We finally did it! Affordable housing for each and every soul of Arkana is now a dream come true! And if any Cursed would tell you otherwise - smash them with a tough log, so you'll have a solid foundation for your future house.
The tech tree now includes a couple of new items: wood and stone hammers. You can equip them to open the building menu. We've also enhanced the modular building system by removing most limitation, so that you'll be able to unleash your creativity and build wherever you want to, be it by the river or at the top of a mountain.
Just try not to forget the basics of physics: objects can't just float in the air - they need some form of support or holding. The color-indication system will let you know which modules are immovable even to the Furious Grunt, and which would fall apart if you sneeze hard enough.
Currently only a few basic straw and log modules are available, but there are many more that we work on and that will be added in future updates.*
New Challenges
Now there are more unique challenges in Cradle of Keepers. They were left behind by the ancients, and will test your courage, marksmanship and even cooking skills, rewarding you with Memory Shards if you succeed.
The Plagued Thresher
At last, the Plagued Thresher returned to the Noxious Temple. Refreshed and furious. Rumors say he holds a mysterious artifact, that can unlock one's hidden potential. We highly doubt he'd just give it away out of generosity, so you'd better prepera for a hard battle.
Sanctuary of Chronos
Many of you liked the "Under construction" message. So did we! Dispite that we reluctantly did what we had to and removed it. Now the Cradle of Keepers portal leads to the Sanctuary of Chronos.
This Sanctuary efffectively is a crossroads, with portals leading to many different locations across the lands of Arkana, which are now... temporarily sealed. You'll have to find a way to open them later on.
In the Sanctuary's centre you'll find an altar, that will unlock new abilities those, who collected the Ancestral Vestige and Ancestral Essence.
"Fog of War"
Arkana is now covered in impenetrable fog. You'll have to explore new areas to cleanse them from the fog.
Other Changes
Gameplay
Reworked the Tech Tree.
Players start the game with an empty Energy bar. It no longer replenishes upon death.
Sentinel of Chronos no longer requires foundation to be placed.
Increased the amount of time Sentinel of Chronos works if fueld with Blue Crystals.
By popular demand you can now gain Memory Shards by leveling up.
Impreved monsters' combat behavior.
Simple recipes are now more easy to cook.
Reduced the time it takes to cook a dish.
Difficulty of encounters with elite monsters now scales with the amount of participating players.
Map
Memory Shards no longer drop from secret chests.
Changed some memorials' images.
Increased the drop rate for Branches and Fiber in Cradle of Keepers.
Some say there's a Pestilent Boar frolicing in the poisonous area of Cradle.
Added the fourth mark for the Plagued Thresher.
The Noxious Temple now houses more Cursed camps and hold more resourses.
Implemented minor changes to the memorials' placement.
UI
Visual improvements to the loading screen.
Improvements to the Skill Tree.
Removed the "Cataclysm" memo.
Visual improvements to the character UI.
Visual improvements to the cooking UI.
Sounds
Added new sounds for the Skill Tree.
Added new sounds for the challenges.
Added new sounds for the Floaters.
Other
Added new idle animations for the Cursed.
Added staggering to boars.
Added construction hammers.
Added new spawning animations and VFX for the Cursed.
Updated the icon for Powdered Herbs.
Added VFX for player's death bag.
Improved the dodging animation.
Optimised the object draw distance.
Optimised grass visuals.
You can now invite friends to a Local Game via the Steam client.
Fixes
Technical
Reduced damage of the Wooden Staff.
Changed the visual representation for chests, sarchophagi and obelisks.
Slight corrections to the design of Cradle of Keepers.
Removed the remains of the "Weird System" from our game. Not kidding. That was the actual name for it.
Fixed monsters' behavior in encounters.
Fixed mages' behavior in combat.
Fixed the Cursed grip on their axes.
Fixed wooden axe sound effects.
Fixed the behavior for the Skull Hunter, the Furious Grunt, the Smoldering Warlock and the Plagued Thresher.
Reduced the radius for opening the portals.
Fixed the characters' bleeding sounds.
Bugs
Fixed the issue, which caused the challenges' status change before completion.
Fixed issues, which caused incorrect facial animations.
Fixed the issue, which caused players to return to the Character Creation after skipping the Prologue.
Fixed the issue, which caused the challenge's text to change after killing the Elemental.
Fixed the issue, which caused other players to slide across the map in online.
Fixed the one-eyed face to no longer change the hurt eye's color.
Fixed torches and lamps.
