Hey BELOVEDS! Our Dancer DLC is now LIVE! 💀🕯️✨

We’ve released it with a whole bunch of free updates to the main game, so all in all the update adds an extra ~30% content (from ~72k words to ~95k words, now). So, er, it’s quite a big release.

Anyone who owns Perpetual Edition gets the update automatically and for free. Anyone who owns the normal edition of the game, don’t fret! It only costs a measly $2.99 / £2.50 / €2.39.




In the occult cabaret that calls itself the Ecdysis Club, the distinction between pleasure and pain is as delicate and essential as the human skin. It is all that keeps us from making the very worst mistakes.

Pursue a career as a Dancer at the Club. Determine which parts of yourself to surrender. Cross oceans in pursuit of the ancient rites that beat in the Wood. Consider the ascensions that open to you. Choose carefully.



The DLC includes:



Rise to unearthly fame as the Dancer, employed at the infamous Gaiety Theatre, Ecdysis Club or in some of the more exclusive city parlours.



Explore a trinity of insights into the powers of Heart, Moth, and those who came before. Realise your true form, and perhaps even tempt one of the enigmatic Ligeians to the Dance.



Some dances can only be performed in far places, and some cannot be performed in human shape.

It also brings with it a host of new achievements and lore, of course. But NO SPOILERS! 🤐🤐🤐


There are a few ways! Firstly, to check if you have the Dancer DLC installed, check if you have the DLC_DANCER_dancer_legacy.json file.

On Windows, it'll be in


On Macs, it'll be in


On Linux, it'll be in


Once you know you’ve got it, you have two ways to find your new content in-game:

★ Begin the game with the Dancer legacy. This will always be available if you win a minor work victory at Glover and Glover, and sometimes be available otherwise anyway.

★ Pursue the new Ascensions without being a Dancer, by finding Sulochana and speaking with her at the Ecdysis Club about your current Desire.




All righty! We’ve added:



Followers now learn from their mistakes. It’s much safer to send them on Expeditions, and though they’ll still die if they injured enough.



What could go wrong with workplace relationships when your office is an occult society dedicated to bringing the apocalypse? Court your cultists and date your disciples. It probably won’t end disastrously.



Mistreating NPCs now risks turning them against you and attempting to win the game faster than you can.



A smorgasbord of UI/UX improvements based on feedback since launch. Snap-to-grid cards, double-click card placement, intelligent card stacking… now nobody should get RSI. Yay!




Yes! Firstly, you can download A Beginner’s Guide to Cultist Simulator, a glimpse into the notebook of an occultist figuring their own way through to the House. It’s absolutely not comprehensive: it’s just fun, and I updated it to include info on the Dancer now that’s live.

Finally, we’re also on SALE for 48 hours on Steam, Humble and GOG as part of release! The base game’s now 25% off, if you know any would-be acolytes who just haven’t quite gotten around to buying the game yet.

Hope you like all the new updates! We feel it’s a much fuller, sparkly game now, so fingers crossed you agree. If you want to help us, shout about this DLC/the updates/the sale, and stay tuned for more DLC later down the line. In the meantime, you can follow our plans and progress via our roadmap. ♥

I missed my September post since I was a bit busy with PAX and working on getting some demos out to a small external audience, so let's go ahead and use October to cover what I wanted to talk about next: the technician's tools.Tools have been a key part of the game concept pretty much since the beginning, but have gotten nowhere near enough development or design time as they've needed. Since I'm still aiming on getting The Technician ready for an Early Access release by the end of 2018, it's time to play catchup on that front and bring a few of the tool designs into the game proper. As usual though, let me start with some general spitballing and summarizing of my current thoughts on how tools should work, what gameplay concepts I'm attempting to drive with them, and how I'm either succeeding or failing (spoilers: it's mostly the latter) at doing so currently.

Frantic puzzle solving and working under duress has more or less always been the goal, so: how do the tools help with that? Well, ideally they'll serve a few different purposes and should:

1 - Give you more options to think about.
2 - Provide different (and hopefully fun) interactions for you to do in game.
3 - Add to the "push/pull" that brings you in and out of danger.

