Long time no see! We've had a huge break from writing news, but the game development didn't stop even for a moment in that time. Actually, there's been a lot of exciting things happening behind the scenes.

Anyway, today it's time to talk about Pathfinding in Liquidation.

There've been some significant updates recently, and it's time to share them with the community!
To start the topic, here's a dev view of how buildings can now look on the pathfinding grid in Liquidation:


It's important to note that before this round of changes, the buildings were simple rectangles on the pathfinding grid. Now, the shapes on the grid match the actual buildings much better.


The consequence of them being simple rectangles was as simple as the following picture present. The units weren't able to sneak through corners. But now, after the change - they can.
That also means Dominus can finally walk between the two buildings and deal decisive blows to anyone who dares to oppose the Twilight Crusade!



Now that we've got that out of the way - let's move on to the meat of this news post.

You might remember from the news about Corrupt Nether Environment that idle avoidance response got improved in Liquidation. That was another one of the steps towards what's shown below.

Using other avoidance behaviors, Local Avoidance introduction improved unit behavior around buildings.
After that, and a few updates later, we've arrived at the results you can inspect on the video here:

The Corruption raids a Twilight Crusade outpost, who's going to win this battle? Will it influence the war efforts?


Please share your thoughts!
Maybe you want to ask a question about the Corruption appearance in this news post? Ask away!

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If you want to get news firsthand and/or want to participate in building the Liquidation community - come join us on Discord! Feel free to drop by to chat about the game too!

This week, we're ready to announce that Liquidation now supports community translations! We will be looking for people to help with translations in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for further news, as this is a community-driven effort!



For starters, we ran an automatic translation to the Korean language. Next, we invited the community to begin translating the game to Spanish and Polish languages. The system seems to work, which bodes well for the future. We're still testing and uncovering bugs.
The screenshots you can see here present some elements of the Polish translation of the game. There are still some kinks to be worked out with the fonts, but nothing we can't accomplish over time.

One of the features that we want to keep in the game is switching between languages in the game on the fly. You can change the language in the settings even during a match. Currently, we're testing English, German, Polish, Spanish, and Korean texts, as it seems people speaking those languages are waiting for the game the most, according to our Wishlist data.
Incomplete translations will have their missing texts keep the English versions.

Please let us know what languages you'd like to see next for the game!



If you want to get news firsthand and/or want to participate in building the Liquidation community - come join us on Discord! Feel free to drop by to chat about the game too!

In the news last week we announced the Legion faction is almost finished. There, you might've learned that the Nether started to consume the fabrics of reality, and now it's reflected in the corrupted Nether environment.



This change should allow the world to be much more filled, which is one of the most important things to address before Liquidation is ready for Early Access.

Which part of this environment do you like the most? What's the thing you'd like to see next?



We've also improved the idle avoidance response, but what does that mean?
While playing RTS games, you might've noticed that units need to interact with each other when not directly controlled - for example - when a group of your units is passing through your idle army.
After introducing unit collision a while back, we faced a problem - idle units often blocked moving ones... So here's a demo of how it works now, where Husks - Legion faction workers - are running around other Husks.



If you want to get news firsthand and/or want to participate in building the Liquidation community - come join us on Discord! Feel free to drop by to chat about the game too!

The New Liquidation faction - Legion - is almost finished. I have been working tirelessly (as always ;)) and we are nearing completion of this faction. Our testers have been busy playing - and they are having great fine playing Legion with its unique dynamics.

Gameplay videos will be available in just a couple of weeks, but to quench your thirst for some Liquidation content - surely - I can offer you this screenshot and excerpt from Legion lore!



Excerpt from lore:
In a plane beyond comprehension lies the crystalline dimension of Zyndik, a world unlike any other and home to the endless legions of the Nether.
As the bloodcurdling calls of the Weaver echo throughout all of creation, rifts open in other planes to create connections for the Nether to flood the worlds and spread their influence.
They seek to consume and convert all to the Nether and the rifts bring forth the ceaseless legions into the foreign words, all serving directly under the entity they call the Weaver, the one who shapes their forms.
With the Nether beginning to consume the fabrics of reality in Veá, their legions search every crack and fissure for something or someone.

