Hello again! In this weeks dev blog we're sharing some of the information surrounding the dark mystery of the tarot and the representation of tarot cards in the game!

There are many elements in play with Martha's story, from the tragic murder and following investigation and the oppressive presence of war, to the mysticism around dark arts and age old folklore, with the shattering impact this all has on the family and those around them.

Before we dive into the cards themselves, let's have a little history lesson on the origin of tarot, and why it fits with Marthas authentic Italian themes.


Tarot decks were invented in Italy in the 1430s by adding to the existing four-suited pack a fifth suit of 21 specially illustrated cards called trionfi (“triumphs”) and an odd card called il matto (“the fool”).
these early tarot cards—tarocchi cards, in Italian—had suits, trump cards, and even pips.

The widespread use of tarot cards for divination only took off in the late 1700s, when Frenchman Jean-Baptise Alliette published the first definitive guide to tarot card reading.
Pseudonymed Etteilla, he wrote a guide to using the cards and released his own deck alongside it. He gave meaning to each of the cards, incorporating beliefs about astronomy and the four elements. He claimed to have borrowed heavily from the Book of Thoth, an Egyptian text supposedly written by Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.


Fancy your hand at being a Tarot reader? As you progress through the game the player will come across the Tarot cards and be able to use them once per in game day.
The player will choose 3 of them at random each day and then a set reading based on the results is given, hinting to things that have happened in the past, that may happen in the future, or potentially even evoking spirits and communicating with them.

Each card has two different meanings, depending on how the image appears when the card is turned over: upright or reversed.

In the first case the card normally has a positive meaning, in the second case a negative one (in some cases, which will be specified, the opposite is true).

The meaning of each card is also profoundly influenced by the other cards that accompany it. For this reason the interpretation of the tarot is neither easy, immediate nor unambiguous.
Let us analyse each card with its possible and contrasting meanings.



It represents an individual who is about to face something new.

It encourages one to face life lightly, without fearing what will come and without giving weight to the judgement of others.

Indicates insecurity and depression, a preamble to bad results.

Represents energy.

Indicates an important encounter in love or friendship and the ability to get what you want.

The end of a relationship, difficulties in friendships or work.
Indicates deception, seduction leading to mistakes.

Represents feminine knowledge, endowed with great spiritual power.

Indicates a female person who will help with the wisdom of her advice.

Announces clashes with the males.
May indicate a period when one faces life passively, suffering problems rather than facing them.

It represents love and prosperity.

Successful completion of an undertaking, happiness and stability.
Could indicate a close engagement or marriage.
Represents a practical, strong, successful person.

Betrayal and gossip. Could represent the approaching end of a relationship.
Represents a superficial and unreliable person as they lack feelings.



Represents a man of power, material power as opposed to the The High Priestess.

Great experience, ability to control oneself and influence others.

Powerful, selfishness.

Represents spiritual strength.

Ability to teach others, may indicate that the person is protected by a higher good.

Inability to take responsibility.

Represent a contrast between good and evil, between vices and virtues.
It normally concerns the emotional and love sphere.

Heralds an active and satisfying social life as well as a positive love life.

Dangerous temptations lead to negative consequences in the emotional and sentimental sphere. Consequences that can only be resolved through suffering.

Represents the victory that can be achieved through self-discipline and commitment.

Success is on the way, you can overcome some difficult moments.

Difficulty in getting what you want, failure.
Difficulty in making decisions and loss of control



Represents two opposing forces.

Ability to master one's instincts, self-control.
Problems will be solved with determination.

Dominance of insecurity and brutal force.
Aggression and violence undermine relationships with others.

Represents wisdom and thoughtfulness

Invites reflection, patience and making decisions on one's own.
Indicates capacity for reflection and prudence.

Indicates regression or loss.
It may represent an inability to make decisions for oneself, but also a situation of excessive isolation.

Represents destiny

Luck is on us side. There will be positive changes.

Fate is adverse and will put us to the test.
There may be negative changes.

Represents balance and the consequences of actions.

We can get what we deserve, be successful.
Indicates an impartial, honest and moral person.

Our actions will not take us where we want to go.
Major quarrels and possible relationship breakdowns.



It represents sacrifice and its acceptance. Very ambiguous card.

