• Added button after winning and unlocking a new image to view it in the Gallery immediately
  
  
• Added Optional Default Game Backgrounds (instead of black)
  (Accessible in the Pause Menu by pressing ESC or Right-Clicking while playing a game)
  
  
• Added the ability to set any unlocked image from the gallery to LEFT and RIGHT background manually.
  This way we have an infinite amount of background possibilities.
  (You can set an unlocked image immediately after a game, or from the gallery page.)

In this update we finally introduce the first boss fights! We currently only have the first boss, the Elder Plasma Spitter, in the game so far as the others are still in development! We plan to roll them out one at time as we finish them. Then we'll work on polishing the boss fight system, with smoother transitions, art for the different boss arenas, and more! We're also planning to release in early access on steam in two weeks!!! We'll be cleaning up and fixing small things from now until then.



-Introducing BOSS FIGHTS!!
•After completing every fifth wave, you will be prompted to enter the main mineshaft, to repair a damaged powerline substation
•When you start the repair you'll have to fight a supercharged boss gloop!
•The boss gloop has several unique attacks that you'll have to outplay to come out unscathed!
•When the boss hits half health, it becomes ENRAGED, enhancing its attacks with new effects
•Upon death, the boss explodes with scrap and drops a supply crate that contains a free rare item!

-Also, everytime you return to the surface after a boss fight, the time of day will be changed!

-New visual effect for applying the poison debuff to enemies ☢️

Playing with fire
Ignite an enraged boss while you're at critical health

The bigger they are...
Kill 3 bosses with powershot in a single run

It can strike twice!
Kill a boss with the activation damage from an overclock

What doesn't kill you...
Finish a bossfight with at least 1 armor

-Explosive Detonator 🧨
Dynamite dropped per roll increased 1 (+1 per stack) -> 3 (+3 per stack)
Max dynamite cap increased 5 (+5 per stack) -> 9 (+9 per stack)
Dynamite damage reduced 100 -> 75
This item required too much work to set up a dynamite trap without that much payoff, with these changes it is much easier and faster to set up dynamite traps on a whim, and get super satisfying explosions as payoff.

-Silver Wings ⏩
Projectile speed and range increased 15% -> 20%

-Overloading Prism 🟣
Crit chance reduced 16% -> 8%
When we did the crit number adjustment, we increased the crit chance of this item, but it proved to be very impactful just on its own, we're reducing this a bit so that it depends more on getting more crit chance from other items
-Winchester Shells 💥
Empowered attack projectiles will now pierce 1 (+1 per stack) enemies

-Red Matter Duplicator 🏮
Scrap income reduced 15% (+15% per stack) -> 10% (+10% per stack)
This item proves to be a little too powerful now that it is an all class item, so it's getting a slight adjustment
(spoilered for your protection)

Rare Tier
-Beamer Brigade's Bugle 🎺
Summon a trio of friendly beamers when you use your ability!

These bugs have been squashed!

-Fixed a bug where hitting escape in the settings menu would cause a game crash

-Fixed an issue where if you rolled directly into a teleporter, it wouldn't actually teleport you

-Fixed an issue where doing the mining lift would always set your difficulty to normal when you went back out

-Fixed an issue with your inventory sometimes visually disappearing after exiting from an alternate area

-Fixed many smaller bugs that have been found during playtesting

Hi everyone!

A big surprise was coming and here it is... ✨ KOA AND THE FIVE PIRATES OF MARA IS COMING TO KICKSTARTER! ✨ 🥳

Our new game, developed in collaboration with Undercoders and Chibig, will have its own kickstarter campaign starting on May 4th. You can already follow the page to get noticed when it launches (this helps us A LOT!)
Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chibig/koa-and-the-five-pirates-of-mara-endless-summer-adventure

Koa is already in an advanced state of development, close to being finished. Our goal with this campaign is to fund the last development steps, getting extra resources to be able to port it successfully to all platforms (including Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series), cover the localization costs into the different languages and also securing the support of a minimum run of units for the physical and collectors edition of the game.

