@DSOGaming A new trailer for The Black Masses shows off its lighting system and its crowd rendering.

Brilliant Game Studios has released a new trailer for its ambitious open world game, The Black Masses. In this trailer, the lead developer of the project details some of the game’s tech, including its lighting system and its world record crowd rendering.

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Patch 3 will be merged with Patch 4 for INSOMNIA: The Ark.

Patch #3 news + $1000 video contest results

20 OCTOBER - VAULT_13

Hello everyone! Today we will cover quite a few topics regarding the latest INSOMNIA-related activities including the current situation with bug fixes and the lucky winners of the video contest that was available with the game's launch.

Patch #3 is getting merged with patch #4

As you may know, the release of our next patch has been delayed to make sure it won't follow the same path as patch #2, which introduced a few issues like disappearing weapon icons. And due the continuous work on solving the issues faced by our players so far, we have decided to combine patch #3 with the release of patch #4, which should be launched next week.

We are thankful for all of the the feedback you've been constantly providing us via the Community Hub, the submission form, email, social media and other mediums. This feedback is collected, analyzed and transformed into specific tasks for our team to address. We are lucky to have such an active community as you guys, who care enough about INSOMNIA and put time and effort in discussing the issues and the best ways of solving them. We couldn't ask for more!

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A new patch for Stellar Tactics adds perks, new devices, a repair system, weapon additions and more.

Patch 0.151 cumulative and whats next!

20 OCTOBER - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi everyone. First, I'd like to thank all of you who reported bugs big and small over the last few weeks. I'm posting a new build and cumulative patch notes since the release of the last major content update September 21st when I opened the universe.

It's been a very busy time since the release of the patch and we've had a lot of new additions to the Stellar Tactics community providing a ship load of great feedback and suggestions. I read everything I can posted on the forums and many of you know that I'm actively engaged in the conversations there. Please do continue to post and comment. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Here is what I'll be working on next, in no particular order. I'll start rolling out these features one at a time for the most part.

In no particular order:

• Perks to level 100
• A few additional devices that can be used in combat.
• Repair system for both space and ground. The space repair system will allow you to assign crew members to ship repairs. You will of course still be able to pay for repairs on stations.
• Addition of weapons for pugilism along with some adjustments. Currently there are no weapon types for this combat skill. I've compensated by making this skill more powerful, however, it's time to get these weapons in with mod slots etc.
• Implement new animations - these are done and have been waiting until I had time to get them in the game
• Space trading and the Trade-Net
• Cargo transfer on stations
• Special weapon attacks
• Ground mining drone system
• Sneaking, traps and environment security systems (including turrets)
• Sorting for vendors, inventory, stash and cargo
• Space station turret defense systems
• Crafting
• Patrolling enemies and NPC's
• Faction Agents will buy scan data
• Implement the updated ship models you saw in the last announcement

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The latest from Phoenix Point talks about Alien Bases.

Alien Bases

Much of the tactical combat in Phoenix Point takes place within human controlled Havens. These will not be the only places where combat occurs. There will be scavenging sites, your own bases to defend and enemy bases to attack, where the Pandoravirus mutates and grows its reinforcements.

Finding and destroying these aliens lairs will be fundamental to your success in the game. One of the main design goals for these enemy bases was to give them an organic appearance.

Concept Art

The approach we decided to take for things such as ladders and walls, was to use the remains of other creatures. Above, you can see a variety of different creature spines and carapaces which can be placed as ladders. Having a variety is also important. Having multiple copies of an identical ladder is a man-made environment is fine - but in an attempt to keep things looking organic and “natural”, we wanted to try and avoid some repetition.

The Pandoravirus ladders also need to keep regular spacing and dimensions so that they will all still work with the climbing animations (it wouldn’t be efficient to require separate climbing animations for different ladder types). In addition, we need different variations depending on height (1 floor, 2 floors etc). With a ladder you can just extend it and add extra rungs. That doesn’t work quite so well with a spine!

There are three main differences with the enemy bases to make them feel more organic and less “man-made”.

We’ve tried to avoid making the maps square. This gives more opportunity to build maze-like environments where you will have different options for taking cover, breaking line of sight and flanking your enemies.

We want the maps have a more “indoor” feeling to them. While some of them will still technically be outdoor maps, the claustrophobic feeling remains the same. Adding to the first point, this allows for more winding and twisting corridors.

We have made all of the props and features in the maps organic. We want to remove as many man-made elements as possible from the Pandoravirus environments. Many things which are required mechanically for your units to interact with (such as ladders) need to be reworked to be more organic.

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A new update for Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen focuses on the journal and the map but the most interesting bit talks about the interactive environment.

