The third installment of Starpoint Gemini has been announced.

LGM Games officially announces Starpoint Gemini 3

A BRAND-NEW TITLE IN THE FRANCHISE

Zagreb, Croatia, February 21, 2019. LGM Games^TM, creators of the Starpoint Gemini franchise, are proud to announce a brand-new title.

The new installment is an open-world space action single-player RPG that puts the player in the cockpit of Captain Jonathan Bold, a space adventurer travelling the vast universe of Starpoint Gemini 3®.

For the first time in the franchise, Starpoint Gemini 3® introduces 3D, animated NPCs that players can interact with, and this time the flight path leads beyond Gemini as they get to explore two new planetary systems, visiting various venues, from pubs with shady clientele to high-tech facilities and noisy, glitzy nightclubs.

Along with the action-packed space battles, Starpoint Gemini 3® comes with an array of novel possibilities. With the help of ADAH, a digital consciousness that runs the ship's computer, players can operate the ship's drone and accomplish tasks they wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

The immersive gameplay and the absorbing story of Starpoint Gemini 3® takes the players on an unforgettable adventure.

Starpoint Gemini 3 key features

• Adrenaline-packed dogfighting combat

• Brand new tri-system universe layout

• Immersive gameplay and an absorbing storyline with a copious quantity of encounter quests, characters and activities

• Detailed visitable interiors

• New out-of-ship drone control and exploration of space structures

• Rich, versatile free-roam content

• Modular ship upgrading system

A series of video development diaries

A series of Starpoint Gemini video development diaries on YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter profile and a textual development blog on LGM Games^TM official website at https://lgmgames.net will give fans and the community the opportunity to stay tuned for news of the game's development stages.

The action RPG Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption has been released on Steam:

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption

Rise from the depths a crumbling kingdom and to the challenge of defeating increasingly difficult demonic bosses. Choose aspects of yourself to weaken before defeating the avatars of Sin in the boss battler Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption. Inspired by classic boss-battlers and modern skill-based action RPGs, with a dash of gothic anime styling and horror storytelling, Sinner promises a thrilling and bone-chilling experience.

A lone warrior stands on a strange shore, his mind clouded and his past forgotten, but an unstoppable force drives him on. He is Adam, guilty of a great sin and drawn to this place by powers as secret as they are terrifying. As his home, the Kingdom of Cavanis, languishes in blasphemy, Adam must face a series of trials in a desperate quest for redemption.

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Game Features

• Challenge yourself against eight distinct, brutal bosses
• Sacrifice strength and stats in Sinner’s “level-down” gameplay
• Equip a plethora of unlockable weapons and items to adapt to your weaknesses
• Master Sinner’s hard-but-fair combat
• Bring peace to a tortured soul in a dark and harrowing tale with multiple endings
• Take on new challenges in a variety of game modes for replayability

In the most recent development blog for Vagrus: The Riven Realms, the defenses of comabt companions are discussed.

In the last part of the Combat Guide we took a look at Companion Actions, including moving, Skills, and their combinations. This time, we'll delve into defensive stats and their importance.

Companion combat is cruel in Vagrus and in general you can not heal during it. Your defenses are your main way to mitigate damage, so understanding how they work is very important.

Basics

Vitality (VIT) is the stat that your fighters lose each time they are hit. When depleted, the Companion falls into a Downed state. When Downed, they can not act (they do not receive their turns) but can be targeted and damaged. They have their Downed Vitality for when they are Downed. If that, too, is depleted, they are Out of Action, which means long-term wounds and potentially death. Therefore, it behooves the player to protect Downed Companions as best they can. That said, there are a few methods to bring back Downed characters into action but none of these are easy or cheap.

More at the link.

The fixed-camera JRPG, Eternity: The Last Unicorn launches on march 5th.

Eternity: The Last Unicorn revels in classic action-RPG mechanics, weaving a fantastical tale that's steeped in Norse mythology and the struggles with immortality. Long ago, unicorns brought about immortality, yet now they are all but extinct, with one last cursed member still in existence. Aurehen of Alfheim is tasked with the weighty obligation of saving the waning immortality of her fellow elves before it fully evaporates, all the while lifting the curse on the last unicorn.

True to its old-school RPG roots, Eternity: The Last Unicorn embraces the fixed camera stylings of yore, offering players deep skill and weapon progression as they explore the land of Alfheim. Everything from the world's gods and mythology, to its imposing creatures (Jotun and Fenrir and Gullveig, oh my!) is immersed in rich, Nordic folklore, making this the perfect excuse to brush up on your rune readings.

