GUARDS! News

Greetings GUARDS!,

First of all, the GUARDS! team want to thank you all for the overwhelming support and interest the game received during Nextfest. We didn't really know what to expect and the reception has been incredible!

Game development is kind of weird. Often you are making decisions in a vacuum, using your experience and gut instinct as a player to guide you through. During development features are missing or half implemented and it can cloud your judgment. You start to wonder "Is this game actually any good?" or "Do people really *want* to play as a Guard?".

So for us, Steam Nextfest was a massive validation that actually, yeah - people do want to play this! And what better way to celebrate than via the medium of stats!

Here is an infographic we put together to highlight our performance during the event:



But it wasn't all stats. We also received hundreds of valuable pieces of feedback from players about the game. The 2 most common (by an overwhelming margin) being:

1) No option to disable headbob

2) No option to disable motion blur

3) No option to rebind keys

We're happy to report that those items have been addressed and will be the first options you see when you boot the full game.



In addition to these main offenders, there were also plenty of other gameplay feedback, suggestions and bug reports. Since we're such a small team, this community support is incredibly valuable for identifying areas of improvement and helps us make the game as good as it can be!

If you ever want to chat to us about the game, you can contact us on the discussion forum or over on our discord.

Thanks again for all your support - we appreciate it!

- The GUARDS! Team -

Greetings GUARDS!

Mark your calendars, because this weekend you can join Officers Grif, Brad, Jolly and Jeroen on a ride along as they work the beat in the Lower City Slums.

You can watch them in action at the following times:

Sunday February 11th @ 11AM PDT / 8PM CDT

If you enjoy watching their particular brand of justice, be sure to follow their antics over on Twitch at:

• https://www.twitch.tv/grifcato
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/jollyghost
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/sr_bradmeister
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/jeroenismyname
  

See you there!

- The GUARDS! Team -

Greetings GUARDS!

Mark your calendars, because this weekend you can join Officers Deputy7, Krazykowboi, AlphaofCorgis and Epockreaver13 on a ride along as they work the beat in the Lower City Slums.

You can watch them in action at the following times:

Sunday February 11th @ 11AM PDT / 8PM CDT

If you enjoy watching their particular brand of justice, be sure to follow their antics over on Twitch at:

• https://www.twitch.tv/deputy7
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/krazykowboi
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/epockreaver13
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/alphaofcorgis
  

See you there!

- The GUARDS! Team -

Greetings GUARDS!

It's time for the annual city watch recruitment drive, and what better location that this years Steam Nextfest!

For the last few months we have been able to fine tune and hone our demo in anticipation of this event, and a large part of that is as a result of your contributions! We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped us so far, whether that's from playtesting, leaving bug reports or just chatting about the game and giving feedback in our discord channel.

So what have we been up to since the last update!


Personal Weapons
Guards will now be able to store the weapons they have bought (or "found" in the field) in their own personal weapon wall that can be located in their quarters. Simply walk up to the wall and interact with it to store a currently equipped weapon or take one out.

We heard that you were having difficulty locating dropped weapons in the midst of battle, so we also added a magical glow to previously held weapons to make them easier to spot!






Human Gang
A new menace has surfaced on the streets of New Alestead! Not much is known about this human gang other than they love gold and have a per-disposition to halberds and hats. Intelligence reports indicate that they have ousted the goblins and have moved into the lower city district, perhaps taking over the street level MIFF trade from the green skins ...






Voice Chat
The streets of New Alestead can be pretty unforgiving at the best of times, and even more so for newly formed teams that might not have their own way to communicate. To combat this, the gnomes over in the RnD department have put together some communication devices that will let you talk to you partners in real time. Just Press "C" on the keyboard.

However, this technology is designed for close quarters, so stick together. Over.






Stat Tracking
We wouldn't be a proper police force if we didn't have quotas to fill. The commissioner has "kindly" gone to the trouble of listing, in exhaustive details the information he wants out of us. Thankfully, the data from your missions will be automagically updated on the stats board in the hallway, so we can focus on fighting crime instead of pushing pencils back at the precinct.





New Turf
The scout department has been scouring the streets of New Alestead and uncovered new areas for you to patrol. Some of which can get particularly moody.





The Guards Team would just like this opportunity to thank you again for all your support over the last year, and we are excited to see all the new feedback and activity coming out of next fest.

BEANS!



