Hey Akuparians! Guess what, its our birthday!, Akupara Games is turning 8 years old and to celebrate, we have put Desert Child on sale for 78% off! Be sure to grab those deals, check out our lovely event page, and check out the sales! Maybe the game youve been waiting for is waiting for you here, with a crisp sale to match. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/akuparagames8thanniversarysale
Also, to celebrate, we will be hosting a multi-hour stream with tons of activities, announcements, and more! Stream is starting at 11:45 PM PDT! We really hope to see you there - and heres to another year of publishing your favorite indie games on the market https://www.twitch.tv/akuparagames - Riv otter

Hey, Racers! Spooky month is here which means it is time to decorate, dress up, and eat some candy! We take the celebration of Halloween a million miles away from Earth and incorporate it into Desert Child! Load up Desert Child in October to see the spooky decorations that the residences have put up! Make sure to keep your eyes on the road when driving your hoverbike and good luck on your next race! -Riv Otter

Hey, Racers! Just because we're not on Earth anymore doesn't mean we don't celebrate All Hallow's Eve! Everyone enjoys a good pumpkin, even if it's gotta be grown in red sand under a sun 150 million miles away. Load up Desert Child and take a look at the spooky decorations hidden all across Olympia. As always, I wish you the best of luck in the Grand Prix! -Buddy

Check out [AG] Buddy & Chris go head to head on Remote Play! Grab the game right now at 60% off here! [previewyoutube=h_g2ikGNTjM;full]https://youtu.be/h_g2ikGNTjM[/previewyoutube] In Desert Child you are broke, but talented, hoverbike racer who needs to find a way off Earth to get to Mars to compete in the Grand Prix, the greatest race in the universe. Explore a vibrant pixel-art solar system in this stylized racing adventure flavored with colorful sidequests, fierce hoverbike competitions, and a chill, lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack. Game Features

• Hunt bounties, do odd jobs, throw races - do anything you can to earn cash.
• Explore a pixel-art solar system inspired by Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Redline.
• Customize your vintage bike with various modifications.
• Dine on a range of interplanetary cuisine with sweet buffs to help you win.
• Master deep combat and racing mechanics and define your own style.
• Race, shoot, and get better! Designed for replayability, with secrets that will keep you coming back.
• Chill to an original lo-fi/hip-hop soundtrack.

Hey Racers! We hope you've been enjoying those quality of life updates. We're very happy to announce that trading cards are now available! You can unlock exclusive emoticons and backgrounds by completing sets. If you haven't had the chance to revisit New Olympia since the patch update, this is yet another reason to come race & chill.

Hey Racers, Happy Halloween month! We hope you've been enjoying the new updates to the game (see 1.1.0 Patch Notes). New Olympia is feeling festive this month only, so you should come see before it disappears like a ghost at the end of the month! Bug Fixes

• The background no longer tears in certain maps
• All Halloween elements during races have been integrated

Hey Racers, long time! Have you been cravin' a race or a little ramen? Big Changes

• Added Gun Shop - You can now purchase new guns at any point while in New Olympia
• 3 New Podcast Episodes added to the Record Shop
• Halloween Update - Starting on October 1st, this update adds Halloween decorations around the city of New Olympia, and transforms all the enemies in the game to ghoulish monsters

• Updated End-of-race summary screen to be easier to understand
• Records can now be sold back to the record shop to remove them from the soundtrack
• Updated walking animations in New Olympia
• Gun models are now animated in Weapon Selection Screen
• Weather effects have more visual variety
• Water glistening looks more realistic

• Kangaroo herding now pays out correct amount based on how many you killed
• Smoke from hoverbike in Act 1 Hub now flows correctly
• "Nice" Achievement sometimes wouldn't activate, this is fixed

We're excited to announce that Desert Child has been nominated for the NAVGTR Awards in the categories of: Game, Original Racing Song Collection Song, Original or Adapted (Mega Ran and Bag of Tricks Cat - Love is Here) We're so proud of this and hopefully Oscar can bring home the hardware on March 13th! More info: http://navgtr.org/archives/3566/

Hey Racers, a few more bugs were found and fixed after the 1.0.2 patch! Thanks to user jabberwok for discovering a few of these. Patch Notes:

• Balanced Bounty Hunting job for shotgun
• Fixed issue in tutorial when starting a new game after recently completing special jobs like Bounty Hunting and Kangaroo Herding
• Fixed issue where bike would appear to "repair itself" when transitioning screens
• Fixed issue where MARTIC Ammo kit was still active even after removing it

