Jane’s been asked to shoot a TV program called “Cooking Strike” to show off her incredible cooking skills, and she needs to complete five levels in a row to make sure she’s ready!

While you complete the levels to get ready for the show, the TV crew will bring some more professional equipment.

If you fail a level, your progress will be reset and you’ll have to start from the beginning!
You can try as many times as you want. The TV show’s paying for the food, so you won’t be using yours up.

When you finish the fifth level you’ll receive a big reward that includes booster parts, Coins, Rubies, and blog points!



If you don’t complete all the levels before the event ends, don’t worry. You aren’t losing anything, and there’ll always be another TV program!

• Tutorial updates for new players!

• Translation fixes for various languages

• Fixed a bug where ammo boxes can't closed properly

• Fixed a bug that affects skin purchase minigame

• New lights & shadows for better optimization

Greetings Commander,

The latest update has been released: Release v1.1.3 - Heiress

The Heiress is a renegade scion who siphons life from every kill and seizes control of enemy crew using her Hypnosis ability.

This update also includes a few UI improvements based on player feedback and a minor typo fix.

• New commander: Heiress

• Fixed typo in Hex Priest gold text

• Added clickable menu button to in-game UI

• Added "Show Version Info" checkbox to settings menu

We're really excited to say that our FMV Horror Puzzle game - The Void Between - Is going to be part of this years Aesthetica Short Film Festival in the Games Lab from the 5-9th November.

We're really looking forward to being part of this amazing festival that brings together creators from all over the world. 🎬🎶🕹️🌍 It's an event full of films, games, music and more!

If you're free and are able to make it to the festival, it's going to be a wonderful few days in the magical city of York! ✨

Our new demo will be available to play at the Games Lab for the duration of the festival. 🕹️

We're really happy to be part of it and can't wait to play all the other games that will also be there. :)

If you would like to find out more about Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2025, you can check out their website here - 💻

Home - Aesthetica Short Film Festival

Have a great day! ✨

Thanks a lot,

Chris & Ben - Key Compass

Hi everyone

We’ve finally identified, located, and resolved the issue causing GPUs to overheat, even on newer rigs.

Especially the Region maps at the player desk have been the culprit, and that should be much better now. If you're still experiencing performance issues, please let us know; we’re monitoring closely and will continue optimizing the game.

Fixes & Improvements

• Mouse edge panning removed: This feature conflicted with key-based camera controls, occasionally leaving players stuck at the bottom of the Region Map.

• Adjusted character collision: It's now easier to target tiles and other units positioned behind characters.

• Fixed collision blocker in Revenge Stronghold: A specific angle previously blocked the mouse pointer; this has been resolved.

We’re saddened to see the influx of negative reviews and understand how frustrating bugs and accessibility issues can be. We’re doing our best to iron out the problems and improve the experience for all our players.

Thanks for sticking with us, and have a great weekend!
The Playwood Project Dev Team

Hey everyone!

We’ve opened a Discord server for our game — come join us!

You’ll find updates, screenshots, announcements, playtests… honestly, we’re not even sure what else yet 😄

Discord of Block 17

• Fixed bug with forging card when a wave/level ends. Now, if you forge a card when a level ends, you can continue after picking upgrades. If you forge a card when a level ends, it just cancels the forging and you continue on as usual.

• Reduced Arcanis missile amount from 10/20/40/60 -> 10/15/20/25. It was too powerful late game.

• Increased difficulty from lvl 15.

A brand-new level has been added to Classic Mode — but this time, you don’t have a flashlight.
You’ve got a night-vision camera, turning the atmosphere into something much darker, creepier, and far more intense.

A new Classic map is also on the way — set in a tight, claustrophobic indoor environment instead of the current open area. Expect even more tension, fear, and adrenaline.

• Added dialogue skip option during the “Old Factory – Fuse Task” sequence.

• Major AI improvements in both Classic and Story Mode: smoother, more precise, and far more aggressive.

• Randy won’t get lost in the woods anymore — he actively hunts you down, and it’s much harder to shake him off.

