This post is written by Mat, our gameplay designer.
Hi there! Quick one today: I want to introduce another aspect of Hardmode, Curses and Blessings.
We alluded to this before, but we are considering hardmode to be an “ascension” mode of sorts. As you master its challenges, you’ll gain more and more essence, and there must be a place to spend it!
Here’s where the Blessings come in. Whenever you pick Hardmode, you are able to spend Essences to gain temporary benefits to that run. Some examples are Leylines, which increases your maximum mana, and Wealthy Endeavour, which makes your gold rewards larger. We are also preparing some interesting ones about mana or messing with the Grail!
Now, when we were first talking about this model, the idea of spending enough essence to make hardmode too easy rubbed us the wrong way. So we doubled down on the “Ascension mode” theme and added the Curses - negative modifiers that you can pick for the run. All fun things, like No Witnesses making corrupted fights yield less rewards, and Grievous Wounds increasing healing costs. Pretty nasty stuff. Each one of these modifiers has a number associated with it, that we call Doom Value.
Here’s the thing: if you want to spend, say, 3 essences in Blessings? You gotta pick enough Curses to match the Doom value to the cost, in this case at least 3 Doom. So it’s always kind of balanced, but you can pick which benefits you want to use to take on an ever increasing challenge.
the current state of the modifier selection segment, not all modifiers are in yet
That’s not all. We want to reinforce people moving up in Doom Value as they play, so the higher the Doom Value of a run, the more Essence it’ll reward you based on how far you went.
So we leave it to the player, you see. If you got essence to spend, do you want to give hardmode + doom value 3 a go? Alright, pick 3 points in Blessings, and pay up. Now, every boss battle you defeat, you gain more essences at the end!
There you go! Mia, one of our designers, is hard at work creating interesting curses and blessings to change up your gameplay, and offer the more hardcore among you an ever increasing challenge to measure up to!
Want to participate in the design of those modifiers? Join our Discord server and let Mia know what you’re thinking!
Special deal! Centurion Khârn returns as a time-limited deal. Don't miss the chance to get his alternate art, voice lines and an exclusive collector's card back.
The regular version of Khârn will also be available in the store during the day, so don't miss this opportunity to add him to your collection.
The full release out of Early Access for Flight of the Athena now has a date - October 26th, 2021. The major remaining components to go in are the final Act and the final boss, but both are progressing nicely. The remaining dev time before launch will go to fixes and extra enemy waves / key events, time permitting.
A new version has been released to Early Access, version 0.7. These changes were going to be held for the next major release, but the boss and texture page updates are both good updates, so it seemed good to get them live:
Flight of the Athena V0.7 changelog: -Boss, smoking fractures - Smoking fractures will open up on the bosses as they move through the damage phases. A useful visual indicator and effect, a heavily damaged boss is also at its most dangerous! -Textures, prefetch - Texture prefetching has been setup, which should reduce if not eliminate in battle stutters whilst loading -Game setup warnings - Additional warning flags have been added to the hardest game setup selectors (Brutal difficulty, Rogue game mode).
One Fuse Box has been removed from each area, bringing it down to 4/3/2.
Fuse & Tamper Boxes will now make a much louder noise, that can be heard from a significant distance away, if they were hit to be destroyed. If you wish to do this stealthily, interacting with these objects is much quieter.
The Fuse Boxes in the final area now reduce 30s of time, in line with the other areas. The total amount of time that can be reduced in this area is the same as before this patch.
The amount of blood required to get the later executions has been slightly increased. It still only take 3 blood to get your first execution.
You can now hover over the score multiplier at the end of the game to see where you got your bonuses from.
Queueing Ranked will once again show how many others are currently in queue.
You will no longer get a dodge penalty if you leave whilst being electrocuted (voted out).
Our in-game translations have been updated thanks to our Communtiy Translators!
[FIXED] Players are able to get double the intended time reduction from each Fuse Box.
[FIXED] Several challenges are unable to be completed (including "Day Period #5", "Night Period #4" & "Objectives #3").
[FIXED] Challenges that require you to do certain actions within one area don't always work (for example "Alex #3").
Time for your first steps in the world of nostalgia-driven repair. Our protagonist had a favourite toy airplane in his childhood. Let's fix it together so you can get a taste of what awaits you in Workshop Simulator.
We start our renovations by checking what sort of problems have made themself visible on the toy. Afterwards, we need to pull all of the nails from it. Doing that, you can see how complex can even the simplest stuff be and how many elements they contain. Simple, but so satisfying!
When the parts are separated, the first renovation step awaits. Remember that every item needs a personal touch - today we're fixing a toy airplane, but there will be many more items available in the game, and each of them will need a different method and different techniques to bring it up to standard.
Another important moment of fixing the toy airplane is cleaning it up from various dirt, which we do at a separate station. A lot of it caked on over the years, right? Sand from playing on the porch, dirt not visible on first look. That's good, though! That means it was played a lot with! Now we just need a little elbow grease to bring it's former glory back. That's why we'll need to clean up all of it, whether it's dirt or grease.
After cleaning up the parts, we move to the next repair station. Every step will be done at a different one, which will help us organize all of the motions necessary to fix things. In this step, you can precisely remove the old, peeling off paint, using sandpaper, a sandblaster or our favourite tool - an angle grinder! One session with it and you'll love it, too!
To recover its greatness, our toy airplane needs a new coat of paint. What colors will you pick? That's entirely up to you, as well as picking the painting technique. You can grab a paint brush, or just airbrush it if you prefer. It's your choice!
The plane now fixed like that can again fly into the sky, or become a toy for yet one more young avionics passionate! With Workshop Simulator, you can discover new techniques of restoration and develop your tinkering skills.
Join the world of tinkerers and enthusiasts!
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Go Home, Mr. Fisk! will be officially released in just five days, on 9.27.2021, but early access keys are available now for influencers on Keymailer: https://www.keymailer.co/g/games/132943
If you are interested in playing the game right away but are not an influencer, simply reach out to us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/klothscape) or through email (klothscape[at]gmail.com) and request a key.
Coffee Noir - Business Detective Game - DOJI GAMES
It's time for some demo update, right?
If you're wondering how Coffee Noir's gameplay feels - try out the new demo! It shortly shows the improved flow and other upgrades we've managed to prepare before the official launch. But remember - it's the mere beginning of the investigation case, so it might seem simple and cheerful - but we can promise that we've prepared quite a bumpy road for Arthur Oliver in the full version! Sorry, not sorry - the private detective life can't be too easy!
For now - Joseph invites you for a negotiations round!
What we've improved: - The demo storyline is moved forward, Joseph van Haven is the first contractor and we present the sequence of actions here, - The entire conversation scene in van Haven's office is refreshed graphics-wise, - The flow and dialogue dynamics have been improved. Longer exchanges between characters take place automatically, the player doesn't have to click "continue" every time, - Improved the mechanism of the decreasing employee motivation, - The tutorial was shortened and remade, - The appearance and operation of Investigation Board was changed, - UI fixes, minor bugs etc.
Important thing: If you've started playing the previous version od the demo, we strongly advise to create a new profile in the main menu after the update and then start a new game !