New improvements have been made to graphics, performance/stability, and input/UI. In addition, an experimental local co-op feature has been added to the game.

Check out all the exciting quality-of-life changes that are included in the upcoming game update patch:

• Graphics Quality Improvements - Arbitrary main rendering resolution, better anti-aliasing, higher-quality post-processing effects, and a high-end super-sampling option
  
• Better Framerates - Greater gameplay smoothness with more accurate timing and animation sync at all framerates, improved frame-pacing, and high refresh rate support
  
• High-Quality Shadows - Complete shadowing revamp featuring improved standard shadow filtering without performance loss; new, higher quality filter options; resolution options; and even additional shadow casters
  
• More Depth in Environments - Implemented HBAO+ ambient occlusion as an alternative higher-quality SSAO option, providing more depth and plasticity to all scenes
  
• Improved Draw Distance - Added a draw distance setting which applies to grass/clutter, monsters, and NPCs, completely eliminating pop-in on the highest settings
  
• High-Quality Textures - Added high-quality texture pack (generated from original sources, partially with AI upsampling, and full mipmaps)

• Mouse Control Redone - Improved camera mouse controls, replacing joystick emulation with direct 1:1 control
  
• Individual Key Bindings - Movement keys are now individually bindable, and added a keybinding for walking (slow movement) with keyboard/mouse controls
  
• Natural Control - Changed default bindings to fit common usage by PC gamers

• Now 64-bit - Switched to 64-bit build to address space fragmentation issues in long sessions
  
• Save VRAM - Fixed multiple video memory leaks
  
• Crash Fix - Fixed potential crash when switching between languages
  
• More Crash Fix - Improved render thread synchronization to prevent specific types of race condition crashes
  
• Faster I/O - Removed superfluous asset encryption
  
• Optimized Shadows - Improved shadow rendering performance by preventing unnecessary memory traffic

• 100% Achievement on KB/M Control - Fixed the unlocking of some achievements when playing with keyboard/mouse controls
  
• Typo Fixes - Fixed several typos and dialogue/text issues throughout the game
  
• Cloud Save Data - Fixed slightly-too-low cloud save limit when using a very large number of saves

• 2-Player local co-op mode has been added

About co-op mode:

• Need to supply two Xinput controllers
  
• You must have 2 or more characters in the party in order for the second player to join the game
  
• SP is shared
  
• Second player does not receive the “AI cheats” (i.e. AI-controlled characters only take half damage, whereas second player in co-op mode will take the full amount of damage)
  
• Not officially supported and limited support will be available for troubleshooting

To enable co-op mode:

1. Open Steam libraries through the Steam client.
   
2. Right-click on Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA, and click “Properties”
   
3. Click “Set Launch Options”
   
4. Input “--coop” into the parameter and click “OK.”
   
5. Launch the game
   
6. Press “Start” on the second controller to enable second player

Check out the Steam sale for Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA! Save big on this epic adventure and explore the Isle of Seiren with Adol and crew today!

New improvements have been made to graphics, performance/stability, and input/UI. In addition, an experimental local co-op feature has been added to the game.

Check out all the exciting quality-of-life changes that are included in the available game update patch:

• Arbitrary main rendering resolution enabled
  
• Improved frame-pacing and animation sync accuracy at all framerates
  
• Improved menu opening/closing behavior
  
• Character and enemy animations now correctly timed at 100+ FPS
  
• Support for high-refresh monitors and >60 Hz V-sync
  
• Replaced ineffective anti-aliasing blur filter with high-quality screenspace AA
  
• Bloom, refraction, and glare post-processing effects now scale with resolution
  
• Minimap rendering resolution now adapts to rendering resolution, preventing pixelated map at high resolution
  
• Greatly improved quality of menu backgrounds (replacing low-res screen capture)
  
• Improved standard shadow filtering without performance loss, plus two new, higher quality filter options
  
• Added option for rendering additional environment shadows
  
• Added supersampling/subsampling option (which also affects secondary 3D rendering)
  
