It's TRAILER TIME everyone!

Get amped up for the Tesla Update dropping this Saturday, June 24, 10am pt.

And let me know what's your most anticipated feature below!

- Rich

Prison City's lead developer, Programancer, sits down to talk about the game's music, working with Retroware's testers, and why Hal uses a chakram!

Question #1: What did you envision for the music in the game? Did you take the inspiration from certain artists/games when it came to that? Also, what was it like working Raddland Studios and Matt Creamer?

Programancer: When I first started Prison City, I kept thinking about music from games like Street Fighter 2010 and Power Blade- a mix of high octane NES goodness and catchy melodies. I have been a huge fan of Matt Creamer's work since playing Retro City Rampage and I knew from the start that he was the only person I wanted to create music for this game! Working with him has been wonderful, and he knocks it out of the park with every track!


Question #2: Can you describe what it was like working with the testers at Retroware? What are some notable bugs you or the testers found that you're relieved to have resolved?

Programancer: They're the essential front lines of the bug war! It is so easy for bugs to slip through the cracks that developers would never find- we get so used to our games that we go through the motions as if it's just second nature- we can set out to test every possible thing those changes may have affected. The testers have been really awesome to work with and they've found things I absolutely never would have found on my own- and honestly, it's a huge relief every time a bug is found because it gives me an opportunity to dive into things I probably haven't touched in a while and fix them up- or in some cases make things better than they were before


As for a bug that I'm most relieved to have resolved is one where a certain NPC just idles on screen having a smoke after you're supposed to respawn from dying. While it was enjoyable to see that NPC have a nice relaxing break, it wasn't a whole lot of fun for the player!

Of course, there are some bugs I try to keep in, however, if they're helpful for speedrunners--and can only be triggered with a deliberate attempt--but that one just wasn't cutting it.


Question #3: Why did you decide to go with a chakram as the primary weapon for Hal? Did you consider other weapons prior to deciding on the chakram? Also, can you describe what it was like getting the chakram to work as desired/as in its current state in the game?

Programancer: The chakram was actually one of the first things I coded, and honestly I didn't have much time to consider another type of weapon when I started developing Prison City-

I knew that I didn't want to go with a gun and instead wanted to go with something with a little more subtle nuance that didn't have unlimited range but could still be utilized in 8 directions. I've always been a big fan of Power Blade's boomerang, but I didn't want to go quite as far in that direction either- I did like the idea of a returning weapon though. I ended up looking to Xena for inspiration- Xena had a chakram and Xena is cool! The thing where the chakram returns to you with a different arc depending on which direction you're facing was inspired by Link's Awakening- where Link will swing his sword from different angles depending on what direction you're facing.



With all of that in, I knew the game would have to be designed almost entirely around the player's moveset and weapons, so I made sure there were some beneficial quirks to it- like for example: even though the chakram returns to the player after hitting a wall, it will still push through slightly so you can damage enemies or crates that are next to the wall it's hitting. In some cases, enemies will be positioned perfectly around the player, and if the player holds the attack button when throwing a chakram, it'll hang out in front of them for a while, and they can move it around them briefly. This was inspired by Castlevania 4's whipping mechanics!


That's all we've got this time! Check back for more updates!

Download and play the free Prison City demo now!

Demo v1.0.4 and Playtest v0.5.3 are now live!

Shared changelog (demo + playtest):
• Updated sprites for acid spikes again to increase visual difference from normal spikes
• Updated level timer to only start after player's first input
• Added smart input ignore on analog stick briefly after beating the level to prevent accidental movement in the following menu

Play now and submit feedback!

Hi, Inklings!

INKBOUND IS ON SALE FOR 20% OFF! This is a great time to pick up the game if you haven’t yet or invite your friends to party up, hang out in the social hub, and challenge yourselves to reach Inkbound rank before everyone else.

Check out the sale on Inkbound’s Steam store page. The sale will run from June 21st to June 28th.