Another weekly update is here! Granted, I might have missed the last 30 or 40 weekly updates. But this one is worth the silence! At least, I hope.

The big (semi-big?) news is that we now have working replay functionality! Not only that, but our replays are very small and thus easy to share! This way, I am hoping to boost community sharing of replays and reviewing various matches to improve yourself or to see if the other guy cheated or not. (So far 0 cheaters have been detected though)

Enjoy this little mundane game - that might not been exciting to watch - but proves the replay functionality!

Hello fellow Liquidators!

Another milestone reached - cool skirmish AI!
Over last couple of months I have been slowly working on organic feeling skirmish AI. And now i can finally say mission accomplished. AI does work, is cool, and feels at least 75% organic!

On top of that, testing with multiple AI opponents ( up to 6 players ) created perfect opportunity to optimize the game. And now I can say Liquidation runs smoothly even with hundreds of active units!

Check it out for yourself, recorded few videos as the development progressed:





If you want to get news firsthand and/or want to participate in further testing of Liquidation - come join us on discord! You can drop by to just chat about the game too!

Hello fellow Liquidators!

I am pleased to announce we have reached new milestone - stable multiplayer!
Currently multiplayer works only with 1 test map and only with 1 finished faction, however second one is in progress!

Checkout a match we had today from both perspectives





If you want to get news firsthand and/or want to participate in further testing of Liquidation - come join us on discord! You can drop by to just chat about the game too!

It's time to fill out some forms! Yes... everybody's favorite activity, surveys!

If you have played the demo of Liquidation and enjoyed it or not, in both cases we want your feedback to make the game better!

Take the survey



For those of you who didn't get to play the demo yet or missed the link - you can download it directly from Steam store (Request access to liquidation playtest )

Your feedback will be crucial in deciding how much time we will be spending on iterating over various systems and will help us improve the quality of Liquidation!

Thank you and have a great day!

PS.: Don't forget to tell your family and friends about Liquidation!
PS.: If you missed it, we are currently funding on Kickstarter

We are amazed by how generous the RTS community is. Although our backer numbers are not that high, the average donation certainly is!



I think that we, as an RTS community, might not be strong in numbers, but we make up for it with our dedication to the genre. This is what our great start means to me. And that is genuinely great motivation for us to deliver Liquidation to this community.

Demo
Quite a few streamers played our demo, and you can find a playlist of such videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOF0G9xABg6cwItAfcAJSY-RGKmKNMr6W

Some did great, and some didn't manage to finish up the mission. Perhaps they were expecting less of a challenge ;). But here at the studio, we love the challenge, both in our level design and in our work lives.

In the end, all that matters is that people had fun with it!

More than 1000 players also downloaded the demo! And you had a lot of comments and suggestions. That shows a real passion for Liquidation and RTS genre. Just please don't try to contact me directly :( You had... a lot... a lot of suggestions.

This event brought us to an idea! You can expect a Poll about the demo, your likes, and dislikes of what you have experienced in a few upcoming days. It became apparent from your involvement that this is an excellent opportunity to analyze our strengths and patch up our weaknesses!

PS.:
For those of you who did not hear about our KS until now:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liquidation/liquidation-a-rts-rpg-hybrid

You have the last chance to get an Early Bird special package, as it expires in few hours. If you want to get your hands on the game as soon as possible, this package contains a Digital copy with Early access included + some other goodies!

Thank you all!
And have a great day.

Big news, Liquidators!

Liquidation has been launched on Kickstarter!



We have been working reletnlessly for months to prepare for this moment. And now we are asking for your help, to secure additional funds to finish Liquidation.

However, our policy is to be completely transparent with our supporters. And because of that, we want you to try out our free demo first. We want you to know what you are supporting, and at what stage the product currently is. So dont hesitate to give Liquidation a spin!

We hope you will enjoy what we have created for you, and if not, although we are still in alpha, you can give us feedback so we can further improve Liquidation!

Thank you. Together we can create awesome new RTS!