Hello, Raw Fury here!

Today we are incredibly happy to announce that we have teamed up with Anders to bring SKALD: Against the Black Priory to life. When we first laid our eyes on the game earlier this year, we not only fell in love with the game and its richly illustrated grim-dark fantasy and Lovecraftian horror setting, but we also fell in love with Anders and his passion for resurrecting the genre and building a game which brings the past into the future.

We can’t wait to show you more of this gem throughout 2022, but if you need to scratch that Skald-itch already today, we have gathered a couple of goodies for you to enjoy while you wait for all the awesomeness to come:

• SKALD: Against the Black Priory - Partnership Announcement
  
• Developer interview with Anders Lauridsen on the Raw Fury YouTube channel
  
• Skald developer blog post
  
• Raw Fury blog post

We are excited to release our Version 1.3 Update! This update adds in festive holiday art sets and also is our initial (beta) release for Eyes of the Night in VR. As of now, this build only supports Oculus headsets, but we hope to expand our VR compatibility in the future.

Here are the full patch notes for version 1.3:

Additions:

• Beta - VR Support for Oculus Headsets (Rift S and Quest 2 with Oculus Link)
  
  • This is a beta implementation of VR support. We will continue to refine and we hope to expand support to additional VR hardware. We would love your feedback and/or suggestions on our Discord server or in the Discussion page.
    
  • Possible Known Issue: We have seen some reports of VR not initializing properly and are investigating. We found possible work-arounds with restarting the Oculus software or restarting the computer and we are actively working to identify if we can implement a permanent solution.
• Christmas themed art set - Elves and presents and candy canes...all the festive stuff!
  
• Three new “winter wonderland” art sets, exclusive (for now) to the Christmas art sets

Fixes:

• Fixed issue with enemies sometimes getting stuck on fences in stealth mode
  
• Fixed issue with trees not spawning along axis lines (creating a + type pattern)
  
• Fixed issue with stealth mode not always recognizing when you are in a bush
  
• Fixed issue with llamas spitting on the windshields of passing cars
  
• Fixed issue with enemies sometimes pushing player out of bounds
  
• Fixed issue with bush LOD scaling
  
• Fixed issue with potion light brightness
  
• Moved coffee cups away from the edges of tables so cats wouldn’t knock them off
  
• Fixed rare issue with stealth mode not always applying proper health drain when sprinting
  
• Fixed rare issue with potion respawn
  
• Fixed very rare issue that could get player stuck at main menu scene without menu options

Improvements:

• Rewrote input system (step one to provide full controller support in future update)
  
• Improved 3D sound system

Blender 2.93.7 LTS features many bug fixes. It is released on the 2.93 branch.

You can switch to this by right-clicking on the Blender entry in your library, select Properties.... Open the Betas tab and select 2.93.

• macOS Catalina 10.15.7: Eevee crash with Intel HD 4000. (T92090)
  
• Fix potential crash opening 3.0 blend files in older versions. (rB1d8d6c2f62bf0ee)
  
• GPencil: Speed up Occlude Eraser. (rB4796865b466)
  
• Crash erasing GPencil when occlusion test is enabled. (T92760)
  
• "Flat Caps" on Cutter tool not working if cut is made in the middle of the stroke. (T93074)
  
• Alembic export ignores Mantaflow particles (liquid, spray, foam, bubbles). (T93066)
  
• Mixdown crashes Blender 2.92.0 and 3.0.0 Alpha. (T88614)
  
• UV Maps are broken with Boolean Modifier (Fast Solver). (T92384)
  
• Eevee instant crash with a custom node from template example. (T89260)
  
• Channels in the Grease Pencil Dope Sheet still visible while collection is hidden. (T93194)
  
• Frame Selected does not work in Grease Pencil Curve Edit Mode. (T93198)
  
• Cannot animate Object Info Color in Cycles with Persistent Data ticked. (T93007)
  
• FBX Import error (enum with -1 value -- e.g. as done by the babylonjs exporter from 3dsmax). (T81657)
  
• FBX export error if there is an action in NLA tweakmode. (T93209)
  
• Freestyle NPR: Unknown curve blend type Crash. (T93320)
  
• Freestyle: Sinus Displacement Division by Zero Crash. (T93322)
  
• Curve Guide force field causes crash. (T93338)
  
• Texture paint: crash when painting with clone brush. (T93117)
  
• View/Frame Selected (Vertex Paint mode) not working. (T93130)
  
• Freestyle seed in noise modifier can be zero (leading to crash). (T89081)
  
