Aug 23, 2023

Old World - Fluffster

The test branch has been updated!

Test Branch: 1.0.68373 Test 08/23/2023

Design

New map option City Site Number that limits the number of city sites available based on the number of nations. Options are Unrestricted (default), Restricted (3 city sites per family per nation), Family Seats (1 city site per family per nation) and Capitals (1 city site per nation). Tribal settlements will still appear in places that would have been city sites but these cannot be settled by nations.
Tribe units now occupy empty settlements, when given the chance
Game of the Week games now much less likely to have non-default city spacing
Egypt now has -20% costs for same adjacent buildings (down from -25%)
Map generator tries to place at least as many free city sites as starting locations on a given land area surrounded by water and mountains.

Programming

AI performance improvements
Improvements to AI value estimate of effects
New features for modders:

Cognomen can now add a memoryCharacter
Added SetHeight to bonuses
Added EffectUnitUnlock to EffectUnit
Description field added to many xmls
Enabled adding custom variables to UnitTypes
Removed hardcoded assumption about water heights

Can now assign hotkey combos that are only used for inaccessible debug hotkeys
Added map option help text for default selections
City site widget no longer blocks clicks when it has no help text (when the tutorial is disabled)

Bugs Fixed

Fixed several causes of replay data getting discarded
Fixed Modio mod tags not adding/deleting on mod updates. Added image size validation to ensure between 256 and 2048 pixels width and height.
Units can no longer spawn on the same tile as other, non-allied units
Fixed bugs with Toggle Names on the mini Tech Tree
Fixed pick later found panel nation help sometimes incorrectly showing preset leaders
Fixed free city site location sometimes not getting revealed
Fixed AI cache initialization
Fixed null reference errors in sprite repo when using portrait mods
Can no longer divorce Olympias in Learn to Play 3
Fixed mission effects playing after entering and exiting city screen
Fixed load/save error with pings that have been placed but not yet been validated
Fixed initial settler tooltip data being treated as cached and not being populated
Fixed editor not assigning tribe tile owner when placing a settlement improvement
Fixed unit status not updating after tile ownership change
Text and event fixes

These changes can be accessed on the test branch. To switch to this version:

Right click on Old World in your library, and hit properties, then navigate to the Betas tab and use the dropdown menu to switch from 'none' to the test branch.

Aug 23, 2023

State of Early Access & What's to Come | Developer Update

The Outlast Trials - Red Barrels Community Manager

Hello Reagents!

I'm Alex, one of the Red Barrels team members and Game Director on The Outlast Trials. The success of The Outlast Trials Early Access has been remarkable! Being that we are indie developers that are self-funded and self-published meant that we had to make sure to take time to adapt our workflow to ensure the game's quality and longevity going forward. Since Early Access launch, we have had new members join our team, and with the help of the player feedback we’ve gotten thus far, we have been able to adjust our targets and work towards the full release of The Outlast Trials.

Red Barrels is intensely focused on production. Despite our silence, we want you all to know that we keep a close eye on our community engagement and value your discussions because at the end of the day being an Early Access title means that you are all part of the development process with us. We've gathered over 60,000 responses through The Outlast Trials Early Access Survey, we read and monitor our official Outlast Discord, the Outlast subreddit, watch streamers and videos of playthroughs, as well as monitor other platforms daily to get a full grasp on the experience our players have, and what they like about The Outlast Trials. Rosie, our Community Manager, keeps track of community sentiment and conversations to relay the community concerns to our team. Your opinion matters and impacts our everyday decisions. After you've played, you are welcome to contribute more feedback via the Spontaneous Feedback form. I personally review each comment submitted so all extra feedback is greatly appreciated!

Today, I want to shed some light on various key topics in our internal roadmap.

CONSOLES

We are currently actively working on fulfilling a major request: bringing the game to consoles. This means launching on PS5, Xbox S/X, and older gen (PS4/XboxOne), While enabling crossplay with PC. Our aim is to ensure that the unique social experience of The Outlast Trials can be shared across platforms, despite the technical complexity it requires. Our progress is promising, but we can't provide a console release date or guarantee universal crossplay just yet. Originally targeting 2023, we are now eyeing an early 2024 console release due to the challenges faced by our small team.

MATCHMAKING

Our matchmaking system philosophy involves players grouping up and deciding on Trials together, rather than having separate matchmaking for each Trial. This decision might seem unusual, but there are reasons behind it:

Matchmaking per Trial would divide players among many pools (25+).
Players don't evenly play all Trials; some are more popular due to player progression.
This approach significantly increases matchmaking queue times.
Players might not find matches for certain Trials, leading to frustration.
This approach could potentially harm the game experience.

While we prefer group selection in the Sleep Room due to its more immersive nature (group setup, loadout selection, cell visits, social interactions, arm wrestling), we're aware of the player concerns. We're not planning any major backend changes right now regarding this, but we're improving how Trials are selected to involve the group instead of just the leader (via suggestions or other ways we are currently exploring). Coop play is vital to The Outlast Trials, and we are constantly monitoring how players group up together and will continue to make improvements if needed.

THE FUTURE...

We are working on a public roadmap, but in the meantime we have this:

NEXT MAJOR UPDATE - HALLOWEEN

Introduction of Program 4
New Trial
New MK-Challenges
Program X refresh
Program Halloween (limited event with special rewards)
New Amps
New Variators
New Prescriptions
New Cosmetics
New Cell Items
New Sleep Room Minigame
Tons of other improvements, balance, tweaks and quality of life.
And much more!

