Because I’m an idiot, this blog has gone un-updated for a little too long.. Feel free to whack me over the head with your virtual baseball bats!
At any rate, I come now with a summary of what has happened since the last post (a shit ton!). Big news first then:

Viscera Cleanup Detail has hit v1.0 and is now out of Early Access! Hooray!

Head on over here to get your hands on the finest space-station janitorial simulator around!

Over the last year, we managed to finish off all the content and features we intended (mostly), added new maps, fixed a ton of things, polished up others and generally cleaned up the place! Here is a launch trailer to gaze upon:

And the cherry atop the pile of disposal bins? We even managed to craft a Halloween themed DLC, “House of Horror”; a content rich map set in a haunted suburban home.

Check out here for more info on House of Horror!

And here is also a funky trailer for you to feast your dead eyes upon:

We’re still working on a few outstanding tasks, however. These include getting a Mac build going (which it mostly does, check here), merging the spinoff titles (Santa’s Rampage and Shadow Warrior) into the main game, and hopefully I can finish off a map or two for Christmas (free updates!). They will be regular Viscera-themed however, nothing too outrageous.

Otherwise, we’re going to start figuring out what to work on next. We have a few prototypes rattling around that we’ll flesh out in greater detail in the new year I expect. We’ll also be taking our usual bit of time off over mid-December to sometime in January, but we’ll still be around to check out what’s happening/deal with stuff.

And lastly, another enormous thanks to the players and fans of VCD. Ya’ll have been amazing
For now, keep on cleaning!

We just wanted to put up a brief summary of what we plan to accomplish during the remainder of the year. We will take some time off mid December and resume work early-to-mid January, as it’s been pretty hectic since we started work on VCD. I’ve been plagued by a neck/muscle problem, and as such I haven’t been able to get much of anything done. The J-HAMR would probably have been done by now if not for that. It’s recovering though, so I’ll get done as much as I can!

So, before the end of the year we are aiming to:

-Release Rooks Keep.
-Implement Steam Workshop for Rooks Keep and Viscera Cleanup Detail.
-Implement the J-HARM tool for VCD.
-Release normal VCD updates (fixes, tweaks, features, achievements, etc)

As you can see, the Workshop support for both Rooks Keep and VCD is high priority and should be complete in a few weeks. It’s a tricky undertaking, requiring a dedicated application that needs to handle the preparation, downloading and uploading of the mods.
Rooks Keep will probably be released from Early Access very soon, and Workshop support will be ported to it as we get it working for VCD. The two should get that quite close together.

So there we go! VCD updates will continue until we break for the year, and those priority implementations and releases should all happen before then as well!

Happy janitoring/slaying!

First off, apologies about the recent slow-down in regular updates to VCD. That is mostly down to a seemingly endless stream of admin and biz work relating to us setting ourselves up as a company, accounting and so forth. This is all new to us, so we’re stumbling around figuring it all out, and it’s taken a large whack of time away from proper game development. Hoping we’re near the end of that now. The other thing that took time away was the launch of Rooks Keep. We wanted to get that out to fans as soon as we could, otherwise it might only have hit after we finished VCD. Anyway, to the matter at hand!

I wanted to let ya’ll know what we’re plotting for the full Viscera Cleanup, updates of which will occupy the space between now and then.

Major:
—–

• -Mac build [this we're busy with, and hope to get it working, but no guarantees!]
• -Mod support with Steam Workshop
• -Robot Facility [map, environment and mechanics involved]
• -A few extra, small maps
• -Improved punchout and office [more feedback and persistence]
• -Janitor and hand animations
• -Some polish and additions to existing maps
• -Bug fixes, UI alterations
• -Radio, complete with bangin’ tunes

Minor:
—–

• -Polish and extra content [effects, sounds, certain props]
• -Trading cards
• -Achievements
• -Many unseen technical things you will never notice

And that’s that in a nutshell. We’ll be updating as we go, hopefully we can get things out in smaller, quicker chunks as we work toward finishing off the game Curse all this biz work.. Curse it all!
Also of note, is that we’ll be updating the Santa’s Rampage and Shadow Warrior builds with a few fixes and technical things. Rooks Keep will also see an update to fix some issues it’s having. Those should all be this week.
We’re working on Mac and mod support right now. Mac is complicated by the fact we can’t test it, so we’ll be letting a few folk test out a private build we’ve got going on Steam. Mod/Workshop support is complicated greatly by needing a standalone tool to actually handle the organisation, cooking and uploading of the mod content itself.

Anyway! Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the the support and feedback. And remember, even if we can’t reply to everything, we do try and read it all

Long time, no speak; bad devs! Anyway, we’re pleased to report that our game before Viscera Cleanup, Rooks Keep, will hit Steam tomorrow after being Greenlit late last year. We apologize for the time it’s taken to get here, but VCD has kept us very busy, as well as more admin than the God of Officework himself!

