We just released a small update which addresses a few bugs players have encountered.
Changelog:
Fixed user interface not fully rendered when using the "UI scaling" option.
Fixed wrong position of enemy target indicator arrows when using the "UI scaling" option.
Fixed crash when the game is run from an installation path containing special characters. (Note: Do NOT install into folders ending with "!", like Y:/ou/have/been/warned!/Pathway.)
Fixed crash in video options when running the game with exceptional monitor configurations.
Fixed rare crash when launching the game.
Fixed missing font glyphs when using certain Windows system language settings.
Added social buttons to main menu which link to our Twitter account and Discord server.
Version 1.1.5 released
We just released a small maintenance update to address a bunch of crash bugs players have encountered.
Changelog Version 1.1.5:
Fixed crash caused by switching characters when in Burst Fire mode.
Fix visual issues when pressing the "Take All" button repeatedly
Fix crash during AI turn
Fix crash when using Reaction Shot and standing inside an enemy ambush
Possible crash fix some users randomly experienced when going into combat
A big thank you to everyone who is sending in bug reports and suggestions!
Hardcore Mode Update Out!
We've just pressed the release button for the Hardcore Mode Update! This is a sizable update that brings an exciting new way to play the game, a bunch of QoL changes and many bug fixes!
Hardcore Mode
In case you haven't seen our last devlog, here's a recap of what the Hardcore Mode is:
When you create a new profile you'll see the option to make this profile a Hardcore Profile. Note that you can't change a hardcore profile to a normal profile later.
Hardcore Mode follows different rules than standard Pathway: All adventures play in a sequence one after the other. Almost everything carries over to the next adventure and you have to survive with only the things you find during your travels. So that means you won't be able to change your team between adventures and if your characters die, they are gone on this profile! Due to these additional constraints, we recommend to try the game on a default profile first.
Some additional differences in Hardcore Mode:
All jeep upgrades and characters are unlocked from the start.
Failing or successfully finishing will lock the profile.
Permadeath: When a character dies, they are dead for good.
Higher base difficulty
No achievements
The one thing that isn't guaranteed to carry over are the temporary perks you pick up from events. When you move to a new adventure, your team will lose a randomly selected positive and negative perk.
Full Changelog for Version 1.1.4:
Hardcore Mode added: A fresh take on Pathway! See above blog for full description.
Extended difficulty: We have extended the max difficulty, which means you may encounter higher difficulty enemies at the pointy end of the game.
Added Resource tooltip: When hovering over resources on the exploration bar or in the journal you will now have a tooltip which also tells you the resource's max capacity.
Added action tooltips: When hovering actions in combat you will now also see available ammo/supplies.
We've improved selling of valuables hinting. There's now a tooltip when hovering the bag and if you leave a merchant without selling it'll prompt whether you intended to leave without selling (similar to leaving loot behind).
A total of 12 new weapons have been added: Each weapon category (like shotgun, rifles etc.) have received 2 additional variations.
New Artifact "Bastet's Amulet" added
New Hardcore Mode achievement added
"An Ending and a New Beginning" achievement has been changed: There is a new Achievement that rewards you for finishing x adventures. We've also tweaked the numbers on that achievement. Note that this is a conversion of the fail achievement, so if you've previously unlocked the achievement or made progress towards it, it'll carry over.
Item Type information is now more consistent across tooltips
Map/Sector count is now once again visible in the Team Journal
Fix bravery cost in tooltip for Reaction Shot/Parry
Fix some collision issues
Fix some smaller UI issues/alignment/scaling.
Fix bug that allowed sporebearers to be pushed around with Sucker Punch.
Fixed a bug that caused Psychic Control to trigger evade
Fixed a bug that caused the Adventure play time to be skewed when using accelerated AI turns.
Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when exceeding a certain amount of endurance points.
Oh and before we finish today's devlog, we wanted to point out that Gavin Harrison's excellent Pathway OST is now also available on Spotify and Apple Music!
A huge thank you from all of us for the continued support!
Hardcore mode now available on preview branch!
As of today the next version of Pathway is available on the Preview Branch. This build includes the new Hardcore Mode!
Before we dig into the new version, we have a favour to ask of you. Pathway's OST has been nominated for best OST over at gamesmusic.net. If you enjoy the soundtrack of the game as much as we do, we'd be excited if you voted for it over here. ːsteamhappyː
So what exactly is Pathway's Hardcore mode?
When you create a new profile you'll see the option to make this profile a Hardcore Profile. Note that you can't change a hardcore profile to a normal profile later.
Hardcore Mode follows different rules than standard Pathway: All adventures play in a sequence one after the other. Almost everything carries over to the next adventure and you have to survive with only the things you find during your travels. Some additional changes:
All jeep upgrades and characters are unlocked from the start.
Failing or successfully finishing will lock the profile.
Permadeath: When a character dies, they are dead for good.
Higher base difficulty
No achievements
The one thing that isn't guaranteed to carry over are the temporary perks you pick up from events. When you move to a new adventure, your team will lose a randomly selected positive and negative perk.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this new way to play Pathway! Expect some rough edges including a few untranslated bits of text. If you want to play it safe, wait for this build to hit the main branch (in a couple of weeks). For everything else a good place for feedback is of course in the forums here on steam. If you prefer a bit more real-time interaction with the dev team we're pretty active over on our Discord server. Come join the fun!
If you haven't opted into the preview branch before, you can find instructions on how to do so here.
