Steam Message Board older than one year ago

The Spring Indie Sale continues today with a new set of Featured Games as well as Finalists from the 2008 Independent Games Festival!

Keep checking back on the sale as we'll continue to feature new Indies each day, and work our way up to the 2013 IGF awards! Click here to browse all Indie games on Sale!

Today's Deal: Save 66% on You Need a Budget 4!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Your Defiance Key for Advance Mission Beta 3 has arrived! Your key will be labeled "Defiance Pre-Order Key" or "Defiance Beta Key" in Steam.

This key is for the Defiance beta. The final beta event starts March 22nd at 8am PST and ends March 24th at 9pm PST.

Join an online open world shooter that delivers massive co-op boss battles and fierce multiplayer action in an evolving sci-fi universe. Experience just a slice of this massive game in the final closed beta. This Beta is not the final version of the game and includes just a small sample of whats to come in the game at launch and beyond.

To redeem your code and get started follow these simple steps:

1. Create your account or log in with an existing Trion account at https://defiance.trionworlds.com
2. Click the APPLY CODE tab.
3. Enter your Unique PC Beta Key in the Apply New Code field and click APPLY.

We look forward to seeing you in Defiance.

PLEASE NOTE: The NDA will be lifted on March 22nd which means from this date you are free to live stream, comment, post, tweet, share videos etc. from the beta event. Please visit our Defiance Beta forums at http://beta.forums.defiance.com for any late breaking developments or follow us on Twitter @DefianceGame

It’s a dark time to be a mulitplayer server. From the day you’re born, you’re living on borrowed time, and that goes double if any sort of sequel has your cushy spot on the rack in its sights. Which brings us to the original Company of Heroes. It’s coming up on its seventh birthday, Company of Heroes 2 is about to drop a fresh blanket of powder on the hot summer months, and a sudden publisher shift threw everything out of whack. It is, in other words, a prime candidate for the big server farm in the sky. But hark, against all odds, there is hope. Relic’s keeping its relics up and running by switching services. So long, apparent Aztec wind deity Quazal. Hello, Steamworks.

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I’m in the process of moving to a new house, just had to resuscitate my poor little shoe car from the brink of death, and was recently informed that the meticulously stone-hewn, full-sized medieval castle required of all RPS writers isn’t tax deductible. I cannot, in other words, afford anything. On that note, do you want to buy some dirt? Or how about this nice clump of air? Oh, look at this slightly used chewing gum. It’s fresh from your mouth as of three seconds ago. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve done a good thing here today. You won’t regret it! I’ll get my life back on track. You’ll see! [Immediately slinks off to Old Man Newell's back alley Steam Sale emporium to squander it all on indie games.]

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Pre-Purchase Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes and get immediate access to the beta on Steam! Also owners of Fallen Enchantress on Steam get 50% off!

The Fallen Enchantress seeks to destroy the civilizations that have risen from the ashes of the Cataclysm. Fortunately, your fame has spread and great heroes have been drawn to your banner. With your new champions, you will confront new horrors like liches, brood hunters, banshees, and the dreaded hergon.

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is the new standalone expansion to Stardocks turn-based, fantasy strategy game. Players will forge a new empire in a world sundered by powerful magic, fight against terrible creatures, complete quests and rediscover lost secrets in their bid to rule the world of Elemental.

GAMEPLAY
- Clockwerk: Fixed being able to break Hookshot movement with purge/stonegaze/etc.
- Drow Ranger: Marksmanship bonus is removed when there are nearby enemy heroes (instead of just being halved).
- Drow Ranger: Reduced Marksmanship enemy detection aoe reduced from 400 to 375.
- Keeper of the Light: Illuminate manacost from increased 150 to 150/160/170/180.
- Keeper of the Light: Illuminate AOE reduced from 400 to 350.
- Keeper of the Light: Fixed Mana Leak not getting removed by Dark Pact or Kraken Shell.
- Mirana: Fixed cast and attack behaviors during Leap.
- Nyx Assassin: Spiked Carapace duration reduced from 2.75 to 2.25.
- Nyx Assassin: Spiked Carapace cooldown increased from 14 to 23/20/17/14.
- Timbersaw: Fixed Whirling Death debuff getting dispelled.
- Timbersaw: Fixed attack capability getting reset while Magic Immune when Chakram is used.
- Timbersaw: Fixed Whirling Death stat drain not affecting Magic Immune units.
- Treant Protector: Living Armor damage reduction is now done for all instances of damage that reduce its charges.
- Tranquil Boots: Disabled speed reduced from 50 to 25.
- Tranquil Boots: Heal increased from 170 to 250.
- Tranquil Boots: Cooldown increased from 40 to 60.
- Tranquil Boots: Heal duration increased from 10 to 20.
- Tranquil Boots: Fixed being able to drop the item to reset its state.
- Tranquil Boots: Fixed damage detection threshold on Tranquil's heal.
- Heaven's Halberd: Disarm is no longer dispelled by Manta.
- Added Timbersaw to Captain's Mode (Tournament Version).
- Fixed attack acquisition range on Disruptor, KOTL, Wisp, Visage and Medusa.
- Fixed Towers sometimes attacking you too soon when moving out of range.
- Temporarily disabled Relocate camera movements

BOTS
- Added Jakiro bot.
- Added Sand King bot.
- Bots that have been hit by multiple stacks of Sticky Napalm will now contemplate their misfortune further back in the lane.
- Fixed a bug where bots would try to cast stuns when being wildly out of range.

