Please check your email to see if you're a winner. I've sent emails to ten lucky winners with the subject "Congratulaions - You are a WINNER!". If you've received this email then please be sure to reply to me with the answers I want. I'll Post a full list of winners as soon as everyone has responded
Chilean Student Protests 2011 - Santa arrested!
The Chilean Education Conflict / Chilean Winter student demonstrations began as a protest over costs, profits, and fairness of higher education in the county. Only 45% of high school students study in traditional publicly funded schools and most universities are private.
The students’ protests also attracted other Chileans keen on publicising their frustration over wages, health care and other social issues. The protesters were united by a common dissatisfaction with the hugely unpopular President Sebastian Pinera.
Many demonstrations were met by police using tear gas and water cannons on the crowds. Changes in the education system are still unsettled and student protests continue even now.
Among the protesters on 22nd December 2011 was someone dressed in a red Santa suit. Whether or not it was the real Santa remains unanswered.
Update #3 - Monday 11 December
As promised, here is the first of our Monday updates. In addition to the smaller hot fixes the team issued following RIOT - Civil Unrest's release last week the team has spent the weekend working on the following fixes and updates. Details of what's expected in the coming weeks are at the end of this post.
Function keys now directly select groups - press the corresponding F-Key to quickly select units.
New PANIC icons. You will see these exclamation marks if the unit you are controlling panics. The unit icon will grey out and the unit will be unresponsive.
New UNCONTROLLABLE icon status. A red disc will appear over the unit and the UI icons will turn red.
Radio. Players will find the radio equipped as an available item automatically in the first level of campaigns when playing as the Police. To use it in later levels it will have to be selected in the load-out menu.
Megaphone: Players will find the megaphone equipped as an available item automatically in the first level of campaigns when playing as the Police.To use it in later levels it will have to be selected in the load-out menu.
A green border has been added to the selected unit to make it clearer which unit is being controlled
The LOG file has been removed. This will remove pauses and stuttering gameplay as the system won't stop to open & write the log file.
Police now enter a state of panic correctly (previously they only became panicked when being burnt by a Molotov).
Police now remain controllable when they are attacking (previously, when hitting the crowd, they became uncontrollable).
The team has spent the weekend testing these fixes but are quick to point out that they do have an impact on the level balancing. For instance, if you play as the police and set the difficulty to challenging you will find that in the first level of the Indignados campaign it will be nearly impossible to push away the crowd. The team would like to point out that fixes will disrupt the balancing of the game but they intend to take a much closer look after next week's major update.
The team are currently working on implementing a tutorial which hopefully will be ready for next Monday's update.
The subsequent Monday update will focus on balancing and bug fixing including:
When single functions (such as panic) become active.
Cooldown times.
Weight of additional items in load-out menus.
Weight of flags.
To apply the above points to all levels.
Also, the team are working diligently to resolve performance and stability issues reported by the community. Thanks to everyone experiencing these issues for their patience.
Please keep the feedback coming either on this community hub or, better still, by the google doc that pops up when you finish your game session.
UPDATE 2 - Crashes
Hello everyone!
Some of you have complained of several crashes at startup: we investigated this and, thanks to your reports, we have come to understand a possible cause for the problem.
Riot loads its graphical assets in the background (the game has thousands of animated sprites) in order to reduce the loading time of each level to a few seconds. To make you understand the scope of the optimisation, some levels that were loading in 40-50 seconds now load in 4-5.
We found out that unfortunately the Unity 3D engine has a known and unresolved bug, so on a low (but significant) percentage of computers, it crashes during this operation.
You can find details about the error online, on the Unity forums:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/d3d11-failed-to-create-2d-texture.392286/
Unfortunately, on our test PCs the system this bug has never showed up and we cannot test it directly, but we checked the settings one-by-one for each atlas, hoping to eliminate the problem.
We look forward to your feedback on whether this first solution has fixed the problem for everyone, otherwise we will keep work on it!
This update should be live almost immediately, so please update and check if the solution has worked.
For other possible solutions, please check out the pinned thread in the bug reports sub-forum.
Kind Regards,
Ben
UPDATE 1 and We have sold 10k units - Thank you GIVEAWAY!
