Hi everybody, the biggest update of Silence of the Siren so far has just dropped! Say hello to the UNSS faction coming all the way from the distant Solar System and enjoy the second campaign that the team has worked hard on in the last few months. The update also contains a new skirmish map and quite a few small improvements and changes, feel free to have a look at the details below. And, as the game is still in Early Access, we'll appreciate any bug reports, feedback regarding game balance, possible exploits and all the good stuff. Also, to accompany the release, we're running a custom sale, so the game is now discounted by 35%. Feel free to tell your friends - and have fun! :)

Content

• UNSS - the United Nations of the Solar System!
• Commanders, base, 7 units x 2 tiers
• Campaign with 4 levels, and we somehow ended up with about 25% more dialog than in the Fossorian campaign :)
• Faction skill: Squad Leader allows you to split unit stacks during combat
• Faction buildings: Resting place restores movement, Holodeck allows you to hire commanders with higher attribute values, Corporate Lair gives various discounts when hiring expensive units
• New skirmish map: Chaos

Features and improvements - version 117c9dab

• Difficulty settings are now also available for campaign levels (experimental)
• Increased visible inventory space in commander panel (3 columns instead of 2)
• Added an option to reduce the visual impact/transitions between different times of day
• Added info about unit special attack cooldowns to the unit info panels
• Added a custom icon and tooltip for all limited range (run and gun) units to the unit info panels
• Commanders that originated in a different faction than the one they are in now have faction skills matching their origin (for example Pick is Sovereign but has the Fossorian skill)
• Added more versions of the garrison/ungarrison buttons at the base to make it more clear what happens in which situation (a single commander, commander and a base with an army etc.)
• Implemented automatic garrisoning system at the end of each turn: if you leave a commander "at the gates" and they get attacked during one of next players turns, they will be automatically defending behind the walls. If not, everything returns to the original state at the start of next turn
• Good progress in the optimization of AI turn times
• Sovereign Antimat (7th tier) unit's special attack now only allows horizontal direction
• Added outline around affected range of builder-skill objects when being placed on the map
• Added a highlight behind the outpost button in negotiator panel in case some units won't fit into the commander's army, but there's an outpost that can accept them

Fixes

• Fixed units sometimes getting slowly pushed outside of their hexes in combat
• Fixed random units appearing at bases recently taken over from AI players
• Fixed Earthshaker MK2 doesn't shoot twice against army consisting only of buried upgraded worms
• Fixed hazard indicated at threatened tile shows real threat even when the threatening neutral army is only discovered and the hazard should be unknown
• Fixed disabled teleport not automatically enabled when passing through.
• Fixed buried worm can get morale extra turn when skipping turn
• Fixed the game not always correctly detecting 16:10 aspect ratio for UI and combat camera fov, this was causing buttons on top of commander portraits to overlap stack number of bottom stack
• Fixed AI UPG mortar plays shoot animation only once sometimes
• Fixed orbital light preset stuck on when switching from a hero in orbit to a hero on the ground using the next hero button
• Fixed Bolts and Crowd Suppressors/Crushers didn't damage walls
• Fixed a couple of rare cases of AI players getting stuck
• Fixed object outlines in exploration rendered over other UI
• Fixed 'don't show again' options not saved when clicking the icon in dialog panel
• Fixed boosted mining probe could collect resources above limit

The United Nations of the Solar System have governed humanity for several decades now. Their influence reaches from the tops of sky-scraping arcologies that house some of the largest corporations to the bottoms of craters on distant moons, sheltering the most insignificant colonies. Unified language and culture. Unified taxation and army. Thats what keeps it all together. Free markets and economies provide the right amount of social Darwinism to keep the general society in a healthy struggle. And over all those things, the unquestionable faith that They will take us to a brighter future.
But who are They? Of course, I am speaking about the Hesperidians, the last remnants of an alien race that took refuge in the Solar System and bonded their fate to the human race. These humanoid moths arrived on board an interstellar Ark, an ancient generation ship, severely damaged and nearly uninhabitable after hundreds of years on its perilous journey. The initial fear of the uncanny was softened by generous offers of technology and know-how. The Hesperidians learned the intricacies of our society with surprising grace and managed to integrate within a single decade. Well, by integration I do not mean you will find any of them working as a cashier at a corner store. Instead, they mostly took the leading roles. Politicians, scientists, physicians and lawyers, these are the occupations that are best suited to their superior intellect. By this point, the first foundation stones of the UNSS had been laid, but nobody knew how many floors were yet to be built and what problems may occur during construction.
UNSS - the best thing that has ever happened to humanity! - at least this is the slogan printed on posters pasted all over the colonies. Cow-house - the best thing that has ever happened to cows! is what some sick individual has sprayed over. But, new posters will soon cover the old ones, making a fresh canvas for the graffiti artist. It's the same perpetual struggle that accompanies societies since one monkey said to another: If you want to stay in my tribe, you must hand over half of your bananas! Even today, some people just don't want to hand over their share. These people would be represented by Sovereign Colonies.
The Sovereign Colonies formed a natural opposition to the Earth-centered government and rejected the Hesperidians along with their offer of help. As the relationship went cold, the gap between Earth and the Sovereign Colonies widened. A conflict was inevitable, but really, what chance did the Sovereigns have without Hesperidian technology? What did they believe they could achieve against the supreme intellect of Hesperidian strategists? And why were they so eager to fight in the first place? Two things are clear as the sky though, the war was short, and the Colonies lost.
The Colonies were defeated, but as the UNSS did not wish for more civilian losses, not all Sovereigns got eradicated. Many have escaped aboard starships. They became pirates and terrorists and adopted the name Sovereign Fleet. For decades they kept bothering the edge territories, but only disturbing the peace as much as a mosquito bite would trouble a sleeping lion.
The biggest test of this newfound balance started with the discovery of interstellar travel and the colonization of the Siren System that followed. From Day One, the UNSS became the de-facto ruling faction of the whole system. Not a bunch of Fossorian revolutionaries that narrowly escaped their homeworld, nor the Children of the Source, decimated by centuries of holy wars, could stand against the might of the Solar System supporting the UNSS here. All seemed bright, even though it was only a brief moment of peace. A short calm before a storm, the storm that still keeps raging today.
The Gate Station. An ancient and unique device made by the lost civilization of Primals. This very device, making interstellar travel possible, got severely damaged during a terrorist attack staged by an unknown group. The lifeline of goods and reinforcements from the Solar System was severed. As the repairs may take several months or even years, every mosquito from the whole swamp now flies closer to take a bite. The UNSS in the Solar System will continue to thrive, but what fate awaits the UNSS here in the Siren System? All will depend on the grit and dedication of its commanders and their faith that the Gate Station will be repaired and the path back to the Solar System will open once again.

