* On a silent night, there’s a Lil jingle for all… Because ‘tis the season, deck the hall – embrace a NEW HOLIDAY TERRAIN in your restaurant.
* When the temperature drops and you see a reindeer, you know the North Pole is near! NEW KEKOA’S ADVENTURE – baby, it’s gonna be cold outside!
* Go nom-nom with NEW FOOD ZONES that’ll whisk you into the Holiday daze.
* Carnivalesque NEW DECORS! From dizzying in Creamy Carousel to marveling the view in Candylicious Eiffel Tower, this update’s got it all!
* Rejoice helpful bug fixes to smoothen your escapade.

Another year of Early Access just passed. Let us look back on what happened with ΔV: Rings of Saturn in 2021.

I found that the roadmaps didn’t work out for me. Looking back at them, that should not be a surprise. While I know where I am, and I certainly know where I want to end up, the land between us is a mystery. You can’t map roads you don’t know, and to get to know them, you need to walk them.



I tried to write roadmaps in the past - detailing what I want to do next - but most of them failed to predict what happened. It’s not about bugs I found and fixed along the way - these are just slowing down the progress, but not turning the direction of development all that much - but it’s about the very nature of Early Access.

I have a tight feedback loop with you - my dear players - which is excellent for making the best possible game but not so great for meeting deadlines. I am no stranger to the dreaded feature creep, and I usually keep the guy in check, but some of your ideas were just too good to pass up, and often we took an unexpected detour.

And I needed to pay for each of these detours with extra development time.

Game development is not difficult but complex. There rarely is a single difficult challenge along the way. Still, you have thousands of small tasks, each of them requiring a couple of hours to complete, and tiny delays along the way will eventually add up to something significant. In 2021, I finished 1076 of the tasks planned, and there are just 21 to go until the 1.0 release. This number sounds far more optimistic because the same statistics that tell me I finish 3.3 tasks per day tells me there are, on average, 2.9 new tasks popping up.

Sometimes these will be bugs, which I unconditionally fix before moving to anything else, but sometimes these are features or tweaks that you suggest just make so much sense I just need to have them in the 1.0 version. And sometimes, they get backlogged for post-1.0 work.



The paradox here is that I get most of the feedback and ideas from players already having the Early Access version, so you don’t mind much when the 1.0 release gets delayed. But some players want a clear cut 1.0 version - this is why we have a clear goal when I can call the complete game experience - the point where I press the big “Launch” button.

But that won’t be the end of the road. I initially planned to expand ΔV for at least a year after the 1.0 release, and now looking at all the ideas you submitted that I backlogged as post-1.0, it seems like I have at least five years worth of ideas to work on. But that is a story for another tale.

Although most of the work done on ΔV was rather typical, with individual tasks taking no more than a few hours to finish, there were three that took way longer than anticipated, delaying our development by over three months in total.

Our first colossal task was implementing a new ship - the Elon Interstellar Model E. Between unique fusion drives and fusion power supply, new mechanics, unusual split-cargo-bay design. It took almost a month to add this bag of quirks into the game. Compare that to three days that took me to make Cothon-212.



A second significant obstacle was the introduction of the Articulated Recovery Manipulator. While the initial implementation was relatively swift, adding the option to pick up not just ships but also ore, ringroids and other objects complicated it a lot and introduced multiple bugs, which took almost six weeks to hunt out.

The third monstrosity along the way was the hardware glitches. It turns out that the support of OpenGL ES 3 that my engine uses is a bit underwhelming on some graphics cards, with problems ranging from poor performance, extravagant video RAM consumption to plain out graphics not displaying at all.
Since I can’t possibly have access to all the hardware configurations out there, fixing all of these relied on reports from you, my dear players. It would not be possible without some of you spending up to a couple of days testing with me subsequent patches I pushed out to you, for which I am most grateful.

Along the way, we had detours that were not bugs but rather things that I found just too good to pass on.