I should probably cover what these things actually mean (at least to me,) too. To the first point: when you're reading a board and trying to figure out what it is you're going to do, you should have several options at your disposal. This should make the puzzles feel less linear and give you more of a feeling of actually "hacking" the thing. As for the second: flipping switches and pulling cables starts to get pretty old after a while. Different tools should introduce different interactions to keep gameplay varied. Lastly: it turns out that pulling your attention back and forth between puzzle solving and getting shot at is a tricky thing to do properly. My current attempt to solving this problem is by distributing aspects of puzzle solving to require physical movement between tasks, and the tools are a key method of doing so.

Let's look at what tools are currently kicking around in game and what they do. These tools are all part of "the kit," a crate full of goodies that the technician and their cohorts have smuggled in to help them with the job or breaking in to whatever it is they're breaking in to. The kit includes several traditional tools that the tech can grab and use, as well as several built-in, stationary components.


The injector is a pretty basic tool that has shown up in some previous posts and images. It's a handheld device with a corded connector that can attach to several different component with the matching plug. Once connected, the technician can use the buttons on the device (or the buttons on their VR controller) to change the numeric value that the injector is sending. This is obviously most useful when dealing with the parts of puzzles that involve registers, ALUs, or other data-ful components, though any non-zero number will count as power for purposes of the 'dumber' components, as well.The primary design aspect of the injector is that it's physical and handheld. You need to grab the injector to move and use it, and you need to grab the connector on it to plug it into the various components you want to interact with. This means you'll need at least one hand free to manipulate it, and the cord on it means you'll need to be near the circuit boards themselves. The end result is that you're in a dangerous area with your attention divided and frequently unarmed as you put your gun down to work.


The registers I talked about in a previous update aren't the only components capable of storing data. These memory sticks (in a fairly liberal interpretation of RAM) can also store data, and can be move around from memory slot to memory slot. Updating the values in these is often not a simple as updating registers via the injector tool; enter the rewriter. The rewriter is built into the kit itself, meaning that the tech needs to move between the board and the kit as they use it, in contrast to the portable injector which the technician will often bring to the circuitry and leave there. They rewriter isn't as immediate as the injector either - it needs time to access the mounted devices before it can read/write data to them. In some cases this might mean the player can take a breather in the relatively safer space where the tools are. On the other hand, sometimes the pressure of the encroaching guards can make those extra few seconds very costly.


The 'NL' jack isn't really a single tool, but rather a whole set of them. It's also fills the role of a critical cyberpunk staple: cyberwear. This tool is physically attached to the technician at all times. To use it, the tech simply grabs the plug from behind their right ear and yanks it out. Similar to the injector's plug, the NL plug can be connected to any 'neural interface' (or similarly labeled) connector found on various components. Once connected, the tech can interact with the target component via numerous internal programs.Right now there are two programs to match the two current neural-enabled components. One is a brute force reader program designed for use with some of the blind registers that I talked about previously, replacing the injector-like handheld that you may have seen in that post. The other is an override function that enables you to alter the state of certain power nodes. This also replaces the other injector-like handheld that can be seen interacting with these "aux power" nodes in the announce trailer. Both of these programs take time; the reader takes time to access the target register, and the power override, while fast to activate, only functions as long as it is connected.In both cases the tech is effectively leashed to the circuit board area by the cable attached to their head, making this another tool enabling puzzle design to dictate the tech's positioning in the play area (and subsequently, in higher danger.) As I mentioned, it also removed several duplicate handheld tools, and thus the need for me to model and texture new ones (since I was, of course, just reusing the same asset for development.) This is just a happy coincidence and not abject laziness, I assure you.

The Injector, the Rewriter, and the Neural Interface are the three tools I have today, and hopefully you now understand what they are used for and why I created them.  So how well are they helping to fulfill those primary goals I mentioned before? Unfortunately, not very. They're a step in the right direction in some places; the injector is a straightforward way to interact with circuit data, the rewriter adds complexity and options to those interactions, and it feels fun to pull a cable out fo your head and plug it into the wall. However, there's still a lot of work to be done both in tool creation itself and in leveraging them when designing puzzles. The ability to push/pull the technician around is there, but the variety of interactions and available options presented to the player still feels somewhat limited. I hope to remedy this as I continue to add new tools and components to the game, but in the meantime hopefully these ones are still fun for you to use!

