Dec 7, 2021

Play Winter Express In The Raiders Collection Event

Apex Legends™ - marty

Starting December 7th and available until December 21st, the Apex Legends Raiders Collection Event will give players the opportunity to unlock event-limited Legendary cosmetics for Valkyrie, Loba, Revenant, Bloodhound, Pathfinder, Wattson and Wraith that are designed to bring out the pirate in every player. But that’s not all we’re bringing for the Holidays, how about the return of one of our favorite limited-time modes, Winter Express!

CHOO CHOO! ALL ABOARD THE WINTER EXPRESS!

That’s right: Winter Express returns! This beloved game mode offers three squads the opportunity to board and capture the World’s Edge train. For the first time, Legends will be able to pick their loadout before boarding the train; play around and find the best loadout for you!

RAIDERS COLLECTION EVENT

Each Legendary skin has a complementary weapon, either in the collection or the prize track. You can earn 1,600 points per day and challenges refresh daily. There are also stretch challenges that reward four unique badges if you complete them during the event.

All of these challenges also stack with your Battle Pass, so you can complete several at once. And of course, the Raiders Collection Event also introduces a brand new set of 24 themed, limited-time cosmetics.

WATTSON HEIRLOOM

Once you unlock all 24 collectibles, you’ll receive Wattson’s electric Heirloom, the “Energy Reader”!

PATCH NOTES

LEGENDS

Wattson: Fixed the issue with fences “sticking” when trying to place a node near a fence.
Wattson: Fixed bug for cases where Wattson’s Fence nodes ignored player collision.
Wattson: Fixed bug with the blueprint line not showing up to signify where the fence will be created.
Wattson: Fixed issue where Caustic’s Ultimate isn’t zapped by the Interception Pylon.
Wattson: Fixed bug where Arc Stars could stick to and damage the Interception Pylon
Ash: Based on feedback we’ve increased the audio presence of Ash’s Ultimate.
Ash will no longer “bleed” when shot and now displays sparks [like Pathfinder and Revenant].
Ash: fixed cases where a grid pattern would show on some rare and common skins.
Valkyrie / Revenant: Fixed a bug where using a Skydive with Death Totem at a specific time caused Valkyrie’s skydive to enter a bugged state.
Valkyrie: Fix for Birthright Skin where Valk’s jetpack control clips into her hands in first person.

ARENAS

Arenas: Fixed bug where Seer could continuously charge his tactical after it’s reached zero uses.
Arenas: Reduced reconnect times since the matches are shorter than a Battle Royale match.
Arenas: Fix for missing ammo UI on the common, rare, or epic, CAR.
Arenas: Fix for missing horizontal black bars while spectating.
Arenas: Fix for cases where the Death Tab is missing from the shop window.

ADDITIONAL BUG FIXES

Fixed issue with a spot on Storm Point where players could camp in unintended areas near Command Center.
We also addressed multiple minor bugs around the map ranging from misplaced kill triggers and holes in geo.
Bocek Compound Fracture Legendary skin bug: Fixed an issue where players would still see iron sights when aiming even if another sight is equipped.
R-301 Dynastic Cycle Legendary skin bug: Fixed an issue with the gun using a mix of two different skins.
Fixed bug for cases where the Loba Edition displays “No Price Found” when viewed in the store tab.
Based on feedback we’ve reduced the SFX on reactive skins for the Volt.
Fixed bug where players were unable to scroll downwards when looting a death box or black market.
Fixed bug that was preventing players from getting Rampart’s Heirloom even after buying all 24 event packs.
Fixed bug where players could skydive faster after spamming Ping.
Fixed issue with players seeing the 888 Elite Mode Badge constantly unlocking.

BALANCE CHANGES

Seer

Decreased Focus of Attention detonation delay from 1.6s to 1.4s

Dev Note: Seer was dialed back to a healthier spot with the balance hotfix soon after his release. However, after four months of evaluating his use in the live game, the detonation delay seems a little too sluggish. We want to improve its feel while continuing to evaluate the reveal meta as a whole.

