Feb 29, 2024

Age of Wonders 4 - fangirlcrazily

Ferocious Godir,

It has been two days since I joined the pack of Lupine living deep in these forests. They have been participating in a wild celebration of excitement and frustration and I have been witness to it all.

With today’s update we’re tackling some of the most immediate issues that have been reported. You’ll notice some requested tweaks to the World generation as well as fixes for Rulers not Transforming and potential soft locks.

You’ll find the full list of fixes & changes below and keep those Bug Reports coming.

May your Pantheons thrive

Game Version: 1.006.002.90363

Added information about heroes being returned to their original owner on creating an alliance/vassalage between two rulers to the trade options and alliance encyclopedia entry.
Disabled the Increase Hero Cap button from showing in the Hero Recruit screen if the Hero Cap has not been reached.

Text & Descriptions

Updated the Barbarian Culture description to mention their new Savage Strike mechanic
Clarified that Inspiring Killer works on the unit that has the passive
Angelize - Renamed to Angelic Transformation
Naga Form - Renamed to Naga Transformation

Increased the map sizes of 2 player maps.
Improved Player placement on the Surface for 2 player maps.
Reduced the amount of Free Cities on smaller maps.
Reduced the amount of Mountains on Land maps.

Fixed an issue where the AI City production manager did not include all structures that the AI can build.
This also addresses issues with AI not building Modded Structures
Fixed an issue where the AI could get stuck on trying to attack a quest army.

Art

Fixed missing Skin Decoration types for Lizardkin Army Customisation
Removed a Clipping Wizard King Helmet option for Lupine & Goatkin
Artica now wields a lightning orb in her model and her tooltip

Units & Animations

Fixed Visual issues with Eagle Mounts
Fixed an issue where Eagle Mounts would not descend to meet their Target
Fixed an issue with the Warbreed Animation when their Charge attack is canceled
Fixed an issue with Bolt Repeater Rotation while attacking
Fixed an issue where the Golden Golem was using the incorrect Attack Animation
Fixed an issue where Rulers with wings would animate them in the Diplomacy Screen
Fixed an issue where sometimes Wings would not animate properly
Fixed an issue where hand placement on Crocodile Mounts wasn’t always correct
Fixed an issue where Skeleton Shield and Polearm units would not embark correctly

Enchantments & Transformations

Fixed several PFX appearing between a Unit’s legs
Fixed an issue where Animals with Empowered Beasts would not fit the Unit Icon
Fixed an issue where Units with Guided Projectiles would not show Burning PFX
Fixed an issue where the Linked Minds effect would not show when using Wightborn
Fixed an issue where Wightborn would apply a second set of Hair
Fixed an issue where Gaia’s Chosen would give all Units & Heroes the same hair
Fixed an issue where Wizard Kings would hold weapons in odd positions with Naga Transformation
Fixed visual issues with Naga Transformation during Water Combat
Fixed visual issues with IP Characters and Supergrowth
Fixed Double Tails for Goatkin with the Draconian Transformation

Combat

Fixed combat achievements triggering during the replay of an auto-combat
Fixed an issue where Once per Turn Passives would trigger once each time an ability is used
Fixed Mirror Mimic visuals breaking when Mimicking a Embarked unit

Culture

Fixed an issue where the Glacial Mammoth Primal Frenzy would give Charge Strike instead of Frenzy when in snow and ice terrain
Fixed an issue with Primal Unit Enchantments giving Aquatic Units the associated Land Movement

Diplomacy

Fixed an issue where the AI would not always send out a Call to War.
Fixed an issue where an AI would sometimes not accept a Call to War, even if they or the player had already accepted a call to war in the same turn.
Fixed a crash that could occur upon completion of a Bounty that was accepted by multiple rulers

Events

Fixed an issue where the Quest Completed Story Events would not trigger and result in a soft-lock
Fixed an issue where the Primal Culture introduction quest would not appear if you started in the underground.
Fixed an issue where several Events could trigger for Reavers when they shouldn’t
Fixed an issue where low units such as the Slither Hatchling would not show properly in Events
Fixed an issue with odd/improper lighting in the Event Scenes

Story Realms

Nimue no longer has talking magelock cannons
Fixed issue where in story realms the racial units of the other rulers would not get the same transformations as their ruler

Free Cities

Fixed an issue where the Masters of Creation Upgrade Set would not provide the +6 Materium Affinity Hero Trait
Fixed an issue where targeting Rulers through War Coordination would show their Throne City Location on the World Map while not having discovered it

