We're excited to share the progress we've made over the last month and update you on our Alpha Roadmap.

February was busy as we continued with design work and implementation. We are continue to update and refine the groundwork for systems and features (events system, modifiers and effects, leader portraits and animations, UI systems, initial stats, etc.), all of which we anticipate will expedite development down the line. As you may have noticed in the last Dev Diary, the look of the game's UI is continuing to evolve. Now, in the latest build, we also have 19 new portrait heads, one new torso, and two new uniforms, along with portrait animations. The game is coming along at a good pace, and we look forward to sharing the Alpha with you soon, once it's ready.

We'd also like to take a moment to thank our community for your support and continued patience as we develop the game. We are excited that our last Dev Diary surpassed all previous records, and our YouTube channel surpassed 5,000 subscribers! Thanks to you, word is spreading about Gilded Destiny!

Without further ado, let's take a look at what we accomplished in January and what is planned for February and March.

Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Begin designing major Events for the Qing Empire
- Initial design of the events has begun, which will continue into February with further design and implementation

Finalize design for Rebellion system
- Design work has been largely finalized

Begin inputting major Chinese events
- Design of Chinese events has begun, and input has started on a few events. However, several event chains will need to wait until other systems (such as Rebellion) have been implemented.

Begin designing major Italian events
- In progress / in corso

Finalize design for Bureaucracy
- Design work has largely been finalized

Update initial country stats for Europe
- This covers the various resources such as state funds, loans, authority, diplomatic influence, etc.
- Underway, stats are being collected and then will be implemented once complete.

New supplementary UI designs for other features (loading screen, main menu, end game, etc.)
- The Save / Load game UI and Settings UI are in progress.

Continue work on adding Leader portraits to the game, along with portrait animations
- 19 new Leader portraits with animations have been added into the game, along with one torso and two uniforms. Here's a preview of some of the new Leader heads in game:



Refine and update design for the effects of Leader Positions
- Moved to March

Design for auxiliary units (engineers, sappers, etc.) that can be added to divisions for various bonuses
- Moved to March

Complete refining and updating design for POP promotion and migration
- New design has been completed, and implementation is underway

Continue updating and refining Global Economy systems
- Our design team and programmers are making progress on this. However, getting the economy to work in the way we would like is taking longer than anticipated.

Refine and update placement of Buildings at game start
- Certain countries will receive particular Buildings to reflect their historical market dominance in those industries
- Completed!

Refine and update the placement of resources and the availability of plantation goods in various provinces
- Moved to March

Continue refining terrain (such as mountains, lakes, and rivers)
- Southeastern Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia
- Updates to the terrain are ongoing in these regions, and will continue into March

Complete the HUD, Start Menu, Loading Screen, Event Window Art Design
- Designs for the Start Menu, Loading Screen UI, and Events UI rework have been completed. An initial design of the new HUD has been input into the game, yet is still undergoing continued refinement.

Finish the Policy icons, and add them to the game
- Completed

Start the outsourcing of 3D Units, Buildings, Character Backgrounds
- Our outsourcers have produced a model of an infantry unit and of one of our rural buildings. We are happy with the accuracy and aesthetic look of what they've sent us, so we are anticipating good progress on further units and buildings in the coming months.

• Complete implementing early Events for the Qing Empire, Netherlands, and Belgium
  - This will not include rebellions, which will wait until implementation of the Rebellion system
  
• Continue designing early Italian Events
  
• Continue refining terrain (such as mountains, lakes, and rivers)
  - Southeastern Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia
  
• Begin designing early US Events
  
• Continue adjusting and refining the global economy
  
• Update initial country stats for Europe and the Americas
  
• Refine and update the placement of resources and the availability of plantation goods in various provinces
  
• Refine and update design for the effects of Leader Positions
  
• Design for auxiliary units (engineers, sappers, etc.) that can be added to divisions for various bonuses
  
• Update and refine Culture, Religion, and Profession distribution in Europe
  
• Design new Cultural Heritages and Religious Convictions, and implement where possible
  
• Add new Leader Traits
  
• Complete the Settings and Save/Load Menu Art Design.
  
• Add more portraits and clothes to the game.
  
• Continued performance optimization, through internal QA testing and bug reports and feedback from Pre-Alpha testers

Please note that we are recalibrating our progress at the end of March, so we will look forward to sharing April goals in the next Alpha Roadmap. As our goals and expectations evolve, and as these milestones are reached, we will keep you updated!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below and say hello in the chat to ensure that you claim your role!

Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server

Pre-Alpha Testing Continues

As many of you are already aware, we have launched the Pre-Alpha of Gilded Destiny to a small group of about 100 testers chosen from our Kickstarter and Modian backers at random. So far, we have received lots of constructive feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. As we continue to develop certain systems for Gilded Destiny, we are also now beginning to transition to a more feedback-based approach to development. The pre-Alpha testers have helped a great deal to isolate bugs and to improve playability. We look forward to sharing the game with more of you very soon!

As we've mentioned previously, we decided to do a small closed Pre-Alpha test to gather initial feedback so that experience of the Alpha is enjoyable and meaningful, and to streamline the process of administrating keys, feedback collection, and bug reporting on our end. Of course, as many of you know, both the pre-Alpha and Alpha builds of the game will likely have limited content and systems may not be fully implemented into the game.


Thanks for your support and for reading!
May your day be a gilded one!

The Smolkr’s out of the bag, Vikings!
We’re so excited to share that our next major update is dropping on Thursday 13 March (that’s next week!) and it’s our biggest one yet!

We don’t want to spoil things too much right now, but you can expect some fiery quality of life features, changes to how might you structure your village(s), a bunch of tier 2 upgrades for buildings, and most excitingly, an entire new biome to explore!

You’ll need to stay glued for the patch notes next week for more details, and we’ll be sharing more in depth looks at each new feature in the coming weeks on our social channels too.

We’re really lake-ing forward to this one. It’s gonna be big!

Skal
Sand Sailor Studio

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3303010/Katana_Dragon/
(The controls shown on screen can be changed from the options menu)

• 🥷 Two characters to choose: Shin and Nobi!
  
• 🏯 All the entire first dungeon!
  
• 🐉 New mini-dungeons with different challenges!
  
• 🌅 New biomes to explore!
  
• ⚔️ New Ninja Skills to dominate!
  
• 👹 New enemies to battle!
  
• 👘 New Skins, Accessories and Cursed Seals to unlock!

We hope you enjoy and support the release of Katana Dragon and its entire development process during Early Access!

You can follow all the progress and news on our social media:
Twitter · Instagram · TikTok · Bluesky · YouTube

Hey everyone!

Another small update ahead of the weekend :)

We're continuing to work on addressing any bugs and balance problems and will be patching again shortly.

Thanks again for being the best community ever—keep curating, keep causing chaos, and most importantly, keep sharing your museums with us!

Please let us know if you have any problems/issues/questions,

Jo & the Two Point team

Patch Notes

• Fixed perks installed on cameras being removed if the camera was attached to a room, and the room was moved
  
• Fixed some typos in English
  
• Improved messaging on a marketing Sandbox goal
  
• Fixed soft lock in Desert Act 1 which was caused by unlocking the Spa Point but building and upgrading it in another Museum
  
• Fixed other possible causes of soft locks in Desert level
  
• Fixed counters in Ravenous Caverns and S.S.Silverbottom
  
• Updated Greasy Fields and Cold Mines as some exhibits were taking a very long time to find
  
• Fixed another case of school trips becoming stuck
  
• Update Idol Grab and Sonic Grabber so that guests don't want to go on duplicate versions right away
  
• Fixed issues where Mayoral visits were not triggering as complete even though they received an exceptional rating
  
• Fixed instances of stars becoming out of sync

Hi, today's update features bug fixes and scaling improvements to Room List menu

What's changed:

• Room List has been updated to better adjust UI scaling according to current game resolution
  
• Fixed a bug with Opener Challenge events that could lead to UI glitches after attempting to load a replay with an incomplete opener
  
• Fixed a bug that could lead to Blind Fight mode getting stuck after opener recording failure
  
• Fixed a bug with Queue List player options' nudge to position buttons not loading correctly
  
• Fixed a bug that was preventing "Nudge" option in Queue List player options from showing up for players that are currently first in waiting queue

Hello everyone!

Yet another late Steam update due to busy period at work! Here's what has happened in the past 2.5 months (spoiler alert: it's GUI and GUI-facing things):

Calendar widget

A new calendar widget provides information about in-game time, date, and moon phases. This can impact certain gameplay elements, such as spell effects, enemy spawns, or quest availability and timing. Combined with existing "wait" functionality, makes it very easy to control time flow. The art is work in progress (as all art is), but the concept will remain.



(Calendar is a bit monstrous sized here, just to show it more clearly)

Enchantments & Equipment Overhaul

The enchantment system has undergone a big refactor for better and clearer support of absolute or percentage-based bonuses. E.g. do you deal 5 more damage, or 10% more damage? Also, is the bonus applied to the current weapon's values, or your total damage based on other equipment? Do you get bonuses if you wear the equipment or just by having the item in your inventory? Questions like this are answered more clearly now, both under the hood and to the player via the GUI. I'll expand on different item types enabled by this system in a future post, to be able to share a bit more content. Additionally, part of this work was to add dynamically generated names for enchanted equipment, like Diablo :)



Improved item description panel

After several iterations, the panel is quite a bit more informative in terms of what information is shared about each item. The major changes are the display of bonuses per item type. Weapons/armor show associated values, bombs/potions show their effects, enchanted equipment and charms show the effects, and all effects show if they're beneficial or not, if they're absolute or percentage-based, and if they are applied to the wearer/wielder or to the item itself, and if the enchantment is permanent or if the item is equipped. Oof, that was a mouthful. Icons and colors are used to communicate much of the above.

Improved accessibility

Disclaimer: the UI you see in every shared video will keep changing. The reason is that I'm always tinkering with text and background colors, for improving accessibility, clarity etc. As I'm learning more on the topic, things improve, but it's a continuous process. The game slowly gravitates towards darker background panels and light-colored text with appropriate contrast to adhere to accessibility guidelines.

New Leap ability

Trap in a narrow corridor in front of you. Oh no! What do you do? Well, plenty of choices already, like using a hook to glide over, use a teleport spell, throw an item at the trap to activate it, push an enemy to the trap to activate it, etc. Adding a new skill to the arsenal: jumping over it. The catch: you need to be agile and strong enough, and not carry too much weight, if you want to jump far.



It's a trap!

More work on traps, allowing new types of traps like push traps (if you step on a trap, you are pushed to a direction, same, opposite or custom), fireball traps, magic missile traps, etc. Also, as I'm always aiming for emergent gameplay, we can have things like a succession of push traps creating a chain movement effect, or fire traps also burning down the forest.





New audio track

A little bit of content on the audio side: an ambient track, for use in caverns or dungeons, evoking mystery and uncertainty



Next: Quest system

There's scaffoling work currently, towards the quest system. Not much to share now, but stay tuned for future updates! As usual, more frequent updates (a bit more developer focussed) on the various linked social media (reddit, bluesky, mastodon, youtube) and in the blog.

Until next time!

A few more small fixes before the mid-March update.

Bug Fixes

• Autofix for older saves that had bugged quest progress for Loawnea.
  
• Fixed bug that miscalculated hitstun while juggling targets.
  
• Fixed stun affliction temporary invulnerability after high scaling combos.
  
• Fixed crash that occurs when reflecting an attack from a target that has died.
  
• Fixed bug causing First Aid items to apply healing multiple times for a single use.
  
• Fixed pangen collection display for the 3rd variant.
  
• Fixed evade enemy attacks skill trial progression.

✨🔹 New Dungeon: Tower of Martyrdom
Take on a series of consecutive battles and challenge your skills to earn a special reward. Do you have what it takes to overcome it?

🔹 11 New Bosses!
Get ready for even more challenging fights with new enemies that will test your strategy:

Thalron
Abyssar
Nalrith
Solkhar
Dra'kaar
Zarith
Ryrana
Xalor
Morthas
Zharon
Morphés

🔹 Visual Improvements
✅ Cosmetic adjustments have been made to several maps.
✅ Battle backgrounds for the Eldoria Underground and House of Zephyra have been updated for greater immersion.
✅ Many in-game images have been improved in quality, including the title screen, for a better visual appearance.

🔹 New Progression Restriction
🔸 To progress to certain maps, you will now need to have specific characters in your party.
🔸 Previously, the game allowed you to progress with any number of characters, even just one or two, which broke the coherence of the story.
🔸 To improve the narrative, some areas will only be accessible if you have key characters in your party.
🔸 Good luck finding them all and saving Miravia!

🔹 Tutorial Improvements
📌 Changes have been made to the starting tutorial to make the options clearer and improve the experience for new players.
📌 When facing the first enemy, an option to watch the battle tutorial or skip it will now appear. This will allow players who are already familiar with the system to speed up the pace of combat.

🔹 Changes to the Teleportation System
🚀 Teleporters have been removed from most statues, leaving only the essential ones to access key plot locations.
🚀 To replace them, there is now an on-screen button, located next to the main protagonist's face, that will allow you to teleport to your home at any time.
🚀 This feature also serves to free the character if for some reason they get stuck and cannot move.

🔹 Changes to the Battle System
⚔️ The option to negotiate, fight or bribe at the start of battles has been removed to improve the pace of combat.
⚔️ Post-defeat and post-victory messages have been removed, as they were considered unnecessary and only slowed down the gameplay experience.

🔹 Optimization and Bug Fixes
💡 Overall game performance has been improved and several bugs fixed for a smoother experience.

Download the update and dive into new adventures in Tales of Miravia! ✨

Hello Explorers,

Your journey to Amerzone starts with a lone lighthouse in Brittany, France. The building holds many secrets you’ll slowly unravel as you solve its intricate puzzles. But it’s also a place haunted with the regrets and memories of its late resident, Alexandre Valembois.



🕊️ Play the Demo & Wishlist Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy now

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2429190/Amerzone__The_Explorers_Legacy/

📬 Stay Connected!

Amerzone Twitter Twitter Facebook Instagram Amerzone TikTok Microids TikTok Discord

Hello, mayors, have a nice weekend. As promise, we fixed some issues in this patch. Let's see!
And there are some news about Wonderland on Desktop. Why not take a look!

Fixed the issue where the helpers sitting on the workstation would not regain their stamina.
Optimized the initial indoor decoration of the hospital in a new file.
Optimized the problem that the special products of animals would not be replaced by new special products.
Optimized the problem of the offset of the items held by doctors during their work performance.
Optimized the motion performance of the helpers at the marketstreet.

Much appreciate you support to Song Of The Prairie. The optimization and bug fixing will keep going!
And here is the news about new game: Wonderland on Desktop:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3461610/view/514077842005296136