For one year we've done so much that it’s hard to fit everything into a single post.
We think it’s better to publish several posts with detailed explanations for each major feature — and even better, to show everything live on stream. So that’s what we’re planning to do next week.

But here’s some brief info on what we’ve been working on:

New economy system - MASTER POINTS added
New weapons - you may check them in the Show room
New textures & updated environments - Practical Shooting scenes reworked.
A lot of new objects are added to KillHouses
New weapon animations are in progress

We also understand that there’s still a lot to change and improve, and we hope to do it with your help.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the Steam Community — and don’t forget that after each finished stage in the game, you can use the built-in FEEDBACK button.

• Rebuilt ExoLeague screen with a cleaner layout and custom badge art

• Clear Ascension Points (AP) panel that explains where AP comes from and how it is tallied

• Progress bar shows AP to next division and next tier

• Tooltips for rank tiers and subdivisions

Rank structure

• Tiers: Recruit, Operator, Prime, Sentinel, Vanguard, Apex

• Recruit to Sentinel use four subdivisions

• Vanguard and Apex are standalone tiers

  

A small update just went live!
We’ve fixed two issues reported by the community:

1. 🗑️ Players getting stuck after picking up trash by hand

2. 🧹 Trash on top of floor stains not being interactable

Thanks for all the reports — keep them coming and enjoy the smoother experience!

\["Flowers Beneath A Starless Sky" is a prologue story for the game, written in the same style as the lore you'll be discovering in-game. [/i]The previous chapter can be found here.][/p]

---

You flex your power with eager focus. From the dirt, a blood red thistle grows and rises defiant. You grasp the bloom and look within.

Your thoughts are pulled to a salt-white battlefield. Clattering metal and thundering steps. An army stands between you and a dark tower rising in the distance. You know you must reach it, and nothing will stand in your way.

The army marches. You tighten your fist, wicked steel in your grasp, and plant your heels. Alone. You are always alone. You will not run.

One falls. Then ten. A hundred. The ground stains crimson in your wake. An army stood; an army fell.

The tower nears, one last foe standing in your path. A goliath wreathed in shadow looms with a twisted grin. To fell it would take ten thousand cuts; it could end you in one. You raise your sword and march on. 

It swats you away with ease. Tumbling, scraping, ground into the dirt. And the giant laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

Your fist clenches. The sky turns red, the horizon jagged. The world blurs as you rise to your feet, everything turned to vague smudges and wild streaks. You charge, howling like a beast, forcing your foe to taste your blade. 

You strike again and again, cutting and carving, until your blade falls away, so you rip and you tear and you gnaw and you laugh—

You pluck the flower with a shudder. A peerless warrior, powerful and fierce, yet skin like fractured glass. Spite and resentment churn beneath the surface, begging to be free. All too easy they would fall to cunning, goaded to careless fury. 

This one cannot save the sky.

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report. 

Level: 
The Environment Team has made steady progress on the large task of the landscape rework, with a focus on integrating larger rocks and cliffs more smoothly into the terrain. While part of the team worked on implementing the first batch of assets for the Sky Village that we showcased in last week’s post, we also added updated meshes for the Galactic Ranger dropships and other detail objects around the map.

Code:This week, we changed how armor attributes are calculated and applied on hit. This is to improve our editing workflows, it doesn't make much of a difference in the final result.
We also improved navigation for NPCs following a Way Net path (world travelling) while in processing range.
In addition to that, we have started replacing our current Lovense integration with Buttplug.io, unlocking support for a wider range of sex toys. Lovense devices will of course continue to work with the new system.

Character:The small lizardmen are almost finished and ready to be implemented. We have shifted our focus in character art to a few missing outfits that our design team needs for certain story-mode NPCs and for the player characters.

Animations:In the animation department, we are now moving on to a big task that will probably keep us busy for quite a while: Looking at all the story minigames in their proper implemented quest context and polishing them up one by one.
This includes small, but important things such as making sure characters don't suddenly teleport from dialogue into a different room, adding little intro animations where needed for a smoother transition, and checking if in-minigame dialogue still fits with the previous quest dialogue.
Later, this task will of course also need some work from other departments, such as lighting and decorating the locations where these scenes take place.
We also worked on the face mocap pipeline this week and figured out how to do it best for the bulk of cutscenes ahead. Many cutscenes will enter the final polishing phase when the face mocaps are implemented but there are still a few retargeting issues to fix to have the facial expressions look more accurate and natural.

Design:We have been wrapping up the design of the player progression, this week. Defining ranges for damage and health scaling of the player and enemies, expected leveling progression over the course of a playthrough, and figuring out the best workflows to easily implement the enemies into the game world in the coming months, but also iterate on their power level.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team

Our Donutis Simulator game, which has been available for purchase for a long time, is now free and waiting for new players to play. We hope it will be enjoyable for every player. Happy gaming!

NextHaven Studio

-fixed fade to black and fade from black on scene load/unload
-fixed missing items in the hole when the user had collected al 9 scrolls

Hello Survivors

We are excited to share our new Dev Diary, the first entry in a monthly series where we take you behind the scenes of Ardem. In each episode we will talk about what the team has been working on, show progress and give you insights into worldbuilding, systems and upcoming features.

This months Dev Diary covers some of the latest updates in environment art and level design, including a look at new locations that are being added to Ardem.

We hope you enjoy this deeper look into our development process. Thank you for all your support and stay tuned for next months episode.

See you in Ardem

- Fixed bug where joystick couldn't select some options
- Added package cycling

The feature has been requested as another way to change colors and now it is available!