Apr 27, 2023

Chessarama - Thalia [Community Manager]

Hello everyone!

This month we updated a lot of things to make Chessarama's experience even better! 💪

Check it out:

A lot of UI animations had their timing adjusted. We expect you to have a faster and smoother experience while playing Chessarama! 💙

Fixed a bug where Chess Lessons and Rules prevented the gameplay from working as intended.
"Brightness" option is now saving correctly.
Fixed double-clicking bug on "Settings" checkboxes.
Fixed a bug where the language dropdown wasn't showing the correct language being used.
Fixed a bug where the Chess sets didn't appear in Chess Matches.
Fixed a bug where Chess Matches mode was unlocking earlier than intended.
Fixed tons of typos on a lot of game modes.
Fixed missing icon on Daily/Weekly Challenge completion notification.
Fixed missing texture on Farm Life spaceship.
Fixed water visual bugs on Farm Life and Dragon Slayers.
Fixed tons of UI displacements.
Fixed game progress percentage going above 100% on Street Soccer.
Fixed a bug where Knight's base didn't disappear after a level complete in Farm Life.

🎮 You can update your game to the 0.9.2 version on Steam!

🐞 Remember to use the Bug Report in-game to report bugs, and the Feedback Form to tell us your opinion (you can access it by clicking the "chat balloons" icon on the left higher corner of the Main Menu).

💙 If you want to test Chessarama but don't have a Steam Key yet, click here and fill up our form!

Be part of our community and enter our Discord server:

Apr 27, 2023

Late April 2023

StellarX - DoummeBoulou

Hello there, 👋🏻

It's been a while since we haven't pushed new release notes — but there's a reason for that.

Drumroll... We are officially releasing StellarX on the Meta Quest Store!🎊🎉

New Features 💫
With this release, we are providing you with a ton of new content that you can use and interact with:

Check out our new Template: Monorail, featuring new animated assets, and interactions with Waypoints!

(Drone asset source: https://skfb.ly/6zyDP Author: BlueMesh: https://sketchfab.com/VapTor. CC4.0 attribution license : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode)

We transformed our Onboarding experience Space into a new Template: Winterscape. Come experience this beautiful, snowy landscape!

We also added a bunch of interesting new assets to our Collections, in order to cover other type of industries — and, with those, we created yet another new Template: Heliport. This Template showcases several possibilities and interactions that can easily be built with StellarX!

For the release on the Meta Quest Store, we've also made sure to adapt some of our older templates to make them compatible with this more lightweight version of StellarX*:

Added the Storage Facility Template, an adapted version of the Warehouse that's compatible with StellarX Standalone (Meta Quest Store).

Added the Airdock Template, an adapted version of the Hangar that's compatible with StellarX Standalone (Meta Quest Store).

Added the Auditorium Template, an adapted version of the Conference Room that's compatible with StellarX Standalone (Meta Quest Store).

*⚠ StellarX Standalone will fully support the following templates: Empty Space, Monorail, Storage Facility, Airdock, Auditorium, and Winterscape. We are working really hard to bring as much content as possible to this Standalone version, so stay tuned for future updates!

Improvements 👍🏾

Medias in Media Panels will pause automatically when the StellarX app is unfocused.
Spaces in the Basecamp are now loaded over time, to prevent any lag or discomfort.
Added many prompts and information panels to monitor internet connectivity and inform the user if the connection was lost.

Bug Fixes 🐞

Fixed an issue in the Basecamp where Sections would not remain highlighted after selecting them.
Fixed many performance issues associated with Collection Assets where FPS would sometimes drop below 60 FPS.
Fixed a performance issue with the Transform Axis tool where FPS would sometimes drop as low as 43 when using it.
Added a loading screen after creating a Space to prevent any lag or discomfort in VR.
Added a loading screen after deleting a Space to prevent any lag or discomfort in VR.
Fixed issues associated with the VoiP where we would sometimes lose the microphone functionality after losing internet connection.
Fixed performance issues associated to particles, where FPS would often drop below 55 while emitting smoke or fire.

We are so very proud of this milestone, and cannot wait to hear from you! And as always, stay tuned for future updates. 🎉

Cheers,

- The StellarX Crew ✨

Apr 27, 2023

Hotfix 0.8.3.0a-f

Striving for Light - Deventide

For the Rush-Event all Light Fragment drop rates from enemies and destroyable world objects are doubled!

Improvements:

Life Leech tooltip has now information on how the life leech effect scales on multiple life leech nodes

Balancing:

Changes to life leech skill nodes. Life leech now has a base leech of 1 health of 150 defeated enemies (was 170) also the leech amount now reduces by -20% for each additional stacked life leech node (was -20 finite value).

