Seems unlikely. The game is working on Pico4 but there's a problem with reading the size of the room placement in that space. It has been reported a few times but after the shifts in the company last year it seems unlikely to be handled.
Join discord server's test builds to get access to Pico4 build.
For the lore, it's the best to visit discord server, #lore (first go to #lore-access). I don't give the ultimate answer to the questions about the lore as some of the stuff is up to the interpretation but there is still lots of hindsight into the world and its history.
While I am still fixing stuff for Tea For God and working on the endless mode, I am already planning the next game which will also be room-scale. Although this time I plan to release a pancake version as well which may differ when it comes to the gameplay a bit - more open spaces.
My first computer was ZX Spectrum. I was 4 then and I remember how we went to someone's house - they were getting computers from the west and selling them in our country. I remember the games they showed to my dad (there were three original tapes with Horace games, I especially remember Horace Goes Skiing) but I was more interested in playing with the dog they had, spaniel. I remember how we were walking home with a box and then dad connected the computer to the telly set. We used to ask our dad to load games for us until we learned to do it on our own. And I remember that as well - the computer was in the living room, I came back from the school and decided that I can't rely on dad to load the games for my and decided to press the keys until the right stuff appeared (LOAD "") and then I started the tape and started to discover the games on my own. I was so excited waiting for my brother to came back from the playschool. When dad saw that we learned to load games on our own, he moved the computer to our room. He did some programming on ZX but in two years bought PC and in the next year decided to start a company.
What was amazing to me in the games when I was a kid is that they were running my imagination. I was there, in those strange worlds, they appeared to be huge, you had limited stuff to do, but you had the feeling you could wander for hours. And this is not that the games were different, because people then looked at the games from the gameplay perspective, what gameplay systems there were etc. And as well people look at games today as worlds to explore. This is the feeling that I find the most attractive in the games - I want games that allow me to explore them.
I remember how I first played Wolfenstein and I didn't like it that much. I already spent hours with other 3D games (Castle Master, Total Eclipse and others), I played and mapped Aliens on ZX and Wolfenstein to me was just a small step forward from that. I completely ignored the technical advancements and just focused on what I felt playing the game. And it really really reminded me of the Aliens the most. You had to walk then stop, rotate. My cousin was fascinated with it. Me and my brother had other games we liked to play. I really liked Prince of Persia, Wing Commander, Sim City, Civilization and so on.
But when I first saw Doom... There were floors, ceilings, sky, lots of different monsters, blood and gore, weapons, and the hands were moving when you were running. Wolfenstein appeared really static when compared to Doom. And then came the day my dad setup network in our home. Doom was the first game we played. When we stopped in the same room (in-game) we were running between rooms (in real life) to see each other and shouting "turn right" "move forward" "shoot". We spent lots of time playing various shooters in coop. And then - my school friend came to us and told us that we should play deathmatch - I understood the idea and kind of liked it but never played it. Me and my brother avoided playing against each other and used to play only coop games. Because at the times the things could get too emotional for both of us. My school friend obliterated each one of us and then he realised "Oh, you don't strafe". That was a game-changer. So yeah, we were playing Doom and other shooters without strafing. Strafing made things much easier.
The next game that really changed how I looked at the shooters was Terminator: Future Shock.
But even long before all of that I knew what I wanted to do - make games. And it was partially because I didn't know from where to get new games and partially because I wanted to make a world to discover.
And every time someone tells me that they enjoyed Tea For God, I am glad that I made it. And I believe that in a long time in the future, there will be someone who will remember Tea For God and will tell stories about it.
For a long time I used to play the games with cheats. Back when we had little to no access to original games on 8bit computers where I live and on C64 almost every game was cracked and had cheats. I was playing the games like that. No challenge, just having fun going through the game, destroying everything on my way.
The games should have god mode. I wouldn't mind if it was stated somewhere in the description or having some icon, just as games have "singleplayer", "multiplayer" info. Even games with leaderboards should have that. The result would be ignored but it could be quite useful for training.
There are more things coming to Tea For God (endless mode is going to be the next biggest addition) and soon I should start to work on something else - but it is going to be an impossible space vr game as well.
Unlikely, there isn't anything there besides a few test scenes and lots of ideas/design written down that would most likely change during the production. If I release a few games that will provide me with enough money, I'd like to revisit the idea. Or try the Inception/Shadowfire mix. Or something else. I mean, the get-into-someone's-head idea has been with me for almost 20 years now. Back then you were meant to be cat/fox creature exploring people's minds to find some memories to help them make a decision.
That really depends on the mode and of course how you play it. Standard rules are much shorter than advanced rules.
Standard rules should be between 2 and 3 hours. I'd prefer people to finish the main campaign on Standard rules in one session. This assumes that you don't rush but also you don't examine everything (during focus tests, people were playing 30 minutes long section of the game and some have still not finish it after more than an hour), get as many upgrades as possible and you don't fail (unless you play with "respawn and continue", that puts you back into the game immediately).
Thanks! The main story is going to be complete soon but that's not going to be the end of the game as I plan to release more content in what is going to be an endless mode.
There are a few games like that worth trying, Sommad: The Lost Plants, TraVRsal. There is also Eye of the Temple and although it doesn't use impossible spaces, it allows movement without sliding and teleporting.
