Posts

  • Development Diary: AI and Environments

    The journey so far…

    Our development is coming along swiftly! Recently our team focused heavily on these aspects of the game:

    • AI and Enemy Behaviours
    • Dynamic Environments

    Read on for a behind-the-scenes look!

    AI and Enemy Behaviours

    We have implemented an alarm system. When activated, all enemies within the affected area go into high alert, making stealth or intricate kills rather difficult. This system not only creates a new aspect of gameplay, but also helps tremendously in world-building, immersion and the introduction of more difficult enemy varieties that only become activated when the alarm sounds! A cascade of consequences.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Patterns in VR Inventory Systems

    Hello friends,

    We are back with a new blog post! Today, we would like to discuss our experiences with designing VR games, specifically the inventory systems.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 8 - Cheater, Cheater Pumpkin Eater

    Hello friends,

    Just in time for Halloween, we are unveiling a special feature today. We’ve used this extensively during development to help us test GrowRilla. Today we want to present to you… the cheats file!

    Before we jump into that, a small reminder: make sure to check out GrowRilla during the Steam Halloween event - we generate extra spooky events in the procedurally-generated maps, which you can only experience during the Halloween week. And now back to the cheats file!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 15 - The Spookiest Time of the Year

    Hello friends,

    it’s Halloween time and that means that our extra spooky content is making a return. The island inhabitans have been replaced with some truly terrifying creatures. Zombies, skeletons and mummies will be walking around the city. Street lanterns will turn to jack o’ lanterns. Witches will fly through the sky and many other spooooky surprises are waiting for you.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 14 - Now You're Playing With Power

    Hello friends,

    It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally ready to unveil our next big update for Late For Work, featuring the most requested new features: game mode customization and Index Controller support.

    As luck would have it, we’ve timed this update with a big update to GrowRilla. To celebrate, both games are going on sale this week! This is the best opportunity to grab them ever, both to save money and get all the new features. If you already own one, make sure to grab our VR Indie bundle to get the second game, as you’ll save another 10%!

    Let’s dive into this update!

    Everything is Customizable

    As we mentioned in our preview post, you can now edit virtually every setting in the game. From the number of kills the gorilla has to achieve in a deathmatch game to the suction strength of the UFO abduction beam.

    You can find the settings in the start menu on the bottom right; opening them will lead you to a text file on your desktop in which you can edit almost every setting you can think of:

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 7 - The Gorilla's new Locomotion

    Hello friends,

    We are back with another update to GrowRilla. We are introducing a few highly-requested features to the game (thank you for all the feedback on our Discord). At the same time we are also releasing an update to our other VR game, Late For Work. To celebrate, both our games are going on a surprise sale! If you already own one, make sure to grab our VR Indie bundle to get the second game, as you’ll save another 10%!

    Without much further ado, here are all the new features:

    Joystick Movement is Here

    This has been probably the most requested feature we’ve gotten over GrowRilla’s entire Early Access development. A lot of people mentioned that they prefer different locomotion systems. During Early Access, we wanted to stick with our direct Gorilla-like movement system. But now that we’ve released the game and completed the core gameplay, we can afford to take the time and implement Joystick movement correctly as an additional option.

    We are a little bit purist and think knuckle-dragging is the best system but VR is about options. What works for one person doesn’t work for others. We want as many people to enjoy our games as possible, so we are happy to finally add Joystick movement support. We hope you enjoy it!

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 6 - The big 1.0 Release

    Hello friends,

    It’s finally time! After 10 months and 5 massive updates, GrowRilla is finally releasing it’s 1.0 update. Working on the game has been a lot of fun and allowed us to try out many new things we wanted to implement in a singleplayer VR roguelite game. We want to say a big “thank you” to all of our loyal fans, who encouraged and supported us throughout this time. Without much further ado, here are the big additions we’ve added to GrowRilla for the 1.0 update:

    New Campaign Mode

    Not only can you play through the regular GrowRilla islands (renamed to “free mode”), but we’ve also introduced a brand new campaign mode. How far can you make it through a barrage of challenging island with only one life? The islands are, as per usual, randomly generated and now come with a variety of goals to accomplish. From disabling military recruitment campaigns, to getting rid of nuclear bombs, all the way to the final boss in his snow covered fortress (hint: it’s an enemy you’ve encountered many times so far, but with a new, much more menacing body).

