This update includes all the fixes from 1.33 that were tested on the Experimental branches over the past week or two. This should be the last update for Milestone 1 as all future fixes, gameplay changes and performance improvements are now being rolled into our upcoming Milestone 2 update.

• Fixed a crash that would occur if you try to detonate C4 that had already been placed on the ground in a loaded save game.
  
• Fixed an issue in the tutorial where a soldier did not have enough TU to fire their shotgun a second time.
  
• Fixed an issue where missiles would sometimes not fire in air combat if you had activated the Afterburner at the start of the battle.
  
• Game no longer creates an Iron Man save when exiting the game (even if you're not playing Iron Man).
  
• Swapping weapons on the Soldier Equip screen now also swaps out the associated ammo for these weapons.
  
• Tooltips are now dismissed when you start dragging an item (e.g. on the soldier equip screen).
  
• Camera now correctly moves up / down when watching an AI unit climbing a ladder during the alien turn.
  
• Quantum Array now correctly shows the additional information on visible UFOs immediately after loading a save.
  
• Units attempting to shoot adjacent walls should no longer contort themselves like a pretzel to do so.
  
• Cleaner Accelerated Rifle no longer drops to 0% Accuracy as soon as it goes beyond maximum range, unlike other weapons.
  
• C4 should no longer show 0/0 ammo.
  
• Fixed issues with the following achievements, which should now be possible to earn:
  • First Contact
    
  • Counterfire
    
  • Unfriendly Fire
    
  • Future Warfare

This version will have another content update next week. The update will include automatic acceptance of bounty quests, new heroes, bloodline effects, and an auction house. Please give us some more time to fix bugs and optimize.

The update includes the following:
1. Completely revamped the save and item systems. You won't encounter crashes in your saves after 100-200 hours of gameplay anymore. And even if you use mods, your saved files will be safe.
2. Bloodline Fusion feature
Each bloodline character has bloodline slots where you can fuse them with various materials obtained during adventures. We have introduced around 50 different grades of bloodline materials. Some materials can grant more powerful attributes when fused with bloodlines, while others can even provide new abilities, such as summoning the Roaring Dog or gaining abilities like Sun Wukong's golden eyes or cloud somersault.
3. New Leviathan: Xuanwu. This Leviathan is themed around snow mountains, magma, and hot springs. It carries an eternal snow mountain on its back, and players can build their homes on it.
4. Seven new maps: We have added a substantial number of new maps and storylines for players to explore and unlock treasures.
5. Adventurers' exploration: Adventurers now have new exploration requirements and will set out on adventures on the maps, where they may discover precious treasures or encounter powerful bosses with no rewards.
6. Added a new batch of legendary adventurers scattered across the new maps, some of whom possess unique bloodlines.
7. Redesigned the teaming and gathering system for adventurers. Now adventurers will gather at certain points before setting off together.
8. Introduced the feature to use items. Various combination packs and bloodline material packs can now be directly opened and used from the backpack.
9. Adjusted the mount breeding system.
10. Added a considerable amount of dialogue text for adventurers.

There are still a lot of optimization tasks that we will complete in the next two weeks, including the suggestions you provide in the comments. If you have any other requests or suggestions, please feel free to write them in the comments section. We will prioritize the development of those ideas.

If you encounter any issues with the game, please contact our email:starchess08@gmail.com

- Fixed CTD on Grossentaft in Attack mode

Hello Knights!

Did you think 1.0 was the end for Ember Knights? Not even close!

We've been collecting all the comments, suggestions, and feedback from 1.0, married those with our vision, and have put together a BIG list of improvements for our first postlaunch update!

The Praxis Realm received a major update!
To make decisions meaningful, we've added rewards everywhere including a new reward type for completing all 8 portals.


We've also added 2 new Praxis-inspired skills that should bring out a little evil sorcerer in everyone!
In addition, we've also added a bunch of new rooms and made some important enemy and hazard balancing changes.

This has been a popular request from our players. Some find the game too difficult, some find the game too easy, and some find a big skill disparity between teammates. We're hopeful that these new options make the game more accessible for more players.

