There’s a bitter chill on the wind and you may feel a shiver creeping up your spine, but don’t worry - it’s just your Phobies delivering a special winter update! There are gifts for every player to uncover beneath the snow… read on for more details!

* Please note that holiday features will become active for players later in December.


12 Days of Christmas

• In the spirit of the season of giving, players can log in and receive a special daily gift from Vendy!
  
• Daily gifts begin on Dec. 14th and continue through Christmas Day.
  
• Be sure to check in with Vendy every day to ensure you don’t miss a gift!
  
• Warning: We do not endorse shaking Vendy’s gifts. Contents may be (are) hazardous. You’ll like what’s inside, we promise.

Holiday Portraits

• Nobody enjoys a good time quite like Jack… which is why you’ll have a chance to find a special Electricat portrait this December!
  
• Try your luck at getting this limited-time portrait while opening Jacks until Jan. 3rd, 2023.
  
• Don’t feel like leaving things to chance? You can also pick up the Holiday Brony or Holiday Jeeves portraits in the in-game store.

Holiday Jack Odds

• Jack’s still in a giving mood - players can expect increased odds for better rewards while opening Jacks throughout December!

Holiday Visuals

• Vendy is decked out in his holiday best.
  
• Jacks are getting in on the festive fun as well.
  
• Enjoy the chilly weather and decorative lights on the home screen.

Spectator Mode

• Have you ever longed to see one of your best Frenemies get obliterated by a top Phobies player? Have we got a gift for you!
  
• Players can now watch Frenemies Arena games by joining as spectators.
  
• Look for the “eye” icon over the More menu to find out when your friends are lined up for a battle, then follow the prompts in order to watch the game play out.

Maps

• Special delivery - three new maps have entered the weekly rotation!
  
• Flex your strategic muscles on Teen Spirit, Mount Blight, and Hold Still.

General

• Fixed a few issues that could cause players to get incorrect end-of-game messages relative to the actual game resolution.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the camera to react when an opponent placed traps during Arena games.

Phobies

• Fixed an issue where Gargles was doing more damage upon death than stated on its card.

Replays

• Fixed an issue where players where shown a “Defeat” message on battle log replays whether they won or lost the match.
  
• Fixed a soft lock that could occur due to memory shortages when tapping a Frenemies icon and a match replay in short succession.

Stability

• Fixed a network desync that could occur if a player suspended/resumed the game for more than one minute.
  
• Fixed assorted potential network desync and crash causes.

As we approach the end of 2022, the Phobies team would like to take a moment to thank every player who has fallen in love with our creepy little strategy game. Your passion, positive comments, and amazing fan art are very much appreciated and we’re looking forward to delivering more fun to you in the new year.

From our team to you, have a safe and happy holiday season, and we’ll see you in the Arena!

Happy battling,

The Phobies Team

Hi everyone! We noticed some issues with our 1.0.7 patch and were able to roll it back to 1.0.6. Since then, we've been working on getting those fixes fully functioning as well as a couple of other things. We'd love to ask you all to continue sharing the game with your friends and family. Don't forget to leave a review as well, if you haven't already!
If you run into any bugs, please go to our Discord and report it there! Now onto the patch notes!

• Improve checkpoint system (completed puzzles don't need to be solved again)
  
• Checkpoints added in large levels throughout the game
  
• Improved colliders on levels Fire 1 and Earth 4
  
• Falling through the ground in Earth-1
  
• HUD shows extra tokens after upgrades
  
• Minor bug fixes

December's IGN First is Dead Space, the EA Motive remake of the original 2008 horror classic.
Check out the first 18 minutes of Dead Space running in 4K 60 on PC, and stick with IGN all month to find out more about the Dead Space remake.

Welcome back wretched. :]

I added quite a simple system allowing you to replace any and all text in the game. You can have some fun with this, such as with a single line of code you can replace all instances of "minions" with "poopies"! The more obvious and useful use though is for full game translations. It should have support for all manner of languages: French, Russian, Japanese, etc, and there's a guide here to explain exactly how it all works: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2897936282

Optional full mouse support has been added. Previously you could only use the mouse for actions (eg dashing), but now all the game menus should work with the mouse cursor. You can turn on/off mouse support in the Controls -> Mouse settings.