• Rotation Chooses Wrong Axis. (T93290)
  
• Magic UV: Remove online updater. (rBA69c817b8)
  
• Curve based rig broken since 2.93. (T89564)
  
• Reload Library Override file loses Constraints. (T93353)
  
• Subdividing with overlapping tri and quad crashes Blender. (T93563)
  
• Relax/Push Pose operator not working on quaternion rotation. (T92043)
  
• LineArt: Shifting fix for different camera fitting. (rBd23303e27d75cef439755c8bc193128affab568a)
  
• Node Wrangler - Principled Texture Setup error (with Relative Path option and blendfile and textures are on different drives). (T77022)

Learn more about the https://www.blender.org/download/lts/


You can follow Blender on social media:

Keep reporting any issues you find to make this LTS the most stable release ever !

Happy blending,
The Blender team

Hello, Raw Fury here!

Today we are incredibly happy to announce that we have teamed up with Anders to bring SKALD: Against the Black Priory to life. When we first laid our eyes on the game earlier this year, we not only fell in love with the game and its richly illustrated grim-dark fantasy and Lovecraftian horror setting, but we also fell in love with Anders and his passion for resurrecting the genre and building a game which brings the past into the future.

We can’t wait to show you more of this gem throughout 2022, but if you need to scratch that Skald-itch already today, we have gathered a couple of goodies for you to enjoy while you wait for all the awesomeness to come:

• SKALD: Against the Black Priory - Partnership Announcement
  
• Developer interview with Anders Lauridsen on the Raw Fury YouTube channel
  
• Skald developer blog post
  
• Raw Fury blog post

Greetings everyone,

We just wanted to let you know that we've deployed several hotfixes to address the issues that were discovered with the most recent major release.

We would like to express our gratitude for your patience and for reporting these problems; we sincerely appreciate it.

Complete changelogs for both hotfixes can be found here:

• Release notes for v0.24.0.1
  
• Release notes for v0.24.0.2

Should you encounter any further issues, please let us know in the dedicated forum thread, and please double-check the Known Issues list before reporting.

We’ll be back shortly with the holiday release!

Dear Indents,

To celebrate the festive season, we're giving all players The Winter Pack as a free gift, it is the season of giving after all! We’re also happy to announce that all side missions are now fully voiced, and Patch #6 is now live for all players.


Download the Winter Pack now for free here on Steam and get festive with the following new content:

A new makeshift hand grenade:

• Snowball: Throw with the intent to stagger but not kill - to be jolly but not homicidal. A snowball fight is always fun and games, until someone loses an eye. Remember, play ice!

And three new fashion apparels:

• Buttercup headgear: 'Tis the season of strange on Veles. Horrible visibility, highly flammable and with questionable street cred.
  
• Red Danger headgear: Warm your nose and make a statement to boot. A bright red nose like a true alpha, and antlers for immediate intimidation. Don't listen to the fools that say you look silly.
  
• Festive shirt: A festive Winter T-shirt

The Ascent is the first game to use Altered’s augmented voice technology, a new AI-powered tool to augment human voices to create a range of custom voices for new lines of dialogue. Previously, for some of our NPC's especially for side missions, we had used Alien voices with subtitles. We partnered with Altered to create real voices for these characters to make the world of Veles feel even more alive! Altered have helped us in voicing over 800 lines voiced by 40 NPCs using their ground breaking technology.

If you’re a developer and interested to learn more about their software, you can check it out here.


The following update is now available for all players on all platforms. Our team is continuing to improve the game and we’re very grateful for all of the feedback from our community.

Reminder:

• We’ve added a build number to all versions of ‘The Ascent’, this is to aid in debugging future community issues. The number can be found in the lower right hand corner of the Main Menu. Please use this number when reporting issues, many thanks!

Gameplay (All platforms)

• Fixed an issue where some items could not be equipped correctly when using Transmog.
  
• Fixed an issue where the NEWT MGL grenades could be fired through certain thin walls.

Translation (all platforms)

• Minor fixes and improvements made to translation across the game. We will continue to work on improving translation.

Misc. Fixes (all platforms)

• Fixed a handful of minor collision related issues.

Happy winter everyone!
The Ascent Team

Dear Protectors of the Light,

We’re happy to bring you our latest Content Update!

This is our last Update before the holiday period and we wanted to make sure we were able to release some tasty treats for you. With our V0.3.0 Update you can look forward to a New Nightmare, a New Building, New Malices and Blessings along with a host of Quality of Life improvements.