Thank you. The endless mode will borrow some of the stuff from the main mode but there should be more content being added that will expand places you may visit and things you may do.
The "tower of elevators" has doors arranged as they are on the map, if you came from the left and want to go up, you need to turn to the left when you're entering the place (best to draw it on a piece of paper to grasp it) and check all floors where the doors are. For the standard rules, there is no guidance.
I just realised that I could add a door direction device on the back of doors! Then the flashing icons would point to where a given door leads to. Could be useful in other planned zones.
Yes. I also found some very small Quest 1 related issues (amount of active rooms was greater on Q1 than Q2 in config). It should be definitely better but I will be doing a separate/dedicated pass for Q1.
Some game modifiers alter difficulty a bit. But there's one game modifier that changes the game a lot. "Navigator" (available only in advanced/roguelite). WIth this thing on, you have a map but you have no information where on the map you are (unless you use a map device on the wall).
Besides that, I do not plan to add extra hard difficulty, although I'd like to add something that could change specific rules of the game (be one-handed, health drops all the time but killing restores it a bit, etc). These are more like ideas for the time after release. And remember that there is also endless mode coming that may contain much harder missions/quests.
Feel free to post :) While watching I was taking notes - some of the bugs and issues might be already solved in the either preview build or unpublished yet preview build.
Thank you :) That's the thing that I want the game to be as good as possible (within reasonable time) and at the same time I want people to experience the full story and what's happening after it.
Thank you. That's true and that's why I am taking more time on it. But it is worth remembering that it is better to have fewer features, polish them and release the game rather than work on it for years and years. That was my mistake until I decided to cut some of the stuff. Some is going to be introduced post release. Some need redesigning and could eventually happen if not in TFG, in some other game (I still like the very old upgrading system but it didn't feel right in TFG).
True that! I worked on a few AAA titles and with a such experience I wanted to have a different approach. And while I avoided lots of pitfalls, I did other mistakes but that division of development time still holds up. Is just spread a little bit differently. One day I want to write a post mortem to the game and will cover all of that :)
The big part was the experience I gained during the last 9 years. Coding is never ending learning process :)
And in terms of risk, it was something that could break potentially everything but if it did, it would be noticeable immediately. Other ways to speed up things might be riskier and require more work. But should be done, if required :)
Oh, that's more complicated. I have a development version of the game that is playable with keyboard mouse but it mimics some VR behaviour with a quite convoluted controlling scheme (to extend arms, etc) there's no controls for some of the things you may do.
To make a keyboard mouse (or just non-VR version in general) it would require a bit more work. The most important things:
1. Weapon management. Instead of the current "main weapon on forearm" I imagine it would require slot approach to switch between 4 weapons/items?
2. Simple/short version: Add "use" button. Long version: redesign how interaction with various devices looks like - instead of pulling levers/pressing buttons, some would just require pressing button to use, while others would require telling exactly what you want to do. I imagine that entering various utility rooms would just switch to a different control scheme - instead of walking in the room you would be selecting which device to use and how.
3. Redesign some parts of the game. Some of the sequences are quite hard to play on keyboard mouse while they're much simpler in VR. Centipede fight is among them. Without impossible spaces, it would be possible to completely change how specific sections play. Instead of being limited to a small part of the world, ie. platform, you could walk freely.
In general, it is doable and it might be a good idea to do this. It needs to wait a bit though. Till the game is released as a VR title.
I plan to add a simpler gameplay mode. The whole plan is to separate checkpoint/run based gameplay setting from gameplay complexity making it possible to play simpler gameplay run-based (permadeath).
Another thing that is going to happen is extended play/endless mode. This will enforce current roguelite mode rules, though. With map, additional devices and permadeath.
Do you mean a PC version? Because there already is, in the download section. The demo is also on Steam. If you mean something else, let me know and I will see how/when it could be done.
In Arcade mode it is not possible. In Roguelite mode when you find an orange room, there is a device on the left side that allows installing all already unlocked upgrades. If you choose shield and install it on your right hand, it will automatically be removed from your left hand and placed on your right hand.
Hey, have fun! If you'd like to play more (there's a bit more content added than what it is in the demo), try preview builds. The best way is to join discord server (https://discord.gg/FFwyf4n) and go to preview-builds channel to learn more.
Yes, the demo ends after the turret section (the result doesn't matter). There are preview builds that will have more content and they are available through discord server -> https://discord.gg/FFwyf4n
There is no full game yet.
The tinker aspect is available in roguelite mode. Note, it is more difficult mode in many aspects. Less energy dispensers, more complex navigation, if you die, you have to restart - from outer rim, you don't have to go through the intro.
Headset? Yes. Via SteamVR ATM. I implemented OpenXR support which is available in the preview builds.
Controllers? They used to work. But recently I got one person who had some issues with sliding locomotion (which is a feature coming soon to public builds).
Before I make it a public build, I am going to dig up my HTV Vive prototype Index controllers to check if everything works.
I have no idea. With GPU similar to what Quest has at the moment, with breaking rendering into such big tiles, it might be unusable but then - if the area is big enough, you may not be able to notice, as peripheral vision is quite blurry and wherever you look, you should get only the sharpest image.
There were some companies that did eye-tracking stuff for Quest. It should be fairly easy to test foveated rendering if one has access to this hardware.
