In this video, we'll be taking a closer look at the move from 2D into 3D, what obstacles and possibilities arise when adding a whole new dimension to a game? Take a look to find out 👇



📖 Game Director Gareth Wright who speaks about the idea and concept of Prison Architect 2.

🧩 Designer Natalie Wicks who will tell you more about the possibilities adding a new dimension has given the Prison Architect concept but also some of the challenges they experienced throughout the development.

🎨 Lead Artist Tim McCluskey who will tell you how the art team worked with the 2D art style and how they worked to retain the look of Prison Architect 1 whilst switching to 3D and also exploring the possibilities a new dimension offers.

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
We have a tutorial made by CharliePryor coming up this Tuesday the 23rd - Tune in to learn about Building Tools, tap the bell on YouTube to get notified.


✅Join our communities
• Website
• Forum
• YouTube
• TikTok
• X (formerly Twitter)
• Facebook
• Reddit (fan-run)
• Discord (fan-run)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1257610/

We are delighted to reveal that Tin Hearts has won the Games Village Game Pro Award 2023 for Social Value. This has been awarded to the character of Albert Butterworth as they wanted to pay tribute to the Toy inventor Albert for sharing with us, through his inventions and his tin soldiers, the extraordinary emotional power of an ordinary story. Something that modernity seems to forget, every day more and more.

Game Pro got to sit down with Rogue Sun Kostas Zarifis (as seen in the photo below). Here are some highlights of the meeting.


Game Pro: What was your main goal in creating Tin Hearts? It’s the first game you developed since Rogue Sun was born in 2016.

Kostas Zarifis: Our primary aim with Tin Hearts was to blend storytelling with puzzle-solving in a novel way. We’ve been driven to create games that push boundaries. Tin Hearts, was conceived from an initial VR idea involving puzzle-solving with cute small creatures in a relatively constrained space around the player. As the project and the target platforms evolved so did the concept and our love for deep, meaningful, and memorable storytelling started shaping things. I am very proud of how the end result manages to pull these two pillars of puzzle-solving and storytelling together in a very player-led and immersive way, which is where our interactive medium really shines I feel.


Game Pro: Albert J. Butterworth, protagonist of Tin Hearts, looks like a real person. Is he a mix of the team’s personal experiences?

Kostas Zarifis: Albert is indeed a mix of different experiences and imaginings, as are all the characters in the game including Helen, his wife, his daughter Rose, and other supporting characters like his sister Lydia and Lucien, the Guild of Toymakers liaison. We wanted characters players could believe and relate to – human, flawed, with drives and ambitions, but constrained by the realities of life and always navigating that balance. There are definitely various personal experiences in there, which have been infused with a touch of Victorian whimsy and magic, to give the game that Dickensian feel which results in a very unique package.

You can read the full article in its native Italian here: https://www.gamesvillage.it/7183770/game-pro-awards-2023-intervista-esclusiva-a-kostas-zarifis-per-tin-hearts/

Find out more about Games Village and Game Pro Here: https://www.gamesvillage.it/

Play Tin Hearts now!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1831700/Tin_Hearts/

First off, a huge welcome to our new players; our recent influx of players who've joined us on console and PC. It’s completely normal to be closing down your machine for the day after an abundance of deaths, compounded by disorientation and dubious reactions from veteran players.

The first round of public testing for our new Warfare and Offensive map, Mortain, starts now! Taking place over the weekend, running until Monday 22 January, 11 am GMT.

We loved seeing your excitement for Mortain’s reveal in our previous Dev Brief [read here], so we’re opening the doors early for feedback. Mortain is still a few months out, so we want to collate your impressions as soon as we can, to ensure it’s polished and balanced for release.

This testing period aims to gather your insight on the overall level design – we want your thoughts on capture points, playstyles, vehicle spawns, artillery positioning, pre-placed garrisons, flow, art, and any issues you may encounter.

Please scroll to the bottom of the page for links to the forms to fill out feedback. Thank you to all of you who are taking the time to participate and help improve Mortain.


In 1944, German forces attempted a counter-offensive against the allied Operation Cobra breakout from Normandy. This counter-offensive was known as Operation Lüttich. This was planned to cut off the US spearheads, establish a German defensive perimeter in Normandy, reach the coastal port of Avranches, and seal the Operation Cobra breakout.

