2024 sure started with a bang! Between all the changes we made to Skygard Arena, and our upcoming February Playtest, we have many news to share with you today, so why don't we just get started?


First and foremost, let’s take a closer look at Raine, the Scarlet Witch of the Crimson Empire faction!



Raine’s ambition is matched only by the power of her magic. On the battlefield, she uses her spells to reinforce her allies, and trap her enemies in her sinister garden of brambles and crimson roses.

In Skygard Arena, Raine serves as a battlemage, dealing damage and providing support in the middle of the fray. As she casts spells every turn, she generates Bloodrage (the Crimson Empire’s unique mechanic), which makes her even stronger. The longer she can stay in the fight, the more unstoppable Raine will become!

Visually, it was important to convey that Raine isn’t afraid to get in the middle of fights, and powerful enough to turn the tides with her devastating spells.





Let us know how much you’re looking forward to dominating the battlefield with Raine!

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In the GIF above, you might also have noticed some user interface elements that weren't there before. Our objective with these changes was to improve readability in battle, both for the Heroes you'll be controlling, and for enemies you will encounter in the PvE solo campaign and in PvP matches.



Among other changes, you'll new have an indicator of which spell you're casting as you're selecting your target. We’ve also improved controls for casting spells overall, especially spells that hit in a zone. Casting spells has never been easier!

And due to popular demand among our Playtesters, we’ve also included a tactical Ruler Mode to allow players to better plan their moves.


Aerica is not be able to target Jorn from her current position…


… but she could get a clear shot after moving in position!

The Ruler mode will allow players to clearly see whether or not they have a line of sight to their target, from their current position and others as well!

Long story short, we've worked hard to make Skygard Arena more accessible. Some visual elements are still WIP (that orange is soooo 2023), but we hope you enjoy your time in the Arena when you get your hands on the game in our upcoming playtest! Speaking of which...

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That's right, we'll be holding a Community Playtest from February 8th to February 18th! Unlike our previous Playtest, this one will be rather PvP-centric: we've made a lot of design and balancing changes lately, and we're eager for player feedback.

Among other things, we’ve reworked a couple of Heroes, and made a lot of visual changes - both to Heroes and to our UI, as showcased aboved. Full patchnotes will be available on our Discord server once the Playtest starts.

If you’re interested in participating in this Playtest, make sure to let me (@mekklord) know on Discord! My DMs are always open and we’re always looking for playtesters to share their feedback with us. I hope to hear from you soon, and to face you all in the Arena!

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And that’ll be all for this month! Thank you once again for your time and interest, and see you very soon in the Arena!

Knock, knock, travelers!

It’s time to make another entry in our travel notes. Without further ado, let’s go!

We continue working on a convenient and pleasant display for effects.

‘Burning’ will now charmingly flame up like in the animation below. As Mortis likes to say “It’s a fire show!”, and we can’t help but agree with him.



And now a bit about negative effects – have a look at the animation of ‘Blight’. Creepy, but impressive, isn’t it?



And the ‘Cover’ buff that redirects enemies’ attacks to an ally will look like this. Of course, we feel for Waggytail, but he’s ready to protect his master at all costs.



You may recall that during final clashes with Millenis, Mortis just stands there under a dome and calmly watches. We’ve extended that buff to the heroes too, but only if they’re immune to attacks. We can’t make it too easy!



We’re diving deeper into animating backgrounds for out events. Of course, static images are endlessly pretty (we read your comments and are happy to receive words of encouragement), but to improve visual perception some motion needed to be added. The devil is in the details, right?


Is there a bear around here? It’s big, brown, and angry.


In this peaceful glade a man was cruelly done away with. He and his buddies, all bandits, couldn’t settle on how to split their stolen goods. But that’s another story.


For some reason the diary today is turning out to be all about crime. Anyway, you can see it all for yourselves. Elven shooting practice spares no one.

Hey! It’s Andrew aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, and I’m coming to you today with a cautionary tale.

More and more often, I catch myself thinking that from the very beginning of KOTCL development, we set ourselves an extremely challenging task. Due to the non-linear plot of the game (and you know that our plot is full of twists, and many things are interwoven and interconnected), any, even the smallest, change in the plot can completely break the logic and lore of the entire game. This greatly hinders and sometimes demotivates us from taking certain actions. After all, if we want to change or add something, it all will turn into a large snowball. Let me explain.

Let’s say, we want to change one of the events. However, we know that each event can be drastically different for different heroes, which means we need to rework three events instead of one. Then it becomes clear that the event affects future events, just as past events affect the one we want to change. What amount of work will we have to do? Quite a decent amount, to put it mildly.

And if we want to add something new, the situation doesn't get any better – we'll have to change a lot of what we've done before, and this requires a lot of resources: energy, time, and sometimes even financial means.

The project is growing, and what initially took an hour to implement now can stretch for days or even weeks. And I'm talking about small features here.

So today I’d like to give advice to future independent developers: start small, don't try to make a large project right away if you don't want to get stuck with it for many years. This is fraught with numerous problems, which I wrote about earlier.

Burnout is the scourge of many developers, especially beginning ones. I would add that due to burnout, the result of your work will not feel like a reward for all your efforts, quite the opposite. Redoing your work with a no-desire-attitude is very unpleasant, believe me.

In summary: don't make our mistakes.

As for us, we continue working on KOTCL. There’s going to be some good news, which involves next week when we plan to answer the most popular questions you've asked us on social media. A small teaser: we'll answer the most pressing question that starts with 'When' and ends with 'release date'. I suppose we're ready for the announcement :)

That's it, friends. Don't forget to check our social media; we love keeping in touch with you.

Until next Friday!

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Bug fixes:
- Fix audio glitch when using "Overgrowth" skill
- Fix icon missing in Japanese language

Just a small bugfix release, fixing a few issues.

