Comrades! After reading the headline of the news, you’ve probably thought it will be about the upcoming release of the game. But... no. It won’t be about that. There’s nothing much to talk about the release. The PC release will be on February 25th. The end. Can you even call it news? Where’s the pile of meaningless text, where are the silly jokes, and pictures of Man floating against the background of low-poly rocks? That’s what we think, too. Therefore, this piece of news will be dedicated to the rare Atlantic fish "Pisces Terebro", also called the Drill Fish. Its nose has a universal drill that can function as a jackhammer and twenty-five drills for various types of surfaces. Its built-in flashlight, ergonomic grip, and its removable and rechargeable battery make this fish a unique underwater repair tool. And its slimy scales and nasty temper will keep you busy, for sure. Drill Fish – available in all Atlantic stores! Get one now and never read any news from our team.
All right, it's time to stop all this subtle hidden advertising in the news and get back to the main topic. On February 25, 2021, Breathedge will exit Early Access and will receive an update to version 1.0.
https://youtu.be/Q3TvkZ9vemA Yep, that’s right! Breathedge won’t be an endless Early Access project anymore. It will receive a completed game status, end credits, and a finished story. We all dreamed of endless development, promises, promises to promise promises, and so on... But, unfortunately, when our programmer started hitting the scriptwriter with the keyboard again, he accidentally finished developing the game. Well, it happens.
For all those who didn’t have the opportunity to buy Breathedge, play 10 minutes, and get a refund, we would like to briefly tell you that this game is about space, a suffocating Man, an immortal chicken, coffins, collecting all kinds of junk, and a world conspiracy. Of course, it has many other useful things for humanity, such as indecent inscriptions on the hulls of ships, strange humor, linear locations, and bad game design decisions, but we’ve deliberately omitted these details so as not to spoil your first and last 10 minutes in the game.
For those who bought the game, but didn’t have time to get a refund, because their spouse/mother/grandmother called them to eat some soup, we would like to remind you that the future release update will add three new, final chapters to the game. We tried to make them as dynamic and rich in terms of the storyline as possible, but things turned out as usual. In the new chapters, you will be able to fly in a spaceship, shoot into the void of space from large turrets, break something, blow up something and, if you're lucky, fix something. As a gift, in addition to the infinity of empty space, as usual, there will be a handful of collectible junk, a couple of new tools, a couple of new resources, and some joke about games.
By the way, this piece of news is translated into all the languages that will be in the game on its release. We are obliged to remind you that the project will have full text and voice English and Russian localizations, and full text localizations (textures, texts, captions, UI) in the following languages: German, French, Polish, Spanish (LATAM), Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean. And yeah, someone has covered our office walls in graffiti with the Brazilian flags because in our previous piece of news we showed only a Portuguese flag. Good thing we don’t have an office at all, but we’ll add the Brazillian flag anyway.
For those who are waiting for the game on consoles, we have some good news and bad news. The good news is that we have finished porting the game to consoles. The bad news is that we have finished porting the game to consoles. Oh, wait, something’s not right… Anyway, we’ve completely finished porting the game to consoles, but we’ll inform those of you who are interested about the release date later. It’s quite possible that the release dates on consoles will differ from the PC one due to long checkups, but we’ll still let you know what the dates are.
And the last thing: those who follow the project saw the information that Breathedge will have a small story expansion — absolutely free and, we could say, given to you by force. So, we’ve started working on it, and you can try to guess what it will be about and what it’ll have (and while you’re at it, we’ll steal your ideas).
So it goes. Anyway, if trying to be real serious, the release of the game is a big and important thing for us, and we’re glad that together with you we’ve walked this long way from the first small location to some other small location, and we even didn’t die. It was awesome, but we’ll try and make it even more awesome.
And as always, you can send all your wishes, your hurt feelings and disappointments, together with bug reports and questions, to our Discord and email. We try to read them all, and we even have some success in it.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been working on a couple of things that would further the development on our new Survivor Mode, so lets get started.
The Mountain Pass
One of the things we’ve been working on is the environment for the game, and one environment in particular is the mountain pass region.
The mountain pass is the second region that will be available for players to explore. This region consists of mossy cliffs and dried riverbeds and is home to small to mid sized herbivores looking for edible resources such as shrubs.
Aside from environments we’ve also been working and refining additional gameplay elements such as player locomotion, jumping, and diving to further enhance gameplay and user experience.
