Aug 28, 2023

Kingdoms of Myth - cilindr0

🛡️ Exciting News for Kingdoms of Myth Adventurers! 🐉

Dear players,

We extend our heartfelt apologies for the extended period of silence – your patience has been invaluable to us.

Today, we're absolutely thrilled to unveil our grand plans for Kingdoms of Myth's participation in the eagerly awaited Steam Strategy Fest 2023! And it comes with a special treat – a free demo that will be at your fingertips from August 28 to September 04, starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Time (6 p.m. CET / 1:30 a.m. IST).

This demo is more than just a sneak peek; it's a doorway into a realm of new possibilities. We've worked tirelessly over the past year, refining and augmenting the game with exciting updates. One of the highlights is the captivating OST (Original Soundtrack) composed by the talented RobFeb from Keep The Focus (@robkeepthefocus), which brings a whole new level of immersion to your game-play experience.

But that's not all – get ready to immerse yourself in the vibrant world of the Indian faction! This addition brings a plethora of unique technologies, units, and skills, enriching your strategies and tactics. And for those who crave more information, our reworked tool-tips are here to provide you with comprehensive insights into every nook and cranny of the game's intricacies.

However, it's important to note that the demo won't showcase our groundbreaking Campaign mode based on the Second Punic War. The Campaign will introduce fresh game-play dynamics and an innovative approach, shifting from individual units to commanding armies. Additionally, the UI/UX redesign, currently in the works, is yet to grace the demo. What you'll see in the UI/UX corresponds to our mobile platform, as we prepare to launch on smartphones in the near future. Rest assured, it's all part of our strategic plan for broader accessibility, and the PC version will be tailored accordingly.

We want to extend our warmest invitation to each and every one of you to download the demo and actively engage with it. Your feedback is our most valuable asset as we navigate the final stages of development towards our highly anticipated full release, anticipated later this year. For giving your feedback, inside the Demo there is a button called "Feedback", please use it to share your comments with us!

So, dear adventurers, sharpen your swords, refine your strategies, and get ready for an unparalleled journey into the realms of Kingdoms of Myth. Together, let's forge the future of turn strategy gaming!

Yours in the pursuit of glory,
The Kingdoms of Myth Team

Aug 28, 2023

August Community Update

SnowRunner - makoto

Hello Runners!

We hope you enjoyed your vacation and are ready to hit the road again 🙂 Here's what you may have missed this August!

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game has been announced 🎉

We're delighted to reveal Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, a new take on the most advanced physics-based, off-road adventure from the creators of SnowRunner!

Embark on ever-rewarding scientific expeditions as you adapt to nature's challenges and unravel the mysteries of uncharted lands. Venture into the vast wilderness of arid deserts and rugged forests to the steepest mountains, brimming with hidden treasures and forgotten ruins.

More info here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477340/Expeditions_A_MudRunner_Game

We’ve reached 12 million players!

In the March Community Update we celebrated 10M players on SnowRunner... and this month we're celebrating 12 million players! +2 million players in 5 months, we can't thank you enough and look forward to growing our dear community even further ❤️

A little poll for you 🤔

We know you're good truck drivers in SnowRunner, but there's a question that's been on our minds for a while: how many of you runners are actually driving trucks for a living? And we were surprised by the percentage of people who said yes! Here’s the results:

12.4% out of a total of 1593 voters on Twitter/X are truck drivers, that's about 200 players!

You were more on Instagram, with 32% out of 6502 voters, giving a total of 2058 people! This is a lot 😱
We hope you enjoy driving trucks in the game as much as you do in real life! Or even more…

And that’s it for this month. The road goes on, and the next news won't be long in coming! Stay tuned 🫡

See you in the snow

The Saber & Focus team

Aug 28, 2023

August 23 Update

Golembert - studiofirlefanz

Hi everyone!

Hope you’re doing great over there! Oh, wait what... It has already been a month since our first community post? Really?! Well, that means it’s about time for a follow up!

