Nov 4

Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition - Lady Eridani

We’ve been keeping an eye on your feedback as we’ve been heading into the launch of the Dynasties of the East expansion on all platforms. We’re rolling out a small patch today that includes some crash fixes, as well as some fixes for known issues.

💬 DISCUSS: Official Forum
💬 DISCUSS: Steam Forum
🗣 JOIN: Official Discord

Thanks again to our amazing community members, all of whom have helped to make Age of Empires what it is today!

—The Age of Empires Team

Please Note: As part of updating to this latest build, any saved games and observable matches made on previous builds will be unable to be loaded or replayed.

◆Update 15.1.7064◆

UX/UI & Menus (Console)
The “UI Narration” setting no longer resets to default after relaunching the game. If you’re disabling the narrator, you should only have to do so once now.
Fixed an issue where several in-game settings would reset to default after launching the game in offline mode.

General Changes & Bugfixes
Introduced fixes for two of our top crashes to improve stability, including:
Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash when accessing old Match History.
Fixed an issue that could lead to a crash on launch.
Fixed an issue where some map textures were missing or showing up incorrectly on certain maps and biomes on Xbox One consoles.

Investigation
Known Issues
Please note that we are aware of and reviewing other known issues, which can be found at Age of Empires IV Known Issues & Solutions – Age of Empires Support. We wanted to highlight two known issues along with workarounds here:

Options menu does not recognize L1 or R1 button presses when navigating through menus.
Workaround: You can double press the L1 or R1 button to continue navigation as planned.

If you’re still experiencing a crash on launch on Steam following this update, please reach out to support and attempt to download Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2022 from the Visual Studio website. You can find other steps to try here: The game crashes shortly after it launches or when trying to start a game – Age of Empires Support
Your reports continue being crucial to our prioritization and implementation of fixes and features in the game. Keep them coming!

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

:alertalert: DISCLAIMER
This list is subject to change and should not be considered a comprehensive list of all the known issues we’re tracking. The above is to inform you of the team’s current priorities, which will change as other issues arise or take precedence.

For the latest updates and announcements, please visit our social channels.

Nov 4

Kick off this November with EA Play rewards

EA Play - Electronic Arts

This November, access member rewards for Battlefield™ 6, Apex Legends™, and more, in addition to 10-hour trials of select sports titles.

Lock in to Battlefield 6, where you can pick up your EA Play Deployment Pack (if you haven't already) and EA Play Season 1 Pack — both come with cosmetic items & XP Boosts. Then, show off your good fortune in Apex Legends with the Lucky Footprint Weapon Charm.

Plus, claim rewards for a host of sports titles, including a Football Ultimate Team™ EA Play November Draft Token in EA SPORTS FC 26, a Madden Ultimate Team™ EA Play November Pack for Madden NFL 26, an EA Play Loyalist Ultimate Team™ November Pack for EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, and more.

And when it’s time to find your next favorite game, dive into all the game-winning, world-creating, galaxy-defining moments in The Play List. You can even try out select recent releases for up to 10 hours with no commitments. If you decide to buy, your progress carries over to the full game, ready for what’s next.

Plus, members score 10% off EA digital purchases, points packs, and DLC. Find out more about upcoming EA Play benefits at

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriptions/ea

or follow us on X (Twitter) and Instagram @eaplay.

*Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See

https://tos.ea.com/legalapp/eaplay/us/en/pc/

for details.

Nov 4

v1.1.20 - New Research Screen

Containcorp - Boxxy the Containment Box

Dev Notes

Introducing the New Research Screen!

The new research screen is here! I still need to add research trees for 2 anomalies that are currently in the game, but now that I've finished this new UI, I can move on to focusing on core content once more, and also fixing all those terrible bugs. The game also needs a bit more optimisation work, which will take a lot of brainpower and draining evenings to crack. But I turned this game from a 5 fps lag machine to a 10 fps lag machine, and then to a 20fps lag machine. And if I learnt anything about the power of exponentials in school, it's one thing: most of the change comes right at the end when you least expect it. So hopefully that notion carries over to optimising the game further.

Anyway, here are some screenshots of what the new UI looks like.

Tree Selection

Below is the first page you see when you press the research tab. Here, you select the anomaly you want to open the research tree of. The stats that get displayed here at a glance are how much "refinement" progress you have made; that is, how complete the research tree is. The small bar shows the progress on the current research project you are researching within the tree, just for convenience. I will have to make adjustments as more anomalies get added to the game; who knows how messy it will get.

Research Tree

Here are some screenshots of the research trees themselves. Pretty close to the mockups, I'd say, other than no visible scrollbar at the bottom. I am too stupid to figure out how to make that work, so I just silently omitted it. But, in a stroke of genius, I realised the page was missing a back button! So I went and added that in.

That's all I have to say about the UI. It honestly took a lot quicker than I thought to implement. Definitely a lot more usable than the previous one. I will miss the unique presentation of the old one greatly. The 3D architect paper aesthetic was really cool. I think I will reuse it for the world map, maybe? Hmmm.

What's Next

So what's next? Actually quite a big update, at least game design-wise.

