I still remember the game I started making which was the beginning of Soldat. I was in high school 2000/2001 and in my free time I was coding a game called “Strike of the Dragon”. It was a karate platformer. Something like Karateka by Jordan Mechner but based on ragdoll physics.



If I’m not mistaken, the first game ever to have ragdolls was Hitman (released in 2000) and the paper written by one of its creators inspired me to do ragdolls in 2D (so I think, Soldat was the first published 2D game ever to have ragdoll physics).



“Strike of the Dragon” had platformer tile-based maps and when I conceived Soldat in my mind I knew I wanted to make something like Liero. But bitmap-based maps like Liero were out of the question because of how much memory that would take. Also I wanted the physics to be much smoother. And this is where I remembered Elastomania.



A game where you drove a motorbike on polygon-based maps. So I learned DirectX 8.0a in like a day and a half and quickly rendered polygons. When I saw those little ragdoll soldiers running on polygons I knew I was onto something big. I followed that intuition and it became reality. The rest is history and now it’s maybe time for you. Because you can join Soldat’s future and take part in its making.



Anyone interested in expanding, improving and fixing Soldat or simply interested in how it was made can now do so with the open source version. I hope this will spawn many amazing creations, mods and even full-conversions.

The current public version 1.7.1 (the one playable from the homepage and from Steam) is different from the open source version 1.8. The source code for 1.7.1 is available on request for anyone willing to join the official dev team (just email us at support@thd.vg or contact on Discord). 1.8 is available from gitHub here.

There are two reasons for this double source:

1. To prevent easy to build hacks for the current public version until an anti-hack system is incorporated with the open source version 1.8
2. Soldat 1.8 source code changes have key differences and cannot be easily merged

Soldat 1.8 key differences:

• Source can be compiled with FreePascal (instead of Delphi 7)
  
• Fully cross-platform
  
• Uses well known libraries (SDL, OpenAL, GameNetworkingSockets, PhysFS)
  
• Old GUI has been removed and needs replacing
  
• Config files have been replaced with IdTech style Cvar’s
  
• Major refactoring

In short version 1.8 allows for much more than 1.7.1.1 and we hope to see some amazing creations (like full conversions) built upon this.

More info on how to start developing the game here.

If you feel you can help checkout the To-Do list here.

And lastly a big thanks for everyone that ever contributed to Soldat, especially for helloer for putting this together and of course all the key contributors (sorted alphabetically):

Peters "daaw" Brede
Gregor. "Shoozza" A. Cieslak
Nick "EnEsCe" Cooper
Mariano "urraka" Cuatrin
Paweł "helloer" Drzazga
Daniel "Skoskav" Forssten
Justin "splitcoffe" Gascoigne
Joe "jrgp" Gillotti
Chris "ChrisGBK" GreenBank
Michael "tmtgr" Himing
Umut "ExHunter" Karakas
Tomasz "Falcon" Kołosowski
Oliver "Mr" Kuckertz
Tony "zakath" Libell
Jacob "Fryer" Lindberg
Michał "MM" Marcinkowski
Maciek "Mighty" Miłowski
Ryan "FliesLikeABrick" Rawdon
Jason "thestoreybook" Storey
Reko "reko_t" Tiira

You can watch the story of how the game started on THD's Youtube channel:



And now I’m going back to work on Soldat 2 cya!
and remember to have fun!
MM

To celebrate the United States' return to human spaceflight, we have created this interactive simulation of the #Falcon9 rocket launch in Augmented Reality.

Try on Instagram (mobile): https://instagram.com/a/r/?effect_id=2573667509560511

Try on Facebook (mobile): https://www.facebook.com/fbcameraeffects/tryit/685378668951023/

You can also explore the rocket in 3D on your browser (Desktop or Mobile) here: https://newsassim.com/playground/falcon9/index.html

Hi folks,

as the title says, we've great news:

Effie has received an Epic Megagrant!

We want to thank Epic Games for supporting us to make our dreams come true.

