Hi everyone!

Our next free content update is now live and brings balancing changes, some visual improvements, quality of life features, two new clans to unlock, new daily trial modifiers and a new difficulty level!

The Mastery system has been changed to grant more points (from 3 to a total of 6 now). The design goal is to make the choice less restrictive, the power curve steeper and generally allow you to have more tools at your disposal to tackle challenging maps. You will be able to try more versatile builds depending on the needs.

Support production buildings (all except Shipbuilder) can now also be built on any biome type (except Glacier). With this change, we want to allow you to create more interesting and fun synergies by connecting production lines which the biome type hard requirement was preventing in most cases.

We also swapped the default and quality bonus for Hallowed Grounds (and halved their build times) so the Gothi/Hallowed buildings are much less dependant on RNG and become more accessible.

We hope you like the changes and wish you happy holidays!

Mathias, Mario & Michael

P.S.: Some of the changes we made unfortunately made the save games incompatible; once you update and play the new version, any previously saved sagas, expeditions or daily trials will be reset.


Added

• The Wise clan: Starts with an extra mastery point and completes upgrades twice as fast
  
• The Curious clan: Starts with a curiosity close to home and gets 10 maximum heart for each discovered curiosity
  
• New Daily Trial: Start with 6 mastery points
  
• New Daily Trial: Everything is completed instantly
  
• A new difficulty level where you have to scale production to 70 while fighting a more aggressive winter
  
• Inactive buildings are now highlighted on the map

Changed

• You now get 2 and 3 mastery points on the second and third upgrade respectively (for a total of six points!)
  
• Revamped the home and mastery menus for more clarity and better usability
  
• Kiln, Weaver, Carpenter and Tanner can now build on any terrain except Glacier
  
• Halved the build time for Gothi and the Hallowed Grounds
  
• The Hallowed Grounds now grant the Gothi multiplier as the default bonus, and the bonus production for the Gothi if built on quality
  
• The Winter's Toll screen now only ever shows either the Continue button or the Vegvísir button (if you still have one and would otherwise lose the settlement)
  
• Events which set buildings on fire now say which building and center the camera on it

Fixed

• Fixed a bug where building Houses next to the Gothi would mess up its production

The Wheel is a strange region of space that appears at least partially artificial. Who built it or why is a mystery. What is not a mystery is how difficult it is to travel in the region. Strange energies permeate it while gravitic anomalies can make parts of it unpredictable. While adventurous merchants plied the region many avoided it due to the risks involved. Analysis showed that jump lane construction was impossible. Until now, that is.

This scenario is primarily a rough terrain scenario about making profit in a difficult region of space. While analysis showed that there would be a great deal of money to be made once shipping was safe in the area the snag was that making shipping safe seemed impossible. However multiple companies immediately dog piled the region once construction was possible. While some parts of the area are immediately available and cheap to build in these tend to be filled rather quickly. Any jump lane company that wishes to profit off of the region will need to consider how to branch into more difficult areas quickly.

While initially this scenario was meant to have little competition it turned out to work far better with multiple AI companies getting in the way. The higher level medals are also meant to be quite the challenge to earn.

Will The Wheel break you?

Interestingly balancing this particular scenario ended up being kind of a pain. I probably played through various versions of the scenario at least 300 times before it finally converged into a state I was happy with.


While the changes are overall minor one thing I noticed is that the AI was too unlikely to make deliveries. This has now been fixed. While the frequency varies by company all of them are now more likely to make deliveries even if the profits are less than stellar.


Random map generation.

Scenario #9.

AI improvements.

More achievements.


Now that the primarily game loop has been explored it's time for a bit of a twist on the formula. Part of the intent for the next scenario is a fixed profit mechanic where the amount of profit gained for some destinations is flat. The number of lanes used will not affect how much money is gained. Perhaps this is a step toward fixing the snowball issues discussed below. If nothing else it will be an interesting puzzle to think about. The map will also be smaller than The Wheel.


