Apr 30, 2020

X-Morph: Defense - voidreaver

Hello!

We are very happy to announce that X-Morph: Defense is now available at the historically highest discount of 80%! The discount applies to the main game, all the pieces of DLC and the Complete Edition.

X-Morph: Defense is our unique twist on the Tower Defense genre mixed with some classic shoot’em up mechanics. You step into the role of one of the X-Morph, an extraterrestrial life form with one goal in mind - assimilate all usable planets to ensure the survival and growth of their own species. On their journey across the galaxy, the X-Morph stumble upon Earth and decide to conquer it. However, humans are not going to give up without a fight.

Over the course of the X-Morph: Defense campaign your task is to protect the Harverster Cores from human interference in various regions of the Earth - you will visit all inhabited continents and squash the human resistance. Make use of various defensive towers and connect them with impenetrable laser fences to force your enemies into changing their tactics. Fight your enemies directly using the various forms of the X-Morph ship - each with a unique weapon.

On their Judgement Day humans will try everything to stop the invasion of their planet. They will send massive experimental mecha war machines to try and prevent the X-Morph from annihilating the human race. Epic boss fights will test your battle skills and leave entire cities in ruin. X-Morph: Defense features dynamic, destructible environments. Given enough firepower, you can destroy all the objects on the map, including bridges and skyscrapers. Use that to your advantage by blocking key access routes to your core.

The game features a single-player campaign and an endless survival mode - both playable either in single-player mode or in local split-screen co-op (also available online thanks to Steam Remote Play Together).

Whether you’re an elite strategist or master destroyer - you will find something for yourself in X-Morph: Defense. If you’re still not convinced - check out the free demo version!

Apr 30, 2020

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD! UPDATE 1.0.17 IS HERE

Last Year - LastYearPromQueen

Greetings, Brother and Sisters!

It’s finally here! Elastic Games is proud to present Last Year version 1.0.17! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.17, we’ve made major improvements to your Last Year experience:

1) BRAND NEW TUTORIALS: Last Year 1.0.17’s major feature are new tutorials for both Classmates and Fiends. The tutorials are short segments that teach the players the basics of the game, so that when they enter a match for the first time, they’re not thrown in the deep end. Both tutorials have four segments each.

2) IMPROVED MATCHMAKING: 1.0.17 adds the Ping of players in the lobby, and now sorts lobbies by the following criteria, in this order: ping, player “rank,” then age of lobbies. The first is so that everyone playing gets the best possible gameplay experience by reducing high pings. The second is to ensure everyone is playing against players of relatively comparable skill, and the final one is to ensure that the people that have been waiting longest are served first. Because there are now more parameters than before, it’s likely that you may wait a little longer for lobbies. However, this is all in service of ensuring that everyone has the best gameplay experience.

3) BRAND NEW COSMETICS: 1.0.17 introduces the first “premium” emotes, “Freeze Frames” for Classmates, and “Photobombs” for Fiends, which can be unlocked with Mystic Ore. The update also contains 4 new sets of collectable skins: “Camping” Skins for all characters, “Heroes and Villains” Skins for all characters, “Frost” themed skins for Fiends Characters and Classmate weapons, and “Gold” themed skins for Classmate weapons.

4) BRAND NEW ARCANUMS: With 1.0.17, both Classmates and Fiends will have their own Arcanums! These include Spells, Challenges, Stash Card Rewards, Mystic Ore Rewards, and exclusive Skin Rewards. Once spells are unlocked and equipped, they will stay equipped until swapped out by the player. All Classmates can equip two spells, and Fiends can equip one spell per Fiend in their Fiend Decks. Since Tokens are no longer needed to unlock/buy spells, they have been removed from the game.

5) REWARD REWORK: Starting with 1.0.17, individual performances now determine the amount of Stash Cards awarded at the end of a match. For Classmates, advancing objectives, killing Fiends, rescuing Classmates, and escaping determine your cards. For Fiends, killing Classmates, springing traps, successful ambushes, and preventing escapes determines your cards. The Team or Fiend performance will now act as a multiplier on the base amount of Stash Cards you received from your performance: 0-2 escapes/kills awards +10% cards, 3-4 awards 25%, and 5 awards 50%. This allows players to continue their progress in a predictable way, no matter what kind of game session they get, with exceptionally great performances on either side getting a bit more of a boost at the end.

6) FIEND UTILITY ABILITIES: Each Fiend now has a distinct Utility Ability that will allow them to engage or disengage with the Classmates more easily, allowing them to set the pace of combat. None of these abilities will do damage to the Classmates but will instead give the Fiends more opportunities to be creative in how they can deal damage, or escape from being damaged, when in combat with Classmates.

7) DAILY TRIALS: These are small challenges that players will receive every 24 hours should they log into the game, and will reward the player with small amounts of currency to help them towards their cosmetics goals. Some challenges are easier, could be completed in 1 or 2 matches, and will reward players with Stash Cards. Others are tougher, probably need 3 or 4 matches to complete, and reward players with Mystic Ore. Each player receives two challenges a day: one for Classmates, and one for Fiends.

