It's been a while since the last Development Update! We've been updating the game through Steam and posted news on our Discord Server, but not here. We have been (and still in the process of)moving from France to Canada,so it has been very busy around here, and we didn't have much time recently, but here is a summary of the improvements that have been made the past two months!

VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS + OPTIMIZATIONS

The builds of the last two months were primarily focusing on many visual improvements and performance optimization; the game now runs much better than before, while looking better as well! These changes were in Experimental Builds for a while, they are now in the default, stable branch for all players.
We've reworked most of the visual effects and post-process effects; Ambient Occlusion, Motion Blur, Antialiasingand Bloom are more realistic, and a lot of work was done on lighting to increase realism and performance, while making all scenes brighter.
Finally, we've added a Performance Guide here to help tweak / customize the Graphics options available in the game's Options page:

NEW: IN-GAME BUG REPORTING

Good news for testers! If you encounter a bug or want to make a suggestion, you can now do it directly in-game:

• Press ALT + B shortcut anytime, enter information in the form and click Submit
• Or click the Bug / Suggestion button in the Main or Pause Menu

This is very helpful for us, as it will upload the log files, save game files, and screenshot directly with the report! Discord integration will be added later:

NEW: SPEEDRUN MODE

This has been requested for a while by our community; a way to help Speedrunners and compare scores; it's now possible from the latest update!You can check out the Speedrun Mode guide here to know more about this mode:
When this mode is enabled, you can press Tab (or Dpad Down) anytime to see your current stats:

• Current time for this level
• Current time for entire game
• Current best time for this level (if any)
• Current best time for entire game (if any)
• Current rank for this level (if any)
• Current rank for entire game (if any)

In addition, Discord Rich Presence will now display total time elapsed for current level, and show if in speedrun mode for current level. Everything isn't perfect yet; but the system basics are here and we'll add a few missing features soon! Currently, you cannot view the Leaderboards (coming soon), but you can see your best times and rank by selecting Chapters in the Main Menu:

NEW: DISABLE CUTSCENES

For testers who know the game well and want to speedrun it, you can now completely disable cutscenesusing the "Cutscenes" button in the Options menu:
Please note that in any case, even with cutscenes enabled, the timer stops counting seconds during cutscenes, so this option is really just here to smooth out the speedrun experience, and avoid spamming the "skip cutscene" button as you speedrun the game, but won't affect your speedrun score.

NEW: DEBUG MODE

We have now a brand new version of the Debug Mode, which is more stable and much easier to use. If you want to test out Debug features, get your upgrades back after a Reset Save, or test the newGod Mode to reach a specific point, I invite you to check our new Debug Mode guide here:
You'll be able to see all the available commands in the guide ;)

VARIOUS BUGFIXES

• Fixed: In Chapter 1, the door opened by the pressure plate next to "Go Left, Go Right" labels could be force closed in some cases
• Fixed: Using God Mode and reloading the level could create a bug in which collisions were broken
• Changed: Timer for speedruns stops when the game is not focused
• Changed: If you enable Debug Mode in a level, your end score for the level and entire game will be randomly set to a much higher value. if you do so and want to speedrun the level, you must restart the current Chapter from the beginning.
• Fixed: In some cases, a cube on a pressure plate could incorrectly activate linked objects
• Change: When cutscenes are disabled, respawn camera animation is now ignored after last checkpoint reload

POCKET EDITION UPDATES

We've also been fixing various bugs on the Android version of the game; Fractal Space FREE and Fractal Space HD. Also, we have finally been able to publish an update for the iOS version, in Beta channel using Testflight! You can subscribe here the test the current iOS Beta v2.0.4! We'll fix a few more bugs that some testers have already found in the mobile beta version, then this update will be live for all players on iOS and Android before end of December! Thank you everyone for playing, reading and supporting us! Talk to you next time!

[ 2018-12-10 21:52:21 CET ] [ Original post ]