Arc Star

Sticks

Base stick damage lowered from 30 -> 10
Shield Damage Multiplier increased from x3 -> x4 (stick on shielded enemy will now max out at 40 instead of 90)
Sticking an enemy now applies a slow debuff (reverting Legacy update change)

Non-Sticks

Slow duration is now driven by distance to the center of Arc Star detonation

Dev Note: Arc stars excel in a lot of areas. They have high damage potential coupled with a punishing slow, and can be thrown more accurately than other ordnance types. Removing the stick slow created some degenerate play patterns and often made it hard to tell when you got stuck in the heat of battle. We’re bringing that back with a tradeoff of lower damage potential and a proximity based slow falloff in non-stick cases. These changes make stick scenarios more consistent across shield types and make arc stars less effective at area denial.

Splatter Rounds

Removed increased magazine capacity

Dev Note: Big Maude has been an awesome drop location and a reliable source of early power for teams that win the hotdrop. However, the paintball weapons are proving to be a little too strong so we’re going to remove the increased mag size but keep the handling improvements.

Crafting

Shotgun ammo, sniper ammo, and arrow crafting output reduced to a single stack

PRIVATE MATCH

Observer Mode - UI and Scoring Improvements for in-game stats menu.
Observer Mode - Reduced opacity on Loba’s Back Market for map & mini-map.
Observer Mode - Added toggle option to show next ring location.
Added [Team] Eliminated text in kill feed for Private Match Anonymous mode.
Admins now have the ability to end matches in either Observer or Player positions.
Fixed issue for real time API delay after running consecutive games.
New real time API events including:
Shots fired
Kill awarded
Line by line formatting
Unique player IDs

QUALITY OF LIFE

New Custom Reticle Color System

Custom Reticles are here! The new UI can be opened under Gameplay Settings by selecting the Customize option under Reticle.
Once in the new Custom Reticle UI you’ll be able to:

Select a color from some of our recommended favorites
Use the color and brightness sliders to find that perfect color
Manually enter an RGB color
Toggle between 4 different hand picked environments to preview your reticle

Dev Note:
You’ll be able to pick from a lot of colors in the new system, but darker colors won’t be selectable because of how some of our reticles react to the world (additive effect) which would make them invisible. If a manually entered RGB value is in that range, we will do our best to keep that hue but will bring that value closer to a safe color.

From all of us on the Apex Legends team we wish you all a safe and wonderful Holiday! Thank you for the support this year.

Dec 7, 2021

Mechajammer | OST Available on Steam Now

Mechajammer - modernsnapper

Two music-related updates for the Mechajammer community today:

Mechajammer OST Available Now!

A huge part of Mechajammer's identity is formed through music. The world of Calitana is brought to life through its grimy 80s score, and today we're excited to bring the Mechajammer Original Soundtrack to Steam, bringing with it over two hours of filthy synthwave beats.

“For me, music isn't just interchangeable background noise - it needs to be tied to the game, to give it more depth and carry its meaning." composer Kevin Balke said about his work.

"It delivers what the game can't show visually and fills out the gaps to make everything feel alive and meaningful.

I'm glad that I had the chance to add my take to the extensive world that Whalenought Studios created with Mechajammer. I'm excited to hear what players will think about our take on humanity's grim future on Calitana."

Here's the full tracklist:

1. Mechajammer Theme (02:56)
2. Dim (03:15)
3. Mayflower Initiative (02:55)
4. The Crash (05:20)
5. Quiescence (05:09)
6. Scavengers Theme (02:20)
7. Tanked (04:12)
8. Beneath The Surface (03:31)
9. Luminescence (02:56)
10. Scrap Tech (04:41)
11. The Black Market (04:13)
12. Rat Maze (03:56)
13. The Faith (02:34)
14. Cyberfreaks (02:46)
15. At Peace (03:44)
16. Dinner With Friends (04:12)
17. Smoke (02:32)
18. Heavy Machinery (02:58)
19. A Fishmonger's Life (05:22)
20. Calitana's Pulse (02:27)
21. Bottlers (02:37)
22. Stitch Up Your Limbs (03:17)
23. Dangerzone (02:31)
24. Fuelled (02:07)
25. Beware of Trespassing (04:01)
26. Inside The Hive (05:50)
27. Over The Fence (03:46)
28. Digital Trippin' (03:07)
29. Wetlands (04:35)
30. Industrial Feast (02:56)
31. Humanity's Future (05:18)
32. Electrosmog (03:32)
33. Horrors Nearby (02:30)
34. Temporary Under Control (01:49)
35. Takeoff (03:49)

Total Playtime - 02 : 03 : 58

Until Thursday 9th Dec the soundtrack is available for €7.37 as part of our launch week discount of 10% off. Get it while it's hot!