ON THE RADAR

In addition to the topics mentioned above, we are also addressing the following issues:

Reward efforts even in the event of failing a Trial

Murkoff acknowledges success, yet we recognize the harsh consequences of Trial failure. In the upcoming update, we are implementing an XP system centered around Performance. This means substantial XP rewards for player actions (in addition to First Time Completion and Grade Bonus payouts). This approach aims to facilitate continuous leveling and enable acquiring upgrades, rigs, and amps for reattempting Trials.

Penalize group players not participating in Trials

Enabling players to follow their preferred playstyle has always been a central principle for our team. Whether teaming up with less experienced or more apprehensive players who prefer to join for the experience rather than objectives, we support it entirely. Yet, we've observed a minority exploiting this approach, leading to team frustration. With the new Performance XP system, deliberate lack of effort will significantly hinder progression compared to active participation in Trials. Additionally, we have plans for a comprehensive reporting system in the future.

Improve the Trial selection process as a group

As previously stated, we're improving how groups decide on Trials together. Initially, this will involve a suggestion system (with the leader maintaining the final decision). If Trial selection remains challenging, we're open to exploring alternative methods.

Keep improving the solo experience

Outlast Trials offers a unique cooperative experience and we've always ensured a fully immersive solo option for those who prefer it. Feedback from solo players highlighted the game's increased difficulty after the tutorial. To address this, we're making slight adjustments to the difficulty while preserving the trademark tension of Outlast.

In the previous patch, we experimented with unlimited respawns. Although it helped solo players complete Trials, it diminished the intensity of dying. As a result, we're reverting to the original 3 chances per Trial. However, we're introducing a new feature: Respawn Pills. Exclusive to solo mode, these pills grant an additional +1 chance. For struggling solo players, discovering these extra lives is now a way to survive in the most challenging Trials.

Keep improving the AI behavior in some edge case situations

Enemy AI remains a continuous focus for us. While we're content with our current AI's overall performance, player feedback has revealed some odd behavior in certain situations. In response, we're implementing significant updates: improving awareness, enhancing decision-making, and adjusting the Screamer in particular. Expect more details on AI enhancements in the future!

CONCLUSION

A heartfelt thank you to our players for engaging with The Outlast Trials and fueling its success through your invaluable feedback. The game's triumph is a momentous occasion for our team at Red Barrels. Your input steers our path, and we remain committed to attentive listening. Your patience as we transform this project into a long-lasting experience is deeply valued. Rest assured, we are dedicated to delivering the ultimate, spine-chilling cooperative gaming experience ever crafted!

-Alex
Game Director

Aug 23, 2023

WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes

WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes - kmpaplinski

Five years ago WARSAW launched. A game focusing on a history of the city and it’s history that is not as widely recognised as we felt it needs to.

WARSAW reached hundreds of thousands of players on different platforms and was included in the Polish history books, was recognised by German Digital Culture Foundation as a valuable educational tool to teach about World War II and received a lot of attention from both the players and gaming media from more than 40 countries that covered both the game and the theme of Warsaw Rising.

We always felt the story of WARSAW deserves to be shared with many more players and we partnered with Institute of Polish Remembrance (IPN) to expand on the historical aspect of the game, to enrich WARSAW with new historical events, characters, missions, cutscenes and Warsaw Rising day by day diary with support both from IPN and Warsaw Rising Museum. The end goal is to make sure the game can be a learning tool for students of Polish history both locally and abroad.

The new version of the game removes the strategic layer that we felt did not support the more narrative driven elements of the game, as well as adds new enemy characters, a new playable Hero and a Polish native narrator on top of numerous other text based additions and factual revisions.
All these changes deserve a new title of the game and we present to you WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes, that the game will from today be called.

But what’s most important is from today, WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes becomes a Free game. Available for everyone to download, enjoy and experience the Warsaw Rising as they never have before.

This wouldn’t be possible without IPN’s support as WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes officially becomes a title joining other historical games – Cyphers Game and Szybowcowa 82 to allow players to learn about Polish history.

Thank you for your support,

WARSAW RISING: City of Heroes Team

Aug 23, 2023

We're back!!!

Flea Madness - Flea-Eater

As many of you know, we have had to freeze the development of Flea Madness due to war in our country. When Russia invaded Ukraine we needed time to adapt to a new reality. However, time is passing and we are now prepared to resume development of our game.

It is the time to officialy announce that Flea Madness is in-development againю This is even more symbolic, as we are announcing it during our participation in the Ukrainian Game Festival 2023. We have already done some significant changes to the game and have a lot more in plans. More info about it below, but meanwhile please find the Join Playtest button at the game store page and request access, we are waiting for more testers to start our first big playtest:

So what's new?

UfoArena map has been changed. It's now bigger, has day-night cycle, several biomes etc.
Game visual effect has been improved.
A lot more abilities were added : Blink, Ground strike, Spike leech, Poison leech, Acid bubles, Gravity bomb, Reverse teleport. More ablities to come!
Friends can be added to your lobby so you will play together as a team. Yeah, finally ;)
Slobber and Tentacula are now divided into specializations (think classes): Slobber Fighter, Slobber Tank, Tentacula Fighter and Tentacula Assassin. They have different base abilities and parameters.
We're working on main game mode, but already have several additonal modes like Battle Royale, Capture Wormactus and Team Deathmatch.
Added few more NPCs: Grasshoper, Lootable maggot and Lamp bug.
Added leveling in match. You can now get up to 10 levels during the match and increase your physical parameters on each of them.

We're really happy to get back to the development and looking forward to making a great game with your help. We're always open for any suggestions and feedback on our discord server:
Flea Madness Discord

You're also welcome to join our coming Playtest and to add the game to your wishlists ;)
Thank you!