There are important changes in sight. It indicates rebirth to a new life.

Many doubts are the preamble to difficult times.
May represent unrequited love.

It represents the inevitable end, destruction and subsequent regeneration.

We end something that will bring something better. We overcome something that was not right. It is necessary to destroy something in order to build something better.

Something ends that leaves a great void and brings suffering, despair. You go through a difficult period to overcome.

Represents harmony.

Harmony and balance help to avoid mistakes and accompany us towards serenity.

We lack the right balance and harmony to face life's challenges.

Represents the vices that imprison the human being.

Negative values are mitigated. May represent the ability to be master of one's own destiny and to influence others. Magnetic force.

Laziness, fear of responsibility, weakness.
Announces external, but also internal obstacles that are the incarnations of our fears.



Represents a sudden and shocking change.

For the strong ones, there is an opportunity to overturn the destiny, to be able to pursue great goals.

A mental breakdown or physical accident from which it is very difficult to recover.
Psychological distress and physical suffering.

It represents the ideals to which we must aspire.

Favourable events and possibilities that must be grasped and that will bring us happiness.

Bad luck, contrary fate and difficulty in pursuing our goals.

It represents illusion and night. A light that does not make you see things clearly.

One needs to see things beyond their outward appearance.
Represents a naive, dreamy and creative person.

Reality is only apparently serene, but hides much negativity.
It indicates a materialistic and false person who moves in the shadows without ever showing his true nature.

It represents victory, success and, in general, joyful events in life.

The undertakings we are carrying out and our projects will be successful.
May indicate deep regeneration and happiness.

The rays of the sun are dazzling reality and creating illusions.
We are also in the dark in our relationships with others. Deep misunderstandings will not have positive consequences.



It represents consciousness and the possibility of a new beginning.

Positive and unexpected surprises.
Indicates a patient and eccentric person.

The impossibility of changing what we don't like makes us suffer and leads to great disappointment.

It represents joy, beauty and prosperity.

Success, positive conclusion of a project or path.

Failure to complete a project or path that we thought was within our reach.

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For more information on Martha Is Dead, be sure to wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord and follow our socials!

We can't wait to see what the cards hold for you on Feb 24th...

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

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What to Expect?

• Introduction, Daily, and Festival dialogue for all of the characters.
  
  
• Heart Events with Non-Romance Characters.
  
  
• Marriage and Children!
  
  
• Casting Magic and brewing potions!
  
  
• Build on your farm!
  
  
• Farming!
  
  
• Animal Husbandry and Taming Wildlife (excluding emus).
  
  
• Quests (excluding those in the Unwritten Lands)!
  
  
• Dungeon exploration, puzzles, and hidden locations!
  
  
• Special Events!
  
  
• Lycanthropy, Vampirism, and Mermaid enchantments for the player.
  
  
• Summon, train, and battle with your Minions.
  
  
• Cooking, Tailoring, Alchemy, and Blacksmithing.
  
  
• Gamepad Controller Support.

What has been excluded during Beta Testing?

• Heart Events with Romance Characters.
  
• Traveling into the Unwritten Lands.
  
• The Ending Cutscene.
  
• Local Co-Op.
  
• macOS

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Z9K2ec7n

Safe travels and happy bug hunting,
Little_Amethyst

Fellow Citizens!

The madness begins! Midweek madness, to be precise. Starting now, Frostpunk will be 75% off till Friday, January 21st. The expansions are heavily discounted too, including the Season Pass. So if you haven't decided to get Frostpunk by now, it can be a good timing as it's the biggest discount ever.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/323190/Frostpunk/


We're also launching our new social media platform - TikTok. As a TikTok newbie, for a good start, we're going to drop a few videos informing about current matters. However, in the future, we plan to make short formats with a peek behind the curtain that will introduce to you the people that shape our games, our work style, and everyday life in 11 bit studios HQ. We understand this particular media has - let's say, a specific reputation - however, we intend to create content that is in line with what we do and show you who we are and what makes our games unique rather than aim at not-so-serious clips in seek of viral recognition. You'll see. Anyway, to those of you who use TikTok - let us cordially invite you to the 11 bit channel. Finally, something new is to be posted soon, unveiling bits of the Frostpunk 2 world. So stay tuned!