Calitana's Handshake

In bringing the Mechajammer Launch Trailer to life, we partnered with British Electronic artist Ital Tek, who composed a dark, brutal new track for the trailer, and wholly on point with Mechajammer's dank cyberpunk world.

As a special treat for anybody that owns Mechajammer, we have included the exclusive full length version of "Calitana's Handshake" with your game files. To find the track, head to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Mechajammer

Do us a favour and turn it up loud. It's just better that way.

Play Mechajammer today
https://store.steampowered.com/app/485400/Mechajammer/

Dec 7, 2021

The Roasting update is now live!

Coffee Shop Tycoon - Riff Studios

Hello everyone, after a year full of work, challenges, and fun times, we are officially releasing the Roasting update right now! For those that have been following along and playing the beta, some of these features are already known to you. For those who don't, we'll go into detail about each new addition to the game. We will also talk about the upcoming updates and share an updated development roadmap. Without further ado, let's talk about roasting!

Roasting

Roasting is the significant new feature we are adding to this update. Roasting allows you to create unique coffee from over 1000 different green coffee beans from all around the world. This coffee can then be roasted from your store and used to brew any drink you like.

Roasting is unlocked when you buy your first company as part of the mission objectives in Akihabara. Mr. Danger will contact you and tell you about the new roaster in your HQ.

You will see a new roasting section from your HQ where you can create roasting profiles, unlock new bean varieties, and complete roasting challenges.

A roasting profile is like a recipe that will allow your employees to roast coffee back at the store. You are in charge of making this roast profile for every new coffee you want to sell. You make a roasting profile by controlling the roaster temperature to achieve different tasting notes. You can control time and restart any time you like to help you get the specific flavors you are looking for.

Your coffee will be graded based on the score of each tasting note, the bean variety, and your employee roasting skill. Unlocking new bean varieties and leveling up your employee will improve your grading considerably.

No coffee would be complete without great packaging, so after obtaining your coffee grading, you can continue to create a unique design for your bag. We'll go into more details of how this works further down.

So, you have created your first coffee, now what? Well… now it is time to roast the coffee in your store and brew drinks with it. Back in your store, you will be able to buy a Roaster. Just like a working station, you can assign employees to it. Roasters can only be used by one employee at a time, so no need to hire a ton of new employees.

After you assign an employee to your roaster, click on the roaster. From here, you can roast the coffee that you just created. Ensure that the employee you assign to the roaster has the same roasting skill or higher than the one used to create the roasting profile. Otherwise, you won't be able to roast with that employee.

After the coffee is roasted, you will see it along with any other beans in the supply screen, and you will be able to use it as such.

If you look closely, quality stars are gone from coffee beans. Now, they all have a grading, starting with 70 for the regular beans and 80 for imported beans. You will only be able to go past 80 points with custom coffee, which will play a crucial part when increasing your store reputation.

Coffee Bag Creator

Now we'll go back and talk a little bit more about the new coffee bag creator. We are very excited about this addition to the game. Initially, we were worried about how we were going to pull this off, especially how to give you a lot of creative freedom and not make the process too tedious as you will likely be creating many roasting profiles. We think we have achieved this by giving you the option to save and load designs.

The bag creator works similarly to other image editing programs that you might have used in the past, we don't have a free draw option, but you can add different shapes and patterns to your bag and use any color you like. Additionally, you can add your company logo and several text labels to your bag.

Text labels are interesting, they will take directly the properties of the coffee you just created, so if you add a label for the name, another one for tasting notes, and maybe one for the origin, they will always match the properties of the coffee you just roasted. This saves time and is very useful when loading designs as they will have the information of the new coffee. We also have custom text labels, so you can also write anything you want. All these properties work like layers, so you can arrange what draws on top of what.

We are looking forward to seeing all the amazing designs you will create. If you do, please tag us on Twitter @RiffStudios, and we will retweet your design.

Roasting Challenges

Another important part of roasting is roasting challenges. There are two types of challenges: milestones and regular challenges. You can complete milestones to unlock all the new machines and roasters. They are also used to unlock the four coffee-producing continents in the world.

On the other hand, regular challenges reward you with a new valuable currency, roasting points. Roasting points are used to unlock bean varieties, to roast high-quality beans, and to refresh the available green coffee stock. You can have three challenges at a time, if you don't want to deal with a particular challenge, you can skip it, and a new one will take its place.

