Hi everyone!

It's true, Darkenstein 3d is now half a year old. And what a half year!
Been a challening, and very fulfilling experience. I'm so happy that you're all here. :)

And to celebrate the game, today we launch the 1.3 update!

This update improves performance, combat, UX, and overall consistency, it is not a content update.
Game size is nearly halved, CPU usage is lower, and stutters are reduced across all levels. Enemies react better and behave more consistently. Weapons have been rebalanced and feel more reliable. Explosions, fire, and combat interactions are more predictable.

Challenge Mode tracks more stats and UI has been cleaned up. Voice lines have been expanded and fixed.

A wide range of fixes and improvements have been made across gameplay, UI, and levels to eliminate bugs, softlocks, and inconsistencies.

Read the full changelog below:

• Weapon effects on player moving speed reduced by 25%.

• More reliably accurate crossbow and 2x faster bolts.

• Bolts behave more consistently; long shots require certain anticipation.

• More consistent rat behavior.

• Throwing rat is now 50% faster and he moves quicker in the air.

• Rat no longer randomly fails to attach, unless shot.

• Better rat returning system.

• Increased damage dealt by Mr.Rat by 25%.

• Increased flamethrower fire damage by 50%.

• Increased skull damage and fire rate by 25%.

• Increased Tesla damage by 33%.

• Reduced shotgun damage by 20%.

• Enemy grenades are now a lot easier to shoot.

• Added alert countdown sound to enemy grenades.

• More coherent flashlight energy bar mechanics.

• Enemies that go into flanking/roaming are more aware of player position and shots.

• Improved safeguards for enemies that shoot while moving, preventing side shots and self-damage.

• Enemies that are infighting no longer hesitate after their target is dead or gone.

• Knights are no longer limited to horizontal attacks, allowing them to shoot on stairs and slopes.

• Knights are 3x more vulnerable to fire.

• Restored big fat enemies’ triple shotgun shot after fixing bug preventing it.

• Explosions now do more damage to alien eggs.

• Wooden railings now give 5 score points when broken, like all other breakables.

• Better textures for blood drops.

• Better sounds for knights’ ranged attack bounces.

• Better ratted animation for shielder enemy type.

• Game size reduced from 18GB down to 10GB.

• Optimized performance in all levels.

• Reduced CPU cost for all enemies and combat events.

• Better overall CPU performance game-wide after switch to Forward+ rendering.

• Reduced the duration of stutters that consistently occur in the same spots.

• Lightmaps now take up to 80% less RAM while maintaining original quality.

• Many more settings tied to general Graphics Preset for better gains on slower PCs.

• Reduced computational cost of some materials and reduced number of materials.

• Changed level names in Challenge Mode menu to coincide with the end level label.

• Added two new best score fields to Challenge Mode.

• Challenge mode now also tracks your maximum secrets and treasure found.

• Fixed level names that said Act VI when it should say Act IV.

• 18 new Hobo kill comments.

• 3 new contextual voice lines for the Hobo.

• Better system to ensure the MC’s voice lines don’t overlap.

• Removed confusing MC comment when nearing a rack of MP40s.

Subtitles

• Added subtitles to all in-game Hobo lines that were missing them.

• Added option to turn these new subtitles off.

• Moved subtitles option from Audio to Accessibility menu.

• Changed notes’ text to regular font for small screens.

Controls & Input

• More robust weapon switching mechanics.

• Better weapon selection with MouseWheel.

• Weapon wheel for M&K now works via cursor selection.

• Weapon wheel now shows weapons without ammo greyed out.

• Weapon wheel no longer allows selecting weapons without ammo.

• Removed extra field from weapon wheel to avoid confusion.

• Aim assist for controllers (default on).

• New option to disable weapon auto-switch.

• Better weapon auto-switch.

Menus & Systems

• New save file system for easier user finding/editing.

• Moved difficulty changer to Accessibility Options.

• Moved crouch and walk toggles to Gameplay Options.

• Attempted fix for high count achievements stopping count at 500 on Steam.

Feedback & Messaging

• Better looking resizable crosshairs.

• New alert & description message when receiving a new objective.

• Tweaked the second half of the Quick Help text to be more useful and accurate.

