New position for male-female couples

Added a "UI Scale" option to adjust the interface size to your preference

Added a new mission event mini-game

Added a new achievement related to the mission event

Increased the mission event encounter rate from 5% → 15%

Increased mission food rewards by 2%

Feel free to contact us by email at mike(at)patatedouce-studio.fr if you encounter any bug/issues !

Patch Notes: v 19591 - 1 November 2025

Changes and Updates:

- Update server password widget

- Skybox performance improvements - Looking up directly at sky, or having sky fill up most of the view should no longer drop FPS due to sky rendering

- Changes to improve client-side performance in situations with multiple actors

- Crash when changing game modes should be fixed, crash on joining spectate should be fixed

- Fix melee hitbox becoming stuck in active state

- Add option to choose DX11, DX12, Vulkan rendering APIs. Requires game restart.

- Added popup to restart game when graphics API is changed

- Added warning text that changing that setting will require restart

- When switching to a weapon with 0 ammo, reload animation will no longer erroneously play

- Fixed default shadow level on fresh install

- Fixed voice being active upon server join without PTT key pressed

- Turned down volume on Tempest ambient loop hum

Maps:

- Kryosis - disabled auto player activation on red spectator cameras, increased height of mid crystal

- CTF-Tolar - fixed some spawns that were under the terrain

- Kryosis, Llaftand, Tolar - Updated loading screens

I’m working on location resource sources. I got it so a location can have multiple resource sources. When the player moves into the hex a new UI pops up asking how to interact with it. This new contextual UI is part of the new way of interacting with map locations - a replacement for the old context switch “hex view” screen. This is when I needed to spend time thinking through the UI.

I use a tool called Balsamiq to do quick mockups to figure out placement and size of things relative to each other. I’m sharing this Work in Progress (WIP) because it is where I left off before needing to deal with the kids and Halloween. Some of it I like but some of it isn’t right.

Which reminds me of this great indie game dev video from Jake Birkett “11 years without a hit”.

Jake is a Britt, and there is a moment where he confesses his shock at what a big deal Halloween is in American (and Canada).  I have to agree, he has a point!

I mentioned a few months ago our team made a demo for a new physical card game called Challengers of the Realm. I’m happy to report the COTR kickstarter is now live! There is a link there to the free demo. Check it out. I’m real proud of what the team put together in a short period of time to make the kickstarter possible. The game COTR is more complex than Hearthstone but less so than Magic the Gathering.

While I get the resources UI working, let’s continue with the third part of the Core Loop refinement

What is Archmage Rises? Managing the three spheres of life: Self, Magecraft, and Realm.
You could think of it as Self, Work, and Society.

Realm is being part of a fantasy world. Belonging to it and how you matter in it. This is made up of Possessions, Relationship, and Legacy.

But before I for further I need to explain a new kind of Action:

What is a new young mage to do to make money? One of the reasons the resources change in the Hex Events build is such a problem is I changed the way many players made money in the earliest part of the game.

While I am fixing that, the real solution is to provide an action a newbie mage can do to make money and experience. That is where Commission work comes in. Instead of hunting down lumber in a forest to sell, players can do odd jobs trading time for gold and maybe pick up some experience along the way.

You already see a small version of this in the game with cleaning dishes or the stables in the inn.

Many Commissions are magic related. Meaning expanding your known spells (through the spell progression system) is important.

• Cost: Time (few days, week, month)

• Requires: Nothing, or a Skill, or a specific spell

• Result

  • Gold - based on time – a 5 day tutoring gig will pay less than a 12 day one.

    • Friendship and Legacy status factor in for better rewards

  • XP if magic involved

  • Likely Fatigue

  • Likely Wellbeing especially from doing boring work like dishes or cleaning stables

  • Possible Renown

Examples:

• Ice - chill cellars, create ice for skating, Frostbite kill pests on crops or fungi

• Fire - Heating baths/ignite forge/house, light street lights or mines,Detect heat for rats in basement

• Arcane - Mage hand, seal door, minor illusion on painting or statue

• Earth - Bind wood, haste grow crops, dig out a mine shaft, patch stone fill cracks in cobblestone street or reinforce walls, earthsense for metal, stone, minerals

• Storm - create water for street sweeping, storm clouds for irrigating crops, clear cess pit/graveyard foul air with wind, help herbalist locate herbs/flowers

• Tutor in astronomy, natural philosophy, Arcanics (the ability for non-casters to use scrolls and other magic items)

This is both the player inventory, and things they own in the world like buildings or resource sources. A mage tower is a special kind of possession.

