FPSC engine

We are back - with a vengeance: Into the Dark, Into the Ice & Father's Island!

After long and slowed-down developments, Homegrown Games is proud to present the latest releases:

Into The Dark - Ultimate Edition

Our first own Steam release got its final update - almost 10 years after we had the first idea, almost 8 years after the first release of something playable here and 4.5 years after its Steam release. So what's in there?

• Full "Into the Dark" game
• Including full length "Night of the Living Dead" in the in-game cinema
• Halloween Asylum level from 2015
• Into Ice Level 3 Work in progress from 2017
• Into the Ice AI test level from November 2018
• Savegame before outro in the last slot
• Savegame before cutscene 1, one slot before the last one

With those improvements:

• Re-rendered all video cutscenes with better sound quality
• Improved the surface shading
• Added a post-credits scene
• Fixed the specularity artifacts
• Replaced the ugliest textures with 3D scanned surfaces
• Fixed all known sound bugs on weapons
• Reduced memory consumption by 20-25% and crashes by 60-80%
• Added additional fail-safes against script crashes
• Reconfigured the entire post-processing pipeline

Important: Please uninstall and re-install, instead of updating, to have all changes take place!

Still, keep in mind that this is a game that was first released in 2012, based on a shooter construction kit that was in its core technology from 2003. So basically, we have 15 years old tech trying to look cool.

It is a little bit sad to say farewell to our most successful "own IP game", to the title that got us both harsh criticism, a Jim Sterling rant in full beauty - and several game of the year and other awards.

However, all hands on deck now for the sequel...

...which is heavily delayed, but still progressing. As a matter of fact, you get a little bit more of that now. We wanted to include a full playable slice, but severe AI problems did let us down. We included an AI test...





...in which you can now try to fight against two different AI modules we are testing right now. let us know which one was harder to beat!

And the biggest update, the one we worked the longest on, comes for Father's Island - with the
2018 Halloween Edition of "Father's Island" - or, as we called it in earlier announcements...

Father`s Island 2.0

Why?

Because it is based on the DirectX11 upgrade of the underlying Gamemaker "GameGuru", and it mitigates or entirely eliminates all problems you might have had with our original release.

- IMPORTANT: If you have problems updating to this version, please uninstall and reinstall Father`s Island. Actually, we recommend uninstalling and a fresh install anyway! -

Changes:

• DirectX11 based
• Loading times reduced by 30 - 75%, depending on the system
• Load only once per session: Smart respawn system
• 2 new video scenes
• 3 new posters
• 2 new side stories in letters
• Full PBR support
• 37 assets converted to true PBR
• Multi-Level vertex painted terrain
• Advanced atmosphere light scattering
• Fixed some minor bugs and logic issues
• Fixed the summoning of the Dragon

Possible Troubleshooting:

• After you hit the "Start Game" button, just leave your system loading. Even if the game seems unresponsive, it will load (don`t cancel or quit)
• If the level fails to load (or an error message appears), open the setup.ini in the installation folder and set "dividetexturesize=1" to "dividetexturesize=4"
• If Steam keeps reinstalling /or verifying over and over again, please uninstall and reinstall
• If you find it too dark / bright / red / whatever, you can adjust ALL rendering options by editing the visuals.ini file!!

So what's next?

Into the Ice, of course - stay tuned!