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Beyond The Veil

 
Unknown Pleasures: Crossing the FloorJul 5, 2019 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunChange! It is as inevitable as it is clich d. All things must change, from your town and workplace to your bank balance and attitude towards seagulls (they are brilliant). One thing that does not change, however, is the endless deluge of games from Steam, and my place writing Unknown Pleasures. What, you thought because our conquest of Castle Shotgun has begun, we would leave behind the bloody indie death halls? Psh. Our regular round-up of the best obscure games on Steam is the source of my power. Settling in for the long haul this week: (more…) Summer Sale - 33% Off!Jun 26, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone! Beyond The Veil is 33% off for the duration Summer Sale. I've also made a small balance pass after feedback about late-game insanity, so please let me know how that feels. Have a great week -SamPatch 1.1 - "The Mega Patch"Jun 9, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/5f5cdb30dcfa157c4e44d08b867c5d28b3f4820d.png Hey everyone! Been working on some big changes to BTV over the past couple of months, hopefully changes that will make the core experience more enjoyable. I've simplified a lot of systems and tried to reduce overall downtime. Most of the issues people had were centred around the survival and crafting mechanics, so naturally those two aspects have seen the most changes. ***PLEASE READ*** The new patch should update your save files to be compatible with the new systems, however I can't test every possible scenario, so if you encounter an issue when trying to load a save file and you don't want to lose your progress to date, please e-mail me your save files and I'll do my best to fix them. Saves can be found in C:\Users\(UserName)\AppData/LocalLow/Incubator Creations/BeyondTheVeil/Saves. Patch Notes Grit and Focus have been folded into Life and Will respectively to simplify character progression. Life is not consumed when travelling to regions, rather it specifies a maximum travel distance from the current region. Using the compass consumes Will. Hunger and Thirst have been removed- there is no longer a time pressure to stay alive. Food and Water instead recover Life and Grit. Weapon Strength has been removed, you no longer need to channel Essence to maintain weapons and they will not lose potency. Inscriptions can be stacked for greater customisation of weapons. Adrenaline has been removed. Dealing damage to enemies reduces the cooldown on skills (now known as charge). Using a skill resets the cooldown of all skills simultaneously. Human enemies are more mobile and aggressive, but deal less damage. Combat encounters are larger. Armour now has 5 tiers instead of 10. Crafting resources are rarer. The fire does not need to be lit to start crafting. The meditate action has been removed. Enemy bullets are slower so you can actually dodge them. Maps have fewer regions. Skills are now unlocked by defeating bosses. Weapons now have a fixed Recoil value. Weapons have a new Range attribute that affects how far the bullets travel before being destroyed. Added some fancy particle effects to the skill bar. Petted the dog. Improved performance of lighting. Updated layout of some menus to improve readability. Improved dismantle system to generate better rewards. Updated tutorial to reflect changes. As well as the above are QOL features, bugfixes, and balance details. Have a great week, and a great summer! - Sam EDIT: You can grab the soundtrack from bandcamp as of today too! https://samwindell.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-veil-original-soundtrackPatch 1.04Apr 29, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsA few more bugs fixed (again great thanks so Fox Fire for the detailed reports). Fixed a bug where loading accessories would change their description (though their stats stayed the same). Fixed a bug where killing Nightmare Drones would prevent the Nightmare from being killed. Fixed a bug where shotguns would lose durability very slowly. The enemies spawned when a Maelstrom splits now move as well as shoot. Have a great week! - SamPatch 1.03Apr 28, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHope you are all enjoying the weekend. Another slew of bugfixes today. Fixed bug where gaining the 'Survive x Days' skills would cause Combat to become unresponsive. Fixed bug where some crafting recipes were not reading from the save file correctly, preventing the game from loading. If a companion dies when crafting, the resources from the crafting recipe will be refunded. When a companion dies their gear is returned to the inventory (except armour plates). Hopefully fixed issue where killing enemy with a shotgun counted as a 'last round kill' multiple times for the Rite of Perfection. The auto-reload ability from the Rite of Finesse should now only attempt to reload