Greetings, diligent constructors!

The Bridge Constructor franchise is discounted heavily this week!

• Bridge Constructor Portal 50% off ++Now with Level Editor via Steam Workshop!++
  
• Bridge Constructor 75% off
  
• [DLC] Bridge Constructor – Trains Expansion 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Playground 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Medieval 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Stunts 75% off
  
• [Bundle] Bridge Constructor Bundle* 75% off
  (*The bundle includes all franchise games and DLC, except Bridge Constructor Portal)

On top of that, we would like to invite you to follow our Bridge Constructor Franchise page here on Steam to keep you updated on news, sales, and everything else about the Bridge Constructor games!
You can get to the Bridge Constructor Franchise page here.
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Bridge-Constructor/

Greetings, diligent constructors!

The Bridge Constructor franchise is discounted heavily this week!

• Bridge Constructor Portal 50% off ++Now with Level Editor via Steam Workshop!++
  
• Bridge Constructor 75% off
  
• [DLC] Bridge Constructor – Trains Expansion 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Playground 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Medieval 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Stunts 75% off
  
• [Bundle] Bridge Constructor Bundle* 75% off
  (*The bundle includes all franchise games and DLC, except Bridge Constructor Portal)

On top of that, we would like to invite you to follow our Bridge Constructor Franchise page here on Steam to keep you updated on news, sales, and everything else about the Bridge Constructor games!
You can get to the Bridge Constructor Franchise page here.
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Bridge-Constructor/

Greetings, diligent constructors!

The Bridge Constructor franchise is discounted heavily this week!

• Bridge Constructor Portal 50% off ++Now with Level Editor via Steam Workshop!++
  
• Bridge Constructor 75% off
  
• [DLC] Bridge Constructor – Trains Expansion 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Playground 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Medieval 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Stunts 75% off
  
• [Bundle] Bridge Constructor Bundle* 75% off
  (*The bundle includes all franchise games and DLC, except Bridge Constructor Portal)

On top of that, we would like to invite you to follow our Bridge Constructor Franchise page here on Steam to keep you updated on news, sales, and everything else about the Bridge Constructor games!
You can get to the Bridge Constructor Franchise page here.
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Bridge-Constructor/

Greetings, diligent constructors!

The Bridge Constructor franchise is discounted heavily this week!

• Bridge Constructor Portal 50% off ++Now with Level Editor via Steam Workshop!++
  
• Bridge Constructor 75% off
  
• [DLC] Bridge Constructor – Trains Expansion 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Playground 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Medieval 75% off
  
• Bridge Constructor Stunts 75% off
  
• [Bundle] Bridge Constructor Bundle* 75% off
  (*The bundle includes all franchise games and DLC, except Bridge Constructor Portal)

On top of that, we would like to invite you to follow our Bridge Constructor Franchise page here on Steam to keep you updated on news, sales, and everything else about the Bridge Constructor games!
You can get to the Bridge Constructor Franchise page here.
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Bridge-Constructor/

Hi Galactic Survivalists,

we just released again a small patch for Alpha 8.6.

Please continue to report bugs over here: https://empyriononline.com/threads/...play-read-introduction-before-reporting.43916

Yours,

Emp Dev Team

===========

CHANGELOG Alpha 8.6.3 (Build 1891)

Bug Fixes:

Changed:
- Repair-to-Template window: Allow shift-click to quick move ingots from bag to item drop
- Repair-to-Template window: Increase timeout before updating Repair Data when adding ingots to 6s
- Increased check-distance for free blocks in front of a weapon

Fixed:
- CoQ with Repair-to-Template
- After changing the faction of a CV it is sometimes possible to fly through hull blocks with the vessels that become undocked
- Dead NPC still persistent and targetable at 'edge of visibility range'
- Possible fix for fps drop when rotating a CV with docked ships
- Placing follow-up light does not use settings from the previously placed light
- Explosive device does not explode in space
- After changing the faction of a CV it is sometimes possible to fly through hull blocks with the vessels that become undocked
- Repair-to-Template is not completed after moving away then returning
- Harvest module info shows 'Harvest box missing' when box is placed on the vessel

This Summer we introduced a new type of distinction for local events called the Make Your Mark series. Events with this banner award a prize like no other – a chance for the first place finisher to create their own skin with the developers, custom taunt and all.