First Update
Hello everyone!
First off, a huge thank you to everyone for a really successful launch.
We've had loads of great feedback and the team are hard at work on improvements already.
GIVEAWAY In celebration of the early access release of RIOT - Civil Unrest and in recognition of over 10k units sold in a single day we're offering our community members the opportunity to win an exclusive RIOT - Civil Unrest World Tour T shirt. We've got ten of these highly prized shirts up for grabs, all you've got to do is sign up to our Signature Edition mailing list here, Signature Edition Games. In case you don't know, Signature Edition is Merge Games' label that offers collector's edition versions of some of its favourite titles on PC and Console. To win, just add your details via the link and on Wednesday 13th December we'll pick ten lucky winners. Be sure to check the community hub on Wednesday to see if you've won!
UPDATE Today, we've got a patch fix for several community reported issues:
Lightened the NoTav 3 scene. Many of you have reported that this was too dark.
Police Morale has been corrected. Morale and fear now work correctly and we'll continue to balance this based on community feedback.
Team selection is now more evident in the UI bar. Some of you have been reporting that this wasn't clear, please let us know how you find the changes
In addition to these quick fixes, the team are investigating a number of reported issues.
If you've reported something in the pinned bug thread, the team have seen it and are already working on it!
Thank you for your patience while we look into all issues.
So that we can keep driving game progress forward, the developers are making a commitment to all players:
From this Monday, we will share a weekly buglist and roadmap
We've had complaints about communication and transparency prior to release and we want you all to know that those days are dead!
Every week, you'll find out exactly where development is. If we know about it, so will you!
In our next major update, we also hope to add at least one tutorial level! This is already being worked on and we should have news soon.
Thanks again to everyone who's helped support the game!
Kind Regards,
Ben
Developer Journal
Included below is an intimate look at one of the games key developers, and their account of making RIOT.
--------------
A peculiar development journal
I’ve always been intrigued by the separation between gamers and
programmers. Press releases are usually created by marketing
and communication teams and not by the techies who usually
have other things to think about (typically, finishing the game).
This way, the truest stories regarding the development process
often get lost. Stories that might leave an impression on those
who will take the time to read them. Stories that go beyond the
noise and promotion of a game.
Three years ago, I was offered the possibility of taking over the
work started and abandoned by others on Riot. A game on
uprisings, police against demonstrators, telling a crude reality
that is not always shown to us in its entirety. A thorny subject
with topics difficult to digest and delicate to handle. But
moreover, an enormous project that three teams of
programmers in two years had not been able to complete.
What’s more, I was tasked to finish the project, more or less, by
myself! Luckily, I was crazy enough to accept.
Three years ago, at the same time, the illness of my father began.
Advanced stage pancreatic cancer, inoperable. An estimated life
expectancy of one year, in the best of cases, with the best cures.
I had to take a rapid decision, and not an easy one. would I be
able to manage the most complicated project of my life in the
most difficult moment of my life?
It is with this premise that my personal story with Riot begins. In
this context that I decided to restart programming the project
from zero, scrapping all the previous work done on the game,
much of it incomplete and obsolete by time I joined the team. My
predecessors, faced a number of technical difficulties far above
any expectation.
Now, three years of development to finally come to the end -
1,221,330 lines of code later, RIOT – Civil Unrest has launched
into Early Access. It has been a war fought against myself, against
the urge to surrender in front of that enormous amount of work,
rewriting the physics, the rendering, the animation system, audio
managements, artificial intelligence and a lot more: everything in
Riot has technically gone beyond the original capacities of the
Engine, becoming something unique.
Is Riot a game? This, I don’t know. I do know that it’s something
alive, organic, that some of you will love, others will find
insignificant, others confused, or violent. The most cherished
comments came from those who lived these events for real and,
upon trying the game at fairs, told us the game was extremely
realistic. The way I see it, if it succeeds in making gamers question
what’s happening in certain areas of the world, if it stimulates
them to get informed independently, it will be, for me, a
complete victory. I developed the game with a clear idea in mind:
both factions are made by people, people with their ideas, there
for something they believe in. There are just a few brutes, on
both sides- But during a riot even a little spark of violence can
become uncontrollable. It is this sensation that I hope you will
have all while playing: that sometimes violence seems like the
only possible answer, but the more you use it, the more you will
lose control of the situation. Until you regret having used it in the
first place.
