Hello! Artists are hard at work and there’s a small surprise for you. I’ve started working with a new artist and he managed to pull off the new Belle’s dress very quickly. You can see the preview here. Aside from this, the other artist is working on a new H scene Hanako. Stay tuned for details!

The next update will add more rewards for the ending of the game if you managed to defeat the last story boss without using Hanako’s bell. I’ve finished a new puzzle course for the upcoming kitsune quest. It includes 3 different puzzles and will reward you with a personal audience with Hanako in her private quarters if you’ll manage to impress her.

Aside from this logic, I’m working on the maps for all three puzzles and Hanako’s private quarters. These will be different in style to keep the zones from the new puzzle track fresh and distinct.

Fixed a bug that could softlock the game if the player went to learn magic from Agatha long after receiving her quest and working too much on the main questline.

Improved performance by moving achievement retro-check from the global update logic into players’ home cave.

Fixed a few typos here and there.


As always, if you don’t like something about the game – tell me, and if you like MonGirl Sexpedition – tell your friends ^^

Thank you for adding Whispers in the West to your wishlist on Steam. We hope you’ve tried the demo by now - if not, now’s the time to call your friends, saddle up and start the investigation - it’s a lot of fun! The demo contains a tutorial (which is a mystery in itself) and a full, hour-long mystery for up to 4 players.

If you have tried the demo (thank you, you’ve made us smile!), we hope you enjoyed the stories. We’re going to be raising funds through Kickstarter, so we can offer you and your friends more mysteries to solve.

👉 Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whispersinthewest/whispers-in-the-west
Launching on Thursday 28th of July at 5 pm BST


Why are we launching a Kickstarter campaign?

We’ve been engaging with our players since day one of development, it’s an absolute delight to see you enjoying the game. We’re very grateful to see so many of you supporting us along the way.

As a team, we’re big fans of offline murder mystery games, as well as multiplayer games - we love games that can be shared with friends. So we decided to create our own online co-op mystery game, and we started the Whispers in the West project a year ago. The game has received very positive feedback from players so far - over 80% of anonymous responders say they enjoyed and would recommend the game.

Over the past year, we’ve been hard at work, and we were delighted to gain some start-up funding and recognition through the London Games Festival and UK Games Fund. But now, we need your support so we can continue the development of Whispers in the West.

What will you get by supporting us?

With this Kickstarter campaign, we’re raising funds to create three new game scripts. If you’ve tried the demo, these new scripts will be in a similar format as the ghost story. Each of these stories will be an hour-long mystery, for up to 4 players to solve together.

Pledges start from as little as £20 and, as long as the campaign is a success, you’ll get a bundle of all three new game scripts (equivalent to three mystery parties for up to 4 players). We aim to deliver the stories by Q1 2023.

We’ve also hand-picked some unique merchandise for our early supporters. Make sure you check out the backer rewards section for a fun surprise once the campaign is launched.


Still got questions?

If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, please connect with us via Discord, Twitter or Steam Community Hub. We’d love to hear from you!

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeamDissonant
🎮 Discord: https://discord.gg/rh8H9Wsgds
🤠 Steam Community Hub: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1868070

We're in the crucial final hours of our Kickstarter campaign!
Allow me to share some stats with all of you:

(1) The big one first: We've raised over USD $105,000 with the help of ~2200 of you (and there's still 48 hours to go!) I cannot believe the insane showing of support for our little project 🤯 truly and deeply humbled by all of your support - you have ensured that this passion project of ours will see the light of day and to that end, no amount of thanks and appreciation will ever be enough to how much it means to us.

You are our lifeblood, and we will endeavor on. Thank you 🙇🏻

(2) we're just 65 discord members away from unlocking our Nintendo Switch stretch goal! you can find out more about it here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gatherroundstudios/the-white-raven/posts/3565578

if you're interested, you can help by joining us here!




(3) We also reached 2000 backers and in doing so, having unlocked Brazilian Portuguese localization for The White Raven! Here's a list of languages that we're currently introducing to our game - we might add more before our 1.0 launch however!





