Hello everyone, hope you all had a good weekend!
It's time to announce the winner of the map contest, congratulations to uncle jora for the winning map with the most votes, Contest: Eco City https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1710421342
I will add the prizes to all the entries that were submitted here later today https://steamproxy.net/app/299360/discussions/0/3726075043722688020/ which will be:
Winner - Exclusive crate skin, Diamond block and Toadman crate
The 6 Finalists - Diamond block and Toadman crate
All participants - Diamond block

Thank you to everyone that took part!

We are very happy that we came to an agreement with Jagex so we now have control over the game. We look forward to working with the games awesome community to ensure that the servers are up, and matches can be found.

One of the things we want to do, is to try out things (sometimes quite radical stuff). Some of these you will hate, and sometimes for good reason. We will be listening to you, and looking at the data, and when it turns out that some things do not work we will try to be quick remove or resolve it.

Our key focus for this update was trying to reduce the time needed to search for matches. We have also added some new blocks that we hope will shake up how the matches are played. We have also done a much needed balancing pass, and some tweaks and fixes that we know you have been waiting for. We look forward to hearing what you guys think. Building is awesome.


A little welcome from us for all existing players.
The crate will either contain a random new character, or if you have all characters, a random new skin. If you have all characters and skins, your crate will contain 3000g
(This crate does not include special exclusive skins)

Cloud: The Cloud block has to be built next to another block, but will remain up in the air if the blocks around it are destroyed, giving a new perspective for the “sky bridges”
Cannon: Fire a bullet at a fixed time, which does damage on explosion
Piggy Bank: The Piggy Bank device block gathers bricks over time. When destroyed, the contents of the piggy bank are shared among the team.

The character max level has been increased to 200. At level 125 and 150, you will receive 1500 Gold. At level 150 and 200, you will received bounty crates (Gold at 150 and Diamond at 200)

Reduced Sweet Science’s Gravity Well duration by 30%
Reduced Sweet Science’s active ability cooldown from 60 to 55 seconds
Reduced Sweet Science’s Gravity Block lifetime from 10 to 8
Reduced Sweet Science’s build range from 4 to 3
Reduced Sweet Science’s Gravitron Stance Arc by 33%
Increased OP Juan Shinobi’s teleport cooldown by 50%
Reduced OP Juan Shinobi’s teleport pool by 15%
Increased Vander’s Static Gloves damage by 20%
Reduced Vander’s Ball Lightning attack time by 20%
Removed Astarella’s Rocket Boots knockback effect
Reduced Astarella’s Saucer Launcher clip from 5 to 4
Reduced Astarella’s Saucer Launcher world damage by 20%
Increased Astarella’s Saucer ammo pool from 36 to 40
Reduced Trondson’s active ability cooldown from 60 to 50 seconds
Increased Trondson’s active ability duration from 10 to 12 seconds
Increased Trondson’s Kobold Lamp ammo pool by one
Increased Cogwheel’s speed by 10%
Increased Cogwheel’s Cannon ammo pool by 25%
Increased Yuri’s snowball critical damage by 15%
Reduced Dream Genie’s build time by 20%
Reduced Dream Genie’s active ability cooldown from 60 to 50 seconds
Reduced Dream Genie’s Ifrit Grudge reload time by 25%
Increased Roly Poly Booster Rocket distance from 4.5 to 5

Reduced Cost Build of Forcegate
Reduced Cost Time of Forcegate
Reduced Durability of Forcegate

Scaled all negative effects with tier levels
Buffed some positive effects (Toe, Ball, Heel, Knee; Breadwinner; Dig That Ammo; Health Scavenger; Quick Fingers, Fatmobile, Fire Lamps...)
“Toe, Ball, Heel, Knee” negative effect switched from Movement Speed Reduction to Health Pool Reduction
Removed movement speed reduction from Roly Poly’s Fatmobile

Increased general Gold rewards by 300%, including challenges, daily connections and matches
Increased Dust rewards by 300%, including bounty crates and challenges
Increased the free bounty crate rate from 1 per day to 1 every 5 hours
Increased probability for bounty crate drop after a match
Remove Foam block, Bush Thorn block and Nuke block from the Bounty Crates
Increased block skins drop rate in Bounty Crates

