Oct 23, 2020

Decks - Laxie

Greetings Deckbuilders!

I genuinely appreciate your interest in Decks. It has been a passion project of mine since 2019. As someone who loves collecting of all things pop-culture (from comics, to figures and trading card games), I wanted to make a game that blends the fun of collectables with the immersion of RPG worlds.

What's the plan?

The game has been in development since 2019. It now has a "stable" prototype including the core features. We test it internally with a handful of friends, collect feedback and regularly polish / implement / scrap systems. It's come a long way since the Steam trailer (recorded in March), but still has a long way to go. Some of the concepts aren't as fun as I'd like them to be, so I am constantly experimenting with new designs.

I am a big fan of community building and collaborative development. At the same time, there is a fine line between gathering feedback and releasing an early version that lacks the magic dust to make it fun. I'd love to hear what you think - would you be interested in testing very early prototypes, follow the development through updates, or simply wait for a stable release? I am open to all of these options.

What's been added since March?

Units / Cards

There were 50 cards scheduled for launch and all of these are implemented. This means each one has a unique art card, along with the in-game unit. Units have different models, stats and many of them have abilities. The variety is quite decent, with multiple viable playstyles at the moment. I love running quirky decks that rely on area spells or sacrifice. Other testers enjoy ranged unit decks or more stable decks based around buffs and healing.

Maps

The playable maps have undergone huge changes since the early days. There were 8 playable maps - some large, some small. Some with vast open environments, some with tight in-doors corridors. The general feedback was that small, dense maps are much more fun. This led me to develop the Blitz game mode - a pool of 10-minute maps that have a few progressively more difficult monster camps and a boss.

Going forward, I'd like to build on this mode. There is now a Blitz queue, which lets you join a random Blitz map with another player. The idea is to let you quickly queue for short, replayable maps. You get to earn rewards at a faster pace and enjoy the feeling of building up an army to confront a boss.

Randomization / Scaling

The early maps were entirely static, which made them fairly boring and predictable. Each of the Blitz maps now has fully randomized camps. This means the monsters are spawned from a thematic pool. Desert maps spawn various types of orcs, city maps spawn guards, etc. The difficulty scales both with the number of players and increases throughout the map. As a result, each playthrough is fairly challenging and lets you play solo or with a friend.

I have been thinking of randomising the map terrain as well, but that is a longer-term goal.

Rewards

The reward system has also undergone heavy changes since March. Initially, I envisioned a system where you earn currency for each completed match. You would then visit the store and spend your currency on new packs. This felt quite grindy and repetitive - it made the games more of a chore.

The second iteration was a free battle-pass. Each map would award a flat amount of experience, which would then progress you along a reward track. It broke down some of the repetitiveness. You'd get bigger rewards at key milestones and have stuff to look forward to. Still, I wasn't thrilled with the flat XP reward.

I am now implementing the third iteration. Each monster you kill has a chance to drop a loot item. These come in different rarities and have lore text. More difficult monsters are more likely to drop better loot. At the end of each match, your loot items are converted into experience that then progresses you along a reward track. I am hoping this will make the moment-to-moment gameplay feel more rewarding, as you are directly rewarded for killing enemies (not just receiving a flat reward per map).

Quality of Life

There were hundreds of smaller additions since March. This includes character voice lines, camera rotation/zoom, spells, control groups, boss monsters, chat improvements, new UI, tutorials - there is a lot being added each week.

At the same time, a lot of the unfun stuff is constantly removed and iterated over. Which brings me to the last section:

What's on the horizon?

Playtesting

If you are keen on helping develop the game, I'm always looking for more feedback. The majority of features have been implemented based on tester feedback. Keep in mind it's a very early prototype (much rougher than most Early Access games on Steam), but if this doesn't matter to you, get in touch.

Comment on this post, I'll add you to my Friend's List and send you an early Alpha code. You'll get to see the current version, and I'll explain how you can provide feedback!

Lore

Much of the world-building was put together to test gameplay. There are backstories for the characters and places, but nowhere near what I'd like them to be. I will be posting lore updates on some of the characters and am hoping to hear what themes you'd like to see in Decks.

Community

All of my previous projects always had amazing communities, many of which I keep in touch with to this day. Decks will be no exception - it is a community project and I'm hoping to slowly introduce it to more and more people. By the time Early Access launches, we will have a fun, vibrant group of people you can get to know.

We already have a Discord you are more than welcome to join. I'll also be more active through Steam, both on the forums and in terms of updates. The game is fully integrated with Steam/Discord, so these platforms are ideal homes for the Decks players.