After a hard fought battle at Xanadu's Elemental Rivalries, our first MYM victor stood tall. To immortalize Penguin in Rivals of Aether history we present without further ado - Penguin Absa:



Penguin's victory is everyone's victory, and this skin is now available for free on Steam. Download and enjoy it today right here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/941241/Rivals_of_Aether_Penguin_Absa/

Keep your eye on the Steam announcements page to look for more upcoming Make Your Mark events if you want your own chance to get a skin in the game.

Along with Penguin Absa, we're also releasing 4 additional skins for the first time on the Steam store. These skins were originally made as a way to support community events and have helped fund player travel reserves and prize pools at over 7 tournaments.

Now that their time in compendiums is over, we've decided to move them to the Steam store due to popular demand from players looking to spend Steam balance on skins. Arcade Elliana, Shine Zetterburn, Summit Orcane, and Arcade Maypul are now available on the Steam store for $2.99 each. In addition to these changes, our 3 other skins released during Early Access are going up from $1.99 to $2.99 to standardize skin prices.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/915090/Rivals_of_Aether_Arcade_Elliana/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/670840/Rivals_of_Aether_Shine_Zetterburn/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/539240/Rivals_of_Aether_Summit_Orcane/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/630663/Rivals_of_Aether_Arcade_Maypul/

Happy Patch Day, Survivors! It's Tuesday and ARK's latest patch is live on all platforms.

First off, be sure to tune in to the Xbox channel on Mixer at 2pm EST today to see a brand new Extinction creature teaser during their stream!

We're also sharing some more previews of our upcoming expansion pack ARK: Extinction. Check out the images below for a sneak peak at what you can expect to see on planet Earth!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1540666780
In Extinction, Earth has become an Element-infested planet filled with fantastical creatures both organic and technological. Element has ravaged the planet and corrupted both the landscape and some of its inhabitants, causing mutations in the creatures and plants that can be found there.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1540666929
This will be the last Extinction Chronicles related event and screenshot teasers on patch day before Extinction release. We hope that you've been enjoying them, and we're very excited to be sharing the entirety of Extinction with you very soon.

Our Extinction Chronicles V event is going on right now, including new Corrupted skin, Explorer Notes, and Tek dinos. You can read all about it in yesterdays announcement:

https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791438250696/announcements/detail/2931173216371980922

Introducing the Jump Starter Pack! This unbelievable pack gives $40 worth of goodies for just $4.99 USD!

But wait, there’s more. We're also proud to present the Lustrous Dragon Deal! This repeat purchasable deal costs 3,000 Credits and contains:

• 10 Greater Dragon Caches
• 24 Diamond Dragonite
• 2 Lustrous Gem Boxes

• 4 rows of extra inventory slots to store all your epic loot
• 10 Chaos Chests that provide anything from resources for crafting to rare and unique mounts or ships
• 10 Super Style Stashes that grant a random assortment of styles you haven’t already unlocked
• 10 Greater Dragon Caches that come with items that can help you unlock more dragons
• The incredible TROV-3 Rocket mount!

Your first purchase of any of our real money packs will also grant you the legendary dragon, Disaeon the Immortal!



Once you’ve purchased the Jump Starter (or any of our real money packs) pack you’ll be able to claim Disaeon, the Immortal as a FREE item in the Deals tab of the Trove Store.

When you add Disaeon the Immortal into the mix, this is simply too good to pass up! Thanks to all of you who have tried out Trove, your support is what makes this all possible.