Prototype 5-3d Public Release!

It’s Here!

Download it from Mediafire

Linux Users: Good Samaritan Bicobus has written a compilation guide that’s way better than mine. Link is here if you want to build it on your system. OSX users are still out of luck, will try to find a fix this weekend.

After a month of cruel teasing and bugfixes/content additions, Prototype 5-3 is now available to the public. Returning patrons will also find many new content additions so it’s worth anuvva go.

This version adds the next part of the main game as well as the subquest in Sector 198. If you have a savefile and want to continue the story, simply get 55 in your party and then try to enter Regulus City. When she goes to leave the party, the story will instead progress. Don’t worry, you’ll still have time to go do the Electrosprite sidequest afterwards.

A public bug reports trello is here. If you have a bug report and the presence of mind to check it, you may be able to avoid duplicating bugs. I’ve run through the scenario myself and not seen anything critical but I can’t test everything all alone.

There will be more bug fix/content addition releases in the near future. For example, we have the maps ready and they need to be coded in, I’m working on getting all the dialogue cues in, the form handlers for many miscellaneous scenes need to be written… the list goes on.

When a new release is made, it will be public after a few days. This is just to make sure I didn’t break anything horrendously. I will try to do this every few weeks but December is coming up and we all know what December does to productivity.

If you do have a bug, the best place to report it is the TFGS Forums or right in my face on our Discord server. If you need help or have a question, those places are also pretty good. We have a very helpful community and MarioneTTe will often dance to amuse you if prompted/threatened.

Boring Changelog

Really Important Stuff

  • Added Electrosprite subquest in Sector 198
  • Added next parts of main story
  • Added Sophie’s “Inspection” of Latex Christine.
  • Added new soundtrack by DrDissonance
  • Added (prototype) SFX by DrDissonance. Feedback is desired!
  • Fixed way too many bugs to count
  • Introduced way too many bugs to count

Prototype 5-3a

  • Fixed not being able to transform into a Latex Drone (Thanks, Merylgoo!)
  • Updated Darkmatter Christine’s dialogue placeholder. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Darkmatters will no longer attack you when Christine is in Darkmatter form. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Fixed Steam Droid transformation skipping to the end really quickly. (Thanks, Merylgoo!)
  • Fixed a visual bug near the secret in the LRT facility. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Fixed using the wrong case for the Adamantite item file. Only affects Linux users.
  • Fixed Latex Christine not having a ‘Happy’ frame and reverting to the human one. (Thanks, Merylgoo!)
  • Fixed not handling one specific case in the briefing scene. (Thanks, Klaysee!)

Prototype 5-3b

  • Fixed a bug in Serenity Crater that made it impossible to complete the scenario. (Thanks, Klaysee and Aaaac!)
  • Fixed 55 not correctly appearing when warping to the Tellurium Mines entrance without her in the party. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed 55 not correctly appearing when warping to the Sprocket City entrance without her in the party. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • As above, but for the Serenity Crater campfires, too. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Added difficulties to text adventure mode! Use ‘difficulty X’ where X is easy, normal, or hard. Prototype 5-3a was locked to ‘hard’ mode, default is ‘normal’.
  • Fixed 55 spawning twice right before the point of no return. (Thanks, Klaysee!)