Stay tuned for more...

Once again, I am extremely excited to have you onboard for the project! It's amazing to see others interested in the game, helping to provide feedback and follow along for the ride. There is a lot more on the horizon and I can't wait to share it with everyone else.

In the meantime, hop in our Discord and comment on this post if you're up for very early testing.

Oct 23, 2020

development update #59

FISHERY - Undercover Cheese

Hello everyone,

It has been another fruitful week. Quite a few important problems have been solved and a few new-ish ideas implemented. We are edging ever closer to our big update to the build. I will stay away from the trap of trying to precisely predict the date of this update but I will say that it looks like the update will be on steam in less and two weeks and one day, probably.

Panda Platy Female:

Panda Platy Male:

These two lovelies are Panda Platies. Platies always seemed to me to be very relaxed and peaceful fish and after a week or two of intense work painting betta fish it feels good to add a fish to the game that is just happy to be there and hang out. Fortunately there are quite a few Platies still left to paint and we are still yet to add Mollies and Swordtails to the game but we hope to have at least two species of each added by the end of the year.

Auto Enabling Powered Devices:

This sped up gif shows a new feature that was added this week. Electrical devices now have the ability to turn themselves off and on again depending on the circumstances of the water chemistry (or if their operating system crashes hehe). In the above example there is a small aquarium with some plants inside that are consuming more Co2 than is coming into the aquarium. This causes Co2 levels to drop and eventually the Co2 will be completely gone and the plants will eventually suffocate.

New Airstone Settings UI:

However the new "Auto Enabling" feature is activated and the airstone checks to see if the current Co2 saturation is below the minimum Co2 saturation threshold. If so tt turns itself on and keeps adding Co2 into the water until it reaches the maximum Co2 saturation threshold at which time it turns itself off.

These thresholds are set by the player for each device that they add into the aquarium that uses this feature so there is a lot of room for fine tuning and experimentation. Setting both thresholds to Zero will cause the device to turn on and stay on indefinitely. This now works with all electrical devices that are currently in the game. That also includes in the plumbing. All the devices that regulate temperature, Co2, oxygen etc all use this feature now. There are some devices that will not use it. Certain devices use a passive or chemical process to modify water chemistry and can't be turned off. Co2 and oxygen scrubbers use a chemical reaction to remove gas from water in the exact same way that Gas masks use activated charcoal to remove harmful chemicals from the air. The only way to turn these off is to remove them from the system.

One of the more striking aspects of the above gif is that it appears as if the aquarium is breathing. These devices are life support after all and we think this features adds another layer of interest and depth to the game that might be overlooked.

Some of you who read last week's post may have been slightly tickled to read that we are going to reveal an upcoming feature that we had previously decided not to add.

The new simulation system works in a slightly more realistic way than the previous iteration. For instance if we put a single filter in an aquarium that is full of waste it will eventually filter out all of that waste. The old system did not do that, it simply reduced the waste by a certain amount and that was that. It was highly deterministic but lacked a sort of intuitive chaos that is inherent in natural systems. the initial version of fishery that was released had a simulation system similar to what we have now but it was all chaos all the time. We have learned a lot in the last year and now we can solve these problems.

The auto enabling feature we just added will allow players to control their aquariums without lots of busy work all the time. It can be a system that is set up and left alone with only minor tweaks needed as new organisms are added. It also allows more experienced players to push the boundaries of what is possible.

The light bulb moment came to us when we were thinking about what the natural equivalent of this artificial life support is. This is because we want players to be able to try and set up an all natural aquariums without any artificial life support if they want to try it. It will also play a big part of a career mode storyline. But what natural mechanism can allow such a thing to occur???

A day and night cycle of course! (this is the teased feature)

Yes it was staring us in the face and was even mentioned by players on the forums many months ago to which I replied "nope". Though in my defense I felt I did not have enough reasons to add a day an night cycle into the game at that time because of game worked. I am also not a fan of just added features to the game just because most other simulation games have it or because it just helps things to be real for the sake of being real. Most of the important features on the game need to have at least a semi-good reason to be there and at this point in development having a day and night cycle solves a lot of problems.

Photosynthesis and respiration. during the day plants breathe Co2 and exhale oxygen while but at night they breathe oxygen and exhale Co2. The Co2 and oxygen levels fluctuate in opposite directions as these cycles progress. This ensures that if left alone and under the right circumstances the Co2 and Oxygen levels will exist in a state of balance over time and never spiral out of control unless there are large changes to the system. These changes in an aquarium could take the form of leaving the light on for too long or suddenly adding many more plants or fish.

