• No Signal bug fix (again)
  
• Collision bug fix

Requires 2 foot trackers & 1 waist tracker to use

Put your VRM files into [\Dance Dash_Data\StreamingAssets\Avatars]

Characters may appear overly bright due to bloom
Avatars with complex materials may be rendered incorrectly
Some Avatars may have scale and binding issues



You can use a webcam to track your feet while holding controllers in your hands
This would help with headsets that having difficulties tracking controllers on feet
Switch to [Betas > feature_preview] from the game properties page to check out this new feature!

Camera Setup Guides

It's been over a year! Time to hit that button.
Season 11 will be archived on January 26, starting the new ranked season 12.

If you are new to the game, I highly recommend you to dip your toes into the ranked queue during the holidays and before the reset to get properly matched with other new players.

And with that experience you can join the New Player Challenge tournament on January 6: https://steamcommunity.com/games/553310/announcements/detail/3899618444935341601

We at Finch Bird team are wrapping up 2023, so it’s as good a time as any to reflect on what we achieved so far, what we’re doing right now, and what our plans are for the nearest future!


This year, we put out an exclusive live event demo that showcases what Freaked Fleapit will look like going forward — battle system, dating, quests, and even voice-over!


Concept arts of some of the enemies encountered in the demo

We’re incredibly thankful to everyone who gave us feedback throughout the year and proud to have players who even visited us multiple times during the events just to spend a bit more time with Freaked Fleapit!

Now, to a more pressing question: when do *you* guys get to play the demo? A quick answer is: early next year.

A more nuanced answer is: We made this current demo to see if our vertical slice even worked on players, and we realized that we can still tinker with some stuff and make the first public build of Fleapit the best it can be!

Of course, we know that some of you can’t wait to play it ‘as is’, so we’re probably going to make that build available earlier — we just need to localize and test it properly, so as many Guests of Fleapit as possible have a pleasant time.


(and yep, our Patreon subs will get an even earlier access, learn more about it here)


Some eagle-eyed players on expos have already noticed that we’re planning on making a cocktail mini-game in Freaked Fleapit, but what if we told you that we have even more of these in the works? We wanted to spice up the Dating and Dungeon Crawling parts of Freaked Fleapit, so you’ll also be able to have fun with some Demonic mini-games, such as Tower Defence, Bowling, and more!


Tower Defence gameplay screen (WIP)


Fasaria Bowling Cutscene

We have even more stuff in the works for both demo and full game, of course, but we’ll have to leave them outside of this devlog so as not to spoil the surprise! Perhaps, you’ll be able to find some hints, though… 🤫

Whether you play these mini-games by yourself or you take one of the Fleapit Ladies with you to gain their affection, we hope you’ll have fun!


We only showed you the initial version of Fleapit’s Lobby thus far, but we’re working on expanding the places in the shadows!

Will our beloved Freaked Fleapit turn into a whole Freaked Amusement Center by the end of the game? Honestly, we don’t know yet, but it’s fun to play around with the idea. Anyway, here’s a tiny snippet of what’s to come, hope you enjoy!





Just kidding! I found this in our folder while searching for concept arts I can show in the devlog and, why not. We’re open to crossovers though!!


There’s also a lot of internal stuff we’re working on that doesn’t have cute concept arts attached yet! We’re designing new attack patterns, perks, skills, and mechanics, designing and improving narrative bits and bobs, fine-tuning the rhythm dungeon crawling, and so on.

We’ll talk about all of this more in 2024, but for now, it’s just a reminder that all of this is *also* being worked on!


*Enters the devlog, drops a concept art of previously unseen character with no context*

And that’s a wrap!

Before we go, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who’s been following us throughout this time. It’s the best gift we could possibly ask for this holiday season, and we want you guys to know that you’ll always be our beloved Guests of the Fleapit!

We can’t wait to tell you about the many plans we have for the future that will make Freaked Fleapit even more ambitious and awesome in 2024, and we hope you’ll love what we’ve got in store as we open up the gates of the Fleapit to its first guests supersoon!

Happy Holidays, everyone, and here’s to an even Freakier New Year!

From Finch Bird with 💗

• Added a scene when captured by the drones in occupied Carceburg.
  
• Added a dominatrix spanking scene accessed via the job board.
  
• Added a new house to Carceburg for the new scene.
  
• Added a toggle in the Controls settings to enable/disable controller support for UI. This fixes the scrolling in the clothing store.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the Browser build to not work.
  
• Fixed holiday mission not completing if completed before the resistance camp sequence.

Hello,

The first patch for 0.7 has been updated! We will continue to do the optimization and new content in the next year.

