Velvet 89 news & patch notes

Hi everyone, since we are in a festive mood before Christmas, we decided to gather some scenes from Velvet 89 and compile a wallpaper for you to freely use on your devices. It is a thank you for playing Velvet 89 and being our fans. Find the wallpapers below or download them in the best quality (4K, 100% JPG) via this link. Thanks and happy holidays wherever you are! Ondřej Charles Games {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/baca9f32195cf02551c71c7f692aabdf4fae4e0a.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/9265b7d740a7a02a356542128e03e7034d7e76c6.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/641b2a16c80dbf9911dc66b195e8df453ff2392b.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/fa9f60f88ef3e749b62d04450b5915e7a6e7b324.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/bc0cd1a578ac5664a5656bd8adf1b1a91f42ad90.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/1597c517f7a1e1a1bc42ac3086ccf8fdbe02c996.jpg

Hi! First of all, thanks so much for playing Velvet 89, with 45 000+ of your it makes our developer hearts very happy. Secondly: tools! Velvet 89 was a first hidden object game for us, which meant we had to adapt and come up with new software solutions to the issues such as "create a huge crowd, but make sure its diverse and ensure that there are not two target characters". Hence, this post, where I’ll show you some of the special tweaks our very own Tereza made to Unity engine to make our life way easier. We will look a bit under the hood, but if you have any other questions, leave them below and I’ll get back to you.

Character setup

The most important thing: our protesters! Each of them is composed of various interchangeable parts: heads, torsos, legs, hairs, glasses, signs or flags. Ondřej Javora drew them, put them together in Adobe After Effects and then imported into Unity. Tereza then made this menu that enabled us to quickly iterate different versions of each character type, experiment with different parts and let the engine generate many variations quickly, without us needing to assemble them by hand. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/ac09cd3f39cfd380d803aa3720a99ab7c3d0902a.gif

Crowd generator

With the characters set, our squares and streets needed populating! Hence, the crowd generation tool. First, we created what we call "Figure Bundle", a list of characters needed for a particular scene. The tool Tereza made also enabled us to set how often each of them should appear. And then, we could generate our crowds! All we had to do was to set the amount of people in the scene (hundreds in Teplice, thousands and thousands in Letná/Ostrava), how spread the crowd should be and how tightly packed protesters should be. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/b0d946f3a0ed3a607830b427e6f3818db2ce0c42.gif

Figure brush

But we could not leave everything on the computer as we wanted to polish each scene the best we could. To that end, we got "Figure Brush" to quickly draw handpicked selections of characters and delete them, refining the crowd to our liking. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/1e393e6eddcab8424eea68f572e9a6a4b64fcf6e.gif

Similarities finder

To ensure we did not have any baffling doubles of our target characters (then ones you are tasked with finding), Tereza made a special tool to help us. Either to spot those exactly the same characters as the target ones or those that are very similar: we did not want to make players hunt for almost the same doorman with only difference being a small hat. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/8dd0399d57c9e86e9b2bf5be375835e8e4323860.gif There is of course a lot of smaller things happening under the hood (layering, hints, animations and much more), but these are the big ones that made Velvet 89 happen. I hope this was an interesting foray into how the game was made! Thanks for playing and all the feedback you’ve been giving us and let us know, if you’d like to see another hidden object game by Charles Games in the future or perhaps an expansion to Velvet 89. Who knows! Have a great day, Ondřej Charles Games

Czech and Slovak Games Week is upon us (starting 19:00 CET here https://store.steampowered.com/sale/CzechSlovakGamesWeek2024) and we wanted to make something special! Therefore, we’ll be streaming Velvet 89 and bits of We Grew Up in War, starting 16:00 CET on Tuesday (12/11). Tune in here on Steam to hear us talk about how we made the game, how we approached the sensitive historical subject and more. See you soon! Ondřej Charles Games

Dear players, you’ve been asking for them, so: achievements are now live on Steam! We just released them with a bunch of other fixes and tweaks related to UI as well as some texts. Nothing major, but hopefully still welcomed if you still haven’t finished the game! And if you did, please consider leaving a review here on Steam as it helps us a lot. Thanks a lot and we wish you a pleasant playing, Ondřej Charles Games

Hello and happy Velvet 89 release day! We are so happy to finally show you the game we’ve been working on so hard. Five protests in four cities with 50 stories await you and your hidden object finding skills. Thanks for being interested in Velvet 89 and we hope you’ll enjoy the game! And if you do, leave a review, because it helps us a lot as Steam shows the game to more players, spreading the historical events we recreated and important stories we tell. In any case, let us know how you like the game. Happy playing! Ondřej Tereza Ondřej Lucie Alex Ondřej Lukáš

Hi! With Velvet 89 right around the corner (October 17th, everyone!), we felt we might as well show you some birds-eye views of the protests you’ll encounter in game. For this batch, we selected three of them, each important to how Velvet Revolution played out. Keep in mind these are pre-final so some changes might occur.

Národní street, Prague

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/4cf6ebadeaa92138d664f682333ce76b3f446b95.jpg The pivotal moment of the Velvet Revolution, a scene depicting mere moments before regime police attacked and brutally beaten the peaceful protesters. In the game, you’ll learn more about the motivations of those who came to the demonstration.

České budějovice

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/10cdd6810512cace5ab874243a14c24922dc0740.jpg We wanted to show how the revolution spread into regions, so on the main square of this south bohemian city, you’ll encounter both those who are very much pro democracy, as well as those who are more cautious.

Letná, Prague

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45145708/fd62e89ace32779bbbf9b76bd165731900d20c35.jpg And finally, Letná in Prague! The biggest demonstration (more than 800 000 in real life!), a clear sign that times are about to change and that the general strike is about to happen. If you feel like these are big, then do not worry. We have a handy hint system in place to help you if you get lost and these are zoomed-out views of the scenes. In the game (that releases on October 17th, yay!), you’ll be much closer to the ground, able to spot all the differences between our characters much more easily. So that’s it for today’s preview! We are so much looking forward to showing you the whole thing. Spread the word and let us know what you’ll looking forward the most in Velvet 89 :) Have a great day, Ondřej Charles Games

Hi! We can’t wait to show you the full game, but for now, a sneak peek of the first level will have to do. It is a level set in northern Bohemian city of Teplice – where in 1989 an environmental protest began, suddenly and quickly turning into anti-regime demonstrations. It is an often-overlooked chapter of the Velvet Revolution and we hope our game can shed at least a little light onto it. Check the outline of the level at: If this sparked your interest, you can learn more about these protests on the Czech Radio website. Also, if you like our game, consider sharing a word. Until next time, Ondřej Charles Games