This week's highlights are meant to catch you up on the Console Update, CoH1 coming to Nintendo Switch, and the CoH2 1V1 Mirror Tournament, as well as some awesome community content our players have shared with us.



Console Update
On September 5th, we released the most recent Console Edition update which aligns with the 1.1.6 PC update (Brass Leopard).

It features a new map, gameplay tweaks, balance adjustments, and several bug fixes.



Company of Heroes 1 on Nintendo Switch
Our friends at Feral Interactive are bringing CoH1 to the Nintendo Switch. Delivering the World War II RTS classic and both its acclaimed expansions in one battle-hardened bundle. Prepare for deployment this autumn! Watch the trailer here.



Amazon Prime Gaming Drop 6
The Night Fighters BRITISH FORCES GRANT Bundle is available now until October 11th. This exclusive package includes special skins for the Grant tank, CWT Truck, and Foot Guards.






CoH2 1v1 Mirror Tournament
THE BIG ORANGE ONE Discord Server is hosting a CoH2 1v1 MIRROR TOURNAMENT in which players will be pitched against opponents of the same faction.

This unusual style of tourney is guaranteed to give us some exciting and unpredictable matches. The finals will be casted by no other than AE!

Save the date! Sept 16-17 @ 4PM UTC



Meta Plays RTS Tournament
Olvadi and Currahee are teaming up with Meta Plays RTS to host their first-ever CoH3 1v1 tournament. Take part and sign up on discord before Sept 22nd. The tournament will be streamed on Sept 23 & 24 at 1.30 PM GMT.





Some cool sets of screengrabs by cpl.chen









You can submit your content for consideration by using the hashtag #CoHCommunity on our social channels or by sharing screenshots, links and videos on our Discord or Forums.

That's it for this week!

Play CoH3
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Bug Reporting
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Polluto, the Living Oil Slick and one of Dr. Killemoff's most notorious creations, has returned once more in all his menacingly gooey, oily glory!


In the original Toxic Crusaders cartoon, Polluto made a few appearances--debuting in the first episode of the 13-episode season.


Polluto also appeared in the NES Toxic Crusaders game! Here's a screenshot of him facing off against Toxie from that title.


When the current Toxic Crusaders game began development, we enlisted the help of artist Bryce Collins, who created the first pieces of concept art for Polluto!


And here we have our first rendition of Polluto's in-game sprite! You can see how we planned to scale him relative to Toxie and the other Crusaders.


When we heard of the Polluto action figure getting released--first as a prototype, then as an actual figure--we just had to incorporate some of its elements into a more refined in-game sprite. We added some color and teeth to the big 'ol monster based on his figure!


Afterwards, we settled on what would become Polluto's current design in the game--one that combined elements from his original look in the cartoon, his past appearance on the NES, and his recently released action figure.


Now that we've shown off how we designed Polluto, we'll be going into detail next time about all of his attacks as seen in the demo! Stay tuned for more!

Wishlist Toxic Crusaders and play the free demo available NOW!

Knock-knock, travelers!

Another eventful workweek has flown by! In today's diary, we'll interview the head of our art department; tell you about the process of animating characters, and reveal some developments for your Steam accounts. Rest assured we have plenty of interesting content for you!


As you know, true magic happens behind the doors of our art department – our artists work tirelessly to make our game a visual delight for you, dear players. Today, we’ve prepared an interview with the person in charge of our team of artists. Enjoy the read!

How did you become an artist in game development? Were you inspired to choose this path by some childhood games, or were there other reasons?

I've been drawing since childhood and quite early on, I realized that I would connect my future work with drawing, design, and creativity in general. I couldn't see myself in any other professions. I also started getting into games at a young age, and I guess the combination of these factors led me into game development. I'm relatively new to the game development industry, and you could say I'm a budding little art lead who's working very hard.

What is your work process like?

