Firstly, I wanted to point out that I noticed there was something that went wrong with the current build of the game not containing the correct game version for the transition to V1.0.0. I worked tirelessly overnight to get this fixed as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you.

With that said, the current build should be correct and the new features should be available with it.

1. Chapter 3 Is now Available! As the story closes in, we are starting to suspect that some things are quite off about Bwonsombdi... or is the Darkness just getting to our head?
   
2. A brand new Cat skin the "Spectral Cat" is available at the Cat Wardrobe under "Fur Types". I hope everyone enjoys this beautiful skin!
   
3. The progression system has seen some updates due to its new overhaul and should feel more rewarding with XP and Astral Shards specifically earned from completing story quests.
   
4. The long Christmas holiday update has come to a close, I hope you got your hats and enjoyed the season!
   
5. More bugs were fixed to further improve the player experience.

Hi all,

I wanted to post an announcement discussing the state of On Dark Terms because the truth is, due to financials, I've been struggling a lot with my personal life, and it is taking a toll.

What does this mean? in short, I will need to begin developing other video games and so, On Dark Terms will move into V1.0.0 and undergo slowed down development so that I can prioritize development to new games.

I am super grateful to everyone that played/is still playing On Dark Terms, and I hope that over the last 7 months you have been able to enjoy all the amazing hard work and love that I put into it to make it what it is today. On Dark Terms was my first ever game and I am very proud of it despite this current situation.

I think it’s incredibly important to be transparent with your community and I've always been exactly that with all of you from the start (especially if you've watched my streams).

It saddens me greatly to have to take this step, but as many of you can probably understand, taking care of yourself and your family comes first, and I hope that everyone can understand this decision.

Christmas has arrived. What is there to do? Everyone's favorite of course. HATS!

• 9 New Hats to unlock!
  
• 7 New Jumping Puzzles
  
• 2 New exploration areas to find hats.
  
• 1 New cat backpack (a gift from me to you)
  
• Most of the world is decorated so you won't want to miss out on that, plus it’s snowing!
  
• Christmas music to get you in the spirit!

All and all, it’s a fun event to experience, so get in there and get your free hats!
Remember to head to the character or cat customization area to read about where to find each hat

Hi all!

With Steam Nominations happening, I thought I might reach out to my amazing community to see if you'd be interested in helping nominate On Dark Terms for the Most Innovative Gameplay Award!

As many of you know, I've put my heart into creating this game, pushing the boundaries of its potential by building a truly unique experience that sets itself apart from every other paranormal investigation game.

I thought it might help to list the key features of my game that truly make it special:

• My First Game: This is my very first game as a solo dev that took me roughly 1 year to create and I have taken creativity from a novel that I began writing a long time ago to create a fantasy game that takes paranormal ghost investigation and mixes it with Survival Open World RPG elements.
  
• The Astral Cat: Among all other elements the multiplayer experience of being a cat with your friends and using your cat to perform investigation mechanics to complete dungeons has easily been the most talked about feature of the game. The amount of customization for the cat, the interactions with it, and how it integrates into the core gameplay is innovative in this genre.
  
• Open World: A truly Open-World Multiplayer Paranormal Investigation game that brings next-gen game design to open world dungeons that completely removes loading screens from the player experience. On Dark Terms does not have a single loading screen aside from launching the game and joining a session and uses Unreal Engine 5's new cutting-edge technology to create dungeons that players seamlessly walk into. This experience is unlike any other. Most games require new map loads, but I pushed those boundaries.
  
• A Unique Dungeon Leveling System: Unlike most games where difficulty modes are unlocked and apply to every map you want to play, On Dark Terms treats Dungeons as individual progression systems. This means that in order to unlock a crafting station or a hard mode for the Amusement Park, players need to complete open-world research quests in the local area of that dungeon to specifically gain access to that dungeon's high difficulty mode.
  
• A Crafting System: rather than relying on the normal paranormal investigation store system, players are expected to loot materials in the open world by exploring or by completing dungeon quests to earn currency that can be traded for materials that players then need to craft!
  
• A new take on Ghost Hunts: On Dark Terms completely changed the way we “Hunt” entities by stepping into their world and fighting back against them with RPG and Survival based mechanics. Players must execute different strategies to survive.
  
• A new take on Ghost Investigation: Evidence in this world is a manifestation of Darkness and players need to hunt entities to observe their behavior all while trying to survive the hunt. This is how players determine entity types. The combination of survival and observation makes for an intense and invigorating investigation experience like no other.
  
