Calling all Bounty hunters!

Join me at 9pm EST on Monday, February 5th on Steam for an hour of Bounty Hunting in Akumi Wars-- the playfully absurd turn-based RPG!

You can wishlist the game and add a reminder using the side panel to the right.





Grab the demo & build your own party of irresponsible misfit heroes and delve into an epic world story with the ultimate goal of... avoiding needing to work retail. Armed with guns, magic, and a distracting amount of leg, hop on your ship for adventure!



Feel free to ask my anything about my art, animation, or the game while we hang out during the stream.



Akumi Wars is officially releasing on Steam Tuesday, February 13th, 2024!

Onwards & Upwards!
- Miltonius

Update #338 unleashes a completely unique and powerful small-ship Hyperwarp Drive that includes +1 Officer Cabin, 2 new high-level ship components that will only appear after the Second Founding story Era starts, more connections and impacts for Rumors, and finally also tips the scales back a bit toward the enemy with an upgraded Legendary Bounty Hunter template and finally unleashing the 3.3.x components into the enemy ship builder pool.

If you like to see a game like Star Traders: Frontiers continued to get updates for free, 6 years after its release date, please hit up the review button and check out ...

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, just launched into Steam Early Access! Featuring in-depth character builds, turn-based stealth & combat, and an all-new story engine that selects storylines and weaves different members of your squad and contacts into them based on how you’ve played.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


We've upgraded the ship blueprint used by the adversary "Draiv Solregard", a Legendary Bounty Hunter. His ship's components now upgrade more effectively for combat and make him a more unique encounter compared to other normal Bounty Hunters. He is one of the oldest and most feared hunters in the void, so beware this near-ghost of an earlier era.


We've added a unique new component for small and medium sized ships, the "Traveler" class of Hyperwarp Drive. These upgrades are expensive for a Hyperwarp drive but include a critically useful +1 Officer Cabin and are available for the 2400, 3400, 5000 Mass hulls.

With the addition of the Traveler drive and the use of Annex components, many ship builds can completely eliminate dedicated officer cabins completely at 3400 mass and below. Our testing showed that these opened up new options for early game ship builds and so we've made them available immediately at the start of the game.

We are also releasing several new, late game ship components as the story Era's advance. First, providing state of the art targeting data for ship weapons is the Interlocking Sensor Matrix 7. Additionally we've added Ferrochromium Plating II to increase ship survivability in extreme survey and patrol conditions.

Both of these powerful new components are sold in starports only after Second Founding Era starts.


The current barrage of updates, called the v3.3.x series, has included a ton of new ship components, component rebalances and weapon additions. We've started the process of finalizing v3.3.x and have begun testing and cycling these new components into the ship building AI. This means in late games you may start to see some of the new components and new weapons used by hostile AI. As always, the game remains fully symmetrical so you won't see the enemy using any components that cannot purchase.

In preparation for the next onslaught on Star Traders: Frontiers updates, v3.4.x, we've deployed another raft of Black Market and Rumor integrations. Pirate Fleet Rumors increase chance of Crew Combat results in Black Market, rendering this rumor a Risk and Reward booster for the Black Market.

With the zone in chaos, the Xeno Fleet Rumor will now increase chance of access in Black Market, making it easier to trade in dangerous places. And finally, the recruit-madness of the Mercenary Rumor, and all the off-world information and war stories it brings to the zone, increases the value of Intel cards in Black Market by 5x.

- Upgraded "Draiv Solregard", Legendary Bounty Hunter
- New "Traveler" class of Hyperwarp Drive Component, includes +1 Officer Cabin (2400, 3400, 5000 Mass)
- New Component: Interlocking Sensor Matrix 7, Ferrochromium Plating II available after Second Founding Era
- Added components from the v3.3.x updates to the AI ship designer
- Pirate Fleet Rumors increase chance of Crew Combat in Black Market
- Xeno Fleet Rumors increase chance of access in Black Market
- Mercenary Rumor increases the value of Intel cards in Black Market

Greetings folks! Welcome to the fourth and last pre-release dev diary of Carnaval Simulator. This dev diary is a bit late due to the game blowing up last week. It's a very exciting and stressing time. Right now we are very busy fixing all bugs and tweaking the last things. We are potentially adding more props & finishing touches here and there. Preparing for the release on friday around 11:11. The full game will cost 10,99€/10,99$ including free updates.