• Added failure sound when player attempts to grab flashlight while it’s not available.

• Added voice line to alert player of lantern only being available for one handed weapons.

• Added voice line to teach player about the Skull weapon’s abilities.

• Better tips in death and game over screens.

Visual & Lighting

• Slightly brighter levels 3 and 4.

• Restored enemy weapon muzzleflash lights that where missing.

• Better lighting for all dynamic objects in level 4: enemies, breakables, etc.

• Texture placement, alignment and replacement repairs made for most levels.

• Better looking normal maps for many materials.

• New water for level 3, 11 and 13.

Gameplay & Content

• Changed Zlim’s secret in level 3, to be up to date with his new name.

• Restored fight after picking blue key in level 6, which had been broken while doing another fix.

• Added a couple rockets by the enemy panzerfauster’s nest in level 7’s patio.

• Restored a voice line in level 8 boss fight that was incorrectly muted.

• Added a few texturing details to level 9 terrain.

• Added new guiding voice line after picking up the red key in level 9.

• More helpful message when pressing the double buttons at the end of level 9.

• Added red light above lever that opens level 10 boss’ door.

• End of level for level 10 now shows a more immersive teleport ending.

• Final boss takes more damage from electric weapons.

• In final boss fight, now all enemies in an area must be killed for the area to open.

• Fixed level 8 gondola soft-lock.

• Fixed instances of projectiles being deviated by colliders intended only for the player.

• Fixed treasure count being reset to 0 when loading checkpoints.

• Fixed graphics presets which would have some of their settings overwritten after application.

• Headshots, kicks, and picking up gold no longer cause small hiccups.

• Fixed a bug where cooking a grenade until it detonated would incorrectly spawn a second, instantly-exploding grenade.

• Fixed Skull weapon pickup message mistakenly being “Clip of bullets”.

• Fixed Homicidal Rant tutorial message that said gray bar instead of blue bar.

• Fixed some dogs that would show human skeletons when exploding.

• Fixed last instances of kill count being shown as higher than enemy count.

• Fixed knights incorrectly casting their death scream often.

• Enemies no longer become unresponsive when the player is slightly outside their navigation mesh.

• Fixed player being able to get killed during level complete screen.

• Weapon is no longer re-equipped if selected in the weapon wheel while already equipped.

• Enemies can no longer hurt themselves with their own melee attacks.

• Fixed instances of enemy projectiles colliding with the weapon that shot them.

• Fixed instances of enemy alien projectiles not completing their explosion cycle and staying in-game.

• Fixed weapon wheel opening during dialogue.

• Fixed rat wrongly spawning at the beginning of level 2 in challenge mode.

Level 3

• Fixed sound effect set to incorrect mixer channel toward the end of the level.

• Fixed one secret’s mouse sensitivity speed bug.

• Fixed instance of player getting stuck.

Level 4

• Fixed multiple instances of missing or incorrect geometry.

Level 5

• Removed out of context Hobo comment when loading checkpoints.

• Fixed sound effect set to incorrect mixer channel at the beginning of the level.

• Fixed chain gun flickering as it appears toward the end of the level.

Level 6

• Fixed texture glitch on the extra lives powerup.

Level 7

• Added missing “You’re exiting area” trigger to end of the level.

• Fixed door between patio and lab, which would wrongly close and lock itself.

• Hobo no longer says “crossbow” for no reason early into the dialogue.

Level 8

• Gondola escape no longer requires the player to interact with buttons.

• Gondola doors can no longer remain open while the gondola is moving.

• Fixed a few lightmap issues around the end area.

• Boss no longer kills his minions as easily.

• Bullets no longer leave marks in the boss’ barrier.

• Fixed boss not fully resetting after game over.

• Fixed instances of the boss checkpoint not triggering when the player falls.

• Less instances of the boss getting stuck near columns.

• Properly color-coded a door that will never open.

Level 9

• Fixed collision for a few sets of stairs that could get the player stuck.

• Fixed terrain part where player could get stuck and become softlocked.

• Fixed crouch not working when loading a checkpoint.

• Fixed group of enemies that would only appear if entering the last base from certain paths.

• Added collision to the NPC so he can’t be walked through.

• Added missing “can’t open” messages to both doors inside a secret.

