Aug 21, 2022

Chapter 4 Script: DONE! See you on Gamescom!

The Hayseed Knight - Maxi / SandraMJ

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing today? Me, I'm exhausted from making a thousand preparations to take a plane tomorrow, but I come bearing super exciting news!

After a year and a half of hardships and many road (writer) blocks, I can unsafely say that chapter 4's script has been completed! I've sent the copy to my proofreaders, and I'm expecting to start recording early in September! I AM 100% NOT READY FOR THIS BUT WE'LL MAKE DO LIKE WE ALWAYS DO.

In other news, you can find me running around on Gamescom this week! I'll be manning a booth for my day job as co-creative director at Mars Vice in Devcom, and then just ambling from meeting to meeting in Gamescom.

It's my first time there, so if you see this handsome developer trying not to fall asleep at a booth or hurrying across the halls, say hi and tell me you played THK! You'll get a very exclusive, very rare, cute THK sticker of your choice for your efforts.

((Pretend the pic doesn't occupy 3/4 of the post))

And that's about all for now! I'm excited for all that's left to come to THK, and I'll make sure to keep you posted as the new chapter progresses. I'm much more active on twitter at @sandramjdev, if you want to stay tuned!

Hope you all have a fantastic week! See you soon!

Aug 21, 2022

Post-Release News & Upcoming Update

Spectral Showdown - Bl4ckEye42

Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for the support and love for Spectral Showdown, It's our first game on steam so hearing such great things about the game really means a lot.

750+ downloads (at the time of writing this) is amazing and I couldn't be happier! It really does mean a lot!

Anyways, today I wanted to discuss some issues and upcoming features for Spectral Showdown!

The issues

So, quite a few bugs have appeared (to my surprise), and some of them are pretty game-breaking. Obviously, If these bugs came up in testing then I would have delayed, however, they didn't. This has left Spectral Showdown in a bit of a buggy state (which is not what I intended) and that's not good.

I won't list the bugs but there are definitely more than there needs to be (and quite an embarrassing amount) but they seem to be very random on when they happen so there are quite good chances you can have a nice clean game and not run into any issues!

Moving forward from this, there will be a major bug fix coming extremely soon, which leads to the next section.

Upcoming Update

The upcoming update will feature a major amount of bug fixes along with some improvements. Now, if you're sitting there asking yourself "why not release bug fixes before improvements" then remain seated whilst I explain.

Some of the bugs require a major redo of some systems. This means I am going through and reprogramming a lot of features to make them work, however, reprogramming these features brings improvements and also optimisations so really it's 3 birds with one stone.

So, to sum it up, you can expect a lot of bug fixes, improvements (new features) and optimisations in the upcoming update!

That's all for now! I hope you're all ready for this update! You can expect it to arrive soon!

Again, thank you SO much for your support, it is seriously amazing!

Thank you,
Archie.

Aug 21, 2022

Weekly Update 100 - A (Mostly) Even Number

Path to Prosperity - Essence Games

Hi everyone,

Post 100 seems like quite an achievement. It means the game has been out for 100 weeks, and we have been working consistently on improving the experience. And that we completely underestimated just how much work this was going to be, and how much our day-jobs and personal lives would be distracting us from development.

There is a lot that I want to talk about in terms of how development has changed over the past 100 weeks, the challenges we’ve overcome, as well as the ideas we’ve had for how to continue - but like any normal technically minded person, I am really struggling to do this in post 100, when post 106 is so much more even of a number (exactly 2 years). So: please expect a longer assessment of our development and the road ahead at that point :).

Suffice to say that we are quite proud of having made it this far, that we are continuing to be excited about developing the game, and thank you for remaining interested in what we are doing!

Until next week!

Aug 21, 2022

Cosmoteer Faction Introduction: The Cabal of Sol

Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander - Walt Destler

This is the second of a four-part series of posts introducing each of the four main non-player factions in Cosmoteer. You can read the first post about the Monolith Cooperative here.

HISTORY

The Cabal of Sol is a religious and scientific organization that worshipped Sol (Earth's star) until its destruction fifty years ago and now endeavors to "reincarnate" its dead God through scientific research.

Although it is not known precisely when the Cabal was founded, it has existed in some form for at least several hundred years. Originally a secretive cult, it is now a massive, mainstream religion and powerful galactic nation-state. Its adherents believe that each star is, in effect, a God; creator of planets and moons and giver of the energies that sustain life. Although they believe that every star is a God, the Cabal of Sol specifically worships Earth's star Sol as the creator of not just Humanity but also the ancient civilization that created the hyperjump gates and left behind the Armstrong Monolith.

The Cabal of Sol is a highly-organized religion that claims more than a fifth of the known galaxy as its own territory, making it one of the largest galactic nation-states. Within Cabal territory, religion and government are inseparable. A hereditary council of twelve High Priests of Sol make the laws, and a complex hierarchy of priests and other clerics administer the functions of government with unusual strictness and harshness. But for those willing to live under the edicts of the Council, life can be good thanks to the extensive social services and a universal basic income provided by the Cabal. And many people from across the galaxy do indeed choose to brave the trip to Cabal space to take advantage, thanks to the Cabal's open immigration policy that welcomes all—as long as they profess a belief in Sol and renounce all other religions.

