• Session name now appears appropriately.
  
  
• some words now display properly.
  
  
• Temporary blocking other areas of Warehouse map for small number of players has been deleted.
  
  
• Freezing and unfreezing of prop players which occasionally results in disappearance and uncontrollable state has been attempted to fix. (It may still occur.)
  
  
• Still displaying prop portrait in the hunter mode when the player survived from the previous round has been fixed.
  
  
• Hunters can now double jump and also higher. Jumping up and down has become a little faster.
  
  
• When hunters exit the game, the game round now ends immediately.
  
  
• Alpha build now has version display.
  
  
• Being able to choose legend characters and aliases when first joining lobby is now fixed. (The actual characters and aliases won't set to legend ones even though you seem to be able to choose them. The server double checks your ownership before making any change.)
  
  
• The game session status is marked as '-' as it is currently not available but will be on the next update.
  
  
• You can now see the creator ID in the game.

[/b][/i]
[/list]

Hey everyone,
My new game Finding the Soul Orb has been released!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213680


In this game you are a warrior named Alexander who uses his crossbow to hunt werewolves as well as to solve little puzzles.



I hope you enjoy the game as much as I did making it.

Cheers! ːdpeagleiaː
Tonguç

Hey everyone,
My new game Finding the Soul Orb has been released!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213680


In this game you are a warrior named Alexander who uses his crossbow to hunt werewolves as well as to solve little puzzles.



I hope you enjoy the game as much as I did making it.

Cheers! ːdpeagleiaː
Tonguç

Hey everyone,
My new game Finding the Soul Orb has been released!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213680


In this game you are a warrior named Alexander who uses his crossbow to hunt werewolves as well as to solve little puzzles.



I hope you enjoy the game as much as I did making it.

Cheers! ːdpeagleiaː
Tonguç

It is now time for our regular official PvP servers wipe and this time it should be even more interesting, as there are a lot of new players who joined from Humble Choice (Humble Monthly) and had their first experience in the game. We are expecting Global PvP to be the hottest and most brutal battlefield yet! :)

The following servers were wiped:
• Official Global PvP
• Official America (SA) PvP
• Official China PvP

As before, PvE servers will stay unaffected (no wipe). We wipe them ONLY with major update releases. Private and community servers are also unaffected and their owners will decide if and when they want to wipe them as we have no control over those servers.

Also, servers that have been launched just recently (such as North America PvP and Asia PvP) will not be wiped yet, as they've been operating for only a week and it obviously doesn't make sense to wipe them yet. Instead, they will follow the regular schedule for the next wipe—13 March together with all the official PvP servers.

The launch of the Queen update brought a whole new Outlands continent, shaped by the immense magic of the Avalonians. With the old Outlands now just a memory, we asked for tributes to this lost land from the Albion community. The results were truly impressive, and while choosing from among such strong entries was hard, we are happy to announce the winners...
Congrats to our hands-down winner WipeHype, who channeled his inner bard to create this toe-tapping tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zms-XlsuwfQ
The first runner-up is Shaedeezy who made us dream about tales around the campfire and portals to another world:

I gaze through portal bright,
We sit around a flickering fire drying our mud-caked boots
Sharing our spoils and watching the stars move across still waters
I see it all in that regal purple light: the crackling fire, the glint of gold, the brilliant stars
The land has changed- will I find them there again? In that dry spot among the mangrove roots?
I step through portal bright.

The second runner-up is Vadisint who forced us to face the ghosts of our past and shed a tear for what we have lost:

Where are the wide fields of Anglia and Glouvia?
Where are the winter peaks of Cumbria and Siluria?
Where are the elder woods of Mercia?
Only wisps of their memory now remain.
The world is changed, the gate is gone,
And a scar mars the face of our fair Caerleon.

Finally, we have our Honorable Mentions who entertained us through and through. Congrats to:

GuideNPC
PiggyMcBacon200
AncientCWS
SHARKY
Morteos
Neef
Zorke
moking
Kromar12
SecretTim
SchloppySeconds
Cortenand

To see the complete thread, where you can read the runners-up along with all contest entries, click here.

Thanks to all the participants!

In Darksburg, Survivors and Revenants fight each other in different parts of the city. What were the main inspirations for you when creating Darksburg’s levels?

Lary:

Gameplay wise, it was really important to have a style that reads well from a top-down camera with large chunky shapes and smooth edges. Our style mixes handpainted details and material work to get nice reflections on surfaces. Our main game inspiration are Heroes of the storm, Battle Chasers and League of Legends and Diablo 3.