Winter Planetary Update

New content

• New planet in Skirmish mode with three large maps
• New colorful Crystal biome
• The main gameplay theme for the maps: Gates and keys! There's up to eight different colored pairs of gates and key generators
• One of the maps has a new victory condition: hold a base for a given period of time
• Added modified versions of a couple of existing maps now with 6 and 8 players (you can find these under custom scenarios)
• Two new neutral units will now appear on the maps: Apex and Primal Pylon
• Added Movement Node map object that refills commander's movement points

Features and improvements

• The Swordmaster building now gives the choice of which of commander's attributes to level up
• Status effects on units in combat now display the remaining duration in the unit info panel
• Added more info about units which transform during different phases of the day-night cycle to the unit info panel
• Added an indicator to highlight commanders bypassing turrets, cybersnares and other hazards thanks to their Scout skill
• Added the "switch commander to training mode" button also to the active commander button on the right
• It's now possible to change starting factions and commanders in the scenario menus with the mouse wheel
• Switched the "build for a fusion core" button in base building catalog panels from gold to white
• Camera now follows commanders traveling between bases to their destination
• Mining probes now indicate they have a production limit of 20 turns
• Added numbers to the Black Market UI to show how many items of each kind a commander has to sell
• Added support for custom tooltips on static map objects, like the shuttle in the Fossorian campaign
• When a low level commander has full skill slots, higher level skills show in the level up dialog instead
• Added a custom message to Liberator's special attack tooltip when there are no targets
• Range of buried worms gets displayed when holding shift
• Added custom texts for the retreat button when retreating is not available
• Factions of neutral bases in scenarios/skirmish maps get randomized when starting a new game
• AI now sells extra items in markets
• Improved use of the Scout skill by AI commanders

Community translations

• Brazilian Portuguese is now the third community-translated language in the game!
• Updated Hungarian and Russian translations with texts for this update

Fixes

• Fixed a couple of sneaky memory leaks
• AI commanders could get killed due to multiple threats on a tile
• AI commanders could get stuck on getting scouting bonus from building
• Fixed when AI siege defender had only melee units in loopholes, they didn't charge
• Fixed stack status effect preview on Meatboys was breaking the 'special' button tooltip
• Fixed when units go outside of shield and attack a Saw-ty, the Saw-ty retaliated against the shield even though the attacker is already outside
• Fixed Saw-ty pre-retaliation when attacked from a loophole
• Fixed a rare bug with overlapping units and objects on the world map flickering
• Fixed Regenerate ability at level 2 cost 1/10th of what it should have
• Fixed empty object preview in the dialog panel when re-opening a visited building by a commander that's out of frame by moving the camera to them first
• Fixed war machines couldn't be picked up after dropping one unit to a slot and then placing the rest of the moved stack
• Fixed trading buildings at some bases did cost other resources than coins, a possible soft lock in player progression
• Fixed dead units stuck with with white flash in auto combat
• Fixed retreated commanders were given the 'dead' flag, sometimes causing a player to be defeated too early
• Fixed a few sounds playing from the darkness during AI player turns
• Fixed random units on some maps always spawning as their upgraded versions, limiting variety
• Fixed inventory slots stuck as disabled once their item was once shown as disabled after encountering a supercharged cloud
• Fixed teleports on the map were becoming visible in the fog of war too early
• Disabled dangerous objects, traps and turrets getting triggered by commanders at nearby bases
• Fixed remembered armies in the orbital fog of war layer lost after load
• Fixed orbital layer showing editor random item markers when viewed after scenario start
• Fixed layout of objectives was sometimes a bit wonky after a new objective replaced one of the existing ones
• Fixed combat manuals and datascrolls giving movement bonus when picked up
• Fixed building biofarms on biofarm veins could block some neighboring tiles
• Hopefully fixed units artifacting on certain HW configurations on Linux

Known issues

• While we've been working on optimization, the AI turns are still relatively slow on the 6+8 player maps or the biggest maps with open layouts

Hi everybody! While we are busy working on more content for the bigger updates planned for February and March, in the meantime here's a smaller patch with some fixes and translation updates.