Hi Racers! Happy 2019! We have been gathering feedback since Desert Child has launched and we have a patch with new features and a few fixes. Patch Notes:

• Increased difficulty for New Game +
• Added 1 second delay between shots for Shotgun
• Created controller configuration for Steam Controller
• Added confirmation for when player selects New Game in Pause Menu
• Fixed issue with monitors with high refresh rates, affecting performance
• Fixed memory issues
• Fixed 2nd player multiplayer issue
• Fixed volume fluctuation and loops
• Fixed NPC graphical issues
• Fixed issue on Steam where game continues to run when accessing Steam Overlay
• Fixed translations

Hello! We're currently experiencing an issue where users with high refresh monitors will run some races insanely fast, 2-4 times the intended speed. This results in the racer crossing the finish line very quickly, and ends with a glitchy graphics, upside down world that lasts ~10 seconds or so. Essentially the game is running at very high FPS, instead of the intended 60 FPS. We hope to address this properly, but in the meantime, here are a few ways you can fix it, if experiencing this issue: 1) Run the game in Windowed mode. or 2) Drop your monitor's refresh rate to 60Hz before starting the game. Apologies for this issue, and we'll add patch notes at the point it is fixed in entirety.

Rev your hoverbikes! The highly anticipated hoverbike racing shooter, Desert Child, by Australian indie developer Oscar Brittain and publisher Akupara Games is now available! https://youtu.be/h_g2ikGNTjM In Desert Child you are broke, but talented, hoverbike racer who needs to find a way off Earth to get to Mars to compete in the Grand Prix, the greatest race in the universe. Explore a vibrant pixel-art solar system in this stylized racing adventure flavored with colorful sidequests, fierce hoverbike competitions, and a chill, lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack. Nothings free in Desert Child. Game Features

• Hunt bounties, do odd jobs, throw races - do anything you can to earn cash.
• Explore a pixel-art solar system inspired by Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Redline.
• Customize your vintage bike with various modifications.
• Dine on a range of interplanetary cuisine with sweet buffs to help you win.
• Master deep combat and racing mechanics and define your own style.
• Race, shoot, and get better! Designed for replayability, with secrets that will keep you coming back.
• Chill to an original lo-fi/hip-hop soundtrack.

We are excited to announce the launch date of the hoverbike racing adventure, Desert Child, coming on December 11, 2018 for $11.99. https://youtu.be/nyFZAD4Ek2o In Desert Child you are broke, but talented, hoverbike racer who needs to find a way off Earth to get to Mars to compete in the Grand Prix, the greatest race in the universe. Explore a vibrant pixel-art solar system in this stylized racing adventure flavored with colorful sidequests, fierce hoverbike competitions, and a chill, lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack, all developed by solo developer, Oscar Brittain. Game Features

• Hunt bounties, deliver pizzas, throw races - do anything you can to earn cash.
• Explore a pixel-art solar system inspired by Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Redline.
• Customize your vintage bike with various modifications.
• Dine on a range of interplanetary cuisine with sweet buffs to help you win.
• Master deep combat and racing mechanics and define your own style.
• Race, shoot, and get better! Designed for replayability, with secrets that will keep you coming back.
• Chill to an original lo-fi/hip-hop soundtrack.

We had been keeping this a secret for a while and E3 was our debut party! Some of you may have already seen it at E3, but if you missed it, heres more information about all the love that went into creating a custom arcade cabinet for Desert Child.
With the help of our good friend, Quan Nguyen from Arcadeworks, we took an existing Virtua Tennis arcade cabinet that we purchased at an auction, stripped it down (dont worry, we saved the all the original parts for Virtua Tennis) and customized it to give it a Akupara Games x Desert Child look.
The cabinet is outfitted with 2 sets of Logitech G560 speakers and subwoofers, Sanwa joystick and buttons, a custom control panel, 2 LCD Monitors and 2 mid-level PCs. An added bonus was that the speakers had LED lights, which looked really cool when we mounted them inside of the marquee. The cabinet art overlays were done by artist Mike Shanks, who did an excellent job in creating the the overall aesthetic.
The reception we received at E3 was overwhelming, as we consistently had crowds at our booth. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out to our booth at IndieCade to hang out with us, give us high fives! We really appreciate the continued support of Akupara Games and Desert Child.
For more updates, dont forget to follow us on Steam and wishlist Desert Child! https://store.steampowered.com/app/844050/Desert_Child/