It all starts with the project brief. We’re given tasks, usually by the game designers, and then I distribute these tasks among the artists. If needed, we clarify the brief, conduct research, and search for references; I also might provide some comments on the topic. Then the artists create rough sketches, we approve ideas and discuss them, and then they move on to the final drawings. If necessary, we cut them for subsequent animation. Of course, this is all accompanied by feedback and revisions. Something like that.

What was the most challenging task you’ve encountered while working on Knock? What task was easy and enjoyable to work on?

UI, it's very intimidating, very. Although I wouldn't say that there were extremely difficult tasks, they were more unusual, perhaps initially daunting because of their briefs, or their monotonous nature, for example making character images for videos. Drawing content for social media was easy and fun. For example, drawing comically long snouts for wolves for a YouTube short or a Christmas bow with bells for the game icon with a coffin, ha-ha-ha.

What do you like most about working on Knock?
I simply enjoy feeling like part of the team, taking on various tasks, and then watching how what I've done becomes a part of the project.

Name your three favorite games.

The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, Portal 2. I love games with a good storyline and charismatic characters.

And finally, what would you like to say to the players personally?

Eat well, get at least 7 hours of sleep, go out for some fresh air regularly, and play Knock!


And now, let's get back to the summary of this week’s work, starting with animations.

Our animators put their hearts into breathing life into every character and creature in our game (and they do it exceptionally well!). Take a look at this hefty guy living in the swamp; he's always ready to engage in battle with you and drown you... in not the freshest of breath, so we recommend being cautious.



And also, a new character has appeared in our game! It's a tiny midge, but unfortunately (primarily for the midge itself), its role in our game is far from significant.



Even the main heroes of the story couldn’t overlook this wee little insect!



In our previous posts, we shared images of the mysterious priestess who appears in one of our unique events. Today, we have great news – thanks to the efforts of our animators, we present you brand new animations of this enigmatic lady.





While we're experimenting with animation, loud war horn sounds are echoing in the Frontier... Recently, we asked you on our social media which dwarf animation you liked the most. Your responses were very quick, which made us very happy!

We listened to your comments, tweaked and improved the animation, and here it is the final version!



Thank you very much for participating in the survey; you’re genuinely helping us make our game better.


But that's not all! Our artists have also been busy creating unique backgrounds, frames, and avatars for your Steam profiles. Each element is designed to be stylish and attractive, so that your profile looks fantastic! And now, we're ready to show you some of them.



https://postimages.org/ru/

That wraps up this week! We continue to work diligently in order to be fully prepared for the release of KOTCL. We’re fixing, repairing, and adding new features and content again and again, striving for perfection! We'd be delighted if you dropped by our Discord for a cup of tea! There, we share the latest news, discuss our current progress, and more.

Wishing you a great weekend! See you in the next diary

In a few weeks, we're aiming to release Version 0.2.0! Included in it is Endless Survival, the Meta Tech Tree, new Quickplay & Co-op Maps, a boatload of balance changes, and of course, QoL updates and bug fixes.

And right now, you can try it out early! Version 0.2.0.preview is available this weekend! To do so:

• Right-click Axon TD: Uprising in your library
  
• Select Properties
  
• Go to the Betas tab
  
• In the Private Betas textbox, enter ReachTheEndless
  
• Click Check Code
  
• Click Opt into: endless

This beta will remain open until Monday, September 18th, @ 3pm CST. This won't include any of the new maps, but it will include everything else.

Below is an overview of the changes and features in this version. Check it out below!

---

Survival is going Endless! Instead of ending on Wave 30, it will now go on... forever! Starting from Wave 31 onwards, the waves will get even longer, and the Axons will get increasingly tougher! This is somewhat exponential.

While you are intended to be able to hit the 40s and 50s, eventually, even with the Meta Tech Tree, you're intended to die somewhere around Wave 60 to 70.

Though, if you do get further than that, then congratulations! Speaking of that new Tech Tree...

You know that useless Meta Progression Tree that reduces your Score Multiplier? We've thrown it out the window and replaced it with something way better and more thought out:

Icons are a bit placeholder, but it should communicate the point!