Lucas:

About design, it’s quite hard to find references and guides for non-FPS games, so we had to do some digging to find interesting inspirations. Obviously, Left 4 Dead 1&2, Vermintide 1&2, and games like Alien Swarm were interesting guidelines for the game, especially regarding the overall architecture of a level. We’ve also looked for games like Battlerite, Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends and Diablo to learn about level design with a top-down camera.



What are the steps in creating a new level? (Graphic and Level Design)

Lucas:

At first, we talk about what we want to do with the level. What are the key elements going to be ? What setting do we want to explore ? When we’ve settled on something, we start drawing rough paper sketches, to define the global progression of the level, and how the different parts articulate around each other. Then we do more refined paper sketches, and we actually start building the level architecture, the obstacles and the paths.

When the sketches are ready, we move to the engine, using grey blocks to build the layout. At this point, we begin to check collisions, making sure players and enemies can move to any point of the level, and we also verify that the important things in the level don’t get hidden by the layout and the blocks.

Afterwards, we start including gameplay on the level: Zombies, Revenants, events. This is the first time the level is actually tested a lot, to make sure that things work as intended, and we do several retakes if need be, because we want to validate the level before actually doing the environment, to not waste time and resources.

Lary:

Once the layout has been tested with grey blocks, we’re replacing blocks with assets and painting textures on the terrain/ground. We always start with shapes and assets that takes the most space, like buildings, fortifications, docks... It’s really important to test the level at each step, so we can avoid problems and find solutions. Is this collision readable to the player ? Do we have assets hiding characters ? Does it feel right to have this kind of asset here ?

When we’ve finally replaced every block, it’s time to add more story with smaller assets, like grass blades, ichor marks, hanging signs, etc... so that the level brings storytelling whenever it’s possible.
It’s also at this stage that we add lighting. Placing lights at the right spot helps catching the player attention and guiding them throughout the level. It also accentuates certain assets and parts of the level that are visually interesting.

The final step is the most fun! We’re polishing every aspect of the level with all kinds of elements. Starting with visual effects like flames on brazier and torchs, small fireflies around lanterns and flies on fishes.
On top of that, we add ambient sounds. Some are mostly global like wind, water around the docks, or crows and dogs barking. And we use some of them in very specific places to highlight other elements, like flies previously added in visual effects.
That final step brings a lot of detail and richness into the level.



What’s your main concern when designing the atmosphere for a level?

Lary:

We always make sure to create a different atmosphere for each level. We’re playing with many elements like the fog, lighting, weather, colors.. All of these play a huge role in the final mood of a level. A bright daylight conveys a different feeling than a foggy rainy nighttime.
It’s really important to accentuate what the level design is trying to accomplish. If an area is made to be claustrophobic for the players, we’ll avoid open vistas.
If there’s a place/area to defend, we’ll make sure to highlight it and tone down the rest.

Lucas:

We’re just making sure everything is nice and clear to the players. Design-wise, we try to communicate a lot with the way the places are built: Open / narrow spaces, pathways, obstacles, lines of sight, are the things we pay attention to.



What are the main issues you faced when designing a level?

Lucas:

Every level has to feel unique. We always try to come up with new challenges, things the players haven’t seen before in the game. We also look for “Wow Moments”, memorable events or locations that are either fun or challenging (the haybale and the shark are such moments).
However, the biggest issue design-wise is to manage the level pacing, so that players neither get bored nor overwhelmed. Just making sure the overall flow is nice and enjoyable.
There is also a tension between the level being plausible, credible (so that players can understand and relate to what is happening), and the level being interesting, challenging (so that they have fun playing through). While designing the level, we make concessions regarding either, to make sure the overall result is the best of both worlds!

Lary:

On the visual side, it’s important that each level brings something special to Darksburg. Every level should add more storytelling to support the adventure our characters are living.
And obviously we want the most beautiful result possible!



What’s your favourite Darksburg level?

Lary:

Harbor is my favorite! I really like the colours and the mood. Also, it was a blast working on it and creating assets for this level.

Lucas:

At this point I don’t really have a favorite. Each of them is a unique setting and a unique challenge, and that’s mostly what I’m looking for. I hope you enjoy playing them as much as we enjoyed making them!



We hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes, big thanks to Lary and Lucas for their time. We'll have much more to come in the near future! Make sure you pick up Darksburg on Steam if you haven't already, as there's not long left to take advantage of the launch discount!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/939100/Darksburg/

Hello there!

Based on the community feedback as well as the stats from tens of thousands of sessions completed on the servers of Gremlins, Inc., we plan to adjust special abilities of 2 characters.
Before we do this, we’d like to receive a bit more feedback – please help us by commenting on this topic on Steam forums as well as on the game’s Discord server!