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 5 - A Growing World

    Hello friends,

    We’re back with another massive update to GrowRilla. New islands, new interesting locations and a lot of gameplay improvement (including one major balancing change). Make sure to read the full notes below to get all the details.

    So let’s just jump into it.

    New Islands to Discover

    We’ve heard you. Playing on the same map with the same stuff is bound to get stale after a while. We’re excited to finally introducing new islands to the game, all with unique environments, enemies, cuisine and places to discover.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 4 - Spiders, Spiders Everywhere!

    Hello friends,

    Welcome to another wonderful content update for GrowRilla (Update 4 if you’re keeping track at home). This update is partially inspired by some fun back-and-forths we’ve had with ProjectJamesify, the awesome YouTuber who has been putting together some really fun videos of GrowRilla the last few weeks.

    It’s clear to us that players want to see more content, so that’s what we’re focusing our efforts on. We’re also introducing a brand new system of power-ups to the game. But first let’s go over the new content, let’s dive in:

    Spiders Everywhere

    We implemented a new spider den based on the first appearance of the spiders in the Halloween update. We’ve added 4 different variations with small spiders, larger ones and even some infected humans. Scary! Halloween is not just a one-time event, it’s a state of mind.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 3 - The Spooky Growthriller Update

    Hello friends,

    it’s time for another GrowRillious Update, just in time for the spookiest season of the year. We’ve added tons of new scary content to the game, so grab your silver arrows and garlic cloves and let’s jump into it.

    Scary Content

    New, supernatural inhabitants have invaded the GrowRilla islands and are hunting for fresh gorilla snacks. All new Halloween content and special areas will appear with high frequency during the next week or so and then less regularly afterwards.

    We are not going to reveal too much, just leave you with a few teaser images and we’ll let you explore all the little surprises.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 2 - New City & Military Content

    Hello friends,

    Welcome to the second major update to GrowRilla. We’ve slowed down one bit creating new content for the game and fleshing out the core experience. Our first update featured the new City Area. With Update 2, we’ve massively improved the city and a whole lot more:

    • Tons of new city content: More blocks, a huge building tower and improved AI
    • Military bases and outposts now have new variations
    • Gameplay improvements: Large objects have durability, improved particle effects and feedback
    • Gameplay balancing: food appears in batches, values have been tweaked

    Fleshing Out The City

    In the last update we introduced the city. In this update, we’re fleshing it out further, adding new areas and new opportunities. First we’ve added a couple new city blocks for you to unlock. In the 3rd and 4th map, bigger cities are generated, with a wide variety of city blocks. One is a construction area, with construction workers, a house being built and some storage containers.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Update 1 - Welcome to the (Urban) Jungle

    Hello friends,

    We’re excited to share the first major update to GrowRilla. We’ve been hard creating new content. Today we’re releasing literally a city’s worth of new content! We’ve also added a 4th map to the progression. We’ve worked on the difficulty balancing.

    We’ve also spent the past two weeks watching and reading your feedback and absorbing the reception to the game. Two things are clear to us: the game is fun and you want more content.

    New City Area

    We built a small city for you to explore. It’s first unlocked in the 2nd map, but bigger versions of the city appear from the 3rd map on. We’ve been working on this content for a while, it includes new buildings, vehicles, NPCs, food and opportunities for a gorilla to cause mischief. We haven’t even managed to include all the content we wanted to in this update so expect further updates to the city over the next few weeks as we polish, add new content and balance the gameplay.

    The city offers a new challenge. The content is a lot more concentrated and it’s full of goodies but the threat level is also much higher for you as a gorilla. Many more eyes to spot your misdeeds.

