We are hoping with excitement to share that since releasing in early access, Froguelike has amassed over 1,000 downloads! Ribbit!
We are thrilled with the response we've received so far and are grateful for all the feedback and suggestions you've shared with us.
We promise to keep on jumping and working hard to make Froguelike the best game it can be! Thanks for being a part of Froguelike's development journey!
If you would like to join the small and cozy Froguelike community, consider joining our Discord.
The DCS: Flaming Cliffs aircraft have received a texture refresh upgrade to their cockpit and external model textures. The F-15C, A-10A, Su-27, Su-33, and J-11 have received new cockpits and external textures, and the Su-25 has received new cockpit textures. These upgraded cockpits focus on detail and realism and include Physical Based Rendering (PBR) textures. This free upgrade propels Flaming Cliffs 3 to 2024 texture standards and promises to maintain Flaming Cliffs 3 as an excellent choice for new and veteran DCS pilots.
Our goal is to further improve the new user experience in DCS. The Flaming Cliffs 3 aircraft provide professional-level flight models but with simplified controls that result in a shallower learning curve for new virtual pilots. The F-15C, A-10A, Su-27, Su-33, J-11, MiG-29A, MiG-29S, and Su-25 provide a variety of aircraft that range from air superiority to attack. These come with a wealth of missions and campaigns and are operable on most online servers.
If you are not already flying Flaming Cliffs 3, now is a great time to jump in and enjoy this great value.
In our ongoing commitment to providing a seamless and streamlined experience for our pilots, we're thrilled to share positive news on the transition to a single-version approach, eliminating the distinction between Stable and Release versions.
This move is aimed at ensuring all players enjoy the latest features, updates and improvements simultaneously. Please make sure to get familiar with the more harmonious and collaborative DCS World by updating to the latest version now! Notably included in this update is a performance improvement for terrains, an impressive set of new liveries from Polychop for the DCS: SA-342 Gazelle, as well as improvements to the DCS: MB-339 flight and collision model by IndiaFoxtEcho. We have also delivered a large number of bug fixes for DCS: AH-64D, DCS: F-16C Viper and DCS: F/A-18C. For a list of changes, please check out the full changelog.
F-15C Aggressors ACM
Campaign by Maple Flag
The F-15C Aggressors ACM campaign puts you in the cockpit of an F-15C Eagle as a new Aggressor pilot with the 65th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base. Based on real world procedures, you will fly as Red Air against Blue Air Forces.
You will face a series of challenging Air Combat Maneuver (ACM) missions against dissimilar aircraft with a wingman for assistance. Each mission will comprise two 2 vs 2 air to air engagements. Tankers are available if you wish to refuel before the second engagement.
Your opponents include the F-4E, F-14A, F-15C, F-15E, F-16C, F/A-18C, M-2000C, MiG-29G, CF-188, MiG-21, Su-27 and an unknown type. Three campaigns are included in the download package to allow you to fly against Rookie, Ace and Random AI opponents.
Additionally, there is an 11 mission practice campaign against the Rookie and Ace AI with in-air starts so you can perfect your ACM tactics and techniques.
Key features:
Over 1800 voice overs
49 pages of briefing material including the RED FLAG Spins, Red Forces In Flight Guide
We hope you're as thrilled as we are about these latest developments in the world of DCS. Please remember that the Lunar Sale is in its final hours and ends on the 25th of February at 15:00 GMT. Do not miss out on this fantastic opportunity to land something truly special!
There are less than 24 hours left to join the Kickstarter Campaign. The project is 82% funded right now, and we still need one final push to succeed. If you're interested in playing the early version of the game next week, join us!
All or Nothing
A quick reminder regarding how does the Kickstarter Campaigns work for all the people who are joining us for the first time. Kickstarter is following the "all-or-nothing" policy that provides a rather simple rule for all the campaigns. If the Kickstarter Campaign doesn't reach 100% funding within the initial time limit, the Campaign is deemed unsuccessful and all the pledges are canceled.
While we truly believe that we can make it, we want to make the situation clear in case we won't be able to reach our goal. Join us and help us ensure the success of this Kickstarter Campaign!
