Welcome to the seventh Early Access update to The Blackout Club. This update brings several new maze areas and connections, a new mission, lots of improved UI, and fixes in numerous areas!
NEW ADDITIONS
NEW MISSION: Hide The Evidence Uh-oh, looks like a club member has caused a nasty bit of trouble during a blackout (it involves doves and blood, ewww). If CHORUS finds out it could mean big trouble. Find and remove the evidence, receive bonus XP for cleaning up the trail they left in their wake!
NEW AREA: The Barracks Some of the sleepers no longer leave the maze, they have been fully consumed. This is where they live.
NEW AREAS: Somniloquy(s) A pair of areas with an unknown purpose. What are those smoke filled chambers? Why are there two of these large rooms isolated by space and sound insulation? The maze keeps its secrets....
NEW UI We have updated quite a bit of the UI! Leaderboards, Journals, Team Info, Inventory, and Session Menus have all been overhauled. Of particular note, the new session menu asks hosts to specify whether they would prefer a public or friends only game. We are hoping this resolves some of the confusion that has led some to kick players when they join mid-game.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
When performing a ritual with a Light of Rebellion you will now be asked to specify what Voice you want your sacrifice to go to. What does that mean? Only one way to find out.
Indomitable has been nerfed. We discovered that Indomitable was refilling faster than we intended, allowing it to be too much of a speed run build. We have rebalanced the amount of injury required to recharge the power. Sorry to all who got used to lots of free sprinting!
Added ability to Opt-Out of Stalker Mode. Some players have said they would like to no longer be stalked after deciding the mode is not for them. We added a button in the Options Menu that will reset your stalker settings. This means that you will be invaded ONE MORE TIME if you reset, but after that you will not be invaded as a host if you don't stalk anyone else. This option is only available to those who have stalked other players (meaning they have opted-in)
FIXES AND OPTIMIZATIONS
This update features a number of fixes and attempts to make the game run better. Some highlights are:
Changes to replication to reduce the CPU load on the host machine
Ragdoll improvements for AI (should be less juddery, react better to crossbow)
Many, many UI fixes
Fix for AI getting into an unresponsive state
Fix for getting stuck in the sleeping bag on load (rare, but very annoying)
Fixes to footstep guide to prevent it walking into the sky for no good reason
And More!
The full update list will be posted on the forums and a link will be updated here once it is ready! Thanks again to all the club members who are fighting the good fight in Redacre, and all the stalkers who are ratting them out! We hope you have fun and we appreciate all the feedback and support.
-Question
EARLY ACCESS UPDATE #6: THE PLEXUS
Welcome to the sixth major update to The Blackout Club since entering Early Access last Halloween! This update brings some new areas to the maze, a new mission, and a number of tweaks and changes to gameplay!
NEW ADDITIONS
NEW MISSION: Drone Repair. In this mission the kids are tasked with repairing a wounded drone, then following it as it leads them to its dropped payload! You might find some extra bonus evidence along the way. ;)
NEW AREA: The Plexus
A large new area to the maze that unlocks at level 8.
NEW AREA: Signal Relay
A smaller area behind The Plexus that unlocks at level 9.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Large changes have been made to some items, as well as a Major Power track we introduced last update, and some other balance changes to the Stalker mode which we hope will address some frustrations people told us about. The underground Maze has some new connections, Stun Guns no longer require 9V batteries, and we started work on a new customization category, Accessories!
Flashbangs and tranq darts will no longer freeze kids OR stalkers in place.
Flashbangs temporarily blind you and rotate you in a random direction (kinda like pin the tail on the donkey, if you ever played that as a kid). Watch out or you might run right into your enemy's arms!
Tranq darts now deplete stamina completely and prevent stamina regen briefly. They also inflict a small wound, lowering overall stamina. The intent is for these to no longer be guaranteed wins for either the kids or the stalker, we will be watching how these changes play out!
The INDOMITABLE power track now grants infinite sprint in addition to wound invulnerability for its duration. We felt this power was weak compared to the others and needed some buffing. It might be too OP now... let us know!
The STUN GUN no longer requires batteries, but will recharge automatically over time. You can see the recharge on the battery meter on the stun gun when holding it. We felt this item needed a buff to feel as useful as the others. This also means that 9V batteries have been removed from the loot tables.
