As you probably know, on November 5th last year, Chicken Police: Paint it RED!, our first standalone game, was released with the help of HandyGames (huge thanks to them from here too!)

The reception of the game was cluckin' mind-blowing, we couldn't really get our head around it for a long time, but we didn't have much time to think either, because we started working on the fixes and updates right away to make the best experience possible with our first game as The Wild Gentlemen. (hope it worked!)

It was a super-fast year, so it came as a pretty big surprise when it was over and we had to think about how to celebrate the game's 1st anniversary. What do we do?! (especially at the start of a new wave of covid...)

Finally, we chose to be totally honest with ourselves, so we had a big (but also super-modest) nerd party with the team; we broke into a dungeon where every console and platform since the 60s was present. You can probably guess the next... (yeah, it involves an Unreal Tournament party, a Wizard of Wor match, and some Time Crisis too!!!)









There was a cake, of course, and then we summed up the year and discussed future projects (which are top-secret right now) to end the event with a chat until dawn. - Unfortunately, since the constant Covid waves, it is extremely difficult to bring the team together under one roof, so every occasion like this is like an anniversary anyway. (by the way, if you're ever in Budapest, be sure to stop by "JátechTér"! The pictures don't do justice to how many awesome things you can see and play there!)







Our final conclusion is that we are tremendously grateful to you, the players, who passionately love our team, our work, and of course Chicken Police that we have sacrificed so much and worked so hard to create. It's a cliché, yes, but we couldn't have done it without you, this "castle of awesomeness" we are building would have fallen down a long long time ago - or rather, it wouldn't have been built in the first place...

All in all, we don't want to make this too long, so thank you again for being so positive, supportive, and great, and being with us, spreading our story to the world.


The creators - a bunch of super-weird nerds:
The Wild Gentlemen

Constant changes. Unexpected changes. The world-turning changes are waiting for you now, because the Paths of History DLC has just been released!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794910/Ostalgie/

- Fixed secondary checks for Vinyl City Superfan and Under the Sewer achievements
- Added checks for End of the Road achievement
- Added check to give missing parry modes on entering the Sewer after completing the game
- Fixed Neon J dance playing in earlier phases
- Tweaked collision in Eve upper district
- Tweaks to VFX in Eve boss level
- Added missing indicator to interactives in the city

Changelog:
- A lockpick and an axe can now be found during exploration
- Added a couple new exploration events
- Mingled with some sprites
- The School expedition has a new stage
- Added achievement system for non-Steam version
Steam:
- Added a toggle in the settings to sync the in-game achievements with Steam on game start
- Added a loading screen on game start to make sure Steam-related features initialize properly

• The 8.11 Update is going live Tuesday November 16th. You can check the Update Notes Here!
• You can earn 2x Worshippers until the end of Today
• The Mega Mech Chest is 25% off until the end of Today
• The Hindu Gods VPs are 50% off until the end Today
• Select Hindu Gods Direct Purchase skins are 33% off Today
• The Extraterrestrial Chest is 25% off November 9 - 11
• The Electro Raver Chest is 25% off November 12 - 15

• Voting for the Golden Bolts Awards is happening right now! Make sure to check that out, HERE
• You can join the SMITE Community by hopping in the Official Smite Discord!
• The 8.10 Bonus Update is out now! You can learn more in the 8.10 Update bonus Notes
• Krang Xing Tian is almost gone! Hurry and claim this skin now through Prime Gaming!

We have been working hard on implementing 'Quality Of Life' improvements and things like this take-up a lot of research and feedback we received throughout the year. We have been getting responses about how we only provide content and very few quality related updates, so we are changing that. That is why we are writing this announcement. We will give more information with updates very soon. Please note, This is an update which will be coming out in multiple patches.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

When we will be adding the Quality of Life updates, we’ll announce the update coming in December/January soon, which will consist of the next major operation.