It's patch time, Operatives.

Version 1.03 brings several bugfixes and minor QoL updates to the table! Details below.

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SOS: SPECIAL OPERATIVE STORIES
VERSION 1.03

1) Fixed a potential progression blocker in Episode 1 wherein Agent would sometimes disappear when hacking a kiosk necessary for advancing the story.

2) Fixed a bug where interacting with the Baldwin Point outside of the SGT. Base twice would cause Agent to get stuck listening for a phone call that, sadly, would never come.

3) Improved indicators for Episode unlocks in the Study: Items outlined in gold are unlocked but incomplete; items outlined in green are completed. Locked items still don't have an outline, for story purposes.

4) Fixed a minor display bug wherein Agent's shadow sometimes was visible/controllable even when the Agent wasn't. Demons caused this one.

5) Fixed a minor bug wherein bulletproof vests sometimes developed minds of their own and ran away. Demons caused this one too.

6) Fixed a minor display bug wherein certain objects would supercede the 'YOU DIED' Game Over card.

7) Thankfully, you can now see the trees outside the Agent's window in the Study after it stops raining.

---

We really appreciate all the love and support we've been getting lately! Thanks everyone for playing and streaming our sweet babies. The world is a bit of a mess right now, and all we know how to do is make video games. We hope that's helping people out at least a little bit.

Keep on rolling,
-ATKMTN

P.S. - Have you seen our new website yet?

Our first game update is live, you can see your position on the minimap and lots of other improvements !

• Added minimap on key 'm"
  
• Added sounds for eat, jump, drink, robot detector
  
• New sounds for weapons
  
• Improved robot behaviour
  
• Fixed some broken buildings shadows
  
• Fixed getting stuck in customisation scene
  
• Fixed loot items disappearing when dragged
  
• Fixed reloading with no ammo
  
• Loot rebalance

Hello!

We’re back again with a new dose of information about our work progress on the Alaskan Truck Simulator! This week we have something we haven't shown in a long time - snowy landscapes!




Winter and rain in the city are not the same as the changing weather conditions among trees. We don't know about you, but we think that there's nothing more beautiful than spring rain in the forest :)




And what kind of weather do you like? The rainy afternoons, or the long winter nights?

Have a great week, and see you in the next one!

Westend Studio & Movie Games

Hello! I’ll be making such news posts weekly so players could see what I’m working on and what to expect in the next content update. Usually, a full content pack takes a month to prepare and playtest but Steam allows me to make a small update to address small bugs immediately. Some of the listed changes will arrive with the main content pack while others will be already active at the time I’m posting the news.

The artists received their tasks for the month and the dress may arrive at the current week if all will go smoothly. The next update will feature 2 new monster girls with unique H scenes, 2 variations each, so 4 in total. You can see monster girl types here and here. Please note, this is not the final image, just reference material to show you their types.

I was busy with polishing and tweaking the existing content along with some quality of life changes. The next week will be dedicated to the new puzzle and new explorable zone that will be the main focus in v1.2.

Added a new item called “Recall scroll”. After using it, you will be able to pick one of the safe zones like Grey castle or Hanako’s temple and Ada will teleport there. Full list of safe zones: Grey castle, Sand Town, Ayane’s shrine, Coast camp on Ikko island and Hanako’s temple. Some locations will be available after advancing the plot far enough. Alchemists and magic vendors sell these scrolls.

Fixed pathfinding logic in Deep Mine’s entrance zone. Now Ada won’t jump over a ledge on the stairs.
Added new “Cleanse” potions named “Gaia’s Tear”. Similar to the “Cleanse” skill, they will remove most of the debuffs after drinking and you can do so even under “Silence” effect.

Added shimmering effect to the teleport sphere in Ada’s room. Some players had problems finding it – I hope this will help.

Fixed Chilly Ridge zone. Now, it correctly plays background music if players load up a save there.

