The Steam Summer Sale is here and both DLC Mission packs for Siberian Dawn are in the sale with a 20% discount, so now is a great time to pick up these packs if you haven’t already. Each comes with 3 unique missions and give several hours gameplay, along with the replay choice of which Guild you have a Bond with, and tells the story of the first chapter of Siberian Dawn.
Road to 5.0 Progress
Busy designing the 3 new missions that will be added to the base game of Siberian Dawn. These missions are a prologue to the Siberian Dawn story that begins in Mission Packs 1 and 2, currently on sale if you missed that, so designing them as a link between the Training missions added recently and the Siberian Dawn story. They will each be a full mission comparable to the ones in the Mission Packs and use all units that were available in those and all the Guild Bonds. The titles for these missions will be, subject to design changes, The Red Code, Dawn Shadows, and Echoes of Stone. These will also establish a number of story elements that will unfold during the Siberian Dawn story. Not sure yet if I will release these one mission at a time or all at once, will see how this develops.
I am also working on a screen that shows all the bonus and penalty adjustments a deployed unit has on it, so you can see what all the glows and icons that are added on a card mean. When you click on a deployed card, Union or Hostile, a new “Modifiers” button will appear on the Data Display under the card, and if you click this it will bring up this new screen where the details of all the current modifiers will be displayed along with where they are coming from. This addition will be in the next update and adds another useful tool for all the successful Overseers out there.
Winterflood
The End of Free
When I released Siberian Dawn back in 2018 I had a choice of doing it as Early Access or Free and I decided to make the base game free as I thought that would be the best option for players to see the game, and then if they liked it they could buy the Mission packs. Well this free version has not gone as I thought it would back then with a lot of negative reviews for this free taste of the full game, which I don't think would have got so much if it had been Early Access where players might have been more understanding of this first release. So despite having made a large number of improvements to the game since then, and recently adding extra training missions that give several hours more game play, the free version wasn't working.
I had a comment from a player who must be the world's number 1 Siberian Dawn player with the hours he has put in and the great feedback he has given me over the last few months, that the game doesn't fit a free game scheme and this was also something that I had been thinking about with adding new content and all the plans for it. I was adding more and more for free but, apart from the world's number one player, I wasn't getting any response from players apart from a few thumbs up. So I have now made the base game a paid game and plan a number of additions to the game on the road to 5.0.
So getting back to the free versus Early Access, you could now think of Siberian Dawn being "Not So Early Access" and here is the plan for what is to be added to the base game.
- A set of Missions comparable to the Missions in the Mission Packs, set before the Siberian Dawn story - Skirmish mode with the new content of the Base game, DLC will then add extra content to this mode - Crisis mode with the new content of the Base game, DLC will then add extra content to this mode - Ark section that will contain various unlocks and uncover the secrets of Siberian Dawn
We already have the Training missions added recently that provided a lot of new material and completed the player's path to learning the game, while also allowing a lot of replayability, and with the above items the base game will provide a better experience at a paid price. It is also at a lower price for now than I expect it to be when it hits 5.0 and had all that was planned above added.
Winterflood
Training Update - New Free Missions
Introduction
We are back with another update for Siberian Dawn, and 4.6 brings a lot of new content and improvements to the game to continue towards making it a better experience for you.
New Training Missions
This update adds 3 new Training Missions to the game and these are all available for free like Training Run, so everyone can enjoy them. It also adds 3 new VBots that are featured in these new missions.
"Training 1 : First Run" is an easier version of Training Run to get players started with the game after they have gone through the Tutorials, with the final objective being to kill only 2 of the weaker VBot MK2.
"Training 3 : Union Units" is a mission that adds some of the Union units from the Core game with a set of objectives that make use of their advance abilities. This mission and the next one also add 2 tougher VBots to the game.
"Training 4 : Guild Bond" is a mission that adds a selection of Guild units from the Core game and also gives the player the Bond for the Animus to use, with objectives designed to show the player what can be done beyond the Conflict Zone.
