[b]Long time no see, mercenaries.[/b] First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for your patience and support in these trying times. Good news though! I'm happy to announce the development of Shores Unknown is continuing where the team left off when we announced our hiatus in March. [h1]The Adventure Continues![/h1] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/ae4307ba43c77610f348167c2a0004b044ee947f.gif[/img] That's right. This means that you all will soon be able to continue your search for Brisst in the next content update, which will introduce the third chapter in the story of Shores Unknown. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/052c6b55f65de34ac03840c9da1ea19c5b299fc9.png[/img] There's still some work left to do: the update will introduce a large outdoor area which we were working on filling with various events and encounters at the beginning of 2022, and I still have a couple of quests and a few more combat encounters to set up before our ship sets sail. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/cfa11b82118660848e36b8546d640da1b0805b50.gif[/img] That's not all, though. The update will also include a number of [b]exciting new systems and mechanics[/b]! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/993e6e3e28b547fba9d5efc040f9f4fb9798c334.png[/img] While Shores Unknown already featured a high degree of customization by letting you choose a personal approach to growing your mercenary team, the roster itself was largely fixed. Update #4 will add a couple of new upgrades to the Hideout to help with that: a new [b]Recruit system[/b] and a [b]Training room[/b] that, once unlocked, will allow characters in Reserve to automatically gain a fraction of experience the main party receives in battles. With this change, you'll have a lot more options when assembling your main group, and benched characters will still be able to keep up thanks to experience sharing. A new mechanic of [b]persistent food buffs[/b] is also being added. Different meals found in the world will provide the active party with a lasting Well Fed effect, persisting for a fixed number of battles after eating. Entering a Rest area will also automatically refresh the last applied Well Fed effect, so you don't have to micromanage consumables. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/134ab75c0f344c4b110b2d9714753a4416281c3a.gif[/img] This is compounded by [b]Wounds[/b], another new mechanic that is only encountered on Classic and Hard difficulties: now, when a character gets knocked out in battle, they will be affected by a persistent Wound debuff, decreasing their main stats and maximum health, and their Well Fed effect, if present, will be lost. Luckily, Wounds are removed when the party enters a Rest area or eats another meal! If Wounds Is something you'd rather not deal with at all, worry not: the mechanic is disabled on Normal and the newly added Story difficulty settings. You'll still get to explore the world and enjoy the various meals found when exploring, though! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/8bfa37b55fb40cbe418a40fb6ba6241269cb5e0b.gif[/img] Combat system has also received a couple of new additions: [b]Taunts and Target masking[/b]. The first mechanic is familiar to any RPG fan. In Shores, it will force the affected target to redirect their attack action at the taunting character, assuming they get to act before the target, and the target is not affected by another Taunt effect. A bit like Intercept mechanic which already exists in the game, but not generating Engagement automatically. Target masking logic makes it possible to implement trickster-themed effects which make a character completely untargetable by actions of a certain type. The most prominent examples of these are Stealth (making it impossible to target the stealthed character with ranged attacks), Invisibility (same as stealth but for both melee and ranged), and Play Dead (completely untargetable for the duration, identical to being knocked out). An acting character whose target gets affected by one of these, invalidating the action, will automatically reassess their move. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/d5394edd5889cf6a54eade74a28026a84cbaf341.gif[/img] Another new addition is the [b]Rally mechanic[/b]: now, when a character is put on Standby or is unable to perform an action as a result of a Reassess, they will receive a Rallied buff, doubling their Speed for the duration of the next turn! This lets you compensate for a character skipping their action by moving them up on the timeline, and adds tactical depth to Standby command: for example, you can now choose to Standby in preparation for a very quick attack that you know is coming next turn, letting one of your characters intercept an action that otherwise would've been out of your control. And speaking of Reassess: the logic of combat action assessment has been completely rewritten (the original implementation was one of the first things I did when I started working on Shores Unknown, so it didn't age all that well) with peformance, ease of customization and modularity in mind. For now, this means developing character behaviors in combat is easier and quicker than ever, but I'm also exploring the idea of making this player-facing and allowing you to customize the behaviors of your party as you see fit. But that's a feature worth a separate post! Sounds exciting? I, for one, can't wait to push all these new additions live! But there's a caveat, as you might have noticed the "I's" instead of the usual "we's" scattered across this post. Due to the current real world situation, we had to scale the team down to what amounts to a single developer working in engine on a regular schedule, and the rest of the original team helping with specific tasks on case-by-case basis when they're able to. Luckily, the story and level design tasks for the remaining content are pretty much completed, so I can focus my work almost fully on event scripting and mechanics design and implementation. Unfortunately, this means combat and quest-related tasks that could previously be accomplished by three people working in parallel, now have to be done by a single person, and although things are progressing splendidly, there are no shortcuts to be taken here: this work takes time. Nevertheless, I am happy to be working on Shores Unknown again, and I would never forgive myself if this story didn't receive a proper ending. And so I would like to ask, yet again, for your trust and a liitle bit more patience while I continue pushing things into shape and finalize the update. There will be another announcement posted once the content is locked and ready to go, but for now, the plan is to release Chapter 3 somewhere in [b]Q3 2022[/b]. In the meantime, please feel free discuss the update in the comments, or [url=https://discord.gg/q8VcWeB]ask any questions about the game you have for me directly on Discord![/url] [url=https://discord.gg/q8VcWeB][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/c1a0cf4ebabede55cd0070577cb3c125aeb67f81.png[/img][/url] Oh, and last not least, in case you missed it, Shores Unknown is now [b]Verified[/b] on Steam Deck. If you're one of the happy owners of the Deck, consider giving the game a spin! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34782113/c0de07b55e1266ee73a1684181556ffd8ffcc668.png[/img] Thank you for reading and see you next time!