1.Fixed the problem that resident’s favorability changes wrong when receiving gifts from players.
2.Fixed a problem that Kabedon on trees will get stuck in animation.
3.Fixed weather error in Underground World.
4.Fixed a situation that handheld props may not display their models.
5.Fixed a situation that language cannot be switched into Traditional Chinese.
6.Fixed the problem that items in the backpack will disappear after saving the game in Cookery Battle.
7.Removed cutscene of wedding in dream, and deleted EA complete sign in save files.
8.Optimized helpers’ behave in non-working day.
9.Optimized Lori’s hair color.
10.Fixed the problem that the number of helpers may show wrong in Prosperity Board.
11.Fixed the possible Bulletin Board disappearance.
12.Fixed the models overlaying inside the hospital.
13.Fixed the placement error of Simple Streetlamp.
14.Fixed the interaction of Sunflower Pots in hospital.
15.Fixed the problem that some missions cannot be submitted.
16.Fixed the problem that players cannot cut melons in Watermelon Festival.
17.Fixed the building replacement failure in the open space of town.
18.Optimized the error of helpers’ location in Guild Commission Work.
19.Optimized the abnormal light in cutscene during the night.
20.Optimized overexposure in Innerspace.
21.Fixed the problem that basic information will not be saved in Interpersonal interface.
22.Adjusted indoor illumination.
23.Adjusted environment effects in Underground World.
24.Adjusted performance of snow in Winter.
25.Adjusted performance of daytime in Spring and Summer.

If you like Song of The Prairie don’t forget to share it to your friends. See you next time!

Welcom to join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/nusw2hCKvJ

Thank you for your patience and support! Happy New Year!

This December was rich with events for our small team. We implemented a new playtest system, and after that, our testers sent us tons of feedback. When we finished analyzing it, we decided to make some changes to our new battle UI and the previolsy made tutorial. Oh, and our Steam page is finally online!


Our small dream has finally been fulfilled: Dead Weight is finally on Steam, surrounded by our beloved games. The game release might still be far, but this thought alone warms our gaming-loving hearts... You can warm them too by adding Dead Weight to your wishlist!



Wanna get some inside marketing info? Of course you do! In 6 days we got more than 600 wishlists. UTM links only tracked 1/3 of them.



Most of our wishlists came from Russia, thanks to our social media pages. The US got second place mainly because our first Reddit post ever got a lot of attention.




During our previous playtests, we learned that most of the players found our game too complicated. To solve this issue, we decided to change our battle UI and create a complete tutorial section. After it was all done we needed someone to test it.

Dead Weight game designer watching the livetesting.

That's why we decided to try live testing for the first time. A few people who were willing to participate and had never played Dead Weight before were selected. Later, we called them on Discord and asked them to play the new tutorial section on stream.

Every player had the exact same set of tasks, but they all found different ways to solve them. Some of them were unquestioningly following all the tips from the mysterious voice inside their heads. Others decided to go their own way.

We noticed four different types of players:

1. The player reads and follows all the tips we left them. For this type of player, completing the tutorial sections was pretty easy.
   
2. The player still reads the tips but misses a lot of important information. It leads to misunderstanding of some core game mechanincs. For this type of player, completing the tutorial section was difficult, but still doable.
   
3. The player decides not to read the tips and hopes to use their gaming experience to solve the tasks. Because of that, they struggle with completing the tasks and get negative experience with the game.
   
4. The player reads the tips but does not want to follow them. Instead, they want to stress-test the game. They do all they can to find bugs and exploits. Such a playthrough takes a lot of time, but it's so interesting to watch.

500 fuel units? Something isn't right here.

After the first couple of tests, we made some adjustments based on the testers' feedback. We made the tips shorter and highlighted key words to make them easier to understand, added some restrictions to traveling to stop players from getting lost, fixed a few bugs, and created save points.


The voice in your head can be pretty useful.

At first, we hoped that the players would finish the tutorial in 30-40 minutes. In reality, they only managed to complete roughly 40% of it in that time. That's why we decided to force an ending at 40% of the tutorial. Although there is still a way to bypass the ending and see the remaining 60%. Maybe someone will find a way to do it...



We wrote a lot about UI changes in our previous devlogs, but, sadly, they aren't (yet?) translated. The moment we received some feedback regarding these changes, we decided to make some changes to it.

During live tests, it became obvious how hard it was for the player to notice that the enemy was preparing an attack. To fix it, we replaced the old attack indicator with a new one. Some of you will definetly find it familiar...


Moments before disaster.

This is still a temporary solution. We are thinking about whether we should add a special attack preparation animation or not.