once when the weapon is empty. The Sacrificial Altar menu can be exited without sacrificing items. Thanks to Fox Fire for reporting these bugs. - Sam Patch 1.02 - AchievementsApr 25, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsA small but fun patch today! Added a bunch of achievements to mark your progress through the game. Also had a few bug reports so hopefully they are all fixed too: Fixed issue where some audiosources weren't being destroyed Fixed issue where weapon menu would get stuck Fixed issue where a menu that doesn't exist would be opened (!?) Please let me know if you encounter any other bugs and I'll try to get them fixed pronto. Have a great week, - SamPatch 1.01Apr 22, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone, Hope you've been enjoying the game so far, and for those of us in UK the good weather too! This is just a small update to address some issues that flew under my radar last week. The volume slider should now be working in all menus. Reduced wait time whilst travelling and crafting. Reduced enemy bullet speed, fire rate, and accuracy. Updated controls menu to include info about control schemes. Fixed a few misaligned UI elements. Things I would like to work on in future are rebindable keys and Steam achievements. Can't make any promises of when they will be included but hopefully within the next 2 weeks. Have a great week! - SamBeyond The Veil - Released!Apr 19, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/4c436c2dec6c68bf9911dc7199e3582443ca4602.png The day has finally arrived! Beyond The Veil is now available on Steam. It's been a crazy experience- fun, stressful, tiring, and exciting. Thank you to everyone who has tested and support BTV in the past months, you've been amazing. Sam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFwYO_-WfroClosed Beta and Final Final Version (TM)Mar 27, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHey All, Very exciting news today- Beyond The Veil is entering a Closed Beta period running from March 29th- April 12th. Join us on the BTV Discord server for updates and a chance to be a beta tester (if that's your thang!). Link to server can be found at the end of this update. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/e8f5c65c120aa5d3013393a8b56ab6029f02bfb3.jpg The Beta will provide an opportunity to get some feedback on the game, and find out if there are any bugs I've missed, which I'm sure there are. Based on the outcome of that we'll be looking at a full release, so it's full Steam ahead (get it?!). So why is it the Final Final Version (TM)? Well as far as I can tell everything is done. I've got a bit of editing still to do with the story, making sure everything reads nicely and the narrative is coherent. Also got a teensy bit of work related to the final battle, but otherwise feeling good about it. That's all for now folks, hope you have a great week, and I can't wait to get the game in your hands. - Sam Discord: discord.gg/pjdhNd7February Update 2 - Bosses and StoryFeb 19, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHello again lovely people! Trying to keep you all updated as we get closer to finishing- very exciting. A fair bit of shuffling around has been going on with enemy behaviours and the story, and feedback so far says the changes are good. No longer will you find key story information in journals hidden across the game world, instead they are shown in their own dedicated screen. I did want to have a certain amount of discovery related to the narrative, but just couldn’t resolve the issue of players missing out on key chapters because they didn’t find them in the environment. Not a massive change, but one that does bring the story a bit further into the foreground. There are still bits of lore that can be found in the environment, so I am content with how it turned out. I had another go with the bosses and I can tell you they are feeling fantastic now! Much more visually exciting, and the addition of audio really brings them to life. I’m trying to lean a bit more into the bullet-hell side of things, so hopefully the change of pacing with the boss battles will keep you on your toes. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/e515d4062992649a27f3db8d554d326f74fecfb7.png Regions now have hand-written names. I played with some procedural naming algorithms, but nothing I could do in a short time would match the quality and variety a human can achieve. The change has a surprising impact on the feel of the different environments. Now that regions have themed names the world just feels more alive and real. The only issue now is coming up with hundreds of names to create a big enough pool to prevent repetition! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/0a18676b07624d78b2dbae53798589f08a233343.png Not much else to say today, my focus now is just on putting the finishing touches on the story and refining the balance. The data I can generate is fairly limited, so I anticipate that there might be a little bit of balance required on release, but hopefully nothing major. Hope you all have excellent weeks, SamDevelopment Update - Feb 2019Feb 5, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsHey Beyond The Veil fans, it’s time for another update! Progress has been insane recently, and the game feels better and better with every iteration. I’ve been playing it a lot myself, tweaking the balance, making it feel the way I want (and also hammering the keys as quickly as possible to find bugs in the menus). I can tell you it’s a good feeling when you play your own game and you manage to get engrossed in it. Anyway, on to what’s changed… Two new region types: Ancient Cache- Light the five symbols (a la the bell minigame in God of War) to activate the cache. Then fight off a stream of enemies to uncover the secrets of the ancient cache. I found that randomised gear drops was too unpredictable, and just not fun, so this new region type is meant to provide a more predictable source of Weapons for the player. Since riding the difficulty curve is important for progression, we can’t have players getting stuck with early game gear just because of the RNG gods! Prison- Technically this isn’t a new region, previously for new characters to join your party you simply had to find them. Now you have to find the Prisons, solve a spinning disc puzzle, and then protect them from incoming enemies until they escape the map. It’s just another thing to spice up the gameplay and provide a little change of pace. The story now clocks in around 15k words. Sheesh that’s a lot of writing I can tell you. When I started this the idea of writing a story seemed very attractive, but I didn’t realise how difficult it was going to be! It is really coming together now- I’ve had it proof read a couple of times, changed up the pacing, and tried to work in some more personal touches to the characters. The trick is definitely to get into the mind of your characters to be able to rationalise their decisions and emotions. I’ve also been tweaking the story delivery method- something I’ve struggled with right from the beginning. I don’t want it to get in the way of the player, but I also don’t want the player to accidentally miss anything. So now the main narrative arc is delivered in chunks when the player discovers new regions, whilst secondary arcs/general lore can be found littered around the place. Almost every system has been modified and polished. There are more visual cues for skills and attacks, more audio everywhere, more art, more everything! I’ve added more crafting recipes and a tiered crafting system involving unlockable ‘crafting stations’ to improve the flow of the crafting system. It’s also a teensy bit more important and provides more concrete rewards. The travel mechanic has been the focus of a lot of feedback. Mainly centred around the fact that travelling to distant regions can become tiresome as you have to wait for your character to travel there, then wait for your character to travel back home to recover their strength before travelling out again. To remedy this I’ve increased the connectivity of the map, so regions have more connections and the average rou...First Update And DevlogNov 9, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsFirstly, thanks to all of you who have added Beyond The Veil to your wishlist so far. Beyond The Veil is the first full game I have developed, so there have been a few growing pains. I decided to bring the game to steam after all the major design choices had been made (and then remade), but you might see some fairly large design differences between the promotional material and the final game. Hopefully all these changes will be for the better, as I really want to bring you all the best version of Beyond The Veil as I can. Like many game developers, I maintain a dev log on a number of websites, including my own blog. In order to keep the Store page as clutter free as possible, I won't be uploading these blogs in their entirety here, but I will provide links for those interested in the development process. Instead I will be using this space to provide general information and to speak to you, my patrons, directly. My site and blog, Incubator Creations. It's probably a little premature to talk about this now, but I will do my very best to provide post-launch support for Beyond The Veil. However, as a solo developer with a job, my resources are limited! If you do encounter issues with the game, or you just want to send me an email, please do message me, just bear in mind it may take me a short while to get back to you. I am trying my hardest to bring my vision to life, and to deliver an experience that you will find enthralling and unique. I hope you will join my journey, and help to make Beyond The Veil everything it should be. Thanks to all of you, Sam https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33844602/72ede358e2af07426e76cff958576a1746555d14.gif