If you haven’t already, please consider joining us on Discord. There, you can ask us questions directly and meet other Inkbound fans! Once there, head over to the #free-shinies-here channel here for 300 free shinies which can be used for an adorable ‘boop’ emote, a pink kwill that follows you around the Atheneum, or impress your friends with a new Obelisk shield.
To redeem the promo code - complete tutorial and reach Atheneum hub. Open the "gear" menu by clicking the gear icon on the bottom bar or pressing the escape key. Then click "redeem code," paste the code into the box, and click "redeem".

Want more codes? Join our bi-weekly Twitch streams for more code giveaways! At the end of each stream, we give out codes for 1,000 shinies! Follow the official Inkbound channel here!

Exciting things are happening at Shiny Shoe. We’ve recently released a roadmap that includes what to expect in our next major update. Just a few of the things to look forward to is a new player aspect, daily challenges, and a new Inkbound book!

Thank you all so much for your support. Words cannot express how much we appreciate each and every one of you.

See you in the Atheneum!
Cami
~Community Manager at Shiny Shoe

Please stand by while I fix the horrible bugs in the last puzzle (where you need to make the antidote). It seems a whole scene is skipped by going into the kitchen.

Also in tonight's update there will be the extra content, extra adult scenes and animation performance improvement.

Thanks and sorry for the wrong start.

We just hit 3000 reviews on Steam! It's amazing to think that so many of you decided to not only play Backpack Hero, but also share your thoughts about it! It means a lot to us that most of you have had a positive experience with the game. It's very motivating and makes us work extra hard to make sure that Backpack Hero meets your expectations, especially now that the full release is on its way!

We appreciate all the reviews, both positive and negative! Your feedback helps us improve many gameplay aspects and gives us a clear path to follow. Without you, Backpack Hero wouldn't have become what it is today!

We are incredibly grateful for your support and hope you will keep giving us your feedback ❤️


We know that Summer Sale is coming very soon, but we're so excited about 3000 reviews that we decided to start it a bit earlier! So if you've been thinking about adding Backpack Hero to your Steam library, you might wanna do it now at a 20% discount!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1970580/Backpack_Hero/

And if you're a fan of the soundtrack, you can also get it 20% off 🎵

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2109040/Backpack_Hero_Soundtrack/

Join the Backpack Hero community:
DISCORD
TWITTER
TIKTOK
REDDIT

Two months had passed since the release of Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly. We are thankful for all the feedback we received so far as we gradually update the game to what our community has voiced. Currently, we are trying our best to make Coffee Talk Episode 2 available in several different languages, with more coming later this year.

Enjoy serving coffee & tea of Coffee Talk to your favorite regulars in Bahasa Indonesia, Brazilian Portuguese, and Turkish. The first significant language update of the Coffee Talk Episode is here! We are releasing three languages simultaneously on Steam and other platforms. We hope that by reading the dialogues and stories of Coffee Talk Episode 2 in your native language, you will feel more familiar with the characters and understand more about the story.


In-game preview of the three new languages available now to play!

Grab Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly on its first sale now 20% OFF! Take a copy for yourself or give them to your friend who you think would love to enjoy it in their native language. It's never too late to start brewing a new chapter with a cup of coffee (or tea if you want to keep it low on caffeine). ːctcoffeeː

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1663220/Coffee_Talk_Episode_2_Hibiscus__Butterfly

More updates will come later this year, so keep updated through our social media platforms! If you have encountered bugs, typos, or technical issues, you can hit us on the Steam discussion or join our community to get a faster response. Please eagerly wait for us to tease more after-release treatment soon.



Please stay safe and healthy, friends!
Fully brewed with love,

Coffee Talk Team. ːctfreyaː

For this update I targeted more performance improvements for low end devices with new foliage quality levels offering noticeable gains when playing at medium settings.


