Hi all, Kai from L7 Games here.

Following your feedback I have updated our previously awful keyboard controls to the following:

WASD/Arrow Keys: Steering, acceleration and brake
F: Perform trick whilst airborne.
R: Reset/Respawn
P: Pause

Hopefully these controls make it our game more accessible, sorry for leaving our old horrible test controls!

Level 7 games are a small team of students studying Games Development Msc at the University of Gloucestershire, and we are all really grateful for the awesome response you guys have shown us for our game!

A few of us would like to continue working on the game over time but we have one last big essay to finish and a few of us have entered the games industry full time!

We can't promise anything but we've been discussing potentially working on the following:

• New levels!
  
• Better shop system
  
• Steam integrated leaderboards
  
• Rebindable keys

Thank you all again for your support, enjoy the new, less awful controls and stay steezy,
Kai

Added: AI movement difficulty can be changed in the game. You need to press Esc and then "Change difficulty" at the bottom.
Ceilings can now be placed on top of each other, they do not have to be directly connected to the wall.
When you return the difficulty from normal to peaceful, all creatures that attacked you will disappear.
Fixed: If an animal or savage is dead during saving the game, a dead bear is spawned when the game is loaded.
Fixed: Some trees will not disappear after you cut it down.
Fixed: Removing a horse cart freezes the game if you stand on the cart while removing it.
New models for savages will be added in the update 4.9.

Fixed Soul Shard Popup not working/triggering.

Welcome to the twenty-third devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of June 2022.

The team is still plugging away at a lot of core/foundational tasks, and I don’t have any special information or plans to share this month before getting into our recap of June (check out our last few devblogs for our broader early access release plans), so let’s just jump right into it:

Expansions

The character modelers finished the Wehrmacht (Germany) uniforms, complete with rolled and unrolled sleeve variants:




In addition, work 0F3EF continued in the 1st Infantry Division (US) uniforms:

Maps

Tan Binh has transitioned from a blockout phase to a detailing phase where the level designers are actually working on filling out the map with all of the relevant foliage and buildings that they will need:

Objects, Models, and Textures

One of our environment artists spent last month creating a first iteration of systems to make modular buildings for our upcoming Normandy-based maps:






These buildings are completely modular, built to keep draw calls and memory costs down while still maintaining many potential variations, and they are utilizing several tileable textures and trim sheets (in fact >90% of these YNV0M buildings are made up of just 3 trim sheets). In addition, there will be enterable and non-enterable variants of all of these buildings.

Upcoming and WIP Features

The AI programmer has now begun his implementation of limiting AI vision so that they will no longer be able to see through smoke and foliage. In addition, the AI will now target more areas of the body to see and shoot, such as the head, arms, and legs. As some of you may have noticed with the current version of AI, if you are crouched behind a window or above the ground floor of a building they will oftentimes not actually see you, as they are searching for the very center/middle of your body (which in these scenarios would be obscured). This is due to the fact that every player has an invisible pill-shaped capsule that surrounds them, and the very center of this capsule is actually what the AI looks for (so if the center of your body is behind cover, despite your head being fully exposed, you would effectively be completely invisible to them)—now, with this update, they will target much more than just the center, meaning players should no longer be able to exploit this limitation. Last but not least, he will also be working on mechanics that will make it so the AI will continue to fire on last known locations for a period of time if they lose line of sight, so players will not be able to do things like pop in and out of cover and/or concealment to instantly trigger whether or not the AI see them. He is already making decent progress on these changes, and so far our initial tests seem to be working quite well.

Additionally, many of the lingering bugs that were present with the AI grouping systems/behaviors have been ironed out. The lead programmer also included support for static navmesh generation for smaller maps, or maps that don't utilize nav invokers. In those cases, the navmesh would be dynamically generated 8BRCW around Player Characters and CPs only—this should help with AI navigation when we want them to always pick the shortest path to their destination ahead of time (as well as for performance reasons).

Currently, vaulting and mantling is being researched by our lead programmer so that he can determine how to best incorporate these features into our framework. As shown off in the past couple of devblogs we already have some blockout animations created to be utilized in the first iteration of these systems, so once the lead programmer feels confident in his approach for implementation we should have some actual WIP gameplay demonstrations to show off (hopefully by the next devblog).