Another popular request has been Knight customization. We've revived an asset we made long before the Combat Demo days and repurposed it for the brand new Ember Shrine. Replacing the Ember Pit, the Shrine will allow much more customization with the current player colors. It will also allow us to add further customizations so keep an eye out for that!



We've made a bunch of visual improvements to the Nexus. Check out the Weapons area, Skills area, and Compendium to see all that's been done!

Listening to all the 1.0 feedback, we prepared and tackled a massive list of improvements that touch almost every component of the game!

Keep reading for the full list of additions, improvements, and fixes!



Note: items marked with 🔥 are a result of player feedback.

• Added rewards to each room as well as added a special reward for completing all 8 portals
  
• Added new rooms including Healing Rooms, Offering Pits, Miniboss Rooms, Selector Rooms, Shops, and more
  
• Adjusted the requirement on the second hub from 2 portals to 3
  
• Balancing changes to the enemies and hazards

• Soul Siphon - Details: Conjure a Praxis-like laser that blasts enemies in its path and gain bonus skill damage on each enemy for interesting skill combinations
  
• Gravity Well - Details: Cast a giant black hole that will pull and slow enemies as well as deal AOE damage

On each new save slot, you'll be able to choose an Easy, Normal, or Hard experience.

With the new Ember Shrine, you'll be able to choose your flame and armor independently of each other.

• Weapons Area - Visual improvements to better indicate Mod completion
  
• Skills Area - Visual improvements to better indicate Skill collection
  
• Compendium Area - Visual improvements to add a little more life to the area

In addition to the new content and features, we’ve also made the following changes:

• Ember Fire 🔥
  
  • Reduced hits to refresh from 10 to 8
    
  • Increased max charges from 1 to 2
    
  • Increased damage from 15/20/25 to 20/25/35
• Frost Wall
  
  • Increased damage from 15/20/25 to 20/25/30
• Phantom Spear 🔥
  
  • Increased damage from 15/15/20 to 20/25/30
    
  • Adjusted poison stacks from 3/3/5 to 2/3/4
• Rupture
  
  • Decreased damage from 30/30/30 to 20/25/30
    
  • Increased hits to refresh from 12 to 15
• Chakram
  
  • Reduced max charges from 2 to 1
    
  • Reduced bounces on Perfect by 1
    
  • Adjusted damage from 12/14/16 to 15/15/15
• Cyclone
  
  • Adjusted damage from 3/5/8 to 4/5/6
• Ballista
  
  • Adjusted attack rate from 0.8/0.5/0.3 to 0.5/0.4/0.3 (in seconds)
• Judgment 🔥
  
  • Adjusted damage from 15/15/20 to 50/35/30
    
  • Reduced cast delay from 0.45/0.45/0.45 to 0.25/0.2/0.15
• Adjusted all Skills to have a 0.15s Perfect cast window 🔥
  
• Adjusted minimum hits to refresh to never go below 5

• Rejuvenation Glove 🔥
  
  • Adjusted rarity from Epic to Common
    
  • Increased max owned from 1 to 3
• Ripe Elderberry 🔥
  
  • Adjusted rarity from Common to Epic
    
  • Reduced max owned to 1
• Chronograph
  
  • Adjusted max owned to 4 with growth of 1
• Giant Mace
  
  • Adjusted rarity from Epic to Common
• Stun Powder 🔥
  
  • Adjusted rarity from Common to Epic
• Combustion Stone
  
  • Adjusted growth to 10
• Conduit Spike
  
  • Increased damage from 2-8 to 4-10
    
  • Adjusted growth to 1-10
    
  • Improved visuals to match VFX from lightning Staff
• Steel Greaves
  
  • Adjusted rarity from Epic to Common
    
  • Reduced Armor from 5 to 2
• Empowered Bangle
  
  • Reduced damage from 75% to 50%
    
  • Adjusted max owned to 2
• Supreme Ambition 🔥
  
  • Updated description to reflect permanent increase on Skill damage
• Titan's Wargear 🔥
  
  • Updated description to reflect permanent increase on Weapon damage
• Magic Tome 🔥
  
  • Adjusted description to better convey where damage comes from
• Bruma's Ring
  
  • Updated visuals and sounds
• Adjusted gold cost on various Relics

• Added the DEMONS difficulty tier 🔥
  
• Added buttons to activate and deactivate all modifiers 🔥
  
• Adjusted values so harder modifiers are worth more 🔥
  
• Added more ranks to Aficionado (8, 6, and 4 max relics)
  