Steam Keys distribution
On a more positive note - what will happen if we can reach the 100% funding and above? We will start distributing the Steam Keys to the early version of the game, starting this upcoming Monday! If you have bought the "Squire" pledge or higher, you will receive the Steam Key for King's Orders sent via Kickstarter messages. The Steam Keys will allow you to play the game immediately and will provide you with access to the full version upon official launch.
🍄Some people collect the ears of their rivals, and others collect flowers, ore and other useful resources to create something beautiful. Remember them the next time you stock up on potions or look for crafted armor. A competition for the best earner is announced!
This Saturday the Hour of the Breadwinner will take place: ▪Servers "Prometheus" and Hyperion: from 21:00 to 22:00 (UTC+3 - Moscow) ▪Atlas server: from 18:00 to 19:00 Saturday (UTC -3) (00:00 - 01:00 Sunday Moscow time)
Collect the maximum number of 📦strong skins📦 within the specified time and become an honorary member of the artisans guild.
The reward will not be long in coming: ✨3 days of premium account ✨Craftsman's Potion (1 day) ✨5 strong potions of protection ✨5 resurrection scrolls ✨Powerful magic pen ✨5 rank 2 strengthening crystals
All this will be yours!
Only resources received from the resource point during the specified period of time will be counted. Resources previously mined or obtained through exchange with other players will not be counted.
Results will be published within three working days after the event ends.
Hello again! My name is Jason, the art director of Foundry. In this week’s ‘Foundry Fridays’ dev diary, I’m going to talk about how we create art in Foundry by walking you through the creative process!
Developing An Art Style
Before building anything, it’s important to first establish an art style. Having a distinct art style is crucial for several reasons when developing a video game.
Visual Cohesion: A consistent art style helps create a cohesive and immersive world within the game. It ensures that all elements, from characters to environments to UI elements, harmonise with each other, enhancing the player's experience.
Early in development, we create what's called a Style Guide to help artists as they create content for the game. It illustrates key visual characteristics that establish a consistent visual language for the game.
Here are a couple examples of what you see in a typical style guide...
From an earlier post...
“Our art style can be described as ‘soft, vibrant and cleanly illustrated’. The weathered, chipped edges of metals on factory machines are ‘clean’ rather than ‘dirty’ with grunge and high frequency noise. Biomes provide a soft and welcoming backdrop that contrasts nicely with the heavy, bulky, industrial look of the factory machines. The ‘clean’ and ‘illustrated’ look is what unifies everything together to create a cohesive and consistent art style across the game.“
Brand Identity: A unique art style can differentiate a game from others in the market, making it recognizable and memorable to players. This helps in building a strong brand identity for the game and potentially leading to a loyal fan base.
You should be able to simply look at screenshots and instantly recognise that it’s Foundry. That’s our goal!
Setting the Tone and Atmosphere: The art style sets the tone and atmosphere of the game. Whether it's a whimsical and cartoonish style or a gritty and realistic style for a dark and intense game, the art conveys the intended mood and emotions to the players.
In Foundry, even though we’re building vast sprawling factories with heavy machinery, we wanted the tone and atmosphere to give off chill vibes. We want our players to feel they can spend endless hours, immersed in the world they’re building, feeling relaxed and comfortable rather than overly stressed and unsettled.
Technical Considerations: Different art styles may require different technical approaches and resources. For example, a cel-shaded art style might require specific rendering techniques, while a pixel art style might require careful attention to detail in sprite creation. Choosing the right art style early in development can help streamline the technical aspects of production.
The world of Foundry is an infinite, fully procedural voxel terrain system. Therefore all of the art needs to be created to specifically support this system. In our previous blog post about creating biomes, I gave an overview of the approach we took to create natural looking environments in a procedurally generated world.
Players have the freedom to build massive factories with thousands of objects. It’s important for us to build content with rendering performance in mind.
Artistic Expression and Creativity: Artistic freedom allows developers to express their creativity and vision. An art style that aligns with the creative direction of the game enables developers to bring their ideas to life in visually compelling ways.
Foundry’s creative direction is all about being the ultimate factory sandbox. By leaning into the infinite simulated voxel world generation aspect of the game, it made sense to go for a stylised look. And because it’s a factory builder, we designed our buildings and machines to have an exaggerated heavy, chunky and industrial aesthetic.