UI
- Minimap now displays illusions for spectators.
- Fixed a bug that caused enemy-created Meepo illusions to get added to the original player's multi-hero interface.

VISUALS
- Added in-game models for when the following items are dropped from inventory into the world: Tango and Dust of Appearance.

EFFECTS
- Updated Dagon visual effects and scaled it with level.
- Added an effect when Marksmanship is active.

AUDIO
- Fixed music volume bug.
- Fixed a bug preventing heroes from commenting on specific item purchases.
- Fixed AA's ult cast sounds to only play for teammates or nearby enemies that have vision.
- Added a unique sound for Viper's orb attack.
- Added sound to Diffusal Blade purge.
- Various mix tweaks across creeps, ui and the tutorial quest sounds.

WORKSHOP
- Disabled browsing & submitting in the Test Client, but allowed imports for testing purposes.
- Submissions now have the option of including a PSD containing marketing materials for the submission.
- Added Beastmaster's Hawk and Lone Druid's Bear to the Ability Import list.
- Attack animations now describe the animation timing required for the attack to match the character using them.

Bridge Project is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam and is 20% off until launch!

Build A Bridge... and Get Over It! The Bridge Project is the successor to the original and award-winning bridge Bridge Builder simulation, all amateur designers and structural engineers finally have a new challenge on their PC.

Take on the task of constructing a huge variety of different bridges: suspended, folding, stone, steel, wood, car or railway bridges. Whilst you enjoy the enhanced graphics and the new, improved physics engine putting the most spectacular bridges to the test with stress tests.

POSTAL is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off*!

Play as The POSTAL Dude in his first appearance in a video game. Includes all the original missions PLUS the Special Delivery addon pack! This is retro gameplay at its finest. In the ilk of Robotron, play from a 3/4 Isometric view and take out your aggression on gun toting protagonists, innocent bystanders as well as torching a marching band! No aliens, no mutants, no stupid quest for the dragon's balls. Just good antisocial, psychotic shoot-'em-up action, strategy and government intervention.

*Offer ends March 29th at 10AM Pacific Time

Changes:
- Fixed a possible buffer overflow in keyvalues
- Fixed player_death event setting "victimname" to "Charger" when the Spitter gets killed.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the rescue vehicle to arrive immediately when the second team in a versus match started the finale.

Changes:
- Fixed an issue Mac users were having when trying to compile community maps they had created.

Airmech Prime, new content for AirMech is Now Available on Steam and is 50% off*!

Jump right into the action with AirMech Prime! Instant access to the all AirMech classes and a huge selection of Units, and a host of other goodies. Silver VIP, XP and Kudos Boosts, an EXCLUSIVE "Prime" Helix Variant (skin). We think that having AirMech F2P is the best way to let you try the game as much as you want, but some players just want it all right from the start. We've taken feedback from our Alpha and Beta players and crafted Prime to give you everything you need to be instantly competitive, yet remains fair to free players.

*Offer ends March 29th at 10AM Pacific Time.

Save 50% on Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition as part of this week's Weekend Deal*!

Dark Souls is the new action role-playing game from the developers who brought you Demons Souls, FromSoftware. Dark Souls will have many familiar features: A dark fantasy universe, tense dungeon crawling, fearsome enemy encounters and unique online interactions. Dark Souls is a spiritual successor to Demons, not a sequel. Prepare for a new, despair-inducing world, with a vast, fully-explorable horizon and vertically-oriented landforms. Prepare for a new, mysterious story, centered around the the world of Lodran, but most of all, prepare to die. You will face countless murderous traps, countless darkly grotesque mobs and several gargantuan, supremely powerful demons and dragons bosses. With days of game play and an even more punishing difficulty level, Dark Souls will be the most deeply challenging game you play this year. Can you live through a million deaths and earn your legacy?


*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

Version 1.0.5575 changes:
- Added five new multiplayer levels: Chrome, Oval, Chimera, Halls, and Horseshoe
- Added Elysium to Domination mode
- Added temporary shields to structures in MOBA to increase importance of creeps
- Fixed some linger effects hurting shielded players
- Improved various particle effects
- Updated positional HUD elements and High lighting detail to work with 3D depth
- Single player now pauses while reporting a bug

The Spring Indie Sale has started and runs until March 29th! Hundreds of games are on sale with discounts up to 80%!

Check out all of the games on sale, including titles featured at PAX East and the Independent Games Festival! Check back each day as we highlight IGF Finalists from previous competitions and this year's finalists just in time for the IGF Awards.

Trials Evolution: Gold Edition is Now Available on Steam!

Trials Evolution: Gold Edition contains all the content of the original, best-selling XBLA game Trials Evolution, plus all of the single player tracks and skill games from Trials HD.

Trials Evolution: Gold Edition is optimized and enhanced for the PC gaming platform. All of the features of its forerunners from the in-game editor, player sharing of tracks, and global Leader Boards, will be re-integrated into the game in a way that fits the new platform.

Today's Deal: Save 75% on Hearts of Iron III Collection!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

The Swapper sounds like a name for either a bang-up cleaning product or a not-very-clean banging product, but I assure you it is (thankfully) neither of those. Instead, it’s an extremely intriguing platforming adventure in which you can clone yourself at will and hop between said soulless vessels to give some mean old brain-teasers what-for. Also, as John pointed out, Penumbra’s Tom Jubert is on writing duties, promising a tale about the nature of our being and whether leaping between countless clones somehow perverts that. It sounds well worth getting into an excitement tizzy over, in other words. One made up of equal parts frothy flailing and existential befuddlement, as all the greatest tizzies are. And the best part? Swapper’s coming to Steam. Fairly soon, in fact.

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“Oh boy! I can finally get into prison early!” Oh videogames, don’t ever stop allowing me to create phrases of such ear-perking outlandishness that people could mistake me as ringleader of a merry band of elves. Other gems now possible thanks to Steam’s paid-alpha-centric Early Access program include “Hooray! Frighteningly authentic war’s happening even sooner than I thought” and “I wasn’t planning on being shipwrecked with no hope of escape today, but I certainly can’t complain.” But Prison Architect, Arma 3, and Under The Ocean are only three of the 12 inaugural games on offer. The rest – and perhaps even some freshly baked wordthinks – are after the break.

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The Swapper, an indie marvel more than two years in the making, is coming to Steam for PC this spring, and later to Mac and Linux. If the gameplay demonstrated in The Swapper's Steam launch trailer looks funky to you, that's because it is - developer Facepalm created the entire game using photos of real-life clay models. The above video offers the first glimpse at gameplay since May 2012.

The Swapper is backed by Indie Fund, the company behind high-profile indies Dear Esther and Q.U.B.E., and it already has a wall full of accolades, including a featured spot in PAX Prime's PAX10 last year and IndieCade's Special Recognition award.

Facepalm previously mentioned PC, Mac and "maybe something else" as potential platforms, and co-founder Olli Harjola tells Joystiq he's looking at other, mysterious consoles: "Let's say I'm currently open to putting the game on new platforms where we don't need to make compromises regarding the experience. There's nothing concrete yet."

The Swapper will be a part of Indie Megabooth at PAX East (which starts on Friday, March 22), along with an appearance at GDC the following week.

All Sonic the Hedgehog games on Steam are 50 percent off, from right now through 10 a.m. PT tomorrow, March 21. The sale makes Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed $15, Sonic Adventure 2 $5, Sonic Generations $15, and Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and Sonic CD $2.50 each, among other deals.

Check out the entire list of discounted Sonic games below, and catch those crazy hyperlinks on the Sega blog.

March 20th, 2013

Update Name: OhNoILostMySpacebarAgain

Weve been continuing to integrate your feedback into the game. Here's the latest:

GAMEPLAY: Weve taken two of our levels, and put you in control via the Genetics Lab. When you unlock cities Five and Six, youre able to control the level's DNA via three variables: FATNESS, SPREAD and SALT. Take some screenshots or videos of what your levels look like; were looking forward to what you guys come up with.

FEEDBACK: Weve temporarily replaced the proximity sensor (the big circle on the screen) with some pretty awesome particle effects that show up when you get close to stuff. We also added some popups to show you when and where youve done some stunts. How does it look?

VISUALS: Michael just finished laying the groundwork for a new background visualizer. At its very basic level, it allows us to easily animate the background color of the world as youre flying through it. It also will let us create some animated and awesome background imagery to further enhance your experience. If you have any ideas for visualizers, please feel free to share them.

ANALYSIS: There was a last minute improvement to BeatBox, our song analysis tech. This update helps us *much* more accurately detect beats for EDM and bass-heavy songs.

One last thing: were playing with the idea of letting you rotate yourself within the world. Press the mouse buttons to rotate left or right. How does it feel? Do you think thatd be a fun addition for gameplay? Weve got a few ideas were going to keep under our collective hats right now. Did you notice that Dave was wearing a hat in our video? He always does that.. whats he hiding under there?

As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what youre doing this weekend. (Well be at PAX East!)
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March 1st, 2013

Update Name: The Fattest Baby is the Cutest

Hey everyone!

Some gritty details of our work:

- Stunts! Nine of them! Build up a huge combo, but be careful to not risk it all!
- A level select, and three different levels for you to play in. Tell us what you like about each of them, and which ones you like most.
- Performance improvements to balance out the crazy colors that we've been throwing into the game.
- You can take screenshots now, just hit F12 at any time. They'll be in the "Screenshots" folder in the game directory.
- A proximity sensor. A segmented circle shows up where nearby things are to you, and how close you're getting to them.
- Caching for some of our level loading stuff, so you should be seeing faster load times.
- Three new songs! (Two from Morgan Packard, and another one from Hybrid Mind Studios)

The feedback from you guys has been absolutely awesome so far, development continues to move along. We decided to take a chunk of time and dedicate February to really refining where we want the gameplay to go. This build should show a great base for where we're going.

Previously we had you collect two different types of pickups. One for Signal, which increases your multiplier and beautifies the level, and another simply for points. Some of you mentioned wanting to do more than that, so we took that feedback and folded it into a brand-new stunt system!

It builds off of some gameplay reminiscient to Aaaaa! If you pass by an object quickly, you get a buzz. If you pass alongside an object for an extended amount of time, you get a groove. As you build combinations and perturbations of these movements, you'll be able to discover up to eight different stunts we've thrown in, AS A START.

We're pretty excited about this whole thing, we think it's going to open up a whole new way for you to re-experience and explore your music. Tell us what you think.

Known things:

- Unicode song names still doesn't work.
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February 1st, 2013

Update Name: Task Master

Changes

Ichiro says: Our goal was to bump the fun up one notch and get the music-to-level connection up one notch. (We ain't there yet, but we're closer!) We've started looking at individual songs and considering how they should look in the game. For example, we wanted Enya's A Day Without Rain to feel open and free, like a toddler who's simultaneously discovered the twin concepts of nudity and running down the street. So, when the game hears a song that's low-energy, the playing field opens up all big-like, and the obstacles leave.

We're also just now starting to make different songs feel different in other ways. We run what we call a mutator over a level on certain tracks, so if you try a handful of different ones, you should see some variation between them.

Known Issues:
- The game still chokes on files with unicode characters. Youll have to rename it in order to play it for now, sorry.
- More excuses incoming!

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January 25th, 2013

Update Name: Nasty Butler

We hope you guys had a great new year. We spent some time chewing on your feedback, drinking far too much eggnog, and stretching our legs with the tools that weve built so far. This update continues to focus on making gameplay more fun, and making visuals feel even more visceral.

Changelog:

- New Mechanics! Collecting signal truly plays into the visual feel of the game now, and affects the multiplier of our brand-spanking-new secondary point pickup. Max out your signal and grab as many points as you can. Point multiplier from 1x to 3x depending on your signal %. (Twist: Signal drains slowly during normal gameplay.)
- The level constricts and expands depending on the feel of the song you're listening to.
- Added mousewheel scrolling to the filebrowser
- No less than 537 optimizations. The game should run beautifully and smoothly on your toaster.
- Added a crosshair, and tweaked the movement and camera angle a good bit. (Protip: Weve added three different crosshairs. Press F1 to toggle between all of them. Tell us which one is your favorite.)

Known Issues:

- The game still chokes on files with unicode characters. Youll have to rename it in order to play it for now, sorry.
- E-mail rshenoy@dejobaan.com with a convincing complaint about all the Reddit spam he's been putting out. The most convincing person will get an alpha key to Drunken Robot Pornography, because why not.
- Thats it, were only allowed to have one bug in the game.
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December 21st, 2012

Update Name: Rabid Wumpus

That's two updates in one month. We are not kidding around here. Our focus at the moment is SPEED. Does the game feel like it's more fun than the first build for its fastness?

We'll make it more fun in other ways as well -- more mechanics, better controls. Maybe WASD or gamepad, as Wuggly says. But right now, think "speed." Thanks for reading.

Changelog:
- Fixed FileBrowser Bugs (see previous thread)
- Speed Improvements for slower systems.
- Signal Level is displayed on the screen UI during gameplay.
- More visual feedback when you level your signal up.
- Gameplay speed moves 3x faster.
- Added two new sub pattern types (Doom Hoops and Death Elbows!)
- Stopped signal pickups from moving.
- Don't allow signal pickups outside of bass tube.
- Slowed flower pieces movement speed and amount.
- Increased amount of initial signal to pickup when game starts.
- Reduced number of pieces in outside bass tube.
- Reduced amount and size of debris field type patterns.
- Reduced size of star field patterns.
- Spicy Mountain Lion
- Other misc balancing tweaks to the level to adjust for faster gameplay speed.

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December 19th, 2012

Update Name: Alex Is Nude

Ladies and gents, may I present you with the first playable Steam pre-release build in about 50 billion years.

Details:

- Lots of research on Procedural Content Generation (PCG).
- We re-wrote the game from the ground up in Unity. It's now all in Unity + Python, making it moddable and wonderful.
- There's a new music analysis engine called BeatBox, which Andy Eiche created. We're just beginning to make use of this.
- The guys from fellow Boston indie studios Zapdot (Michael Carriere) and Hybrid Mind Studios (Dave Evans) are working with us full time now. Michael's focused on Unity, and Dave and I are focused on the PCG side of things.
- In the past year and a half, we've tested dozens of mechanics.
What you're seeing is the very first Unity build we're releasing to the wild. Let us know what you think.
NOTE: We're trying a few new things out in this build. Some will be awesome; some, we'll want to change.
Let us know what you like and feel we could improve.

Kerbal Space Program Early Access is Now Available on Steam.

Kerbal Space Program is a multi-genre game where players create their own space program.

In KSP, you must build space-worthy craft, capable of flying your crew out into space, without killing them. At your disposal is a collection of parts, which must be assembled to create a functional ship. Each part has its own function and will affect the way a ship flies (or doesn't). So strap yourself in, and get ready to try some Rocket Science!

The game is being built first as an open sandbox. There are no objectives yet. You're free to build anything you can think of, and fly it wherever you want, even into orbit and out to other planets and moons throughout the Kerbal Solar System.

Patterns Early Access is Now Available on Steam.

Its your universe to shape. Patterns is an ever-expanding 3D space, where youll construct simple and complex structures as you harvest substances and discover new shapes that can be used to enhance your creativity.

Patterns starts at a low level with simple, basic shapes and allows you to expand your universe as you add together other shapes to make more and more elaborate constructs. Build large scale structures that reach high into the sky or bridges that traverse wide chasms. Use your constructions to reach new areas and break out of your space to discover other worlds.

Be careful! Each substance contains different physical properties that can cause your creations to tumble, crumble or crash down to the ground. Will your creations withstand the power of gravity?

Leading Platform Offers Pre-Release Playability for Select Titles

March 20, 2013 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the addition of an Early Access section to Steam's library of over 2,000 titles.

Steam Early Access titles allow the community to get involved early and play select titles during their development. The goal of Early Access is to provide gamers with the chance to "go behind the scenes" and experience the development cycle firsthand and, more importantly, have a chance to interact with the developers by providing them feedback while the title is still being created.

To support the interaction between Early Access players and developers, Steam offers easy and automatic updating of games, letting developers iterate quickly to respond directly to bug reports and feedback from customers. And, like all Steam games, Early Access players will be able to interact with other players, making it easy to create and share screenshots, tips, and in-depth guides.

"A lot of games are already operating as ongoing services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community," said Sean Pollman of Badland Studio. "Greenlight helped us raise awareness for Kinetic Void, and now Steam Early Access will let us continue the development of our game while gathering crucial feedback, input and support from the steam Community."

The first titles coming to Steam Early Access are:

• 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)
  
• Arma 3
  
• Drunken Robot Pornography
  
• Gear Up
  
• Gnomoria
  
• Kenshi
  
• Kerbal Space Program
  
• Kinetic Void
  
• Patterns
  
• Prison Architect
  
• StarForge
  
• Under the Ocean
  

For more information, and to see all Early Access titles, please visit www.steampowered.com/earlyaccess

Valve's Steam platform has initiated a new "Early Access" program, which allows players to purchase and immediately begin playing select games that are still in development. The full list of titles currently available under the initiative include Arma 3 and StarForge, among others, though the selection will be increasing "over time," according to the new service's FAQ.

Mechanically, purchases through Early Access will function the same as buying a full, completed game, with the only difference being that, you know, the game isn't finished yet. Theoretically, free-to-play games could also become part of Early Access, in which case there would be no purchase price for participation in the pre-launch play time.

#steam Valve has just launched Steam Early Access, a new program designed to let Steam users play games while they're still in development. More »

Complete update history

Version 0.01j2-hotfix 3/5/2013

Hi Pattern's fans.

We have an update that addresses just a few bugs. Our last update appears to be working well for most folks. We were able to address some serious issues we had with save games and it sounds like that has been a success.

A bug was reported about saving a game with a phantom bomb and we fixed it. In certain situations Patterns would get corrupted when saving out of the Pattern stone. The game would soft lock if you entered key rebinding when in Tab camera mode. That has been fixed as well.

For Steam users the game will update automatically for you. If you are accessing the game via buildpatterns.com you will want to manually download the latest version.

Thank you for playing and let us know how the game is performing for you.

Cheers,
The Patterns Dev team

Release notes:

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed save games corrupted by saving with a 'phantom' bomb.
• Fixed soft lock when rebinding keyboard keys when in Tab camera mode.
Fixed Patterns that could in some circumstances become corrupted in the Pattern stone.

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Version 0.01j 2/28/2013
Hello Patterns' fans. We have an update for you.

You may recall we published a build last week with some bug fixes and a new spawn formation. This week we are following through with some additional fixes that specifically address save game stability.

We have been testing new saves and we looked at a lot of older saves from previous updates to make sure everything loads, saves and loads again just fine. We feel pretty good about the results and want to get the game back in front of you all. Let us know if those problem saves some of you were seeing are working better now.

In other news we have one new feature. You now have the ability to rebind your keyboard commands. Open the Options panel, choose the Controls Tab and select Key Rebind.

For those of you accessing the game directly from BuildPatterns.com you will want to manually download the build. If you are on Steam the update will be pushed automatically.

That's all for this update. Thank you for the feedback and on going enthusiasm for Patterns.

Cheers all,
Dev

Release notes:

Below are the save game stability bugs we addressed:
• Hangs at 27%.
• More robust support for older save files created with previous versions of Patterns.
• Missing geometry in worlds with multiple save is less of a problem.
• Lots and lots of bombing corrupting save files.
And a new feature:
• Key rebinding allows you to customize the keyboard commands for your game. This can be accessed in Options under Controls.

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Version 0.01i 2/14/2013
Hello Patterns fans and thank you for checking out another update for the Genesis version of Patterns.

Over the last several months since the launch of Patterns back in October we have been focusing on adding new systems, new content and new features. It has been a furious pace we set for ourselves. Check out our list of release notes on buildpatterns.com to see what all has happened in a relatively short amount of time.

While we continue to work on new stuff and grow Patterns with new features and content, we wanted to take the opportunity to work on some equally important house cleaning. It's been great to read your feedback on the game and what you have been enjoying about it. It is also valuable to hear your feedback on how we can make it better. For this update we focused on addressing much of the feedback that has bubbled up from the community and polishing some of the groundwork that has been laid. We think you'll notice the difference!

UI polish, improvements to resolution and aspect ratio support and optimization to performance (especially when using bombs regularly and when you build) are all areas we spent some time with.

Those are the big areas of improvements but we did manage to sneak in one new formation. Now it is possible to build your own Spawn point. This will enable you to determine where your character respawns to when entering the world. Build it, place it, throw your character off the edge of the world and watch your new Spawn point in action.

On a final note we are continuing to offer downloads of the game for both Mac and PC directly from BuildPatterns.com. This is in addition to our Steam delivery. Note that we don't have an auto updater for the BuildPatterns.com executable files so you will need to manually update your game as it will not happen automatically.

Release notes:

Performance and Optimization
• Bombs ignite more quickly and with out excessive frame rate hit.
• World stability around exploding bombs and saving and reloading the game are much improved.
• Made the building code much more efficient so building large constructs in world should feel much better than before.
• Changes to our data format resulting in much smaller save files.
• Load times for new and saved files improved.

UI
• Lots of UI bug fixes and polish
Re-skin of UI elements
Clean up to New and Save game slots
In game action slots and Inventory clean up
Prettied up a lot of dialogs

Graphic Settings
• Added greater support for resolution settings
• Added greater support for additional aspect ratios
• Main menu is now in a fixed window
• Addressed Issues related to game freezing at splash screen

New Formation
• Added the ability for users to create their own Spawn point.

