King Arthur's Gold News

[p]Jackal kicks the door wide open with its ultraviolent launch on Steam.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Welcome to Las Vegas 1970s — when presidents could be impeached for just lying and the mob's territory was only Vegas. 
[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Why it Hurts So Good:[/p]

• [p]Rooms shift. Layouts change. No run is ever safe.[/p]
• [p]Chemical superpowers: faster, stronger, higher — until you crash.[/p]
• [p]Brutal finishers: not just endings, but punchlines.[/p]
• [p]Inspired by the sickest, bleediest pop-culture nightmares: Hotline Miami, Pulp Fiction, Fear & Loathing.
  [/p]

[p]"Jackal combines my love of John Wick fight scenes, Scorsese's mobsters, Tarantino's storytelling, and the soul of the 1970s," says Marcinkowski, presumably while cackling maniacally.[/p][p][/p][p]BUY IT NOW WITH A DISCOUNT!
[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]AND DID YOU GET YOURSELF AND ANUBIS TATTOO ALREADY LIKE THIS COOL CAT!?[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]You're a drug-enhanced hitman with the moral compass of a broken slot machine, turning iconic Vegas hotels into impromptu abattoirs. Every table, chair, and kitchen utensil becomes a weapon in your hands because apparently, even the cutlery wants in on the action.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]WATCH THE TRAILER:[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Welcome to the demo of the definitive top-down murder simulator where mobsters become meat puppets and physics is just another drug. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]PLAY THE DEMO & WISHLIST:[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p]Why it Hurts So Good:[/p]

• [p]Ultra-violent room redecoration[/p]
• [p]Rooms shift. Layouts change. No run is ever safe.[/p]
• [p]Chemical superpowers: faster, stronger, higher — until you crash.[/p]
• [p]Brutal finishers: not just endings, but punchlines.[/p]
• [p]Inspired by the sickest, bleediest pop-culture nightmares: Hotline Miami, Pulp Fiction, Fear & Loathing in Vegas.
  
  [/p]

[p]Created by Michał Marcinkowski – the madman who gave us Soldat and clearly never learned when to stop.  "Jackal combines my love of John Wick fight scenes, Scorsese's mobsters, Tarantino's storytelling, and the soul of the 1970s," says Marcinkowski, presumably while cackling maniacally.[/p][p][/p][p]Release Info:
Play the demo now!
(A taste of the full massacre launching January 2026)[/p][p][/p][p]Warning: Side effects may include uncontrollable urges to redecorate with viscera, sudden appreciation for 1970s interior design, and the inexplicable need to wear sunglasses indoors.[/p][p]
[/p]

Just a bit of cross promotion, because if you enjoy my games and like top-down shooters with brutal close-combat you'll love JACKAL - which I've just announced on Steam.

Here's the announcement trailer:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You can wishlist the game now!
And please help out and share the word!
Have fun,
MM

Hello everyone,

This is a minor update bringing in a number of bugfixes and necessary in-depth netcode changes under the hood to address abuse. The random crash on start issue some users have observed on Windows should also now be fixed.
This should hopefully only bring in positives for gameplay, including making some actions/menu actions happen immediately when they would wait for a client-server-client ping previously. Since those changes poked at an unusually vast amount of logic for a minor update, please report any vanilla issues we might have missed in testing!

Mods are expected to require manual intervention but we are providing a compatibility path to ease the transition. As usual, modders are welcome to reach out for further details and assistance.

For any staging users, the updated staging build should come with a slight delay (hopefully the same day). The staging build features additional internal engine changes.

Full changelog:

netcode:
[fixed] made a bunch of things avoid unnecessary network interaction, reducing bandwidth and latency of some actions (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] netcode security fixes (thanks bunnie)
[added] `getNet().legacy_cmd = false;` to force new command behavior, now the default in vanilla KAG.as (thanks goldenguy)
[dev] when legacy mode is `= false`, commands may only go client->server or server->client, removing the bouncing behavior (where client->server would automatically ping server->client) and preventing commands from running within on the same host (e.g. commands no longer run client->client or server->server).
      check sanitization PRs in kag-base for details and examples.
      the default is _enabled_ for compatibility but you may need to set it to `false` as described above in legacy mods.
      a large portion of game scripts were modified, so mods changing vanilla code may need to bring back code from the 4541 build tag.
[added] added function callbacks for cgridmenu (thanks bunnie), see e.g. https://github.com/transhumandesign/kag-base/pull/1804 (thanks bunnie)
[added] `getNet().legacy_cmd = True` in vanilla by default