So what happened in our last four weeks?

1. Wholesome Games recommended Golembert!!!

Just like last month when we got retweeted by Indie Freaks Japan and Namurii (love you!) and didn’t realize that for days we needed almost two weeks to realize that WHOLESOME GAMES RECOMMENDED US!!! They did it while we were on vacation in the baltic countryside but it’s almost a meme right now with us being behind on every social media event that happens to us. We love Wholesome Games very much and their recommendation made our month!!! Check them out if you haven’t heard of them!

2. We reworked our crafting system (majorly) & our island design (minorly)

Our crafting system is now an astral node based puzzle thingy! One can move from node to node to unlock new recipes and craft them. It’s cooler and way more intuitive than it sounds, we promise! If you want to check it out stay tuned until our next devlog drops on YouTube next month! Whaaat? You haven’t seen our devlogs??? Check them out here!

3. We didn’t attend Gamescom because we were ill :(

Though we had Fachbesucher tickets from the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur we didn’t attend Gamescom because we got sick. Lion doesn’t really like trade fairs anyway so he wasn’t mad about it but Alicia had major FOMO. Did you have any hard feelings about Gamescom?

And more importantly: what are we currently doing??

1. Finishing our island design

A lot of areas of our island weren’t finished though one could already playtest our game in the past for about 2 hours. We already tidied up the harbor, beach, and grotto area. Right now we are finishing the upper garden, forest, and watchtower! We made a devlog about our island design this month too which you can check out here!

2. Designing our new introductory NPCs

When the garden design is done we’ll design our new introductory NPCs. Because of last months story rework the current starting NPCs Frieda and Brunja will sadly not be the first NPCs beside Helio one meets in the game. Instead one will meet fierce Susu and her crew as well as the cunning Trade Co!

3. Ideating Herbies

Beside our new node based crafting system we also want to add two other secondary systems that compliment the main gardening system. One of them are the so called Herbies which are small spirits inhabiting your island. You’ll be able to send them on resource gathering missions to other islands of your archipelago and help them expand their small settlements. Cuuute!

How has your past month been?

Hope you’re well and optimistic. So we’ll probably hear from each other again in about 28 days. Therefore have 28 good night sleeps and don’t forget to water your plants today!
XOXO Alicia and Lion

Aug 28, 2023

Community Update #2 Preview: Camp & Troop Management

Wartales - Dynamo [Shiro CM]

Greetings mercenaries!

Welcome to the second Update Preview, giving you a sneak peek of some of the upcoming changes & additions to the Camp & Troop Management.

Stay tuned for more of these articles as we share in-depth details the new features & changes coming your way in Community Update #2.

Troop name and titles

Your companions aren't just a bunch of characters. They’re a collective.

This is the main fantasy of Wartales: several people sharing the same story. We want to give you more agency over that story. New ways of envisioning it. More occasions to reflect on who your companions are, what they are doing, and where they’re going next.

Once you upgrade your banner you will be able to rename your troop as you see fit.
In that same interface, you will find a list of your troop’s titles.
Until now, there were only individual titles and troop bonuses. At the intersection of those two things, we’ve come up with collective titles that will be awarded after special occasions (most notably when completing Path activities or region settings) and highlight the troop’s progression.

Companion interactions

Giving you new tools to influence relationships, for better and for worse.

Although we enjoy the way human relationships in Wartales sometimes match the unpredictable randomness of real life, we did hear your demands for more agency in this aspect of the game. We want to walk that thin line between chaos and control. This is why we will be giving you the opportunity to engineer your own chaos. If you wish to control a troop of irascible sociopaths who all hate each other, you can. And it’s viable. If you wish to roleplay the 1967 summer of love, that’s also viable. Every playstyle is now rewarded.

Two new interactions can be unlocked via the compendium:

Good friends can share a drink and talk about life together. This will further improve their relationship, and each of them will lose a negative trait.
Enemies can trade insults. This will further degrade their relationship, and they will both gain a trait that increases their power per negative relationship they have.