We’ve also made several balance changes and bug fixes. While they are very numerous and subtle, here are some of the bigger, more noticeable changes we’ve made:

- All levels now start with the Classmates “locked in” their opening room until The Fiend spawns into the game
- Classmates no longer have collision with one another
- Fiends no longer have collision with Cryptids
- All speed values have been adjusted to compensate for the above changes
- Maximum scrap has been increased to 40, and most scrap costs for items have been adjusted for balance purposes
- Flashlights have been added to levels as items that can be picked up
- The Slasher has been given two more ambushes in The Sawmill map
- Classmates are now invulnerable and lack collision when respawning from a rescue room to allow them to escape The Fiend. Attacking or performing actions will cancel the invulnerability state
- The Slasher’s Cleave ability now knocks Classmates back
- The Spider’s venom now destroys turrets
- The controller layout for Fiends has been improved: both trigger buttons now push or throw the Classmates when they are grabbed by the Strangler and Giant, and the quick execution button for Strangler is now mapped to X
- The helmet now has a health bar displayed for the Fiend similar to the Fiend’s Shield health bar
- Fiends’ basic attack damage has been increased slightly
- The Spider now has both a walk and sprint speed
- Adrenaline no longer provides a speed boost, but now heals for 30 HP. It still gives infinite stamina
- Pipe bombs and Proximity Mines now do slightly more damage to Classmates, killing them instantly if they are at “ground zero”
- Fixed bug in the Belltower escape sequence that blocked Fiends from spawning out
- Fixed performance drop whenever rescue rooms are opened
- Optimized AI to improve framerate and performance
- Fire and explosions no longer destroy objectives

We’ll be monitoring the community to ensure these changes and fixes are working and being well received. This is our most ambitious update to the game so far, and we’ve very excited to see the community’s reaction to it!

Thank you all again for the continued support of this title, and your faith in this dev team. We’re all working very hard to bring you the best Last Year experience possible!

See you in The Nightmare!

Unitas,
Brother Justin

Apr 30, 2020

Blackrose Arts is being awarded Epic MegaGrant & Coming patch

VALHALL Tests - AlexC

Hey guys,

We hope you are staying healthy and safe through these challenging times.

With great excitement, today we want to share that Blackrose Arts is being awarded a MegaGrant!

Our team reached out to Epic back in the summer. This is a huge honor for us to have been selected.

We're incredibly grateful to Epic Games for supporting independent developers at the stage when it is really necessary.

The grant doesn't limit us in any way, we remain ownership and the ability to publish on any platform. Soon we will place a nice badge in the rewards section of our Steam page.

We also thank you guys for your support from the beginning of our journey, we achieved it together.

In the previous update we wrote about the negotiation with investors. They are ongoing, we are considering current proposals and are waiting for several others. This is still necessary for the scale of our plans, but we emphasize that we consider only those options that remain our independence.

Meanwhile, thanks to the grant, we connect more devs to active work and the game state where players can have fun from the full expereince of fighting will be achieved faster.

Grant funds will arrive in May. You will see more frequent patches adding playable content.

Also now we are preparing an evolved official website. It will have detailed info about the game and a short term roadmap. We will publish it in the update.

The patch will be uploaded the next week!

- Improved fighting dynamics.

- Offline mode. Kills score in the end. Timer doesn't break after reload. Fixed respawn loop.

- Bots added.

It's their the first coming, don't surprise if some of these guys lose interest to you during the battle.

They can do combo attacks.

- Mjolnir added.

We got many requests to try the hammer asap even if it is not fully finished - you can smash, but you'll see what what we wrote earlier about the need for animations.

A new bonus is based on your suggestions shared with us through the form in the previous update. Special thanks to @novax for such cordial suggestions and wishes.

There were a lot of interesting ideas. We would like to mention that you will continue to receive new bonuses during the next stages too, as surprises.

The most we liked the concept of making testers feel valued by other players on the battlefield - a new bonus item will have organic glowing elements making you look different. This item is a special one-handed axe. We don't share its name now, but in the next updates we will show how this powerful weapon looks and you will be able to read about its lore on our new website.

Indiegogo backers and Steam tester both will receive this axe. We remind that all rewards will be available in your Armory from the Early Access launch.

In the future updates and on our website you will see new special bonuses announcement and completion

We are sincerely grateful for all the words of support you added to the form.

Best wishes,
Blackrose Arts

Apr 30, 2020

Blackrose Arts is being awarded Epic MegaGrant & Coming patch

VALHALL: Harbinger - AlexC

Hey guys,

We hope you are staying healthy and safe through these challenging times.

We also thank you guys for your support from the beginning of our journey, we achieved it together.

The patch will be uploaded the next week!

- Improved fighting dynamics.

- Offline mode. Kills score in the end. Timer doesn't break after reload. Fixed respawn loop.

- Bots added.

It's their the first coming, don't surprise if some of these guys lose interest to you during the battle.

They can do combo attacks.

- Mjolnir added.

We got many requests to try the hammer asap even if it is not fully finished - you can smash, but you'll see what what we wrote earlier about the need for animations.