"I'm not sure the ancient phrase about April showers bringing May flower applies to artillery barrages, but I'm glad our new shields are performing well" -Lead Engineer's Report



The Bleak Frontier April 2024 Update is now live! Build 2 new buildings, collect 5 new artifacts, see new upgrade models, and fortify your buildings with shields! Will you survive the Bleak Frontier?

We have had a hard worked month, and there is a lot to show off with our migration to Unreal Engine 5.3 further behind us now. Key bindings have been a large focus through April, and we have the ability now to use controllers!


This is the one I’m most excited about myself. We saw this begin last month, and this month we’ve seen the results in our beta test environment for our Friday beta tests. Former issues with remapping the mouse buttons have been resolved in a series of updates this month, and a new set of bindings has been made available for all commands in game(allowing easy access to controllers and partial support for joysticks). Come test with us!




Missiles have had several fixes and changes this month.
A target detection now takes into account the path of the missile and explosion effects.
The intercept direction of the missile is calculated by taking into account the missile's acceleration, and its relative velocity between the missile and the target. This makes missiles that work more as you’d expect missiles to operate.

The projectiles from the shotgun, rifle, and machine gun now go through friendly shields.

Another fix for April is that missiles now explode on enemy shields, so keep those shields up Sky Captains!





Muzzleflash effects for the shotgun, rifle, and machinegun have been cleaned up and optimized, as have smoke effects you’ll see in the game.



Surface types have been added, and surface effects have been implemented in a system that will now differentiate surface types for more variation as you shoot into walls and other surfaces.




Notifications have been added for chat messages.

The Party system has been created to allow you to easily join your friends. A chat system has been recreated as well for in game communication. There were some challenges with getting this chat system to operate properly in all menus and across Sky Link: Freefire globally, though with our latest update in April the chat system is much more robust and stable.




While playing, after a moment the chat disappears completely
Long messages are autowrapped to the following line
The last channel you’ve used remains the default when chat is opened
An icon has been added to let you know when you have an unread message / notification
Added a notification in the case of an error when inviting someone to your party
Number added to unread messages so you can see how many are waiting
Limitation added to prevent sending messages to all during PreMatch
Fixed an issues closing the chat box
Party chat no longer shows you the messages you send
Mouse cursor issues with the chat interface have been resolved




The Deathmatch Tally screens’ issues with presenting all drone’s thumbnails have been resolved. The thumbnail images would fail to load if anyone had joined late or left the match prematurely. When you see the final screen, you can now recognize each player’s drone.



We’ve reworked our official Reddit. You can now provide suggestions, ideas, and feedback through our new Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/PlaySkyLink/


We have a public roadmap available so you can see the direction our developers are taking in real time!
https://trello.com/b/nxt4Kfo3/sky-link-roadmap




During our Friday event we do beta testing; checking balance in game while learning to master the finer mechanics of flight. Sky Link: Freefire is difficult to master, though truly easy to pick up and just play.

This last week we had more playtesters than we could fit in a single match! I’ve met so many awesome individuals and I’ve been honored to fly alongside each of you. Thank you for all the support and I hope to meet many more incredible people throughout May.

Last Friday’s playtest was shared on Youtube live, and can be viewed here: https://youtube.com/live/OyvRivwr6Ws?feature=share


We get together every Friday at 1 PM PST, and it’d be awesome if you could stop by and check it out with us! Join the Sky Link: Freefire discord at the link discord.gg/playskylink

• Fixed a bug with the purchase of some items. If you made a purchase, but did not receive the received item, write a message with your ID and date of purchase in the Discord channel of the game https://discord.gg/ksG3cbdVZu or an email to support@akpublish.com.
• Added a new skin for Gunspell. Can be purchased for guild tokens.

• Building adjustments
  
• Character interaction adjustments
  
• Load screen change
  
• UI Modifications

Difficulty Systems Update
-Nightmare system rework (almost all changed)
--Choose between a random selection of good and bad options with point values
--Nightmares now scale in difficulty a bit faster
--21 mostly new blights
-Bosses now must be beaten before moving on (the enemy cubes are randomized each time, lives rebalanced)
-Difficulty change animation and various difficulty based adjustment
-Enemy mana shown on enemy leader
-Enemy cube setup generation adjusted to be more reasonable (until late game)
-Big Balance changes: 46 Cubes/Perks adjusted
-Hand overflow event
-5 new Curses, 1 golden perk, 3 normal perks
-Various fixes, other adjustments and QOL improvements
Full patchnotes as always in game.