This is all for now, we hope you're as excited for this as we are! Follow the page on Kickstarter to get noticed when the campaign launches on May 4h. Until then, thank you A LOT!!
Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chibig/koa-and-the-five-pirates-of-mara-endless-summer-adventure

• Fixed a bug that could cause some users to experience issues when starting the menu. If the problem persists, please let us know in this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/1327920/discussions/1/3825286682756738217/.
  
• Added the option to show or hide VR hands in LIV.
  
• Fixed minor bugs.

Chapter 1
- Fixed an issue where you could only jump from the starting room.
Chapter 2
- In the projector room, there was an issue where a puzzle could be solved with a single box unintentionally, blocking the doctor's path. To solve this, the structure was slightly modified.
- Fixed an issue where the doctor could get stuck in the chair in the doctor's room.
Chapter 3
- Changed the button puzzle because many people find it difficult. Fixed intelligence problems to find clues and solve them.
- Slightly lowered the difficulty of the last two chase scenes. The speed will be a little slower, so it will be a little easier to play.

Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback.

Update Squad 4. 4 will be released on the 19th of April 2023! 

It will bring with it a few new map layers, new server tags, and will mainly focus on bug fixes, quality of life improvements,  and optimizations to the game.

Next week we will publish the complete Release Notes for you to check and learn all the latest additions that made it to the game in 4.4

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

It's time for another project update! In this one, we will be talking about the latest beta patch and how development will continue after that.



Sorry for the delay this month. I wanted to make sure that the patch was largely finalized before creating the update. As always you will find the video transcript attached to this post!

Best wishes,
Michael

---------------------------------------

Time just flies! We are already in April but the development of Monomyth continues. The time to really wrap it up is drawing near, but there is still some stuff to do. So in this update, we will be talking about a massive amount of content that will be added to the game shortly and how we will continue from that. At this point, I don’t want to spoil too much, but I want to keep you updated on the latest work that has gone into the project. So let’s take a look at that.

I have been working on Beta 3 roughly for the last two months and it’s now close to completion. Right away I can say I am glad that for a change I have listened to my own advice and I learned from the mistakes made during the development of Beta 2.

Beta 3’s development was much better planned, much better scaled and unsurprisingly much better executed. I built most of it based on a blockout I did earlier in development, even before the refactoring. As a result, I didn’t go overboard in terms of scaling, and the geometry plus detail passes were done much faster.

This gave me a lot more time to make some unique assets that would add personality to the area. It also gave me time to implement more intricate and polished designs. This is reflected very well in the general engagement with the game environment. Or in other words, Beta 3 features more detailed level mechanics. This goes from secrets, to traps, to what I tend to call environmental sidequests or challenges.

I also had more time working on enemies and enemy encounters. So Beta 3 actually features multiple new enemy types, some taken over from older work I did, some made completely from scratch. None of these have been in the game so far.



There were some new enemy types in Beta 2 as well, but I couldn’t put as much work into them as I wanted so I pushed some of that into the polishing phase. Luckily some of the work I did for Beta 3 overlapped with that work and now all it requires are some finishing touches. That much just as a side note. All in all the new enemies should give you a nice, fresh challenge.

In this context, I should also mention I slightly adjusted my workflow for character creation. Now if you have been following these updates for a while, you know I have been rambling about the troubles of custom character creation for UE4 in the past. Without any tool support, it can be quite challenging to bind a custom character mesh to the standard UE4 skeleton. In the past, I have done this with a mix of vertex data transfers and weight painting. This method was rather restrictive when it came to humanoid characters that weren’t perfectly proportional. I have now replaced parts of my original workflow with a tool called AutoRig Pro and that makes things a lot easier.

Now what’s left for Beta Update 3 are a couple of narrative assets, meaning some dialogue and documents, as well as item distribution throughout the new area. After that, the patch will be uploaded to the beta branch and the beta-level backers will be able to test it. This should be done within the next week or so.

That’s another step on the roadmap I showed you during the last update - so what’s next?



In Beta Update 4, I will mostly focus on the game’s main social hub. I have already built a good portion of that level so geometry and detail passes should be done pretty quickly. The main part of the workload will revolve around implementing the main quest as well as a new trading system. There was an old trading system on the original codebase - you can see it by trading with the rat NPC in the demo - but this one will be replaced by a completely new system.

