Sep 12, 2023

Archmage Rises - philmacnevin

Hello fellow mages!

Before we jump into this week's developer update, I want to talk a little bit about what these developer updates are. For several weeks/months, LordYabo has been posting weekly developer updates in the Steam forums which talk about what our priorities are for the week to keep players looped in on our development process.

From the feedback we've received, these dev updates have been really impactful and informative, and so it's become a very important part of our routine each week. But not everyone reads the forums and might be missing out on some info they'd like to keep up with, so we've decided to post those as announcements as well so that everyone who wants to stay informed can stay informed!

Today's post is a rehash of what we've already posted in the forums yesterday, so if you've read that already, feel free to "move along" as the stormtroopers on Tatooine would say ːsteammockingː

Now, onto the update!

Development Priorities this Week (Sep 11 '23)

It's a new week and the first week of switching up the programmers responsibilities. We're too tiny of a company for 'reorg for reorg sake' :winter2019joyfultearsdog: But by switching around who is doing what we can increase wellbeing for team members, that's a win. So here we go!

Priority Fixes

For this week's patch we're focusing on:
Dungeon Keys are spawning incorrectly and possibly leading to crashes
Dungeon levels being weird on save and reload
Looking further into dungeon crashing on older/integrated GPUs
Adding a way to go quickly from town to tower, tower to town

Patch is planned to come out Thursday.

Legacy - The Purpose of the Game

Legacy is coming in Sep!

This is an unplanned mini-feature, not on the roadmap and not the same scale as the major updates. We're adding it to the game based on trend of feedback. We met, and even with the reorg, Zach and Tyler can get it done soon.

PS: A big thanks to Avalon, one of our passionate community members, who "mage-ified" some of the team members (shown in the thumbnail art of this post), and has been sharing his custom portrait avatars for players to use on our Discord Server. If you'd like to take a look at his work and use any of the custom images he's provided so far, you can find them in the share-your-creations channel on our Discord server.

We will plan to publish a detailed write up of the features and exact date of release on or before Thursday of this week.

Combat Rewrite

Today the new "landing team" of Josh and Jonathan started on Combat and continuing on with it. Rubi is continuing with VFX for the new spells coming in it. If you didn't see it yet, couple of days ago we posted video samples of her latest work:

Fire Spell VFX Tests

New combat with better design, balance, and more spells, will be releasing sometime after Legacy update.

One more thing...

As of yesterday, we finally support Mac!

It's been a long time coming... we used to support Mac, then Apple changed the requirements for publishing & releasing Mac builds, and we've been sporadically working on it in the background and finally got it all together and working today, including cloud save and custom portraits!

Thank you for your time and attention to our little game. We know you have a lot of choices in which games you play. Thanks for playing and supporting ours. :happy_yeti:

Sep 12, 2023

Drive Pass Season 2, available from September 13th!

LEGO® 2K Drive - crystal.2K

Play through 100 tiers of Drive Pass Season 2 to earn 22 Free Rewards including: 3 Vehicles, 5 Brick Packs, 5 Drivers and more! Also, don't miss the recent multiplayer additions that are free to all*: Brick Brawl mode and Ranked play!

Premium Drive Pass Season 2 unlocks the ability to earn a total of 103 Premium Rewards, including: 11 Vehicles, 27 Brick Packs, 10 Drivers, 6 Flairs, 8 Sounds, 26 Stickers, and more!

Don’t forget to head to the Drive Pass menu and select Season 2 to begin progressing and earning these new rewards!

If you have been playing through the Free version of Season 2 and decide to upgrade to the Premium version of Drive Pass Season 2, you will instantly unlock all the Premium Rewards you have earned based on your current level!

EARN WHIMSICAL NEW REWARDS
Whether you're engaging in the vehicular combat of Brick Brawl or just cruising around Bricklandia, you can earn some lovably wacky rewards for your collection by progressing through Drive Pass Season 2. With creations inspired by the LEGO City Design Team, new rewards include quirky creatures like a blocky llama and a water-ready unicorn in pool-floaty form, a drivable couch, a news van that's surely gathering B-roll for thehttps://lego.2k.com/drive/awesome-news-network/Awesome News Network, and more!