Anyway, now that's out of the way, we will be focusing on the contents of this dev diary. We are gonna reveal new details on multiple carts, polyester, lights, light patterns, synced lights, mix lights & light shows in this one.

An obvious addition to the game is the ability to add an extra cart for more building space. Of course, when you boot up the game for the first time you cannot purchase an additional cart yet. First you will have to play around a bit and level up in order to unlock the ability to add an extra cart. Pulling the float takes quite some weight and resources so usually this is not worth it unless you have maxed out the first cart already. Adding an extra cart will provide you with some additional points, although the resources it takes is mostly greater than it is worth unless the aforementioned scenario is taking place.

When adding a new cart it will appear somewhere around the construction site. The weight limit is universal however the balance mechanic is separate for each cart. It will update the UI once you start building or altering a specific cart.

Moreover, you know what's even better than 2 carts? 3 carts. So making the longest parade float is possible in Carnaval Simulator. However the third cart is unlocked when you are a very high level. It's basically a very late game upgrade. I may wanna make this an unlockable once you completed all campaigns or a certain scenario level but that's still up to change.

Lastly, it's also possible to add a generator cart behind all your other carts. For now you cannot alter it, however there will be an update allowing you to customize it with props granting you even more points with interesting mechanics. Do note that the customizable tractor cart will be introduced earlier than this one. More about this in the next dev diary


When you reach higher levels in Carnaval Simulator the game unlocks more and more features. One of these features is the polyester upgrade.

In real life, parade floats can be made from all kinds of materials. Mainly materials such as: paper mache, styrofoam, paverpol and polyester. In Carnaval Simulator, the props are made out of paper mache normally. However, you can turn them into polyester. Just like in real life, you may wanna add a layer of polyester on the existing props to increase its durability. Polyester is incredibly durable material (although chemical) compared to paper mache hence paper mache floats usually don't last various years and are prone to damage during harsher weather conditions. Above all, you may also create more detailed shapes compared to paper mache.

I thought it would be an interesting game mechanic to upgrade specific pieces with a bit of strategy. Of course, this is only valid during single player. This mechanic is prone to change as we MAY add weather conditions in the future. For now, there's no durability mechanic YET. However, upgrading your pieces to polyester possibly grants you with extra points due to the more detailed shapes (fictionally). To avoid this mechanic from becoming very tedious and unmanageable, I came up with an interesting twist: you may gain more points from the same prop. Basically repeating the same prop over and over again will eventually grant you with less and less points for each piece. By upgrading some of these pieces you gain special 'material/polyester' points along side your normal score.


An incredibly important game mechanic in Carnaval Simulator is being able to add lights and modify them. During a night time parade this is an absolute must in order to gain any points. During the day time this will only grant you with a very small amount of points making it a total worthless decision.



In Carnaval Simulator, there are various lights to pick from. All have slightly different values making them play differently. All of them require electricity and you will need to purchase in-game DMX Console for your float. Once you have bought the console, you may alter the lights from the UI.

So what can you alter? The most important feature are the light patterns. You may select 1 specifically but you can also have a randomized one or an ordered one. You may create your own playlist/sequence of light patterns this way. See the image below for reference.



You may alter the speed of the pattern but also the transition time. During a transition, it dims the light until it becomes fully on or off (depending on the circumstances). Setting it to 0 will result in an instant turn on and off. It's basically a fade in & out.