    Read the whole entry!




  • GrowRilla Early Access Launch

    Hello friends,

    We’re excited to launch GrowRilla in Early Access today and finally share our new game with you. Thank you for checking it out. We’re a strong believer in Early Access as an effective medium to develop VR games.

    As part of our release, we’ve also updated our screenshots, posted a new gameplay video (embedded below) and reworked our store description.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 13 - 1.0 Release!

    Hello friends,

    Today we are super excited to announce the 1.0 release of Late For Work and our exit from Early Access. After 23 months and 13 major updates, we are proud to release the biggest update to Late For Work yet. We also want to share our plans for the future, for Late For Work and for our next VR games but first let’s go over what’s in our 1.0 release!

    1.0 Content Update: Polish, Polish, Polish!

    Our 1.0 update is focused first and foremost on providing a stable and polished core experience. We invested a lot of effort testing the game and fixing bugs. Most (all?) of the recent player-spawning weirdness from the last updates are gone now. We’ve also fixed a number of other annoyances, please see the full changelist at the bottom for details.

    We’ve improved and polished the UI in every game mode to better convey the score and relevant information for each game. We also updated all the visual UI assets.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 12.1 - Christmas Update

    Hello friends,

    We’ve just pushed out a super massive content update just in time for Christmas. OK, we may be exaggerating…a lot. Let’s start again.

    We just pushed out a small patch fixing a few bugs that appeared with the last update. It should clean up and fix a few issues regarding the Christmas mode (which you should definitely check out). We’ve also improved the collision shapes on a number of our new buildings and fixed a bug with some annoying repetitive sounds when you play Hide n Seek. Below you can find the full list of changes we made.

    We hope you enjoy Late For Work with your friends and families over the holidays!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 12 - Community Feedback Edition 2.0

    Hello friends,

    November is over, which means Christmas is right around the corner. Before we head into the holiday season, we wanted to get out one more Update for Late For Work. This one focuses on fixing a whole bunch of issues that many players have brought to our attention. We are always very glad for your Feedback!

    Improved Controller Support

    Late For Work will now work with almost any controller. We tackled this bug after this review from one of our players. We improved the way the game recognizes USB controllers and it should work for pretty much every controller out there. Some may have to be mapped correctly with Steam Big Picture before use however, please check out this guide.

    Also we noticed that we (inadvertently) disabled inputs when the game’s window was not in focus. This means if you clicked away (perhaps on a dual screen while streaming) or a random windows pop-up appeared then you could lose controller input. This should also be fixed now!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 11 - Super Spoooooky Gorilla Update

    Hello friends,

    We are back with another big content Update for Late For Work. Just in time for the spooooookiest time of the year. This is actually one of our biggest updates yet, a lot has changed under the hood. Let’s dive in!

    New Art

    Everything is new! Well not quite everything but we’ve finally been working with professional artists to not only set a clear direction but rebuild all our 3d models and texture to fit with the overall 50s low-poly style we are aiming for. Improvements includes:

    • New Humans! Now with a multitude of facial expressions, skin colors and clothes! Hundreds of beautiful variations. No more programmer-art humans.
    • New Cars with a new, slick design that fits our 50s theme waaaay more
    • New Buildings! Having 300% more colors and details!
    • New Enemy Tanks & Planes! Looking more realistic and threatening.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 10 - Spring Cleaning

    Hello friends,

    We’re excited to bring you Update 10, our special Spring Cleaning edition. It’s the proverbial ‘tock’ to our tick-tock release strategy of delivering new gameplay one update and improving core systems the next. We did a lot under the hood and a lot in preparation for future updates (and new unannounced projects). Read on for more details.

    Performance

    We did a big pass on performance. As you know, we not only render in VR but also up to four separate views in splitscreen. This has a fairly big impact on performance and we keep a close eye on it. We did a major pass on performance (our third since we launched in Early Access) and made a lot of improvements. We shaved off roughly 3ms off an average frame. Considering we aim for 90fps, we only have ~11ms to play with, so we’re pretty happy with this improvement.

