Atomic Picnic News

Attention Loners, we have an important update to share: Atomic Picnic will no longer launch into Early Access in September. The game will launch later in 2024.

Simply put, we need a bit more time to make sure the game meets your expectations, and ours. We’ll use this time to finish developing some new systems, fine-tuning things, and polishing the title.

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the new stuff we’re working on for Early Access launch:

• Updates to the Curios system - more Curios, evolutions, & cursed Curios!
  
• New Objectives system - more things to do during a Picnic, like taking down AoE pillars.
  
• A third map - City of Sands!
  
• Difficulty balancing - fine tuning difficulty, especially in multiplayer.
  

The feedback that we’ve received from this community through the playtests we’ve run has been instrumental in the way that Atomic Picnic has grown in scope and quality over the course of this year. We can’t thank you enough for checking the game out and telling us what you think here on Steam and in our Discord.

As soon as we have a new date to share, we’ll let you know here and in the Discord. We may even have one last playtest opportunity for you all. Please stay tuned for more, and thank you for your continued support!

Our latest playtest is now public and open to everyone on Steam!

This is our biggest update yet, with new and unique character abilities (both active and passive), a new weapon, new mini-boss, and a ton more.

Check out our previous post for all the patch notes. There are a lot of them!

Jump on in, start running your own picnics, and let us know what you think. Player feedback has been a huge part of setting our roadmap for new features, and we're going to keep that going.

Hey Loners! We have big news to share. If you tuned in to the OTK Expo today you may have already heard: Atomic Picnic will hit Early Access this September.

But that’s not all, we are kicking off a new playtest right now. If you’ve playtested the title before, you have access here on Steam and can jump right in. If you haven’t yet, head over to OTK.to/AP to join the community and get your Steam key.

The feedback that you’ve given us in the last playtests has had a major impact on our development. Check out a new trailer with some of what's new, and then read on for all the details:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

New Features

• New weapon: the powerful Pistol!
  
• New Mini-boss: Jonathan, a Turtle mini-boss that can be found in the Twilight Dam map.
  
• New Enemies: Flying Shooter that sprays a pattern of shots, and JellyEgg who spawns several Mini Jelly.
  
• New Upgrade (Curio): Doom on Device, adds a Doom effect on the enemies that are hit by your device.
  
• New character skills: Both active and passive skills (more details below)!
  
• New character base statistics: Each character now has 4 different base stats.
  
• New device models: Your grenades have new looks.
  
• Hidden OTK influencer tags
  

You read that right, each character now has their own abilities. More info on each:

Active abilities, activated by pressing the ‘Q’ key:

• Hani / Handyman: Hani charges his hammer and smashes it on the ground, damaging enemies and healing teammates. He can charge the hammer for up to 3 seconds, the longer the charge and more damage taken while charging, the more damage and healing he does.
  
• JD / Tacticbot: JD summons a flying drone that follows him around and shoots enemies.
  
• Bonnie / Dive Bomb: Bonnie jumps into the air and lands with an impact that deals damage in an area around her.
  
• Ash / Dash Bomb: Ash dashes through the air, ending with an explosion that deals damage to nearby enemies.
  

Passive abilities, always affecting individual characters:

• Hani / Closer: Hani does more damage per each nearby enemy, up to 20% more damage.
  
• JD / Multitap - When JD throws a Device, he causes all Fast Reloads Curios to activate automatically.
  
• Bonnie / Headbutt - When Gear Dashing or Super Jumping through enemies, Bonnie deals damage and applies the Concussion debuff. Concussion slows enemies.
  
• Ash / Scout: Ash has one extra Air Gear charge.
  

