Hi all,

Over the last few weeks we have been busy with adding new features and content, balancing factions, fixing bugs, and so on.

The pressure is high and our players-base greatly expanded - currently the Age of Fear: The Free World has OVER 31,000 DOWNLOADS!!

• NEW: Bard - few weeks ago a player suggested another unit with musical skills and here we finally have one ready. The Bard is an all-around unit: a bit of magic, above-average battle stats and, of course, songs! The Bard comes with his own side-quest!
  
  
• NEW: Reflection Shield - an upgrade for Mages and Archmages. Deflected melee strikes have a chance to damage attacker.
  
  
• UPDATE: expanded Team Morale explanation in Tutorial. It’s quite a complex feature, therefore more detailed text was needed.
  
  
• UPDATE: Very Happy Team Morale provides 15% experience bonus.
  
  
• UPDATE: Djinn and Bard’s voices.
  
  
• UPDATE: Dwarven Canon is being re-balanced with cooldown mechanics.
  
  
• UPDATE: New icons for a number of attributes, for example: weapon and armour upgrades, Poison/Acid Cloud, Acid Splash, etc.
  
  
• UPDATE: OpenAL sound engine has been updated to version 1.1.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Auto-triggerable attributes were limited to one, now they are run in sequence.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Unusable items were equipped when stolen, for example Noble Cloak.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Totem descriptions were updated to correctly reflect their features.

There is also a long list of ongoing features which we are working on and are planned to be released later:

• ONGOING: The Undead King Gold is a greatly expanded version of the series' very first entry, a game originally released seven years ago. This project aims to bring Age of Fear series into Open World theme! The work has entered the Beta-test phase and we plan a release for early June 2019.
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Workshop Manager - following the success of the Age of Fear: The Free World, we plan to backport the Workshop Manager into this product as well. It requires some preparatory work and we plan it for mid-2019.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Extension - we are currently editing campaigns for the remaining factions (Dwarves, Chaos Demons and Forest Folk). The extension release will be synchronised with Workshop Manager.
  
  
• ONGOING: Desertion - discontent units will attempt to desert.
  
  
• ONGOING: Taming Beasts - we are still working on Taming skill, allowing you to capture Beast units. Along with the Demons Pact released recently, one will be able to capture all unit types soon.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Strategy Guide Extension - currently the Strategy Guide lists the first three factions, but we are currently writing on other factions as well. We should be ready with an updated document mid-March.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Global Events Extension - we have 40+ additional Global Events scheduled and being worked on. Those events will introduce side-quests.
  
  
• ONGOING: Faction Bases which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore! This feature will be released first in The Undead King Gold and then we will add it to other games in the series.
  
  
• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Unit Voices are currently being re-recorded. There are 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
  
• ONGOING: Localization is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: Desert Battles - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

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Take care,
Les & AOF Team

THE AGE OF FEAR KNOWLEDGE CHALLENGE HAS FINISHED!
(Please keep checking for new challenges!)

Hello there,

Following the joyful experience of our last Dragon-Slayer Challenge, we have prepared a new competition opened to everyone!

This time we would like to invite you to The Age of Fear Knowledge Quiz!

The rules are as follows:

• we will post the quiz link here 9th February 2019 (Saturday) at 12:00 Eastern Standard Time (which is 18:00 in most of Europe, but please check)
  https://www.opinionstage.com/les4/age-of-fear-knowledge-challenge
  
• as in the last Challenge, the prizes are Steam Keys for all games from the Age of Fear series!
  
• the quiz has seven questions, all of them have to be answered correctly!
  
• after answering all questions, please screenshot the result and send it to support@age-of-fear.net
  
• the first ten players with all good answers will get the prize!
  
• only one prize per player!

And, by the way, over the weekend we have reached 20,000 DOWNLOADS!! I cannot say “Thank you“ enough for such a great Community. Without you all, the Age of Fear series wouldn’t be the same.

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Mephistopheles

Hello,

I am pleased to announce that we currently have over 17,000 downloads and around 100 concurrent users (peak 137 users). That is AN ASTOUNDING ACHIEVEMENT - The Age of Fear: Free World is still going very strong!