Right, now as you may know, Rooks Keep has been released and available for the past year, so why Early Access? Well, I shall answer in handy bullet points! Lets see:

[1]: We want to test the new multiplayer functionality and such before a full launch. This is the primary reason!
[2]: To test game balance between the characters and modes.
[3]: And finally, time to work on Mac and Workshop support.

We wanted to get RK out now in some form rather than waiting until VCD was finished, as we’re not exactly sure when that will be! Important to note, is that Rooks Keep is as it was after original release; it’s finished, it works, it’s a full game. We’re choosing to go for a “soft launch” on Early Access basically as a Beta test for the Steam build. We want to make sure we have MP running well and game balance nicely done, as well as workshop support before a full launch. Prices won’t vary between the Early Access and full version; it’ll still be $15 (or regional equivalent). It won’t be on Early Access for long, we anticipate, given how no new content (probably..) will be added; it’s feature and content complete.

Also, based on feedback and demand, we’ll be seeing about our own dedicated servers for the game.

Oh, and Steam keys will be sent out to various retailers that sold Rooks Keep, so no none will be left out of the new build. Once we’re done with Early Access as well, we’ll update the builds for the retailers.

There you have it! Leave your thoughts below, and thank you!

Head over to get your hands on it RIGHT HERE!
Oh, and please consider buying direct

Also, don’t forget to give us a “Yes” on Steam Greenlight.

Rooks Keep is releasing on June 14th, 2013! Woohoo!
Also, the price is set to be $15 at launch.

Please, keep an eye on the ‘BUY’ page on the Rooks Keep site.

First things first, enjoy this pre-launch trailer:

Also, please vote for Rooks Keep on the Steam Greenlight page.

Here a a few recent-ish (April) videos of combat in action:
5 minutes of Deathmatch across two maps:

3 minutes of Deathmatch against medium bots:

And enjoy a few more screenshots:

Thank you everyone for supporting RS!

Plenty of things have been happening quietly behind the scenes since the last update, including a new trailer and a Greenlight page!

Firstly, please vote for Rooks Keep on the Steam Greenlight page. You can find all the images on there too.

I will now briefly document improvements and similar such otherworldly things. So, head deeper down to view videos, images, links and details!

Firstly, you can enjoy this glorious new trailer:

-Combat:
—–
Plenty of combat improvements since the last update:

-Weapon highlighting: Weapons are highlighted certain colors when various moves are performed, giving players a better indication of waht is happening in fights.
-Character skills: Each character gets a special attack/skill/ability.
-Blocking and parrying improvements: Blocking is now more effective against quick attacks and parrying grants a temporary attack speed bonus on following attacks.
-Better AI enemies

-Chess:
—–
A short video of Combat Chess ins action here:

Another short video of the Classic Chess victory event:

-Maps:
—–

Crimson Keep

Emberfel Abbey

-UI:
—–

A whole host of UI improvements, some of which are:

-Options Menu
-Awesome new color selector
-New Chess HUD
-Custom team manager

-Other:
—–
Gamepad support on most areas of the game now (UI, combat, Chess, etc)
Mutator support

Now enjoy some pretty pictures!

This is just a quick notification to let you know that you don’t need to be registered to comment anymore That is all.

Also, you won’t see much on Chess in this post, as I’m focusing on the more recent developments.

Well then, read on to see what’s happened over the last few months of development:

—————————————————————————-

UI
—–
We’ve added a few UI elements, notably the HUD, character selection screen, scoreboard, and even the main and mid-game menus are well along:

-Skills

-Character selection

-Scoreboard

-Menu

Characters
—–
Witness a neat display of each piece/character:
-Knights Faction

-Beasts Faction

Maps
—–
Many glorious maps have been added, primarily for the free roaming Deathmatch modes:

-Mines [Goldwind Mines]

-Barrens [TBA]

-Sands [TBA]

-Fields [Fields of Kingsbane]

-Fetid [Fetid Marsh]

-Aztec [Jade Sun]

-East [TBA]

-Green [Emerald Roost - Chess]

-DM1 [TBA]

-Dark [Darkhaven - Chess]

-Deathbowl [TBA]

Other
—–
Gore, AI and even some powerups on show here:

-AI

-Gore: Enjoy some viscera on your otherwise quiet morning

-Powerups: We currently have a damage boost (shown here), an experience pickup and a healing pickup.

==========

And finally, enjoy some miscellaneous images of Rooks Keep in action:

We hope to have some more videos and images released regularly, and then we’ll summarize them in the next update

So I’ve just  finished up a bunch of skill icons for Rooks Keep. Gaze upon them in wonderment right here:

A few things I had to remember to do with the icons:

-They had to be descriptive of their skill function
-Each one had to be colored so as to be easily discernible from the others

So at a glance you can easily tell which icon is for what skill. I reckon I got it