Greetings fellow gods,

Today is a great day! In celebration of reaching 7,000(!) wishlists, a critical milestone for any indie developer, and to thank you all for taking your time to hunt down bugs and provide great feedback, I've decided to release a major update for the demo and extend its duration until Early Access is available.

Today's update introduces a new skill - Thievery and a new accompanying settlement mechanic, the Crime System.

Thievery is a dagger-related skill primarily focused on utility and criminal activities. It will provide access to unique actions like pickpocketing, robbing, and passing through walls and obstacles, and it has bonuses to a new weapon property - Critical Hit, as well as some unique single-use recipes for usable items in combat. More details will be available in the upcoming Friday devlog, so join us on Discord to get notified when it goes public.

The Crime System is another new addition to the game, introducing bounties for taking someone's property or committing crimes. The bounty applies to the player characters only for now. It allows us to pay off our crimes in the Knowledge Screen's settlement entry to mitigate the aggressive behavior in the settlement we've caused.



Beware that some actions in certain cultures, like cutting down trees in the elven region, may be unforgivable, and the only acceptable outcome for the NPCs would be the character's death.

Criminal activities are marked with a red border around the action icon.

Additionally, the push action from Athletics was replaced with the throw action - it allows throwing heavy objects on the ground and dealing damage depending on the character's strength and weight of the thrown object. It's pretty fun to throw corpses or logs around.



Thank you all for your feedback and bug reports, and please continue to spread the word about the game as the EA release gets closer. Every wishlist counts and will help us reach a broader audience on release. I'll announce the EA release date in November.

Full changelog available below:

- New crime system with bounties placed on player characters for committing crimes. See the Crime tutorial entry for more details.
- Thievery skill.
- Athletics skill now provides access to Throw action, which allows throwing heavy objects at a distance depending on character strength and weight of the object. If the object goes into contact with an entity with health, it will damage it depending on the thrown object's velocity and the target's endurance.
- New weapon property - Critical Hit.
- The world history now continues to simulate during playthrough as days go by.
- Added Swap Weapons action under X (shift + x) hotkey by default.
- Added Rest action button above the ability bar.
- Added a tooltip to the craft button informing of missing tools.
- Added information to item tooltips about which skill will be trained on salvaging.

- Push action from Athletics has been removed.
- Improved graphics of a few tiles.
- The minimum damage on the successful basic attack is 1 instead of 0.
- Bandage now requires linen and herbs to craft, and it's regeneration rate increased by 50%.
- Family buying discount changed to 25%.
- Reduced base sell prices to 70% from 80%.
- Tools used in an alternative set of wielded items are used automatically, the same as if they were in a backpack.
- Sickle is now a Harvester instead of Cutter.
- Flax from Flax Plants will now be harvestable instead of gatherable.

- Fixed invalid skeleton archer portrait.
- Fixed an issue that caused elven tavern to sometimes not generate properly.
- Fixed missing light / extinguish action icon.
- When changing the resolution, the font sizes reset to default values for a new resolution.
- Fixed Sleep Until Dawn / Dusk tooltips in the action selection wheel.
- Fixed an issue that allowed traveling on the world map until starving, which resulted in a crash.
- Fixed trading more units than available.
- Fixed an issue that prevented going down the stairs while standing on top of them.
- Fixed an issue with roofs being set up improperly when starting the game.
- Fixed names in the Knowledge Screen going outside of the list bounds.
- Fixed crash on death.
- When choosing the sleep action on resting place, the character moves on top of it before sleeping.
- Fixed thorns not applying to crafted items from resources.
- Fixed selling prices to family members to be on par with other settlement families.
- Crafted resources, food, and usable items no longer accumulate value from resources used to make it.
- Fixed Scavenge hotkey in the inventory screen.
- Usable items no longer acquire statistics from resources used.
- Fixed the resource filter when selecting a slot in crafting to hide invalid resources properly.
- Fixed drinking milk to incorrectly reduce the liquid source value instead of consuming the stack.
- The quarterstaff recipe from Adventuring is now properly unlocked.
- Fixed an issue that caused history events to sometimes generate with invalid surnames.
- Shoot / Throw hotkey was removed from Keymap.
- Fixed an issue that caused a flickering recipe list when selecting a recipe on the building menu.
- Fixed an issue that caused the unintentional placing of the build object behind the recipe selection menu.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the character to walk to the stairs when attempting to jump down.
- Fixed an issue that caused AI actors to sometimes continue to move each other while in combat.
- Fixed an issue that caused the special location icon to sometimes revert to a question mark after completion.