    New Language Support

    Thanks to the awesome @Mr.Stump we now have language support for Ukrainian and Russian. As a reminder, we are willing to add support for any language, if you’re willing to help us translate it. Find out how on this thread.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 9 - Alien Invasion

    Hello friends,

    Today we are super excited to release one of our biggest updates yet to our local multiplayer asymmetric party game. We’ve got a new exciting fast-paced game mode that had our student intern sweating and out of breath from all mad dash efforts to protect the local populace (and cattle) from being abducted by mysterious visitors from worlds beyond. Read on for more details!

    New UFO Game Mode

    This is the first game mode where we had concept art influence gameplay ideas. I mean, we’ve toyed with a lot of gameplay ideas, but our excellent concept artist drew the art work above a few months ago. In January, when reviewing what chunky new gameplay we could bring to LFW, we settled on the UFO mode. It sounded so fun and we already had all the art.

    This game mode features a brand new aerial vehicle with 3D translation movement, i.e. you can fly in all directions. And an abduction beam. Your goal? Why of course, the traditional alien invader job: to abduct all humans and cows. The gorilla cannot stand idly by and see his fellow countrymen ripped away from their lives to end up who knows where.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 8 - Finding a Balance (Part 1 / X)

    Hello friends,

    We hope you had a great start to the new year. I can’t believe it’s already February. What happened to January? And to Christmas?

    One of the most common feedback we get is that the game is not balanced. Unfortunately, Late For Work is really hard to balance, for several reasons:

    • You can play against 1, 2, 3 or 4 players!
    • Those players could be humans or AI.
    • As our game is quite accessible, you have a wide variety of combinations of players (sometimes within the same play session!): Kids in VR against siblings and parents. Parents against Kids. Experienced against casual and vice-versa
    • Multiple vehicles with different controls, easy of use, etc.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 7 - A Very Merry Christmas

    Hello friends,

    Another update, just in time for the holidays. We hope you really enjoy this one with your friends and family.

    Winter Theme

    Tis the season, right? We implemented a special Christmas theme, a winter theme really with a few Christmasey bits. It was a fun experiment for us internally, while we reworked our whole art system to prepare for future updates.

    As you may or may not have noticed, our in-game art is still quite rudimentary. While it fits our target vision (low-poly, playful), it’s still essentially prototype art cobbled together (some art we commissioned for our original Q1 2017 demo and various Unity asset store packs that we threw in whenever we needed something urgently). The end result is that our art repository was a complete mess.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 6 - Running of the Bulls

    Hello friends,

    Welcome to another massive update to our humble VR party rumble. These past few weeks we’ve focused on implementing new multiplayer game modes.

    New Game Mode - Bull Run

    In Bull Run, the non-VR players take controls of a bull milling up about in a grass enclosure full of other bulls. The player-controlled bulls have to make their way back to the barn without getting discovered by the Gorilla. The Gorilla has to identify (and eat) the rebel bulls before they make it home. Hide in the crowd, cause a little chaos and then bull rush your way to the exit before you get eaten!

    We designed a new map (The Forest) just for this game mode, with a simple clear design. Bull Run really strips the game down to its core elements. It’s just cows, a gorilla and a lot of trees for cover. Cows can charge to clear obstacles (trees, fences, other cows) out of their way. You can also use the “motivate” action to drive a portion of the herd forward in your direction. This can be an effective way to create a bit of chaos, but also draws attention to you.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 5 - Future Foundation

    Hello friends,

    We’re back with another major update. We’re calling this one Future Foundations because, well, not only is it chockfull of good stuff, we’ve also laid a lot of ground work for future updates. It’s going to be a lot easier for us to add new content (new maps and new game modes) in upcoming updates. We can’t wait to share what we have in store the next few months.

