Hi everyone, In this small update for the game, we have patched a bug with the newest generation of Intel chips, which was causing the game to crash upon startup.
Additionally, the Mask cosmetics representing each of the Voices in the game were previously awarded by Enhanced Horror encounters only. Due to the limited uptime we have had for this activity during the pandemic, the masks were not equally available to players in every time zone.
Now, through experimentation with The Place Between, all players can earn access to these cosmetics. Enjoy!
May 2020 Bug Fixing - Patch Notes
The Blackout Club has been updated with several bug fixes and improvements.
We have been testing this build in several public tests with the community and are pleased with the stability improvements added. At long last, they are live on the main branch for everyone. :)
If you're looking for the latest updates on what has been happening with Enhanced Horror and the game community, we recommend visiting our official Discord server (discord.gg/theblackoutclub) or our official wiki on Gamepedia. You can also check out the hashtag #redacrespeaks on Twitter.
List of bugfixes and improvements
The highest quality lighting build we've made yet, with fixes for a few problem areas as well.
Added a Photo Sensitive Mode for players who experience issues with "The Call" curse. You can set this in the Options menu under the "Video" tab.
Fix for ciphers occasionally not granting a curse
Tweaks to balance of "The Hunger" curse
Numerous fixes for AI pathfinding in problem areas (thanks to users who reported these using F8 or via our official Discord)
Fix for a softlock that occurs with gamepad when attempting to remember a dream while it is downloading
Fix for "Follow the trail" mission which in rare cases could not have a trail for clients
Fix for the journal menu UI when viewing empty ritual response list
Fix for rare load screen hang
Fix for possible "stuck on black screen" bugs
Fix for FX from speaker barrier being stuck on if you are suppressed near one
Fix for bugs in exorcism HUD if you collect masks before the mission starts
Fix for some hunger curse screen fx persisting when they shouldn't
Fix to prevent losing quest items in the place between
Fix to prevent "Gorgon" curse fx being applied to host when viewed by a suppressed player with curse
Fix to prevent falling in "The Place Between" on machines under our recommended minimum spec
Fixed Hunt-The-Strong sacrifice numbers showing on the sacrifice table
Fixes to some skin tone bugs with certain clothing items
Stability fixes
Misc. UI fixes
We also fixed some bugs on our online backend server code which had been causing some "Error Connecting to PlayFab" error messages as well as not always showing things like correct XP totals at the mission conclusion screen. This server fix was already live, but had not been called out in prior patch notes.
Thank you as always for playing and your support of The Blackout Club!
See you around the neighborhood! >Question
UPDATE MAY 19: We were getting reports of a crash for some users with this build. We tested and uploaded a new build this morning with a hotfix for that issue. Thanks to all who reported it!
The Blackout Club Update: A Curse on Redacre
The Blackout Club Cursed Update is live! The town of Redacre is isolated in the Radio Quiet Zone — but the shadow of a new threat has fallen across it. The locals dare not even speak its name...You’ll have to be extra careful and quick when running around the neighborhood, because not only did we add two new missions, but also the ability to pick up Cursed Ciphers (making your mission harder and more rewarding), the mysterious Place Between and more.
NEW MISSIONS
Trace Race
– Traverse down into the maze, find the data tap with the Chorus spyware and discover who they are watching. Once you’ve successfully done that, you’ll have to get to the surface to record the information they are tracking. You can grab the data from more than one computer, too. But you’ll have to be swift; once Chorus closes the connection between the machine and all of the computers, you’ll have to start all over again. The Trace Race mission unlocks at Level 3.
Shadow People
– In the mission “Shadow People”, the club is trying to collect information about a forbidden language spoken by the mysterious Voices, in the hopes of eventually being able to understand and synthesize it. This ancient code lies in the subconscious and has been hidden inside electronic Sleep Masks found around Redacre. You must collect these masks imprinted with fragments of the so-called “Old Tongue” and return them to the portable exorcism kit. But be careful. This mission and all who participate are marked... This mission unlocks at Level 10.