Algae can now be simulated in a more interesting and natural way because algae growth is often attributed to having too much light in an aquarium that also has an abundance nutrients.

Fish like to rest at night so that allows us to add more behavioral variety to our fish. Most fish also like to spawn early in the morning at first light. This ties in nicely with the breeding features we are about to add.

Now that we are adding breeding features suddenly the concept of age has some importance and has a use. Fish will have lifespans and grow over time from fry to juvenile to an adult and hopefully die at an old age happy and contented with lots of babies. This also means that players will also be able to track the age of their entire aquarium.

Some fish are nocturnal and are more active at night. Some live so deep in the ocean that there is no sunlight. Yes we are going to add angler fish and other deep sea beasties but players will need an aquarium with very low light in order to keep them happy.

There are a lot of smaller features and interesting game tweaks that will happen as a result of adding a day and night cycle. It is not a particularly difficult feature to add but like every other feature it will start off pretty basic and we will build upon it over the months. The first version will most likely just be a bit of UI that shows the time of day, players have the option to turn the light off and on and there will be changes to fish and plant behaviour. The speed of each day will not be realtime of course. Our initial thoughts is that each day might be around 12 minutes. No doubt there will be lots of discussion and testing until we get it right.

Well this post is getting a little too wordy so more details on exactly how the day/night cycle will work will have to come at a later date and with more visual aids.

As usual we wish you all a very good weekend and thank you all for your continued support of our weird little aquarium game.

The Fishery Team

Oct 23, 2020

Rebels! Drox Operative 2 patch 0.822

Drox Operative 2 - Soldak Entertainment

Rebels! This patch adds rebels as a playable option, makes all of the rebel factions more interesting and unique, fixes a memory leak, and fixes several other more minor issues.

0.822 change list:

rebels are now playable once unlocked
fixed emitters from fake entities never being removed (very likely a slowdown over a long play session) (happens because fake entities are never deleted but added to a reuse list) (Jean)
decreased spawn count of effect models (should make many of the larger explosions faster) (Takarias)
Human Rebels now have traits: Caste System, Xenophobe, Radical Militaristic, Expansionist, and Aggressive
Dryad Rebels now have traits: Slavery, Xenophobe, Militaristic, Regeneration, and Ruthless
Utopian Rebels now have traits: Xenophile, Pacifist, Industrial, Trustworthy, and Generous
Fringe Rebels now have traits: Freedom, Xenophile, Pacifist, Regeneration, and Productive
Hive Rebels now have traits: Freedom, Pacifist, Brilliant, and Economist
Drakk Rebels now have traits: Xenophile, Pacifist, Natural Flyers, and Trustworthy
Lithosoid Rebels now have traits: Militaristic, Hardy, Ruthless, and Demanding
Cortex Rebels now have traits: Caste System, Radical Xenophobe, Militaristic, Uncreative, and Ruthless
Shadow Rebels now have traits: Freedom, Xenophile, Pacifist, Cheap Repair, Stealth, and Trustworthy
Brunt Rebels now have traits: Freedom, Xenophile, Radical Pacifist, Cheap Repair, Productive, Economist, and Generous
Scavenger Rebels now have traits: Freedom, Xenophile, Pacifist, Reverse Engineering, and Economist
added 9 new planet bonus icons
added tributaryFormed sound
fixed Extended Shields not working correctly and also crashing if used with Energy Transfer (DysDaemoN)
removed AddAdditionalChance from AntiMatterField
fixed a couple issues with system ownership (The Grand Mugwump/ScrObot/Eris Shrugged)
can now ram stationary objects (Darke)
highlight text no longer overlaps highlight icon (ScrObot)
changed default system map zoom to make map larger
virus and freeze weapon types now mention distance penalties just like normal beam weapons do (Destro)
decreased select size of most stations to better fit actual size (Destro)
added race icon to main choose race buttons
now highlighting a subrace/rebel icon on choose race ui shows icon
fixed Justice desc translation
removed Drox Operatives part from minion name (gou)
fixed cheat_unlockRaces

Oct 23, 2020

GRAVEN Dev Blog #1 - Lore

GRAVEN - 1C_David

GRAVEN breathes as much in its lore as it does in the creatures, buildings, or people. It is not written as padding or filler, but an additional thread traversing the world. Lore is everywhere, though not always obvious, and the presuppositions of it inform the structure of the game world.

