The latest improvements, fixes and work in progress from Cris. All times are UK time.
Development updates may describe work that is not yet in your demo build. Each change is labelled with its reported status.
Published
Visual-effects prototype — 25 October 2026
Change report:
Implemented: 25 October — Built and installed a visual-effects prototype in the development project, combining a glossy, opaque black oil surface with a bounded number of moving globs, up to three viscous strands and shrinking residue after impacts. The effect uses a small CPU mesh system rather than a fluid simulation grid.
Tested: 25 October — The source reports that both Windows editor builds passed. Each project passed 20 presentation tests and 14 second-phase presentation tests. A 600-frame lifecycle review in the installed development project checked bounded effect counts, detachments and impacts.
Tested: 25 October — Editor measurements reported an average CPU cost of 0.172 ms per displayed frame for the oil component, with a 0.565 ms maximum. The underlying modular body update averaged 10.142 ms and peaked at 33.281 ms in the headless review. These measurements are prototype results, not a production performance sign-off.
In progress: Remaining work — Improve the visibility of moving globs and strands through gameplay lighting and scale, and address the underlying body-update cost before production use or multiple instances. GPU time and packaged-build performance have not been measured.
Development update: Delivery status — This report describes a tested prototype installed in the development project. It does not establish a rebuilt or released demo.
Development update: Source — Implementation and test report emailed on 25 October 2026 at 02:19 GMT. Public notes omit attachments and encounter details.
Published
Development update — 23–24 October 2026
Change report:
Implemented: 24 October — Daisy collision response: glancing contacts retain movement along fixed obstacles, while direct hits remain blocking. Corner rotation is restrained, movable objects retain mass-aware physics, and damage reflects closing speed into the surface.
Implemented: 24 October — Driving controls remain available after survivable impacts. Added a bounded cab jolt that respects camera-motion settings: Full uses the authored strength, Reduced uses 20%, and Minimal adds none.
Implemented: 24 October — Daisy audio: added 24 generated vehicle Foley recordings and 13 editable cue slots covering landings, scrapes, corner and direct impacts, body rattles and suspension movement. Variations, contact-point playback and cooldowns improve impact detail.
Implemented: 24 October — Sustained scraping fades when movement or contact ends; loose-panel rattles respond to damage and ground motion. Landing compression has a delayed rebound, and safe stunt landings retain their impact sounds. New audio follows Master/SFX volume and pauses with the vehicle menu.
Implemented: 24 October — Safe Landing Stunt protection now supports ramps, boosts and jumps without a ramp. Default protection lasts up to 30 seconds airborne and 3 seconds after first touchdown, temporarily suspending landing damage and off-road recovery. Wall impacts remain damaging; normal recovery resumes when protection expires.
Implemented: 24 October — Opening the in-game menu while driving pauses the standalone world. Closing it clears held driving input and releases its own pause while preserving pauses owned by other interfaces. Existing keyboard and gamepad menu navigation is retained.
Implemented: 24 October — Anne's swimming presentation now includes a larger entry splash, alternating strokes, gentler treading splashes and four generated nonverbal vocal cues for cold shock, exertion, struggling and shore recovery. Breathing escalates with low health or prolonged immersion.
Implemented: 24 October — Swimming effects and audio are configurable, follow Master/SFX volume, and preserve camera, immersion timing and audio state through pause. Existing surface swimming, no-diving behaviour and roughly 30-second full-health ocean exposure remain in place.
Implemented: 23 October — Recent photography work, included as earlier context: corrected replacement-mesh handling for the tripod, developer and photoboard; added adjustable displays with uniform pixels; revised paper/card presentation and scrollable notes.
Implemented: 23 October — Photoboards default to 24 photographs in a 6-by-4 grid. Photographs stay in capture order, additional boards take subsequent sets, and development respects available capacity. Board identities and print assignments persist through packing, redeployment and checkpoints.
Implemented: 23 October — Added confirmed print removal while retaining recoverable negatives for essential photographs. Packing handles support replacement meshes, previews and independent interaction sizing; their transforms and interaction positions persist correctly. Repaired stale handle positions on two test boards.
Development update: 23 October evening — Separate authoring reports record bridge-link, gatehouse, tunnel, path, steps and handrail revisions, alongside checks preserving the original player start and surrounding windows. Further island work refined rock formations, roads, shoreline and foundations, including asphalt on the tunnel road. These reports are separate from the 24 October vehicle installation.
Development update: Earlier manual work, exact completion dates unconfirmed — Cliffs were carefully repositioned by hand and materials adjusted to work correctly with the weather.
Tested: 24 October — The source reports all 13 final Daisy regression suites passed with zero errors, covering collision behaviour at 30 and 60 fps, audio routing and cleanup, stunt drops, checkpoints, pause ownership, menus, driving zones, steering and existing gameplay. An earlier swimming/menu/stunt installation passed 11 suites, including physical 40-metre drops at 30 and 60 fps.
Tested: 23 October — Photography version 0.3.3 validation reports 177 functional checks, 44 render checks, 18 Blueprint checks and 3 placed-equipment propagation checks passed, including compile, save and reload behaviour.
In progress: Remaining acceptance work — Drive and listen in the editor to assess brushing a post, clipping a rock, landing a large jump, reversing away and opening or closing the menu while moving. Automated checks cover behaviour and audio wiring; this listening and driving pass remains outstanding.
Implemented: Delivery status — Vehicle and Weather Exposure editor plugins were compiled and installed in the development project. These updates did not rebuild, replace or upload the demo executable or hosted Beta 0.4 downloads. The photography changes likewise had no executable build or upload.
Development update: Source — Development changelist dated 23–24 October 2026, emailed on 24 October at 17:52 BST. Photography is earlier context; separately recorded map work and undated manual changes are identified above. This is a development update, not a demo release announcement.
