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Progress Report #60: March 2023

Hi everyone,

For our final report for this month, we've decided to try out a new- more "compressed" approach with our presentation. As much as we love to lay down our weekly account in a detailed fashion, we're a bit worried that, for something that goes out every seven days, we tend to.. drone on a bit every now and then.

Rest assured, we learn and adapt, so here is us trying a new style once again trying to concentrate each category in five to six lines each. Hopefully, you like it.

Our old game trailer, though vivid, was getting on in age. So, we decided to commission a new one to show off the wonders of Voidbound to current and new players. Brand new graphical assets were pulled together, changes were applied and a talented person was hired for the job. Result? Well, you be the judge. Additionally, "The Space Orcs", a new quest is going through its concept stage with various sketches to flesh out the new adventure for Caly.

Meanwhile, our writers report that the new big chunk of content that will give players plenty of exciting fights and sidequests to encounter will be an Arena World! The team is developing the NPC personalities and stories that will make the world more than just another fighting pit. Like all of our maps, the Arena World will have wonderful custom-made and handcrafted with love maps to make the adventure truly unique. We're still in the discussion phase, but soon we'll begin sketching out the layouts of each location.

Finally, work is going strong building the Quest Log. This is one of our biggest tasks to date, but it will be worth it to make sure players are never lost on what they should be working on at any point in the game. Furthermore, multiple fixes ranging from additional tweaks to the Simon Says Puzzle and Caly's Regret Boss Battle. The latter specifically addressing the Boss' ability to steal too many items from the player. It's now capped to a lower amount! Honorable mention of the lighting system being overhauled for better performance! This will allow us to use raycasting on parallax maps!

And that is a wrap for this one! Not really much to say past that so all we'll say is, be safe and we'll catch you in the month with more reports and updates!

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team

VoidBound 0.5.3d [Public Release Build]

Hi everyone!

The wait.. is finally over!

We're thrilled to finally release to all our our fans, Patch 0.5.3d the latest stable build of VoidBound! Originally released back in December, this content package was built around the idea of adding a variety of new NSFW events while simultaneously implementing freshly minted QOL elements improving the overall feel of the game.

Download 0.5.3d: Google Drive / MEGA

(Tutorial, Give Up & Fracas Crash issues already patched)

HotFix: -NA-

Allow us to refresh your memories while the download finishes:

Original Change Log:-

-The two Pixie events that debuted in release 0.5.2 are now fully voiced.

With a total of 300 lines now narrated by the talented PixieWillow, the old events are now truly considered fully finished. And yes, when we say fully, we do mean both Pixie's and Caly's dialogues!

-Four new ero events of varying genre encompassing over 87 new CGs!

-28 new CGs feat. Caly and Her Indulgence, indulging in something interestingly bold.

-22 new CGs about Caly's curiosity in search for Heavenly Pleasure in the brothel.

-19 new CGs with a mysterious beauty hanging around at the Love Machine.

-And finally, Vas's tryst with Caly. Once again, she has her cornered in her home and this time, another round of beer and girl talk just isn't going to cut it. 17CGs later Caly has one hell of a story that she would rather tell no one.

-Streamlined a variety of elements that help the lore flow more naturally.

-Fixed missing facets like quest rewards, dialogue mismatch, command errors.

-New Combat balancing extended to Xaide enemies. These include restructuring boss encounter to better sync with the new battle system.

-Addressed selective crashes that happened on using items outside of battle.

-New revised descriptions for various skills.

Additionally, new changes have also been infused into this build that include all the back-end work(excluding the slime chronicles) that was accomplished in these past three months!

Though we have shared these new changes already, we'll include them here as well for good measure:-

Gameplay

-Various nerfs to enemies.

-Reduced the amount of items stolen during a certain boss fight.

-Enemy behavior overhauled based on Caly's speed and presence around them.

-Added flash lights to enemies.

-Enemies now feature drop shadows. Exception being summoned items by the player example being: turrets and player model itself.

-Multiple changes to 100+ skills and states ranging from major to minor adjustments. Subject to change based on player feedback.

-Fixed the Simon Says animation not resetting properly when the round ended.

-Fixed Caly's Regret freezing in rare instances towards the end of battle.

-Fixed an unintended issue where players were able to use an item outside of combat.

-All scopes are fixed. Now applying range extensions as intended.