Community translations

• Added Russian community translation
• Fixed missing outline on the JosefinExt font used with Russian texts
• Added Hungarian texts for the Festive Features update

Fixes

• Fixed progression blocker in the Await map if you chose a commander with only two units in their army and entered your base
• Fixed disappearing Aura Coin Storage in fog of war if a unit is standing on its first tile/position
• Fixed pressing [Alt] to highlight objects was breaking the game when there was no active commander

Misc

• Enabled support for streaming the game on GeForce Now, feel free to send your game requests in the GeForce Now app or upvote here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/gfn-game-requests/44/551525/span-classhighlightsilencespan-of-the-span-classhi/

Hi everybody, As every year, we would like to wish all of you Happy Holidays and also give you a bit of an update about how things have been going at Oxymoron Games. The big news is - of course - the release of Silence of the Siren in Early Access and four updates that went live since. The game's soundtrack by Mat irok is now available too! Silence of the Siren has released with amazing reviews, so big thanks to everybody who gave us thumbs up or helped with feedback and testing before release! We also keep supporting Project Hospital and quite a few bugfixes should release with patch #42 in January. Next, we have a more recent bit of news: Vojtch Nepra has joined the team to fill the role of social media manager/content creator, so you can look forward to more posts, updates and behind the scenes. We also made an account on Bluesky and can already see a lot of activity there. Now, it's time for us to take some time off after a very demanding season, so most of the team will be out of town until January 2nd. If you encounter any issues, dont hesitate to ask our amazing community here on the Steam forum or on discord, otherwise we should be able to get back to you at the beginning of January. So, enjoy the Winter Sale and then Merry Holiday and see you in the New Year!

Hi everybody! As we've recently enabled and tested this feature, here's a quick guide how to set up Silence of the Siren hot-seat multiplayer as an online game with your friends using Remote Play Together.

Setup - "host" side

• Shift + Tab to open Steam overlay
• Switch to the Remote Play section and invite your friends from here
• When they join, make sure to enable keyboard and mouse controls for them

• Start a custom scenario and set your players to "human", feel free to choose the same team if you'd like to play a co-op game
• It's a good idea to run a voice call in parallel with the game session to coordinate who "holds" the controls at which point :)

Technical issues/troubleshooting

• If one of the players is on Linux, the video stream might not work, but it works the other way around, if the Linux player hosts the game
• Increase streaming quality to improve text readability

Festive Features Update

Features and improvements - version (commit) 493fe698

• Selectable starting factions
• Local coop / team support with shared Fog of War and resource gifting UI
• Saves in zip format and a new archive folder for autosaves to better organize them
• All globetrotter abilities now have icons in commander action menu
• Damage preview shows inflicted status effects and their probability
• Implemented canceling unit move by escape in hero meeting
• Added small/medium/large map info to scenario descriptions
• Cloud saves have been enabled for player made saves, will be enabled for autosaves soon (after the game has updated for most of you and has sorted out the archive folder)
• Remote play together on Steam has been enabled, so you can use local multiplayer as a simple way how to play online with your friends! [QUICK GUIDE]

NEW: Factions skills

• Available to be learned by any commander of the matching faction
• Children of the Source - Renewed Spirit - victory in battle restores movement on the map
• Fossorians - Bloodlust - units have up to 100% chance to get an extra move after killing a hostile unit stack
• Sovereign Fleet - Field Repair - your units get healed when attacking units of the same class (tech-tech or bio-bio)

Balance update

• Exploration attribute: lowered movement points gain when the attribute increases
• Combat attribute: much higher damage bonus for units
• Ability attribute: lowered energy regeneration, more expensive abilities
• Brawler skill: double bonus for damage, no unit movement bonus
• Sniper skill: double bonus
• Chess master skill: double morale bonus
• Defensive specialist skill: 100% extra retaliation on level 3
• NEW War Hawk skill: movement and initiative bonus for units in combat
• Collector skill: up to 30% lower energy cost for equipping items, no fusion core reward bonus
• Scavenger skill: double resources
• Engineer skill: no energy pool bonus, lower energy cost for equipping items moved to Collector
• NEW Raiden skill: increases energy pool, increases effect of the Recharge Cell consumable
• Explorer skill: bonus increased to plus 4 - 8 - 12 movement points, movement attribute adds more movement points
• Scout skill: bonus to exploration XP, movement partially replenished when visiting buildings, removes movement cost for transferring armies between commanders, removed vision bonus and ? icon in fog of war showing various resources and buildings
• Tracker skill: removes penalty for bad terrain, extra fusion core moved here from Collector, removed Xenoslime breaking discount
• Eagle eye ability: now uncovers hostile commanders within certain range
• Show resources and Show treasures have been merged
• Supercharged cloud ability: available as level 2 ability, longer duration
• Invisibility ability: available only on level 3
• Acid Projectile ability: added damage on hit, was only over time
• Lighten Armor: increased effect
• Lure Local Beast: now available from level 2
• Walking Rations: also prevents affected unit from retaliating
• Armor Incrustation and Artificial Muscle Fibers have been merged, available from level 1
• Restoring Biofilm ability: available from level 1
• Glue Grenade ability: available from level 1
• Blast Wave ability: also pushes the targeted unit itself, not only units around it
• Resurrect ability: is now cheaper
• Vortex Mines ability: removed as hero ability, the feature stays as a defensive structure at bases
• Draining Coil ability: always drains half of remaining energy
• Teleport ability: now available from level 2 (friendly only, level 3 teleports any unit)
• System Equilibrium ability: available from level 1
• Sentry Airdrop ability: available from level 2
• Orbital Strike ability: increased damage