We’ve got work scheduled out for the next year looking to deliver on a host of new Patches, Content Updates and eventually Campaign and Multiplayer.

While we’ll be on break until early next year, we will have a team of people on standby and checking in periodically. So as always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the bug reporting channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.

Check out the full patch notes below:

• Added in a brand new Nightmare, The Burster.
  
• Added in a new Building, the Treasury.
  
• Added in the new Catalysing Injuries Malice, an area of effect malice that can damage your units and surrounding buildings when the Nightmares destroy your defenses.
  
• Added in the new Rigged Defenses Blessing, an area of effect blessing that can damage enemy Nightmares as they destroy your defenses.
  
• Added new iconography to the Mini-Map. Players will now be able to see their Hero location, Points of Interest, Elite Enemies and discovered Crystals at all times.
  
• Increased the range and damage-per-second of Grand Bellow Towers.
  
• Treasuries, Trade Bazaars and Storehouses will now correctly display what they are buffing above the surrounding buildings.
  
• All negative values in-game (costs, negative gold, villager count etc) now display in Red to indicate it is a negative value clearer.

• Fixed an issue where the game could crash on placement of the Fishing Lodge.
  
• Fixed an issue where the game would crash if pressing F10 when loading into the game.

• Fixed an issue Dark Essence would display the Food Icon in the Resource Grid.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Daybreak Blessing wouldn’t work under some conditions.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Trade Bazaar not displaying the correct sell amounts for resources.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Rally Point flag wouldn’t show when the game was paused.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain Skill Tree items would not correctly display the percentage chance.
  
• Fixed an issue where attack speed could be displayed in the negative when using Queen’s Rage and certain Skill Tree Skills.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Booster Skill not working correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Mini-Map could display undiscovered Points of Interest there as you load into the game.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Heroless Hardship appearing on the End of Game Screen regardless of if it is active or not.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Nightmare Difficulty not displaying in red on the Save Game Screen.
  
• Fixed an issue with the player being able to Tab between Crystals after discovering one.
  
• Fixed an issue with Edwin’s health being displayed incorrectly.
  
• Various Localisation fixes for the Fishing Port, Trade Bazaar and Treasury.
  
• Various UI bug fixes.

• We’re aware of an issue where in some cases the player can increase the Death Night Counter on the Final Night to 4 Billion Enemies when placing houses in areas illuminated by new Fire Sconces during Final Stand. This has only been found to occur on Development builds.

Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.

---
We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Till next time Protectors of the Light…

AoD Social Links:

AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server
AoD Website - Official Website & Blog
Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Hello Gardeners!

Have you already played Gardenia?

If not, you are probably wondering who lives on the magic island.
Let us introduce you to the first inhabitant - Mr C



Let us know what you think!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1296440/Gardenia/

Greetings Faithful followers

We have great news for you today as Update 1 is now live! We have added the first major features from the Early Access roadmap today including Mission Events, Cultist Quirls, Random events as well as Christmas Decor items and outfits.

See the full trailer for the update here!



Full details can be found below:
Save System:
Saves games created prior to this update (Update 1) are now out of date and can no longer be loaded.

New beta branch will be created on Steam that allows players to load their older saves into the previous version of the game (Release Build Patch 1) to continue playing if they wish.

Note that continuing an older save on the previous version of the game will not include any of the below additions, changes or fixes.

Additions:

• Quirks system added:
  
• Approximately 65 quirks have been added.
  
• Quirks are a new form of trait added to NPCs.
  
• NPCs start with some quirks and gain more every 5 levels.
  
• Quirks have conditions that need to be met or the NPC will receive a mood debuff.
  
• Mood debuffs for quirks stack slowly over time.
  
• Quirks may be removed in the same manner as traits with the correct ministry of alteration tech unlock.
  
• Mission assign cultist menu shows relevant quirks.
  
• Cultist overview job assign menu shows relevant quirks.

• Random Events system added:
  
• Approximately 50 random events have been added so far.
  
• We plan to add many more random events throughout early access development.
  
• Random events can now occur during a playthrough.
  
• A paperboy and newspaper popup will alert the player to a random event.
  
• Random events can give various positive and negative outcomes.
  
• Many new effects have been added to NPCs to reflect these random events.

• Mission Events system added:
  
• Approximately 20 mission events have been added so far.
  
• We plan to add many more mission events throughout early access development.
  
• Some missions may now have an event occur.
  
• Options presented during a mission event are determined by the skills of cultists attending the mission.
  