Key Features:

• Two playable characters: The young elf, Aurehen, and the Viking, Bior - each with a unique backstory and character abilities.
• Over 12 hours of deep action-RPG gameplay to explore
• Fixed camera system reminiscent of old-school RPGs
• Skill, weapon, and ability progression tied into exploration and character growth
• An original soundtrack built to convey both the Nordic and fantastical themes of Eternity

A new patch for Hero-U fixes some quality of life issues.

Version 1.5 of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption is Live!

21 Feb @ 2:56pm - transolar

Version 1.5 of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption released!

We have just released Version 1.5 of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. This is a small change in nomenclature – We might have called it Patch 5 previously – but it contains some big quality of life improvements to the game.

Graphical version of this announcement.[hero-u.com]

Version 1.5 includes:

• Added a version label to the Start Menu, especially for GOG players who do not get automatic updates.
• Fixes to the “pacifist” route against the Wraith King.
• Using the Null runestone against the Wraith King will now behave more logically.
• Thomas can only be given the One and Only Ring once.
• Cleaned up an inconsistency with “Lockpicking” and “Tool Use” in the user interface.
• Improved appearance of the Tentacle Monster.
• Tweaked sound effects and particle effects on monsters.
• Fix combat bug with traps and messages not reporting the same damage amount.
• The Cloaker in the Catacombs now properly registers as magical.
• Only allow Shawn to greet the Librarian once per day.
• Fixes to bulk sales of the Dried Fish and Empty Wine Bottles.
• Tweak to early game quests and sound effects.
• Fix nonsensical tooltips for some late-game monsters.
• Hundreds of typos and minor scripting bugs, pointed out by our players on Steam and on the forums. Thanks, everyone!
• A newer, shinier Tentacle Monster.

Steam will automatically update Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption to the latest build when you start the game.

TurnBasedLovers provide an overview of what turn-based RPG Tactics V: Obsidian Brigade is all about. The game is due Q3 2019 on PC and Consoles.

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Background story

The land of Auria is a fantasy kingdom, where the lesser houses commonly rage war among themselves, but there’s a unifying threat.

You move the Obsidian Brigade about a world map, encountering story through battle.

Key features:

• Robust combat system (with many mechanics: facing, targeting styles, actions, delayed actions, reactions)
• World map navigation.
• >50 hand crafted levels
• >80 scripted scenes/battles
• ~12-18 hours of story
• ~3 hours of optional story
• 3 ½ tiers of gear/weaponry
• 13 unique unlockable classes
• >50 skills (proficiencies, abilities, power casting unlockable)
• >140 powers (Elemental magic, close range, Archery, Imbue poisons, etc.)
• Optional cooperative main-game via assigning troops to another controller during deployment.
• Training option allowing a non-fatal combat to be controlled by player(s) or AI to gain XP and Skill points
• Optional Alternate top-down perspective available
• New game plus

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Polygon relays some of the history of modern Bioware and talks about the inspirations for their current project Anthem.

As the video game industry has changed these past few years, one big lesson BioWare has learned — from its own mistakes as well as those of other developers — is communication. When Casey Hudson returned to Edmonton in 2017, he started a blog on the company’s website. Since Anthem’s reveal, Mark Darrah has fielded hundreds of questions from would-be players on Twitter, making certain that folks understand what, exactly, the game is meant to be. And starting almost a month out from the game’s release, BioWare held two weekend demos for all platforms — PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One.

“The casual comparisons to other games are very easy to make until you play it, and see the story development, and see the character development, and see how it actually plays on the sticks,” says Gamble. “Then people are like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is different.’ I wouldn’t call it an experiment. Anthem is Anthem; it’s a different game. Studios are allowed to make different games than the ones they’ve done before.”

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Twinfinite reports on some new gameplay videos for Left Alive.

Today, during a livestream from Square Enix’s headquarters in Tokyo, the publisher presented more gameplay of its upcoming survival shooter Left Alive.

As usual, the broadcast was presented by game director Toshifumi Nabeshima of Armored Core fame and Project Manager Koichiro Sakamoto with Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger actress Miki Yanagi as in attendance as a celebrity guest.

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Thanks Farflame!

Some more new screenshots for Edge of Eternity.

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DSOGaming reports on a new screenshot for Shenmue 3 that shows the character of Lan Di.

It’s been a while since our last look on Shenmue 3, right? Well, good news for all Shenmue fans as Shibuya Productions has released a brand new screenshot from this highly anticipated title, showing off the in-game 3D model of Lan Di.

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A new development update for Realms Beyond focuses on the AI that will be employed during the course of turn-based combat.

Development Update #1: AI for Turn-based Combat Systems

Posted by Ceres Games (Creator)

When we started out working on the combat system we had a lot to do to lay the basic foundations. We had to get our character animation system running and implement stuff like combat logic, hexboard generation from level topology, or hexboard queries for paths and floodings at runtime.