Fixes

• Upgraded Unity engine from 2020.3.17 to 2020.3.48, this fixes some issues with windowed mode and resolution switching on Linux
• Fixed progress blocker in some campaign levels in the rare case of an enemy commander killing themselves on a neutral army
• Disabled starting commander selection for AI players in maps with locked factions, fixed starting commanders getting overridden for maps with locked factions (Await specifically)
• Fixed Crusaders siege loophole had double health
• Fix Unit counts in combat are not updated on certain events(damage from mines, healing)
• Fixed unit count UI in combat not scaling correctly when showing damage preview
• Fixed Evacuation could leave the commander on an energy fields tile if it is right next the target base access point
• Fixed Evacuation ability not taking energy points after being used, because commander landed in base and was refiled automatically, but did not actually enter the base
• Fixed end tactics button stuck on in the next battle when retreating during tactics
• Fixed random neutral armies sometimes generating zero unit stacks and erroring out
• Fixed starting commanders with ability skills getting one random ability and one ability specified in their xml after first load
• Fixed broken tooltip on energy cost icon in inventory slots
• Fixed "neutral units run" dialog wasn't taking in account different effects modifying neutral army size
• Fixed Meatboy Shredder doesn't attack twice with activated berserker mode after waiting
• Fixed scroll bar enabled at exploration skill academy/pirate skill acedemy even if there's nothing for a commander to learn
• Fixed ability icons in ability book and commander action selector were not sorted in the database order but according to when they were learned
• Fixed Replay crashes on hiring new commander
• Fixed Fog of war is not updated on visibility change cycle event
• Fxed a lot of typos :)

As the Early Access development continues, we're happy to share more details about what is coming in the nearby future! Apart from smaller patches with bugfixes, these will be the bigger feature and content updates that you can look forward to. One big topic based on all the feedback we gathered is re-balancing the different skills and abilities, which will come in the next update already - and we'll be curious to hear what you think.

Hi everybody, the third patch of Silence of the Siren is now live on Steam! The update brings the usual round of improvements and fixes of issues we gathered from reports on Discord and also here in Discussions. We're mostly done with our roadmap update, at this point we can tease that you can look forward to more features and big balance changes before holidays, then it will be time for more map content and the first big Early Access expansion/update with UNSS as playable faction #4 and their whole campaign. More details coming soon!

Release notes:

Content and changes

Fixes

Audio

Hi everybody, the second patch of Silence of the Siren is now live on Steam! While this update contains mostly fixes of issues we gathered from reports on Discord and also here in Discussions, the art and design team have also been busy in the meantime, working on content for the upcoming major updates: new UNSS units, Sovereign Fleet campaign and also new skirmish maps. Also, following feedback we received and some of our own observations, we're also working on a balance update of skills, abilities and items. Last, but not least, we're preparing a detailed plan for the bigger updates that will arrive during the first stage of the Early Access development. Stay tuned! Release notes - version 84d98610:

Features and changes

Fixes

Hi everybody, First, thanks to all of you who bought the game on launch and also for all the positive reviews, much appreciated! Today we have the first "regular patch" for you, an update that fixes most of the recently reported issues. We are also updating the Chinese and French texts, especially for Chinese this should mean a big improvement in quality. Here are full release notes - version 122f5cb3

• [BLOCKER] Hotfixed a rare case of equipment in consumable slots breaking load
• Updated Chinese and French translations
• Fixed a few typos in the English texts
• Fixed list of objectives not refreshed on map load
• Fixed campaign music triggered in campaign level start screen not interrupted when going straight to combat at the beginning of a level
• Fixed escape not closing slavers panel in Fossorian base but the whole base, making hired units available again
• Fixed panels for units without an upgraded version erroring out when trying to open their unit details panel in slavers panel in Fossorian bases
• Fixed recently built building stuck highlighted when quickly switching between bases of similar type
• Fixed "debug tile" texts showing in the first loaded level until the player moves the mouse (in campaign it was there until dialogs finish)
• Removed unclocalized 'consumable' tooltip on empty consumable slots
• Fixed garrisoned hero not automatically selected in base item markets
• Fixed Worm doesn't get buried if it's upgraded via field promotion
• Fixed side quests in Gold Fever and Confluence scenarios

Hi everybody, exciting times! Silence of the Siren launches in Early Access on Monday! For us this marks an important point of a ~4 year development journey and you can imagine how excited we are to finally see our game released into the wild! :) For all the HoMM fans on the team, this has been a bit of a dream project and we hope you'll enjoy the game, just like we have had a great time working on it and allowing ourselves to get creative with the weird sci-fi settings and related game mechanics. The development wasn't without its challenges, like running pre-production during lockdown, but that makes us even more proud that we've reached this important milestone.

What you can look forward to in the EA Build

• Day-night cycle affecting not only graphics, but also some units
• Building mechanics on the map
• A lot of useful shortcuts in the UI, like highlighting interactive objects, enemy movement range and more
• Orbital layer, dangerous zones, teleports, shortcuts and side quests to spice up the maps

Road ahead

Join our community!