On the 7th of August, German forces assaulted the US-held Mortain and was successful in capturing key locations. This assault led to bitter and fierce fighting at Hill 314, with the US forces being surrounded becoming one of the recognisable heroic stands of WW2.

As this is the first full map release after taking the project on from Black Matter, we wanted it to have as much detail as possible from a sound perspective.

Mortain uses a newly developed audio system, where random ambient sounds are switched out depending on your location on the map. In short, these ambient sounds follow you wherever you go and are playing all the time, but will dynamically change when you enter a new location. This covers urban areas, forests, destroyed buildings and so on. A similar system was already in place for explosions, so it seemed like a nice progression to move this into the ambience system to support the lush areas created by the environment art and level design teams.

In the last major update, we added functionality for weapons to sound different when fired in enclosed spaces like churches, bunkers, houses and so on. We wanted this to continue in Mortain; so all interior spaces have this treatment, from pillbox-type bunkers in the forests, right up to large houses in the destroyed town. We loved seeing the positive reactions when players first heard these changes last time and would like this to continue when playing in Mortain. We really hope you enjoy the sound of this new map as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Richard Blackley - Audio Director, Expression Games

Mortain introduces extra detail not previously achievable on Hell Let Loose maps. It's important to us as a team that we strive to improve the visual quality with every new map and so I'd like to mention a couple of changes we’ve made when creating Mortain that gives examples of where we’ve improved previous workflows.

The foliage has been reworked from the ground up. On previous maps, this was procedurally spawned using the landscape materials, which added a huge performance impact when blending several surfaces. Every tree, bush and blade of grass has been hand-painted to allow us more flexible control over foliage density, variety and different species. New meshes, shaders and textures have been implemented across foliage types, which visually are a marked improvement on previous iterations.

Given the density of this new foliage, there may be cause for concern surrounding performance, however in our testing so far, foliage has shown to be very performant. Although PCs in general tend to have more processing power than consoles, console players should expect the same foliage quality as PC players without impact.

Almost every building in Mortain has been reworked with new textures, geometry and shaders, which in extreme cases have up to 100x fewer draw calls than buildings in other maps. These buildings all utilize detail normal maps, which is a technique used to enhance visual fidelity up close, while not making a significant impact on performance. This technique has also been applied to props where possible to offer similar benefits.

Something we’re proud of, is providing players with an accurate depiction of the region, so the terrain uses real-world DEM/height data and has been compared with maps from the period to ensure we stay true to the shape of the battlefield at the time, accommodating for gameplay where needed.

Being the first map without Black Matter input, there has been a tremendous effort from the team to understand how Hell Let Loose maps are built and thanks to this we believe that Mortain offers a unique experience that no other map does, but also sticks to the principles that make them so immersive and believable.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback, listening to any concerns and implementing changes where necessary so that when Mortain releases officially, we can offer an enjoyable experience that players are excited to play.

Ryan Thomason-Jones - Senior Environment Artist, Expression Games

Mortain is officially the first map the team at Expression Games has researched, designed, and built from the ground up with new workflows and processes.

It was important for the team to choose a map that offered something different compared to other maps we currently have in Hell Let Loose.

Mortain was not only of historical importance during WW2 and Operation Lüttich, but also the location itself and how it could support the Hell Let Loose game modes. Mortain provides our community with a new, but still ‘tied to its roots’ experience and stood out to us as a location with lots of potential.

Mortain has a lot of history both before and during WW2, with iconic and memorable locations, including the battle-scarred town of Mortain featuring the US headquarters - Hotel De La Poste, Hill 314 that was held by US forces against German attacks and the stunning Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel that sits on top a cliff south of Hill 314.

It was very important for the team to include all of these locations and do it the right way, with extensive research and careful consideration for historical accuracy, but with a little room for creative license that still felt grounded and believable.

Mortain offers an abundance of variation, one of which is the elevation of the map, including cliffs, steep slopes and hills. The map also features lots of dense forests, fields, rocky formations and farms, and it is this level of variation that will challenge squad teamwork and tactics in different ways and emphasise the importance of different roles, which we feel is critical to creating memorable Hell Let Loose battles.

I’m incredibly proud of the team and the amount of love and care they have put into the map. We hope our community enjoys playing the map as much as we’ve loved making it.

