To improve latency experience in SA server, we have turned off the cross-server match making between AP and SA. Please be aware this is not a final decision, we will look closely of how it goes for everyone. Thank you and have a great weekend in Conqueror’s Blade!

We’re back with our third Gears Tactics Dev Blog, as we dive into the Heroes taking the fight to Ukkon alongside your recruited and customizable Gears!



Gabriel “Gabe” Diaz is the character at the center of Gears Tactics’ story and the father of Gears 5 protagonist Kait Diaz. A natural born leader and tactician, Gabe is the key to building an organized force to take down Ukkon.

Formerly a Lieutenant Colonel in the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG), Gabe demoted himself to Sergeant after the Battle of Gatka Ridge – a brutal battle that soured Gabe’s opinion of the COG and its leader, Chairman Prescott.

Unfortunately for Gabe, Prescott is not so easily shaken off. Approximately a year after Emergence Day, hours before the COG plan to fire their Hammer of Dawn super-weapon to scorch the surface and wipe out the Locust, Prescott drags Gabe into action once more to secure some classified files before the strike. As with anything Prescott related, things are not always so simple.

Gabe is a Support Class Character, specializing in healing, buffing teammates and providing critical extra actions to teammates around the battlefield. Don’t rest on the attacking potency of the Support Class though – each one packs a Lancer with a chainsaw for instant close-range executions!



Sid Redburn is a COG loyalist to his core, willing to carry out any order given to him at any cost. Packing a whole lot of gruff, no-bullshit attitude, the only thing as serious as his demeanor is his hefty moustache.

Sid Redburn joins Gabe Diaz at the start of our story to ‘escort’ Gabe on their mission to grab the classified files.

Although he appears like a straight-laced soldier’s soldier on the surface, Sid’s background is anything but – and his vendetta against Ukkon feels like more than just orders.

Sid is a Vanguard Class Character, specializing in breaking and disrupting the enemy’s front line to create more firing opportunities for the rest of the squad. Their skillset includes debuffing enemies, intimidating them out of cover and getting into the thick of the fight with hard hitting weaponry.




Mikayla was a civilian engineer who was unable to escape the Hammer of Dawn strike zones, subjecting her to living through the horrific destruction of her own people’s super weapon. As you can imagine, Mikayla is not the biggest fan of the COG right now.

Following the strikes, Mikalya banded together a civilian militia as they fight for survival against a now very-pissed off enemy. After facing numerous assaults from the Locust with limited weaponry and an untrained civilian militia, her only goal is to keep her people alive and take out Ukkon.

No matter who you are, Mikayla doesn’t take shit from anyone – and earning her trust, especially if you are part of the COG, will be hard earned.

Mikalya is a Sniper Class Character, specializing in accuracy at long range with a much higher chance to land her hard hitting critical hits. When Mikayla’s in town, sit back and watch those heads pop.



So there you have it – the main Heroes of our story! In Gears Tactics, these Heroes will be fighting alongside customizable Gears that are recruited on the battlefield. Depending on the mission, you will be required to have one or more of these Heroes to be in your squad as you hunt down Ukkon once and for all.

Speaking of Ukkon, for our next blog, we dive into the enemies and villains you’ll be trying to take down in Gears Tactics. Consider it some advanced intel for your strategies. Look out for that blog next week.

Less than 2 weeks till release!

TC

Hey everyone! We’re back with sneak peek into the features of the next update for Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands! This time: improving your relationship with the crew members!
(Please remember, everything shown here is work in progress and still subject to change!)


Relationships are a new gameplay feature in Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands. You can improve your relationship with the crew members by helping them to settle on the Cursed Islands and decorate their houses with decoration and furniture of their favourite styles!

It’s crucial to find out what kind of gifts everyone likes to unlock new decoration pieces and which decoration style they’d love to have in their houses to successfully improve the relationship with your crew members!

