Is lousy Smarch weather getting you down? Well, we’re pandas, not medical doctors, but we’re pretty sure there’s only one course of treatment… and that’s a healthy dose of sunshine and sand!
Bringing back Kelby’s HAWT beach pinup should do the trick! We’re writing you a prescription for one (1) week-long LTE, so make sure you take your medicine by collecting your tokens every day and you’ll be feeling that summer vibe in no time. Or at the very least, you’ll have a hunky lifeguard to look at so you can dream of warmer days.
Due to the sales of Sector 598 during launch and the spring sale, it has become apparent that putting the game at 4.99 USD aka undercharging was a massive mistake that hurt the sales a lot. It is a game that has a lot of effort put into it, and the way it was set up was to fail with the price point of 4.99 instead of 9.99.
It has been decided to make sure this game can be made more worthwhile in the future that the price will increased to 9.99 USD. Sales will happen with this game, but this change had to have been made.
The development of Sector 598 is over outside bug and tech support due to development on another game well under way. So don't expect any new content for this game unless any bugs are found.
Once the player falls into an enemy's line of sight and is swarmed by the alerted Infested, the battle begins!
As seen in the example battle below, the basic type of combat that we want the player to experience is one where they are outnumbered.
The arrow next to the enemy indicates the direction they are facing. The enemy will grab the character that they are next to and facing. So, in the example below the Knight Errant and Militia are grabbed by two Infested and the Outsider by one.
In keeping with the theme and to reinforce the sense of desperation, the survivors' physical strength is low. Even the most basic variant of Infested, the Knawer, can put a survivor in a critical state with just a couple of attacks.
However, since a character cannot move once caught, special tactical action is required. These actions will cost one of two types of Action Points.
Weapon Action Point
"Weapon Action Points - or WP" are used for weapon action based skills. Every character has two per turn.
One handed weapons use 1 point for attack and two handed weapons use 2. This limits the possibilities of attack so careful planning is required to get the best result!
Above are two weapon skills of the Outsider’s starting weapon, the Woodcutter’s axe.
Axe Slash will attack all enemies in a single line. Ambush Chop will only attack a single enemy but attacking when out of sight will greatly increase the chance of a critical attack.
Looking at the previous battle, if the Outsider uses Axe Slash he can only attack two infested of the three possible for this skill. However, one of the Infested is looking at the Militia so using Ambush Chop would take advantage of its ability.
Leading onto the next feature, using ‘Tactical Action Points - or TP’ will yield better results in this situation.
Tactical Action Point)
Using TP, you can use your attack opportunities more efficiently, as seen below
Since the player has used their TP to push and pull the enemies into position the Outsider was able to attack 3 enemies at once using their Axe Slash skill.
TP is a resource consumed by movement at a cost of 1 TP per tile. However, in battle there are separate skills that can be used which also draw on this resource.
Push (Common) : Push a nearby enemy 1 space.
Swift Save (Knight) : Swap places with an ally. (Available when grabbed)
Rope Pull (Militia) : Pull an enemy of ally 1 space in the direction of the user.
Second Wind (Outsider) : Restore WP by 2.
The key to surviving combat is to manipulate the battlefield by pushing enemies who have caught an ally, pulling enemies away from a threatened ally or even pulling an ally out of harm’s way. Then when the stage is set, use WP effectively to take out as many enemies in one turn as possible.
As the game progresses, the types of weapon skills using WP and tactical skills using TP become more and more diverse and as such the depth of tactical play also increases.
Join us next time, when we will take a deeper dive into the game's contents including a look at weapons and character perks!
Update 0.5.2 is now available for Mac! We've also fixed some issues with crits, controllers and more.
+ New additions and changes this patch:
Added boat anchors that automatically anchor a boat when it's moving in a current and you stop steering. (This is to stop runaway boats from taking rides of currents leaving you to drown lol).
Made critical hit indicator render in front of all geometry so it's more clearly visible.
Buffed titanium pickaxe stats to be accurate, it was incorrectly set to wrong damage amounts.
! Bugs and issues resolved in this patch:
Fixed issues that made critical hits not always register.
Fixed interaction distances being too far away on controller, causing issues accidentally selecting items instead of attacking.
Fixed player movement being locked to 45 degree angles on controller when WASD scheme was selected in the menu.
Finally fixed Steam achievement issues.
Fixed broken abilities on titanium hammer and claymore.
Fixed Mac rendering issues on some GPUs causing items in the game to flicker disco colours.
Fixed various little spelling mistakes across status effects and items.
Enjoy the patch, and thank you for the patience Mac users!
Thank you playing The Use of Life! We have updated the game to Ver0.3.04. Here are the bug fixes and changes.
Adjustments
◆Adjustments: Black Panther Warrior
Added the Skill "Night Storm" to the broadsword stance.
Effects
When your starting CP increases during a level up, there will now be a flash to call attention to the change.
◆Visual Adjustments
The list in the Skill Menu can now display one more Skill during battle.
Changed "CT" to "Cooldown" in Skill descriptions.
Adjusted and rebalanced several UI elements.
Fixes
◆Text Edits
The previous Skill descriptions for Incantation and Multi-Incantation were outdated. They have been edited to correctly describe their effects. (Incantations do not strengthen Magic.)
Made minor edits to the English translation.
◆Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where you could use non-Iai Sword Skills immediately after failing to unsheathe your sword.
Fixed an issue where if players triggered movement-related events in the Bandits' Hideout and then immediately quit the game from the menu, the event locations would not be reflected properly.
Fixed an issue where Goshe's sprite would appear to have his sword unsheathed after players sheathed their sword, used Incantation (and/or Multi-Incantation), and then used an incantation Spell.
Fixed an issue where certain skill sound effects are still audible even when muted
Thank you very much for supporting and playing The Use of Life!