• Fixed foliage collision issues, resulting in smoother player movement and fewer annoying bumps during gameplay.

The bar has been raised.
Turn on your camera, and good luck surviving the dark. 👁️

Hello everyone! Welcome to the end of Fall as Winter is sure to hit soon!

As we mentioned last time, as we move into working on things like *~*debates*~* we won't have too much to share until we're done sorting some things out (and even then there won't be too many images) so these updates will be a little small!

Our original goal was to add the Passive Animals to Olvia and Vescha over the next quarter - but we actually got it done ahead of schedule! Both of the new regions now have an abundance of birds, butterflies and other (non-violent) creatures waddling around. Here's a short video showing it off!

One thing we can talk about and show with the debates is a small fundamental change that people will (probably) appreciate.

First let’s throw back to the original debate battles! Way back when we planned for the debates to have three metrics to determine if you would pass or fail a debate:

• You needed to select the correct options (or at least not get a bad end)

• You needed to select the options within a set time (don’t leave someone waiting forever – that’s awkward)

• If your score was too low then you would fail (maybe you should up your charisma)

You’ll notice that last option has been removed in the most recent versions – we found it to be really unfair. If you picked all the options and got the “best end” why would you need to level up your charisma and then do it all over again? So for a long time debates looked as follows:

You needed to select the right options and also do it within a certain period of time! With this we hoped people would still feel some tension to pick options and that unfairness would go away.

However over the last while we’ve been playing other “choice selection” games – like Ace Attorney and Disco Elysium. Some of the most interesting parts of the game – and parts we really enjoyed – were when you needed to select an option but you had the opportunity to stop and ruminate over which one was the one you thought would work best. Talking it out, thinking over what each choice meant, etc. – we found that being able to do this meant engaging with the work more deeply.

The intent of the game is to engage with the world, gather facts and information about it, then apply it in debates. The debates and your performance in them depend on your understanding of the world – and being rushed to make selections can take that away.

Plus it can still feel unfair to miss the window to click a button because you were too busy thinking and then you have to do the whole thing all over again!

So with that said – we removed the timer! We had originally been thinking about removing it as an accessibility feature, but decided that removing it was better for the whole design. (Hopefully)

As we’re sliding into the end of the year we’re going to be looking at two main areas: Debates and redoing older Overworld maps. The debate work is already known, so we’ll expand on what we mean by “redo”.

Quite a while ago after we finished the second province (Lakure) we noticed that the regions looked too similar. It didn’t feel like you were progressing through the world and it didn’t feel like each region had it’s own uniqueness. This is why we took a pause to develop more assets before moving onto Vescha and Olvia (to the bottom and right of the river/lakes).

Originally the plan was to redo the vegetation in these areas closer to release (similar to the water) but we’ll be moving this ahead in schedule for a few reasons. First is that we have some time now and it works well as a break from Debate work when we need it. The second is that once we add animals, treasures, and enemies it will be very difficult to redo the areas.

Therefore we’ll be starting to work on redoing the Lakure region – only available to beta testers right now. It’s the area between Wiska Forest and Vescha. Our focus is on giving it it’s own identity and once done we’ll be adding passive animals. We expect it to be completed for the March 2026 update.

We will then focus on Wynoa – the region available in the demo. Since there’s treasures, enemies and more this will be more time consuming, but will be finished before end of Summer 2026. Once done we’ll push an update to both the demo and beta branches so people can explore the “new” areas.

We’re giving ourselves a lot of extra time on these because it’s more of a background activity while we work on non-visual changes and will require some retesting of the game and the beta before we push it out to the world.

So look forward to some more visual upgrades in the next update as well as more information on the debate changes!

See you in the new year!

First a bit of bad news: we have yet to secure a publisher. The last one, the one we made the video for, we only ended up in 170th place. In all honesty, there were some excellent videos out there, even with my own personal bias. Still, it’s a mark of progression, and it helped push us to make a better island, update the characters, and confront some items that make the project seem less ‘polished’ from the outside.

