Killsquad News

Hello everyone!


We are in Cologne in full force showing Killsquad to all our German fans. If you are in town, make sure to come by and say hi! We are in Hall 10.1, Booth D050.



Our main reveal of the show is the Colosseum of the Unseen. This area will drop in our first major update soon, but we wanted to share with you a glimpse here (click to open on Youtube):



Here's the Codex entry for the Unseen:

"The universe is a stormy sea raging with factions and warfare. But among the storm, there is light and there is shadow.

You have experienced shadow, which comes in the form of Plague, the unspeakable disease that's spreading across the galaxy, destroying lifeforms and threatening the Federation.

You have faced its minions, the Nightbringers, and seen what they are capable of.

But light breaks through shadow like a knife. And, in the Killsquad universe, that knife is the light of the Unseen.

In the old days, the Unseen were counted by the thousands, a race of warriors revered throughout the galaxy.

They taught people how to fight. How to fend off Plague. How to survive. Temples and colosseums were erected in their name.

In recent times, their numbers have drastically decreased, and the Unseen can now be counted with your fingers. Plague is spreading. The only hope is for the Unseen to train new heroes, and fend off Plague once and for all.

So, in your adventures across the Killsquad lands, if you ever see a Portal... that's them. The Unseen, choosing you. As a member of Killsquad, your highest honor is to be invited to enter the Colosseum of the Unseen, to receive the ultimate training.

This is not for the faint of heart: if you're going to become a Champion of the Unseen, you better come geared up and ready for battle with everything you've got. The Unseen have no time for the weak or the weary.

They will summon the hardest adversaries in the galaxy to put your skill to the test.

Bow in defeat, and join thousands who came and failed before you.

Achieve victory in the Colosseum, and be granted rewards beyond your imagination."




A lot of you are asking us on Steam, on emails and on Discord: what are you guys preparing? What comes next for Killsquad? So, we wanted to give you a sneak peek under the hood. Expect more like these soon, as we get our stride and begin rolling out our main content updates. Of course, keep in mind all of this is work on progress, so things might and will change and evolve. All this will come as part of our roadmap of free updates during 2019:

We are working on the Federation, with the idea of expanding it into a full blown faction. More on this on our September update, but here you can see some artwork which should give you a hint of where things are going:





We are also working on new characters that will expand the lore and the gameplay of the Killsquad universe. Here's a new unit we are working on, more on him later this year:





Last, we are working a lot on Game Progression. The basic idea is to have our standard in-contract evolution, combined with a permanent "hero career" path, so you can invest hours and months into your heroes, and see them evolve and grow with you. More on this later, on our September update.



Aside from expanding the universe and gameplay, we are hard at work on more practical issues that we hope will have a huge impact on the enjoyment of the game. Here is a list of what we are actively pursuing:

• Steamcloud, cloud saves, support for multiple computers, cyber cafes, etc. We are making progress, but work still remains. So far, we have:
  
  • Fixed a number of issues, reducing the amount of problems related to this
    
  • Published a comprehensive guide to alleviate the inconvenience while we find more permanent solutions. Please find it here
  • If you're a player using multiple computers, we are interested in knowing if the latest builds work better, as we have made changes to the way we use Steamcloud to increase security.
    
• QuickPlay: we are working on a solution to the "there's people on the servers, but matchmaking doesn't pair me and I end up playing on my own" problem. We will implement a "Play Now" option, so you can jump into a game right away, and always find people to play with.
  
• Higher bandwidth: We had to slow down progress a bit during August due to the holiday season. We're happy to announce we've back full steam, with 2 additional hires (bringing the code team at Killsquad to 7 coders). You won't notice this now, but we hope this will accelerate efforts September onwards on new game features.
  
  

Last, but not least, for our friends in the USA, we will be at PAX next week in Seattle. We hope to meet more of you guys there.




If you love Killsquad, tell your friends about it, and please do write a review! Did you know research shows people with negative opinions are more likely to express them than people with positive ones? The same applies to game reviews! Don't let anger and negatiity win: if you like Killsquad, please spend 1 minute writing about it. That's the biggest favour we can ask.