As seen above, you have two choices at any given junction, and you get to select one of them at a time. You get points to unlock Meta Techs after each Survival run. By the time you unlock everything, you'll have a max of 18 Upgrades out of a total of 33 Possible Upgrades. Oh, and these don't ruin your Score Multiplier.

Some of these increase your starting resources. Some affect your Lives. Some buff the damage of your Towers, with some caveats. Some give you benefits when you inevitably leak. There's a ton of possibilities. Choose what fits your playstyle!

---

We also have new maps incoming as well! This includes 3 Quickplay Maps & 3 Co-op Maps! All of these maps will include more waves than the existing maps, offering a longer gameplay experience.

There's some pretty wild maps coming...

---

The idea behind the Path Multiplier is to reward you for making a long maze. That's fine, but also, it's cranked way too high. Going foward, it'll have diminishing returns, so instead of hitting upwards of a x10 Multiplier, you're getting more like x1.5, and upwards of x2 at the absolute cap.

The Speed Multiplier is also higher than intended. While you should be rewarded for clearing out the wave quickly and efficiently, it shouldn't be as much as x2. We've dialed down the cap to x1.25, and it decays at a slower rate, giving more leeway time to clear the wave with a max multiplier. This should let slower killing builds have a chance at getting a decent score still.

Up next, we're getting rid of the Lives Multiplier for a few reasons:

• If you make a mistake, it penalizes you for the whole game.
  
• It gives Life Recovery, or worse yet, anything that gives you lives over the cap too much value.

In its place, you'll get a Perfection Bonus. Should you clear the wave without losing any lives, you'll gain a score bonus equal to 10% of the score you got that wave.

There's also Difficulty Options, which are as follows:

• Easy: 150 Lives. 80% HP. Score Multiplier x0.5
  
• Normal: 100 Lives. 100% HP. Score Multiplier x1
  
• Hard: 100 Lives. 120% HP. Score Mutliplier x1.5

Extending off this, Easy will become available for the Campaign, and Hard will become available in all other modes.

How long of a maze can you make on this map?

---

When it comes to individual effects, like Slows and Damage Amps, having just one of each is pretty good, but nothing more than that. But when you start stacking these effects, they start getting out of control. For Slows, it's not as big of a problem, because so many effects in the game counter Slows. Which, in of itself, might be considered a problem, but we'll revisit that in a later version.

Damage Amps & Damage Buffs, however, if stacked, can result in upwards of a x3 Damage Multiplier, possibly higher. So to fix that, we're adjusting them to be Additive instead of Multiplicative. For example, if you had 20%, 25%, and 30% Damage Amps...

• Before: 1.2 * 1.25 * 1.3 = 1.95 = 95% Damage Amp
  
• After: 1 + 0.2 + 0.25 + 0.3 = 1.75 = 75% Damage Amp

With them stacking additively, we can safely buff weaker ones without them stacking together so dangerously.

---

Mines will no longer have limited charges! This means, especially in longer waves, they'll no longer fizzle out well before everything else. Any Upgrade or Tech that previously increased charges will instead buff something else.

A lot of towers have received buffs, like Pulseray, Blast Cannon, & Sniper. Numerous bad, boring, or redundant Upgrades & Tower Techs have been adjusted or replaced outright.

On the flipside, many outliers have been dialed back, like Plasma Vent U2's Damage Amp, which was mistakenly way higher than intended.

Overall, there are more buffs than nerfs, and build variety should be improved.

The early game was already at a fair balance, and we don't want to make that easier. In order to maintain relative early game balance, we're also buffing the HP of most early game Axons, including Scout, Sentinel, Juggernaut, Berserker, and a few more.

A few Axons in particular are receiving nerfs, namely Colossus, and the cursed Hoverjet. It will be moving considerably slower when jumping over Towers.

Lastly, several underwhelming Overloads (like Boost Range) and Techs (like Tower Initial Bonus Damage and Attack Rate on Leak) are receiving buffs. This should help reduce the chance of frustratingly bad choices when they appear as choices in-game.