One problem with this style of game ends up being balance. While I consider Railroad Tycoon 2 one of the best games ever made and do still play it to this day I also can't help but notice it has a bit of a problem in the numbers. In particular the early game can at times be extremely tight financially but once long lines are established profits become far more than one actually needs. Jump Lanes has run into similar balance issues; later on in some scenarios making long deliveries can lead to extreme profits. While this problem can be mitigated somewhat by making cash on hand or total profits goals of a scenario it can pose balance issues.

In particular the biggest balance issue comes from the fact that the early game has the longest effects when it comes to financials. One can snowball off of early game profits massively. However if they are too tight this becomes impossible and one can find themselves struggling to start a snowball at all. This can also be partially mitigated by having expensive things be available for purchase or requiring the saving of cash to build through some nasty terrain. In any case once a large profit snowball is established sometimes the game can turn into a simple waiting game instead of an active endeavor. Part of what I have been working on is ways to mitigate these issues. While nothing is completely solid yet this will affect how future scenarios will be designed. While "make a huge pile of money" scenario goals are fine they can get repetitive. One of the goals is to figure out a balance for a scenario where instead of making massive profits being the goal simple survival is the goal instead.

To that end one of the scenario end conditions that I am looking at is a negative balance condition. Currently scenarios allow you to have negative money and also issue an unlimited number of bonds. While most scenarios limit the number of bonds you are allowed to issue to get higher ratings this is not a game over condition. The requirement to maintain positive cash on hand and possibly a positive profit margin could be an interesting change to the current formula.

The biggest issue however is in generating random maps. This is turning out to be quite the puzzle to unlock given the balance issues. If too much easy profit is available early then the map will unlikely be fun to play on for long. Similarly if there is too little easy profit available early on then getting your snowball rolling will be impossible. While I have some ways in mind to deal with this I'm not quite happy with the current state of it. My experience playing Railroad Tycoon games has been that the earliest parts of a scenario are always about coming up with money. Unsurprisingly money can essentially solve every problem in an economic game if you have enough of it. However there is a band of numbers between which the game is actually fun. Too much profit and it becomes uninteresting. Too little and it becomes frustrating or impossible. How do you clamp the numbers between those? I have ideas. The next step is implementing them.

One of the goals with The Wheel was to create a longer scenario but this led to balance issues. The profit snowball blew up rather quickly once the player became sufficiently established. One of the current goals is to create very long scenarios that are meant to be played beyond 40 rounds. While The Wheel turned out to be good for about 23 it was initially intended to be a much longer scenario.

OK, strange rambling over.

Hello players,

the day we've been waiting for is coming: Tick, Tank, Boom will release on January 9th, 2024! We will play together on release evening on the official Discord, so be sure to join to be able to participate!

After release, the game will continue to receive updates - bug fixes obviously - but also new tanks and maps, so be sure to stay tuned!

See you in January,
Thomas

P.S.: Yes, the game was originally scheduled to release in December. I messed up, see here for more details.

Impundulu, The Great Spirit of the Sky awaits you on you quest set by Kalunga, the God of Death in Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. #ZauTheGame

Embark on your journey with special perks if you pre-order today including a 10% discount, Kalunga's Blessing visual effect variant, and more!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2316580/Tales_of_Kenzera_ZAU/

The second after release version has some fixes, but nothing really important, mostly cosmetic ones. Which makes me very happy that there was nothing serious to fix reported since the last version. I expected to spend more time on fixes to be honest, considering that's my first title released without Early Access. Therefore, I could spend more time on features. Two very important improvements, many of you requested. Map notes which you can put on the map as you desire (like to help you remember which location was explored) and an option (for now marked as an experimental feature) to auto cast party bonuses spells at midnight. Some interface improvements were done as well.

