It's Steam Scream Fest!! Play the free Castle Doombad Halloween Demo from Oct 26 - Nov 2!



The Steam Scream demo for Castle Doombad is available RIGHT NOW! Play it today, as it's only available for ONE WEEK before it vanishes like a spooky ghost! 👻

This demo is a Work In Progress Sneak Peek at our game -- we consider it our Halloween treat to you, and we hope you enjoy! It's playable either in Single Player or 2-Player Co-Op, on both PC and Mac!

After you get a chance to check it out, we'd love to hear what you think, so please leave your feedback on our Steam Community forums. Your thoughts will help shape development from here.

Thank you all for your support, and we hope you have a very Happy (and villainous) Halloween!! 🎃

Play Castle Doombad now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2130010/Castle_Doombad/

Something is coming, do you remember ? Yes, you do.

1. Fixed Act 4 and Secret Acts, due to problems saving/loading in these acts.
   
2. The save system now preserves the rotation of each interactable object.
   
3. Fixed an error that prevented game completion in Act 4.
   
4. The translation didn't work for some ui and messages.
   
5. More adjustments have been made to enhance the legibility of text and dialogues throughout the game.

If your experiencing crashes/instability please try a Steam Verify/Display Drivers update before contacting us.

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand type=details]

• Removed the first Diamond (on top of the unit) in the Movement queue visualization.
  
• Removed the old Wallbuilder class
  
• 12 Turrets are now allowed per zone
  
• 6 Guard Towers are now allowed per zone
  
• Updated turret construction hovertips to match new limits
  
• Updated sandbagbuilder, hovertips, etc. to support 'per-zone' limit on Guard Towers (of 6, for now)
  
• Set up a basic 'hover healthbar' for Enemy units

Please note the following going forward (Restart your game/steam to get the update if needed
[/expand]
[expand type=details]
https://youtu.be/7hdBPmUtFb8
https://youtu.be/GV3YOssGEfs
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3718325557390407190
We now have a new system for our community to follow along on development. This website will break down all the major systems that are coming each patch. It will not include hotfixes/bug fixes. Sections inside TBD can be included randomly if we are ahead of schedule
https://www.notion.so/cepheusprotocol/Cepheus-Protocol-31f1b25ce00148d6844825f4a0c0bc08
[/expand]
[expand type=details]
Everything goes towards expanding the team and building a better game!

Experience the outbreak of the Pangu Virus from multiple perspectives across as the brave heroes of the Center for Epidemic Research and Control battle tirelessly to stop the spread of a cataclysmic alien virus that has mutated innocent people into monstrous creatures of unimaginable power
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1707120/Cepheus_Protocol_Anthology_Season_1/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eWbDibGMrU
[/expand]

This major addition expands the exploration system even further (see planet exploration I and planet exploration II to know more).

I have completed the (massive...) framework and scripting system for encounter and tile features and content-wise, I have decided to complete the first content "arcs" to stress-test it.





Regional features are persistent points of interest on the planet's surface, they can be visited and have effects on a city, an outpost a region, or an organization. They can also trigger special events, some can be easily discovered (even from orbit)while others need to be found with a land expedition.


Built early in reaction to the Urghoghs, these rare and often disabled devices create pocket of developed civilisation.

These are important discoveries as the bonus/malus can be very significant and cumulate across the entire region.


A list of regional features present on this planet





Additionally, there are non-persistent "encounters" which are contextual events occurring during travels but also as time passes. They can lead to more areas/events and sometimes contain rewards in the form of goods, codex entries, and people to hire.


This unassuming rock shelter leads to an underground ruined city, this is quite a rare occurrence.

Some action can also be performed, there is a system for crew skill and traits roll and a full range of effects. But for now, there isn't enough content to make very long and engaging adventures.


Some valuable industrial machinery and tools were found here.

Currently, there are :

• Rock shelter (and all variants for all climates)
  
• Stash
  
• Abandoned Mineshaft
  
• Worm tunnel
  
• Aquifer cave
  
• Fungal cavern
  
• Magmatic cave

New areas can also be revealed during an encounter if that's allowed by the context, current region, and the planet.


