Last night, the version currently at Steam (the one with xbox=1 as default) was approved for release. Nevertheless, we will have two more versions before the final release. Please keep the findings and reports coming.

However, the Steam Store Page is already online!

Proofreading and improvement suggestions HIGHLY appreciated!

If the last video you posted is the one with the sound tweaks in, then i'd say the background music and sound is still way too loud for the voiceover, if anything it's worse, there were parts of that video (especially the bit with sirens) where I just couldn't hear what was said at all. Apart from that it does look really good, i'm looking forward to it being released.

the videos are still subject to change as I need the big machine at home in Blindenmarkt to render them properly. They will be in the next version.

That's cool, I want this project to succeed for two reason, firstly because I love what you have done and can't want to play it myself, and secondly because I want the naysayers over at steam that always put down low budget software to see what GG can truly do. To me with a story driven game the voice over work is key and needs to be crystal clear over the background sound, otherwise people get bored trying to pick out the words from the sound, so i'm glad you do have some updates in mind for that, I really think this could be something great and very beneficial to the community here.

It's community members like yourself that make me both want to do better and at the same time want to give up, I don't think I could ever produce anything near the quality of work you and others here do, i'm struggling for an idea for a game at the moment, let alone actually putting it together, you're doing some great work, keep it up

v237 online, the last version before the Steam Release Candidate

Release Candidate 2 pushed live to Steam.

Changes:[u]

- 30% increased view distance
- reduced loading time by 10-15%
- 30% less AI CPU usage
- 25 - 50% more fps across all supported system ranges
- added Kammler letters
- added Alicia letters
- added aditional hints and landmarks
- fixed the sound / music volume bugs when playing videos

You've made improvments to this suspiciously fast!! I like it! ....back in the day when you where joking about tying someone up in your basement, pour coffee into them and make them work on your project was just that...a joke right? Riiight?

I wish you man sales! You also add to GG's reputation unlike some other things that have been released to a wider audience so far.



-Wolf

Joking?
AH, yes! Of course!
Who would really do something THAT terrible anyway?!

Yeah, well, Steam kinda pointed a gun at my head telling me it would be a really good idea to release BEFORE the summer sale goes on.

//AFK brewing more coffee

RC2,...

Fps 13 to 25 on high, 15 to 30 on medium/low, but loading a save drops that down
to 9 fps on all settings ?.

Load time improved slightly but still quite long even on my ssd, about 15% faster.

I could not hear what was said in foundkammler.wmv, music and sound effects
are a bit too loud.

Suicideending.wmv did not trigger for me, but all three other endings worked fine.

All other things I reported earlier,.......you fixed.

Wait, you have entered Kammlers House AND seen all endings?

How many hours do you have playtime so far?

No, after I found one ending I reloaded a save and wandered around to find another,
I then did that two more times to find the other two endings.



Steam says 7 hours, but it is more than that, sometimes I started the game without
steam, so maybe about 9 hours so far testing all the betas and RC,s.

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends and colleagues, it has been done:

Father's Island is live on Steam!

Please buy (if you dont have it as beta tester), play, and give us your thumbs up on Steam!

And for all still hesitating, read what the press says!

Been waiting for this so jumped in and bought it right away.

So far the game looks great, it's a little too much of a keyfest if you understand what I mean, and there are a few things I've found that could be sorted (a few doors need jumping to get into, the staircases in some of the huts need jumping to get up, there's some clutter that's too low on the terrain and flicker etc). But the storyline is great and the map is well put together with some great use of entities, not too sure about the lighting though, it makes some objects grainy and other seem too bright, but overall a pretty good game.

My biggest issue though, is the FPS in the game, which I don't think is so much your fault as it is an engine that really needs some performance tweaks, I have an i5 3.4ghz, 16gbit memory, and a 2gb 960 (the ASUS Stryx version that's overclocked by default and benches around the speed the low end 970's), well above the minimum, and a little below the recommended, and in some areas (in the school house) my FPS is dropping to 8, generally in the open not looking at entities it's in the 30's, when looking at entities it drops to the low 20's, and in a cluttered area below that.

Well done Ertlov, very pleased you got this shipped. I'm off to buy now

Cheers and best of luck with sales.

EDIT: your link doesn't seem to go to the steam game page, this one does (I hope): http://store.steampowered.com/app/460940

corrected, thank you very much!

I seriously don't know how you did it but wow the performance is waaay better! In beta it started off with good FPS but then dropped off increasingly to a crawl as the game progressed no matter where I was. In the final version I had 30 fps steady throughout the whole game, and my system doesn't even meet the recommended requirements. The only time it dropped was when I peeked through the glass in the doors of the closed rooms of the school. The rest of the school was just fine. On top of this you added more content ... HOW! You added more content and gained speed plus less loading time, genius! Wonderful game, played it through again and watched all 4 endings. Great job. Oh and I am loving the collector cards!

@Shadow man- I believe the suicide ending is not available till you enter Kammler's house, activating the 4 possible endings.

EDIT- This is my rig for comparison-
CPU: AMD A10-6700 APU
Memory: 16 GB RAM (23.93 useable)
GPU: GeForce GTX 750 Ti
Current Resolution: 1920 x 1080, 60Hz
OS: Windows 8.1

Thank you!
Most of the performance was gained from adapting the scripts for video and sound / music zones, as well as by reducing the memory footprint of the videos themselves.

Additionally, we optimised VRAM usage by almost 300MB yesterdy durign a bugfixing run.

Whoever likes the game, please give it a thumbs up and a short review on Steam, as this is the hard cash that brings us up in the store pages and rankings.