Gameplay Mechanics
In order to improve player experience, we’ve decided to refine our locomotion system.
Having a solid locomotion system is crucial as it would dictate how the character moves and feels in the game. Because of this we’ve added a few elements to the locomotion system such as an acceleration system that would further smooth out the transition from idle to walking to running, a better rotation system and animation to improve turning, and a new IK system that is more responsive.
Aside from the base locomotion system, we’ve also added several mechanics that are dinosaur specific to further differentiate their overall gameplay experience, one of which is the jump mechanic.
The jump mechanic enables players to climb steep hills and traverse through narrow gaps.
The jump mechanic is also useful for players who would like to explore alternate routes and to escape deadly encounters.
Underwater Gameplay Mechanics
Another gameplay mechanic we’ve been working on is the underwater gameplay system.
As mentioned, having a solid locomotion system is crucial, therefore we’ve decided to develop the underwater locomotion system first which would later be a foundation for other systems to be built upon. The underwater locomotion system mainly consists of swimming and diving mechanics.
Underwater Creatures
The addition of underwater gameplay would inevitably come with additional underwater creatures. These creatures ranged from small fishes to large sized marine reptiles.
One of these creatures is the Yaguarasaurus, a mosasaurid who hunted in shallow waters.
Unlike small fishes that would swim away from players, the Yaguarasaurus would try to hunt and kill players that come across its line of sight, making them dangerous for players who choose to explore shallow waters.
That’s currently it for this devlog, and more updates coming soon.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter to check out our work in progress, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos
**Event** A new crafting has just begun! Join Orion on a galactic sexcapade and meet Skye and Jupiter! Collect ingredients and craft exclusive items and maidens!
The event ends on February 22nd and the crafting period ends on the 24th.
**Features** - Added a feature in the PvP defense tab to challenge any user. This will not affect your rating, grant PvP tickets or exhaust maidens.
**Bug Fixes:** - Fixed a bug that caused Rose to cast a lot more ghosts than intended. - Fixed a bug where Eleonor could fail to swap with an ally if it had crowd control resist. - Fixed the Expert trophy appearing as debug text and failing to grant its reward.
There is now a new patch live with quite a lot of changes that we hope will help improve the quality of the game for you all.
General Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that resulted in the round timer not working properly
Fixed an issue where players were unable to pick up items once the game starts
Fixed an issue where players would not return to lobby properly if they disconnect during loading
Fixed an issue that stopped players from using items after they were healed by another player
Fixed an issue that stopped missions from working if HUD was disabled
Fixed an issue where the game would not end correctly if a player disconnected
Fixed issue with health kit not being usable on someone else unless you had taken damage
Fixed the timer in the Malacosm tutorial
Added a cooldown to jumping to help prevent bunny-hopping
Fixed an issue for players who had reached max levels that resulted in lag spikes
Fixed issue where two stairwells were clipping into each other outside the Power Plant
UI Changes
The store and inventory screens have been reorganized to have a better layout
The store and inventory screen tabs have new icons
Art
New Accessories for survivors, Construction helmets x2, Gas Masks x2 and Head Sensors x1
Powerline cables visual update
Removed railings that were blocking player paths in Helipad
Monster vines in helipad updated
Changed starting rotation of genetics spinning tanks
Added pipes to lab puzzle so that players cannot access it early
Vault briefcase puzzle has had some visual clarity improvements
Fixed overlapping meshes in Aquatics superblock
Updated suite storeroom puzzle
Morgue vent puzzle visual clarity update
Keycard dispenser updated
Updated Card swiper
Suite ‘Staff Only’ sign added
Male Lobby Idle animation fix
Suite Decal fix
Vault wall gaps fixed and Security Kit Improvements
Sparrowlock Signage replaces HM signage
Rusty Staircase Material fix
Audio Changes
Changes to music parameter values so that the transitions are less jarring
Changes to directional audio for all assets
Mixing and range changes to prisoner footsteps
Change to Sub movement audio loop
Morgue fan audio volume and ranges down
Prisoner movement breathing volume mixer added and prisoner breathing volume down (Control slider currently called “Voice Over”)
Known Issues
Occasionally, you can be randomly disconnected during loading/in-game (you will not lose any xp you have earned that game)
Occasionally, you can still crash out during loading
Finishing the prisoner tutorial will not cause the game to return to the main menu; just press escape to bring up the pause menu and exit from there until this is fixed
Pressing space during the intro cutscene will cause the monster animation in the intro cutscene to be incorrect. The game will continue as normal once space has been pressed once the player has control
The intro cutscene for the monster can occasionally not show the monster’s head
Player Experience & Leveling Balancing Changes
Prisoner Maximum Level Rank has increased from 60 to 200
Brute Maximum Level Rank has increased from 20 to 50
Bhagra Maximum Level Rank has increased from 20 to 50
Malacosm Maximum Level Rank has increased from 20 to 50
Stayed to the End XP reward increased from 300XP to 500XP
Bhagra Ceiling Lunge Kill XP reward increased from 400XP to 450XP
Bhagra Ceiling Lunge Kill MC reward increased from 2MC to 3MC
Activate Power Switch XP reward increased from 200XP to 250XP
Brute Monster Balancing Changes
Brute Sprinting Speed reduced from 5.4mps to 5.22mps
