We're happy to announce the release of a new Environment, "Saint Nick's Assistant!"

The Krampus has Silver Branches to give to those who are being bad.

NEW ART:

• Thunderstrike - Original Art
  
• Princess Mouseskin - Original Art
  
• Bearskin - Original Art
  
• Snow Queen - Original Art
  
• Red Riding Hood - Mokievets Variant
  
• Maid of Brakel - Stained Glass Variant
  
• Water Nix - Bestiary Variant
  
• Frog King - Gold Rush Variant
  
• Frog King - Seven Seas Variant
  
• The Wolf - Sports Variant
  
• Bearskin - Sports Variant
  
• Fat Trina - Sports Variant
  
• Jorindel - Noir Variant
  
• Corpse Bride - Shadow Puppet Variant
  
• Talking Cat - Shadow Puppet Variant

NEW CARDS:
Nolan Darkwater - Kickstarter Backer Creation

• 4 Mana 1/3 | Channel: At the end of each turn, reduce the Attack Power of 2 opposing Cards at this Realm by 1.

Tin Soldier - Kickstarter Backer Creation

• 2 Mana 2/2 | On Play: Attack an opponent's Character here. They both deal damage equal to their Attack Power. If this survives, it gains +1 Attack Power +1 Health.

ADDITIONS:

• Added new sounds for Dawnshift/Duskshift.
  
• Microtransactions now work (shop currently disabled until we announce them to be live).
  
• Networking is now working but still a WIP, it's not 100% ready.

CHANGES:

• n/a

FIXES:

• n/a

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the long silence!

Cartridge Monsters was our first game release and although we had grand visions, being our first game, we just didn’t know, what we didn’t know.

The game had some deep-rooted issues, and we knew it would need to be remade the right way to really work. So instead of charging, we decided to make the game free. Some are thinking, what about those of us who paid? We will get to that 😊

Instead of seeing this as a setback, we viewed it as an opportunity. An opportunity to step back, improve our game development skills, and deliver a greater VR creature catching experience.

This isn't just a mere update – we've rebuilt the game from the ground up from the ashes like a phoenix we bring you:

Cartridge monsters: Rebirth



There is a new story, completely new combat system, location, mechanics, and much more!

But, before diving deep into the details, we'd like to announce that everyone who purchased the original game before it became free will receive Rebirth for free.

So, what's new in Rebirth?

• Monster Rework: We either reworked or completely remade all monsters in the game.






• Increased Monster Count: Rebirth has over 100 monsters, up from the original game 75.



• Enhanced Environments: From towns to mountains and other core assets, we've crafted majority of the game assets from scratch to have a consistent feel and style throughout the game.



• PVP and Trading: Rebirth is overall a single player game, but it will have some multiplayer aspects. Player vs Player battles and Monster Trading.

• Rebirth takes place on a large 2km Island with dungeons and more secrets!

• Original Music: Just like the first game, all music in Rebirth is original and carefully curated to enhance the gaming experience.

We've poured our hearts into Cartridge Monsters: Rebirth for almost two years now. While we don’t have a fixed release date yet, rest assured we'll be dedicating time to playtesting and gathering feedback before release.

If you would like to help us shape rebirth, consider joining our discord for future testing and feedback https://discord.gg/KedV2AKACU


Stay tuned to the Rebirth page for updates on the release date and other announcements. Your support means the world to us, and we can't wait to share this labor of love with you all.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1400750/Cartridge_Monsters_Rebirth/

* Fixed disappearing ceiling and walls in first rooms of Prologue level.
* Fixed caverns enemy spawn triggers.
* Bruh

Thank you <3

The challenge of localizing Swelter into languages reflective of the story's regional setting was identified prior to the release of the modification. Unfortunately, we were unable to address this issue independently.

Today, we celebrate a significant achievement: enthusiasts have created the most authentic Kazakh localization of Swelter! All in-game texts and textures have been translated:




The stunning local nature and unique regional architecture, which are rarely represented in video games to our dismay, served as the primary inspirations for the mod's design. We are thrilled to know that a significant portion of the local population will now be able to enjoy Swelter in a more immersive and comfortable way.