    Tank Controls Completely Reworked

    Probably the biggest source of recent complaint was our tank controls. We heard you loud and clear and really focused on improving them (check out our dev diary and our Beta update for more details).

    All vehicle controls have been adjusted significantly, primarily the tanks and cars now move fully with the left stick instead of the triggers (well cars can still make use of triggers too, for the tanks, they shoot). This has had a cascading effect on controls. The planes have also been slightly adjusted. And everything is smoother and more precise. We really hope you enjoy it.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 4 - The Community Feedback Edition

    Hello friends,

    Thank you for all your support and feedback so far. It’s been incredible to read your reviews and hear your feedback and better understand how you play the game and want to play it.

    Your feedback is invaluable to helping us improve the game.

    We’ve been working on various new features to improve the balance of the game (powerups!), improve the controls (better tank and plane controls, more instructions), fixing a lot of bugs related to the different game modes. Stability is much improved (but there’s still more to do).

    We went into a lot more detail in the Beta notes for this update.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 3 - Cars, Tanks, Planes and Gorilla Controls

    Hello friends,

    Ready to drop a new update and this one is all about improving how you control the cars, tanks and planes. We had to give those puny humans a chance to take down that giant ape. The game should feel a lot more balance now.

    If you’re curious, we went into a lot more details in the beta notes for this update but to summarize: the vehicles should feel a LOT better and easier to use.

    What else did we do? Well, there’s better VR control options, more variety, the tutorial has been polished, the first bits of the translation system are in and tons of bug fixes.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 2 - Bigger Maps, Better Modes and UI

    Hello friends,

    Check out our first major update! We’ve been listening to your feedback and working hard on the game.

    Bigger and Busier Maps

    The Seaport map got a major revamp and is now 3 times the size! The Valley map has a lot more going on! Please check them out and let us know what you think.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Late For Work Update 1 - Day 1 Patch

    Hello friends,

    Hello, here’s our first update! We’re super excited to have finally launched on Early Access and we can’t wait to hear your feedback. Please join us in the forums and share your thoughts.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 10 - New content

    Hello friends,

    These past weeks have been very exciting for our team and we’d like to thank you for all your support.

    Level Editor & Workshop support

    We’ve been very impressed by the levels some of you have been creating over the past weeks and hope to see a lot more creations from the community. Keep those levels coming!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 9 - Ellipsis Is Available Now!

    Hello friends,

    Ellipsis is finally available through Steam! We’ve worked hard and fixed dozens of bugs reported by our beta testers over the past few months and are happy to release Ellipsis to Windows, Mac and Linux today. This wouldn’t have been possible without you. Thank you for all your support!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 8 - Release is just around the corner

    Hello friends,

    Ellipsis is going to be released in 10 days. We’re hard at work making the final fixes to the game and appreciate every feedback we can get.

    We’ve also made a whole bunch of other improvements, check out the changelog below.

    Changelog

    • Added support for 27 languages to the launcher
    • Improved touch controls
    • New Levels! We replaced a few levels especially in the earlier section and added new levels, including ice levels in which you can slide around

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 7 - Workshop Support

    Hello friends,

    We’ve been working hard over the holidays on a new update. To kick off the new year with style, we’ve added Steam workshop support. You can now share all the levels you’ve created using the in-game level editor with the rest of the world.

    We’ve also made a whole bunch of other improvements, check out the changelog below.

    Changelog

    • Added Steam workshop support, enabling sharing and downloading user created levels
    • Steam cloud sync now working properly on Linux
    • Various visual improvements
    • A multitude of bug fixes
    • Finalized and activated Steam trading cards! Collect all five to earn the badge!