I don’t have much to share with you all on this just yet, but we are currently also working on a complete overhaul to the suppression system. The one that is in game right now was never really meant to be final, and as such has been a placeholder system. We are hoping to implement a system for suppression that allows for a more “realistic” approach while also providing an avenue for effective suppression that will factor into gameplay in a meaningful way that relies on teamwork and cohesion to successfully achieve. Once we have more progress on this we will make sure to give everyone a proper demonstration/breakdown to see how it will work.

—

Thank you for checking out the devblog this month! Let us know in the comments if you managed to get the key that I hid above.

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager

Website
Discord
Youtube
Twitter

We're back from summer hiatus (and sunny weather) to take another dive into Cassette Beasts! In today's blog post, we wanted to take a look at the world of the game.




The game is set on the island of New Wirral, a mysterious land inhabited by, as you might have guessed, beasts. The player begins the game having washed ashore on the beaches of New Wirral, and you soon learn of the predicament you are in.

New Wirral holds many environments, dangers and secrets. On your quest to find your way back home, you'll explore the island at your own pace.



It must be said that there is nothing unique about your arrival - the other residents of the island also found their way there in the same way.



When the first people to find themselves on New Wirral arrived, they eventually founded a town - a town that stands to this very day! Which is...




Harbourtown is the home for all residents of the island, and is a place you'll be returning to often. Built as a community that accepts everyone, Harbourtown is a place you can:

• Heal up without having to use wood for a campfire
  
• Swap out your adventuring partner for another
  
• Catch up on the latest town gossip
  
• Exchange resources for new moves to use in battle
  
• And more!

In regards to gossip, the townsfolk will often have rumours to impart to you. These can tip you off about new monster locations, quests and other information that will help you explore the island!




The Town Hall is the HQ of the rangers, who help keep the island safe. Here you can unlock certain unique upgrades for your cassette player that help you in battle.



The residents of Harbourtown may be strangers at first, but the more you get to know them, the more you'll learn about this strange world you've found yourself in!



That's all for this blog! If you have any further questions, why not join our growing Discord community? There you can get the latest info on Cassette Beasts, as well as participate in exclusive events and gameplay streams!

We have lots of exciting news coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

August 9th Rust + Twitch + Rustoria bring you the next edition of chaos.

4 Teams, 5 Days, 40 players per team, new custom map with an elimination-based scoring format.

$100k prize pool!



See all your favorite creators duke it out to last chads standing!



I touched on this last summer in a Update 235 but we felt being able to mute other players was a little convoluted and could use a facelift.

We've now added some options to the contact card system. Here you will now have both a mute button and a report button. This could be incredibly useful to someone not wanting to hear close proximity mic spam.



Here you can Mute, Report, and put notes about the player. You can set them as friendly or enemy.



Reporting players for bad behavior is always good as it leave a "papertrail" and many community servers scrub for these reports. Using in-game reporting options will capture all the relevant information required to check into them.

Always good to check with your favorite server of choice on their preferred way to report.


Kusha showing off their monument making skills. These are part of a 3 monument bundle and come from a 3 story Bank/Vault (with puzzles) and the other is part of a Cafe.



More images on the blog post.



EpicDesk has new campaigns going right now!

Pre-orders are available for:

CEEG



PrinceVidz



SPiiCY



These limited edition deskpads can be snatched up until August for Sept/October deliveries.
Don't miss out!

New Creators are added to this program every few weeks.


This month we have Real&Game! He specializes in recreating life-size Rust items in the real world.

"I've known the game for about six years. And one day I just wanted to make a real thing from the game, so that it would always be with me. Making a real things from the game and holding it in my hands is a fantastic feeling. Words cannot say it. I love being a part of the game, I enjoy my hobby and I will do cooler stuff whenever possible."

He's made everything from workbenches to snowmobile replicas!



Even does masonry!


I'm a little late on discovering this gem but omar 8-BIT redid Bandit in Unreal Engine 5. It's pretty great and gets bonus point for using Anno1800 soundtrack for it! One of my personal faves.


That foliage though.