These Passive Skills are now affected by Mementos too:

• Hani Passive Skill is now affect by Area Size
  
• Bonnie Passive Skill is now affected by Cooldown and Damage
  
• JD Passive Skill is now affected by Cooldown
  

New UX / UI Elements & Changes

• New screen: Start a Picnic
  
• A new map selection screen to check which maps you have unlocked or not (still with placeholder graphics)
  
• New UI background
  
• Animated background in all screens
  
• New game flow: Removed main menu
  
• New Esc menu
  
• New social tab with Steam friend list display
  
• Now players can join others when already inside their own Camp
  
• Now if the player is solo on a hosted Camp the game will auto change to single-player mode (no connection needed) during a Picnic
  
• New Discoveries screen unlock animations
  

New Audio:

• Healing Shrine SFX
  
• Offerings SFX
  
• Loner's Camp OST
  

Balancing & Other Changes:

• Overall rebalancing to make game harder
  
• Harder mini-bosses
  
• Harder enemies
  
• Rebalanced time needed to revive others
  
• Weapons fast reload thresholds balancing
  
• New XP curve
  
• Rebalanced Mementos
  
• New Berserker VFX
  
• Controller Support now working for Social screen, and Start Picnic screen
  
• Teddybear and some other AoE Curios now break destructible items
  
• Added a delay after the players complete a Picnic (kill the final boss), so they have time to collect the loot before the End Game screen shows up
  
• New camera configuration for all characters
  
• New animation for Map selection screen
  
• Increased Air Gear invulnerability, or iFrames time
  
• Changed the active abilities UI (Devices, Air Gear, Active Skills) to fit the new Active Skills button
  
• Changed the Discoveries screen to allow for more Discoveries on the same screen, and fill the whole screen area
  
• Restricting Steam join to only when inside Camp
  
• Performance changes in Loner's Camp scene related to shadows
  
• Rework on enemy despawn system to deprioritize enemies that are not actively engaging in combat, and are not being seen by players
  

Fixes:

• Rework on Jellyfish shield code that fixes some Curios that bypassed Octavio’s shield
  
• MiniJelly base stats fixed
  
• Ricochet ability now working properly
  
• Changed Memento title instead of Curio in the Tab screen in-game
  
• Rojo device area preview size is now the same as its collider
  
• Ghost story now dealing damage to all enemies
  
• First upgrade no longer automatically selected when using a mouse in the Level Up screen
  
• Peace Time title now showing up when a boss is killed
  
• All maps no longer use the same enemy configuration
  
• In the in-game HUD, in the Objectives widget, the Jelly Fish boss's name is now correct (Octavio)
  

As you can see, there’s a ton of new stuff to check out in this playtest. But heads up on some known issues as well…

Known Issues:

• Some buttons have localization for gamepad support, and the strings go beyond the intended area
  
• Active Reloads and other gameplay mechanics used in the Camp should not count towards the Discoveries
  
• Some new upgrades still don't have detail stats in the Level Up screen (the lower text with stat changes)
  
• In the Twilight Dam map, the collision in the Dam area can cause the player to not move properly
  
• Discovery "Starting with the basics": Tracking each enemy defeat multiple times on clients
  
• "Peace time" text does not show up properly after a boss is defeated.
  
• Hani's active skill can have an animation glitch if used right when the character levels up
  
• Ping icons are not disappearing, and will accumulate in the map
  
• Some projectiles VFX do not disappear
  
• MiniJelly and JellyEgg are not being damaged by some curios
  

Get to testing, and let us know what you think here on Steam and in the Discord!

Our playtest has just wrapped up and we want to send a hearty Thank You to everyone who jumped in.

We read through every piece of player feedback we get, and it's super helpful as we continue to develop the game ahead of Early Access launch later this spring. Please take a moment to send your thoughts our way here.

Stay tuned here on Steam and in our Discord for future news and updates on Atomic Picnic!

We’ve just opened up our playtest to all! Head to the Steam store page, hit “Request Access”, and you’re in!

Check out our patch notes, posted the other day, for all the details on what’s new.

After you play, we’d love your feedback! There’s a survey in-game, and we’ll post it to our Discord too.

And for a chance to upgrade your rig, join the community for a chance to win a custom Starforge Systems PC at OTK.to/AP.