Recruitment ads

Let’s put in the effort to build the pitch perfect team.

Player agency is important is Wartales. We want you to feel that your team reflects what you wanted it to be. On the other hand, we value the unpredictable aspect of meeting strangers in a wild world and teaming up with them impulsively. For that reason, we did introduce a new tool for players who want to recruit very specific characters, but we made this privilege a reward: you cannot use it in early game, and the more criteria you add, the more expensive the service gets.

It is now possible to pass recruitment ads in taverns:

In the days following the payment, a character corresponding to your demand will show up to the tavern.
The cost of the service depends on the number of companions you already have, and the number of different criterias you want to use.
The available criteria are: weapon type, gender, personality type, positive trait, and excluded negative trait (you cannot choose which one you’ll get, but you can choose to avoid a specific one).

Contextual camp tools

Now it really feels like traveling around.

We decided to spice up the camp with new, contextual camp tools you can assign your companions to. We wanted each area to feel different, adding variety to the succession of days and nights. Now, when you settle somewhere, you might want to adapt your camp layout a little so that you can take advantage of what the region has to offer.

In fields, you’ll find haystacks that can either serve as beds for your companions, or as snacks for your poneys.
In the vineyards of Vertruse, you’ll find delicious grapevines.

In forests, you’ll find cracked trunks from which woodcutters can collect a highly useful, newly introduced resource: resin.
In the marshlands, you’ll find burrows around which small wild game can be caught by companions or domesticated animals.
In plains, you’ll find derelict fragments of Ancient architecture, which can be studied by scholars.

In ruins, you’ll find small altars that can also be studied by scholars (we figured they weren’t busy enough).
In mountains, you’ll find statues of the Eye. Praying to them, you’ll have a chance to get a random daily bonus.
In towns, you’ll find wells. Their pure water will bring you some happiness and reduce your food needs a little.

That’s all for today!

As always, let us know what you think of the upcoming features & changes here and on the roadmap. Don’t forget to join our awesome (and passionate) Wartales community on our Discord server, Reddit page as well as Twitter & Facebook.

- Shiro Games

Aug 28, 2023

Evochron Legacy SE Update 2.0458...

Evochron Legacy SE - SFSW

Version 2.0458 includes the following improvements:

- Added new lines to 'hudmotion.txt' file to support custom direction, depth, and row settings.
- Shield level indicators on cockpit ship and target status displays updated for a cleaner look.
- Current target HUD indicator now has 3-bar directional shield indicators to match gunsight indicators.
- Gunsight inbound missile direction indicators increased in resolution and range bar reversed for clarity.
- Improvements to character capacities and types for ship descriptions/names on cockpit displays and HUD readouts.
- Added new 'Plot Route' navigation system that automatically plots waypoints to a selected location in another charted system linked by jump gates.
- Integrated new route plotting system into inter-sector contract framework so waypoint path is automatically applied.
- Added message log notification when entering a new star system through a jump gate or wormhole (includes war zones).
- Improvements to solar array structures (now solid and much larger) and related tractor beam cleaning precision.
- Added new lines to savedata option to export custom waypoint status, selected waypoint, and location values.
- Added new 'Hold at Nav' fleet order (replacing 'Dismiss' in the HUD drop down menu and key/button index).
- Added new dedicated key/button mapping index for 'Dismiss fleet ship(s)' (page 4).
- Improvements to NPC small ship collision system to reduce 'stacking' condition.
- Improvements to autopilot docking maneuvers and course selection.
- Ship and station textures updated for a cleaner panel look.
- Minor improvements and fixes.