• Visual improvements

• In addition to adjusting enemy damage and enemy health, added enemy attack speed, enemy move speed, and enemy spawning
  
• Loop 1
  
  • Enemy Health - 200%
    
  • Enemy Damage - 200%
    
  • Enemy Attack Speed - 135%
    
  • Enemy Move Speed - 175%
    
  • Enemy Spawning - 175%
• Loop 2
  
  • Enemy Health - 400%
    
  • Enemy Damage - 400%
    
  • Enemy Attack Speed - 200%
    
  • Enemy Move Speed - 300%
    
  • Enemy Spawning - 300%
• Loops 3+
  
  • Enemy Health - exponential growth
    
  • Enemy Damage - exponential growth
    
  • Enemy Attack Speed - no longer increases
    
  • Enemy Move Speed - no longer increases
    
  • Enemy Spawning - no longer increases

• Added a borderless window mode 🔥
  
• Healing rooms now also fully charge skills
  
• Updated shop rerolling so a reroll can present a new type of item 🔥
  
• Added Ember to secret rooms for subsequent entries after the Ember dust has been collected 🔥
  
• Added stat gems to miniboss rewards 🔥
  
• Adjusted the intro and outro animations on Scoggfirth and Wightsbury bosses
  
• Added damage reduction on phase transitions for Scoggfirth and Wightsbury bosses
  
• Changed the Apple Crisp to give a full charge to the first skill
  
• Updated the player indicators to match the player color 🔥
  
• Added Ash to the top left of the inventory/status screens 🔥
  
• Visual and layout adjustments to player inventories
  
• Added VFX for when a skill is ready 🔥
  
• Added VFX to the player when a skill charge has been collected
  
• Added a low HP animation to the player HUD
  
• Moved buttons tips closer to the player
  
• Updated the visuals for the player revive sequence
  
• Hid the HP bar during revive animations
  
• Updated the weapon icon in the inventory to change if equipped with the Ultimate version 🔥
  
• Updated the visuals for the Phantom Spear projectile
  
• Minor Ember Tree improvements including a visual to indicate when a node is not ready but can be unlocked and player feedback for players 2-4 when trying to interact with the Ember Tree in local co-op
  
• Decreased the time it takes for the Room Complete banner to clear 🔥
  
• Changed the relic selector so the window pops-up instantly after interacting with it similar to skill selector
  
• Updated lightning VFX on relics to reduce visual noise 🔥
  
• Changed FTUE rewards from a random skill and relic to a skill selector and relic selector
  
• Adjusted the visual indicator to the Snow Witch’s attack
  
• Visual changes to Bruma’s ring VFX
  
• Added SFX to Bruma’s ring
  
• Added shake to the ice pillars in Steadfast Citadel
  
• Added SFX for chained status effect when player tries to move in Steadfast Citadel
  
• Added a charge attack indicator to The Forlorn’s laser attack 🔥
  
• Wisps are killed after they light the door to the secret room in Wightsbury
  
• Adjusted the position of Evee’s Care Package in Wightsbury 🔥
  
• Big visual pass on Anville to help with visual noise and clarity 🔥
  
• Updated spawn VFX for all enemies
  
• A bunch of improvements to the Mimic King
  
• Increased damage reduction on Praxis buffed enemies from 0.75 to 0.95
  
• Removed the crossed swords doormats 🔥

And finally, the massive list of bug fixes!