-Fixed an issue where skill animations that target an enemy got displayed on a specific spot, even if the enemy moved away from it.

-Fixed an issue where enemies were behaving in a suicidal manner when targeting themselves with offensive skills.

Audio

-Fixed the audio behavior of movie files in the engine. Turning the music up and down will now also affect cinematic audio.

-Voice acting option ON or OFF will now also work on the Cinematic.

-Fixed the controlling system for ambience sounds. They are now governed by audio settings and can be adjusted at will. Further tweaks were made to suppress the irritating continuations of some.

-Fixed 3D audio system where panning sound would play in unintended scenarios resulting in distortion, peaking and muffled sounds.

Technical

-Raycasting overhauled. Example: Doors block flashlights but will not do so if open.

-Added an additional hotkey to both keyboard/gamepad to toggle the player's flashlight. The F key on the keyboard or the right stick on the controller is the default.

-Fixed performance issues with lighting. Expected 30% FPS gains across the board.

-Fixed older save issues where weapon values didn't sync correctly due to a discrepancy between older settings and newer changes.

-Changed mouse behavior on the title and main menu. Previously two clicks were required to have an option active. It's now been tweaked to one click resulting in smoother option navigation.

-Fixed issue where the character sprite got turned into the big sprite version on accident.

Issues that still persist

-Attempt was made to fix an issue where the engine would randomly fail to execute the intended range of a skill/weapon and instead open up inventory. Investigation ongoing.

-An issue has been identified where player summoned items sometimes multiply in excessive quantities due to random reasons. Investigation ongoing.

Developer Notes & Instructions:

1) Simply download and unzip the file and double click Game.exe to play the game.

2) Saves are backward compatible with the original Henosis Overhaul patch. Copy the save folder from the original and paste it into this one. Continue playing as normal from where you last left off.

And that covers the new update and other relevant information. If you have any queries, thoughts or issues to report, feel free to reach out to us here or on our Discord.

We sincerely hope you enjoy our latest offering and just like always, thank you for your patience!

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team

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Progress Report #59: March 2023

Greetings Voidlanders!

With our latest VoidBound patch now out in the wild, the team is finally taking a well-deserved breather- "breather" being the key word here. The biggest hurdle might be behind us, but there are still an array of tasks that remained unfinished.

Be it tackling content that didn't make it in time or issues that might have slipped through the cracks, there were no shortage of tasks that needed the team's undivided attention. As is the weekly tradition, let's revisit some of them together.

In our recent patch logs we mentioned that a select few sprite elements were still a work in progress as we ran out of time before completing them fully. Deemed as a priority, our artist continued working on it at full speed making sure all minor graphical goofs and kinks were hammered out. Additionally, with initial feedback pouring in on a daily basis, CGs across multiple events were retouched slightly. In particular, the "prisoner" event was given a detailed once over as our writers also had some new ideas about it. All in all, Doppel's plans to kick back and relax didn't exactly pan out as he had planned.

Speaking of the writers, their time spent this week was comparatively less hectic. No doubt they were on the ball, absorbing all the incoming feedback and making revisions to the dialogues where necessary, but much of their attention was spent brainstorming content for the mysterious upcoming zone called the "Arena World". Details are still sparse, but a vague presumption here is that it's going to be a content rich world separate from Henosis and will be home to Caly's next leg of adventure. Of course, take this speculation with a giant bag of salt because a writer's mind is creatively whimsical and easily swayed by new ideas.

Meanwhile, our coders spent the week with barely a wink of sleep, keeping a hawk eye on the bug report corner. Can't blame them- calling the implementation timeline "tight" would be an understatement. Still, they kept themselves frosty, fixing minor issues like typos and switch misalignment, all the way to addressing a major game breaking combat issue that mainly stemmed from old saves being imported into the new patch. Overall, a very sweat inducing week for our binary boys.

And that's it for this one. We should also take this opportunity to announce that our Patch 0.5.3 Public Release containing 80+ HCGs, a central event of Vas jumping Caly's bones, hundreds of newly voiced lines and much more, is due out tomorrow!

So, keep an eye out for it! Until then, take care o/

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team

VoidBound 0.5.4 - Slime Chronicles now available for select patrons!

Hi everyone,

Patch release 0.5.4, our latest offering, has finally cleared implementation and is now available for Benefactors and above patrons to evaluate! Curious as to what this upcoming content is about? Well..

