Yellow Arc available! Welcome to the Manic Manor~!
over 4 years ago
– Mon, Sep 02, 2019 at 11:41:07 PM
Hello all!
As promised, here's the public Yellow arc build, clocking in at a whopping 1-1.5 hours of gameplay! It can be accessed from the main menu in the current builds. I can't discuss too much beyond what I've already said about it because of the spoiler-y nature of this demo, but in about a week I'm going to be posting all about the stuff I haven't been able to say for the last 2 months, so play it before then to avoid getting spoiled! (By me.)
Game Jolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/CHROMATOSE/397553
Itch.io: https://akabaka.itch.io/chromatose
This demo is pretty spooky! There's a couple startling moments in this arc, but since 1/3 of you are self-diagnosed weenies (as am I) I took it relatively easy this time around with the horror. I'd hate to make this chapter of the game prohibitively scary, so I'm erring on the side of caution for now so I can get a feel for the best balance between scariness and enjoyability. Will pass around a poll to see if we want to crank up the scares for the rest of the arc.
Yellow demo contains a cute hangout scene, so be sure to talk to Imogen after clearing the level! (Warning: contains graphic depictions of headpats!)
Progress is also moving along well with the rest of the game, and now that we're done with the first part of the Yellow story, we'll be finishing the Pink demo, and working on the Green and Purple builds!
Thank you for supporting development!
NOTE: With the release of the Yellow Demo, all the promised public content has been released, and future progress builds of the game will be available to those who purchased beta access during the Kickstarter (If you donated $15+, you have access!). If you missed the Kickstarter, you can buy access via the CHROMATOSE digital bundle on our Backerkit -- For $30, it includes:
- Every beta build of the game for the next two years
- The complete OST
- A digital copy of the completed game before it goes public
Get it here if you want to join in:
https://chromatose.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Imogen Progress!! A whole lot has gotten done!
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 11:48:44 PM
Hey everyone, Akabaka here with another update!
Having published demo ver 2.0.0 about a month ago, which contained every fan-requested feature and boasted massively optimized performance and overhauled art, we've been keeping momentum in working on our most ambitious Coma World so far, Imogen's Yellow arc!
First of all, this is by far the most artistically involved intro scene so far. There are a total of ~270 character portraits between all of the meet-able characters in 2.0.0, or about 40 portraits per character. As of right now, Imogen has 96 unique portraits alone. The reason for this is that Imogen is a kid with a really wide range of emotions and moods, while adults tend to be more mature and stoic. I felt it was necessary to make more portraits to try to capture the nuances of Imogen's moods:
Also gave her a cute 'Run after you and then hide behind you' walk animation:
Aesthetically speaking, Yellow has been the most challenging but most rewarding world design so far -- dark yellow is the ugliest, most hideous, nausea inducing color I've ever seen and this story takes place in a dark mansion. Which is yellow. Ugh.
The solution was to rely on an orange base (since there isn't an orange world) and to simply use accents of yellow (and sometimes red for important objects), and it's coming out in a way I'm really happy with:
Imogen is a kid with a dangerously overactive imagination, making her coma world especially volatile to her fears and delusions-- as such, Imogen's entire coma world can invert, dramatically changing it's appearance and the hazards therein. Inanimate objects spring to life, unlit rooms become dangerous, and new enemies appear. Check out this animation test!
How many changes do you notice?
The color theory involved here is that the color yellow, when bright, is associated with danger or warnings (yellow lights in traffic, yield signs, caution signs, warning labels, caution tape, bright poisonous animals, radiation/nuclear hazards etc) so when Imogen's hyper-vigilance kicks in, everything is bright yellow to indicate potential danger. Accents of red are used to emphasize the danger.
Additionally, Yellow Arc introduces an all-new enemy attack type: the deadly COLOR KILLER.
It is an attack reserved typically for Master Engrams, the most powerful nightmares present in the coma world. And one makes an appearance for the very first time in the Yellow Demo.
I have much more to show, but all of it is unfortunately a spoiler! For now, continue to follow along on our Twitter or Discord and stay tuned for the Yellow demo release! It's mostly done, it just needs some music and some spooky ambiance, and it should be ready to release in August!
Progress is also moving along well with the rest of the game, and though we're focusing on getting Yellow out to all of you, there's a lot going on behind the scenes for the other arcs too!
Thanks for supporting development!
2.0.0 Released! Blazing through development!!
almost 5 years ago
– Thu, Jun 06, 2019 at 04:53:57 PM
Hey all, Akabaka here!
Excited to say that the Chromatose team and I have released the 2.0.0 demo!
