Greetings surveyors!

In my latest roadmap update I hinted that several changes were being prepared for the Side B release. I’m excited to share that progress—and the best version yet—with you today.

In the first major content expansion, you will very soon find a portal which transports you to the icy mountains of Alpha Periphery C2. This world is filled with new resources to collect and vertical challenges to overcome.

It also provides the perfect opportunity to iterate on the core experience. This smaller update is comprised of the spoiler-free changes I felt could be revealed sooner. Nearly everything has changed in some way. This includes new and redesigned audio cues, improvements to some screens and their controls, and the game manual embedded from the settings screen.

Continue reading for all the new changes, and more detailed information about the big updates to come. Please let me know how they improve your experience. They will continue to be iterated upon as needed.

Enjoy!

v1.2.0 changes

• Core Gameplay
  • Increased collection radius.
  • Collectibles discover associated destinations on collect.
  • Reset heading to due north on fast travel.
  • Tweaked movement systems for upcoming upgrades.
• Core Interface
  • Embedded game manual from settings screen.
  • Categorized upgrades into systems and subsystems with new screen flow.
  • Sorted destinations by distance from current location.
  • Added mouse mappings for mode switching, scanning, and accessing the menu.
  • Added gamepad mapping for scrolling interface elements.
  • Improved visual scrolling behavior when switching screens.
  • Reworked various haptic cues.
• Core Audio
  • Added dynamic proximity cues to nearest collectible.
  • Brightened structures in scan cues.
  • Hid materials at max inventory from scan results and proximity cues.
  • Revised and optimized nearly every audio cue.
• Core Graphics
  • Added novelty pixelation slider to graphics settings.
• Side A
  • Moved discovered structures slightly.
  • Fixed missing text for fourth artifact.
  • Tweaked music ducking for clarity.
• Demo
  • Added demo limitations interstitial screen on game start.
• Miscellaneous
  • Upgraded desktop builds to Electron 23.

Side B incoming

Important reminder: The price for Periphery Synthetic EP will increase to $2 USD with the Side B release. Paid copies will receive it for free.

Great progress toward the Side B release has been made since the last patch. This includes the following new additions:

• A new world to explore with unique terrain, sights, and sounds.
• A new soundtrack of slow icy drones that react to altitude changes.
• Upgradable thrusters for lifting off and sustaining short flights.
• Upgradable rotation control (RCS) thrusters for turning mid-air.
• Eighteen new perceptions to collect and advance your mission.
• Discoverable portals which connect this and future worlds.

From here the only outstanding task is writing the new perceptions. Overall I have a clear understanding of the story beats and details they will convey. Yet the words will flow at unpredictable rates. It’s mostly a matter of listening to my mental health and practicing patience.

Side B will release by April 28, 2023. That’s my deadline.

Side C and more

Important reminder: The price for Periphery Synthetic EP will increase to $3 USD with the Side C release. Paid copies will receive it for free.

I hope to release Side C of the EP by the end of 2023. This will fulfil my promise to remake my game S.E.A. in this new platform, nearly two years since its final update. Here I’ll reflect.

I’m beyond excited to get started on this expansion for several reasons:

• I quit that project to finally do this! 🤘
• It adds a new water world with two unique zones:
  • An ever-changing surface with waves to surf and sunsets to enjoy.
  • A psychedelic floor with caves to explore and treasures inside.
• It adds the final set of collectible periodic materials.
• It adds passive abilities which make collecting things easier:
  • Upgradable attractors which pull nearby collectibles closer.
  • Upgradable intakes for passively refining resources from the air or sea.
• A soundtrack which explores more reactive and aleotoric textures.
• Even more fun with writing perceptions.

The most challenging aspect of this update will be implementing the new underwater movement model. I’m still debating whether it even arrives pre-installed! It would be cool if you sank without some buoyancy control system first installed, but it would complicate several code paths along the way.

Otherwise the engine is quite built for these goals to complete smoothly. The terrain needs sculpted, graphics need shading, sounds need synthesized, and perceptions need written. By then it will have become a process.

This illustrates the method behind these releases. First, there was a musical world to explore with driving abilities. Then, a portal connects it to one with flight abilities. After that, they are joined by another with swimming abilities. What could be conceivably built from all three elements?

The objective of this pipeline is to reasonably add more worlds to Periphery Synthetic EP as inspiration strikes. There are at least three solid ideas ready for preproduction after that. More on those later this year.

Peace! ✌

Wishlist on Steam