Interface

Fixed a crash that occurred when the player ended their turn with the “Wizard Tower: Room of Recall” set to dismantle in one turn and the spell casting interface of the spell “Recall Ruler” open.
Fixed an issue where the Active Spells could be interacted with while showing the World Map
Fixed an issue where the Faction Meet event would not appear if the Encyclopedia was opened first
Fixed an issue where a Presence trait lord’s combat advantage could be modified
Fixed an issue where a incorrect Banner Icon would appear on Player Slots
Fixed various text clipping issues in various languages
Fixed some issues with the ascension trait list in the ascension screen
Fixed a niche bug in the research screen
Fixed an issue where the radial menu would not close when switching back to mouse and keyboard
Fixed a crash when hovering over units in a tooltip while being in tactical combat
Fixed an issue where editing a Pantheon Ruler would remove their Transformation in the Loading Screen
Fixed an issue where Feywater Pond would not show the lines for Adjacency Bonuses
Fixed an issue where Transformations & Enchantments from Subraces would appear in the Spell List
Fixed an issue where certain Transformations such as Spawnkin would not hide correctly when applied to Rulers
Fixed an issue where Ascended Transformations would not show in the Spellbook until a refresh triggered
Fixed a crash that could occur when a Tooltip appeared while closing
Fixed a crash that could occur when a Army was removed/killed while the Excavation Interface was open

Descriptions & Text

Fixed an issue where there would be an empty trade requirement in the “You become overlord” trade option.
Fixed an issue where the incorrect text would appear when founding a City from an Outpost
Fixed an issue where there was a empty preview on the Purging Arrows ability
Fixed an issue where a Debug string was visible in Forged Items during Manual Combat
Fixed an issue where the full Treaty name would not show in the Tooltip for Breaking a Treaty
Fixed several text issues in the Finalize Tab of Faction Creation
Fixed a typo in the Marked for Death Spell

Controller

Fixed an issue where blocked Factions could be selected on Presence Trait Maps
Fixed an issue where the Encyclopedia was not accessible with the controller
Fixed an issue where the tooltip for "Realm Trait" would remain behind when scrolling the "Realm Overview"

Item Forge

Fixed an issue with Infusion: Push Back where it would push targets to a random adjacent hex.
Fixed an issue with Infusion: Retaliation where it would not use the correct name and description.
Fixed an issue with Infusion: Area Damage - Line where it did not correctly uses a 3 hex line
Fixed an issue with Infusion: Giant Slayer blocking any other Infusions when put on a Polearm.

Multiplayer

Fixed an issue where the combat screen would not reopening after leaving a multiplayer game during combat replay
Fixed a common Out of Sync that could occur after hotjoining
Fixed an issue where a player in classic turns multiplayer would get the Pantheon XP screen before the Defeat Screen if defeated out of turn.
Fixed a Out of Sync when watching a Combat Replay in Classic Turns
Fixed a soft lock that could occur when watching a Combat Replay multiple times

Pantheon

Fixed an issue with Presence Traits that give Rulers additional Cities not using Cities of their own Race
Fixed an issue that caused some default Rulers to not replay the recorded Tome paths after ascension.
Fixed an issue where the Pantheon Points would not reflect the accurate amount of Pantheon Points given.
Fixed an issue where the Mount Visualisations would not unlock from all connected nodes.
Fixed an issue where Race Transformations would not apply to Rulers

Tomes

Astral Convergence

Fixed an issue where Explosive Manifestation could not be cast in Water Combat.

Chaos channeling

Fixed an issue where Golden Horde would not count as a Hostile Action
Fixed an issue where Golden Horde would not have a Summon PFX

Enchantment

Fixed an issue where the increased damage from Purging Arrows wasn’t working on single attacks

Dreadnaught

Overcharged now triggers at the end of repeating attacks
Overcharge cannot be cast on constructs that are already overcharged

Zeal

Fixed an issue with the Bolstering Matrix granting its bonus twice when using Inspiring Chant to units with Zeal.

Reaper

Fixed an issue where Greater Reanimation would not work on non-undead enemy units.

World Map

Fixed an issue where Underground spawning would not take the surface player’s position into account properly on a 2 player map.
Fixed an issue where Terraforming Spells would not work on provinces with Small Mountains/Habitable Mountain Provinces
Fixed an issue where Primal Animals would wrongly appearing in some Maps
Fixed a crash that could occur while the City Interface was open as a Outpost turned into a City
Fixed a crash that could occur in the IncomeResource Manager when loading in save
Fixed a crash that could occur when selecting a province being razed
Fixed a crash that could occur when a besieged city was sniped

Get Primal Fury now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401850/Age_of_Wonders_4_Primal_Fury/

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Feb 29, 2024

Competition is real and BRUTAL!

Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan - kingzembla35

If you are born in the '80s-90s, your childhood was probably filled with symbols of "good" and the "power of love and friendship" (Thanks Disney).

But when you started to move to adulthood, you have probably been shocked by the "reality" of the world: The violence, the selfishness, the law of the "strongest", the sad death of a kind and naïve people when they faced bad people around you.

But when you started to move to adulthood, you have probably been shocked by the "reality" of the world: The violence, the selfishness, the law of the "strongest", the sad death of kind and naïve people when they faced bad people around you.