• Improved shadow rendering performance by preventing unnecessary memory traffic
  
• Fixed animation speed of HUD elements at >30 FPS (e.g. full health bar)
  
• Improved the quality of volumetric lighting
  
• Implemented HBAO+ ambient occlusion as alternative higher-quality SSAO option
  
• Added a draw distance setting which applies to grass/clutter, monsters and NPCs
  
• Implemented anisotropic filtering setting
  
• Added high-quality texture pack (generated from original sources, partially with AI upsampling, and full mipmaps)
  
• Character poses in the equip menu now update at >30 FPS

• Improved camera mouse controls, replacing joystick emulation with direct 1:1 control
  
• Movement keys are now individually bindable
  
• Added keybinding for walking (slow movement) with keyboard/mouse controls
  
• Changed default bindings to fit common usage by PC gamers

• Fixed multiple video memory leaks
  
• Fixed potential crash when switching between languages
  
• Switched to 64-bit build to prevent address space fragmentation issues in long sessions
  
• Improved render thread synchronization to prevent specific types of race condition crashes
  
• Removed superfluous asset encryption

• Fixed unlocking of some achievements when playing with mouse/keyboard controls
  
• Fixed several typos and dialogue/text issues throughout the game
  
• Fixed slightly-too-low cloud save limit when using a very large number of saves

• 2-Player local co-op mode has been added

About coop mode:

• Need to supply two Xinput controllers
  
• You must have 2 or more characters in the party in order for the second player to join the game.
  
• SP is shared
  
• Second player does not receive the “AI cheats” (ie. AI controlled characters only take half damage, whereas second player in co-op mode will take the full amount of damage.)
  
• Not officially supported and limited support will be available for troubleshooting

To enable co-op mode:

• Open Steam libraries through the Steam client
  
• Right-click on Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA, and click “Properties”
  
• Click “Set Launch Options”
  
• Input “--coop” into the parameter and click “OK.”
  
• Launch the game
  
• Press “Start” on the second controller to enable second player

• Fix bug that could prevent vibration in Oculus Touch controllers from working.
  
• Add support for Saitek X55 Rhino Joystick.
  
• Fix some instances of module effects incorrectly showing as toggled active/inactive.

My wife was out of town all week, so I was left with the task of being a full-time parent as well as a game developer. I did manage to get a few things done, though.

First, there was the question of Eve frequency, and how that tends to spread civilizations out over time. Eve placement is related to baby placement (we place an Eve instead of a baby under certain conditions), and in thinking about the baby placement code, I realized it had grown into a multi-scarred monster over the years of trying different methods inside and outside the rift. Seemed like a good time to start clean and really think about what baby placement is supposed to accomplish.

Our highest priority in placing a baby should be to make sure there's at least one family in each of the specialist skin tones, and if all of them are already present, bolster the population of the weakest skin tone. After that, our next priority is to bolster the population of the weakest family, and place girl babies when the number of potentially fertile females in a given family gets too low. Of course, we also want to respect each mother's birth cool-down when possible, and also each player's previous-life area bans (so they don't get born to the same family over and over). But we should also be willing to ignore cool-downs and area bans if there are no other mothers available. No one should be able to area ban themselves, through suicide, into being an Eve, and we'd rather overload a mother on cool-down than spawn an Eve.

Finally, we need to make sure that the server is never overloaded with babies relative to the adult population (more than 2/3 babies), nor that a few remaining mothers are overloaded with babies (more than 4 babies per mother).

And of course, through out all of this, we respect curses, never placing a cursed baby near a player who cursed them, ever ever ever. If there's no place for a cursed baby to go, they are sent to donkey town.

With those priorities cleanly stated, we can see that we only place Eves in two situations. First, if there are too many babies for the existing adult population or population of mothers. And second, if we're missing one of the specialist skin tones.

Those cases should be relatively rare, which means that new Eves should be rare.

With the simplified code in place, the behavior is much easier to reason about. If there seem to be too many Eves in the future, I'll be able to figure out exactly why.

