High Entropy: Challenges news & patch notes

- Fixed a door being unlocked in level 11 that shouldn't be (it leads to an empty room so it really wasn't that important). - Fixed part of the bathroom floor intersecting with the vents floor in level 9. - Fixed a few interactive objects' outline showing artifacts when the vertical FOV is set to high values.

- Made some changes to the level loading code to try to fix a rare bug that makes the global illumination not load correctly in some computers and only some times, making the levels appear very dark, not properly illuminated when that occurs (and just reloading the level would often fix it). This bug has been haunting me for a long time, was never able to reproduce it but kept seeing it rarely but from time to time in videos. I thought I had found a fix in version 1.3 based on some info I found, from developers describing similar issues, but I saw a video yesterday of it happening in version 1.3.4 so I've made some changes again to tweak a bit my old solution that I'm hoping will fix it (it at least fixes some strange error messages that I found in the logs that seemed related to the global illumination and pointed me to change the moment I make a call to recalculate the illumination during the load that is the base of the fix, so at least it did something). Let me know if that's not the case and it still happens to you. - Fixed 100% best scores from a version 1.2 save being replaced with lower scores in version 1.3 when a level that now has more objectives was completed with a lower score with the new version (you then had to complete it at least once again with a 100% score with the new version to get it back). The saves store your best number of objectives completed and the maximum number that can be completed, so if you previously had a 100% in the save (your best was equal to the maximum) and didn't complete all the objectives this time, when the save was updated the maximum number of objectives was being updated with the new value, which is now higher, and when your old best number was being compared to the updated maximum it no longer was considered a 100%. Now I previously check if the maximum has changed, which will mean it was saved with version 1.2, and if the best is equal to the stored maximum I assign the new maximum to both and the 100% should be respected. Sorry if you experienced this, I didn't think about it soon enough to have fixed it before I released version 1.3.

- Changed the position of one of the security cameras in level 9 so it doesn't have a direct view of the computer that can access it. - Disabled the command line interface in the generator computers by default. - Fixed some animations with root motion for the walking turrets and bots moving them slower than they should or not at all at very high framerates. - Fixed the computer's UI showing the icon for the disk drive, a:, in the desktop computers even if they didn't have one. - Fixed bottle shards not disappearing after a few seconds as they were supposed to. - Fixed the scissor lifts not running over the bots while moving in some circumstances. - Fixed a misaligned alarm light in level 13. - Fixed some misaligned wall and ceiling textures in the small room in level 7.

- Changed the symbol in the yellow 'NPC is suspicious' alert indicator from an exclamation mark to a question mark to further differentiate it from the red one used to indicate 'Enemy/Player detected'. - Fixed receiving fall damage when exiting a ladder from the bottom if it had been entered by grabbing it while falling from a big enough height.

- Tweaked the positions of the new hints in level 6. - Fixed being able to reach from the outside the buttons of the scissor lift from a certain angle in level 9.

- Tweaked the location and/or some of the hints for two of the origamis in level 6 to make them a bit easier to find.

This update brings an extensive overhaul of many of the game's components: tweaks to all the levels to improve their design, visuals, the amount of different ways they can be completed and how they fit together progress-wise (with levels 1 and 15 redone from scratch); enhancements to how things work internally (interactions, enemy AI, performance...); changes to some of the models and the inventory, HUD and other user interfaces (including quality-of-life upgrades); edits and rewrites to all the tutorials and documents (and the way they're presented); fixes for some small issues and bugs, new achievements... It's been quite a big undertaking but I'm really happy with how things have turned out. I've tested it as much as I've been able to but so many things have changed that I'm a bit afraid of having missed something. Please, let me know if there are any issues (I'll create a new topic in the discussions for this update for bug reports and feedback) and I'll try to fix them as soon as I can but, with a bit of luck, there won't be any disastrous bugs and people will be able to enjoy it. Hope you like it! Álvaro {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/62a8aca07f96a5d687a5cbc5f60afbc80636e97d.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/795478ed454d57d7df59570420b658680056bcb9.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/171019bca37f720d291eea6ee61762ad1b0391ce.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/e70aa7e039c7e67b0251eccc4433e9b57052e48c.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/be77af53bccd47613e297185acd08867bd392083.jpg

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I'm back at it

After having to put it aside for a long time, due to personal circumstances, lately I've started to get back into game development working on a new update for “High Entropy: Challenges”. Although it's going slowly and there's still work to do, I'm really happy with how it's shaping up and close enough to the final result that I feel like I should share here some info and work in progress screenshots of what will, hopefully, one day become update 1.3. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/c212a879840b90e8b3123aeb1c44d44b88d5c2fc.jpg

What’s changing?