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There are four different relationship milestones you can reach with each of your crew members, from “Thankful” to “Happy”. And every unlocked milestone will also grant you new perks and bonuses that will help you a lot while exploring, farming and gathering!
And as different the needs of your crew members are, as different are the bonuses they grant, too! So, it definitely pays off to improve your relationship with everyone. :)

And maybe… when you took care of every crew member, something special could happen!




Along with the new relationship feature comes a new user interface that shows you details about your relationship with a crew member, the milestones you have reached, their favourite items you already discovered and more!


For example, here you can see the different milestones you can unlock with Fiola plus every bonus they grant. We already unlocked the Milestone “Thankful” and the perk “Energizing Stew”! You can also see what kind of perks await you at the higher milestones and these perks are unique to Fiola. Fritz, Cecille and the other crew members will help you all in their own ways once you improve your relationship with them!

The new UI will also keep track of the favourite items you gifted them, their favourite styles for their home decoration and the decoration styles you unlocked. Best friends know each other and the UI will help you with that!





With the new relationship gameplay we have added a whole new layer to Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands and we hope you’re as excited about it as we are. Improving your friendship with the members of your crew will unlock all-new perks that will help you considerably on your journey, and every little helps! New activities await you with the next update. But this is a story for another time.


Are you excited about the news?
Do you want to share feedback? Just want to say hi?

Then join our Discord channel: discord.gg/rokaplay

My good friend at Aikasa Collective has just released Mizuchi!


It's a yuri visual novel with hot snake girls and asian folklore! The founder of the studio (as well as writer of the game) was the co-writer of my first game, Starlight Vega, and has been a good friend of mine for many years now. I would love if you would check out her game and consider supporting her release!


Mizuchi Steam Store

It's on a special 33% launch discount this week on Steam!

- New: Added a new map "Crash Site";
- New: Full reset (wipe) of all characters. This is a forced measure, because we have switched to new methods of accrual of experience and game currency;
- New: Authorization now works via Steam. Registration is no longer used;
- New: Added new weapon modules: ACOG, collimator sight and PSO-1 sight;
- New: Now game points are awarded for helping to kill;
- New: Added an icon for a head kill to the battle log;
- New: Weapons now have their own physics when a character dies;
- New: Added new levels from 20 to 30;
- New: Added player highlighting in the player table;
- New: Added premium shop;
- New: Added the ability to purchase a premium subscription that increases your experience and game currency by 50%;

- Changed: Significantly (!) improved physics of bodies;
- Changed: Improved registration of hits on the character;
- Changed: Increased damage when hitting the character's hands;
- Changed: Icons have been changed for the holographic sight and PSO-1;
- Changed: Recoil of all main weapons was reduced by about 20%;
- Changed: Accelerated weapon change by 20%;
- Changed: M16's Damage was increased by 7%;
- Changed: Scar-H's Damage was increased by 8%;
- Changed: Glock 17's Damage was increased by 40%;
- Changed: Colt 1911's Damage was increased by 20%;
- Changed: Improved texture of the main game map;
- Changed: Changed the position of spawn players on the game map;
- Changed: Changed rank icons to higher quality;
- Changed: Prices for some items in the game store have been increased;

- Fixed: PSO Sight now works correctly;
- Fixed: Experience and game currency are now credited correctly;

An early version of After The Collapse 0.7.0 is available in the experimental branch. Those of you who'd like to test the new features are welcome to give it a go.

We'll get over each new feature individually in more details on the official release day (count a week or two depending on feedback and bug reports). But here are the 4 major new features:

• Dogs/pets for your settlers to adopt and breed
  
• Settlers can form relations with each other giving buffs and debuffs (enemies might even punch each other occasionally)
  
• Rare and powerful artifacts to find and equip
  
• Deeper and less arbitrary mood / happiness system

It should all work but this version doesn't provide any contextual help for the new features (yet) and the french translation is quite incomplete. The relationship/friendship/enemy stuff isn't probably scaled very well to the game's pace.