Only 4 days left until Silence of the Siren launches in Early Access! We are excited to show you a brand new trailer made for the occasion. Give it a watch and tell us what you think! :) [previewyoutube=-wUXy2DJ5QU;full][/previewyoutube]

Sit close to the fire, my young friends! Take a sip of beer and listen to what I have to say to those young ears of yours, because the story of Sovereign Fleet is about old men and even older grudges. And about crazy aliens, yes, about those too. So listen up, now. It will be really shiny.
You all know the Sovereign Fleet of today. They call us space pirates and see us as smugglers from rim colonies who accept any fugitive and weirdo who stray among us. Ha! Those empty kegs! We are so much more! Primo, we are family. The ever-fighting, bickering, and annoyingly loud kind, but a family nevertheless. We care for each other and have one another's back like a family and it makes us strong. Secundo, we are warriors. Warriors born both of necessity and lust for an adventurous life. A colorful rebellion against the UNSS, its oppression, and its artificial way of life, bound and governed by corporate greed. And those crazy aliens. The Sovereign Fleet is like a wild weed. It sprouts in places unfit for life, turns to blossom against all odds, and then withers away only to grow again just a few feet away. This weed cannot be eradicated by any elaborate poison. If you stomp it down it will rise again, and trust me, my friend, it will leave some long thorns in your boots sole.
But why the metaphor: poisons and heavy boots? The answer is once again the UNSS - and there would be no UNSS without the crazy aliens. The Earth as their predecessor and the Sovereign Colonies, our ancestors, had their fair share of animosity before, but only when the cursed aliens called Hesperidians arrived in the Solar System and stuck their ugly insect faces out of their mothership, an immense interstellar ark, the real ugly business started to happen. I don't know why the Hesperidians chose the Earth over the Sovereigns, but they did. Together they started to build the UNSS establishment and Earth received all the alien technology and know-how. That was the beginning of the end for the Sovereign Colonies. What happened then, you ask? You know what always happens when two possess all the power and have no common goal. The war happened. It does not matter which incident kindled the fights but they spread like wildfire and quickly as one, too. The war started by clashes between starships, but the Sovereign fleet was quickly scattered. We had no idea the Hesperidians had the shield technology and without it, the fights quickly moved to our space stations, asteroid mining facilities, and under the crystal bubbles of planetary colonies. We gave them a hell of a fight, but they fought dirty and did not shy away from using any new technology.
Then the governors arrived and established a protectorate. Labor camps, prison colonies, repopulation. Name any atrocity, you wont be wrong. But in those dark times, the Sovereign fleet began its return. The small acts of heroism, inconsequential sabotages, and ambushes in the rim territories. Masked as transport ships, we began our fight against tyranny. A desperate fight, fed by grief and vengeance. Over the years, most of the old captains fell to the UNSS hunt, one by one. The Hesperidians used all the dirty tricks they had, but a handful of those old spacewolves managed to survive to this day. That is good because they are the backbone of the Sovereign Fleet now. The body and muscles. You lot. The young generation became Sovereigns for different reasons. You hot-headed devils seek adventure, wealth, and the most glittering currency of them all, fame. The usual expiration date of the new sovereign captains back in the Solar System was a year or two, depending on their talent for evasion. But despite the number of exemplary cases, new captains always appeared.
The Solar system is only so big and it can only hide so many ships. A balance was kept for some time. But everything changed the moment a path to a new world opened. The Siren System became our promised land. And then a miracle came. We were cut from the Solar System. The remnants of the UNSS fleet that moved here with us lost their advantage of superior numbers. Forgotten settlers from rim colonies, Fossorian deserters, and renegade Children of the Source, all came to join our way of life.
The UNSS already lost the Siren system, because they lost the most important war. The war for people's hearts. Step by step, heart by heart, we will take everything they have and return nothing. We will build this place wild and beautiful. We will take the old dream about sovereignty and make it into reality in our new home. And one day, who knows? Perhaps there will be enough strength to kick the UNSS and their crazy alien friends from the Solar System too!

In today's post we'd like to go just a tiny bit more technical than usually. Let's peek a bit behind the scenes and let's have a look at a few features we're particularly happy with how they turned out. And we'll of course also mention why they're interesting when you actually play the game! :)

The Day-night cycle

Lights

• There are colored lights to subtly highlight which player owns which structure.
• There are directional lights from your commander's 'torchlights'.
• And a lot of custom pointlights placed by the map designers to highlight objects or locations.

Fog of war

In Silence of the Siren you're not limited to taking over the existing buildings on the map. There are a few useful structures that your commanders can construct to defend your territory, boost your income or surprise your enemies.

The Rules

The Structures

• Mining probes,
• Automatic turrets,
• Outposts,
• Drone dogs,
• Cybersnares, traps that catch enemy commanders - available to commanders with maxed-out Builder skill.

In this (pre-recorded) one hour stream we play a skirmish map and show a couple of playable factions from the distant Siren star system. Come check out some of the interesting mechanics and features in this upcoming turn-based strategy game with RPG elements.

In this (pre-recorded) one hour stream we play a skirmish map and show a couple of playable factions from the distant Siren star system. Come check out some of the interesting mechanics and features in this upcoming turn-based strategy game with RPG elements.

Hi, we're happy to announce that a big update of the Silence of the Siren demo is already up for everybody to try and it brings a new map which is not only fun to play, but also showcases quite a few new features. Let's have a look:

Going up!

Story, scripted events and quests!

Building new buildings!

General's new clothes?