PLAY SEASONS AT YOUR OWN PACE
LEGO 2K Drive Seasons are not time limited, so you can pick up and play each Season at your own pace!

The Premium Drive Pass for Season 2 is included in the Year 1 Drive Pass**, and is also available for individual purchase.

Additionally, as part of Season 2’s launch, there are some exciting updates for LEGO 2K Drive.

BRICK BRAWL
Let's Brawl! As part of the Season 2 update, a unique minigame introduced as a free addition, Brick Brawl is a team-based multiplayer mode, playable online* or in local splitscreen, that's full of vehicular destruction and great for progressing your Drive Pass levels. You'll join either the Red or Blue team in this 3v3 fracas, where each round lasts a few minutes and you score a point every time you wreck an opponent's vehicle. The team that's first to score 10 points or has the most points when time's up wins the round, and whichever team wins two rounds gets all the glory. Duke it out with other drivers in enclosed zones full of destructive Power-Ups, doing your best to turn your opponent's vehicles into piles of loose bricks while deftly speeding around to dodge incoming fire! Note that in local splitscreen, Brick Brawl is restricted to 1v1 battles.

RANKED MULTIPLAYER ONLINE MODES
As part of Drive Pass Season 2’s launch, why not test your skills against Bricklandia's best? Ranked is an addition to the Play with Everyone online multiplayer modes*. The Race and Brick Brawl modes allow for Ranked competition, and you can queue for them in a party of up to three players! The Ranked leaderboards are reset at the end of each two-week Heat, with six Heats in each Season. All Ranked races use Class A vehicles, so you'll need to be at the top of your game. There are seven Ranked Leagues to rise through in each new Heat as you earn RP, from humble beginnings in Bronze to the legendary LEGO Maniac rank. Depending on your Ranked League placement at the end of each Heat, you'll earn increasing amounts of Brickbux and Drive Pass XP**—plus a new item for your collection if you manage to reach the LEGO Maniac rank!

* Base game, 2K Account and Internet Connection required. Online console play requires paid subscription.

**Drive Pass rewards require unlocking with gameplay. Premium Rewards are only available as part of the paid Premium Drive Pass. Season 2 of the Premium Drive Pass is available for individual purchase and included in the Year 1 Drive Pass. The Year 1 Drive Pass is included in the Awesome Edition and Awesome Rivals Edition and is available for individual purchase. Base Game, Internet Connection and 2K Account required.

Sep 12, 2023

DLC The Gloom Below is OUT NOW! Redeem it for free!

The Chant - PLAION_Kseniia

Hey there,

We're excited to share that "The Gloom Below", the DLC for The Chant, is OUT NOW, and you can manually redeem it through the Steam store for free. This DLC continues the story after the events of The Chant, shedding light on Jess's journey and delving deeper into the history of Prismic Science.

In "The Gloom Below," you'll embark on a new adventure after escaping the eerie challenges of Glory Island. You'll venture into a surreal realm where The Gloom intertwines with the real world. Collaborating with the Anton Family and uncovering the stories of trapped cultists, players will face unexpected challenges while collecting unique items to combat The Gloom. If you haven't joined the spiritual session, now is the ideal moment to immerse yourself in The Gloom and explore a twisted world of cosmic horror.

The gameplay of The Gloom Below

This expansion offers a challenging new structure that encourages replayability and experimentation to survive. Death provides its rewards as you return to the Nexus to upgrade your abilities and earn new weapons. Drain the energy from Monroe and his acolytes to unlock 18 new ability modifiers, enabling powerful combinations for damaging, evading threats, or immobilizing adversaries. Each creature you encounter presents distinct vulnerabilities that require creative exploitation.

New Content

This expansion enriches the lore, enhances your abilities, and introduces new weaponry, ingredients, and, of course, new enemies. The gameplay emphasizes action and combat, offering plenty of thrilling moments. With the Gloom eroding Jess' sanity, her mind and body are under constant threat. New entities lurk in the shadows, and brutal creatures relentlessly hunt you down. To survive, you must fight hard and think strategically, managing your inventory and adapting tactics. Bring down a host of teleporting Hyperleeches with the power of plasma as you charge up the iridescent blade to slice through the evasive Skulks.