CURSED CIPHERS
– Now in The Blackout Club, you can collect Cursed Ciphers. Cursed Ciphers act very similar to regular evidence, but are very often in hard-to-reach, exposed, or dangerous places. Players that get close enough to see Cursed Ciphers will notice a tablet with a glitchy screen, emanating a strange and unexplainable sound.
– When you pick up a Cursed Cipher, the collecting player is CURSED.
CURSES
– You don’t only have to worry about one curse. You can pick up multiple curses, leading you to try and escape while under the weight of multiple negative effects. The more cursed you are, the more negative effects you compile. Cursed Ciphers (and their associated Curses) are completely bound to the collecting player – they are not items, and cannot be traded or handed off, even when the collecting player becomes suppressed.
– You each will have your own personal Cursed Cipher Collected Counter, but everyone gets rewarded for the Cursed Cipher instances carried to the exit, regardless of who did the carrying.
THE PLACE BETWEEN
– There’s a place that lies in between our world and the next. A place where the Voices dwell and travel freely. These spaces are mysterious with countless unanswered questions. If you try hard enough, you might stumble upon an entryway to The Place Between. But how do you find them? What secrets lie within? Guess it’s time to start investigating...
BUG FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
– Added new prank call audio for the “War Dial” power – Improvements to the stealth model to prevent unfair detections in maze transition areas
To see a full list of functionality and cosmetic tweaks and fixes, look here.
The Blackout Club Gets a December Update and DLC Packs
The Blackout Club December Update is live! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Redacre. While our December update won’t be as large as the spooktacular Halloween update, we still delivered a few special gifts for you this holiday season. You can expect a new mission, a new prestige ranking system, new additions to the store and more.
NEW MISSIONS
PJ Party
– Do you hear what I hear? That’s the sound of Sleepers falling unconscious by the hands of Redacre’s slyest. Tiptoe around the neighborhood planting signal blockers on unsuspecting Sleepers. Once you’ve planted all of the signal blockers, run to a designated “safe zone” and detonate to knock all of them out. But what to do with all of these unconscious Sleepers? Better ease up on the holiday cookies, because you’ll have to muster up your strength and endurance to carry all of the unconscious Sleepers to the target area without making a peep. The PJ Party mission unlocks at Level 6, and the more challenging version of the mission unlocks at Level 12.
EXPRESS YOUR DEVOTION
– We’ve added a brand new way for players to express their devotion for their Voice of choice. The new prestige system called, “Devotion” allows players to sacrifice their body and XP to one of the Voices, causing their devotion to deepen. There are five tier brackets of devotion, with the last being at 500,000 sacrifice total. Players may sacrifice to any number of Voices. Each time a player reaches a new tier, they get a new jacket cosmetic. And now, players can see how much XP they’ve sacrificed to a particular Voice. So, who are you most devoted to?
PLAY BACK DREAMS
– Ever heard an interesting dream and wanted to delve into the message more? Well, now you can. The Journal Menu now allows you to play back Dreams and read them like journal entries. You can also listen to past Dreams you’ve had and Broadcasts you’ve heard in the journal.
TESTING, TESTING...IS THIS THING ON?
– We know it’s important you’re heard in The Blackout Club. That’s why we’ve added a microphone test in the Hideout near the Sacrifice Mirror. You’ll be able to test your mic level and how you sound before recording a message with your Light of Rebellion.
NEW STORE ASSETS
– To celebrate our new PJ Party mission, we’ve added four festive pajama sets in the Shop (complete with tops and bottoms). And we know the holidays wouldn’t be complete without an ugly sweater, so we’ve added two.
NEIGHBORHOOD DECORATIONS
– Take in the holiday view at the decorations strung about the neighborhood in Redacre and the Old Growth Daycare.