Dogs can be found during expeditions (taverns are a good spot), or through traders. Artifacts are much more difficult to find by design, but worth it. Can occasionally be found during expeditions in some of the most dangerous locations, and given as a reward for clearing an abomination nest. A trader might come to your settlement in the late game.

There are many more improvements, you can refer to the changelog below for a complete list.

This early version includes all the major features for 0.7.0 proper but in an early state. More raw content will be featured in the full release, with appropriate bug fixes and minor improvements.



Of course, the 0.7 branch won't stop with this version. I have a lot more things planned and we'll go over those in a few days when 0.7.0 is officially released.

As with all major milestone updates, save-games from previous versions are not compatible with 0.7. However the official release of 0.7 will be compatible with this experimental version.

• Balance: Merged "consumable" item category into "drinks" (it was only used for dirty water, use depot filters when needed instead)
  
• Balance: Mood changes are now gradual and vary from a settler to another
  
• Balance: Joyful & Depressed are no longer timed and will always trigger whenever a settler's mood is over 85 or below 15
  
• Content: Added new traits illustrating the new mood system and edited existing ones
  
• Content: New equipment slot for settlers (backpack/artifacts)
  
• Content: Added several powerful items and artifacts to the loot and trade tables (your settlers can equip them in the new slot)
  
• Content: New artifact trader event (very rare, late game, event)
  
• Content: Settlers can now form relations with each other
  
• Content: Settlers can chat with each other, modifying their mood and relations
  
• Content: The death of a friend will cause a settler to mourn for a few days (bad morale, slow speed, low social)
  
• Content: Having friends will increase a settler's mood while having foes will decrease it
  
• Content: Settlers who hate each other may occasionally brawl (which will partially reset their relation)
  
• Content: Pet dogs for your settlers to adopt and breed (or eat, you maniacs)
  
• Content: Pets provide basic help in combat and a slight happiness boost to their owners
  
• Content: The death of a pet will render their owner sad for a while
  
• Content: Ability to share your savegames on the Steam Workshop (by Alex) (Steam Only)
  
• Content: Claimed production centers can still be explored for resources now
  
• Modding: Ability to set recipes with varying quantity produced (see data/recipes/_example.txt file)
  
• Modding: Factories can now properly understand recipes with multiple output (they sorta did already, but items would not always end up where they should)
  
• Modding: Added several mood/relation modifiers to traits
  
• Modding: Added "AI" = PetAI to npc files (they'll need a properly set race for the agents to be considered properly ownable pets and be of the animal category)
  
• Modding: Traits have the new DamageThreshold field (add/remove flat incoming damage in combat)
  
• Modding: Traits have the new MeleeDamageModifier and RangedDamageModifier fields (add/remove flat outgoing damage in combat)
  
• Modding: Added ability to toggle developer mode and menus by pressing [ctrl]+F12 (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK)
  
• Modding: Added _example.txt files to data/npc, data/racedata, data/recipes and data/traits to start documenting stuff a bit (more will come)
  
• UI: Updated trait tooltip to display mood growth/decrease modifiers when relevant
  
• UI: More legible settler character sheet displaying more info while using less screen estate
  
• UI: Updated settler info panel and population screen to take the new artifact/utility equipment slot into account
  
• UI: Added relation tab to the settler info panel (displaying friends, foes, pets)
  
• UI: The mood tab in the settler info panel got a makeover and displays more info
  
• UI: The animal info panel has been reworked and behave very similarly to the settler info panel
  
• Fixed: Possible case where a settler could stop moving (despite the UI telling you they are) until they switch to a new job on their own.
  
• Fixed: (modding) Metalsmith jobs properly tagged as "Metalsmith" instead of "Social" in data files now

We are one day early with our planned weekend patch, but decided there was no point in waiting - so here it is!