I will also include some new features concerning inventory management, among other things a separate inventory for quest items.

Once that is done the polishing phase will begin. Polish will cover pretty much everything from item balance, to AI. Two major tasks will be improving the Lysandrian Heartlands and the mines. Both areas are perfectly functional in terms of mechanics, but they need a bit of a workover to be on the level of beta 3’s quality. In this process, I will probably split the mine up into two areas. You may remember this area was overscaled. This also came with some technical issues which I seek to resolve.

As I said in the past, at this point of development I will bring in more people. The first step here will be an open backer beta.

After that, I will have to look at how I am going to release the game to the public. There are basically two ways to go about this. Either I will still implement the last portion of the game as well as the backer content and release the game in full later this year, or I will release an Early Access version and implement the final content patch during that phase. Currently, things are scheduled in a way that the latter is more likely, but it also depends on the backer's feedback.

During all of this, I will see whether I can release an updated demo. Maybe I can deploy a separate build once things are properly polished.

All in all, there is still a good bit of work ahead but we are getting closer and closer to a public release. As always I will keep you updated and I will see you next time.

We’ve done some work under the hood; You should see some FPS gains as a result! Both in our own internal testing and user testing, Patch 3.2 has an average FPS boost of +15% compared to the previous update (3.1.12). Obviously, the numbers will vary depending on your PC Specs as well as the scenario being played but overall, everyone should be seeing more FPS. 😀


On top of bringing you some more FPS, we have also made changes to the engine that should drastically remove stuttering/hitching (in a lot of cases, completely)!

As always, we wouldn't be here without you, so please send us your feedback and ideas - find us @KovaaKs and on our Discord. Thanks for your support and more great stuff coming soon!

• Updated font as well as adjusted text size for consistency and readability.
  
• Adjusted styling of icons, buttons, checkboxes, and windows.
  
• Moved scenario rating to the right of scenario name, to make it easier to read through the Online Scenario tab.
  
• Modified Challenge Endscreen’s TAB and font size, so that the information is more evenly distributed.
  
• Added UI sound FX, which you can adjust with the “UI SFX” volume slider.
  
• KovaaK’s Plus members will now display the supporter icon next to their username on leaderboards.
  
• Adjusted styling of HUD elements too.

We have added a “FREEPLAY/CHALLENGE” toggle to the pause menu. Previously, one would have to load a scenario, click “START CHALLENGE” and then click “PLAY”. Now, fewer clicks are required, just set the toggle to “Challenge” and clicking “PLAY” will start the scenario challenge right away! The app will remember the toggle’s position between challenges and sessions.
Also, the “Session Manager” window is now only visible when the toggle is set to “FREEPLAY”, this reduces clutter, avoids confusing new players, and leaves room to, perhaps, add something else.

• We have removed the up/down arrows as you can now simply drag scenarios to reorder your playlist scenarios.
  
  
• Updated “Playlist Randomizer” UI, replacing the large text + dropdown with an icon that you can click and it’ll cycle through the 4 types of playlist randomization.
  

• We have moved some less-used settings out of the MAIN tab and added some of the most common settings to it, namely: Visual Themes and Crosshair.

Weapons Tab

• Per-weapons settings are more organized with collapsible menus
  
• Moved Zoom Sens Mult and Toggle Zoom/ADS into Collapsible Mouse options
  
• Default Crosshair options were removed from this menu and placed into the Main tab, but if you want to change crosshairs for specific weapons then it’s still accessible on the Weapons tab

Video Tab

• Pause on Loss of Focus moved here

Sound Tab

• Added a UI SFX slider
  
• Reworked multi-sound picker
  
• Shoot Sounds & Cooldown moved here
  
• Hit Sounds & Cooldown moved here
  
• Head Hit Sound moved here

UI Tab

• Resetting the HUD will now reset the checkboxes of which widgets are visible
  
• Updated style of UI tab to have a vertical divider between columns
  
• Health & Info Bar Scale moved here

Misc Tab

• Projectile Prediction Indicator moved here
  
• Floating Combat Text moved here
  
• Statistics Export moved here
  
• Death Cam Spins moved here
  
• Time Until Online Scenarios Refresh moved here

We have added “Highscore Bar”, a new HUD Element that will display a visual representation of your current score against your highscore and/or session best.