New machines

So, what exactly are the new machines? We are adding three new Brewers, three new Espresso machines, one new Grinder, and 3 Roasters with this update. With the changes to coffee beans and grading, it is now more important than ever to upgrade your machines along your journey to become a Coffee Shop Tycoon.

Machines now have a max brewing quality property that specifies the maximum quality that the machine can produce, so if a coffee has a grading of 90 points, but the machine's max brewing quality is 80, customers will perceive the coffee flavor as if it was worth 80 points.

Through the roasting milestone challenges, you will be able to unlock a Brewer and an Espresso that can produce coffee up to 100 points, so it is worth investing time on unlocking these new machines. Plus, they look super cool, to be honest. 😉

New reputation system

The reputation system also has some changes. Now, after reaching Bronze Bean, you will need to complete another requirement to level up. To achieve Silver Bean, you will need to sell 20 coffee drinks with at least 85 points, 90 for Golden Bean, and 95 for Diamond Bean.

Yeah, you heard it right, Diamond bean. Diamond bean is the last reputation level and is reserved for the best coffee managers. We also added a new achievement just for that. 😊

New location

No major update would be complete without a new location. For that reason, we are adding "Emerald City," this is the 5th location in the game and is the largest by far. In "Emerald City," you will meet again with Mr. Latteau and become the ultimate coffee roaster. We wish you good luck and good brews.

22 new Items

We are also adding twenty two new items! This includes a new working station with space for four coffee airpots, new sugar tables to match each working station, many new decoration items, and new tables and chairs. This is probably the most significant addition of decoration items since we launched in early access. Hopefully, you will enjoy all the new plants, lamps, and other items such as columns or a massive copper cask.

New floors and walls

You will also find three new floors and three new wall paints that are a great fit for the industrial look of "Emerald City."

23 new achievements

We are almost doubling the number of achievements on this update, now with a total of 55 achievements! Most of the new achievements are related to the new features, but you will find a couple of fun ones that you can achieve from the start of your coffee journey.

Bug fixes and other changes

Finally, but not least, we have fixed several top issues that you have posted on the forums and addressed some top crashes.

Added help topics for roasting
Trends no longer reset when going to the HQ.
Fixed an instance where the Reviewer score didn't match the comments.
Fixed pathfinding bugs in Akihabara, now the glass door from the balcony is an actual door.
Employees with supply specialization will now order lower quality beans, ingredients, and food if the higher quality tier has not been unlocked yet.
Fixed text typos.
Some changes to the calculation of idle income to accommodate the new bean ratings
Updated the third shop's final objective to Bronze Bean instead of Gold Bean as that can't be achieved until roasting.
Added more objectives to Akihabara that are related to roasting.
Fixed some crashes.

What's next

Now that roasting is finally out, we are ready to share with you more details about the upcoming updates.

Localization Update

-End of February-March

This update will focus on finishing the localization efforts for the game. This will help bring the game to new audiences and increase the community around the game. We are excited to reach more players and let them enjoy the game in their language.

Economy Update

-Q2

Adding option to set prices
Have prices affect expectations
Investigate how to fix the $1000 coffee problem.
Improve item rotation
Add search box to Help screen

Fan System + Customer Summary Screen + Customer Feedback improvements

-Q2-Q3

Add fan system
Customers require you to meet certain expectations to become fans, harder by level
Fixing bugs with employees' thoughts and turning them into "review tags" that can be aggregated for a summary screen.
Adding bubbles above employees for important notifications "Coffee is stale" "Not enough services"
Limit active marketing campaigns
Add staff rename option
Add AI behavior to use sugar tables

Other updates

-Future

Update Du Latte Awards
Add pedestrians and cars to relevant locations
Add more employee models
Gamepad Support

This list can change at any time, and may not represent the final features added to the game.

Final words

Thank you for reading this far. And thank you for supporting us while we built this update for you, we are very excited to see what you will roast next! If you have any problems, please reach us out on Discord, Twitter, or send us an email at support@riffstudios.com. We wish you happy holidays and good brews. As always, enjoy your coffee.

You can follow us on Twitter @RiffStudios for more updates.

if you love Coffee Shop Tycoon, and want to get some cool new logos for your shop join our discord! 😊

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