A fully HD font has been added for if you're not a fan of pixel fonts, and is needed if you're using translations. You can turn this on in the General -> Font Type settings.

The translations, mouse support, and HD fonts, are all a bit experimental (I've never done translation stuff before especially), so let me know if you run into any problems!

A new map has been added called the Marshes of Madness. A fungal place where extra shroomy meanies are likely to spawn as well as zombie knights dredged from the bog. There's the associated score achievement for it too.

A new meta has been added called the Souleater Dealer. If unlocked a special trader will show up (like the Blacksmith Lackey) who can be given a Soul in return for an interesting ware, such as a specific minion that may be levelled up or other bits and bobs.

Previously only human meanies were able to be Blessed, but now beast meanies can be too. Blessed meanies have better fighting abilities but give more valuable bones to suck on, and are mainly used at higher difficulties to reduce the amount of meanies on screen. New Super Blessed meanies have also been added (for both human and beast), turning them yellow and boosts their abilities and rewards further, and are immune from status effects like Slowness and Hex. Super Blessed are mainly just used for very high difficulties, such as when on loop 2+ in New Game Forever or when passed the 10+ minute mark in Skirmishes.

Some misc bits and bobs...
- Necrotic Skirmishes: When choosing a map the map icon is now gold and has a little gem if you have gotten a score of 66666+ using that class.
- Mauseleum Hub: Added an extra colour to the coffin jewels for if you have all that classes meta.
- Blacksmithy Lackey meta: He'll now show up in the Necrotic Skirmishes game mode too, but will only sell 1 relic per visit.
- Compendium - Necromancy: Minions will now show their minion type next to their name.
- The Joker Jester minion and Jester's Delight spell can no longer transform an enemy that is a Chest Mimic or carries a Hero Soul, Relic or Spell Scroll.
- Bellow Batty minion: This is now classed as a Melee minion (to conform with its Deamonous version).
- Giantan Mucusoums minion: This is now classed as a Melee minion.
- Large Slime enemy: Now inflicts Poison if they touch you.
- Elf Enchantresses enemy: Now fires off 5 projectiles per salvo (instead of 3).
- The flames created by Lantern Handlers and Candle Phantasms upon their death will now only be created if there's less than 99 flames on the map.
- Enbanishment Scroll relic: This will now give 3 Banishes (instead of 1).
- Ensealment Scroll relic: This will now give 6 Seals (instead of 3).
- Crooked Dice relic: This will now give 6 Re-rolls (instead of 1-6).
- Sacrilegious Altar contraption: Increased how long the deamon lasts to 40-60 seconds (instead of 30-40).
- Brightened the dark blue font a bit (was a bit too dark).

And some bug fixes...
- Picking up bones in the Necrotic Skirmishes game mode whilst having a Virginial Bow relic would cause a crash.
- The Deamonous Impling minion could cause a crash if summoned from a Sacrilegious Altar.
- Enemies weren't being Blessed at high difficulties unless you had the Heavenly Intervention meta.
- Stolen Divinity relic: This was blessing enemies at a much lower rate than intended.
- You could cast a spell in the Mauseleum Hub.
- In the Untended Townisle map the Beggar Seller event and Begger Bomber spawners were still active during boss fights.
- The Bottled Fairy relic and Minion Resurrection meta weren't removing Poison.
- The Blacksmith Lackey could upgrade a Forged Soul which didn't do anything.
- The Deamonous Coiler minion's lightning attack didn't count towards its damage stat.


Enjoy! :]

Hi everyone,

Today we released a new Trailer and are happy to announce that we managed to bring Greyhill Incident to Consoles!
It comes to Playstation 4 & Playstation 5.



As you may already know, it's inspired by 'true incidents', books, tv shows & films from "Fire in the Sky" over to "The X-Files", "Communion" and other works of the past.

Greyhill Incident is our homage to the classic grey Alien & UFO topic and we're working hard to make it the best experience, as we can.

You can wishlist it on Steam if you haven't already, but if you would rather like to play on Playstation, you can wishlist it in the Playstation Store!