Training 3 and 4 are designed to give the player a better transition from training to the first full mission of the game, Anarchy Rising.
Training Menu
With this update there is a new Training Menu and the Tutorials, Training Run, and Orientation have all been moved to this menu along with the new Training Missions covered above. Training Run has now become Training 2.
End Phase Communication
The End phase has now received a communication update to bring it up to the standard the other phases have been updated previously. Influence gained from deployed units is now shown on the units, Bond Yield and level increase are shown on the Bond, and loss from having 0 Glory in End phase is shown on a site.
The resolving of 0 Glory has also been moved to before Influence gain so that if a unit is on a site closed for 0 Glory they will not add Influence.
When the mission auto saves that is also shown during the End phase, so this phase is now a lot clearer with what is happening.
Other Changes
There were a number of other minor changes to improve the game and as always you can see all of this in the Update section in game, but a couple of other highlights are the moving of the HD/SD switch to the new Graphics menu in Options, and the News window now becoming a summary window for the menu you are currently in.
The Road Goes
I hope you again enjoy the additions I have added to Siberian Dawn, let me know what you think in the comments and on the Road to 5.0 discussion, as the feedback there has helped form a lot of what has been added here. And if you are enjoying the game maybe leave a review to let others know what you think and get Siberian Dawn a more positive reflection of where is currently stands.
Welcome to the third instalment of our journey towards Siberian Dawn 5.0 and the work that has been done to improve the game experience for everyone.
With this update we have a few more additions to the game and keep reading as we have a surprise stop on this big journey that you should find interesting.
Phase Title Bar
Above the Resolve Pod you will now find a bar that shows what phase you are currently in and you will also see it has a number of dots on either side of the phase title to show where this phase fits into the round.
New Help Overlay Finished
I have now done all the text for the new Help overlay with many of the items on the screen having more than one page on the Data display giving the vital information about that item and any other important connected rules. As it does when you select a card these pages can be moved through by clicking the Data Display, which also shows in the top right corner how many data pages there are.
Resource Prompt
In the same way I have done already with the Tactics phase any blank screen during the Resource phase now has a useful prompt screen letting you know what you can do in this phase. You have a prompt for when the Market is shut and a series of prompts for when the Market is open and which part of it you are currently in.
A Surprise Stop
I said in the introduction that there was a surprise in this update and you may have already noticed this on the game, but I thought as the road to 5.0 is going to probably be a long one and as I had already made a number of significant improvements, and it also probably wasn’t fun for you to sit there and just read about all the things I was changing, we would take a little pause on this journey and update the game to version 4.5.
So all of the additions I have talked about so far in these Road to 5.0 updates are now live in the game. Hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think and if there are any unintended special features that have also crept in, bugs.
The Road To 5.0 The Discussion
A few days ago I created a discussion thread on here so we can all talk about the journey to 5.0 and I have included a link below. So let me know what you think of the additions in the 4.5 update and your thoughts about what else could be done on the road to 5.0, as getting feedback is always helpful in improving the game, and its good to talk.
And that is that for this update, I hope you enjoy the 4.5 update and the improvements I have made so far and I will return with a new post about this journey towards 5.0 when I have more to share about the work improving the experience of Siberian Dawn in 2022
Winterflood
The Road to 5.0 – Part 2
Introduction
Welcome to the next instalment of our journey towards Siberian Dawn 5.0 and what I have been working on to improve the game experience for everyone.
There are 2 phases in the game where the player has the most to do with choices to make, these are the Resource and Tactics phases. As these phases are where the most information is given to the player they are the most important phases I need to focus on improving. In this post I am therefore going to detail the improvements I am making with one of these phases, the Tactics phase.
Tactics Details
Tactics actions with 5.0 will show clearer what their effects are going to be when they are set on a deployed unit, specific to the related action of that unit. So in the examples below we see how it would look when a tactic card is played on a Unit to set their Subdue action with the current data screen shown on the left and the 5.0 version shown on the right.