Brute Acceleration Speed reduced from 6mps to 5.25mps
Brute Charge Ability Cooldown Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 15 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 13 seconds, is now 16 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 10 seconds, is now 17 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 10 seconds, is now 18 seconds
Brute Roar Ability Cooldown Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 30 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 40 seconds, is now 34 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 35 seconds, is now 38 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 30 seconds, is now 42 seconds
Brute Roar Ability Durations:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 10 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 5 seconds, is now 9 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 5 seconds, is now 8 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 5 seconds, is now 7 seconds
Brute Tremor Ability Cooldown Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 20 seconds, is now 15 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 20 seconds, is now 16 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 20 seconds, is now 17 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 20 seconds, is now 18 seconds
[/list]
Bhagra Monster Balancing Changes:
Bhagra Tracker Ability Cooldown Times:
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 30 seconds, is now 20 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 30 seconds, is now 22 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 35 seconds, is now 24 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 30 seconds, is now 26 seconds
Bhagra Tracker Ability Durations:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 10 seconds, is now 20 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 10 seconds, is now 18 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 10 seconds, is now 16 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 10 seconds, is now 14 seconds
Bhagra Lunge Ability Wind Up Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 3 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Unchanged at 2.5 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 2 seconds, is now 2.25 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 1.5 seconds, is now 2 seconds
Bhagra Lunge Ability Cooldown Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 3 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Unchanged at 2.5 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 2 seconds, is now 2.25 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 1.5 seconds, is now 2 seconds
[/list]
Malacosm Monster Balancing Changes:
Malacosm Acceleration Speed increased from 6mps to 7mps
Malacosm Clairvoyance Ability Cooldown Times:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 25 seconds, is now 15 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 22 seconds, is now 18 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 20 seconds, is now 21 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 18 seconds, is now 24 seconds
[/list]
Match Timer Balancing Changes
Countdown Time for Power Switches & Generator Objectives:
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 15 minutes, is now 18 minutes
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 15 minutes, is now 17 minutes
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 12.5 minutes, is now 16 minutes
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 12 minutes, is now 15 minutes
Countdown Time for the Prepare Escape Vehicle Objectives:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 10 minutes, is now 12 minutes
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 9 minutes, is now 11 minutes
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 8 minutes, is now 10 minutes
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 7 minutes, is now 9 minutes
Countdown Time for the Board the Vehicle Objectives:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 90 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 75 seconds, is now 80 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 60 seconds, is now 70 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Unchanged at 60 seconds
[/list]
Mission Objectives Balancing Changes
Number of Power Switches Required:
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 3 Switches
Against 2 Prisoners: Unchanged at 5 Switches
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 7 Switches, is now 6 Switches
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 8 Switches, is now 7 Switches
Moon Pool Escape Hoist Stations Available:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 6 Stations
Against 2 Prisoners: Unchanged at 7 Stations
Against 3 Prisoners: Unchanged at 8 Stations
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 10 Stations, is now 9 Stations
Moon Pool Escape Hoist Progress Checkpoints Available:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 10 Checkpoints, is now 9 Checkpoints
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 5 Checkpoints, is now 7 Checkpoints
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 4 Checkpoints, is now 5 Checkpoints
Against 4 Prisoners: Unchanged at 3 Checkpoints
Moon Pool Escape Fuel Line Valves Available:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Was 6 Valves, is now 7 Valves
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 7 Valves, is now 8 Valves
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 8 Valves, is now 9 Valves
Against 4 Prisoners: Unchanged at 10 Valves
Moon Pool Escape Fuel Line Valves Weld Time:
[/b]
Against 1 Prisoner: Unchanged at 3 seconds
Against 2 Prisoners: Was 4 seconds, is now 3.5 seconds
Against 3 Prisoners: Was 5 seconds, is now 4 seconds
Against 4 Prisoners: Was 6 seconds, is now 4.5 seconds
It's time to dust off your trusty staff and get the party back together. Brand new For The King Adventure Pack 'Lost Civilization' is available now on Steam for £4.99 / $5.99 / €5.99 - plus a 20% launch discount.
