Painscreek 5/31/2018 Patch Notes

Hi everyone. We've finished optimizing the Hospital, which is the second heaviest scene in the game, and revamped textures for a number of props. Improvements when accessing the Hospital are as follows:

1. Reduced Hospital loading time.
2. Reduced RAM usage.
3. Slightly reduced GPU usage.

We are currently working on the Mansion, which is probably the heaviest scene in the game, followed by a full game optimization shortly after. Once that's done, the game should run much better. More information on that later.


Hot Fix 1:
Some users were having issues on loading into the game after the latest patch. The problem was hunted down and the game should be stable now. We're sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused.

We're going to be doing an additional fix very soon to patch another small problem.


Hot Fix 2 (June 1, 2018):
Certain UV maps had some issues. These were sorted out.
Some objects were missing their colliders, and others were accidentally made hidden. All of these have been fixed.

Painscreek Devlog #5: Who Is Steven Moss?

When a game has no quest journal, no hint system, a playtime average of over 10 hours, and it requires players to trek over twelve locations, is there anyway to prevent people from getting lost? Hints are important in entertainment. A hint system is found in nearly all 'hidden object' games. In more modern games, important items either have a glowing aura around them, or the main characters have a heightened vision that makes the important items stand out from the background. Both of these are useful techniques and helps to ease the players' frustrations when they get stuck. However, we felt that the above methods would break the immersion of our game. But, even though we didn't want to break the immersion we still had to consider the following: how can we prevent players from simply getting stuck? Would the systems mentioned earlier cheapen the whole feel for everything? Would they ruin a detective game that attempts to mimic real life? What could we do that wouldn't be in-your-face? Could we use an in-game person?

The Painscreek Killings Rated Excellent By AdventureGamers.com!

AdventureGamers.com recently reviewed 'The Painscreek Killings' and rated it excellent with a score of 4.5/5! Here's their verdict:

"The Painscreek Killings is an engrossing, complex, challenging murder mystery that makes you feel like a real investigator. Dig out your notepad; it’s time to uncover the secrets this sleepy, abandoned town is hiding."

Click here to read the full review.

Painscreek 5/9/2018 Patch Notes

Hi everyone. Here’s a list of things that were patched/implemented:

1. Optimized the village, one of the three heaviest scenes in the game. This includes optimizing the terrain and improving the terrain textures, which helps with reducing the RAM and GPU usage, and the loading times,.

2. Proof-read all documents (U.S. English).

3. Updated the disclaimer at the beginning of the game, informing players of the reload option should they encounter technical issues during gameplay.

4. Fixed incorrect dates which caused inconsistencies in the story's timeline.

5. Minor bugs fixes listed by players posted in the Steam community forum.

6. Removed AA option since the game uses Unity 5.3.4 engine which does not support that feature.

7. Implemented full Steam Controller support.

8. Made changes towards the end of the game to improve the player's experience during gameplay.

We thank the community for their support and being patient with us. Currently, we are working hard at optimizing the Hospital and the Mansion, which are the remaining heaviest scenes in the game. Upon completion, the game's frame rate and loading time should improve considerably.