• Fixed a few bugs where projectiles were behaving inconsistently. This includes fixing the issue with Arlan's Lucky Dice projectile staying on screen if spawned beside a pit or wall 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug where the armor icon was showing its previous state
  
• Fixed a bug where Pilot Light wasn't cooking dropped items 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug where Bitter Chisel wasn't healing the player when killing a frozen enemy
  
• Fixed a few issues where upgrades on armor relics were not triggering armor-based events. This includes Steel Greaves, Guard Scepter, Wizard's Fleece, and Spite Shield 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug where players would get stuck in their walking animation when using an interactable with a UI
  
• Fixed a bug with the the camera zoom effect when exiting area rooms
  
• Fixed a few issues that were causing the wrong currency to show in the Nexus shop
  
• Fixed a bug that was not showing the Empty tag on empty save slots
  
• Fixed bug where players could get infinite gold using the Dividend Ember Tree upgrade
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing the last frame of the attack animation to persist when using a skill
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing other controllers to vibrate when taking damage as P1 in single player
  
• Fixed a misaligned label on the manual revive button tip
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with the Blast Bomb
  
• Fixed a few issues with the Offering Pit where it was incorrectly giving Steward’s Gift 🔥
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with Rakklings that were preventing the flash VFX from being removed when stunned
  
• Fixed a bug with all versions of the Phalanx where their jump attack would behave strangely for clients in multiplayer games
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with Praxis Phalanx's shield
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing Lord Bruma to face the wrong direction during his charge attacks
  
• Fixed some issues with Glacial Bruma’s wind attack so the wind doesn’t persistent into subsequent phases 🔥
  
• Fixed an issue with the Wightsbury cutscene that was causing players to reappear after the cutscene
  
• Fixed a bug with Herald that was preventing the chain attack from dealing damage to the player
  
• Fixed a bug with Beguile's ring attack projectiles where they wouldn't return to the origin of casting for clients in multiplayer games
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with the Phantom variants' intro sequences
  
• Fixed a few issues that were preventing volt traps from deactivating properly
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with the Anville boss variants' animations
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing gold that can't be collected to appear after beating Praxis 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug with enemy projectiles that was preventing them from fading their shadows when the enemy dies
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing enemies to target invisible players when walking into a new room 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug that was preventing the victory music from playing after defeating Skrixxa Za for the first time 🔥
  
• Fixed a few bugs that would arise from enemies breaking props
  
• Fixed an online multiplayer bug where the Ultimate weapon skin wasn't being applied properly after dying and restarting 🔥
  
• Fixed a few multiplayer bugs where clients would not receive damage from various enemy and miniboss attacks including The Forlorn Champion and Guzzle Wound 🔥
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where the Anville boss variants weren't pushing back clients at the end of their phase transitions
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug that was causing teammates to take damage with Shared Fate when the player being attacked has a barrier active 🔥
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug that was causing HP to desync in miniboss fights when having Earned Vitality 🔥
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing the planets on the loading screens to appear warped
  
• Fixed a visual bug when quitting from the pause menu and returning to the main menu
  
• Fixed some visual issues with the opacity on dropdown menus
  
• Fixed a bug where the game could lose focus
  
• Fixed a bunch of various audio bugs

As usual, if you want to stay on top of the news, see new content before it's live, share your favourite memes, or simply chat strategy about the best weapons and skills, join us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

We will also be especially grateful for your feedback and suggestions during the Early Access and beyond, so be sure to join our Discord to share your comments directly with our development team!


Stay tuned for more news and updates!

- Adds Bossfight to custom games
- Adds 2 new armor coatings to the shop
- Adds new enemies
- Bug fixes and other improvements

In the “Sons of Attila” major update, an Israeli modification of the F-16D two-seater fighter jet, lock and loaded to use modern high-precision weapons, will come to the top of the Israeli aircraft research tree as a flagship jet!


Features:

• Excellent performance characteristics.
  
• Modern avionics.
  
• Expanded arsenal of guided weapons.

The two-seat F-16D Block 40, named by Israel as the Barak II, is a flagship jet that will be the most advanced aircraft in the Israeli aircraft research tree when the upcoming “Sons of Atilla” major update is released! Today, we’re going to talk about the features of this aircraft and some of its differences between similar US variants. Let’s dive into the details!

Unlike the F-16C, Israel will receive the two-seat version, which is one of the best modern jet fighters. The Barak II’s engine has a slightly higher afterburner thrust than the US single-seat version, but due to its higher take off weight, it loses some thrust-to-weight ratio. Nevertheless, the Barak II is almost identical to the F-16C in terms of top speed and climb rate, and combining this with its excellent acceleration and great maneuverability means that it will be a formidable force to play with and against in all game modes!