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 6 - Responding to your feedback

    Hello friends,

    We’re only five weeks away from the launch of Ellipsis, meaning it’s time to share some new content with you:

    Changelog

    • Introducing the 5th chapter, including 20 new levels and a new theme

    Take a first look at some of the new levels

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 5 - Improving the Linux version

    Hello friends,

    Thank you for your continued support! Let’s get straight to the point this week:

    Changelog

    • Added overworld menu (with multi-save slots and access to the editor)
    • Added new enemies and new controls to the level editor
    • Improved save system of the level editor
    • Various other fixes to the level editor

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 4 - More Level Editor

    Hello friends,

    This week at Salmi Games has been very exciting. We’ve been nominated for a ‘Deutscher Entwicklerpreis’ (German Developer Award) and will be heading to Cologne for the award show in December. This wouldn’t have been possible without you!

    Changelog

    • Added new enemy types to the level editor.
    • Improved UI
    • Graphics improvements
    • Mouse sensitivity improvements

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 3 - Level Editor

    Hello friends,

    The first week of testing has gone very well and we’ve received some great feedback. Thanks to everyone who has been posting helpful comments!

    Level Editor

    Along with fixing a bunch of bugs, we are excited to introduce our in-game Level Editor. We’d love some feedback on it, so please try it out and share some screenshots/videos of your creations. We are hard at work on making level sharing super easy.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 2 - Beta released

    Hello friends,

    The first batch of beta invitation emails have gone out, so please check your inbox. If you have received an email from us, you can use the Steam key to start playing the Beta right now! We’ll be sending out further invitations over the next few days.

    Version 0.2

    The current Steam build doesn’t contain all content that will be available at launch. Following you can find a list of what’s playable right now. The game itself is very self-explanatory, no instructions required.

    • Windows, Mac support. Linux support will be added very soon!
    • First 60 levels are playable (Out of 150+)
    • Improved mouse controls
    • Various bug fixes

    Read the whole entry!




  • Ellipsis Update 1 - 100 Days Left!

    Hello friends,

    We couldn’t be more excited to finally share the release date for Ellipsis. We’re looking forward to be launching Ellipsis on January 25th, 2017! That’s only 100 days away from today!

    Steam Wishlist

    First off, would you be so kind to add Ellipsis to your Steam wishlist. Not only do you help us spread the word about Ellipsis’ PC release date, you also get a reminder as soon as Ellipsis is available in the Steam store.

    You can find the Ellipsis Steam store page here.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Creating the Temple World

    Our game currently features 7 worlds and we try to give each of these worlds a unique look and feel. Whereas some world practically programmed and designed themselves, we struggled early on with the third world.

    With a lot of focus and effort, it’s become one of the biggest worlds and we are quite proud of the results.

    We wanted to create a building that felt ancient, abandoned. This lost place, inhabited now by all sorts of dangerous creatures. At the same time, some levels should not feel inhabited at all, and you sneak through traps placed centuries ago. Our recent Film Noir trailer features quite a bit of this world.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2015

    Last week, we got the opportunity to show our game Ellipsis at Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2015 in the Indie Prize showcase.

    I’ve wanted to visit Israel for quite a while now, so I was more than happy when we received our invitation as an Indie Prize nominee.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Going to Tel Aviv - Casual Connect

    We are really excited that we showcase Ellipsis at Casual Connect in Tel Aviv as a nominee for the Indie Prize Awards. I arrived in Israel yesterday and am showing our latest build at the event from Monday to Wednesday.

    Read the whole entry!




  • Indie Gameleon Post Mortem

    I had the opportunity to attend Indie Gameleon and showcase our game Ellipsis on the 14th and 15th of September. Thanks to all testers for giving us valuable feedback on the game!

    Indie Gameleon 2015

    One aspect we play-tested extensively was the initial experience. Showcases like this give us an opportunity to see the players’ first reactions, completely unblemished by pre-conceptions. We tried out several features to see which things help players best to understand the game. Players still struggle with some elements but we are making good progress. Either that or our testers are very talented!

    Read the whole entry!




  • New Blog, New Site, New Trailer, Oh My!

    Welcome to the blog.

    We are proud to announce our new site for our upcoming game Ellipsis. To celebrate, we are excited to share with you our first teaser trailer for Ellipsis.

    Experience it, savour it and share it with the world!

    Read the whole entry!




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