Next, the Genetic Fitness leaderboard has clearly been getting out of hand, with top scores climbing into the 500s. In looking closely at the top-scoring players, I found something distressing: many of them had very low average lifespans themselves. By keeping their own lifespans low through regular suicide, the were able to farm points whenever they lived an occasional long life. Furthermore, they were essentially handing out free points to everyone else through these occasional long lives. It was also clear that quantity was trumping quality. When scores are potentially infinite, playing a lot of lives is the only way to reach the top.

Implementing a suggestion from Wondible, we're now back to scores that are asymptotically capped at 60, while still solving the problems that the older capped system had (where you got punished for having a new player as a baby). You now gain points whenever you help an offspring player live longer than expected, but the amount you gain is scaled relative to your own score. Thus, the closer you are to 60, the less you can gain from each offspring, but the more you stand to lose if you actually hurt an offspring and cause them to live a shorter life than we expect for them. You also gain points for yourself when you live longer than expected, with your score approximating how long we expect you to live.

Thus, there's no longer an exploit possible through suicide. The best way to get a very high score is to live very long lives yourself, and never suicide, and help all of your offspring to live as long as possible, too.

Returning to a capped score demands a new formula for mapping score to tool slots, which can be seen in this graph:



As part of this investigation, I made more of the leaderboard data public. You can now click on the top-scoring players and see the recent lives that contributed to their score:

http://onehouronelife.com/fitnessServer/server.php?action=show_leaderboard

Thus, if another exploitative way to boost score emerges in the future, it will be easier for everyone to study and identify it.

But looking at the data now, we're off to a good start. All of the top-scoring folks have very high average lifespans themselves.

There are also a bunch of little fixes. More stuff can be bottled, and bottles are a bit easier to work with.

Hi all,

What a day! One year ago this tiny-crazy-cat-based educational video game was released. It was a really fun year! We'll never forget this journey from 86% to 92% review score. And we won a prize! This prize is a huge and super friendly, sharp and just amazing community.

Thank you, everyone, who played the game, watched the game on YouTube, downloaded the game from torrents (please ask your favorite pirates to update the game to the latest version, we can't stand seeing people struggling with already fixed issues). Thank you to all the amazing teachers, parents, and educators who use the game, you are really rockstars, inventors, innovators and main inspirers on the planet. And of course congratulations and our kudos to all of the learners who managed to get hired or just dived deeper into machine learning technology. All the cats here (I know there are a number of them here) are also always welcome, we'll never tell your secret to anyone!


(if you want to learn more about those certificates please feel free to email me at oleg.chumakov@luden.io)

You are probably wondering what we are up to those days. Okay, since you asked I am happy to tell more.

First of all, we're at the final stage of the Nintendo Switch version of the game. We want to make a closed test for our friends' club (you are definitely in) but it's technically impossible on the Nintendo Platform. If we'll find a way - you will be the first to know about it.



Secondly, we're developing while True: learn() EDU to meet educators' needs. Of course, this version will be available for regular players as well.

Also, we're discussing how to make the next educational video game much better. Ideas, tests, and researches. At this very moment the only thing I can say that everyone who is in love with machine learning, startups part of while True: learn() and games like Rimworld and Factorio will get the vibe easily :)

A number of folks from Luden.io are now working with educators who work with kids with autism spectrum disorder. Video games are quite helpful for them as well, that's why we've started Rewire.Education project. Actually, during playtests kids enjoyed while True: learn(), InMind and AIDraw games as well.



There are a lot of things happening every day in this direction (we've got back from a center for kids with autism an hour ago), but the only thing that matters here is that video games definitely could be really useful for education and help spark curiosity. Oh wait, is this the dream we started Luden.io with? That's totally correct! :) Thanks for making this dream come true, you are the one who makes it real!