The Barak II’s radar is the same series of radar as the F-16C’s, as well as its RWR, which is identical to its American counterpart — both of these devices will ensure that you have the most up-to-date tracking information about threats in your matches. Oh, and not to forget, last week we published a detailed dev blog about updated RWRs, to be sure to have a look if you missed it.

Let’s move onto the Barak II’s weapon capability! Unlike the US version, the Barak II will receive the AIM-9P air-to-air missile with a rear-aspect IR seeker. In addition to this, a more advanced AIM-9L and AIM-9M and the heavier AIM-7M Sparrow also being present. You’ll also have brilliant electronics at your disposal, including a helmet-mounted target designation system. Moving onto what can be fired at ground vehicles. The Barak II receives the GBU-15(V)2/B guided bomb that has a thermal imaging seeker, and with the help of the LITENING II targeting pod, Paveway II bombs — the GBU-12 (8 in total!), the GBU-16 and GBU-10 — can also be carried!




As for unguided weaponry, these are similar to the payload on the F-16C variant — regular bombs, incendiary as well as high-drag tail fin bombs with a large total weight. All of these weapons, as well as the 20 mm cannon, are very conveniently controlled by a ballistic computer. When flying the Barak II, you’ll certainly encounter some air-to-air missiles tracking and following you, and therefore this aircraft can also carry 200 countermeasures — more than the F-16C, which only carries 120.




The Barak II will appear at the top of the Israeli aircraft research tree with the release of the upcoming “Sons of Atilla” major update. We’re currently finalizing and preparing for this update, but until then happy flying and see you soon!

In a thrilling announcement for gamers worldwide, "Morkull: Ragast's Rage," is set to take a place at the Tokyo Game Show's 2023 digital event on Steam. Fans can look forward to an exclusive gameplay premiere, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the world of Morkull.



"Morkull: Ragast's Rage" is a unique blend of platforming and action, spiced with elements of exploration. Players will step into the shoes of Morkull, the enigmatic villain of the narrative, who possesses an uncanny awareness of his status as a video game character. This meta twist unfolds as Morkull acknowledges the existence of the player controlling him and the developers responsible for his creation.

The primary objective of the game is to aid Morkull in his daring escape from the clutches of the nefarious Ragast, enabling him to carry out his world-domineering plans. While Morkull might embody the archetypal villain, his charisma and personality shine through, accompanied by frequent fourth-wall breaks that see him engaging with players directly, delivering a healthy dose of humor, bad jokes, and pop culture references.

What truly sets "Morkull: Ragast's Rage" apart is its hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation, reminiscent of traditional animated films and 2D video games. This artistic choice infuses the entire cast of characters with a lifelike quality, immersing players in a visually stunning world.

As players step into Morkull's shoes, they wield the powers of the God of Death and Darkness, unleashing an array of combos and abilities to conquer the treacherous realms within the Ragast. It's a thrilling blend of action, humor, and metanarrative that promises to captivate audiences.

Stay tuned for the Tokyo Game Show's Steam digital event in 2023, where "Morkull: Ragast's Rage" will shine a spotlight on its unique gameplay and distinctive charm. Gamers and fans alike won't want to miss this opportunity to join Morkull's dark and humorous escapade.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2191540/Morkull_Ragasts_Rage/

Welcome to the first bug fixer patch since Hildir's Request was released! As you can see it's quite a list, with various fixes to things such as the snapping system and the enemies. One of the more notable fixes is of course the added functionality which lets you use the world modifiers on dedicated servers as well – check out the dedicated server manual for the full instructions for that!

* New build piece: Blue standing brazier
* Server modifiers can be set to dedicated servers directly
* Extended Haldor music
* Added player list to pause menu
* Balance improvements
* Lots of bug fixes and world modifier fixes

