Updates from the Forge 30: October 2018

[Jubal]

Issue 30: October 2018

EDITORIAL

Welcome to Updates from the Forge! It's nearly all hallows' eve, and we have... well, not actually anything particularly spooky in the issue, so here's a new pumpkin smiley for the forum to make up for it.

There has been a lot going on around the site this month, including our chain writing project coming to its conclusion. You can read our three great stories written collaboratively by nearly twenty writers, across three different continents, here. We'll hopefully do more chain writing in winter, so do keep an eye out for that There's as always more creative content than we can pack in as well, including new Son of a Witch skins, more issues of other comics, more devlogs, and more besides. And there'll be more to come in November!

Before that, we've got six great projects in this month's showcase, including a full range of tabletop, computer, comic, modding, and other projects. As the nights draw in, here's all the things you could be doing when you're not running away from zombies...

CONTENTS:

• Dare you enter Goregasm Arena?
• Spooky Soundtracks from SoundImage
• Ahowl's RTW Enhancements: Germania and Dacia!
• Join the Skywrights' Guild with Utherwald Press
• Darkness and Demons in Pixel Dungeon Adventure
• UI updates from Fringe Planet

Dare you enter Goregasm Arena?

There's just a few days left to chip in to the Kickstarter campaign for Goregasm Arena, a brutally comic-violent boardgame of arena battles set in the madcap post-apocalyptic Wasteman setting. Shark-headed mutants, Toxic waste monsters, and two-headed gorillas are just some of the crazy folk who are ready to put their lives on the line in deadly gladiatorial combat. As well as shunting, tackling and striking other players, the game includes card picks that will let you discover what horrific injuries your opponents have recieved, and a wheel-spinner that represents the fickle nature of the crowd - the support of the fans can be a great thing, but the mob is always fickle.

We've known Thunderchild minis for a while here at Exilian - among other things, they were stallholders at our 2016 convention - and it's great to see their first boardgame coming out. With not long to go, now's the time to head over and throw some of your hard-earned cash their way to enter the deadliest of arenas, where four mutants may enter but only one mutant can leave. Desperate times, after all, call for desperate entertainment!

Kickstarter Page

Exilian Thread

Spooky Soundtracks from SoundImage

If you're doing any kind of creative project online then it's very, very worth checking out SoundImage, one of the greatest music and texture libraries on the internet, created by our friend Eric Matyas! Recent additions to the archive of over 1500 tracks (plus a very wide sound effect and texture selection) include a lot more cartoon-style textures, which now have their own pages on the site, and a load of new looping tracks for game or video use including "Ancient Waters", "A Walk Through the City", the 70s-style "Side Burn Squad" and the mellow "Ice Road Sunrise"! With hallowe'en coming up, expect new soundtracks on the Dark/Ominous and Horror/Surreal pages too - recent additions to those include "Too Quiet", "After the Invasion", and "Surreal Place". If you want a spooky theme for your seasonal project, do take a look at those!

Visit SoundImage

Soundtracks & Sounds Discussion

Textures & Graphics Discussion

Ahowl's RTW Enhancements: Germania and Dacia!

The most recent versions of ahowl11's Vanilla Enhancement Mod for Rome Total War, "Germanic Mystery" and "Sons of Zamolxis", focus on the wild lands north of the Danube and the warrior tribes that dwelled there. This includes a complete overhaul of the Germania unit roster compared to the original game - there are now many different units available, including Chosen Spearmen, Bear and Wolf Warriors available at temples, and the Harii warriors as a new mercenary unit unique to the region. The training structure has been changed too, with the tavern-type buildings now responsible for training the deadly berserkers and night raiders. For Dacia there are plenty of changes too, including the addition of more heavy infantry and archery units such as Pikemen and Champions, and a diverse cavalry selection that includes horse archers.

"Next time, Gaius, I'm booking the holiday, and we're going to Mesopotamia, OK?"

Ahowl's vanilla enhancement mod also includes changing Egypt from a Bronze Age to a Ptolemaic visual style of army, and enhancements for the Gauls and Britannia that fill out their unit rosters including additional higher level units. Future plans include the inclusion of a range of battles and smaller campaigns alongside the grand campaign, to give the mod a more complete portrayal of Roman history. If you're playing the original RTW, this is a great mod to check out by one of the most prolific modders on the scene.

Download & Discussion Thread

Join the Skywrights' Guild with Utherwald Press

Travel by air! Guaranteed your money back in the event of fatal crashes!

Recently Utherwald Press has been adding new blogposts as usual, including an exciting look at the Skywrights' Guild, one of the most powerful transnational organisations in the world of Darmonica. With an effective monopoly on the lift gas used to keep skyships in the air, the Guild is a major player in international economics and power politics far beyond its official status as an airship and skyship manufacturer. Needless to say, many of the states of Darmonica are less than happy about the guild's power, and besides attempting to build up their own rivals, there is no doubt a degree of intrigue going on for which player characters may be hired on either side...

Visit the Utherwald Forum

Darkness and Demons in Pixel Dungeon Adventure

Editor's note: they did not share the guacamole.

In Pixel Dungeon Adventure lately, the heroes have come face to face with a new and terrifying demon for an enemy! The comic features three adventurers - Sir Bob the knight, Lady Val the very minmaxed wizard, and Auto the, uh, mechanical automaton rogue - as they battle and, more often, bungle their way through all the challenges that an adventuring world has to offer. Their past adventures have included facing a goblin sorceror-king, an army of strange deadly blob-creatures, the lack of mounts, and of course the mysterious Dungeon Master himself... but will the challenge of a mighty demon prove too much for them? You can read and discuss the comic here on Exilian, and also see the comic's regular postings on the Pixel Dungeon Adventure website, which is now linked from the Exilian homepage sidebar. Discover the comic and read on!

Pixel Dungeon Adventure Website

Discussion Thread

UI updates from Fringe Planet

Beebug's frozen world survival simulator, Fringe Planet, has has new UI updates. The game is set on a mysterious chunk of rock in space, in a strange lovecraftian universe of science and magic. The player must attempt to guide several characters, the peons, to build and survive on this tiny fragment in the terrifying void. As they do so, they will have perils thrown at them, with different 'storytellers' providing different modes and balances of the challenges. Those who fail will die, whether from starvation, madness, or cold: those who succeed may discover new technologies and ways of manipulating their surroundings, and - perhaps - clues of how they got to the fringe and who they used to be.

Select which storyteller will throw horrors at you from the depths of the void...!

Recent UI updates to the game have seen a much more aged paper-style interface, bringing out the lovecraftian theme of the game even more - Beebug keeps up an active blog to discuss new changes. A recent post to that includes some great details on some of the things that have gone wrong in testing, from heating the planet to 2 billion degrees by accident, to mysterious insects wanting to cuddle up to humans for warmth, to the peons ending up weighing thousands of kilos because nobody wrote code for them to go to the loo!

The game's shaping up really nicely, so do head over and take a look at their devlog:

Devlog Thread

That's all folks! If you've got a creative/independent project that you'd like featured in this newsletter, please just post it on the forum, and remember that you can also request frontpage announcements for major releases of projects at any time if you're an Exilian member. Feedback is as usual appreciated, just drop it in a comment below or send it to us at exilian (at) exilian (dot) co (dot) uk. Happy Hallowe'en!