Reduced the build time to 90 seconds
Changed the matchmaking from 5v5 to 4v4. Primarily to make sure that the matchmaker works better for lower playerbase, but also to mix things up to give a new take on the game. Custom matches will still support 5v5.
4 new maps. Smaller maps with only one objective. The maps will be easier to navigate and get an overview of.
Only maps with 1 cube will be the available maps for matchmaking. Custom games will still be able to select from any map
Squad size has been increased to 4 from three
Reduced the AFK timer to 2 minutes warning, and 3 minutes to remove from the match
Reduced the lobby timer to 60 seconds from 120 seconds

Removed Time Assault

In the shop, unified how the button acts for Heros, Skins and Blocks

Thorn bush, if a player is inside they can still shoot out, BUT, now if you shoot back, you will deal damage to both block and player inside. This fix also applies to Mud and Forcegate blocks.
Re-added the missing “buy Hero” button in the shop
In the shop menu each block of the selected hero didn’t have stat icons. Also, those stats are now shown correctly.
While browsing a hero’s profile from the Heroes tab, tab becomes unselected while viewing
Fixed daily Challenges for Spawn block and Large Bomb quantity
OP Juan Shinobi Katana reload time back to 1s.


To comply with GDPR regulations there will be an information box for you to accept for us to be able to collect and save your data. This will show only once on your first login after this patch.

Hi everyone!

So, we know you are itching to know what we're up to and what we have planned, and with that in mind, we are going to do a live Dev stream tomorrow, 6th March at 18.00 CET.
Our Producer Jack Wulff and our Lead designer Oliver Castle will sit down with you for a live chat on our Twitch channel where we will talk about what we want to do with the game, talk about the next update, and also try and answer some of your questions https://www.twitch.tv/toadmaninteractive

We look forward to seeing you there!

Hi Everyone!
We know you’ve been waiting for any news on Block ‘n’ Load, and we can now share with you what you have been hoping for :)

We are incredibly excited here at Toadman Interactive to be able to take over this exciting title! After many discussions, it was very clear that Jagex wanted the best for Block ‘n’ Load, and we are extremely happy they have given us this chance to improve the game for the community.

As you may or may not know, Toadman Interactive acquired Artplant last year who previously worked on the game, so we are fortunate to have people who know and love Block ‘n’ Load already.
We have seen how passionate you, the community, are about Block ‘n’ Load, and that’s very inspiring to us. To start a conversation with you guys, and to give you an idea of who Toadman Interactive is, we are having a livestream
next Wednesday. Robin Flodin, the CEO of Toadman Interactive will be sitting down with you at 19:00 CEST on Wednesday 27th of February on twitch to talk to you about Toadman Interactive and the future of Block ‘N’ Load. Bear in mind that, in this session, Robin is not going to go into the details of balancing and fixes. Instead, our hope is to give you a face of the company and to give you an idea of how we can try to grow both Block ‘N’ Load as a game, and as a community.
The stream will be held at https://www.twitch.tv/toadmaninteractive

Our aim is to make sure Block ‘n’ Load stays alive, so we are very much looking forward to giving the game a much needed update and building a great relationship together!

We have opened an official Block ‘n’ Load Discord where you are very welcome to join. We look forward to your feedback and to seeing you there!
https://discord.gg/pqHDgqj

Best
Toadman Team!

Hey Blockheads,

It’s been a while since we last posted and promised we’d let you know what’s happening to Block N Load – apologies for staying silent for so long and thanks for being patient.

However, the long wait is now over and here’s the great news: We're happy to announce that the future development of Block N Load has been taken on by its co-developer, Artplant, now a part of Toadman Interactive!

The team at Toadman is super passionate about the game so it’s very fitting that they will take full control of Block N Load. This means they’ll control everything from the day-to-day management of the servers right through to exciting new content updates, as well as look after you all. We have no doubt that Artplant and its parent company Toadman are best placed to drive Block N Load into a brand new and successful future, after all, their experience and knowledge of the game is second to none!

“Toadman Interactive and Jagex both wanted to focus on ensuring Block N Load fans of today and tomorrow continue to see the investment and evolution of this great game, so we’re thrilled to reach an agreement that means we can bring the game in house,” said Robin Flodin, CEO of Toadman Interactive. “The original development team at Artplant are cooking up some great new updates for the game, which they will reveal soon.”

