Ahoy landlubbers, look what I just fished out from the sea:
Yup, we've got a brand new trailer up, finally showcasing our gameplay and how silly and chaotic it can get! If you liked it, make sure to SMASH that like button and SHARE that video - it helps us a lot!
Needless to say, we're very excited with how the game is progressing, but we've still a lot of work ahead of us. Right now, we're scratching the half-way point content-wise, if you don't consider polishing and finalizing it. While we're estimating a Q2 2022 release window, I believe if all goes well Q1 should be a possibility as well. We'll have a proper date once we're confident in having one.
In the meantime, stay tuned - we're far from done showing the game!
Drifters Loot the Galaxy - Drifters Loot the Galaxy
Log in any time this weekend for a new free skin challenge!
Logging in will immediately add a new, exclusive challenge to your account! Once you complete the challenge, make sure to claim it to unlock a brand new free Sumo skin, Night Brawler! Be sure to complete the challenge before Monday, June 21st to claim this exclusive skin.
There are now 8 new offensive structures that the player can use to their advantage, as well as blueprints in order to unlock them. Verde also rewrote the entire building system and changed some visual parts of the game. See below for more details and feel free to ask in the steam community or in our Discord here if there is anything you feel unsure about.
New Content
Blueprints and Advanced Buildings
You can now find blueprints in the map, they unlock upgrades for the base cannon
The upgrade remains unlocked only for the current run
They form a path from the spawn, so the position of the next one is somewhat predictable
8 New Buildings:
Behemoth:
Deals 20 times more damage than the regular cannon
Has a massive AoE
Very slow projectile
Cannot fire at enemies too close to it
Low Attack Speed
Flamethrower:
Deals continuous damage
Hits everything within an arc, which gets wider with AoE improvements
Does not benefit from attack speed
Laser:
Deals enormous continuous damage
Only hits a single enemy at a time
Has a delay to change targets, which is reduced by attack speed
Machine Gun:
High base attack speed
Attack speed gets higher as it fires continuously
Low base damage and AoE
Accuracy dimishes as it fires continuously
Missile Launcher:
High damage and AoE projectiles
Missiles track and always hit their target
Missiles can change target if their old target is dead
Projectile Path may be difficult to predict
Sawblade Launcher:
Shoots Sawblades that may hit enemies multiple times
Hits every enemy along its path
Hit Frequency scales with attack speed
Cannot fire again until the sawblade is back
Sniper:
Has a very high range and scales twice with range upgrades
Hits the enemy instantly, no projectile required
Deals high damage
Has no AoE and does not benefit from AoE upgrades
Low base attack speed
Tesla:
Deals its current shield as damage
Its range scales with how many shields are affecting it
Fires instantly once its shields are full
If the hit overkills, it hits another target with the remaining damage
Does not benefit from most cannon upgrades
Drains shield in order to attack
Cannot attack if the shields protecting it are under attack.
Narrator System
The old "flash on the screen" system got replaced with a robotic narrator
It will tell you when you are damaged or a boss is about to spawn
Changes
Spawning Algorithm Changes
Enemy cap was increased from 100 to 200
Enemy spawns due to base destruction cannot happen if the enemy cap is more than 80% filled
Balance changes
Emergency Batteries no longer affect shields
Confort Zone now happens once per second instead of continuously, it also has a particle effect
Shield Inductance now uses 1%(linear) of all shield instead of 3% of the strongest 1(linear) shields generators
"Removed" content
Tesla tower is no longer a wild building, instead it is a cannon upgrade.
Flamethrower is no longer an active skill, instead it is a cannon upgrade.
Quick Building is now default
There is now an UI element on the bottom right to show what what key does
Quality of Life
Buildings no longer tick, instead they are 100% reactive, so base size no longer affects FPS.
Holding ALT now pauses the game, so you can read your tooltips in peace.
Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG - Iron_Orca
Dear subscribers! Once again, the latest issue of the post-apocalyptic CRONUS weekly is on your screens. Can anyone hear us?
What a week it's been, dear employees. A new trailer, the Linux version of Encased and new information about the game. Let’s talk about it!
Encased on Linux
Employees, the development of Encased on Linux is in full swing and here is the first screenshot! For now we cannot promise that the Linux version will be available on the same day as the Windows version, but, as you can see, it will definitely appear.