• Unique Story: this game is not just a cookie cutter paranormal investigation game. On top of everything mentioned, it brings a unique story that breathes life into the game, immersing players into the world. In On Dark Terms, you are not just a random person looking for entities. You are a normal human who volunteers their soul during an Apocalypse with a Loa of the dead to gain Astral abilities (and hence the Astral Cat Form) that will allow you to fight back against the Darkness. If that’s not cool, what is?

I can't thank my community enough for the kindness those of you have showed me. It's been an extremely difficult journey for me and I'm ever grateful to every one of you. I know that my game is not perfect, but I also know that no game is. What matters most is what a dev decides to do about their imperfections and I for one am always listening, always improving, and always dedicated to making the game the best it can be.

• The Story has been rewritten with Chapter 2 now available! This means that Chapter 1 has also changed so that is serves as an introduction for new players starting out.
  
• A Skill Tree has been added to the Character Menu that unlocks through Chapter 2 of the story. This Skill Tree will allow players to upgrade their character's strength in different areas such as consumable potency, sprint speed, and possession resistance.
  
• A Location called “The Trading Post” has opened near the Apartment with 3 new NPC’s!
  
  1. Cosmetics Merchant to purchase cosmetics from.
     
  2. Materials Merchant to purchase crafting materials from.
     
  3. Quest Giver NPC to pick up quests that are no the primary way or leveling and earning motes to purchase cosmetics and materials.
• A new currency called “Astral Motes” has been added which will require players to purchase cosmetics and crafting materials from merchants NPCs. Motes are obtained from the Quest Giver and some story quests.
  
• Due to the New Story and Progression Revamp, all players will have to re-unlock the progression specific cosmetics by purchasing them through the new Astral Mote system. Players will still retain Achievement cosmetics and hats that were unlocked separately from progression specific cosmetics.

• Embodiments have been revamped to make them more intuitive and easier to understand. 3 ways of finding embodiments:
  
  1. Embodiment 1 – spawns while spirt charm is active. Requires a thermometer to be found. Right clicking negative temp causes the embodiment to become visible.
     
  2. Embodiment 2 – spawns while summon circle is active. Requires an EMF to be found. Right clicking EMF 5 causes the embodiment to become visible.
     
  3. Embodiment 3 –spawns while corruption level is 100). Requires a thermometer to be found. Right clicking when seen in the camera causes the embodiment to become visible.
• Players can then press “E” to interact with the Embodiment and choose whether they’d like to activate it or not.
  
• Research is now repeatable at max research level. In addition, research completed at max level will grant 5 Astral Motes as a bonus perk.
  
• The Story Desk UI has been updated to now include a "Chapter Index" which allows players to go back and read older story quests they completed.
  
• Consumable cooldowns have been reduced to 12 seconds down from 20 seconds.
  
• Energy drinks now provide 60% stamina while fatigued up from 40%.
  
• Adrenaline buff now lasts 4 seconds down from 10 seconds.
  
• Fatigue now lasts 4.0 seconds down from 6.0 seconds.
  
• Demons Updates:
  
  1. Demon no longer passively teleport while hunting (this is now a Wrath exclusive ability).Instead, their movement speed increases by a small amount every 5 seconds.
     
  2. Envy demons now take stamina from all players rather than only the victim it copied.
     
  3. Wrath demons no longer have a shortened delay on teleporting. The teleport delay has been adjusted to reflect the change to the removal of passive teleporting.
• Update Audio Spatialization for hunting vocals so that the entity’s location is easier to determine.
  
• The Spirit Charm Entity player detection radius reduced by 50% and now increases based on difficulty. This will increase the overall survival rate but provide more skill-based gameplay as players climb difficulty.
  
• Light sources now last significantly less as long for all difficulties
  
• The UV light has been removed as it currently serves no purpose in the game.
  
• Corruption no longer affects Hallucination Possession Resistance. Instead, the resistance factor is now scaled by the player’s current sanity.
  
• Players now take sanity damage overtime while in the Summoning Ritual Realm the amount of damage done is scaled by difficulty.
  
• Continued improvements to texture optimization and overall performance.

• Fixed issues with negative temp evidence spawn clipping
  
• Fixed Demon Hunt demonic book spawn points that caused books to clip into structures making it difficult and sometimes impossible to read the symbols.
  
• Fixed collision areas in the Witch Map that caused both players and AI to get temporarily stuck.

More chapters are coming soon that will dive you all deeper into understanding the Darkness and our Astral Contract as well as the Christmas Event that is just around the corner.