Main Game Improvements

But that's not all; with this release, we've included a list of significant improvements to the base game! We've revised the Mind Body Spirit experience system, enhanced AI and combat mechanics, and improved the visual experience by making the colors in The Gloom world more vibrant and distinct.

How to redeem your DLC version

To redeem your free DLC for The Chant, you need to own the base game. Then, you can redeem it on the DLC store page using the following link:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2190430/The_Chant__The_Gloom_Below/

That is all for now, we hope you will enjoy your adventure in The Gloom!

Sincerely,
Brass Token Team

Join The Chant community:

🔹Twitter
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🔹Facebook

Sep 12, 2023

Mag Vs. The Big List of Problems: Round 1

Gatedelvers Playtest - mag

- Multiplied Enchantment scrapper gold values by 5.

- Reduced max hurtle duration (how long until you regain control) from a single knockback instance from 3 -> 1 second on player characters. (This also lets you make adjustments before landing from a diagonal cannon shot.)

- Return to Hub, Quit & Quick Restart should now open found World Cores instead of just deleting them.

- Made Big Fan's wind hitbox smaller and fan collision bigger.

- Improved Pure item saving & loading.
- Added inventory slot visuals for Pure items.
- Pure items should now get properly visually replicated to client players.
- Item tooltip now shows traits from Pure items as Pure traits, instead of randomly showing the first one.
- Item tooltips now have empty infusion slots visible (except on consumables).

- Items dropped by enemies on death will no longer start their curse decay timers.
- Enchanted items will now always receive a Greater Curse when thrown into a Curse Pool.

- Witnesses can no longer start charging up an attack unless their target is within 6 meters.

- Fixed Clockwork Gauntlet not scaling with Size (now scales both in punch size and distance).
- Fixed some more potential causes for Really Big Weed just eating somebody. (Sorry Fwutters & Conrat, i'm trying to make him stop)
- Fixed Spears not working with Block.
- Fixed Spears not working with Wind Blade infusion.
- Fixed Bullet Time causing items to permanently become accelerated after landing on the ground from a throw, then getting picked up.

- Fixed Lightwall Projector state not replicating to client players.
- Fixed Ropes not being sync'd between client and host players.
- Fixed spells appearing fully discounted for client players until first cast or after traveling to another world, even if spell was actually at full mana cost.

Thanks to everyone who reported these, i lost track of credits while making patch :(

Sep 12, 2023

Bosses of Deadlink - Lizz Watson

Deadlink - Volkytalkie

If you made it this far you know CEO Lizz Watson brings more than her stunning good looks to the fight. Time to take a look at the pinnacle of your foes, Agents!

Codename

Specialization

Lizz Watson

Femto CEO

FMT-SB000

"This bitch slays!" reads her bio, plastered across the net, and don't worry, you've seen her on TV too. Magna cum laude at Princeton, and a complete princess, she knew what she wanted. Femto was her chance at grabbing onto the C-Balls of "nerds" and "losers". She took their flagship products and wrapped them in PR speak, spinning the investors around her finger and breaking the noses of those who broke NDA. Of course, investments don't run on lies alone. C-Balls were cool, but a nano-company needs something even more nano than her wasp waist. She is not only a role model and a fashion model, but the main model, the prototype of what humanity can be. Of course, she won't mention the stolen patents or the off-the-shelf parts.

Lizz may have won many battles by outpatenting her competition and keeping the proper spin with clever PR, but in a fight she's the real deal. No matter which Combat Shell you're packing, Lizz Watson will be a challenging opponent.

Femto's nanotechnology is more than a gimmick, and in combat with the CEO you'll find her bringing facsimiles of your abilities. That means you're in for a contest of skill and a test of all that you've learned in the many simulations that brought you here.

How did your encounter with CEO Watson go? Did you find out which of you slays harder? Feel free to share the results of your encounter and all the juicy combat experience you've gained in the comments.

P.S. Agents, we'd like to express our gratitude for all your previous feedback about Lizz. We hear you and we've seen your concerns about her difficulty and general enjoyability in combat. We're addressing this with balance adjustments to enhance the fun factor – rest assured, we're actively working on it.