Chris Robinson - Lead Level Designer, Expression Games

For Hill 314, we wanted to take a location that is both historically accurate and exciting for a Hell Let Loose experience never seen before in a central Europe map. The high elevation provides excellent vantage points and supports rugged challenging terrain for vehicles to have to navigate. The defensive trenches provide opportunities for gritty infantry-focused crossfire battles to take place.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Hill 314

To capture the majesty of the Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel, we decided to make that the heart of the Capture Point theme. Taking reference of the existing countryside at the time, this enabled us to cater a dense woodland experience to break up those long sight lines. The natural terrain encourages players to build their defensive network to maintain maximum control of the point.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Petite Chappelle Saint Michel

Situated as the last bastion of the U.S. defence of Mortain, the Hotel De La Poste tells the story of how battered the town was with artillery fire during Operation Lüttich through a Capture Point blend of narrow, partially destroyed streets, fragmented urban warfare and close quarters combat.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Hotel De La Poste

With this Capture Point, we wanted to create a fictitious yet believable outpost that the German forces could have used to scout the Allied forces at Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel and Hill 314. This camp features two netted trench systems, tiered in height to allow for infantry crossfire between them. Both trenches surround a lookout tower, which is the prime position for Officers to mark approaching enemies through their binoculars and coordinate the team's defensive strategy.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - German Recon Camp

The Destroyed German Convoy captures the theme of a true story based on fleeing German forces that was stopped in their tracks by artillery fire. We knew these events happened but were unsure of where exactly. Because we found the story compelling, we decided to use this event as a Capture Point theme and provide routes along a main road that vehicles would have to either carefully navigate, or employ their strategic battle plan to circumnavigate the area.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Destroyed German Convoy

Our approach to map creation follows a series of stages from our internal workflows and processes, with feedback and reviews to follow each stage. With Mortain we focused on the layout and theme of the Capture Point first, going through several rounds of iteration and feedback to make sure that they flowed nicely, and were believable, before expanding this process out into what we call “Transitional Areas”. A “Transitional Area” is defined as a space in between that connects each of the Capture Points, to allow the player a seamless transition from area to area.

With a close collaboration with the art team, we have been able to create a believable map from the ground up that not only looks amazing but also functions well for a Hell Let Loose experience. The art team was given the flexibility and freedom to add their artistic flair on top of the existing blockouts, and really bring the story of the map to life.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Mortain - Tactical Map - Work in Progress


Mortain - Transitional Area - Early Blockout



Mortain - German HQ - Early Blockout



Mortain - German HQ - Early Blockout


Mortain - Le Hermitage Farm - Early Blockout



Mortain - Destroyed German Convoy - Early Blockout



Mortain - Town - Early Blockout



Mortain - Hotel De La Poste - Early Blockout

With regard to playtesting, it was important to not only enjoy the fruits of the teams' labour but to highlight and catch any fundamental issues with how the map flows and functions. Dedicated Commanders, Officers, and Tank Commanders, who had a lot of experience with Hell Let Loose, were assigned beforehand, to ensure that no matter what stage of development the map was at, the match would be played as close to authentic as possible. Following the conclusion of the match, a debriefing session was held, to discuss any issues/feedback from the team, these were always captured and collated so that we could take appropriate action to strengthen the map.

We were also not afraid to contrive our playtests to cater to specific scenarios, for example: If we were unsure of how a particular Capture Point worked from a Level Design point of view, we would spend time focusing only on the single Capture Point and address any feedback afterwards.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

• [WIP] The client will crash when choosing to leave the server.
  
• Floating Artillery - Offensive only - Functionality OK
  
• [Mortain] The user is unable to place down outposts or garrisons when standing on rubble piles or sidewalks

It’s essentially finished. The content is all planned and dates have been set. We just need to do our due diligence and ensure that all disciplines agree on timelines, to ensure we can deliver promised content on time. Then we can focus on turning an exhaustive spreadsheet into an appealing asset. We’re hoping to share this in February! We’ll keep you posted.


These PTE sessions are a way for you as a community to feedback on Hell Let Loose work in progress, which means we can look to implement your feedback before a patch or update is released. Although we can currently only hold public testing sessions on Steam, we encourage everyone to take part to be able to share feedback.


You are welcome to both stream and record PTE footage, but as these sessions are showing unfinished work, it’s always good to let your individual communities know that the footage is from a PTE session, where you might encounter unfinished items, bugs and other issues.


Once you have completed a game and are ready to provide feedback, please use the forms below!


