We just pushed a branch of VALA that'll make it possible to play with friends without needing extra controllers (by using your phone!).

Table Realms, the tech behind this, has just launched in limited early access open to South Africans. The VALA changes we've made won't effect you unless you switch to the TableRealms beta branch on Steam, detailed at the end of this post.

When I was a kid my parents would let me choose what to do each year on my birthday.
Every year I would choose exactly the same thing: Have friends over, rent a Playstation, and eat salt beef with a carrot stuck through it.
We couldn't afford our own console or TV Games, but the single video store in my small town had a Playstation 1 that we could rent for the day.

The video store had a memory card available to rent, however we weren't able to get that. I have both fond and terrifying memories of having to play Crash Bandicoot for the entire day without exiting because then we'd lose our progress. On one of the years we took a break for lunch and left the console on the carpet. When we came back we discovered that it had restarted, presumably because of overheating, and we had lost all progress.

They also had an extra controller on offer. However we always just got 1 controller and played in turns.
One year we were able to get a second, and playing Cool Boarders with each other was about the most amazing thing I'd ever done.

Fast forward to 2018 and a few things have changed, but having multiple controllers lying around for friends to play with is not one of them.
This was actually a big worry when we originally planned VALA, because we obviously wanted as many people to be able to enjoy it as possible.

Enter: Table Realms.



Put very simply, Table Realms is a fancy Android (and iOS soon) app that will turn your phone into a controller for VALA.

Here is a video about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2R4C4GC8TM

At the bottom right of the main menu in VALA you'll now see a QR code


If you scan it with the Table Realms app then your phone will connect to the game (over the fast local network). We were even able to match the phone menus to the game. For instance, when you're selecting difficulty and District:


And then once you've dropped in, you get a controller:



If you happen to be at the rAge expo in South Africa this weekend, come try it out at our stand!
We also have sweet llama fridge magnets for anyone (well, until they run out) that buys the game at rAge!


To use TableRealms for the moment you'll need to switch to the VALA TableRealms branch in Steam. This is beacause Table Realms itself is in early access, and I'd consider our integration still beta.

Right Click on VALA in your Steam games list, then click Properties:


Then go to the Betas tab, and select tablerealms in the drop down:


After you close the window the game will update to be the version with Table Realms.


Now I'll end off with the worlds cheesiest photo for you to print out and put on pizza, stolen from the Table Realms site.

We've just pushed a 114MB update to Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse, your favorite llama slaughter battle royale game!

At launch there was a particularly tricky graphical bug that slipped through the cracks. I got one of our artists to make an illustration of the situation to better explain:


The bug was that a few buildings didn't correctly fade as you walked behind them. Instead, they'd leave behind an ugly outline of some of the stickey-outey-bits (if that term goes over your head, don't worry, it is pretty technical).

It looked like this:



In coding and pest control, the nice bugs are the ones you can find. However this one was fairly tricky because it only reproduced in some cases, and it only happened in a final build (as oppose to in development where we would use fancy dev tools to see what is causing it).

By now you've guessed correctly that this is fixed, so, well done for ruining the end of the story I guess.

At the same time we did a significant update of the underlying game engine. This fixes a few bugs, but more importantly the game will now run even smoother than before, and be a bit more optimized (yo, hit me up PUBG corp).

I also got our artist to make an illustration to better explain what a game engine update is:


Finally, we also fixed a few other bugs we've picked up, and balanced a few weapons.

Go forth and murder!
(like, only in the game plz)

If you've got stocks in an energy drink company, you'll notice your portfolio spiked. It's a pleasure.

Over the last 2 weeks we've pushed 2 updates to the game with some smaller fixes, but we've also been hard at work on a bunch of much bigger changes for VALA.

Here are the big (or somewhat important) changes in this update:

Does VALA feel harder than Dwayne Johnson's 8-pack? We've got you covered!
There are now two difficulties: No Probllama and Llaminator. If you played VALA before the update, you've been playing the latter, and your previous progress will show up there.

No Probllama is a new, easier difficulty that also happens to be great for casual couch co-oping with friends.

Here is the new difficulty selection in the main Deploy menu.