As shown 5.0 will show the effect of Set being done on the unit and the possible effects from this successful action. Subdue Target will only happen if the acting unit has a higher Rank than the target and if they don’t then this line of the Set display will not be shown, so the player is getting an accurate display of what will happen in that situation.
The line showing the Fate decks that can be used for this action is also being changed from “Resolve” to “Fate Decks” to make it clearer what it is talking about. And the tag line at the bottom of the Data Display has also been reworded to make it clearer what the current result of the action will be if Set.
Fate
Currently when you have to pick a fate deck to draw from it just says “Pick Fate” but with 5.0 when you select one of the Fate decks available on the action pods, Fate IV for example, it will then say “Draw Fate IV” to make it clearer what you are going to do. It will also say “Fate” under the fate value on the card in the Data Display to make it clearer this is the Fate value, so the example here shows this below the “?”
Any bonus or penalty from the fate draw will also be communicated on the data display. This needed a bit of thinking to do as a penalty could result in multiple values changing. So in the example of a Fate draw doing 1 damage to the attacker if the Unit was only on 1 life then they would die and you would lose Glory for their Rank and then if you didn’t have enough Glory you would lose the Excess from Vitae. So in a situation like this the Fate bonus line will go through a sequence displaying the various effects.
Support
With 5.0 the Support stage of an action you perform with a unit will give a lot more information about what is happening. Currently you have to know what Support is either from the rules or tutorial but with 5.0 it is giving you more information in case you forgot or skipped reading any rules or tutorials.
In the example above you can see the cards in hand that give Support will have a white cross overlay shown on the column on their right side, matching the white plus shown above the acting unit, giving you a visual link between the cards and the action. When you select a card it will also show on the bottom of the Data Display what the card is going to add to the Result with this Support, so if a card will not add Support it will still show the cost to add it but make it clear this card will not affect the Result.
Tactic Prompt And End Action
During the Tactics phase where currently it will have the Data Display empty when nothing is selected with 5.0 it will now show a prompt message telling players the options available to them as shown in the picture below. This will give the player a prompt about the various actions they have available at that point and give them better guidance on what they can do during that phase of the game.
With 5.0 the End action will follow other actions in the game and when it is selected will show on the Tag line at the bottom of the Data Display what it will do and the next phase that will be launched when End is resolved, as shown the picture above. Again this is giving the player a clearer picture of what is happening and where they are going next.
The Road Goes On
So with this update I hope this shows how the Tactics phase is going to give a lot more information to the player, allowing them to enjoy the game more. As always let me know what you think of these improvements and I will return with a new post about this journey towards 5.0 when I have yet more to share about my work improving Siberian Dawn
Winterflood
The Road to 5.0 – Part 1
Introduction
Welcome to the first part of the road to 5.0 where I will share what is currently happening with the development of Siberian Dawn and the things going on in my head with this for improving the game and fixing the problems players are having.
As I have mentioned in updates previously a lot of this work is looking at the feedback I have received and interpreting what has been said and the trouble that people have had with the game. Currently I decided to focus on two particular pieces of feedback that have come up several times - “The game is too difficult” and “Having to learn the game again after not playing it for a while.”
“The game is too difficult” is something that has probably come up the most, but what are they talking about? How I interpret this could lead me down widely different paths with looking at what needs improving. Are they talking about the Game? or are they talking about the Game? What?
A Tale of Two Games
Examining Siberian Dawn we have two different games. We have what you could call the original, physical game, if it existed physically. Then we have the digital version of the game, how the original game has been presented digitally. Now as there is no Physical version of the game you might be thinking what the hell is he going on about, there is only one version of the game. Despite it existing from the start digitally I still designed it as a physical card game in my mind and it could easily have been a physical game originally. So when making it I kept the game close to what a physical card game would be, without too much of the digital extras added. Keeping this physical mindset you also keep the way people learn and play physical card games, read the rules, and follow what is on the cards, but when it is digital this isn’t the case. A digital version of a card game can be jumped into easier, and without a lot of information feedback the player could quickly find themselves with no clue what is going on, as the computer is doing a lot of the rules enforcement for you, so you could just end up throwing a lot of cards around without a clue to their effects.