Fixes & improvements:
* New build piece: blue standing brazier
* World modifiers and presets can now be set to dedicated servers using parameters in the startup batfile (see manual) or using the console as an admin
* Updated dedicated server manual to include information on setting world modifiers
* Fixed modifier summary being displayed incorrectly after choosing the casual preset
* Added player list to pause menu
* Several more console commands are now available for admins: setworldpreset, resetworldkeys, setworldmodifier, players, setkey, removekey, resetkeys, listkeys (displays list on dedicated server), sleep, skiptime, restartparty and genloc (takes time - may cause disconnects).
* Updated Haldor music to a new extended track
* Resource scaling fixes for dragon egg, fishing pole and skeleton chest
* Disabled a hugin hint spreading disinformation about Hildir
* Haldor and Hildir dialogue lines will be displayed a bit longer to make them easier to read
* You will no longer switch between snapping points while having the console or chat open
* Building mode won’t be visible while dying when playing with the modifier that keeps equipped items
* Fixed snap points naming for hot tub, oven and removed one excess snap point for barberstation
* Changing alternative snapping mode, zooming in or pressing some gamepad buttons will cancel build piece removal to prevent unintentional behaviour
* Darkwood beam snap point naming matched with other beams
* Changed some snap points on wood gate and darkwood gate
* Black marble bench and table no longer take rain damage
* You can now activate the guardian power again when using the hammer, hoe & cultivator
* Starred fenring cultist can no longer drop multiple trophies
* Fenring cultist in events can no longer spawn multiple trophies
* Increased crafting station radius should now block spawn area and stop items from despawning correctly
* Stopped some pickables from scaling above max stack with resource rate modifiers
* Mobs spawned by bosses will now aggro the player even when playing with the passive mobs modifier since the boss already was aggroed
* Reduced HP on mini-bosses spawned during Hildir events by 50%
* Brenna is now more resistant against knockbacks
* Ballista updated to accept trophies from the Hildir’s Request bosses
* Fixed rare crash while respawning in an area at the same time as monster dies in multiplayer
* Fixed issue with the Elder and Moder triggering incorrectly when using player based events
* Item tooltip will be displayed when hovering while dragging another item
* Replaced all texts fields to be clearer and more optimised
* Replaced all text input fields with new component to work on all platforms
* World modifier tooltip has background now
* Fixes to vegetation shader
* Added click sounds for ingame UI
* Fixed keyhint for adding a server
* Added some missing keyhints
* Player position is saved on manual save
* Clicking outside map pin input closes input field now


Xbox:
* Added auto-run toggle to accessibility settings on Xbox
* Opening cheat console no longer hides UI
* Changing snapping doesn’t make you fly down anymore
* Chat no longer opens when opening info panel
* Opening settings for the first time no longer freezes the game
* Camera is now locked when placing a map pin
* Using a vegvisir with a controller no longer pings

Hello all,
the first season of our speedrun contest now comes to an end. We want to thank everyone who participated in the event!

If you are on top of the leaderboard, you will receive a friend request from us this week (and soon after your Steam Gift Card). Make sure your Steam profile is set to public.

Thanks again everyone for all your support!

See you soon!
Autoexec Team

Version 0.360 launches today for Instruments of Destruction. This release signals the beginning of where Instruments of Destruction is heading, with Version 1.0 expected in early 2024. There's a lot of new things in this release, particularly with the New Campaign (from the PAX Demo) now being the primary mode for the game, and the old campaign starting a transition into being the Build & Destroy campaign. The old campaign hasn't changed a lot yet, but it will no longer offer 3 modes, and many of the existing islands will be changing in the future. They'll either be revamped to be included in the Main Campaign, or edited to fit the build mode campaign.


You will also notice the menus and UI have undergone a large transformation. Almost all of the smaller text is now larger, the buttons have changed fonts and got a bit of a stylistic change, and some buttons are now centered instead of being offset to the right. The HUD has been simplified a bit, particularly outside of Sandbox mode, and the 3-star system is much simpler and easy to understand. There are other changes, though I covered a lot of those in the previous news post about the PAX Demo.

The NEXT big update will focus on redoing the interface for Build Mode. I've been playing similar games like Beseige and TrailMakers on console to see how they handle the various issues and streamline things. Besiege is not a bad reference on console (or in general), while TrailMakers' console controls felt very clunky to me. While I will be focusing on making the Build Mode controls usable on a controller while revinsing the UI, I believe doing so will benefit the PC (kb+mouse) experience as well.

I'll try to maintain the various shortcuts and systems that exist currently, but some elements of Build Mode may change in the future. I expect that overall speed and usability for advanced vehicle builders will not be affected in a significant way (either negatively or positively), and there may a slightly re-learning curve. My hope is that the changes will improve build mode for everyone, but the focus is on the initial usability and user experience.

