Hello everyone, Major update #1 for Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle is now live, bringing bug fixes, major combat balance tweaks and other improvements for the game. We heard your feedback loud and clear and we’re determined to improve the game as best as we can, hopefully this will be the first step in the right direction. A lot of the feedback we got from you is that the combat in the game can sometimes be a little frustrating, reaching high levels of frustration during specific encounters in the game (Medical Area eggs fight, final boss fight). With the overall feeling that maybe the experience on Story and Normal mode was too challenging compared to other similar games. With this patch we tried to reduce that feeling of frustration without sacrificing the challenging and rewarding aspects of the game. Story and Normal mode will be significantly more approachable than before, Hardcore instead will remain mostly the same. And finally, another thing we focused on is the responsiveness and handling of the main character, especially noticeable when playing with a gamepad. Now it should be easier to control the character in combat situations, switching weapons is faster and so are the Frost Grip abilities, sudden changes in direction no longer interrupts the run, and other smaller tweaks to reach the same goal. We thank you for all your feedback and your support, if you find other issues you can report them to us on our Discord. We’ll keep updating the game so if something you really wanted it’s not in this patch maybe it will be in a future one. Below are all the changes we made in detail: [h3]GAME BALANCE / COMBAT EXPERIENCE[/h3] PLAYER [list] [*] Slightly increased Equip/Unequip weapons animation speed. [*] Increased animation speed of all Frost Grip shooting modes. [*] Increased Frost Spray freezing power but also consumes more charge. [*] Slightly increased Frost Spray radius. [*] Slightly buffed MPG 510-K stopping power. [/list] ENEMIES [list] [*] Decoys move significantly slower in Story and Normal mode, and slightly slower in Hardcore. [*] Decoys can now spawn First Aid Kit on death, only in Story and Normal mode. [*] Decoys will now spawn ammunition slightly more frequently on death, only in Story and Normal mode. [*] Slightly decreased Decoy’s dodge rate. [*] Slightly decreased Decoy’s damage per second. [*] Mutated Decoys now will not instantly grab the player after blinking close to them. [*] Lightning Orbs move slightly slower in Story and Normal mode. [*] Red Lightning Orbs will now move at the same speed as the Blue ones. [/list] DETENTION AREA PYLON FIGHT [list] [*] Reduced the corpses in the arena. [*] Increased pylon’s hitbox size. [*] Enemies’ spawn rate will now be adjusted based on difficulty mode. [/list] MEDICAL AREA EGG FIGHT [list] [*] Eggs are now slightly slower to hatch. [*] Slightly decreased White Sparker’s health. [*] Increased the time that the White Sparker needs to get back in the fight after teleporting out. [*] Slightly reduced newly born Sparker’s health. [*] Enemies' spawn rate will now be reduced in Story mode. [/list] FINAL BOSS FIGHT [list] [*] Boss grab attack is now slightly slower. [*] Boss will teleport slightly further away from the player. [*] Boss will be less reactive. [*] Enemies’ spawn rate will now be adjusted based on difficulty mode. [/list] [h3]GAME IMPROVEMENTS[/h3] [list] [*] Sudden changes in direction no longer interrupts the run. [*] Flashlight is significantly stronger and clearer across all levels. [*] Alien collectables can now be destroyed with the Frost Bullet. [*] Increased Very Hard hacking minigame timer. [*] Increased Very Hard hacking minigame attempts. [*] Decreased countermeasures presence in Very Hard hacking minigame. [/list] [h3]MAP IMPROVEMENTS[/h3] [list] [*] Improved the helicopter animation in the Lair Dam. [*] Increased dead corpses variety through the levels. [*] Added a new skippable screen for the final dialogue post-credit scene. [*] [spoiler]Improved the hallucination sequence in the Castle Lab. [/spoiler] [*] Added a checkpoint in the Evacuation Zone. [*] Removed an invisible camera collision in the Medical Area. [*] Removed the duplicated helicopter in the final desert scene. [/list] [h3]SYSTEMS IMPROVEMENTS[/h3] [list] [*] It’s now possible to use the arrow keys and numpad keys in the Key Binding. [*] Added borders to the windowed mode. [*] Anti-Aliasing settings correctly use the word “Off” instead of “Low”. [*] Opening the Extra menu will now unlock all the achievements related to completed challenges. [*] Controller vibration improvements during cinematics. [/list] [h3]BUG FIXING[/h3] [list] [*] Solved a rare issue that could corrupt the autosave when force closing the game during certain cutscenes. [*] Now player HUD will correctly remain hidden when it needs to, even with the “HUD Always Visible” option. [*] Fixed a bug that incorrectly reset the JP PECK-DC12 skin after loading a new level. [*] Solved an issue that prevented the player from interacting with the Upgrade Badge Station in the Water Supply Plant. [*] Sparkers now will correctly scale movement speed based on the difficulty mode. [*] Fixed a bug that made elevators play a 2D sound instead of a 3D one. [*] Solved an issue that made the Frost Grip backpack blink in a weird way in certain levels and during certain cutscenes. [*] Fixed a bug that prevented unlocking an achievement if the corresponding challenge was already completed. [*] Frost Grip Upgrade Stations now correctly attenuate ambient sounds. [/list] [h3]AUDIO[/h3] [list] [*] General audio mix improvements. [*] Various ambient sounds improvements. [*] Improved intelligibility in various in-game dialogues. [*] Fixed various post-cinematic audio events that prevent the in-game audio to come back right after the cinematic ends. [*] Added missing sounds for some ambient element and a few interactions. [/list]