I have fought my own long and silent battle to reach this result,
and have had the honour of assisting my father with a different
battle every day upon returning home from work. A battle that
he could not win, but that he fought until the very last day with
strength and pride. His “estimated” year of life became almost
two thanks to his sheer willpower, fighting inch by inch against a
merciless disease. It is also thanks to his strength, which I had as
an example before me, that today I can offer this experience to
you. An experience that, though tough and a bit rough around
the edges, you won’t find anywhere else. Give it a chance, and if
you won’t like it I hope that Riot continues to grow and improve
according to your suggestions.
I would like to take a chance to say thank you to all the colleagues
that made the game possible:
Leonard Menchiari, author of the game and of all the unthinkable
amount of design produced to achieve it.
Fabrizio Zagaglia, the best programmer in the world, who
collaborated with me during the last year to conclude this titanic
endeavour.
Michele Postpischl, who on his own recreated the audio of the
riots in a masterful way.
Ivan Venturi, the producer who made possible an impossible
project.
The team at Merge Games (Luke, Nick, James and Ben), who
believed in the game supporting its development well over the
standard duties of a publisher.
And to all the people who believed in the project.
Thank you.
Trigghy
Happy RIOT day!
Following RIOT – Civil Unrest’s Early Access release I wanted to say, “Thank you” on behalf of Leonard, The IVP Team (Ivan, Marco, Fabrizio, Michele) and Merge Games (Luke, Joanne, James, Nick, Ben & Grainne). Your support and patience is immeasurable and greatly appreciated. As I have said many times in recent posts, we’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for the delays that the project has endured. We understand the frustration that’s been felt by everyone during the game’s protracted development. But that’s all in the past…
15:00 GMT saw the release of RIOT – Civil Unrest, a moment we’re very proud of. Of course, it only really marks the start of a new chapter. Now, with your help, we can press on and make the game something really special. Only with the community’s feedback can we make the all-important tweaks and fixes needed. To this end, we’d like to invite you to tell us about your RIOT – Civil Unrest experience. When exiting the game you’ll be presented with a Google docs feedback form; be sure to let us know how your gameplay session went.
Naturally, there are some aspects of RIOT – Civil Unrest that haven’t made it into the Early Access launch – the level editor being a major one. We’ll endeavour to keep you informed of progress on a regular basis via this community hub.
Weekly Updates
The team has committed to delivering a new build, with patch notes, every Monday. Each Monday to Friday they will work on the build, testing and making revisions over the weekend. Of course, there will be gaps over the Holiday season but the guys do need some time off too…
To kick things off here’s a list of bugs, errors and annoyances that have been found in the beta already:
Removing and adding police units in loadout causes behaviour issues.
Unable to move vehicle after it's been moved several times.
Light armoured units can take too much of a beating.
On hardest difficulty, no input required to win level (Notav 1 as rioters, Kera 2 as police).
Units get stuck.
Projectiles don't land where you tell them to.
Low performance on mid-spec rig.
Units get stuck on some scene objects (fences, edges of map).
Projectiles may never be fired.
Ukraine: Rioters don't protect objective zone.
Menu navigation with gamepad may not cycle correctly.
Level boundaries are visible on 4k screens.
‘Cancel’ is non-functional for an extra added Police unit.
Only the left analogue stick on ‘Steam Controller’ functions for navigation of menus.
Placeholder text is present for the ‘Tear Gas Spray’.
No hover/feedback effect present on 'BACK' button in Wiki.
FRENCH – Difficulty option text clipping outside of text box within Options menu.
‘Menu’ button formatted incorrect on newspaper results page.
‘Style’ options not translated in the ‘Options’ menu.
Versus – Keyboard added as player 4 displays as controller.
Newspaper at the end of a level has no image.
We hope you enjoy the game, be sure to let us know.
RIOT ON!
Pre-Ordered from Humble? Backed us on Indiegogo?
