Hey everyone,

This week the team worked on finalizing the last touches for our next build update which will be released next week! Among many cool changes, you will finally see the new lighting we’ve been raving about for our day and night cycle. Make sure to take your joy at different times of the day to get the full experience!

This week Guillaume also went to visit IGN in San Francisco to talk about We Happy Few and record some gameplay. So stay tuned starting this monday to read/watch the full coverage!

Contrast now on NVIDIA® SHIELD™

Contrast is coming out on the NVIDIA® SHIELD™ today! A huge thanks for the engineers and publishing team at NVIDIA who patiently and graciously did all the hard work to bring our game to a brand new platform. We are very proud that Contrast is now available on 6 platforms :)

Weekly Update

Narrative Team

Alex

This week I continued to work on barks, brief lines of dialog that NPC’s and player characters say in different situations. Last week Jose and I recorded Wayne Anthony-Cole and the irrepressible Sammy Lee as a bunch of different characters. My job this week was to cut out the best lines out of several hours of takes using Pro Tools, an audio editing program. Sometimes I put together a “best” take from a couple of different takes. If I did it right, you’ll never notice.

Also, this week we recorded more “grunts.” As you might expect, grunts are noises characters make when they are hitting or getting hit, or being strangled. We record them here in Montreal because I’ve found that Canadians and Brits sound the same when they’re being strangled. Early this week, my wife (and favorite story editor) Lisa Hunter and I went into the sound booth while Jose coached our performances. I suggested she imagine she was hitting her ex-husband. You should soon have a richer combat experience.

Programming Team

Marc

I have done quite a few changes on the AI in the last few weeks.

First the AI spawning system has been reviewed to improve the distribution (no more long empty streets followed by a crowd in the next one) as well as support squad patrols for night behaviours. Bobbies will now patrol in pairs past dusk.

Then a lot of focus on improving feedback. There are a lot of systems that interact in a complicated way and it’s hard to always understand what's happening

Combat: Barks have been improved, attacks frequency has been tuned to make it a bit more fair, the number of AI attacking you at the same time has been reduced, and when there is a mob most of them will stay outside the fight circle and cheer their mates on. It all makes the combat more readable.

Suspicion: Different suspicion stages are clearer and AI will not jump so fast to be hostile (unless you hit them of course, or do something that angers them immediately). We removed the small icon on their head as it is now much easier to understand how they feel by just looking at them, and allows for a much more immersive experience.

And finally some general improvements on various AI behaviours: NPCs can get tired and pause when they run, Bobbies can block in combat and Wellies can now climb through windows when they chase the player.

We also did a big pass on the sounds, to improve occlusion effects, sound mix, attenuation (how sounds are affected by distance), as well as additions and fixes. For instance, the AI footsteps and talking are now much easier to use as feedback as to where they are when you're invading their house.

Art Team

Marc-Andre

This week I've been working on more buildings and some small props!

Thank you for tuning in for yet another weekly update and happy thanksgiving weekend to all of our fellow Canadians!

Compulsion Team