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As an example, let’s look at the simple quest of finding a buried treasure. A citizen of Vedwyd has found an old diary and treasure map when he cleaned out his basement. They belonged to his great-grandfather, a pirate who, when he was older, settled down to live an honest life on behest of his worried wife. But before he settled down, he buried some of his treasure at a location only he knew: a chest containing jewelry that could easily have been identified as loot from a recently plundered merchant ship.

The diary contains a short description of the location, and the treasure map is a crude drawing of what it looked like. "Berried jewls at renner grov", says the diary. "Start at nearby cave entrans. East 6 steps. North 4 steps. Luk at pointy rok bitween 2 trees. Pik it up an dig belo." Clear enough instructions to find the treasure, one might think. But the man doesn’t know what his great-grandfather meant by Renner Grove. There is no grove with such a name nearby. Maybe there had been, once – his great-grandfather had lived long before the Cataclysm, and in the turbulent times that followed, the name may simply have been forgotten. There is a clue, though: there was a cave entrance in the grove’s immediate vicinity.

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Interacting with the Environment: yes, you can touch that!

Talking about the treasure hunt – as you may have noticed, it involves picking up a rock and digging beneath it. Many items in the game, and even some pieces of the environment (wall niches, inscriptions, a broken wall that looks climbable…) can be selected and interacted with. Every object can be scripted to be interactable and behave in different ways when interacted with.

Interactable elements will be outlined when you hover your mouse over them. But beware: not every interactable item is beneficial. Some might be devious traps: a magical trigger that unleashes a storm of fire when touched, a lever that locks the only exit behind you, a valuable artifact that makes arrows shoot out of the wall when you pick it up. But they can also open new ways: a heap of boulders that can be cleared by a character of high strength, a magical barrier that dissipates when touched by an enchanted weapon, a tree that can be hacked down to create a makeshift bridge over a narrow ravine.

The many pretty objects that clutter our world are not mere decoration, they are fully interactable and often serve a gameplay purpose. Always be observant, and you will find many things to play around with in Realms Beyond. And since every object you can interact with is highlighted when your mouse passes over it, it means that there’s no annoying pixel hunting. You will see at a glance whether you can do something with an object or not.

This allows us to add elaborate puzzles to the game, as well as alternate quest solutions and plain fun environmental interactions. A statue that requires an item to be placed in its opened hands in order to unlock a secret door. A merchant’s cart that can be toppled over to create a distraction. Or a magic stone that hops away whenever you try to touch it.

The interactable objects in our environments follow the three golden rules of our game design: interactivity, reactivity, and player choice.

Stay tuned for the next update where we will talk about the world of Realms Beyond a little!

The release date for Battle Brothers ‘Beasts & Exploration' DLC is November 29th.

Release Date Announcement

20 OCTOBER - RAPSDJFF

We're happy to announce that the ‘Beasts & Exploration' DLC for Battle Brothers will be released on November 29th, 2018, for the price of $9.99 or your regional equivalent. You can already find and wishlist it on Steam right here.

The artwork above can also be downloaded as a wallpaper here[battlebrothersgame.com].

The ‘Beasts & Exploration' DLC for Battle Brothers expands the game with a larger world, full of unique hidden locations throughout that offer new possibilities and rewards to the daring adventurer, as well as challenging new beasts roaming the untamed wilds. Craft your own gear from trophies you collect, customize your equipment with a new system for armor attachments, and engage in profitable beast hunting and exploration!

Features

Legendary Locations - Hidden legendary locations offer new possibilities, lore, unique opponents, and unique rewards for the daring adventurer in a world that is 25% larger.
New Opponents - Five challenging new beasts populate different parts of the wilds, and three fearsome bosses guard valuable treasure. All of them come with unique mechanics and loot.
Crafting - Trophies from slain beasts can now be crafted into cloaks, armor plating, armor for your wardogs, shields, potions and other items to customize the look of your hardened mercenaries and benefit them in combat.
Customize your Gear - Wear cloaks, shoulderguards and more for additional benefits with the new armor attachment system, and use the new paint items to paint shields and helmets in the colors of your company.
New Weapons and Armor - A collection of new weapons and armors allow for new play styles and character builds.
New Contracts, Events and Ambitions - Engage in profitable beast hunting and exploration. Immerse yourself in leading a mercenary company with even more illustrated events.
New Music - Two new music tracks accompany you on your adventures.
New Achievements - Challenge yourself with new achievements on Steam or GOG.

Please note: You'll be able to continue your current campaign with the DLC, but you won't have access to all of the new content until you start a new campaign.

The adventure RPG The Greater Good will be released on October 23:

The Greater Good

The Greater Good is a fast-moving, cinematic RPG featuring stylized 3D graphics and an original, explosive soundtrack. Meet hilarious friends and make not-so hilarious enemies as you traverse a fully-realized, handcrafted world. Created entirely by one person out of love for classic turn-based RPGs.

