Rebel Inc: Escalation News

Rebel Inc. is a game heavily influenced by the culture and socio-political landscape of Afghanistan. Although the game world is fictional, it looks at important real world issues and was extensively researched to make sure it dealt with them correctly. As part of this, we went to the Afghan Embassy in London to meet with the Ambassador and embassy staff to get their feedback on the game.

“Rebel Inc. is sophisticated and engaging. It shows the complexity of war and insurgency with interesting options to achieve success through stability and peace." H.E. Said T. Jawad, Ambassador of Afghanistan to the UK

The staff we met at the embassy were extremely positive about our plans for Rebel Inc. Often people don’t think about or realise what is going on in Afghanistan and they hoped that our game would encourage players to explore and understand the complexity and scale of the situation in the country. They gave us great insight and lots of useful comments on our simulation and the Ambassador even shared a number of personal experiences which we were able to integrate into the game. You can read a letter from the Embassy about our work with them here.

We were also asked if we could translate the game into Dari and Pashto (the two official languages of Afghanistan) so that the people of Afghanistan could play the game in their native languages. We immediately agreed and now, after lots of technical challenges (to be discussed more in a later blog post), we’re really excited to announce that Rebel Inc. will soon be available in Dari and Pashto on Steam!



Following the release of Rebel Inc. we went back to the Ambassador to ask him what he thought of the game. He said “Rebel Inc. is sophisticated and engaging. It shows the complexity of war and insurgency with interesting options to achieve success through stability and peace."

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the embassy staff for their help and also our teams of Afghan translators for all the hard work they put into translating almost 25,000 words into Dari and Pashto! We really hope that the people of Afghanistan enjoy playing our game.

We realise it’s been a while since we gave you an update on what we’ve been up to!

As you’d expect, we’ve been very busy with the COVID-19 situation, where we’ve been able to support the WHO and CEPI in fighting the pandemic (for more on what we’ve been doing to help, check out our latest blog post here).

We’re still working hard on Rebel Inc. as well - our current focus is the campaign mode and it’s getting pretty close to release. We’ve had a lot of fun working on this really unique game mode with loads of new game mechanics. No two games will ever be the same and you get to experiment with radically different playstyles and tactics.

We’re still going through internal testing and making a few last iterations on it, but as soon as we have a confirmed release date we’ll be letting you know!

In the meantime thanks for your patience and we’re excited about sharing this new release with you all soon.

Stay safe
Team Ndemic

As the year draws to a close, and just in time for Christmas, we’ve added some exciting new content to Rebel Inc: Escalation. You’re in for a real challenge with the Mega-Brutal update!


For those that think Brutal is Casual, we’ve added an entirely new difficulty to sink your teeth into. Mega-Brutal adds new local concerns around road quality and security, lets insurgents lash out in desperation and adds depth to peace negotiations. It’s important to note that Mega-Brutal will not change the mechanics of the game or affect how you unlock new maps and governors. It only adds an extra challenge for those that want it.




If Mega-Brutal isn’t your cup of tea, then don’t worry, we’ve still got a Christmas present for you! For perfecting your strategic play, we’ve introduced an entirely new way to utilize the minimap. Now you can access the following data from the Region screen:

• Zone Details (zone status and zone names)
  
• Insurgent Activity (security percentage, number of insurgent takeovers and insurgent strength)
  
• Population Percentage (zone population percentages, zone total populations)
  
• Accessibility (zone terrain type, zone road type accessibility percentage, ease of traveling through a zone)
  
• Road Level (road type based shading)
  
• Terrain (terrain type based shading)

For our Turkish speaking players, we are happy to announce that Rebel Inc: Escalation is now localised in your language!

On top of this, we’ve made a few other tweaks and changes, details of which you can find below.

Good luck and happy holidays,
Ndemic Creations

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0.6.2 changelog:

• Mega-Brutal difficulty added
  
• Turkish language added
  
• New minimap features added
  
• Resolution now only displays resolutions that fit the monitor and shows the aspect ratio
  
• Resolved issue with player being able to break tutorials
  
• Fixed issue with scroll views not working
  
• Fixed bug on ZoneOverview screen, zone initiative progress bars not displaying correct values/resetting correctly when cycling between zones
  
• Fixed "clunky/laggy" scroll box on ZoneOverview screen
  
• Fixed bizarre issue where seemingly random German strings would appear on the zone overview screen
  
• New resolutions 3840x1080 and 1280x1024
  
• Improved widescreen resolution support
  
• Fixed issue with rebels walking out of a zone on Distant Steppe
  
• Tooltips now show the correct tooltip when hovering over multiple things. E.g. when a soldier is placed on top of HQ, the tooltip shown will now be for the soldier
  
• Save screen no longer shows reputation as a percentage
  
• Scrolling to select maps and governors is now less sensitive
  
• Added navigation hotkeys to leader board screen
  
• Fixed missing localisation for TV news channel decision
  

We’re keeping the ball rolling! After last week’s major content update, we’ve made a few minor tweaks, fixes and upgrades. Find out more about these changes below.



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Full 0.6.1 changelog:

• Higher resolution for convoy units in Azure Dam
  
• Made sure Dam icon doesn't randomize its position in Azure Dam
  
• Improved Chinese localisation (traditional and simplified)
  
• Made Azure Dam road positions more realistic
  
• Various colour styling fixes for Expert unit
  
• Don't show ‘Under Attack’ warning when Expert unit is traveling
  
• Issue fixed with stability bar
  
• Minimap no longer displays control borders
  
• Fixed Spanish exported products showing as NULL
  
• Fixed rare issue with UI not immediately updating when loading a game
  
• Improved spawning position within a zone of Rebel Camps and Forts
  
• Disabled randomization of Dam icon

The hard work just doesn’t stop here at Office Zero, and with our newest Rebel Inc: Escalation update we’re excited to bring you not one, but TWO major content additions!

New map: Azure Dam
Rebuild a vast dam to prevent catastrophic floods and ensure stability in this arid region. Protect vulnerable supply convoys en route to the dam site, but beware - Insurgents forces will launch aggressive raids to destroy them!



New Governor: Development Director
This skilled micromanager deploys civilian experts to prioritise zones for development and rapidly stabilise key parts of the region. High performance. Delivered!



As always, with the update, we’ve also pushed out some tweaks and fixes, a list of which you can find below.

Let us know what you think of the new map and governor and what you’re excited to see us add to the game next! :)

Full 0.6.0 changelog:

• New Map: Azure Dam
  
• New Governor: the Development Director
  
• Fixed a rare issue causing a crash when clicking a decision choice that you couldn’t afford
  
• Issue with description text in 3440 x 1440 fixed
  
• Fixed issue with Black Caves leaderboard
  
• Fixed issue where Insurgent bases could be on top of soldiers, making the soldiers unmovable
  
• Fixed cheat medal progress
  
• Improved map and governor scrolling selection
  
• Leaderboard filter now works consistently
  
• Leaderboard navigation now automatically updates
  
• Leaderboard map drop down now shows all of the maps
  
• Fixed issue with drop down menus not localising
  
• Fixed rank text in Leaderboards
  
• Fixed How to Play localisation