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Release Notes for Depth of Extinction

Build 55.1.0 (April 14th, 2022)

HI, all, continuing the trend for Build 55, I have some more bug fixes.

In 55.1 we have:

I'm still working on a few things for a later 55 update, so if you see bugs, please report them using the in game tool or feel free to drop suggestions. Same disclaimer as last time in that I'm not really looking to add content that would require translations or new art.

Build 55 (March 27th, 2022)

Welcome to Build 55! I'll probably do a few more updates to this build over the next month. More on that below but first here's the change log for 55.0.0

For future Build 55 updates, i am considering a few things:

I'm happy to hear additional suggestions for changes for this update, but here are some things I am NOT considering:

Bug fix update to Build 54 (4 October 2021)

Bug fixes Update plus adding Icelandic language! (20 September 2021)

New Stuff
Bug Fixes

Update (07 May 2021)

In the Localization Update, I added a "secondary enemy" faction to each area. Unfortunately, I should have tested that just a bit more because the "easy" and "medium" Cultists were a bit too hard for most players at the early stages of the game. It's certainly interesting letting you get a peek at them but I nerfed the enemy stats and weapons slightly so that it's a more realistic challenge.

Also included in this update is a new music player on the music tab. That tab is now added to more screens and you can change the track that is playing by clicking/selecting the track of your choice. A second click will open a link to buy/download the track directly from the artist.

Localization Update is LIVE! 22 April 2021

This update features 4 additional languages and a TON of quality of life and balancing changes!

Hi all, welcome to the Localization Update of Depth of Extinction! Highlights are full translations into Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese as well as quite a few new “quality of life” features and lots of small balancing changes and bug fixes.

This was a huge update as I had to touch every system in the game to fully localize it and the final translation size was almost 25,000 words! If you have played DOE, then you know it is a very text heavy game so this won’t surprise you. I had to make a few edits to get the word count to a more reasonable size but it is very close in content to the English version.

New Features
Other Changes
Bug Fixes
More about translations

The DOE Translators really did amazing work on helping me get this update across the finish line, so I want to make sure each one is recognized!

We also had some smaller contributions to Japanese by Divi and to French (not yet available) by Tchey.

You can help! I’m really hoping to get the game translated into French, Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Russian in the future. If you want to help, please join the HOF Studios Discord and let me know. I can give you the translator role and let you have access to the language you want to work on. Everyone that contributes even a single translation will be given a community translator credit. Making major contributions and/or helping with testing a particular language will get you a full translator credit.

If you have another language that you would like to help translate, let me know and we can investigate if it can be done!

Update 52.9.8.1 (02 April 2020)

Definitive Edition Available Now!

A complete overhaul including new enemies, a new character class, some new mechanics and lots of UI and tactical polish We've spent the last six months almost completely overhauling the game, so much so that we are proud to say this is the "definitive" version of Depth of Extinction. There are several new enemies, a new character class, some new mechanics, lots of UI and tactical polish and we've squashed all of the annoying bugs (that we knew about at least).

If you only ever played the launch version (or maybe never played) then I think you will be pleasantly surprised by all the changes made since then.

Key Features
Removed the initiative system completely

Moved to the more familiar player/enemy turns with free switching between characters. This was not the original vision for the game but the feedback suggested this was what players preferred.

Added Stealth and Ambushes

Enemies now have a lower visible range to allow for positioning your troops before waking up a pod. Any characters on overwatch when the pod wakes up (if you fire on them or move into their visible range) should take shots at the enemies. If they take a shot, then they won't get to move until after the enemies make their move so it's another tactical decision to make.

Saboteur Class

Their primary skill is Sneak Attack which does extra damage if alert level is low. They are fun to play with if stealth is interesting to you.

More Mechs

They appear in the final area with different weapons and stats. There is a pretty good difficulty jump in the final area as well.

Shortened The Game

You could easily finish the 5 main story objectives in around 10 hrs. This used to be more like 20. The "top level" map where you navigated between the mission maps has been removed in favor of a more linear system. There are also many optional objectives to complete so the total play time is probably now around 30 hours.

Other Changes
What's Next?

The team has already begun work on another game and certainly many of the systems used in DOE will be re-used there and likely upgraded. A console version of the game is also in the final stages of approvals there so I expect we will be announcing a release date soon.

Update 51.4.1 (16 September 2019)

Build 51 is here and is focused around bug fixes and small improvements. I had planned a few major changes to the game but ultimately decided there wasn't time to test and balance them so I decided to de-scope them for now.

There were just too many bug fixes that needed to get in for me to want to take more time to finish a more significant update before releasing this one. There was some progress made on those improvements, so they may still be added in the future.

Please let me know about bugs you run into while playing as I plan to push out 1-2 more bug fix builds this week to resolve any lingering problems.

Build 51 release notes
Controller Updates
Bug fixes

Update 50.9.6 (20 June 2019)

Update 50.6.1 (06 June 2019)

Controller Support
Enemies Updated
A few other things:
Effects update
Summary
Map Updates
Smaller fixes
What’s Next?
Subs
Injuries
Map Updates
Sound Effects
Music

Update 49.5.2 (11 February 2018)

A small update has just been released with a few changes:

Please let me know if you see other problems and of course suggestions are also welcome.

