Fellow travelers,

The updates and milestones are coming in faster and faster these days, with today's news being that we have officially reached our Alpha milestone. The most important part of this milestone is being able to play the game from beginning to end, and I can't put into words what a joy (and terror, this is a spooky game after all) it is to be able to do so.


Throughout development we've tried to avoid overplaying our hand to keep the mysteries around Joni's haunting from being revealed, and that won't change. That said, we want to keep giving some idea of what we've been up to. In reaching our Alpha milestone, here's some of the work that went into it:

• We soft-locked the script at 134 (!) pages, with one final VO recording session to go
  
• We developed a whole set of spooky moments to raise the tension in certain chapters
  
• We finished up custom art assets for all of the Relics and Whispering Objects throughout the story
  
• We finished the core of and implemented all of the Rituals that go throughout the game, including Joni's final confrontation

Now that we can experience Joni's tale from beginning to end it's time to fill in the last gaps and keep iterating until we're happy. This is the last core development milestone where we actually add things to the game, so we'll be finishing up art assets, finalizing visual effects, polishing mechanics, plugging the narrative edges, and having our final recording session with Joni's voice actor. Once we hit our Beta development milestone all of our efforts will go into bug fixing and final polish. Release is just a few short months away and our plans are all coming together.


Things are going to keep ramping up as we get closer to release! In the coming weeks we'll take part in some events, share more development progress, and our demo will be available on Steam again soon. While you wait for that, here are some links in case you've missed anything:

• Steam page (please wishlist and share): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2828590/The_Haunting_of_Joni_Evers/
  
• Discord community (join us to talk about Joni or the Worlds Across the Causeway): https://discord.gg/Bhp7nZkaVw
  
• Twitter (follow for smaller updates and announcements): https://twitter.com/CausewayGames

'Til we meet again along the Causeway,
Kjartan Kennedy (he/him), Studio Director

We are thrilled to announce that BattleJuice Alchemist was featured in the German Indie Showcase 2024, the "Preshow" for Opening Night Live (hosted by Gronkh). As part of this special event, a brand-new trailer for the game was revealed!



We extend our heartfelt thanks to the organizers of the showcase and are excited to share this new trailer with all of you. While we all eagerly await the upcoming second act of the Early Access version, we invite you to join us at Gamescom 2024!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1384060/BattleJuice_Alchemist/

You’ll find us at the bustling Indie Arena Booth (Hall 10.2, Booth F010g - E019), where you can meet Alain Brunotte, the lead developer and founder of Alchemical Works. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the game and chat with the mind behind BattleJuice Alchemist!

Hello Sacrifices!

While The Deadly Path can be a cruel game, we thought we would show kindness to those of you who are unable to attend Gamescom but giving you the opportunity to play the same build we have on the show floor via the PlayTest functionality.

Simply click request access on the store page to jump right in and play The Deadly Path.



The playtest will have both Roiaan and The One Who Rusts ready and available to play along with a host of improvements to the UI and the roguelite systems.

We hope you enjoy and for those of you at Gamescom, we hope to see you there!

If you want to get further involved in the conversation you can join the Discord here: https://discord.gg/ZazPKvrecx

- Fixed incorrect glyphs showing for some controllers.

The adventures in Valley continue on MTG Arena with the release of Alchemy: Bloomburrow today! This set introduces 30 new cards legal in Alchemy, Historic, Brawl, and Timeless formats and leans into the fun of digital Magic with spellbooks, conjured cards, and mechanics you only find on MTG Arena.

You can see all the cards in the set by checking out the Alchemy: Bloomburrow Card Image Gallery or let Amazonian guide you through all 30 new cards added to MTG Arena with the release of Alchemy: Bloomburrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYfXhMuEI3s

For more information about the Alchemy format visit https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena/alchemy



Select one card at a time from rotating draft packs that include cards from the latest Alchemy release. The cards will be added to your collection, and you'll use them plus basic lands to build a 40-card deck. Play games and receive prizes based on how many games you win!



We're squeezing one more Arena Open into the tail end of August, so shed your old scales and clean your claws—another round of high-stakes Magic competitive play in Arena Open: Bloomburrow is coming August 31 through September 1!

You can claim prizes of up to $2,000 plus an invitation to the September Qualifier Weekend by battling through two days of Bloomburrow Sealed and Draft matches and besting some of the top Magic players around. No matter where you end up placing, everyone who enters will receive the Imagine: Courageous Critters avatar of Jace, the Mind Sculptor!


Check out all the the Arena Open: Bloomburrow event details event details and start practicing in these Bloomburrow limited events now:



We're almost halfway through August, and you only have until August 31 to join in-store Standard events at participating WPN game stores to earn rewards in MTG Arena for each event you play—up to four!

Rewards will be sent to you via your MTG Arena player inbox on or after September 1, 2024. Get all the details on this promotions and sign up for Standard events at your local participating WPN store to start collecting these rewards.

---

• Twitter @MTG_Arena
  
• Facebook @MTGArena
  
• Instagram @mtgarena
  
• TikTok @MTGArena
  
• MTG Arena YouTube channel
  
• Magic: The Gathering Discord channel
  
• Threads @mtgarena

---

v0.0.6 Patch Update Notes

Hello, players. Patch 0.0.6 has been released and it fixes some issues:

Contents of this update:
1、Fixed the issue where there is no score judgment when playing the mainline system and novice guidance for the second time.
2、Fixed the display error problem of the settlement panel of the mainline system.
3、Fixed the problem that the red plaid pants cannot display the try-on effect.
4、Fixed the synchronization problem of music and actions in the practice mode of the dance 4、

We place great emphasis on your gaming experience and will actively gather your feedback and suggestions to continuously enhance the game content and user experience. Your participation is truly invaluable to us! You can provide feedback in the 'bugs-suggestions' channel on our Discord!
https://discord.gg/danceeden

Hi there!

Since our last update, we've been set on making progress with SkateLab's Object Dropper. Our primary goals were to add the abilities to spawn new objects, and to save & load map layouts.. and of course to add more placeable objects to the game. This necessitated reworking a lot of the object dropper's back-end to enable more flexibility for us and modders. In the time it took to do that, we managed to accomplish a few more things.. and today we're stoked to be sharing the progress with you! Here's a (mostly) full list of what's new:



New Content

• Added new map - The Flat
  
• Added new "shoes" - Fingertips
  
• Added new Create & Skate layout to include many of our new placeable objects

Object Dropper

• Added ability to spawn new objects (press X/Square while in Object Dropper with no object selected)
  
• Added ability to save & load object layouts (press Start button while in Object Dropper)
  
• Added a number of new placeable objects to the system
  
• Added new options for placeable lights
  
• Added ability to Add & Remove points from Shapeable objects
  
• Added movement speed adjustment (Dpad Left/Right)
  
• Added camera zoom adjustment (LB + LS up/down)
  
• Changed ground snapping to an on/off toggle where the object will snap to ground while moving
  
• Changed Z axis rotation from world space to local space
  
• Added ability for modders to add their own custom objects as placeables in a similar way to adding custom maps currently. (Custom objects will be added to their own tab in the Spawn Object menu, tutorial coming soon)

Physics

• Changed the board's Collision bodies to more closely match its actual shape. This is most noticeable during scooped tricks, which previously would pop in unpredictable directions from hitting sharp corners.
  
• Changed ollie leveling torque pivot, resulting in slightly more natural in-air movement

Performance Optimization

• Added LODs to the board & many objects resulting in a significant performance improvement across the game
  
• Reworked collision in Amphitheater map, which was previously causing some hang ups & lag

Misc

• Replaced 'Long' camera preset with 'High' preset

Known Bugs

• If MP host cancels from moving an object, said object has no collision for clients until placed again

For a reminder on how to enter the Object Dropper: you can enter Board Placement at any time by pressing Y/Triangle - from Board Placement mode, press X/Square to enter Object Dropper & follow the on-screen UI to manipulate objects & create your own spots. We hope you'll enjoy these changes!


What's next?

Over the time we took working on these features, we've had a lot of new ideas about Physics & Mechanics - so that's where our focus will be pointed in the coming weeks - and we're hyped for it. Along with that, we've already been putting some effort into exploring new game modes & adding in-game tutorials. It's a strong goal of ours to not only improve our mechanics, but to better teach these mechanics to new players, and keep gameplay fun & engaging for those returning to the Lab.

We just revealed the first images of Cairn's demo during Gamescom Opening Night Live, and we're so excited to share the trailer with you all.


If you are headed to Gamescom, come get your hands on Cairn! We're in hall 10.2, and would love to meet you.

The demo features the very beginning of Cairn's story mode, and is meant to get you in shape for your big ascent of Mount Kami. You will learn how to climb, have free rein over a small mountain ridge, and experience the survival mechanics in a low-pressure environment.

The demo is available only at Gamescom for the time being, as there are still some things we want to tweak before we let you all climb. But it's coming soon, 2024 is all I'm allowed to say 👀

Give Cairn a wishlist to be the first to know when the demo is available! You can also join us on Discord if you want to ask us questions: http://discord.gg/thegamebakers

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1588550/Cairn

My name is Tomas. I am an animator. I am also one of two cofounders of Tandemi- the studio making Begone Beast! The other cofounder is Clarissa (my partner, my wife, and programmer extraordinaire!). And…

We are absolutely thrilled to share a new trailer with you that was just shown at Gamescom!



But we are even MORE thrilled to announce we are headed to Early Access in 2025. It’s great to finally start sharing what we’ve been working on! Nevertheless, the MOST thrilling thing of all is that YOU are here reading this. So awesome! We will be regularly posting updates here every few weeks so stick around if you want to learn more!

First lets talk about how the idea for Begone Beast came about. Clarissa and I love going to Haunted Houses. We go each year to Halloween Horror Nights with a bunch of friends & fam. The group of us turns into this big bundle of scared, giggling, screaming scaredy-cats eagerly running from every fake chainsaw and masked madman – only stopping to stuff ourselves with ice cream and hot dogs. It’s weirdly wholesome (especially considering all the fake blood and gore). It’s precisely this odd spooky wholesomeness that sparked our journey to make Begone Beast.

At first the game was just a collection of inspiration and references. We wanted something full of delightful silliness, but grounded in some really scary places. We wanted a Luigi’s Mansion as if it were created by Stephen King.


As a game developer, it’s all work and all play!

It needed to be scary… but kinda fun-scary with lots of snack breaks. Something equal parts Overcooked! and Left 4 Dead. Topped off with the earnest wonder of Calvin and Hobbes… and a bit of that surreal autumnal coziness in Over the Garden Wall. And so we poured all these inspirations into a big cauldron and saw if anything sparked

It wasn’t until we made our first prototype that we felt the spark. In it you played as a little bear boy looking for ghosts and ghouls. It was a glimpse at something we wanted to keep working on. We called that first bear-bones prototype “Ghost Patrol”. It wasn’t much, but there was something special about it.


Our first playable prototype “Ghost Patrol”

This short demo would eventually turn into the game we are building today! It was a creepy-cute mix that we just couldn’t stop thinking about.


“Bear Boy” would later become Benny- the first playable character in Begone Beast



There was a really specific turning point when the game really started to take shape. As a bit of a joke, I decided to try and create a playable character based on my fellow cofounder Clarissa herself. They say to make what you know, right? Well I had known Clarissa almost 10 years at that point. Her exaggerated expressions, her brash boldness, and her propensity to scream. But I wasn’t prepared for how much I would love playing as her.


“Ate” pronounced “Ah-tay” has accumulated a whole array of custom expressions.

Well it turned out that basing a character on someone I knew was actually really effective. I immediately knew how she should move, attack, talk, and scream! We had found our main character and named her “Ate”(pronounced “Ah-tay”). And while Clarissa may have been the inspiration, Ate soon became a reflection of Clarissa’s whole extended family.

More updates coming soon!
After we made Ate, the other characters started to fall into place. We had our starting roster of Begoners! And so we turned our focus to the cast of monsters and BEASTS… but we’ll leave that for another time.

If you’ve read this far, you have my thanks. We’d love to have you join playtesting once we get started. Stay-tuned for more updates! And as always [deep breath] AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

We are thrilled to announce that our Early Access Announcement Trailer for Begone Beast was showcased during the Pre-Show Gamescom: Opening Night Live. We've been pouring our hearts into the game and the trailer and we are soooo excited to finally share a bit of what's to come.



Make sure to keep us on your wishlist - more updates to come! Sending scares and cares from the team at Tandemi!