Note: Weapon and perk unlocks are global, so it doesn't matter which difficulty they are unlocked with.
Note 2: We're working on a Super Slayin' mode for a future update which will be significantly harder than anything in the game right now

We've seen how frustrating it can be when you see a weapon drop coming down from the heavens, and you start thinking how Llamazon has blessed you with kindness. And then...well, it is the same weapon you already have and you smash your controller into your screen.
Quite frankly we can no longer afford claims for new monitors.
So now you can level up weapons! If you equip a particular weapon in a slot that already has that weapon, instead of just replacing it, it'll level it up. That means faster fire rate and extra ammo.
Holding info in the game will show a little number above each weapon to indicate their level. Weapons can be leveled up twice (to level 3), and the last weapon in each group cannot be leveled up (for example the Minigun of Destiny).

Note: This change doesn't effect everyone. Some people may not have ever noticed the above.
Note 2: Notice above that we've also made the perk pro's and con's more clearly indicated.

We hear you. Sometimes you just want to let blood fill the streets without cringing. So in sound settings (in the main menu and in pause menu) there is a fancy new slider to set how many puns you'll hear.

Yes, it was incredibly hard to not fill the above paragraph with puns too.
Note: This slider effects most of the main sources of puns in the game, but keeps ones that have important info.

Feedback from players showed us that people were going back and forth between the game and main menu to see what they had unlocked. Plus it isn't always clear what a particular perk does without the full description in the main menu.
So we've added both the Armoury and Job Perks sections to the pause menu so you can see how far you are with each weapon, and see exactly what a particular perk does.

As always, you can never manually equip anything that doesn't drop in the game.

There are also many boring changes that you can read below if you like:

• Tweaks to make progression and action happen more immediately
  
• Melissa will give clearer instructions of what to do at the end of D3
  
• Some balancing for freeplay
  
• Fix a case where llamas never stopped swarming you
  
• Fix keyboard binding text not being visible on some resolutions
  
• Fix a bug where falloff wasn't calculated correctly for car explosions, often causing you to take more damage than was intended
  
• Significantly improve the Tazer
  
• Change some challenge criteria
  
• Fix energy often not being collected correctly
  
• Fix a case where settings could get corrupted and misread
  
• Added a message to the bottom of perk/armoury menu to make it clearer that you cannot equip stuff in the menu
  
• Some bug fixes and overall balancing
  
• Make it clearer that some perks have pro's and con's

And of course, please carry on reporting issues and general feedback you have with the game in the Steam discussion board and Discord.

p.s. Thank you to the beta testers who tested and gave feedback on everything! If you're on the beta, please switch back to default now.

If you've got stocks in an energy drink company, you'll notice your portfolio spiked. It's a pleasure.

Over the last 2 weeks we've pushed 2 updates to the game with some smaller fixes, but we've also been hard at work on a bunch of much bigger changes for VALA.

Here are the big (or somewhat important) changes in this update:

Does VALA feel harder than Dwayne Johnson's 8-pack? We've got you covered!
There are now two difficulties: No Probllama and Llaminator. If you played VALA before the update, you've been playing the latter, and your previous progress will show up there.

No Probllama is a new, easier difficulty that also happens to be great for casual couch co-oping with friends.

Here is the new difficulty selection in the main Deploy menu.

Note: Weapon and perk unlocks are global, so it doesn't matter which difficulty they are unlocked with.
Note 2: We're working on a Super Slayin' mode for a future update which will be significantly harder than anything in the game right now

We've seen how frustrating it can be when you see a weapon drop coming down from the heavens, and you start thinking how Llamazon has blessed you with kindness. And then...well, it is the same weapon you already have and you smash your controller into your screen.
Quite frankly we can no longer afford claims for new monitors.
So now you can level up weapons! If you equip a particular weapon in a slot that already has that weapon, instead of just replacing it, it'll level it up. That means faster fire rate and extra ammo.
Holding info in the game will show a little number above each weapon to indicate their level. Weapons can be leveled up twice (to level 3), and the last weapon in each group cannot be leveled up (for example the Minigun of Destiny).

Note: This change doesn't effect everyone. Some people may not have ever noticed the above.
Note 2: Notice above that we've also made the perk pro's and con's more clearly indicated.

We hear you. Sometimes you just want to let blood fill the streets without cringing. So in sound settings (in the main menu and in pause menu) there is a fancy new slider to set how many puns you'll hear.