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The Server Browser has helped massively with improved matchmaking. Now, you're finally getting that ability to play with randoms or specific players.



We added a feature for reporting players and bugs where players don't have to manually send reports using discord anymore. This is out as our first iteration and is something that will improve over time. We also have plans to implement a report bug system and a possible replay system and possibly make it public where you can share your replays with others.


This is something we’ve been researching since the beginning. Through this, we have found that the Denuvo Anti-cheat would best cater to our needs. Their quality and services are beneficial to the game greatly and will make the players have a much better online experience in Zero Hour. The Anti-Cheat update will be coming out in the next upcoming patches. We will be releasing more information soon.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

To clear any confusion, we added a FAQ for players who has any questions:

When does the anti-cheat install?
When Quick-match multiplayer is accessed

Does it start with my computer?
No, starts and stops with the game

Will it make the game slower?
No, we did extensive profiling and found no differences

Can I remove it?
Yes, uninstall it from add/remove program files any time

This could be an improvement from working on animations to smoother movement and better control to fixing bugs that stayed in the beginning. We plan on fixing these issues in the next update.

One of the biggest elements we lack now is the ability to teach new players the Important fundamentals of gameplay before they get in the match. This is why we are working on a whole new training ground with a new kill-house and a whole new tutorial section. We also have plans on making this squad-based where you can get in with your fellow teammates, giving this ability to players will give them benefits if they play in the game.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

These screenshots are not from in-game footage and does not reflect the final product.

In our next operation, we have plans to add squad AI where players can have AI teammates (This is still in the research phase and we will soon update on this feature in later announcements), including new maps, guns, etc. Some of the new weapons planned are:









(W.I.P)

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Thank you for your patience, please make sure to report Toxicity, feedback & suggestions in our Discord server using the following links.
Discord Global Community : Zero Hour Official
Discord French Community : Zero Hour France

Hello again and welcome to the latest Dev Blog for Martha Is Dead, last week we shared the story of how Gronkh streaming the game made Achims heart pound! Take a quick scroll back to catch up if you haven't already!

This week we have an in depth look at the creation of some of the stunning visuals in the game - supplied by the talented Lorenzo Cardile, one of the 3D artists at LKA!

This is the first in a multi part series of blogs looking at the visuals of the game and techniques used, so please feel free to comment with any questions you might have, and we'll cover them in future updates!

Without further ado - I hand you over to Lorenzo!



Ciao! My name is Lorenzo Cardile, I am a 3D artist at LKA working on Martha is Dead. My Job within the group is primarily to take care of the game's FX. There are many graphical effects within Martha Is Dead that mainly serve to make the environment richer and more alive when combined with SFX.

If you imagine walking in a forest for example, numerous elements should come to mind… All of those insects… the leaves that fall… water that flows… the dust that moves under the weight of a step. There are many microelements that we often ignore in life but when they are absent, we feel a sense of emptiness. One of these particular effects that I have created is a flock of birds and I'd love to tell you about it.

First of all, it was essential to find birds that could actually be found in Tuscany (The games setting), but also a species which would be common to see flying in August. I wanted to create those beautiful movements that flocks make when they turn, that kind of synchronized dance that makes them all move as one.

So, I tried to find a way to reproduce a bird or silhouette at the lowest polygon count and with the smallest texture possible. These birds are to be seen from far away and I don’t need to worry about the player seeing them up close. The photo camera accessible to the player is of a period which cannot zoom in like our smartphones can today!
Once the mesh and texture was made, it was time for the shader. We chose to use Niagara to create our effects and not wanting to weigh it down too much, I chose to animate the bird's wings directly from its material, not by creating a skeletal mesh. I did this by connecting the world position offset channel with a black and white gradient that inverted the colours when asked.



By doing it this way I was able to make the rhythm of its wing beat parametrically.
As one bird was now created, a system was needed where the bird is duplicated and made to behave like a real flock.
By using Niagara, I created the classic spawn nodes, substituted the mesh for the particle and created two points of attraction of the particles that were able to move in a random way. The effect wasn’t bad… if the intent was to launch these birds into space!