Jump here if you wish to - nomen omen - add Frostpunk 2 to the wishlist.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1601580/Frostpunk_2/

This build focuses on bug fixes among several different systems that are being pulled into the game. Maps will be going back to their normal friday release schedule. Total build download size should be much smaller than last week. This weeks maps will be mostly focusing on replacing old banks.


This change focuses on alleviating a lot of various problems with the spawning system. Along with attempting to fix most of the bugs with the system, players' pucks will now attempt to spawn as close to the bomb as possible spread out in a uniform pattern (with the general exception of bank, because you can't spawn in vault.)

• Added new behavior for initial placement of pucks that favors spawn points around the bomb
  
• Adjusted bomb spawn points to spread them out around the bomb, not too close and not too far
  
• Fixed puck placement where pucks could be placed inside of objects in their default position
  
• Fixed issue where players would place pucks "nowhere"
  
• Changed JIP spawning to pick better spawn points for players as a fallback
  
• Added fallback to use old spawn point placements (with bug fixes) if bomb spawn points are not valid
  
• Changed math to make spawn points still work if they are below or above a spawnable surface on different floors
  
• Changed math to make area checking for initial spawn puck placement much closer to the actual size of a player
  
• Known Issue: JIP players will see their puck at 0,0,0 until they actually spawn, but they shouldn't actually spawn there, due to backup protection logic. The puck can still be moved.

• XP Progress no longer appears at end of round as spectator
  
• Fixed an error rendering the UI found in bug reported player logs
  
• Change viewport audio listener logic, should mostly affect spectator camera to fix listening position
  
• "Hud toggle" option should now actually function during a match without having to restart game
  
• Changed art of "y tho" emblem
  
• Fixed winter pass popup
  
• Fixed bug with visibility that was causing some extra performance loss
  
• Fixed regression that caused players to be able to see items in the weapon wall of the enemy team when in FPV
  
• Fixed damage reporter not clearing out damage from previous matches

Omerta - City of Gangsters is a simulation game with tactical turn-based combat.

Taking the role of a fresh-from-the-boat immigrant, with dreams of the big life, the player will work his way up the criminal hierarchy of 1920’s Atlantic City. Starting with small jobs, his character recruits a gang and expands his empire by taking territory from other gangsters.

Eventually he establishes his own crime syndicate and becomes the de facto ruler of Atlantic City. 🌇


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Hey there, friends!

Shane is here, and I'm glad we've met again, are you? :ls_heart:

This year is going to be full of new releases and surprises. I know we've talked about community items right before the New Year's hit, but today I think it's time to share some more information on what comes next!


Yep, that's right! Soon you'll be able to decorate your profiles with all-new animated backgrounds (even for mini-profiles!), user pics, trade new cards and use long awaited emojis!







Isn't it nice to have an animated frame for your profile picture? Can't show you how good it's gonna look, you'll have to find out yourself soon! But for now, I've sneaked into our files and stolen a preview for one of those. Shhh... Don't scare Jack off!




The love is in the air already, though it's still January, we have to be ready, right? Well, we're working on the bonus story. Old characters will meet you again, in the new diverse plot just in time for the St. Valentine’s Day, romantic story for all the horny boys out there! And I can even give you a hint on who's gonna come back! Do you recognize them? Name them down in the comments!



These are all news for today, don't forget to party with us in our social media! See you soon!

XOXO

Shane

It has been a while, but today we are very happy to announce a major update to Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. The most important new feature this update introduces is local co-op. Two players can join together to not only fight monsters and explore dungeons (as in Ys VIII), but also explore the city of Balduq. Beyond co-op, this update also brings support for aspect ratios narrower than 16:9 -- which is particularly useful on e.g. the Steam Deck's 16:10 screen -- and a number of more minor bug fixes which we have accumulated since the release. These will be detailed at the end of this announcement.

The local co-op feature allows two players to play Ys IX together, at every point in the story where more than one character is available.



Note that there is an in-game co-op setting which you need to enable in order for co-op to be available. Once this setting is enabled, the co-op player can drop in and out of the game using the "Start" (or equivalent) button on any non-primary controller, while the "Select" button on the secondary controller toggles the player ID indicators ("P1" and "P2") on and off.



