If all goes well with our final dev work, We're releasing the 1.0 version of We Are The Caretakers in early January! We'll be announcing the specific date just as soon as we're officially through certification on all platforms, so look out for another update very soon here and on our social media pages to find out the final date. When we reach 1.0, the 4th Era of the campaign, all achievements, and more will be unlocked and all early access trappings will go away.
Also, at the time of this update going live, the Autumn sale discount is live for the game. This is the last chance to get the game on sale before 1.0! If you haven't purchased yet, be sure to Wishlist and consider purchasing now or on our launch day. Wishlists help tell Steam that players are excited about the release, and can help us get visibility in the Steam store.
Finally, we need your help in the lead up to release. If you've already purchased the game, thank you! We would love to have you check out the changes, send us any last minute bugs/feedback that we should address, and consider posting a positive review on our store page. Having a number of positive and up-to-date reviews on our store page at launch will help us out a lot with new players once we change our status to "Released".
Below is the full, massive change log for update 1.0.2.0 (don't let the version number fool you, as we're not quite at the true 1.0 yet).
Change List:
- Finished all Era 4 content, missions, special features/mechanics, and game ending sequence. LOTS of new stuff we can't talk about yet -- come back for 1.0 to unlock and play the full content!
- New difficulty settings: When starting a new game, you can select from Easy and Hard difficulty. Hard mode reduces your starting coins, reputation, and raun power; you'll also encounter higher-leveled and more aggressive enemies, with more characters in their units. Lastly, you'll receive fewer "rare" recruits early in the game in the Atrium. For your trouble, you'll receive a bonus in your final scoring and be eligible for some hard-mode only achievements.
- Revamped combat UI. Removed redundant info and changed character slot UI to show Will as bars. Goal was clarity and reducing visual clutter. Use the "Peek" function to show full info during combat.
- New 3D scene for the Atrium, featuring your advisor Kray.
- All new UI animations throughout the game to make interactions feel better and more polished.
- Added more "generic" dialogue in each Era, that plays when a town doesn't have a custom dialogue conversation.
- Polished story mission text window, and updated images for all story mission screens.
- Split up many story mission screens to reduce the amount of information in each beat.
- Save key narrative choices made in the player save data.
- Added sound effects for more HQ cutscenes.
- Added many optimizations for memory usage and textures. The "Good" quality setting also features model optimizations that help with running the game on older systems.
- Added an Era-transition screen and fixed all transition-related bugs.
- Significant updates to tutorial text, for controller and mouse versions.
- Added camera focus events for enemy spawns and other key events on the RTS map.
- Completed all tasks related to our other release platforms.
- New abilities and effects related to Era 4 character classes.
- Territory walls (debris or fences) now spawn individual fences, clearer entrance points, and have more visual variety.
- Added final portraits for all towns, landmarks, and structures when selected.
- New spaceship landing site to replace the player spawn point in many missions.
- Added final description text for selectable objects on maps.
- Updated randomized unit spawning rules for enemies, to ensure balanced compositions, and adjust stats based on difficulty.
- Reduced opacity on terrain gridlines.
- Polished decorations and environments for all missions.
- New central selection cursor when in controller mode.
- Added new start screen as entry point for some platforms.
- All achievements implemented.
- Experimental Survival Mode hidden.
- Updated the save game version to avoid bad experience for users with old save game data.
- Updated store description, screenshots, images.
- Updated final scoring formula and balanced values.
- Balanced class starting stats and damage/defense values across the game.
- Give feedback earlier in the loading process so there is never an extended black screen while a load is running.
- Save game error message now properly returns to the title screen after clicking OK.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed bug where some characters, including the conductor, would not show the correct portrait and model in the HQ.
- Made final dialogue and UI text edits, and localized all remaining strings that were showing as untranslated.
- Fixed an issue with regaining input control after mid-mission tip screens appear.
- Fixed some missions missing title text.
- Fixed instances where the baby Raun name was not shown correctly.
- Fixed not being to select the Barrier Breakdown boss area in E1M2, along with other selection/highlight issues.
- Fixed bug when characters were removed from the player army.
- Fixed issues with town colliders and conversion detection.
- Fixed seams on edges of environment terrain.
- Fixed bug on returning to the Atrium after the first mission on some platforms.
- Fixed a variety of controller cursor navigation issues between screens.
- Fixed placement issues with tooltips in the select ability menu. Added delay to account for new animations. Reduced size of controller cursor.
- Fixed controller navigation jumping in tech tree.
- Fixed not being able to navigate to newly unlocked unit slots until reloading the save game.
- Fixed some incorrect "Control Guide" ui entries. Sometimes would display incorrect button functionality text.
- Fixed major bug where controller would not be recognized at the start of missions, requiring the user to hit input again to swap control modes.
- Fixed incorrect re-assignment of leader collider after the original leader was wounded. Caused issues with converting towns when back on the map.
- Fixed crash when the Conductor's unit was fully wounded and undeployed.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this amazing development journey. We can't wait to get 1.0 to you and see what you think!!
Best,
Heart Shaped Games
