Players must have noticed the handsome industrial posters decorating the Beira D. We’re incredibly thankful to the extraordinary Richard Littler who collaborated with us on these. Littler is one of UK’s most sought-after and artistically ambitious graphic designers who takes the craft to a whole new level. We’re thrilled he found the time to work with our Art team on this.

Still Wakes the Deep's Associate Art Director Laura Dodds:
"When we started researching how a 1970s oil rig might feel, the world of Scarfolk Council was a big inspiration for us in its slightly sinister and satirical recreation of British establishments during that time. Fast forward a few years and we were looking for a graphic designer to help us with our 2D art from safety posters, fictional oil and gas promotional materials and maps and signage. I thought it was a long shot, but I got in touch with Richard and was so delighted when he came on board. His eye for detail was spot on from nailing the tone of voice for Cadal slogans to helping us with anachronistic typefaces and colour palettes."

We adored collaborating with Richard, it was such a privilege to work with someone with such depth of expertise and cultural prowess. Here are examples of Richard's work for Still Wakes the Deep, many of which you'll recognise from the Beira D corridors you've roamed...
















Got a question about Still Wakes the Deep? 
Pop over to our Subreddit to have it answered by the devs.

P.S. The patch is very much being worked on, there is also certification it must pass, but it should be really soon now. We're enormously thankful to the folk affected for your patience,

"Join EA Play to make your games more rewarding with access to great player benefits and a library of top titles. Members get more from your game including monthly member-only rewards like Weapon Charms in Apex Legends. And when it’s time to find your next favorite game, we’ve got you covered with an ever-expanding library of our fan-favorite series and premium games. You can even try out select new release games for up to 10 hours of playtime with no commitment. If you decide to buy, your saved progress will carry over, so you can continue where you left off. Our members also save on purchases of EA digital content, with a 10% member discount. Letting you save on full games, points packs, and DLC. Find out more about upcoming EA Play benefits at https://store.steampowered.com/subscriptions/ea or
follow us on X (Twitter) and Instagram @eaplay."



*CONDITIONS, LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS APPLY. SEE https://tos.ea.com/legalapp/eaplay/US/en/PC/ FOR DETAILS.

Hello everyone! This hotfix focuses on gameplay adjustments in order to make the player experience more enjoyable. As well as this, lots of other small things!

• Added tape around Level 0 exit

• Increased Level 1 Item amount
  
• Removed Interact prompt from generators when completed In Level 1

• Adjusted Scratcher path finding
  
• Changed Level 2 clocks to display Green Instead of Red
  
• Fixed not being able to revive players in lockers
  
• Added Level 2 objective tip

• Added consumable Items to Level 6
  
• Moved Level 6 statues next to puzzle doors

• Level ! Scratcher kills Instead of downs the player
  
• Lowered Level ! alarm volume

• Updated main menu environment
  
• Fixed crash involving moving between levels and low sanity
  
• Updated Localization

• Items desynced for clients which prevents picking them up
  
• UE Prerequisites asking you to install or uninstall for every launch on Linux

Thank you everyone for playing and enjoying Backrooms: Escape Together!

Hi Jans,

Throughout the last month The Alters was June's IGN First. Here's a summary of everything you could learn about the game during that time!


The trailer was also an announcement for the demo which is still available for a limited time. Give it a try if you haven't already!


This 14-minute segment covers the beginning of the game, providing a glimpse into how The Alters plays.


To better understand The Alters and how this unique set-up affects the many branching story paths you’ll encounter as you play, IGN sat down with game director Tomasz Kisilewicz and lead designer Rafał Włosek.


The newest trailer for The Alters has Jans asking himself "What if?" about his life.


As Jan Dolski, you must bring in alternate-reality versions of yourself in order to survive on a hostile mining planet. This is the story of all those other Jans, who are not simply clones.


Check out a whopping 42 minutes of exclusive gameplay, including commentary from some of the game's lead developers!