(4) we've also decided to introduce some last minute surprise rewards for the campaign!



First up is a T-shirt design that features our main characters! Still a work in progress for now (we might end up adding all our unannounced confidants as well😉).

Unisex Sizes: 2XS – 3XL



Next up is an Kickstarter-exclusive poster (only for backers):



Again, these are mockups and designs will be subject to change! but no worries as we'll be updating you when we've come up with the final design - we promise that it'll be look plenty awesome😎


(approx.) Dimensions: A3 (297 mm x 420 mm or 11.7 in x 16.5 in)


They're currently priced at SGD $28 (~ USD $20) for the T-shirt and SGD $10 (~ USD $7) for the poster which you can purchase when our Backerkit survey is sent out after the campaign but we'll also be introducing an exclusive tier: "The Collector's Guild" (only available during the campaign) where you can get them both at a discounted price of SGD $28! (~USD $20)


All tiers starting at "The Inner Circle" and above will also get these as an option at no extra cost as well😄



Finally we're introducing a little secret we've been working on...




This is a Kickstarter - exclusive pet that we've decided to introduce - the Midnight Panther!
We've been affectionately referring to her as Luna - would you be interested in caring for her?



And of course you'd be able to name her whatever you'd like!

She'll be faithfully waiting for you in your tribe - guarding your valuables, waiting for headpats, showing you her captured prey, etc.

We'll be introducing her under a new reward called "The Midnight Panther" where you can obtain your very own Luna!

Also included at no extra cost for all exclusive tiers starting at "House of Hundreds" and above!





Let's try our best to take off during these last 48 hours everyone! If you're interested in joining us (or just simply would like to have to have a look at some more details of The White Raven), click the gif below to take a peek!





Cheers everyone, and welcome to the beginning of The White Raven.

- August

Upon arrival to the islands, Antar must use the destructive powers of his Savior to face the terrible threat represented by Nento and his group of hunters, now also converted into Saviors.

• Antar's transformation into a Savior:

Antar believes that destroying Nento might help returning the Smiling Islands to being a paradisiacal place like before.

In bonus get a glimpse at Antar's Savior concept art!



If you're intrigued about Saviorless' lore you can follow and wishlist the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1438480/Saviorless/

This is the final update for our Year One Roadmap and what a journey it’s been. Season 1 saw us launch our first new class kit, the Phalanx, and now we are introducing crossplay, a new game mode, major system changes and more all packed into a single season. But before we get into all that, we’d just like to sincerely say thank you for playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite. This has been a major passion project for so many of us on the team. Just like you, we love the Alien franchise and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a rich universe.

We invited some of our team’s most diehard Alien fans to break down these monumental updates. Cold Iron Studios CEO and Head of Studio Craig Zinkievich, Lead Systems & Combat Designer Chris Matz, Lead Content Designer Kris DeMeza, and Systems Designer Tony Marasco are ready to walk you through the new additions and share some insights into the development process.




Crossplay is here! We’ve been working on this long-requested feature for quite some time now and were eager to get it out and into your hands. To speak to that, we’ll pass it over to Craig:

"It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since the launch of AFE. Today we’re bringing our Year One Roadmap to a close with the launch of Season 4. It feels like just yesterday we were releasing the game and waiting to see how all of you would react to it. We’ve listened to your feedback and the team at Cold Iron has worked hard to fix issues, add new features, and create additional content for AFE. We’re proud of the shape it’s in today, and Season 4 is a huge part of that. I’m especially excited about crossplay! That’s one feature we’ve heard you loud and clear on and we’ve been working hard to get it in the game. We’re looking forward to seeing you all enjoy the new content and playing together across all platforms!"

- Craig Zinkievich

Crossplay on AFE means that players on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation will all be able to play with friends and match together, including Quickplay. If you’re inviting a friend over to your fireteam, then all you need to do is:

• In your in-game menu, go to Team > Crossplay > Add Crossplay Friends.

