You are not logged in. Please login or register.
AudioGames.net Forum → New releases room → Upheaval A text-based open-world fantasy roleplaying game
yeah, try updating your nvda. or go to nvda advance setting, check the agreement checkbox, and set Diff algorithm to Difflib. don't ask me what that really does, but it helps with the chunky text on consoles somewhat.
Yep, changing the algorithm settings to what you said did the trick. It's working perfectly now.
Now that you give us the option to take an item with us before the adventure, why not add the sword, skeleton key, ring, and magic book? And what's the point of taking nothing? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the option is there. To start with nothing when you have so many options is The definition of the hero's journey, but maybe, there could be more of an incentive, like special endings or options for those who start with nothing. And also, if there isn't a way right now, because I haven't found one, the magic map should be Obtainable in case I decide to take something else with me.
@dalen lewin
Great questions! 
The sword, skeleton key, ring, and magic book are all intentionally pretty overpowered items that unlock a huge number of actions in various scenarios. Because of that, I thought it would be more exciting to have to find one first before you can use it to start wreaking havoc on the world or whatever you want to do with it. If anyone disagrees with me, of course, they can use the Magician's Shrine (enabled in settings, but not available in the demo) to conjure any number of items that they want before they leave town.
All of the items available to take before the adventure are things you can obtain in the world, including the Magic Map! My hope is that giving players the option to take one item at the very beginning lets them choose what problem or problems they don't want to deal with right away. For example, if you don't want to deal with a bandit ambush right away, you can take the knife or the map to start.
The point of having an option to take nothing is that, that's what I want to do! Also, I'm planning to add, like, a Steam achievement for something like that, maybe even an entry in the Magician's Diary, not sure about that yet. But I'll add some sort of concrete goal-like thing for players to pursue if they want to get good at starting with nothing. 
Thanks for the questions!!
Wow, if I would just take the time to look at menus every now and again, I could figure this stuff out on my own. I had no idea there was a cheating option until you said something. Thanks.
Thank you for updating and releasing the demo version of the game on steam! I'm looking forward to the full version available! I understand that this is a time-consuming process, but do you have an approximate idea of when you will release the game and add support for screen readers? I'm guaranteed to buy the game as soon as it's available on steam, because it's on my wish list!
Thank you so much for your support, @FacelessGhost!
Both the demo and full alpha versions have screen reader support right now in the command line version! I'm working to add text-to-speech to the graphical version right now, and that update will be done in the next couple months. I'm really excited to test that out and share it with the community here!!
As far as finishing the game completely, my extremely approximate timeline for that is somewhere around summer of 2025. The main reason is that I only have about 10 hours a week to work on Upheaval! If I was working on it full time, it would definitely be done by this spring. Of course, I may be overestimating the time it'll take, but I'd rather overestimate time and effort than underestimate it.
Until then, the latest full version will always be for sale on itch.io. I'm very excited to finish Upheaval (whenever that is), and to deliver the text-to-speech update in the next few months!
Some great accessibility-focused content creators made gameplay videos of the Upheaval demo recently, and I wanted to share them here in case anyone was interested:
Illegally Sighted plays the command line version of the demo with a screen reader
Grandpa Max reviews the low-vision accessibility of the graphical version the first time
Grandpa Max reviews the demo a second time (after an update)
These are some great content creators, you can check out their videos if you like. Thanks!
Hey everyone! Just wanted to share this interview that Chad Michael Bouton did with me on his blind accessibility podcast The Unsyted Radio. He was a really great host! We talked about my design process for blind accessibility in Upheaval, inspirations, history, and some other things.
Thank you all for your support! This community features prominently in one of the early stories in the interview. You all really are what inspired me to keep working on Upheaval at all beyond the early prototypes!
@AlexLeone, When will accessibility come to the Android version? I only have an Android device and haven't heard anything about the game in a year
Hey @Sky gamer, thanks for your patience, and thanks so much for your support following Upheaval for over a year! 
Accessibility should be coming to the Android version in the next update. Unfortunately, I can't say when that will be, since I've been working on this game part time. I'm really itching to get the next update out. I'll let you all know as soon as it's out!