- In chapter 3 if player opened door upstairs in Walter Green's Manor and returned to the cave to save, then went back to Manor the door would be locked again with no option to unlock it again - FIXED
- Added another check near Ciaran's caravan to prevent players from venturing back into the woods (and meeting Aarno's ghost chilling in the shack ;) ) From chapter 4 onwards the path past Ciaran's shooting range should 10000% be blocked
- Added initial check for aspect ratio upon game start - for all players with 16:10 monitors this should fix the strange screen bars issue, I hope (please report on that if possible)
- Fixed the missing voice line when Burned Cat asks Angie if she wants to shoot but she has no ammo (now she just says "I'm out of ammo...")
- Added "It's time to RUN" line when Walter kills Aarno so nobody would get silly ideas to go TOWARDS the killer and poke him (her) (looking at you dear friend Doctor L! :P )
- Upon loading a saved game the cooldown on dash is now reset and Angie should be able to dash again

- parts of text staying visible during ending credits - not happening to me, nor on streams on Twitch that I watched so... I dunno.
- getting stuck on Swimming Pool stairs - I walked up and down those damned stairs a thousand times and nothing, I even left the scene, returned and tried again and still no luck. If anyone alse got this please provide more info! ;)
- body tray in morgue in chapter 1 - I can't get it to slide in the wrong direction no matter what I do... I spent a good half an hour trying to break it and failed. Can you please explain how it happened? (and I know it DID happen, cos I saw the GIF)

- weak flashlight in the forest upon reloading
- light problems in men's toilet
- camera turning all funny in Mary's house when hiding in the broom closet
- song onthe grampophone in catacombs sometimes not playing or playing too quietly
- in chapter 5 one of the wax zombies is sometimes able to cut the pipe even if it's not holding it

Hi earthlings,

Five days left until the public beta is going to launch. I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit nervous. To avoid any misunderstanding, I'm going to explain what the main purpose of this version is.

The Steam-Playtest build:

• This version is still unpolished.
  
• Find as mush bugs as possible and mail them via the designated forms.
  
• Suspect "daily" bug fix updates.
  
• This version is unbalanced.
  
• The mission maker is not available.
  
• The starmap is not available.
  
• After this version is stable, this version will always be free to play. Always. For future updates, make sure to follow me intro Early Access.
  
• I'm wide open for community input, better stated, I need community input. Want something to change? Something not working the way you like it? Ideas? Please let me know. I would love to make the game as awesome as possible.

Make sure you wishlist and request access before December 10th, You will be able to win a free copy of Out Of Orbit. [Click here for more information about the contest]

I also made a five part series of YouTube tutorial videos named "Tactical Academy". Make sure to have a look at them as well!

1. Tactical Academy (Disguise)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgDWJmENh28

2. Tactical Academy (Hacking)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6_8UYyL-k4

3. Tactical Academy (Hostage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h2bdo4s3v8

4. Tactical Academy (Gadgets)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPRbQDCjD-4

5. Tactical Academy (Spy RC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjp47wGJO1c

Also, if not already, please link yourself up to all social media platforms to stay up-to-date.

Discord Server
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram
TikTok

That's that!

If you guys have any other questions, i'd love to answer them.
Stay good, stay fresh and stay healthy!

Cheers,
Bryan

Greetings, Adventurers!

The Winter Convergence Festival Update (New World Update 1.8) downtime will begin for all regions at 5:00AM PT (1:00AM UTC) on December 6. Expected downtime is 2 hours. This update marks the end of the Turkulon event, making room for Winter Convergence world events. Join in the quest to defeat the Winter Warrior, explore a fresh take on a familiar Expedition, and enjoy quality of life improvements to Trade Skills, Companies, and the Group Finder. Check out our full breakdown of the release notes for more information on all things Winter Convergence, or find an overview of some spotlight features below.




Icy winds and glimmering Gleamites fill the air once again as Winter Convergence returns to Aeternum. Visit Winter villages in Everfall, Monarch’s Bluffs, Weaver’s Fen, and Brightwood to meet the Winter Wanderer and carry out his holiday quests. Players can also collect Winter Tokens to earn new, limited-time rewards including festive skins, emotes, housing items and more.