The crew faces overhaul was an unexpected side-effect of an Aprils Fools’ joke. It turned out that the AI that I used to generate a bunch of funny furry pilots is impressive in making a natural human face, and in a couple of days, we climbed off the uncanny valley of Enceladus.



Conlido RVM Cothon-212 was a Friday wildcard - a side project that I do on my day off, an attempt to design a more realistic spaceship, adhering to conservative radiator placements, exposed internals and a shadow shield. It turned out to be nice enough to push it into the main game. We were supposed to have three playable ships for the 1.0 release, and now, with Cothon, we have five.

Besides the indirect contributions, like bug reports and idea suggestions, most of the ΔV’s translations were made by players. With our development velocity, with new versions of the game coming out daily, this is the only way to ensure that most of the game is translated. Than you! Here is a list of our current language support status:



ΔV is an independent, self-published title. When I started developing it, it was unclear if this was a viable career choice, and thus ΔV began as a side-project, something that I do in my spare time. A journey of an independent game developer is similar to the road a writer takes - we have our day jobs, we are creating something we dreamt about, and we have a team of people that helps us. The Early Access title is like the first book in a trilogy for a new author - some will buy it, others will wait until the trilogy completes, or there are enough positive reviews.

The risks are also the same - will this creation be able to support me, or will it be a one-time blip on my financial radar? There is no other way to know for sure than to publish something and see for yourself.
And ΔV is delivering. The Early Access sales now are enough to support the development, and all the feedback and contributions are honing it to be the best game it can be. In my eyes, it has already succeeded - it is stable, polished, and has all the features I have planned. I’m still adding more content, and some parts were not in the plan, but I now feel it should have them before being called complete. Due to the structure of event-based storytelling we have, I can expand on the game as you play along. New storylines, upgrades, ships and crew quests will integrate seamlessly with your experience, and I hope that due to my fix-bugs-first policy, you’ll get as polished experience now as you’ll get in a 1.0 release.

But don’t take my word for it. Check the demo. It has the same content as a complete game, I release updates at the same time, the saves are fully compatible, and you can see it for yourself with a single click:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/

• Elon Interstellar Model E.
  
• Conlido RVM Cothon-212.

• THI cargo container.
  
• Nakamura-Titan Mining Companion.
  
• New propulsion systems.
  
• B8 Claim beacons.
  
• Articulated Recovery Manipulator.
  
• Articulated mass drivers and lasers.
  
• New Heads Up Displays.
  
• Gungnir particle accelerator.

• New crew quests.
  
• The Bounty hunter vs Anarchists main storyline significantly expanded.
  
• Your crew now can know people flying other ships.

• Firing solutions for NDCI autopilot.
  
• Expanded tutorial.
  
• Performance detail settings.
  
• Performance improvements.
  
• Improved textures, images and shaders.
  
• New crew portraits.
  
• Expanded demo.
  
• New ore density maps, including veins you can follow.
  
• Astrogator and Geologist have separate panels with their own settings.
  
• Steam Leaderboards support.
  
• Translations to various languages.

Finishers are devastating Attacks that deal heavy damage on the battlefield. They consume a lot of BP though and are therefore sparingly used. Finishers are weapon specific and every weapon has their own set of Finishers. In Crimson Tactics, Finishers are accompanied by a special Animation and FX. Here we showcase a couple of Sword Finishers.

This Finisher deals Slashing Water Damage in a line. This is unlocked at Sword Mastery D.


This Finisher deals Piercing Holy Damage in a line. This is unlocked at Sword Mastery B.

Hello everyone,

We have a huge announcement to make. As Domiverse has been out for a long time now and because it’s easier than ever to play with your friends using the Steam Remote Play Together. We have decided to allow a maximum of players to have access to the game by making it free. From 20 December 2021, Domiverse will be completely free on Steam … Forever!

We want to thank all the people who bought Domiverse and supported us all the way. We couldn't have done it without you. We are blessed to have an amazing community, small but very strong!!!

