+Fixed: Krono can no longer use lunge while it's sleeping, causing it to jam
+Fixed: Empty carcasses no longer give Necrophobia
+Fixed: Exploit that would allow players to infinitely drink from a water source, eventually draining it
+Fixed: The Elasmo can now much more easily interact with deity shrines while carrying a trinket
+Fixed: Mosa now uses proper animation when it's eating and moving at the same time
-Both when it's swimming and when it's beached
+Fixed: Hitting objects while in flight no longer heals you
+Fixed: Lurdu's dart no longer deals more damage than it should be doing
+Fixed: You can no longer combat log by pressing quit game or return to main menu
+Fixed: Horseshoe crabs no longer crash the client when possessed
+QoL: Unjam and Unstuck buttons now have a visible countdown until they can be clicked
+Admin: Added new server config variable, bDisableUseRandomName
-This variable goes under the /Script/BeastsOfBermuda.ServerGameInstance header in the Game.ini file
-If true, players will be unable to use the console command UseRandomName
+This wasn't documented in the Official patch notes, but Ichthy's Storm Lord buff now provides a 25% damage boost, down from 50%

---

Afrikaans

Hello everyone, I'm here with a status update to discuss some cool stuff that's been going on!

First, Baldi's Basics turned five years old a week ago! To celebrate, I'm happy to announce that I have teamed up with Makeship to create a new Baldi Plushie! Click here to check it out!



This plushie will only be available to purchase until April 28, so don't wait too long! If at least 200 units are sold, the campaign will be successful and the plushie will be produced shortly after! If not, all orders will be refunded, so there's no risk in placing an order early. I worked with the team at Makeship to make sure this plushie was just right, and I'm super happy with how it turned out!

But that's not all I want to talk about! As some of you might know, one of the reasons Baldi's Basics Plus has received so few updates as of late was because I realized I was totally unorganized and needed to finish the game's design document. Well, the core of that document is finished and so I've recently begun active development on the game again! Let's go over what I've been working on over the past month.

Mainly, I've been reworking some old systems that were in dire need of improvements, and cleaning up parts of the project that have become obsolete or messy to manage. With the game design document's core finished, I've gained a much better understanding of what the game needs to be capable of, and one big thing that needed changed was the way tiles - the individual cubes that levels are built out of - are controlled. In current versions of Baldi's Basics Plus, all the data for tiles is stored with the tile game objects themselves. This causes some issues, especially with level generation since large numbers of these tile objects need to be created and destroyed during that process, which is very slow.

What I've done is switched over to a more data-oriented system, where tile data such as navigation and shape info, position, the presence of objects and posters, etc. is now stored separately in a "cell" variable. Tiles are now just the objects that you see in the game, and they are linked to their corresponding cells, but don't actually hold the data anymore. This means that I can now do stuff like generate levels without having to create and destroy stuff until the process is finished, which means the level generator can do a lot more per-frame. The level generator should be lot faster when Plus version 0.4 launches! With these changes, the level control systems are also a lot more flexible than before which should open up some cool possibilities!

Something a bit smaller, but cool, is that I've made some tweaks to the map. Map tiles are now filled in with a matching transparent background color, making it easier to read. Doors and windows now have unique tiles on the map. Icons for things like items and notebooks now remain upright when viewed through the quick map, and additional icons have been added to elevators to show where they are and their current status. I've tweaked the map colors to make more sense (Class rooms are now green, faculty rooms are now red, principal's offices are now yellow, and hallways are now white). Lastly, I've added a subtle background affect to certain rooms when viewing the advanced map which makes it easier to identify them. I have more plans for map improvements, but this is what I've done so far!




The other big thing I have to talk about in this status update is that I'm making a big change to the level generator! In the current version of Baldi's Basics Plus, almost everything is procedurally generated. Too much, I've come to realize. So the way level layouts are generated is great, there are no issues there, the problem is with how the contents of individual rooms are procedurally generated.

I think when I started this project my mindset was "the more stuff that's procedurally generated, the better!", but I've since come to realize that isn't necessarily the case. Currently, rooms in Baldi's Basics Plus are really boring. There are a few different types which place furniture and decorations in certain ways, but they all feel stale. My plan for a long time was to eventually take some time to improve the process for room generation to add more variety, but I realized that in order to add enough variety to make rooms that really feel interesting, it would take a lot of additional programming. Too much, in fact. It would basically be like programming a unique level generator for every type of room. Even sharing as much code as possible, it would still be a lot of work, and I haven't even mentioned how prone to bugs and bad layouts such systems would be (I'm sure many of you have seen quite a few desks sticking through windows by now!).