General

• Implemented fade in/out effect when armies move on world map - this has reduced a previously noticeable “popping” effect, and gives the game a more polished feel
  
  
• Added projectile tracers during combat! This makes it clearer and easier to follow the action, and we think it looks pretty fantastic. More combat beautifying and improving on the way
  
  
• Camera center on commander, on move - now default off. Added toggle under general options for those that want it on. This was pointed out and requested by many players, and it is great to finally get it supported
  
  
• World map generation tuning: We lowered the overall chance for swamps and forest tiles on the world map. Grasslands and other 1 move cost tiles are now more common. This makes traveling the map faster, and introduces more opportunity for picking optimal paths
  
  
• Accessibility upgrade: Incarnation and starting faction commander are now grouped by default when starting a new game - gentle heads up if you already internalized the old non-grouped setup. By clicking the small white grouping button you can select/deselect grouped commanders
  
  
• Combat summons (temporary units) are now included in the combat summary after a battle, but with unit icon borders in a different color
  
  
• Added last round of world map LOD optimization round. This will make the game run faster on older hardware
  
  
• Adjusted Commander UI so it is aligned with Active Selection UI. We think this looks a bit nicer and cleaner than before
  
  
• AI world map pathfinding improvement added, making the AI better at maneuvering the world optimally. This overall makes the AI slightly more effective than before

Content

• Feral Lizardman Stoner summoned by Frozen Tidemancer incarnation and sometimes found wandering out in the wild, has been moved from frontline to front support like the Scaleborne faction version

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with commander plates and Army Management button pushed off screen if too many commanders on a tile. Now also with slider, if needed
  
  
• Fixed an issue causing units to only regenerate 1 hitpoint between game turns, instead of 10% of its max health. Large health units are very happy about this fix, and will now be ready for action again faster after combat
  
  
• Fixed a tooltip issue where wandering monsters and holding garrisons willing to join you would say “Can join”. Changed to “Will join” as they always join if you walk into their tile
  
  
• Fixed an issue where shortcut to Manage Armies (r) was listed as Transfer Armies under keyboard bindings
  
  
• Fixed an issue where playing in 4K would make world map holdings disappear for some players. We would like to hear back from 4K players if issues persist after this fix
  
  
• Fixed an issue where buying a holding upgrade with lots of units and unlocks, would sometimes overlap itself in the Notification window
  
  
• Fixed an issue where getting eliminated by the AI (losing your HQ and being banished), would sometimes cause an exception
  
  
• Fixed an issue where losing the game would not let you see and inspect the entire map as a consolation prize
  
  
• Fixed an issue where summoning animation during ritual spells, was playing the basic attack of the unit instead of its spell animation
  
  
• Fixed an issue where ingame Credits screen could only be exited with ESC

My good friend at Aikasa Collective has just released Mizuchi!


It's a yuri visual novel with hot snake girls and asian folklore! The founder of the studio (as well as writer of the game) was the co-writer of my first game, Starlight Vega, and has been a good friend of mine for many years now. I would love if you would check out her game and consider supporting her release!


Mizuchi Steam Store

It's on a special 33% launch discount this week on Steam!

• Added dragon (including one example armor set).
  
• Multiplayer: Added free-for-all mode, where each player is against every other player.
  
• Added ability to upload language translations to Steam Workshop (guide here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2063591671)
  
• Fixed issue where armor pieces with blank limbs (ie. chestpiece without arms) would still generate an invisible piece of armor on the respective limbs.
  
• Fixed issue where limb symmetry would sometimes be enabled even when checkbox is not ticked.
  
• ItemCreator: Keyboard shortcuts are now disabled while modifying a textbox.
  
• Improved character spawning to help reduce overlapping with allies.
  
• Replaced Item Creator skybox.
  
• ItemCreator: Fixed alignment of certain UI elements.

