Pathway - turn-based strategy adventure from the developers of Halfway

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1637531887504144761

Pathway Devlog #9 - Preview Build & Discord!
25 Apr @ 12:09am - bach

The first preview build is now available on our "preview" branch and we're moving to our own Discord Server!

New Discord Server
So far our Discord community has lived under the umbrella of the Chucklefish Discord server. This has been fantastic for us, but as the community has grown we feel like it's time to start our own. This will allow us to really separate out discussions more effectively and keep track of everything. So please come join the party here on our brand new Discord server:

Robotality Discord Server Invite[discord.gg]

We won't close down the existing channel on the Chucklefish server, but the new server will become the central community point on Discord.

Preview Build
Todays preview build introduces a whole bunch of new things as well as plenty of fixes. These changes will linger on the preview version for at least a week before making their way onto the default verison.

A word of caution: The preview version will contain some cutting-edge changes and we will sometimes use it to try out radical changes to the gameplay before it appears in the default version. Therefore be ready to encounter some unexpected behaviors and problems. However, if you want to help us shape the future of the game this is really the best place to get involved! Here's how you can activate the preview version:

Navigate to Pathway in your Steam Library and right click on the game's name in the games list. From there select Properties and switch to the Betas tab. From the dropdown you should be able to select the preview version.

What's new in the Preview Build?
The big changes we've hinted at last week. For a full changelog see below.

Improved Damage Information

We've added an overhauled tooltip when hovering over enemies during an attack action. In the compact view you simply see the effective damage potential. This includes all adjustments that may occur from things like the weapon's damage type or if your character has a special bonus/penalty against an enemy type. If you press tab, you will get a more detailed breakdown of how exactly the final damage calculation came together. We hope this will help in making some of the game's more complex damage calculations clearer.

Rebalanced Loot Distribution
We've made the beginning adventures more rewarding in terms of loot drops. We want to keep the legendaries for the mid to end game, but we feel like the first two adventures could use a boost of rewarding items.

Reworked Perk Branches in Events
Generally speaking, perk branches will now give you a success in an otherwise risky situations. There are a few exceptions to this rule still (so don't rely on it). However this change significantly upgrades the value of perk choices in events.

Full Changelog for Preview Version 1.0.9:

• Added new improved Damage Information when hovering enemies (see above)
  
• Perk Branches in events have been reworked and are now in most situations a success. Some instances of uncertainty remain.
  
• Rebalanced loot drops in first 2 adventures to be more generous.
  
• Added a "Confirm End Turn" option that when enabled forces the player to confirm the end turn when there are characters with unspent action points.
  
• Added more helpful tooltips when an achievement can't be claimed.
  
• Changed the "Watch Collectors" achievement to only require 3 watches to be collected.
  
• Changed the "An Ending and a New Beginning III" achievement to only require 100 failures.
  
• We're continuing to work on fixing "out of memory" issues some people have encountered. For people who previously had issues, we'd love to hear if there are improvements in this build.
  
• Block keyboard scrolling when menu or journal is open during an encounter.
  
• Fixed some battle arenas where enemies would spawn inside walls
  
• Fixed some localization issues
  
• Fixed some events where the wrong gender was used in texts.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed people to select multiple choices during level-up. This fix will reset people's skill trees that made use of this.
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed people to produce money using the Valuables bag undo function.
  
• Fixed a bug where in some instances the Valuables bag undo button wouldn't reset properly.
  
• Fixed some Mineshaft battle arena layouts that made battles unplayable.
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies in the attack range display.
  
• 5+ kills in one shot now also count towards the 4 kills in one achievement.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused achievements to show up as claimed event though they weren't.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused lost fuel not to count towards the the "Environmental Hazard" achievement.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a character to show up at the beginning of Adventure V Sector 2 even though he's already in the player's party.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to trigger a double ambush.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to continue traveling on foot even though they had received fuel through an achievement.
  
• Added "--aggressive-gc" command line option. Using this option forces a memory garbage-collection after each event. When used, you'll likely experience a short delay each time the event window closes. While this parameter doesn't fix anything per se, it is supposed to help us narrowing down the out-of-memory crashes and performance issues.
  
• Disabled use of separate render thread on MacOS. May be related to performance issues some user reported on MacOS 10.14 Mojave.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1610511561975001948

Pathway Devlog #11 - Hitchance Previews & More
8 May @ 10:56pm - bach

This week's build brings hitchance previews, reworked events and a whole bunch of other improvements.