Prototype 5-3c

  • Fixed 55 spawning twice when warping to Sprocket City’s outskirts. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed enemies in Cryogenics ignoring Christine when in Golem form. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • You can now examine the window near the airlock in Cryogenics. Everyone wanted me to let them examine it, well now you can.
  • Fixed some enemies in a certain dungeon not having vision cones. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • You can now walk around in the broken storage container in the containment area. This was a vital change.
  • Fixed a bunch of typos (Thanks, many people!)
  • Pressing arrow-key up and down allows you to scroll back through your inputs in Text Adventure mode.
  • (Hopefully) fixed the tram errors so it should no longer think it’s somewhere it isn’t. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Reputation items now show how much rep you get for turning them in.
  • Fixed the mysterious Florentina Warden bug.
  • Inventory now resets to the first page when exiting the menu.
  • Fixed (hopefully) the strange bug where the inventory menu refused to allow you to scroll to the third page when you have three pages of items. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed selling at shops when you have a very long item list relative to the item list of the vendor. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Comparison shopping will now dynamically select characters who can use the item to compare against, and display a message if nobody can equip it. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Defragmenting in Christine’s quarters now counts as a rest action, refilling HP and the Doctor Bag. (Suggested by Aaaac.)
  • Enemy population sizes will cap at floor 25 of the Tellurium Mines. Enemy stat boosts will cap at floor 35. Treasure counts keep increasing! (Suggested by Aaaac.)
  • Can no longer exit Regulus City’s basement as a human, stepping into hard vacuum. (Thanks, Mephis!)
  • Finished the LRT’s armory room.
  • Cassandra will no longer look human but talk like a Golem in Sector 15’s basement if you warp into the room. (Thanks, Seris!)
  • Dialogue when rescuing Cassandra updated if you have gone to Sprocket City already.
  • Splash-damage attacks will animate the damage all at the same time instead of waiting. (Suggested by MerylGoo.)
  • Combat UI should no longer behave strangely when an enemy kills itself. (Thanks, MerylGoo!)
  • Fixed a collision error in Lower Regulus City. (Thanks, Marcella!)
  • Fixed a door in Lower Regulus City not working. (Thanks, Marcella!)
  • Fixed Susan not disappearing from the entities list after warping away. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Marked combo point usage on some abilities that did not have it previously. (Suggested by Aaaac.)
  • Fixed incorrect cooldown listed for Encourage. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Put hard caps on enemy spawns in Tellurium Mines, and hard caps on enemy stat gains.
  • You can now examine the drop trap outside of Sprocket City. I suggest you do so. (Suggested by Aaaac.)
  • Added a work terminal to Tellurium Mines right next to the work-credits NPC for easy shopping. (Suggested by Aaaac.)
  • Added some missing conversations with Sophie. (Damn you, Aaaac!)

Prototype 5-3d

  • You can now examine the gap near Sprocket City from both sides. (You just couldn’t leave it could you Aaaac!)
  • You can no longer check Christine’s quarters terminal from through the wall. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed the LockedDoor notification in the LRT Armory. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Pressing the Activate key on the options menu will no longer reset all options to default. Unless you’re on the “Defaults” button. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Fixed the regular dungeon music playing underneath layered tracks in chapter 1. (Thanks, MerylGoo!)
  • Realigned the VICTORY! text after combat is over. (Thanks, *NOBODY*!)
  • HP bars will now tick up and down over time.
  • Fixed examining things in Equinox through the walls. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Reputation items now stack together. (Suggested by Merylgoo)
  • Added new frames for 55 to use in Serenity Crater.
  • Fixed 300910 commenting on an RVD screen when she’s not even in the room. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed the auto-use Doctor Bag variable not being saved. (Thanks, Aaaac!)
  • Fixed some missing examination text in the LRT facility. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Added some post-KO dialogues.
  • Fixed mistakenly referring to Chris as Christine during post-KO dialogues.
  • Serenity Crater campfires have been added to the warp list and had their names updated.
  • Airlock at the midpoint of Serenity Crater will now check Christine’s form before opening.
  • Christine will not comment on the Serenity Crater held-shut door when opening it from the other side unless she found it stuck earlier.
  • Improved the Vivify encounter sequence in the LRT facility.
  • Added form handlers for the rather rapid entry to Sprocket City. (Thanks, Klaysee! For yelling at me until I did it!)
  • Added form handlers for the LRT encounter with 2856. (Leave me alone, Klaysee! You’re killing me!)
  • Fixed the elevators in Regulus City Basement 2F displaying an error message if you cancel out of them. (Thanks, Aaaac and Klaysee!)
  • Added form handlers for the Serenity Observatory meeting.
  • Fixed up the Serenity Research Labs cutscenes a bit.
  • Christine will now respond to the black site in the LRT facility appropriately if the Mines site has been completed. (Thanks, Klaysee!)
  • Updated Sophie’s reactions to human Christine based on sidequests completed.
  • Fixed one of Electrosprite Christine’s movement frames blending incorrectly.
  • Added onscreen prompts to the Level Generator so it’s easier to use.
  • You can now manually enter seeds to the Level Generator if you want to debug a certain seed.
  • Added an “Inspection” for Latex Drone Christine when talking to Sophie. Mwehehehehehehehehe!
  • Added new character voices. (Created by CocoMint!)
  • Added scrollbars if there are a lot of entries on the locality window in Text Adventure Mode. (Thanks, Aaaac and Merylgoo!)
  • Added new Serenity Observatory music, and appropriate cues for said music.
  • Added first pass of new SFX from DrDiss. Let us know what you think!
  • Updated Patreon Backer listing. (Klaysee won’t let me forget it! Send help!)