Take care,
11 bit studios

Add The Alters to your wishlist and don't miss any future updates:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1601570/The_Alters/

• Added Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages
  
• Added shortcuts for character and unit selection
  
• Added gamepad control functionality
  
• Added friend-or-foe identification markers
  
• Added transparency effect when characters are obscured by structures

• Fixed bug where level-up stat increases were the same for all characters
  
• Fixed issue where hyena gang animations were awkward

• Adjusted to start with additional members
  
• Increased base level capacity of all stages by 5
  
• Adjusted base HP for each character and increased overall base attack power
  
• Increased increments of HP, attack power, etc., upon leveling up

After showing us his level design process, this time around Brin will take us with him on a journey in the new and improved roguelike mode of One Btn Bosses!

The new episode will be out on our youtube channel today (July 9th) at 6 pm CEST.

See you then!

Hello everyone!

As some of you has been asking, we're finally ready to activate the Cloud Saves on Sandwalkers!

It should be seemless for the vast majority, and allow you to share your saves via the cloud between different Computers, including from different OSes. For exemple, you can start your game on Windows and continue it on MacOS.
However since the game isn't officially supported on Steamdeck yet, I can't assure you cloudsaves will work there, but it should. I'd be more than happy if you could confirm though :D.


- As I said, it should all be seemless, but I'd rather anticipate every situation. So, should you have a conflict somehow with the cloud. The first thing to do is to BACKUP YOUR SAVES
To do so, find your save files :

Windows
%USERPROFILE%/AppData/LocalLow/GoblinzStudio/Sandwalkers/

MacOs
~/Library/Application Support/GoblinzStudio/Sandwalkers/

Linux
~/.config/unity3d/GoblinzStudio/Sandwalkers/

If you're on Windows, you can press Windows + R and paste this : %USERPROFILE%/AppData/LocalLow/GoblinzStudio
It will open the GoblinzStudio folder directly if you have trouble finding it

Make a copy of the Sandwalkers folder anywhere else on your computer ; in case anything goes wrong, you'll be able to copy back this folder into the GoblinzStudio folder and get back your save

Then, you can try to launch the game and solve the conflict the way Steam handles it (depending on the situation it's going to be different, but do not hesitate to hop on Steam Forums and ask for help)

- If you already played the game on two different computers and know which save you want to keep
First of all once again, backup your saves before launching the game! The cloud should synchronise the first saves you'll play the game with. Keep in mind that the cloud uploads your game files to the cloud when closing the game, and download them from the cloud when you launch the game. It might also try to synchronize when opening Steam, but I'm not sure on the exact way it works on Steam side

If you're playing on two different Windows computers, you can manually copy the Sandwalkers folder from the PC you want to keep the save from to the other one.
But generally, the safest trick would be to open, play a bit, save, and quit the game on the PC you want to keep the saves from. Once you're sure the cloud is synchronized, you can then play on any computer with your account

If you can't see the Cloud activated on the game yet, you can try to relaunch Steam as this is sometimes required for it to be taken into account

But then again, all this long post will probably be useless according to my tests. But better safe than sorry!

Have a wonderful day,

-Thomas

Following on from last week where we gave some advice on game settings to new players coming into Galactic Civilizations IV for the first time, this time around we’re going to examine a crucial 4X game feature that often goes overlooked by new players: the “goodie hut”, or Anomalies, to give them their proper GalCiv name.

The 4X gameplay staple mechanic of collectable resources randomly scattered across the map goes way back to the original Sid Meier’s Civilization at least, and is so ingrained into strategy gaming in general that veterans of the genre tend only to notice it if it’s absent, seriously unbalanced in terms of pay-out or requires too much player attention. In the latter case, players tend to turn the feature off completely.

We’ve tried to make this feature a lot more interesting and fun, while ensuring it stays relevant for longer into the game without it taking too much attention away from the player.