Audience Appeal: The chosen art style should resonate with the target audience of the game. Whether it's appealing to children, nostalgic for older gamers, or cutting-edge for enthusiasts, the art style plays a significant role in attracting and retaining players.
Overall, a well-defined and consistent art style not only enhances the visual appeal of a video game but also contributes to its success by conveying its unique identity, setting the tone, and engaging players on a deeper level.
Prototyping
Before putting any work into making something look good, a gameplay feature or system has to be fun. A simple cube might be used at this stage to reach this goal. All design iterations take place at “we’ve-gone-plaid” warp speeds in the game engine during this stage of development.
Once a game feature is functioning as intended, we have a pretty good idea of roughly what size the object(s) need to be as well as the scope of work that will be needed to fully complete the feature with regards to 3D art, animation, UI, audio and VFX.
Gathering Reference
Reference is an important early step in the ideation stage. It informs conversations that help define a direction to go in that satisfies both gameplay and visual design.
At this stage, the range of possibilities is purposefully wide so that through discussions, that range can quickly narrow to focus on a core set of visual design characteristics.
Concept Art
When necessary, concept sketches are drawn to take those core visual characteristics inspired by the reference we’ve gathered and further ideate on a refined design that both supports gameplay and fits within our art style. In some cases, we’ll simply paint over a proxy model to get the information we need for when it comes to adding detail later on.
Depending on what we’re building and the complexity of the object, it may be possible in some cases to go straight into modelling the object and quickly iterate on a design in the 3D phase inside the game engine. This approach can only be done once there’s a deep understanding of the game’s art style. It’s more about doing what’s right on a case by case basis rather than sticking to a rigid process that might possibly waste development time.
Proxy Modelling
At this stage, things really start taking shape, literally :) The faster we can get an idea for the visual design into the game, the better. It may look all good and pretty on paper, but unless it’s tested and functions to support gameplay, then it will remain as just that, a pretty drawing.
Proxy modelling is all about fast iteration using simple models (mostly primitive cubes, cylinders and spheres) that represent the basic shape of the concept design with proper scale. By keeping the model simple, we can quickly manipulate it, then test it in game with an iteration loop that’s only minutes versus hours.
The “High to Low Workflow”
Once we’re happy with the proxy model in game for both gameplay function and visual design, we can move forward to the next phase of detailed modelling.
Typically, we use a “high to low workflow” which refers to a method used in creating both detailed and optimised versions of 3D models, particularly for use in real-time applications like video games.
High-Poly Modeling:
We begin by creating a high-polygon model with intricate details and high-resolution geometry. This version of the model includes all the fine details, surface imperfections, and intricate features required to make the object visually appealing. High-poly modelling often involves techniques such as sculpting, subdivision modelling, or boolean operations to achieve complex shapes and forms.
Retopology:
Once the high-poly model is complete, the next step is to create a lower-polygon version of the model with optimised topology. This process is known as retopology. Retopologizing involves manually or automatically creating a new topology (edge flow) for the model while preserving its overall shape and silhouette. The goal is to reduce the polygon count while maintaining as much detail as possible.
UV Unwrapping:
After retopology, the model needs to be UV unwrapped to prepare it for texturing. UV unwrapping involves flattening the model's surface into 2D space and creating a UV map, which defines how textures will be applied to the model. Proper UV unwrapping ensures that textures will be applied smoothly and without distortion.
Baking Maps:
With both the high-poly and low-poly models prepared, the next step is to transfer the details from the high-poly model to the low-poly model. This is typically done using a process called map baking. One of these maps called a “normal map” captures surface detail and shading information from the high-poly model and then transfers that information to the low-poly model.
Additional ambient occlusion, curvature and thickness texture maps are also baked out for additional surface detail information from the high poly model. This allows the low-poly model to appear detailed and visually complex without requiring as many polygons.
Here are a few examples of baked maps...
Texturing: Once the normal and other maps are baked onto the low-poly model, textures can be applied to the model's surface. Texturing involves painting the model to add colour, surface detail, and visual interest.