Following the above I believe that when someone said the game is too hard they were talking about the Digital delivery of the game and not the actual physical, but not physical, game. I don’t believe Siberian Dawn is a hard game, it is just playing cards and that can’t be that hard, but it is getting lost and made harder behind the communication of the digital game.
So by breaking the game in two, in my mind, I could then start to think about the problems clearer, the original game design is not where the problem lays. Since the launch I have been improving the communication of the game but this has been bits here and there. Now I am having a close look at all the parts of the digital game to find where it can be upgraded and how to make the experience better for the player.
This also ties in with the second piece of feedback I mentioned earlier “Coming back after not playing for a while I have to learn the game again.” This again fits the communication problem and not the design of the original game being too hard. Players who have been enjoying the game probably took the time to read the rules and learn how the game worked and what it was going on about at times. Then when they returned later they had to read the rules again to familiarise themselves with the things happening on screen, but if that extra layer of communication was there then they could instead quickly get back into the game and remember how it worked.
So concentrating on these two pieces of common feedback I am currently adding this extra layer of communication to the game that covers the whole digital game and I will cover some of these improvements below.
The Cost of Excess
I believe a rule that might often be overlooked is when a value in the game has to be changed and it can’t be. In this situation the excess value is always taken off the Vitae value instead. So if you had to lose 5 Glory and you only had 2 Glory then the extra 3 would be taken from Vitae. This deduction of excess is only shown by the values changing, so if you missed this then you might have no clue what something did.
With 5.0 all changes in stats will be shown on the pod that displays the letter for that resource, and the Threat and Influence tracks will also have these overlays. So for example if you lose 3 Glory the G pod will show -3. Any excess value will then be communicated on the V pod, so when an effect resolves you get this true value feedback on the values affected. In the image above you can see the effect of a card has gained the Union 3 Influence on both Influence tracks and the Hostile force has lost the 3, you can also see that 5 command has been lost from the cost of playing the card.
Pushing Communication
The above display of value changes is just a part of this new layer of communication and with it more use will be made of the Data Display screen, looking at any silent spaces it might have and where I can add information to aid the player in understanding what is currently happening. Below are some more examples of areas I have looked at for 5.0 and how they are going to change.
Drawing Anarchy at the start of the Tactical Phase will also be upgraded in 5.0 with this extra level of communication to make things clearer. When you draw any Anarchy cards the Data Display will show the effects for the amount drawn but if the full cost of one of these effects can’t be paid then the excess taken from Vitae will be shown below the effect, and this excess will be taken off the value of the effect. So in the image shown here Threat should have increased by 2 for the Anarchy drawn but it was already on the maximum of 9 so the 2 was taken as excess from Vitae. The Anarchy cards affecting the Anarchy Draw Effect will also glow with red borders in the hand of cards to show what is going on clearer. The example here also shows the Command loss of 4 shown as -4 overlaid on the C pod.
Hostile Actions
Currently when a Hostile unit performs a successful action it only says Action Victorious and the effects just happens, with you having to notice these changes with your knowledge of the rules. With 5.0 it will show exactly what the effect of the action was along with the value changes shown on the stats as mentioned before. In the example image you can see the Hostile action gained them 12 Influence on the Left Flank, the Result of the action, the Fate draw also gained them 1 extra Influence as shown by the third line under the Result. The Hostile force could only gain 6 on the Left Influence track as they were already on 24 so +6 is shown on the Influence track and the extra 7 is shown as Excess -7 Vitae, which will also be shown as a -7 on the V pod, for the amount that couldn’t be gained.
All of the actions in the game still need to be gone over and checked, making sure they are consistent in communication, so this layout shown here may change before 5.0 is finished, but it shows how this update will add more information in a way that is helpful without adding any unneeded complication or additional steps to the game.