Very generally speaking, Space Junk and Capsules will offer a some kind of situation to the player and ask for a decision to be made, the choice of which determines the outcome. Most of the outcomes are good, while negative ones are greatly limited in scope and mostly there for flavor, to provide just a little risk for excitement purposes rather than inflicting a lot of damage: nobody enjoys having their game ruined by a seriously powerful, random punishment.

The pickups on offer from Space Junk and Capsules vary greatly, and range from simple payouts of Credits and strategic resources, powerful ship components that can be added to your Commander’s ships to some very powerful and interesting story-based events.

Capsules tend to pay out more intact or useful items, while Space Junk is often less valuable but can often be attached to some of the more dangerous or exotic in-game Events, but this isn’t a strict rule and there’s a lot of variance between the two to prevent the game feeling predictable.

Artifacts work somewhat different, and will usually place a powerful player-useable item into The Vault. These items can then be played as a special ability at any time during your turn, with many varied effects.


This one provides an instant +500 Influence points to any planet you control. In the early game that’s a lot of Influence and can be used to great effect to either resist enemy Culture, or push your own cultural dominance on your neighbors.

To address the common complaint that players feel compelled to manually grab every single random goodie they can, in Galactic Civilization’s IV: Supernova we limit the ability to survey Anomalies to specialized ships with the Flag module. This means players aren’t motivated to build a ton of extraneous resource collectors for the purpose of cashing in on all that loot at the expense of enjoying other aspects of the early game exploration phase.

While we’re on this topic, it’s worth mentioning that GalCiv includes a related system of in-game Events that use a similar multiple choice system to create potentially branching stories, and these work in tandem with Anomalies to breath some extra life and player immersion into the cold, dark and empty void that space is usually imagined to be.


Immersion aside though, here are a few reasons why the inclusion of randomized pickups works so well at the start of a 4X game, and why new players really should expend the effort chasing them down.

Firstly, in any game with procedurally (or randomly) generated maps, scattering some useful pickups around for the player to find serves to encourage exploration out from their starting position in the hope of finding some extra gold, credits, metal, technologies or other useful items.

Why it is that some new players have a tendency towards turtling up in their starting location is a complex topic and I’ve got no easy explanation for it to suit a short developer journal like this. Suffice to say, in most strategy games as a beginner, sitting around in your small starting position hoping to outpace your rivals by making the most of your meagre resources is a losing strategy.


The computer players in GalCiv will quickly send out scouts to explore, and Flag Ships to claim the various Anomalies scattered throughout the sector. You need to do the same if you want to keep apace of the race for galactic dominance. Anomalies are one way to get players out exploring space and finding all that good stuff, including the best planets, strategic resources, Precursor Relics and the locations of your rivals.

Anomalies are also a lucrative resource to fight over with your neighbors: sure, you’ve got that Open Borders treaty to stop that bigger neighbor from invading you for your stuff, but now they’re snaffling up all those Artifacts you didn’t get around to claiming. Is that a reason to go to war? Or do you redirect your own Flag module-enabled vessels to their territory to respond in kind?

In many classic 4X games, the “goodie huts” are an early game feature that are mostly exhausted by the time the eXploit and eXterminate phases of the game come into play. Put more simply, after the first couple of dozen turns, you and the AI will have found them all and that’s it.


In Galactic Civilizations IV, researching various Techs in the tech-tree will unlock the ability to detect even more Anomalies, and this provides the player with an interesting decision: if you’ve somehow managed to build more Flag modules (and there are several ways to do this!) it can be great strategy to unlock more and more Anomalies and claim their secrets.

This can be particularly useful if you’ve not got a whole lot of physical space around you to claim, with few habitable planets available for traditional resource generation.

Furthermore, many of these goodies can be sold for Credits and even with lots of space to explore and expand into, those extra Credits can come in handy to rush-build that Colony Ship you need to beat your neighbor to that high class planet between the two of you!

Finally, having some random goodies dotted around is just plain fun! It’s really cool to find a powerful weapon in a floating capsule, or an Artifact that can damage an entire enemy fleet, helping you win an otherwise unwinnable conflict!