It is important to have a critical mass of content for all that to become relevant and properly intertwined, so the future content arcs that will be built upon this framework each have a range of encounter and tile features :

• Civilisations remants (Tile feature)
  
• Crashed spaceships (Dynamic)
  
• Unique lifeforms and biomes (Tile feature)
  
• Geological features (Tile feature, partially done)
  
• Crew and Expedition routine (but I won't include party member buggering you with their life problems)
  
• Encounters & Combats (using the abstract ground combat system)
  
• Accidents (chain of decision and skill/trait tests with very limited initiative reserve)
  
• Planetary and celestial events (Will occur regardless of player's presence)
  
• Urghogh (dynamic, related to migration/ presence of giant worms)
  

Too short to make a devlog, but too significant to skip it :

A previous devlog introduced planet exploration, which is now polished.



Exploring the planet's surface is necessary to find some type of regional feature, trigger some "encounters" or trade with local populations and nations on the surface. Now scanning the planet from orbit is dangerous due to the replicant's threat, which I will describe later.


Some risks are unknown given the survey level of the region

the atmosphere, the relief, flora density, and surface gravity pull are all factors creating more risks to land, while the crew's skill, survey level of a tile, and the presence of a landing pad minimize the risk.


This region has been surveyed and the risks are known.


There are the following hazards :

• Atmosphere density: during atmospheric entry, the ship's hull is heating and can take damage, this risk is dependent on the ship's hull condition, aerodynamic profile, and the ship's size.
  
• Relief: chaotic relief and ship size influence the risk.
  
• Flora density: which also depends on the ship's size.
  
• Surface gravity: which is influenced by the thrust-to-weight ratio of the ship.

Now any penetrating damage to a ship (including accidents) will wound and kill crewmembers

• Added: tldr tool to display bare bones help details (command prompts only), if you just want to see syntax without printing full help, you can use this small tool.
  
• Added: you can now upload and start services on another computers
  
• Fixed: when backdoorRAT file was installed and then copied to another computer, it was detected as already installed
  
• Changed: MemoryReader - if violation of memory access happens, it increases detection risk for the player significantly
  
• Changed: bank transfer suspicious amount is dynamic and can depend on NPC current money amount
  
• Added: ftp tool + FauxFTP service interactions.

You can download files that can help with escalation or gaining access to the server.
You can upload RAT Backdoor which can be executed by NPC to give you access to the server.

NOTE: If NPC is to execute RAT Backdoor, they will do it almost immediately, even outside of their schedule activity. It is to make gameplay smooth and avoid waiting time without confirmation if performed steps were successful.
In the future, that will change. Also the chances of NPC to execute it will depend on their statistics and security knowledge.

NOTE2: You will receive email that RAT Backdoor was executed, so you can know you can use it. If there's no email after uploading RAT, it means NPC didn't run it and you have to find another way.

NOTE3: scp download/upload blocks don't affect the FTP service. That means even if download is blocked, possibly you can download files with FTP.

PS: if in doubts, make sure to search in finder to learn more how to exploit the FauxFTP service :)

As always, I encourage you please let me know what you think about the update. You can contact me on Steam Discussions or Discord channel.
I would also appreciate you leaving an honest Steam Review, as it greatly helps other players to decide if the game is good fit for them.

Have a good day and happy hacking!

We are excited to show you a video by Ikirai. He tried our demo version and shared his impressions.

We hope you like his video and you want to try our game yourself. Our game is not released yet, but you can download the demo for free on Steam right now!

We appreciate your feedback and support. We are working hard to improve our game and we listen to all your suggestions and comments.

Have fun playing! 😊

Hello, everyone!

We've just released a fairly big update for Heart of the Woods!

… In fact, we released five whole versions in rapid succession just now — 2.1.4, 2.1.3, 2.1.2, 2.1.1.1, and 2.1.1! (※ More on this below.)