• Cultist skills have been divided into 3 category types for the purposes of determining skills on mission events. They are: ‘people’, ‘logical’ and ‘practical’ skill categories.
  
• Interacting with a mission event can give multiple positive and negative rewards.
  
• Players will usually have the option to dismiss them and not interact with them.

• Added new stats menu:
  
• New stats menu has been added to the HUD.
  
• It can be opened by pressing any of the stats.
  
• Tracks a variety of information for stats, resources, and NPCs.
  
• Added new hats and outfits related to Christmas.
  
• Added new object rewards for missions related to Christmas.
  
• Added new relics related to Christmas.
  
• Added new cultist Symbol.
  
• Added 7 new dynamic tutorials.

Changes:

• Mission difficulty has changed how it scales. Players should now see a more consistent increase to mission success chance as more cultist skill points are added to a mission.
  
• Mission assign cultist menu now shows the minimum number of skill points needed to affect a mission outcome.
  
• Mission assign cultist menu now shows the maximum number of skill points needed to complete a mission with 100% chance of success.
  
• Mission assign cultist menu changes the minimum and maximum skill points needed mentioned above if covert ops planning is carried out.
  
• Time to research research tree techs slightly reduced.
  
• Cost of research tree techs slightly reduced.
  
• The research menu now remembers its scroll position.
  
• Faith cost of cultists will now increase at lower moods. This is reflected on mood bar tooltips.
  
• Randall Innsmouth special character now has scary new face.
  
• Customisation screen leader facial features is now its own separate button.
  
• Added close button to sermon menu.
  
• Credits updated.
  
• Mouse cursor is no longer displayed during the end game screens.
  
• Vending machine food information has been added to the canteen serve menu.
  
• New tab added to cultist sidebar menu to show quirks and traits.
  
• New tab added to the follower sidebar menu to show quirks and traits.
  
• Cultist and follower sidebars now remember the last tab opened.
  
• Ministry of alteration ‘joyful alteration’ has now been replaced by ‘quirky alteration’. It no longer gives a mood buff when removing traits. It means quirks can now be removed in addition to traits.

Fixes:

• Fixed a cultist behaviour issue where they would sometimes not wash their hands after using a toilet because they had a job to attend to.
  
• Missions that can scale in difficulty were not scaling their duration correctly.
  
• HUD alerts mood break tooltips would sometimes report mood breaks occurring when there was none.
  
• Fixed bug where cultists with injuries requiring treatment could be sent on missions.
  
• Sermon outcome menu now matches the sermon menu predicted results more accurately.
  
• Mission types will no longer stop appearing if one of those types had previously expired or failed.
  
• Cultist overview menu will now correctly toggle the leader sidebar open and closed when clicking their name.
  
• If a cultist has a bed assigned to them the cultist sidebar menu now shows the beds correct room.
  
• Fixed rooms sometimes reporting restricted space when there was none.
  
• Dismissing a Follower now decreases PR instead of increasing it.
  
• FPS no longer drops in contracts room assign menu.
  
• Cultists no longer temporarily appear back in the game world when they are at hospital and are dismissed.
  
• Changing a cultists outfit whilst they are in the shower no longer results in flashing outfit colours.
  
• Fixed cultists sometimes reporting skill modifiers from traits they do not possess.
  
• Mission difficulty colours now match between the mission list and mission detail menus.
  
• Cultist eyes can no longer be seen on the top of full face hats in certain conditions.
  
• Cultists will no longer become stuck on pews.
  
• The most relevant sidebar menus now open when clicking certain aspects of the cultist and follower overview menus.
  
• Demolish tool could sometimes not be used when the cultists money was low.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a cultist leaves with certain menus open.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when moving certain objects around rooms.
  
• Fixed FPS drop on follower overview menu when followers would enter or leave the street.
  
• Follower recruit progress in the follower overview menu is now sorted better.
  
• It is no longer possible to recruit multiple followers during the recruit follower tutorial.
  
• It is no longer possible to interact with the divine inspirations menu during the tutorial.
  
• It is no longer possible to assign rooms other than a bedroom during the bedroom tutorial.
  
• It is no longer possible to change the walls during the foundation tutorial.
  
• Moving a door will no longer sometimes make part of a room unusable.

Localisation:

• Fixed many typos.
  
• Fixed many missing references.
  
• Fixed many incorrect references.
  
• Fixed many incorrect translations.

As already mentioned, the new features are only available on brand new save files and not existing save games. If you have an existing save file you wish to carry on playing, you can still do so by switching Steam BETA branch to version 0.3.043_patch1 as shown below.