That left little time to care about something as high level as AI (Artificial Intelligence). As a consequence our first prototype for AI ‘grew’ with time. At first, all it could do were melee attacks. Then we added ranged attacks. Then we implemented an enemy spell AI for intelligent placing of area spells (trying to maximize hits on enemies and minimize hits on allies). Finally we included rather specific routines (like fleeing) for characters that suffered from spells like fear. We realized that AI has to be able to deal with script spells that are loaded at runtime (a feature that could be interesting for future modifications). To allow for that we coded routines that simulate spell executions and judge their effects in a more general way.

Thus our prototype grew and grew until we were sure that we covered every capability that could possibly be required. Then we started to build it from scratch to make it more flexible and debugable. And now we feel like we can finally talk about AI.

Combat AI Debug Visualization in Realms Beyond

The paradigm we had in mind for development has always been: What do we expect from a turn based AI?

Well, technically, we expect a lot! A demon wizard that fails to choose his fireball spell over a magic missile, or who fails to place the fireball in a way that maximizes damage on the player party is a no-go. An assassin who simply attacks her closest target instead of trying to stab your wizard in the back is not only little immersive – it also obliterates strategic bottlenecks like doors. And a human NPC ally that is not able to plan his path avoiding enemy attacks of opportunity is an annoyance. So when we talk about expectations from a ‘technical’ point of view, one can say that we expect ‘a lot’. A proper (3.5e based) combat AI has to be able to perform a lot of intelligent choices for enemies that we expect to behave intelligent.

Assuming that we built an AI that is able to live up to those expectations, it is time to consider a different connotation: What do we expect from AI not in terms of quality but in terms of personality?

If every enemy behaved optimally the challenge would be maximized – and immersion would be all but gone. We want goblins to horde around their closest enemy. We want orcs to ignore attacks of opportunity. And an ogre might even be too stupid to leave an area that is affected by a damage-over-time spell. Even beyond ‘intelligence’ enemies should show personality in every decision that gameplay offers: While most races ignore unconscious or otherwise helpless enemies on the battle field and proceed to face those player characters that can still fight, certain foul creatures like goblins or gnolls should be known for finishing off their helpless foes. It’s those little twists that make combats immersive.

We hope that – apart from the challenge of making our AI capable of  ‘good’ decisions – we also do a good job to diversify enemy behaviours enough to allow you to detect patterns and become especially hateful of one enemy or the other.

A combat scene from 'Knights of the Chalice'

Once again, allow us to mention Knights of the Chalice here (btw, the developer Pierre Begue will launch a Kickstarter campaign for the sequel very soon) . It is owing to that game that we had a very precise idea about what we had to do when we first started prototyping our CPU-controlled opponents. The AI of KotC (and, of course, its excellent encounter design) made almost all combats interesting. It may be prone to crowd in bottlenecks (a fact can be exploited a lot once you get the stone wall spell) but hey – weaknesses are something you also expect from an AI to have fun, another fact that we are well aware of.

Hopefully, we can soon present you some more combat vids that display various AI behaviours. Until then, feel invited to write us (here in the comments or in our forum) what you think about our ideas and what you consider important for a turn-based AI. And if you have a memorable story to tell about a combat against an especially cunning AI: please share it with us.

@Bluesnews A new expansion for Path of Exile called Synthesis has been announced for March 8th.

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In Path of Exile: Synthesis, you will encounter Cavas, recover his lost memories and chain them together to reach valuable rewards, new boss fights and crafting opportunities.

Our March expansion contains the Synthesis challenge league, new items, new gems, a complete rebalance of spells throughout Path of Exile, an integrated version of the Betrayal league and much, much more.

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Spiderweb Software games are on sale for the next 36 hours, at time of posting, on Steam.

Bluesnews reports that Age of Wonders: Planetfall will be released in August.

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In Age of Wonders: Planetfall, players will explore the remnants of the Star Union, once a vast empire connecting thousands of worlds, but its people have been left isolated and stranded following the Collapse. Hundreds of years later, separation has turned siblings into divergent factions, out to rebuild the world as they see fit.

"It's official - the countdown clock is ticking! We can't wait to deliver this experience to fans, and are hard at work prepping Age of Wonders: Planetfall for primetime," said Lennart Sas, CEO of Triumph Studios. "It's a massive project, but I'm confident in our team, and know that players are going to love this game."

Unfrozen and Daedalic Entertainment are cooperating with each other for Iratus: Lord of the Dead.

PC Gamer report on the announcement of Darkest Dungeon 2 from Red Hook Studios and has exclusive first details.