Hmn, tried to play it again today, and now after a long load all I get is a green screen with the hud and sound, built nothing else.

start a new game.

Started a new game, same issue.

Looks like it's something to do with running it from steam, maybe the steam overlay, I just run it directly from the exe and it's working fine.

try from the desktop shortcut, please!

It shows the green screen from the desktop icon too, it only seems to work from the exe for me.

1. Load steam, start game with play button -- green screen
2. Load steam, start game with icon - green screen
3. Without steam running, run from icon - green
4. Without steam running, run direct from exe - works fine
5. Load steam, run from exe - works fine

With option 5 the steam overlay still runs and works fine, so may be the overlay's not the issue. I can only assume looking at which options work for me it must be something that steam does while it's trying to launch the game.

Haven't had a chance to play until now - I get the same result as Belidos. That green screen looks like a shader conflict? When steam not running and go direct from exe it works fine.

Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to try. I am below min spec though on a GTX750Ti but am getting 50fps when running without steam.

Cheers.

Just Purchased !!

Congrats Ertlov .... going to give it a try

I know I'm late to the party but...that's when its easiest to gather up loose women.
Installing it now.



-Wolf

ok, all green screen fans (sorry, pun intended) - update your gfx driver. To the really latest version.

Just FYI, your game icon in Window says "Game Guru". Sure that can be changed with a third part app.

yes, and the Icon too.

Will be done with the next update.

I'm already using the latest NVidia driver. I've even tried the newest beta driver and I still have the issue.

Allright, looks like a debugging and patchign weekend ahead

It's no biggy, I can still play it direct from the exe, so i'm not losing out. The thing I don't get was it was working, then suddenly it stopped working and only works from the exe.

Congrats Ertlov. Home after a week away for work and I know what I will be doing this weekend.

That makes me slightly nervous, honestly.



Have fun! Enjoy!

Looking good. You can tell a lot of time has gone into this. Well done

Thanks a lot!



Could you try with tne update?

OK, tried the update.

I thought it was fixed to start with, it loaded up fine as a new game, I played through to the island then saved, when I tried to load the save I got the green screen. I pressed escape and went back to the main menu, started a new game worked fine, then tried to load the save and all the graphics loaded up then suddenly it crashed with the message windows has encountered an error etc.

that's weird. we can't reproduce that here.

Also congrats on UOTM for this release.

I see a man who played the game here

@Ertlov

I can reproduce the same as Belidos before and after update. (all tests run from steam) After each crash computer was restarted this is very important.

If you can get a save game to load without a green screen it will always crash with Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library at the point of a FMV starting

or crash with Game Guru Map editor has stopped working

If you can get a save game to work it will also cut the FPS by 50% which kills it for me as I'm only getting 10 to 12 FPS to start with. 12 FPS may seem low but for this type of game it's just playable.

If I use save and load on other standalone games I don't get the 50% drop.

Your game runs a total 2GB of ram and run very well on my 4GB system.

I have a game with 1900 assets in it, and that runs in just over 1GB of ram, don't know if I'm right but does Game Guru load in the FMV's on loading so they are ready to use and this is what takes up the extra ram in your game?

So to sum up the above, game works great for me (9hrs and counting) as long as I don't use the save and load options.

Here a few things in game I've found that could to with fixing

Gate to school can be by passed by going up the hill to the left of gate
Gate back of school you can just jump on the wall by side of gate and then jump over gate
Doors inside school will let you just walk through them (the first door you open will work right though).
The Gate that needs a head to open it, the wall to the left of the gate you can just walk through it to get to the under ground area.

That's as far as I've got so far in the game.

The Save and Load messed my Map up from the start so I stuck with using V1.121 this version has the timer Bug in it, which can be worked round with Lua's this is the only version that works for me.

It's sad that the 12 months I've been with GG the Map making/test map is so much better. But making a 100% working Standalone game is not possable (a small simple game maybe).

Those of you making a game please try the standalone version of it and jump forward and backwards in the game using the save and load and check all still works. e.g. start game and save then use Keypad to say open a gate then save game again now load the first save back in you will find the keypad will not work the game still thinks you have used it but the gate is now shut.

Musicinzone was messed up also but now works ok after last update, it would play the music from the last save game not the area of the game just loaded in, but as I say works for me now in my map!.


Ertlov Love your game, Colours Music story etc etc.


If you have the Scifi pack you can see the bugs for yourself.

Save game around start point, then talk to engineer, get tool, talk to engineer, get door code from engineer, open door go inside corridor then save game, so far so good. now load first save game at this point the music for the corridors will be playing outside which is wrong. then engineer will ask for his tool which you dont have as its still on the boxes to the right. and the door is open anyway to the corridors.

edit this is working ok now... The Gate that needs a head to open it, the wall to the left (should have said right wall) of the gate you can just walk through it to get to the under ground area. last up date maybe fixed this?

Yes, possibly. The last version has quite some changelist.

Dear friends and colleagues,

in the meantime we have 10 / 11 positive reviews, and the third patch online.



Most stuff adressed the performance and how user friendly the game, its settings and the menu are, but we also fixed a sometimes even severe issue.

Check it out in the patch notes!

I can't imagine how much effort must have been put into this game! I have started to work with Game Guru only a few weeks back but I don't think I will ever be able to do something like this! Great work!

Thanks a lot for the feedback!



Don't say that. I have seen some people pumping out extremely sophisticated scenes after a few months of learning.



Much easier for me, my birth certificate still had CSSR on it

By the way, we have added a playablke demo to our game:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/460940/