New customization category: Accessories. There is a new category of customizations now for customizations we will be adding in the future. There is not much in it yet (one thing), but that will change in future updates.
New connections in the maze. We have connected areas in the maze with new routes to give players more options when navigating. We also made some adjustments to Dream Therapy to force players to go deeper inside when passing through.
Achievements Implemented! Players can now receive Steam achievements when playing the game. :)
Subtitles added for AI VO. Subtitle support got a huge boost this update with subtitles now being properly implemented for most Lucid and Sleeper VO. There is more to come, but for those of you who prefer subtitles you should have most of the game covered now... not just the Prologue anymore.
FIXES
As usual this build has numerous fixes and the full list will be posted in the forums (will update this post with a link once ready). Some of the more notable fixes are:
Attempts to make stalker dossier counts more reliable. They were very inconsistent before.
Fix to make sure ladder climbing options are properly respected in game
Fix to incorrect mission complete screen when a stalker was captured
Improved region select UI
Collision fixes in the map
Various typos and text cleanup to reflect the gameplay changes
We really can't thank everyone enough for your feedback, comments, and bug reports these past few months. They are all helping us evolve and shape up this game to be the best it can be and we hope you're having fun! Don't forget to check out the Discord (discord.gg/theblackoutclub) and our Steam Community Hub for the latest news and updates.
Most of all THANK YOU for playing and spreading the word!
See you around the neighborhood,
~the Question team
HOTFIX FOR UPDATE #5
The update today is an attempt to fix some crash issues users have been experiencing (SORRY!). It is also makes some adjustments to the recently added Stalker Mode.
The goal with these changes is to hopefully give players better information about the intended role of the stalker in the game. The biggest change is the removal of the WINS leaderboard for stalker. Stalkers will now only receive long term rewards for high scores which are achieved by recording the club and their sins, and causing full mission fail will no longer be the goal.
The reason for this is that The Blackout Club is a co-op experience first and foremost, and the stalkers are designed to be an obstacle that a well organized team can overcome. They are intended to add an unpredictable human threat to the co-op game, but not to create a full PVP focused experience. To that end, stalkers should aim to last as long as possible, recording as much as they can, generate paranoia, before they are caught.
All that said, we do not consider the Stalker mode perfectly tuned and we will continue to watch how it fits into the overall experience and make changes moving forward. Early Access is a time for us to refine the game based on player feedback as well as our own goals.
As always THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PLAYING. We really appreciate your time and feedback! Have fun in Redacre!
UPDATE: We updated again after finding that there was still a crash affecting some people. We are pretty sure this time the main issue is fixed, but please let us know in crash reports on the forum OR by sending crashes to bugreports@questiongames.com
-Question
UPDATE #5: ENTER THE STALKER
PLAY AS A TRAITOR TO THE CLUB
The primary focus of this update has been the introduction of the new STALKER MODE. Playing as a stalker pits you as a kid working against the club. You invade their missions and record them for the enemy. Every time you record them or their crimes their sins are logged, notifying the nearby AI and eventually calling out The Shape. Once the shape is out, every recording shows the shape where the kids are. You are victorious if every member of the club is put to sleep by the shape. THIS IS VERY HARD TO DO! The stalker is very weak relative to the club, so victory will be rare. Your score is stored however and you can be rewarded just for that. More on that later.
To invade a game requires a STALKER DOSSIER. These are seeded into the world on conditions you will have to discover yourself and will be rare initially. When you invade a game you can move between red doors and enter unnannouced. The kids wil NOT know you are there until you start recording them or their sins. Each time you do this they receive an in game message. If they catch you, YOU LOSE, if they complete their mission, you ALSO LOSE. So be sneaky, be careful, choose your moments! You can return to the red doors after a cooldown, use them smartly to lose pursuit and confuse your enemies.