Available light patterns on release:

• Off
  
• On
  
• Standby: lights are dimmed
  
• Music: deprecated but still usable light pattern based on your music
  
• Flicker: turns lights on and off
  
• Wave per light group
  
• Wave per light group reversed
  
• Wave per cart
  
• Wave per cart reversed
  
• Fall: vertical wave per light group
  
• Rise: reverse of the above
  
• Train: turns each light group on, off, on, off etc. in such an order
  
• Train reversed: reverse of the above
  
• Appearing: very randomly on and off based on light groups

Most light patterns utilize light groups. In Carnaval Simulator, lights are usually assigned automatically to their light group. You may also manually adjust this or merge different groups. See the image below for reference.



As you can see there are many more options. The game contains tooltips for almost everything to help the player. Here are a few of them explained:
The light intensity is how bright all lights will be, minimum light intensity is the lowest brightness lights can have.
Static pattern speed is the timespan for each pattern.
Pattern rotation speed is the time it takes to reach the next pattern.
Beats per pattern is the amount of beats it takes to reach the next pattern (music feature).
Transition speed is the timespan for each transition.
Height factor is the distance factor to be activated during a fall/rise pattern.

Usually you do not need to alter these values. Hence they are hidden in the advanced options.



Last but not least, there's the option to enable the speed based on the music of your float. This will be talked about in the next chapter.

All it takes to sync the lights to the music is clicking the toggle button mentioned before. This will essentially force the lights to listen to the beats of the selected song. The most important setting is the tedency to recognize these beats. You can press 2 buttons: the snail & the horse. This will automatically generate a value that fits the music. Of course, this option isn't 100% accurate for every song in existence but it does a great job. It really depends on the song that is uploaded. Otherwise, you may alter the value yourself. A lower number means a lower tolerance so basically you are likely to get more beats recognized in your song.

Time steps are optional but can be handy. They define how many beats can be recognized within a specific timespan. Increasing the value will delay recognizing each beat.

Moreover, there's the hard beat bias. Hard beats are different from normal beats. They are more rare thus harder to get. They can be enabled and disabled if the player wishes. This feature will try to alter light patterns once activated. For example, when a song starts to get super loud/more intense suddenly for that extra epicness. Lastly, the 'ticks for pause moment' option works very similarly except it activates when there's no music being played for a certain amount of time. Lowering this value causes this feature to activate during shorter times of silence during the music if there are any.



Our next light related topic: mix lights. This feature can be activated in spotlights. You essentially can mix 2 different colors. There's a value for the transition speed and a value for how long it takes to activate the next transition. They are really awesome, they can be combined with light ropes for a really awesome view.



As you may have noticed, there's also the option to ignore the light pattern. Every buildable light has this option. This way you can just ignore the light pattern settings and have it turned on for ever. Enabling this option also reveals the possibility to enable a timer so you can activate the light for a certain amount of time. You can alter the delay and its duration. Lastly, there's the option for hard beats to dictate the light's activation for that extra epicness like mentioned before.



Huh? But didn't we cover light shows already with regards to the light patterns? Perhaps in a way.
However, I wanted to introduce an even more advanced light show system to take it to the next level. You will need an ECS Console. This allows you to create your very own light show based on a specific action and assign a light group of all light groups to it. You can enter the start value and end value. They are calculated in seconds. There's also the additional speed value. The show also needs a show to be selected. This will be your show song which is different from your normal one.



During a parade you may activate the show and gain extra points. However it may exceed the amount of power you need risking a power outrage. You gain more and more points for each show you activate during the parade. It's a risk-reward situation.

However, as the game develops in early access, I would like to improve the user friendliness of the UI as there's currently no way to really listen back to the music and set each sequence to the right second. It's not the most important feature of the game so I will flesh it out in a future update. For now, the light show feature is disabled in multiplayer for this very reason but it will become available at a later point. Above all, I feel like the current light pattern system is advanced enough for the average player.

Wow, that was a lottt of information. I believe I have covered most of the features of the game. I wonder what you guys think so please leave any suggestions in the comments. Next dev diary will be a short one. I will give a quick rundown on the upcoming plans and features for update 1.1.0 (the first major update) & beyond. It's gonna contain a lot of new information, so stay tuned. Ciao!!