The motion they produced and the force of attraction meant that after a certain period of time, they acquired such a force as to make them end up both underground and in a distant galaxy! – So a limit was required.



So I limited the area of movement of the attractive fulcrums to a much narrower area, and increased the resistance with the air so that the flock never reached the speed of sound.
I made two instances of the flock to create a little more variation and scattered them around. The result seemed satisfactory to me, what do you think? …





With this newly created system, I was able to duplicate it which helped me to create other similar effects; such as gnats and moths that go around the street lamps at night and the insects that wander in the woods.

Obviously I had to make some changes. For the moths and night flies it was not necessary to create all of the variations of directions, so I simply exploited the point of attraction system. Animating the velocity of the particles with a sine curve meant that I always kept them close to the fulcrum, I also created some variation by simulating the wind slightly and breaking their trajectory with a curl noise.
These nodes, working in synergy with the point of attraction and the vortex velocity, perfectly simulate the chaotic and rambling movement that midges do around summer street lamps in real life.



I used a very similar expedient to create woodland insects such as blow flies but with less chaos. In this case the player is very likely to see the particles up close so I once again had to take advantage of the static mesh. Their wings are animated in the same way as birds, with an animated black and white gradient that acts on the world position offset pin of the material, all at the lowest resolution textures possible (To maintain performance).



Pretty fascinating right? And another reinforcement as to the intense attention to detail that LKA are putting into the smallest of things within the game that really makes Martha stand out from the crowd!

If you want to catch more Martha content across the internet, then hit the links at the bottom of the blog! And as always, make sure Martha is on your wishlists - and tell your friends!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/515960/Martha_Is_Dead/

Wired Facebook | Wired Twitter | Wired Youtube | Wired Discord | Wired Instagram | Wired Twitch | Wired Reddit | Wired Imgur

Kudos to all of you who entered previous weekly challenge!
"Central Lake City" challenge was completed by 11 of you and the podium is as it follows:


Congratulations to our winners:
🥇 Ceowulf, is our grand winner who made the best score 1 month, 22:08. Bravo!
🥈 Nkbs gets the silver medal with a score of 2 months, 01:44,
🥉 Peekiwi claims the bronze reward for the 3rd place, with 3 months, 03:28.


Get the most citizens as possible within 18 months!
Pastoralbourg has a nice lake and the residential area were already set around. Build stategically the parks and commercial areas to get the most silizens possible. Think about the power and don't forget to add a fire station when possible!

Game is ON until next Sunday, midnight (Paris Time). See you next week to celebrate our winners!
Good luck mayors!

Patch 1 fixes a bunch of issues reported since Season 1 went live, everything from spelling mistakes to tweaking the difficulty of Industrial Sabotage. There are also some that crash when starting the game. We are doing everything we can to try and solve these issues quickly, but some might take longer than others to fix.