Hitchance Preview
Newly introduced in this update is the ability to preview hitchances before you move to a new location. If you hold down tab when hovering over a move position you'll be presented with additional information about any visible enemy. You can see their hitchance from that location and other information such as their visibility or whether they are out of weapon range.

Improved Event Distribution
This is a first step towards improving events distribution. We've fixed a couple of bugs that caused events to show up more than once in an adventure by mistake. In general events should now never repeat within one adventure. This update also slightly improves the event distribution in general. This is a first step to help reduce the repetitiveness that can occur when playing. We've got lots more planned to help with this.

Thanks for playing and we hope you enjoy these changes!

Spoiler

Full Changelog for Version 1.0.10:

• Added a new hitchance preview when moving (see above)
  
• First step towards event distribution overhaul (see above)
  
• We reworked a number of events that previously had "hidden" perk options. These invisible options were automatically activated if a character on the team had the appropriate skill. Unfortunately this also meant that a lot of players missed out on content due them not being identifiable in any way. We've changed this and the options are now explicit as part of a choice the player can make if the appropriate perk is part of the team. Practically speaking, this means that some events have received new perk options!
  
• We've reworked the structure of some events to be spread out over fewer pages, effectively reducing the amount of clicks needed. Some events had also their texts shortened where it made sense to do so in order to improve the overall flow.
  
• Added a confirmation question if the player tries to leave the loot screen without touching any of the loot. It'll also ask for confirmation if the player leaves behind an epic or legendary item.
  
• New savegame backup system: The game will now automatically create backups at relevant points. This is mainly in place so we can recover saves that may get corrupted when using the preview branch or for some other situations where a bug caused an unfair loss.
  
• Bellamy can now also be unlocked by purchasing a Disintegrator weapon
  
• Codex has been updated to include recent changes.
  
• Time elapsed formatting in adventure stats now shows as hh:mm:ss
  
• Fixed a bug that caused audio settings to not be properly preserved across game sessions.
  
• Fixed a grammar mistake in one of Veduti's character comments.
  
• Fixed a bug that made it impossible to revisit character rescue missions. They can now be revisited even if you didn't recruit the character right away or decided to not engage in combat previously.
  
• Fixed some combat arena generators causing enemies to get trapped.
  
• Fixed a country name on one of he loading screens maps
  
• Fixed a rare crash that occurred when loading the game after updating to a new version
  
• Fixed a bunch of wrong gender pronoun uses in event texts
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the camera to move outside of the map bounds
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the "The Coming War" achievement to not be attainable
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed people to purchase fuel beyond the jeep's capacity at the merchant
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the recruit icon to be invisible when on neighbouring location.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some event texts to overlap
  
• Fixed a bug that would allow you to move items into the valuables bag when recruiting people.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Sporebearers to not automatically die when the last enemy was killed with a bleed attack.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to open the codex during the enemy's turn even though the button was disabled.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1610512191394922657

Pathway Devlog #12 - Version 1.0.11 and beyond
16 May @ 1:17am - bach


Stack Splitting and AI Turn Speed-Up are in!

Before diving into the details of today's update, we'd like to mention our plans for the near future. Our weekly updates will continue with QoL features as well as the usual bug fixes. At the same time we're working on some more significant changes that we will release in a bigger update later in the summer. This update will address deeper issues we see with the game as well as bring in a bunch of new content. The Japanese and Chinese translation of the game will also be released as part of that update. We're pretty excited about the things we've got planned and we will start talking about some of the changes soon.

To clarify: This update will not be a "DLC" but instead a major free update to the base game that will include some new content and improve the existing game in various ways.

In the meantime here's what we've added in today's update:

Stack Splitting
There's now a new action when clicking on items in your inventory that will allow you to split stacks. Of course you can always combine them back together by dragging them on top of each other.

AI Turn Speed-Up
This is a nice convenience feature for the impatient During the AI turn, you'll find a new button at the bottom of the screen that lets you accelerate the AI's turn by x2 or x4. Clicking on the button will cycle through the various speeds.

Thanks again for playing and may the RNG be with you all.

Full Changelog Version 1.0.11

• Stack Splitting consumables added (see above)
  
• AI Turn Speed-Up button added (see above)
  
• We've changed the way bravery is handled outside of combat. From now on, your bravery is always fully reset after the completion of a battle. This means that you always enter the battle with the same starting point and should help in making successive battle feel less frustrating due to limiting options.
  