Unlike Ys VIII, where co-op was mostly limited to combat, the second player is largely equivalent to the primary player in terms of capabilities in Ys IX, including movement and combat abilities, using Monstrum Gifts, discovering and triggering landmarks, enemies and events, opening chests, picking up collectibles, and initiating dialogue. Only interacting with menus and the map is restricted to player one.
Another significant improvement over the co-op feature in Ys VIII is that character switching is implemented individually for each player: that is, if there are 3 characters in the current party, players one and two can both independently switch to the currently-unused character without affecting each other.

Of course, given the experimental nature of this feature, there are some constraints and restrictions to keep in mind:

• You need two controllers to play in co-op (or one controller each for Steam remote play together), and it is not possible to re-bind the controls for the second player.
  
• There is shared camera control, and while the co-op camera code does its best to keep both players on screen, this takes some getting used to and requires a different approach to camera control than the single-player mode.
  
• The co-op mode is experimental, and in select situations sequences of specific actions could lead to a softlock (e.g. triggering some device which closes doors with the character controlled by player 2, and then logging that player out). Please keep this in mind.

We have completed 100% of the game in co-op at Nightmare difficulty during testing, and I personally think that it is an incredibly enjoyable way to experience Ys IX.

Previous versions of Ys IX used letterboxing for any resolution aspect ratio narrower than 16:9. In this version, all 3D scenes render at full resolution for aspect ratios such as 16:10 (even down to 4:3). 2D elements such as the menu or map screens will still be letterboxed as, just like for ultrawide, the effort to redesign all of these to be aspect-ratio-independent is prohibitive.



As you can see above, the Steam Deck benefits from this change with its 16:10 screen.

• Local co-op support
  
• Support for narrow aspect ratios
  
• The "Equip Screen Supersampling" graphics setting now also applies to the "Ritual Relics" screen

• Make sure that traps behave functionally the same at high framerates (>>60 FPS) as they do at the default framerate
  
• Fix timing of fades after video playback before Grimwald battles
  
• Fix spikes at Dry Moat Ruins boss not being shown with some settings
  
• Fix crash on startup when no audio devices are available
  
• Fix UI animation speed of Grimwald result screen at high FPS
  
• Fix a long-standing bug causing NPCs to get stuck on some ceilings after wall run
  
• Fix some English spelling issues

I am personally very much a fan of local co-op in games, and feel like too few RPGs in particular offer the option to play their main campaign in co-op. I hope this update brightens the day of my fellow co-op aficionados out there, as well as anyone playing on a 16:10 monitor or who is planning to get a Steam Deck of course.

- Peter "Durante" Thoman, PH3

PS: As always, you can use the "Betas" feature on Steam to revert to a previous version of the game in case something goes wrong on your system with this patch.

- Sunset summer map

- Night summer map

- Soviet flat interior

Sorry for the lack of content but it was important to fix a lot of bugs first but cheer up! You will have a little surprise in the next patch!


Changes
- Sword element skills added description
- Added mana regen on many food
- Snow repty reworked loot tables
- Snow slime reworked loot tables

Fix
- Necklace attributes disappear after using a rarity reroll currency
- Currencies: rerolling 'Void' effect freeze the game
- Keybinding key order of movement keys
- Electric boomerang: unable to ascend
- Electric boomerang: one effect is 'Void' instead of 'Chance to electrify'
- Monk (rapier) getup animation bug (sprite -1 not found)

Multiplayer Fix
- Pickaxe bug in multiplayer
- Players don't absorb HP/SP/MP orbs
- Soul magnet skill is never disabled when used
- Fast run gfx never end for other players when the skill is used once
- Soul harvester and soul crystallizer are not sync when you place an item inside
- Soul crystallizer craft is not sync
- Soul dispensers are not sync
- Clients can lose souls in soul thiefs and detectors

Hi! As we said, we were reading for your suggestions on future content packs, and we found a bunch of interesting ideas!

We've created a poll with the ones we found most interesting, so you can vote on the ones you prefer. Note that creating a content pack takes time, so it be a couple of months at least until it's ready.

Also note that while the most voted is the one that will get more priority, other themes may end up being done as well (no promises!).

Here's the vote link: https://strawpoll.com/e191xpa2y