Tensions are simmering between the newly formed Henosian Defence Force and the mysterious faction of Slimes. With Caly smack in the middle of it, the situation threatens to tear itself apart taking the city down with it. Our fearless protagonist must put aside her goal of rescuing Earth and must instead rescue Henosis from its impending doom! Will she do so by bringing the Slimes to justice? Or will she stand up to power and risk everything for those whom she was hired to hunt? That is for the players to decide..

This content update contains the following:-

Change Logs:

Over 80 newly created CGs encompassing events from both the Slime and HDF factions!

We should also mention that all of these CGs are of the NSFW variety! Yep, Caly had a lot of fun even if she didn't want to.

Over 30 newly added standing arts! [Work In Progress]

With changing faces come creative poses! They range from central characters to mob NPCs, in fact! You might find some missing in action though as we're still in the process of populating a few of them in their respective places :S

13 brand-new enemies have joined the fight!

Of-course when you choose sides, you make yourself enemies and this time is no different. Slimes or Defence Force? Whichever way you go, new nemesis await just around the corner. It seems like Caly makes more enemies than friends with each patch!

10 new battle sprites [Work In Progress]

No gameplay- focused patch would be truly complete without proper combat sprites in the mix! Uniquely minted for each enemy, Caly will have her hands full keeping them all in check on the battlefield. However, we're still in the process of completing some lingering aspects, details about which we'll share in the future!

2 brand new maps!

A large sewer system has been constructed to serve as the base for our slimey friends. They prefer to dwell in the wet and humid underground rather than on the dry and hostile surface of Henosis. Broken into two separate sections, Caly will find plenty of action happening down there. Though, it's entirely up to the player whether it's friendly or hostile!

Over 30 original ambience sounds!

We continue to make the player experience in Henosis more immersive with a range of ambience sounds now being added across the entire city. Fountain sprouting? Yep. Neon signs crackling? Indeed. Waste sewage bubbling? Ugh, yes, and keep your distance! And we aren't done yet! Expect more ambience as updated maps and patches are developed over time!

Finally, a quick bullet point presentation of other significant and insignificant changes!

Gameplay

-Various nerfs to enemies.

-Reduced the amount of items stolen during a certain boss fight.

-Enemy behavior overhauled based on Caly's speed and presence around them.

-Added flash lights to enemies.

-Enemies now feature drop shadows. Exception being summoned items by the player example being: turrets and player model itself.

-Multiple changes to 100+ skills and states ranging from major to minor adjustments. Subject to change based on player feedback.

-Fixed the Simon Says animation not resetting properly when the round ended.

-Fixed Caly's Regret freezing in rare instances towards the end of battle.

-Fixed an unintended issue where players were able to use an item outside of combat.

-All scopes are fixed. Now applying range extensions as intended.

-Fixed an issue where skill animations that target an enemy got displayed on a specific spot, even if the enemy moved away from it.

-Fixed an issue where enemies were behaving in a suicidal manner when targeting themselves with offensive skills.

Audio

-Fixed the audio behavior of movie files in the engine. Turning the music up and down will now also affect cinematic audio.

-Voice acting option ON or OFF will now also work on the Cinematic.

-Fixed the controlling system for ambience sounds. They are now governed by audio settings and can be adjusted at will. Further tweaks were made to suppress the irritating continuations of some.

-Fixed 3D audio system where panning sound would play in unintended scenarios resulting in distortion, peaking and muffled sounds.

Technical

-Raycasting overhauled. Example: Doors block flashlights but will not do so if open.

-Added an additional hotkey to both keyboard/gamepad to toggle the player's flashlight. The F key on the keyboard or the right stick on the controller is the default.

-Fixed performance issues with lighting. Expected 30% FPS gains across the board.

-Fixed older save issues where weapon values didn't sync correctly due to a discrepancy between older settings and newer changes.

-Changed mouse behavior on the title and main menu. Previously two clicks were required to have an option active. It's now been tweaked to one click resulting in smoother option navigation.

Issues that still persist

-*Attempt was made to fix an issue where the engine would randomly fail to execute the intended range of a skill/weapon and instead open up inventory. Investigation ongoing.

-An issue has been identified where player summoned items sometimes multiply in excessive quantities due to random reasons. Investigation ongoing.