• Fix a bug that caused units to be revived by the Necromancer on the wrong tile.
  
• Fixes a bug that caused a crash in some instances after loading from save.
  
• Fixes a bug that sometimes made it impossible to finish Map 2 in Adventure III
  
• Fixes a bug that would sometimes cause achievement rewards to disappear if claimed during combat
  
• Fix a bug that caused evades triggered by a Sporebearer to not count towards the evades achievements
  
• Fixed a bunch of typos
  
• Fixed some UI issues on the Adventure Stats screen when playing in French
  
• Fixed a bug when swapping out a KO character at the recruiter that caused the character to stay in a wrong state on successive adventures.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused character quotes to spill out of the UI in some languages.
  
• Fixed a whole bunch of battle arena generators that could cause faulty collisions
  
• Removed a faulty tooltip when hovering enemy portraits that would mistakenly indicate "Press Tab for Move Range".

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1601508709710180780

Pathway Devlog #15 - Version 1.0.13
27 Jun @ 8:23pm - bach

Respec Skill Tree, Improved Dog Friendly mode and a new No Bloodshed mode make it into the latest build!

It's been a while since our last update, but we've got some goodies going into today's version! As mentioned in our previous devlog, our focus in general has shifted towards a bigger free update that we're releasing at the end of summer. We're making fantastic progress on this and we're putting together a blog post soon (next week) to talk about some of the things we're working on. We're still however adding new things to the game and fixing bugs. Thank you everyone for reporting issues and helping us improve the game!

So... what's new in today's build?

Respec Skill Tree

Often requested - We've added the ability respec skill trees. It currently is tied to an increasing cost and each subsequent respec is more expensive than the previous one. The current cost is balanced so that most players in the mid-to-late game won't have a problem respeccing characters a few times, but it does prevent the choices from being completely irrelevant. This behaviour may change again and we welcome feedback on this.

This respec option is only available during the team selection phase before you start on an adventure.

Improved Dog Friendly Mode

We always wanted to improve on our dog friendly mode and change some of the animations and graphics when fighting dogs. Dogs now also disappear into a parallel universe when they decide they've had enough of human silliness (as depicted above). This new improved mode also removes character prompts that are hurtful towards dogs.

As before, you can activate this in the options menu.

New No Bloodshed Mode

We understand that not everyone appreciates the bloodshed in the game. We ourselves wanted to be able to share this game with our kids and some of the depictions were just a bit too graphic for that. This mode removes all blood and gory parts in the game. Some of them get replaced and some of them are simply removed. You can see the difference in the sample above. The gameplay is in no way impacted by this.

Besides this things, there's a slew of bugfixes and improvements listed below.

We've got some extremely exciting things baking right now and we can't wait to share it with you soon. Stay tuned and thanks for playing!

Full Changelog Version 1.0.13:

• Added option to reset skill tree: It is now possible to reset the skill tree of a character during the setup phase before the adventure begins. There's a cost attached to it and every time you reset a character the cost increases exponentially. We may change/adapt how exactly all this works again in the future.
  
• No Bloodshed option: When active, the game removes or replaces blood and gore. It changes nothing in terms of gameplay, but simply removes some elements of gore.
  
• Improved Dog Friendly option: When active, the dog friendly mode now in addition to removing sfx also makes the dogs disappear rather then die. We've also disabled any character prompts that may be seen as hurtful towards dogs.
  
• Characters can now be leveled-up during the adventure setup phase: You'll now notice a little level-up indicator on characters that haven't had their level up choices picked. You may level them up by accessing the skill tree in the skills tab.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the loading screen in the final encounter in Adventure III to hang.
  
• Improved start-up loading time: Especially on older systems the initial start-up time of the game should be improved now.
  
• Damage calculation has been slightly tweaked. In most situations this won't be noticeable, but in some circumstances it can lead to a slightly increased damage.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the Damage Preview for punching to be wrong
  
• Fixed a bunch of UI issues that caused the journal to not get updated. Amongst other issues, it fixes the problem that level-up selections weren't reflected immediately on the stats and skills.
  
• Fix a bug that allowed the punch to explode barrels at a distance.
  