misc bugs:
[fixed?] crash on start for certain users on Windows (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] wrong font being used on tips and queue button when game state banners are shown (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] on certain platforms, in some scenarios, the ballista texture would be incorrect (thanks terminalhash)
[changed] Material bombs don't despawn in tutorial level 1 (thanks mugg91)
[modified] no longer error out scripts on exception (thanks asu)

scoreboard:
[modified] scoreboard heads will remain visible when players are dead (thanks asu)
[modified] adjusted scoreboard class icons (thanks asu)
[modified] spectators show as a full team now (thanks asu)
[modified] adjusted scoreboard scroll speed (thanks asu)
[fixed] scoreboard scroll speed incorrectly scaled past 30fps (thanks asu)
[modified] adjusted some fonts and line thickness (thanks asu)
[fixed] shark steam achievement (thanks goldenguy)

modding:
[added] `SMaterial::SetZBufferCompareOperation` (thanks goldenguy)

gameplay changes:
[fixed] crate button being hard to press at high speeds (thanks potatobird)
[modified] lowered number of ticks for inventory tapping, may revert if behavior is too surprising (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] some bugs with the pickaxe in certain circumstances (thanks bunnie)

minimap:
[added] TDM spawns get their icon (thanks mugg91)

KNOWN ISSUES:
- steam achievements may no longer be working
- bucket sprite might desync when emptied but not held
- missing team names with Cyrillic fonts in scoreboard
- mods may need updating (see changelog)

Hi folks,

This small update brings bugfixes for some newer and older issues. We sneaked in some improvements to map voting, to the cinematic camera, and added 15 new TDM maps.

We took some steps to improve map votes at the end of CTF/TTH rounds. It no longer nags the user quite as much and the random option was replaced with a 3rd map to vote for. Also, hovering a map will also show a zoomed preview to make it easier to discern its features.
Our goal was to make map voting a little less tedious, and hopefully people feel more interested and satisfied in the process.



The cinematic camera was improved in a few ways. It should now be much more obvious how to temporarily disable it, and that will now be remembered across rounds. If you don't like it, you now have the option to permanently disable it in settings (under the Misc tab). Additionally, we tried to address unnecessary motion and shakiness when tracking a lot of players. We may adjust this even further in the future, and feedback is welcome.

Full changelog:

[fixed] catapults could not be unpacked (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] players not gaining velocity when thrown from a catapult (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] incorrect catapult button icons (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] the ballista arm facing an incorrect direction after being unpacked (thanks gingerbeard)
[removed] map voting: no more dimmed screen to nag the player (thanks guift)
[modified] map voting: 3 maps to select instead of 2 + 1 random vote (thanks asu)
[added] map voting: hovering a map shows a zoomed in version of the map (thanks asu)
[fixed] map voting: rewrote heaps of logic, easier to mod/tune and less sync bugs hopefully (thanks asu)
[fixed] incorrect seclev loading made some clients think they were admin when they weren't and vice versa (thanks asu)
[dev] moved "/" command prefix to a unique place (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] synced up flag animations across outposts/ballistae/warboats/flags (thanks kos)
[modified] reworked some emotes (thanks noahthelegend, asu)
[modified] cinematic camera motion adjusted to be less shaky (thanks asu)
[modified] slightly improved next map behavior wrt camera, starts straight centered and zooms in (thanks asu)
[fixed] cinematic camera setting was not preserved on next map (thanks asu)
[added] v_camera_cinematic and setting in Misc. to permanently disable the cinematic camera if desired (thanks asu)
[added] small notice on top left that is contextually brought up to indicate cinematic camera status, and a hint to toggle it with RMB (thanks asu)
[modified] toggling the cinematic camera with RMB will only take effect after the camera "death lock" is gone to reduce accidental clciks (thanks asu)
[fixed] archer grapple going through red barrier (thanks asu)
[fixed] drill now gets team colored in the builder shop (thanks asu)
[fixed] siege arms (cata/balli/bow) attached to a vehicle would mismatch vehicle direction (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] boats are now much more robust against bombarrows: 8-9 to sink a warboat, 3-4 to sink a longboat (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] hid the respawn timer in warmup instead of having an incorrect one (thanks asu)
[fixed] TTH/CTF solo tutorials incorrectly showed map votes (thanks asu)

[modified] TDM mapcycle: added 15 (thanks noahthelegend for changes, maps from biurza, noahthelegend, ferrezinhre), see PR #1640

[updated] accolades for UKC 16-19 (thanks shamwow)