So, I'm switching to a different approach. In Plus version 0.4, all rooms will be premade. Levels will be generated as before, and when it comes time to place rooms, the generator will randomly select from a list of potential rooms, find a position and rotation that the room fits in, and then load it and its contents into the level. This not only makes it easier to make a wide variety of interesting rooms, but it has other big benefits. It improves level generation speed, it helps avoid potential softlocks (Like teleporting only to get trapped behind a desk), and is much easier to maintain, among other things!

Now, initially this might seem a bit less interesting, but I'm confident that this will result in levels that are much more interesting to explore, especially as I add more rooms to the game. I'll be able to add rooms with furniture layouts that have interesting affects on gameplay, rooms with weird shapes (Like the smiley face used in the map you can see above!), even rooms with unique gimmicks! I'll try my best to find the right balance between common, simple rooms and rarer, weirder rooms to keep exploration fresh for a long time!

Oh, once I got this system up and running I also adapted it so that hallways can generate with custom made areas as well, like this open area with a pillar in the middle!



With these big changes almost finished, the next thing I'll be doing is some spring cleaning! There are lots of outdated and obsolete assets and scripts in the project, so I'll be cutting out all the stuff I don't need and making sure the project is easy to work on before I start working on the stuff you all are waiting for- New content!

Work on the next character has begun. I've drawn some (bad, but effective) concept art to figure out what colors he'll be using. Once I pin that down, I'll have to order some art supplies...

Anyways, that's all I have for this status update. 0.4 is on its way, and remember, once 0.4 releases, that will be the beginning of a new update schedule: Major updates every two months! Thanks all for your patience and support!

Sorry for the delay on this update, its been a hectic couple of weeks. This update includes the first iteration of the Colosseum and Parry mechanic and a handful of tweaks and fixes.

Combo System
The new combo system is live. The biggest change players will see is higher rarity items will now do a higher amount of combo damage on the third hit, it now scales with rarity levels. I'm also going to be adding in some more combos with debuffs, and buffs to help players out a bit.

Parry
This new mechanic will allow players to parry a downward attack from enemies once per enemy attack cycle, you will see a white flash showing when the parry window opens up attacking with a melee weapon during that time will trigger a parry. Parrying an enemy will immediately cancel that attack and stagger the enemy.

This is a work in progress and I'm looking for feedback from players on how it feels, timing, and reward. I've thought about adding a damage burst on parry, or a stamina refund to the player, things like that would be welcome feedback.

Colosseum
The Colosseum is behind the archery range and allows players to test their abilities in a wave style fight. You can pick what tier and what difficulty you go up against and will have different resource rewards for winning the entire wave.

Again, this is a major work in progress feature, resources and waves will need some tweaking and some balancing. I will be adding more waves, and varying enemies in the next update. I've also thought about adding the option for challenging bosses, or multiple bosses (T1 + T2 + T3 boss all at once? ːsteamhappyː)


Bug / Tweaks
- Fixed a few level colliders, casting wands in certain directions on some levels should function properly again. If you find any places where you aim and cast and it goes in a weird direction please post a screenshot on the feedback forum and I'll get those fixed.
- Fixed collider height on T2 Dungeon room 2s floor to prevent some edge cases of falling through the ground.
- Added a background panel to echoes to better show rarity colors.
- Items and Resources will now save on pickup instead of dungeon completion, should help prevent lost items in cases of crashes.

Difficulty of chapter 1 "Rebirth" simplified by adding a clue to the mechanism in the first room with the coffin and in the room with the two doors.

Some minor bugs fixed with this update.

Following our latest batch of updates, please find here a few additional fixes and changes.

• Fixed difficulty presets layout that was not updating properly
  
• Fixed game score screen. Level and score should now be correctly displayed
  
• Fixed resources cost in the victory conditions UI panel
  
• Fixed recycling feature. You should now recover the right amount of resources
  
• Fixed a main airlock / elevator bug that could occur if you saved a game when a character was in the airlock
  
• Fixed heavy injuries that were not triggering death properly
  
• Fixed various localization strings

• Refactored quest and buff game systems to make them more resilient and ready to welcome more content (Q2 update preparation)

Thank you for playing!

If you like the game, do not hesitate to demonstrate your support by posting a Steam review! It helps a lot!

Cheers!