A new foliage quality setting has been added to graphics settings. This setting will control the method and quality of meshes that will be used. Specifically, a lower poly set of models has been made for trees and similar assets. Depending on the quality level of this foliage setting will determine what meshes get used. The screenshot above compares lowest and highest settings for just the foliage setting, it may be hard to notice major changes at a glance as it was always the intention to not sacrifice too much visual quality.

The goal of this setting is to increase the frame rate of very low end hardware, any computer with a dedicated GPU is probably not going to see that much of a meaningful change here, but APU’s such as early gen Ryzen and anything that happens to offer lower graphical performance will see a small bump.

To accomplish this two things were done. The first was to remove a subdivision level or reduce the number of poly by half for the trunks and branches. To avoid it looking blocky/low-poly it was then shrinkwrapped with various smoothing to fit the higher poly models. A few additional tweaks such as to make the chopped off branch bits still look round were done so overall you'd have to look close to notice. The second is petals and leaves which are normally fully 3D (most levels only have maybe 3-5 trees) are replaced with an older 2D masked plane method. This means they are essentially 2D looking but there are some tricks such as offsetting the center of the face to still allow for side on appearance at a glance.

As a result of these two changes the triangles of tree's can be reduced by anywhere between a third to a fifth of the original which does help specifically very low end hardware. For actual performance numbers I was able to get the following in medium settings on my AMD 3200G test pc which is similar ball park to the steam deck (though steam deck is bit faster having that RDNA2 not Vega graphics).

Gentle Swing - 113 fps to 127 fps, 14 fps gained
Around the pond - 104 fps to 117 fps, 13 fps gained.
Tee Time - 117 fps to 125 fps, 8 fps gained.

Waterhole 89 fps to 100 fps, 11 fps gained.
Go For it - 103 fps to 111 fps, 8 fps gained.
See you on the other side - 99 fps to 106 fps, 7 fps gained.

The fps gains do vary, but if just looking at the lowest fps in a level, then around 100fps is now obtainable at 1080p, this is up from the around 90 fps of previous. Benchmarking when nine random levels are present is much harder to be consistent with, but in previous updates this was already above 60 fps and you can expect some gains here as well.

I've fixed a couple issues found and updated a few of the engine plugins used, such as for Steam, and AMD FSR2 (DLSS is up-to-date). If you encounter any issues please let me know so I can quickly hotfix them. You can find full patch notes below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

• Fixed an instance where a ball would be visible during the waiting for players state.
  
• Fixed an issue where sending an invite to a single friend wouldn’t work in some session types.

• Added update to AMD FSR 2 plugin by applying FSR 2.2.1 hotfix.
  
• Added update to various online subsystems plugins including Steam.

• Added improved performance from snow found on walls by tweaking how shadows are cast (only low end devices will notice any performance benefit and there should be no visible difference).
  
• Added new tree models as part of new foliage setting that will offer better performance at lower setting levels. Difference ranges from maybe a 1/3rd to a 1/8th the triangles.
  
• Added alternate whale bone models for lower foliage settings. These are lower poly but shrink wrapped to fit the normal models. These use about 1/5th the triangles of the originals.
  
• Added additional far tree LOD level.
  
• Added improved LOD models for the Whale Bones.
  
• Added improved LOD models for the Snowman.
  
• Fixed a 0.3 mm offset issue relating to the ramp mesh used on ‘Leviathan’ which could cause a flicker at extreme angles.
  
• Fixed some very minor track placement in one hill over.
  
• Fixed the sequence path being very slightly crooked in waterhole when entering the cup.
  
• Added improved LOD for level 'deja vu'.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.

Updates to provide access to Steam Deck

"You reap what you sow."– Mortarion

Fight in the current event, Attack on Colossi, to decide which version of Noxious Strike will join the Death Guard's collection! Remember that you can earn a free event run by completing the guaranteed "Win 3 games in Legacy, Practice or Ranked mode" daily mission, take advantage of this reward and decide the game's future!

Will you fight with the Death Guard and their wicked allies or tip the scales commanding the White Scars assault? Choose your side and fight!