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[electrolyte]

Updated link with what I ended up with at the end of the deadline!
Links expire 9th July!

PC:
https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/dcfa99f551c24a125c933ae62edbffc620150702121733/2490c017ff25491add01c39eb1ffc57820150702121734/74a2d5

Mac:
https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/558ce815ea44fa568c3ba6ccaa13cc9b20150702121757/510b626f7b23e592ad3bef0f76625c3120150702121757/4761a3

Will post more details eventually and more permanent links  

[electrolyte]

Hmm, well this is a surprise. I tried running it at a native 1X1 HD resolution and it actually runs! May look into adding this as a game mode to let players run it in this resolution.  

[electrolyte]

Something big just clicked, Two Words:

LIGHT BAKING

 

[electrolyte]

So the results are in ... and it Won!  

http://www.gamesradar.com/edge-gig-challenge-2015-announcing-years-winners/

http://www.pcgamer.com/edges-get-into-games-challenge-ends-play-the-winning-games-here/

[supermega_peter]

"This designer is definitely one to watch"

Nice work, and well deserved! Congratulations!

[electrolyte]

Thanks supermega_peter :D

So since its winning was announced I've been thinking about what to do with it and I decided it would be cool to release it properly out into the wild. This means going back over some of the game logic and fixing some game breaking bugs. You couldn't actually complete the prototype as at the very end a door didn't fire open!

I've also been thinking about where to distribute it and stuck it up on Green Light earlier this week (which is so different from when I first used it a few years back for Reprisal Universe)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452914283

Some comments from this have made me consider even more the 1X1 HD resolution option and so I'm going to build this in. Chunky will be there still, but you can switch to HD mode and even have a subtle DOF effect.

Next week I'm off to Protoplay festival in Dundee as part of the winning package to showcase ICARUS.1 there. If you're around drop by, I'll be there Thur and Friday :D



Poster for next week! Below are shots of the new HD / DOF display mode.

[Mittens]

I see you are number 5 on greenlight, where are you pulling all the outside traffic from?

[electrolyte]

I see you are number 5 on greenlight, where are you pulling all the outside traffic from?

It was all organic traffic via steam green light community. I did tweet once about it but it was suprising how quickly it moved up. It's been green lit now.

I was at the dare2015 festival for last couple of days which has been great to see people play it for real.

[Mittens]

I see you are number 5 on greenlight, where are you pulling all the outside traffic from?

It was all organic traffic via steam green light community. I did tweet once about it but it was suprising how quickly it moved up. It's been green lit now.

I was at the dare2015 festival for last couple of days which has been great to see people play it for real.

Really? I assumed you must be getting external traffic since I looked at my 'yes votes over time' graph and considering my project had about a 60% "yes rate" I projected a line on the graph where my votes would be if they had been 100% yes.
Even if every vote I had got had been a yes, it still wouldn't have been half the amount you were getting
I guess the Greenlight system must direct more traffic to games with better yet rates (Or you have an insane amount of twitter followers)

[SolarLune]

Whoa, this looks interesting. Not sure what it's about - have to read through the devlog, but it's looking really interesting and creepy. Nice graphics and style!

[electrolyte]

Hmm, yeah weird about the Greenlight, it took about 10 days. I just assumed that traffic was lower now and they were green lighting bigger batches. I did a green light over a year ago with Reprisal Universe and that took about 6 months to get Green lit in the top 100. Your Kingdom Rise looks pretty amazing!

I had ICARUS.1 in a game festival last couple of days which was a lot of fun ... but exhausting. Amazing and nerve racking watching players play your game. Probably had the worse cable tidy in the show! :D

[electrolyte]

Work continues, new display options are now available. HD crisp mode, depth of field, film grain and also a helmet view distortion. These can all be adjusted ingame and also switched back to the original chunky display mode.

Fixing bugs found at the Dare show and polishing up some of the audio. Still looking into Steamworks but I think it maybe a bit beyond my code level!  

[BanzaiBrigade]

Finally got around to checking this out again, and man I love the visuals. I only have the old build you originally posted, is there a newer public build or?

Either way great job, lord knows how you managed to get this all done so quickly.

[electrolyte]

Thanks, yeah I'm still tweaking getting ready for Steam launch. It's changed a lot visually in the last few weeks!

When I was at the Dundee festival a kid suggested adding a torch ... I tried it out today and it's made it all moody! So I've been adding some more props and generally getting more atmosphere in there. There is also a redone dirty light lens effect which is subtle.

You can still run the game in original Chunky rendering, but these are HD 1X1 rendering screen grabs.

[electrolyte]

Work continues with interior changes and adding more props. Revisiting the operations 'Bridge' (above), the original release was basically a room with a switch. Now that I have a bit of time it's refreshing to go back and polish  

[EvilDingo]

You came to the same conclusion I did regarding "chunky". It just feels arbitrary. Low poly art looks great in high rez. There is absolutely no real reason to run it in lower resolution.

I'd love to be able to capture the PS1 look, but it always looks better without the chunk.

[collider]

This looks fantastic. Gameplay reminds me of the Colony. And just like the Colony, I got myself into a room I couldn't get out of (if you jump down the hole that connects rooms a second time there's no way to get back out). Love the art + graphics on this, and love the desolated, creepy ship story. Looking forward to seeing the Steam version.

[electrolyte]

Yeah the chunky mode was an aesthetic that I chose to help its original development. I made the prototype in a couple of months for the contest and I was still getting my head around Cinema 4D, it helped hide bad modelling! I'm still pretty bad but hopefully the low polly style will still be forgiving.

I was really stressing out about the mac version as on my laptop the hi-rez version runs so slow, I then discovered it's only got a Dual core and 256meg of GPU!

This looks fantastic. Game play reminds me of the Colony. And just like the Colony, I got myself into a room I couldn't get out of (if you jump down the hole that connects rooms a second time there's no way to get back out). Love the art + graphics on this, and love the desolated, creepy ship story. Looking forward to seeing the Steam version.

Yeah that lift / hole is a game flow bug! At the recent games festival a player found that also. You shouldn't be able to go back on yourself, it's defiantly something that's sorted in recent builds.

[electrolyte]

Hi All,

Just wanted to get some feedback, I'm working on the in-game options again and trying to decide what features to provide. What do you think is the purpose of offering changing screen resolution in a game if it already is running at your native desktop size?

[electrolyte]

Adding more detail to sections and also redesigned the habitation area that also includes a nursery room and a 3D printer puzzle. I'm bulking up narrative and would like to include collectable items throughout the game. Light-baking is now definitely my preferred choice for lighting.

I had a frustrating few weeks converting the FPS controller to a physics based one, however after much hair pulling I've worked out that the standard FPS physics controller in Unity seems to be buggy (?) making the player stick on walls in jumps despite putting zero friction on materials. I've rolled it back to a standard controller for now.