• Fix a bug that showed the Damage Preview for enemies out of range sometimes
  
• Fixed a crash bug that could occur in rare situations after loading from save game
  
• Ambushes are now also correctly invalidated by Grenade damage.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash due to the No Bloodshed option in some situations.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the XP indicator to still show when characters were at max level.
  
• Fixed a bug in the skill tree of Donut/Fenris.
  
• Fixed a bug in LeFantome's skill tree that caused a glitch in some situations
  
• Fixed a bug that caused infected to die twice when being killed with a bleed and triggering an explosive barrel at the same time.

 

[Saduj]

Been playing this and while I like the game, I definitely understand the mixed reviews. Combat is pretty simple but can force tough decisions on every character turn during harder encounters. Unfortunately, it takes a bit to get there. It took until the 4th campaign but I'm finally at the point where trying to flank everyone for 100% hit chance is not viable. And even after getting there, the game almost requires some level of grinding the easier campaigns before moving up in difficulty. Not that anyone is asking but this is how I would fix the game:

• Quadruple the number of combat maps (at least)
• Make the difficulty curve steeper
• Make basic consumables available for purchase at the beginning of each campaign so that grinding is not as necessary
• Make it so that the player can strike 2-3 unlocked recruits from the pool before a campaign. I like starting with 2 chosen characters and finding the other 2 randomly. Again, to make grinding less of a thing.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From their discord:

Seminus08/06/2019
we are working on the big summer update patch but as it will change quite alot in the game mechanics and will change the saves heavily we are making sure it is in a good shape before we push it to public. But not long anymore

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1598136171489159948

Pathway Devlog #16 - Summer Update Preview
3 Sep @ 9:43pm - bach

We have some exciting things to share with you today.

As previously mentioned we are working on a fairly substantial free update to Pathway that will be released later this Summer (Version 1.1). This devlog presents a handful of new things we're adding to the game. We'll reveal more details over the coming weeks.

Japanese/Chinese Localisation

We promised from the start that we'd add support for Japanese/Chinese. The 1.1 update will finally add those localisations. We had to rewrite large portions of our UI code to make this happen and that's is why it took us a bit longer than originally anticipated. The two languages are currently being tested but as you can tell from the above shots, things are nearly there!

New Combat Skills
With 1.1 we're introducing a host of new combat skills to the game. These skills will introduce many new tactical options and will be used to accentuate characters more. Let's take a look at 3 of them:

Psychic Control: Use your psychic powers to temporarily confuse an enemy causing them to attack one of their allies. It's just mean, really.

Sucker Punch: A powerful blow that will push the enemy back. If used cleverly you can push the enemy into other enemies. Wonder what happens when you push an enemy into an explosive barrel?

Healing Shot: Shoot a healing projectile at one of your allies. Restores health slowly over the next few turns.

There are a lot more skills we're working on, but this little peek should give you an indication of what to expect!

More Combat Arenas

These shots show two of a whole bunch of new combat arenas we've added to the game. These new environments are part of a bigger rework of the events in the game (We'll talk more about this in another post). Our main goal with the work here has been to add more variety to the existing roster of events. In addition to this, we've also tweaked already existing combat arenas to make them more interesting.

Enemy Indicators

This new UI feature adds small indicators at the corner of the screen giving you a way to easily identify where enemies are outside of the current camera view. Just like when in view you can see their hitchance (and more) when pressing tab. This UI addition makes certain tactical decisions a lot easier. For example if you are moving with one of your snipers you can now easily identify whether you'll be able to attack a target even if outside the current view.

Important Note: If you've made it this far, it probably means you're interested in what we're doing with Pathway and we'd love your help: We're actively testing the 1.1 release internally with a handful of testers. If you're ok with bugs, unfinished things and experimental stuff we'd love your help in getting things ready for the update. We're also looking for people who can help us with the Japanese/Chinese localisation testing. The best way to get involved is to join our discord server[discord.gg] and get in touch with one of the developers there!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1590258590945582685

Devlog #17 - Adventurers Wanted Coming October 9!

We're excited to announce that the 1.1 update to Pathway titled Adventurers Wanted is coming out October 9!

Whilst we're busy getting everything finalized we want to share some more details about the update. In our previous devlog we already talked about the new abilities, Chinese & Japanese translations and the new content. Today we want to expand on a few more changes that are part of the Adventurers Wanted Update:

Reworked Skill Trees

With the addition of the new abilities we've also reworked the skill trees of all characters. Each character now begins with an additional ability specific to them. Natalya for example begins with the "Bait" ability, whilst Brunhilda starts out with "Sucker Punch". As they level-up they can unlock two more abilities.