Fixes
✅ Fixed bug where some resources weren't loaded and could cause a abnormal behavior
✅ Fixed bug when you die causing abnormal behavior
✅ Fixed bug with warp cooldown tracking

Changes
✅ Encounters are no longer randomly initiated during gameplay. They are started by clicking on the Encounters icon in the lower left bar (circular group of people).
✅ UI will hide at start of Encounter, and restore to previous state afterwards
✅ Encounter cooldown added in place of random timer.

Additions
✅ Added placeholder for Outposts... coming soon™️

- small bug fixes and adjustments

Pushing some quickfixes for a variety of issues!

Hi all.
One new feature we added this week, that I thought I'd mention:


[h4]After any character levels, the game will now prompt you to allocate bonus points "BP" for a particular stat increase![/h4]

See an example below.

*These changes will take effect only in the final release-date version.



[h5]I was inspired the likes of Super Mario RPG and other titles — but our approach goes a step further by letting the player assign multiple boosts at once.[/h5]


[h5]Each BP can boost one of the following:[/h5]
[h5]Once you choose how to allocate, the UI displays how much it boosts! [/h5]
The amount is based on the number of points allotted, but the exact number is It's not always 1:1 with BP!

We added this for three main reasons:

Customization: Characters have loose archetypal stats, but strategic play allows players to shape attributes based on their preferred style.
Replayability: We aim for unique playthroughs each time. Leveling is no longer a strictly linear process.
Combat Incentive: As players invest in a character's evolution, collecting BP becomes self-rewarding. Boosts are a supplemental bonus, requiring a commitment to see a substantial difference over time.

We're currently testing the game to ensure optimal balance. Enemy strength, EXP levels, and battle frequency may be adjusted. We're aiming for Beloved Rapture to still be challenging on its own terms, so this won't necessarily make the game "easier."

: Customisation:
Easier to understand, e.g. by adding icons
Battles:
Boss class now blows up on impact.
Almost instant death after collision is reduced.
Increased recovery of EN items.
Enhanced direction.
Lighter video files.

Fixed freezing during mode transitions.

Where is Peppermint, and why are the cat ninjas attacking her?

We've been hard at work adding more story and content to the full version the game, and while that is in progress, we're preparing a limited-time event for Lunar New Year for our game as well.

This Lunar New Year event will be available in our demo, so you can give it a shot once it's ready! Stay tuned!

We're a few months after the initial release now and I want to personally thank everyone that supported Shinogi Chess Club 2: Resistance and tried it out! In this post I'll talk about a new patch to the game and some upcoming content to look out for. Without further delay, let's take a look at the latest update to the game which was just uploaded today:


Patch Notes (1.0.2)

• Fixed rendering bounds for several characters
  
• Fixed helmet culling issue in the intro cutscene
  
• Crashed a car into the Investigation Club Room (out of bounds)

The fixes here are pretty simple as they mainly related to rendering issues that you'd barely notice unless you were looking for it. During the intro cutscene, a helmet prefab had its LOD settings set a bit too generously when it comes to culling the mesh completely, which becomes an issue when you adjust the graphics lower with the in-game settings. Since you can adjust the LOD bias, it means objects can use lower-detailed versions of themselves at closer distances, and this even extends to the "completely culled" state. I didn't catch this originally because I test too often on the higher settings.

A similar system culls out skinned meshes (i.e. rigged characters) when they are not on screen; the problem is that the bounds used for this calculation are based on best-guess since rigged characters can technically have parts of themselves far away from the origin. In Unity, the solution is to update those bounds every frame to account for the animation using a special flag, and I had missed setting it for a few clothing items on characters; mainly for hair and bows, etc. This is kind of hard to spot but it meant that in extreme situations with certain camera angles, the clothing items would be culled. In version 1.0.2 this is now corrected, and it's always possible that I missed a few more of these but in a game with so many static front-facing angles it's not often that it actually causes an issue.