Over the last two weeks, we have applied a number of patches and improvements which are detailed below:

• NEW: Demon Pact - we have introduced a way to recruit demons! (aside from paying them thousands of gold). You heroes (but non-Holy ones only!) will have the opportunity to meet Mephistopheles himself and sign a Demon Pact...But what’s the price?
  
  
• NEW: Dominate Mind - an interesting addition to demonic magic available exclusively to the Demon Mistress. This spell works in a similar way as Time-Shift - it grants a selected unit an extra turn, but in exchange said unit is damaged. However, unlike Time Shift, it can be casted multiple times on a given unit.
  
  
• NEW: Djinn’s unit - the Djinn’s Lamp quest has been expended and the Djinn himself can now join you! Will you release the poor creature from its golden prison?
  
  
• NEW: Skeletal Beast - this has been promised a few months ago and during the last weekend we received the completed graphic assets. The Raise Dead spell will raise this fast unit from dead animals like Wolves, Spiders and Rats.
  
  
• UPDATE: Wave icons - we have replaced another set of icons, for example here are new waves:
  
  
  
• UPDATE: Team Size - when starting a random battle, the dialog specifies how many units will be deployed. Please note that units can be exchanged with reserve in the first turn (same as items).
  
  
• UPDATE: AI performance optimisations - it was highlighted several times that the AI is sometimes slowing down. This is the result of all the new mechanics and spells we have added - The AI is evaluating all tactical options available before deciding what to do next and this is computation-intensive. To counter that we optimised and refactored many helper methods and achieved ca. 30-40% speed up in those calculations.
  
  
• UPDATE: Raise Dead spell was nerfed a bit - raised units now have their corpse upgrade level minus one.
  
  
• NEW ITEMS: a few more treasures and other items have been added for variety: Sapphire, Sea Shell, Black Pearl, Ring of Poison Resistance, etc.
  
  
• UPDATE: Transmutter Laboratory now also upgrades Sea Shells to Pearls. The upgrade price has been raised to 2,000 gp.
  
  
• UPDATE: Units in Nairi's campaign cost gold. Campaign has been updated as well to include gold prizes.
  
  
• UPDATE: Troll Throwers can now use melee weapons.
  
  
• BUGFIX: occasionally unit xml files were not loaded correctly and this was crashing the editor. Those were the remains of localisation-related code refactoring and should be fixed now.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Fallen Knight Hero was not initially upgraded to Black Knight. We have fixed it and introduced a routine to backwardly update all Knights.
  
  
• BUGFIX: A number of bugs related to Coward, Demon Heart, Survivor, Battle Forged have been fixed- those can be actioned outside battles and it was causing bugs.

Also, we have a first player who spent more than hundred hours in Age of Fear: The Free World - Lachanche! Congratulations!

We have received lots of valuable feedback and suggestions - thank you all for your input! It's great to have such active and grateful Community!

Links
Twitter
Facebook
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PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hello everyone,


Let's do a small tournament! Nothing less worthy than a dragon-slaying challenge, that's it ^^

THE RULES:

• Only the first hero from any class will be awarded a prize!
  
• A player must provide two screenshots: (i) a battle before the killing blow (Black Dragon with two HP at most) and (ii) the hero stats and equipped items.
  
• A hero must fight alone! (no other units allowed)
  
• The difficulty is Normal at least!
  
• The most recent patch must be applied!
  
• No summoning spells allowed! (Avatar included)
  
• Age of Fear: The Free World only!
  
• A Player can only be awarded one set of Steam keys.
  
• The screenshots shall be posted here:
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/882410/discussions/0/1739980540118051019/

A worthy hero will be awarded Lordship and a priceless prize (accompanying Steam keys to all our games in the Age of Fear series)!

Will you take this challenge? (Black Dragon was just updated to be more deadly!)

THE HALL OF FAME:

• (DONE) Knight/Paladin - by Lord Mordrakus!
  
• (DONE) Mage/Archmage - by Lord Clownbaby and LordLolchair!
  
• (DONE) Monk/High Priest - by Lord El-Gator!
  
• (DONE) Orc/Chieftain - by Lord Rutaki!
  
• (DONE) Shaman/Warlock - by Lord Shimdom!
  