CATCH THE VENOMOUS TRAITOR
As loyal club kids you may be invaded by a stalker after reaching LEVEL 5! When they enter your mission you will NOT KNOW until they start recording you. Work as a team to bring them down for bonus XP. The kid that catches the stalker also gets added to the leaderboard and gets a little extra XP. AFTER YOU HAVE BEEN INVADED ONCE, YOU WILL NOT BE INVADED AGAIN UNLESS YOU INVADE SOMEONE ESLE. Once you have invaded another player, all games you host can be invaded going forward - INVASION IS OPTING INTO STALKER MODE. Stalkers can only invade missions that have more than one player to make sure the club kids have the advantage. So team up if you want to see Stalkers!
NEW LEADERBOARDS, UNIQUE REWARDS
With this update come new leaderboards: Most Stalkers Caught, Most Wins As Stalker, and Highest Stalker Score. Every week these leaderboards will reset, and the players at the top of each will receive a unique customization that can only be earned through this system! You can view the Stalker Wins and Score in the new Stalker Van (available after level 5), and the Stalkers Caught leaderboard is visible in the normal hideout.
A LIVING EXPERIMENT
We have tested this mode internally as much as we could, but we realize that the reality with live players could be very different. We expect to continue to iterate on this mode and make changes based on community feedback. Invasions may be too rare or too common, Stalkers might not have enough missions available to invade, there is much we expect to learn and we look forward to hearing what you think. Stalking is not available ALL THE TIME by design, we consider this an addition, not the core mode of play.
FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
As usual this update comes with many fixes and improvements including basic eye animations for the kids (your eyes even close when you shut them in game), a new Sleeper pajama mesh (hi mom!), and fixes to missions and level geo. There have also been significant optomizations to reduce load on the CPU, which should really help framerates on host players. To see that full list you can go to the forums and look here
THANK YOU ALL FOR PLAYING!
-Question
Early Access Update #4: ENHANCED HORROR
Happy Holidays From Redacre
This marks the fourth update of The Blackout Club since entering early access. Thanks to all who have joined up to fight the forces menacing Redacre, hopefully you are having fun!
ENHANCED HORROR UPDATE
When you launch The Blackout Club, you will be asked whether you want to opt in to the Enhanced Horror System. This allows the game to listen to and record your vocalizations if you have a microphone active and use it to create the most immersive possible horror experience, both for you and other players. It will not affect your voice chat settings, you can still turn off the ability of fellow players to hear you (if you prefer a 3rd party voice application) without sacrificing the Enhanced Horror experience. Certain features such as the Ritual system require that you opt in to Enhanced Horror. Phobia warning: Paranormal Stimuli.
NOTE: This does NOT mean that the AI in game will hear your microphone. We have seen some confusion on this and want to make that clear.
A NEW MAZE AREA - DREAM THERAPY
We have added a fairly large addition to the maze that unlocks at Level 7. We hope you enjoy it and look forward to your feedback! What is its purpose? What happens in a sleeper's dreams?
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
There have been quite a few tweaks and adjustments to gameplay in this update, some of the largest are:
The Cross Country major power track has been completely reworked as the Unstoppable power track. You activate this power by holding down the power button (R or RB on gamepad by default). For the next several seconds you are immune to being wounded, deploy at strategic moments to gain the upper hand! The only way to recharge the power is to experience pain (get wounded), bandages are your new best friend. We look forward to feedback on this power.
Most major powers now have cooldowns! Prank call in particular has a long cool down to prevent it being too over powered and make its use feel more tactical and less reactive.
The Prank Caller track is now the Hacker track. The ability to hack cameras and mines are now a part of the Hacker track and are no longer minor powers.
New minor powers have been added. Some of them let you choose items to start a mission with.
Leveling rates have been adjusted. Leveling at higher levels should now be faster.
The Shape has become more dangerous. Once you are past level 5 the shape will be a more formidable adversary (we didn't want to crush brand new playters). In addition, it has some new surprises for players who make it too angry.
A NEW THREAT: SPEED TRAPS. The meddling kids are too fast! Now there are motion activated traps that will zap any kid moving fast and reckless enough. Watch out for their telltale red laser pattern.
NEW MISSION: FOAM PARTY. Speaking of those nasty Speed Traps, a mission has been added to run around and hit a bunch of them with big goopy blobs of foam. Shuts 'em right down. They think they can slow down The Club? Think again.
Totally redesigned options and system UI. We finally replaced the old temp UI for options and system menus for something that should be cleaner to navigate and much nicer to look at!