1. The upper limit of skill level is adjusted to level 200
2. The maximum limit of Babel Tower is 10,000 floors.

Hello mercenaries! Ahead of next week's 1.0 launch on November 2, we wanted to give new and returning players a look at everything that has been added to The Iron Oath during our Early Access period.

We've made a lot of changes during Early Access - some that were planned in advance, and some that came about as a result of player feedback. We're thankful to each one of you that has joined us on the journey, and shared their experiences to help us improve the game! Here's a look back at the last year and a half:



And the more substantial changes from each update:

• Icebinder Class: The Icebinder class specializes in crowd control, with a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies through various means.
  
• Gear Enchantments: Over 80 enchantments that can be looted in dungeons and applied to equipment, granting stats and unique effects.
  
• Scourge Crisis: A special crisis event that occurs in the wake of the dragon's attack, including new quests, events and consequences for the player as they try to save a city from destruction.

• Leveling and attributes overhaul: A complete rework of character attributes and a new way to level up, which lets players more freely customize their characters any way they want
  
• Full ability upgrade trees: Introduced over 250 new upgrades to round out the rest of the ability upgrade trees for each class
  
• Combat rebalance: We increased party size to 5(from 4) and rebalanced abilities, enemies, status effects, and gear
  
• New enemies: Introduced over 30 new enemy variants into the game
  
• Enemy traits: Added over 50 traits that are applied to enemy Elites and Bosses, adding to combat variety
  
• UI Overhaul: We redesigned nearly every UI screen in the game to be more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly
  
• Codex: We added a Codex screen which lists details on all the enemies you've encountered. You can view an enemy's codex page during combat by right clicking them or their portrait

• Balladeer Class: The Balladeer fills the role of a pure support class. With many tunes strummed from their trusty lute, they have the ability to heal, cleanse, buff their allies, and debuff enemies.
  
• Dungeon Exploration Overhaul: A rework to how dungeon exploration is handled, giving more opportunities for risk vs reward. Dungeon Modifiers and Camping Incense were also rebalanced.
  
• New Dungeon Events and Event Types: We added many new dungeon events to interact with, resulting in a variety of outcomes that are both beneficial and harmful

• Named gear: Tougher bosses have a higher chance to drop Named gear. Named gear has increased stats and comes pre-loaded with randomized enchantments
  
• New quests and overworld events: Added 6 brand new quests and a handful of new overworld events

With 3 major updates, 2 large updates, and countless patches, the two of us are happy with what we've achieved so far. But development of course won't stop with 1.0 - we have many more ideas, with more stories to tell for the next year and hopefully beyond!


A reminder that the price of the game is increasing to $25 on launch day. So now is the best time to grab it!

If you're a returning player, your old saves will be compatible with the 1.0 build. However, with all the changes to the game, we highly recommend starting fresh for the best overall experience (especially if your save is from an early EA build). Due to the number of variables at play, we can't guarantee there won't be some oddities or small problems that occur with older saves.

When Early Access began, we had around 15 hours of unique content, with the first part of the main campaign being completable in around 10-12. For 1.0, we expect the average run of the main campaign will take most players 25-30 hours, with the whole game having around 40 hours of unique content (plus more new quests later in November!).

Stay tuned next week for the full 1.0 change log which we will be sharing on Wednesday before our Thursday launch! Until then, we hope you have a great weekend!

