Hey everyone,

Ever since launching Impaler, we wanted to do more with the game, add more features, and, simply, make it the best game it can be. Over the past year, we’ve released regular updates, allowing you to compete in the Leaderboards, expanding the number of stages, adding Sword, reworking Shotguns, introducing a handful of new enemies, such as the Hive and Pigmen, and much more.

Now is the time to take a step further. We’ve been working on this for quite some time now, and we’re finally excited to share more details with you.




Impaler Gold is the most significant game update since Impaler’s initial launch. All aspects of the game have been improved and the patch contains 100s of enhancements alongside new content.

This update marks a certain milestone in the development of Impaler, and we’re celebrating it with a complete overhaul of the Steam Page, and the game’s key assets. We want to keep it familiar, and at the same time make it feel… fresh and exciting.

Collectathon is a brand new, unique time-based game mode coming to Impaler in the Gold update. It is set in a dynamic outdoor arena that emphasizes movement & verticality. As you progress, the world shifts and transforms around you. Each transition reveals new challenges to overcome.



Collectathon will launch with 16 different layouts and will have its own, separate Leaderboard, which will be introduced at a later date. You might want to get a few test runs in, to stay ahead of the competition in the future.


We want to take a moment to thank you all for all the support you’ve shown Impaler over the past year and a half. Your feedback brought us here, and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store for Impaler Gold.

See you Monday!

Hello friends!

Since Update 10 we’ve continued to focus on addressing the most common (or reported) points of frustration (recent and old). We’ve touched many areas of the game to fix and improve as much as we could. We hope you enjoy this update!

Update 11 includes a 🎽 New Trainee Mode and Improvements in these areas:
⚛️ Physics and Weapon-Environment Collision
🤸 Class Re-Balancing
💣 Weapon Feel
💨 Teleportation Movement Polish
📲 Chip Usage and One-Handed Play
🏞 Level Layouts and Ladders
✊ Stability and Consistency

Our biggest addition for this release is a new Trainee Mode.



A common point of frustration from certain players is that the game environments are too repetitive. This is an unfortunate quirk of roguelike games where, if you die often, you end up never seeing some of the later areas. We want those players to have an opportunity to experience the breadth of levels and environments we offer.

In Trainee Mode, you can continue from the same level you died from, and in this manner, get to see more of the later game levels. The trade-off is that there are no leaderboards, no achievements can be unlocked and no class unlock progression. We’re quite curious how this new mode will be received.

Weapon collisions with fixed environment objects are now DISABLED by default. Weapon collisions have been a big source of frustration from some of our players and we’re excited to finally be able to offer this behavior as an option. This “minor” improvement involved quite a bit of work, adjusting every existing environmental object in the game.

For players who want to stick with the original behavior, simply go to “Settings->Weapons->Environment Collisions”.




We don’t usually change a default behavior with an update, but based on our internal testing, it feels like the right way to go.

We’ve re-balanced the Sniper and Grenadier classes’ unlock progression to make them feel less grindy/ridiculous. Thank you for the feedback on these, it’s given us ideas for further (future) improvements.

The Grenade Launchers have been improved to be more effective and fun. The fuse times on the grenades are now much shorter (sticky grenade 4s -> 1s, contact grenade 3s -> 0.1s).

Shotguns now have a subtle kick-back when pumped.

The teleportation system has been improved in several ways:

• It now accurately jumps to the target on the floor
  
• There’s subtle movement filtering of the aim target
  
• We fixed a bug that took the wrong position to offset the aim

We’ve made a few (player-requested) improvements to the settings:
The “Fall down” setting now applies to all types of falling down (off a ledge, after using the grapple hook), not just when teleporting off the edge of raised floor. Players can choose between Instant, Linear speed or Normal gravity-acceleration.
Players can now toggle on/off the display of damage numbers.

This is long overdue, but you can now equip a chip in the hand that’s holding it by simply pulling the trigger. Sweet Surrender is now officially playable one-handed. This improvement also introduced one of the silliest bugs we’ve ever seen, where you could equip all sorts of weapons into your chip slots.




We’ve also fixed a lot of edge cases where certain chip effects wouldn’t stack or work properly, especially in the reloading, time slow down and EMP effects.

The Sewers were the only environments to use ladders, and they seem to cause endless problems. We never found a fun way to use ladders in the game, so we decided to remove all ladders from the Sewers and replace them with teleport jumping pads.

In the Mines area, we’ve cleaned up a few rooms that occasionally placed an annoying amount of debris in your path.

We made minor (but important) improvements to make the interactions physics feel more consistent:

• We (finally) added collision marks for bullets that hit doors
  
• Weapons dropped by enemies now react to bullets (they used to stay static)

We’ve added new achievements, including a handful for funny/silly deaths. In the process of testing some of these, we discovered (and fixed) a crazy bug that left you in a weird zombie state if you were killed by a bullet deflected off a crystal!



Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We still have a few updates planned for Sweet Surrender, so stay tuned for that as well as our future games.

As always, you can keep track of our plans in the Public Roadmap and stay in touch with us and the community on our Discord.

We also want to thank super-fan Shep for creating the fan art used in the header image for Update 11! ♥️♥️♥️

Here’s the full changelog for Update 11:

• New weapon-environmental collision option
  
• Improved collision layers of all environmental and prop objects in homebase, mines, slums, sewers and industrial areas.
  
• Improved weapon collision shapes
  
• bHaptics sleeve feedback support for weapons, items and chips
  
• WIP: new Continue button that allows players to continue from the level they died
  
• Decluttered derelict mineshaft rooms to reduce objects in your path
  
• Smoothed teleport pointer estimation
  
• Re-balanced Sniper and Grenadier class progression unlocks (should be easier to achieve)
  
• Reduced grenade bullet fuse durations (1s for sticky grenade, 0.1s for normal grenade)
  
• Player can now equip a chip on the hand they are holding by pulling the trigger
  
• Door frames now have proper bullet collisions
  
• For smooth turning, scale turning speed to joystick strength
  
• Massively increased Sewers bridge opening speed
  
• Added detailed logs on player actions (items pick-up, drops and uses) and VR device used
  
• Dropped Enemy weapons now behave physically (you can shoot them)
  
• Improved enemy AI and navmesh navigation, especially around jump pads
  
• Boss enemy improvements
  
• New trainee class where players continue from the same level after death (but without achievements, leaderboard or progression unlocks)
  
• Improved deadzone for joystick rotation
  
• Improved units sticking to their navmeshagents
  
• Replaced ladders with jump pads in all sewer rooms
  
• Added chargebot behavior with warning indicator and better charge path generation
  
• Performance: Deactivate vignettes fully when their alpha is close to zero (was causing unnecessary overdraws)
  
• Performance: reduce mining walls overdraw
  
• Option: you can now show or hide damage numbers
  
• Added new death and trainee achievements
  
• Shotguns now have small kick-back on pumping
  
• Added a “Leave a Review” button

• Improved reset behavior for edge cases, better handling in slums elevator
  
• Fixed logging issues on PC version
  
• Regenerated meshes with reduced polycount for all homebase assets, all mines assets, all slums assets, industrial medical assets, modern city server room, sewers tiles and decorations
  
• Fixed credits in server room
  
• Prevent spider bots bullets from colliding with itself
  
• Prevent spider bot-hive collisions
  
• Fixed a handful of collision issues
  
• Fixed a handful of null exceptions (during weapon placement, bullet particles, bullet replacement chips)
  
• Fixed charge behavior for Big Red robot
  
• Cleaned up various log spam
  
• Fixed missing modifiers in mesh atlas.
  
• Fixed shading issues on some slums meshes
  
• Improved level generation time (by fixing null issues in room list)
  
• Fixed occasional missing health packs in vending machines
  
• Fixed broken health stations in occasional Mines rooms
  
• Fixed potential Reaper class unlock issues
  
• Chargebot’s actions are now executed in the correct order
  
• Fixed a bunch of incorrectly serialized prefabs which previously caused all sorts of weirdness
  
• Fixed enemy weapons overwriting collision layers on pick-up
  
• Fixed flickering health dispensers
  
• Wooden planks are no longer melee weapons
  
• Menu laser pointer no longer disappears if you press X or A
  
• Fixed a long-standing dash/teleport offset position problem where it would only work correctly if you never move around in your real life space.
  
• Fixed teleportation so that it jumps exactly to the location you aimed for, and not a meter/yard shorter
  
• Fixed temporary speed buffs removing permanent ones
  
• Fixed headshot reload chip not working properly on some weapons (sniper, laser sight handgun)
  
• Fixed time slowing inconsistency bug

Probably one of the most requested features is finally in the game, you can now search through the interactions in the ghost eliminator, making it much easier to filter down what you're working with. In the future I'll also make it only display interactions that the filtered ghosts can do, which will also make it easier, but this is at least a big step towards that.

• Fixed pin chair going in Palmerston wall (I also think that's what was causing issues with the light switch as that also works now)
  
• Re-fixed the Potts road wall, I have no idea how this broke again...
  
• Fixed fireplace poking through on Palmerston Street
  
• Fixed backdoor being unusable on Palmerston Street
  
• Removed the Rusalka double-up interaction
  
• Decreased Palmerston Street truck lighting
  
• Fixed some "god spots" on Potts road, where you could get but the ghost couldn't
  
• Reduced the height of some of the rugs, meaning books should no longer go missing under them
  
• Fixed items that would bounce around when placed
  
• Fixed salt floating if you "dropped" it
  
• Fixed all ghost exorcisms to show the model during exorcism, instead of only showing the shade
  
• Fixed a bug where players would get an old incorrect loading screen
  
• Fixed a bug where you'd get no loading screen after ending a game
  
• Fixed a bug where swapping weapons would sometimes cause you to be "Holding" something invisible
  
• Fixed a bug that made it impossible for some players to remap keys
  
• Fixed a bug where keybindings were being incorrectly displayed (blank or wrong key)
  
• Fixed a bug where dead players could run into the ghost, stopping a hunt

• Added a catcher under all the houses, if a object falls through the map, it will now be placed outside the truck
  
• Added sounds for when interactions happen (painting sliding down walls, ball getting thrown)
  
• Added sounds for dropping items
  
• adjusted baseline brightness to make it darker inside
  
• Re-added tips to the loading screen
  
• Removed Hide having its own key, its now just the same as your interact key
  
• Made all your equipment slots remappable "1, 2, and 3" by default
  
• Removed player collision

Before this update, if it snowed, or rained the outside of the houses would still be quite flat and dull, I've address and fixed that in this patch, as you can see by the photo below, as it rain or snows it will slowly build up outside, this doesn't really affect much, but its nice to come outside after a blizzard and see that it's actually affected the world in some way. Hopefully this adds a bit more to the immersion.




I realised I never really laid out, or told you guys what I would be working on next, so I'm going to start doing that at the end of each devlog.


The main reason this patch was so big is because I started working on the backend for VR, I can't stress enough that this is still quite far away from being anywhere near ready, but I do have a pretty decent working prototype currently, and I will continue to work on it in the background, this isn't coming out anytime soon as I want it to be absolutely perfect, but I also wanted you guys to know that I am working on it. I plan on this coming out AFTER modding.

I'll keep everyone updated as I make more and more progress, and maybe throw in some videos here and there, but for now we're at a spot where you can pick up and use the equipment, so I am making steady progress.


I'm not overly happy with the current stage of interactions, they feel a bit bland, or forced, and they're extremely linear, so I've started working on that. Firstly I want to make the current interactions "better" for example throwing plates doesn't really do anything besides create a plate at a location, there's no big smash, or bits of plate scattered about as it smashes down a hallway, so I've started work on just that:



In terms of moving away from making them linear, I'm looking at exploring the possibility of the ghost deterioring the house overtime, instead of just "cracks/smashes door" being an image pasted over the top, I'd like for it to take chunks out of the door, which the ghost will also be able to see you through:



The idea is to also have them eventually break the door if they've done enough damage to it. I'm open to suggestions and ideas regarding this, as interactions are the core of Obsideo, so I want to make them as perfect as possible.


Thank you again for all your support everyone, in my last update I did I mentioned we've moved out of mixed and into mostly positive, and you guys went and blew that out of the water by putting us into "Very Positive" words can't describe how happy to makes me seeing how much love you all still have for this game.

- Kyle.

Fixed bug for Rolling Log Tower's attack priority settings not being able to save properly in Wiki.

Hi everyone!! It’s been a bit! Welcome to Version 1.2: The Whispers Update!

This project just refuses to die; it’s too fun to work on. This isn’t and probably never will be our job, but with the rough and tumble world out there, developing new content for DRACOMATON is a bit of an anchor. We hope playing it might do something similar for you!

In any case, it’s been a full year since our Steam release. Thank you for all the support both then and now! When we realized the date was coming up, we did our best to fit all of our in-progress changes into this new update. Me and Calex have been cooking up a storm with two new forms, namely Spirit and Tornado. As always, the indomitable Sophie has also designed some new rooms, with some new faces to fight, designed and animated by the wonderful Benji. Both Sophie and the gracious Autumn have gifted us some new sound effects for all above.

Calex has also made something for all of us to dirty our hands with to make the game harder, for all you sweats out there: Challenge Modes! So if the current game isn’t quite challenging enough, beat your first run and you’ll have some extra fun options waiting for you in the main menu. Credit to Ryan, Sophie, and Tracie in particular for these meat grinders.

To be completely honest, on a random day in May, Calex told me off-hand that he was bored, so I jokingly told him to boot up DRACOMATON and we could make a new form on the spot. He doubled down so I followed suit, and subsequently dragged our team into the vortex of working on this game again. I’ve dived into so many sections of the game that I haven’t before, and know a lot more about doing animations and VFX now. Calex has stayed mostly the same from what I can tell; he’s always been the one welding the game together when no one else can.

It’s been a wild couple of months against a wild backdrop of a year, but none of us regret it at all. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy out there, and as the world continues to change, I hope we all continue to find ourselves growing into something new.

Speaking of new things, the members of Gun Jumpers and beyond have also continued to create games! If you haven’t already make sure to check out:

Spared
Be the last pin standing in this fantasy bowling setting!
Play Here!

Beat Heart Beat
https://x.com/BHB_game




Spirit: Summon ghosts and slow enemies!



- Ghost Wave: Shoot a piercing wave that inflicts a slowing Curse.

- Shade Summon: Summon a ghost that follows your crosshair. Killing Cursed enemies makes it stronger.

Tornado: Blow your foes away and ride the wind!



- Pinwheel: Knock enemies away with an exploding shot.

- Tempest: Summon a tornado that boosts the Speed and <#ff5271>Damage</color> of your other projectiles that pass through it.

Normal Items:


Storykeeper: Enemies take 0-10% more Damage on based on bestiary progress. Also, gain 0-10% Damage based on room's terminal progress.


Accelerant: Projectiles gain a damage bonus based on their velocity.

Challenge Items:


Shroom Form: Your vision changes. Gain 25% Speed and Attack. Gain 40% primary ability cooldown reduction. Your projectiles are 40% smaller.


Damaging Bolts: Bolts deal 5 damage to you while a room is active. Bolt pickup range decreased.


Enemy Cloning: Enemies are cloned every couple of seconds, depending on how many enemies are remaining in the room.


- 2 new room layouts and 1 miniboss room layout added to the Sun-Dappled Factory (Area 1).

- 1 new miniboss room layout added to the Snowy Surface (Area 2).


Turret:


Turrets continuously shoot at a pre-determined angle while the room is active. Be mindful of your movement if you encounter them in a room.




The game now has challenges for you to complete! You can access the challenge menu by hitting the button on the main menu after you’ve beaten the game at least once. Completed challenges will show up in gold. Do your best to complete them all!




Chaotic: Survive a run with no normal items and an enhanced chance for chaos items!


Cloning: Every couple of seconds, all remaining enemies in arena rooms are duplicated! Be mindful of how you spend your time...


Damaging Bolts: Picking up bolts while a room is active deals damage to Eclipse! Watch your step...


Hitless: A trial for the truly insane.


No Items: No items or shops. Survive on forms alone.


Platformer: No longer a secret item, Platformer returns as a challenge for the gravity fans out there.


Shroom Form: Do not play this challenge if you have photosensitive epilepsy.


The Gauntlet: Given a preset loadout of forms and items, survive a trial of skill alone.


Update 1.2 brings various UI improvements to the game, including but not limited to: item select and inventory frames, the option to enable status icons above enemy health bars, and more!


Item Frames - updated with new visuals. Also has unique visuals for normal versus chaos items.




Item Cards - updated with new visuals.



Status Icons - New option in "Visual Settings" that adds status icons to enemy health bars for statuses that have an icon.


Magnet: Electromagnet icon updated


Hunter: Evo Icons updated




Big Buddy: Have your ghost grow to over double the base size on Spirit Form.

Blown Away: Shoot a wind-blast enhanced projectile through two separate tornados..

Damaging Bolts: Complete "Challenge: Damaging Bolts"

Chaotic: Complete "Challenge: Chaotic"

Cloning: Complete "Challenge: Cloning"

No Items: Complete "Challenge: No Items"

The Gauntlet: Complete "Challenge: The Gauntlet"



Construct Form Rework:
- Primary Attack Order beam replaced with new short range rapid spray.

Battery Overclock - Above 70% battery, you deal double damage and your projectiles are slightly larger. Your batteries drain 30% faster.

Momentum Spinner - Damage boost adjusted to flatten over time instead of linearly increasing forever.
Still very powerful but prevents projectiles reaching ridiculous damage boosts (specifically VSynth protective bullets).

Pinned Down - Now works by checking speed stat instead of checking for certain status types.


- Eclipse spawn animation now has increased resolution to account for the camera zoom.
- Steam Rich Presence Support - See the status of your Steam friends runs in real-time!
- Fixed bosses having invulnerability during their stagger phase.
- Regulus roar animations adjusted to fix snapping.
- New tiles have been added to uncover some of the factory flooring on the Snowy Surface.
- Removed accidentally placed lore terminal stuck in wall in one of the rooms on the Snowy Surface.
- Enemy Gunner bullets are despawned properly on room completion
- Death Screen no longer shows enemy ID instead of enemy display name (crawlerExploding -> Starburst Crawler)
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Commanders!

Today we’ve prepared the following items for you:

• TOS-1M Buratino Tier 10 Premium Tank Destroyer
  
• M-95 Degman Tier 8 Premium Main Battle Tank
  
• ZUBR PSP Tier 7 Premium Tank Destroyer
  
• BWP-2000 Tier 7 Premium Armored Fighting Vehicle
  
• Pile of Gold Loot Crate

Between August 1, 2024 and August 8, 2024, the following items will be available:


The TOS-1M Buratino is a prototype version of the Russian TOS-1/TOS-1A heavy rocket launcher. It was designed in 1997 at Omsk as an improvement to the old TOS-1 whose roots go back all the way to the Afghan War. You can read more about it in our dedicated article.



In Armored Warfare, the TOS-1M Buratino is a Tier 10 Premium Tank Destroyer. As befits its massive rocket launcher installed on the top of a T-90A MBT chassis, its firepower is all but unparalleled and you are looking at perhaps the most destructive vehicle of Armored Warfare. It is available in two configurations – with fast-launching 122mm rockets and the iconic 220mm rockets that can be unlocked either by installing a skin (Koshmar), or by progressing through an active Battle Path.

The TOS-1M is available in our Web Shop via Loot Crates. Collect 100 blueprint pieces from these crates to obtain the vehicle.







The M-95 Degman is an advanced Croatian prototype MBT, developed during the 1990s and 2000s. It is based on the previous Yugoslavian project, the Vihor MBT, which in turn has its roots in the improved T-72M series produced in former Yugoslavia. You can read more about its history in a dedicated article.



In Armored Warfare, the tank is relatively fast and fairly agile while carrying some potent firepower for its Tier. In fact, its owners can choose from two powerful guns:

• 125mm 2A46 Russian-style smoothbore gun, known from many Russian MBTs
  
• 120mm CTG NATO-style smoothbore gun that you know from the Challenger 1 Falcon MBT

It’s worth noting that the 120mm shells have higher penetration values and the gun can also fire Falarick ATGMs while the 125mm gun has higher damage per shot. Both guns will feature good handling as well as overall performance to offset the vehicle’s weakness, which is its mediocre armor. The Degman must rely on its mobility and firepower to survive, making it an ideal vehicle for aggressive, daring players.
This bundle is available in our Web Shop.






The ZUBR was a Czech privately-funded project by PSP Bohemia from the 1990s to develop a successor platform to the aging Soviet-era BMP-series IFVs and various other obsolete specialized vehicles. Even though it was quite advanced for its time, it was ultimately unsuccessful due to the end of the Cold War and the subsequent cuts in European military budgets, including the Czech one. You can read more about it in our dedicated article.



In Armored Warfare, the ZUBR PSP is a Tier 7 wheeled Premium Tank Destroyer. What makes it fairly unique is the fact that you can choose from two different weapon systems for this vehicle:

• Cockerill CT-CV turret with 105mm gun
  
• Four-barreled TOW ATGM launcher

Each of these weapons changes the gameplay style of the vehicle considerably and it is up to you, how you configure this powerful machine.

This bundle is available in our Web Shop.






The BWP-2000 IFV was a Polish attempt from the mid-1990s to develop a replacement for the license-produced BMP-1 in the Polish military, since it was getting obsolete by that point. Its protracted development led to its cancellation at the onset of War on Terror, leaving Poland without a modern tracked IFV to this day. You can read more about it in our dedicated article.



In Armored Warfare, the BWP-2000 is a Tier 7 Premium Armored Fighting Vehicle armed with 60mm cannon as well as a set of ATGM launchers. When it comes to AFV playstyle, the BWP-2000 is definitely more of an infantry carrier and fire support vehicle than a scout due to its large size and powerful armament as well as the ability to deploy Mechanized Infantry. It can take quite a bit of punishment and deal it in equal measure.

This bundle is available in our Web Shop.






We also have the Pile of Gold Loot Crate for you. This Loot Crate contains copious amounts of Gold for you to win.



This Loot Crate includes:

• 250.000 Gold
  
• 100.000 Gold
  
• 50.000 Gold
  
• 10.000 Gold
  
• 5.000 Gold
  
• 1.000 Gold
  
• 500 Gold
  
• 100 Gold

This bundle is available in our Web Shop.



We hope that you will enjoy the offer and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

- Fixed an issue where the game would freeze occasionally due to debris.
- Added a 50ms delay between certain sound effects (e.g., laser) to prevent loud sound.

Fixed the bug where the interface did not refresh after refreshing the ranking data.

Happy to say that progress is going well, wishlists and followers are on the up, so I want to say a big thanks to all those who've done either (or Both!) as it means a big deal! Still more reveals planned, and that demo patch won't be long away now! Production is really ramping up and will be something special on release, until next months update, take care!

Hello, Cultists!

It's Byte Barrel with another DevLog! Today's piece will have a slightly different format, as we're here to share some exciting community-related news and to thank you all for your continued support throughout the development process!

First of all, our Instagram profile has just reached an absolutely mind-blowing milestone of 100,000 followers! And all this in such a short period of time. It's truly a tremendous achievement for our small indie studio.



On behalf of the entire team working on the project, thank you so much for your support! Seeing so many people enjoy content from our game makes us even more passionate about Forgive Me Father 2 and motivates us to make it the best possible experience for you! We simply couldn’t dream of a better and more engaged community to work with!

But Instagram is not the only place where Forgive Me Father 2 is BOOMing! Some time ago, we surpassed 50,000 followers on TikTok, reaching more and more new fellow Cultists!

Another thing is that Discord, one of the most important platforms for us where we can talk with you and engage on a daily basis, is getting really close to 1,500 members. This place has everything: Forgive Me Father 2 news, best memes, Hello Kitty Cthulhu fan art! So if you still haven’t joined the fun, now is the perfect time!



We have also been focusing more and more on our YouTube channel, where we publish videos related to the development process of Forgive Me Father 2, trailers, as well as fun videos made for your entertainment.

That's it for today! Stay tuned, because the next Devlog will definitely be packed with new features from the second content update. Thank you for reading, and make sure to get yourself a copy of Forgive Me Father 2 if you haven't already. And If you have, leaving a review here on Steam would be greatly appreciated!

Until next time,
Byte Barrel Team