• Reagents are spent for experiments and spell discovery/upgrades

• Resources are spent for building, quests, gifts, enchanting, sale

• Books are spent for study XP and improving libraries

• Equipment is used for combat and is never ‘spent’

• Quest items are found and ‘spent’ by turning them in rather than keeping them.

• Possessions can be Bought (--Gold), Found (--Time), or Fought for (--Health)

• Quests and Events can reward with Possessions

• Cost: Time, Fatigue

• Requires: Tool, Resource Source

• Results

  • N resources in a good, better, best scenario

• Note

  • Can enchant tools for greater yields (more and faster)

  • Cast spells at higher power to get more

A very expensive resource collector.

• Cost: Gold, Spells, Time

• Requires: Tool

• Results

  • Resources collected automatically for you to pickup

• Relationship is gained through conversation, gifts, and fulfilling requests

• Relationships constantly decay at a set rate of X per week – this won’t be punishing, just realistic that it takes some effort to keep up relationships. For instance, I have a friend where if we don’t talk once a month, it will bottom out to zero and I become “Somebody I used to know”

•  Relationships are valuable because NPCs are an access point to gameplay features, Items, and Information in the simulation

• Relationship can be spent on Favors

• There will be three flavors of relationship: Friends, Family, and Romance. I don’t have anything more to say on Romance until I get to building it.

Friends

• Primary player activity: Leveling up their profession

• Cost: They generate Help Requests which are mostly professional

Family

• Primary player activity: Keeping up their needs for food, shelter, etc.

• Cost: They generate Help Requests which are mostly personal related.

• Cost: Relationship (Each ask has a differing cost)

• Requires: Relationship >= Casual Friend

  • Exception Innkeepers start at Acquaintance and will tell you of Commissions and Quests at that level

  • Favor available depends on profession and wealth level - a noble can lend a powerful weapon, or 1,000g, a beggar cannot

Favor Examples:

• Tell me one of your interests

• Commissions and Quests

• Information: Resource location, about a Rival

• Influence Person: Increase my relationship with someone else (at 25% exchange)

• Influence Town: reduce suspicion, increase unrest

• Join me: adventuring, magical experiment

• Labor: Work my mine! Collect resources for me

• Vote: sway council or election

• Training: improve skill, unlock conversation topic

• Resource: loan money, tool, book, weapon

• Romance: deepen personal bond or intimacy

• A Commission with no pay, just relationship reward, with a time limit. If incomplete, relationship suffers.

• Relationships above Casual Friend make requests for help. Could be simple dumb things like ‘get me a loaf of bread’. Somewhat gamey, but it does capture the constant nagging of friends, kids, spouse “do this for me” like picking up something at the store, helping them with their computer problem, casting a minor spell to heat the bath.

• I don’t know what your life is like, but I end up doing tech support for my mother, in-laws, wife, and three kids. That’s seven people’s digital devices I need to keep running smoothly! And yes I’m venting all my frustration into Archmage Rises, this is where art imitates life. :-)

This is a significant change to the current conversation/relationship building system. It will now be Topic interest based (Character creation choices matter!) and the player can ‘win’ by playing it smart. It avoids mindlessly spamming “Ask about Day” and “Flatter”.

Every NPC talk is a single, meaningful gamble: you speak from your own interests, they react from theirs. Over time you learn who you click with, who you don’t, and what subjects bring people alive — just like real life.

• Topic driven - the mini game is figuring out what the other is interested in. A topic connection leads to great bonding, a miss is a big miss. Topics are categorized. A noble never wants to talk about dirty farming techniques, and a peasant doesn’t care to talk heritage of nobles. But everyone can dialogue about monsters or philosophy!