The Winter Warrior and his legion of Frigid Folk are on a relentless mission to spread a Forever Winter across the land. Rally a party of 20+ players to defeat this brand-new world boss wreaking havoc throughout Great Cleave, Brightwood, Edengrove, Ebonscale Reach, and Brimstone Sands for new seasonal rewards.




This new take on Starstone Barrows includes a special appearance. Players will revisit parts of the Amrine Expedition and face both the intrepid Simon Grey and Foreman Nakashima. Challenge the Expedition to find out more.




We are making two major changes to improve the Trade Skill leveling experience:

The Forge, Outfitting Station, Workshop, and Arcane Repository now offer Azoth discounts for relevant recipes:

• Tier 3 = 20% discount.
  
• Tier 4 = 30% discount.
  
• Tier 5 = 45% discount.

Certain recipes are now no longer gated behind tiers:

• Most procedural weapon and armor recipes.
  
• Arcane Repository - Stat potions (Health, Mana, Regeneration, and Focus) and elemental recipes.
  
• Kitchen - Health and mana foods

• Tier 3 unlocks - Recipe level is less than or equal to 100 and not legendary.
  
• Tier 4 unlocks - Recipe level is 150 and not legendary.
  
• Tier 5 unlocks - Recipe level is 200 or legendary at any recipe level.
  
• Stonecutting - All gemcutting is no longer gated, but gem fusions remain gated behind relevant tiers.

Players no longer need to be in a Faction to join a Company, but Companies must still declare a Faction. Non-Faction-affiliated members may not become the Governor or participate in Wars.

Players can now see the number of active lobbies for each Expedition, both on the Map tooltip and the Expedition Entrance screen.

We will implement the following changes to make shell Companies less effective at owning multiple territories:

• Players will have a limit of 1 defensive War and 1 attacking War per world (resets daily at 5AM server time). These limits will apply to both even if you have two different characters in the same world.

Participating Companies will have a limited number of Mercenaries they can recruit.

• Attacking Companies: Up to 25 mercenaries.
  
• Defending Companies: Up to 10 mercenaries.
  
• The remaining slots are reserved for their Company members.

• When leaving a Company, players will start a 72 hour cooldown on fighting in a defensive War and earning Influence for any Company toward War declaration eligibility. The cooldown begins once a player leaves. Any Influence earned will still count towards the player’s Faction.

• We have increased the cooldown on all server transfers from 3 to 30 days.

Use the new Bile Bomb Heartrune to give yourself the gift of projectile vomit. On impact, it creates a diseased cloud that infects targets with lingering damage-over-time and reduced healing. The cloud also sticks to enemies on direct hits, infecting their allies if they get too close. This makes the Bile Bomb particularly potent in group fights and finishing off foes that are trying to heal. Complete the new mutated Starstone Barrows Expedition for a chance to get your own Bile Bomb Heartrune!

Thanks for your support and enjoy the holidays! We'll see you in Aeternum.

I'm happy to announce that Garden Galaxy is going to be releasing next week, December 14th 2022!

It will be available for £7.99 / €9,49 / $9.99.

A huge thank you to everyone who's been playing, providing feedback and wishlisting!
The demo has also just been updated, so give it a try if you like!

Here's a little peek at some new items that will be in the full game...

Attention, future Stalkers and Bandits!

The time has almost come - STALCRAFT will be released on Steam on December 9th. This means that you have less than a week to prepare for an intense action-packed gameplay of the most popular online stalker-based game in the Russian segment, which for the first time becomes available in English language.

The exact time the Zone will open its doors to explorers:

15:00 (EST) - 21:00 (CET) - 04:00 (GMT+8) for NA, EU and SEA regions respectively.

Don't miss the opportunity to be one of the trailblazers in the Exclusion Zone, true legends for future newcomers. Mark December 9th in your calendars, and get ready for one of the most extraordinary adventures!

Be sure to subscribe to our social media accounts as well:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STALCRAFT_ENG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stalcraft.official

See you in the Zone!