On a related note, the Android version of Upheaval won't be able to make use of TalkBack or other built-in accessibility features, so I'll basically be making my own custom text-to-speech controls. Are there any other mobile games you can think of that have "custom" blind-friendly controls? I'm thinking of something like, hold volume up + volume down for 5 seconds to activate TTS, then use drag finger on screen + double tap controls or something to navigate with it. Thoughts? Thanks!
Will the game be coming to iPhones? And if so, will the same rules apply to text to speech there? Because I'm thinking that games like Dawncaster or what you would want to look for in terms of not having a conventional voiceover accessibility, but having a similar layout so the differences uncanny.
@AlexLeone, I don't know what language your game is programmed in, but if it is programmed in unity, If you use the unity plugin there is an option that allows developers to enable or disable detection of screen readers being on to enable accessibility. In any case, Those volume up and down keys could be mistaken for use by the phone's screen reader, so I'm afraid that would prevent the game from successfully activating TTS. Those shortcuts will most likely be the screen reader user's custom keyboard shortcuts. I'm really looking forward to the Android version because I don't have a computer and I also love playing open world games
@AlexLeone Is there any progress on the accessibility for the main game instead of the console version? I am maily looking to play this main version!
Thanks!
@dalen lewin Yes, the game will be coming to iPhones! I have a working build for my iPod Touch right now, but the publishing process for the Apple App Store has kicked my butt the last few times I've attempted it, so I keep pushing it off in order to get other stuff done. At some point, the game will definitely be on iOS. And thank you for the Dawncaster recommendation, I checked it out a bit and will be looking deeper into what they're doing for TTS, that's a great lead, thanks so much!
@Sky gamer Thank you for the suggestion, and for the point that the volume keys will probably be used for the phone's screen reader. It looks like Dawncaster uses a three-finger tap to enable TTS (or something like that). Maybe holding down 3 fingers on the screen for 5 seconds would work? Upheaval is made using MonoGame, not Unity, so unfortunately I can't use a nice Unity plugin. But it would be cool if I could!
@hellblade09 The game's made in MonoGame with C#! MonoGame's essentially a rewrite of XNA (if you're familiar with that), so it just allows me to write my own game engine without worrying about boring stuff like loading graphics or playing sounds.
@Lirin Text-to-speech will be coming to the main game at the same time as it comes to Android--in the next update! I'll tell you all here when I release the next update (with text-to-speech), and I would love to hear how well (or poorly) it works for you once it's released!
Thank you all!
Hello,
I apologize if something like this has already been posted. The thread is kind of huge, and I bought Upheaval without reading every single post in the thread. However, I'm having a problem, and I wanted to post the error message here in case anyone else has gotten this error message and can tell me what to do about it. The error says this:
SDL_app: Upheaval_Command_Line.exe - Bad Image dialog C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ig75icd64.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support. Error status 0xc000012f.
After I see that error, I press enter and the game says it's loading but immediately just terminates. I made sure to download the command line version for Windows according to the download instructions posted by the developer. Is there something else I need to be doing?
Thanks in advance for any help, and happy gaming.
@AlexLeone
I'm really looking forward to the game's release. Don't forget there's a little announcement here when the game becomes accessible with a graphical version on Android.
This topic is too big and time is too busy, I just wanted to ask. Is the graphical version of the game accessible on PC?
I intend to buy through Steam.
@autumnrain Thank you so much for buying Upheaval, and I'm so sorry you're running into an issue with it! This thread IS huge, no worries, but I haven't seen that error before! I'm not quite sure what to say, since the game was definitely designed to run on Windows, and the error isn't happening for me, which unfortunately makes it harder to debug.
Just searching for your error online turned up answers saying that maybe reinstalling or updating your Intel graphics drivers would make a difference. If you try this and it fixes it, would you let me know? Seems weird to me because the command line version of Upheaval doesn't use any graphics, but if it works, it works, right?
And also, if you can't get the game to work on your computer, shoot me an email or a direct message somewhere and I can get you a refund on itch.io! Thank you so much for your patience, and for reporting the error message!
@Dtd Trung Thank you so much for your support!
