🏝️ Ahoy, adventurers and sandbox enthusiasts! We’re thrilled to announce that YAARRGH! Battle Island! has officially set sail into the exciting waters of PlayTesting. With three distinct stages planned, this marks a monumental milestone in our journey to create a groundbreaking procedural voxel battle arena. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s ahead.



⛏️ Alpha Testing: Building the Foundations
The Alpha phase has commenced! This stage is exclusive to our development team as we focus on merging the core systems that will power the game. Think of this as the skeleton of our creation—mining, building, crafting, and more are being stitched together to lay a robust foundation for the action-packed co-op and AI wave combat you’ve been eagerly awaiting. While this phase is barebones, it’s the crucial groundwork for the adventure to come.



⚓ Beta Testing: Setting the Scene
Our sights are already on the next stage—Beta testing. This is where the magic truly begins to unfold. With integrated gameplay, polished animations, and refined mechanics, the game will take shape into a more cohesive experience. And here’s the exciting part: Beta testing will be open to all our incredible supporters who have stood by us over the years. Your feedback will play a key role in shaping the final product.



🗺️ Open PlayTest: Charting New Horizons
Once the Beta phase smooths out the rough seas, we’ll expand the PlayTest to a wider audience. This phase focuses on massive-scale testing, tweaking, and refining, as well as actively listening to community feedback. The public PlayTest will be accessible to everyone who has requested access through our Steam Store Page. Get ready to dive in, share your thoughts, and help us make YAARRGH! Battle Island! the best it can be.



💪 Join the Crew
Excited to be part of this journey? Wishlist YAARRGH! Battle Island! on Steam and request access to our PlayTests here: Steam Store Page. Together, we’ll explore, battle, and craft the ultimate sandbox experience.



🦜 Thank you for your unwavering support and enthusiasm as we sail closer to release. Let the games begin, and may the winds be ever in our favour!?



⚠️ Please note: the Open PlayTest is still some time away as we continue refining the game mechanics and tackling lingering bugs. Be sure to wishlist and request access to the public PlayTest through our Steam Store Page to stay updated on our progress.

I hope all who celebrate enjoyed Thanksgiving and hopefully their day or two off! Mine turned out better than I expected in the end, though it ended up still being a rather busy weekend since I was helping my sister prepare for her baby shower. My day job was pretty dead though which allowed me to bring in my laptop to get a bit of map making done. I’ve drafted a layout of the newest dungeon, Basilisk's Hollow. The map isn’t very fleshed out at this time, but I should have some screenshots available by next week.

I’ve also started working on some character sprites, although I’ve run into some trouble finding a good reference for a Gorgon sprite. Again, the hair itself is rather complicated and I haven’t found any RPG Maker character gen packs that include what I’m looking for. I’ll probably have to draw the sprite by hand, which I’m not looking forward to… Anyone know where I could find some good sprite references for a Gorgon?

I also finished working on the art for the latest Pet you’ll be able to earn in this update, Liora! When working on these party members, I try to add something to their design to make them stand out from one another. With Liora, I knew I wanted to give her wavy/messy hair from the get-go. But her color scheme is also unique from the party line-up. Her primarily magenta clothes and aqua accents I think look quite appealing. What do you think?



My $5+ patrons can check out all her character expressions as well as her vampire form right after this post goes live.

https://www.patreon.com/c/MKRUdesign

I also want to share this sick Alexandria commission from the artist Hornyx!


I think she captured Alexandria’s danger and allure perfectly! Please go check out her work! I think her commissions might still be open if you are interested!

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That’s all I have for you this week. Until next time, everyone!

File 04 is now roughly blocked out and coded.



Here's what I worked on since the last devlog.

• Rough blocking/coding for File 04
  
• Halloween art
  
• Prison of Lies Enhanced Edition soft launch

So, I decided to code File 04 before working on backgrounds/music, as an experiment to see if it would speed up the File's development down the road. What does that actually mean? Here's an exclusive image of File 04 to show you!



It means the whole File looks like this right now. I have the characters on screen where they are supposed to appear, they open and close their mouths, but they have no expressions. The puzzles show up but the correct answers are not implemented yet, the methods minigames are not implemented, and there are no CGs or backgrounds. This is why coding is at "90%" complete and not "100%" on the graph. However, even in this primitive state, getting it to this point earlier is going to be really helpful I think. In addition to the benefits I mentioned last time, it also means that towards the end of production on the File, all my focus can be on art assets. What you end up crunching on matters — it's difference between deciding to draw CGs for special moments or to cut them out.

My next task is backgrounds. Because it really helped with File 03, I'm going to be rotating between working on multiple backgrounds at once, instead of getting each one 100% finished one after the other. Just another special trick I'm hoping will speed up the process! ;)

Until next time!

— LockedOn.

-Added, Left Crank Arm
-Added, Right Crank Arm
*Left crank arm not very stable

• Added first-person camera effects while moving
  
• Implemented joining and inviting friends through Steam

GT Racing 1980 - Gameplay Livestreaming now!

Turns out a feature that was intended to be working launch wasn't working due to a bug. Whoops lol. When you use the Phase Shift power card you should now notice the overworld music change! Full patch notes below.

Bug Fixes:
- MAJOR FIX: Corrected a bug that was keeping the phase shift power card from properly pitch shifting the overworld music. You should now hear the music shift when you go in or out of phase shift. (Go make a remix of your own!)
- Further fixes for a bug that was causing cards discarded for energy to not un-zoom
- Fixed some NPC decks that only were loading 29/30 cards.
- Updated Sally's dialog to properly refer to the "Base Set" instead of "Set 1"
- Fixed a bug that made the UI appear when it should be hidden during Sally's Intro

QOL Changes:
- Removed the unused "OTHER" card filter in the deck editor

Fiz and the Rainbow Planet v1.5.0 Available now!

This update includes the following:

Addition of mini-games
Addition of theater room
Improved display settings
Addition of 16:9 frame
Other graphic enhancements
Other bug fixes

*If you have already cleared the main game, the mini-games will be unlocked when you play stages 2-2 and 3-3.

Thank you for playing Phantom Rose! 1.3 is an end of the year update adding new end game content that players can acquire and a limited event for December.



Turbo Roulette mode is a high risk mode with a much faster roulette gameplay. Everyone including the player is beefed up with more powerful attack cards, meaning creating quick powerful play is the key to victory.


New luxury skin has been added that can be acquired with in-game diamond.


New weapon skin has been added that can be acquired by playing endgame modes such as Arcade & Roulette.


A limited event for December has started. By clearing the Roulette mode 1 time within December, players can acquire a limited skin for Aria.

• Phantom balances have been adjusted.
  
• Values for Sharpened, Thorn Spikes, Revolution have been adjusted.
  
• New Achievements have been added
  
• Small UI/Visual fixes
  
• Translation fixes.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you try out the new update!

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• Added additional code to catch exceptions where customers are becoming stuck for some players. Please notify us if this is still occuring for you.
  
• Dumpsters will now allow trash to be tossed into them, similar to the garbage cans.
  
• Changed the trash can model to a smaller size.
  
• New NPC character models have been re-enabled. We believe we have successfully fixed the bug that was causing them to crash.