\["Flowers Beneath A Starless Sky" is a prologue story for the game, written in the same style as the lore you'll be discovering in-game. [/i]The previous chapter can be found here.][/p]

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You flex your power with eager focus. From the dirt, a blood red thistle grows and rises defiant. You grasp the bloom and look within.

Your thoughts are pulled to a salt-white battlefield. Clattering metal and thundering steps. An army stands between you and a dark tower rising in the distance. You know you must reach it, and nothing will stand in your way.

The army marches. You tighten your fist, wicked steel in your grasp, and plant your heels. Alone. You are always alone. You will not run.

One falls. Then ten. A hundred. The ground stains crimson in your wake. An army stood; an army fell.

The tower nears, one last foe standing in your path. A goliath wreathed in shadow looms with a twisted grin. To fell it would take ten thousand cuts; it could end you in one. You raise your sword and march on. 

It swats you away with ease. Tumbling, scraping, ground into the dirt. And the giant laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

Your fist clenches. The sky turns red, the horizon jagged. The world blurs as you rise to your feet, everything turned to vague smudges and wild streaks. You charge, howling like a beast, forcing your foe to taste your blade. 

You strike again and again, cutting and carving, until your blade falls away, so you rip and you tear and you gnaw and you laugh—

You pluck the flower with a shudder. A peerless warrior, powerful and fierce, yet skin like fractured glass. Spite and resentment churn beneath the surface, begging to be free. All too easy they would fall to cunning, goaded to careless fury. 

This one cannot save the sky.

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report. 

Level: 
The Environment Team has made steady progress on the large task of the landscape rework, with a focus on integrating larger rocks and cliffs more smoothly into the terrain. While part of the team worked on implementing the first batch of assets for the Sky Village that we showcased in last week’s post, we also added updated meshes for the Galactic Ranger dropships and other detail objects around the map.

Code:This week, we changed how armor attributes are calculated and applied on hit. This is to improve our editing workflows, it doesn't make much of a difference in the final result.
We also improved navigation for NPCs following a Way Net path (world travelling) while in processing range.
In addition to that, we have started replacing our current Lovense integration with Buttplug.io, unlocking support for a wider range of sex toys. Lovense devices will of course continue to work with the new system.

Character:The small lizardmen are almost finished and ready to be implemented. We have shifted our focus in character art to a few missing outfits that our design team needs for certain story-mode NPCs and for the player characters.

Animations:In the animation department, we are now moving on to a big task that will probably keep us busy for quite a while: Looking at all the story minigames in their proper implemented quest context and polishing them up one by one.
This includes small, but important things such as making sure characters don't suddenly teleport from dialogue into a different room, adding little intro animations where needed for a smoother transition, and checking if in-minigame dialogue still fits with the previous quest dialogue.
Later, this task will of course also need some work from other departments, such as lighting and decorating the locations where these scenes take place.
We also worked on the face mocap pipeline this week and figured out how to do it best for the bulk of cutscenes ahead. Many cutscenes will enter the final polishing phase when the face mocaps are implemented but there are still a few retargeting issues to fix to have the facial expressions look more accurate and natural.

Design:We have been wrapping up the design of the player progression, this week. Defining ranges for damage and health scaling of the player and enemies, expected leveling progression over the course of a playthrough, and figuring out the best workflows to easily implement the enemies into the game world in the coming months, but also iterate on their power level.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team

Our Donutis Simulator game, which has been available for purchase for a long time, is now free and waiting for new players to play. We hope it will be enjoyable for every player. Happy gaming!

NextHaven Studio

-fixed fade to black and fade from black on scene load/unload
-fixed missing items in the hole when the user had collected al 9 scrolls

Hello Survivors

We are excited to share our new Dev Diary, the first entry in a monthly series where we take you behind the scenes of Ardem. In each episode we will talk about what the team has been working on, show progress and give you insights into worldbuilding, systems and upcoming features.

This months Dev Diary covers some of the latest updates in environment art and level design, including a look at new locations that are being added to Ardem.

We hope you enjoy this deeper look into our development process. Thank you for all your support and stay tuned for next months episode.

See you in Ardem

- Fixed bug where joystick couldn't select some options
- Added package cycling

The feature has been requested as another way to change colors and now it is available!

Based on your gameplay sessions and feedback, we have changed and adjusted some aspects of the game in this update.

1.1.0 Patch Notes:

• Added a creature-free mode, which can be accessed after completing the corresponding stage at least once, from the Hall.