Help Overlay
With 5.0 the default Help overlay will be a number of question buttons for each part of the screen. When you click one of these buttons the details about that item will be shown on the Data Display. This new idea breaks the information presented down into smaller parts rather than the previous version that was one overlay showing all the details, which might have been overwhelming. This new version also allows the Data Screen to present multiple pages of data for an item if needed, the same way it does when a card is selected.
The old Help overlay will still be available and can be switched to in the Options if you preferred that way of getting information as there was no need to throw it out of the game.
The Road Goes On
So in the first part of this update about the current development of Siberian Dawn 5.0 I hope I have shown how I am tackling some of the information problems in the game currently, and with changing the way I was looking at the game and what I believe players were talking about with their experience. If anyone has any thoughts about what I have covered here then let me know in the comments as that all helps to show me if I am heading along the right path or if there are still other avenues I am missing. And I will give further updates on the road towards 5.0 as I go along.
Winterflood
An Unfinished Update
He Has Been Thinking Again
I did start to write a long update on how I was currently feeling about what I am doing, and why I work on my projects, but it was long and probably not very interesting to anyone else, so I got rid of that and instead just have to say I have let the “Mostly Negative” of Siberian Dawn on the Steam market affect me too much since the game’s release, and as I am the only one working on my projects I didn’t have the strength of a group working on them to get over this.
My belief in what I am doing needs to be stronger than anyone else’s and that is what got Siberian Dawn through 5 years of development without showing it to anyone. I should be proud of what I have done with my projects and not let others kill them off.
A few weeks ago I got some great feedback from a player of the Android version on Facebook and they said about the unfinished parts of the game, so as mentioned I reflected on what I was doing, I wrote a long update about this reflection, I deleted long update about this reflection, and this is where we are now.
I may not make any money from my projects, I may not get much positive support for my projects, but the most important thing is I enjoy making my projects, and if I get some of the other two then that is a bonus.
But of course what I have said up to now doesn’t mean I ignore what people say about my projects and when I can understand what is said improving that in the project, as a look through the update log in Siberian Dawn should clearly show.
Codename Lore 2
Work on the sequel to Siberian Dawn, which has the codename Lore 2, has gone well. all I will say about it so far is that it has a different setting than Siberian Dawn, and it has all the strategic elements of the first game removed, which is about 80% of the mechanics of Siberian Dawn.
The theme of the game is built around hunting in a strange world and has more of a focus on deck building. I have programmed the gameplay of the hunt and now I am at the stage of adding content and designing the unique hunts. While working on this game it of course gives you ideas for improving Siberian Dawn and finishing outstanding elements.
Finishing Business
So with Lore 2 being in this Content Building / Design stage I have been doing some more work on Siberian Dawn with the unfinished sections, thinking a bit more about them and thinking about what I can do being a single developer and not a team of 30.
I have now designed Skirmish Mode, which is a mode that will let you play a mission containing a series of dynamically generated objectives, with content take from Chapters that you own. I am now adding content to this dynamic system but otherwise it is coded and designed.
Crisis Mode is a mode that will let you play a series of smaller missions as you try to defeat a crisis, and is again built from the content you have brought. This was already designed and needs the content adding for running the Crisis, a lot more work than Skirmish.
The Ark is the other section that remained unfinished. With this I had big ideas that would be fine for a team of 30 but not for just me. The Ark will now be a place where you can unlock pages featuring the cards and their art and maybe also pages containing background from the game. Still a lot of content but more realistic than previous plans.
Improving Dawn
I have also been looking at the game more and seeing how I can improve it. I have now changed the Action pods so when they are for navigating the Market they show an arrow above and below the text on the pod to distinguish them from pods that perform an action. I am also adding text to the data screen for all the market screens that currently have no text to help the player.
There are also other areas I will ponder and look for ways to improve if needed and possible.
Closing Time
So I am still working on Siberian Dawn, finishing business, as well as working on Lore 2. When I am going to have these updates finished is unknown I am just going to enjoy what I am doing and make sure business is finished when it is ready.
I also have my Conscious Chronicles series of novels to finish but I have been working on them for over 15 years, with the first book The Last Mask Tradition published 10 years ago, so I don’t like to rush things (The art on this post are from those novels).