       If you still haven`t seen it, check it on the Steam page:

    Sky Pirates: Plunder & Puzzles

What this means for Sky Pirates: Puzzles & Plunder is that we'll have to find other sources of funding, aka regular jobs. This will impact our ability to work on the game. We still have funding through December, but we’ve also been trying to get jobs since the beginning of the month, and it is ROUGH out there. 

So to keep our sanity through rejections and ghostings (and so much spam), we’ve set another target: Steam Next Fest! We’re aiming for the February event, which showcases upcoming games. We are really excited to have a playable version of our game ready for the masses by then! What this really means is we have to push hard through the holidays to get ourselves there.

This also means that we’ll be shooting for a closed beta! Better to fail privately in front of a few strangers! Russ really wants it by December, giving us enough time to process feedback and make all the changes. In any case, when we approach this milestone, there will be a closed beta signup for everyone to jump in on, so keep an eye out for that notice soon. I will be putting it everywhere I can, in a very obnoxious way.

This isn’t just a pie-in-the-sky goal, it will force us to get a playable build together. That’s a huge milestone for us, and gives us an opportunity to better our pitch to companies. See, it’s all interconnected!

In the meantime, this also means updating the art and design. Trying to move away from the stock look of 18th-century sailing ships, but in the air, and adding more unique and game-specific designs. While I don’t have enough time to build a full fleet, I’ve been working on some parts and pieces that will let us stand out. 

I already have piles of lore to work with, and use that to guide my designs, plus my massive collections of ideas and images I’ve pulled over the years.

We're also looking to create progression for players to earn through play. We’ve been calling them ‘modifiers’, but the in-game name may be different. These will make every voyage feel different as well as let players customize their playstyles. 

Modifiers can come in a lot of different flavors and styles, but you'll also have a limited amount to equip yourself with. There will also be the ability to equip certain modifiers on ships, which will boost all on the crew. Some will be permanent, others will be single-use. 

Collecting these items will create a steady progression. Players can spend their plunder to buy various clothing and equipment, but to get a chance for the truly best items, they'll need to take on challenging opponents. We are debating if these should be tied to cosmetic items, but if so you will have the option to move modifiers to un-modified items in order to dress how you like. 

Modifiers can do a lot of different things and add some crunch, but they are not intended to replace a player's skill at the puzzles. Some basic ones can decrease time penalties, increase scoring a small amount, or reduce penalties for failed boards. More specific ones can change gameplay for puzzles greatly! 

For instance, in Hydronautics, you may have a modifier that changes the bomb power-ups so they automatically detonate when they reach an edge. Or one that recharges your power-up whenever you score a big combo. Another could randomly select and destroy pieces after a certain number of moves, or give a bigger score for the smallest matches. 

Combining these modifiers can add up for a boost to your rating, but everyone’s play style will be different, and the number of modifiers able to be equipped for each player will be limited. It'll be important to prepare yourself accordingly. Will you spread your modifiers to be slightly better all around? Or will you focus on a single puzzle and go for your best rating?

    Battle-deck, a gunnery game, is nearing completion. We did a full re-skin and changed how the game is played to be distinctive enough to feel new, but kept many processes to keep it familiar. One of the big changes is that you will not just be placing tiles, but moving boxes, to control how the pieces move on the board. This shifts a lot of how the pieces move about the deck, and creates new moves and challenges.

    Secondly, boards will have two to four cannons. Part of this is for space saving, as the mobile version became semi-uncontrollable on a four or more-cannon board. We had originally thought of having up to eight on a board! Including some facing forwards or rear. But it really crowded the board and even increasing the space of the board made it unwieldy.

Once you complete a board you`ll get your rating and be able to jump to the next board without having to run from cannon to cannon. You keep loading and jumping boards until everything is loaded. We hope this speeds up the processes of loading, which helps us towards speeding up encounters as a whole.

Till next time Sky-Pirates! Join us on the Discord and Wishlist us on Steam!

Discord:

https://discord.gg/da6JQrWDVd

Website:

https://rxrgaming.com/