Hopefully this has given you some insight into why Anomalies exist, and why you should go grab them!

Till next time!

Get ready for the Nar Shaddaa Nightlife event!

The Nar Shaddaa Nightlife event begins today! During the next six weeks, players can test their luck and earn new rewards such as the High Stakes Squadron Helmet!


(High Stakes Squadron Helmet with High Roller Armor Set dyed with Chrome White / Gold module)

This reward can be obtained from the Emperor’s Grace Machines located in the main areas of the Star Cluster and Club Vertica Casinos.

Other event featured rewards include:

• High Roller Skiff Mount
  
• High Roller Armor Set
  
• Kingpin’s and Nightlife Socialite Armor Sets
  
• Phrojo Nuray and Gammorean Bodyguard Companions
  
• Vectron Magnus and Kingpin's Rancor Mounts
  
• Kingpin’s Predator Mount
  
• Taxidermy Stronghold Decorations
  
• Cartel Market Certificates
  
• High Roller Shades
  
• Replica C1-4W Mini-pet
  
• Kingpin’s Grigna Mount
  
• Blast Pad Floor Trap and Frost Floor Trap Stronghold Decorations
  
• High Roller Weapons
  
• Lucky Pritarr Mount
  
• Fiery Grefna Chick
  
• Proud Pritarr Cub
  
• Shimmering Ginx
  
• …and more!

(High Roller Skiff Mount)


(High Roller Weapons. From left to right bottom: High Roller Blaster Pistol, High Roller Blaster Rifle, High Roller Cannon, High Roller Sniper Rifle, High Roller Lightsaber, and High Roller Lightstaff.)

Some adjustments have been made this year to how the machines work and how the Lucky and Good Karma buffs affect plays. Be sure to read up on all the details here!

Players with a keen eye will notice that modernization has begun on Nar Shaddaa! The first updates are to the slot machines around the planet, in the Nightlife event, and even in your Strongholds if you have them as Decorations.


(Modernized slot machine - before and after)


(Modernized slot machines)

The event will run from July 9th to August 20th, so you don’t have to spend all your credits on the first day!

Version 0.1.20 introduces a new deck called Bloodsucker, which comes with unique lacrima. In addition to that, there is new card art, new music, and a new UI.

• Added new starter deck: Bloodsucker
  
• Added new lacrima exclusive to new Bloodsucker deck
  
• Added music for chapter 3 with cello by Lou Dunand-Vincent
  
• Added art to bosses and curses by Vergvoktre
  
• Added art to blessings by Marvin Blattert
  
• Added background art for lacrima rewards and made them easier to select
  
• Added new chapter backgrounds
  
• Added map animation when shown the first time
  
• Added animation for icons when new status effect is applied to a card (thanks Terrok)
  
• Added game over animation
  
• Overhauled UI: All information is in the top left corner now, blessings and curses are on the right side of the screen
  
• Boss tile now gets activated automatically (thanks Auri)
  
• Treasures no longer reward duplicate lacrima (thanks Auri)
  
• When starting a new run, deck and difficulty selection from previous run is now preserved
  
• No longer highlight Redraw if you have 0 cards in deck and discard pile (thanks Auri)

• Fixed boss tile showing wrong info (thanks Alexis Clay and Legendary_Pups)
  
• Fixed abandon run not working correctly
  
• Fixed certain string characters not showing correctly (the é in Buné)
  
• Fixed not being able to click on curses on game end screen (thanks Auri)
  
• Fixed description for ally graveyard when using Gravedigger deck
  
• Fixed issue where you were able to Continue after winning a run (thanks Auri)
  
• Fixed front of a card sometimes not disappearing when faced down inside the deck (only happened in inventory)
  
• Fixed header in game end screen showing "Select an event" after checking out the battle log
  
• Fixed battle log using untranslated lacrima text
  
• Fixed OnAllyCapture checking for the wrong card to trigger (caster instead of target) (thanks Auri)

Thank you for playing Faith in Despair. Make sure to wishlist it and join the Discord.