For the record, that wave number and those resources are no longer possible to reach.

---

Since this update includes more than we initially anticipated, it will take a little longer to actually release. Instead of releasing late this month, it should instead release within the first two weeks of October. Overall, it's roughly a two to three week delay from what was originally planned.

If you want to see patch notes of every change so far, we have a Changelog available on our Discord). We'll post full patch notes to here on Steam when Version 0.2.0 releases officially and things are finalized.

---

First up, Replays on the Quick Play & Co-op Leaderboards will not display correctly. This is due to the large number of balance and mechanics changes between the main and beta versions. Survival Leaderboards will temporarily make use of new leaderboards.

Next up, we have a list of issues we're aware of. We're working on fixing them, but in the meantime, the game is still fully playable. Here they are:

• We're aware that unlocking Starting Towers/Overloads in Survival "costs 0 Points". This is temporary; later, we'll remove the need to unlock them at all.
  
• Sniper's range indicator is incorrect.
  
• Pressing "Space" no longer starts the next wave.
  
• Gravity Generator U1 does not consistently EMP targets within range.
  
• The Meta Tech "Life Insurance" also prevent you from dying to a Boss when leaked above 50 life.
  
• The "Marked Tile" tech can result in a Null Reference Exception, and is currently disabled from Survival.
  
• "No Adjacent Tower" bonus damage tech also applies to Mines and Traps.
  
• In replays, once you've closed down the "Active Techs" menu, it won't come back. This can be fixed by jumping to a different wave.
  
• In replays, spawned Obstacles often appear in the wrong tile, leading to towers seemingly being placed on top of Obstacles, or the path being erroneously blocked.
  
• In replays, Credits and Power will sometimes display negative values.
  
• Hiding the UI does not hide the Damage Graphs or Paths.
  
• Replicants (Replicator spawns) still give 1 score. Spawned units should no longer give score.
  
• If you Hide the UI when the level is completed, it cannot be turned back on.
  
• n the off chance you reach and beat Wave 120 in Endless Survival, the game will break. This is a temporary limitation that we'll be addressing by release.
  
• Command Link can connect to a Blocker.

Sadly, this does absolutely nothing.

Every Friday during the Month of Mayhem, we're making it rain Golden Keys with SHiFT codes that unlock 3 Golden Keys each in Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Borderlands 3 for a total of 12 Golden Keys each week.

SHiFT Code:
FRRJT-FJ3BB-BBJB3-TJTBT-B9B65

SHiFT Code:
CTKJB-KFTJ9-CJXJS-3TB3J-3ZC6C

When redeeming rewards in Borderlands: GOTY Edition, make sure to trigger an autosave (indicated by a Vault icon in the corner of your screen) to avoid losing your redeemed rewards after exiting the game. You can trigger an autosave by approaching a checkpoint, using Fast Travel, or entering a new map!

Make sure to redeem Month of Mayhem SHiFT codes on the Gearbox SHiFT site or via the in-game Social menu within Borderlands games before they deactivate on October 31 at 11:59 PM PT. As a reminder, each code may be redeemed once (1) per SHiFT account.

Whether you're a longtime fan or a series newcomer, you can snag every Borderlands game to date with Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box, available on Steam.

If you own any Borderlands game within the Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box, you'll only pay for the content you don’t already own.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33369

Hey, Gas Jockeys! ⛽

In our last announcement I’ve shared some important information with you about why we’ve decided to move some tools from the Gas Station Simulator: Can Touch This DLC to the base game. If you somehow haven’t seen it yet, make sure to check it out by clicking this link.

In today’s devlog I'd like to delve into the genesis of the Employee Update. So, what are you waitin’ for? Grab your favorite drink and let’s roll!




First and foremost, it all started with an analysis of a plethora of your comments. After that we’ve realized that sooner or later some additional employees, as well as the ability to schedule their work time and tasks, will be required.