Bugfixes:

Fixed a crash when loading offline save files (v.0.8.3.0f)
Fixed not spawned companions
Some tweaks to controller support
Fixed legendary effects not being applied directly without scene switch
Tweaks for Rush Event

We wish everyone a lot of fun at our very first Rush-Event! Please give us your feedback about your Rush-Experience so that we can improve those Events on future iterations.

In case you encounter any bugs or crashes or want to share your feedback, you are invited to join our official discord at: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

Apr 27, 2023

New game mode among other features

First Person Shooter - darkthunderinc

Update Barry

Fixes:

-Fixed Scoreboard reset only occurring for game host.
-Fixed Bullet line not appearing if a wall is not hit.
-Attempted a fix for the mid-match join spawn error issue. (Players with a negative spawn time will get reset to a time of 1 second and re-attempt the spawn process)
-Fixed repetitive gun pickup glitch
-Fixed animation trigger system

Features and Improvements:

-Added color coding to the kill log to allow for easy recognition of the local players kill record.
-Added New “Adorable” Character as the default playable character.
-Added new character animation
-Added independent head movement on character to add more expressive motion.
-Updated and improved the player list system in all game lobbies.
-Added the ability to skip the splash screen by pressing any button
-Added Team based systems
-Added team death match mode
-Added team selection systems in game lobby
-Added team score tracking
-Added team score UI elements
-Modified Existing scoreboard to adjust to team-based game modes
-Added Game mode selection in lobby
-Added Team Color coding to player nametags
-Modified kill log to show teammates in green
-Added new test “Park” map for both team deathmatch and free-for-all
-Added new kill log messages

Apr 27, 2023

Tower of Spirit Rework is here!

Tower of Spirit - Hookaria Games

So... it's been a while since my last update. I'm very sorry about that. The game is still being developed, but due to a new job, the time I'm able to devote to working on it has decreased considerably. However, I'm happy to announce that a major update to the game is being released today. The progression system, combat and overall experience of the game will all change massively with this update. I have been working on this for the last couple of months and have re-written most of the code in Tower of Spirit.

So, without further ado, here are the most notable changes to be found in this brand new 0.7 release!

General changes:
Your path is your choice, so choose your next encounter wisely! Decide where you want to go, what kind of danger you want to face and, of course, what kind of reward you desperately need after each battle or event!
Experience and levels have gone. But combat offers specific rewards. It's up to what you fight for!
Bonfire doesn't just restore some of your HP and MP. You can decide if you want a little bit of both, most of the MP, or craft an extra emblem node (formerly called emblem point) to equip more emblems.
Characters appear as a path to choose from, so it's easier to predict when you're going to get a new one to add to your party. You can change your party freely between encounters. It is no longer limited to the bonfire.
A complete overhaul of the user interface for events, the shop, the bonfire, and party management.

Level changes
The first area has undergone a complete overhaul, from a visual point of view! Thanks to the talented Jeanne Prigent (https://twitter.com/JanePrigent), a French artist who recently unveiled a crazy project called Deckum Demonium (https://twitter.com/DeckumDemonium). This is an interesting and atypical deck-building game about summoning demons. You should definitely check it out!
To keep up with the revision of the first area, the Scarlet Forest has undergone some minor changes.

Combat changes:
Enemy intentions are now visible. The exact amount of damage and target can be accurately predicted.
Old defense and stance systems have been combined into a single defense stat. Each character and enemy has a certain amount of defense at the start of combat. Defense doesn't reduce or prevent damage (but Guard action still does). It represents the amount of hits a unit can take before suffering a break. Yes, the break system has returned!
All of the enemies and characters have been re-balanced accordingly.

Emblem changes:
Emblems can be changed outside of combat and events. You don't have to wait for the next bonfire, you can customize and experiment with your set of emblems. Oh, and there is also a brand new interface to help you manage all of this!
Emblem upgrades are here! During certain events throughout your adventure, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your favorite emblems. They will affect the cost of the emblem or improve its effects, depending on the emblem.
You'll always see the emblems you're wearing in the left corner of your screen. This makes it easier to keep track of all the active effects while in combat!
Emblem Point becomes Emblem Node!
Some emblems have received multiple changes, including complete redesigns.
10 new emblems to play with! Tower of Spirit now has 40 unique emblems. More are on the way.

Yes, there is a lot of stuff. But where is the new area, events, enemies, bosses and playable characters? This is the next big thing I am working on to complete the content of the game before the official 1.0 release. I'm also finishing a new type of emblem that will add some spice to your adventure.