Last, but not least, if you experience bugs...

• We're very sorry about that. Killsquad is an evolving game in Early Access and we're improving things constantly. We've fixed dozens of issues. And more will come.
  
• Please tell us at [email protected] or on the Steam discussion board so we can make it better!
  

Hello all! We hope you're having a great August, and that Killsquad helps make it even better. This is a minor update focusing mostly in our Summer Event, but we're happy we found time to fix some community requests as well, so we hope you like it. Here are our notes:

• Added a new unlockable skin for Zero as part of our Summer Event. If you already bought Cass' skin, now you can invest tokens on this one. If you haven't found Cass, well, now you can choose between two exclusive Early Access only skins! Play hard, play fast, as next week, there's another one coming!
  
• Contracts with events to gain Tokens now appear in blue in the menu. This is an answer to a community request to make finding the tokens more straightforward.
  
• Fixed a couple of assets blocking the view of players in The Palace of Pain, which was reported by the community as making the gameplay uncomfortable there.
  
• There's been strong debate wtith the community about rebalancing Kosmo. We will do several changes, but on today's build we're starting with his over-shield. From now on, Kosmo's over-shield will only recharge with its own abilities (before you could use items, gears, etc.).
  
• Changed the location of Tokens, so our summer event is different from last week.
  
• Another community request is, we wanted to increase the rate of tokens so the contest is easier and y'all have an easier time getting those skins. Now there is a chance to get one Token in hidden chests scattered around in every contract you play.
  

• Fixed crash when using Cass shuriken with the upgrade "In and Out" (Thanks a lot Manuel).
  
• Fixed crash when using Cosmo's ultimate when fighting Queen Moggoth (Thanks Zack!).
  

• We are working on our first major update, Unseen. All we can say is, we're making progress as intended, it's looking good.
  
• We have people working on studying Steam Cloud's issue and people losing their saved files when playing across more than 1 computer. We are extremely sorry this is happening, and we hope to have a fix soon.
  
• Fixing some visual issues and collisions on The Palace of Pain, similar to the ones fixed this week.
  
• Part of our team is on Summer vacations, so we will be more active again on the next month!
  
• Last, but not least, we're preparing for the Summer events. Killsquad will be at Gamescom, and at PAX West. We're super happy as PAX was just confirmed yesterday and we can't wait to meet you guys in person, for those who are in Germany or around the Seattle area. We'll be posting booth numbers and activities on a separate post soon.
  

• Go play! It's a sunny day outside in Kemmekh. The bugs are out. Who's gonna crush them?
  
• We're doing or best to communicate more and more on Steam's discussion forums. Of course, we have less time that we'd like, as we need to work on the game. But do come, speak to us, give us feedback and request features. As the list above proves, we are listening and we're here to make the best possible game.
  
• Write a review! Write a tweet! Do a youtube clip! Large publishers have armies of marketers and budgets to fill entire city blocks. We have you guys.
  

Last, but not least, big shout-out to the Beta guys (we shall summon you soon to test Unseen), and everyone sending bugs and words of encouragement.

Hello there!

We have just dropped 0.6.4.2, if you own the game, the update should be happening automatically as you read these lines. As we promised, we set our Private Beta group in motion, who have been helping out wiping bugs out. So first of all, thank you very deeply to those who joined and reported bugs!

Now, drum roll please, enter 0.6.4.2!!!



Every week, we will hide Tokens in some contracts. Collect them to unlock Early Access exclusive content!

• Added Early Access Event Tokens.
  
• Some contracts have hidden Tokens, after completing them you will earn Token(s) to later exchange them for exclusive content.
  
• Harder contracts rewards you with more Tokens.
  
• Added an Exclusive Early Access skin for Cass.
  

• Added a Pop-up at the start of the game.
  
• Added Japanese language.
  
• Added Korean language.
  
• Added the Chinese logo of Killsquad.
  
• Added vector numbers on character's profile pictures on their selection menu.
  