Yes, it was incredibly hard to not fill the above paragraph with puns too.
Note: This slider effects most of the main sources of puns in the game, but keeps ones that have important info.

Feedback from players showed us that people were going back and forth between the game and main menu to see what they had unlocked. Plus it isn't always clear what a particular perk does without the full description in the main menu.
So we've added both the Armoury and Job Perks sections to the pause menu so you can see how far you are with each weapon, and see exactly what a particular perk does.

As always, you can never manually equip anything that doesn't drop in the game.

There are also many boring changes that you can read below if you like:

• Tweaks to make progression and action happen more immediately
  
• Melissa will give clearer instructions of what to do at the end of D3
  
• Some balancing for freeplay
  
• Fix a case where llamas never stopped swarming you
  
• Fix keyboard binding text not being visible on some resolutions
  
• Fix a bug where falloff wasn't calculated correctly for car explosions, often causing you to take more damage than was intended
  
• Significantly improve the Tazer
  
• Change some challenge criteria
  
• Fix energy often not being collected correctly
  
• Fix a case where settings could get corrupted and misread
  
• Added a message to the bottom of perk/armoury menu to make it clearer that you cannot equip stuff in the menu
  
• Some bug fixes and overall balancing
  
• Make it clearer that some perks have pro's and con's

And of course, please carry on reporting issues and general feedback you have with the game in the Steam discussion board and Discord.

p.s. Thank you to the beta testers who tested and gave feedback on everything! If you're on the beta, please switch back to default now.

We're just one week away from launch

LLAMA HYYYYYPE!


If you're interested in hearing more details about the development and such, Matt did an interview with Xbox Players South Africa on Facebook. You can watch it here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/871726936292791/permalink/1207052369426911/

And finally, yes, I know this is Steam, but if you've got an Xbox (launching mid Match), we just announced Xbox Play Anywhere support:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeQLSUgmGDs


Live long and slaughter!

We're just one week away from launch

LLAMA HYYYYYPE!


If you're interested in hearing more details about the development and such, Matt did an interview with Xbox Players South Africa on Facebook. You can watch it here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/871726936292791/permalink/1207052369426911/

And finally, yes, I know this is Steam, but if you've got an Xbox (launching mid Match), we just announced Xbox Play Anywhere support:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeQLSUgmGDs


Live long and slaughter!

It's a Christmas miracle!
OK, it isn't. I just got sick of friends joking that we were timing the release of VALA with Half-Life 3, so we decided to set the release date.

So at long last, I present to you, the "holy sh**, this game is actually coming out!" trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI6EjUYvNfw
Remember, share this with every person you know, and some you don't, or The Llamanati wins.

And then if you haven't already, head over to the Steam store page and add VALA to your wishlist.

You can also check out our website, and subscribe to the mailing list here.

It's a Christmas miracle!
OK, it isn't. I just got sick of friends joking that we were timing the release of VALA with Half-Life 3, so we decided to set the release date.

So at long last, I present to you, the "holy sh**, this game is actually coming out!" trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI6EjUYvNfw
Remember, share this with every person you know, and some you don't, or The Llamanati wins.

And then if you haven't already, head over to the Steam store page and add VALA to your wishlist.

You can also check out our website, and subscribe to the mailing list here.

It has come to my attention that there are some sick, sick people in this world that want to stare at evil llamas being fed lead all day.

I am one of those people.

So to satisfy your thirst for blood, here are some wallpapers!
They'll be the perfect fit on your Pentium 4 cubicle computer in your dead-end corporate job.

With title:
http://www.valagame.com/VALA_TitledHeroArt.png

Without title:
http://www.valagame.com/VALA_SuperHeroArt.png

Let me know if you use them! Or don't - I'm not your supervisor.

It has come to my attention that there are some sick, sick people in this world that want to stare at evil llamas being fed lead all day.

I am one of those people.

So to satisfy your thirst for blood, here are some wallpapers!
They'll be the perfect fit on your Pentium 4 cubicle computer in your dead-end corporate job.

With title:
http://www.valagame.com/VALA_TitledHeroArt.png

Without title:
http://www.valagame.com/VALA_SuperHeroArt.png

Let me know if you use them! Or don't - I'm not your supervisor.