This is a character that is too powerful in duels but isn't effective enough in sessions with more than one opponent. To balance this out, we consider changing the ability "Money makes money" from:

• whenever you stop on one of the income spots, your income is increased by 2

to:

• whenever you stop on one of the Income spots, your income is increased by a value equal to the number of opponents in the session (in team sessions, only players of opposing teams count as opponents)

With this change, the Banker will become stronger in sessions that have a higher number of opponents – but will become weaker in duels where this ability will provide +1 income instead of +2.

Another smaller change that we consider for this character: changing the ability "Old Investments" to provide +10 income at the start of the session, but not to give any additional money.

The intention here is to reduce the initial aggression toward this character, which is sometimes experienced due to its better starting conditions.

The main issue with this character is not its strength or weakness, but the fact that it isn't very interesting at its core because its abilities provide almost no meaningful choices. By design, the Collector also heavily relies on the size of its collection of active permanent cards – but has no tools at its disposal that could help to expand it.

To compensate this and make the character a bit stronger, we consider giving the Collector a new, fifth, ability “Excavation”:

• whenever you stop on one of the Income spots, you can choose between using the spot's effect or discarding any number of cards from your hand

This ability will make the Collector very effective at managing its hand, but in order to use it the player must reject double income (and that could be a significant sum of money), which puts in front of the player an interesting choice. This also helps the Collector in cases where the player struggles with finding permanent cards to play and expand the collection.

We very much look forward to your comments on these proposed changes in this thread on Steam Forums as well as on the game’s official Discord server. Thank you!

Our very own CEO Marjo Sutinen will be at Arcade 5 to demo the game to the crowd and talk about its development. So if you’ve been on the fence about the game and want a better understanding of it. There’s no better time to get a look! So join us on March 5, 2020 at Arcade 5!

The whole night will be about XR gaming so you’ll also get to see what some of our friends are up to, like HipFire Games. It’ll be a Blast that’s out of this World. So don’t Fail to register as Space is limited.

See we can make puns with the names of other games too.

The night is sponsored by Helsinki Games Capital, Nordic XR Startups, Immersal, and Grib. Which means there'll be food and drinks!

Helsinki Games Capital is a non-profit association that supports the capital area game industry's community, operations and culture. With the goal of having as wide representation as possible of all the different organizations around the capital area ecosystem. https://helsinkigamescapital.fi/

Nordic XR Startups is a pre-seed investor and VR/AR accelerator based in Helsinki with a mission to contribute to and improve the competitiveness of the Nordic VR/AR ecosystem and accelerate the growth of their investment portfolio companies. http://nordicxrstartups.com/

Immersal develops its AR Cloud SDK, a visual positioning and mapping solution for markerless, persistent, battery-friendly, massively multi-user AR. It can be used for enabling immersive AR experiences like indoor navigation and multi-player AR games. https://immersal.com/

Grib is the world's first 3D modeling software for Augmented Reality. You can create and design in 3D within minutes. Grib3D is for educators, kids, hobbyists, and designers to create and showcase their 3D models in AR. https://grib3d.com/

Don’t forget to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam now! And we’ll see you at the event!

Hope you all had a great holiday season and have been enjoying "The First Chapter".
Since we got back to the office we have been working on The Second Chapter but also on another patch: The Beehive Update! As suggested by many of you, we are adding beehives and everything else you will need to produce honey on your raft!

Have a look!


Make sure to surround these with some flowers and get ready to hear some buzzing on your raft!





How to get the little stingy ones to your raft? Here is the catch! Well, literally, you will catch them with the brand new sweep net and get the new item "bee jar". Later on you can use these jars for crafting the beehives!





We have also changed the way you get honey. You will now get the new item honeycomb from the beehive and use it to make some sweet sweet honey!



Hope you enjoy the companionship of the little ones on your raft, habee rafting!

//Raft HQ

• New Item: Beehive
  
• New Item: Sweep Net
  
• New Item: Bee Jar
  
• New Item: Honeycomb
  
• New Item: Good Healing Salve
  
• Changed system to obtain honey
  
• Bee Swarms on Balboa and Balboa-like islands

Here are the bugs we have fixed in this update:
• Holes on Balboa Island
  
• 2 spots on big tropical islands where players got stuck
  
• Biorefiner not accepting mango
  
• Localization errors in Russian & Spanish, special letter problem in Polish & Norwegian and minor typos
  
• A few underwater resources slightly above sea level not being lootable
  
• Trophy Board not rotatable

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on our social media to follow the development and to get a heads up when we have a new blog post out!

Discord: https://discord.gg/raft
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RaftGame/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/raftsurvivagame
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RaftTheGame/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redbeetinteractive/