Hello all!
I know I said a couple of times that I wouldn't have more dev updates but this isn't spoilery Chapter Two stuff so uhh it doesn't count!
There's nearly 4 years worth of development time between the very first maps of Chapter One, and the final maps of Chapter Two. Given that CULTIC is my first released game and the first time I was ever doing game dev full-time, I ran into a bit of an issue - switching from game dev as a hobby to a full-time gig meant that I was learning and improving much faster than before, and over time, there starts to be a bit of a contrast between the work you're completing now, and the work you completed years ago. This contrast was already getting pretty evident comparing Interlude to Chapter One (in my opinion), but it's even more pronounced when you compare Chapter Two to Chapter One.
On top of just improving as an artist/modeler/etc. over time, I've got a few years worth of new models and props that weren't available during Chapter One's development, and quite a few textures have been reworked or rebuilt that could be subbed out. Plus, CULTIC's palette has expanded and the lighting system has gotten updated to be able to handle more realtime lights. With all that, I decided to try and tackle making a quick polish pass over Chapter One ahead of Chapter Two's launch, to bring the visual quality of the two Chapters closer together, instead of having such a stark contrast.
I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to this, so it's mostly just swapping out textures, cleaning up some geo, adding in new props wherever they fit, cleaning up some problematic encounter designs, and adjusting lighting to better utilize the improved systems. No huge overhauls or dramatic changes to map flow, enemy placements, or secrets, but it has sure been nice to be able to go back and give these early maps some love!
Below you can check out a quick video with some before/after shots of some recognizable spots from E1M1, and below that, a few screenshots!
As always, thanks everyone for your continued support and patience as we inch ever closer to Chapter Two's completion!
EDIT:
There's been a fair few responses expressing concern about the changes on display here, so I wanted to add a little blurb to try and soothe those fears!
If you've played through Chapter One, you've already been playing the game with probably 50% of the graphical updates on display here, and if you've completed Interlude, up that to like 75%! On top of that, every screenshot of Chapter Two that has been shown off includes all of these changes as well. While the difference certainly seems striking when comparing the absolute oldest of CULTIC's assets with the absolute newest, the core artstyle is still pretty much the same.
The primary difference between the current public build of Chapter One's artstyle and Chapter Two's is a couple of yellow swatches in the palette that were desperately needed, and Ambient Occlusion being added in, which contributes a lot of the darker, moodier look. Ambient Occlusion can be disabled in the options for those that prefer it off - I've included an alternate version of one of the above shots, but with AO disabled. While there's still updated texture work and such, the overall contrast of the scene is going to be much closer to what you're used to now.
Another question I've been asked quite a few times is whether these changes can be disabled, and the answer to that question is mostly "no", aside from turning off Ambient Occlusion. It's really not the kind of thing that you can just turn on and off. The totality of the updates to the art since the beginning of development goes far beyond just texture swapping, and includes changes such as:
- Optimized meshes with greatly reduced polycounts that significantly improve performance
- Expansions to the color palette to reduce banding and increase visible detail and clarity
- Reworks to existing textures to better utilize the palette changes to reduce detail loss
- Improved "light portaling" to allow for far more realtime lights at a MUCH lower performance cost
- Consolidation of clustered, smaller lights into singular, larger sources
- Increases in prop density as new props are built and made available
- Updated textures that require different scaling and UV placement
- Updates to enemy renders to reduce aliasing and "render noise"
... and on and on. These changes have been made gradually over the course of development, and due to the scale of them, having an "on and off" toggle would basically involve having two entirely separate sets of maps, each with their own lighting setups, occlusion data, navmeshes, and so on, which isn't at all feasible. On top of that, there's really no general consensus among the playerbase as to what is and isn't "acceptable", as you've got a significant chunk of players who disable the color palette altogether, and then on the opposite end, those who crunch the render scale way down for the crustiest possible experience. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that art is subjective, and every time CULTIC's artstyle has evolved, it's been met with glowing praise from some and harsh criticism from others - but if I rolled over every time someone pushed back on artstyle changes, CULTIC would still be sitting at it's original 512x288 resolution with 32 colors!
I ask for the community's trust that Chapter Two of CULTIC is not destroying the vibe or experience that Chapter One offered. If you enjoyed Interlude, and you've been enjoying the screenshots from all of the previews of Ch.2's maps, this is more of the same, and effectively just a measure to bring more consistency across the board to the visuals, as well as some significant optimizations.