The Prestige system is for Marines looking to go beyond the call of duty. If you’ve already reached the level 20 cap on your favorite Class Kits and need an excuse to bring them back into the field, look no further.

After you reach level 20 with a Class Kit, you will start to earn experience toward Prestige ranks, starting at Rank 1 and going all the way up to Rank 100. Leveling up will progressively require more experience in certain thresholds, but the rewards get more exciting as well.

All Prestige rewards are purely cosmetic, so you’re not missing out on any end game abilities, but we do want to give the most dedicated marines enough bling to fuel their bragging rights. Every 10 ranks you unlock new rewards, including:

• Outfits & Head Accessories
  
• New Nameplates
  
• Weapon Colors (Animated and Standard) & Decals

[/b]
[/list]Note: Experience toward Prestige ranks will only start to go up after the Season 4: Prestige update goes live in the game.



We’re excited to bring horde mode fans a new challenge with Restock Turrets. Having fixed turrets all around might lead you to think this new mode is a walk in the park, but hordes of Xenomorphs come from every direction this time around, and ammo is in limited supply.

"Unlike the original Horde Mode where you rely on what you’ve brought with you, in Restock Turrets the Colonial Marines have already set up a defensive perimeter of turrets near the pinnacle of Likasi Tower. Turret ammo drops as you progress, and there’s not a lot to go around, so you’ll need to make strategic decisions on which areas to support. The Xenomorphs come from all angles, too, so you have to keep on your toes! I like to keep some turret ammo in reserve during the earlier waves so that later, when the pressure’s on, the turrets have my back."

- Kris DeMeza

There’s also a new set of rewards that you can unlock in this mode, affording you some additional bragging rights as well as a few new tricks. You unlock rewards every 10 waves you survive, getting the option to keep going all the way up to 50 waves. Rewards unlock based on difficulty, with higher difficulties allowing you to unlock the rewards from both that level and the levels below it.

• Holotab Sight - Small Optic: Accuracy (+25%). Effect: +3% Handling and Effective Range on Hit for 3 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Compound Optic - Medium Optic: Range (+25%), Zoom (+10%). Effect: +5% Aim Assist on Hit. This effect stacks 5 times, and resets on Reload.
  
• Magnified Reflex Sight - Large Optic: Handling (+30%), Zoom (+10%). Effect: +5% Aim Assist on Hit for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Kinetic Enhancement Harness - Armature: Max Ammo (+40%). Effect: +15% Melee Damage on Hit for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 4 times.

• Multiport Compensator - Small Muzzle: Range (+25%), Weak Point Damage (+10%). Effect: +7% Handling on Hit for 3 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Assault Brake - Medium Muzzle: Fire Rate (+25%). Effect: +10% Accuracy and +30% Stability while standing still.
  
• Extended Field Brake - Large Muzzle: Range (+25%), Handling (+15%). Effect: +20% Weak Point damage for 5 seconds after landing a Weak Point Hit. This effect does not stack, and removes itself after landing a follow-up shot.
  
• Hollow Points - Small Magazine: Handling (+20%), Magazine Capacity (+15%). Effect: 25% chance on Hit to cause enemies to bleed for additional damage over 8 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
  
• Composite Spring Magazine - Medium Magazine: Fire Rate (+25%). Effect: +7% Stability on Hit. This effect stacks 5 times, and resets on Reload.
  
• STAP Magazine - Large Magazine: Stability (+20%), Magazine Capacity (+15%). Effect: +5% Reload Speed on Hit for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Composite Assembly - Tubular Magazine: Fire Rate (+20%). Effect: +8% Handling on Hit for 3 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Auto-Loader - Internal Magazine: Handling (+30%). Effect: Kills have a 50% chance to auto-reload 15% of the current magazine.
  
• Dual Rail Booster - Barrel: Stability (+35%). Effect: +5% Damage to Armored targets on Hit for 3 seconds. This effect stacks 5 times.
  
• Emote - Chest Pound
  
• Emote - Oh Snap
  
• Emote - What the?

• Weapon Decal - You Always Know

• Weapon Color - Meteoric Iron

No mission plays the same way twice when challenge cards are in the mix and everyone has their favorites. But what do you do with all those extra cards that you don’t want to use? That’s where the Fabrication Reprocessor comes into play. This new device allows you to reroll your unwanted cards for new ones!

Input any three challenge cards you no longer want into the Fabrication Reprocessor and reroll them to get a different challenge card back. It’s that simple!
The rarity of the input cards determines the rarity of the output. So if you input only blue rare cards, you’re guaranteed to get a different rare card back.
If the input cards are of varying rarities, then the output chances will depend on which rarities you’re using. You can’t get a purple exotic card if you only use rare and uncommon cards.

While some players prefer to play with really challenging cards to increase the game’s difficulty, others like cards that either make the game easier or grant them enticing rewards. The goal of the Reprocessor is to let players recycle cards they weren’t planning on using in order to get cards they potentially would enjoy more.

"Another thing that we always wanted was to allow challenge cards in other game modes, such as Horde and Point Defense. We’re excited to bring this feature to the game and it’s been a blast trying out various cards in these different gameplay environments! However, not all cards are compatible with every mode. Some cards will be restricted to Campaign missions only. That said, my personal favorite new combination is the High-Threat Environment challenge card in Horde Mode as it speeds up combat and feels very rewarding when you’re playing well!"

- Tony Marasco


Of course, with new content comes new unlockable rewards. Many of this season’s rewards are unlocked via the new Restock Turrets mode, including all the new Attachments and a handful of hard-to-get cosmetics. We also expanded our collection of challenge cards, have a look:

• High-Threat Environment – Uncommon: 1.5x Credits – Players and Enemies deal 50% more damage.
  
• Out of Shape – Uncommon: 1.5x Experience – Dodge-rolling once consumes all your Stamina.
  
• Quality Over Quantity – Uncommon: 1.5x Experience – Xenomorph Runners, Synth Enforcers, and Pathogen Poppers spawn in reduced numbers, but are stronger.
  
• Brink of Death – Uncommon: 1.5x Credits – If downed, you revive with only 1 Health.
  
• Expendable Crew – Rare: 1.5x Experience & 1.5x Credits – A random weapon, a random Kit Ability, and Consumables are disabled.
  
• I Can’t Miss! – Rare: No Bonus Rewards – Aim Assist for all weapons is increased by 50%.
  
• Bad Feeling About This Op – Epic: 3x Experience – Enemies move faster and hit harder. They are much more difficult to Stumble and Stuns only last half as long.
  
• Draw Three – Epic: No Bonus Rewards – Three Challenge Cards are granted upon Mission Completion.
  
• Maybe We Got ’Em Demoralized – Epic: No Bonus Rewards – Powerful enemies are considerably weaker.

Note: Challenge Cards are available as randomized mission rewards, Tactical Opportunity rewards, or available for purchase with Requisition Credits from SSgt Park’s Armory in a randomized Challenge Card Pack.
Drop in on SSgt Park and have a look at what’s new in the Armory. You’ll find the Seegson Cap and Mask – Surgical Head Accessories, the Alpine Trapper and Carrot Cake Weapon Colors, the Fires Regulation Cornbread and ICC Decals, and the Shadow Boxing and Pose – Low Carry Emotes.

"The addition of four new guns is the most noticeable update to the armory. This time around, we’re bringing new toys from all 3 of our weapons manufacturers, so everyone can support their own favorite corporate overl… err… law-abiding business entity.

Whenever we make new guns, our goal is to try to find new twists on our existing gameplay - more fun ways to exterminate Xenomorphs, synths, and what have you. In some cases, this means entirely new feels for weapons - like the P. 649 HEL. In other cases it means pushing at the edges of what it means to fit within one of our Gun Archetypes - such as an Automatic Sniper or a Burst Shotgun. "

- Chris Matz

All four of these new weapons are available for purchase from SSgt Park’s Armory for Requisition Credits.