AND MUCH MORE....
This update had a lot in it, these are just the big changes. Lots of other adjustments to balance, powers and many, many fixes also went in. To see the full list take a look here on the forums.
Thanks again to everyone who has supported us in early access! Your feedback is invaluable to making this game the best it can be. We are always listening and we hope you have a wonderful and happy holiday. See you in Redacre (watch out for Stalkers).
-Question
Introducing The Public Beta Branch!
In anticipation of our next update (coming very soon, tomorrow barring emergencies!) we are opening up a public beta branch for players who want to try the latest and greatest changes and help us find bugs and provide feedback!
The full instructions on how to access the branch can be found here, please read the whole thing as it has important information.
The current version has a new maze area (opens at level 7) as well as new system/options UI, power changes, balance changes, and a lot more. You will likely find bugs, which is the point!
Thanks for playing,
-Question
Early Access Update #3!!
Welcome to the third update to The Blackout Club since we launched early access a month ago! Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and the wildfires that affected the Bay Area, this update is a little lighter than we would usually like, but we still wanted to get you all something! The full list can be found on the forums, but here are some of the highlights:
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS AND ADDITIONS
NEW MISSION: A New Campaign - The kids decided the posters are not enough, and have branched out to use disguised political yard signs for their recruitment efforts!
NEW MISSION: We're Listening - The kids sneak into houses and install cheap sound bugs in fake wall sockets. Who knows, maybe some sleeper will let something slip in a dream - maybe they'll even overhear the real name of a lucid. Any info could be a weapon.
The Ritual Room is open in MP sessions now. We consider this an important (if mysterious) part of the game, and locking it behind a single player gate always felt wrong. Now one person at a time can make sacrifices and perform prayers during MP sessions. Fun for the whole club!
Players will sometimes dream when returning to the hideout (????????)
BUGFIXES AND ITERATION
We made numerous optimizations to attempt to improve CPU performance. We have more to do here, but we tried to make a dent. Let us know if it seems better or worse.
A number of bugfixes related to AI, such as getting stuck at the bottom of ladders, getting stuck dragging on some stairways, and bumping off of cliff geometry.
Level fixes such as an issue with some light switches in the prologue blocking interaction and a bad path link near the Hoadly East cliff edge.
Input tweaks such as allowing for even lower mouse sensitivity settings, separate sliders for mouse and gamepad sensitivity, and separate options for invert Y on gamepad and mouse.
KNOWN ISSUE: In certain cases the footprints that help guide you to the next objective will fail to go where they should. We hope to have that fixed next update!
There are a few more fixes and tweaks that can be found in the full list on the forums.
As always, thanks to all the club members who have given such great feedback, helped us find bugs, and most importantly, played and enjoyed the game! We know early access is a risky proposition, we truly appreciate your patience and time!
-Question
Early Access Update #2 - New Content and Fixes!
We are pleased to be rolling out our second update to The Blackout Club. This update marks the first of our new update schedule, which should come about every two weeks moving forward. The focus on this update was getting some new content in the game while continuing to fix bugs and start to address feedback and balance issues.
NEW AREAS
This update features access to a some new areas in the maze! One room in particular has a few tricks up its sleeve as well as opening up some new routes to other areas.
QUEST UPDATE
The cryptogram mission has an extra challenge added for higher level players (for more XP as well). Use the cryptograms with projectors to read their contents and record the evidence you find. The old shorter version of the mission still shows up for low-level players.
NEW QUEST CATEGORY: DISRUPT
The club is going to start doing some recruitment of new members, as well as test out a new approach to dealing with the Instrument. We're interested to hear thoughts on these new objectives :)
GAMEPLAY AND OPTIONS HIGHLIGHTS
We made a number of changes based on what we have seen as well as the things people have been asking for on the forums and discord.
A new threat! The Lucids are aware that some meddling kids are sneaking around where they shouldn't be. Since they can't be everywhere at once, they've introduced these new Acoustic Mines. They're in new locations every night, so be on the lookout.