Blake here to let you know the Demo is out and about!

Bugs I have noticed and would like to let you know now before you play.
The sounds for some reason decided to run off in the sunset, no biggie because I have the recordings still
I have recording sounds just like Hollywood with the mics and all.

the other bug is enemies will respawn every 20-30 seconds, the flash for the hit animation is being funky so Just need to tweak it. Let me know if the spawns are to much are to slow and ill edit it to what works for you.


The cows are still being tested so they are still derpy and are still being worked on with eating and being milked and turned into steak from, Normal, Chocolate, Strawberry

I wanted to let you know the bugs before you think your computer is being dumb no its my ass being dumb.

Thank you to the thousands of people waiting on this game. As one man its being not only fun and hair pulling, its been a huge life experience getting the passion as a gamer to what i see games need to be from what games used to be.

Bug fixes are coming and I will update and let you know. One last thing please let me know if there is something you want in game and I will do my best to implement it. If I am not able to I will try and let you know why and how I cannot.

Oh and let me know if the day and night cycle is too fast or slow

Games For Gamers, Always!

Blake "AggressiveKiwi" out!

Fixed a crash caused by Fearful enemies.

Cheers,
Dave

Hey everyone,

V10.0.8 is now available on the Live branch.

If you are currently playing on the beta Experimental branch no restart is required.
If you are still playing with v9 then a new start will be required.

visit us in Discord, and Have a great day!!



A small atoll in the Pacific discovered in the late 1500s by a Portuguese explorer. It was named As Ilhas Esquecidas or The Forgotten Islands as there was evidence of prior inhabitants. It became a small way station for resupply of Portuguese trader and explorer ships until it was deemed too far out of the way of the established trade routes. The settlers that remained populated the islands until more modern times when a modest amount of minerals were discovered.

The islands mostly retained their original Portuguese names until the Insurgents came. Known locally as O Vento de Sangue, Blood Wind, or just the proper name O Vento, the Insurgents carried out a bloody invasion that resulted in the remaining exiles to refer to the islands by their current, more colorful names, most in Portuguese.

New map layout.


Island name changes to reflect the backstory.

• Ilhas dos Mortos (Dead Islands, four connected by bridges)
  
• Ilha do Desespero (Desperation Island)
  
• Coby’s Isle
  
• Ilha da Traição (Betrayal Island)
  
• Ilha de Perdição (Perdition Island)
  
• O Oráculo (The Oracle)
  
• Ilha do Sangue (Blood Island)
  
• Ilha Congelada (Cold Island)

New POIs in addition to towns with the old look; fishing villages, mountain villages, desert villages, swamp houses, lighthouses.
Towns on the coast have boat docks, as one would expect in an archipelago.
All POIs are custom layout, no 'generic' towns.


Changed some caves to mines, replaced all cave entrances.


New rural roads with some guard rails, drive carefully!


Animal spawns are now more location specific, e.g., crocodiles spawn in and around the swamp biome on Ilha da Traição.



There is now greater loot list specialization and new loot-specific containers. You are most likely to find specific items in containers that would make sense in the real world. Anything you think might contain something try and open. Clearly some are still static decorations for performance’ sake. However, there are new loot containers that are easy to overlook. Try and open everything.


Loot only respawns after 10 in-game days and only if the loot container is empty. This means that if you leave something in the container, that container will not respawn. Each loot container has its own respawn timer. This is the way it has always been, and I left it working the same way. It also means you can use loot containers (not AI dropped containers) as your own storage…try and remember where though. They will not respawn if there is something in them.

Perishable items will only start to perish once the loot container is opened the first time. If you don’t need food, then don’t open containers that you are confident contain food items. Go back and open them when in need of food.

Added Battery to loot list for insurgent drops on kill. It is a relatively rare drop but is now required for crafting a Flashlight on the Weapons Bench. Batteries can also be crafted in the Workbench but require Titanium Ingots (same as old recipe). Flashlights can only be crafted or bought from an NPC.

Added Iron Ore to garbage loot containers. In case a player has no more iron ore and no pickaxe they can either loot trash containers for some small Iron Ore loot or punch iron nodes in caves for small chance at Iron Ore.


