Dear Solar Club members,

Today, we're going to continue exploring the world of TDUSC. After the first newsletter, you now own your new luxury car with customized performance and style. It's now up to you and your driving skills to stand out from the crowd and beat your rivals. As you know, other than physical, mental and fine-motor skills, what separates an excellent driver from a good one is knowledge of the terrain. You need to master your speed, cornering, bumps in the road, weather conditions, visibility… Getting to know a course inside out takes time, dedication and practice.

The variety of roads that can be found on Hong Kong Island (also known as HKI) makes it great for
exploration. That's why, in this newsletter, we'll explore this unique island together and take a closer look at your playground for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown.



Faithfully recreated and at true 1:1 scale, Hong Kong Island is actually a great place to enjoy a very varied and intense driving experience, despite what you might think. You may not be able to tackle all the challenges the island has to offer with your first car, but you will be able to explore and discover many of the surprises that HKI has in store.


Hong Kong Island is full of very different landscapes. From the traditional narrow streets of the old town, to the wide highways where you can really put the pedal to the metal, to the off-road mountain trails that require skill and technique, each type of terrain poses its own unique challenges. The driving experience offered by TDUSC is realistic and challenging, while remaining accessible for drivers of all skill levels. By honing your skills behind the wheel and choosing the right car for the road type, you will learn to dominate all the different types of terrain you encounter.



As well as the varied terrain types, there is a dynamic weather and time of the day system: you can go
from a sunny ride at dawn to a long night-time drive under stormy skies. Rain has a significant impact on the behaviour of your car: you will need to adapt your driving to avoid unexpected skids and maybe change your tyres and gear ratios. Don't forget to turn on your windscreen wipers while waiting for the sun to come back out so you can put the top down again! The day/night cycle is also realistic with distinct phases for dawn, day, evening and night.



Like previous editions, HKI has been optimized to encourage freely driving around in your car. In total,
you can explore over 600km / 370 miles of roads. Exploring roads in HKI is a core part of the TDUSC
gameplay: the more you explore, the more rewards you earn!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Recreating Hong Kong Island with all its variety and small details was a considerable
challenge.

In an open-world game like TDU, we need to provide a seamless and interesting driving
experience as well as encourage exploration, which is an important part of the experience. To
increase immersion and transport players to a new country, we also wanted to make HKI very
realistic, which is why we recreated it at 1:1 scale. It was a challenge technically as well as in
terms of gameplay.

Thanks to the experience gained developing many rally games (WRC series) and motorcycling
games (TT series), we have considerable expertise in creating realistic environments on a large
scale. But TDU is a different kind of experience and more challenging.

Hong Kong Island is an amazing playground that offers incredible diversity, and each environment
received special attention to make them more fun for players.
To emphasize the fast and smooth driving, for example, the very dense urban network of HKI
needed some small adjustments because of certain little streets that were very (too?) narrow.

Conversely, some light redesign was done to the major thoroughfares to make them more fun
and adapted to very fast cars, while respecting the identity of Hong Kong Island.

To increase exploration options, we used our expertise from WRC games to transform certain
walking and hiking paths into small mountain roads that a car can use. It's up to you to discover
all the island's secret areas by driving down routes that aren't always shown on the map! It takes
time for HKI to give up all its secrets…

As you can see, everything has been done to provide a unique, fun and sometimes challenging game
experience, while remaining as authentic as possible.




While the competitive drivers among you will love all the different races organized by the Solar Crown,
players looking for exploration and relaxation will also be happy. You'll find 14 districts to explore, and
each one full of activities, events, and objects to find and collect. And fans of previous TDU games will be excited to hear that wrecks are returning to HKI with parts to be found across the island. Anyone who manages to find all the parts can acquire some iconic cars.

There are also many challenges to tackle: beat your speed records through the island's speed traps, and go head-to-head against other players or your friends in Instant Challenges. Your driving will probably not be perfect, and your cars won't always stay in immaculate condition, but don't worry: there are gas stations available to restore them to their shiniest best.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

HKI has a wide variety of locations, and we wanted to reproduce as many of these
environments as possible: from small inlets on the coast to mountain peaks to dense urban
areas and swamps.

Obviously, you can't show Hong Kong without the major landmarks that make up its famous skyline and iconic places from movies like the Monster Building.

You can cruise through downtown Wan Chai, the financial district with huge buildings like the
Hopewell Centre and Convention Centre, then pass through the Central District under the Bank
of China Tower and the twin towers of the Lippo Centre, an iconic skyscraper on HKI.

The East docks area is the perfect playground for the Streets. Their HQ, an underground industrial
nightclub, can be found here. But if you prefer a calmer and more residential atmosphere, the
Repulse Bay district with its luxury dealerships is there on the south side of the island. The Peak,
the island's highest point, is perfect for an off-road experience and to admire the city as the sun
goes down.