Lowering the Bar for Experiments

A big problem I noticed with the game, and its something I noticed only after doing my own playthrough the game (I should really spend time to do that more often), is that every other pillar of the game (Containment & Profit) where able to be satisfactorily engaged with within an hour of playing the game, but the remaining pillar (Research), took hours of buidling, hiring, contract completion and overall setup to actually engage with. And that is a problem, not because it takes time but also because it places more burden of knowledge onto the player. The player needs to know how experiments work, how intern intake works, and how science and research work, all at once, to understand just how to complete their first research. This makes no sense! So what to do? How do we fix this problem?

Introducing Science Modules: Experiments Made Small

It's quite simple, really. We need to do science. But science is too big. So what do we do? We shrink the science. Experiments, in the early game, will be condensed into small "Science Experiment Modules", which can be built inside containment cells as permanent fixtures. These modules can run experiments independently with a simple press of a button, wherein an intern or researcher will walk up to and activate the experiment, and the experiment will run for X amount of hours. After the experiment is done, it will spit out research points. Easy!

However, nothing easy comes for free. There is a chance that the experiment can fail. Much like proper big-scale experiments. If they fail, they may irritate the anomaly and cause an incident. Or the experiment module itself may malfunction and explode, or leak fluid or do something entirely unknown. And the biggest catch, every time you activate an experiment, there is a short startup phase of a few ticks where this risk is doubled. And if things go sour, you'll very likely lose the nugget you sent to activate it. Oops.

Though each time you activate and complete and experiment with a science module, it will improve a stat called its "rating". This stat will make it less prone to failures, but make its failures more catastrophic when they do occur. But every anomaly will have research nodes that can reduce experiment failures. And each module will be able to be upgraded every 10 rating levels to either: Reduce failure chance, or reduce failure magnitude, or speed up experiment time. The highest rating will unlock an upgrade for remote activation, allowing you to complete the manual activation process.

So there's a small progression I can add to individual modules. There are more interesting mechanics I can envision for this, like experiment modules being able to interact and complement each other. Maybe certain modules in combination with others can increase the science output of all of them.

The more I think about it, the more I see it might even just be able to completely replace the existing experiment system! But I think for now keeping both in the game is fine, I am apprehensive to making big design removals like that without seeing how it plays.

These were my ideas for the experiment modules to add for now.

Gray Goo Containment Unit,
Barostatic Thermometer,
Atmospheric Barometer,
Correlative Gravity Detector,
AE Rift Energy Anomalometer

Those who have played Kerbal Space Program might see the inspiration.

Each module will have slightly different stats, probably a linear increase in cost, experiment length, risk and science rewards. And each one will probably take up more "room space", making them harder to include in containment cells. And I may even add some "crowding" mechanic where science modules too close to each other get a negative debuff, and the more science points a module creates the bigger this crowding radius is. Maybe I'll call it "Instrument Interference".

I think there's a lot of interesting stuff with such a simple system. Thanks, Kerbal Space Program!

Case Closed

Hopefully, that gives a good idea of where the game is headed. The basics of the experiment system will make their way into the next patch, and hopefully a few bug patches and optimisations too. Depends on how much time adding the science modules takes. There are also some optimisation issues (possibly only in build?) for certain hardware, which I need to address.

I have been slowed down by various life stuff, so the development pace will be quite malaise for a few weeks. But I'll try my best to get patches out every 1 or 2 days. But if there are a few days where I am MIA, then don't be surprised :/

Anyway, ending on a light note. Please try and break the research page!

Patches

Overhauled Research screen
Fixed bug where builders would fall when climbing up ladders
All anomaly files are viewable from the database screen

Nov 4

I made a unique time-based battle system in my indie RPG – Legends of Cumans

Legends of Cumans - cumanlegacy

Hey everyone!

I’m Cuman Legacy, the solo developer behind Legends of Cumans — a puzzle-driven, comedy-filled RPG where you play as the last surviving Elf.

In this first developer update, I wanted to show one of the most unique parts of the game — the time-based battle system.

Unlike most RPGs that use turn-based combat, every fight in Legends of Cumans lasts a set number of seconds. Each Legend has their own stat card that shows their attack speed, how much HP they lose during a battle, and how many Woop Potato Chips are needed to recover HP.

Watch the short gameplay video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMV1zbODJPkEach Legend fights differently — some are fast but lose more HP per enemy, while others are slower but more resistant.

You’ll need to manage your healing items (like Woop Potato Chips – Hot Chili) wisely to survive the waves of White Creatures.
For example:
Flint Grotovsky fights for 14 seconds, losing 2 HP per enemy, and Woop Potato Chip recovers +1 HP. Victor Mandragor fights for 12 seconds, losing 1 HP, and Woop Potato Chips – Hot Chili recover +1 HP. Rowan Dravik fights for 21 seconds, losing 3 HP, and Woop Potato Chips – Dormin Cheese recover +2 HP.

This battle system is designed to keep every fight fresh, challenging, and just a bit absurd — exactly in the spirit of Legends of Cumans.

Thank you all for following this journey! More updates are coming soon — including new puzzles, characters, and strange places to explore.

Stay tuned,
Cuman Legacy
Creator of Legends of Cumans