And that is that, I have to be more positive, enjoy my projects, and not let the negatives make me forget why I am doing these things in the first place.
Winterflood
State of the Union 2021
Since the 4.0 update back in December I have been doing a bit of design on the next additions for Siberian Dawn, as well as working on two other projects, but after another negative review a few days ago, and the otherwise silence, I was thinking about what I was spending my creative time working on and what I should be doing with this time.
Four of the five tasks I planned for Siberian Dawn were content additions that would not change the base game. With the 4.0 update there are no more additions planned to make the game clearer, there is no simpler version of the game to come. This is a complex strategic wargame, with a deck building mechanic at its core, that was designed to give the player several tactical choices during a mission rather than just being a deckbuilder that ends up playing you and leaving you with no choices. So what you currently have is the finished game and what was planned was additional content that would add new tactical challenges, new missions, a new game mode.
Therefore if the game is still only getting negative reviews and there is nothing coming that is going to change this, if that is even possible, then it probably makes more sense to stop working on the new content for Siberian Dawn and just focus on the other projects or do something more rewarding. Also from the information I am getting I am not seeing any desire for the additional content so it just doesn’t make sense to work on it. The fifth task I had planned was to do some videos of me playing the game, but I am not sure if these would even help to get people playing, the game has been out for over two years so is it too late for how to play videos and would a lot of people want to watch a 20 – 30 minute video anyway?
So as it stands I am currently going to stop working on the additions for Siberian Dawn, and see if anything changes in the future. I expect it will still get negative reviews for the free base game as that is the trend it is now in and I know I will not be offering a free version of any future games I develop from what I have learnt from this experience. The knowledge I have gained from this project will be used in the future, and we will see where that goes.
Winterflood
4.0 The New Bond Update
Introduction
Another big update for Siberian Dawn is released today and brings, as the title of this news declares, a change to the Bond system in the game, along with a number of other additions I will cover below.
Bond System Updated
The Bond system has now been altered to make it clearer to understand and to also allow for new Bonds to be added in future DLC.
Previously the Bond system had the Guild you picked giving you the Accord shown on the Bond card when you used Act on one of their cards, and the other 3 Guilds gave you the Discord effect if you used their Act ability. With the new system there are only 2 Guilds that will give Discord when they Act, and the third Guild has now become neutral with no effect on the Bond.
The Bond no longer refers to Guilds for Accord and Discord but uses the term Groups instead to allow for future new Bonds for Blocs that are not Guilds. The Bond card now clearly shows you the icons for 2 groups it has a Discord with at the bottom right in red and the icon of the group the Bond has Accord with is now shown in the top right corner of the Bond.
This new system now clearly shows the 3 groups that affect the Bond and also makes it a bit easier with lessening the number of groups that give Discord.
Shadows Develop
● The Shadow Puppets in the Core game have gained 4 new cards, 1 puppet for each of the Guild Bonds. These new cards have their powers based on the amount of Impact currently on a Bond and add a new idea to the game.
This has also resulted in an update of all the shadow puppet lists, to add the new cards in but also some of the previous cards have been moved around or removed from lists to increase the unique content of each Bond group.
To further alter the balance of resolving all Shadows towards the unique set of the Bonds there is now a greater chance of drawing from the unique list, where before it had been equal between getting a result from the universal group or the unique group of the Bond.
Bond And Objective Get More Data
The Bond card is now clickable the same way other cards in the game were, and data pages have been added to help explain how Bonds work. It also now glows over the specific group icon on the Bond when a card is going to trigger Accord or Discord.
The Objective card has also gained data pages that can be viewed by clicking it, to help explain how Objectives work in a mission
All Glows Toggle
Have now expanded the setting for the Display Pulse toggle in the Options menu to include the option for also turning off the Overlay pulses, so all the glows can now be set to pulsing, or switched individually off or on as desired. So if you had a problem or didn't like the flashing pulses before you can now turn them all off and just get the overlays not animated.