BUG FIXES/IMPROVEMENTS
– You can now carry bodies up ladders and open doors while holding them. – Fix for "tranq dart was consumed and not used" when you are grabbed by an enemy. – Fix for when "lucid insta-reported a downed body across the map". – New animation feedback when opening reward chests in the hideout. – some animation fixes – Some vertex weight fixes to various customization meshes (tops/pants) so they don't stretch out. – Options Menu has an option now for toggling the new "Threat Indicator" arrows in the UI on/off.
DLC PACKS
– The Blackout Club December Update just went live, and you know we couldn’t stop there. These DLC packs are all about expressing your devotion for your Voice of choice. Our eight new DLC packs (one for each Daimon) include three cosmetic items: 2 kid customizations (t-shirt and jacket), and 2 hideout decorations (a wall hanging featuring their logo and the 3D model "icon"). Hang your new hideout decorations on the wall or place your special icon on the ground or table.
Please note, the DLC packs are cosmetic only and do not in any way affect gameplay.
Nominate The Blackout Club for Most Innovative Gameplay for The Steam Awards
The Blackout Club provides a unique and ever-evolving “Live Storytelling” experience thanks to the innovative Enhanced Horror System (EHS). We use the term “Live Storytelling” to describe our strategy of allowing players to interact with fictional characters of our game world (Daimons) in a completely improvisational way using live performers, and having those performers reply with detail and nuance.
The world of The Blackout Club keeps changing and any encounters with these Daimons are ephemeral and one-of-a-kind. The game's narrative centers on a mercurial relationship between these Daimons – that live in the heroes' heads and may influence their decisions – and the terrifying ramifications of a world where such entities exist. We wanted to build an experience that generates the feeling that this game's gods are actually watching – and occasionally, truly speak to mortals by name – creating a completely distinctive and personalized gaming experience.
To our knowledge, The Blackout Club is one of the first games to attempt anything like this, and we'd be so humbled if you considered The Blackout Club for Most Innovative Gameplay for The Steam Awards.
Halloween Update
The Blackout Club Halloween Update is live!
Redacre has undergone a spooktacular transformation for the Halloween season. Sneering pumpkins, festive lights, witches and ghouls adorn the houses of Hoadly, but that’s not all of the treats we have in store for you. You can expect three new missions, stealth gameplay tweaks, and new additions to the store like Halloween masks, spooky shirts and hideout decorations.
NEW MISSIONS
Egg The Lucids
It’s that time of year where mischief and mayhem fills the air, and it’s just the right time of year to get revenge on the sinister adult Lucids. Skulk around the neighborhood searching for buckets of rotten eggs placed in strategic locations. Each egg may have a “special” message for one lucky Lucid! Chuck your eggs at Lucids as many times as it takes to make them seem sick or grossed out (oh you’ll know). This level unlocks once you’ve scrambled up to Level 5!
Dance Fever
In Redacre, music is always more than it seems...right? This Halloween, it’s up to you to put the pep back in the enemy’s steps. Get as many as you can to rattle some bones in a Redacre dance-off by playing a song on your phone. But heed our warning: Angels don’t dance. The Shape is always watching, so dance if you dare. You won’t be able to dance the night away and unlock this mission until you reach Level 3.
Signal Relay
Build a network of connected relays between two endpoints in the maze. You can unlock this mission once you reach Level 4.
NEW STORE ASSETS
No Halloween update would be complete without our own set of Halloween-themed masks! Now you’ll be able to get a witch mask, eyeball mask, pumpkin mask, vampire mask, and hockey mask.
Complete your mask with new Halloween shirts and spooky art depicting cats, bats, and even a Calaveras for the Día de los Muertos.
Show off your Halloween spirit by decorating your hideout with our brand new hideout decorations. Now you can add jack-o-lanterns, a witch’s cauldron, a tombstone, wall hangings, and Halloween posters featuring haunted houses, skeletons, and Día de los Muertos.
NEIGHBORHOOD DECORATIONS
Decorations are viewable in front of houses and in every yard. You can also see new festive posters in Old Growth daycare.