Which of you are waiting for this particular version of Encased? Tell us in the comments :)
CRONUS needs you
Here's the new trailer from our great publisher, Prime Matter; if you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should.
Our team wants to thank each and every one of our players once again. Without your support, we would have never been this close to the release of our dream game.
Full version of Encased coming September 2021!
One of our publisher's big announcements at E3 was the almost final release date for Encased. We now know the month — September.
In the remaining months our team will continue to add new art, polish locations, and fix bugs. We're working hard to release the perfect version of Encased in just a few months. Thank you for continuing to support us!
Encased community is the most important for us - we are going to follow up those closely for your feedback on the game.
The game is still in the development so if you want to stay in touch on other channels than Steam you can follow us on social media and visit other cool resources with game updates information new artworks and lore pieces.
Hello friends! Every Friday 17:30 UTC/GMT we hold a “Let’s play together” competition. During next 24 hours everyone is welcome to try and score the best time in a preselected level. Join our Discord server and keep Discord running while playing — your results will be automatically published in the #lets-play-together channel. You need to get 5 stars to qualify.
Glittering prizes include: 1) Top 3 winners receive one random card each. Collect 18 locomotive cards and advance to next set of 6 all new cards! Complete that second set and enter a final tier of 2 very special and super limited cards! Assemble 26 cards and receive a special prize. Easy! 2) Every player registered by our Discord bot has a chance to get a card. The number of cards depends on the number of participants: one additional card for every 10 train connoisseurs on the list. More players means more prizes! Visit our Discord server (#lets-play-together channel) to learn more.
Erin - From time to time in the game, Cosmo will call you to relay some very important information (usually a new task or to tell you to stop hiding his clipboard). We’ve affectionately named these calls Talking Heads, and now I permanently have Talking Heads songs stuck in my head (“Same as it ever was!”). Up until now, Cosmo was in the same boring pose for every call. Thanks to a few days of easy work this week, he now has the ability to express emotion! This is a game changer, it really adds a lot to these scenes.
Bryan - After doing some boring stuff like polishing menus, fixing bugs and revising text documents, I took another dive into the aquarium. This time I made a high-tech laser-powered cleaning animation for it! If you neglect the fish tank for a few days, it will inevitably become clouded with filth. Cleaning it from time to time will keep Morvin’s aquatic friends happy and hygienic.
Lauren - This week I've been posting content everywhere and doing more video editing! In between making content and reaching out to streamers, I've been catching up with all the gaming news from E3! It's been a great week!
Ian - This week has been focused on mostly cleaning up my task list. I had a bunch of things that would take under an hour to fix clogging it up, so I decided to do them all! This includes medium priority bugs (things that wouldn't break the game but the average player would notice), implementation of already completed assets (sounds, animations, particles), quality of life changes for us and player (button navigation, performance issues, post alien day ambassadors), and all sorts of other stuff too. One of those things was setting up Morvin's ability to walk! I know you are supposed to walk before you run, but he spent the last 4 years only running lol. The animation had been done for a while, I just needed to set up proper animation blend state between idle/walk/run that interpolated based on his move speed. Turned out pretty well!
And there you have it, all the news that is fit to know from the world of Cosmo's Quickstop.
More auto-nav modes, fewer auto-nav bugs. Still no sound.
The auto-nav UI rework seems to be working well enough, so of course I've started to change it. Two more buttons are now present.
TURN TO DIRECTION makes the ship's nose point in the direction of the camera. It's a small thing, but can be useful on occasion.
JUMP TO OBJECT is more complex. It can only be used if the ship's jump drive is operational and charged, and if you have selected something. When activated, it brings the ship to local stop, and then locks in a jump to the object's current position. But if the object is moving (relative to the local frame of reference) then the jump will take you a certain distance in front of it - currently, about a minute's worth, depending on your ship.
Aside from the two new auto-nav modes, I've also gone bug-hunting in the navigation code, and can now report that the auto-nav is flying drunkenly much less often.
Time passes mercilessly and takes no prisoners. You are about to begin your adventure soon. Perhaps you have questions that are still unanswered. Perhaps you will find them in this trailer. Watch it and find out what kind of future is written for you in the stars…
How do you feel about what’s coming Traveler? Let me know below.