Introducing Leaderboard Ranks for Benchmarks! Benchmarks can now have a dedicated rank for a certain leaderboard range! (e.g. Top 10, Top 100, Top 500).
A Leaderboard Rank will show in all the places a regular rank shows (benchmark main screen, leaderboard, and challenge endscreen). GL with the grind!

• In the character profile’s Move tab, you can now specify the rate of deceleration when flight is enabled.
  
• Added Character Profile Variables for "Vertical Aerial Deceleration".
  
• Changed “Profile” to “Scenario” in a few spots for the Scenario Editor to be more clear.

• Added Stairs Brushes.
  
  
• Both the snap rotation and snap distance tools now accept user-written values.
  
• Improved Paint Mode’s UI.
  

We recently launched a website that features a new way to search and follow scenarios, leaderboards, playlists, and creators, as well as a place to create your own KovaaK’s profile!
Check it out at http://kovaaks.com

• Updated Default Local Scenarios and Favorited Scenarios (only affects new users)
  
• Updated Credits.html file
  
• Added a link to our spiffy new website to the pause menu
  
• Added Tooltip to 'Initial L/R' setting to help clarify functionality
  
• For scenarios with Movement Scoring and/or Distance Traveled Scoring, players will now get a "Move to get more points" message when they aren’t moving.
  
  
• Updated tooltip for adding a scenario to a playlist from the Scenario Browser

• Fixed an issue where a scenario uploader would show as “Unknown”.
  
• Fixed an issue with the benchmarks graph where it was always showing the highest rank.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when a scenario was restarted just before completion.
  
• Fixed bots having limited lives in freeplay.
  
• Fixed Diagonal Back speed multipliers to emulate Overwatch-style speed. A 0.9 multiplier backwards becomes 0.93333 diagonal back.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Disable Character Collision feature not working as intended.
  
• Fixed an issue with projectile weapon headshots not registering properly in the Trainer.
  
• Fixed an issue with Advanced Search in the Scenario Browser not showing a list of scenarios by Aim Type only.
  
• Addressed some hitches when downloading Steam scenarios.
  
• Fixed FTUE not firing.
  
• Bot characters no longer trigger the “out of ammo” sound.
  
• Fixed an issue where the benchmarks button was showing up at times it shouldn't, such as in the scenario editor.
  
• Fixed bug where scores below 0 would not be posted to Leaderboards.
  
• Fix progress bar showing new when at exact scenario rank threshold

• "Shrink switching" scenario has different behavior.

Please note that versions of KovaaK's older than update 3.2.0 may not be compatible with maps and scenarios created or updated after 3.2.0, and will soon be unable to post to the leaderboards. As part of this update, EQU8 (our current anti-cheat software) will be going offline and a new feature will be released, which requires an update to the map format. If you have experienced any issues in the past and are playing on an old version, please patch up and report any issues you may encounter. We strongly recommend updating to the latest version of KovaaK's to ensure your ability to post and play with the latest content as we add more scenario and map creation features.

Release notes (v1.0.12):

• Improved the algorithm for determining the best possible initial orientation for a block. Previously, it only operated on the vertical axis, but now it operates on the vertical, horizontal, and depth axes.
  
• Fixed a shadow artifact that occurred on most AMD GPUs.
  
• Level 6: removed a baseboard that was not supposed to be there.
  
• Clamped the UI zoom animation to prevent oversized widgets during periods of high computer activity or freezing.

Update Details:

• Disc flight max distances for some discs have been adjusted.
  
• Disc flex speeds for some discs have been adjusted.
  
• Out of bounds has been added to courses containing water areas. Hole specific out of bounds is expected to be added in the coming week.
  
• The drag and drop mechanic for adding discs to a given bag has been replaced with a right-click mechanic. Click the bag you want to add discs to, then over in the Storage panel, right-click the disc to add.
  
• Bag coin bonuses are no longer percentage based and have been adjusted to provide whole number values instead.
  
• Bags that offer coin bonuses now award the coin bonus regardless of the player score after the round.