Speaking of a strong community, now that Domiverse is free, it’s time to bring people in. No more excuses, tell your friends, your parents, your gals and guys, your dog, your mutuals and your dog’s mutuals to come and join the Domiverse Family!!!

Thanks again for your support,
The Haunted Tie team

Some new players were finding hard time accommodating to the game difficulty.

So in the new update you will find :

1-Levels are re-ordered to suit new players more.
2-Levels difficulty has been redesign for the same purpose.
3-Better reaction to the player input.

And for the next update :

Techno endless mode will be released, in this mode player will be able to play endlessly the techno levels shuffled, so stay tuned ;).

• Max palette size increased to 32 for the free version
  
• Minor bug fixes

↑ FPH.SpedV.API (21.11.2)
↑ STSPluginLib (1.0.8)
↑ QRCoder (1.4.2)
↑ NLog (4.7.13)
↑ Microsoft.Xaml.Behaviors.Wpf (1.1.39)
↑ MaterialDesignThemes.MahApps (0.2.0)
↑ MaterialDesignThemes (4.3.0)
↑ MaterialDesignColors (2.0.4)
↑ Extended.Wpf.Toolkit (4.2.0)
↑ System.Linq.Async (5.1.0)
↑ Grpc.Tools (2.42.0)
↑ UnitsNet (4.110.0)
+ Added new hidden Achievement
+ Kontor: Trailer statistics and trip overview added.
+ Kontor & Orders: Added live information about tours that are currently being driven.
+ Orders: Paused orders must now be continued within 500 meters of paused location
+ Forwarding destination: added settings for OMSI and Kontor
+ STS: delay information from other users is now displayed
+ STS: rerouted trains are now displayed correctly
* STS: design revisions
* Kontor: use only tons for weights again
* Orders: Some ferry combinations lead to automatic rejection of the order
* Ranks: Fix for KM bonus
* TruckersMP flyout: Fix for collision display in servers
* General bugfixes
- Kontor MP test is now no longer required

Well, the German language is here. Another one to come for certain will be Spanish.
Also, this updated Demo clarifies some aspects and hopefully eliminates any confusion that you, players, have talked about before.
Feel free to replay it, even if you already gave it a spin sometime before. It's always a good thing to refresh old memories.

Secondly, the release is almost around the corner, so please stay tuned for later updates.

1. Will there be any crossover announcements?

Yes! There will be not one, not three, but five major collabs! The crossovers will be a variety of titles, from games well-known in the west and some popular titles in the East. Some of these crossovers have been (bean?!) asked quite frequently from the devs, and we're happy to see that you have guessed some of the games we're collabing with correctly! Some collabs, however; the players haven't figured out just yet!



2. Where can I watch the show? Will it be available in languages other than English?

The show will be available in English, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese, and we will also upload subtitles on YouTube to make it easier for players of different languages to watch.
The livestream will be on the official YouTube and Twitch channels in each language, and we have also made an integrated livestream page for your convenience. The detailed address will be released later!
The time for the livestream is: December 12, 19:30 GMT +8. (Pssst! Make sure to watch the livestream and get a mystery gift!)
NA players, fear not! There will be a second round for the livestream from 12PM PST on December 12.



3. Will there be any in-game gifts during the NARAKA FEST event?

NARAKA FEST is a festival for all players, and the live show is just a part of it.
In addition to the show, there will also be a large number of in-game activities.


4. After the show, when will the new content update arrive to the game?

Because this update contains a lot of new content, the development team needs more time to produce and polish, the new version of the update will be postponed to 12.14 (next Tuesday).
There will be another update in December later on.


5. When will Naraka: Bladepoint arrive to console?

The devs are continuing to work hard on the console version and we're planning to release the PS5 and XBOX version of Naraka: Bladepoint in 2022.

Based on your feedback, we would like to make this application better than "Sword Maker".
If you need additional parts, bug reports, or any other comments, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you for your continued support.