This October will mark our 5-year anniversary of the full release of Abandon Ship, and you'll know from our other anniversaries we like to give away free updates that coincide with them, so we're planning on doing something similar later this year.
Recently we've been busy on our new game, which releases today. You may recall in our last free update one of the new ships was themed around this new game:
We thought that if Abandon Ship was giving a shared-world nod to SENTRY, then it was only fair that SENTRY returned the favour, so we hid a piece of Cult-themed graffiti in one of the levels:
A bit of fun? Or a hint towards the MCU-equivalent for Fireblade Software?
Anyway, do check out SENTRY if defending spaceships is your sort of thing.
Oh and we've heavily discounted Abandon Ship - I like the idea that when we launch a new game, we also have a sale on our previous games as a sort of studio celebration. Since we're only 2 games in to our journey, consider this the start of a tradition :)
Thanks for all the support, and we'll see you in the Autumn...
The Abandon Ship Crew
Pirates versus Ninjas!
Ahoy there Captain, you should be sure to check out all of the excellent games in the fest that Valve are currently running: Pirates versus Ninjas!
What's more, you can grab Abandon Ship for 70% off - show them ninjas who's boss!
WDC World Oceans Day Charity Sale
We are excited to announce that we are once again supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Oceans Day!
The WDC World Oceans Day Sale is already live and runs until 15th June, 10am PDT 2023, and you can save a fin-tastic (groan) amount of money on loads of awesome games. We will also donate some of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.
WDC, Whale and Dolphin conservation (UK registered charity no. 1014705) is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins.
Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by:
Stopping cruelty from deliberate harms such as whaling and captivity.
Creating safe seas, free from the threat of pollution, collisions with vessels and accidental entanglement in fishing gear.
Winning recognition of whales and dolphins as sentient, socially complex beings, and our allies in the fight against climate and nature breakdown.
Whales and dolphins have suffered from terrible harm - deliberate and accidental - and their homes and populations are under threat. But it's not too late.
Together we can still help them recover and flourish and they can help us reconnect with the wild, and repair the damage we have caused.
Rewind 5 years to February 2018 and we released Abandon Ship into Early Access, so we thought it appropriate to mark the occasion with a new free update.
The night we launched, we shot to 4th in the Global Top Seller charts, which was an amazing accomplishment for our little micro-studio to achieve on its debut title.
What’s new?
We’ve added three new ships to the game, meaning since our full release we’ve now expanded the roster with 15 free ships! Here’s what the latest additions look like:
The left and centre ships are of the Cutter and Schooner classes, and to acquire their blueprints you’ll need to capture them intact once you’ve encountered an enemy version.
The right-most vessel is a Warship class, and cannot be attained in the usual fashion. This one is unlocked upon completing a special event that has an accompanying achievement.
For those that have been following our work, you may find this particular ship oddly reminiscent, and that’s because we’ve based it on the player character from our upcoming game SENTRY. Here’s some concept art of that new ship alongside a model of a SENTRY for comparison:
Because this is a special case ship, you won’t see any enemy with this skin; it’s a player-only vessel. As to where the event is located, I won’t spoil anything as I know some of you are very good at detective work :)
If you’re interested in learning about SENTRY, you can check it out here:
We're very happy to be hosting the third iteration of the Guildford Games Festival on Steam, which runs from December 1st through to the 5th.
All of the games on Steam developed in the GU postcode area can be found on this page, many with discounts so it's a great opportunity to pick up some deals!
Click on the image below to be taken to it:
Just like in the 2020 and 2021 versions, the page artwork contains nods to local landmarks (this time the castle and statue on top of the cathedral feature heavily) as well as plenty of references to the games made in Guildford.
Here's the artwork from previous years:
2020:
2021:
There's an unusually high concentration of games studios in Guildford and it has a rich gaming history, so it's awesome to be able to showcase these all in one place.
If you'd like to find out more, you can visit the guildford.games website.
Abandon Ship is part of the War Child Steam Event
Abandon Ship is in the War Child Steam Sale from 24-31 August!
A % from every copy sold will go to War Child, which supports children affected by war in Ukraine, Yemen, DRC, CAR, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Check it out here, get some games and feel good about supporting a worthy cause:
https://bit.ly/GameAction
(you can also click on the banner at the top of our Steam store page while the event is active)
Patch: Version Number "1.3.18557"
This patch is to fix a bug that was raised on the Steam forums about an issue with the Devilrock tutorial.
If the player triggers the Devilrock event in the port, then opens up the Ship Management menu and removes all the mortars from their deck, then enters the event as usual they would become stuck.
Latest Build Patch Notes
Ahoy Captain,
As we mentioned here, we're updating the game with some of the additions from our recent ports - the first of this is some general bug fixes:
Fixed a bug with the AI demanding surrender. The option to choose surrender meant the player received a reward instead of a penalty.
In the Haunted Revenge quest (in the Shattered Empire region) only three of the four gates would bar. This meant you could escape the map when you shouldn't have been able to.
Polish translation polish - 4 missing strings have now been localised, about 280 minor spelling, grammar, capitalisation corrections.
Fixed some broken quotation marks on newsletter names.
Added new newsletter names, removed hard bounces and unsubscribes.
Made the Fireblade Software logo on the main menu a clickable button that opens the Steam overlay and a browser to our studio Steam page.
Added a capsule to show our latest game.
If you see the version number has updated in the main menu to 1.3.18410, you have the latest build.
As we continue working on the Abandon Ship ports we'll implement some of the new features from those back into the PC version - that may be a while, as we're juggling those plus our new project SENTRY - busy times for such a small team as ours!
Thanks,
Gary, Adam & Alex
Soundtrack updated with a bonus song!
Ahoy there Captain!
We've updated our soundtrack with a bonus song. For a recent trailer we thought it'd be cool to do our take on a classic sea shanty - but of course this being Abandon Ship it had to have a dark twist on it >:)
You can find the soundtrack from our composer Aaron Miller here:
If you'd like to hear the song, here's the trailer with it on:
(If you're interested, we talk a little about how the mobile versions will impact the PC here)
We're hoping to have a small update for the PC version soon!
Thanks,
Gary, Alex & Adam
WDC World Oceans Day Charity Sale
We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Oceans Day!
The WDC World Oceans Day Sale runs until 13th June, 10am PDT 2022, and you can save a fin-tastic (groan) amount on Abandon Ship - we'll be donating 50% of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.*
WDC is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins. WDC defends these remarkable creatures against the many threats they face by fighting to stop whaling, end captivity, prevent accidental entanglement and deaths in nets and create healthy seas. They also advocate for the vital role that whales and dolphins play in fighting climate change and keeping our planet healthy. Their vision is a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free.
If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://uk.whales.org/
You can find many other amazing games in the sale here: https://bit.ly/OceansDaySteamSale
Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC!
*50% of our net developer revenue from this sale will support Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Whale and Dolphin Conservation is a UK registered charity (no. 1014705)