  • Category: Everyone (4)
    Arcanics, Magic, Monsters, Philosophy

  • Category: Peasantry (9)
    Charms & Cures, Domestic Arts, Family, Farming, Folk Lore, Food, Livelihood, Local Affairs, Nature

  • Category: Nobles (14)
    Architecture, Art, Astronomy, Commerce, Diplomacy, Estatekeeping, Fashion, Heritage, Hospitality, Horse Breeding, Law, Politics, Society, Tournaments, Warfare

• You start with 3 topics you like, and 1 you hate

• NPCs start with 1 Love, 2 like, 1 dislike, 1 hate

  • As you reach each friend level you automatically discover one of their preferences

• You converse with an NPC and choose a topic you know and like. The result is the relationship adjustment:

  • Love = Big Increase, Like = moderate increase, Neutral = nothing, Dislike = small decrease, Loathe = Big decrease

• You only get one conversation attempt per npc, then they go into cooldown. The cooldown is based on your last conversation whether they loved (short) or hated it (long)

• Hitting a Loathe is a relationship bomb, they are offended, relationship hit

• Nobles

  • Any topic that is not one of their Loves or Likes automatically counts as a Dislike. It’s really hard to build relationship with nobility.

• Talking about the same topic as last time gives 50% reduction (one dimensional relationship)

• If none of your interests match an NPC’s Love or Likes, you’ll never connect conversationally.

• You learn a new interest by reading 3 books on the topic. There are other means like result of an Event

• People change interests over a long time: that keeps them feeling real. They add one, they remove one

Conversation Action

• Cost: Time

• Requires: Conversation Topic

• Results: Relationship

Context dependent for the building or location you are in, but this is how you play a game of chess, drink a pint, play music with someone

• Cost: Time

• Requires: Building features

• Results: Relationship

• Cost: Possession, Gold

• Requires: Giftable

• Results: Relationship

Legacy measures the total mark you leave on the world — reputation, power, prestige, and permanent recognition. It combines four pillars. Generally the number goes up, but as a designer I have to ensure there are interesting trade offs that occur: Do I sacrifice some power for renown? Do I sacrifice Prestige for a possession? I haven’t finished thinking through all the ways to utilize these values.

Definition: Renown is your fame and reputation. It is what precedes you before anyone meets you. It is tracked by town, so it is possible to be a hero in one town and unknown in another. However, it is also at the region level so being high in a town in the region, the other towns have heard of you
Source: Deeds, relationships, public heroics or infamy.
Effect: Changes how towns, nobles, and factions respond to you. Renown is how you break the nobility barrier and get recognized.
Permanence: Decays slowly over time

Definition: The influence earned through magical strength, victories, and mastery.
Source: Spells discovered, rivals defeated, powerful artifacts.
Effect: Raises respect or fear from peers and enemies.
Permanence: Stays

Definition: The elegant expression of success — how tastefully you live and what beauty you create.
Source: Mage tower design, art, books, relics, rare wine, and cultural patronage.
Effect: Turns wealth into admiration; impresses elites and scholars.
Permanence: Stays

Definition: Formal honors that record your rising status — the world’s acknowledgment of your accomplishments.
Source: Achieving milestones, earning noble ranks, completing exceptional deeds.
Effect: Permanently increases Legacy; some titles grant ongoing mechanical or social benefits.
Permanence: Stays

Every life is a story. The funeral scene is the final chapter of a life.

• When you die, your funeral is based on your Legacy score.

• Who attends is based on relationships

• What they say about you is based on relationship

• Fun story from The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England: In 14th century England the number of people who attended a noble’s funeral showed how impactful or important they were. So, naturally, some nobles started prepaying peasants to attend their funeral. How they ensured these people actually showed up, I don’t know!

There you have it, how all the pieces of the game fit together into a, hopefully, sensible enjoyable whole! Did I get it all right? Probably not. But this is enough of a foundation and perspective to build it right as I go!

Added controller support.

Fixed multiple crashes and bugs.

Dear all, we want to thank everyone posting bug reports to us.

We are taking a look at every single comment and are working at this very moment to make sure that we cover every single issue found.

Expect to see multiple patches coming in the upcoming days that will be sure to resolve all problems. We appreciate every single one of you for playing Dead Frequency and for taking the time to help make it better with your feedback.

We will temporarily disable the save / load feature as that is causing the main issues at the moment.

Dear all, we want to thank everyone posting bug reports to us.

We are taking a look at every single comment and are working at this very moment to make sure that we cover every single issue found.

Expect to see multiple patches coming in the upcoming days that will be sure to resolve all problems. We appreciate every single one of you for playing Dead Frequency and for taking the time to help make it better with your feedback.

We will temporarily disable the save / load feature as that is causing the main issues at the moment.

The first half of Chapter 10 has arrived. Following the dramatic start to year 2 at Finch Green. The friends continue their studies and build relationships.