- [feature] Map notes. Now you can put colored markers on the map and leave small text notes to yourself (which will be shown in tooltips). Several colors to choose from, some with predefined meaning (like Completed, Too Hard, etc), you can disregard the intended meaning of those markers of course and use them as you desire.
- [feature] Experimental feature (need to be enabled via Options): Auto recast all active Party Bonus spells at midnight. I tossed it together quickly because it was requested heavily by players. It might have glitches (but nothing that would break the game, it's safe to use) but overall works. Later it will be replaced with a better solution.

- [interface] Map and minimap shows fountains effects in a tooltip (similar to names of locations).
- [interface] Map and minimap shows service type (inn, shop, etc) in a tooltip. Also other, less important things, are shown in a similar way.

- [fix] Levers do not show on minimap on some resolutions.
- [fix] Language tooltip can be shown when "How to Play" menu from the main menu screen is called.
- [fix] The last update introduced a bug where victory status was not properly cleared and was propagated to the new game.
- [fix] Clicking on close button also selected a monster in some circumstances.
- [fix] Quests scroller not working properly in some cases.



By the way, Legends of Amberland II just got VERIFIED status on Steam Deck.

Reminders
You can follow my Steam Developer Page if you wish to be notified each time a new game or expansions is being released.

Also, if you have a moment to leave a Steam review of the game it would be appreciated. It makes a big difference to an indie developer like me. Thanks!

- Some rework on doors. Audio plus better visual communication.

- Stimpack increase from 25 -> 50HP. Maybe a bit OP? 😅

- Weapons now casts contact shadows when firing. (Subtle detail)

- Also got the new RGB color mask shader in. No huge visual changes yet. But it provides a lot of quick flexibility without additional memory cost. Like changing colors in 'up 3 patterns' on objects if the UVs are correct.

- Small light source fix in one armory room that was casting volumetric light and revealing the location.

Greetings, Rune Hunters.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by the issue that occurred after the Dec. 7 (Thu) Season 3 update,
where login restrictions were imposed due to a hack detection system error.

The issue was partially resolved through the server maintenance that took place on Dec. 21 (Thu), and we are working to fully resolve the issue soon.

As an apology for the inconvenience you have experienced, we have prepared two rounds of compensation.
Please see below for more details on the first round of compensation.

※ We will send you the second round of compensation once the issue has been fully resolved.



1) Compensation:
- Gemstone of Merit x3,000
- Chaos Card (Santa's Cabin) x3
- [Exclusive] Charm Legendary Reversion Essence x1
- Brilliant Glory Coin x300
- Lacrima Trading Key x1

2) Compensation Receipt Period:
Dec. 21 (Thu) 2023, 18:25 - Jan. 10 (Wed) 2024, 23:59 (UTC+9)
※ The compensation will only be sent once per account, and the mail will be stored for 3 days (72 hours).
┗ You can only claim the compensation from Standard Mode.
※ Compensation can only be claimed by accounts that are created before the compensation mail is sent, and cannot be claimed by accounts that are created afterwards.



We apologize again for the inconvenience this issue has caused.
We will always strive to maintain the quality and reliability of our services.

Thank you.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997430/_/



What if one day a cute succubus appeared who ate three meals a day, plus desserts🍰, and hunted you for thick milk🥛?



In addition to the usual daily routine, there is the extraordinary task of feeding the succubus, Noel💼!



If you let it go hungry💢... It's likely to attack you mercilessly😈!?



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1988080/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1529990/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997420/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1925040/_/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997430/_/



What if one day a cute succubus appeared who ate three meals a day, plus desserts🍰, and hunted you for thick milk🥛?



In addition to the usual daily routine, there is the extraordinary task of feeding the succubus, Noel💼!



If you let it go hungry💢... It's likely to attack you mercilessly😈!?



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1988080/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1529990/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997420/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1925040/_/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997430/_/



What if one day a cute succubus appeared who ate three meals a day, plus desserts🍰, and hunted you for thick milk🥛?



In addition to the usual daily routine, there is the extraordinary task of feeding the succubus, Noel💼!



If you let it go hungry💢... It's likely to attack you mercilessly😈!?



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1988080/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1529990/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997420/_/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1925040/_/