For the Cabal, religion and scientific research are not antithetical, but instead go hand-in-hand, with the desire to know more about the Gods motivating unprecedented scientific research into how stars are formed and function. Most of the galaxy's preeminent cosmic researchers are also devout worshippers of Sol and members of the Cabal. As a byproduct of this intense focus on scientific research into stars, the Cabal have become the galaxy's clear masters of energy manipulation technology.

Although unproven, rumors persist that Cabal scientists were directly involved in the accidental destruction of Sol and its star system. According to the rumors, Cabal scientists were working to develop hyperjump and shield technologies so advanced that a ship could jump directly into the core of a star, where its most elusive secrets would be revealed. But when this was attempted with Sol, according to the rumors, the result was not the hoped-for scientific and religious revelation, but the destruction of the entire Sol system, costing billions of lives and setting back human advancement by thousands of years. Any involvement in the destruction of Sol is, of course, denied by Cabal officials, but conspiracy theorists claim that their involvement could be proven if only the Cabal would open its vault of secret documents to the public—something which the Cabal has thus far refused to do.

Regardless of whether they were involved or not, their current motivation is very clear: The Cabal seeks to reignite Sol's dead core and reincarnate their dead God. Nearly all of the Cabal's formidable scientific might for the past fifty years has become singularly focused on this goal.

SHIP DESIGN

Cabal ships, both military and civilian, are considered to be among the most beautifully-designed in the Galaxy, and Cabal ship architects, known as Sculptors, think of themselves as master artists. For the Cabal, every ship is a tribute to the grandeur of Sol, with form being at least as important as function. Cabal ships are often irregular and asymmetrical, playing creatively with curves, rays, and other interesting shapes. They are usually painted brightly with yellows and oranges, and sometimes greens, purples, and blues as well.

As masters of energy manipulation, Cabal ships generally favor energy-based weapons and defenses. On offense this includes lasers, disruptors (electro-bolters), ion beams + prisms, and railguns. For defense, the Cabal primarily relies on speed and shields, rarely spending much mass on armor. Cannons and flak are almost unheard of on Cabal ships. Despite their prowess at harnessing energy, Cabal ships typically have less efficient hyperdrives, and tractor beams are not particularly common.

Don't forget to add Cosmoteer to your Steam wishlist so that you get notified when it launches!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/799600/Cosmoteer_Starship_Architect__Commander/

Aug 21, 2022

Future Updates | QoL + DLC's | New developer

Ultimate Fishing Simulator - Raintek

Hello everyone,
it was almost 2 years since the last update and today I come with great news, hope you are all excited.

New developer

We are reading all your posts and checking the community almost on daily basis. We really were struggling with a lot of demands from your side and we couldn't fulfill your requests. So we did some paperwork and here we are today! Announcing more support, content and QOL updates!

For over one month now we have been learning together with new developers the game which we took over after the great Bit Golem (good job Hubert!).

So welcome on board 3T Labs and Pancake Games. We will be working together on the next updates, fixes and DLC's.

Quality of Life (QoL) updates and new DLC

Learning a project after other developers is a pretty hard job. You probably think "it's like jumping into someone else t-shirt", believe me - it's not ːsteamsadː

So we are discovering every secret place in the code, how gameplay mechanics work, fish models, maps, and more.

Our first task was to check the project and fix minor bugs that we could find, then we wanted to show you some results of our work, so we decided to prepare a DLC.

We created a fishery based on New Zealand - Taupo Lake and Tongariro River Delta. And I can already tell you that is a pretty big map. We put there completely new fish species and... (wait for it) re-done old fish species like brown trout, rainbow trout, koi carp and more! Taupo Lake DLC will be out on August 22, 2022 19:00 CEST.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2088220

But here is a thing - we are testing it on our side and still learning the project, so there will be no separate VR DLC tomorrow. We will release it a bit later to DOUBLE-CHECK if everything works.

The same comes with bugs and some in-game features. No one will test it better than you - players. We fixed more than 30 bugs with this DLC but still, we could miss some of them. So we would like to ask you to write down every problem that will occur in the game after tomorrow's update. We promise to FIX EVERYTHING as fast as we will be able to. Please post all your feedback here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/468920/discussions/0/3434577854907068721/

Future of the game

We would like to push in the future more QoL updates including some important fixes like the old annoying reeling sound!

But wait? Only so small things? No way!

Yea, you are right. No one knows better about this game than you - Players! So we will run surveys where you will be able to request new features, inform us about the most annoying things or choose locations for future DLCs.

So watch out for steam forums and the news section! We will post soon first survey there, so keep an eye on it!

Thank you for your time. We are back on track with Ultimate Fishing Simulator 1 and we will do our best to work close with you - the Community,

Regards,
3T Labs & Pancake Games