Update Log Added
Added an Update Log section to the front menu screen to allow players to see all changes made to the game and how the game has developed. So if you are returning to the game after a while and come across something new and wonder what has changed you can find the answer in the update log. It is also an interesting timeline of where the game has gone since launch.
Information Updated
Updated Help overlay screen and Orientation so they match the updates and changes made with this update. Have also updated the 4th Tutorial to cover the new Bond system, and altered the transparency and text colour of the Help overlay so the screen elements underneath are easier to see, while still keeping the overlay text clear.
So with this update I think the game now has a solid foundation from which future additions can build upon, and we will see where it goes now.
Beyond Chapter 1
Introduction
With the arrival of the second anniversary of Siberian Dawn launching on Steam I thought I would give an update on what I am working on and the things that could be coming in the future.
The game was originally designed to be three chapters with each chapter containing 6 missions. The first chapter was split it to two parts but the remaining two chapter will instead be presented as two DLC packs.
Chapter 2
Your mission progresses beyond Industrial Habitation 54 into the harsh Siberian wilds as you investigate what is happening in a Guild Hall belonging to the Letalis guild with 6 new missions.
This chapter also introduces two new groups of cards to your market, the Blood and the Ghosts
The Blood are mercenaries who give you a different group of deployable units to use in the conflicts, bringing a new way of fighting to the battle but requirig payment to keep them working for you.
The Ghosts are hackers and rogue Overseers who give you interesting ways to manipulate the system, but do not have a market of their own, instead they are shuffled into the other active unit markets at the start of each mission
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 brings the Siberian Dawn story to a close as you uncover the Core of the Dawn and try to finally defeat it over 6 new missions that will test all you have learned so far. And brings two new groups to the game for you to use.
The Circle are mystics and seers who will let you predict and manipulate the Fate Helix and alter other situations in the mission, but at the cost of your Glory.
The Forged are another group of deployable units who are religious fanatics mutated and enhanced by technology, but using them will drain the Vitae of the mission so have a high cost for using their powers.
Crisis Mode
Crisis mode brings a new game mode to Siberian Dawn allowing you to play a series of special missions with Rogue-Like mechanics, offering increased re-playability. The mission options available in Crisis mode will be based on the DLC packs that you own.
Ark
The Ark is the area of unlocks or the Siberian Dawn metagame. From the start you have been earning stars and have also been secretly earning another set of points that will allow you to unlock items in the Ark.
I am still designing this section, looking at the sort of things I can add for unlocking, but one section, which came from designing the sequel game mentioned below, is to have different Overseers you can play, and each of these will have a set of cards you can unlock that add special cards relevant to that character, expanding their story.
More Improvements
Over the two years since it was released I have added a number of improvements but still plan more including more options and additional music. I have also returned to the Bond cards and altered these slightly from what is currently in the game. Currently when you pick a Bond you have one Guild that you have an Accord with and the other three Guilds all have a Discord if you Act with them, but the new system will have only two guild having a Discord with you, which will now be shown on the Bond. The other Guild will be a neutral Guild and not have any effect on the Bond when used. This makes Bonds a bit easier but opens up the possibilities for Bonds based on the groups added in the new Chapters.
New Lore Game
I have also started work on a new game using the Lore card engine I built for Siberian Dawn. This game has a different setting from Siberian Dawn and has had all of the wargame mechanics removed putting the focus more on the cards and deckbuilding. The game will not have the heavy tactical aspects that Siberian Dawn has but will give a more streamlined experience. I have already coded the core game letting me now focus on the design of the cards and testing the game to see how it all plays.
Coming Soon?
I don’t know when all of the above will be finished as I am the only one working on all this, and obviously real life events and motivation has a big effect on all of this. With is no horde of rabid fans there is no pressure to rush anything and I don’t have anyone standing over me wondering when their slice of money is coming, and the game seems to be now stuck in Mostly Negative so I might as well take my time.
So I wanted to share the plans and what is happening at the moment, and let people see I am still around, and I hope to have all of this done at some point in the near future beyond chapter 1.