RIP

• made 172 build updates
  
• got 666 wishlists
  
• got 2 followers who wanted to make a donation
  
• got 19 000 impressions on Reddit
  
• planned 1 demo release on Q1 2024
  
• got 2 sick team members
  
• ate 78 tangerines
  
• spent 10+ hours on live testing
  
• drank 722 cups of tea
  
• organized 1 party
  
• got 21 700 impressions on Steam
  
• prepared 5 holiday animations for our social media pages

You will encounter save problems if you load saved games from the first 5 maps. Rather start a new game. The levels are vastly overhauled so are enough to warrant a fresh playthrough. This only applies to the first five maps.

Character updates
Stub characters have textures updated and improved model
Flyer enemies replaced with a new type of character. The sentry robot.

Map updates
The first set of map updates is live. The levels have received updates to everything from layout, design, enemy placement and item placement. Initially, the plan was to create more levels and introduce episodic content but over time I have ended up rather just improving existing levels. There are also more destructible objects in general.

• Refinery (Level 1) overhauled. Layout and design vastly improved.
  
• Forest (Level 2) overhauled. Layout and design vastly improved.
  
• Rocket Fuel (Level 3) overhauled. Layout and design vastly improved.
  
• Kosolov (Level 4) overhauled. Layout and design vastly improved.
  
• Prison(Level 8) minor updates and visual improvements
  
• Collider (Level10) minor improvements and end elevator replaced with jump pad.
  
• Hangar (Level 11) grapple nodes removed.
  
• Central (Level 12) grapple nodes removed entirely. No more annoying environment challenges.

Gameplay updates
The scale of the game has been adjusted slightly to make it feel more impactful and less “floaty”. Enemy size has been adjusted due to them feeling smaller than the environment. Also player speed has been decreased (crazy for a retro-FPS game right?!?!). There is some air resistance applied to the player when jumping , player feedback was that it was hard to control direction when in the air.

• Air control decreased by 25% (from 1.0 to 0.75) This will allow for a more natural air resistance instead of ‘slippery’ feel when jumping
  
• Player run speed decreased from 1500 to 1300
  
• Weapon sway decreased by 75%
  
• Dying screen has been improved. Instead of an instant kill screen which players might accidentally press restart it has a slight delay.
  
• Weapon bobbing animation improved
  
• Enemy character size revised. Some enemies are 10-20% bigger to balance the overall scale of the game
  
• Spawning enemies now have a sound effect
  
• Size of breakable objects revised.
  
• Max rockets increased to 45

Minor updates

• Many particle effects have been revised such as destruction particle effects and enemy spawning FX
  
• More sound fx added to breaking objects
  
• More breakable objects added
  
• Player weapons are affected by SFX volume settings now
  
• Developer menu setting shown in game options. This will allow a dev menu accessible from the root menu.

Price updates
Price has increased from $6.99 to $7.99 (+15%)

Before we know it, all images for each stage that will be included in the Bonus Image have been completed.
It will not be released in the trial version, but will be released once the conditions (item acquisition) are met in the full version!

Reference link : https://twitter.com/ghktnqnsl/status/1739908557804650507

It's been a while since we last connected, but rest assured, our silence has been filled with the bustling excitement of the holiday season and intense dedication to making Shadow of the Road the best game it can be.

We're thrilled to see your ongoing interest and are eager to share the fruits of our recent labors!


Let's dive into what we've been working on lately - the Volcano. This fiery environment offers a stark contrast to the frosty landscapes we showcased previously. As you might expect, it's a level teeming with danger, yet irresistibly captivating. Every step must be calculated, and only the strongest samurai will survive there!




But fear not, Shadow of the Road isn't all peril and flames. We've also crafted spaces of serenity and peace. Here, time slows down, offering moments for contemplation, haiku writing, and training. Take a glimpse at one such relaxing spot in the footage below.



What do you think? Do you prefer a darker ambiance or a more serene setting? Don't worry, we've got both covered in the game!


Focusing next on our interaction system, we've been fine-tuning this aspect extensively to enhance the game's realism and depth. Each interaction with the environment is designed to enrich your immersion. Check out how we've been experimenting with door interactions!

Let us know what you think and which option works best!




As a reminder, we've been active on TikTok, bringing you exclusive content from Shadow of the Road. Our posts range from serious to comical - which, surprisingly, fits perfectly with the game's vibe. We invite you to visit us there - you might find yourself lingering longer than expected! ;)

Join us!


We want to express our gratitude for your support, feedback, and contributions to the game's development direction. To further involve you in the production process, we encourage you to join our Discord channel.

Your responses to our questions can significantly influence Shadow of the Road's development. Come and be a part of our journey!



Warm regards
Another Angle Games

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1173980/Shadow_of_the_Road/