Pistol gun parts stack, 5 per stack.

Better organized crafting menus, grouped and alphabetized with group.

Bread and some other cooked items have a longer shelf life.

Added Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature option. Can be set at start of new game or changed in options menu during game.


Added Body Temp slider showing proximity to hypothermia and heat exhaustion limits.


Added Power Available indicator/text to workbenches requiring power. Now you know you need to turn that generator on before you try to craft.


Added default crafting quantity of '1' if recipe requirements are met. This was an often requested feature!


Increase quantity arrow, ‘>’ in crafting window turns red to indicate not enough mats.


Adjusted weapon damage, more adjustments will likely be necessary.

You can now use coal in the campfire, forge, and wood stove. It burns quite a bit longer than wood.

Allow building components to be picked up instead of destroyed. Deleting now returns the component to inventory. A confirmation message was added to confirm ‘deletion’. Targeting placeables gives a "[Del] to Pick Up" tool tip. Targeting building components does not but you can still use [Del] and a confirmation window will pop up.

Removed building prerequisites that would have required removing some buildings parts to remove others. This can result in ‘floating’ components. There is no Structural Integrity (SI) currently, and no plans to add SI currently.

Workshop Blueprints are not consumed when building the Workshop or the Workshop Foundation. This means you can build as many Workshops or Workshop Foundations as you like.

Added 3rd person view option to vehicles (like the boat has). Please provide feedback on 3rd person distance, adjustments may be necessary to prevent motion sickness. Recommend sitting back from monitor while driving, especially for large monitors.


Removed the build/delete circular bar. Now builds are instant and deletes (picks up) are instant after confirmation.

Added progress view of deliver material quests to the Quest tab.

Added public Workbench, Saw Bench, Chemistry Station, and Weapon Bench at various locations.

Added public Plant Bed at farms. There are five farms on the starting islands and three more farms on Ilha do Desespero.

Boat has an auto-forward key now. Left-Alt starts the boat forward at its current selected speed. Either ‘W’ or ‘S’ resumes manual control.

Reduced quantities of some delivery quests by ~20%. My intent is to make these delivery quests more engaging and less grind. I have quests rework and additions on my road map but will like push some of this work earlier in smaller increments.

Reduced berries requirement for Juice from 10 to 5.

Set sales price of diamonds at 50 gold…seeing as, temporarily, they have only one other use.

Reduced crafting time and increased stack size of Tallow (used to make Biofuel).

Reduced Leather requirement for Leather Chair from 25 to 15.

Increased the number of increments of foundation height placement (‘U’ key bind) from 3 to 6. Max height adjustment remains the same, increment is smaller.

Reduced the Extractor time from 120 sec to 60 sec since it is a late game item and uses considerable power. Also replaced the magnesium powder with magnesium.


Added craftable Freezer that further reduces spoilage time over the fridge. Crafted on the Workshop Bench and requires Titanium Plates. Freezer is on the right, fridge on the left.


Added a bed to forward compartment of boat. Mousing over gives option to click to sleep.


Added building components to Saw Bench menu so you can craft both from inventory and Saw Bench. Saw Bench crafting is faster than crafting from inventory.

Added Stone Forge recipes to Furnace.

Added sand recipe to Anvil.

Added alternate Glass Jar recipe to Electric Furnace and uses sand directly.

Added Campfire recipes to Wood Stove and Electric Stove, added some Wood Stove recipes to Electric Stove. Once you craft the Wood Stove you will no longer need the Campfire, you can pick it up and use it when at remote locations.

Added alternate recipes for Juice, Chamomile Cup, Coffee Cup, and Green Tea Cup that uses glass water jar instead of plastic water bottle. Jar is consumed.


Added capability of food items to have multiple health benefits. This greatly expands the food crafting options as we continue to evolve the game. Both positive and negative benefits can be applied with foods items. Including future use of poisons. It also makes new health stats easily added.

Several fruits had no crafting use in the game, blueberries, apples, grapes, and tomatoes. Two new recipes were added to utilize these.

• Added Canned Fruit that uses 2 each of apples, blueberries, and grapes and is crafted in the Wood or Electric Stove. When consumed it regenerates 40 Carbs and 10 Thirst.
  