Lost Civilization adds a veritable tropical feast of new content for players to unearth including the brand new Jungle Falls zone, two new playable character classes and lots more. Check out the trailer.
Features
Explore the lost Jungle Falls Realm A lush jungle forest beckons adventurers to explore its dense wood, but what dangers lurk under its thick mysterious canopy?
Two New Playable Characters Go on the offensive with the glory-seeking Gladiator or harness dark energy from the heavens with the wise Astronomer!
Spectacular Arena Battles For Glory! Defeat waves of enemies before a cheering crowd in the new gladiator arenas.
New Weapons Throw caution to the wind with devastating dual wield weapons or gamble on the destructive power of the versatile wands.
New Enemies and Loot More than 90 new items closely guarded by over 50 new enemies. From giant snakes to petrifying golems, the rewards are great but the stakes are even higher. [/list]
Queen's Armor now on Discord
We're also excited to reveal the Queen's Armor, a brand new armor set that can be used in For The King and all of its expansions, available exclusively on our Discord server.
Want to get your hands on the set? Just join our Discord server, follow the instructions in the #Queens-Armor channel and you'll be automatically sent a code!
Our Discord is a fantastic place to get up to speed on all things For The King - as well as find fellow adventurers to join you on your journey.
New to the land of Farhul? You can get For The King itself with a 60% discount!
Be sure to tell us what you think of Lost Civilzation on Discord and Twitter!
Want to keep up-to-date on all things For The King? Be sure to follow our store page too!
IMPORTANT: due to significant internal changes in the code, saves that are made in the current version of the game won't be compatible with the new version of the game – we apologize for the inconvenience.
Dear players:
We congratulate those of you who celebrate the Lunar New Year, and we wish everyone health and prosperity. May this year give you the strength, the resolve and the patience to change the world for the better, and to help those in need!
Traditionally, around this time of the year we release a major update for Gremlins, Inc., and this year is not an exception: today's update is especially heavy with balancing changes that touch upon characters, cards, and even locations – as well as with new features and quality of life improvements.
The new melody and the new background are also available to every player in the game for 2 weeks following this update (once this period passes, these items will remain available only to the owners of The Governor's Edition).
NEW FEATURE: IN-GAME PAUSE
It is now possible to play private multiplayer sessions with a timer, but use the pause function if something outside of the game requires your attention.
You can activate the pause at the beginning of your turn and the game (and your friends) will wait for your next action for as long as it takes.
Please note that this feature is limited to private sessions only, in order to prevent delays in sessions with random opponents.
NEW FEATURE: MULLIGAN SYSTEM
The new mulligan system gives players much more control over their starting hands.
At the start of the session, instead of receiving 6 cards with the ability to discard any of them and get random replacements, each player now gets 12 cards and chooses the 6 that they want to keep (the rest is discarded as usual).
This way, you can tailor your starting hand much better for your first few turns in the session. This also makes early inspections and arrests more justifiable, since it is now easier for other players to get a hand of cards that can be used very efficiently from the very first round.
Choose another player: they lose ːvotesː 4. If you use this card to move, lose ːvotesː 1 and ːmaliceː 1.
"No gremlin ever admits their fault, unless they find a way to hurt their competitor even more with such admission."
This card hurts your popularity but it damages your opponent's popularity even more!
NEW CARD: "CORPORATE SCAM"
“CORPORATE SCAM”
Location: Office Cost: free Move points: 3 Type: Secret, Permanent Copies in the deck: 2
Special rule:
When all copies of this card are active simultaneously: players who don’t own such cards lose ːscoreː1 per copy; players who own such cards get ːscoreː 1 per each copy that they own. All copies of this card are then discarded.