PS: 2 days left before 15% discount is ending.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1734390/The_Pioneers_Surviving_Desolation/

Empire Chronicles (Version 0.9.512) - Minor Update

• Added the option to disable tree animations for slower computers.
  
• Added the option to disable water animations for slower computers.

Speluncaphobia has returned and has been remade! Though the game is relatively short, it now includes a fascinating cave system with a lore-driven plot that challenges you to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of multiple individuals lost within the depths of the cave. Additionally, the price has been adjusted to something more reasonable. I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience caused by the prior circumstances and hope you enjoy the new and improved version of the game.

Albeit being a short experience, there is still something there.

You get to experience the morbid fear of caves. You get to experience Speluncaphobia.

• Greyboxing is in its final stages for the dungeon we’ve been working on. Next will be the modeling phase, though we won’t be starting immediately since we’re focused on the town buildings for now. Here’s a sneak peek at the greybox version of some of the rooms in this dungeon! (Note: The lighting isn’t final.)

• Modeling for the houses is coming along really nicely! The exterior of the first house model for this town is complete, as is the ivy we showed off on Twitter last week. Now that the materials are further along, the rest of the houses should begin to progress more quickly!
  
  
• We’re starting on the concept art for a handful of important human characters in the game’s story. We’ve also updated the human crouching and sneaking animations.
  
  
• The base models for child NPCs are nearly complete. We’ve also started modeling several clothing assets and hairstyles for them.
  
  
• Concept art for Big_Bandit, as well as the colors for Tender_Foot and Briar_Stomper, have all been finalized. Next, our concept artists will be working on the action and expression pages. (Correction from the last newsletter: Tender_Foot was listed as a Null Type, but is actually an Air Type.) We have finished models for both Little_Bandit and Briar_Heart! Rigging has started for Bashful_Strider and is still in progress for Wailing_Weed (who is especially complicated on the rigging side). There are a few combat animations left for Puddle_Hopper, and Tide_Walker has joined them in the combat animation phase.
  
  
• One of our main focuses for concept art has been an important building for the game’s story that can be in multiple states throughout the game. We’ve just finished the exterior concept art and are most of the way through the interior for one of these states. Once that’s finished, we’ll be doing concept art for the interior and exterior in other states. We’ve also finished concept art for a few major set pieces.
  
  
• We’ve been working on some new vfx that we’re really excited about! Once completed, we’re looking forward to sharing it in a newsletter.
  
  
• We’ve built out the terrain for the area outside of town. It was important to keep multiple level design constraints in mind while sculpting this, and we’re pretty happy with the result!
  
  
• We’ve added logic for your teammates to react to new types of events that occur at camp. We’ve also added some new camp dialogue sequences, including the interaction from the end of our Kickstarter Trailer. (Bear in mind the exact dialogue will depend on the individual Kinfolk and dialogue choices you make!)
  
  
• We fixed the settings for our Overworld map, which had a few issues after we shifted the origin coordinate to be closer to the center of the map.
  
  
• Our new Hierarchical Task Network AI is fully implemented. We’re looking forward to the following benefits:
  
  • Streamlined editor interface.
    
    
  • Greater separation between the sensory layer, decision making layer, and Unity monobehavior layer of our NPC AI. This makes our AI decision making much easier to unit test and debug. This will help us spend less time debugging and more time polishing NPC behaviors.
    
    
  • Unit tests that cover a majority of the decision making process.
    
    
  • Runtime AI editing. This allows devs to modify many parameters of the NPC AI in runtime, which greatly improves iteration time compared to how we previously needed to frequently hop in and out of play mode to make changes to the AI.
    
    
  • Streamlined workflow for creating NPC combat AI. In particular, Summoner teams with combos that involve swapping characters benefited the most from these changes.
• We’re continuing to write logic for specific story missions in the single player. This has been one of our major focuses for dev work recently, and will probably continue to be for at least a few more sprints.
  
  
• Now that we’re finished setting up the basis for the ability pools that we mentioned last time, we’ve started implementing them. It’s a relatively large change that impacts a lot of our other code, so the process has been involved. The improvements to performance will make it well worth the effort!

Thanks for checking in on us! We’ll be back with the next newsletter on April 21.

Hey All, Today i have added some Feature Requests towards the Game.

Compass: you now have the ability on Loading to have a working Compass for the Player Character ( Andral)

UI Controls: I have also just added in the Options Menu [Esc] > UI , the ability to Show/Hide Action Buttons and the Compass Itself

Looking Forward to the Next Update,
Dala(Jon)