Our apologies for the large delay in getting these versions out — various external factors beyond our control prevented us from properly releasing these updates, despite them being feature-complete for the longest time.

The main highlights of this release mostly have to do with our brand new controller UI and navigation support, which can be enabled and configured from within the game's preference pane, as well as native Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) support on macOS!

All that being said, we thank you all for remaining patient, and as always, for supporting Studio Élan across these many years!

※ If for some reason you want to downgrade the game to an earlier version, you can now do this using Steam's "Betas" tab, accessible via right-clicking on the game in Steam and selecting "Properties". Please note that save data from newer versions, including your persistent save data, may cause crashing or other erratic behaviour when downgrading versions.

〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa
※ This is the most recent version.

This version includes all changes listed in this changelog.

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 〜 7.3.5.606.

• Fixed an issue where the font path validator could potentially cause a crash when reading values from some users' persistent save data.

※ This version combines Heart of the Woods 2.1.2 with changes that were made in 2.1.1.1 and 2.1.1 (both of which chronologically were finalised after 2.1.2 due to external factors, despite what the version numbers may indicate).

This version includes all changes from 2.1.2, 2.1.1.1, and 2.1.1.

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 〜 7.3.5.606.

• Merged all changes below.
• Made the UI more clearly indicate when a scrollbar or slider is in a selected state.
• Fixed an issue introduced in 2.1.1.1 where the "Welcome to the music room." string would not be localised.
• Heart of the Woods now officially supports Ren'Py SDK version targets 8.1.3.23091805 〜 7.3.5.606.

※ This is the version that is used in the physical PC releases that are currently being sold on our webstore and were offered as backer rewards on Kickstarter.

All changes made in this version are not present in Heart of the Woods 2.1.1.1 or 2.1.1.

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.0.23051307 〜 7.3.5.606.

• The Studio Élan bootlogo has been completely recreated from the ground up using new internal tools, but this time with brand new high-resolution assets!
• Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) is now natively supported on macOS, without any need for Apple's Rosetta 2 x86_64 translation layer!
• Updated names in the credits screen and attribution in the guest art screen.
• Further clarified and improved wording in the README.
• Heart of the Woods now officially supports Ren'Py SDK version targets 8.1.0.23051307 〜 7.3.5.606.

※ This is the version that is used in the upcoming SCE Sony PlayStation 5 and 4 updates for Heart of the Woods, which also includes all changes made in 2.1.1, 2.1, 2.0.4, and 2.0.3.

All changes made in this version are not present in Heart of the Woods 2.1.2.

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.0.3.22090809 〜 7.3.5.606.

• Improved wording in the music room.
• Made non-user-facing minor internal changes.

※ This is the version that is used in the upcoming Nintendo Switch update for Heart of the Woods, which also includes all changes made in 2.1, 2.0.4, and 2.0.3.

Two minor changes made in this version are not present in Heart of the Woods 2.1.2. (※ Specifically, 2.1.2 includes changes up to 2.1.1rc20, but the final version of 2.1.1 is actually 2.1.1rc21.)

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.0.3.22090809 〜 7.3.5.606.