  
• Added Tomato Soup, crafted on the Wood or Electric Stove, that uses 3 tomatoes 2 Medicinal Herbs, 1 Salt, and a Glass Water Bottle. When consumed it regenerates 40 Carbs, 10 Thirst, and 20 Health. The bottle is not returned. Currently tomatoes are loot items only.

Added a new Workshop Foundation piece that snaps to other foundations and lets you integrate your workshop with your base. Make your workshop as large as you want, use the same walls, ceilings, and roof parts as the rest of your base, and add lights. Original Workshop is still craftable.


New 4x4 vehicle choice to purchase at the Mechanic. This vehicle is more expensive but is tuned to perform better on various types of terrain and hence will climb steeper slopes. It also has a higher clearance and will roll over objects that would stop the other vehicles. Please provide feedback on all vehicle types and I will continue to fine tune.


Added friction values to the various road and terrain surface types. The vehicles have different performance on these various surfaces, the Sedan better suited to paved roads, the 4x4 doing quite well on all surfaces. Adjustments will be ongoing.

Added car naming function and recall. When you place your car, it will ask for a name. You can now rename or recall your car by going to a garage and accessing the radio on workbench in the back right side.

This will cost 100g and will recall your car to the garage you are at. This will be helpful if you go flying off the road into the ocean, or if you want to sail to another island and use the garage there to bring your car to you. There are garages in the two modern towns, the mining town, one on the side of the road in the Ilhas dos Mortos. There are three garages on Ilha do Desespero; the mining town and the modern town. There is one on Ilha da Traição in an industrial complex near the modern town. There are three on O Oráculo; one at the industrial town and two in the mining town. Since these are the only islands with significant road systems, they are the only ones to which you can recall your car. If you want a car on one of the others, buy a new one and place it when you are on the island.

Added a clay rock type. It produces only clay and can be found around the lakes on the starter islands. Use pickaxe to harvest. Like all surface rocks they will not respawn.


World temperature drops by 5 C (9 F) when it starts raining.

Modified Cooked Crocodile to give 70 Protein but also -10 Thirst. Also added two Salt to Recipe but gives two Cooked Crocodile instead of one. Crocodiles can only be found in the swamp biome on Ilha da Traição.

Wooden Crates now stack on top of other Wooden Crates, Military Crates stack on top of other Military Crates.


Added Empty Container to Workbench recipe list, you no longer need to rely only on looted Empty Containers. One Aluminum Ingot produces two Empty Containers.

Modified the Chamomile Tin recipe to require 2 Chamomile plants, 2 Medical Plants, 1 water. The Chamomile Cup now gives 30 Thirst and 30 Health, instantly now but Heal Over Time (HoT) in the future. Chamomile Tins are now rare in loot crates. This distinguishes the Green Tea Cups that only provide 30 Thirst from the Chamomile Cups that have additional benefits.

Reduced the Ore Extractor cycle time from 120 seconds to 60 seconds since it is a late game item, uses a lot of power, and doesn't extract all that much ore. Also, replaced the Magnesium Powder with just Magnesium to match what you would mine in a cave.


Ported to UE 4.27

Fixed Workshop not being able to be deleted.

Removed crafting recipe references for gold bars and gold coins…for now.

Sun moves now when in vehicle/boat/heli so you can see the change instead of it just being updated when you exit the vehicle/boat/heli.

Helicopter no longer flies underwater. A height limit is also now implemented.

Cars are much more controllable; improvements will continue to be made in driving.

Changed heli HUD text to using Helipad to change name rather than Shipyard.

Reworked weather system. When fog rolls in it now also affects the water.

Fixed a problem where Coffee would not regenerate stamina past the original 100. Coffee though will be reworked significantly in the future to provide temporary Stamina increases…likely followed by temporary Stamina decreases, like that feeling you get when your first two shots of espresso for the day wear off.

Fixed an old problem that resulted in partial loss of commands such as switching hot bar tools, jumping, or accessing main menu.

Fixed an old problem that resulted in erroneous 'full' messages when eating or drinking.

