I’m so excited to announce that Castaway Station has been selected to be part of SIX: the Seattle Indies Expo [https://six.seattleindies.org/], Sunday September 1 at the Motif! It’s the annual celebration of Pacific Northwest indie games and game creators. We will also be part of SIX Online on September 29 @Twitch. Congratulations to all of the indie game designers in the expo and their fantastic games.

If you are at PAX, we are just down the street at the Motif hotel. We will have an after-party 6-9pm after PAX closes with refreshments. It’s all free to attend and no PAX badge is required.

We’ll have our table Bad Zombie Games and our game, Castaway Station set up with stations to try it out. I’m looking forward to seeing hundreds of people wandering around, and hope to see you there!

Bad Zombie Games [https://badzombiegames.com/]

We fixed a problem with Mixpanel that was causing game crashes in some cases.

This is primarily a maintenance patch. We made a few tweaks and are adding some error tracking.

Summary
We spent some time tuning the early Missions so that they are less “grindy” by adding more random xenomorphs to encounters and reducing the number of waves of enemies in some cases. Also, we removed Exhaust. From Synthesized cards created by the player. This all came as feedback from community comments, testing, and reviews.


Encounter Changes

• Added randomized monsters to 18 encounters in 8 Missions. Most of these are in the first 6 missions so getting back to where you last died is less “grindy”. It also brings more of the 50 xenomorphs into play earlier in the game for more diversity.
  
• Reduced “endless” waves of Xenopackers in several encounters later in the game.
  
• Added some additional challenge in some randomized encounters by bringing in some more challenging Xenomorphs earlier.
  
• Added a few more instances of Escape cards in some later encounters.

Game Mechanic Changes from Players

• Removed Exhaust from cards created by players in the Synthesizer. This allows you to be able to play them more in the late stages of the game and also set up more virtuous loops in card play with a character or between characters.

Bug fixes

• Fixed some minor typos.
  
• Found and fixed a hanging bug that occurred in some special circumstances.

We tuned the game some more, added some new UI and mechanic features, and fixed a few issues. Several items have come in as suggestions from players on Discord and other sources.

User Experience Updates

• Volume settings have a tone now
  
• Legacy screens show unlocked cards.
  
• Added a backstory animated sequence for Ten Eight.
  
• Equipment cards can now be recharged.
  
• On Equipment Detail screen, if an item is equipped by another character, show who has it.
  
• Added character tombstones in Regards screen for characters who die.
  
• Add character voiceovers to Character Selection.

User Experience Updates from Players

• You can recharge multiple cards before returning to the Shuttle.
  
• Added a way to show equipment card depletion in the equipment locker.
  
• Made the Skip button red on Reward screens so you don’t accidentally skip a card.
  
• Add character name to the card.
  
• Add a tooltip to Mission complete icons to identify which are repeatable.
  
• Add an Abort Mission button to Mission Maps.
  
• On the Recharger screen, sort cards by charges remaining.

Game Mechanic Changes:

• Evade ∞ now takes place in the current turn as well as future turns.
  
• Increased cost of cards with Evade ∞.
  
• Added Enraged Haste as an ability that cannot be purged except by Liquid Nitrogen Blast.
  
• Added character voices in parts of battles.
  
• New ability Sap. Some creatures remove character Action Points.
  
• Tune the Any Means Necessary achievement so all damage must come from non-attack cards.
  
• X Reradiate X card (10-8) does not consume the Damage X2 buff.
  
• Add +1 Strength to Proton Whack card (10-8).

Game Mechanic Changes from Players

• Made Castaway Station and Singer missions have fewer continuous Xenopackers (less tedious to repeat).
  
• Added more diverse enemies to earlier missions: Castaway Station, Singer, Cache Quest, Swamp Discoveries.

Bug fixes

• Remove the (debug) ability names for enemy attacks in battles.
  
• Fixed the issue with some battles hanging when a new enemy shows up (e.g. Pack Parade).
  
• Single Use Items in Rewards, Caches, etc. can be taken by any character with an open slot.
  
• Keep 10-8 health on one line.
  
• Fix enemy intent when the enemy is Blinded.
  
• Fix the Tier 3 upgrade price.
  
• Fix draw card on Cache Prize card.
  
• Fix Hadia’s Hope card so you can play cards that require Action Points.