DON'T PANIC!
If you pre-ordered RIOT - Civil Unrest directly from Humble or you used the Humble widget on the RIOT website you will receive your key directly from them tomorrow.
If you're one of the Indiegogo backers who didn't qualify for the beta, don't worry. I've put all your details into a mailchimp list and will be sending them out to you as the game gets its release.
Less than 24 hours to go! Are you ready?
It's been quite a journey but we're now counting down the release of RIOT - Civil Unrest in terms of hours and minutes rather than months and weeks. On December 6th, at 15:00 GMT I'll be clicking on this button.
By now you'll have read the community posts and watched the videos from people lucky enough to have received a beta key. You'll have seen the good, the bad and the ugly.
We're really looking forward to seeing everyone experiencing RIOT - Civil Unrest, it's going to be a blast. At the same time I'd like to remind you that the game is in Early Access and certain features, such as the level editor, will appear during the Early Access period, not on release.
Thank you for the incredible support you've shown the game. We know it's been difficult (oh boy, do we know!) and we'd like to apologise for all the frustration.
Prepare to RIOT ON!
Campaign and single scenario levels
The game is split into four campaigns and sixteen single level scenarios.
Indignados (Spain), No Tav (Italy), Karetea (Greece) and Arab Spring (Egypt) are campaings and contain the following levels (these levels are playable as single scenarios too, once beaten).
Indignados (Spain)
15-M
NO!
Mossos Retreat
Pozo Soton
No Tav (Italy)
Maddalena’s Clearing
December 8th
The A32 Highway
The Beginning of an End
Karetea (Greece)
Bloko Keratea
Black Tuesday
Eftihis’ Ballad
La Fin
Arab Spring (Egypt)
Friday of Anger
Friday of Anger Pt. II / Friday of Anger Pt. III
Battle of the Camel
We won’t go! He will go!
In addition, these are the sixteen single scenarios.
Italy
Rome October 15th – Roma Indignati, in 2011, 200,000 people protest against the influence of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the government of Silvio Berlusconi.
NoMUOS - Protests occurred in Sicily after that the government approved the installation of several M.U.O.S. military antennas without the approval of the local citizens.
Greece
Syntagma Square - The anti-austerity movement in Greece involves a series of demonstrations provoked by plans to cut public spending and raise taxes as austerity measures.
Egypt
Tahrir Library - An old library which contained thousands of ancient historical books, was burnt down during a riot near Tahrir square in Cairo.
Brazil
Confederations Cup Riots - After protesting against the increased price of public transport tickets, the Free Fare Movement unmasked several corruption cases in the Brazilian government.
Chile
Chilean Student Protests - Students in Santiago protest to demand a new framework for education in their country.
France
Clichy sous Bois - After escaping the police, two kids get killed by electrocution in a power station. The two deaths caused riots across many suburbs of Paris.
Notre-Dame-des-Landes - People in the country side of Notre-Dame are fighting to stop the construction of a new airport for ecological and human reasons.
Colombia
Nacional Bogotá University - As public universities across the country go on strike, thousands of students are discussing the next step on how to make sure the reform isn’t passed.
China
Foxconn Riots - In 2012 nearly 2,000 workers at a Foxconn facility temporarily shut down the factory as a sign of protest because of the apparently inhumane working conditions.
Korea
Korean Training - Based on the popular video, this map shows the extreme organization of the Korean riot police during an organized demonstration.
UK
London Riots - Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England following the death of Mark Duggan, a local man who was shot dead by the police on August 4th.
USA
Occupy Oakland - Occupy Oakland refers to a collaboration and series of demonstrations in Oakland, California that started in October 2011.
Turkey
Gezi Park Turkish Revolution - Taksim Square, in 2013 the Turkish government planned to cut down all the remaining trees in Gezi Park to build a gigantic enclosed shopping area.
Ukraine
Ukrainian Revolution - The Ukrainian revolution took place after several violent events in Kiev that resulted in the ousting of the then-President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
Venezuela
Venezuela Riots - People protested in Venezuela in 2014-2017 against the government of Nicolás Maduro, as a consequence of corruption and shortages of basic products.