Phil Mansell, CEO, Jagex said, “This deal is great news for the Block N Load community and fans of team-based shooters, as it bolsters this innovative game with further investment and creative ambition. We saw in Toadman Interactive a kindred spirit who share our passion for live games and community-driven development. It’s a real positive for Block N Load players that Toadman and Artplant are taking the game’s production and operations forward, and we’re confident they have the vision and share the community’s appetite to give Block N Load a great future.”

But why the radio silence since our previous post? Well, we wanted to ensure we did everything possible to secure the long-term future of the game for all of you, which meant during the discussions with Toadman, anything stated publicly could have affected the outcome of the negotiation – and we just couldn’t risk that from happening.

We hope you’re as happy as we are with today’s news - see you on the battlefield, Blockheads!

- The Block N Load Team

Welcome to the latest update to Block N Load!

We've got a new selection of additional Block Skins for you to add to your loadout, along with sweeping changes to the Block Levelling system and Bounty Blocks.

Read on for the full notes on this update!

Block Skins

• Alien Glue skin for the Glue Block.
  
• First Aid skin for the Heal Station.
  
• Golden Gear skin for the Land Mine.
  
• Brass Radar skin for the Radar.
  
• Baroque skin for the Bounce Pad.
  
• Doc Eliza's Heal Station skin for the Heal Station.

For most players you'll be able to find these Block Skins in Bounty Blocks, and you'll be able to use them once you've unlocked them. However, if you have been playing Block N Load since before it went free to play you should find that the Golden Gear, Brass Radar, Baroque Bounce Pad, and Doc Eliza's Heal Station have already been added to your inventory as these were available before the free-to-play transition.

We've been listening to your feedback since Block Progression went live in December as well as looking at the data for how it is being used. As a result we're making some significant changes to the system.

Due to the scale of these changes, you'll all be refunded Dust and Gold for any Blocks that you had previously levelled to let you re-invest in the new upgrade system as you see fit.

You should be able to see the following changes to the Blocks screen in your Profile:

• All Blocks now have a maximum cap of 10 levels instead of a varying amount depending on the block type.
  
• To go with this, the amount of Gold and Dust required to level up a Block has also been adjusted.
  
• All Blocks have been changed to level up more than one attribute, and to make the amount these change more noticeable.
  
• To help display this we have updated the stats window for Blocks to display what each level of a block will do, and which upgrades you have already unlocked.
  
• Dust text and icon has been added to the progress bar.
  
• Additional information on how to obtain Dust has been added.
  
• Increased the size and resolution of the Block level on the Blocks screen, along with updating art assets to help make the screen feel more crisp.
  
• Improved the information displayed on the Blocks screen to show which Blocks and Block Skins you do not own, and how they can be obtained.
  
• Improved the display of which Blocks are ready to level up to make it more visible when you have one ready to increase in level with new art and effects.
  
• Poison Bush should now correctly display as locked if you have not obtained it from a Bounty Block.

Block Progression level-up Table

New Bounty Block screen
First off, we've completely redesigned the screen for opening Bounty Blocks. We've changed this to try and make it easier for you to claim your free Bounty Block, to select which type of Bounty Block you want to open, to make it easier to check and see what rewards you got, and to give us more flexibility if we want to add future types of Bounty Blocks.

Bounty Block Awards
Much as with Block Progression we've also been taking in your feedback and looking at the data for Bounty Block usage and rewards, and we're making changes here as well.
In combination, these changes mean you should see it as being possible to level up your Blocks quicker:

• Rates at which Bounty Blocks award different items, and the amount of Gold and Dust they award, have been reviewed and adjusted.
  
• More Bounty Block packages in the Shop, and the prices for them have been reviewed and adjusted.
  
• Free Bounty Block timer has been changed to one crate every 24 hours.
  
• The Bounty Block drop rates after a match have been reviewed and adjusted.
  
• Daily login reward system has been overhauled to give better and more interesting rewards over time, and the rewards themselves have been reviewed and adjusted.
  
• Text added to Gold Bar rewards to make it clearer what you have received.