• Added a brand new controller UI! It can be enabled and configured from within the game's preference pane.
  • Our new controller buttons (which will be used in all mainline Élan games going forward) are slightly modified versions of Nicolae (Xelu) Berbece's controller buttons, which are CC0-licensed (※ public domain).
  • You can obtain a fresh copy of the original unmodified assets here: https://thoseawesomeguys.com/prompts/
  • ※ If you'd like to use the exact files and/or naming scheme found in our games, feel free to do so.
• Controller support has been completely reworked, making the game fully controller (and keyboard) navigable for both normal gameplay and UI navigation! More keyboard controls have also been added!
  • Please check the help screen for a full list of controls.
• The controller UI is now enabled by default on Steam Deck and Steam Big Picture.
• The large text size option is now enabled by default on the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch.
• A new version of the Studio Élan bootlogo has been created, using new internal tools that allow for both higher quality and framerates.
• The game now supports arbitrarily high framerates for super smooth animations!
• Fully reworked various view layouts in the preference pane for easier UI navigation.
• Added a patch API and content compatibility validator that runs at boot for certain user-installed patches and mods.
• Added a loose file validator that runs at boot to check for certain leftover user-installed loose files that are known to cause issues.
• Added the "changeTaraCustomShirt()" console command, which lets users change Tara custom shirts easily.
  • Example: changeTaraCustomShirt("minute") will change Tara's custom shirt to the specified "minute" custom shirt.
  • changeTaraCustomShirt("off") or simply changeTaraCustomShirt() will remove the custom shirt and restore the usual default behaviour of Tara's shirts that change according to the current in-game moon phase.
• Added a proper bundle identifier: com.vnstudioelan.heartofthewoods
  • ※ This will be our standardised bundle identifier format going forward for all of our games.
• Added all missing Info.plist keys to the macOS app bundle.
• Added compatibility with older Ren'Py SDK runtime versions, tested all the way down to 7.3.5.606! (※ Older versions than this may work, but are untested.)
  • Ren'Py SDKs patched with the modern Steamworks API are compatible, too! (※ With this Python 3 script provided by Ren'Py: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/renpy/steam-deck-guide/main/update_renpy_steam.py and Steamworks SDK 1.55)

• Fixed a crash that would occur if the user performed specific actions on older versions of the game that could result in the incorrect font path being written to persistent save data.
• Fixed an issue where certain users would end up with incorrect font size values written to their persistent save data.
• The current version of the game is now shown in the top left corner of the preference pane.
• Clarified and improved wording in the README.
• Re-centred and re-aligned certain UI elements that were previously incorrectly aligned.
• Adjusted and improved padding on UI elements.
• Fixed an issue where the dynamically changing UI tint colour (based on the current character PoV) would sometimes be inconsistently updated, leaving certain elements in the wrong colour. All UI elements are now correctly updated. No more carrots! This is now a carrot-free household!! (🌸•̀ω•́)୨✨🥕❌
• Fixed an issue where the fairy sitting on the ledge of the main menu buttons would sometimes be incorrectly aligned, especially in non-English languages.
• Sped up some UI transitions.
• Recreated many rasterised UI assets at a factor of @4x for a better experience on high-resolution and HiDPI / Retina displays.
• Fixed an issue where the auto mode delay value can sometimes default to an incorrect value of 0 (instead of 15), leading to auto mode effectively not working.
• Made many internal improvements to how trophies are handled.
• Made the state of UI elements in the first boot accessibility onboarding flow more clear to the user.
• Improved text legibility of many UI elements.
• Fixed an issue where the menu UI focus would constantly be lost every time the user navigates to another extras page.
• Restored missing snowflake UI indicators.
• Restored missing UI element alpha dimming in menus, improving legibility in many cases.
• Improved appearance of the "Now Playing" view.
• Allow keyboard / gamepad cancel button to work as expected in all applicable areas.
• Made many improvements to the save screen / load screen UI layout.
• Save screen / load screen pages now properly end at the correct maximum page value bounds, instead of continuing on forever.
• The save screen / load screen pages now wrap around when you hit each end.
• Disabled the autosave pages in the save screen to prevent players from accidentally overwriting their autosaves.
• Fixed the date formats used in save data.
• Fixed an issue where the quick menu would be visible during chapter cards.
• Made all scroll views no longer draggable, as this was somehow causing gamepad navigation to break(!?)
• Made it easier to tell when sliders, scrollbars, and certain buttons are being hovered over or selected.
• Made the game more resilient against crashes if given broken save data.
• Fixed incorrect UI element alignment for the individual character voice volume sliders.
• Improved wording to better communicate the on/off status of the "SUSTAIN VOICE PLAYBACK" and "WAIT FOR VOICE" preferences.
• Fast-skipping will now always show a confirmation prompt.
• Help text has been improved, with many more controls now correctly documented.
• Improved developer console layout.
• Fixed an issue where the bold version of Source Han Sans / 源ノ角ゴシック would erroneously be used instead of the regular version.
• Fixed an issue where the bootlogo audio could possibly end up being muted in certain cases.
• Fixed an issue where the font size selector in the preference pane would sometimes not work correctly.
• Fixed an issue where certain UI elements in certain states would be more translucent than intended.
• Improved the appearance of the accessibility self-voicing overlay.
• Improved wording of the CG gallery help text.
• Improved wording of the camera overlay help text.
• Fixed Abby's UI colours being incorrect. (… Granted, due to the Carrot Bug™, the broken colours were never actually visible to begin with.)
• Fixed an issue where some scroll views in the preference pane would sometimes be cut off prematurely.
• Fixed an issue that would occur when calculating the amount of pages to generate for the CG and guest art galleries.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the extras screen navbar to behave incorrectly when returning from the CG viewer.
• Removed an extraneous newline in the credits screen.
• Updated credits.