No new themes?
We know that many of you would like to see new themes. These are being worked on in the background but for the time being we are prioritising making the core gameplay as enjoyable as possible and responding to community feedback, before we release new themes.
We're confident these updates will have a much more significant impact on the game than a new theme currently would. That being said, stay tuned, new themes will be coming soon.

Please continue to report any issues you experience (crashes, bugs, etc) in our Report A Problem forum, or to our team via email: help@team17support.com

Make sure you also follow us on Twitter and come join your fellow Cult Leaders in our Discord Server!

Enjoy!

Greetings everyone!
I hope your mops are keeping busy!

Another year has passed, and much has happened.
We thought we'd give you a rundown of what exactly this year brought in terms of progress, among other things.
As ever, sorry for the long periods of silence.

Since our last major announcement, a few things happened.

1. In July, South Africa experienced a major bout of civil unrest. Rioters burned down buildings, destroyed and looted shops, disrupted vital transportation, ceased harbor operations, and generally caused a great deal of damage across the country, adding to the existing damage caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. Just down the road from us the shops were ransacked, and for over a week things were touch and go. Many parts of the country experienced food shortages.
   Fortunately, things returned more or less to normal quicker than expected, but it's safe to say that stuff got very uncertain, and led to many changes in the country.
   
   
2. We've been very hard at work on the two projects mentioned last time; The UE4 Port and the "Other Project"
   The other project has been showing great promise, and it is now nestling into a final form.
   It's hard to over stress how much this project has been a journey of discovery.
   Not just in terms of the tech, as we are making our own engine for it, but in terms of the game it's going to be.
   
   
3. We've been spending a lot of time learning new skills and new tech for what we have planned for the future.
   Working on VCD full time made this difficult, what with the weekly updates and regular dead lines, so we're taking the time(what little there is) now to do so.

The time spent since our last word on it has brought a fair bit of progress.
As I say, it is now nestling into a final form. So we're testing and iterating over it.
It has fresh and shiny new content to go with its unusual art style.
It has a fair play time, and it has a feel that's now getting in line with where we want it to be.

That being said. It's still pretty early for where it needs to get, ultimately. But it is approaching the time when we can announce it, with a good bit to show.

It'll be very interesting to see what you all make of it!
One of these days, we might actually have images to show. Hard to believe, I know...
We've talked about it for ages, but yes, it is coming along very nicely now!

It's a culmination of many years of effort in making our own tech, so it's naturally been an exercise in experimentation.


This one has also been coming along nicely.
But it too is a huge undertaking.

Here are some screenshots of where it stands.
We decided to remake Splatter Station, as it's a good test bed for the main mechanics before we move onward.






Currently, we have most of the main mechanics in, and a fair number of starting objects.
But just about everything is going to need significant iteration. Every mechanic is simple and crude and needs work.

• Hands can pick up and hold things. But their animations are not all correct.
  
• Many sounds are missing, and old content does not always import correctly.
  
• The UI is extremely basic!
  
• There is no custom editor tool for placing objects or blood, making level creation very slow until we make it.
  
• The way blood worked in the original VCD is out-dated and UE4 requires different textures. That's part of the reason why the blood in the screenshots(when it's actually visible) is so faint.
  
• The networking is likely going to need extensive iteration. It's on the right track, but needs a lot of improvement.
  
• There are little to no particle FX yet.
  
• The Camera and world scale are slightly off.
  
• Buckets don't have a water material. Ghastly!
  
• The default UE4 lighting system requires a rethinking on how we approach lighting a level. As you can see by the darkness. Alternatively, we may simply use the older method. More work is needed, basically.
  
• Some of the grimy architecture has not been put in Splatter Station yet.

So, although much needs to be done, it is going very well so far.

It should be said however, that this may be put on pause(at least partially) when our new project is announced. As we'll likely need all hands on deck to facilitate its continual updates and full-time development.


It's been a long year full of some very silent work, and a ton of distractions.
We've been nose to the grindstone so much we forget sometimes to look up and let you all know.
Doesn't help if what we're doing doesn't have nice images to go with it.

Next year should be very interesting indeed! So stay tuned for that.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday! Keep the mops up and the bins down. There is no rest on holidays for Space Janitors, so we expect you to keep the stations tip top for the executive Christmas party!

EDIT: Thank you so much everyone for the well wishes!

We are fortunate to have such an excellent community of fantastic janitors!
Aerospace Sanitation does not deserve you fine hard working custodians. But don't tell them I said that...