We have seen many people asking for a demo of Shattered Horizon. We have been working with Steam this week to organise the next best thing - Steam Guest Passes.

Later today all players will be given three Shattered Horizon guest passes to share with their friends. Each pass will allow a friend to play Shattered Horizon for three days. The time begins when your friend starts downloading the game.

You can find out more about Steam Guest Passes here:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8112-DFJL-4653

The passes will expire after 30 days so don't wait too long to give them out.

This week on Radio, the French surfer-rock band Juanitos returns with a few tunes off their latest compilation album. "Everybody loves the partys" and "She dance flamenco" have that unique France meets Austin Powers style. Last time we featured Juanitos, one of our top players dschallert made some custom lava lamp sky spheres to enhance the 60s ambiance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKlZ9_k8cOU

And next we have the inaugural appearance of the didjeridoo on Radio. Frenchman Phillipe Mayne has managed to create two blues/jazz tunes featuring the didj ("Unplugged" and "Blues for Didj") that I really enjoyed riding. I found that the "circuits" sound effects worked the best with this instrument.

Lebeth

This week on Radio, the French surfer-rock band Juanitos returns with a few tunes off their latest compilation album. "Everybody loves the partys" and "She dance flamenco" have that unique France meets Austin Powers style. Last time we featured Juanitos, one of our top players dschallert made some custom lava lamp sky spheres to enhance the 60s ambiance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKlZ9_k8cOU

And next we have the inaugural appearance of the didjeridoo on Radio. Frenchman Phillipe Mayne has managed to create two blues/jazz tunes featuring the didj ("Unplugged" and "Blues for Didj") that I really enjoyed riding. I found that the "circuits" sound effects worked the best with this instrument.

Lebeth

http://store.steampowered.com/app/5500/

This feature video shows Shattered Horizon's "silent running" feature. No sound in space seems like a cool idea at first, but it’s actually very hard to play an FPS without any audio cues. Our solution was to give the player's space suit "audio simulation". The idea is that your suit recreates a soundscape based on sensor information of the surrounding environment. "Silent running" is a game feature that lets you power down your suit and disable the audio simulation to gain a stealth advantage while sacrificing radar, HUD and maneuverability.

During the production of a game, a lot of concept art gets drawn up, redrawn, thrown away, cursed at, and, occasionally, even used. There's a mountain of this stuff fluttering around the Valve offices, and while the non-artists among us might not know much (anything) about art, we hope we're not embarrassing our artists by saying it looks pretty kickass. So we grabbed some of it off the nearest pile and made it into desktop wallpaper.

Get the free wallpaper <a href="http://l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=3109">HERE!</a>

During the production of a game, a lot of concept art gets drawn up, redrawn, thrown away, cursed at, and, occasionally, even used. There's a mountain of this stuff fluttering around the Valve offices, and while the non-artists among us might not know much (anything) about art, we hope we're not embarrassing our artists by saying it looks pretty kickass. So we grabbed some of it off the nearest pile and made it into desktop wallpaper.

Get the free wallpaper HERE!

4 days after our <a href="http://myzerogear.com/beta/invite.php">beta</a> went live we have a new update for everyone! Here is the changes:

1.0.1.0 Change Log

* Kart physics modified, the kart is much heavier now as well as other subtle tweaks
* Air steering is now only engaged by pressing the steer direction after leaving the ground
* Some maps updated to work better with new kart physics
* Camera adjustments, closer to kart, fixed distance, crosshair added to aim mode
* Ice cube will not ice the player who dropped it behind them when it obviously shouldn't
* Win score changed from 500 to 400 in Tag mode
* All players given springs in Target mode and bumpers removed until they are functional again
* Soccer ball/hockey puck larger and easier to hit
* Country code added to the server browser so you can see how close a server is to you
* Rank sorted correctly in the server browser now
* Setting added to enable the screen blur effect on boost as some players were reporting problems
* The game responds to input correctly after closing the settings or server GUI while in game
* The map change timer works correctly in the server settings GUI
* Map name and server name added to the player roster GUI
* Laps/Place GUI is now visible in spectator mode
* The goal GUI now tells the user which goal they need to shoot the ball/puck into
* The signal GUI will warn the user if they connect to a server with a very large ping
* Upon pressing the reset key, a GUI pops up to notify the user they will soon be reset
* GUI is now visible in Skate
* Newb loading screen key layout image simplified
* Music updated and Hyperduck accessory added (quack quack!!)
* Sound errors no longer print out to the log which seems to prevent the game from slowing down over time
* Bug in sound priority system fixed which should prevent more important sounds (music, engine noises, etc) from cutting out on some sound cards
* Fixed the "Failed to find receive data peer" bug that happened sometimes after exiting the game and starting it again quickly

Go check it out!

Includes an on-screen FPS counter and server auto-kick for team-killers. Full details here:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1021389

<a href="http://www.l4d.com/contest/"><img src="http://l4d.com/blog/images/posts/023/wheresmythumb.jpg" width="446" height"398" border="0"></a>

For our Left 4 Dead 1 contest giveaway, we gave all you gamers a simple proposition: take a picture of yourself or a friend doing something creative in front of a L4D ad. We were blown away by the inventiveness, humor, and photoshop mastery of some of the replies.

With Left 4 Dead 2's November 17th release date almost upon us, that means the return of the "Dude, Where's My Thumb" contest, and another chance to be inventive and win awesome prizes. Like last year's contest, gamers are challenged to take a funny, interesting, scary or otherwise unique photograph of you or a friend in front of one of L4D2's outdoor media placements (buses, billboards, etc.). You could win a limited edition "infected" Xbox 360-hand-painted, laser engraved and custom designed to celebrate the release of Left 4 Dead 2.

Go to the <a href="http://www.l4d.com/contest/" class="standardLink">official contest page</a> for complete details and to submit your photo.

Also, if you haven't played the demo yet, you still can! Get it on <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/590/" class="standardLink">Steam</a> or through the <a href="http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802454108d4/?of=1" class="standardLink">Xbox LIVE Marketplace</a>!

For our Left 4 Dead 1 contest giveaway, we gave all you gamers a simple proposition: take a picture of yourself or a friend doing something creative in front of a L4D ad. We were blown away by the inventiveness, humor, and photoshop mastery of some of the replies.

With Left 4 Dead 2's November 17th release date almost upon us, that means the return of the "Dude, Where's My Thumb" contest, and another chance to be inventive and win awesome prizes. Like last year's contest, gamers are challenged to take a funny, interesting, scary or otherwise unique photograph of you or a friend in front of one of L4D2's outdoor media placements (buses, billboards, etc.). You could win a limited edition "infected" Xbox 360-hand-painted, laser engraved and custom designed to celebrate the release of Left 4 Dead 2.

Go to the official contest page for complete details and to submit your photo.

Also, if you haven't played the demo yet, you still can! Get it on Steam or through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace!