Hi all, after a long wait, we've finally added a completely new faction with complex stealth mechanics! Please enjoy our latest release.

Have fun and take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, it is with immense pleasure that we announce the completion of the Ratmen faction, which will be introduced to the Age of Fear series on April 12th!

Hidden beneath Sorodon, the Ratmen are a clever faction that excels in stealth. In the dark corners of their territory, these elusive creatures have perfected the art of staying unseen and unheard. Though their units may seem weaker than those of similar factions, the Ratmen make up for it with their unmatched skills in backstabbing and surprising attacks.

Living in an underground world full of tunnels, the Ratmen can move quietly and strategically. Their expertise in covert tactics and surprise makes them a strong force, capable of turning the tide of battle unexpectedly. Emerging from the depths of Sorodon, the Ratmen create uncertainty and fear, establishing themselves as a unique and unpredictable presence in warfare.

With just a few weeks to go, be ready!

Take care, Les

Hi everyone, with this post, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This year has been quite busy for us; we released a new game while working on the upcoming Ratmen campaign. The Age of Fear series was enriched with several new features, such as continuous area effects, burrowing, and a whole new array of spells. We have also added a new mini-boss, Sandworm, and a new minor hero (playable by all factions), Dancer Zarah.

Also, yesterday we released a complete pack of voiceovers for the Ratmen campaign. Therefore, the scenario is almost complete and requires only a few minor tweaks before full release.

As always, all feedback is welcome. Enjoy your time off!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Over the last few months, we have finalized the story and battles for the Ratmen campaign. There is still a lot of polishing to be done; however, the campaign is now playable from start to end. We have also introduced new mechanics, such as end-of-turn auto-invisibility for Ratmen, added a brand-new hero (Zarah, the dancer), and fine-tuned the AI to better utilize stealth.

We are also in the process of ordering a voiceover and conducting auditions. We have selected a few options that align with the theme of the game.

I kindly ask for your feedback on which one is the most suitable.

The auditions are provided below in a zip file (10MB):
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/td6sc1mphahjjahzzbtwk/voiceover-auditions.zip?rlkey=mrhblcy9jvt5gp6oig2uzrwr0&dl=1


Please comment on your favorite option and suggest any improvements. I'll share your feedback with the voice actors so they can align with notes.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, after a bit of waiting we have pushed another update to the Ratmen campaign. Right now, around one-third of content is playable and includes a few interesting additions like stealth missions (where your units need to remain undetected), sewers maze and Sorodon's bazaar (with obligatory drunken dwarves fight!).

We have also added a few items which improve the morphed form of heroes, e.g. Spider form of Lexa can be made quite powerful. I hope to add ever more items and work on polymorph mechanics.

We also re-numbered all campaigns as chapters so new players aren't confused about the order of campaigns. For modders - we have modified battle tasks and separate conditions can be made mandatory, e.g. it's possible to force players to open certain Treasure Chest.

Please enjoy and, as always, any feedback is welcome.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

YOU ASKED AND WE LISTENED! After a long wait we finally released the stand-alone version of our series! This package includes not only all games in the series, but it will also be updated with any and all future releases and DLCs.

This means a purchase today entitles you to everything coming down the Age of Fear pipeline once it arrives! (please note that the Day of The Rat campaign is being actively developed and not all content is available yet.)

We are now adding Workshop and finalising other bits to enable all features (it should be ready in an hour or two).

For current series owners - please visit the bundle for a neat upgrade option.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all,

It has been a while since the last update, but now we are back!

In this patch we introduced a new mini-boss - Sandworm! Sandworms are colossal, worm-like creatures that live in the desert. As it tunnels through the sandy dunes of the desert, the sandworm leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.

This mini-boss will be unlocked as the game progresses and has quite a few interestingproperties, e.g. it stays burrowed and can swallow your units in one turn. There are a few possible strategies to defeat it, but I leave it for you to discover.

Btw, Sandworm will be playable as a separate hero in the coming release of a new additionto the series. We are almost finished with the build and hopefullywe will be able to push it out tonight or during the weekend.



THE FIRST FIVE PEOPLE WHO DEFEAT SANDWORM ON EXPERT DIFFICULTY (AND POST A SCREENSHOT) WILL RECEIVE A FREE KEY FOR OUR NEW GAME!
(Sandworm is not available in the Age of Fear: Free World.)

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, over the last few days we have released a number of patches focused on further ui enhancements (e.g. gesture scrolling of listings) and also substantialchanges in crafting.

Changes:

• Gesture scrolling has been added to listings, e.g. team units, items' list, bestiary, etc.
  
• Items have been consolidated into fourteen themed sets (from the previous thirty one) which should make the crafting interface easier.
  
• Required attributes like Alchemy, Blacksmith, etc. display hints about units that provide them.
• Resourceitems provided after battles will be geared towards craftable items (i.e. ones which you know and also have all needed attributes).
  
• Blood Sacrifice is a new skill for Blood Mage which allows you to gain a bit of MP in exchange for HP (it's to balance Meditate which the good side enjoys).
  
• AI for finding hidden units has been almost completely reworked and its actions should reassemble what a human player would do.
  

Hi all, over the last few weeks we were working on customisations required to play the series on Steam Deck.

You must have noticed after this patch are larger fonts, buttons and other interactive elements. Larger UI is necessary for much smaller screens; however, we hope to strike the right balance between desktop and console UI. Other changes are activated only in Steam Desk mode and include sensitivity settings to select units and zones (my thick fingers...) and a whole new way to show help and tooltips (by long-press).



While at it we have also fixed a number of issues and back-implemented a few pending mechanics:

• Chaos Demons and Greenskins campaigns now have battle tasks and we are working on adding them to Dwarves and Forest campaigns too (thanks to Willisama).
  
• Resource items given are more targeted at craftable (known) items.
  
• Barkskin gives +2 Defence - combined with Bear Form and Nature Wisdom makes Dryads into a formidable melee unit (but time-limited).
  
• Dispel Magic is more reliable and burns a fixed amount of MP
  
• Disintegration damages a fixed amount of HP.
  
• Escape key can be used to close most of the dialogs.
  
• Bugfix for spawned units overlapped themselves (this is still being worked on).
  
• Bugfix for occasionally non-exploding Gunpowder Barrels.
  
• Bugfix for static objects blocking units with Hit-and-Run.
  
• Bugfix for Burning units not-detonating.
  
• ...and many more (including re-balance of several units).
  

Happy New Year to you all! That was quite a year, both personally and also in series development. We have made many fixes and patches, and also added a few great additions like pushing mechanics, illusions, AI heroes, taunts, light sources, just to name a few. Our to-do list is still quite long and we still have many awesome featuresto implement.

We have also made good progress on the next game in the series with a completely new Ratmen faction. I am also about to upload a new trailer (hopefullyyou can watch it now). If it all goes well, we should be able to release it in 2023.



That said, I would like to wish you all the best in New Year 2023! Happy gaming!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi everyone! Recently we have been focused on improving stealthmechanics and also adding better support for items in our series.

First of all, some of you have played games with items enabled on all units and you might have noticed additional attributeslike Armour Proficiency, Mage Master, etc. added to those units. That shouldhelp with better immersionand make your allies more interesting to equip.

Secondly, we have introduced the Light Sources trait on some unitsand static objects. Night battles have now a few fire stands placed which makes sneaking aroundmuchmore difficult.

Thirdly, the Forest faction has a new unit - Dryad Blade Dancer which is a low health melee unit, but with powerful attacks and Projectiles Reflection. The skill is still a bit experimental, but it adds another decision layer - will you take a risk of an arrow being reflected onto your archers?

As usual - all feedback and bugreports are welcome!
Enjoy your weekend and Black Friday sales!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, today we released yet another patch with a few new features and several bug fixes. Meanwhile we continue to work on the next game in the series (we aim to releasein 2023). Please keep watching our page for the new trailer (soon!).

CHANGES:

• Natural Wisdom also gives+1 base HP when morphed (Cave Bear, Dire Bear, etc.)
  
• Divine Intervention is a new skill for Paladins and Inquisitors and gives them extra chance to auto-resurrectafter battle
  
• A number of helmets and armors were made unavailable to spellcasters (also description was altered)
  
• Berserker's Rage is a boost for melee units (with Berserker attribute) which lasts while unit is in melee
  
• Bugfix for multiple attacks (in melee) - sometimes the range of consecutiveattacks is reduced. We fixed it to be the same value.
  
• Multiple textedits (thanks toBobbisandLouis)
  

Hi all, recently we have been working on making our games launch on Steam Deck and we have first results:


(the photo is courtesy of Micah - thank you very much for all your help!)


It required re-implementing substantialportion of our graphics rendering engine and we still have a few edges to smooth out. Aside from that, Steam Deck is quite flexible in terms of controls and our game can use both touchpads as well as the main touchscreen.

For the brave souls that want to try it on Steam Deck:

• we have tested it on Proton Experimental as of 2022/08/19 (not Proton default!)
  
• go into Compatibilitymode and set it toSteamLinux Runtime
  

Hi all, this patch is full of bug fixes and tunings. We are slowly refactoring our code for the new Java 17 and the overall performance should be better.

Change log:

• Traps (as well as a few other special objects, e.g. cauldron, barricade, explosive barrel, etc.) can be placed without using turn. We are still tuning AI for this logic update.
  
  
• Slippery is less potent (10% slip chance and 30% chance of pushing away in melee).
  
  
• We track a few last triggered Global Events and make sure the same ones won't be triggered.
  
  
• AI moving invisible units is much faster (previously animation time was the same as normal move).
  
  
• Holy Protection attribute for Inquisitors and Valkyries. This attribute makes units immune for Necromancy and Death spells.
  
  
• Units with Hit and Run aren't able to attack again after retreat.
  
  
• Poisoned invisible units won't be revealed (till they die).
  

Hi all, I hope youare well in the current heatwave. Don't forget to drink a lot of water!

In this patch we are releasing quite a few new features (list below). The most noticeableare changes to Sea People and their base - we are introducing the new mode where you need to purchase buildings in order to unlock advanced unit types. We balanced that with adding more resources and gold to the campaign.

• Further optimisations for AI processing speed - we took advantage of several Java 17 features and managed to speed up some AI routines. This is still work in progress, but I hope the effects are noticeable already.
  
  
• The above changes to the Sea People base where advanced units must beunlocked by buildings.
  
  
• 'Taunt' skill for Sea Divers, which makes AI focus attacks on a poor chap. It opens quiteinteresting tactical possibilities.
  
  
• New trait 'Wanted' which units can earn after scoring 25+ kills. Similarto 'Taunt', it makes AI to focus attacks on that unit.
  
  
• In the shop units' list, units can now beinserted between other units. Hover your mouse in a small space between units, then confirm with a right click.
  
  
• New trait 'Dragon' for well... dragons ^^ It makes Dragons resistant to a number of tactics and hopefullywill eliminate cheesing those mini-boss fights.
  
  
• New spell 'Force Push' for mages. Who doesn't want to be a Jedi?
  
  
• Detector is a passive detection mechanism for Totems and Evil Eyes,and also heroes (via All-Seeing Eye amulet). It completes the existing detection skills like Clairvoyance, Scan (Sensors), Dark Vision and Sharp Eyes.
  
  
• Regrowth costs 100exp per use (exception: Mandrake Root).
  

Hello all, I hope you are having a good time. Recently we have been frequently patching all games in the series and it's a good moment to list all changes. Those are substantial chances, therefore please keep reading.

• We upgraded to the more recent Java 17 (previously we embedded Java 10 with our games). That gave us access to many new features and optimisations. In our tests, the game engine is working around 40% faster.
  
  
• Complete attack types are displayed in the lower part of the screen. Our items system often results in layered effects for an attack, for example, a strike could be Fire- and Cold-based (at the same time), could be causing a Stun and also reducing Defence. With this version we display all effects a given attack has.
  
  
• Open World battles feature a Retreat option where you can abandon battle for a small gold penalty. This feature was requested quite long ago, but we finally got to it.
  
  
• Fog and Slippery are new battle conditions to be found in Swamps and Winter levels respectively. Fog is reducing the range of projectile-based attacks and spells, Slippery occasionally causes units to slip and lose an action.
  
  
• Disease was refactored significantly and now infected units will happily spread it around. This is a part of tactics coming in new games in the series.
  
  
• Polymorph spells and skills are also moving effects to and from morphed units. For example, poisoned Dryad changing into Bear will carry over the poisoned status.
  
  
• Lamp of Blood (in Krill) campaign is working as a pre-battle action (to be used during Deploy Turn). We hope to add more skills like that which allow players to modify the battlefield before battle.
  
  
• A few new detector-like skills were added, for example Scan for Guardians. The AI is also more efficient with the use of Invisibility.
  
  
• Angela received a secret (and very powerful!) weapon. It's hidden in her campaign - who will find it first?
  

Hi all! Over the last few weeks we have deployed a few new features and otherpatches, and it's time now to produce a meaningful change log (I am sorryfor not being up-to-date with those!).

• Pushing units around it the major mechanics we introduced about two weeks ago. Many explosive spells will now move units a bit, justenough to make space for your units to squeeze between and reach those vulnerable shooters and mages. Several units also receivedPushing attacks due to their size, e.g. Ogres, Troll Throwers, etc. A fewexisting skills likeShieldBash or Power Attack are also moving enemy units upon hit.
  
  
• Knights have now a more effective Greater Charge upgrade where their charges cause more damage (and obviously push enemy units out of the way!). The Charge ability can be disabled for one turn, for example when you want to engage a spellcaster in melee (and block him from using spells).
  
  
• We have introduced enemy heroes as mini-bosses in campaigns and random battles. So far a few enemy units were considered special thorough campaigns, but those were just like ordinary units with names (and more chatty!). We have upgraded those to hero status (which gives them a few extra Hit Points and several resistances) to give that extra challenge to players.
  
  
• A dozen new resourceitems were added, e.g. Fire Opal, Black Gold, Moonstone, etc.
  

Hi all, we have just patched our games again, this time with a number of additional units, improved skills and enhancedtraits system. We continue to work on new faction (Ratmen) and also on its unique Stealth mechanics.

First of all - new units:

• Cerberus is a new fast-attacker for Chaos Demons. Just like Wolves, it can be upgraded to a hit-and-run unit, however Cerberus also deals extra Fire damage.
  
• Elder is yet another upgrade for floating Evil Eyes from Chaos Demons faction. We have packed it with anti-magic skills, therefore all spellcasters beware!
  
• Crabman joins the Sea People as a durable blocker with Power Strike ability. It's definitely a nice addition to your line of Sea Divers.
  
• Cows also join the ranks of all monsters and beasts. Just like fearsomePigs and Chickens, those slow land cruisers can completely decimate all grass around.
  

• Bard has its own unique skill Ballad which adds experience points to units not participating in a battle.
  
• Polymorph spells were added with a cooldown which triggers after the unit comes back to its original shape.
  

I think everyone knows what's going on in Ukraine at the moment. Ukraine was attacked by its neighbouring country with an overwhelming military power. Yet, Ukrainian citizens refused to surrender and took weapons, and are bravely fighting against the invading army.

We want to make people more aware what's going on. You will be surprised how much disinformation is around - please use real news channels to see what's going on.

We cannot do anything else other than admire their fighting spirit. As such, we substantially lowered the prices for the Age of Fear series for anyone in Ukraine (this is not a promotion - I would give away our games for free, but Steam doesn't have an option to make games free for just one region).

There is no place for tanks and artillery strikes on civilians in the 21st century. I don't know the details of the problems there; however, there is absolutely no excuse for such brutality like it's taking place now.

Those differences should be resolved at negotiating table instead of invading the whole country and then threating the whole world with nukes.


Take care,
AOF Team

Hi all, the last couple of weeks were busy as we were finalisingthe Ambush feature for the Age of Fear series. This is the part of wider Stealth mechanics and will be ready for the next game in the series.
To accommodatenew logic, we had to refactor huge amounts of code and, among other things, we managed to cross a few things from our todo list, i.e. enhancements to traits system, deploy-turn actions and random generation of maps.

Let's start with the traits system. The common requestwas to give an option to remove unwanted traits - to address that we expanded the Mutagen potion functionality and, while it is still accelerating traits, it can be also used to remove them (from the Skills menu in the Recruitment screen). The Mutagen potion is also classified as a rare item now, therefore it should be more common as a loot in battles.

We have added a new class of actions which can be executed during Deploy Turn, e.g. Sea Witch can now invoke Rain or Wind, and JuggernautGolem can invoke Earthquake. However, those skills come with a twist - instead of a mild battle disturbance, the much more nastly version can be invoked! For example, calling an Earthquake can result in a Volcano eruption! This logic will be extended in future patches.

A logic responsiblefor random objects placements was improved and morefair use of objects was introduced, e.g. previously there were almost three Crates spawn per battle, now it's only one and a bit, and barrels, anvils, tables, etc. are created instead.

This is quite a sizable patch and I hope everything works fine.
As usual - all feedback is welcome.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all! I hope you enjoy ongoing Lunar Sales and find many interesting games. Meanwhile, we are working hard on adding a few specific mechanics related to Stealth.

As a side-product of experimenting with the Ambush feature (in which invisible units can surprise enemy groups) we created yet another stealth-specific skill - Illusions. A spellcaster can create multiple copies of itself and those copies can move and attack (but won't cause any damage) as normal units. Now the guess-game begins...



On another note - we soon plan to increase prices of some of our games. The main reason being record-breaking inflation and, as such, rising costs of development and assets. I sincerelydon't know how much we will push our prices up, but we will try to keep it to a minimum.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hello all,

I would like to wish you all the best in the comingyear 2022!

As for our plans - we are working on the next part in the series. As you saw in previous announcements, we have alreadyadded a number of specializedskills and mechanics.

We will continue that in 2022 and hopefullywe will have something playable before theend of the year.

Takecare,
Les & AOF Team.

Hi all, over the last few weeks we were working mostly on the new game in our series, but we also added a few new spells, patched bugs and tuned the game a bit:

• Hellish Assault for Succubus and Demon Mistress! This is a bit experimental feature in which we allow demonic battlemages to quickly traverse the battlefield with a huge blast. Let's see how it plays out!
  
  
• Sea People were tuned a bit, i.e. Giant Eels becoming more resistant to damage and Sea Harpooners having overhaul as poison-based artillery.
  
  
• As usual a few bugs were spotted by players and ironed out, e.g. Wargs Howl was occuring in early campaigns, units movement as sometimes stuck near own invisible units, etc.
  

Hi all, we finally found the courage to sort out Team Size. It was a common complaint that the size of the army in battles is not consistent and not communicated clearly. You were 100% right - it was just a lot of changes and it took us a while.

• New heroes are available in Open World campaigns. We also introduced an experimental single-hero build (without an army).
  
  
• Team Size is consistent through campaign and Open World battles. Team Size is displayed in every shop. Base Team Size can be also set from Experimental options.
  
  
• Auto-balancing units' attributes for AI - till now, units were manually balancedso their upgrades match game progress. However, with 200+ active units it became troublesome and, therefore, we implemented an automated way to price those attributes.
  
  
• Invisible units would block the movement if your ally passed through them. This is another change in mechanics to accommodateincoming Ratmen faction whichwill be based on stealth.
  
  
• Repair skill can also target dead Constructs. This is to better integrate Dwarves and their Constructs.
  
  
• New end level in Undead campaign more aligned to story in which Undead were originally controlled by Demons before Krill 'liberated' them.
  

HI all, I thoughtI would share an interesting feature we came up with (and finished implementing this week) - burrowing. This mechanic is part of a wider rehaul of invisibility and stealth we are currentlyworking for. It allows for units to hide on the path of enemies, wait till they pass and backstab them from behind. Only for Ratmen ^^



Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, over the last few weeks we have been workingon a few unique mechanics for the Ratmen faction. However, we also re-factored a few of existing systems which apply to all existing factions:

• Invisible units' attacks automatically become backstabs and have attack / damage bonuses to the first strike.
  
  
• Disease has a small chance to spread to any nearby unit (allies and enemies alike). Also, Disease reduces maximum hit points by one.
  
  
• We have added a number of traps, e.g. Bone Trap for Necromancers, and we are still working on back-porting traps mechanics to all other factions.
  

Hi all, just a heads up, the Game Development World Championship 2021 started this week and our recent game in the series was selected for the Fan Favourite's Game category!!

I would ask you to go to GDWC page and hit that Vote button:
https://thegdwc.com



Take care,
Les & AOF

Hi all, in this patch we have tuned crafting, fixed a number of bugs and added a few more spells. Detailed change log follows:

• NEW: Fear Totem for Warlock - similar to other totems, this one emits which lowers the Morale of nearby enemies. Obviously, your allies will start panicking soon if the totem is not destroyed.
  
  
• BUGFIX: All traps were targetable by a number of spells like Teleportation, Bless, etc. Obviously it was not a desired effect and we fixed it.
  
  
• BUGFIX: AI was handling Invisibility badly and pointlessly re-casting it on the same unit. Fixed.
  
  
• UPDATE: Extended range and area of Dark Vision spell
  
  
• UPDATE: Resources are given more intelligently, i.e. the engine tries to figure out which resource items you are missing the most and give them toyou after battles. Obviously, other conditions like the environment and killed enemies have to be met.
  
  
• UPDATE: Pigs andChickens appear in villages and are capturable (Turlestoo). You won't make a killingmachine out of a Chicken; nevertheless you can carry it to battles :P
  

Hi all! We hope you enjoy the Steam Summer Sale! I was able to find a few indie gems for myself :)

I would like to notify you about changes in our support email from support@age-of-fear.net to ageoffeargame@gmail.com. We already updated all our pages and, whenever possible, also our forums.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, I am proud to announce we finally backported craftingto all our previous games. It took longer thanexpected, but we are finally there!!

Let me briefly remind you of what crafting feature does:

• During battles fallen enemies will generate resource items, for example: Slimes will drop Slime Goo, Wolves will drop Thick Fur, etc.
  
  
• After battle, your units will gather a number of resources from killed enemies, and also resources from the environment, for example Poison Basil can be found on Swamps, while Volcano Crystals can be found on Lava levels.
  
  
• Once an item is seen, your heroes can craft it from resources. However, different artifacts have different requirements of units' attributes, for example to craft Flame Axe you need to have a Blacksmith in your team and also a unit who can deal Fire Damage.
  
  
• Items are groupedinto themes, for example all items which have affinity with fire will be grouped into Flame tab. Also, crafting an item from a particular group has a chance of learning other items from the same group!
  

Hi all in the comingSummer Sales!

The last few months were a busy period for us: we released a new game, we handled the subsequent support (and bug fixes!), and we also started to work on the next part of the game.

I thought it's a good time to update you all with what we are working on now:

• Crafting - we are still workingon backporting this feature to all past games. We hoped to have this feature workingalready, but it's more time-intensive than we originally estimated. I am very sorry for a delay and I hope we will have it working in early July.
  
  
• Invisibility was a black horse in the last release and this feature really overperformed our expectations! We have found multiple ways we can extend our series thanksto that feature and further updates are coming soon. We hope to amend existing factions to use Invisibility (like we did with Rangers and Dryads already), for example Necromancer will receive Bone Traps very soon!
  
  
• Ratmen faction - some of you already saw design notes about the new faction we are adding to the series. We are working on the units and skills and writing a completelynew campaign for them (but with old heroes!).
  

Hi all, over the last few days we have been thinking howelsecan we build on recently released Invisibility mechanics. Aside from AI fixes, we have run an interesting experiment- how about hiddensnipers laying down the fire on unexpected enemy troops?

Well, it came out pretty well! Here we present you new Sniper Pistol (which can be found during campaign):



Equip it and your hero changes into a deadly sniper! The long range and huge damage are obvious perks; however, this weapon can be fired from concealment too! Fire and move, fire and move.

Following this pattern, we have also updated a few common units like Ranger, Dryad Huntress and Goblin Assassin. More will come soon!

It's still untested feature, therefore please excuse us for occassional bugs especially on AI side :)

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, with this announcement I would like to show you a very well done Let's Play for the Age of Fear series! Please enjoy the work of Game God Fluid! (and subscribe to his channel):

https://youtu.be/7BO71q7kjrY?list=PLkYV_DP3AWhXO_rXsEyM36TQ2MDwY5WoC

The videos are almost complete and ready to watch. Enjoy!

Take care,
Les

Hi all, after the recent very successful release we have immediately started working on yet another faction for the series:



Our current design idea is to build this faction on newly introduced Invisibility where . We are aiming to create ninja-like unitswhich can easily sneak on opponents and use their backstab attacks.

As with other factions, Ratmen will have their unique skills and abilities, roughly based on deception.

That's for now, I am sorry I could not add any details, but we only started designing this faction. As usual, all suggestions are warmlywelcomed!

Take care
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, in the heist of the recent release we have also added a few new features whichsomewhat went unnoticed. With this post I would like to bring attention to those life-easing functionalities:

• COMBAT LOG which is listing all past actions in the current battle. The feature is available from the battle menu and it's very useful in tracking AI actions during your turn.
  
  
• COLOR-BLIND MODE has been added after feedback from the Community where a few players could not see game text and notifications easily. This mode can be enabled from Options -> Screen and removes textured backgrounds as well as changes text color to have morecontrast.
  

Hi all, we have received a few bug-reports from users where the game incorrectly detects 32-bits OS architecture (instead of 64-bits) and the launched executable is under-performing.

We are still investigating this issue; however, we updated our games with a new option to force 64-bit mode. To start game in a 64-bits mode, click Play from Library and select the below option:

Hi all, we are very happy to release moreadditions to our series!

As promised this patch is full of sweet features:

• CRAFTING!
  
  
• INVISIBILITY AND TRAPS!
  
  
• SEA PEOPLE FACTION!
  
  
• NEW SPELLS!
  
  
• ASHLANDS, SEA BATTLES and CRYSTAL FOREST!
  

Hi all, we have been quiet for a while, however you can be sure we were working hard on the series!

In preparation for the coming release, we have massively updated AOF engine and content. Aside from the promised Invisibility, Traps and Crafting features (which will be available in mainstream games), we have introduced a whole lot of new units, spells and skills.

The below list mentions only the major changes and we leave the rest for you to discover.

• Sea People - the whole new faction is being added to the series! Four-arms Nagas, brave Divers, charming Mermaids, weather-changing Sea Witches, giant Sea Snakes, poisonous Sea Snails, etc. As with all other factions, new tactics need to be learned.
  
  
• Two new units for humans - an Oracle and a flying Griffin Knight. The Oracle is a unit with a unique Clairvoyance skill that helps to see hidden units and traps. The Griffin Knight is an alternative upgrade for a Knight, adding the prized flying ability.
  
  
• New ray attack mechanic - all units in a line are hit(instead of a single target). For example we upgraded Evil Eyes' Death Ray.
  
  
• New spells and skills like Silence (temporarily disables enemy spells and skills), Shield Bash (can stun opponent), Riposte (counter-attack after missed strike), Crystal Skin (new trait for Mana addicts), Sharp Senses (to detect traps), Phoenix (restores unit once per battle), etc.
  
  
• AI-only specialised factions like Spiders, Elementals, Harpies, etc. which randomly appear in locations.
  
  
• Crafting and resources which let you create almost any item available in game. This feature will only be available for mainstream games in the series.
  
  
• Invisibility and Traps: Units' actions are hidden from an opponent's view (AI included).This adds a completely new layer to the battles where players need to guess the location of enemies. We also created a set of accompanying skills useful to counter this mechanics. We will release this feature in the coming games in the series.
  

Hi all,

The invisibility mechanics are already coded and being tested at the moment. Be ready for a surprise and major shake up of your tactics!

Together with invisibility we are also introducing traps, which can be placed and will trigger their effects onto unaware trespassers. Oh, the AI can do it too.

We are hoping to release it 30th April with a major series update.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, we are very excited to be finally able to schedule the release of the next game in the series! We plan to release it on 30th April.

Aside from a completely new story and new pair of heroes, we are adding a number of great features to the Age of Fear series:

• CRAFTING - almost all in-game items will become craftable. We created many resources such as various plants, gemstones, metal ores, etc., as well as special skills for crafting, such as Alchemist, Blacksmith and Jeweller. The ingredients are gathered from fallen enemies as well as from the environment (after every battle).
  
  
• ASHLANDS and SEA BATTLES are two new environments we just added. After expanding the world map and adding deserts, we found that lava levels do not match the gray areas near volcanoes; that's why we decided to create new unique areas with their own unique battle conditions.
  
  
• The INVISIBILITY mechanics are already coded and being tested at the moment. Be ready for a surprise and major shake up of your tactics! Together with invisibility we are also introducing traps, which can be placed and will trigger their effects onto unaware trespassers. Oh, the AI can do it too.
  

We have made a good progress with crafting (as you can see below). All items have been grouped into themes, e.g. Chaos, Alchemy, Knight, etc. Crafting one item from one group has a chance to let you learn anotheritem from its theme group.



There are over forty resource items which are gathered after battles. The available resource types depend on environmentand also ondefeated enemies.

The crafting will be released together with the next game in the series. We hope to release in April 2021.

Takecare,
Les & AOF Team

WISHING YOU AND YOURS SOME WELL-DESERVED DOWNTIME AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO COME.

THANK YOU FOR BEING THE BEST COMMUNITY EVER!

AOF Team

Hi everyone!

There was not an update for a while, thereforeI would like to share with you all what's currently in our pipeline.First of all we are working on the next game in the series (which you can check in your upcominggames).We plan to release it around April 2021 (hopefully!).

With the new game, we plan to add a few new features like Invisibility, changing weather conditions, new units and also crafting. The campaignwill be more flexible and a player can progress a few quests simultaneously.



CHANGELOG:

• ONGOING: Creating is almost done! Each of four hundreds items in AOF series can be craftedfrom resources (which are gathered in battles or purchased from shops). This feature adds another dimension to your team composition as you also need to have relevant skills among your allies like Blacksmith, Jeweler, Alchemist, etc.
  
  
• DONE: Ashlands and Crystal Forest are new types of environment we developed. Both of them came with their own unique battle conditions and set of native interactive objects.
  
  
• DONE: The invisibility mechanics are already coded, but requires more testing for AI to learn this function. Invisibility will add surprise to your battles and break your tactics! Get ready for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Ratmen Faction - we are creating a new faction based on stealth and treachery. Currently we have a dozen of Ratmen units and we plan to add a few more. This faction will appear in AOF5.
  

Hi all, in a few hours we are starting the next all-in (all games and DLCs) sales. Feel free to check our games!

We are working on the next part of the series. The release is planned for the early 2021, but I would also to share the current version of the trailer:
https://youtu.be/8PpDGkAkZok

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hello everyone, there wasn't an update for some time and I would like to bring you up to speed in what we are working on. Aside from a number of bug fixes, we are mainly workingon our new game in the Age of Fear series.

The first version of a trailer can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fTLifEvHi4

I will also post a log of what new features are being worked on:

• ONGOING: Creating - yes, you read correctly. We finally implement craftsmanship. Recently we implemented stackable items feature which will be also used for resources. We are working on many resources, such as plants and metal ore, as well as special skills for heroes, such as Alchemist, Blacksmith, Jeweller, etc.
  
• ONGOING: Ashlands is another type of environment we are working on. After expanding the world map and adding deserts, we found that lava levels do not match the gray areas near volcanoes; that's why we decided to create a new unique area.
  
• ONGOING: The invisibility mechanics are already coded, but requires more testing for AI to learn this function. Invisibility will add surprise to your battles and break your tactics! Get ready for the unexpected!
  
• ONGOING: Ratmen Faction - we are creating a new faction based on stealth and treachery. Stay tuned - more news will follow!
  

Hi everyone, with the Covid-19 pandemic almost over (I hope!) I thought we would like to share our progress in the next game in the Age of Fear series.

Our testers finished the first playthrough, finding a number of bugs and other issues that we will be working on. We've also started working on the trailer, which you can see several screenshots in this post.

In addition to a completely new story and factions, the main additions to the series (in terms of new features) will be the crafting system and invisibility. We also add many other related mechanics, such as traps, weather-changing spells, and a whole set of 'detector' skills (as a counter for hidden units),. We're still on track to release in 2020 (but that's not a promise!).

Also remember that till the end of pandemic we run the 'Stay-at-Home' bundle:


The bundle is available here:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/13885/Age_of_Fear_StayAtHome_Bundle/

Take care and have fun!
Les

Hello everyone, I hope that most of you will remain safe at home in these troubled times. We have accelerated the development of our next game in this series and I would like to provide some details.

The main hero of the campaign is Angela - the daughter of a former hunter known from the Blood and Moon expansion. She will set out on an expedition to solve the murders of underground crime lords. She will be joined by Sea People and even more adventurers, for example ourcast elementalist mage. The story takes place within the lore of series, and during the story you will meet old friends from the other games. We hope to release it before the end of this year and will definitely release more messages before ^^

In the meantime, please be safe at home and avoid contact with others. Remember, it's for your own good and health.
Take care,
Les

Hello everyone, as the whole world is fighting the recent pandemic of coronavirus, many of you stay at home. To help you, we have prepared a highly discounted the Age of Fear series bundle that will last until the end of the pandemic. Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/13885/Age_of_Fear_StayAtHome_Bundle/

Take care,
Les

Hi everyone,

with this patch we have added many internal changes in preparation for the next game in the series. There was also a number of bug-fixes and balance adjustments as below:

CHANGE LOG:

• NEW: 20+ new soundtracks were added to the series. We will certainly use them in our new games.[/b[
  
  
• NEW: For modders - all games of the Age of Fear series now contain old units portraits and other assets. There is unused folder resourcesformodels' folder within aof-data.zip where you can find those.
  
  
• UPDATE: Visual enhancements on World Map.
  
  
• UPDATE: Items count is not shown if there is zero or one item.
  
  
• UPDATE: Mini-games (Dices, Cups, Fishing, etc.) exits to previous level.
  
  
• BALANCE: Stealth (previously Infravision) - moving unit will awaken only nearby enemies.
  
  
• BALANCE: Coward adds +1 turn to Panic.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Bestiary was not updating correctly when a new unit was seen.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Clumsy doesnt work with Segmented Move.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Skeletal Beast cannot use armour, helmet, etc.
  
  

• ONGOING: Creating - yes, you read correctly. We finally implement craftsmanship. Recently we implemented stackable items feature which will be also used for resources. We are working on many resources, such as plants and metal ore, as well as special skills for heroes, such as Alchemist, Blacksmith, Jeweller, etc.
  
  
• ONGOING: Ashlands is another type of environment we are working on. After expanding the world map and adding deserts, we found that lava levels do not match the gray areas near volcanoes; that's why we decided to create a new unique area.
  
  
• ONGOING: The invisibility mechanics are already coded, but requires more testing for AI to learn this function. Invisibility will add surprise to your battles and break your tactics! Get ready for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Ratmen Faction - we are creating a new faction based on stealth and treachery. Stay tuned - more news will follow!
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows, as well as illustrations. The release is planned for 2020 and we will definitely publish even more news.
  

Welcome into 2020 everyone! First of all, we wish you all a Happy New Year and fulfilment of all your dreams!!

We have quite big plans for the Age of Fear series in 2020 - we aim to release TWO new games for the series as well as to add a number of features and enhancements such as Crafting, invisibility, additional environments, new units and a number of optional quests. As Always, all enhancements/additions will be back-ported to the whole series in due time (except for Free World which should remain a demo-like experience).

Actually, I have a favour to ask if you want to contribute to the Age of Fear series development. We are currently working on Crafting features - heroes will be able to create items from a variety of resources as well as upgrade some common items. We already wrote bits about this mechanics, but let me explain in details:

Hi everyone, I would like to update you about the progress we are making in Age of Fear 4: The Iron Killer. I'm sure some of you have already scanned the game files and discovered parts of the story. For those who did not, Angela (known from the Blood and Moon expansion) will appear in the next game in this series as the adult and ass-kicking Vampire Hunter hero. She will join forces with Sea People (new faction) and, as usual, save the kingdom from demise. Of course, the Age of Fear series' stories are never that simple and expect a couple of twists.

Alright, now about functions and progress:

• We've almost finished the story and the game flow. Yesterday I added illustrations to the story, and after the proofread we will send it to the voice actor.
  
• The new faction (Sea People) is now being tested and balanced. There are a few new units being developed as well.
  
• We also add item crafting as the new feature to the Age of Fear series. We have already created resources and are now working on mechanics.
  Another noteworthy feature is invisibility, but I am convinced that we will implement it and release it before AOF4.
  

Hi everyone, we've added some new features over the past few days, and also fixed many bugs. The most important news are that we are working on crafting and already have a few first results.

By the way, we would also like to welcome you at Halloween sales! There is a special time-limited item which will allow you to summon mighty Halloween Pumpkins.



CHANGE LOG:

• NEW ITEM: Advanced Antidote - similar to existing Antidote and additionally gives Poison Immunity for a limited number of turns.
  
  
• NEW ITEM: Pyramid of Focus - provides Advanced Teleportation spell (unit is teleported and can action in the same turn).
  
  
• NEW: Fire Shield spell - selected unit gets Fire Aura for a number of turns (Chaos Mage's spell).
  
  
• NEW: Dance Macabre spell - summons a team of skeletons on the side of a map.
  
  
• BALANCE: Poison Resistance and Poison Immunity also protect from disease - you will see why in the Age of Fear 5 :)
  
  
• BALANCE: Skeleton Rider costs 500 gp.
  
  
• BUGFIX: there is no broadcast message when AI units are given traits.
  

• ONGOING: Creating - yes, you read correctly. We finally implement craftsmanship. Recently we implemented stackable items feature which will be also used for resources. We are working on many resources, such as plants and metal ore, as well as special skills for heroes, such as Alchemist, Blacksmith, Jeweller, etc.
  
  
• ONGOING: Ashlands is another type of environment we are working on. After expanding the world map and adding deserts, we found that lava levels do not match the gray areas near volcanoes; that's why we decided to create a new unique area.
  
  
• ONGOING: The invisibility mechanics are already coded, but requires more testing for AI to learn this function. Invisibility will add surprise to your battles and break your tactics! Get ready for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: More locations are coming! We started with French (thanks to targus929!), But when this update is stable, we will look for other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows, as well as illustrations. The release is planned for 2020 and we will definitely publish even more news.
  

Hello everyone, we've received several emails asking about the crafting feature. I am positively surprised at how warmly people welcomed our last note that we are working on crafting. That is why I would like to share our current designs.

The Age of Fear series currently contains nearly 300 items divided into four classes:

• Common items such as quality swords, basic health potions, etc.
  
• Rare items such as the Flame Sword, Amulet of Courage, and better potions.
  
• Legendary items such as the Conclave Amulet, Meteor Armour, etc.
  
• Unique Relics that are very limited, but also the most powerful. Some relics unlock skills that would otherwise not be available (e.g. Call from Grave, Vampire Mist, Avatar spells).
  

Hi all,

Over the past few weeks, we've worked on a number of patches and improvements. The most notable are the stackable items, couple of new icons and illustrations and we are also working on resources and crafting.

As always - we are very grateful for such awesome community and tons of feedback!

CHANGES LOG:

• NEW: Battle conditions Rain and Storm increase lightning and cold damage. The Storm also damages random units (per turn).
  
  
• NEW: Cannon and Bone Catapult reload after each shot (no action in the next turn).
  
  
• NEW: Turtle - a slow creature currently only in deserts.]
  
  
• NEW: Harpy and Fury - current Harpy has received a new portrait, and we have also added a new Harpy Fury:
  
  
  Harpy and Harpy Fury
  
  
• NEW: Mana Field - regenerates MP to full level each turn. Applies to the planned type of Magic Fields environment.
  
  
• NEW: Stackable items - disposable items and treasures have a number displayed next to their name. These items can be bought and sold in bulk.
  
  
• UPDATE: Extended World Map events choices (whenever possible), e.g. Having Orcs in the army will allow additional extortion options.
  
  
• UPDATE: Mutagen potion will modify the characteristics of the unit (also remove existing ones) if equipped.
  
  
• UPDATE: Even more AI processing optimization, which makes it about 20% faster (average).
  
  
• UPDATE: Extended unit marker for potions (if the unit has more than two potions).
  
  
• BUGFIX: The Wild Mage trait now only affects spells with a failure rate.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Time-shifted archers can attack after moving.
  

• ONGOING: Creating - yes, you read correctly. We finally implement craftsmanship. The biggest obstacle that could be stacked is ready. We are working on many resources, such as tiles, ore, etc., as well as special skills for heroes, such as Alchemist, Blacksmith, etc.
  
  
• ONGOING: Ashlands is another type of environment we are working on. After expanding the world map and adding deserts, we found that lava levels do not match the gray areas near volcanoes; that's why we decided to create a new unique area.
  
  
• ONGOING: The invisibility mechanics are already coded, but requires more testing for AI to learn this function. Invisibility will add surprise to your battles and break your tactics! Get ready for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: More locations are coming! We started with French (thanks to targus929!), But when this update is stable, we will look for other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows, as well as illustrations. The release is planned for 2020 and we will definitely publish even more news.
  

Hi everyone,

This patch adds a number of game-changing features, namely Battle Tasks and Faction Bases (to all games in the series). In addition to these, there were many patches and other updates (listed below). I am very happy that we have such an active Community that really motivates us to develop the Age of Fear series!

CHANGE LOG:

• NEW: Battle quests have been added to both campaigns in Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold. Each battle has several optional objectives (usually time-limited).
  
  
  Battle Tasks
  
  
  
• NEW: All factions now have bases! There is the Orc Village for the Greenskins, the Demonic Portal for Chaos, the Stonehenge for Forest Folk and the Mountain Fortress for Dwarves. Faction bases follow the pattern from Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold, where upgrades unlock additional units and special buildings.
  
  
  
  
  
  Faction Bases
  
  
• UPDATE: We have finished recording all the voices of the units and, I hope, this will improve the quality. In this patch, we have replaced the voices of the following units: Fairy, Witch and Succubus.
  
  
• UPDATE: new portraits for Ent, Corrupted Ent, Troll and Troll Thrower:
  
  Ent
  
  Troll
  
  
• BALANCE: Giant Scorpions are no longer capture-able - this is to fix early-game exploit whereas those unit are too powerful.
  
  
• UPDATE: Mutagen Potion will keep modifying units traits (also remove existing ones).
  
  
• BUGFIX: Wild Mage trait is now only affecting spells with Failure Rate.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Time-shifted archers can attack after move.
  

• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: More localisations are coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Hi everyone,

Since our recent modders' posts, the Dante and Yarrrr have introduced many significant patches, added new content, new units, new locations, and so on. This work definitely deserves more promotion than Steam provides for workshop items; that's why I will make another post and stick it on the main games' page so that players can easily see it.

The Lost Outcasts faction and a few new locations from Dante's mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1813669908

The Swarm faction and extended heroes from Yarrrr mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765826932
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1804539548

We are very happy that someone can find our scripting engine useful. I would like to thank these two guys for their great creations. I hope to copy ideas from these mods to improve the Age of Fear series as well.


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Thanks to everyone who supported us with constructive feedback and ideas!
Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi everyone. Since our recent modders' posts, the Dante and Yarrrr have introduced many significant patches, added new content, new units, new locations, and so on. This work definitely deserves more promotion than Steam provides for workshop items; that's why I will make another post and stick it on the main games' page so that players can easily see it.


The Lost Outcasts faction and a few new locations from Dante's mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1813669908

The Swarm faction and extended heroes from Yarrrr mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765826932
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1804539548

We are very happy that someone can find our scripting engine useful. I would like to thank these two guys for their great creations. I hope to copy ideas from these mods to improve the Age of Fear series as well.


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Links
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Website

Thanks to everyone who supported us with constructive feedback and ideas!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi everyone,


I thought you would be interested in the latest discovery about the composition of the universe. In short, the best physical models of the Universe can explain only about 5% of its total mass. The remaining 95% consists of unknown matters / effects called Dark Matter and Dark Energy. These substances are called 'dark' because of their weak interactions with electromagnetic forces (i.e. light), and we can detect them only by their gravitational influence. We do not know yet what these effects are, and there are many theories aiming to explain it.

In December 2018, Dr. Jamie Farnes published an article entitled 'A unifying theory of dark energy and dark matter: Negative masses and matter creation within a modified CDM framework', in which he proposes that dark matter should be negative mass matter:
https://www.aanda.org/component/article?access=doi&doi=10.1051/0004-6361/201832898

Okay, what's so great about this theory? It can be said that this is another mathematical hocus-pocus, which is nothing more than a paper exercise. Well, Dr. Jamie Farnes also attached a pretty convincing simulation in which he modeled the interaction between both types of matter (with positive and negative masses):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsdMhdxAaJ8

The resulting structure is very similar to what we call the 'Cosmic Web', which is a consequence of the Big Bang and inflation that created our universe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_filament

Is Dr. Jamie Farnes' theory right and the Dark Matter is a negative mass matter?
I'm sure I will be following this subject.


Take care,
Les

Hi everyone,

This patch adds a number of game-changing features, namely Battle Tasks and Faction Bases (to all games in the series). In addition to these, there were many patches and other updates (listed below). I am very happy that we have such an active Community that really motivates us to develop the Age of Fear series!

CHANGE LOG:

• NEW: Battle quests have been added to both campaigns in Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold. Each battle has several optional objectives (usually time-limited).
  
  
  Battle Tasks
  
  
  
• NEW: All factions now have bases! There is the Orc Village for the Greenskins, the Demonic Portal for Chaos, the Stonehenge for Forest Folk and the Mountain Fortress for Dwarves. Faction bases follow the pattern from Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold, where upgrades unlock additional units and special buildings.
  
  
  Faction Bases
  
  
• UPDATE: We have finished recording all the voices of the units and, I hope, this will improve the quality. In this patch, we have replaced the voices of the following units: Fairy, Witch and Succubus.
  
  
• UPDATE: new portraits for Ent, Corrupted Ent, Troll and Troll Thrower:
  
  Ent
  
  Troll
  
  
• BALANCE: Giant Scorpions are no longer capture-able - this is to fix early-game exploit whereas those unit are too powerful.
  
  
• UPDATE: Mutagen Potion will keep modifying units traits (also remove existing ones).
  
  
• BUGFIX: Wild Mage trait is now only affecting spells with Failure Rate.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Time-shifted archers can attack after move.
  

• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: More localisations are coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Hi again,

I must point to incredible work by Yarrrr. Both mods already have pretty good descriptions, thus I will copy the most relevant bits:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765826932
The Swarm is a quantity-based faction; They have a large team size and about 3 unique units can summon minions. Most of them boast high offensive power and speed allowing you to quickly overwhelm your enemies coupled with the fore mentioned team size. Their main drawback is that the faction lack supportive abilities and many of the units aren't very versatile due to being focused on melee offence, thus can easily be destroyed when it comes to survival or stalling. Good thing is that the core units come cheap, and you could use summoning to compensate the potential losses.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1804539548
This mod adds 12 new heroes (2 in each faction) and expands the hero upgrade choices of the original heroes rather than the traditional ones (e.g. Orc can be upgraded to Black Orc instead of Chieftain only).

• The hero upgrades are based on the hidden or alternative upgrade choices that are possible in the game (So non-hero variants can get that upgrade).
  
• Several units are edited to have hero-only upgrade (e.g. Bowman, Skeleton Warrior)
  
• Excluding starting heroes, there will be 44 unique heroes you can choose to play as.
  
• You can still get the achievements of all the original heroes.
  

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1813669908

Hi everyone,

I would like to share with you all the mod created by one of our greatest fans - Dante Selvar. The mod contains many well-designed units, such as Goblin Rat Rider, Armoured Goblin and other variations of the Goblins, accessible in two new store locations (near Naporia and Crystal Forest).

Dante is a winner from our The Modding Challenge:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/832770/discussions/0/1646544244467246737/
His work is incredible, like for example Blood Magus (my favourite!) and Lamia:


Blood Magus


Lamia


An interesting trivia (from Dante: calling the shop "The Glass Pumpkin", calling the witch variant "Deneb Witch" and the "pumpkin" and "halloween" are all reference to the first tactical game I played - Ogre Battle for the old 16 bit SNES. A glass pumpkin was an item that let Witch recruit pumpkin units. Witches in that game put enemies too sleep basically with their "stun" effect that being why the witch there has a Sleep spell.


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Links
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Website

Thanks to everyone who supported us with constructive feedback and ideas!

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all, in the past few weeks we released a number of patches, fixes and other enhancements. However, while we are quite good at fixing, we are also quite bad at posting what exactly is being altered.

I went through all our code modifications and here is a list:

• NEW: Units attributes are grouped into few tabs:
  
  
  
• [b]NEW: we have added 40+ extra Global Events for a greater variety. Some of those events will introduce side-quests.
  
  
• NEW: Time Substance potion gives unit two turns with extra actions.
  
  
• NEW: War Unicorn is an armoured upgrade for Unicorn. It also gets the Charge skill therefore its coming handy in many situations.
  
  
• NEW: Fairy is another unit for Forest Folks focused on Magic support. It can replenish other spellcaster's MP.
  
  
• NEW: Lightning Bottle attack for Alchemists.
  
  
• NEW: Piercing Magic - enemies (in chain) gain Magic Vulnerability (cancels Magic Resistances and Magic Immunity).
  
  
• NEW: Strong Wind - another global attribute for some levels. Lowers ranged attack.
  
  
• NEW: A few new traits: Maimed, Snake Eater, Madness, and also Mutagen (Relic potion which helps your units earn traits faster).
  
  
• NEW: Battles from World Map are showing battle difficulty (indicated by a number of skulls on the left of battle icons).
  
  
• NEW: Run skill allows a unit to sacrifice its attack for the turn in exchange of a bit more distance covered in a move.
  
  
• UPDATE: Traits are also given to AI units (to a limited extent).
  
  
• BALANCE: Units with 5 (or more) HP are immune to Stun.
  
  
• BALANCE: Cave Bear costs 600 gp.
  
  
• BALANCE: Bone Golem and Skull Catapult cannot be raised by spell.
  
  
• BALANCE: Time Shift spell adds three extra turns.
  
  
• BALANCE: Skull Catapult shots cause lower Morale loss.
  
  
• BALANCE: Raise Dead restores a limited amount of HP.
  
  
• BALANCE: Decay wont work on Heroes and has limited duration.
  
  
• BUGFIX: A rare exception where AI team names were duplicated.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Polymorphed units cannot be hypnotized.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Chill Touch works on Elementals.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Purple Heart was not given to heroes.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Cooldown was not working on Teleportation spell.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Units with Gold were not right-clickable.
  
  
• BUGFIX: No damage melee attacks won't get damage from Backstabbing, Jousting, Crusher, etc.
  

• ONGOING: Battle Tasks are yet another upcoming feature. It allows players to earn prizes for performing various tasks (sometimes time-limited) Its still under development and we havent designed it fully.
  
  
• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: More localisations are coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Hi everyone! After the release of Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold, we were finally able to sit down and finally bring the last remaining Forest faction to Age of Fear: The Free World.

To better balance the Forest Folk faction (and fill the gaps in their strategy), we added two additional units - War Unicorn and Fairy:



The War Unicorn is the upgrade of the well-known Unicorn and adds the Charge ability that makes it similar to a Knight - we have balanced this unit to be the best cavalry unit for the Forest Folk. The second addition to the Forest Folk arsenal is the Fairy, who is an early support unit, able to raise other magic points of spelcasters (later also using Aura Magic Regeneration!).

That's why the Forst Folk faction has an interesting dynamic - you have to decide which path to follow: will you depend on Evil Driders or Holy Unicorns and Fairy tandem? There are significant differences between the two and I'm really interested in how this will pan out ^^


I would also to take this opportunity and point you towards ongoing the Modder Challenge:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/882410/announcements/detail/1613893064475105025

Take care,
Les & AOF Team


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Thanks to everyone who supported us with constructive feedback and ideas!

It's time for a new challenge !! Recently, we see a lot of modders activity, so the challenge is focused on this area.

Let's see who can create the best unit design ^^

Rules:

• The challenge is open to everyone! You can use any of the games in this series (also free Age of Fear: The Free World).
  
  
• the challenge lasts until July 7. Submit your works before this date! From July 7 to July 21, voting for the Community will take place.
  
  
• There are two winners: the first chosen by the Community (I will make the position to vote) and the second chosen by the AOF team.
  
  
• Rewards are the keys to all existing Age of Fear games and a $20 Steam gift card for each winner.
  
  
• Only one unit per person! Choose the best one.
  
  
• You can use any resources from all AOF games or other resources (but make sure you have the permission of the authors!). You can mix existing assets.
  
  
• Your creation should be the theme of the fantasy RPG game! The overall result matters: how it looks, what skills it has, how useful it is, etc. It should also be balanced in relation to existing armies, e.g. 99 HP Space Marine does not count.
  
  
• Only full creations are accepted: the sprite, portrait and specification file must be present. The created unit should work (use the Workshop Manager to test it!)
  
  
• To upload your creation, zip all files (at least: spec xml, sprite png and portrait png), upload them somewhere we can download from and post a link here:
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/832770/discussions/0/1646544244467246737/
  
  

• sprite png image in com/aof/resource/image/gameobject/sprite folder
  
  
• portrait png image in com/aof/resource/image/gameobject/icon folder
  
  
• spec xml file in com/aof/resource/gameobject folder
  
  
• (optional) voice wav files in com/aof/resource/sound/gameobject/voice folder
  
  
• (optional) background png image file in com/aof/resource/image/gameobject/background folder
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1087340/Age_of_Fear_Pirates_Expansion/

Arrrr! Pirates are coming to Pirates DLC!

As requested, we've added some new units to the game and you can recruit them at Salty Tavern (and also later if you're finish DLC):



I'm really sorry that we have not added these units before. Fortunately, the artists could quickly come back with sprites and we created those short-range/melee warriors (we will also add pirate voices in a few days).

I hope the Pirates adventure will play much nicer now ^^

Take care,
Les & AOF Team


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Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the amazing support! We read all the opinions and comments of our players. Based on comments, we add the following features (more are coming soon!):

Battles on the world map will have difficulty index (from one to five skulls). There is a rather complex logic when the engine assesses how your team will cope with enemy:



The Pirates! DLC has been extended for an additional content. We are also collecting assets for pirate units. They should be done within a few days, and then we will add them to the next patch.

A few more traits were added: Fatso, Puppet Master, Corrupted, Greed, Savage and Saint (those traits are given based on your units' actions):



A few people missed an upgrade bundle for original Age of Fear: The Undead King owners. It can be found here:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/10760/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_Upgrade/


Thank you for being such an amazing community!

Take care,
Les & AOF team


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https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/

Welcome everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we've released The Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold! As our fans know, we have been working on the series for over seven years and this game is the result. During this period, we introduced the sandbox mode, themed factions' bases, over two hundred units and almost 800 unique spells, skills and items, cinematic battles and legendary landmarks along with events. That's something to be proud of - I hope you will enjoy it at least as much as we did while creating it!

The Age of Fear series would not have been possible without the support and suggestions we have received over the years! Thank you for being such an amazing Community - you are the best!

For new fans we have prepared a video channel presenting the series:
https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561198070905674
(will go cyclically through all games in the series)

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

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Hi everyone,

I am pleased to announce that the long-awaited Workshop Manager for the Age of Fear: The Free World is operational!

The link is below:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/882410/workshop/

The Age of Fear series was designed with flexibility in mind. Almost all features you see in game can be modded, for example units' graphics and stats, Global Events, battles, and so on. We also provide our own scripting engine (based on Java-Script) which can be used for conditions or triggering game logic.

If you are willing, you can create your own campaign like the ones found in mainstream games from the series!

The engine is quite complex, therefore we did our best to provide exhaustive Modding Guide (available from Workshop Manager / Guide).

Also, we are releasing out next game in just a few days!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/


Happy modding!
Les & AOF Team

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Hi all! Yesterday I was looking out for some good screenshots for our coming game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/

I have found a couple of old screenshots from 2011/2012 when the Age of Fear was released for the first time:



To compare, those are the same levels in 2019 after numerous iterations:



Huge difference, huh?

All this progress would not have been possible without our awesome community!! You guys are simply the best.


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

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Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all!

there hasnt been a feature update for a while and I thought we needed one considering the number of changes in the last weeks so here it goes.


CHANGE LOG:

• NEW: Cooldown counter displayed on icon - that was added literally yesterday. It should help with planning spell chains.
  
  
  
• NEW: Adding icons to all selection options in all games - a small touch, but those dialogs look better.
  
  
• [b]NEW: Floating units can pass over allies.
  
  
• [b]NEW:Vampires can change into Vampire Bats and float over enemies! Be aware, the Vampire Bats are much easier to shot down than Vampires.
  
  
• [b]UPDATE: Naming of AI teams uses original names (e.g. Black Knight) if no name bundle is found. The result will not be AI Player xxx anymore.
  
  
• [b]UPDATE: A number of portraits were updated, for example unicorns:
  
  
  
  
• [b]UPDATE: Possessed units wont trigger Team Morale penalties and also wont desert.
  
  
• UPDATE: Polymorph spell - weak units are changed into Chicken (just to add variety).
  
  
• UPDATE: AI placement logic updated (it should be less prone to deploying ranged units before melee).
  
  
• BALANCE: AI Team Size and Gold has a minimum baseline (based on game-progress).
  
  
• BALANCE: Heros items are added to army power when computing AI power in random battles.
  
  
• BALANCE: Precision / Shield Breaker is less effective vs. experienced opponents, i.e. Defences limits are increased by 1 per enemys upgrade level.
  

• ONGOING: The Undead King Gold is a greatly expanded version of the series' very first entry, a game originally released seven years ago. This project aims to bring Age of Fear series into the Open World theme! The work has entered the Beta-test phase a while ago and we plan a release for early June 2019.
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Workshop Manager - following the success of the Age of Fear: The Free World (25,000 downloads!), we plan to backport the Workshop Manager into this product as well. It requires some preparatory work and we plan it for mid-2019.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Extension - we are currently editing campaign for the remaining faction: Forest Folk. The extension release will be synchronised with the Workshop Manager.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Global Events Extension - we have 40+ additional Global Events scheduled and being worked on. Those events will introduce side-quests.
  
  
• ONGOING: Faction Bases which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore! This feature will be released first in The Undead King Gold and then we will add it to other games in the series.
  
  
• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Unit Voices are currently being re-recorded. There are 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
  
• ONGOING: Localization is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: Desert Battles - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Hi all,

recently we have been working on expanding the World Map in the Age of Fear series. What we came up with can be found below:



The World Map is to be expanded by roughly 30% in each direction which leads to about 80% of additional area! Of course, more locations and side-quests will be added too in due time.

We would like to ask for your help with shaping the geographical features of the land. The South, South-East and East areas are to be populated. We don't want to add new elements to already existing areas (within red rectangle) as those locations are used within existing campaigns.

If you want to take part in this worlds expansion, please describe features like cities, ruins, towers, mines, etc. (or provide a reference photo!) which you want to see in game. You can also give a link to any modifications you would have made directly on the World Map image itself.

Please post any ideas in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/832770/discussions/0/1651043320663172605/

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Hi there,

During the last three years, the world of the Age of Fear series has been significantly expanded. We started with the environments like forest, swamp and plains, and then we added caves, dungeons, cities, volcanos, magical dimensions, icelands, and so on. Now it's time to add another environment - Desert.

We already have a dozen desert maps and a few others are in progress (with their own soundtracks). These maps contain their own, distinctive features and unique beasts. We are also working on specific mechanisms for this environment.

As a bonus, there are a few soundtracks we plan to use:
http://age-of-fear.net/downloads/desert-soundtracks.zip

Stay tuned for further updates - in a week or so, we will ask you for ideas related to that development.

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Black Hole's impression from Interstellar

Hi all,


A bit different announcement this time - possibly first image of Black Hole is going to be released today (in about five minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnJi0Jy692w

And a brief summary from BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47873592

Take care,
Les

Hi all,

The last challenge (here) was some time ago and it's time for a new one! The prizes are the same as last time - the winners get Steam keys for all our released games.

This time let the poor Goblins prove their usefulness!

The rules are as follows:

• The winners are the first five players who reach 20.000 gp in Treasure!
  
• Only Greenskins' heroes are allowed and you must start a new game!
  
• With exception of the hero, you team must entirely consist of Goblins (that's is: Goblin, Goblin Archer, Goblin Assassin, Goblin Rider, Goblin Sapper).
  
• Before every battle take a screenshot (during Deploy Turn) and also take a second screenshot of your team in a shop after every battle (it will display your Treasure)!
  
• Please keep a savegame! The game tracks and logs all battles (for debug purposes) and you might be asked to provide your savegame.
  

Deep within the mountains lives the Dwarf King. He is as rich as old. He got minted of the labour of other Dwarves and of speculation on the Kingdoms Stock Market You all know the story of the last CGO (Collateralised Gold Obligations) crisis.

Alright, the next faction comes to the Age of Fear: The Free World. Dwarves are probably the most powerful individual units in game, moreover they can complement their forces with Constructs (Canons included!). They are also slower than other factions and their numbers are more limited. And, of course, no magic! (unless you capture a spellcaster)

I would also like point to coming release of the Age of Fear: The Undead GOLD which is planned for early June. The Undead King Gold is a greatly expanded version of the series' very first entry, a game originally released seven years ago. This project aims to bring Age of Fear series into Open World theme! The work has entered the Beta-test phase and we plan a release for early June 2019.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/

In this patch we have also released the Desertion mechanic. The feature is disabled in Experimental options and we would like to ask for your help with testing and balancing it. If you are interested, please visit this post:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/882410/discussions/0/1768133742958439296/

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Take care,
Les & AOF Team

One major change in this series of patches is more love for Greenskins faction! After 72 emails (I kid you not!) exchanged with Werdi-eh wherein we discussed Greenskins, we are implementing a number of buffs for those savages.

The key challenge with this faction is that it dies a lot from ranged attacks. However, thats Greenskins' charm and changing that, for example by adding more powerful ranged units, will make them less unique. Therefore, we went into a different direction and improved them strategically so they can cope with losses easier. More balance tweaks for Greenskins will follow.

PATCH NOTES:

• NEW: Warboss upgrades for Greenskins which will increase total number of units you can have with this faction. Two additional Trolls / Ogres should balance out the lack of firepower within that faction!
  
  
• NEW: Elder Tutor for Greenskins should help to cope with unavoidable losses when playing Greenskins. Newly recruited units get initial +100 / 200 experience bonus, thus army can be recycled much easier.
  
  
• NEW: Swift (+2 Defence vs. ranged) attribute for Wolves, Goblin Wolf Riders, etc. This should make flanking easier and give Greenskins a way to fight artillery units.
  
  
• NEW: Scavenger upgrade for all Goblins. At the end of battle, your Goblins will pillage every enemy corpse to get a small amount of gold (just Greenskins can replace killed units easier).
  
  
• NEW: Confidence Booster potion restores Morale and additionally adds High Morale bonuses to a unit.
  
  
• UPDATE: The Strategy Guide Extension - we have currently writing on other factions as well.
  
  
• UPDATE: Disease Totem also poisons enemies.
  
  
• UPDATE: Battle Rages attack bonus limited to 3.
  

• ONGOING: Desertion - discontent units will attempt to desert. Enslaved units wont desert.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Undead King Gold is a greatly expanded version of the series' very first entry, a game originally released seven years ago. This project aims to bring Age of Fear series into Open World theme! The work has entered the Beta-test phase and we plan a release for early June 2019.
  
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Workshop Manager - following the success of the Age of Fear: The Free World (ca. 40,000 downloads!), we plan to backport the Workshop Manager into this product as well. It requires some preparatory work and we plan it for mid-2019.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Extension - we have already released Chaos Demons and we are currently editing campaigns for the remaining factions (Dwarves and Forest Folk).
  
  
• ONGOING: The Global Events Extension - we have 40+ additional Global Events scheduled and being worked on. Those events will introduce side-quests.
  
  
• ONGOING: Faction Bases which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore! This feature will be released first in The Undead King Gold and then we will add it to other games in the series.
  
  
• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Unit Voices are currently being re-recorded. There are 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 40% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
  
• ONGOING: Desert Battles - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Beastmaster

As tough as a nail, the barbarian princess travels with your party for her own motives. Even the bravest of men should think twice before insulting her as they might end up on the wrong side of her deadly bow. Half-tamed herself, she can speak many beast tongues and sway wild animals to join you.

Hi all,

With this update we are introducing two of the most-awaited features, namely - Beastmaster who can tame wild animals and Chaos Demon faction!

Chaos Demons are known from Age of Fear 2 where a sexy succubus is doing everything in her power to escape her Underworlds masters. Then she meets a handsome knight Percival The story is quite pleasing and has a surprising twist, but, like (almost) all stories in the Age of Fear series, ends well.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/341150/Age_of_Fear_2_The_Chaos_Lord_GOLD/

Chaos Demons make up quite a strange faction which heavily relies on powerful Summoners and Chaos magic. The majority of its units are Fire-resistant and Evil-bound (as you will expect from Demons!), as such, you will need to find innovative ways to mix other factions units to this army. Chaos Demons also offer a number of very-Demonic skills such as Sacrifice, Domination and Unholy Strength spells as well as their own collection of specialized items.

• NEW: Golden Clover is a new Relic which will help you getting gold a bit faster.
  
  
• BALANCE: A number of balance tweaks were applied to Chaos Demons and Greenskins factions - we havent finished with neither of them and it deserves its own post.
  
  
• UPDATE: Chain spells and skills target only units in range. This change was introduced to balance powerful spells like Chain Lightning.
  
  
• UPDATE: Dark Castle Quest, Well of Souls, etc. - sacrificed unit is now selectable. This has been achieved by new script commands (select-unit-manual command) therefore expect more of this functionality.
  
  
• UPDATE: New icons for Dwarven Runes and a few other other enhanced ones, for example: Scavenger and Warboss.
  
  
  
• UPDATE: Refactoring localization - about half a year ago we started recoding our engine to support different languages. Over the last weekend we finally implemented all elements: UI, attributes, conversations, messages, levels, selection dialogs, and so on. We already have a French mod and Japanese in the making
  
  
• UPDATE: World Map triggers are executed in parallel (previously in sequence). This optimisation should speed up loading up of World Map and Global Events.
  
  
• UPDATE: AI optimizations - we have added a number of routines, mostly to support Invisibility feature. That slowed down AI and we had to refactor portions of the code to optimise for that. However, those chances result in overall performance improvement.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Vanishing units from Reserve.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Quicksilver Armour was applied after vulnerabilities / resistances.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Un-equipping Djinns Lamp was not removing additional items.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Global Events were not triggered if any script was broken.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Counter-damage from Reflection Shield was not always working.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Heat Ray was not exploding barrels.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Berserker should not attack static objects anymore.
  

Hi everyone,

In the recent months we have done huge amounts of work re-factoring our ten-year old engine (yes, AOF is that mature!) to support dynamic loading of text across UI elements and dialogs, attributes, units, conversations, and eventually also story in levels.

We greatly simplified the sources of text to just a few files and created a sample mod which we hope could be used by translators:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1669028839

Currently there are two community-driven translation projects:

• French, started by Targus929:
  
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1580639367
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1609454629
  
  
• Japanese (Kanji), started by Synctam:
  
  https://synctam.blogspot.com/2019/02/age-of-fear-free-world_23.html
  

Hi all,

Over the last few weeks we have been busy with adding new features and content, balancing factions, fixing bugs, and so on.

The pressure is high and our players-base greatly expanded - currently the Age of Fear: The Free World has OVER 31,000 DOWNLOADS!!

• NEW: Bard - few weeks ago a player suggested another unit with musical skills and here we finally have one ready. The Bard is an all-around unit: a bit of magic, above-average battle stats and, of course, songs! The Bard comes with his own side-quest!
  
  
• NEW: Reflection Shield - an upgrade for Mages and Archmages. Deflected melee strikes have a chance to damage attacker.
  
  
• UPDATE: expanded Team Morale explanation in Tutorial. Its quite a complex feature, therefore more detailed text was needed.
  
  
• UPDATE: Very Happy Team Morale provides 15% experience bonus.
  
  
• UPDATE: Djinn and Bards voices.
  
  
• UPDATE: Dwarven Canon is being re-balanced with cooldown mechanics.
  
  
• UPDATE: New icons for a number of attributes, for example: weapon and armour upgrades, Poison/Acid Cloud, Acid Splash, etc.
  
  
• [b]UPDATE: OpenAL sound engine has been updated to version 1.1.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Auto-triggerable attributes were limited to one, now they are run in sequence.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Unusable items were equipped when stolen, for example Noble Cloak.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Totem descriptions were updated to correctly reflect their features.
  

• ONGOING: The Undead King Gold is a greatly expanded version of the series' very first entry, a game originally released seven years ago. This project aims to bring Age of Fear series into Open World theme! The work has entered the Beta-test phase and we plan a release for early June 2019.
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/832770/Age_of_Fear_The_Undead_King_GOLD/
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Workshop Manager - following the success of the Age of Fear: The Free World, we plan to backport the Workshop Manager into this product as well. It requires some preparatory work and we plan it for mid-2019.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Free World Extension - we are currently editing campaigns for the remaining factions (Dwarves, Chaos Demons and Forest Folk). The extension release will be synchronised with Workshop Manager.
  
  
• ONGOING: Desertion - discontent units will attempt to desert.
  
  
• ONGOING: Taming Beasts - we are still working on Taming skill, allowing you to capture Beast units. Along with the Demons Pact released recently, one will be able to capture all unit types soon.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Strategy Guide Extension - currently the Strategy Guide lists the first three factions, but we are currently writing on other factions as well. We should be ready with an updated document mid-March.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Global Events Extension - we have 40+ additional Global Events scheduled and being worked on. Those events will introduce side-quests.
  
  
• ONGOING: Faction Bases which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore! This feature will be released first in The Undead King Gold and then we will add it to other games in the series.
  
  
• ONGOING: Invisibility mechanics are already coded in, but require more testing to make AI aware of this feature. Invisibility will add an element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
  
• ONGOING: Unit Voices are currently being re-recorded. There are 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
  
• ONGOING: Localization is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
  
• ONGOING: Desert Battles - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
  
• ONGOING: The Age of Fear 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

Hello there,

Following the joyful experience of our last Dragon-Slayer Challenge, we have prepared a new competition opened to everyone!

This time we would like to invite you to The Age of Fear Knowledge Quiz!

The rules are as follows:

• we will post the quiz link here 9th February 2019 (Saturday) at 12:00 Eastern Standard Time (which is 18:00 in most of Europe, but please check)
  
• as in the last Challenge, the prizes are Steam Keys for all games from the Age of Fear series!
  
• the quiz has seven questions, all of them have to be answered correctly!
  
• after answering all questions, please screenshot the result and send it to support@age-of-fear.net
  
• the first ten players with all good answers will get the prize!
  
• only one prize per player!
  

Mephistopheles

Hello,

I am pleased to announce that we currently have over 17,000 downloads and around 100 concurrent users (peak 137 users). That is AN ASTOUNDING ACHIEVEMENT - The Age of Fear: Free World is still going very strong!

Over the last two weeks, we have applied a number of patches and improvements which are detailed below:

• NEW: Demon Pact - we have introduced a way to recruit demons! (aside from paying them thousands of gold). You heroes (but non-Holy ones only!) will have the opportunity to meet Mephistopheles himself and sign a Demon Pact...But whats the price?
  
  
• NEW: Dominate Mind - an interesting addition to demonic magic available exclusively to the Demon Mistress. This spell works in a similar way as Time-Shift - it grants a selected unit an extra turn, but in exchange said unit is damaged. However, unlike Time Shift, it can be casted multiple times on a given unit.
  
  
• NEW: Djinns unit - the Djinns Lamp quest has been expended and the Djinn himself can now join you! Will you release the poor creature from its golden prison?
  
  
• NEW: Skeletal Beast - this has been promised a few months ago and during the last weekend we received the completed graphic assets. The Raise Dead spell will raise this fast unit from dead animals like Wolves, Spiders and Rats.
  
  
• UPDATE: Wave icons - we have replaced another set of icons, for example here are new waves:
  
  
  
• UPDATE: Team Size - when starting a random battle, the dialog specifies how many units will be deployed. Please note that units can be exchanged with reserve in the first turn (same as items).
  
  
• UPDATE: AI performance optimisations - it was highlighted several times that the AI is sometimes slowing down. This is the result of all the new mechanics and spells we have added - The AI is evaluating all tactical options available before deciding what to do next and this is computation-intensive. To counter that we optimised and refactored many helper methods and achieved ca. 30-40% speed up in those calculations.
  
  
• UPDATE: Raise Dead spell was nerfed a bit - raised units now have their corpse upgrade level minus one.
  
  
• NEW ITEMS: a few more treasures and other items have been added for variety: Sapphire, Sea Shell, Black Pearl, Ring of Poison Resistance, etc.
  
  
• UPDATE: Transmutter Laboratory now also upgrades Sea Shells to Pearls. The upgrade price has been raised to 2,000 gp.
  
  
• UPDATE: Units in Nairi's campaign cost gold. Campaign has been updated as well to include gold prizes.
  
  
• UPDATE: Troll Throwers can now use melee weapons.
  
  
• BUGFIX: occasionally unit xml files were not loaded correctly and this was crashing the editor. Those were the remains of localisation-related code refactoring and should be fixed now.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Fallen Knight Hero was not initially upgraded to Black Knight. We have fixed it and introduced a routine to backwardly update all Knights.
  
  
• BUGFIX: A number of bugs related to Coward, Demon Heart, Survivor, Battle Forged have been fixed- those can be actioned outside battles and it was causing bugs.
  

Hello everyone,


Let's do a small tournament! Nothing less worthy than a dragon-slaying challenge, that's it ^^

THE RULES:

• Only the first hero from any class will be awarded a prize!
  
• A player must provide two screenshots: (i) a battle before the killing blow (Black Dragon with two HP at most) and (ii) the hero stats and equipped items.
  
• A hero must fight alone! (no other units allowed)
  
• The difficulty is Normal at least!
  
• The most recent patch must be applied!
  
• No summoning spells allowed! (Avatar included)
  
• Age of Fear: The Free World only!
  
• A Player can only be awarded one set of Steam keys.
  
• The screenshots shall be posted here:
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/882410/discussions/0/1739980540118051019/
  

(impressions over time chart - all direct visits from Steam Client)

Hello everyone,

A week ago we have pressed the 'Release' button and impatiently waited for first feedback. How will players receive it? Are there any game-breaking bugs? Argh, I forgot to debug this line in code!

Today I can summarise it in one sentence:

"WHAT AN AWESOME WEEK!"

Age of Fear: The Free World has overrun all our estimations! The game has been downloaded 10,000 times and, at this moment, there are 100+ concurrent players. Age of Fear: The Free World is also listed in Popular New Releases!

There were few minor bugs, hopefully all are fixed. The most amusing mistake was the popularity of Monk over Black Knight hero :) It was later found to be a bug with hero upgrading and, since then, the Black Knight has climbed to a respectable 4th place (Monk stayed at the bottom).

The reviews are very positive (90% score!) and also full of helpful suggestions. The re-occurring note is great depth and complexity of the series and that's a signal we have to develop even more comprehensive Strategy Guide and in-game tutorial.


(The Strategy Guide can be downloaded here here)


The shocking success of this release also put us in the spotlight. With such a player base we need to carefully balance features and improvements.

I would like to re-iterate the things we are working on now:

• [b]FACTION BASES which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore!
  
• INVISIBILITY mechanics are already coded in, but require to make AI aware of this feature and more testing. This feature will add a element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
• UNITS' VOICES are currently being re-recorded. There is 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
• LOCATIZATION is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!, see note below), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
• DESSERT BATTLES - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
• AGE OF FEAR 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.[/b]
  
  
  You guys simply rock. Without such amazing Community, the Age of Fear series wouldn't be the same!
  
  
  Links
  Twitter
  Facebook
  Website
  
  PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!
  
  Take care,
  Les & AOF Team
  
  

Hi all,

The release of Age of Fear: The Free World is A SHOCKING SUCCESS!! We are really amazed how positive the reception is and a number of people deciding it's worth to try other games from the Age of Fear series.

A few interesting facts (I will keep updating this list):[/b

• [b]6000 downloads and counting up (2000 downloads in the first six hours)!
  
• The Strategy Guide was downloaded 1500 times!
  
• 92% of positive reviews - this is such a heart-warming outcome!
  
• The most played hero is Necromancer, then Human Knight, 3rd place belongs to Human Mage!
  