"The most reliable protection from being cheated is to affiliate yourself with the cheaters."
CHANGES IN LOCATIONS
THE OFFICE
This simple change slightly reduces the effectiveness of the Office, and makes its effect less impactful on the money of players.
THE CASINO
Over the years we got plenty of comments on the Casino's efficiency (or the lack of it). Here is the new Casino that doesn't limit your winnings, but will penalize you if you gamble for more than you can afford to lose.
Just to elaborate and make it clear: you can now gamble in the Casino even without any money, and you still have a chance to win up to $100. But if you lose, your ːmaliceː increases.
CHANGES IN SPECIAL CHARACTER ABILITIES
There are a lot of changes in the special abilities of characters that are based on server stats, discussions in the community and suggestions of top players:
THE BANKER
This change is a necessity: while it was a cool idea to have this ability on the Bribe spot, we actually can't keep it there as it creates multiple issues with the internal logic, some of which aren't fixable. Thus we move this ability to the Risk spot. The numbers won't change for now, but we can always adjust them later if needed.
THE THIEF
These changes should reduce the effectiveness of the Thief in session with multiple opponents – while keeping the character potent in the duel format.
THE COLLECTOR
These changes directly improve the character's performance, although one of them plays a bit different role. The change of "An Exhibition" adds to control of how much income the character can get from active permanent cards: now, if needed, we can change it so that every active permanent card increases the Collector's income by 30 which gives the character a much bigger boost in the early game – but with the limit of 90, it does not become overpowered in the late game when the Collector might have a lot of active permanent cards (because only 3 of them provide the actual boost).
THE POLITICIAN
Just as we have done with the Banker in the previous update, now it's time to bring in major changes of the Politician's abilities. The changes are meant to improve the character's ability to accumulate ːvotesː but provide fewer benefits during the Elections. Most importantly, the character no longer keeps ːvotesː after the Elections, which means that after each case of the Elections the Politician should work hard on re-gaining ːvotesː.
CHANGES IN CARDS
THE STASH
You can no longer use the Dump before you travel to the Treasure.
Two reasons: (1) this effect wasn't in line with all the other effects of teleportation; (2) this effect wasn't very useful in the first place, but created additional delays. Thus we streamlined the card a bit – now you go straight to the Treasure, without any delays.
EASY GAMBLE
Considering the change that we made to the Casino, the old effect of this card wouldn't make sense as there is no limit to your winnings anyway. So instead, the card now protects you from getting ːmaliceː when you lose too much money.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Thanks to player feedback, we identified two changes that can improve player experience:
Firstly, when a spectator leaves the session that they watched, they are now redirected to the multiplayer lobby – which makes navigation between different sessions that you want to spectate a bit easier.
Secondly, the drop of a new chest during the session is slightly changed so that it no longer blocks the Plant location on the Clockwork Colony playing field.
FIXES
It is no longer possible to use "Cheating" to move from the Astral to the Bank for the player who does not have active "The Astral Elevator" permanent card. Earlier, there was a very rare and very specific set of circumstances that allowed to "cheat with "Cheating"" this way, but now it is fixed for good.
Fixed a rare issue, where sometimes images of emoticons would have stuck on the screen if their hot-key was pressed while the emoticon is dragged with the mouse.
WHAT'S NEXT?
In a few weeks Gremlins, Inc. will celebrate its 5th anniversary on Steam (March 11, 2021).
In our wildest dreams, we never imagined that this native digital board game created by a small studio will reach 700,000+ owners on Steam, and bring together a community from pretty much every country in the world!
We'd like to use this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to continue updating the game, bringing new content and new features throughout 2021. We closely follow player feedback and community discussions, and we will keep making the game better with every major update!
A special "thank you" goes to the Japanese community of the game, and especially to our friend Standard of Ur, for providing early feedback on the upcoming DLC that is dedicated to the theme of Japanese Cyberpunk. This DLC is currently nearing the end of its production cycle, and will become available in the spring of this year.
Additionally, we are very close to finishing the custom modding tool that will allow players to extensively modify Gremlins, Inc. by changing the effects of cards, locations and general rules. The tool is now already in translation, we expect to release it around the game's anniversary in mid March.
Thank you for being a part of this friendly community, and we wish you all the best!
Team Charlie Oscar Vilnius Old Town, Republic of Lithuania.