Check your Steam Library for the Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) application, or re-download it from the Steam store, you’ll want to boot this version up to take part in the PTE!

Once you’re in and have selected a server, you’ll be able to test out the new game mode!

Submit Feedback: https://forms.office.com/e/ZcW9ccDYbi

Share Bug Reports: https://forms.office.com/e/UWa8kRYhMQ

Please note:

Because PTEs are run on development servers that have logging activated, you will experience a slight decrease in performance. You will also not earn any XP and your progress will not be carried over to the live game.

Warriors!

We're glad to announce a special deal: this weekend receive a 50% bonus with every Miracle Coins purchase!

This bonus will only be active for purchases more than 1000 Miracle coins.

Discount starts: 19.01.2024 15:00 CET
Discount ends: 22.01.2024 10:00 CET

Have a nice weekend and good luck!
The Warspear Online Team

Dear Princesses & Princes,

We are so excited about the next update – A Wedding in a Chateau which will be released on 01 February.

Let’s get into the details of the new contents!


Finally, the palace is here! We spent so much time making the palace feel unique and added a ton of new features connected to it.

In the palace, you can produce feast supplies or build ministries to gain different passive bonuses for your kingdom. This is also where you will build the wedding hall, which brings me to our next feature.


We also get nobles who can work in the palace to provide different bonuses but can only be “recruited” through different challenges and events.



The third dates are now available and each one comes with a unique structure with its own feature connected to the date's objective.
Once you completed your third date you can finally get married, but first you must of course throw a feast! Feasts can be thrown with any ruler using your feast supplies and lasts for a certain number of days, during these days you get a VERY strong bonus for your kingdom.

Once you are married you get your partners “True love’s gift” passive, which is unique to each ruler. Also, don't miss out on the new book sequence you'll be able to see once you're finally married!


Grapes and grape juice are the new resources for this patch and are used to produce feast supplies!
The Arena of Trials is a new military building that provides a fun new challenge for your military, defeat all the waves of enemies and receive a special reward!

We’ve also finally added river bridges so your fablings don't have to get their feet wet!


We could go on for ages about all the new features and systems connected to the palace, nobles, ministries, third dates, marriage, feasts and more, but lets not spoil all the fun! It's by far the most content we've delivered in a patch yet and we are so excited for you to try it!

---

We hope you enjoyed the Dev Diary!

For suggestions, feedback & bug reports, feel free to share with us in the Official Grenaa Games Discord!

See you soon!

With love,

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1651560/Fabledom/

🧩Everyone around is hiding something, the puzzle doesn’t fit, and it’s completely unclear what the evidence says. A thorough search does not yield any results, and it’s time to despair. But Betty isn't ready to give up, and that means neither are you!

Right now through the end of Monday, Merge Items and Collectibles have a 20% higher drop rate. 📎

The Puppeteer's Mansion is full of traps and the residents know this firsthand. BUT... Traps are far from the only danger lurking for puppets. And fighting these threats will require more than just vigilance. An adsorbent and a compress will help cure a poisoned puppet, and stocking up on tasers or protective amulets, you can fight back against more serious dangers.
That's why The Puppeteer announces a new sale - 50% discount on weapons against bosses! 🔫

In addition, for the coming weekend, The Puppeteer has reduced the cost of entry to the rooms by half! ❤

Translation to russian added !

Have fun !

Oh... Someone told me there are cats in the renders hidden somewhere...

Hello everyone,

and a belated happy new year! We hope that all of you had a wonderful start to 2024 and are looking forward to everything that is ahead of us, as it currently promises to become a truly exciting year – especially for Railroads Online.

Today, we want to look at what’s next for the game, which updates you can already get very excited about, introduce changes to our update strategy, and outline a few more changes in our priorities.

Let’s dive right in!




We took our time to establish some wonderful winter festivities for the current season – but in the end, we think it was worth the wait!

In February, we will release The Winter Update, introducing a brand-new map that is based on areas in the state of Alaska with both huge snowy mountains and calming grass plains. While the mountains will create a large and magnificent natural border, the rest of the map will feature a bunch of other unique pieces like lakes, waterfalls and rivers. As if the beauty of the snow weren’t enough already, you can also discover polar lights once the sun sets and the world pitches into darkness, creating an unprecedented backdrop for your next ride.