Gold Boosters
6 gold boosters have been added to the shop. They match the already ingame XP boosters in length. You can find them under the "doublers" tab in the shop.

Price Adjustments
We've reviewed and adjusted a lot of the prices of items in the in-game shop to go alongside the sweeping changes that we've made to the other systems above. This includes the prices of Heroes, some Hero Skins, Perks, and more.

Heroes

Skins

Perks
We wanted to make it slightly easier for players to buy new perks and try them out ingame. Because of this we've made it slightly cheaper to buy the first tier perks and the other tiers slightly more expensive. In the end you will be spending around the same amount of gold to level up a perk to the third tier.

Offensive and Defensive Perks:

Hero Perks:

In addition to the changes to the Bounty Block and Block Levelling screens, we've also make a few tweaks elsewhere as well:

• Added icons to menus showing you where to go to view anything new that has been added to your account.
  
• Added messaging to explain free rotation the first time that you lose access to your last played Hero due to the rotation changing.
  
• Added messaging to take you to the Blocks screen the first time you have a Block available to level up.

Menus

• Message about "first win of the day" no longer displays after you have already claimed it.
  
• When viewing a Hero in the shop, Blocks which can be used by that Hero but are not currently owned are now highlighted as such.
  
• Going to the "Select Your Perks" part of the Profile with a chat window open will no longer cause you to become stuck on this screen.

Hero Selection

• Block Skin selections should now be correctly saved for the next match.
  
• The levels of other player's Blocks should now be displayed.

Ranked Mode

• Heroes that are selected from being played in the previous match, but have not been locked it, no longer count towards the maximum number of that role.

In-Match

• Using quick-chat messages will now display the correct Hero in the world space indicator. Previously these would display Eliza regardless of which hero you were playing.
  
• Health bars of objectives no longer disappear when standing close to the objective.
  
• "Dot" crosshair type that was accidentally added to all weapons has been removed and should now only appear for weapons that explicitly have this crosshair.
  
• A method of forcing yourself under the map under the map using Heal Stations and Ammo Boxes has been fixed.
  
• Poison Bush now has its own icon in the kill feed.
  
• Nuke now has its own icon in the kill feed.
  
• Re-balanced the rewards for digging Blocks.
  
• Added particle effects when damaging some decoration Blocks.

Custom Games

• You can now re-join custom games after leaving them.
  
• Joining a custom game lobby for a match in progress then returning to the menus should no longer cause a message regarding being removed from the lobby for inactivity to be displayed.
  
• Fixed further issues preventing some Workshop maps being unable to be used in Custom Games.

Severe Bug

• A bug causing all players in-game to be send back to the lobby has been fixed.

Bounty Blocks

• Block Skins no longer display as "Devices" when awarded, they should now display as a Block Skin to make it clearer what you have received.
  
• Names of items that have been awarded should no longer overlap with each other.
  
• Hero and Hero Skin drops have had a new effect added to them to make it clearer when you have received one.

Heroes
Trondson

• Added to Heroes that can be used to test arenas in the Map Editor.
  
• Sonic Staff crosshair colours should better reflect whether the weapon will do full or partial damage based on distance.
  
• Visual effects for being hit in the face with the Sonic Staff attack have been reduced to make them less overwhelming.
  
• Heigh Ho Active Ability now only affects the digging tool.
  
• Heigh Ho Active Ability duration increased from 7 seconds to 10.
  
• Kobold Lamps should now display the crosshair for charging them to throw them further.

Nigel Purdey-Longshott

• Fixed an issue where the Revolver's centre point did not match the centre point of the crosshair, resulting in it scattering in the lower corner of the crosshair instead of the middle.

Kreepy the Klown

• A status icon should be displayed on the HUD to indicate the speed boost when his Active Ability is in use.

We want to hear your thoughts on the updates we're making. Get in game, play some matches, then if you have feedback to give us, make sure to head over to the Feedback section of the Steam Discussion Forums.

The Steam Lunar New Year Sale has started! Block N Load DLC packs are discounted between 66% and 33% until 10:05 AM Pacific Time on the 19th of February. If you’ve been considering grabbing one, now is the time to do so.

Head on over to the Block N Load Steam store page now!