Cheers,
The Ghost Ship Crew

- Fixed a crash that happened when hovering the new Industrial Sabotage challenge after the first 10 completions at the mission selection screen.
- Fixed a bunch of bugs with items disappearing when Rock and Stone
- Fixed client authoritative projectiles impact not registering on server if impact time is shorter than the clients ping. Dormant projectiles are now now longer net dormant for the owning client.
- Added network to spaceball goal cooldown timer (was not initialized on clients)
- Fixed a bug that caused downed dwarf rejoining a game to fall through map
- Fixed bug in escape menu, where hitting ESC + A or ESC + D left users stuck with mouse cursor, no menu and no way to get back to the game.
- Deepdives endscreen only showed performance points for the last mission
- Particle impact effects changes, fixed hard lights, on autocannon, missile launcher, sniper and patrol bot impact and phase bomb explosion
- Fixed Ragdoll collision vs energy shield
- Added Cooldown modifier to random cooldown decorator
- In the overclock equip UI: Made more room for +/- text lines
- Tweaked line height on 'New Items Available' banners
- Fixed dlc icon visible for items with unowned dlcs in paintjob/framework/wardrobe/pickaxe menus
- Tweaked DLC icon
- Fixed black visor of Dark Future helmet - no longer all black
- Fixed several floating/clipping meshes on the Space Rig
- Fixed missing distance between beer ingredients inventory on the Bar Menu
- Fixed long beer names pushing the price off screen on the screen near the bar
- Prospector Event: Added correct randomization in Prospector when it spawns dirt samples. Made nitra and gold guaranteed to spawn. Health Bar is now grey for clients when Prospector is immune to damage.
- Added more Nitra to the spawn pool on the Prospector
- Patrol bot numbers now scale based on hazards as well
- Added missing detonator settings on some enemies
- Fixed Challenge info does not show on late join character selection screen
- Shader tweak: Attempt to fix too-bright materials on Power Station
- Air geyser reworked, now also works properly for clients. They do however work a bit differently so the feel won't be the same as before.
- Fixed promotion mission control speak not audible
- Raised the cap for enabled mods to 50
- Hopefully fixing the issue where mods would make the game crash repeatedly.
- Fixed a bug, where modio terms of service would be empty until actually fetched from the modio servers.
- Adding the last updated date, to the specific mod on the mod menu
- Removed Deep Dive button from server list
- Fixed Sabotage mission not shown in discord presence
- Gk2 bullet trails appear too early and outside of the gun when walking sideways
- Pheromone canister locked past level 10 - Unlock logic was inverted so you could unlock it before required level or if you were promoted.
- Fixed some cases of weak points not glowing. (Mostly on bosses)
- Shield Generator now shows reduced recharge time stats as green
- Drills no longer overheat when out of fuel
- You can now freeze enemies with cryo cannon around pipes
- Fixed the "heat" around the minehead and refinery also affecting enemies. Making it more difficult to freeze them there.
- Fixed effect radius of several grenades showing in CM instead of Meters
- Fixed Fire status effect stays on the health bar when a Patrol Bot is hacked
- Added Spacerig loadout map
- Fixed Engineer has two identical rival tech armor paint-jobs
- Bosco moss crawler skin should now match correct paintjob
- Fixed inconsistent spelling in shouts for the M.U.L.E. and Bosco
- Fixed a typo in a Mission Control shout in the Industrial Sabotage mission
- Fixed a typo in the usable text when Hack-C needs a reboot
- Fixed typos and missing spaces in the Privacy tooltips
- Fixed a typo in the infobox on the Season Terminal
- Fixed a typo in the usable text for Cargo Crates.
- Fixes for Arabic
- Added localizability to Reward Unlocked text on the Season Terminal
- Added localizability to the text when no assignment is selected on the Assignment Board
- Added localizability to the use text for the Engineer's Sentry Gun
- Added localizability to fee text on the Miner Community Terminal
- Added localizability to the Season Terminal screens
- Added localizability to Season Terminal console screen that displays current level
- Added localizability to small screens in the Drop Pod
- Youngling rolling sound: fixed attenuation
- Killcry shout twin arbalest delay fix
- Refinery rocket was too loud
- Updated Season terminal reroll sound
- Weak Point death audio on patrol bot
- Added missing sound to rolling drone death head explode
- Enabled photosensitive mode for beacons (placed when calling down supply pods etc).
- Toned down blinking for non photosensitive mode.
- Fixed issue with Power Station in Industrial Sabotage being extra bright in Photosensitive Mode.
- Season menu bug fix: when reaching level 10 (20,30..), the menu will now show the correct row with claimable reward. Only after the player has claimed the reward the new row with current progression will be shown.
- Slightly adjusted xp to performance point conversion to increase reward for longer and more difficult missions
- Changed Hurricane Micro missile launcher missiles to use Client prediction for determining what it hits.This should make damage more reliable for clients with higher latency.
- Reconnected Micro Missile Launcher weak point stats so they show up in the equipment terminal
- Only the first shot of the micro missile launcher buck shot was being predicted
- Changed armor break stat so it only shows when upgraded on the DRAK Plasma Carbine.
- Fixed Corrosive Sludge Pump flaps are out in weapon preview. (They are only out when charging)
- Dying on the vault will leave your body inside the extruded vault when it opens up. Reviving is possible but you will still be stuck inside.
- Cargo Crate Batteries should no longer spawn inside the caretaker
- Reduced the harassing drone wave enemy count that comes while you connect the hacking pods to the power stations to reduce the time/ammo sink
- Tweaked some timings on the phase bomb and repulsion fields attacks on the caretaker
- Sniper turrets no longer gets invulnerable while hiding
- Caretaker kills all enemies quickly as soon as it dies to prevent players getting killed right after the fight
- Added more caretaker scaling based on player numbers to make solo fights a little easier
- Rival Tech projectiles now scale based on hazard level with haz 4 having the same velocity as before
- Added more timer scaling based on hazard to make the fight easier on haz 1 and 2
- Added hazard scaling to tentacle cooldowns and the electrocution attack
- Doubled the distance at which a tether can connect to the Data Deposit.