Are you an inveterate explorer at heart? Set off to find small fishing villages at the foot of Tai Tam
Tuk Reservoir, which can only be reached by small paths; then take the Dragon's Back to reach
Shek O for unforgettable gaming moments that can only be found in TDUSC.

With this guided tour, you can see that HKI has incredible variety that we have faithfully recreated
so you can enjoy epic driving adventures with your friends.

Members, we hope that with this information you can envisage your future playground and that it has
made you even more excited to explore Hong Kong Island. Please don't hesitate to share your thoughts! Which district are you most excited to visit first in your car? Feel free to share on our social media channels:

• Discord
  
• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Reddit

You can also support us by adding TDUSC to your wishlist :

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1249970/Test_Drive_Unlimited_Solar_Crown/

See you next month !
TDU Team.

I'm happy to finally announce the release of Skellies Ain't Scary. As the sole developer of the game for the past year and a half, it's been an awesome and grueling journey to get to where we are currently. So many things have changed since I started this project, and I'm grateful for all of them.

One of the main things would definitely be my community! It's been an awesome time meeting all the new people in our discord server, and making friends with some truly wonderful people, especially our mods, and all the play-testers who helped prepare the game for launch.

Well, after release, I assume if there's enough players, I'll be dealing with a massive wave of bug reports and balancing issues for awhile. However, I'd love to try other community events again in the future, notably some treasure hunts, speedrun competitions and so on!

I also unfortunately had to release the game before I could add everything I wanted, so the game IS releasing in semi-early-access. If possible, I want to release an update in the future that will most likely involve content like:

• More weapons
  
• More items
  
• More enemies
  
• More room variations
  
• More bosses
  
• Lore

That's just me talking right now though, who knows what will happen in the future!

Anyways, I made this post, because I figured it was high time I tried out the announcements feature and prepare something to fill up the steam page for my game before release! If you're reading this after buying the game post-release, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and hope you enjoy the game, if you want to support me, just join our discord server or leave a nice review, thank you!

“Westengryre is what the early monks of St Brandan’s called it; that old green-sickness, the raptness of desolation, the terror of the wastes, and it is upon me now. The Wood. The Wood. The Wood…!”

What would a Weather Factory game be if it didn’t try to kill you every so often? The Hours are much more merciful in Brancrug, but the House Without Walls still waits behind the world, and it’s still a dangerous place. Elements of the Soul are vulnerable to maladies if overused, or used unwisely. Chor is drawn into Duendracy by music only you can hear. Wist becomes tangled and Shell-Crossed with pre-human thoughts.. Ereb is vulnerable to Westengryre, and Phost… the HIGHER YOU RISE the MORE YOU SEE. You didn’t think we’d make too easy a game, did you?

On to the beta. Thanks so much for everyone who’s tested so far – it’s so helpful! AK mentioned this in a recent Reddit post, but here’s an easy visual guide to what happens next:



We’ll be removing access to the beta on Monday 17th (you’ll be able to load it after that point, but not get past the title screen), and reopening it on Thursday 27th April with a new expanded build, BARONIAL. We’ve also decided to add testers incrementally over the course of the rest of the beta. A bunch of people will get emails on the 27th, and every week or so – when AK updates Steam with a new build – a few more will find a tasty beta key in their inbox. I know some people were disappointed when they weren’t included in the first tranch of testers and had to wait a month before being in with another chance. This way everyone should be happier, AND we get a steady influx of new people to tell us our UI don’t work. Woo hoo!


Look how nice this one looks! And this is a screenshot, not a mock-up. We’re getting there…

Art-wise I’m astonished to say that we are ONE ROOM AWAY from all (base) art complete. There’s one place left to draw – a triple-sized subterranean chapel of the Sisterhood of the Triple Knot – but we’re looking pretty peachy. I’m now working on bringing it to life with animations (beta testers may have noticed the nice candle animations going in, for example) while Adrien makes a number of seasonal outside art and Important People busts you’ll find around Hush House. Here’s a sampling of what he’s up to. Any guesses on who these busts are?




Right! I’ll leave it here so we can get back to work on the game. More updates soon: beta hopefuls expect an email (maybe) on the 27th, and in two weeks’ time we have something important to share with all of youse. In the interests of getting hype…

In the 5th and final development log of this series, we dive into the Mythology and Lore of Gord. While speaking to Stan and Anna Sokalska (Writer), we look at how the adventure genre was approached, how quests first began to take shape, and how the Chronicle was made.

In this video, we also discuss:

• Campfire stories
  
• Introduction to Anna Sokalska
  
• The inspirations for the story of Gord
  
• Who the Slavs are

You can find a link to all current and future Chronicle posts here



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1351210/Gord/

Howdy Gum Balls,

It's been a while since last update. It was necessary for me to take a step back and work on some other stuff.