Before we got back to developing the remaining scenes and battles, I wanted to take about a month to stop, rebuild, and implement every feature requested by backers and followers, and here it is:
Firstly, the entire game has been rebuilt to 1280x720, so in addition to every shot and CG being 200px wider, you'll have a wider view of each level, which I think not only helps the immersion, but also helps you see the 'bigger picture' version of each room a little better, and helps things not feel as cluttered. This involved me manually redrawing pretty much a thousand something assets, but the difference is absolutely worth it. Also, there is a fullscreen toggle feature available from the settings menu! It has a few minor texture bugs related to it, but it should be fine to use. (I still recommend using the windowed 1280x720 since it's the game's appearance as I specifically designed it)
Second, there were some concerns about the blandness of the pause menu and the noisiness of the set deck menu, so I overhauled the pause menu with all sorts of juicy goodness, and re-tuned the set deck menu to be a little more stylish and a little less visually noisy.
(GIFs are kinda big so they might take a while to load)
One of the most dramatic changes I made is toward optimization. There were some complaints about lag and a few times where peoples' computers couldn't handle draw-on-demand type asset loading. Chromatose is an art-intensive game, so I put a good amount of effort toward streamlining and art prefetching to get the game running as smoothly as possible outside of loading screens for 2.0.0. The results are dramatic -- take a look at this 'Race to the phone' comparison between the 2.0.0 and 1.6.6:
Same goes with the battle system -- the performance boost is ridiculous.
In the midst of the 1280x720 overhaul, I also took some time to polish many of the sets from the demo to bring it up to the quality I expect from the rest of the game. The most dramatic changes are to the Sinking Schoolgrounds, Isaac's room, and a few other hallways and rooms.
Primadonna's locker room looks like a locker room now
Isaac's room is more tonally appropriate and feels on-level with the amount of polish in Lilith's room now.
The Sinking Schoolgrounds look more like sinking schoolgrounds now.
ALSO, the Sinking Schoolgrounds got a new theme! Really evokes the feeling of being lost in an abandoned building that's slowly disappearing into the big blue. Bless Yuzu and his grade-A work.
Fatebound Frontier's theme is feeling more snow-y and pretty too!
But going back to other requested features, we have a BUNCH more that we implemented also within the last month:
1. Skip function. Hold S and it'll quickly skip through dialogue. Useful for when you get bad endings or as I continue to release patches!
2. Functional in-game log: hit L and scroll through the last 50 something lines of dialogue! Really important feature since you need to pay close attention to what is said.
3. Settings menu: Change the VN text speed, toggle fullscreen, and change the volume of audio groups! The sound mixer will prove incredibly useful for those looking to do any sort of recording, be it sound isolation, Let's Plays (especially if you're doing voices, I'm looking at you, VAs), or if you ever just want to stop and take in the view with some ambience.
4. Characters have descriptive names until you learn their real names: Just an immersion-boosting feature that was requested.
The rest are just quality of life/polish fixes not worth individually noting (like the new VN dialogue box) or organizational changes on our end to keep things running smoothly.
All in all, the Chromatose team had a very productive month. Can't wait to get back to working on the terrifying Yellow Arc story, which is coming up next! It'll be the last public release, and after that it'll switch over to Backer beta access only ($25+).
Our backerkit is over here for preorders by the way (if you've already pledged, don't worry about it unless you want to upgrade) https://chromatose.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
You can grab 2.0.0 from our itch.io or Game Jolt!
https://akabaka.itch.io/chromatose
https://gamejolt.com/games/CHROMATOSE/397553
Remember to leave a rating!
Happy hunting,
Akabaka
Now embarking! + Imogen's time to shine!
about 5 years ago
– Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 02:08:01 AM
Hello again, everyone!
Now that we've had a little time to relax, we're starting back on CHROMATOSE! Here's just a taste of new implementations to the game so far:
- A skip text function as well as a log where you can view previous lines of dialogue!
- And by extremely popular demand, full-screen mode!
These changes aren't live quite yet, but we wanted to spread the good news!
Speaking of announcements, I'm happy to say that we've started working on the demo you all unlocked via the backer achievements. I hope you're ready to meet Imogen! She placed the highest on the favorite character poll between the 3 unmet characters and will be receiving her own preview, as promised!
We can't wait to share her story with you all. More sneak peeks and information will be coming in our next update.
See you again soon!
We did it! What now?
about 5 years ago
– Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 06:27:51 AM
Hello everyone, and thanks for helping us fund CHROMATOSE! Together, we all managed to raise over $25,000. That's AWESOME!
We're so excited to embark on the journey to make CHROMATOSE a reality! For now, though, the team's going to take a small break for a little R&R — running this campaign has been intense. We'll be back soon with more information about what the future holds.
In the meantime, please make sure you're in our Discord so you're in the know about everything when it happens! Click here to join:
Thanks again for everything. We'll be seeing you again soon!