Beyond the build mode UI changes, the old campaign will be morphing into a new sequence of tutorials that unlock more and more functionality and parts over time. Between the new tutorials, improved UI, and better documentation within the UI of the advanced editing capabilities, vehicle building should be a more enjoyable experience for everyone within a couple months.

As mentioned previously, the new campaign will also be expanded significantly. I expect there will be around 50 islands in the Main Campaign by version 1.0, each with its own custom vehicle and bonus mission. The Kraken will be featured in 20 or more missions of the Main Campaign, with additional obstacles, challenges, and objectives providing more variety than what is seen currently.

So those are the two biggest things coming to 1.0, but there will be plenty of other tweaks and improvements. Another significant change coming in the next couple months: the camera system will likely be completely redone. The camera system is just a complete mess at this point, and it's very difficult to do anything with it. The Follow camera will be the primary camera mode because the Main Campaign is built with it in mind, but it will be rebuilt to be much cleaner under the hood while having the flexibility to transition/blend into gameplay-specific cameras as needed (for mission intros/outros/etc). Orbit camera mode will remain as a toggle of some sort, while a new photo mode with other ways to adjust the camera will be added as a separate mode. Some of the exact camera details are still TBD, but that's the general plan.

I'm not going to do a changelist this time because there's just too much to list and I haven't been writing a lot of stuff down. I've tested this build a lot, but I'll still be actively fixing things ASAP if anything snuck through.

ON THE UNITY DEBACLE

I've used Unity as an engine since 2011 for my games. I've used C# as a programming language since 2004. So this has been a really tough week seeing Unity completely destroy their relationship with developers. There are so many ways their proposed Runtime Fee and what they've done is wrong, but I don't feel like going over all of them here.

Up until the past few years, my games barely needed Unity to actually run. They used Unity as a shell for running a ton of C# scripts, playing sounds, drawing things, and processing input. Most of them have just a few game objects in Unity, and I could port one of them to a framework like FNA or MonoGame in a day or two. [Both of those are XNA spin-offs, which was the first C# framework I used to make games back in 2010.]

That easy portability is not true of my latest 3 games: Instruments of Destruction, Rhythm Storm, and Speed Demons. All 3 are more tightly integrated with Unity's systems, especially Instruments and Speed Demons. They would be significantly more work to port to another framework or engine than my previous games.

Let me rewind a couple weeks. At PAX West, over 20 different people asked me what engine I used for Instruments of Destruction, and I gladly told them it was Unity. All but two of them said something like "Oh really?" or "I thought it was Unreal". [For the record, I don't think Instruments looks like an Unreal game.] I even had a guy from Unreal visit the booth 3 times (his son loved the game) and give me his card all 3 times. He wanted me to switch to Unreal for my future games, and I politely told him Unreal looks great but I was happy with Unity.

That feels like a long time ago, even though it's only been 14 days. I've been planning to release PC and console versions of all 3 games (IoD, RS, SD, and maybe one more tiny one) in 2024. That will not change, and I'm excited to finish them all. 2024 will be Radiangames' fond farewell to Unity (and C#), and I'll be going out with the biggest bang I can.

After wrapping those games up, I had been planning to finally switch to Unity's HDRP renderer and upgrade to the latest version of Unity (I still use Unity 2019 and the old Built-In renderer). I was excited learn to use all the latest Unity tech and tools that I've been purposefully avoiding for the last couple years. Those plans have changed a bit. I'll still be learning about some great new tech and tools, but in another engine instead. I'm fortunate that the timing works out in that way.

In the end, the game engine is just a piece of software that game developers use to help bring their games to life. Many types of artists and creators use software. People generally don't care what software was used to make the things they like (music/art/movies/etc), and artists often use software of companies they don't like (hi Adobe!). As much as I now don't like Unity as a company, I still like the software, and I'm not letting my games suffer because the company screwed up.

So yeah, it's been a week. My plans have changed slightly for the future, but 2024 is still going to be a big year for Radiangames titles, and finishing Instruments of Destruction is the first step in making that happen.