Hi everybody, big news today! We have set the official date for the EA release! The game will be out on the 30th of September this autumn.
It's been a long journey through all the different milestones, from alpha and first showcases at different events, through a beta test and a public demo release early this year. The game has been getting more and more polished, we've been steadily adding more content and features and we've been implementing feedback from the community. In September, everything should be ready and we hope you'll have a lot of fun with the game and join us on the rest of the journey! :)

"The militant religious order of fanatical man-size insectoid full-body cyborgs" is the most compact description of the Children of the Source. Of course, it is not the same answer as the typical member of the order would give you. And the one you would receive today isn't what you would hear from them some thousand years ago. Therefore sit comfortably, bring a drink, and dive with us into the deep and murky waters of history, evolution, and the present of the Children of the Source. The story of the order reaches into the ancient biological time of the founder race. Many researchers believe that the founders lived in a typical eusocial society with a caste system and roles given by specialization of the body type on the concrete hierarchical level. But researchers tend to overcomplicate things, so instead, imagine a beehive with the queen, workers, warriors, and so on, and let them evolve into a space-faring civilization.
Somewhere along the way, the species must have lost the ability to reproduce. Maybe the queens died or were overthrown by a lesser cast or another species. Your guess is as good as mine. But one thing is certain: facing extinction, the members of the species began to prolong their lifespan at the cost of their biological bodies, and in the end, only the full-body cyborgs remained. The effort exhausted their home planet which was the cause and the very beginning of the interstellar crusades.
Yes, there is the official liturgy that claims the reason for the crusades was seeking the lost goddess-queen the Allmother and she sleeps somewhere in the Siren System. Speaking of Allmother, the unforgiving, bloodthirsty, malevolent creature demanding absolute subservience, usually depicted as 20ft tall, steel statue with sharp spiky limbs and the kind smile of an Asian giant hornet, one can only hope they will never find her. But back to the crusades.

Shaped by evolution?

The Children today

Hi everybody, We're happy to introduce the first update to the demo version of Silence of the Siren. This is mostly a patch with some important fixes but it also brings a couple of features that were most requested on Discord and Steam forums: the option to have larger texts and to disable some possibly uncomfortable effects in battles. Silence of the Siren Demo update 1 (version a83aabb4) Changes & fixes

• Implemented first version of UI/text scaling
• Added an option to disable screen shake/screen flashing in combat
• Improved tutorial flow and texts
• Improved memory management during game startup (this should help with rare crashes on machines with 8 GB and according to some reports even 16 GB of RAM)
• Fixed commander card couldn't be open if the commander had a blocked route
• Fixed cursor in combat not updating with ranged units taking turns after each other

Hi, we're excited to announce that a public demo of Silence of the Siren is now available on Steam! Go give the game a try yourselves and lead a group of Fossorians (Space Moles) to victory on one of the most colorful maps we made so far!

Hello everybody, It looks like it's time to slowly wrap up 2023 and like every year, let us take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Holiday and a Happy New Year! Also, we would like to thank everybody who bought Project Hospital during the last 12 months or participated in the currently running beta test of Silence of the Siren, our upcoming turn based strategy game. Welcome to the community! For us, the year was mostly consumed by Silence of the Siren, as we're getting closer and closer to its planned release in Early Access. We visited several conferences across Europe including Gamescom and EGX and had a great time showing the game to a lot of you. With Project Hospital, we were mostly helping players with the occasional technical issue and some compatibility problems on the Steam Deck. Also thanks for a few very nice messages with feedback and ideas we received during the year! The team will now be mostly off until January 2nd, which means we might not be available on our social channels. If you encounter any issues, dont hesitate to ask our amazing community here on the Steam forum, otherwise we should be able to get back to you at the beginning of January. For now enjoy the holidays and the upcoming Winter Sale!

Hi everybody! We started the closed beta for Silence of the Siren with our discord community members last week and after three updates and a lot of bugfixes we are ready to invite more people! So, if you'd like to try out an early but already quite playable version of the game and tell us what you think, please join our discord and fill in a short registration form. We will then be able to email you the Steam keys for the beta build in the next round. https://discord.com/invite/CBmbwXETuU https://forms.gle/JWwB3gc8YiGxEX5RA We're looking forward to seeing you on the discord and to all the feedback and bug reports!

Join us today at 19:00 CET for the first developer stream of our upcoming turn-based strategy game Silence of the Siren. Our PR and Community Manager Vojta will guide you through the game mechanics, providing insights gained from months of testing. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2147380/Silence_of_the_Siren/

In todays development update were going to have a look at some nifty features and quality of life improvements weve already added to Silence of the Siren in the early stages of development. Lets start once again at a Fossorian base.