Development Update: November 26th, 2018

The Important Part: Prototype 5-3 goes public on Friday

Exactly what the title says, if you’re not a patron then you get to play 5-3 come Friday. I hope you’re excited because the patrons sure did love it.

Of course you could always become a patron yourself as a way of saying thanks. Just putting that out there.

Programming Stuff

I’ve been burning through my list of small improvements and backfilling. As always you can check the public trello board to see some of the stuff I’ve added. Not everything that gets changed is on there, and some of it may be a spoiler to you non-patrons. Use at your own risk.

We’ve also added a new map animations system that will be used for some new types of animations. Exactly what types? Well, the people on the Discord server have already been teased. If you’re not the sort to go on Discord, then you’ll just have to wait for Friday now won’t you?

Spriting and Art

Urimas is currently working on the new animations. The previews look great so far and have been well received. The first animation is an experiment to test the waters, and we’ll be taking feedback on the scene. If the public adores it, then there will surely be more.

Koops has finished Doll Manor’s linework. It’s currently undergoing inkwork by Stinkehund. This means I can write up the remaining TF sequences and start work on the second part of the game’s scenario. I expect I will be doing that in December.

Chickenwhite is sufficiently recovered from her surgery to return to work, and has informed me she is shaking with pent up art desire. It’s like an addiction to drawing. Please art responsibly.

Music? SFX?

I have commissioned DrDissonance yet again to produce a new track. A lot of people indicated they weren’t too happy with the Serenity Observatory theme, as it sort of mixes the ultra-creepy too hard and the neutral not hard enough. I want to use the theme for other areas, and instead asked DrDiss to make a new neutral-zone theme more suiting to the observatory’s comfortable feeling.

I also asked him to whip up some SFX. This is underway. I am not sure what will be ready by Friday’s public release.

I’ve also asked voice-producing person CocoMint to make the voice samples for the Chapter 5 characters. The voice samples are borrowing Chapter 1’s characters. So far nobody has asked me why Florentina and 55 have the exact same voice, but they will eventually because those two will be sharing a screen in Chapter 6.

And Most Importantly

Our Discord server now has custom emojis.

TENOUTOFTEN

Accepting Game of the Year nominations now.

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Development Update: November 19th, 2018

First, the Update

Urimas made some animations, Hund did some inking, Koops is about 3/4ths done Doll Manor’s concept work, and I’ve done a bunch of mapping. I’ve also fixed up some bugs and features.

Chicken is still recovering after the surgery. Should be back to work later this week.

Prototype Poll Results from Patron Pals

Result00

People like the prototype! Particularly everyone liked the gala and most people liked the shopping and Electrosprites. This is good because I was worried the exact opposite was going to happen. I was really worried that the Gala would be received poorly.

The final battle didn’t tickle too many people well but they also didn’t hate it. Hmm.

Result01

Doll Manor has been received fairly well. I’ll be working on it next week, most likely. Fortunately, there were no negative results, I can live with neutrality.

Result02.png

The public like’s Mario’s work. 2 uninterested, 1 dislike, 10 loves. Seems it was a very polarizing piece.

If you’re a 5$ patron and are reading this but have not seen the new story, Jillin with the Jellies, it’s on Patreon right now. I will assume most people will have similar opinions about the two. Unless you like slime girls in which case you’re automatically in the love category.

Result03

In a stunning upset, Ghosts beat Bees by 2 votes. This happened in the last two or so days of polling, Bees had been ahead until very recently. It therefore looks like the next two stories will be Ghosts and Bees. Those will be coming out in early December, or possibly earlier if Mario is feeling particularly motivated.

Seems Crowbar-chan won’t be getting that spin-off franchise quite yet.