FULL PATCH NOTES FOLLOW:

----
Changelist February 2024

New Features
[+] Weapon Wall
[+] Global Player Stats board
[+] Human Faction
[+] Halberd Enemy
[+] Tripwire crossbow to weapon crates
[+] Basic voice chat
[+] New Terminal Rooms and other Modules
[+] Mission Target Banner on APC
[+] Police Tape delivery area outside APC
[+] Pickup beam to items you drop (visibility)
[+] Effects and animations to narcotics crate (visibility)
[+] Combat subtitles and setting toggle

Alterations
[~] More Localization
[~] Enemy pooling (CPU performance optimisation over time)
[~] Edit Default Audio Volumes (reduce music)
[~] Full attack combo enemy (chief and pikeman)
[~] Project wide texture optimisation
[~] Project wide performance (tick) optimisation

Bug Fixes
[-] Fixed Gaps in dungeon generator
[-] Fix some ragdoll issues
[-] Fix issue with VO not always playing
[-] Fix HUB Item Barrier Glitch / Exploit
[-] Flickering Post Process on Damage
[-] Stubble doesn't match skin color changes
[-] Fix Kick Punch Combo issue
[-] Fix Cosmetics camera getting stuck in walls
[-] Fix issue where anarchy was not applied when quitting a mission

Greetings Guards!

The gnomes over at the GUARDS! Gadget Guild [G3] have been hard at work creating new tools to be used in the endless war on crime. You will now have access to the following equipment:

• Nailbomb
  
• Fire Whiskey
  
• Push Daggers
  
• Knuckle Dusters
  
• Fire Bombs
  
• Frying Pan
  

We have also updated the store in GUARDS HQ with a wide variety of snazzy new uniform colors and shields. So now you can thwart crime and look fantastic doing it!


FULL PATCH NOTES FOLLOW:
----
Changelist January 2024


New Features
[+] Added Nailbomb, Fire Whiskey, Push Daggers, Knuckle Dusters and Fire Bombs to crates
[+] Add frying pan
[+] 2000g coins earnt from completing a district
[+] Host Can Kick Players
[+] Player Count Balancing of Objective and Enemy Counts
[+] Add Weapon Shop to APC spawn room during a mission
[+] Enemies are now stunned by flying ragdoll enemies after being kicked
[+] Enemies break props when kicked and ragdolled into them
[+] Dynamic Weather and Time of Day
[+] Shields can now be bought at the Armory
[+] Added an 'end of round slomo' camera that focuses on the loss or win event
[+] Added seating and enterable APC
[+] Added Quest area with Fire Pit (for main game)
[+] Setup Skeleton Faction with Necromancer (spoilers!)
[+] Items are now unlocked via district reached (new items added)
[+] Add a 'stuck' button in the escape menu

Alterations
[~] Extraction now requires all living players in the area
[~] One Hostage will always reside in the final room of a mission
[~] Enemies will repopulate after reaching the final room of a mission, or a the mid point during a mission, whichever comes first
[~] Nametags are now red when the player is downed
[~] Improved pickup highlight and outlines
[~] Mission timer increased to 10 minutes (from 6 minutes)
[~] Training Room Weapons can no longer be taken on missions
[~] Increase night brightness
[~] Heavy weapons can no longer be dropped by Chieftains until KO
[~] Add a Delay and animation of arms raised to the brick thrower (balance, telegraph)
[~] AI can now move through kneeling AI (reduce getting stuck)
[~] Armor and weapon cost iterations and Weapon UI for lethality and damage
[~] Loss screen improved background image
[~] Miff crate thrower now throws a Miff vial at you, less confusing during Miff Evidence collect missions

Bug Fixes
[-] Fixed some sessions continue to run after error
[-] Miff poison throwers never appear
[-] Red barrels would stun instead of kill
[-] Expired missions which would fail the case fail would not reset the case progress
[-] Gamepad losing focus in AAR, Main Menu, Settings, Server Browser and other screens
[-] KO or Dead characters holding crates would fly gracefully into the sky
[-] Crossbow kills let you escape the map
[-] There was no Kill volume when falling out of the map
[-] Players frequently revive inside walls
[-] Spectate Camera UI was missing
[-] KO stars don't stop after arrest / revive
[-] The food eating sound cue was audible regardless of distance to the source
[-] Coin sounds happen twice on pickup
[-] Fix missing Game UI after entering a mission