To all Moss fans, I'm sorry to announce that the character is currently disabled. After finishing all the changes and replaying the game extensively, I realized that his design and visuals were not as good as I had hoped. It was a fun addition, but I'm confident I can make him much better with a little work. Anyway, he's temporarily retired, but will be back later (probably next month).

Thanks for your support, more updates are on the way (in less than 3 months I promised).

Side notes:
I discovered a lot of indie games recently. Please check out those amazing games and don’t forget to wishlist them if your are interested:
The Wreck: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1687960/The_Wreck/
Tower Escape: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2009860/Tower_Escape/
Ninja or Die: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2090980/Ninja_or_Die/
Hauntii: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2060790/Hauntii/

Apr 27, 2023

Public Beta Launch: Virtual Cameras, Lever Action Test, New UI and more!

HARD BULLET - JukSteelfly

Hi, today we launch Open Update Preview with lots of new stuff for players and content makers. Some things are so complex that we still have not decided wether they will get into the final version or not.

How to switch: in Steam open Hard Bullet Properties, go to Betas tab and select preview - Public Beta.

Bring your feedback and ideas to our Steam Forum and Discord Community

This is first time we do such public preview of upcoming updates, hope we'll continue this practice in the future.

Soon you'll find what else is in this beta and what's planned for furture May Update (this May, no strict date), but for now let's dive into two most important features!

Virtual Cameras

We built several Virtual Cameras that will help you show your gameplay from new perspective. You can tune all of them using settings, create your own presets and even switch between cameras with your keyboard!

3rd Person Camera

This one shows player from the side. We made several presets for you and you can make up to 5 more.

Probably the most interesting option is Follow Camera — this is an AI controlled camera that follows the player and keeps they on screen. Maybe it's not so complex like in some true 3rd person games and has its flaws, but we are working on them.

Our idea here is to get rid of live preview window, so you can just have your bullet hell fun in Hard Bullet and Follow Camera will do the rest.

Action Camera

This small cute camera will stay in the air where you place it. You can use built-in Spawn Tool or just grab it with your hand. You can't weld it to objects yet.

Action Camera appears with a number on it — switch between them in the Camera Settings or your assistant (lucky you!) can switch between them using the same numbers on PC keyboard.

Forehead Camera

This one is an updated version of Wide FOV Camera we had before. Now you can change the FOV and camera positions.

Still in work

And this is not all! Some cool cameras we are still working on:

AI-controlled Action cameras that will turn on when the player is nearby, letting you move through arena and always stay in focus.
Welding for Action Cameras so you can attach them to guns and enemies.
More keyboard controls for creator's IRL assistant to switch between cameras.
Tracking Camera to keep player in the viewport.

Lever Action Reloading Test

We've been experimenting with lever action weapons to find the better way to reload them in Hard Bullet style.

Please, tell us what do you think — reloading may feel unintuitive at first (especially with two hands), but it becomes easier as you learn. Probably. Or not. That's why we are doing this tests huh.

You'll find a lever action gun in the Dead Box sandbox over a green cube in the center of the arena.

There are some options similar to those we have for pump action shotguns to choose better mechanic for you. Visit Interactions Settings to choose.

Other Changes

A few words about other interesting things you'll notice in this beta:

New UI and Launch

Starting options are still work-in-progress as we plan to add more complex height calibration. You can set checkbox to skip them and jump right into lobby after you launch HB. You can always find those in General the Player settings.

Changed country flags to country names so it's more convenient to find familiar words and make the right choice. Also, let's all welcome new languages: हिंदी (Hindi), עברית (Hebrew), Norsk (Norwegian), Română (Romanian) and Magyar (Hungarian)!

Tips translations are not ready, but all the other UI elemetns are here. Please, contact us if you think you have a better idea for some options on you native language.

New UI Element — Tips

Hover over a question mark sign near some settings names and you'll get a short description. Please, let us know what options in game settings or mechanics you'd like to see explained.

New lighting on weapons

Last graphics update cut the guns visuals a little and they started to feel more blank or saturated. Today we adding new awesome visual and lighting reflections to weapons and arenas.

This is the most optimized and good-looking setup we've ever done to Hard Bullet and we are very satisfied with these results.

Bring your feedback and ideas to our Steam Forum and Discord Community

What else will be in May update:

Lever Action firearms;
New switchable player outfit and face;
AI Cameras that turn on when player is nearby;
Welding for Action Cameras;
Sitting mode improvements
New height and body calibration;
Controller feedback when grabbing guns;

...and hopefuly all the improvements we come up with during this beta!

Sharing some progress

Just teasing new hairs that are in work. Won't get into May update, but probably will go to the next one.