• Added anti-cheat measures to avoid potential cheating programs.
  

• Fixed localization files of Spanish.
  
• Fixed losing your saved progress on power outage or forced shutdowns.
  
• Fixed random crashes due to the game trying to recalculate the path of the enemies (Thank you Rasmus!).
  
• The Abomination's spiders now disappears if they are thrown outside the floor.
  
• Fixed Cass's shuriken teleporting her out of bounds of levels where the navmesh is not correct and could have reach currently inaccessible areas (such as exiting boss areas).
  
• Fixed Cass's unlimited doge after her Ultimate could be spammed forever, since dodging reseted the cooldown.
  
• Fixed the situation where after beating a contract with the controller, you couldn't select a new contract with the mouse.
  
• Fixed most places on Planet Wasteland 7A where the players could fall through the map.
  
• Fixed weapon vectors surpassing the maximum vector from mission chests.
  
• Fixed the invisible chat window blocking mouse input in the menu inventory.
  
• Fixed huge fps drops when the Federation Force appears.
  
• Fixed huge fps drops when Kosmo uses his MADHOUSE's cage to spawn an area to block enemies.
  
• Fixed the bug where Kosmo's Mjolnir could hurt other players with its sparks.
  
• Fixed the bug where players equipped with Katoptr-23 (Prototype Gear) could reflect each other's Mjolnir's sparks.
  
• Fixed huge fps drops when chests appear after killing special enemies such as Alpha bosses, the Federation Force and the Nightbringer.
  
• Fixed Nightbringer's Claws not spawning from some chests and made the percentage drop rate higher on harder difficulties.
  
• Fixed the Weapon's Upgrade, LifeStealChance's description, to correct the displayed percentage.
  
• Fixed some instanced abilities, UNBEATABLE upgrade and LIFESUCKER.
  
• Fixed turrets being able to spawn underneath enemies to stuck them (Thanks Lunia!).
  
• Fixed Weapons of the Plague hurting players (clients) until they die.
  
• Fixed player's damage resetting to level 1 after they are resurrected.
  

That's it for today. Go play! There's a universe out there waiting for you to save it! Have a great weekend everyone.

Hello all,

We've been silent for a few days, for reasons that will become apparent shortly.

Basically, we're attacking the core of a few nasty bugs that have been reported by the community. That includes:

- Corrupted save game
- Zero Frames Per Second bug that happens when certain monsters appear
- Anti cheating measures

To make a long story short, we are reviewing all our infrastructure to accomodate the more than 65.000 players of Killsquad.

The problem is, these are quite fundamental changes and take a lot of testing to make sure all cases are covered. Some of you may be aware, some not, but we had to roll-back a build last Friday as a bug slipped through. And we DO have testers in house, but it's impossible to test all conditions on a live, online centric game: there's just too many combinations that can happen on a live session.

Which brings us to the second part of the update: we are thinking about doing a Private Beta system to speed testing and ensure bugs are eliminated. Here's how the system will work:

- We will allow people to sign up for Betas. Read and, if you think this is for you, contact us.
- These must be people who do play the game a lot, so they can be good candidates to spot issues quickly.
- They must be able to write in English.
- Private Beta users must be aware they will get builds that may have bugs in them. Nothing major: we won't set your house on fire. But assume you could experience crashes, corrupted save games, and general bugs.
- Then, whenever we have a build that has gone through our internal QA, we'll ship it to the Private Beta group for a few days.
- We'll set up a communication system to receive bugs from these Private Beta users, so testing is faster as there's more eyes on the game
- Then, once the Beta clears, we push it to the public right away.

So, do you love Killsquad? Would you like to see the latest, assuming it can be untested? If so, can you send us an email to [email protected] right away? Please put "Beta" as the subject. All we need to know is your territory, as we'd like to have people from different languages/time zones to maximize the opportunity. We may also ask you for hardware details as we have issues that affect specific types of machines (ultrawide monitors come to mind for example)

Thanks guys!