Inspiration can strike from many vantage points, though I would credit my avenues for the lore to evocative lyrics, such as the early works of Opeth and Tristania, but particularly the writing of M.R. James whose subdued and curiously grounded ghost stories made the mundane fantastical in already fantastic circumstances. Paired with such influences, and an inclination as an armchair theologian, GRAVEN’s protagonist being a priest drew these components together, and they guide me from the esoteric to the expository.

GRAVEN takes place in a different universe, a purely physical one. Under the benevolent but distant eye of a creator, there is no ethereal element, simply the world as experienced. Though how it works is far from mundane or without mystery. Magic is real, and controversial. Its convenience entices, but the risk is pulling upon the garment of reality. Civilized society has thus long eschewed it, in favor of a strong manual work ethic, and ingenuity. The peaceful world is their church, difficult though it may be, as beyond those borders reside those who indulge in magic, and thus lose themselves, and the world around them.

The Priest is a walking contradiction, a man sentenced to death in the desert, who lives and breathes the fetid swamp air. A devout follower who abstained from magic for its corrupting nature now effortlessly channels it, compelled by greater forces. This is part of why the player is the exception in this world, the priest is the squared circle to the dilemma and existential threat facing all of them.

An early example of this can be found in lore scraps and conversations in the first quest, depending on how you handle it. When you approach the gates of Cruxfirth, there are two postings on the wall, one of which is from a woman, desperately searching for her son who has gone missing. Immediately beyond this is the Tax Collector, who asks that you illuminate the lighthouse. On the approach to the lighthouse, you can find a diary, written by a boy who speaks of a golden opportunity to get out of town, after completing this one job. Cut and dry stuff for sure, but if you were to return to town and speak to the Tax Collector again, he greets you impatiently, and compares your performance to “that boy.” Thus we learn a little bit about his character, his approach regarding others, and the fact that he would send a boy just as well as a grown man on such a dangerous mission speaks to either his self-importance, cowardice, or both.

Lore is not simply explanation or clarification, nor is it purely external. The Priest makes notes as you play the game, picking up on details that you might have missed. The scribbling of quill pen upon parchment should tip you off to consulting the journal. Perhaps the mosaic has an asymmetry, or that creature lurched strangely when struck in a particular way. There are other writings as well to peruse, it is a literate society after all. Lost diaries detailing private plans, ledgers indicating business endeavors, and scholastic research about strange creatures. You can find entirely new opportunities, resources, and quests through the lore. Not everything is delivered to you through a citizen approaching.

As knowledge is pursued, it is gained, and this gain brings power. But if you learn of cryptic passages to forgotten hovels, buried beneath moss and grave soil, will you avoid it? Or will this knowledge tempt you, tempt you to explore, and uncover things not meant for a human to experience. What lurks in the sunless fog beneath catacombs? What lives in manors that bear no vermin, as rats know to avoid them? What horrors await you? What knowledge? What power?

Wishlist the game here to find out...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1371690/GRAVEN/

Oct 23, 2020

Dev Message | Special bonuses

Dead by Daylight - PatBrutal_BHVR

This update played a few tricks on us, so how about some sweet treats instead? This year we have some special bonuses for you to enjoy as a thank you for joining us to celebrate this spooky season together!

The below free DAILY LOGIN GIFTS* will be given via a popup upon entering the game during the below periods:

Oct. 24th 11AM ET – Oct. 30th 11AM ET
• 500 Iridescent Shards per Day (3,000 Total)
• 20,000 Bloodpoints per Day (120,000 Total)

Oct. 30th 11AM ET – Nov. 1st 11AM ET
• 2,750 Iridescent Shards per Day (5,500 Total)
• 100,000 Bloodpoints per Day (200,000 Total)

Nov. 1st 11AM ET – Nov. 4th 11AM ET
• 500 Iridescent Shards per Day (1,500 Total)
• 50,000 Bloodpoints per Day (150,000 Total)

BONUS: Hallowed Curse outfits are temporarily discounted to only 9,000 Iridescent Shards for the duration of the event! (only for outfits on original Characters)

Treat yourself to some sweets with enough Iridescent Shards for a full original Character, or Hallowed Curse outfit! This was the first Hallowed Collection to be released in Iridescent Shards for all players to be able to earn for free, even after the Eternal Blight event has ended when it will return to the normal Iridescent Shard price. Keep spreading the Halloween scares year-round!

Enjoy, and Happy Halloween!

*All login days start and end at 11AM ET

P.S. There will also be a Halloween weekend Bloodhunt for 2x Bloodpoints from Oct. 29th 11AM ET – Nov. 2nd 11AM ET. Stay tuned!