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Red Hook Studios is making Darkest Dungeon 2, a follow-up to the wonderfully grim turn-based roguelike that was our favorite RPG of 2016. 

The studio isn't announcing many details beyond the game's existence and the teaser above, but did speak to us exclusively, saying that although Darkest Dungeon's combat system will be returning in a recognizable but "tuned-up" form, the studio is focused on creating a "completely different" structure for its metagame. Darkest Dungeon 2 will initially release in Early Access.

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GameInformer talked to Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky about The Outer Worlds and what sets its universe apart.

Not As You Remember

“This is an alternate history,” says co-director Leonard Boyarsky. “There was a point where the timeline split off. It was at a certain point, around the time of Einstein. There was a first World War, but it was for different reasons. And maybe there wasn’t a second World War.” One of the defining features that set Earth apart in this new timeline is the nature of companies, classism, and the central importance of money-making. Imagine the already absurd power of corporations, banks, and billionaires in the real world, and ratchet it up several more degrees. “What if the trusts hadn’t been broken up?,” Boyarsky muses. “You have these robber barons at the turn of the 20th century. A couple of hundred years later, what if we still have that culture?”

n this twist on history, Earth is already the domain of massive and powerful companies as humanity begins to spread out across the stars. Rather than the intrepid explorers and diplomats of some other science fiction properties, it’s the reaching arm of capitalism that sends humanity hurtling into the void, and habitable planets across the galaxy are being carved up like parcels of land in the American Old West. This first installment of The Outer Worlds focuses on one particular solar system called Halcyon, and the ten companies that banded together to purchase it. “The corporations have pretty much taken over everything,” Boyarsky says. “But they want to go that last little bit and make it the perfect society for corporations. When Earth was colonizing the furthest reaches of the galaxy, they bought one of the furthest colonies and set up what they thought would be a corporate utopia, where they can control every aspect of people’s lives.”

[...]

Ghost of a Tale is coming to consoles March 13th.

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Ghost of a Tale coming to Consoles 13 March 2019, Ghost of a Tale is an action-RPG game in which you play as Tilo, a mouse and minstrel thrown into a perilous adventure. Through stealth and cunning you’ll be able to explore the secrets of Dwindling Heights Keep and navigate its dangers.

Release: 12 March 2019 / Ps4, XBoxOne
Released 2018 / Windows Pc

ExpansiveDLC reviewed the DLC Band of Bastards for Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Unfortunately, combat is such a big part of Band of Bastards. Which makes for a very obvious recommendation or lack thereof. If you hated the combat of KCD, I cannot recommend Band of Bastards, no matter if I found its story more interesting than a lot of the base game.

And I really did find it interesting. To the point where I couldn’t put the DLC down because I wanted to see how it all ended up. I did not expect to enjoy Band of Bastards story as much as I did.

True, it’s a bit short and the rewards aren’t massive or memorable, but there are multiple ways to end the game which offer up some interesting conclusions for all involved, then seeing how they play out on screen.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

ExpansiveDLC reports that Sunless Skies is a commercial success and the developer is willing to support it long term, meaning more content and DLC.

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Meanwhile, Failbetter Games are preparing a major update, due for release in March/April time. This will give players ‘more to see and do while travelling’ and include ‘more narrative choice and consequence’

And, of course, there will be even more unusual ways to die.

Failbetter Games appear to be in excellent financial health following the release of Sunless Skies and the game is continuing to evolve and grow. We’ll have much more on Sunless Skies very soon!

Thanks Farflame!

PC Gamer shares a new video for Warhammer: Chaosbane.

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In Warhammer the slayers are a cult of dwarfs who've shamed themselves so utterly they shave most of their heads (sometimes even their beards), then march off to seek heroic deaths in battle. They don't want to commit suicide because that would be dishonorable, but they don't want to go on living either, so they throw themselves into fights with the toughest enemies around, like trolls and daemons, without wearing armor. Or even a shirt.

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The Breach developers have been interviewed by GameTyrant about the mechanics and future of the game.

The Interview With Dallas and Gabe

What was the inspiration that got you guys to create Breach?

Gabe - “A few things. One of the big things was that there are a lot of games out there and you see fast follow a lot. We all worked at EA and working on a lot of titles and ideas of games that are already kind of out there and replicating. We wanted to do something that was crazy and new, but not so crazy and new. We wanted some familiarity to it and so we made sort of a hybrid game. So we looked at our background and how we worked on MMO’s and RPG’s, we enjoy MOBA’s, stuff like that so at its core it is an co-op Action RPG but it has influences from MOBA’s and true action games as well. That was the influence for the genre.”

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Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden has new DLC coming February 26th called Stalker Trials.

Stalker Trials Coming to PC February 26

20 Feb @ 2:53am - Jens Erik (Community Manager)

Greetings mutants and stalkers! 

Today we are incredibly excited to announce that Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is expanding with the addition of Stalker Trials, a challenge mode that will truly put your skills to the test. We’re re-populating the game’s maps with different types of enemies to create new challenges for you and your chosen team of stalkers. 



We’ll be rolling out the Stalker Trials on PC in a free update next week, on February 26th, so mark your calendars and get ready to gear up! Consoles will get this update at a later date.

Sneak and fight to impress Pripp 

The Stalker Trials give you access to all characters, with all mutations and skills unlocked, but you will have to buy and upgrade your weapons and armor before heading out. Once you’re satisfied with your loadout you can journey into the Zone and link up with Pripp, the bartender. He’s the brains behind the Stalker Trials, and will score you on your progress as you fight your way through an area. Your rewards will be new items and equipment that you can either use on a new map, or sett at Iridia’s shop. 

Your progress will be noted down on the in-game leaderboards and the weekly and all-time top Stalker will have an NPC named after them for other players to take down. Pripp will also reward you with extra points if you clear a map in certain ways, for example by not taking damage or not using explosives. 

Watch this space 

It’s been a fantastic two months since the launch on Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden in December, 2018. We’ve been following your tweets, forum and Reddit posts, YouTube videos and Twitch streams and it’s been an absolute blast to see what you’ve thought about the game. 

During the time since launch we’ve been working on fixing bugs and issues with the game. Several of those fixes will come out alongside the Stalker Trials, on February 26. We will also continue to roll out additional patches as needed. 

Keep watching this space. We’ve got even more stuff coming down the line, but we’re not quite ready to talk about that just yet. 

Thanks Farflame!

Bluesnews reports that Vambrace: Cold Soul has been announced. The game is described as a Roguelike fantasy/adventure and is due April 25th.

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Vambrace: Cold Soul is a roguelike fantasy-adventure set amidst a frozen landscape. Plan your expeditions underground, then journey to the cursed city surface with your team of heroes. Wield unique powers, avoid dangerous traps, brave strange encounters, and survive deadly combat!

Bluesnews reports that Neverwinter: Undermountain has been announced for this Spring.

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Neverwinter's biggest expansion arrives this Spring! Team up with Durnan, the proprietor of the famed Yawning Portal to seek the truth behind the mysterious visions and forces beckoning Faerûnians to the halls of Undermountain. Neverwinter: Undermountain introduces a new level 80 cap, a complete overhaul of class powers and feats, new Adventure Zones, a new Endgame dungeon, and a much more! Are you ready to enter the realm of the Mad Mage?

Neverwinter is a free-to-play action MMORPG that features fast-paced combat and epic dungeons. Players explore the vast city of Neverwinter and its surrounding countryside, learning the vivid history of the iconic city in the Forgotten Realms and battling its many enemies. Neverwinter is currently available on PC, PlayStation®4, and Xbox One, available free-to-play with Gold*.

For more information about Neverwinter, and to play now for free visit
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/nev...
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/neverwintergame
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NeverwinterGame

*On Xbox, Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately) required.

Iron Tower Studio has posted its business report for 2019 and nestled amongst it is plans for a sequel to Colony Ship.

Another year has gone by, so let's tally up the numbers and see how we fared in 2018.

The Age of Decadence

2013-2014 (Early Access & Direct Pre-Orders): 13,124 units - $320,157 - $24.39 avg.
2015: 20,771 - $472,869 - $22.76
2016: 48,798 - $620,914 - $12.72 (50% discount is introduced in March)
2017: 43,808 - $293,714 - $6.70 (75% off on sale events throughout the year)
2018: 27,121 - $151,786 - $5.60 (reduced the base price from $29.99 to $19.99; 60-80% off sale events throughout the year)
2019: 7,110 - $24,316 - $3.42 (reduced the base price to $14.99 - I think it's a fair price for those who want to support development and buy at a higher price, everyone else will wait for the next sale anyway

160,732 units in total. Since the game was released 3 years ago, which is a long time for games, we decided it was the right time to do a bundle with Fanatical, which sold 43,081 units, so overall including the first 6 weeks of 2019 we sold 203,813 units.

Wishlists - 282,105 total, remaining 112,731, conversion rate 26.5%. The average seems to be 10-15%, so it seems we did well there. The demo was downloaded 49,703 times, the conversion rate was steadily climbing from 5.2% back in Early Access to 21.7%.

Dungeon Rats

2016: 13,442 units - $85,383 - $6.35 avg.
2017: 17,951 - $89,720 - $4.99
2018: 13,152 - $44,453 - $3.38
2019: 1,562 - $4,800 - $3.07

46,107 units overall, $224k in sales. So far we spent $74k on Colony Ship (payments to contractors), so at very least Dungeon Rats is doing a fine job paying these bills as we're far from done here.

Wishlist - 48,938 in total, remaining 24,296, conversion rate 22.7%

Colony Ship, formerly known as The New World

As the last update says, we finally have a playable build, so we hope to release the combat beta in 2 months and a full demo by the end of the year, so it should be a very busy, stressful, but exciting year for us. In unexpected news, our efforts were noticed and we've received our first publishing offer from a well-known company (in fact, I was very surprised to learn that not only they're aware we exist but that they also read our updates occasionally). Some folks are destined for greatness and greatness does call for strategic alliances and capital injections. Sadly, we're too small-minded to dream of such things, so we'll stick with our 0.0003% of the global market.

Anyway, we've been working for 2 years building the "infrastructure" (RPG-izing the engine, developing systems: character, combat, stealth, inventory, dialogue, etc), working on items, models, effects, etc. Even though we're far from done, the time and effort investment is already considerable. Starting from scratch every time is painful, so we'll have to brave the dangers of the "more of the same" curse and do a proper sequel, instead of another small tactical game or a brand new project.

Naturally, investing 3 years into a sequel and selling 30% of the original will be equally painful (as Dungeon Rats' sales data shows, you don't have to spend 3 years to sell 30% when a single year will do), but what we in mind is so crazy it might actually work.

The main problem with sequels is that the setting and gameplay remain the same. It's nearly impossible to switch gears and offer the player something radically different. While your best fans may be enthralled with the initial game and crave more of it, part of what they are craving is the sense of exploration (of a land and a rule set), novelty, and wonder that accompanying a new RPG - things that will almost inherently be absent in a sequel. Obsidian's Deadfire, for example, plays the same way as the original (which is to be expected, of course; after all, Fallout 2 plays the same way too - you know what works, what doesn't, so you follow the established path and know what to expect from the enemies and factions). With Colony Ship, this problem is easy to solve, not because we're so clever, but because the setting itself implies its solution: we land the Ship and start the Colony.

A Tentative Sequel

From Colony Ship's intro: "...after the Ship's launch a deep space probe transmitted highly detailed images of the surface, which revealed one minor setback: this very habitable world is already inhabited. Since the voyage is estimated to take close to 400 years, it's possible that by the time the Ship arrives the colonists will encounter a mature civilization, corresponding to Earth's Middles Ages."

The typical space opera trope is that when we make first contact, it is with aliens either corresponding to very primitive indigenous people (such as in Avatar), consisting of a nightmarish swarm (as in Starship Troopers), or at some extraordinary level of technology themselves (as in Star Trek or Babylon 5). Here, however, while the aliens are pre-industrial, they are well past the spears and face-paint stage, and have well-established political, economic, and military systems.

More importantly, they are alien, which means that while they may be humanoid (to make our animator's life easier), the fundamental logic of their society, religion, and power should be truly alien to ours and vice versa. The result is a highly asymmetrical kulturcampf.

For the record, it won't be a retelling of the conquest of the New World but on another planet. The ragtag Terrans who'd land on Proxima B after 400 years of space travel and in-fighting will be at a disadvantage and will have to fight for survival and adapt to this less than welcoming arid new world. Reinforcements won't be coming, so the Terrans will be on their own and each defeat will bring them closer to being wiped out for good. They will have to rely on crude firearms more than ever as the high-tech weapons and gear intended for the future colony were used up during the Mutiny and the civil war that followed. New factions will emerge in response to new threats, each offering a different way to survive and become part of this world.

While we're playing around with the basic concepts, we're exploring what the alien civilization might look like. Joan Piqué Llorens out of Barcelona thinks it might look like this:

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Heretic Operative has been released on Steam to a 10% launch discount.

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Launch day!

19 Feb @ 5:15am - Xemu

We are live! Heretic Operative will be -10% off for the first week as a launch discount.

Check out the game and please let us know what you think by leaving a review!

Come chat about the game here on our Discord server:

https://discord.gg/KfjK973

But of course we're not done with Heretic Operative at launch. We look forward to applying your feedback to the game on both balance and bug patches, as well as adding more new Adventures, Operatives, and more.

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Magic is a sin. It corrupts everything it touches.

Those who use magic are branded as “Heretics” by the church, and heresy is punishable by death.

At the fringes of civilization, the mages of the Cultus Arcanum give themselves freely over to the Corruption – performing dark rituals to let loose untold nightmares upon the world.

It will take a powerful heretic to preserve the spark of magic against both the Church and the Cult.

You are that Heretic Operative.

• Control a secret society dedicated to using magic for the benefit of the world, at a time when all mages are considered “heretics” to be hunted by the Templars.
  
• Master over 50 different spells to overcome challenges in and out of combat. But be wary of the Corruption that accompanies magic. The more powerful you become, the greater the risk of losing control.
  
• Fight enemy cultists, zealous templars, and ravenous monsters through a unique dice-based combat system. Employ mercenaries, devastating spells, and powerful artifacts to prevail.
  
• Explore the Northern Reach, where the frayed edges of the Empire are under constant threat. From vast museums in the city of Ione, to the farms in the countryside, to ruined temples of ancient gods, to camps of raiding Orcs, every location offers unique challenges.
  
• Make contact with other Heretic Operatives and recruit townsfolk to spread your Heretical influence and stop the diabolical Cultus Arcanum.
  
• Encounter more than 270 different adventure cards, full of challenging decisions that change the way your story unfolds. Will you risk your life and mission to save innocents from a burning building or live with the stain on your soul from abandoning them? Will you stand your ground against the Orcs for honor’s sake or be more prudent and flee? Do you bother to learn all of the verses in the Elven Song of Greeting or is now the time to take a stand against ridiculous Elven ceremony?
  
• More than 7 playable Operatives (and counting), 6 different story decks, and 4 enemy cults, means your story plays out differently each time. Use different strategies and wisely deploy your resources to defeat the most challenging combinations.

Heretic Operative intertwines deep gameplay with a dynamic story to create an innovative and original experience: a unique fusion of strategy, RPG, and board game mechanics.

A new update for The Bard's Tale IV: Barrow's Deep announces a directors cut for June, which is also when mac and linux versions will be available.

Early 2019 Update

Posted by inXile entertainment (Creator)

Production Notes

Hi all, Paul here. We hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season and is having a good 2019 so far. For us, it has been a very busy and momentous last few months. As we move into the new year, things are coming more into focus and we would like to provide some quick updates on the progression of The Bard’s Tale IV’s updated 2.0 version, as well as an update on the Mac & Linux versions of the game.

A New Journey for inXile

As many of you know, we were recently acquired by Microsoft, which is a great boon as we plan out future titles and has the added benefit of providing opportunities to improve our current and in-development game titles, including The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep. We are very happy to be part of this new federation of Microsoft studios. As creators and game developers, we look forward to leveraging and utilizing the many tools, features, and services that Microsoft can offer.

2.0 expands to become the Director’s Cut

We are still in development on the free DLC patch, which also includes a number of other player-requested features and items off of our own post-release support list. As the scope of the patch has expanded (and continues to), we decided that it warranted a more formal title than 2.0. When released, it will turn the game into “The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director’s Cut”. We are introducing several new features, most notably the previously mentioned DLC and an engine update, a larger undertaking allowing us to further improve performance and optimization. Many of those features were discussed in our last update, and include:

• A new dungeon and story line featuring new enemy types
• New items (master-crafted gear and Dwarven Weapons)
• Inventory filtering
• Expanded balancing efforts across the entire game (combat, economy, abilities, etc.) based on player feedback and our own testing
• A new Song of Exploration allowing you to bypass puzzles if those aren't your jam 
• Additional character portraits
• A new intro animatic
• Expanded work on improving localization
• Updated game engine
• Improved performance and stability
• Improved level art 
• Reworked main menu
• Numerous bug fixes

And much more! We are also currently working with Microsoft to improve and optimize our gamepad support. The Director's Cut is scheduled to go live in June.

Mac and Linux Users:

We’ve seen your comments and hear you. The Mac and Linux builds are making great progress in co-development and parity to our main version with our development builds and current feature production pipeline. We have a full-time dedicated team for each platform (Mac & Linux), and those teams are working concurrently with our main features dev teams.

The issue we have as developers is that we are unable to finalize the Mac and Linux versions of the game and continue to simultaneously make such sweeping changes to it. We wanted to resolve the issues that affected the PC launch before we shipped Mac and Linux and this dovetailed directly into the work we began doing for the Director's Cut, effectively becoming one continuous effort since September. This is why these versions need to go live the same day as the PC version of The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director’s Cut.

We know it’s frustrating that you backed us early and have such a long delay but it just didn’t make sense to stop production in order to finalize these two versions and then circle back and update them months later. The Mac and Linux users will get the benefit of all the new features we are adding along with all the optimization, stability, and performance improvements so far, including our latest UE4 engine update, and that means tracking those development cycles to the current build.  

For these reasons, we are releasing the Mac and Linux versions at the same time as The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director’s Cut. We greatly appreciate everyone's patience with The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director’s Cut, and we believe all backers on all platforms will enjoy the new and polished features when the new version goes live.