That’s not all, however: A new industry chain awaits you, and it’s just as shiny as this entire update! The Gold Industry Chain will require the attention of all railroaders. No need to rush things, you’ll have plenty of time to get familiar with the material! Enjoy the gold rush but be careful not to catch the gold fever.

BTW, we’re also shipping cargo in a new set of rolling stock and a brand-new locomotive with The Winter Update which can handle the snowy tracks through the mountains with ease. More details will follow very soon!




If you’re following our official Trello Roadmap (which you totally should!), you might have seen a few of
our upcoming updates listed already. These updates will all ship within the next few months and focus on numerous areas where we’ve received a lot of feedback, indicating the need for both general but also quality-of-life improvements. We want to take the opportunity to quickly summarize them in more detail:

• The Map Update: In very close cooperation with our co-development team at Black Sheep Studio, we will overhaul the entire way the 2D map works. It will feature an overhauled HUD, greatly improved readability and visibility, comfort tools like a zoom option, and easy-to-understand icons. In addition, there will finally be a mini map so that you won’t have to open the full map every time you just want to know where you currently are, making life as a rail worker so much easier!
  
• The UI Update: This update will be released alongside The Map Update as they just fit so well together. The UI artists at Black Sheep are overhauling the entire UI, from the main menu to singular buttons, creating a completely new experience. The UI will appear less technical and more stylized, therefore improving readability and visibility. We’ll share the first footage as soon as possible!
  
• The Spline Update: The spline system is an ongoing topic that requires additional improvements. We plan to upgrade it, making it easier to create splines and align facilities by enabling them to conveniently snap to splines and rails. Plus, we’ll make the spline system much more understandable: Their placing behavior will be simplified and explained in-game in a more coherent fashion, while also displaying easy-to-grasp error messages and feedback should something not work out. We’re also making re-railing much easier, yay!

We'll reveal even more details about each update the closer we get to them!




One of the most frequently mentioned areas in need of improvement is the entire online component, and we’ve heard your feedback about that. Our team and the great people at Black Sheep have put a lot of work into improving it greatly and minimizing pain points as much as possible.

Over the course of all the next updates, starting with The Winter Update, we’ll therefore gradually introduce several multiplayer improvements. Our internal tests are very promising, indicating the elimination of issues like popcorning for example. We also want to generally reduce desync issues and minimize stuttering, but as mentioned, it’s a process that will take some time.




From new props and buildings, over to new quality-of-life features like an undo button and a greater experience for new players, a lot of other things are planned for this year. We also plan to introduce another new map, new rolling stock, overhauled loading screens, and much, much more. Something that will follow later this year will be the introduction of a Player Rights Management System, allowing for server hosts to have greater control about what other players can do and what they can’t.

That’s not all, however. Our team is working on so many other things in parallel which we can’t reveal quite yet (too early atm!), but the sooner we get there, the more we can finally spill.




One last thing: We took your feedback to heart and have decided to change our strategy for releasing updates.

Right now, it appears to be fairly random if we put an update into the beta branch prior to its release or not. Despite extensive testing efforts prior to each and every release, releasing an update to a huge playerbase with different hardware and software environments always comes with risks. Issues could pop up which we couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

Based on all your feedback, we'll make the beta branch now the first destination for every new update. Once an update is released, it will first be available on the public beta branch – and that will start with The Winter Update in February. Once we are sure that the beta build is stable, it will be moved to the default branch.

And that's it for today! Have a good time in the valley and never stop shaping the world of Railroads Online.

Your Railroads Online Team

🏆🏆🏆




Despite many difficulties and challenges - here we are and you are the ones we are very grateful for. Thanks to your support, reviews, information you provided, we've been able to make it to this very moment! ːsteamhappyː 🏆

• football stadium is yours to run! Good luck! ⚽💪🏻
  
• we have a completely new scale of activities! You'll find your way around the mechanics easily, but everything is just BIGGER
  
• many new types of rooms: VIP, Conference, Lectures, Restaurant
  
• many bug fixes!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/948880/Arena_Renovation/

Take on the role of a one-man renovation team tasked with restoring various sports facilities to their former glory. Many of them have been destroyed as a result of time or lack of care. Don't let them go into complete oblivion - roll up your sleeves and breathe new life into them!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31452/Arena_Renovation_and_House_Builder/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31450/Arena_Renovation_and_Farmers_Life/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34260/Pool_Cleaning_and_Arena_Renovation/