Notes:

Plot Route System and Inter-Sector Contract Integration
A new route plotting capability has been added to the navigation console which can automatically set a waypoint path through the game's jump gate network spanning multiple charted systems to travel to a selected destination. If no waypoints have already been plotted, then the 'Plot Route' button will appear on the left side of the console where the 'Set Nav' button appears when waypoints are active. To set a route, simply selected the destination in another star system you want to travel to in the navigation console, then click on the 'Plot Route' button. The system will attempt to plot the most efficient route to the selected destination and set waypoints to each jump gate along the way. If you want to set up a different destination after a route has already been plotted, simply right click on the 'Delete' button to clear all waypoints and then reset the route. For the route to be plotted, it must span at least one star system and each waypoint must be within nav sensor range of a jump gate to each arrival point. If the system is unable to plot a route to a selected destination, it will provide an explanation in the message log. Once set up, the nav point is set to the first waypoint automatically and the player can simply engage the autopilot to travel through the complete waypoint route. As with previous autopilot functionality, any sector-to-sector distances will have the autopilot engage the jump drive automatically while in-sector locations will require the player to manually engage the jump drive so they can optionally control local arrival angles and adjustments as may be needed.

The new route plotting system has also been integrated into inter-sector contract system. This way, the player no longer has to manually plot a course and the entire route to the distant location through the jump gate network can be plotted automatically when accepting such contracts. The system will also clear out any old waypoints to reset the route for a newly accepted contract. The one exception to this is the scanning in uncharted space objective where the player will still need to plot their own waypoint course manually to the nearest star system. However, waypoint one will still be placed at the required destination for scanning as a guide. Additionally, station attack alerts will offer optional route plotting when they occur and provide a 15 second window to link in for the coordinates. To retrieve the nav details where the attack is occurring, press the trade key or button during the countdown to establish the link and have the route plotted for you. If you miss the time limit, you can still manually plot a route to the destination sector by simply putting the nav point anywhere in that sector, then clicking on 'Plot Route'.

Hold at Nav Fleet Order
This new directive instructs single player fleet ships to hold at the current specified in-sector nav point. The player can issue the order with an existing nav point, then change the nav point to travel somewhere else while the fleet ships remain at the original location. The player can also specify individual nav points for each fleet ship. This can be useful if a player wants to temporarily keep their fleet ships at one location while they travel to a different location in the sector and/or complete some other task. As with the mining directive, if the player leaves the sector, the fleet ships will automatically return to formation to stay with the player.

New 'HUDMotion.txt' Lines
Three new lines have been added to the 'hudmotion.txt' file option. Line 5 supports locking the tunnel to the direction of the ship's forward HUD and/or rotating it 90 degrees. Line 6 supports disabling depth sorting for the tunnel or spears mode. And line 7 supports changing the number of rows for the tunnel mode. See the customizing kit for details.

Aug 28, 2023

Contest: Summer Screenshots

Armored Warfare - Silentstalker

Commanders!

The summer is almost over but we have prepared one more summer contest.

The rules are, once again, simple. Make a summer-themed in-game screenshot and submit it to the dedicated contest channel on our Discord.

As to what constitutes summer-themed – beaches, sun, sea... you name it. The picture should invoke the summer vacation spirit even if most of us can’t be on a beach right now.

Make sure that your submission includes your nickname and has the correct size! The authors of the best five submissions will receive the following prizes:

5 Japanese Experimental camouflages (or 200 Gold per 1 camouflage if you have it already)
Access to the Eclipse Battle Path (or its price in Gold if you have it already)

But that’s not all. Following the end of the contest, we’ll put the best five submissions to a vote on our official Armored Warfare Facebook page and the author of the submission with the most votes will receive a bonus prize: QN-506 Tier 9 Premium TD!

Hot tip: To make the best screenshots, hide you UI with the F2 key!

Please note:

The contest ends on September 3, 22:59 CEST
Only one submission per player is allowed
Don’t forget to add your nickname to your submission
Each submission must have the resolution of 1024x768 or higher
If you own the prize camouflage, vehicle or access already, you will receive its price in Gold instead

Good luck and see you on the battlefield!