Finally, I did indeed crash a car into the Investigation Club Room level, but you'll have to work hard to find it. Expert players who have played my previous games should know what to do here :)


If you enjoyed the music in Shinogi Chess Club 2, you'll be glad to hear that the official soundtrack is releasing in just 1 week on Steam! Be sure to check it out here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2634490/Shinogi_Chess_Club_2__Soundtrack/



The past few months I've had some time to relax, research new topics and technologies, and catch up on stuff that I brushed aside previously due to the intense work involved with building Shinogi Chess Club. I've also been beginning to research and explore ideas for my next main game, but I'll hold on to that secret for now :)

Those of you who have completed the game will know that more Shinogi Chess Club is coming, but for several reasons it might take a bit before I return to produce that extra content. For one, interest/sales for both Shinogi Chess Club games have not been as high as I would've liked and I can't realistically support myself in the future if I'm investing too much in ideas that aren't taking off. Also, I definitely need a break from this storyline and gameplay concept; programming chess AI can get quite tedious and overwhelming :') Finally, the whole fiasco involving Unity's policy change has shifted a lot of my focus into other technologies and the series may move onto another engine for its next entry. This would entail a huge effort porting the existing logic and assets, so it would make more sense to do this only after I've gotten some experience creating something new in said new engine.

So what IS next if not that? To start, the RobProductions official website will be getting a huge overhaul sometime soon. I've been very hard at work making it match my style preferences a lot more and building it to become much more scalable and stable for the long term. The main change is the fact that I'm hand-coding myself in Typescript/React as opposed to using Wix. If you know anything about web development you would understand that this a huge undertaking and has eaten up a lot of my time the past few weeks, but it will hopefully be well worth it once complete. The new site will be something I'm actually proud of and represents me much more than the old one, and will also be easier to edit and cheaper to maintain. Alongside that and the recent rebranding I've undergone, I'll be aiming to create more YouTube videos and posts on social media explaining my development process and ideas. I also have a TikTok now!

Additionally, it seems like for now my game projects will remain on Unity (unfortunately) due to workflow differences that are too steep to adjust to for the types of games I tend to make. To explain more specifically, the engine I would like to use (Godot) has been progressing slowly in the areas that would make it easier for me to develop my projects, and I don't think it will have the full feature set I need to make content as quickly/cleanly as I could in Unity. Those of you that know me personally know that I aim to create a wide variety of games with plenty of playtime in each entry, so the extra time learning/recreating my workflow for a new engine is a high price to pay for me specifically. I anticipate that in the next year or so, this might very well change as Godot improves and my understanding of it increases. At that point, if the engine has added cleaner ways for me to develop extension packages I could see myself having enough resources to shift my projects there. This is a vast oversimplification of the considerations I've had and I apologize for the long and boring rant, but that's where things stand right now.

With that out of the way, you might be able to assume that my next big game:

• Will be on Unity :( but will arrive sooner because of it
  
• Will be a VN-hybrid game since I mentioned needing to create similar projects to Shinogi Chess Club
  
• Will probably arrive at least one year from now, i.e. 2025

And you would be right in assuming that! But fear not, there are other amazing things I would love to do along the way which may or may not arrive before that, including:

• A free preview demo of said big project
  
• A tech demo focusing on high quality visuals and animation
  
• Smaller scale game stories that I've been tinkering with
  
• Video content showcasing behind-the-scenes looks at my games with developer commentary

So while there's plenty for me to do in 2024, I hope that this will be a period of great change which will elevate RobProductions into becoming a more established studio on the market. Be rest assured that I'm not going anywhere and I plan to keep releasing games and stories for as long a time as I'm able to. The best way to help my journey is to spread the word of my games, give them a try for yourself, and send in positive comments that lend support whenever possible <3 While I'm a long ways off from being able to do so, with enough financial support I may eventually be able to devote more of my time to projects which would be a huge blessing for me. For now, every little bit helps. As always, you can catch the latest news on Twitter @RobProductions and once again...

Thanks for playing!
- Matt