Result04

The results here are pretty darn clear: You want me to backfill all the partially completed stuff for Chapter 5. Very well, that’s going to be my focus in the coming weeks. I’m going to clean up some of the bugs, add interactions, case-handlers, finish some of the puzzles, and add the extra content to the Mines that I’d been putting off.

Seems Crowbar-chan won’t be getting that spin-off franchise quite yet.

Result05.png

A surprisingly high completion setup. This is a “Mark as many as apply” thing, since Electrosprites is optional. I assume most users thus did most of the content of the chapter, and few of them got bored and wandered off.

So this means I know what the hell to aim for in the coming weeks. The public gets access to the prototype on the 31st, and I’ll see how much I can get slammed out between now and then.

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Dr Dissonance The Music Maker

What follows is a guest post by Musician/Unlicensed Surgeon, DrDissonance. First, the project update:

I’ve resumed work on the next part of scenario content. I have a big long bug list but I want to keep content updates rolling out. The 5$ patron Slime Story is due out this week (most likely). Chickenwhite was sick and underwent surgery on Sunday, and should be back to work this week. Stinkehund hurt his shoulder (somehow) and is slowed on inking the Doll Manor images (hence why they were in lineart for this prototype). Koops is going to be making more Doll Manor images soon.

There is also a 5$ patron poll today. Go here to do that.

Everything below this point was written by someone with a PhD in Dissonance.

Hey there! The name’s DrDiss, and I created the music for Pandemonium. Salty asked me to write a post about what I did, so here I am before you.

Pandemonium was an interesting project. Mainly because of how diverse the world is. I can’t think of many games that need country-style farm and eldritch horror music in the same soundtrack. This huge diversity was a challenge I faced head on.

When writing music, I usually follow a process I’ve grown accustomed to in the decade I’ve been composing. I could talk hours about it, but I don’t know if this post’s word count could handle all that splurging. So, here is a watered-down version of my process.

Step 1: Gather information

Whenever you start a new project, you start by figuring out the exact tone and feeling the music needs to evoke. Your ideas might not initially align with the world, and you won’t know that until you gather info. What better place to learn about a world than from the people who created it? I began by talking to various team members. Chicken in particular was more than eager to tell me everything about the world of Pandemonium.

Turns out Sophie wasn’t the death metal loving renegade I was hoping for.
[She totally is. Everyone is. -Salty]

Step 2: Sketch

Now that the world was clear to me, I started by sketching out ideas. This usually just involves mucking around in my music software until something sounds good.

For people interested, my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is Cubase. I’ve amassed an impressive (and slightly insane) number of samples and libraries to use for any occasion. I’m a big fan of the Berlin series by Orchestral Tools, SonicCouture’s various weird instruments and any library by Output. As for special effects, a solid reverb and mastering package is a must. For reference, I use EW Spaces 2 for reverb, and Ozone for mastering.

LibrariesScreenshot

Here’s a nice screenshot. I guess these would be my audio ‘waifus’.

Anyway, back on to the music. Rather than focus on chords or melody, as many online tutorials suggest, I focus on the sound world. I’ll use three themes as examples.

For Christine’s battle theme, it needed to be energetic and futuristic. It was formed once I created the starting sound of an arpeggiated (individual notes of a chord played rapidly) synth and a throbbing bassline.

For Breanne’s theme, it needed to sound like you were home on the range. A simple guitar strum and drum beat was all that was needed to evoke the feeling of a hot day of honest work.

For Sophie’s theme, it needed to be sweet and romantic. I listened to a ton of my favourite piano works to get in the ‘mood’.

Step 3: Flesh Out

Once sketches became solid, I built on them. Expand on a synth arp, extend this chord progression, vary that melody, and so on.

Christine’s theme was built by creating a solid melody and building on the initial sound world through lighter, accompanying synths and strings.

Breanne’s theme needed more guitar strumming variations. A harmonica on the melody worked a treat too.

Sophie’s theme was a tough one to write. There’s a lot of emphasis these days put on the ‘emotional piano’ track of any RPG. It had to be perfect! I ended up writing 3 to 4 versions until I settled on the one you hear now. A melody full of rising/falling and tons of rubato (varying speeds)!

SophieThemeScreenshot.png

Another screenshot. So romantic.