1. Dependencies

2. Shortcuts

3. Mini shortcuts!

4. Trading

5. Reorder your commanders!

6. One by one!

7. Outlines everywhere!

8. Dialogs in check

9. Mini me?

10. Tactical knowledge!

If somebody wrote a Fossorian Encyclopedia, the cover of the book would display cute space moles dressed in ornate uniforms in front of a pompous military parade in the background. Row after row of soldiers marching in tight formations through the vast, clean streets lined with crowds of cheering workers dressed in colorful overalls.
The introduction of the book would speak about their impressive army relying mainly on the overwhelming numbers and brute strength of the ground forces. High morale, uplifted by watchful officers of the Commissars Core and inspired by stories about the brave deeds of heroic commanders. Despite their undisputed ground force dominance, there is a small chance that the author would mention some vague information about the relatively unsatisfactory state of the factions Space Navy and the dismal technical condition of most of their ships still recovering after a rather dramatic escape from the Fossorian homeworld, long journey to the Siren System and the unfortunate clash with the much more technologically advanced fleet of the UNSS (United Nations of the Solar System).
Another few pages of the very verbose encyclopedia would be addressing underground bases. These fortified marvels of brutalist engineering sprawl in gargantuan caverns. Flipping through the pages, the next section would elaborate on the steadily growing network of tunnels used for safe and quick transportation of units and materials. Fossorian colonies are capable of producing a seemingly endless stream of goods far below the Fairtrade prices, but to unveil the secrets behind their economic efficiency the reader must wait for the later chapters.
If we overlook the aforementioned military dominance and economic strength, the end of the book's introduction would surely list a few other good reasons why the other factions trapped in the Siren System fear, tolerate, and even like to cooperate with Fosorians. Let's discuss at least some of them here. Metaphorically speaking, all factions are stranded on an island surrounded by a sea of hostile natives, alien and mostly dangerous wildlife. Unstable ecosystems are always ready to wipe out whole colonies with ravaging storms, and remnants of the Holy War are an active threat even after centuries. Under such harsh conditions, striving for peaceful cooperation seems to be a much smarter option than risking an open conflict with the neighboring faction.
The Fossorians are also known for their successful land conquest, biting chunk after chunk from the tribal territories. This slow but steady effort is expanding the amount of land secured against the raids of natives while helping to export the danger far from the most populated areas. Every now and then a courageous Fossorian explorer uncovers another piece of mysterious technology hidden amid the dangerous ruins of the ancient Primals. Thanks to the fact that the overseeing organizations of the Fossorian command are prone to look aside (usually for a reasonable contribution to someone's "pension fund"), many of the artifacts and rare technologies end up on the black market and subsequently in research facilities of other more technologically advanced factions.
Now if it wasn't Fossorians themselves, but researchers from one of the other races who wrote this book, it would also list items like Totalitarian fanaticism, Sadistic junta, Slaver business, Pathological traitor syndrome, or Endless spiral of revolutions after which you slowly begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, the Fossorians are not the nicest or the fairest players in the Siren System. But as the Fossorian ambassador has stated on the last peace summit: Even if a small fraction of those unsupported claims would reflect reality (which it certainly DOES NOT, my Goodfellas), it would be classified as a inner state business of the Fosorian nation, with absolutely no impact on the international politics of the Siren System and unworthy of your concerns. Now, gentlemen, if you excuse me, I have spotted an unattended bowl of Tunnel worm caviar over there. Of course, the whole idea of a Fossorian Encyclopedia is absolutely ludicrous. Nobody is dumb enough to write such a book and mark himself as the next target of the Fossorian death commando.

We are happy to show you the first commented gameplay video of Silence of the Siren. In this playthrough we focus on the main features - exploration, base management and battles. We hope it will give you more insight about what to expect from the game. If you have any questions, of course dont hesitate to let us know in the comments. We plan to release the game in Early Access sometime next year. If you are interested in playing the game sooner, we plan to run a closed beta test a few months earlier. The best way not to miss it is to join our Discord: https://discord.gg/qaQQat2dbC If you are a content creator or journalist who is interested in the game, make sure to contact us by email: pr@oxymoron.games. We might have a demo for you very soon. [previewyoutube=30IusBEAVaQ;full][/previewyoutube]

The base is the main center of your operations as we shared in a previous Steam post showcasing the Fossorian base. But how do you control it? Lets have a look at the UI and all the useful features.
When you enter the base, you can see all the constructed buildings. You can simply click on any structure to use it or access its most common functions via a small shortcut panel. Get new units in the Recruitment Center, hire new commanders in the Fossorian Tavern or trade resources at the Trading Center. All units which are defending the base are visible in the garrison panel. Also notice the right panel with detailed information about income, unit growth, list of all bases, location of the base on the minimap, current day cycle and also a row of quick access buttons which give you another quick way to access the different functions.
The Structures panel shows all buildings which have been or can be constructed at the base. There are several categories of buildings from the economically focused ones like the Tax Bureau and Replicator to the seven upgradeable recruitment buildings like Ratling Slum or the Hammerite Tower. When your base is strong enough, youll of course want to protect it and the structures attached to your Fossorian Stronghold like Defensive Tower or a floating Minefield are the best for that. And if you want to teach your commanders new abilities, make sure to construct and upgrade the Academy. As you can see on the screenshots, if there are dependencies between different buildings, we highlight them with a slight glow so its clear which buildings you need for your next upgrade.
If you have enough resources, you can build a new building once per turn. Many buildings can be upgraded to unlock new functions or the second tier of the unit they produce. If you lack resources, make sure to use the Trading Post, where you can exchange your surplus resources for what you actually need. Unfortunately, the prices are quite unfavorable for you and only get better when you have more bases and more Trading Posts.
Each cycle every base and its buildings produce a limited number of units for hire. You can have a look at your new units in the Recruitment Center. The interface gives you detailed info about every unit in the base, its statistics and capabilities like which units have a ranged attack.
You can also read a bit about their role in the lore. If you are in a hurry, there are shortcut buttons available for all the most common hiring actions.
When you recruit units, you of course also need a commander to lead them. Although individual units can defend the base by themselves, they cannot leave it without a commander. If there are two commanders in the base, you can also activate their meeting panel. That will allow you to not only exchange units, but also equipment or consumables, helping you to manage the strength of specific armies. This panel is still deeply work in progress, but the functionality will remain the same. [previewyoutube=eZ7NS2tmqHc;full][/previewyoutube] Capturing and upgrading your bases is crucial for your economy, but it must always be balanced with other elements to ensure victory. Never underestimate the need to explore. Good usage of all advantages the map gives you can be just as important, but that is something we will show you more about in the future. How do you like the UI and features we have shown you so far?