Game Setup
Now we’re in the home stretch!
At this stage we bring the models and textures into the game engine and start hooking everything up. Materials are made, applied to the model and tuned in the context of the game with our fully dynamic time of day cycle. VFX, audio and animations are also set up to get the object fully functional.
The whole process takes collaboration and teamwork from developers of all disciplines to fully realise content in Foundry. It’s a ton of hard work, but so rewarding when it all comes together!
Till Next Time!
I hope you enjoyed this Foundry Friday. As always, if you have any questions, please hit us up on Discord.
It's time for another update! This one brings a new Elimination map called Pyramid Tomb, a new Performance Mode for Quest, and a Resolution Scale for PCVR. In addition, a couple of fixes and we're continuing to balance the game so both the Hunter and the Ghost will have an even spooky time! 👻🔦
New Features: - Added a Performance Mode for Quest - Added a Resolution Scale for PCVR - Introduced the "Pyramid Tomb" as an Elimination map
Balance Changes: - The Ghost now moves 10% faster in the Banishment Realm - The last segment of the Banishment Realm has been shortened by one meter - The detection range of the Ballerina has been reduced by 10% - Ghosts now drain 5% more energy - The Spirit Lockbox's ability to slow down the Ghost has been reduced from 90% to 80% - Added more tasks in new locations on each map for the elimination mode - Various bug fixes
We always review your reports, opinions, and feedback! If you have encountered any problems or have ideas on how to enrich Hunt Together with new and interesting content, please let us know. 😉 Feel free to share your thoughts via our Discord server or here in the Steam Discussions!
Next Wednesday, we're saying thank you everyone! Our first big milestone is a celebration of ANARCHY's biggest strengths. Among other things, Merci builds a bridge between ParAdise and the rest of the TRACHI world, adds our first new-world indoor areas and three new main story quests.
Most importantly: you can play through all of that right now! The pre-build just landed on the public beta branch. An overview of the new features can be found in the preview – in addition to the preliminary changelog below. If you run into any issues, feel free to leave a message in this thread.
ANARCHY 0.2
Aka Merci
Quests
Added 🪁 "EmigrAtion". Was she trying to kill me?
Added 💳 "Identity" Where did I put my service card?
Added 🏡 "Sanctuary" There's Anton – and that Theo guy.
Adjusted "ImmigrAtion 3" What was that?
Adjusted Service Card position Later, Goblin camp!
Areas
Added 🪑 "Checkpoint Lobby" There's so many people here!
Added 🛌 "Checkpoint First Floor" Beds are for sleeping – Right?
NPCs
Added "Treant" A bite worse than a bark.
Added 10 Human NPCs So we can set them free.
Abilities
Added "Cleave" 40% DMG AOE hitting three targets.
Added "Tomahawk" 50% DMG Throw, applies -DEF.
Added "Life" +50% Max HP, -50% ATK (Toggle)
Added "Strength" +50% ATK, -50% Max HP (Toggle)
Items
Added "Ambrosian Shard" Maximum Ambrosia +1
Interaction
Added Door "Open/Close" For a bit of privacy.
Added Ladder "Lower" Thank me later, future me!
User Interface
Added Variation Button Contribution within the game.
Added Menu Status Effect HUD Shows active buffs and debuffs.
Added Menu Info HUD For equipment, items and abilities.
Visual
Added EmigrAtion Tiles A balcony to watch the rain.
Added Pixel Perfect Camera Preventing tile jittering.
Adjusted Combat Animations Improved timings.
Adjusted 🪓 "Liberation" Girl with a fire axe.
Adjusted 🐕 "Hermes" A good boy is a Labrador.
Adjusted Fragment Sprites Repping the Fragments' themes.
Adjusted 🔳 Arena Smaller, opaque, white frame.
Adjusted 🌂 RAIN Added white version, red is now Jost*.
Massive thanks to RacoonButler for this incredible scenery! It's part of a composition we've been teasing in this month's preview. Next Thursday, the full thing will be unveiled, as we kick off ANARCHY's second phase. In the meantime, we'll do our best to make it worth your while! 🥰
Best wishes, many hugs and – if we're feeling brave – a shy bunch of kissies on the cheek.