• (DONE) Troll/Troll Thrower - by Lord Tempest!
  
• (DONE) Fallen Knight/Black Knight - by Lord Lachanche!
  
• (DONE) Necromancer/Lich - by Lord Dru!
  
• (DONE) Banshee/Ancient Banshee - by Lord Crayons!

Links
Twitter
Facebook
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PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

(impressions over time chart - all direct visits from Steam Client)

Hello everyone,

A week ago we have pressed the 'Release' button and impatiently waited for first feedback. How will players receive it? Are there any game-breaking bugs? Argh, I forgot to debug this line in code!

Today I can summarise it in one sentence:

"WHAT AN AWESOME WEEK!"

Age of Fear: The Free World has overrun all our estimations! The game has been downloaded 10,000 times and, at this moment, there are 100+ concurrent players. Age of Fear: The Free World is also listed in Popular New Releases!

There were few minor bugs, hopefully all are fixed. The most amusing mistake was the popularity of Monk over Black Knight hero :) It was later found to be a bug with hero upgrading and, since then, the Black Knight has climbed to a respectable 4th place (Monk stayed at the bottom).

The reviews are very positive (90% score!) and also full of helpful suggestions. The re-occurring note is great depth and complexity of the series and that's a signal we have to develop even more comprehensive Strategy Guide and in-game tutorial.


(The Strategy Guide can be downloaded here here)


The shocking success of this release also put us in the spotlight. With such a player base we need to carefully balance features and improvements.

I would like to re-iterate the things we are working on now:

• FACTION BASES which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore!
  
• INVISIBILITY mechanics are already coded in, but require to make AI aware of this feature and more testing. This feature will add a element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
• UNITS' VOICES are currently being re-recorded. There is 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
• LOCATIZATION is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!, see note below), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
• DESSERT BATTLES - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
• AGE OF FEAR 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.

You guys simply rock. Without such amazing Community, the Age of Fear series wouldn't be the same!


Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all,

The release of Age of Fear: The Free World is A SHOCKING SUCCESS!! We are really amazed how positive the reception is and a number of people deciding it's worth to try other games from the Age of Fear series.

A few interesting facts (I will keep updating this list):[/b

• 6000 8000 9200 downloads and counting up (2000 downloads in the first six hours)!
  
• The Strategy Guide was downloaded 1500 2200 2700 times!
  
• 93% of positive reviews - this is such a heart-warming outcome!
  
• The most played hero is Necromancer, then Human Knight, 3rd place belongs to Human Mage!
  
• The least played hero is Monk and Warlock

(the frequency of heroes is from the achievements' data, initially there was a bug with Fallen Knight not upgrading but it has been solved and Black Knight has moved up)

I will be honest - we were not expecting SUCH POSITIVE reception of the Age of Fear series!

Players seem to like out creation a lot and this also puts us in spotlight. We will do our best not to break this trust and listen to Community closely. There are a few highlighted imperfections that needs to be polished - we are re-coding them at the moment and expect few patches in the coming weeks.

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all,

Early 2018 few players asked why Age of Fear had no guide or some wiki. I agreed with them - Age of Fear series has grown into a complex creation with multiple intertwined subsystems (that's why we are always careful with introducing new features).

However, thanks to Dark Schneider, we have put together the Age of Fear Strategy Guide!

You can download the Guide here:
http://age-of-fear.net/downloads/AOFStrategyGuide.pdf

It's only about half of the planned content - we have covered the three original factions, namely Human Kingdom, Greenskins Horde and Undead Legion. The guide also contains notes about mixing factions - this feature is often mentioned on forums, thus we decided to give it more attention.

The three other factions: Dwarves, Forest Folk and Chaos Demons are in progress and we will update the Guide once they are done.

We are releasing Age of Fear: The Free World (COMPLETELY FREE!!) on 18th January:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410/

Hello everyone and happy 2019!!

For this year we have a few planned releases, starting with Age of Fear: The Free World (COMPLETELY FREE!!) on 18th January and then the things will go even more awesome when we release Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold around June/July!

To make things even more spicy, we possibly have another (secret) project which we might push out too in 2019! However, the exact date is not yet confirmed.