The power of your army is not only in the numbers, what is just as important are the actions available to your units. In Silence of the Siren, every unit can be upgraded to a stronger and more capable version. All you need is the second tier of their recruitment building at your base. Of course, upgrading will increase the units stats and give them a cooler look, but it doesnt end with that, it always unlocks more options. These can be passive skills that give the unit some advantage which works automatically. Or, what is even more fun: special attacks. There are a lot of variations from powerful area attacks to triggering actions which will change the units behavior. To demonstrate this, lets have a look at several units from the Fossorian faction as examples.
Ratling Goon is the weakest unit of the Fossorians. His pathetic equipment matches the command's trust in his fighting abilities. Normally all he can do is to hit one unit with his hoe in close combat. But if we upgrade him to Ratling Gunner, he is changed into a ranged unit.
This huge guy is a Hammerite, tier 3 unit. Only one of ten adepts will survive the extensive cybernetic augmentation required to operate a Hammerite power armor. Thanks to the armor, the unit hits so hard that it can strike three units standing next to each other. If you upgrade it into a Hammerite Honor Guard, it will get a mighty weapon called the rocket hammer. Now the unit has unlocked a special ability which makes the hits so strong that they will cause a seismic wave hitting all enemies in its way.
Commissar Cadet is one of the fastest units in the game and can cross almost the entire battlefield. In his basic form, he is a close combat cavalry unit, very useful for attacking ranged units. But if you upgrade him, he will turn into Seasoned Commissar. Once in a few turns he can throw his new javelin, causing an explosion that can hit multiple units in a small area. [previewyoutube=9TtWTjguQNU;full][/previewyoutube] Upgrading your units can change the entire gameplay and using them properly gives tremendous advantage on the battlefield. We plan to introduce more units and their special abilities in the future. How do you like this game mechanic?

Every faction needs its center of operations and that is what we are here to share with you today. As an example, we will be taking a closer look at the Fossorian outpost to demonstrate the mechanics of base building. [previewyoutube=CBQ1k_LL72c;full][/previewyoutube] And who are the Fossorians, you may ask? Other factions call them moles for their similarity to little furry animals from the Earth - it is true that some ancestors in Fossorian evolution probably occupied a similar niche. Still, be careful not to use this name in their presence, you really do not want any of those furry bastards for an enemy. Centuries prior to the space age, the Fossorians escaped from the polluted wasteland of the planetary surface to the colder but much safer embrace of underground cities. They also brought this architectural tradition to the Siren System as it provides additional protection against bombardment, infiltration, and also citizen emigration. The brutalist style mirrors the overgrown ego of its creators and complements the need for living in the safety of a bunker.
Theyre capable of building huge underground structures which can host thousands of warriors and war machines. At the beginning there are only the essentials: a base core to control all operations from, basic fortifications and of course a space bar where bored commanders are looking for a next job.
After a few planetary cycles the base has grown quite a bit. The core building has been expanded and provides more income each turn. It is possible to recruit many more units and they have access to a trading hub so if they lack some resources, they can easily buy them or sell them if they are overstocked. At this stage the Academy has come online and can teach commanders new abilities that can provide a huge advantage in battle.
The Base is now fully upgraded. It is possible to recruit the strongest units in their second upgraded form and teach commanders some of the most powerful special abilities. Other important upgrades increase visibility range around the base, allow heroes to travel from base to base and the fully developed defenses help to defeat even much stronger opponents.
Of course base is just a small part of everything that is needed to conquer the Siren system. There are many structures on the map which provide important resources or even units you can use. But never underestimate the importance of the center of your operations. We are now working on UI and soon we will show you the different ways how you can interact with your base and with individual buildings. How do you like the design so far?

Hello everyone! With the year 2022 almost at the end, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Holiday and a Happy New Year. We know it was a difficult year for many of you and new challenges didnt miss our studio as well. But in the end we are excited about what awaits us in 2023. Even though active development of Project Hospital has ended and no more DLC is planned, we continue to support the game. We added Steam Deck support so you can play the game everywhere. With new patches we tried to improve the game with recent patch 40 being the last one of this year. Our biggest event though was the announcement of Silence of the Siren, a sci-fi turn-based strategy game. For us it is an opportunity to try something new and we hope many of you will join Early Access which we plan to release next year. The team will now need to recharge a little bit and will be taking a holiday until January 2nd, which means we might not be available on our social channels. If you encounter any issues, dont hesitate to ask our amazing community on the Steam forum, if they cant help, we should be able to get back to you at the beginning of January. We hope the start of your Holiday will be more enjoyable with the Steam Winter Sale where Project Hospital will be available with a 50% discount and 20% discount for all DLCs. Merry Holiday and Happy New Year!

• Explore a rich sci-fi world and discover secrets of a lost civilization
  
• Collect powerful artifacts, secure important resources, upgrade your bases and hire the strongest units
  
• Level-up your commanders and crush your opponents in exciting turn-based battles
  
• Take control over several different species and factions
  
• Old-school strategy game with modern controls and intuitive UI

• Processor: i3. Ryzen 3Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: 1030Additional Notes: All TBD. minimum will be aimed at 1080p low @30 FPS

• Processor: i5. Ryzen 5Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: 1060Additional Notes: All TBD. recommended will be aimed at 1080p high @60 FPS