In addition to the update notes above, I want to give a brief status update.
Firstly, I want to say thanks to everyone who has supported Floppy Heroes. I'm just a random developer who wanted to create something fun, and I'm so happy to see that there are people out there that've enjoyed the game.
Also, thank you to the individuals who have taken the time to provide feedback and suggestions. A number of features were added and bugs were fixed thanks to your feedback.
Thirdly, thank you to those who have shared their custom items with the community on the Workshop. You guys have crafted some really awesome-looking armor and weapons!

On a less positive note: Due to the current situation affecting the world, as well as current sales number, I unfortunately cannot commit much more time to working on Floppy Heroes 2. There were a couple features I wasn't able to implement in time, but overall the game is still a complete experience. I intend to keep an eye on the Community Hub and fix any remaining bugs, but I figured it was fair to let you guys know that the current version of the game will more-or-less be the final version.

Again, thank you to everyone who has supported the game, and I hope you all stay safe during these unpredictable times.

-Rimply

Welcome to the 2nd Ecosystem newsletter! As well as some behind-the scenes bug fixing and plenty of polish, there’s quite a few things to share from recent development this time round – including what Tom’s been working on in terms of a realistic fluid simulation, a more natural system for the plant life, and the finalisation of work on the terrain editor.


Parrotfish-like creatures swimming in a complex reef


The full game will have a far more advanced terrain editing system than currently exists in the demo. There will be extensive options for the easy generation of complex terrain, and the results can be very pretty. The short video below shows a glimpse of the potential of some of these new features.

https://twitter.com/EcosystemGame/status/1228834138272256000

The system allows large-scale base parameters for the beginning of your game such as the jaggedness of the terrain, different soil types, if it’s flat or mountainous, and lots more besides. The idea is that you can quickly make an ocean of your choosing, then edit it further manually. It’s easy to create reefs, lakes, beaches, cliffs, or even if you want to go a little further off the deep end (pun absolutely intended) alien-looking environments.


A lot of the most recent work has involved the creation of a fluid simulation. In a real-world ocean environment, the flow of currents is a vital transportation system for everything that breathes life into it.

Tom has recently been been working on a full current system, which will affect many aspects of the game. For those interested in the technical details, the new fluid sim uses a kind of Lattice Boltzmann method that accurately models the way a current flows around terrain. Plankton and eggs that creatures lay can now float in the current and be transported by it. It will also affect the distribution of nutrients, and the direction from which creatures can pick up the scent of them. In the below video the small blue lines (which are an optional visual) indicate the direction of current around a boulder .

https://imgur.com/a/uKBC8iK

The demo has fairly artificial-feeling nursery system, in that the game senses a U-shaped cove in the terrain and creates one, but they’re all as good as each other. However, in the new system, a cove really will catch eggs and plant seeds (more on that in the next section) and they will be affected by the flow of water over and around them, as dictated by the fluid sim.


Although plant life is not the focus of the game, the drive to make the whole environment feel like a unified, breathing ecosystem where everything is affected by everything else means that Tom has begun to work on a more involved system for plant growth. In the demo, once plants are placed they are static and do not respond to outside influence.

https://twitter.com/EcosystemGame/status/1236278580755259392

With the currently in-progress system, they will spread out across suitable terrain. They have their own preferences for light, soil, crowding and nutrients. If they’re healthy they will release seeds (which can be swept along in the currents, and deposited far from the parent), or if things are not to their liking they can become ill. It’s worth noting that plants will not evolve (the creatures are the evolutionary aspect of the game) but combined with everything else, they are now connected in a much more fully-featured Ecosystem. It gives more space for creatures to find evolutionary niches, and there’s no doubt some of them will be surprising.


It would seem strange to write a newsletter potentially read by lots of people and not mention the current crisis going on in the world. We hope you and your families are staying safe in your homes, and let’s all remember to be considerate to those around us whilst this virus passes. Play some games, stay in touch with your loved ones, and above all be kind to yourself and everyone.