The graphical version of Upheaval is not currently accessible on PC; I'll be adding text-to-speech to the graphical version in the next update. I'm planning to release on Steam when the game is fully complete: by that time, the graphical version will DEFINITELY be accessible on Steam!
@AlexLeone,
For whatever reason, updating the graphics card drivers did work. After I did that, the game loaded up as I hoped it would. Awesome starting music by the way. Thank you so much for your suggestion. I really can't wait to play this game. It looks like it's going to be so much fun. Part of the reason I avoided reading seven pages of posts was because I wanted to avoid as many spoilers as possible, so I'm glad that you're still active on the forum and got back to me so quickly. Thank you very much.
@autumnrain Thank you for getting back to me, and I'm so glad to hear updating the graphic card drivers worked for you (that's one more suggestion I can put in my pocket now for the next person who reports that, 
). Thank you so much, I'm glad you like the starting music, and I hope you have a ton of fun with the game! There are definitely a handful of spoilers in this thread, so good thing you didn't read it all!!
as you release the game onto more platforms, I would ask that you update the first post with links to them so we don't have to go digging through the entire thread to look for the latest one.
@dalen lewin I would, but the first post isn't mine to edit, it's Liam's! I've updated my post signature with up-to-date high-level information about the game (and I can continue to update it as more platforms get released and accessible), maybe that will be useful? I can make a FAQ somewhere and link to it if that would be helpful too, although I honestly don't mind answering questions here individually, so I would mainly just make one if people here were interested in having one. Thanks!
Hi, @AlexLeone,
And really anyone can answer this because I'm not sure if this has been mentioned in this huge thread before, but I'm trying to figure out if I encountered a bug or if I'm just missing a crucial detail.
So, I spent a couple hours playing Upheaval this morning, and before I ask my questions, I want to say how impressed I am and how much I enjoyed myself...that is, until I got captured by the goblins. It was my own fault, I just wanted to see what would happen if I confronted them. I don't know if I need to include a spoiler warning here as probably everyone has gotten past this area but me, but here goes. Spoilers ahead.
So, I got captured and tossed in the cell. No problem. I was able to steal a key from one of the guards, but silly me, hoping to be nice, tossed the key to the man in the other cell, who then went free. After this is when I started seeing the issue I want to mention. Several times after the other prisoner went free, I was able to lift another key from other guards. However, at no point did the key I supposedly lifted end up in my inventory as something I could actually use. I even made sure to include the fact that I'd successfully stolen the key in my journal, but still there was no key in my inventory and I remained trapped in the cell. I eventually just hit alt f4 and left the game since without being able to actually have the key I stole in my inventory, there seemed no way to ever escape the cell. I did try other options such as cursing at goblins and searched the cell a number of times. I did find the poem, but no other means of escape unless I just need to search some more. I've already searched three or four times and got the same message each time about finding no more of interest.
So, I'm wondering if I'm encountering a bug when I'm told I successfully snagged the ugly key but no item is actually available to me to set myself free with. If there is something else that I'm supposed to do that I just haven't done yet, then I'll keep trying to solve the puzzle. Thanks in advance for any help! This is such a fun game. Even if I do escape the cell, I only have like fourteen days left to complete my missions, but I'm still absolutely loving the game.
@autumnrain Oh no, that sounds like a big bug! AHHHH! Thank you for such a detailed description of the issue!
One thing you can do that would be helpful to me, is to email me your save file (or send it via Discord, if you prefer). I just tried to recreate this bug on my computer using the latest released version of the game, but I keep getting the goblin key in my inventory just fine, so there must be something I'm missing on my own. Having your save file will help me figure out what the issue is and release a bug fix ASAP, so that no one else runs into this issue. The save file will be in the folder "%APPDATA%\Leone Gaming\Upheaval\[folder with a bunch of numbers]".
If you want, I would also be MORE than happy to edit your save file and put the goblin key in your inventory so you can continue the rest of your current adventure from where you left off! Let me know if you have any questions, either about the game or about how to send your save file! Thank you so much, and I'm so happy you're enjoying your time with Upheaval!
AudioGames.net Forum → New releases room → Upheaval A text-based open-world fantasy roleplaying game
Generated in 0.025 seconds (51% PHP - 49% DB) with 9 queries