• Fixed texture and protruding collider for a set of stairs in mid level.

• Fixed out of place green rectangle showing momentarily with the falling tree.

Level 10

• Fixed sets of stairs that were hard to climb.

• Fixed last camera after the teleporter, which no longer switches back to the player.

• Fixed stairs spot inside base where player could get caught in the geometry.

• Player can no longer softlock themselves after pressing elevator button.

• Fixed enemy teleporter so falling enemies can no longer fail to teleport.

• Fixed bad guy going through the platform right before jumping down.

• Restored gunshot sounds at the end of the cutscene.

Level 11

• Restored missing sounds in two secrets.

• Fixed teleporters sometimes failing to teleport the player to its destination.

• FIxed music fading out too fast after the ambush.

Level 12

• Fixed lightmap artifacts in sand hole.

• Sand ambush room’s 1st button can no longer be pressed more than once.

• Fixed pyramid spheres which would make the crosshair flash red when shot but can’t be damaged.

• Added a missing secret trigger, which increases level’s total secret count by 1.

• Fixed all secrets having no found sound.

• Pyramids now save their state and act appropriately on checkpoint load.

• Fixed music that used to play both soft and heavy tracks at the same time.

• Stepsounds now corrected for both player and enemies.

Level 13

• Stopped most instances of boss shooting through walls.

• Fixed occlusion culling issue left of the elevator.

• Boss can no longer hurt himself with his own projectiles.

• Fixed boss energy projectile which would not fully disappear on explosion.

• Fixed one of the boss’ projectiles which used to be visually hidden before explosion.

• Fixed player steps that now sound of water while in water.

With this update, we reach the point where I consider the campaign finished and, aside for few fixes (as needed), I will pivot towards working on new content full time.
Does this mean the game is perfect? No game is perfect and there are some issues, of course.
To make this update and continue improving and making new enemies, I have redesigned the whole way the enemies work. That means, there might be glitches at this moment, which I still must iron out.

Nothing too bad: at the beginning of level 9 there are a couple snipers that refuse to shoot. The charger enemy has issues knowing where in its behavior it is and sometimes switches speeds around. Enemies rarely will slide while in positions where they shouldn't move, such as during melee attacks.

The recurring stutters, those that are always at the same spots, remain specially in maps 6 and 7, this being something that will likely not be fixed further, as it requires too much of a reconstruction to do it. Likewise, parts in both snowy levels are still demanding and I have not found how to improve the couple bad angles where FPS go down considerably; remaking those maps is not a consideration either.

But, the game is in its best possible state now!
Expect a few hotfixes in the nest days/weeks.

Please report report report! :D
Thanks for reading, specially if you got down here. ;)

Cheers!
Rowye

Hi everyone!

It's been a long time without any news so here it goes. The 21st of April Darkenstein 3D will be 6 months old!

To celebrate, a BIG update will be dropping on that day. While this is not a content update, there are a few new things coming that you asked for, some more QoL features, and many, many fixes.

I will, of course, add the full changelog when the update drops, but I do hope this will make many people happy. As a teaser, one of the main focuses has been performance, and this is what that section looks like:

PERFORMANCE:

• Game size reduced from 18GB down to 9.4GB.

• Optimized performance in all levels.

• Reduced CPU cost for all enemies and combat events.

• Better overall CPU performance game-wide after switch to Forward+ rendering.

• Reduced the duration of stutters that consistently occur in the same spots.

• Lightmaps now take up to 80% less RAM while maintaining original quality.

• Many more settings tied to general Graphics Preset for better gains on slower PCs.

• Reduced computational cost of some materials and reduced number of materials.

And here's another of the sections, so the scope is more clear:

Controls & Input

• More robust weapon switching mechanics.

• Better weapon selection with MouseWheel.

• Weapon wheel for M&K now works via cursor selection.

• Weapon wheel now shows weapons without ammo greyed out.

• Weapon wheel no longer allows selecting weapons without ammo.

• Removed extra field from weapon wheel to avoid confusion.

• Aim assist for controllers (default on).

• New option to disable weapon auto-switch.

• Better weapon auto-switch.

...and so forth. There are about 5 more pages of this. :D
Are you ready for it?

Catch you all soon. ^.^

Rowye