Regrettably, neither Steam nor Half-Life 2 currently support the Kazakh language. As a result, selecting Kazakh will be facilitated through the UI menu of startup options that appears in Steam when launching the application:



In that case, please read the recommendations from the first update: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1815330/view/3674423070131346593

New Main Story

Reunite in Ulukita with [color=#cd9a27]Bareeds III, the tragic prince of Mediah...[/color]

The story continues nearly seven years since the first encounter with the Mediahn prince in 2016.

Embrace the new winds arising in Ulukita.

---

Hey listen! Let the melodies of Altinova recall your memories.

---

[color=#bc0c0c]The Three Days of Darkness[/color] – a calamity brought upon Mediah by Illezra.

For three days, the people in Mediah trembled in fear, consumed by madness, as pitch-black darkness covered the lands, blotting out both sun and moon.

And, alone in the dark, [color=#bc0c0c]Mediah Castle was lit ablaze.[/color]

Weak and incompetent, the monarchy easily crumbled, while Bareeds III barely escaped with his life, becoming the sole survivor of his royal bloodline.

From Neruda Shen, the self-appointed premier who claimed to be speaking on the young prince’s behalf,
to the Mediahn masses, whose favor he had long lost due to the oppressive rule of the Aksulp royal family, Bareeds III realized he was not safe and soon embarked to seek asylum in Valencia.

However, during that very journey, an incident occurs...

[color=#bc0c0c]The war between Calpheon and Valencia in the past[/color], and the continent of Mediah in between.

In place of the rather passive Mediahn monarchy at the time, the Mediah Merchants Union foresaw the flow of events and took matters in their own hands.

They gathered blacksmiths to support the Calpheon Alliance with resources, and successfully secured trading rights of the Black Crystals, whose value Calpheon didn’t fully realize.

They used part of the profits amassed from Calpheon to provide aid to Valencia, thereby also securing trade rights with the latter nation, who also would provide protection in return.

By single-handedly monopolizing the supply of goods in the region, they accumulated vast wealth, and with it, [color=#bc0c0c]the Mediah Merchants Union built Altinova.[/color]

Later, Neruda Shen would be voted in as chairman of the union with overwhelming support.
The Mediah Merchants Union soon became renamed as the Shen Merchant Guild.

With all of Mediah completely under his thumb, and now premier, Neruda Shen’s gaze lays upon the untouched lands of Ulukita...

The Shroud Knights, [color=#bc0c0c]an order of knights who answer solely to the Mediahn royal family. [/color]

Yet during the Three Days of Darkness, the order failed to protect the royal family.
The Shroud Knights were left with nothing and brought dishonor to their name.

Their purpose lost, their body and soul in disarray, the remnants scattered throughout Mediah.

Sarma Anin rose from the lowly ranks of a foot soldier to Captain of the Shroud Knights, solely due to her exceptional combat prowess.

[color=#bc0c0c]Having risked her life to rescue the Mediahn prince before,[/color] she continues to serve as loyal retainer to Bareeds III even to this day.

But now, she requests an investigation into the incident which occurs during the prince’s exile...

[color=#bc0c0c]One of the sons of the famed prophet family of Mediah, Sirare.[/color]

"The dark shadow is returning with the witch of darkness.."

His prophecies had never missed their mark, so when he foretold the coming of a threat equal in scale to the Three Days of Darkness to befall upon Mediah, all of Altinova was shaken to its core.

[color=#bc0c0c]Having stood by the side of Bareeds III as his childhood friend[/color], Sirare played a crucial role in aiding Bareeds III's exile, alongside Sarma Anin.

Now, Sirare has a new prophecy to unfold to the Adventurer...

New Monster Zone: Darkseeker's Retreat

[color=#cd9a27]Darkseekers' Retreat[/color] is the newest addition to Ulukita; this monster zone contains various item drops that will help Adventurers, such as yourself, grow even stronger.

There are two mechanics to look out for, the first being the [color=#cd9a27]Eternal Darkseeker[/color]. This event has a chance to spawn after killing the different monsters within the Darkseeker’s Retreat. Large amounts of [color=#cd9a27]Followers[/color] will then start to spawn and attack you after killing the [color=#cd9a27]Eternal Darkseeker[/color]. Do not panic too much, as these monsters have reduced HP compared to their counterparts.