We feel these changes really help in making the character roster feel more varied. Each character now has their own combination of up to 3 special abilities which opens up a range of new tactical options. It gets even more interesting when trying them out in various team configurations.

New euippable item: Artifacts

With 1.1 we're introducing a new type of equippable items: Artifacts. They're unique (and very rare) items that can only be found once per profile. Artifacts can be placed in a character's off-hand equipment slot. Some of them yield stat boosts or open up event options whilst others may even unlock new abilities.

It's worth noting that Artifacts can be used by all characters and don't require a skill to use.

More Difficulty Customization Options

We've completely reworked the difficulty customization options in the game. You are now able to adjust the enemy difficulty and the size of combat groups independently.

Whilst larger combat groups do increase the difficulty slightly, it mostly presents the player with a more involved combat experience. So if you enjoy longer and more involved combat sessions crank this setting up. On the other hand if you like easy and quick combat you can lower this setting.

The difficulty slider really pushes the overall power of enemies up. In practice it means you can play the earlier adventures at the difficulty of later adventures and push the later adventures even higher. If you increase the difficulty of the adventure, you are also going to find better loot. Additionally, each difficulty level presents the adventure in a new daytime setting.

We are really excited to get this update into everyone's hands!

Oh and if you live near London come say hi to us at the EGX. We will be showing the new update between 17th and 19th of October at the Chucklefish stand! (More details and tickets here: https://www.egx.net/egx)

 

[lightbane]

It's shaping up to be an actually fun game so far, with the latest patches.

 

[Zombra]

It's shaping up to be an actually fun game so far, with the latest patches.

I'd enjoy some elaboration - I liked the look of this until early reviews panned it.

 

[lightbane]

Well, I haven't played it yet, but the latest patches show the devs are working hard to make the game more fun, such as adding unique items, customizable difficulty, new tactics and moves to use so that not every battle is the same, etc.

 

[Sloul]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1590259313195286293/

Adventurers Wanted Update Out Now!

After months of work, today is the day we're finally releasing the Adventurers Wanted Update!

This major free update includes A LOT of changes and additions. We are going to list the most important changes below, but you can read a full changelog in the forums here. If you haven't played the game in a while, this is a fantastic opportunity to give it another go. We'd love to hear what you think!

New Abilities
There is a total of 18 new combat abilities in the game. These abilities add many new ways to interact with enemies and allies in combat. For a full list of abilities please see this forum post.
Reworked Skill Trees
Every character has received a new skill tree. You'll notice that each character now lists an ability at level 1. This is the character's starting ability. You will also be able to unlock up to 2 more abilities for each character. These reworked skill trees really help in underlining each character's uniqueness.
New and reworked events
We have added a sizeable amount of new events to the update. There are many new combat arenas (ex. airfield, farms, etc.) providing lots of new combat variety. In addition to this, we've also added dozens of adventure specific events providing flavour that is unique to each adventure. We've also reworked many existing events to provide more interesting choices, rewards and serious consequences.
New Consumables System
Instead of stacking up consumable items like medkits, repairkits or grenades you now collect a new resource called Supplies. When you use a consumable, one supply resource is consumed. Just like other resources such as fuel and ammo you begin each adventure with a starting amount. Supplies can be found as loot or bought from merchants. You still need a medkit item equipped in order to heal your team however!
New Combat Modes
Advantage, Blindsided and Tumult. Each combat mode tweaks how the combat begins. In Blindsided for example, the enemy surprised you. Your squad begins the combat with a panic penalty which only permits one action in the first turn.
Game Rebalanced
We've made tweaks to all enemies, characters and items. The money economy has also been improved. In general the game should feel much more balanced now. We've also added more ways to customize difficulty such as the option to make combat groups larger or smaller.
New Armor system
Armors now work as a direct damage reduction. If you have an armor with 10 AR, you will receive -10 reduction to your incoming damage. As a consequence you will almost always receive a bit of damage to your health. Armor generally receives damage with every hit. How much damage an armor receives is determined by the weapon's "Armor Shredding".
New Item System
The general item system has received an overhaul. Items now follow a level progression. Each higher level being stronger than the previous one. Within each level you may find rare, epic or even legendary variations which will yield additional boosts and benefits. The main reason for this change is to allow a more even progression through the game without having to rely on legendary items. Rare, epic and legendary items still give significant improvements, but are no longer required to finish the game. This removes a lot of the previous RNG-based grinding.
Artifacts
Unique (and very rare) items that can only be found once per profile. Artifacts can be placed in a character's off-hand equipment slot. Some of them yield stat boosts or open up event options whilst others may even unlock new abilities. It's worth noting that Artifacts can be used by all characters and don't require a skill to use.
New Languages
Chinese and Japanese translations are now part of the game in addition to the already existing translations in German and French.