This is one of those posts a lot of developers dream of writing some day. It's my privilege to do it on behalf of Novarama, so here we go:



Killsquad has been the #1 Worldwide Best Selling game on Steam for a good chunk of last week, and continues to sell really well. It's outperforming our expectations, and building a community we could only dream of.

So, in no particular order:

To the developers of Killsquad, who worked tirelessly out of sheer faith and work ethic on a really hard proposition: to do a brand new IP from scratch. The fame is all yours now. You deserve it.

To everyone at Novarama, who helped the Killsquad team succeed. It's not only about what you do. It's about what you do to help others achieve a goal. That's the true measure of generosity.

Here's to the wives, husbands, kids, dogs, cats, boyfriends and girlfriends. You gave us your loved ones for a good 2 years. We hope they come back home after the battle proud, scarred, but saying "Yes, but I did Killsquad".

To the Government of the Autonomy of Catalonia, who believed in us, helped us financially to realize our vision. We hope our success brings jobs, and a clear roadmap for young kids out there: do game companies. It can be done.

I want to thank you Indiecade and our friend Caspar Gray. Without these two, no E3 booth for Killsquad. No E3: no visibility. No visibility: no game.

Everyone who came to the E3 booth: you rock. Amanda and Victor from Epic. Alexander from COG Connected. Erick from Subnation. The folks from NVIDIA. Nick from Microsoft. The folks from RPGFan. You were the first ones who saw the game, and made us believe it could be a hit.

A huge thank you goes to our PR firm, PlanofAttack: Chris, Aidan, Audra. I remember having a Baileys with Chris at GDC 2 years ago, and saying "we'll do this game and set the world on fire". Well, look at us now. If you need PR, hire them. Stellar.

Speaking of which, none of this would have happened without Vaiva Viktute, our Campaign Manager. We're now erecting a statue of you in our offices. On a horse. Leading the charge.

We move East now, to the folks at Original Force 3D in Nanjing, China. Shirley Tang, our producer there. You deserve everything. Like those weapons? Those enemies? Those props? Well, Original Force did them.

To my ex-bosses at Sony: Pete Smith, John McLaughlin, Mitsuo Hirakawa, Shuhei Yoshida. We learned how to do games by watching you.

To everyone at Epic: Mario, Sjoerg, Michael. Game looks great, right? Maybe these guys know why ;-)

To Matt at Valve Software. It's got to feel weird to see a developer come all the way from Barcelona to Seattle and say "we're gonna do a killer game". But you believed in us.

To Saul Gascon & everyone at Starbreeze. Your contribution may be invisible. But extremely important.

To Patrick Seibert, Steam wizard extraordinaire. Your insights paved the way to a successful campaign.

Thanks to Jon Labrie. Boo Kim. Dakota Grabowski. Tina Kowalewski. Peter Lee. Raul Aguaviva. And many more who offered us helping hand, guiding conversation, feedback or just a "hey, it's looking good" when we needed it the most.

To the streamers. Especially, to the original bunch, who began streaming when no-one knew us. Vulkan. Splattercat. VicioOMT. Toney Mo. It's easy to stream Fortnite: everybody will like it. But streaming a brand new game, reporting bugs back to us? That's class.

To all the fans. It's impossible to put down in words how it feels when someone enjoys something you created. Impossible. On Discord, on the games we play daily with y'all. On Twitter. You've been extremely supportive, surprisingly polite, unbelievably patient. Now, if we can get y'all to cheat a bit less, we'll be in a great spot!!!!! ;-)

I could carry on forever. I'm surely missing people, so apologies to everyone involved. Paraphrasing Bilbo, I'll say I've thanked only one fourth of those who deserve it. And I'd like to thank each one of you four times more than I'm thanking you already.

Now the pressure is back to us. Killsquad is going to grow in the next weeks and months. Think about this: when you guys weren't there, look at what we did. We now feel your passion. That's the fuel we need to reach even higher.

Labor omnia vincit

Novarama

P.S: join us to keep the conversation going.

We're live on Discord at: discord.gg/rddgwum
Follow us on Twitter at: @killsquadgame