Your friends from the team of Luden.io with ❤️



Release or The Story About 1 Year of Weekly Updates, Machine Learning and Cats



Get to know how you can help us develop the game
blog.luden.io/our-plans-or-how-to-get-more-involved-561ebad5e376

We do not have any secrets from our players, here you can see our public roadmap (where you can vote and leave your comments)
trello.com/b/MNIKsP2V/while-true-learn-roadmap

Community localisation
crowdin.com/project/while-true-learn/invite?d=85n6j4453507d5b35353f3m4a3

Ask for help, help others and report bugs in Discord
Twitter
Facebook

All in-game machine learning materials, links and videos ONLINE

We will become full of joy if you ask your favorite YouTube / Twitch creators to play our game, just share these links with them:
www.keymailer.co/g/games/53096
woovit.info/while-true-learn

Rewire.Education project for kids with autism spectrum disorder.

It’s 2020 already for a few weeks now and so we want to look back on what we achieved in 2019 and what we have planned for 2020.

This report covers Elemental War, Red Skies: Ascension, Spine and Tri6: Infinite.

Read the full news on our homepage: https://clockwork-origins.com/past-and-future-2020/

We hope you enjoy it and feel free to share your opinions on it either here or better on our Discord.

Official maps using the newer foliage system have all been updated to improve file IO performance. Beforehand each map had many separate files for individual regions. Afterward each map has only a single file combining all of them. This significantly speeds up the "validate game cache" process, downloading updates and downloading workshop maps.

For details on upgrading custom maps: Read Docs

• Added "Only Equipped" filter for cosmetics and skins.
  
• "Insane" skins received attachment skins by Debski.
  
• Care package boxes crush players underneath them.
  
• Dedicated server handles the Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break request.
  
• Console explicitly defaults to UTF-8 encoding, and the UTF-8 code page on Windows. The Windows built-in SimSun font is recommended for Unicode display.
  
• Changed doctor skillset and support icons to hearts.

• Fixed several movement exploits by disabling overlap recovery and reverting move if character passed through anything.
  
• Fixed loading levels with duplicate foliage or landscapes.
  
• Fixed Winter Pine Tree #01 billboard red tint.
  
• Fixed animal ragdoll exception if missing rigidbody.
  
• Fixed sentry gun eye draw distance.
  
• Fixed silent swimming exploit.
  
• Fixed misc issues with missing item animations, and log if missing.
  
• Fixed overlapping barricade placed on vehicle.
  
• Fixed server exploit advertising different workshop items than downloaded.
  
• Fixed case where gun could be dequipped immediately after shooting.
  
• Fixed problems with quest rewards that granted multiple items.
  
• Fixed unable to use skycrane hook and blimp in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed prematurely unmuting the loading screen in a few cases.
  
• Fixed delay updating lighting when Use_Skybox_Ambience is enabled.
  
• Fixed sun and moon atmospheric fog color during rain and snow.
  
• Fixed emissive flags on many materials.

• Added "-LogAssemblyResolve" command-line flag.
  
• Log animal and object missing animation clips with validate flag.
  
• Log context for unsupported resetting of NPC quest condition in multiplayer.

• HUD debug text can be translated in Console.dat
  
• Translated EconInfo.json is now loaded from localization's folder.
  
• Maps can translate location names e.g. "Oulton's_Isle Castle" in their localization files.
  
• Localizations can contain a "Maps" folder with per-map translations e.g. "PEI.dat".
  
• Language setup is logged during startup.

Reverse Fantasy Legend 1+2 bundles are now available!
New play bundle need together to buy, 10% discount!
Benefits bundle, own one, buy another 15% off!
Bundle offers and event discounts are available at the same time!
Chinese New Year 2020 is coming, the whole series of Reverse Fantasy Legend has been added with Chinese New Year discount, stay tuned!

This is the source code for an unnamed DarkBASIC Pro Steampunk project I was working on and abandoned. I'm giving out the source code to anyone who wants to use it. It's a party-based RPG/RTS pixel art game, and you can scroll around the map and hit space to pause and give commands.

I have switched to App Game Kit because it works on Linux and Android (fuck Apple), and I've also switched my next project to a historical setting and trying to make it more edumicational, but the gameplay will be the same.

Link: https://blancaster45.itch.io/scrapped-steampunk-game