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Version 0.01g 1/17/2013
Hello Pattern's fans and welcome to the first update of 2013.

It is going to be a great year for Patterns and we have some great stuff in this update to get things started. Here is a highlight video.

With this update we continue to iterate on new types of explodey things. Our goal is to provide more control and functionality with the explosive devices. You can now use them to sculpt terrain and you have the ability to control the destructive characteristics. By swapping out different end caps you can direct the explosive power to be radial, directional and even flat. In addition we added some that require movement to go off and others actually take off and move on their own! Have fun experimenting with these formations.

We added a new editor we are calling the Pattern Stone. In this editor you can build things like bombs, trees or bridges. Save them to your inventory and then place them in the world at your leisure. This is a very powerful tool that will save you time and enable you to craft your own creations and save them much more easily than ever before.

To round things out we've fixed a few bugs (you can quit to the Main Menu now!), tweaked the world visuals (new clouds) and introduced a bit of wind at the higher elevations. More details can be found on the release notes.

On a final note we are continuing to offer downloads of the game for both Mac and PC directly from BuildPatterns.com. This is in addition to our Steam delivery. Note that we don't have an auto updater for the BuildPatterns.com executable files so you will need to manually update your game, as it will not happen automatically.

Thank you for playing and keep us posted on your progress and fun. Thanks all!

Video Update:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCR8BLHoU6Y&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=1

Release notes:

New Editor
• Pattern Stone- Create bridges, make bombs, build a tree and save it in the Pattern Stone. Your creations are saved to inventory where you can then place them any time as you have substances for them.

New Formations
Bombs are constructed from a charge, a trigger, and a number of caps. There are three variants to most bombs: radial, directional (or conical), and flat. Some bombs are limited to the radial variant. Most bombs will explode other bombs unless the bomb is affected by physics, in which case it will be propelled instead.
• Radial bombs blow up in a radius around the bomb.
• Directional bombs blow up in the direction of the bombs cap.
• Flat bombs blow up outward from the charge. All shapes under the flat bomb's charge should remain intact (when exploding diagonally some shapes are removed and some are left).
The New Bombs (check out the release video for clues on how to make them):
• Rocket Bomb- Has Physics. Activated after launch when speed falls below a threshold.
• Rocket Bomb Triggered- Has physics. Launched with a plunger. Actiated after launch when speed falls below a threshold.
• Rolling Bomb- Has Physics. Armed when velocity reaches a threshold. Activated when armed AND speed falls below a threshold.
• Nak Bomb- Time delay explosion of Nak

Visual Updates
• Clouds have been updated
• Day/Night cycle tweaks
• Wind effects can be seen at the higher elevations

UI
• Added space in the inventory for Pattern Stone creations
• Fixed Exit to Main Menu so that you can actually exit to Main Menu
Refined and polished Main Menu UI for better control of your Save Games.

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Version 0.01f 12/20/2012

Hi Pattern's Fans!

Welcome to Patterns update .01f. This is our sixth update since we went live with the Genesis version of Patterns! We have come a long way in a short amount of time. 2012 will be known as the year Patterns started.

For a video highlighting some of the newest additions - check this out.

With this update you will find some visual changes. You will find some new formations in the form of kilns, forges and even more and specialized explodey things.

For those of you just joining us welcome. 2013 is going to be an amazing year for Patterns. Online sharing of worlds, creatures and pets, additional formations and even multi-player are some of the big items to look out for in the coming year.

Keep those videos and comments coming. We are having a blast and hope you are as well.

Thanks for playing and check out the release notes for more details.

Cheers from the Patterns development team.
Update Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rkBUaeXUA&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=2

Release notes:

NEW formations
More explodey things that have a variety different behaviors.
• Contact Bomb explodes on contact.
• Time Bomb goes off after a short while.
• Trigger Bomb and Plunger allows you to set it off remotely.
• Ice Bomb spreads ice all over the blast radius
• Proxy Bomb build it and it will go off.
• Kiln and Forge that enables you to take a substance and turn it into another substance. Turn clay to brick for example.

Visual Updates
• Visual updates to the sky.
• New day night cycle measured by sun and moon.
• An assortment of visual effects for physical substances.
• New character animations.

New Build Delivery Option
Added support for downloading Patterns directly from BuildPatterns.com. If you have been using Steam to get Patterns updates you can still do so. If you are new to Patterns you can choose to get the game from Steam or you can choose to download it directly here.

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Version 0.01e 12/6/2012
Hi Pattern's Fans!

Welcome to update .01e. We have several exciting features to roll out to everyone this time around. We have three new planets in addition to Protoworld 2 for you to explore. You now have the ability to save as versions of these planets. And we now support saving your creations and debris in each planet. Add to that some improvements to Nak and Ice and a surprise or two around other substances and physics and this update should prove entertaining.

Here is a video with some of these highlights in action!

Check out the release notes below for more details.

Thanks for playing Patterns.

Update Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MycnSIhmJM&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=3


Release notes:

NEW Planets
• Added three new planets.
Barren Plain- A wide open space.
Red Bluff- A vertical challenge
Hanging Gardens- A new worlds to explore and discover

UI
• Support for Multiple Planets.
• Support for Multiple Save As planet.
• Support for naming your own files what you want to name them.
• Time stamps with Save Files.

Physics
• Your debris and free floating creations now save with the world.
• Tweaks and tuning to Nak and Ice.
More slide and velocity support for ice.
Support for the sideways bounce.
New look for Nak berries.
• Added a sinking behavior to an existing substance.
• New visuals for stressed constructs.

Control Updates
• WASD, Arrow Keys - move your character. Use SPACE to jump and double jump.
• RMB(Right Mouse Button) to rotate camera, RMB click to select shape (for rotation)
• Arrow keys rotate selected shape
• LMB breaks soft substances, when nothing is equipped
• 1-9, or clicking on Action Bar, equips Tiles, Shapes, Patterns, and Tools
• LMB places equipped Tiles, Shapes, and Patterns, or uses equipped Tools
• Left Shift - pocket equipped for easy breaking
• R - (try to) repeat last placement
• E - Inventory
• Q - Unequip
• M - Building Materials
• TAB - Camera Lock
• Double click Tile Tool to enter Shaping Stone

Friendly Tips
• Break Starene shapes to add shapes to your collection, or build them on the shaping stone.
• Breaking shapes will add to your substances required to build.
Break harder substances with bombs


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Version 0.01d 11/15/2012
Hello Pattern's Fans!

It is update day once again. This update is version 0.01D and it is our fourth since going live with our Genesis version way back in October. Here is a short video with some of the goods in motions.

We added some cool things to play with in this build. By exploring the world you will find some new substances that provide new physical characteristics. You can place these substances, and all others for that matter, with our new tile placing tool. Paint your world with a sheen of tops tiles and further customize your creative space to your specifications.

Some UI improvements can be found in this version as well. Substances are now organized in the substance wheel. This allows you to access all the substance you collect and we cleaned up the screen space to give you more room to interact with the world.

Our physics system is now exposing a new facet to game play. Collect the new substances and place them in the world. Quickly you will see the power of slide and bounce. We can't wait to see how you all use these in your own creative projects.

For more details see the release notes for version 0.01D. Thanks for playing Patterns!

Update Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCxQ4ANac6g&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=4
Release notes:

UI
• Moved Substances UI from upper right to the Substance wheel. Hit "M" to access but only if you have collected substances.
• Embiggened shapes in the Inventory UI and Quick Slots UI.
• Shapes now rotate with mouse over in the quick slots.
• General clean up and UI bug fixing.
• Explodey things no longer create 'holes' and vanishing bits to the world.

World
• Added the ability to place Top Tile of any substance.
• Added Ice Substance.
• Added Nak Substance.
• Added some new visual effects.

Physics
• Added new physics behavior for Ice substance.
• Added new physics behavior for Nak substance.

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Version 0.01c 11/1/2012

Hello Pattern's fans!

Welcome to another update. This update is version 0.01C. We spent time evolving our UI, improved our control scheme and added something called Top Tiles to our updated world.

For a video of the updates go here.

The UI was something we needed to address in order to set ourselves up for future growth. That and the original UI just wasn't going to win any beauty contests. It is tough to add new content and other cool things to a game unless you have an inventory. Whoot! We have a proper inventory now.

The control scheme needed some love and feedback from the community helped us focus our efforts on that front. Let us know what you think.

Top Tiles will add another dimension to breaking things in the world. Think bubble wrap pleasure and you may get a sense of what I'm talking about.

The World has been updated and we added another explodey thing for you to discover and create. We modified the explodey things a bit so don't be surprised when Starene doesn't do what you expect. Try Brimstone. It is yellow and can be found strewn about the world.

Fore more details take a look at the release notes for version 0.01C . Thanks for playing Patterns!


Update Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-GXXlitWbg&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=5

Release notes:

Controls
• Left Mouse Button (LMB) does all the action (building and breaking)
• Right Mouse Button (RMB) moves the camera.
• Tab - Switches to locked camera.
• 1-10 equips Shapes based based on the corresponding quick slot
• Q - Unequips an shapes in the characters paw
• With nothing equipped (no shape in paw), LMB shoots beam
beam breaks soft substances
beam also randomly twists and scrolls shapes with 1 connection (replacing Rotate-Mode)
beam also applies force to Debris.
• R - Repeats last action (This was formerly mapped to Q)
• E - Brings up the inventory

UI
• You can no longer drag from the inventory into the world.
• You can drag shapes from the inventory to your Quick Slots for easy access.
• X and Y cycle the selection of an active substance. This works like 01A-01B.
• Most of the rest of the UI is a reskin of 01A in the new system with new art.
• The presentation of the shapes includes scaling and rotation and will make them easier to recognize.

Formations
• We added a new formation. The shape is very similar to the previous explodey thing but with one piece different.
• Bombs will use Brimstone, a yellow substances formerly known as Gypsum, strewn about the latest world.

World
• Top Tiles have been added to the world.
• Gypsum -> Brimstone (surfer crystals).
• A new island mass can be found in this update.

Shaping Stone
• There is a new UI for tiles
• Many improvements on hinging and snapping
• Added feedback based on if you have a created a shape before.

Caveats
With .01c we are now displaying .01b save files in the main menu. You should be able to load your .01b save files with .01c. We have been loading ours. We have noticed some odd behavior regarding the shapes you have in .01b. Since we added an inventory in .01c it may be that all of your shapes appear properly but we have seen instances where they don't display as you would expect. That said the world and things you build in the world appear to work just fine. You just might need to recreate your shapes again in the shaping stone.

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Version 0.01b 10/18/2012

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our first scheduled update for Patterns. This is the first of many updates to come as we enjoy our journey to version 1.0. Thank you all for getting in on the fun so early in the process.