2018 has brought many improvements like Relics, Potions, units' alignments, greatly enhanced battle terrains (thanks Willsama!), new locations and the whole batch of new spells and skills (e.g. Totems, Decay, Dominate) among others. We also started Twitter channel (see links below).

We don't plan to remain idle and here is a list of other works and major improvements we are planning to release in 2019/2020 (in order of planned releases):

• GLOBAL EVENTS that occur while exploring the World Map, à la Battle Brothers. This feature is still being developed and could serve to provide more lore and fun unit interactions based on the player's party composition!
  
• STRATEGY GUIDE will be released in the coming weeks (we aim for Age of Fear: The Free World release). We plan to release a detailed guide for three factions (Human Kingdom, Greenskins Horde and Undead Legion) early and then add more content.
  
• FACTION BASES which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore!
  
• INVISIBILITY mechanics are already coded in, but require to make AI aware of this feature and more testing. This feature will add a element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
• UNITS' VOICES are currently being re-recorded. There is 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
• LOCATIZATION is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!, see note below), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
• DESSERT BATTLES - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
• AGE OF FEAR 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.

I would also like to say 'A Big Thank You' to a number of people (in alphabetical order):

• Cornish Knight for his Let's Play series!
  
• Targus292 for his French language mod (which started internationlization of our code)!
  
• Tchey for his Let's Play series and help with testing!

You guys simply rock. Without such amazing Community, the Age of Fear series wouldn't be the same!


Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!!

Btw, we have released long-awaited Demon Pact update! Several players asked for a way to recruit Demon units and we implemented it ^^

After you unlock Demon City, wait for a while and the Conclave Representative will visit you (just after midnight). Your heroes might sign the Demon Pact which will allow Demons to be recruited. But, as always with this kind of deals, there is a price...

All of best,
Les & AOF Team

Crystal Mine

First of all, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

It was a busy year for us - we have been working on multiple features and also on the next game of Age of Fear series: Free World. It will be released 18th of January and hopefully will introduce new players to this series:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410

The below list presents some of the recent fixes and updates which were released:

• UPDATE: ALL terrains in Dwarven and Forest campaign have been enhanced by Willisama! He did great job behind the scenes and added great amount of details to all maps.
  
  
• NEW: Relics - those are extremely rare items which give unusual and powerful spells such as Lifredrain Cloud and Nightmare spells. Those are hidden in rare Magic Treasure Chests.
  
  
• NEW: Earth Quake and Volcano battle conditions.
  
  
  
• NEW: Localization - as some of you might have noticed there is ’Select language’ in Configurations now. Currently only English is selectable, but we are working on additional languages.
  
  
• NEW: Ambrosia - when equipped, dying unit will recover 3-5 HP (auto-activable).
  
  
• NEW: Standstill Liquid - something for your archers, while active, this potion guarantees critical hits.
  
  
• NEW: Magic Resistance Potion and Magic Immunity Potions - that’s expanding collection of potions for all you drunks. Aside from cancelling all magical enhancements, unit is protected from magic for a short duration.
  
  
• NEW: new (much better looking!) potion icons.
  
  
  
• NEW: Collector upgrade - two additional artefacts or trophies. Available only for selected heroes only.
  
  
• NEW: Barkskin - exchange attack for defence (only Ents and Sapprolings).
  
  
• NEW: Crystal Mine - new location to explore. After defeating Undead (hard battle!) it will continuously provide resources for your party.
  
  
• UPDATE: enemy teams will spawn closer in random battles. Also, random battles were made smaller - this is to avoid delays before actual combat.
  
  
• UPDATE: Dispel Magic does cause loss of 2-4 MP (increased per level, not completely zero MP as before).
  
  
• UPDATE: Sacrifice gives +4 MP and doesn’t use turn action.
  
  
• UPDATE: much stronger summons - they not only carry spellcaster’s experience level, but also unlock special attributes.
  
  
• UPDATE: heroes can equip up to four artefacts and trophies.
  
  
• BUGFIX: mouse clicks and tooltips won’t cause endless loop.
  
  
• BUGFIX: intro conversation in battles was sometimes causing game crash.
  
  
• UPDATE: Nullify Magic causes Mana Burn only on enemies.

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team