News
Unity 5 Makes ‘Darkwood’ Better, Faster, Stronger
Since it arrived on Steam Early Access last summer, the procedurally generated indie game Darkwood has been steadily evolving into a truly remarkable horror game. When I spent some time with it last year, its haunting atmosphere and intense difficulty stood out to me.
Its roguelike tendencies may turn some people off, but they also make every bit of progress that much more satisfying. In that way, it’s a lot like Bloodborne.
See the full list of additions, tweaks and improvements below.
FEATURES
– World generation is now up to 3 times faster. That’s quicker than your average respawn time in Bloodborne!
– Big performance boost for slower CPUs.
– Big memory optimization. This NEEDS TO fix the out of memory crashes during world generation…
– Audio postprocessing, ducking and less distortion. More to come later!
– New, modified and improved sound FX.CHANGES
– You can now craft items even if your inventory is full (assuming that after removing the required ingredients you will have room).
– The game starts in fullscreen by default again.
– You can no longer interact with objects when having a item picked up from the hotbar.
– Added info message when trying to confirm skills, when having not selected a negative skill.
– Touching a sleeping Chomper now wakes him up. They also snore.FIXES
– Several fixes to world generation. This should fix the low FPS bug, and not respawning in camps.
– Fixed game breaking bugs in the chapter 1 end quests.
– Fixed item context menu not hiding when entering the main menu.
– Fixed epic chomper dodging.
– Fixed characters sometimes picking up wrong waypoints.
– Fixed pigshed generator guard not attacking player.
– Fixed nasty savegame corruption in the late game.
– Fixed several cases when characters could disappear (and reappear) close to the player.
– Fixed not being able to change inputs after generating a new world.
– Hopefully fixed a very rare bug when leaving the undergroud tunnels would make the world all black.
– Fixed characters in the Musician’s parents house.
– Fixed inventory items appearing on top of hotbar numbers.
– Hopefully fixed all weird graphical glitches introduced in 4.0 (underground entrance tree, etc.)
– Fixed player freeze when buying the map from Piotrek inside the currently selected hotbar.
– Fixed cornfield shader.
– Fixed changing resolutions / fullscreen weird behaviour.
– Fixed rare, weird door behaviour.
– Fixed audio volume settings not applying to some sounds.
– Fixed some mimics emitting sound after death.
– Fixed unlootable wood pile in the pigsheds.
– Removed beartrap recipe (it’s unlocked from the beginning).
– Fixed rare error during dialogue.
– Fixed wrong night scenario progression in meadow, resulting in too difficult nights at the beginning.
– Fixed having 2 hotbar slots selected.
– Fixed Chomper in Church dream not having the pendant.
– Improved player inertia.
– Fixed light flares from lamps not rotating correctly.
– Removed a hole in some borders (resulting in being able to travel to another biome way before you should be able to).
– Improved cursor icon display on various objects like the Well.
– Fixed melee weapon modifiers resetting when transferring between inventories through ctrl+click.
– Fixed inventory events not triggering when swapping items, like the underground entrance key, or violin.
– Fixed flare not lighting barricades correctly.
– Fixed not being able to pick up a firearm from the ground if you have the same type in your inventory.
– Fixed flares and matches reigniting after loading a save.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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