Many of these decorations can be bought in the store to decorate your Hideout!
BUG FIXES/IMPROVEMENTS
We made some gameplay tweaks and tuning around stealth to feel more fair for our players, and easier to understand.
New Halloween missions begin unlocking once you reach Level 3.
We’ve also made adjustments so that some missions unlock at different levels than they have in the past.
Visit the "Discussions" forum here in Steam to read the full patch notes. Also, please check out our official Discord to chat with other members of the club!
Thanks again for all your support and for playing! See ya round the neighborhood! Boo, >Question
Welcome to 1.0 Launch!!!!
This marks the end of the Early Access period and the transition to full launch! Thanks to all the players who joined us on the journey to get here and who helped us grow and improve the game over the past 8 months!
OLD GROWTH
The biggest addition with the release of 1.0 is the 3rd large above ground region, "Old Growth". Old Growth is home to a perfectly normal daycare facility used by many families in Redacre. It is recommended you don't poke around in the basement though, employees only.
It also includes some woods and other outdoor spaces, including a playground. The size of Old Growth is close to the size of the two existing above ground areas combined and it brings with it new connections to the maze.
FIXES AND POLISH
In addition, the release into 1.0 brings a bunch of fixes and further polish to the game. Some areas that received particular attention are issues with collision that could make trees a pain to navigate around, problems with AI pathfinding, fixes to numerous level art issues, and lots more. For a full list, look here.
RUSSIAN SUBTITLES
Do to popular demand the 1.0 build has added Russian subtitles and interface!
As we have said since entering early access, with full launch comes a price increase. The game has far more to offer than it did when we first released in October, and the price has increased to reflect that.
Thanks again to everyone who has joined the club, we look forward to welcoming many more! Have fun uncovering the many mysteries that lie above and below Redacre's streets, and don't forget to close your eyes.
-Question
THE BLACKOUT CLUB LAUNCHES JULY 30!
Hello to everyone who is checking us out during the sale! It is a great time to be here, since once the game launches the price will go up, so this is best deal for The Blackout Club that will exist for quite some time.
With the launch into 1.0 we will be opening up a large new region above ground as well as more polish and bug fixes! Now is the perfect time to get in and help the club fight back against what is happening in and under their town before the game leaves Early Access.
We have also released a hotfix that fixes a number of issues that users have reported since the last update, for a list of the changes, you can look here.
Welcome to Redacre, we're happy to have you! Don't forget to close your eyes.
-Question
EARLY ACCESS UPDATE #9: READY FOR TROUBLE
Welcome to the 9th update to The Blackout Club! With this update lots has changed as we get closer to release of 1.0. We have totally overhauled the reward system, implemented LOTS of big performance optimizations, and done a lot of polish work on the neighborhood.
So lets get into the details!
ECONOMY AND REWARDS
SNACKS Rewards have been changed to introduce a new reward type on mission complete: Snacks. Snacks are traded in the new store located on the customization menu for character and hideout customizations (more about those below). You can only get snacks by completing missions, they are never purchased with real money, so this is not introducing microtransactions.
At the end of a mission you earn a badge based on the percentage of the possible XP you earned. The higher the badge, the more snacks you will receive. This means that to really get the most snacks, bonus evidence is important. In addition, as you level up, snacks and XP rewards will also rise to account for the bigger level (more ground to cover) and increased difficulty. Along with this the level curve has been adjusted to be less grindy.
THE STORE With the addition of snacks comes a store where you trade them for customizations. The store has a weekly stock and a daily special. The weekly selection updates every week, and the daily every day (probably obvious).
HIDEOUT CUSTOMIZATIONS You can now purchase customizations for your hideout with snacks! These come in the form of props and posters. When you purchase one you choose where to place it in the customization menu. In addition, when joining another person's game your customizations will come with you as long as the host doesn't have anything already in that slot!
SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NEW SYSTEM
We have added lots of items to the "Accessories" category of customizations. These include a variety of masks, bandanas, and some other surprises.
More clothing options have been added to the other categories as well.
NO MORE DUPES! Since you choose what rewards to spend snacks on you never get duplicate items. They are no longer randomly dropped on mission complete.
SUPPLY DROPS
You can also now use snacks in missions for special favors from club headquarters! New Supply Drops have been added to the game in the form of Firework Stations - above ground and Contraband Lockers - in the maze. For some snacks you can request a specific item that you really need and the club will air drop it or send you the code for the locker! For when you REALLY need that tranq!
PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATIONS
We have done a lot of work with this update to improve performance across the board, both for CPU and GPU. Almost everyone should see a pretty big performance boost, especially hosts.
WORLD POLISH
We have done a lot of work on the neighborhood to give more of a sense that people LIVE HERE. Each home now has more personality that tells a little more about the inhabitants, and when reading journals you might be able to connect some dots! We also did a fair amount of general polish on them as well.
LOCALIZATION
With this update we now have subtitles for German, Spanish, and French. There is still a little more polish work to do on these, but we believe it is fairly complete and playable. Please let us know!
TWO NEW MISSION TYPES
Record Behavior - In this mission you are required to set up a special circle that compels the enemies to engage in strange behavior. Set the trap, lure an enemy in, then record it as evidence!
Follow the Trail - this is a high level version of the rescue club kid mission, but you don't know where they were taken. You have to go to where they were abducted, record evidence in the area, then follow the trail that was left to where they are now. You won't know if they are OK until you find them!
There is lots more in this update including lots of bug fixes, the ability to increase the filter distance on available lobbies, and other surprises (what are those sleepers doing?) so keep a look out when playing. You can find additional details here. In addition we have done a lot of work preparing the next large above ground region, which will be unlocked with the next major update. As always thanks for playing, see you in the neighborhood!
-Question
UPDATE: Hotfix 6/2 for a few bugs, details posted in the change list
EARLY ACCESS UPDATE #8: WHISPERS
Welcome to the Seventh Early Access update to The Blackout Club!
This update brings with it a lot of quality-of-life improvements, better UI, LOTS AND LOTS of behind-the-scenes optimization which will hopefully improve performance on lower-end machines, and some neat new features. We also did some balance changes, including changes to the Prank Caller skill tree.
NEW FEATURES/CONTENT:
You'll find some new kids hanging out in the Hideout, the Whisper Twins, a pair of random NPC kid buddies who occasionally discuss the latest rumors and events in Redacre after players complete missions.
We've also added a new experimental "Screenshot Mode" by popular request, which allows you to disable the HUD for a more immersive gameplay experience, or just to grab sweet beautiful screenshots. Press Alt+V to toggle this on/off. :)
You will find a new Club Handbook in the Hideout . This is a simple tutorial user guide to make our new user experience cleaner. (Let us know in the forums what else you wish you knew when starting the game, so we can improve the experience for future new players!)
and more!
BALANCE CHANGES:
The Prank Call skill tree received the most attention this update, and in general has received a bit of a nerf. The cooldown on this ability has been increased, and enemies will no longer fall for the entire prank call recording before hanging up. Also, durations have been added for hacked cameras and traps, so work fast!
We've made a bunch of background improvements to AI including their pathfinding in tight spaces and areas which require you to crouch. Some of your favorite hiding places may not be so safe in the future!
The LUCKY LOOT power has also changed to allow you to get a chance for double loot items for all field items in chests, not just ammo types.
and more!
Check out the full notes linked above for the rest (there's a lot more!). We didn't even mention all the new UI, including a new Ritual Menu! Now you can get rid of that body in style, before the Lucids get to you!
As always, we love to hear your thoughts in the comments and forums. Please check out the Discord server to find other players to play with, discuss strategies and tips, or share your speculation about the mysteries beneath Redacre!
Thanks and see you around the neighborhood!
-Question