A lot of us picked a team on the road:
- "Team cynical": Often calling them "Team pragmatic" depending on the level of cynism the have. The more extrem cynicals peoples believe that "Well if the world is a pure hell, let's be the King of Evil. It's me against all of you"
- "Team Idealist": Often calling them "Team positivity" depending on the level of savior complex. Their conclusion was "Everything will end well if we keep doing good around us, every one can become good". And they often end up with a lot of desillusions.

And there is a lot of subteams that I can't list here: team I don't care, team I care too much, team ect. And I am even sure that we are all members of at least 3 to 5 teams depending on the day.

Since I was a kid, I was asking if there was not a "Team Truth".
I was always asking what is the Truth in all those paths. Which of those extreme paths is really leading to better results for most of us?

I realized that all those paths are in fact part of the only path.
That our race, the human race may have been created only for the purpose of testing and combining all those approaches of Life until we find the Harmony.

And that's where cooperation is the only key.
Being pragmatic is a good thing at the right timing.
Being Positive and indealist is also a good thing at the right timing.

No one can "feel" the right timing alone.
We always need someone else on the other side of the labyrinth that we can trust.

We are not competing to find the better path, we have to cooperate to get out of the same labyrinth.

This dilemma is one of the core sources of inspiration in our Fantasy World Aurion. In the Aurion, there are no good vs Evils, no prophecy, no Chosen Ones. Only an existential war between all the human spiritual diversity trying to find... the "Truth".

If you like Fantasy story with epic and intense battles, but also stories that will make you have fun and grow at the same time, Come and "Decode" the AurionVerse with us in games, graphic novels. Join our community and get 3 volumes for free: http://join.aurionverse.com/

Feb 29, 2024

Nothing Good Can Come Of This - Released on Steam

Nothing Good Can Come Of This - Cartwheel Games

Nothing Good has finally been released on Steam! This project has been a labor of love for the past decade, spending most of its life as an arcade game in NYC venues.

I wrote the original version while a student at the NYU Game Center. It was for a class called "Prototype Studio" taught by Bennett Foddy of QWOP fame. Every week, Professor Foddy would give us a prompt for a new game jam style digital game project. For this particular week, the prompt was "Violence." Inspired by the original Saw movie, I placed characters in a confined space where they were presented with the opportunity to commit violent acts with a gun that falls through a hole in the ceiling.

It was a hit with my fellow students and playtesters. It eventually caught the eye of Mark Kleeb, curator of the arcade the underground music venue Death By Audio. Mark gave me the opportunity to build a full arcade machine at his workshop, debuting with a big launch event eight years ago. Since then the machine has been to BostonFIG, SAAM Arcade, and MAGFest Indie Arcade. It now resides in Mark's bar Wonderville in Brooklyn, and maintained by the Arcade Commons game collective.

In the 5.0 version of the game, I have introduced quite a few changes, quality of improvements, and features.

Changes

A full overhaul of the UI with a new menu system with settings and match options sub menus.
View play statistics by pressing F1 on the title screen.
Pass-and-play tournament/party mode. Up to 32 players can play in the single-elimination format, and 8 in the round robin format.
I've added a method of switching color palettes to give the game some variety. If you have an arcade machine, consider switching to the "Dark" mode to prevent screen burn-in. Press F2 to switch palettes or change it in the settings menu.
XBox and Steam controller support added via Steam Input API, supporting custom mapping.
Localized the game into 14 new languages: Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Ukrainian. I used AI to translate because, well, it's a zero budget indie game, so please let me know if you spot any wonky phrasing.
Hidden game modes - There are four Easter egg modes and one more hidden "roster" feature somewhere in the game. They have not been properly play-tested, so I'm burying them a bit until I'm more confident that they're fun. Just think of unconventional ways to play the game if you're looking for them.
Numerous bug fixes and optimizations.

Arcade Launch Options

This game is primarily an arcade game, with my own machine hosted at the Wonderville arcade bar in Brooklyn, NYC. So naturally I decided to add a bunch of arcade-friendly features to make integration into an arcade cabinet easier.

Arcade launch option: The game will have a more limited menu with "Insert Credit" and "Ready?" prompts. The "1" and "2" keys will add credits (maybe hook one up to an internal test button and the other to the coin door). Once credits are inserted "F" and ";" keys will set player 1 and player 2 to to the "ready" state, respectively.
Free play arcade launch option: Same as paid but credits aren't needed, obviously.
Attract Mode - Some of your matches will be saved and replayed if you idle on the title screen for too long. This is to prevent some screen burn-in and to show a preview of gameplay to passing users in an arcade setting.
Press F4 on the title screen to start a tournament while either arcade mode is active.
Press F5 on the title screen to cycle between arcade and the standard launch mode. Use this to access the Settings or Play menus to change game or match settings.