• The least played hero is Evil Knight (wha?!) and Priest
  

Hi all,

Early 2018 few players asked why Age of Fear had no guide or some wiki. I agreed with them - Age of Fear series has grown into a complex creation with multiple intertwined subsystems (that's why we are always careful with introducing new features).

However, thanks to Dark Schneider, we have put together the Age of Fear Strategy Guide!

You can download the Guide here:
http://age-of-fear.net/downloads/AOFStrategyGuide.pdf

It's only about half of the planned content - we have covered the three original factions, namely Human Kingdom, Greenskins Horde and Undead Legion. The guide also contains notes about mixing factions - this feature is often mentioned on forums, thus we decided to give it more attention.

The three other factions: Dwarves, Forest Folk and Chaos Demons are in progress and we will update the Guide once they are done.

We are releasing Age of Fear: The Free World (COMPLETELY FREE!!) on 18th January:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410


PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

Take care,
Les & AOF Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410/

Hello everyone and happy 2019!!

For this year we have a few planned releases, starting with Age of Fear: The Free World (COMPLETELY FREE!!) on 18th January and then the things will go even more awesome when we release Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold around June/July!

To make things even more spicy, we possibly have another (secret) project which we might push out too in 2019! However, the exact date is not yet confirmed.

2018 has brought many improvements like Relics, Potions, units' alignments, greatly enhanced battle terrains (thanks Willsama!), new locations and the whole batch of new spells and skills (e.g. Totems, Decay, Dominate) among others. We also started Twitter channel (see links below).

We don't plan to remain idle and here is a list of other works and major improvements we are planning to release in 2019/2020 (in order of planned releases):

• GLOBAL EVENTS that occur while exploring the World Map, la Battle Brothers. This feature is still being developed and could serve to provide more lore and fun unit interactions based on the player's party composition!
  
• STRATEGY GUIDE will be released in the coming weeks (we aim for Age of Fear: The Free World release). We plan to release a detailed guide for three factions (Human Kingdom, Greenskins Horde and Undead Legion) early and then add more content.
  
• FACTION BASES which can be upgraded as you explore the Age of Fear world. Investing in base upgrades will unlock additional recruitable units, skills and locations to explore!
  
• INVISIBILITY mechanics are already coded in, but require to make AI aware of this feature and more testing. This feature will add a element of surprise to battles and mess up your tactics! Prepare for the unexpected!
  
• UNITS' VOICES are currently being re-recorded. There is 80+ voice-bundles and we have about 30% ready. ETA for this update is mid-2019 and hopefully this improvement will be well received!
  
• LOCATIZATION is coming too! We have started with French (thanks to targus929!, see note below), but once this update is stable we will look into other languages.
  
• DESSERT BATTLES - we have already drawn a number of new terrains and themed objects like Giant Scorpion, Djinn, Cactuses, etc. Those will be added to existing environments.
  
• AGE OF FEAR 4 - the main story is already written and we are working on scripts and game flows. The release is planned for 2020 and we will surely push out more news before that.
  

• Cornish Knight for his Let's Play series!
  
• Targus292 for his French language mod (which started internationlization of our code)!
  
• Tchey for his Let's Play series and help with testing!
  

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!!

Btw, we have released long-awaited Demon Pact update! Several players asked for a way to recruit Demon units and we implemented it ^^

After you unlock Demon City, wait for a while and the Conclave Representative will visit you (just after midnight). Your heroes might sign the Demon Pact which will allow Demons to be recruited. But, as always with this kind of deals, there is a price...

All of best,
Les & AOF Team

Crystal Mine

First of all, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

It was a busy year for us - we have been working on multiple features and also on the next game of Age of Fear series: Free World. It will be released 18th of January and hopefully will introduce new players to this series:[b]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410

The below list presents some of the recent fixes and updates which were released:

• [b]UPDATE: ALL terrains in Dwarven and Forest campaign have been enhanced by Willisama! He did great job behind the scenes and added great amount of details to all maps.
  
  
• NEW: Relics - those are extremely rare items which give unusual and powerful spells such as Lifredrain Cloud and Nightmare spells. Those are hidden in rare Magic Treasure Chests.
  
  
• NEW: Earth Quake and Volcano battle conditions.
  
  
  
• NEW: Localization - as some of you might have noticed there is Select language in Configurations now. Currently only English is selectable, but we are working on additional languages.
  
  
• NEW: Ambrosia - when equipped, dying unit will recover 3-5 HP (auto-activable).
  
  
• NEW: Standstill Liquid - something for your archers, while active, this potion guarantees critical hits.
  
  
• NEW: Magic Resistance Potion and Magic Immunity Potions - thats expanding collection of potions for all you drunks. Aside from cancelling all magical enhancements, unit is protected from magic for a short duration.
  
  
• NEW: new (much better looking!) potion icons.
  
  
  
• NEW: Collector upgrade - two additional artefacts or trophies. Available only for selected heroes only.
  
  
• NEW: Barkskin - exchange attack for defence (only Ents and Sapprolings).
  
  
• NEW: Crystal Mine - new location to explore. After defeating Undead (hard battle!) it will continuously provide resources for your party.
  
  
• UPDATE: enemy teams will spawn closer in random battles. Also, random battles were made smaller - this is to avoid delays before actual combat.
  
  
• UPDATE: Dispel Magic does cause loss of 2-4 MP (increased per level, not completely zero MP as before).
  
  
• UPDATE: Sacrifice gives +4 MP and doesnt use turn action.
  
  
• UPDATE: much stronger summons - they not only carry spellcasters experience level, but also unlock special attributes.
  
  
• UPDATE: heroes can equip up to four artefacts and trophies.
  
  
• BUGFIX: mouse clicks and tooltips wont cause endless loop.
  
  
• BUGFIX: intro conversation in battles was sometimes causing game crash.
  
  
• UPDATE: Nullify Magic causes Mana Burn only on enemies.
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rjdz1PyexI&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debTWASYm9c&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkXi8JQWpR0&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4&index=6

CRAZY PATCHING AND ... LOCALIZATIONS!!
Hello everyone

as some of you noticed we have been crazily (and annoyingly!) patching our games over the last few days. The reason is the new feature which can be seen in Options -> Screen -> Select Language. Options currently available are 'Auto' and 'English' (but more are being worked on!)

Committed fans have almost completely translated UI text and messages into French and are working on translating two of the original Age of Fear campaigns:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/351480/discussions/0/1743353164075383190/

The current French mod can be found here (work in progress):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1580639367

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES!

Take care and have a nice weekend,
Les & AOF Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oysxRg4EH6s&index=2&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEdBmk_xjr0&index=3&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEdBmk_xjr0&index=3&list=PL2BY_cdcdLbCBc_5U4vX0w8LSJwZtnlF4

Hi all,

I thought I would drop a few notes about what's currently in progress with Age of Fear series:

• We are improving unit voices - it was long due. There are about 80 voices total and we need to sort them out - some need to be completely re-recorded. It will take a while and we should be ready mid-2019. There is a Dropbox folder with the current state of this task:
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7q1yvq12788v0o8/AAC2mnMnzNmgeY5bsvjdoFpZa?dl=0
  
  
• We are decorating all battle terrains: adding objects, smoothing edges, standardizing sizes (no giant skeletons anymore!), etc. Some of this work has already been added to game files.
  
  
• Several units have their portraits redrawn, for example Abominations were just changed:
  
  
  
• We are expanding side quests and locations, for example the recently added Djinn quest. We are also working on new relic items and special spells or effects for them. For example almighty Vampire Mist which allows to lifedrain a number of enemies!
  
  
  
• We will be introducing faction bases which can be upgraded to unlock unique abilities (this idea is still in progress):
  
  
  
• Global Events - those of you who watch Cornish Knights' Let's Play video have seen them already. There are few samples:
  
  
  
  
• A new game is almost ready for release - we are still adding content and we aim to release in Jan/Feb 2019 and it will be FREE:
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/882410/Age_of_Fear_The_Free_World/
  
  Links
  Twitter
  Facebook
  Website
  
  PLEASE REVIEW OUR GAMES IF YOU CAN!
  
  Take care and enjoy your weekend,
  Les & AOF Team
  
  

Hi all,

I would like to present a great masterpiece of Hottomo - "On the Wolf Trail":

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1516933843

This mod contains a human-based campaign telling a story about Gordic - commander of Royal Watchers.

Mod features an alternative evolutions tree where you can select unit's specialization (e.g. Militia/Watchman/Sergeant).

From scripting perspective, the mod is very solid and well tested. Thank you very much for your hard work, Hottomo!

All of best,
Les & AOF Team

Hi all,


There are two new Let's Play starting up for unreleased (yet!) Age of Fear: The Undead King Gold:

https://youtu.be/7VUqQ6ZdBHU

Cornish Knight has already created a long campaign for AOF1, AOF2 and AOF3.

https://youtu.be/lm0aa2XgjZE

Tchey is helping testing game and also created few videos in the past.

More information will soon follow!


Take care,
Les

Hi all,

This is something interesting for modders - we have reached the point where our internal scripting engine alone can support mini-games!

Here I attach all files for a simple game of dice (complete with AI):
http://www.age-of-fear.net/downloads/gameofdices-script.zip

A couple more of those mini-games are in the making.


Take care,
Les & AOF Team

Links
Twitter
Facebook
Website

Dryad Nairi captures Swamp Willow

Hi all,

October was very busy for us - we have been adding, improving, fixing, etc. I am happy that we can still deliver so much in so short time and enhance Age of Fear series further!

• NEW HEADGEAR items - ca 30 new helmets, collars (beasts only) and other headcover:
  
  
  
• NEW: Acid Blood: attacker also takes damage and additionally is poisoned.
  
  
• NEW: Wasps Sting - bonus for Wasps attacking low-defence units.
  
  
• NEW: Nullify Magic - improved version of Dispel Magic, additionally adds Mana Burn to target.
  
  
• NEW: Vampiric Mist - area of effect version of life drain. Super-rare spell available only in a single unique artefact.
  
  
• NEW: Freezing Tornado - freezing area of effect blast.
  
  
• NEW: JOKES - all campaigns have a series of new jokes:
  
  
  
• UPDATE: Java updated to Java 10.0.2 (64-bit systems only).
  
  
• UPDATE: Magic Shield is a skill that can be switched on/off.
  
  
• UPDATE: few improved unit portraits, e.g. Plague Rat
  
  Plague Rat
  
  
• UPDATE: Channeler put back to Chaos campaign (its more balanced once spells were given cooldowns).
  
  
• UPDATE: Chaos campaign all units cost gold now.
  
  
• UPDATE: AI code has been substantially optimised and blackboard module has been introduced. Enemy AI can do coordinated attacks.
  
  
• UPDATE: Coward can be now cured (like Permanent Wound).
  
  
• BUGFIX: Controlling/Hypnotizing/Raising/etc unit with auto-activeable attributes (e.g. Berserker) was causing spellcaster to reset its MP.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Ranged units with TimeShift could not target the same enemy.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Launch script was not working for some Linux configurations.
  
  
• BUGFIX: Deathseeker achievement not registered after winning game.