• CQW - M51 Breaching Scattergun: Early uses of the M51 were as both a breaching weapon and as a suppression device that could incapacitate large crowds where the wielder was under close threat. The double-shot burst results in wide coverage but minimal accuracy beyond very close range.
  
• Hand Gun - DKT-59 Misha: The Misha, or "Little Bear," is modeled after the Medved and follows the same principles of devastating short range stopping power with frequent reloading.
  
• Heavy - P.649 HEL: Only recently released by Weyland-Yutani’s experimental branch, the Project 649 High-Energy Laser is a fully weaponized variable-charge energy weapon. Highly accurate at long range, it brings a new form of combat to the standard Heavy Weapons Platform of the UACM.
  
• Rifle - SVAT-92 Sokol: One of the only fully automatic Sniper Rifles to be approved for military service, the Sokol is effective at dealing with multiple threats from a distance. While it lacks the single target stopping power of traditional sniper rifles, it can also act as a medium-range Battle Rifle in a pinch.

Over 20 items including Class Kit skins, Emotes, Decals and more!

Stay protected on the frontier of the Outer Rim with Weyland-Yutani’s APEsuit Mk.3, or go with the more casual look and slide into a pair of Seegson Maintenance overalls. This content and so much more is free for Deluxe Edition owners and is available as DLC for Standard Edition.

Additions:

• Added that starting options will unlock after playing endless mode for a while
  
• Added new “expectation rising” event texts
  
• Added a safety to avoid an infinite expansion bug (but did not find the source yet)
  
• Added arrow key control for the planet camera (so they can be mapped to a stick on the steam deck)

Changes:

• Lowered the expectation rise frequency significantly in the early mastery levels, and a tiny bit in the later mastery levels.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a memory issue which will hopefully stop some crashes from happening.
  
• Fixed the bug where only 1 lifeform was proposed
  
• Fixed a bug where lifeform spreading time would be displayed for hidden regions
  
• Fixed a bug where expanding to a location with a building would destroy the building
  
• Fixed a bug where relocating a building would inherit the damage
  
• Fixed a bug related to displaying information for Mine Venting skill (and other similar ones)
  
• Fixed a bug where you were not able to use the Mine skill on oceanic locations
  
• Fixed a bug where an error message with “131 missing” would appear
  
• Fixed that you could destroy an expansion building (like a bus station) even when it’s expansion points were used
  
• Fixed the select leader screen would be cropped on small resolutions (like the steam deck)
  
• Fixed that you could relocate a city mine to a slot with no resources.
  
• Fixed a bug where the trade route breakdown was not displayed correctly for special mine trade routes.
  
• Some other small fixes and improvements

*** EA-44 2022-07-26 754 ***
- released more loot for the early game
- reduced sector number of each district
- fixed exception when accessing the vendor machine
- fixed some dialog labels
- fixed layout of dismantle dialog
- lowered volume of charging dialog
- fixed molotov cocktail
- fixed stealth rendering when no armor active
- enabled running and dodging when in stealth
- updated runtime to 17.0.4
- tweaked loot spawn counts
- new hint for crafting knife
- tweaked color grading

This is a small hotfix patch to address some immediate bugs found this past weekend. Thanks for all the reports!

• Reduced Brie's steal chance from 35% to 30%.
  
• Updated graphics of the weapon training respec button.
  
• Updated graphics of the weapon training close button (used to say Accept). This was confusing to some players since points are spent right away and Accept only closes the interface.

• Idle mercs (removed from mission squad) are not properly saved resulting in loss of equipped gear. This does not affect mercs in mission squad and the bug was introduced with the last big content patch.
  
• All bows are not correctly aligned when held in hand by female mercs (not on their back).
  
• Horde overflow icon shows up on undiscovered region locations.
  
• Achievement "I'm Here to Help" is not being tracked. Also changed the description to match the goal.
  
• Steam Cloud is not working and does not appear enabled in Steam game's properties.

- Main Menu UI Updated
- Options Menu UI Updated
- Tutorials added
- Acvhievements Added
- Turkish Language Added
- Some bugs fixed

Smooth brush could rarely cause issues.