This update contains a lot of changes to existing systems, as such I am going to explain my reasoning for some of the changes:

New Nightmare Choice System:
-The old system was generally fine, but also generally not very interesting with many players simply sticking to nightmare 1 for the terrain and while I would assume that some are still going to stick to that, the new system should be a lot more interesting and create much more varied starts.
-The old system also didn't scale well at all leading to many classes/species beeing unusable at higher nightmares with the first battle often beeing rediculously hard compared to later battles, since a lot of the nightmare effects were immediatly active with very little starting choices to allow strategizing and playing around the increased threat.
-In generaly I want to avoid runs where it just feels like there was no chance of you winning.
-Of course this new system is also a lot more chaotic and will sometimes generate a bit too easy or a bit too hard starting conditions, but I feel like thats still a lot more fun.

Boss Repeats:
-Prevously if you had enough lifes you could never beat a boss and still win the run, this is a bit borring and can make battles and especially boss battles feel meaningless or irrelevant. Additionally since "skipping" the boss fight this way means you don't get the 100 gold it also pushed you down a losing spiral where now you are less likely to win and encouraged to take more lives to get through the run that way.
-With the new system when you lose a boss fight you get an event which puts you into a new boss fights, this means enemy cubes are re generated so you don't get stuck. (The Skip perk can also be used to skip the event as always)
-Since this change makes lives a bit less powerfull various things were slightly rebelanced:
--Bosses have -1 difficulty except during looping
--Lives map node also gives 10 gold now
--The nightmare which starts you off with less lives is no longer a thing
-In general I hope this makes boss fights a lot more scary while still making lives meaningfull and usefull as their original intention of protecting you against blunders or extreme rng.

Cube Balance Changes:
-Various starter cubes were nerfed by roughly 33% and various non starter cubes were buffed.
-My intention is that you should be able to keep 2/3 of your starting cubes your entire run but it should be less likely that you keep all your starting cubes.
-This is because I think trying to build around the new cubes you get is a lot more fun than relying entirely or largely on your starting cubes.
-This should also make finding new cubes more exciting and meaningful.
-With this change the enemies base mana generation was also decreased from 1 -> 0.8 to account for the slightly reduced starting power of the player.

In general this update contains a lot of changes to the base systems of the game and while it has been tested on the beta branch, some problems may only be revealed by more people playing. So if you have any feedback/opinions after playing I would welcome it (discord is easiest).

A DLC themed around space for CatsMeowLiveWallpaper is being released! Enjoy watching cats floating in zero gravity on your desktop!

• You can now check the strategy hints in the locker.
  
• In the last chapter, the blue devil's location is now visible when the cocoon is in your possession.
  
• The blue ogre is now insensitive to the footsteps of players on different floors.
  
• In the forest in the last chapter, the blue demons no longer come close to the player except when switching on the switch.
  
• The radio tower in the forest in the final chapter glows more strongly after a certain period of time, making it easier to see in the dark.
  
• Hints have been added to the final course of the last chapter.

Hey there Urban Nightmare Runners!

We are currently working on more bug fixes for the game as well as some quality of life improvements plus an update to the final level as a whole.

Below is a short comprehensive list of things to expect:

• Updated In-Game UI while player is running.
  
• Updated Final Level with end goal instead of fading to black once reaching the heart of the city.
  
• Game breaking crash when the player dies and then starts to perform a looping action.
  
• Level Select Screen so you can see your fastest time per level.

We hope that you continue to post your fastest time in our community hub and share your recordings of how you achieved them!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/41123/Be_With_Creatures/

In our recent update, we have made a permanent crossover between key characters from our respective games, which prompted us to launch this bundle.

"Research Story" is an adorable pixel art simulation farming game. In this game, you play as a researcher documenting flora and fauna for the Violet Archives. You will plant crops, flowers, tame and breed animals, build friendships with other townspeople, and create your perfect farm.

Pupu will appear in the game as a small monster that can be researched and bred, retaining their quirky transformation habits!


Of course, in this game, you will also meet the true form of the new hero, Vallee, and develop a friendship with her!

Good morning isopods, happy international workers' day / vappu / mayday!

We disrupt the broadcasting schedule to bring you an important update.

We are introducing Abyss town propaganda merch in two modes:

❗ALL HAIL CAPITALISM❗
You may now purchase various objects from Redbubble. There are six designs.
redbubble link

❗POWER TO THE PEOPLE❗
You may now download original files of six in-game posters from itch. You may use them to create your own merch for personal use.
itch.io link

Go forth and spread the isopod agenda!

You may now resume your shift.