Hey there, airport CEO!

We hope you had a good weekend. Last week we had another Steam sale event which means loads of new airport CEOs starting their career. As a result of this we've made sure to watch the backlog carefully during this past week and that's why we're back today yet again with another small stabilization update.


This update includes support for the latest MacBooks running the M1 Pro chip and will ensure that the game runs normally, however not natively, as Rosetta is still required for the game to launch.


We've implemented a small UX improvement coming in the shape of an object selection highlighting system, this means that objects that you can click and interact with are now highlighted when your mouse is within their selection area.

• MERCURY-44982: Minor UI paneling improvements
  
• MERCURY-44912: Added selection box for objects to more easily identify them as intractable

• MERCURY-44994: Elevator is not always clickable
  
• MERCURY-44992: Completed flights can in certain instances be removed from the flight planner before the day is over
  
• MERCURY-44976: Selection overlay prioritize the room over items inside room
  
• MERCURY-44969: Hover tool tip description in settings panel can in certain instances appear out of view
  
• MERCURY-44958: Hiding the UI using F4 can break the UI toggling in certain panel instances
  
• MERCURY-44949: Right click settings not available on some items despite appearing selected
  
• MERCURY-44948: Object selection visuals only appear on ground floor related objects
  
• MERCURY-44947: Elevator menu not selectable despite showing selection overlay
  
• MERCURY-44926: Some objects displays selected overlay incorrect relative to actual object grid
  
• MERCURY-44925: Multiple selection overlays are de-selected if hovered over
  
• MERCURY-44924: Mesh setting warning spam in log can cause performance degradation
  
• MERCURY-44922: Text elements not rendering on MacBook M1 pro chips
  
• MERCURY-44919: Steam achievement sync invalidates The Collector-achievement on load
  
• MERCURY-44915: Incorrect aircraft references are in very rare instances serialized on hangars causing them to become unavailable
  
• MERCURY-44913: Room overlay doesn't scale properly with non-uniform sizes
  
• MERCURY-44911: Incorrect aspect ratio for image preview in color picker panel
  
• MERCURY-44910: Incident cool-down not working properly causing excessive incident load on higher difficulty setting
  
• MERCURY-44907: Vehicle path finding can in certain cases fail when vehicles enter or exit airport through specific road checkpoint configuration
  
• MERCURY-44890: Parking lot can in rare cases display occupied slots despite no vehicles present
  
• MERCURY-42134: Flights do not properly clear after extremely extended gameplay sessions causing gamedata .json to swell in size

That's all for now, enjoy your days at the office and see you later - fly safe!

// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs