Our friends from Dark Crystal Games team released the second content patch for Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG.



Encased is an old-school isometric RPG, heavily inspired by the original Fallout, Baldurs Gate and Divinity. Story takes place under the mysterious Dome, left by unknown civilization. Player has to fight for life in the harsh post-apocalyptic wastelands, explore anomalies, solve mysteries of the Dome and decide the fate of humanity.



New content patch adds many new locations, characters and mechanics to the game. Players will be able to meet ferocious cyberhyenas and heavily armed raiders, recruit the new companion and witness the dynamic day and night cycle under the Dome.

• Reworked locations. The Concord starting station was changed the most. New NPCs and interactive items were added.
  
• New enemies. New monsters are waiting for you in the wastelands! Cyberhyenas, crazy raiders and overgrown mutants.
  
• New locations and story. Main storyline got new quests. Get ready to complete them in unfamiliar locations.
  
• Day and night cycle. Now all areas under the Dome can be flooded with sunlight or enveloped in the darkness of a cold night.
  
• New random encounters. We've added a lot of random encounters, be more careful when traveling through the wastelands!
  
• New weapon and armor. The arsenal of the main character and his team was increased! Find new ways to kill your targets, while wearing new armor to protect yourself from danger.

It's the perfect time to see how the isolated world has changed in Encased, even if you weren't familiar with the game before!

The Riven Realms has been around for over two decades now for us who created it for our tabletop campaigns, and the setting has quite a lot of currencies, even if one only considers the continent of Xeryn. When we set out to develop Vagrus, we picked three coin types not to overcrowd the UI: the Lyrg, a copper coin; the Bross, a silver coin; and Draka, a rare and very valuable golden coin. These are all coins that are used fairly often in large-scale commerce on the continent, and they are also fairly easy to identify as the copper-silver-gold trio of currency is fairly common in historical and fantasy settings.

Problems arose soon from the fact that a lot of common, everyday things are bought and sold for a smaller currency called Changers. For example, food for a day typically goes for around 2-3 Changers, or the daily wages of a worker are also typically around that sum. However, we had no Changers, so we implemented Supplies to represent 10 points of Consumption each. Individual crew wages were raised to 1 Lyrg - the absolute minimum - but this started an internal inflation that led to the rise of a lot of goods and services to make ratios match the world and to allow vagri to earn enough to pay upkeep. Unfortunately, this led to a situation where Drakas became very common, even in the beginning of the game, which in the metal-starved world of the Riven Realms goes against the lore and atmosphere, eroding immersion.

Recently, us Lost Pilgrims decided that Changers have to make a return, and they have to do so before the Open World campaign launches (otherwise the change would mess with saved games later).

At first, you might think this is a simple decimal shift, but it sent ripples out that shook most areas of the game in one way or another.

On the technical side:

Code had Lyrg/Bross/Draka hard-burned in several places, which had to be altered.
Our databases, however, store prices as numbers only, so it was fairly straightforward to have prices shift (for example, if something used to cost 1 Draka, 2 Bross, and 5 Lyrg, now automatically costs 1 Bross, 2 Lyrg, and 5 Changers).
On the design side, things were looking much more complicated:

• The silver trading goods used to cost one or more Drakas per unit, but now only cost one or more Bross, so we had to make them more expensive (it did not make sense in world or any other way to have a bar of silver cost a few silver coins). This of course inflated the prices of all metals further, including Scrap Metal, which you know very well from Pilgrims of the Wasteland. This caused further changes in that prologue section because now you have no funds to buy the metal for the main quest.

• Naturally, making metallic trading goods more expensive resulted in all gear, equipment, and items becoming more expensive, too. We'll have to tweak these prices as we go on.

• Now that we have Changers to work with, we could de-scale the Supplies-Consumption situation explained above and eliminate the decimal multiplication. One Supply is now indeed one meal, which equals one Consumption. However, this causes Supply goods stacks to now be much less effective, so we are raising the number of Supply goods in one stack significantly to make up for the multiplication loss.

• Then there is the question of Drakas, that are now effectively eliminated from the game. It is not a problem from a lore perspective, because gold is indeed very rare and mostly only extremely rich people see them with any kind of regularity. Now that said, your vagrus may indeed become such a person in the game, so we will probably add Drakas in some form or another later on.

Overall, we are happy that we went with the change (of Changers, heh...) despite the added work, especially because it would have been much more problematic later on. Additionally, our tabletop RPG souls are now at rest that the setting and the game are not at odds. :)

A big shout-out to Alder's Blood

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to chech out here on Steam! Alder's Blood is a tactical-strategy with stealth-based combat, RPG elements, crafting, resources gathering and management, exploration and rich storyline. Set in a grim world, where mankind killed their God and is facing extinction.

Whishlist it now because it will be released on this Friday on 10/04/2020 so you can grab immediately this gem.

The Lost Pilgrims Team
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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

The Open-World Prototype of Vagrus has been released to all our Fig Backers. It is a major step towards getting the game ready to eventually bring it to here on to Steam for all of you to enjoy.



What It Brings

A ton of stuff, really. This is the game we've been working on, compared to which 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' was only a small appetizer. That said, this large segment is only the beginning, and areas (with their content) will be added later on at intervals. We have discussed this an other details of the Open World Campaign here.

In short, a gigantic area with

• dozens of settlements and points of interest to explore,
  
• six Companions,
  
• over 20 new enemy types,
  
• five new soundtracks,
  
• character creation,

and a ton of story content for you to discover are coming in the build.



We are very excited to see and hear your reactions, how long it takes you to find all the content, and of course to find out how difficult it is to stay alive for players in the cruel wastelands of the Riven Realms.

See you soon on the dark continent!

The Lost Pilgrims

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown:


The first such choice is Race. The Riven Realms is home to a lot of unusual creatures - some may be found in other fantasy games though probably quite different from their counterparts on Xeryn - while others are quite unique. Initially, you will be able to choose from six Races and we'll be adding new ones later on.


Another way to spice things up a bit is character background. These are former professions or occupations (for example, aristocrat, veteran, criminal, scholar, or priest) and they provide additional Perks and resources to your character. Of course, not all combinations are possible - you won't see an Orc Slaver, nor an Imperial Savage.


Trader, Mercenary, or Explorer. Though there are only three options here, this choice has a much greater impact on your starting crew, Leadership Perks, and some other stats. You are by no means locked in such a game-style later on, however, as character progression for your vagrus is very open-ended.


This choice sets your victory condition for the game. Initially, you will only be able to start freeplay (no victory condition) but later on you'll be able to choose from Wealth (you win by becoming rich), Knowledge (you win by learning everything possible from the Riven Realms), Renown (become well-known), and finally - towards the end of the dev cycle - a story-based Ambition.


With all starting Perks calculated (deriving from Race and Background), you will now be able to spend your starting Insight on rounding out your character further.



At the end of character creation, you will be able to customize your character by giving it a name and selecting a portrait (later on also a banner to represent your comitatus).

In the video above we are now presenting a little sneak peak into how it looks in the current build. As you can see, there are a lot of combinations to begin with and we're planning to expand on it in a big way. Stay tuned, for exciting times are coming to Vagrus!

A big shout-out to Rising Lords

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to wishlist here on Steam! Rising Lords is a medieval turn-based strategy game with card and board game elements. Send your serfs to fight and die in your name... or let them prosper, and use them to your advantage!

Wishlist it to get reminded about Rising Lords' release on 29.05.2020.

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

Each Crew Combat encounter identifies the two sides as either the Attacker or the Defender. The player's comitatus can typically be the attacker when they raid small settlements or prey upon other travelers, while they are often found as the defender when getting accosted by monsters, outlaws, or worse.

When you are the defender, a hidden test is made based on your comitatus' vigilance against the attackers ability to ambush (various stats govern this test). If you are ambushed, there are serious penalties on your Combat Strength, representing your inability to set up your fighters properly. Other than that, you will be restricted in the use of Combat Actions when they are added later to the game.

Whether you are ambushed or not, a fight is about to go down.



In the current builds, the only option is to fight. At a later stage, we intend to add a Flee option, though it will not be a reliably successful option. You can increase the chance of success with offering what the attackers demand, like offering 'bribes' to bandits, or leaving supplies for monsters. Appeasing the enemy will not always be an option: mindless Undead or motivated bounty hunters can not be bargained with.

Nevertheless, fleeing results in losses, but - in most cases - less so than trying to defend yourself in an unwinnable fight.



If you are the attacker, you have the option to leave the opponents in peace and just Move on. This might be useful when not wanting to fight because you are already bruised, when not wishing to upset a certain faction, or when bumping into something you probably can not handle.



If you do decide to attack them, however, you need to first select a goal. This is mostly dependent on the type of enemy, and involves things like looting their cargo, trying to catch some of them to force them into slavery, and so on. Some options may not be available, like on image below you can see that the enemy has no mounts, so Poach Beasts can not be selected.



Once you get into the actual combat, your forces are shown on the left, while the enemy is on the right. The Combat Strength (CS) total of each side is displayed on their respective banners. One side will have to defeat the other in no more than 3 combat rounds.

Your CS is mainly calculated from the crew that takes part in the fight: fighters, scouts, outriders, and of course Companions. Vigor and Morale have significant impact on CS, and there is also equipment as well as conditions that can influence its total value.

Slaves and Passengers can be also be armed for the fight, but only at a considerable cost.



Why not send everyone in every case? Well, because you risk the lives of those who you pick to fight and you might want to prevent that. However, if you sustain significant damage, your non-fighing crew can be slain as well regardless. So sending forth only a small team is often ineffective, too.

In another conflict (image below) we did have the option to poach beast, but it turned into a botched attempt: many of our crew members got wounded. The red circles around their portraits indicate a wounded combatant. By default they are taken out of the next round of fighting so you do not risk losing them but sometimes you need to send them into fight regardless (to avert greater losses).



As stated above, Crew Combat normally lasts for 3 rounds. Each round, a roll is made to determine whether the player wins or loses the round. Outcomes can be Critical Failure, Failure, Success, and Critical Success. The percentage boundaries for these are calculated based on the compared CS of each side.

If there is no definite combat result by the end of the third round, an 'aftermath' round follows that calculates the final result.

Crew Combat ends prematurely if:

• Either of the sides is completely destroyed.

• The attackers fulfill their goal and disengage.

• The enemy loses its Confidence test in a round and retreats or flees.

If the comitatus survives the fight, a Heal phase commences, in which your skills in healing (along with that of your Companions' skills and your store of medical supplies) determine how many wounded crew members you can save.



So how does victory come about at the end of all this? Well, during combat, both sides get points for Success and Critical Success attacks. Attackers gets points for snatching goods or other things according to their initially set goal. Defenders get points for preventing the attackers in said goal and also for keeping their crew safe, which is represented by the percentage of crew that survives.



This is a simplified run-down of how Crew Combat works, and as you can see, there are a lot of depth to it, which will be further augmented by the addition of special actions that your vagrus can perform, as well as the option to attempt to flee. We hope you enjoyed this outline and that you'll have a lot of fun with Crew Combat in the game.

The video below is a little peek into how Crew Combat works. At first, you can - as the attacker here - set what you wish to accomplish by assaulting the foe. Then a 3-round fight commences where you can decide which type of your crew and which companions fight. You can see the chances of a successful round above between the current Combat Strength of each side, and the casualties after each round are allocated based on that roll. Later on, we'll be adding special actions that you can perform each round to bolster your chances.


Crew Combat is the most common way you will handle violent conflicts as you roam the wastelands of the Riven Realms. We wanted to give you a rundown of the basic concepts here so that those interested might find some insights.

A big shout-out to Urtuk: The Desolation

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to buy here on Steam! Urtuk is an open world, tactical turn-based RPG in a low-fantasy setting. Guide your band of adventurers through the ruins of an ancient world. Recruit new followers, loot the corpses of your fallen foes, and do your best to survive in this harsh and unforgiving realm.

It is in Early Access now so you can get it for 10% less!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660/

Our dear Friends at MuHa Games just released their new - FREE - DLC for Thea 2: The Shattering - Wrath of the Sea.

The Wrath of the Sea expansion focuses on Thea's sea biome, but it also introduces a returning goddess, new race, and much more.

• Water demons faction as guaranteed faction on Ice Biome
  
• New race: Blue Orc Pirates (with corresponding new child growing up options)
  
  
  
• New end game questline (not for the faint hearted)
  
• Several unique characters to be gained via the new questline
  
• New sea-based events
  
• Roaming sea enemies
  
  
  
• Additional land-based events
  
• Return of the goddess Mokosh
  
  
  
• Gathering and crafting on boats
  
• Sea non player settlements
  
• New food resource: seaweed
  
• Two new pets: the parrot and the crab
  
• Baby trolls will now have a chance to grow up into teenage trolls
  
  
  
• Pineconettes have a chance to become young leshy
  
• Loot from defeated pirates can include pirate ships
  
• End screen that sums up your quest choices
  
  

Time to download this gorgeous looking Free DLC, don't you think? Click here and enjoy!

Dear future vagri,

we've been busy implementing the milestones backers unlocked on Fig in the last few months but thought to give a heads-up to those of you primarily following us here on Steam. In the following (Part II.) collection of short videos we demonstrate some of the many recently added features to the game.


In this short video we demonstrate Enduring Effects (long-lasting attributes that help or hinder your comitatus), with the Blessing of Sergorod now appearing on the (redesigned) crew UI. Sharp-eyed viewers can spot other UI differences as well.


In this video we demonstrate the workings of the Obedience mechanic, which represents how well-behaved your slaves are. A slave is liberated first in the video, which immediately raises Obedience (by the indicated number in the action popup). This is quite expensive however, as slaves cost a lot of money.

Then slaves are punished several time to demonstrate how that mechanic works. You can pick how many slaves you punish, which can raise the Obedience bonus or penalty. There are also diminishing returns to pacifying them so, and you can end up losing Obedience just like at the end of the video.


This short video shows where the 'workforce' stat appears on the crew pane. Selling slaves and sending away workers results in a severe drop in generated 'workforce' and so the comitatus becomes more and more understaffed, incurring serious penalties.


Beasts of burden and mounts that a comitatus uses are large animals. They are the lifeblood of a traveling company, carrying people, cargo, and supplies on long journeys through desolate wastelands. Sometimes, however, they can literally become sustenance - in cases when you run out of supplies or when there are not enough workers to tend to them. Still, these creatures are usually very valuable but sometimes butchering them can be the difference between life and death out in the wasteland. The video here shows how a depleted caravan gains a lot of rations by using this simple but important new feature.

Hope you enjoyed these quick delves into some of the recent features.

A big shout-out to Shores Unknown

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to wishlist here on Steam! Shores Unknown is a turn-based tactical RPG rendered in a rich, low-poly aesthetic. Build your own team of mercenaries, forge alliances, wage battles, and journey beyond the seething wall of fog known only as the Murk in this decision-influenced, narrative-driven adventure.

Wishlist it to get reminded about Shores Unknown's release in Q2 2020.

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

Our dear Friends at Trese Brothers just kicked off their new campaign for their upcoming title: Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

Cyber Knights is a tactical RPG that plunges you and your team of hackers, mercs and thieves into the neon-soaked future of 2231.

Now, it's really time to jump over to their Kickstarter campaign. Enjoy!

Dear future vagri,

we've been busy implementing the milestones backers unlocked on Fig in the last few months but thought to give a heads-up to those of you primarily following us here on Steam. In the following collection of short videos we demonstrate some of the many recently added features to the game. Stay tuned, for we'll soon return with another round of short vids about a whole other set of features.

Chart Exploration

Your chart is one of your most important tools in Vagrus, and we keep adding to and expanding on it with subsequent builds. Milestone 10 unlocked what we referred to as 'chart exploration', which really means that from now on, Rumors, Passengers, and Codex entries you gain of locations also reveal them on your Chart, adding a whole new depth to hunting for information and mapping out the region.

The short video above shows how the player purchases a Rumor on a certain quarry and gains its location on the Chart afterwards.

Companion Select

This video showcases the feature we refer to as 'heroselect', though the people you are selecting from are rarely heroes. Rather, they are your Companions, and you will often be asked to select a certain number of them to take on ventures or on segments of missions.

In the video, you can see the arena fight Event ask you to select four Companions you take into the fighting pit. After selecting your Companions (and before rejoining the others), Perk tests, combat deployment, and all other effects only calculate with the selected Companions' stats.

Hidden Stash and Contraband

This video demonstrates the difference between showing up to the gates of a major city with contraband in your cargo hold and contraband hidden in your stash. In the first case, you can try to bribe or con the guards but it's a difficult (and often expensive) venture, which can end in fines, faction reputation loss, or worse.

Contraband tucked away in the hidden stash - a piece of equipment you can get from certain places - hides the goods from the inspection however, and you can safely take them into cities and hope to find buyers.

Hope this gave you a rough idea what we've been working on. We'll soon be back with more!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

In the meantime, Patch 0.4.9 went live mid-December and all the goodies it brought can be checked out below or in-game, of course! I hope you enjoy the fixes and additional features, we'll be back soon with more.

New Features

- MS 6: Crew Combat Alpha
- MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics (Partial delivery): Liberate or Discipline Slaves to
gain Obedience. Unrest will be added in a later update.
- Butcher beasts or mounts for supplies
- Warning triggers if an action would result in cargo loss

Here is a short video featuring the Crew Combat:


Additional milestones delivered that will only appear in the main campaign

- MS 10: Chart Exploration
- MS 11: Companion Select during Events
- MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband

New / Updated Content or Game mechanics

- New sound effects for a number of creatures
- Camping without guards decreases Obedience
- Radial menu icons automatically pop up on the campaign map
- Node sizes increased for Point of Interests to better indicate them
- Goods tooltips now show more trade information
- Merged a few perks to make them more impactful

Fixes

- Passenger destinations are now generated correctly in new games (thanks for catching and reporting this!)! Old saves remain bugged.
- New Day save now works after combat encounters in the Fighting Pit event
- Cargo slot changes are now applied immediately
- Fixed tutorial pins for closing the Journal and the Codex
- Fixed a bug causing Companion conversation portraits to be empty
- Healing companions no longer triggers the incorrect Event result text
- Fixed the Journal entry order for The Black Knight chapter V, Eliminating the Abolitionist Camps
- Clicking on the Journal or Codex during "Hold space..." tutorial/narration is up now does not open them

Coming Up Next

- More Sound Effects
- Vagrus Creation for the Main Campaign
- Companion Combat tweaks and additions
- Factions UI
- Animations for all characters
...
- Open World Prototype

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord