The first is Galmine's second romance scene. Here she offers to make Victor some larger water pots for the fort but needs better materials to do it. That leads them inside an area that's a natural pheonomenon and absolutely beautiful.
Since this is their second time together, their conversation about their relationship is more confident and in-depth. They reveal some intimate truths to each other and you learn about their characters through the interaction, which is exactly what this game is all about - not just shoving sex in your face, but presenting it as a natural sum of real, loving relationships.
The second part of the video is a preview of the chase scene in the valley.
This is still in PRE-ALPHA, so please excuse the animations and timing. It's rough at the moment but gives you a good idea of what to expect from Tamer's high-octance action sequences.
ADDITIONAL CUTSCENE WORK
Along with the romance scenes we're now wrapping up production on some additional sequences that take place in the valley. Now that we've done some more set dressing for this area the cinematography is turning out great.
We've got basic lighting in place and plan to enhance the visuals even more as we get closer to launch.
Our approach to blocking these scenes is to try and take the "every frame a painting" philosophy to heart and not just have the camera tipping all over the place like many modern game and film productions.
This allows you to really focus on the character's expressions and the excellent story without feeling too drab or boring. Adding subtle movement to the cameras keeps you connected to the frame while offering a bit more visual stimulation than a totally still shot.
We're happy with how this footage is turning out and will be sharing more as we move forward!
Now that we have animatons for Jinx, even he's getting in on the action!
DINO ANIMATION
With the cleanup of the human characters 90% finished we can now focus our attention on the dinos and give them some love. Here you see Victor taming Hope - his first dinosaur mount.
They share a moment of deep connection through his taming ability here and she becomes loyal for the rest of the game.
Animating these sequences are tricky because we have to animate the dinosaurs and manipulate the performance capture at the same time, but getting to the finished product is rewarding!
COMBAT SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION
We're making sure to create plenty of solid documentation as we get ready to start implementing the core parts of our combat system. Doing so will allow us to produce something stable and effective.
Here you can see the aggro system for the enemies in place.
Since we are going to have Victor and Sheela fighting multiple dinosaurs, we need to make sure they don't get totally swarmed and overwhelmed. Adding an intended rhythm and balance to combat is essential to avoid this.
Therefore we're creating our own take on the kind of ticket system used by so many modern games to ensure enemies can both act and think as a group. This allows them to store actions without immediately taking them and instead doind what they need to at the right time so everything feels good rather than random.
NEXT ENEMY - Pachycephalosaurus
One of the new enemy types we're going to add to the game is the pachy you see above. They will be highly mobile and aggressive enemies that chase you if you try to avoid them. They attack with charging patterns and short range headbutts but are vulnerable to everything but a direct attack.
That means parrying or doding their approach will yield significant openings for damage.
Expect to see them up and running within the next few months.
KACERIE NSFW PREVIEWS
Kacerie's big romance scene is still in development and here you can see her practicing some partner yoga with Victor.
This is the first time we've tried some 69 action and we'll show you how good it looks in-engine soon.
I'll just leave this here also...
MAP DETAILS
Now that the gameplay and days are all sorted we can add some higher detail passes to the map. You can see the process yielding some great results below:
Of course, this is not totally final. We'll have a lot more to add and tweak before release, especially concerning lighting and atmosphere.
Finally, the long-awaited day has come — today is Horror Game Award Summer Showcase! The trailer for NEDRA will be shown there with new shots, and I’ll be talking about some unique survival features among the monsters. I hope you enjoy it!
We meet again with a brand new content update for Last Outpost!
An update with new vehicle, many passive and active skills, vehicle workshop upgrades and various bug fixes & balance improvements. Let’s dive into the details together!
Monowheel
We've introduced a unique new vehicle: The Monowheel. As the first melee vehicle in Last Outpost, it features frontal blades that let you slice through zombies up close. With a tight, responsive control scheme and a satisfying driving feel, Monowheel offers a fresh and thrilling gameplay experience. It also comes equipped with three unique movement-based skills that make full use of its agility.
Active Skills
Sharp Dash: Dashes in chosen direction with 50% increased blade damage.
Drop Shock: Monowheel jumps with charged energy and crashes down quickly, dealing area damage.
Torque Storm: Monowheel spins rapidly with rotors, dealing area damage for 3 seconds.
Vehicle Workshop Upgrades
Throwing Spearman: Mounts a spearman on the rear of the Monowheel who automatically hurls spears at nearby enemies.
Extended Fuel Tank: Increase the fuel capacity of the vehicle by 25%.
Kinetic Field: Monowheel now generates a kinetic field that weakens incoming projectiles, reducing ranged damage taken.
Metal Plates: Bolts thick metal plates to both sides of the Monowheel, increasing its base HP by 50%.
Here’s a quick look at the balancing & fixes:
Fixed a bug that required re-entering a building’s zone to upgrade it continuously. You can now upgrade directly without interruption.
Fixed a visual issue with rotating objects when the game is paused.
Fixed an audio bug affecting ambient sounds in the "Last Hope On A Dead Lake" level.
Applied balance adjustments to the "Last Hope On A Dead Lake" level.
Fixed resolution settings not working correctly on ultra-wide monitors.
Feel free to share your feedback on the new content! If you noticed anything unbalanced or something didn’t feel right, let’s discuss it and improve it together!
Hello everyone, and welcome to this devlog for The Flagship.
Starting with fire control system optimizations: We've rectified trajectory prediction algorithms in subturrets, achieving measurable accuracy improvements while stabilizing target acquisition protocols. For main cannon operations, we resolved target lock disruption during multi-object proximity scenarios, along with trajectory deflection issues caused by obstructive celestial bodies. Sustained firing sequences of main cannons will now maintain consistent, even with turret not valid for firing.
In equipment adjustments, we've introduced the tractor beam - a dedicated module for managing item retrieval properties. The afterburner mechanism has been redesigned to utilize percentage-based acceleration, eliminating insufficient thrust scenarios while enhancing maneuverability for smoother handling. Notably, equipment management now features a context-sensitive module list adjacent to target slots, streamlining the configuration process.
Performance optimizations include redesigned battleship blueprint loading systems. By minimizing redundant calls, we've achieved approximately 10x performance improvements with significantly reduced stuttering, alongside fixes for potential equipment disappearance glitches.
Regarding gameplay validation demo, we've refined key encounter node placements to ensure better player guidance through each nodes.In-game store has also been repaired to enhance overall experience.
That's all for this development log update. Thank you for your continued support and attention to The Flagship. We’ll see you next time!
Noise-o-matic 1.8.0.0 is now live! Hundreds of new voices available on the TTS from our curated selection, as Noise-o-matic now supports multi-speakers TTS models! Simply select the speaker ID in the TTS tab if your model supports more than 1 speaker! Make some noise!
added speaker selection in sherpa tts for multi-speaker models
added session save and restore of audio channels buttons (patch-trough and loopback)
fixed autohotkeys context save / restore between sessions
Back to our regularly scheduled program of landmark sneak peeks.
I present to you...
SMOGMERE
Lore
Origin
The sulfur mine is one of the island’s oldest sites, evolving from a basic tunnel system into a high-tech operation. Fueled by an active volcano, the sulfur supply seemed endless, prompting Ironwealth to build a nearby military outpost for protection called the Stormwatch Bastion. As tourism grew, complaints about pollution led to the installation of advanced filters that let the mine operate without disrupting visitors. The facility includes an automated tower, refinery, and rail-connected storage tanks designed to efficiently process and ship sulfur.
During the first eruption:
An earthquake triggered an explosion of pressure through the sulfur tunnels, releasing toxic gases that instantly killed workers and caused the collapse of infrastructure into sinkholes. A sulfur cloud rolled down the hillside, engulfing everything in yellow dust. Tragically, a convoy fleeing along the road below was overtaken by the toxic cloud, leaving no survivors.
Present-Day:
Today, alarms still sound with every tremor, while toxic gases continue to leak from damaged tanks and pipelines. A thick layer of sulfur dust covers the tunnels and nearby structures, and the nearby river runs yellow from constant contamination. The wreckage remains untouched, including the sulfur-coated convoy, and a new entry point has opened near the main sinkhole under the mine.
Hope you enjoyed it and watch out for the next one!
P.S. If you're in a mood for more Steamroller shenanigans, posting some roadkill tests on our Discord and Twitter
We're working hard to live up to the expectations you have on us. And we hope you and the 250k+ (!!!) people playing enjoyed the first week of 9 Kings. In this patch, we're fixing key issues you reported, starting to implement the first part of core performance tweaks, while also improving some core mechanics like the critical hits, late game damage processing, and the run saving system.
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters
We've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.
List of changes (0.7.44):
Gameplay/QOL:
Critical hits now are displayed in a cool orange color & exclamation marks (have fun, marksmen)
Fixed a Precision stacking glitch (sit back and watch things go POW POW POW POW)
Reinforce now shows consolidated stack damage increase numbers
Fixed some key data storage variables when loading runs
Fixed a glitch when quitting a game right before a battle starts (it no longer loads thinking you're in battle)
Perks and Decrees are now applied correctly after loading a game
Buffed initial Palace attack speed (it's now 0.37/s, and it gets wild with level ups)
Healing numbers are also hidden when "HIDE DAMAGE NUMBERS" option is toggled
Shrine now levels up a single plot per year and its effect costs less gold per level
Fixed an exploit that allowed you to re-use razed tiles (from Razing) with Earthworks or the Exploration decree (very nice catch, community)
End screen stat numbers are now properly displayed after loading a run
Fixed the apostrophe character in French
Performance:
Improved combat performance during late game for high attack speed builds
Improved the way damage is computed per frame to mitigate overflow during battle
Improved damage computing on Endless Mode (making it more viable to get to year 99)
Improved level up processing mechanic (Rats should crash less now when you domino the hell out of them)
Optimized Orchard performance
Optimized Achievement detection performance
Fixed small backend errors
COMING NEXT:
Animation system revamp (that will improve performance considerably)
Improved attack speed processing during late late game.
More balancing tweaks & fixes
New content
After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won’t have the updates stored and it may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at report@sadsocket.com. We previously posted this patch yesterday but rolled back due to a gamebreaking bug found with Trappers/Scapegoats. Sorry about that!
This update brings very big changes, and your feedback is very important. There are 250k computers running 9 Kings out there, and as much as we try to foresee as many issues as possible, some gaps will only become clear with your input. Optimizing 9 Kings is an ongoing task, and your help is vital to us. That’s why we chose to release the game in EA. We hope you understand and keep helping us build the best game we can.
You can also expect more performance patches and new content very soon!