Adjusted storm frequency. You will see a storm between one half and two ingame days. One ingame day is 72 RL minutes. Please let me know if you find this too frequent or not frequent enough. Personally I like the storms but I've tried to balance it. In the future I may expose the settings in the ingame menu.

Added vendor NPC (Mechanic, Trader, Pharmacist, and Arms Dealer) map markers at the start of a Full Sandbox game. The new map would likely make trying to discover all four of these frustrating. If players in Full Sandbox mode find this too easy I can consider a 'hint' method of narrowing down their possible locations.

Fixed a problem where holding the right mouse button (aim) while using 'E' on a container or entering inventory with 'I' would result in hotbar freezing, weapon firing freezing, jumping to not work, and even getting the main menu to fail.

Fixed an old problem where the boat, if run into the shore or any object either forward or backward, would tip up on the bow or stern and behave badly. Now, if you run into something the boat gently stops and settles back into the water allowing the player to regain control. However, there are partially submerged rocks that can ground your boat, so be careful! If you’re on auto-forward be in open waters! If you try really hard you can probably also ground it in other locations, the fix was meant to reduce the problem. I find this far too amusing to try and prevent!


Happy Sailing!

These are fixes to V10.0.7 beta branch now carried over to V10.0.8 Live.

Fixed an issue with loot container respawn timers. This *may* have resulted in infinite loops that either caused a CTD or caused drastic FPS drop. Please continue to report CTD and what you were doing at the time.

Fixed vendor up arrow not working.

Fixed an issue resulting from crouching in shallow water.

Removed Diamond Pickaxe and Axe from a quest loot container for now. Once those tools are reintroduced, they’ll be added back.

Fixed crocs disappearing immediately after being killed.

Logs in the swamp can sometimes stop a player movement. Crouch, walk away, and uncrouch. Report instances if they still happen.

Reworked fall damage. Jumping off a roof, for example, will cause about 40 fall damage. Running and jumping down a steep slope will cause massive fall damage.

Modified the new freezer mats and crafting station to make the fridge…which stays the same…more useful for longer into the game.

Edible plant spawner (except the cactus) has been removed as they were very difficult to find and produced hundreds of actors affecting performance. There are specialized Produce loot containers primarily found at farms that have a full range of fruits and vegetables as well as seeds. These items can also be found in many other loot containers resulting in a plentiful supply if managed properly. Additionally, every farm, five on the starting islands, has a public plant bed that you can use until you have found or made enough fertilizer to construct your own. With careful management produce should never be a problem.

Adjusted the ration of various animals that spawn. This should slightly increase the farm animal ratio to predators and deer.

Fixed boat recall. It should now appear slightly above the water and settle gently in front of the shipyard.


MP has been disabled in the main menu due to severe issues after porting to 4.27. I will revisit this in the future.

The quest line, and the most recent V9 sill system, have been retained. Both will be the subject of future updates.

Some NPCs will spawn on roof tops and when killed their loot crate will not fall to the ground. While it can be annoying to be denied your just reward occasionally, I decided having NPC 'snipers' keep you alert...so look up often! Unfortunately it also means that the very occasional animal can be found on a roof but that is much more rare.

During beta testing, instances of hotbar lockup had occurred. Two different fixes were applied and the instances drastically reduced. If new instances of this occur please very carefully describe all actions leading up to the lockup and report either in Steam or on Discord.

I has been reported that splitting a stack of perishables repeatedly can quickly cause degradation of the remaining perish time. I have only been able to duplicate this by 'cheating' in a stack larger than the maximum allowed stack size. As a side not, feel free to use any 3rd party software you like, but please identify that you did so when reporting bugs. So-called 'cheat engines' can create problems that I cannot recreate and I cannot reasonably support the use of such 3rd party tools.

World Temperature adjustments are still being made, as well as the characteristics of various clothing necessary for different environments.

In the near future the development Trello will be made available for viewing to the public. You will see the detailed status of all development progress including the technical notes.


These, except the price, are relative numbers indicating the performance differences in the various vehicles. They will likely undergo significant changes as players report issues. For example, Max Torque affects, in part, how well the vehicle does on different slopes.

- the first tab in the quickbar now always shows all items

- minor bugfixes