And that covers the new update and relevant patch information.

Following our release pattern, this update will be made available to our Observers+ on the 29th of March, 2023

Furthermore, the 0.5.3 patch will be made available to the public on the 25th of March, 2023

As always, if you have queries, thoughts or issues to report, feel free to reach out to us here or on our Discord.

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team

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Progress Report #58: March 2023

Hi everyone,

It's finally done! Yep, you read that right! After an unfortunate delay of a month, we are delighted to report that the Slime Chronicle Saga has finally come to its developmental conclusion! Currently, testing is underway and, bar any last minute major bugs popping up (fingers & toes crossed), we're fairly confident about a release date. But, before we do, let's quickly review the events of this week!

Our artist once again came face to face with the old saying, "it isn't over, until it's really over" as he found his work schedule swamped to the brim. Most of the finalized CG work for the upcoming patch has already been rendered, and what is left was the top priority this week. This also included new battle cut-ins where Caly gets "molested" in interestingly creative ways. Unfortunately, the end result was deemed "in need of further polish" and might not make it in time for the initial release. If so, we will push the cut-ins in a separate follow-up support patch!

But! What will definitely be making in would be an updated battle feature whereby enemies will now cast shadows below them. This will help players determine their exact location and we hope this will make combat information more reliable and player reaction to it more fluid! One more feather in the VoidBound Combat Overhaul hat!

Last week we reported that the writers had moved on from the current patch and started focusing on original ideas for future content. However, this week they were roped back in after the testers pointed out some dialogue flow hiccups and requested revisions to certain pivotal points in the story. This was to help enforce the intended impact. This became an extended exercise in back and forth for the better part of the week. Eventually, it took up all of their attention, putting everything else on the back burner for now.

Finally, things became hot for the coders as they entered into full implementation mode. It seems like they always get the short end of the stick when it comes to timeframe. Having to compile three months worth of work and turn it into a playable game in less than a week sure is a hectic challenge. However, definitely worth it in the end. In the end, outside of a few tweaks and SFX additions/editions, patch programming was front and center this week.

And that's all for this week! Despite things being a bit rushed, we still feel that delaying the release is not worth it anymore. As such, come 18th of March, we plan to release the patch to our Benefactors and above, followed closely by our other patrons. It goes without saying that, due to the delayed release date, we'll be readjusting our timelines for all the following releases as well. Therefore, keep an eye out for more information on that!

Until then, stay safe and we'll see you soonish!

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team

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Progress Report #57: March 2023

Howdy-do Spacers o/

Foremost, our apologies for this opening post for March, as it might be a tad on the slim side compared to our normal offerings. As you might already be aware, we're in the midst of implementing the Slime Quest patch. Given the state of our skeleton crew handling multiple tasks, things do tend to get pretty hectic near a release timeline. That being said, let's quickly get you up to speed on the progress.

With all development now finished on the slime chronicles, the artist got to work finalizing the artistic aspects of it. With rendering in full swing these past 10 days, everything from SFW events to mini events all the way to raunchy events was on the burner queue. That being said, apparently updated ideas are still being slipped around. There are whispers of new content that might still make the cut as additions to existing scenarios. Obviously, our artist, though very hard working, is less than amused. Hopefully, he will get his much-deserved breather soon!

As mentioned above, work on the story is largely finished. Though, "largely" seems to be the principal word here, as it seems the writers aren't quite done with it yet. Last minute internal discussions have sprouted some interesting ideas that the team now appears to be evaluating and looking to integrate without throwing the entire implementation schedule into disarray. If it does, then it will be the coder who will be less than amused in the near future.

And speaking of "he who must code", ours has been busy making preparations to implement the prepared content. Well, to be completely truthful, as of writing this post, he was already half way through the plans. However, with ever-changing plans, it becomes a bit of a challenge to gauge exactly how much progress has been made on that front. What we can however say is done for sure, are miscellaneous tasks ranging from optimizing the existing build, fixing a few voice-over kinks, adding enhanced range ambience music and much more!

And that is a wrap for this one. All in all, March is turning out to be quite busy, but a productive month from our perspective. Goes without saying, it wouldn't be possible without your patience while we waded through the uncharted territory of this new game-play direction. And now that it is almost done, we can't wait to present it to you!

But, for now, we must bid you farewell and will see you in the next one!

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team