Until Next Time,
Paul Marzagalli
Public Relations & Community Manager
@phimseto

Follow Us:
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Praey for the Gods has been previewed by GameCrate.

Speaking of scavenging, Praey for the Gods players also have to manage the game’s survival-based elements in-between major behemoth encounters. Weapons, food, and upgrade materials can all be scavenged from breakable crates, fallen enemies and wildlife, and even from the land itself. If you find an axe, for example, you can chop down a tree, harvest the wood, and use that wood to build a warmth-giving fire.

Along with warmth, Praey’s protagonist also needs food and sleep. Having to maintain these basic needs means that wandering around the world aimlessly is usually a bad idea. It’s always important to take stock of what you have (and what you need), decide on a destination, and keep a keen eye out for opportunities to find more resources. Thankfully, Praey for the Gods also has several different difficulty levels which adjust not only enemy strength but also how much upkeep the protagonist’s survival stats require.

[...]

The latest update for Project Zomboid details current development progress on things like improved animations and shaders.

Spiffo’s Roundup #1

8 Feb @ 8:04am - nasKo

Hey all, here’s a round-up of recent Zomboid dev. To start with a quick video compilation of stuff the team has been wiring up into our friends at TEA’s animation systems.

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Please note that there are still numerous bugs and issues as long as all our combined arms, and it’s hard to get a sustained video without issues and glitches popping up, so this vid is fairly carefully curated – but it does give you an idea of the where we are. (Likewise, if you see something that looks wrong or glitchy, or think ‘hmm, there should be more variation anims in that…’, then we’re probably already on it).

Essentially, TIS coders are currently implementing the game code-side, tying in the new animation system to all the game systems. RJ, for example, has been handling the combat system, tying up all the weapon swing, zombie reactions and various other related anims, and the system is getting close to the quality of the earlier videos of animations you’ve seen, though now tied 100% into the PZ combat, character and simulation systems.

Connall and Turbo, meanwhile, have been concentrating on non-combat related animations, such as reading, chopping wood, painting, eating, crafting, and the countless other in-game actions characters can do in-game that were previously performed like a stock-still robot with a progress bar.

EP has been doing his usual precision striking all across the code base, wiring up the character creation system, connecting model clothing to inventory items in the world, and fixing issues and integrating the codebase across the board.

In the mean-time TEA are optimizing and improving the AnimZed toolset with our requests the more we use it, and alongside general animation requests and polish Martin is experimenting with the gore potential of the system with visible guts hanging out of the front of zombies and such.

Here’s another vid from Zac from a two weeks ago: a walk through downtown West Point to test some of the latest optimization work, and the improved shaders that remove a lot of the bleached-out-ness from proceedings. At the moment Zac is also, still, looking into some further threading optimization as, bizarrely, better machines were having some stutters

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[...]

Consortium: The Tower has reached Alpha 1.7 and the latest update details the additions and changes.

Early Access ALPHA 1.7 - Now with more Norwegians!

16 Feb @ 1:24pm - iDGi

Greetings Seekers,

We have just pushed Consortium: The Tower Early Access ALPHA 1.7 live. The complete list of the changes made can be found HERE.

We're working on many other things in addition to The Tower. So to reward everyone's ongoing patience, we have decided to give everyone access to two brand new Act 2 levels - the rather large OfficeHub5, and the very unique SideVents. Both require some stalwart exploration to uncover...can you find them?

While these two new levels are still relatively early, they are at a stage where we would benefit from additional feedback and comments, so as always please swing by Discord.[discord.gg] and let us know if you have anything to report. Thank-you!

In addition, there are now over 350 new lines of V.O dialog in the game - the hotel mercs are robots no more! We proudly welcome Magnus Tranum and Anders Tranum to the cast of The Tower. This is a big step towards replacing all of the "robot voices" in the game.

Finally, we wanted to call everyone's attention to a really cool video about immersive sims that Logitech G put out a few months ago.

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We loved what they said about our project.

We hope you enjoy the changes/additions,

-iDGi

The active skill tree of Wolcen has been improved and they made a video to show it.

And as far as updates go, they had this to say:

We are still working on the Beta transition, you can track our progression on the latest Trello Roadmap.
Each week the status of the tasks are updated, you will also find there a weekly update on the game's progression, for the Beta and the final release.

This week, we finalized the new Passive Skill Tree for the Beta and we are currently testing it, along with a "mercenary mode" that will be available for the Beta. This mode will allow you to explore the Act I environments and slash Act I creatures, with various objectives and awesome rewards upon completion.
We are now working on the second game mode that will be available for higher challenges, we will tell you more about this mode later.

Finally, we know you're waiting for this transition, we are working hard to make it happen as soon as possible, so hold on just a little longer, we're getting close!