This will be quite a comprehensive update of the current content, a lot having to do with how things work internally but also with some of the visuals and level design. I've been tweaking all the levels to improve their design, how they look and how they fit together progress-wise (and redoing levels 1 and 15 from scratch), adding more paths to some of them so most can be completed in different ways, enhancing some of the models and the inventory, HUD and other UIs design, fixing some small issues and bugs, improving/rewriting the tutorials and documents... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/b6adda9f95043511825a93d30aa712f713eb28e9.jpg

When will it be ready?

No idea. I'm really eager to being able to share this update with everyone as soon as it’s completed and, as I said, things are now close to what I envisioned for this update, but can't make any promises as to if or when that'll be possible, as I still don't know if at any time I'll have to stop again for a while or how long will it take me to finish what’s left to do and test it all. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/21a420001186f1e398a81e4d1321a5da5feba42d.jpg

What about the full game?

I still dream about / plan on making “High Entropy”, the extended/commercial version of the game, a reality and some of the changes this update will introduce come from work I made and are making for that but, for now, I’m trying to focus on making this update for “Challenges” as a way to get into the rhythm of things, gain confidence, and later on restart really working on it. We’ll see what happens… First of all I need to finish this update :) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38478693/ff3fd55cbd5456ac8638eaef661a9a5d093f9073.jpg

Thanks!!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to give thanks to everyone that’s tried the game and for all the kind, positive feedback and words of encouragement I’ve gotten since release. I really, really appreciate it and truly helps me keep motivated. Thanks a lot! Álvaro

Besides the usual small improvements and bug fixes (you can check the full changelog in the discussions), this version also includes a bunch of more significant updates, like modifications to the movement code to try to eliminate the stuttering some players were noticing and changes to the beginning and endings (especially ending B) to make them more visually unique and cohesive and add a few extra details, so they fit better with the changes I've been making so far for the story mode I'm working on. But the most important one is a new experimental save system allowing to save the progress in a level (with some limitations). This save system is disabled by default (you can enable it from the settings>gameplay menu) as it still needs testing and future versions may make older saves incompatible if a fix requires it, but hopefully it will work fine as it is and it will only require some more testing and small bug fixes at best. Once I make sure it works fine, my plan is to make it available by default in a future update, but in the meantime I've created a topic in the discussions with more information and for people who want to help me test it to leave feedback. Thanks for playing, Álvaro

This update adds a new batch of bug fixes and improvements, the most interesting probably being the following: the computers now have a help command that opens a GUI with info about some basic commands, after reading an important document it's saved in the inventory and can be read again from there, a couple new setting options to help those with motion sickness, some adjustments to the enemies' hitboxes... You can find the full changelog in the discussions. Thanks for playing, Álvaro

The Top Releases of September 2020 post on Steam's Blog just included "High Entropy: Challenges" among the top 5 free releases of the month... Thanks everyone for trying my game! Hope you enjoyed it, Álvaro

Thank you so much for all the positive and constructive feedback (reviews, videos, topics in the discussions...) Helps me a lot to keep motivated and improving the game. This update adds a bunch of bug fixes and improvements, the most important probably being a fix for a bug in the save system where, in some cases, if the player's windows username contained non-english characters the save file wasn't being created correctly. So, if your level unlocks and scores were not being saved and/or loaded before, hopefully it will now work. Also loading and reloading levels from the menu is now slightly faster, there's a new settings' option to limit the frame rate... You can find the full changelog in the discussions. Thanks for playing, Álvaro

A minor update to add some bug fixes and improvements. You can find the changelog in the discussions. Thanks for playing, Álvaro

Thanks a lot to everyone who made posts in the discussions section, reviews, youtube videos... since the release of the game. This update is based on all that feedback and encouragement and adds a bunch of bug fixes, tweaks and improvements. You can find the changelog in the discussions. Hope you like it, Álvaro