fixed map not reset to ship center when the game loads up
Winch hook will now not hook to traps if they would be at max dist and snap off the winch the next frame anyway
Buffed blow torch min and max range slightly
Decreased the out of bounds timeout slightly
Crab trap now works like the bait supply, clicking on the base will act as a move target, and the top will open the lid, the bait bucket will not now auto open the lid when you try to fill the trap
Fixed navigating on the ladder not being used if you click on the ground at the bottom of the ladder but not the ladder itself
Fixed camera moving a bit after you load a save in bed, in the rare case the game will load you back on deck instead of from the bed, the player should no longer turn around on start up
Tweaked hook gun accuracy to be a bit easier and handle overshoots easier
Juiced up the hook gun but also added a bit of a delay between shots
Prevented the player from taking damage inside the cabin
Moved the axe and fuse box locker on lower deck to better location for opening flow
Fixed boundary visual and test out of bounds not actually lining up
Refill station now blocks refill until bait supply is fully repaired
Fixed not being able to mouse over stuff on ship computer hotspot (unsure how long this has been broken for)
Fixed bad pathing if you click to move on dropped bait
Fixed insane upper limit on hook gun
Fixed Paralomis taking a few seconds after death to remove itself from the attached hotspot
Art:
Fixed low health green flicker (at least in the case i was able to reproduce)
Fixed IK weights on hands not reverting if you weren't holding an item
Added a new unlocked cabinet up on the upper deck and tweaked visuals near the bridge entrance
Fixed LOD issues with some world props that were set too aggressive
Cutscene cigarette is now correct (thanks tyler....)
HUD and Inventory UI brightness now capped at 95% to bring style into alignment
Brachy and paralomis death now crossfades shader out and lasts slightly longer
Added some VFX when the bait supply contents change
Fixed clock not rendering time at appropriate times
Added a more diegetic output to the button panel on the winch and crane
Disable player body while on hook gun and hopper to prevent player from seeing their body
Tweaked ocean wake compute shader to reduce GPU overhead
Fixed item shimmer shader using worldspace instead of boat space to animate causing it to speed up when the boat was moving
Added a bit of motion to the ship map marker to help draw the players eye
Added some prop polish in opening cutscene
Made the button panel animated rope slightly use a line renderer fallback when in motion, instead of a runtime generated mesh, when it was active this was a 4-5ms overhead so it's a nice saving to remove it and I think it's pretty close visually
The sink now has an actual animation
Added a tiny bit of juice to refill station pour
Fixed missing shimmer on ammo box
Fixed security camera rendering (and made it cast fog on the water so it looks a bit better to)
Fixed coffee mesh visibility
Fixed micro animation jitter on bed loop which if you left the game running long enough would cause the player to rotate slowly around axis (this would fuck up the get off animation)
Audio:
Ocean ambience sounds when you're near the outside edge of the ship tweaked, now there's 3 sounds that crossfade based on the intensity of the water instead of just one
Improved some audio fade in issues from any non game state into the game
Added demo end sound when you "win"
Improved enemy aggro sound
Added death sound that plays into the death screen
Added movement sounds for paralomis
Added scuttle sound for crab inside deck locker
Fixed winch up loop sound finishing too early and re-added missing finish sound
Ensure player footsteps stop playing sounds if player has already stopped
Saves:
Decreased default auto save frequency from 5 to 2 minutes
Previously using many hotspots would block auto save while in use, now only the bed and ladder do this
Save validation improved
Added a message next to the continue button if the game attempts to load a save but rejects it for some reason
The game will no longer write non-default save files to disk until the first save occurs
Saves now blocked when ship has >.25% water to prevent soft lock
Fixed an issue where if you have items/crabs in the crab hopper and reloaded a save they would disapear (actually they just fucked off into nowhere)
Fixed race condition on startup that would stop dropped bait from respawning when loading a save
UI:
Options UI, Made font sizes more consistent, made float labels always be format 0.00
Cutscene dialogue is now centered, tweaked opening cutscene dialogue slightly
Pop up notify when new items added is now clearer, handles multiple at a time, doesn't overlap with lock UI and pops up when ammo, and items are added
Added option to fully disable tutorials
Made "Hold To Raise" option label include seconds in subtile
Improved UI clarity when mousing over ammo and bandages
Added a QA section to credits and added additional playtesters
Opening cutscene contract now requires you to draw a little more before buttons appears to continue
Made tutorials generally easier to read with a background image
Improved text readout on bait supply, so both the move target and open target display the same info and properly handle damage states
Known Issues
At high framerates physics can still cause issues for the Crab Traps flying away when dropping from the Crane or Crabs dropped into the hopper missing their target. This is something I'l be attempting to address ahead of launch for obvious reasons.
It is possible for ammo or bandages to be fully consumed but appear in the inventory again in a bugged state.
The game is not auto saving when you first boot the game and finish the first cutscene. Auto saves after you leave the dock all work fine however.
Happy Crabbing,
Nick