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Machines are on the rise while magic is all but forgotten. Few even remember the destruction of the Elemental Tree so many years ago. Team up with a band of unlikely heroes as you rediscover this world's past and fight to save its future.

The monster taming RPG Siralim 3 has been released:

Siralim 3

The King of Siralim, tainted by an unknown force, has brought war to the lands of Rodia, capturing all of the country's kingdoms and slaughtering their people in the process. Now, only one kingdom remains that can stand against this unlikely adversary: Nex. As the king (or queen) of Nex, it is your job to fight back against Siralim's tyranny and return peace to Rodia once more.

If you're in a hurry, we've written a short list of features Siralim 3 has to offer. You can read about each feature in more detail by scrolling down past this list.

Features:

• Collect and breed over 700 different creatures to fight for you.
• Explore randomly generated dungeons with 15 unique tilesets.
• Craft artifacts and spell gems to equip your creatures for battle.
• Infinite playability - there's not even a level cap. New features are introduced well-beyond the 100-hour mark. You'll never run out of things to do!
• Rich end-game content, including Itherian Realms, super-bosses, arena battles, and much more!
• Asynchronous player-versus-player battles. If you win, you'll earn exclusive items!
• Content updates and patches are planned to add even more content to the game post-launch!
• Take part in our community, contribute your suggestions, and let's create the ultimate monster taming game together!

Collect and breed 700+creatutues

Your primary goal in this game is to collect creatures to fight for you. There are over 700 in total, and each one has a unique trait that improves its abilities in battle.

You can acquire new creatures either by finding them in the wild, or by breeding two of your own creatures to make them lay an egg. For example, you can create a Gula Sin by breeding together a Wyvern Sonicscreecher and an Aaxer Apocalypse.

Keep your eyes open for ultra-rare "Singular" creatures, which are creatures that have a unique color scheme compared to their normal counterparts.

Each creature also has its own lore that you can read about in the library. In total, our creature lore contains more than 55,000 words. That's the size of a novel!

Randomly generated dungeons

Take your creatures into randomly generated dungeons called "Realms". There, you'll fight against enemies that can be killed to increase your creatures' experience points, as well as drop resources and items that you can use to further improve your party.

There are 15 different tilesets for Realms, and each Realm offers exclusive creatures, quests, events, and much more.

Randomly generated spells

Your creatures can equip items called Spell Gems, which allow them to cast the spells contained in these gems. You can enchant these Spell Gems to add new properties to them which change the way the spell works. For example, you can customize the type of damage the spell does, or cause the spell to activate an additional effect after a creature casts it.

There are over 300 Spell Gems to find in the game, and over 20 properties that you can add to each spell. The possibilities are endless!

Complex crafting system

Each of your creatures can also equip an Artifact. Artifacts are items that grant the equipped creature a wide array of bonuses. These bonuses range anywhere from a simple boost to their attacks, all the way to granting them new traits and spells.

Artifacts have randomly generated properties, but you can also utilize over 1000 different crafting materials to add, remove, or modify these properties. Different creatures work better with different properties, so you'll need to experiment to figure out what works best for your team!

Countless collectibles

There's an insane amount of rare items and accomplishments to collect. Here's a brief list... and believe it or not, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

• Cards - these rare items have a small chance to drop from enemies after you defeat them. They grant bonuses to you and your creatures just by having them in your inventory. It will take a long time to find all of the 700+ cards in the game!
• Talismans - these work a lot like Cards in that they provide you with passive bonuses. However, by completing certain end-game content, you can upgrade your Talismans to improve the bonus and even unlock new powers!
• Favor - There are 15 gods in the game, and you can increase your favor with each one. As you do so, you'll unlock new game features, creatures, items, and more!
• Knowledge - the more you defeat a certain creature, the more knowledgeable you'll become about it, which unlocks new bonuses when you're fighting against that creature. Eventually, you'll be able to see a creature's health/mana bars in battle, view their lore in the library, deal additional damage to them, gain more experience points and resources by defeating them, and increase their chance to drop their Card.
• Singular Creatures - each creature in the game has a "Singular" counterpart. Singular Creatures are extremely difficult to find and have a unique color palette.
• Achievements - the game has hundreds of achievements for you to collect. When you earn an achievement, you'll gain some Achievement Points which improve the quality and quantity of loot you'll find during your travels.
• Wardrobe and Titles - you can unlock new costumes for your character to wear (such as a chef's uniform), as well as titles that change your name (so you might go from being called "King James" to "James the Drunk"). Wardrobes and titles can be seen by other players when you participate in asynchronous player-versus-player battles.

Infinity everything

Don't you hate when a good game comes to an end? We do too. That's why Siralim 3 never truly ends.

There's not even a level cap. You can continue leveling your character and creatures forever, all while still finding new challenges waiting for you just around the corner. We've crafted every game mechanic around players who want to someday accumulate hundreds, if not thousands of hours of playtime.

End game content

Completing the game's main story quests is just the beginning. After that, you'll unlock countless new systems to keep you entertained for hundreds of hours to come.

Here's a brief list of some of the game's end-game content, but again, there's so much more to this game than we can possibly write here.

• Itherian Realms - these work like normal Realms (as we described earlier), except these have randomly generated properties that change the way the enemies or even the Realm itself behaves. You can acquire and upgrade Talismans in Itherian Realms in order to bolster your party. You can even find the elusive Itherian Creatures here, which are rare creatures that have unique traits you won't find anywhere else.
• Tavern Brawls - fight against other players' creatures in asynchronous player-versus-player combat. You can earn exclusive Spell Gems, creatures, and other items if you win!
• End-Game Quests - a never-ending supply of quests and missions for you to complete long after you experience the main storyline quests.
• Super Bosses - we can't spoil what these are or how they work here, but rest assured that you'll face plenty of grueling challenges by fighting these bosses... and you'll be handsomely rewarded if you manage to win.
• Arena - draft a team of creatures and see how many enemies you can take down before your party is wiped out.
• More is on the way! We're committed to bringing content updates that include tons of awesome, end-game content after the game launches.

FAQ

Q: Do I need to play Siralim or Siralim 2 before playing Siralim 3? Are the stories related in any way?
A: Siralim 3 is a completely standalone game, and for that reason, you should have no problems playing it without playing the other games first. While the stories in Siralim 2 and 3 are intertwined, they can still be enjoyed independently. In short, there's something for new and old players alike!

Q: What's new from Siralim 2?
A: We already listed most of the new features elsewhere on this page, but if you're looking for a more concise list, check out the FAQ on our website!

Q: What platforms is Siralim 3 available on?
A: It is currently available on Steam(PC/Mac/Linux), Android (Google Play), and iOS; and it will eventually make its way to Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. We do not have any ETAs on release dates for consoles, but we will make an announcement when we do.

HBS has announced the season pass roadmap for BattleTech which will be discounted 20 % until October 25th. Additionally the first expansion release date was announced for Flashpoint of November 27th.

Start your engines and grasp your hatchets as we're thrilled to tell you that BATTLETECH - Flashpoint will arrive to Mechwarriors all over on November 27th!
Pre-order TODAY!

If that's not enough with got a brand new video for you in which Mitch gives you four pretty compelling reasons not to miss it!

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The BATTLETECH Season Pass includes all future BATTLETECH expansions at a discounted price. In addition to all the current game content, Season Pass holders will have access to three upcoming expansions.

Flashpoint

BATTLETECH's first-ever expansion adds new gameplay, depth, and over 30 hours of new content to your mercenary experience. Introducing Flashpoints: high-stakes, branching short stories that link together mercenary missions, crew conversations, special events, critical choices, and rare bonus rewards to take BATTLETECH's endgame and Career-Mode gameplay to the next level.

Urban Warfare

Combat drops into metropolitan territory, with explosive results. Fight through urban sprawl with new ‘Mechs and mechanics.

Third Expansion

To be confirmed.

Thanks Darkheart!

The October update for Queen's Wish: The Conqueror announces that the engine is 'pretty much done'.

Queen's Wish October 2018 Update!

This is a pretty exciting update. The Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror engine is pretty much done. The base interface is in. The system is done. All the stuff in the game is scripted.

Of course, it’s not completely done. The final interface needs to be drawn, put in, and made pretty. There are a lot of minor things (like weather) that I tend to do late in the process. There are a million bugs. However, we have a full, playable game, and we’ve made several towns, dungeons, and outdoors sections. To take a break from interface stuff, I’ve also written over 40000 words of dialogue for the spine of the storyline.

Over the next few days, we’re going to do our first intense playing. Now that the base engine is done, we’re going to play it, find what is broken and imbalanced, fix it, and make sure the game is fun. Then we will go on to primary world design, the longest phase in the project.

In the Next Month

We’ll finish a couple more dungeons and then do some really intense testing. We’re trying to get everything solid enough that we can make dungeons and outdoors sections on a schedule. This is when everything we’ve been putting off and everything that didn’t work become visible and have to be dealt with. It’s a long, grueling process, but it does end eventually.

Reward Update

We’ve gotten a ton of ideas from people who bought the ability to put things into the game, if you heard back from us, assume your input has been placed. If you haven’t written us yet or you never got feedback, this is really the time to get that done. The more of the world we write, the fewer the options for good places to put your characters, items, etc.

As for the Scrolls of Absolution, the design of the scroll is done and we’ll start making and sending them out soon. If you haven’t responded to the survey yet, please do so.

Things are going well. The prospect of playing the game for real, after years of thought and preparation, is both scary and exciting. Before we go, I put a couple of screen clips below. We have a game!

- Jeff Vogel

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A new gameplay trailer for Thronebreaker: The Withcer Tales has been made available.

CD PROJEKT RED, creators of The Witcher series of games, have published today a brand new, gameplay-focused trailer for Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - the upcoming RPG adventure set in the universe of professional monster slayer Geralt of Rivia.

The trailer showcases exploration of The Witcher world, the game's choice-driven narrative, and teases new locations and characters. The video also features a closer look at the mechanics of managing your army and upgrading the battle camp, as well as the story-driven battles players participate in.

Indian Noob reviewed Vigilantes and think it is a love letter to turn-based strategy games with some well implemented RPG elements.

Vigilantes can be summarised as the perfect amalgamation of Jagged Alliance, the classic XCOM and Fallout 1/2 with bits of Cyberknights thrown in the mix. The end result- a deep, tactical and engaging combat-heavy game with a lot of oldschool RPG elements. But rather than going from map to map combatting foes, you have to build up your base, manage party members, send them on reconnaissance missions, manage the inventory, craft items, conduct surveillance all around the city and finally, launch sweet street justice on criminal scum. Vigilantes have a lot going for it from the get-go. It goes without saying that you have a lot of menus and tabs to browse through. But the clunky and bloated UI leaves a lot to be desired.

You can also select up to three party members to tag along with you during combat encounters. Sadly, the interactions between Sam and his mates are practically non-existent outside of the combat. Considering that they’re full-fledged personalities, it’s sad to see that potential being wasted away. But I do love the fact that they’re fully customizable with attributes, stats and perks. Everything you do outside of the combat takes place in real time and time is valuable. Rather than going for a typical level-scaling method, the enemies in Vigilantes are constantly gathering resources and improving themselves while you’re off doing the same. This can lead to some interesting and sometimes frustrating results.

Luck Day spotted that a new patch for the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights has been made available:

Features:

• Three new player-selectable portraits; Heavyline, Skandii, and Lanteri

Fixes:

• We fixed certain armor pads (specifically, belts and shoulder pads) disappearing when re-equipping a item
• We fixed a floating point inaccuracy that made the player character skew aside ever so slightly when WASDing.
• The conversation UI has been fixed to not shift off screen when using UI scaling and having the Inventory/Char sheet open at the same time
• We fixed a double-free in the PLT system, which has lead to crashes when multiple objects with the same texture would show
• We fixed held equipment not becoming transparent when the character model did so (for example, when casting Invisibility.)
• The game now asks you for a CD key, instead of erroring with a confusing message, when Steam CD key retrieval fails for any reason
• HW Mouse is now the default on Linux, as to avoid WindowManager-related mouse click point offset issues resulting from UI scaling
• We made all DLC portraits now show up for character creation in all modules, regardless of portrait.2da entries

Content Creation Changes

Features:

• Toolset: The script editor now shows variables and constant declarations on double click
• Toolset: The recent modules list has been expanded to 10 entries
• Toolset: The compiler include limit has been bumped to 128

Fixes:

• Toolset: Area ambient sounds and music has been brought back to life
• Toolset: We removed the requirement that the mouse be over an object to translate it on the Z-axis (with Alt+Left Mouse Button)
• Toolset: The tile properties light select color UI is no longer truncated when using windows-native screen scaling

Server Changes

Fixes:

• Server resource management on Linux in certain memory configurations has been fixed
• Crashes in nwscript functions resulting from bad parameters have been addressed: CopyItemAndModify, GetNearestCreatureToLocation
• A crash when reloading LTRs was fixed
• Linux only: Database names are now case-insensitive, so DestroyCampaignDatabase() now works as expected
• Linux/Mac only: We fixed the server spinning a thread needlessly if stdin gets closed

In a new video for Mutant year Zero, Funcom explains what the game is about.

Tactical adventure game, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden fuses, XCOM-like turn-based combat with real-time stealth and exploration, arriving on PC, Xbox, PS4 on December 4th. Check out the new gameplay footage and behind the scenes video from the developers, explaining what Mutant Year Zero is all about!

OSLO, Norway - October 18th, 2018 - On December 4th, in just under two months, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden will make its debut on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The game combines XCOM-like tactical combat with real-time exploration, stealth, and story as it puts players on a journey across a post-human Sweden where anthropomorphic animals scramble to survive in the remains of human civilization. Throughout the game, players can seamlessly jump between real-time exploration and tactical combat.

Since the game's announcement in February (where the characters Dux and Bormin undoubtedly stole the show), Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden have been collecting both awards and praise from press who have gotten hands-on time with the game. But, if you've been living under a rock for the past few months, the developers at The Bearded Ladies' studio in Sweden are ready to show you what the game is all about.

In the brand-new video released today, the team takes you behind the scenes at their Malmö studio as they give you the overview of what the game is all about and what players can look forward to. You can also find a written overview posted on www.mutantyearzero.com. 

Now available for PC pre-order on buy.mutantyearzero.com, the game will be available in a Standard Edition ($34.99) and a Deluxe Edition ($54.99). The Deluxe Edition includes a desktop wallpaper, digital artbook, digital soundtrack, and a digital copy of the Mutant Year Zero pen-and-paper RPG book. Pre-ordering the Standard Edition will give you a three-day head start at launch while pre-ordering the Deluxe Edition gives you the same head start as well as access to a Beta version of the game before launch. The game will also launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on December 4th, simultaneously with PC.

Call of Cthulhu has gone gold and will be available on October 30th, 2018.

Call of Cthulhu, the official videogame adaptation of Chaosium's pen-and-paper RPG, has gone Gold, ready for its release on October 30th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Today, dive into the Preview to Madness Trailer for a taste of the press' first impressions, joined by a dose of Lovecraftian madness.

With Call of Cthulhu releasing in under two weeks, members of the press have already gotten their hands on the early hours of Detective Pierce's haunting investigation. Today's trailer explores praise for the game's distinctly Lovecraftian atmosphere, mesmerizing audio and visual design, as well as the RPG-investigation mechanics that allow players to discover clues, draw conclusions, question locals, and survive the island's cosmic horrors.

In Call of Cthulhu, nothing is as it seems. Terrible creatures, conspiracies and cults await on Darkwater Island, lining the path to the horrifying truth behind the island. Pierce's mind will suffer - solving the case will bring him to brink of insanity, to a place where death may appear the most favorable outcome. The player's senses will be challenged to the point of questioning whether everything and everyone is real or illusory. Creeping shadows hide lurking figures... and all the while, the Great Dreamer prepares for his awakening.

Call of Cthulhu releases for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on October 30. Digital and retail pre-orders are available on PC and consoles.

Here is the Preview to madness trailer.

Veil of Crows has been released on Steam.

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Veil of crows is a sandbox style real-time strategy game set in a chaotic medieval world. From violent, and overtly bloody battles, to completely destructible castles, RPG style hero development, and meaningful interactions with other factions.
Trade, bribe, extort, and destroy your way to world domination! The world of Veil of Crows remains persistent after you die, so your impact will have a lasting effect on the world even after you fail, or start over. Can you conquer the world and take the throne?

Key features:

Epic battles:
* Command large armies in gratuitous bloody conflict.
* Besiege mighty castles with siege engines.
* Take advantage of destructible buildings and walls.
* Every type of unit has strengths and weaknesses.
* Take heed of the current weather, geography and battle conditions

Sandbox:
* A massive sandbox style campaign map that includes more than 75 towns and villages ready to be conquered.
* Complete quests for other lords and village leaders for bounty and improving relations.
* Take your time to explore the world, or take your chances with random encounters.
* Hunt down the bandits who raided your village for resources and prisoners, or destroy their camps to prevent further intrusion.
* Just because you might die, doesn't mean your world dies too. Start again and your former kingdom still remains, however you are just another peasant in a land of corpses.

Four game modes:
* Prologue: Tutorial game... you will have some help along the way.
* Veil of Crows: The main game. You start with a hero and a small group of units. Keep your hero alive and put them on the throne, or die trying. Game-over will result after your hero dies, however, the world will remain as you left it, but you must start as a new character with a new faction.
* Sandbox mode: A casual game mode where you can select your starting conditions.
* Custom Battle: You set the scene! Units, Battle type, Location, Time of day, Current weather, your choice! Battle away!

Manage your faction:
* Six different resource types can be acquired in your villages. You can trade these resources, or use them to upgrade your castles and train stronger units.
* Forge alliances, or threaten and backstab your way to power. Every action you take will change other factions opinions of you.
* Extort and bribe enemy armies in the hope they will leave you alone, desert, or join your forces.

Mighty Heroes:
* Train up mighty heroes and generals to lead your armies and grant bonuses to your towns when granting vassals.
* Visit the armoury and customise your heroes equipment, and watch them carve through your enemies.
* Put your leader on the throne and conquer the world! In the main game, you start by customising the main character. You must keep them alive, and put them on the throne to truly conquer the world. If they die, game over!

The Interplay twitter has posted that "Something new is coming..." and links to a webpage.

Something new is coming...https://t.co/gpyldKd69B

— Interplay (@InterplayGames) October 11, 2018

Aeon of Sands now has a release date of December 4th. Check out the Steam page here.

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Aeon of Sands - The Trail is a retro low fantasy RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world, with first person, grid-based exploration, puzzles, real-time combat, and a fully illustrated, non-linear story.The game follows the misadventures of a likeable slacker, who is suddenly thrown out of his cosy home into a terrible, infinite desert that seems to hate him.