• MelanieKit warning screens are now fully localisable.
• Toast notifications are now fully localisable.
• Removed quick menu layout behaviour that was once added to work around an issue that used to be needed for the Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) and Simplified Chinese (简体中文) localisations.
• Fixed an issue where the "SUSTAIN VOICE PLAYBACK" and "WAIT FOR VOICE" preferences would not correctly show the on/off status in the Traditional Chinese (繁體中文), Simplified Chinese (简体中文), and German (Deutsch) localisations.
• Fixed an issue where chapter names would not be localised in certain cases where they should have been.
• Fixed an issue where the fairy in the main menu would sometimes be misaligned when using a non-English language.
• Fixed an issue where certain strings may not have been fully localisable.

• Added a missing transition in Scene 1-3.
• Added a missing transition in Scene 1-7.

• Heart of the Woods (as well as all mainline Élan Ren'Py games going forward) no longer excludes plaintext scripts from the build archives! (There was never much of a point in doing so anyway, considering that unrpyc exists ;P)
• Made various internal improvements to the codebase, including large-scale refactoring… again.
• Added the ability to open the README, game data root directory, and game root directory from within the game itself. Look inside MelanieKit for the relevant URL schemes.
• Tara custom shirts use a completely new naming scheme now ("tara_shirt_custom_NAME_left/right"), so if your mod adds new Tara custom shirts, you will need to adapt accordingly.
• changeActiveCharacterPoVAndUpdateUITintColour(characterName) is the new method of triggering a PoV switch. The old method as well as its associated dependencies have been completely removed.
• The leftover/unused translation buttons from early UI prototypes (… and the demo) have been removed, as well as their underlying UI assets.
• Unused raster image UI assets have been removed.

• Fixed a crash that would occur when attempting to enter the Extras menu on non-PC builds.
• Fixed textbox layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed NVL box layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed quick menu layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed font size issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed preference pane layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed UI element rendering issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed an issue where the extras menu would not be localised correctly on non-PC builds.
• Disabled self-voicing on all non-PC builds due to the AX TTS backend not working correctly on non-PC builds.
• Integrated all other changes and improvements made in Heart of the Woods 2.1.1, 2.1, 2.0.4, and 2.0.3.

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:

Desktop Mode

• Fixed back button intermittently returning to library view instead of the correct history entry.
  
• Improved UI when an application temporarily disables updates.

• Added a small delay between interactions to help prevent clicking the same object twice
  
• Fixed a bug allowing players to get 2 points
  
• Fixed a bug with the ghost task list incorrectly showing that all tasks were completed

Hey Oracles,

Sorry that this patch fixing Purging Incense and Forge/Purging Anchor action took a whole week to be released, we tried to fix this problem as fast as we could since many people were reporting it, but sadly to fix it we had to rework the entire in battle forge system and it ended up taking longer than expected.

