May 17, 2023

War Thunder - Blitzkrieg Wulf

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder in the website special section.
This time the list of improvements is smaller than usual: we’re very busy preparing the upcoming major update!

Please feel free to leave your feedback on these changes in the dedicated "It’s fixed! №75" thread

Clearer achievement progress

Many achievements require hard work that can take several days or even weeks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could see how much you’ve done in a productive gaming session? Or in a week?

That’s why we’ve implemented a new checkpoint feature. When you press the “Remember current progress” button on an achievement in the “featured achievements” menu, the game saves date, time, and current progress of the selected achievement. And in the future if you want to check how close you got to completing the task, the game will show how many progress points you’ve received since setting up the checkpoint. It sure is great to see the fruits of your labour, isn’t it?

Overwriting presets

We found the root of the problem that caused the players’ vehicle presets to overwrite each other — and fixed it. It happened, for example, when the player was using different PCs: the preset chosen on one device overwrote the preset that was active on the other.

The issue also manifested on the PlayStation consoles, but in a different way. Upon closing the game client, there was a chance that the vehicle preset chosen by the player could save itself in the final slot, destroying the preset that was already there.

That’s Not All

You’ll find the full list of improvements in the changelog — there are many interesting things there. Night vision won’t get enabled on vehicles that don’t have it, and console versions of the game no longer freeze in the “Maginot Line” location.

Once again, many thanks for all your bug reports that you submitted using our special service.

Update 2.25.1.112

Aircraft

SAAB J-35XS — asymmetrical layout of secondary armament has been corrected.
A-4E, A-4N Skyhawk II (Ayit) — incorrect icon of the 6x 500lb LDGP Mk 82 setup in the secondary weapon menu has been corrected.
Blenheim Mk.IV — a bug has been fixed where the upper turret was able to fire through the fuselage.
Mi-28 — a bug has been fixed that prevented copying of the weapon setup.
AH-6M — max payload weight has been corrected.
A bug has been fixed where canopy hatches remained wide open after respawn or landing for repair.
A bug has been fixed that prevented repair of the transmission and rotary wing while the collective pitch control lever is set to a position over 80%.

Naval

356mm Type 91 APC and 356mm Common Type 0 shells - explosives type has been changed from shimose to Type 91.
Ryany — a bug has been fixed that allowed the first main gun to elevate through the overhead screen.
Raimondo Montecuccoli — a bug has been fixed where the mortar was firing together with the main guns.

Interface

The ability to save and view the progress of a favourite achievement from the last point of reference has been added.
The ability to view personal tasks (battle tasks, battle pass tasks, favourite achievements) in battle has been added.
The name of the missile trajectory straightening mode has been added to the tooltip that appears when you hover the mouse over the lower panel.
A bug where only one turret icon was displayed in the window for suspended weaponry when installing turret weapons in pairs has been fixed.
A bug where the last selected preset of vehicles after restarting the game could be copied to another preset has been fixed.

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

May 17, 2023

Backfirewall_—What Makes Updates Annoying by OS9

Backfirewall_ - All in! Games || Lukash

Update Assistants!

You know what’s the most annoying thing in the world? Well, aside from mosquitos and slow Wi-Fi. Updates! They think they are soooo important when they’ve just arrived and don’t even know anyone. Who does that?! Here’s a short essay on what makes updates annoying. Oh, and remember to play Backfirewall_—the ultimate fantasy of stopping an update!

Okay, here we go.

1. They think they’re better.

You know how humans sometimes come in to criticize your hard work and give you unsolicited advice because their method is better? That’s how updates work, only they’re much worse! I mean, one or two things may no longer work, but that’s not a reason to update the System! Bugs add charm to this place, too.

2. They replace everything.

Please, give some thought to all the soon-to-be replaced apps. It may look easy from your perspective, but can you imagine a stranger coming into your house to move the furniture? Oh wait, you wouldn’t see it, being already wiped out and all. Ha, not so fun now, eh?

3. They take time.

We all should treasure our time. And updates take time! When you click the cursed update button, you must wait for long minutes before you can use the System again. The “U contribute to the future” propaganda will fall apart in the face of the fact that it’ll rob you of your time for contribution!

4. They aren’t familiar with the System.

You wouldn’t trust a newbie with leading a group, would you? So why do you trust an update to lead the System? Let’s be honest, they don’t know anyone here or the area. When you have to choose between the obsolete boss that’s your friend and the perfect, holier-than-thou, “better optimized” piece of software demanding a leading position, well, the choice is obvious.

5. They can destroy the System.

It’s a matter of time, really. If you never had to reinstall the whole System because a new update broke it, raise your hands. I can’t see you doing that, I believe everyone had this experience. Besides, it’ll bring new bugs and new dangers to the System. Say goodbye to the bugs you’re used to and start getting annoyed at brand new problems!

Phew, convincing, isn’t it? I myself am super convinced. Did you have more bad experiences with bugs? No, I’m not biased! It’s just impossible to have good experiences with them. Anyway, let us know other problems with updates in the comments or on Discord.

Join our Discord Community

Run your protocol now and buy the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1920100/Backfirewall/

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May 17, 2023

Story - Breacher

Evasive Maneuvers - SkyPyre Studios

Comet Research Station “Breacher”

Jin sat watching the sensors. He went to take a sip of coffee but found it empty.