Accompany the vain, nap-loving clerk Setrani through his story.
Guide his travels over a dangerous land, ravaged by the weather and by tribal enmity. Struggle with him, as the desert's wicked sense of humor and unpredictability set him trap after trap on his path.
Setrani is introduced to new situations via multiple choice illustrated dialogues.Based on your decisions, new areas can be explored while other become inaccessible, you meet new companions or make enemies of them.

It's basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure featuring Dungeon Crawling!

Platforms: Windows | MacOSX
Release: December 4, 2018

Cultured Vultures shared their opinion on the 6 worst gaming trends of this generation.

1. Loot Boxes

Easily the trend that’s received the most publicity even outside the realm of gaming is loot boxes. Although it seems to be dying down again now that legal action was taken in some countries, it’s still very much a trend. Without any guarantee of getting anything worthwhile, loot boxes are annoying enough when purely for cosmetic purposes, so that only those who have enough money and a few other lucky people will have the cool skins and the like. That’s a problem by itself, but it’s not the main problem behind loot boxes and the whole reason for the fuss behind them.

The main problems arise when you get a situation like with Star Wars: Battlefront 2, where loot boxes are filled with items that help you progress. The game becomes not only pay-to-winbut RNG-based pay-to-win, where the wealthiest always has a massive head-start. You could argue that that makes the game more realistic but that really is beside the point. The point is that companies using loot boxes to make players pay out of their arses to have a shot against those who maxed out on day one by doing so is absolutely unacceptable, and it hasn’t been a major problem before this generation of consoles.

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Thanks Farflame!

Nighthawks funded on Kickstarter and the latest update shared a little on what is to come next.

So, What Happens Now?

First, I need a very long sleep. After that, we head into pre-production. While there's a more complex timeline behind the scenes, the basic plan is that for this year I'll be clearing the current contracts on my slate while working on finalising the main design and code of the game, with the fingers-crossed goal of releasing a technology test version for PC, Mac, and if possible, Linux by the end of the year. This will be the same basic content as the demo version, but with much more polished up code and additional features, essentially built with the goal of making sure everything is running properly. That then frees up 2019 for writing and drawing the content, with the goal being for voice recording and beta-testing in early 2020. Development and slippage are obviously brothers in arms, but... that's the plan!

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Thanks Farflame!

Culture of Gaming looks at the life and times of Blizzard's Michael Morhaime.

When he set out with nothing but 15,000 dollars from his grandma to found Silicon and Synapse, Michael Morhaime couldn’t possibly imagine the empire he would build. 20 years, a dozen games, and nearly 15 billion dollars later, Blizzard Entertainment has become one of the most influential companies in video gaming, and it would be nowhere without the guidance of Mike Morhaime.

This man has an extensive history with video games. From his childhood to the current day, he’s worked tirelessly on the medium he’s loved most. We here at Culture of Gaming are fascinated and inspired by Mike. That’s why we’re writing a multi-part chronology of Morhaime’s life and career. This article will delve into his early years and the first phase of Blizzard, but make sure to stay tuned to at least one more part coming in the future.

Without further ado, here’s a brief look into the soul of Michael Morhaime, former CEO of Blizzard.

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Thanks Farflame!

A large development update for Wellspring: Altar of Roots.

So I know it's been awhile since we've given an official update, but we're still alive, kickin' and developing Wellspring: Altar of Roots! In case you missed the last update, we're no longer Bevontule and have opted to go with a marginally more-decipherable name--we're still growing into it, but I think it'll work out!

Before we jump into what we've been up to, I know that we had mentioned re-launching our Kickstarter around September. Long story short, we're going to focus instead on continuing to develop the game, with a potential re-launch much further along the horizon.

We've already devoted a large portion of time developing the fundamental mechanics of the game, which should allow us to adopt a more measured and methodical approach towards future development. At the same time, having full-time jobs (yes, we're working for the man again) allows us to filter more money back into the project.

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Thanks Farflame!

A Q&A about Pathfinder: Kingmaker at GOG. A companions guide at Twinfinite.

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Q: Will the game have multiple solutions to problems (I mean like actual multiple solutions) or will the quests be more linear?

[Owl Cat Games] The direct answer is yes, almost every event has several ways to solve it. The main storyline also has a lot of different options for progression and the game has several major different endings, not counting the dozens of different minor outcomes.

Q: Is there an editor, or chance of one, so people can make their own adventures a la NWN?

[Owl Cat Games] No editor mode support right now, sorry. This is quite a huge feature. We definitely considered this during the development but we decided that we’d better focus on the game itself rather than postpone the release for several months.

Q: Would I have to know the pen and paper version of Pathfinder to really enjoy this game?

[Owl Cat Games] No, you don’t have to. All the story elements are reproduced with the addition of all new stories elements and narratives!