Important Note: Due to the significant changes made to characters, this update will reset your character's skill tree. You won't lose your progress, but you get a free reskill. You may also notice that some items have changed. This is also due to some significant changes in the underlying items system. You may prefer to create a new profile and experience all these changes with a fresh start!

We really hope you'll enjoy this update! Thank you for all your support and messages throughout the last few months, it's been an incredible journey ♥

 

[Zombra]

So is it worth playing yet? Or was everyone here who bought it too soured to ever try it again?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1602646116116030157

Version 1.1.3 released

A smaller maintenance update that includes a handful of bug fixes and some minor improvements to UI!

And also a HUGE thank you to everyone who's been playing and leaving reviews in the last little while. We're really happy to see people enjoying the 1.1 changes

Changelog Version 1.1.3:

• Added tooltip for burst fire to indicate it can be rotated
  
• Added an alternative way to rotate burst fire (Q/E)
  
• Added weapon type descriptor in the weapon tooltip window for better clarity.
  
• Added a new pixel zoom-option to the settings.json allowing users to set a custom zoom if the default is causing problems.
  
• Fixed a bunch of localization errors and typos
  
• Fixed a rare crash when moving the enemy group size slider all the way down.
  
• Fixed a rare enemy spawn issues that caused enemies to be spawned inside walls
  
• Fixed a rare crash that sometimes happened when switching between the Pathway window and other windows.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[mastroego]

I now know all there is to know about that "story".
Thanks Germany, that was helpful!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I now know all there is to know about that "story".
Thanks Germany, that was helpful!

It's Indiana Jones pulp with rayguns, zombies, Jeeps during 30's, powers that mankind should leave alone and military deployments that OKW could only dream about with lovingly drawn Pz 2s and 3s on levels that sadly gets only used as props.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/546430/announcements/detail/1697226147905881587

German Developer Awards and a first look at Hardcore Mode!

It's been an exciting couple of weeks for us and Pathway!

Last week we were completely surprised to win an award at the German Developer Awards. Pathway took home an award for Best Story. We're incredibly honored to have received this! You can see all the winners and find some more details here (in German).

(photo by EDITORIAL247.COM)

We've also been busy preparing a nice little update for Pathway. We're currently doing some internal testing and are hoping to release the update early next year. Besides the usual bugfixes and quality of life improvements we have the following things coming up:

Hardcore Mode

When creating a new profile, you will be given the option to create a Hardcore Profile. A Hardcore profile changes some of the fundamental rules of the game around.
Adventures play out one after the other in a linear sequence and everything carries over from the previous map. In practice this means you pick a team once at the beginning and you have to survive with what you find on your travels. However, all characters are unlocked from the start, so you can build any team configuration you like.
Hardcore mode also enables permadeath for your party. Once a character dies, they're gone for good. Should you fail on your adventure, the profile is locked.

This mode is hard. It'll really allow people who like a serious challenge to experience Pathway in a fresh way. We're pretty excited to hear about your experiences with this!

New Weapons/Items

The update will also introduce a bunch of new weapons and items. They fall into line with the existing categories but will provide more variety at the pointy end of the game!

A big thank you from all of us at Robotality for an incredible year. We're really happy that many of you have been enjoying our little game! Stay tuned and see you in the New Year!

 

[Perkel]

It will be free on Epic next week.
First time i heard of it. Looks great to me.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This Tweet is unavailable.

Anyone got any idea what that was?

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Game is free on Epic this week.

 

[Beowulf]

So I picked it up from Epic and gave it a whirl.

Depending on what you expect it is not that bad. Just don't expect a tactical squad game.
The setting is this Indiana Jones with Nazis and sci-fi pulp shit, but they don't go overboard with it, and the presentation is indeed charming. The backgrounds are nice and they managed to implement very atmospheric lighting effects, I just wish they used more and to better effect.
But on the other hand the graphics make the encounter maps hard to read. Good thing the combat is so simplistic and easy affair that it doesn't frustrate that much.
There is no interaction between the characters whatsoever and their levelling and gaining new skills is very basic as well.