Adjusted Lizzy’s sprite in the castle’s garden. She’s properly looking at the blooming bush now.

Players can’t sell the shovel anymore since some did so before trying to dig up something. In case you already did this – you can get another one on Sand Town’s bazaar.

Fixed mansion’s basement. Now the scenes there won’t reset after drinking herbal tea or lust drafts. This way, players can obtain both normal and lewd variations for H scenes in this zone.

Rebalanced “Fire Enchantment” skill. It no longer gets bonus damage from the magic attack stat but received extra physical damage scaling as compensation. It’s more or less on par with “Force Wave” from mages. “Overpower” is the top damage option yet at a higher mana cost.

Fixed domination and “But Why?” achievements for Steam. Now you can properly get them all.

Made Leary stand still in the garden so she couldn’t appear twice at Titania’s cutscene.

Coast camp’s teleporter no longer requires action button to activate. Touching it is enough to trigger the teleportation back to the castle.

New monster girls 0 / 2

New H scenes 0 / 4

New puzzles 0 / 1

New dresses 0 / 1

Kept you waiting, huh?

Content Additions:

• Added a new level: Pripyat Central. You will visit Lenin Square, the famous amusement park and several nearby buildings, such as Energetik or Polissya hotel
  
• Added a new level: Fractal World “Web of Lies”. It is the conclusion of a new investigation on the board.
  
• A new story character "Olga" has been added. Olga can be recruited to the base, sent on missions and learned new skills from her.
  
• New quest “Some excuses” (part of Georgiy chain).
  
• New quest “Hardware for real men” (part of Sashko chain).
  
• New quest “Checkpoint assault” (part of Sashko chain).
  
• New quest “A voice in the woods” (new chain - Olga).
  
• Red Forest has been filled with several new events

Technology improvements:

• Chernobylite now supports DirectX 12. If you have a compatible graphics card, this should have a very positive effect on framerate. Especially AMD card users.
  
• Thanks to cooperation with AMD, we've added FidelityFX features to the game. Activating CAS should allow you to play at a lower resolution or lower "resolution scale" while maintaining very high image quality. You can also improve the quality of the game, with virtually no effect on performance. Try it, our testers are delighted! FidelityFX works on all graphics cards, regardless of the manufacturer.

Improvements/Additions:

• Many of you complain about the lack of VO in the game, which for financial reasons we are not recording right now. So we've added a system that replaces all missing VOs with a suitably processed and personalized voice creation, so that the dialogues are at least reasonably indicated. For people who do not speak Russian, at the same time using Russian VOs for the "climate" should be a quite optimal solution. The system can be turned off in options.
  
• We've improved MASS of things related to localization and UX, from interface to dialogs. Not everything is perfect yet, a lot of work ahead of us, but very many of you should feel a big improvement in this topic.
  
• You really liked the Gore system, so from now on it will also work on monsters. Enjoy tearing them to pieces.

General:

• Death in prison should not cause you to lose all your equipment in the new game loop.
  
• Sashko should already train the player and start a conversation with Igor.
  
• Fixed exploit that allowed infinite use of specific items from Storage (Thanks for @Ne mutlu from Steam Forums)
  
• Fixed several collisions in first Fractal World (Thanks for @Ne mutlu from Steam Forums)

• Resolutions higher than FHD (1920x1080) were causing rendering issues both in the galaxy view and while in a sector. This should now be corrected.

Hello Operators!

We continue our barrage of bug squashing with the latest update!

• We've added the Old West Engine and Caboose to the Trainiary!
  
• We've reduced the splash screen volume by 50%!

• We've added the missing checklist Engines and Cabooses to the Trainiary.
  
• The Trainiary counter now accurately represents how many Engines, Cars and Cabooses are in your inventory.
  
• Previously unavailable jobs are now active.
  
• We fixed an issue where the Auto Depart text wasn't returning to its default text when Auto Depart is disabled.
  
• We've added gold to the quests that were missing rewards.
  
• We've restored the gold animation for building stations.