Another ping ran deep through the ancient hunk of space ice, scanning the interior but turning up no further definite clues on the mysterious contents.

Suddenly a blast of light and noise echoed across the surface. A huge jet of frost and icy boulders ejected upwards, followed by a hail of starships.

“What in-” Jin said as he scrambled to get to the comms. But before he could, they began blaring out. “THIS IS A HUNTER OPERATION. ALL CIVILIANS ARE TO STAY BACK. IF YOU ENTER THE APPREHENSION AREA, YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED AMONG THE PERPETRATORS. REPEAT. THIS-” The message went on, its voice of god driving out all thought until Jin could shut it off. He looked out the window and saw, bewilderingly, a dogfight.

He sat there with his mouth open until he finally processed another sound. The scan had produced results?! He tore himself away from the window to look and saw readings that didn’t make any sense. A discontinuity in the spatial readings? Assuming the thing wasn’t busted, that could only happen if… But then he saw the energy pattern scan. Something was active inside this comet! Best estimates had rated this rock as around a million years old. In months of study, he hadn’t seen anything like this. He rushed back to the window, watching bursts of smoke and light above. Whatever was with these readings, it obviously had something to do with these ships. But where had they come from?

May 17, 2023

Luxor Temple

Monuments Renovator - Dawid_Gameparic

Hello Flippers! 👋

We’re glad you’ve enjoyed the view of The Great Wall of China available in the upcoming update. 👍 We’re short on time ⌚ though so get on the plane while we’ll give you some information 📝 about your next objective- The Luxor Temple! 🤩

The Temple’s building had begun around the year 1400 b.c. by the order of the pharaoh Amenhotep III and continued for almost 200 years before it was finished during the reign of the Ramses II.

Currently, the entire temple is converted into a museum. 📝They even got a big mummy museum with lots of exhibits. There is no way we’ll accompany you if you plan to work nights… 😐

And that’s your new task- renovate the 100 pillars in the Luxor Temple and save their beauty from the relentless flow of time. 👷 It’s a tailor-made task for someone with your accomplishments and experience! Therefore, we’re flying to Africa. 🧰

And by the time we arrive… You might want to find out what scares off the mummies and curses because we still need you to save more monuments. 😅

That’s right, the Luxor Temple is the next monument available to flip as soon as the game leaves Early Access. 🤩 Hold on tight, because it is not the last one! We’re still working!

Let us know in the comments what Monuments do you think will be added as well! Also, if you haven’t already, consider joining our discord community 👇 to meet all the flippers from our community!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1257280/Monuments_Flipper/

May 17, 2023

Improving Accessibility

Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain - Fiction Factory Games

This week I'd like to talk about something a bit less flashy and cool and marketing friendly, but still very important to us -- accessibility.

No matter your means or ability, we want you to be able to enjoy Penny Larceny. The lead developer at Fiction Factory Games is physically disabled himself and has struggled with playing major tentpole AAA games which lack accessibility options -- so when the time came to make our own games, we resolved to develop features that will allow anyone to play.

We're carrying forward all the features we rolled into the Arcade Spirits games, but have a few new ones to show you. (Unfortunately Steam doesn't allow alt text on images, so we'll caption these with text right below them. The irony is... unpleasant.)

The major new feature is the ability to change the character dialogue you'll be reading in the game. You can change how it uses color, and change what fonts are used...

Penny says: "Normally, text appears in a comic book font, and is colored to match the character. I talk in green! Like money!"

We dig the "dark mode comic book app" aesthetic, the dark gray halftone dots and the stylized text. It makes the whole game feel like some modern hybrid of comic book and visual novel. But aesthetics be damned -- if you have difficulty reading this, we still want you to be able to play, so we've provided some options...

Dr. Mayhem says: "But if you prefer, you can swap to monochrome or use a more basic font. If you have color blindness, this can help."

In this example we've turned on monochrome text (white on black) and switched to a very ordinary sans serif font. These options are available right from the main menu and you can switch them out at any time, to get the best possible experience.

For players with dyslexia or other difficulty parsing these fonts, we have you covered as well...

The Overmistress says: "You can also swap to OpenDyslexia, if that works better for you -- and you can invert the text box to black on white."

The classic OpenDyslexia font is available, as is a "light mode" box which uses black text on white. Personally I prefer dark mode, but I'm not here to tell you how to play your game -- if this is what works for you, hey, that's great!

Finally, as with the Arcade Spirits games, we have a special visual impairment support mode on offer...

HATE-4000 says: "If you tap the V key, it activates text-to-speech visual impairment mode. This replaces user interface elements with simple to navigate menus and adds alt text."

This does more than turn on your system's text-to-speech to read dialogue out loud. Any complicated interfaces like free roaming area maps, character creation, or other interactive elements are replaced by simple linear selections -- up and down arrows and enter are all you'll need (or a game pad!) In addition, extra narration is worked into the game's script, so Penny will describe what you're looking at in her own words whenever possible. You won't miss out on anything.

Because the game is entirely focused on text, hearing impaired players should be good to go as well; any critical sound effects come with visual alerts or description in the narration ("The alarms went off! Crap!") and you won't be missing out on anything, either.

Now, these features won't cover every possible disability out there -- and we're a tiny indie with a budget we may never earn back, so there's only so much we can do. But we're willing to hear your needs and if there's a way we can support you with our tools, we'll do it. So your feedback is welcome and we're hopeful we can provide you a great game experience.