Update 49.4.3 (04 February 2019)

New Features
Balancing Adjustments
Bug Fixes

Update 48.8.4 (19 December 2018)

The long awaited Build 48 is finally ready! I’ve put some thought into how I think people might react to this update but am looking forward to hearing more detailed feedback on the changes and if you think they have improved on the game’s shortcomings without compromising what you liked about it.

If you didn’t like the game at all when it launched or you were turned off on it for some other reason, then this update is probably not changing your mind. If you were on the fence about the game and just thought thought it was repetitive or imbalanced or too easy, then maybe you could give it another try. I’ve worked on addressing this feedback and even though I don’t think the game is perfect, i do think it has improved from launch. If you are one of those people who would prefer to get the high level summary of the update or see the visuals, then this video is for you. For more details, please read on!

The first thing to mention are the New Maps we have added to the game. There are three new ones that each add slightly different dimensions and are introduced as you progress through the game.

I’ve also added some new level tilesets that you’ll see in later areas. They are the Cultist “Temple” and the Android “Citadel” and they definitely have a different look that the current tilesets. I don’t have a significant amount of new cover or environment items added to the game yet though. Look for that in a future update.

I’ve also completely removed the “Zone Chooser” from the game in favor of just listing the currently available objectives for you to choose from across zones. Only one objective of a type will be available at a time from now on, so you won’t see more than one “Find Sub” at a time, for instance. The concept of choosing the objective based on difficulty is also gone from the game. This has been replaced by difficulty that scales with the current team. Objectives will have a difficulty floor however, so it is possible to undertake an objective that is too hard but not one that is too easy. Enemies will scale up to roughly match your level.

To make the game more accessible to new players, we have added a “casual” mode. The first time you play the new version of DOE, you will be asked which difficulty mode you want: Casual or Classic. Classic will be basically the current version of the game (with the other changes in Build 48) while Casual will have a few differences:

You will have the option to retry any mission where you failed (team wiped out), aborted or even lost a character. Characters will have a higher “base” health value than the enemies, allowing you to take a few more hits. The difficulty will ramp up just a little more slowly Casual mode is primarily aimed at players who want to experience a slightly easier version of the game and not have to deal with permadeath (unless they want to).

The speed of the game has also been greatly increased. I have gone through each aspect of the tactical component of the game to remove any extra delays and reduce the time things take to execute (like changing the turn and firing). I also have completely revamped the character movement system so that the movement speed can be tuned by the player in the settings. The default speed is significantly higher than the previous defaults. The “cinematic” system also had a setting added to let players control how long the camera delays over items of interest last. Hopefully this solves a lot of the battle pacing issues. These changes are complete rewrites to the character movement system, so I won’t be surprised to hear about a few bugs. I’ll be posting a patch soon with bug fixes, so please let me know if you see anything weird. Videos appreciated.

Another big change: enemy pods are now triggered based on their visible range from player characters. This means that instead of enemy pods activating as soon as you see them, they will only activate when you either attack them, move into their visible range or fire at another enemy within their visible range. Enemies in rooms are also activated by overwatching or reloading at a door.

Since you can “see” enemies before their pod gets activated and attacks you, I have also added a new HUD element to represent the enemy’s visual range. As long as you stay outside that area you won’t activate the pod. I feel like this is pretty experimental so I am definitely interested in feedback.

In addition to activating by “seeing” one of your characters, enemies can also activate if they “hear” you open a door, reload or fire your weapon, or if an enemy in a different pod is activated close by. Enemies can activate if one of these things happens within their audible range, even from another room, so be careful! Later enemies, like androids, have more advanced hearing and so have a larger audible range.

We’ve also beefed up the story with additional cutscenes and banter between characters. There are three more standalone cutscenes and several banter situations during the final mission of each story objective. This should flesh out the story a bit more.

The encounter system has been significantly upgraded, with the main change being new “task” encounters that charge the player with disarming bombs, hacking terminals or disabling a failing reactor as you travel across the maps. These mission types were available previously only as final missions on some side quests. A lot of players found them fun so we wanted to make them happen a bit more often! I also worked with the writers on reducing the number of repeating encounters and outcomes that made it look like things were duplicating.

Some smaller changes to encounters:
Other changes
What’s next?

My goal is to try to deliver quarterly updates to the game throughout 2019. I am thinking some new objective types, classes, content and possibly even a new main quest? I am honestly not sure yet but all of this is being considered and when or if these things are available will probably depend on a variety of factors.

All I can say for sure that the next update will include controller support. Let me know what you want and I can definitely consider it.

Update 47.8 (29 September 2018)

Tutorial:
Skills and Items
Other stuff:

Feel free to join our Discord https://discord.gg/Y6taVrh

or submit a bug report https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0_s559TRWC7ADgDSiWComBVwSzVB7WXMP1zTY9ITpNAOB0w/viewform?usp=sf_link