Step 4: Glue it all together

By now, I have what feels like an actual track. I tend to ask for feedback at this point. Those people that know the world inside and out let me know if I’ve gone off the deep end.

Using that feedback, I spend ages combing through a track, mixing things to perfection. This is the part where I stare at the screen for hours on end, only to change one teeny-tiny thing. ART!

Step 5: Pretend I know what I’m doing

Finally, I render the track and do some mastering. This usually involves a preset in Ozone. One click, and I’m done. Then I tell everyone I spent forever getting that sweet spot of sound sexiness, and that mastering requires years of training and experience.

Everyone does it, trust me.

After all that a soundtrack is born.

Of course, this is just a small glimpse into what I do. I barely mentioned some of the sound building done for the horror tracks (listen for the heart monitor sounds when in Serenity Crater) or how I replayed through Metroid Prime as ‘research’.

That last one may have just been an excuse.

[Because you need an excuse to replay Metroid Prime? -Salty]

Regardless, I hope it provides a small idea into what went into creating the soundtrack.

As a bonus, I’ve provided the MIDI file of Sophie’s theme for fellow musicians to take a look at. Please ignore the parts impossible for mortal hands. If you want to play it yourself, just cut out a few of the middle notes, you’ll be fine.

[Click here to download it, suckers! -Salty]

Development Update: November 5th, 2018

So before we go any further, Doll Manor will go out to 5$ patrons on Wednesday, along with Mario’s first Pandemonium story, “A Handy Situation”.

I have some more things to do on Doll Manor before it’s ready for its first prototype. It’s bugfixes to the scenario there to make sure all the obvious ways to break it are handled. The non-obvious ways will remain until you guys start reporting them.

Programming Stuff

Bugs bugs bugs. We’ve already put out a couple new versions of the prototype, which can be found on the Prototype 5 downloads page if you’re a patron. I intend to spend the next week just fixing all the bugs that have built up, and after that, on to the content additions.

Art and Whatnot

New tiles are rolling in from Urimas. Stinkehund has some full-screen CG images he’s working on, which you’ll see later in Chapter 5’s development. We also have some nice bonuses from Koops this week.

There were five dolls in Chambers of Pandemonium: Dancer, Geisha, Goth, Bride, Princess. I wanted to have six (since six is a bit of a thematic number in this game) so I asked Koops to come up with some new ones. Here are the ones that didn’t make the cut.

RejectedDollA

Blow-up Doll. Kind of an odd misinterpretation of the word doll.

RejectedDollC

Dough Babe. Actually a pretty cute design.

RejectedDollB

Dough Baby. Be very careful how you word things when asking for art concepts.

RejectedDollD

Okay now she’s just fucking with me.

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Development Update: Prototype 5-3 Released to Patrons!

That’s right, Prototype 5-3 is now going out to patrons! Check the Prototype 5 downloads page (or your patreon inbox if you haven’t done this before) to get it, and enjoy all the hard work.

If you’re not a Patron, now’s your chance! The prototype will be released to the public on November 31st, 2018.

Note for OSX Users: Due to the recent release of Mojave, the XCode toolchain is borked and attempting to fix it tells me the software is not available on the Apple servers. It’s probably a small fix, but for the time being I don’t have an OSX release. I will patch one and release it as soon as I figure out what’s wrong. I am not the only one having this problem either, so hopefully someone else figures out a workaround that doesn’t involve Apple’s poor third-party support.

Note for Linux Users: The version provided has an executable, PandemoniumLinux, which should run. This is a 64-bit executable and will probably not work on 32-bit systems.
You can also try building it yourself, here’s a guide!

If you’re a Linux user and cannot run the executable straight out, try running it via the console:
1: Open a console, navigate to your Pandemonium install
2: type “./PandemoniumLinux” to run the program.
3: If you’re a more experience Linux developer, please let me know how I can fix this in the future so it runs with a double-click. I’m not an expert on this stuff.

As per usual, please SPOILER your bug reports on the forums. We also now have a public-visibility bug tracker on Trello. You can also join the Discord to give feedback and receive help quicker, the regulars will probably set you straight.

Other Stuff

DrDissonance has completed what I needed of the soundtrack, and it will be patched into the next non-bugfix release of Prototype 5-3. We will also be featuring a guest-post by him later (next week?) about his development process.

 

 

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