The exploration part is not that bad, with nice small stories in events. But the combat is bland, repetitive and quickly gets boring. The enemy AI is poor, and the encounter generation needs some serious balancing and tuning. E.g. - my party has been ambushed multiple times, but only once it actually put me at a disadvantage, and more often than not I managed to wipe half of the ambushing force before they could even move.


Due to it's "rougelike" nature and short encounters, the game might be a good simple distraction when you are doing something else in the background (I was waiting for FoG 2 turns in the meantime, so I had this game running all the time and playing it during brakes between turns).
There just isn't that much to it. The encounters are small, the enemies very limited in variety and harder enemies are just "Nazi Trooper III" with more hitpoints, the story is very basic.

It's just a simple game, that doesn't demand much from the player.

 

[Zombra]

I also played this for a bit and agree with Beowulf's analysis.

Game is good enough but after an hour or two, I don't see the "hook" that would really make me want to play more. Everything is serviceable and there ... and without thrill.

 

[vota DC]

I expected fighting tanks since I have sci fi guns. Instead there are just shock troopers and tesla Borg.
Armored soldiers usually have low range, you can lower their armor with sniper gun, the knife Will often one hit them.

There are also cultists that are totally different from nazi.

Problem Is that you have only five missions! First One Is very short, the second one is the longest with three locations.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/546430/view/3122658555354303437

2 Years of Pathway & An Update Announcement!

Just a little over two years ago the first version of Pathway came out, and it's been a wild journey since then! We've pushed out over 50 updates since the initial release, and thanks to everyone in our amazing community we now have a game that is far better than what we started out with. Your feedback has been a tremendous help in shaping the game. So thank you everyone for your amazing support throughout the last 2 years!

We wanted to take this moment to highlight two community efforts that we think everyone should know about and a little something from us ...

Spoiler

Warpath Mod (by Petru)
The Warpath mod is to our knowledge the first (and only?) mod Pathway has received. Whilst we're not officially supporting mods through Steam, quite a lot of elements in the game can be tweaked and distributed to other players. Petru is a pillar of our community and he's created a complete rebalancing of the original game. Here's a look at the changes:

We think it's amazing what Petru has done! If you want a new/fresh experience check out the instructions on how to install the mod over on nexusmods: Warpath on Nexusmods

There's also a post in the forums if you want to get involved: Warpath Steam Forum Thread

Community Italian Translation (by Darth Vader, Metallo, PiuMeglio)

Darth Vader has been spearheading a community effort to translate the game to Italian. They've just recently reached a huge milestone of translating the entire game. Darth Vader has created a post in the forums and anyone interested in testing this out should head over there for instructions: Lingua Italiana / Italian Language

But wait .. there's one more thing
Today we can finally announce that Pathway is getting
controller support
! It's taken us a while to get here, for reasons we can't talk about (yet

). As of today, the controller version is available on the preview branch (for instructions how to access the preview version here).
Keep in mind, this is a preview release, and with that you can expect some bugs. But if you're ok with a few rough edges, we'd love your help in testing this build before we release it to everyone else! This build also includes a few other UI tweaks and fixes.

Note: The macOS version is currently not supported on the preview branch. We will release an updated version asap.

Here's the full changelog:

• Controller Support: Finally! This version adds "beta" controller support to Pathway. After launching the game, go to options->controls and change the controls mode to turn on controllers. At the moment only Xbox (compatible) Controllers are fully supported. It may work with other controllers if you remap some of the buttons yourself with a third-party tool. We'll work towards fixing this up before we push it onto the main release branch.
  
• Overhauled load out screen: The load out screen has received an overhaul. Both the character selection and the equipment phase are now combined into one. You can toggle between the jeep storage and the character info.
  
• A few additional UI tweaks: Some fatter borders around buttons and some additional feedback in some places. A few actions have better target indication now.
  
• Added some missing translations
  
• Added some new glyphs to the fonts (Spanish)
  
• Some memory and performance improvements/tweaks
  
• Fixed loot drops in Adventure 4 final fight
  
• Fixed Bastet's Amulet missing from Artefact drops
  
• Fixed some potential map blockers in bunker maps
  
• Lots of smaller fixes we're forgetting