-Curious Panda Games

PATCH NOTES - v2023.10.28.0

PHYSICS
-Updated moving platforms to behave more consistently when the player is standing on or clinging to them
-Players should no longer get stuck in a platform moving up or down
-Added sliders for running, airborne, and grapple acceleration for testing

CAMERA
-Camera now rounds its position to the nearest integer to prevent some objects from "jittering"
-Camera now centers itself on the grapple point when player is grappling

PERFORMANCE
-Fixed a bug causing large numbers of surfaces to be created when transitioning between different sized rooms
-Ropes are now updated in a staggered manner, rather than all simultaneously
-Ropes are no longer drawn when outside of the camera view
-Minimum stable FPS changed to 120fps: if FPS dips below this, the game's speed will slow down to help prevent physics bugs
-Added a "Time Dilation" toggle to disable this

GRAPPLE
-Fixed a bug where player would sometimes instantly disconnect when grappling from the ground

CLING
-If player is clinging a wall and slipping downwards from momentum, they will no longer let go of the wall if they reach the bottom

EDITOR
-Can now use CTRL + X to cut selected assets

SHOPPING CART
-Added shopping cart
-Added shopping cart spawner
-Added shopping cart track

EGG
-Egg

• 🎮 Controller support has been added
  
• When setting up multiplayer and singleplayer matches, you can now choose which object you'd like to play with. Each object has its own unique physics

• For enhanced controller gameplay, a feature has been introduced to lock the character camera onto the ball. You can find this camera lock option in the settings. By default, the camera is unlocked, but you can toggle between these two options
  
• In singleplayer, players can view their trophies and identify which ones they are missing
  
• Automatic game progress and settings are now saved to the cloud
  
• New map snowfield

Lore:
====

- Renegade faction is now known as the X.Z faction.

- Mercenary faction is now known as the Renegade faction.


X.Z Faction:
=========

- Buffed movement speed across the board.

- Slightly buffed damage of weaponry across the board.


Renegade faction:
==============

- Buffed movement speed across the board.

- Slightly buffed damage of weaponry across the board.


Gamemode: Coop
==============

- First full PvE coop game mode has been finished (albeit in a rough state) and can be played by the Renegade faction ONLY (for the moment).

- The rules of Coop mode? Quite simple. Handle 15 waves and if one of you dies, it is game over. Teamplay is key, it is that simple.

- In Coop mode, slots are limited to 8 players.


UI:
==

- Added a PvP/Coop selection widget after pressing "create game". (WIP)

- In PvP mode it is now possible to select the following mode and corresponding maps; Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag and Conquest. (WIP)

- In Coop mode it is possible to select corresponding maps part of the game mode horde (WIP)

- In Coop mode it isn't possible to; alter if the game is with bots yes or no (which means the alteration of how many Mercenary or X.Z bots has been removed too), the time limit (counts upwards instead), fraglimit (pointless as it isn't based on x amount of frags).

- The main menu UI has received 3 additional buttons; Quickplay (soon to be working matchmaking), Capability to navigate to the game's Steam community and to view patch notes in your browser.

- Changed hover and selection sfx.


Gameplay: Admin tools:
==================

- It is now possible for the host to restart the map at will.

- It is now possible to kick users from your game via the escape menu.

- At the end of the match, the admin has the possibility to alter the game mode and the map for 30 seconds (very generous).


Input addition:
===========

- Added toggeable sprint.

Running Fable’s Spooktacular Fest is now live. Kilp and Rand have decorated the Lobby for the occasion and have set up a brand-new mini-game, “Apple Bobbing”.

In this mini-game, you’ll have to catch the greatest number of red apples in the shortest time possible to win special hats.

You can also get your hands on some novelty costumes by finding the secret “Rand-o’-lanterns” hidden in each one of the six levels.

Nighttime is approaching, and crows start cawing... Dress up, and let's spook'em till dawning!

This event includes:
6 new skins unlocked on each level, of classical Halloween monsters:

• Dracula
  
• Frankenstein
  
• The Scarecrow
  
• The Mummy
  
• Alien
  
• A Pirate

4 new Halloween hats to unlock on the Apple Bobbing minigame:

• Mad Scientist Eyes
  
• Pumpkin Top Hat
  
• Spider Web Hat
  
• Jiangshi Hat

Grab your rewards before they are gone! Happy Halloween!

Good Lords, Fair Ladies!

It's been two months since the last update, and we're already eager to share the first details about what will be added to the game in the near future. Specifically, let's talk about the new market box.