For this update I made a new race theme. The Gum Balls are delving into the Rainbow Mines. These mines were used to excavate the rainbow crystals in 7223 BG to support the allies in the Greater Gum Ball War. I wonder what they do. :thinking:

Hope you will enjoy the new map. There have also been reports of users not being able to load the game and enter the main menu. This issue should now also be fixed. (I hope :smiling_face_with_tear:)

Let me know if there are still issues. Join the GBR discord to let me know if the loading issue still persists.

Keep on Gum Ballin!

~ Glenn

嗨，大家辛苦了，今天又是令人期待的周末，讓我們來看看經過一個禮拜的《紡織者之詠試玩版》作了些什麼改動

先讓我們來看看，為什麼是新手教學？
很簡單，因為很多人都跟我們反應不知道遊戲的機制，甚至在不知道升級跟覺醒的情況下遊玩，因此我們大刀闊斧的翻新了整個新手教學
-優化新手教學，讓玩家知道踩『？』會發生什麼事
-優化新手教學，引導玩家升級/強化迴音逝從
-優化新手教學，引導玩家『燈塔』的作用
-優化新手教學，引導玩家知道在地圖進行地區切換時會進行物資消耗
-優化新手教學，引導玩家使其更清楚的知道什麼是每個角色的特殊機制(如格雷薩的『覺醒』)
-修正新手教學部分圖標顯示不完整的問題
-優化了新手教學的文案，使其更容易閱讀，不再一次顯示過多內容



有不少對劇情感興趣的玩家，對於沒辦法體驗到開頭的劇情感到可惜，我們因此新增「從頭開始」讓對劇情感興趣的玩家能更輕鬆地體驗內容。



除了新手教學外，還有惱人的卡頓優化已經正在進行中
-優化了戰鬥的讀取
-優化了對話的讀取
目前的優化尚不完整(不如說優化本就是一條無盡的道路)，但奶茶(我們的工程師大大)已經就一些已知的點開始優化，不妨告訴我們是否有所改善。

．錯誤修正
除了新手教學和優化外，我們來看看還修正/新增了些什麼吧
-修正了地圖移動消耗提示顯示不正確
-修正了完成支線後會完成主線的問題(嘿對，就是你光頭商人)
-修正了戰鬥勝利石頭獎勵不正確的問題
-修正了卡片「幸運」使用多次後會有無法抽牌的問題
-修正了當卡片效果需要選擇牌堆時排版問題以及確認按鈕位置詭異的問題
-修正了卡片「洗牌」會有影分身(牌堆/棄牌堆各有一張)的問題
-修正了戰鬥中回到標題再重新戰鬥，戰鬥結束之後迴到大地圖鏡頭有可能會有位置錯誤的問題。
-修正了商店小費的費用累積不正確(正常來說就是它其實是要慢慢變貴的)
-修正了營地的消除卡片時牌組顯示不正確的問題
-修正了覺醒費用在戰鬥開始時有可能消失(雖然重新讀取就會恢復正常，但仍然是個惱人的問題)
-修正了部分卡片的類型
-修正了詐欺師初始覺醒是『戰鬥』而非『巧計』的問題(預設牌組不變)

當然除了優化和修正還有很多令人期待的內容我們也在加緊製作中，未來都會慢慢與大家見面
-修女(?)的角色立繪
-新的可玩角色
-新的支線

Hey you all! Last week I wasn't able to work on PZ and week before that I mostly worked on bots, but this week I have been doing a bit more.

Worked more on the new audio system.

Adding support for Discord.

Modified Team select UI.


Made small changes to Kill Cam UI if you suicide.


​I know this isn't much, but I am still doing a lot of stuff that can't really be showed like this.

Be tuned for more updates and information about new playtest this month!
Thank you for reading this far. Have a great rest of your day!

This time around, it is a smaller update. The main reason is that we have identified some smaller issues, which should be addressed. Luckily, this also gives us the opportunity to integrate some new features and enhancements that we've been perfecting since last week's major update.

Additions:
- New scattered item: seashells
- New deco: new life rock and 2 new types of wood
- You can now view the interplay of different water properties and water-chemistry concepts: There is a second tab in the (individual) charting window

Fixes:
- Fixed unresponsiveness of tabs in Help window
- Reduced memory issue on first startup (when various thumbnails are computed). This should reduce / eliminate startup crashes!
- Further reduction of micro stutters -- please give us feedback whether we improved further!
- Fixed Depth of Field issue
- Fixed rounding issue when using specific gravity as salinity unit
- Fixed hanging on very wide screens

I'm doing all sorts of effects to make the levels livelier, from sunlight to shiny reflections on the water. Now I'm making fog/smoke and stuff like that to hide the lionesses and make them more mysterious. The fog seems to be getting better. The video applied all at once on one piece of the level is certainly overkill, in a real level-design, it will be more delicate to apply. So the video was made for the purpose of visual demonstration. R-r-r-r-r-r-r!

The leader of the voting is Perino Model 1908



Perino's design apparently was the first Italian-designed machine gun, and in its original configuration weighed in at a heavy 27 kilograms

More on wikipedia.org>>

We take it into production.
NE team