After the release of the Airstrip DLC, we’ve noticed that there are even more comments stating there is simply so much stuff to do at the same time. This was a crucial moment for our team, as we’ve decided to put the emphasis on that matter and bring you guys the much anticipated employee update.

With that being said, we just wanted to let you know that we’re here for you and we’re constantly checking your comments whether it is on Steam, social media channels, or our discord server. In fact, after the release of the employee update, we’ll be focusing on some other major fixes that were requested. Stay tuned for more information!


Before we proceed to the end of this announcement, I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be live streaming on September 18th, 2023 at 6 p.m. CEST time. Come and visit us at Gas Station Simulator Steam page. We’ll be showcasing the new Employee Update, answering your comments, and giving away some keys for ya! – How cool is that? Don’t hesitate and mark that date in your calendars, folks!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149620/Gas_Station_Simulator/


And that’s it for today, gas jockeys! I cannot wait to see you on Monday, when we’ll reveal more about the Gas Station Simulator and its plans for the future. Hope to see you there!

Your humble marketing guy – Sewek

P.S Today marks the 2nd anniversary of Gas Station Simulator, so here is to another wonderful years to come 🥳

Hello, Alchemists!

Temples! They're the bits on the side of your face that you rub in frustration when someone tells you that they can't take the bins out because they hurt their wrists playing 6 hours of Fortnite. Grrrr.

Wait... no. Wrong temples. Today we're talking about Temples-with-a-capital-T, in the game Moonstone Island! These structures are NOT on the side of your face – they're hidden throughout the 100+ floating islands that surround Moonstone Island itself, and they're extremely important.

While adventuring, you may come across plenty of dungeons, each of which has treasures, traps, secrets, monsters, and a final boss, and Temples are very similar. But unlike dungeons, which are made up of lots of different pre-made rooms chosen at random, Temples are custom-built and unique. There are four of them in the world – one for each season – and each one contains a Magic Seal.

I won't tell you what those seals do... but they're very important.

Our Temples are all gigantic and very beautiful, but they're also a little hard to find. The Spring Temple will probably be your first one because it's veeeery close to the starting island...so you'll probably get to meet the Big Boss of the Spring Temple first. Again, I'm not tellin' ya nothin', but I'll give you a hint: Prepare for Earth-types!

Our Temples are really exciting, cool, gorgeous, and maybe even challenging! Challenging enough to start rubbing your face temples? Maybe...

~Kate, Community Manager, and Proud Owner Of Face-Temples

Every Friday during the Month of Mayhem, we're making it rain Golden Keys with SHiFT codes that unlock 3 Golden Keys each in Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Borderlands 3 for a total of 12 Golden Keys each week.

SHiFT Code:
FRRJT-FJ3BB-BBJB3-TJTBT-B9B65

SHiFT Code:
CWK33-5K3C3-99BXJ-3TB3B-C5SWB

 
Make sure to redeem Month of Mayhem SHiFT codes on the Gearbox SHiFT site or via the in-game Social menu within Borderlands games before they deactivate on October 31 at 11:59 PM PT. As a reminder, each code may be redeemed once (1) per SHiFT account.

Whether you're a longtime fan or a series newcomer, you can snag every Borderlands game to date with Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box, available on Steam.

If you own any Borderlands game within the Borderlands Collection: Pandora's Box, you'll only pay for the content you don’t already own.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33369

The Grandfather Tree has taken root! 🌳🌌

For a limited time, grab the Bartleby Jumbo Plushie and get a free in-game housing item to go with it! Get
Your Bartleby Jumbo Plush >>

September 17 from 17:00 to 18:00 Moscow time, the Hour of the Killer will take place on all servers of the Karos game!

The three players who kill the most other players' characters during this time will be the winners and receive the following prizes:

💎Gacha-coins 10 pcs;
💎Lucky Cube Keys 10 pcs;
💎Platinum Concentration Potion (1 day) x1;
💎VIP status for 7 days;
💎Protective capsule 10 pcs;
💎Lucky stone x5

❗Attention: Players found guilty of fake murders will be removed from the list of winners.

Happy hunting, assassins!