Also in this patch we tried to buff Cellarius Wave and Sea Requiem build, Austra Favorable Winds build, Sothis and Orion starting kit (to try make their early game smoother) and tried nerf Anomaly 8 Chapter 1 enemies a bit more.

• Now the introduction cutscene is only automatically played first time entering the game. But it is possible to watch it again on Settings -> Miscellaneous tab.
  
• Minor Performance improvement on all quality settings.

Neutral

• Darkness Shard Black Hole Blessing buffed, changed drawback of Drawing 1 fewer die per turn, to applying 1 Paralyze to Player at the start of each battle.

Cellarius

• Buffed Geyser Uppercut dice values.
  
• Buffed Enemy Wave dice values.
  
• Buffed Area Enemy Wave dice values.
  
• Buffed Surf dice values.
  
• Buffed Marine Offering dice values.
  
• Balanced High Tide. Changed Risky Die die face from Area Corrupt 3 to Dissolve Life. Increased the amount of Wave applied when the enemy has no Wave from 3 to 6.
  
• Buffed Sea Requiem, increased Sea Requiem Purification increase when played or discard from 3 to 5.

Austra

• Balanced Favorable Winds. Removed Epic Die. Buffed dice values.
  
• Buffed Wind Glide dice values.
  
• Added Invoke Gale Epic Die.
  
• Added Rising Gust Epic Die.
  
• Removed Dazzling Light Epic Die.
  
• Balanced Inspiring Comets. Nerfed Risky Die, decreased a Meteor Rain 7 + Draw 3 die face to Meteor Rain 6 + Draw 2. Added Epic Die.
  
• Added Defective Searchlight Epic Die.

Sothis

• Buffed Eclipse Blast, now when it deals Corruption it increases Soul Heat by 1.
  
• Buffed Glass Daggers Safe Die values.
  
• Buffed Reroll Virtue from 2 to 3.

Orion

• Buffed Minor Revolution Starter Die, changed a die face Corrupt 3 to Purify 1.
  
• Buffed Minor Conjure Starter Die, changed a die face Corrupt 3 to Purify 1.

Enemies

• Deformed Sluggian and Crystallized Swirl Tainted Reef Normal Battle Anomaly 8 nerfed, nerfed Crystallized Swirl, decreased 2 die faces Player Corrupt 2 + Player Shadow Mantle 4 to Player Corrupt 2 + Player Shadow Mantle 2 and decreased 1 die face Player Corrupt 2 + Player Shadow Mantle 3 to Player Corrupt 2 + Player Shadow Mantle 2.
  
• Crashed Sentinel Tainted Reef Normal Battle Anomaly 3 and 8 nerfed. Anomaly 3 changed 2 die faces Area Corrupt 3 to Player Corrupt 3 + Enemy Self Corrupt 3, decreased 1 die face Area Corrupt 3 to 2, changed 1 die face Area Corrupt 2 to Player Corrupt 2 + Enemy Self Corrupt 2. Anomaly 8 nerfed, decreased 2 die faces from Area Corrupt 3 to 2.
  
• Lost Sentinel Tainted Reef Normal Battle Anomaly 8 nerfed, decreased 1 die face Player Corrupt 2 to 1 and decreased 1 die face Player Corrupt 1 to 0.
  
• Monstrous Sluggian Tainted Reef Normal Battle Anomaly 8 nerfed, increased Max Overcorruption from 5 to 7.

• Fixed Purging Anchor duplicating itself when defeating an enemy.
  
• Fixed Forge actions duplicating the forged die.
  
• Fixed softlock when playing Purge action when Purging Incense triggers.
  
• Fixed Losing Superposition Blip Black Hole Blessing replacing wrong virtue.
  
• Fixed Diadem of Madness increasing Anomaly Level 9 Corruption.
  
• Fixed Sentinel/Forge shop showing wrong minimum cost.
  
• Fixed Ambush tooltip not appearing in Spanish.

May Astrea bless you 💙 ❤️
- Leonardo Castanho, community manager and lead dev of Astrea