There are also some other goodies in this update. Full Changelog is below:
Full Changelog for 1.1.4p1:
Hardcore Mode added: A fresh take on Pathway! See above blog post for full description.
Extended difficulty: We have extended the max difficulty, which means you may encounter higher difficulty enemies at the pointy end of the game.
Added Resource tooltip: When hovering over resources on the exploration bar or in the journal you will now have a tooltip which also tells you the resource's max capacity.
Added action tooltips: When hovering actions in combat you will now also see available ammo/supplies.
We've improved selling of valuables hinting. There's now a tooltip when hovering the bag and if you leave a merchant without selling it'll prompt whether you intended to leave without selling (similar to leaving loot behind).
New Artifact "Bastet's Amulet" added
Item Type information is now more consistent across tooltips
Map/Sector count is now once again visible in the Team Journal
Fix bravery cost in tooltip for Reaction Shot/Parry
Fix some collision issues
Fix some smaller UI issues/alignment/scaling.
Fix bug that allowed sporebearers to be pushed around with Sucker Punch.
Fixed a bug that caused Psychic Control to trigger evade
Fixed a bug that caused the Adventure play time to be skewed when using accelerated AI turns.
Thank you so much for playing our little game!
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!
Devlog #18: The Art and Tech behind Pathway
Hey everyone! Simon here, Art Director at Robotality.
What a ride the last few months were. We released over a dozen of updates, including one big update called “Adventurers Wanted” that reworked the core gameplay using your feedback you gave us. We feel honored to have such a nice and supportive community. Thank you!
As you have seen now the Steam Autumn Sale is live and as with every year, you can now also vote for the games you love to nominate for a Steam Awards.
Let’s see if we can get a game with pixel art into the “Outstanding Visual Style” category together 😉
What makes the art style of Pathway so special?
The visual art style of Pathway was a pipe dream of mine I had long before we even started working on the game. During the development of our first game, Halfway we had our first experiments going with the ideas to combine classical pixel art with dynamic lights and shadows, but due to time constraints we never followed through.
After we finished Halfway we started to look into what to do next, and while we worked on the game design for Pathway, we also picked up the old idea again: Can we actually do proper shadows and dynamic light within a pixel art game that are also as close as possible pixel perfect.
No one before us had fully done this so it was an interesting challenge to take up. There are some other games that uses dynamic lighting and normal maps combined with pixel art, but no one did a full dynamic light and shadow setup until now!
After a few months of prototyping we actually had a proof of concept for this:
As you can see, it looked more like Halfway and our concept for Pathway was not even close to the finished product we have now. But... we now knew that it could be done! Little did we know back then, that it would take us another 4 years to complete and for Pathway to become the game it is now.
Here are some more very old prototype screenshots of the Pathway tech:
Even though the game does not look like it in the end, we are using a very limited color palette for the whole game. All assets are made out of a set of 32 colors for the environment and another 32 colors for the character. Here you can see the rough sketches I did to test my 32 colors for the environment back in early 2016:
Next up is a short behind-the-scenes video of how we create our levels and visuals in our custom editor. To achieve the look, we actually use voxels and 3D meshes to generate the scenes and instead of pixels - you see colorized polygons for each pixel on the screen.
https://youtu.be/sHYhSnl7cZo
If you think the result is worth an award nomination on Steam feel free to click on the widget above.
Thank you again for the support, it’s been a cool ride together. We are looking forward to sharing more news with you folks soon about what we have in store with Pathway.
PS: If you want to have a more detailed look at what we did to achieve the look we have. Let us know in the comments and we will see what we can do. 😉
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 ːsteamhappyː
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.
Version 1.1.2 Released
We just released a minor maintenance update that fixes and tweaks an handful of things. Full changelog below!
Changelog Version 1.1.2:
Grenade impact can now be evaded.
Splinter DMG buffs on legendary items now also increase the base DMG.
Tooltips for actions are now shown even if the action isn't available
The Artifact "Shield Of Perseus" now has the proper buffs.
Fixed bug that caused Sporebearers/Cultists to still attack vanished characters
Fixed a bug that caused multiple stat boosts of same type to not be combined in tooltips.
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Team Journal screen to not refresh after a recruit event
As always, thanks for playing!
Version 1.1.1 Released
We just released a smaller update on Steam which includes important bugfixes and the addition of a new default option for AI turn speed.
We'd like to also say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who's been playing the 1.1 update and wrote a review, sent an email or in some other way left us a comment. We're really happy to hear that you're enjoying the changes and additions we've introduced with "Adventurers Wanted"!
Here's the full changelog for version 1.1.1:
Default AI Speed Option: We've added the option to set a default for the AI turn speed. Every combat will begin with this default speed. You can always slow/down speed it up for a specific combat and it'll reset again to the default for the next battle.
Updated JP/CH loca with a few more missing details
Added bravery cost to the new abilities in the skill tree.
Tweaked the timing of some tutorial overlays slightly
Fixed a crash when using Sudden Strike against Zombies
Fixed some missing collisions in certain combat arenas
Fixed a bug that caused the skilltree to not hide properly when opening the menu/codex
Fixed a bunch of typos in loca
Fixed a bug that caused unexpected behaviour when creating a new profile after switching between profiles in the main menu.
Fixed a bug that caused hotkeys to not working properly after a profile switch
As always, thank you for playing!
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 ♥
As of today the next version of Pathway is available on the Preview Branch. This build includes the new Hardcore Mode!