• Additions to the enemy mechanics of the "The Alleys" stage to improve gameplay flow. There is now a gauge displayed on the creature’s eye. If it fills up completely, it becomes invulnerable to the flashlight. Also, after removing the light from its eye, the creature becomes briefly stunned, giving the player a better chance to escape.

• Added a dynamic outline that indicates whether it is possible to illuminate the head of the enemy in the "Pro Nobis Hotel" stage, along with a lighting particle effect.

• We made it easier to find the kerosenes in the "Pro Nobis Hotel" stage by adding an outline when the player approaches them within a certain distance.

• Reworked the achievement "This Show Is Mine" (Complete stages consecutively without dying) to show your progress on the boards located in the Hall. For each stage completed without dying, an icon will appear on the corresponding board. Icons earned during the process will disappear if you fail.

• Slightly increased the speed of the enemies in the "The Tower" stage, as we noticed it was too easy to complete.

• General UI and HUD bug fixes that occurred occasionally.

• We adjusted some of the text in the final scene, which was appearing too quickly.

Hey Everyone,

Looks like quite a few people are winning and breaking the game in various ways! Hope you're all having fun!

We're currently working on Balance Patch 1 to improve effects, upgrades and perks that don't get enough play, as well as nerfing a few that give way too high exponential growth.

We're capturing data on effects, upgrades and perks that players take, but we'd like to supplement that with actual player feedback. So, if you have any feedback please pass it onto us in the Steam forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/3481360/discussions/) or feel free to directly send it to us at otterpawpress(at)gmail.com

Some questions to get you thinking about specific feedback are:

• Are there any effects, upgrades or perks that you think seem cool and want to use, but for some reason don't?

• Are there any effects, upgrades or perks that you think should synergise, but don't?

• Do you have any ideas for new effects, upgrade or perks that fill a niche that's missing or would be a cool interaction?

• Are there any effects, upgrades or perks that seem to just be trash or are an instant pick?

• Any ideas to improve the Mirror Shard tier up bonus option?

GL HF!

This patch fixes a memory creep issue/leak, makes some blocks softer for landing, and fixes several other minor issues.

0.851 change list:

• now reuse opengl buffers (cuts down a lot on creeping up memory usage)

• now only take half damage when landing hard on soft surfaces (mud, snow, sand, slush, & tar)

• fixed cloth hats, staves, and wands not giving their mana boost to player (Impus)

• fixed potted plants and trophies not transitioning to new world correctly visually

• made item on ground effects match item rarity more and be bit larger

• evil god power bar will now glow when close to full

• good god power bar will now glow when close to full

• quest threat bar will now glow when close to full

• dead bodies now have more flies

• can no longer use higher end vials if don't meet the min requirements

• changed north/south signs to up/down

• added a shadow behind markers on maps to make them stand out a bit more (ScrObot)

New Features:

• Bots now have certain difficulty increases as you fight them in a match.
  
• Lobby now features character portraits.

Adjustments:

• Prism Passthough weapon modifier update. To better give options for landing shots through walls, now certain walls and objects will become translucent while you are holding the ability.
  
  • Also adjusted the angle of passed through shots to make directly aiming at your target more effective.
• Overhauled the VFX of hazard trail modified beam shots to further emphasize their impending hazardousness.
  
• Added new SFX for rebound and prism passthrough weapon modifiers.
  
• Map geometry and look update, further building on the laser tag and futuristic roots, fleshing out the fidelity of more objects, and updating the look of the lighting.
  
• Fans now spin.
  
• Lighting adjustments to improve overall performance.
  
  • Also, through the use of more emissives, reflections, and a higher base level of illumination, improved visibility at low graphics settings.
• Lowered brightness of rotating objective spotlights so that they are less blinding, and hopefully more helpful.
  
• Updated the look of the lobby in a similar style to the map updates, such as adjusting lighting, and adding a display of the winner’s trophy.
  
• Performance improvements, such as using more efficient methods of animating the objective nodes on the charge lines.
  
• Adjusted weapon firing and other opponent/ teammate view movement animations.
  
• Revamped win and lose screens with UI animations, and added a new lose track to chill with before running it back.
  
• Updated weapon colors to match each other.
  
• Updated look of match stats readout (accessible with left bracket [ ).
  
• Added additional clarifying text in the lobby UI to show how to start a match.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bot players not being able to aim at players vertically.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could not rejoin matches they left, and certain cases where an improper player count for matches would be displayed in the server browser even after refreshing.