Compatible with previous.

- Fixed world browser showing incompatible sessions, even when this is disabled (reported by @epiceaston197, issue #1182, fixed by @probableprime)
- Fixed world browser not filtering sessions properly by universe (fixed by @probableprime)
- Backported convex hull computation fix for BepuPhysicsV2 from upstream (https://github.com/bepu/bepuphysics2/issues/301)
-- This should fix cases of some convex hulls causing memory access violation and crashes (reported by @stiefeljackal, issue #1198)
-- This also fixes some asset variants failing to process due to same error, resulting in the asset variant worker crashing
- Restructure session token swap mechanism into two phases to prevent current session from being invalidated, when the new token doesn't get updated properly
-- This fixes active sessions breaking in some cases when logged for longer than 12 hours, including "Remember Me" functionality (reported by @slythefloof, @nytra, issue #1281)

- Larger text in the setup application.
- Extra setup application option of "fixed background".

With fixed background set you can no longer use the "floating" option. With this option selected the background is fixed when you start the game, therefore changing the screen settings in game no longer affects the background. This will probably be most noticeable when running in a window or if you change the colour scheme in game (the background will no longer change, e.g. scale or change colour).
Additionally, while playing a board it adds a very simple sky box around the board. I believe this should mitigate an issue on Steamdeck where the background leaves trails of previous frames (as you will no longer be able to see the background), although apparently turning off active lighting has a similar result.

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• Display input configuration panel when entering the game for the first time.
  
• Bug fixes.

Here in Japan, February 3rd is a holiday called Setsubun. This holiday is also known as Bean-Throwing Festival. Older family members as Oni (Japanese ogres) and children chase them out of the house by pelting them with roasted soy beans. Setusbun is a holiday celebrating the end of winter and
symbolically driving away bad luck and welcoming good fortune for the coming year.



The Wound Man Builder now has assets related to Setsubun, complete with oni masks and roasted soy beans. We hope that it brings you good fortune this year!




Additional changes in this update:

• Converted levels 107 (Veins) and 108 (Nerves) to enlarged versions
  
• Ongoing re-coding to eliminate the occurrence of pieces being rejected when dropped correctly

A few months ago we published a series of reports on conceptual graphics for Chernobylite. You liked the works very much. We can’t hide it, we also like them. 🙂 That’s why we decided that it would be worthwhile to continue this theme, and see new great works. However, this time YOU will be the authors of the new graphics.






What should you do?

Your task will be to create an image of your character that could appear in the game or a scenery from the game, similar to the ones we presented to you in earlier reports.

Is there a location that you think looks much better in your imaginations? Would it be better depicted in other colors? Or maybe this particular place is missing some elements that would be worth adding?
And what about your character? What outfit would fit best? We give you a free hand and count on your creative invention!




Rules:

• For images of locations you can use screenshots from the game, but also your own photos from Chernobyl, if you have any
  
• You can create an image by hand, on paper or canvas, or in a graphics program on your computer
  
• We accept only original works, made by yourself. Plagiarism and images made by AI will be automatically rejected
  
• Works must be submitted at this link by March 31, 2024
  
• Submitted artwork files must be signed (name or nickname), as well as the email address provided. Unsigned works will not be considered for judging
  
• Each participant can submit ONLY ONE artwork

Out of all the works, we will award the 10 best ones! The awarded participants will receive from us:

• official Chernobylite artbook
  
• a set of postcards
  
• map
  
• Chernobylite patch
  
• a Steam key to the Chernobylite Enhanced Edition

{LINK REMOVED}

We will reveal the list of winners and the awarded works on April 5, 2024.

We can't help but wish you good luck and break your brushes (including virtual ones)!

Take care, Stalkers!



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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/

Live Now. February Update - Week #1

Retroa Retroa Builda

Fully implemented and refined, the real modern controls. Demonstrated below.

JUMPING: WALL JUMP:

Told you the final double jump is possible, it has been made a little easier by the addition of ledge grab. Failed on the hold jump thou, don't laugh. ːsteamsadː

SWIMMING:

Will activate when dropping into water, without holding jump. Holding jump allows you to jump on to platforms in the water, as long as the drops not too high. Be careful as you wont be able to save yourself from a held jump. Releasing jump after double jump active, will activate swimming, when jumping up into/within water. Also pressing stop keys/button and quick releasing jump will activate swim. Sorry mechanics still need some tweaking.

SLOW/FAST ICE WITH HAZARDS:

The collision with the hazards have been refined for modern controls, your less likely to hit them now. Is it me, or has that wood shrunk with the cold. Cheeky!

LEDGE GRAB:

Ledge grab will activate automatically on jump through platforms, you will have to push towards wall when its a solid block platform.

CONVEYORS WITH HAZARDS:

I think double jump can save you a little from collision with hazards, well it used too. I've made so many tweaks and adjustments, it may not anymore. Please don't hate me if you die trying. Well you can hate me, a little. lol.

Please Note!

All the controls will still need a little tweaking here and there, and all levels are going to need readjusting to some degree, as levels may be totally broken using these current modern controls. i.e. "The Obligatory annoying tutorial level." Err... the first level, first level. Further testing will have to be done before I decide if the controls are fine as they are.

Modern mechanics is still only available in creation mode, for you to play around with. They're much more solid. But will only be added as controls, in the main game. When all levels have been tested and updated. I have quickly tested some of the current levels and the new controls seem to fit in well, hopefully not too much to change then, fingers crossed.

I have added a quick fix for the missing floor problem, it's not perfect as the player floats on nothing, won't run right, but you can jump and get back into the level. You shouldn't get the red screen of death. ːsteamfacepalmː Needs work.


Thank you for your time, and thank you very much for your patience.