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Tanks: Harrim

He may continuously sermon about the futility of life, but Groetus’s chosen makes for an excellent beginning tank. The dwarf’s perhaps the best support tank in the game, adding the heavy armor proficiency feat complements his role as a supportive cleric.

Leveling Harrim along as a pure support tank allows him to take the brunt of an enemy onslaught, healing your party at critical moments. Because of his array of faith-based spells available late into the game, he should be a go-to party member throughout Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Tips:

• Pure Cleric leveling allows Harrim to heal your party and become a decent tank.
• Make sure to take Coordinated Defense along with the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat. Those two will provide decent defensive buffs throughout the game.
• Remember his buffs! Prayer, Bless, and Bane each provide great bonuses throughout the game.

Blizzard will not show everything to do with Diablo at BlizzCon but will have some news about it.

Diablo at BlizzCon 2018

Blizzard Entertainment 10/17/2018 164

BlizzCon 2018 is almost here and we’ve seen a lot of rumors flying around about our plans for Diablo at the show. These are very exciting times—we currently have multiple teams working on different Diablo projects and we can’t wait to tell you all about them . . . when the time is right.

We know what many of you are hoping for and we can only say that “good things come to those who wait,” but evil things often take longer. We appreciate your patience as our teams work tirelessly to create nightmarish experiences worthy of the Lord of Terror.

While we won’t be ready to announce all of our projects, we do intend to share some Diablo-related news with you at the show.

November 2 will be an especially diabolical date—not only is it the first day of BlizzCon, it’s also when Diablo III arrives on the Nintendo Switch. If you’re planning to pick up the game (the digital download will be available starting at midnight on launch day) and are joining us in Anaheim, be sure to bring your console. We’d love to slay some demons with you on the show floor.

Again, we want to thank you for your patience and support. We are eternally grateful to you and the millions of other Diablo fans around the world whose passion for this franchise inspires us and keeps our fires burning.

We’ll see you in hell . . . and at BlizzCon!

Discord's Store Beta is now open to everyone which you can read about at their blog site.

The First “First On Discord” Games

As part of launching our boutique store experience, we’re bringing some new games to life for the first time ever. These fancy fresh First on Discord games will be available first on Discord (get it) for PC.

We’re really excited to show these off today.

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Gematsu reports that The Witch's House MV will be released October 31st on Steam.

Japanese horror RPG The Witch’s House MV launches October 31

The Witch’s House MV, an RPG Maker MV remake of the 2012-released RPG Maker VX Japanese horror RPG The Witch’s House, will launch for PC via Steam on October 31, publisher Dangen Entertainment and developer Fummy announced.

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DigitalFoundary looked at Sega's cancelled Shenmue remake.

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Aside from some bugs, Sega's Shenmue 1 and 2 HD remaster was a good release but originally, plans were afoot for an altogether more ambitious project - and you can see it right here.

Iron Danger will soon go into closed Alpha testing and there is a new trailer.

Taking in applications for closed alpha testing + new trailer

17 OCTOBER - HEPPHEP
We are happy to announce that we are aiming to start closed alpha testing by the end of October. For that, we have started to take in applications to participate.

The detailed instructions of testing and how to apply, can be found from Iron Danger's Discord server at https://discord.gg/8tDbuU

So, if you are eager to already give a try to Iron Danger in it's alpha state, that is where you should head to.

To celebrate the alpha, we have also released a new trailer for the game. Enjoy!

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance DLC The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon has been released.

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The heart of our much-loved young Sir Hans Capon is bursting with overwhelming longing for... his latest flame.

The second DLC "The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon" for Kingdom Come: Deliverance revolves around his attempts to woo the fairest maid he has ever set eyes upon, and his success will not depend only on his own mastery of the art of love – it’s also up to his trusty wingman, you - Henry, to ensure that The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon come to a happy end!

That’s the main objective linking three new quests, in which you will not only have to read love poems, arrange a nighttime tryst and keep an enraged butcher at bay, but also infiltrate the camp of a band of bloodthirsty brigands, enter a dice tournament, dig up a corpse, investigate a murder and... er... perhaps commit a few. All for love, of course!

The October update for Fallout: New California has arrived and a countdown timer has appeared for the release of the mod.

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We'll continue to do balance, especially by populating the wasteland with "stuff," during 200 and 201, and supporting the mod. Really going BETA for us, we are done, it's just minor things, and any work you guys wany to mod in and we can merge, fixes or more stories or guns, whatever. The core of the mod is there and it's not flawless, obviously, but damn is it fun and full of cool stuff to do.

We got this gigantic branching 12-30 hour single player story that's packed with big tough decisions, we have so many immersive character focused moments, tons of amazing art and voice acting, glorious music that could be a whole mod unto itself, awesome environments -- I'm exited for you to play it. And make mods for it. Just go nuts.

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Thanks rjshae!