With this update the game is now officially version 0.01b. On BuildPatterns.com you can find detailed release notes and an update video. Both should provide you with a good idea of what to expect with this current build.

More power with the explodey things, an addition to your world and a bunch of bug fixes are the hi-lights.

Now that this version is in your hands we will get back to working on the next round of updates. Stay in touch and keep the videos of your creations coming.

Thanks all!

The Patterns Team

Update Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ETFhPWXvQ&list=PLiac1bezjrWJpELC-SV-qQvis0mco-3OX&index=6

Release notes:

Bugs and Tweaks:
• Optimization work has been done to improve frame rate and performance when building and breaking things apart. In particular we focused on improving the manipulation of large constructs. For those who are prone to dropping entire islands (and we do enjoy those videos) results may vary.
• Addressed remaining memory leaks.
• Isosceles triangles are much less finicky when manipulated on the Shaping Stone.
• The screen no longer goes black when manipulating shapes in the shaping stone.
• The character now breaks free of structures built on the spawn point.
• The character now draws correctly after respawning.
• Game starts in full screen by default.
• Formations (wheel and starene bomb) will now trigger on player created constructs and in other places they were not working previously.
• Fallen constructs now return the correct substance count back to inventory.
• You can no longer use saving and loading to build without physics.
• Hint data for shapes now persists after saving.
• We handle cursor focus better on machines with multiple monitors.
• It is now possible to connect more that two tall antiprisms together.
• Stress lines appear correctly on tall antiprisms.
• The character no longer falls through the world as a result of standing on and stacking Octogonal Bi-pyramidalPrisms.
• Fixed cases where a single placed cube would break apart the moment it was placed.
• Hitting the shift key no longer deletes shapes as reported in certain circumstances.

Updated world, Protoworld2:
• We added another island space to the existing world. This space includes a few more things to discover and a good challenge to overcome in getting there.
• The addition to the world uses multiple "master" constructs; meaning the new islands are actually floating. Unsinkable?...time will tell.

One caveat:
In version 0.01b we updated ProtoWorld (0.01a worlds) with ProtoWorld2. When you launch 0.01b you should expect to only see ProtoWorld 2 (the updated world for 0.01b) when loading a "New Game".
This should and will bring up some valid questions. Can I go back and load my ProtoWorld? Is it backed up? How can it be accessed? The answers are yes, yes and read further.
Some background and insight. Our UI is a first pass built to support our Genesis goals. The ability to load and track multiple worlds at this point is non existent functionality in our current scheme. That stinks but we are actively working on a UI scheme that solves this problem, and others, and sets us up for future improvements and updates. More on that later.
In the meantime both 0.01b and 0.01a save files are found side by side.
Mac location
\\Library\caches\FreeRange\Patterns
Win Location
C:\Users\...[USER NAME HERE]...\AppData\LocalLow\FreeRange\Patterns\SAVEDATA\
0.01b save games are identified with a "2" appended at the end of "ProtoWorld". You can load 0.01a files simply by adding a "2" at the end of each "ProtoWorld" file.
For example, the file "data_ProtoWorld_0" is from 0.01a. Rename the file to "data_ProtoWorld2_0" in order for 0.01b to recognize the file. You will need to do this with each of the generated save files.
The files to modify are as follows.
• character_ProtoWorld_0
• data_ProtoWorld_0
• inventory_ProtoWorld_0
• patterns_ProtoWorld_0
• shapes_ProtoWorld_0
That is how you can enable save files from previous version to load with 0.01B. We all look forward to the day when you don't have to jump through so many hoops.
A final word to the wise, any time you mess with save files that are special to you make sure you back them up first.


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Version 0.01a feature list Genesis 10/4/2012

Hi all and Welcome!

We are happy to announce that the Genesis of Patterns is available. Thank you everyone who have purchased the game and have started playing.

As you know we are just getting started. Our plan is to deliver regular updates to Patterns. In the coming weeks and months we will introduce new features, fix bugs, read customer feedback, add more features and probably fix a few more bugs. Not necessarily in that order but I think you get the idea. You will see and experience a game growing and evolving over time. It should be a fun and exciting ride for all of us.

We have plans for some cool stuff. We will continue to tune and enhance the role of physics in the game. There are some emergent constructs (have you built a wheel or exploded a Nak tree yet?) in the game already. We are planning for more of that sort of thing.

Providing more powerful building capabilities is a goal we have. Enabling users to share and explore each other's worlds and creations is on our roadmap. We want to consider just how we can evolve our character's 2d state of mind. More substances and things you can do with them and much more.

Add to all of that a mix of cool ideas plucked from the community, a healthy dose of excitable whimsy from our dev team and a commitment to deliver a creative shared space and you have a recipe for fun.

Sincerely,
The Patterns Team

Update Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOCoPSoEVeE

Release notes:
• A hand crafted world of substances and shapes.
• Explore, discover and bust apart a world in a pure sandbox environment.
• Shaping Stone workbench that enables you to craft and discover shapes.
• 8 collectible substances.
Clay
Bonestone
Starene
Nak
Limewood
Coralwood
Jasper
Gypsum
• Emergent objects that explode or roll.
• Simulated physics, gravity and tensile strength that plays upon substances and your creations.
• 3 Save slots.
• Building tools that include shape repeating and shape rotation.
• Two camera modes for building and exploring.
• A controllable character with Jump and Walk capabilities.
• 3 different quality settings to accommodate a variety of system specs.
• Full screen and windowed mode support.
• Windows and Mac version.
• Public access to bug reporting. https://community.buildpatterns.com/patterns

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