For the next event, after defeating the different [color=#cd9a27]Darkseekers[/color], you will have a chance to spawn the [color=#cd9a27]Blazing Embers[/color]. After destroying it, the [color=#cd9a27]Sealed Artifact[/color] will activate. For approximately five minutes, the activated Artifact will disorientate your enemies at certain intervals. However, [color=#cd9a27]Followers[/color] will not be affected by the Sealed Relic. Defeating a [color=#cd9a27]Blazing Ember[/color] will drop you a guaranteed [color=#cd9a27]Embers of Resonance![/color]

On that note, let’s take a look at the different loot that can be obtained from this monster zone!

New Items

Welcome to the first progress report of december.
Here is what's been happening at the studio:

Level:
Worked on the larger Pillar Region caves.
Started to implement the new Adûn architecture blockout design and work on its modular kit.

Code:
Finished save game system.
Worked on some features for our internal dialogue tools.
Improved Sex Pairing Filtering and using the "Add all" button only adds all currently filtered animations now.
Implemented a "Mesh merger", which can combine multiple prototype props into one user mesh for performance and for decluttering the outliner.



Character:
Progressing with various different outfit models. Finished curly hairstyle for Maya.
Added cannibal characters and their respective outfits based on Locu and Lala





Animations:
Implemented various motion-capture animations such as dances, bathing and showering for Maya into the Engine.
Implemented a bunch of other polished mo-caps for NPC routines (things like spear fishing, stone sculpting, spear training, etc.)
Assisted Game Design with ongoing task of making the existing minigames more consistent in how they control.



Design:
Added 3 new quests for Maya in Apoc.
Added dialogues for Maya in Apoc with Rad, Fingers, Chakkar and Skeet.
Ongoing design of the “Gulhragg's Harem” story.
Working on a minor quest logic problem.
Iterating some sections of the inner Adûn dungeon.
Sex minigame optimization.


Thank you for all your continued support,
-Wild Life Team

TACTICAL BANDITS now has global leaderboards via Steam. There are multiple leaderboards which tracking fastest completion times on singleplayer game mode, hardcore singleplayer game mode, and each challenge individually.

There was going to be a leaderboard to track kills, but that was not very useful as it could be easily exploited due to players playing a specific game mode to rack up their kills. Another solution would have been to have leaderboards for kills for every game mode, but that would end up creating too many leaderboards itself. In the end, it was decided to not to implement these leaderboards.

Leaderboards can be viewed on the leaderboards menu from the main menu, or they will be shown during singleplayer and challenge game modes in the pause and game over menus, so that players know at all times how well they are doing.

For consoles there will be a different leaderboard system as the current leaderboard system requires Steam, which will not work on console platforms.


The game meta system has finally been implemented. After numerous design and balancing issues, the new system is live in the latest build.

Players will make progress in the whole game using the scrap they find and collect in all game modes. All the game modes also give different amount of scraps for every enemy and zombie kill. Using this scrap, they can buy items in the shop, such as new multiplayer levels, weapons, skins, and art (dioramas for the menus).

It is a simple system which we feel rewards every kind of player no matter what games mode they prefer to play the most.


The last aspect of singleplayer game mode is complete and implemented. In the shop, players can spend or bank their fuel canisters and scrap they have earned so far.

Fuel canisters can only be banked at a shop level, and players will be given 100 scrap for every canister they bank. This scrap will go towards the player’s game scrap which they can spend in the main game shop.

Scrap can be spent in the singleplayer shop on either new weapons or also be banked to be used in the main game shop.

All the shop levels have no enemies or zombies, but they are guarded by a bunch of loyal shopkeepers. As long as the player does not shoot any of them, he will not have any trouble in this level.

When players complete a singleplayer run, all the scrap they have left over will be banked automatically and all fuel canisters will be given 2.5x times the scrap amount they would get by just banking it in a shop level.

But if a player dies before they complete a singleplayer mode, they will lose all the scrap and fuel canisters they do not have banked. This is an interesting risk/reward system for the player, as they can play it safe and bank their items mid-game but lose the chance of getting the completion bonus. They can also risk it by not banking and going to the shop level, giving them a chance to collect more fuel canisters and scrap on another level and getting the potential bonus for more scrap.