Known problems
Russian localization isn't fully implemented
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
Last update introduced a brand new poisonous area to the Cradle of Keepers. And so we continue working on it. The location is now occupied by the cursed, and you can now enter the decrepit temple and challenge its inhabitants for the Mask of the Plagued Thresher.
Sadly, the Plagued Thresher will only join us in the next update. In his absence, you can fight another specially trained cursed. And we assure you - he's just as well qualified. We checked.
Also, you might've noticed that spending time in the poisonous areas has negative concequences for your character's health. So we suggest you check out the memorial near the location's area, perhaps your ancestors left some survival tips behind.
Cooking Update
A wise cook is more likely to not mess up the recipe. A perceptive one will make a dish of a higher quallity. A disciplinned one will make best of his ingredients to create a nutricious meal. A strong one cares more about putting down a boar than the taste or the color of his food. Not everyone is fated to become a master chef, but everyone can choose their own culinary way.
We added plenty of new dishes and changes to the cooking UI. On a related note - the campfire now burns brighter depending on the amount of fuel in it.
Energy Update
Lo and behold, here come more improvements to the energy system, along with updated UI and icons for conditions. As a reminder - energy now applies positive effects onto characters, such as health regeneration. Food consumption increases your current energy level, and resting - its max capacity. This mechanic and its UI will be altered in accordance to the feedback collected through testing.
Updated Mithra
Mithra's model and animations have been completely revamped! Meet Mithra 2.0: wiser, stronger and even more attractive. She still disappears without a trace at the end of the Prologue, so don't push "Skip Tutorial" button right away.
Other Changes
Changed the color indication for obelisks and sarcophagi. If you've completed the presented challanges, sarcophagi will now blink while obelisks will have butterflies floating around them.
Added camara zoom.
Added new sounds for the cursed' and floaters' attacks.
Updated the portal's waypoint model.
Added "floating" numbers for healing and regeneration.
Enhanced the effects of cooked dishes.
Introduced the 4x increase to the passive health regeneration.
Fixes
Improved general performance.
Improved Ice Elemental's behavior in the Prologue.
Changed monster spawn points in the Prologue.
Removed the Essence of Ages from memorials.
The mage mini-boss is now a bit less threatening. Still dangerous, though.
Slowed down crouching movement speed.
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
One day one of our developers managed to tear himself from "cooking" the game and do some actual cooking. "My god, it was so easy!" - he explaimed. But to be completely honest - his omelette ended up badly undersalted. Such a heroic deed inspired us to take a fresh look at our cooking system!
This update brings you reworked and more user-friendly cooking environment both in UI and in the process itself. Now to receive a "Michelin Star" in the world of Arkana you only need to follow a few simple rules:
Keep the fuel and the dish apart: before you commit to serving a culinary masterpiece, you should throw in some firewood and fan up the flames.
One station - one serving: only one dish can be prepared at a time.
Take away a meal before cooking a new one: you can't start cooking before recovering your previous dish.
Give way to bold experiments: mix and match the components to get new recipes and flavors! (and various new effects)
Finalizing the Cradle of Keepers
Last update we presented you a brand new location- the Cradle of Keepers, which challanges you to activate the portal to the Ancient Valley. This time around we bring you some updates to the gameplay and visuals of the Cradle. You can now explore its new curse-afflicted area, where you'll find the key to activation of the fourth portal pillar.
Challenges Improvements
We keep on improving our challanges, some of we have already introduced to the Cradle of Keepers.
Firstly, we changed how the challenges are accepted and updated the descriptions. Now you won't accidentally skip the task's text by double-tapping the obelisk.
Secondly, the obelisks' glow now show the challange's status: flickering means that the challange is in progress, orange glow - that the task is completed and you can claim the rewards.
Energy Overhaul
From now on you will no longer suffer penalties for low Energy, but will get benefits for keeping it up instead. For example: faster movement speed and stamina recovery, elemental damage resistances etc. After recovering from death, players' Energy falls to 0, which no longer inflicts damage on your characters. And as always you can rise your fill up your Energy meter by consuming food.
Skipping the Prologue
You can now skip the prologue. Just press "Escape" to open the menu and go for "Skip tutorial" button. You'll proceed to the character customization menu, that will take you straight to the Cradle of Keepers.
Other Changes
UI:
Updated the loading screen.
Updated the Health and Player Level bars.
Changed how the distant objects are shown on the compass.
Map:
Visual improvements for vegetation, waterfalls, pathways and stones.
Added new models for runic stones, as well as new effects and sounds for their activation.
Added a sentinel and a protective barrier, that wards the players from the influence of the cursed in the Cradle of Keepers.
Added new berry bushes.
Added more secrets, stellas and resources to the Cradle of Keepers.
Gameplay:
Target lock is now only available for gamepad users.
Added camp markers onto the map, appearing after interacting with portal pillars.
Names of Mording the Fleshpecker, Drahax the Bonecutter, Archibald the Smoldering and Bullhorn fell into oblivion.
Fixes
Technical:
Reduced the severety of mushroom poisoning (still wouldn't recommend eating them raw, though).
Optimized the updates' size to reduce the load time.
Changed the temperature for the TItans' Hights.
Fixed the SFX for the portal and player character's jumps.
Fixed the Prologue music.
Fixed the visuals for damage numbers.
Updated animations and SFX for the cursed enemies.
Updeted visuals and SFX for Mithra's birds.
Changed enemy placement for the archers' idol area.
Changed the placement for the impossible-to-reach stellas.
Bugs:
Fixed the "RAM overload" critical error.
Fixed the critical error that kept the Xsolla Launcher users from launching the game.
Fixed the error that prevented the loading of some textures in the Prologue.
Removed the "strange guy" from the Prologue.
Fixed numerous collision issues, causing players to move through some objects and arrows to fly through walls.
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
When developing this update, we focused our attention on the first hours of the game, in which the player will take part in the assault upon the Citadel, and discover the freshly updated location - Cradle of Keepers.
Note: this version only includes three out of four pillars. The last one, needed to open the portal, will be added in the next update.
Main Changes
Prologue
The game now has a proper full-blown prologue section, telling the story of the assault upon the Citadel of the Frozen Flame. This prologue will be available soon as a stand-alone short demo-version, allowing the players to familiarize themselves with the combat and the story of the game.
Cradle of Keepers
After beating the prologue, the player will find themselves in our new location - Cradle of Keepers. Overlooking the rest of the Arkana’s lands, it is the safest area in the game. It is the starting point on the long and treacherous journey to the Citadel. There the players will have to challenge some of the more dangerous Cursed, guarding the secret of opening the portal to the Ancient Valley.
Idol System
Cradle of Keepers houses the portal to the Ancient Valley. To activate it, one must collect the masks of the tribal leaders, that once inhabited this area. They can be summoned with the help of the idols, but it’ll take a special kind of offering to do so.
Obelisks of the ancients
On their journey players will encounter obelisks, holding the ancients’ Memory Shards. To obtain the shards, they will have to prove themselves worthy by overcoming various tasks and challenges.
Updated combat system
As a wise woman said: “Fighting is bad, but fighting badly is even worse”. Following this wisdom, we decided to introduce numerous improvements to our combat system, to make battles with the local fauna and the Cursed more interesting and dynamic. One of such improvements is the introduction of the attacks that can stun or even knockdown your opponents.
Character customization
Before embarking on their journey through the world of Arkana, players will now be able to customize the appearance of their characters. This is not the final version of this feature, and it will be updated and expanded over time.
Other Changes
UI:
Updated the main menu.
Changed the servers’ capacity appearance in the game menu.
Updated the in-game hint icons to make them more noticeable.
Changed the visuals of damage values and monsters’ healthbars.
Finalized the friends’ appearance on the compass. Now you are less likely to lose each other.
Map:
Added insects.
Introduced new types of chests.
Updated the appearance of water and waterfalls.
Introduced a new type of oak.
Gameplay:
Significantly improved the enemies’ AI.
Improved the behaviour of the first-encountered creatures.
Updated the loot for sarcophagi.
Reduced the time you need to hold “E” to talk to the NPCs.
Added new emotions: “Praise the sun”, “Kiss”, “Cower”, “Warm up”, “Take a knee”, “Point”, “Thanks”, “Wave”, “Stop”, “Shout”, “Call”.
Other:
Improved the rendering for the faraway grass and objects.
Left numerous treasure chests hidden across the map. Go and find ‘em all!
Fixes
Technical
Improved the visual and audio effects.
Removed the ability to jump while in water.
Changed how the shields operate and how much stamina they consume on successful blocks.
Changed the amount of the resources collected from the ground to 1.
Improved the night-time lighting.
Bugs
Fixed the level-up indicator lighting up even if the player doesn’t have enough flame.
Fixed the looping sound when shooting fireflies.
Fixed the animation bug for the Cursed when they take damage.
Fixed the excessive twitching of the player’s head when sprinting.
Fixed the Cursed Archer’s animations.
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
During the livestreams we'll talk about the Frozen Flame's latest updates before Early Access, and go through the starting location together. You can ask our team any game-related questions and share your opinions.
Hoping to see you on our livestreams!
Follow us on Discord and stay tuned. Please also add the game to your wishlist on Steam to get notification on EA start.
About Frozen Flame Embark on an epic fantasy adventure in this dying world of dragons. Choose a path, amass power and gather allies to make a stand against the cursed forces of the Citadel, and the destructive influence of the Frozen Flame. Decide the fate of the world through your actions in this open-world sandbox online RPG.
Frozen Flame | Developer Livestream #1
Welcome to the Frozen Flame Livestream!
During the livestreams we'll talk about the Frozen Flame's latest updates before Early Access, and go through the starting location together. You can ask our team any game-related questions and share your opinions.
Hoping to see you on our livestreams!
Follow us on Discord and stay tuned. Please also add the game to your wishlist on Steam to get notification on EA start.
About Frozen Flame Embark on an epic fantasy adventure in this dying world of dragons. Choose a path, amass power and gather allies to make a stand against the cursed forces of the Citadel, and the destructive influence of the Frozen Flame. Decide the fate of the world through your actions in this open-world sandbox online RPG.
Story of Ancient Valley Location
[previewyoutube="MXDv9jw_wT4;full"]
These vast plains, embraced by sunlight and protected from the winds, were best suited for the comfortable living. But the threat of dragons forced humanity to seek seclusion in the Valley's more protected areas: mountains, forests, icy hills and underground caves. Only by mastering the arcane magic and the art of titan creation they managed to survive and conquer the Valley for themselves.
However, those golden times had long passed, as the Cursed hordes ravaged the land, leaving its inhabitants either to perish, or succumb to the curse. But there's still hope of salvation, we await you, Wanderer!
The Fate of Frozen Flame world will depend solely on the players
Wanderers,
The year 2020 comes to an end, and before we tell you about game’s future development plans, we’d like to express our gratitude. Frozen Flame is an “adventure-driven” project, and your support served us as a “guiding star”. Thank you. Your feedback gave us understanding, of what works well and what needs to be worked on. And based on that understanding, we adjusted our plans for 2021, and that’s what we want to share with you.
The world will be affected by player decisions
For a long time Frozen Flame stood between RPG and Survival genres with a huge amount of their gameplay mechanics. However, those mechanics confused new players about the game’s goals, hindering normal progression. That’s why we made a decision to leave the burden of Survival-elements in the background.
Frozen Flame will become a full-fledged RPG, first and foremost dedicated to characters’ development and their influence on the world. Now it’s up to the players to decide the future of their world (Server/Realm): will it flourish under protection of its heroes, or slowly wither away. But even dying worlds can be rebuilt through great efforts and sacrifices.
The world will become livelier and brighter
The world of Arkana will change for the better. The difference between mini-biomes will increase drastically, with many new resources and inhabitants. Even gathering chests will become more entertaining and useful. We’re also adding many chests, activities and quests to diversify the gameplay. For example, one the new activities is the challenge system, which will test your wits and skills.
The world will become clearer
We’re reworking the tutorial. It’ll teach you everything you’ll ever need in the game, not just the basics. We hope it would answer new players’ questions about game’s mechanics and UI. We’re also enhancing the social aspect of the game. Cooperative gameplay will be more convenient, interesting and diverse. The lore will become more accessible and thought-out, allowing players to learn more about the events that affected Arkana and its inhabitants.
We hope this will make the game more interesting to play and explore. However, it’ll take some time to realize those changes, so to account for that, we have to delay the Early Access release until the spring of 2021.
Frozen Flame Update 0.9.4.0
Wanderers!
We happily present you our game’s latest update! First and foremost, we’d like to inform you that some locations have been blocked off by severe weather or natural obstacles. Those locations will get plenty of our attention in the future, but for now we’d like to focus on improving the Valley! With all that said, let’s look at the changes!
Main Changes
Unforgotten Mastery
You are well acquainted with the Cursed. They are mad and aggressive, ready to do anything to slay anyone who hasn’t succumbed to the Curse yet. But their madness doesn’t mean they are foolish. To address this, we put a great effort to rebuild their behavior, making them more menacing and tactical opponents. Go ahead and challenge them, if you dare!
[previewyoutube="XIN8mIneZwc;full"]
Unbreakable Bastion
This update also introduces major changes to the Bastion, which will get even more improvements in future patches. What got changed, exactly? Better come and see for yourselves!
Melodies of Arkana
Next up we have the game’s musical accompaniment. We think if the music isn’t good or doesn’t fit the atmosphere, it can ruin even the best produced game. And as so, we proudly present to you our brand new soundtrack, that changes depending on combat, current location and time of the day! We’d really like to know what you think of it!
[previewyoutube="sBY9pbYpxT0;full"]
Other changes
Cursed Archer aiming time added before shot
Increased Cursed Archer arrow spread
Elite Cursed have now been tinted red to make them more visually distinct
The Blacksmith has been moved and is now located near Mitra’s Sanctuary
Controller support has been improved significantly across the entire game, especially in menu and player management screen navigation
High Jump spell initial velocity reduced, making the characters jump slightly lower
Bows can now be fired in mid-air
Swear emote has been renamed to Rude
Wave emote removed from the game
Removed camera distance change on sprint to reduce motion sickness
Reduced camera rotation rate and lowered camera lag to allow for more precise camera movements
Server list UI has been improved, to remove confusion between “Connect” and “Rent Server” buttons
Stone circle, pillars and glow materials have been reworked in Mitra’s Sanctuary
Updated Xsolla logo
A gather animation has been added to all harvestable resource nodes
Multiple harvestable resources have had their visibility distance tripled
Titan Heights and Frozen Wastes biomes have had their temperatures significantly reduced
Ghostwood entrance has been blocked
Updated sounds for tutorial spawn and firefly death
Added Stone Sword and health potions to starting equipment
Changed initial time of day when starting a fresh Local Game
Removed redundant notifications from quests
Fixes
Fixed typo in Shifting Elixir description
Multiple typo fixes in skill descriptions
Various server performance optimizations. Mostly relevant for Local Game
Fixed alignment issues of similar elements between different player UI tabs
Fixed main menu entry selection after canceling out of Local Game submenu
Most item icons in player inventory should now have proper edge alignment, correct resolution and filtering
Sticky Poison effect will now slow it’s target
Count selector for moving partial stacks will now properly increment on MouseScrollUp and decrement on MouseScrollDown
Firefly death sound has been fixed
Fixed a bug that prevented players from completing the Find Mitra quest
Fixed text wrapping issue in dialogue
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
If you would like to know more about the game, join us on Discord, follow us on Twitter or Facebook or check out all of our other Social and Community channels .
Frozen Flame Update 0.9.3.0
Wanderers!
We’re passionately working on Frozen Flame, bringing it closer and closer to the Early Access. This time we focussed on updating the map, but what else awaits you? Let’s go and see together!
Main Changes
The World is changing
We know how much you enjoy discovering the world and admiring its beauty, so in this update we updated two areas – Dragon Cemetery, and the Quarry. We also continue working on the Titan Heights, finalizing its draft zoning and preparing it for its future glory.
The Curse grows stronger
The Curse mechanic is one of the important and complex elements of Frozen Flame, and we will keep working on it until we find the perfect balance. This time we’ve brought a new element to the Curse - now it accumulates levels, with each level bringing more severe penalties than the last.
Show your wares!
We were joyful to see players use the trading mechanics of our game, and decided to improve it a bit. Now you can sell fixed number of items in a stack, and the Vendor Stall now also displays the stats of sold items.
Other Changes
Those who own the game on Steam can now choose the experimental update branch
Improved quest notification widget functionality
Reworked stage 3 of Stranger quest to not be added automatically.
8 new encounters added to the Valley.
The quest tracker will now notify the player of any changes in a quest’s state.
Reinforced Wood and Stone roofs will now be built with appropriate rafters.
Implemented new dodge mechanic for cursed enemies.
Reworked Cursed Archer mob behavior.
Reworked Cursed Mage mob behavior.
Reworked Cursed Fighter’s attacks
Fixes
Multiple encounter fixes.
Localization and text fixes.
Fixed an issue where the quest tracker would improperly display hidden quest tasks.
Fixed an issue where the quest tracker would incorrectly display quests that are resolved and added simultaneously.
Fixed double notification of quest completion in quest tracker.
Removed double notification, when starting a new quest.
Restored some missing localization texts.
Count selector when splitting/dropping stacks will now properly hide the “drop” button.
Fixed gamepad sensitivity settings. Will now use the same values as the mouse.
Fixed mapping of gamepad buttons in main menu and local game menu.
Fixed an issue where Cursed enemies wouldn’t not dig-in/dig-out properly.
Removed debug information from player controller.
Removed an invisible menu button, when navigating the main menu.
We look forward to seeing you in the world of Arkana!
If you would like to know more about the game, join us on Discord, follow us on Twitter or Facebook or check out all of our other Social and Community channels .