Not only have we brought visual improvements to it, but we've also added some features. "Why would you do that?" - you may ask.

Here comes the answer. The Market is an important mechanic that helps to manage the resource base wisely. Players who actively used it complained that the box was not exactly convenient. Some even found the trading annoying. In addition, during the game, you need to keep in focus many different points - from direct participation in military actions to strategic planning of the economy of the settlement. So it's easy to forget about an order placed on the Market. We decided to fix all the above-mentioned issues at once.


Starting from the upcoming update, you will be able to track the path of the zeppelin (whether it is flying for cargo or already returning with it) with the help of eye-pleasing animation. Moreover, additional indication is visible both in the market box itself and at the bottom of the main screen. Of course, to make this tool blend seamlessly into the game's interface, we have visually redesigned the box. It became more attractive while keeping its simplicity and clarity.

With the upcoming update, the Marketplace gets two new features. Now its box may open automatically if an order is completed and/or if you have a shortage of the resource you are trading. (The game pauses when this happens). Combined with the ability to repeat the last order, these new features greatly reduce the complexity of trading, while giving you more control over it.

If anyone feels that all of the above is unnecessary, don't worry, you can simply leave all these options disabled.

The Market box transformation is just one of the improvements we're preparing for you in the next update. Next time we'll talk about more features to come. Thank you for being with us!

Yours, the Door 407 dev team

PLAY PROLOGUE
Greetings, fearless Madhouse Madness fans,

We're delighted to announce the arrival of the enhanced Prologue version of our game, and it's packed with spine-tingling updates to immerse you in a new level of terror.

What you can expect from this new version:

🌟 Enhanced Gameplay: We've fine-tuned the prologue to deliver an even more immersive and heart-pounding experience.

🎮 Updated Mechanics: Significant improvements to in-game mechanics for a smoother and more intuitive gameplay flow.

🔧 Optimization: Your invaluable feedback has guided us in optimizing the game, resulting in a smoother and more chilling adventure with minimal interruptions.

🐛 Bug Fixes: We've squashed pesky bugs to make your experience as flawless as possible.

To access the enhanced Prologue version, simply update your game through Steam, and you'll be all set to plunge into the madness anew.

We're deeply grateful for your unwavering support, and we can't wait to hear your thoughts on these latest updates. Stay tuned for more spine-tingling surprises just around the corner.

Stay spooky,
Hurrycat Studios

PLAY PROLOGUE

hello everybody!

on 11/3/2023, i will be making my indie game, cool people club, free to play.

i am doing this mainly because of Unity's attempted changes to their pricing structure in september of 2023.

during the whole Unity runtime fee fiasco, i actually felt stressed at the idea that if my game blew up, i'd have to deal with the apparent nightmare that is Unity's legal team, and potentially be stuck with the headache of paying whatever new fees they decided were acceptable on a month to month basis... somebody made a chart showing that based on Unity's proposed pricing structure, they could be charging a developer more than a game actually made. yikes!

even though they've walked back some of these changes, and even though Unity's TOS prior to the runtime fee was specific about following the terms of the version you're on, the fact that Unity's legal team tried at all to justify retroactively charging everybody is bad enough. so, i feel compelled to act in a way that both preserves my game's existence, and makes it so that i don't have to stress out about something like this ever again.

above all, my highest priority is that this game is available for anybody that wants to give it a try. i could port the game to another game engine (or pay someone to do it for me), but i believe that my time and money would be far better served on new projects.

i've given it a lot of thought, and i think making my game free is the best solution for me. by doing this, my game can stay up, i won't have to pay any made up fees, and if this company ever pulls anything like this again, i won't have to worry about it. this also has the added benefit of making my game accessible to more people, which is a cool bonus…

this decision is final. for everybody that bought the game, i just want to say that i really do appreciate your support! thank you for giving this game a shot. for anybody that likes the game now that it’s free, if you want to show your support in some way, the best way is to buy the soundtrack on bandcamp at coolturtle.bandcamp.com.


also, one last thing - any future games i make will be on a different game engine. thanks for understanding, stay cool.

all the best,

cool turtle
cool turtle games