All the challenges are now live on the latest build for early testers to play. The last five challenges took longer as we used the feedback from the first five challenges and applied them here.

The challenges are another set of all five challenge types (assault, wave defense, elimination, stealth, and protect), ensuring a good mix for all players to enjoy.

Most of the game development is complete with TACTICAL BANDITS, with only training game mode to be implemented and unlocked in the game. After training game mode, we will be focusing on creating the achievements, and the collectibles that players can purchase and see in the game.

The collectibles will include the story dioramas that players unlock from completing singleplayer game mode, and weapon stats which are unlocked via the singleplayer shop. The weapon stats will show the weapon in details and its stats on how good it is.

We will also start porting the game next month, making sure it runs at a steady 60fps on console platforms without any issues. The game is still on track to be released in the first half of next year, which is exactly what we are aiming for.

There is also a secret game mode in development for TACTICAL BANDITS that we have been designing for the past few months that may, or may not, be in the final game. We haven’t mentioned this game mode before as we are not sure how well it will work, so we have been designing it on paper and will now start prototyping it in the game and see if it works.

If it does work, expect to hear more about it next year with other exciting news.

I hate it when updates take me this long...Anyway, sorry to force everyone to "sit" with the pretas in the state they've been in, they're depowered somewhat now. Also some stuff has been added to try and give "ranged combat" more of a build. And some other things - more items, reworks. There's a good deal of content remaining to add, but it's definitely approaching the end game before 1.0 release. A lot of the work is also going to be reiterative, going through all the items / classes etc and making them more interesting, settling on an identity for things

To all players new and old, you do me continuous honor!

(please let me know about bugs and typos)

- enemies -
• powered up regular enemies
  
• reduced the # of random attributes that pretas get scaling for, and weighted it towards armor / dodge (less chance of super speed)
  
• ranged pretas no longer have guaranteed (extra) Hit scaling
  
• pretas grant *3 more glory
  
  
  - classes / prestige -
  
  
• Added Peltast starting class, applies "Mark" to visible enemies on step, Mark % increases physical damage taken, amount applied = attack range
  
• made Tamasa require enemies to live
  
• Added Hazar, prestige Fire + Poison, spreads Acid terrain, on attack applies corrosion, multiplies corrosion stacks, and deals poison and fire damage to all enemies on acid terrain
  
• Added Starjumper, prestige req 20 points in teleport powers, causes step to teleport you to closest enemy, stasis no longer prevents teleport, deal astral damage in a 3 tile range on teleport = DEX * WIL
  
• Added Strijela, prestige req 20 points in Aim, causes all ranged weapons to gain AOE when equipped, deals pierce damage in a path to the furthest enemy on attack
  
• Added Windblade, prestige req 350+ damage Slash weapon, like a "blademaster" type thing
  
  
  - other tweaks / fixes / additions-
  
  
• more poems
  
• DEX now adds 20 dodge and 2 speed
  
• AIM now applies 1 * level Mark on Hit
  
• fixed unstable thirst bug
  
• WIL no longer removes corrosion while wearing Acid Necklace
  
• Acid Necklace now also applies Corrosion to self when you apply it to another unit
  
• Reworked the 'void' chest / chausses to be Stasis related, like the helm, renamed "Null Chest" "Null Chausses" "Null Helm" --- there are several other existing items that need to brought up slightly like this to a more extravagant, flavorful level
  
• Added Numbing Sarabara for the Death to Ice conversion ability
  
• Added Kairos Sash, performs all "game turn" effects when you stand still
  
• Added Dragon Blade (void item), applies Inflame on attack and deals Hit-scaling fire damage in a large area
  
• Lapis Glaive reworked to apply Charge & Meditate
  
• Cosmic Flail effect range now equal to player attack range
  
• Many typos fixed, even as more have no doubt been created

Working on the FREE Christmas present!

Different from Ep. 1, it's Winter DLC is going to have:

• animated backgrounds
  
• blinking characters
  
• better quality textures

Release date: soon.