UNSTOPPABLE has been nerfed! Looking at statistics and feedback we decided that the Unstoppable track needed adjusting. It turns out Infinite sprint is game breaking!! (who could have guessed). The "Unstoppable" powers have now become extensions of Cross Country. (Sorry to anyone who is super upset with this, but during early access we will continue to tweak all the power tracks)
New sin feedback. We overhauled how sins are presented to the player. You are now given feedback about which actions are sins (spoiler: most things), we show whether a sin has been discovered (primarily locked doors and bodies), and the item will glow at a long distance when it IS discovered, hopefully helping people know WHY they suddenly woke the shape.
You can now uncap your framerate in the video options! You have to turn off smoothed framerate and and vsync for this to work.
You can now set your session type (Friends only or public) from the hosting screen to reduce confusion.
There is now a control option for crouch toggle for those that prefer it.
Sacrifice now comes with a choice! (what does it do?)
Kick Player added to team info screen to allow a host to kick toxic players. This will ban that player from your session until you close and reopen the game
BUGFIX HIGHLIGHTS
We also continued to hammer on bugs reported by the community! There are way too many to list here, the full list can be seen in the forums
A big fix is economy related. We found that there was a bug in our item system that was granting people more than one "light of rebellion" at a time. This has been fixed, and you will only ever be awarded one in your inventory at a time and they expire after 5 days, so we recommend you use them when you get them (experiment!!).
This build has continuing improvements to animation (primarily rope/ladder climb and third person item hands), more fixes to AI - especially focusing on preventing the "pogo-jump" that they would sometimes do, fixes for "black screen on startup", crash fixes, and LOTS MORE.
Thanks again to all the people who have joined the club, we value your time and feedback, we hope to see you in Redacre (if you catch a stalker, then you met us)!
EDIT: There was a hot fix today to fix a bug in items being auto used, as well as additional fixes for drone strike!
-Question
Week One Early Access Update with Hotfixes!!
We have just released the first week update for The Blackout Club!
First things first, this update does not have any major new content. We know people are hungry for it, and it is coming soon, but we wanted to get a bunch of much needed bug fixes and quality of life improvements to you as soon as possible. There is a lot in this update, so for the list of changes, see this pinned post on the discussion board: Changelog
Here are some highlights:
FIXES
Some of the highlights in this build are a fix for the issue where you could start a mission and have no hero item, fixes to the yellow threat indicator not turning on when it should, fixes to items in loot boxes giving you negative values, and a fix to prevent getting stuck in the customization menu if you exit out of gesture menu editing.
GAMEPLAY
We also made some improvements to the eyes closed footstep helpers, added proper feedback to the crossbow (you can now see a dart loaded if you have ammo), added feedback on the UI for when players are carrying mission critical items (such as cryptograms, evidence, etc), added onscreen notifications when mission items are dropped, and added feedback that all players get when bonus evidence is recorded as well as notification when you have found ALL the bonus evidence in the level.
In this build you can also escape a grapple with an enemy without sacrificing an escape item if you have the health. Previously this was automatic, but now if you want to shove and take a wound EVEN if you have an escape item, you can do so with RMB or LT.
LADDERS
A major change in response to what we have seen watching players is related to ladders. We tuned them to make them more reliable in general, but we also ADDED A LADDER CONTROLS OPTION. We saw that people have some assumptions about how ladders work, so now you can change from the default look-based ladder movement to a fixed direction ladder movement in OPTIONS->CONTROLS if you prefer it. This means that instead of moving down when looking down and up when looking up, you will move up if you push forward and down if you push back if you select this change.
MISSIONS
There have also been tweaks to some existing missions, adding more locations where they can take place (not new regions yet) to hopefully add some variety while you wait for the new stuff.
We are so grateful to everyone who has taken a chance on this game in early access!!! We hope you are enjoying your time in the club and we will be back soon with another update!
-Question
EARLY ACCESS RELEASE!
Hi and welcome to The Blackout Club. The game has just gone live on early access and we are excited to welcome you to Redacre, VA and the harrowing nighttime adventures of the kids in the club!
As mentioned in our early access page,the game is currently available at a significantly reduced price from what it will be when we launch in 2019. This is because there is much content still to be added as well as additional polish coming.
However! We do think the game is fun and are excited to grow it together with players who join us on the road to launch.
Join us in uncovering the monstrous secrets hiding under your small town, the club needs all the help it can get!
