- Keep the Keep v1.23.2: post-release upgrades and bugfixes! - 22 March 2023
Good day, Keepers! It’s been a week since Keep the Keep got released and so far we are pleasantly surprised at how much feedback we’ve gotten from you so far! (a special shout-out here to our Discord followers). With your help, quite a few small issues have been found and fixed during the past few days: It’s now possible to cancel the tower selection by pressing the Escape button It’s no longer possible to encounter a grey AI opponent in the Quick Match The campaign map will now focus on the last level you have played and not finished, the “Continue” button in the main menu will launch it The towers panel mysterious barracks appearance fixed Builder tower animation corrected Level names being replaced by their codes (like Level7b, for example) fixed Balance issues with Level11b and Level7b fixed, now those should be more interesting to play Wacky AI behaviour when triggering them to att…
- Keep the Keep fully released! - 15 March 2023
Keepers, rejoice! Today is the day we finally release Keep the Keep out of Early Access! After almost three years of development and 1.5 years in the EA, it is time to release the game and let it be for a while. And, despite being our first product of that scale, Keep the Keep has attained plenty of features over that time: 50+ main Campaign levels, puzzles and AI battles alike to challenge your mind; Quick AI Match - Getting a randomly balanced set of towers and fighting an AI opponent on a random map; Local (hot-seat) and Online Multiplayer will allow you to enjoy battling up to 4 friends on various battlefields; The Map Editor, to get all kinds of puzzles (or AI battles) designed in the game and share them with friends as .ktk files; Full English and Russian localisation for 1000+ campaign story dialogue replicas, for a pretty typical-looking story that might be deeper than it seems!…
- Keep the Keep is finally coming to release on March 15, 2023! - 13 March 2023
Greetings, you all, good sirs and ladies, Keepers and spectators alike! Today we are excited to tell you: the time has come for us to finally release Keep the Keep out of the Early Access! On March 15th, there will be the final version release - 1.23.1! It's been a long and rather bumpy road with all sorts of adventures, upgrades, trials and errors on the way - and we are so, so glad that you've taken it with us! After almost 3 years of development, 1.5 of which have been spent in early access, it's finally time to say: we are ready to release our Keep the Keep (feels almost like a child at this point). It's actually crazy how much has this journey taken us, but thanks to you, our players, our friends and our supporters, it's been a pleasure and a lot of valuable experience. You see, Keep the Keep, while being our first game of that release calibre, is a game like no other - which is bo…
- Keep the Keep v1.23.0: Massive UI Overhaul and Multiplayer Bugfixes! - 11 March 2023
Greetings, our valiant Keepers! Have you thought, that we, perhaps, were gone missing yet? No worries, this rather long pause was due to us working hard on the latest update, to bring out a lot of important changes. Let’s get right into them. First of all, we’ve seen that you liked the Encyclopedia changes and have gotten out an absolutely massive UI redesign for a few more screens: 1. Multiplayer Lobby got completely redone thanks to a friendly helpful designer hand. The original version was rather clumped up and confusing in terms of what the player was supposed to do there, so we've made a more concise flow for you to use: As you could no doubt see, the current player shall now always be displayed in the top left part of the screen, above all the other players on the server; there is a logical grouping of server options (top right part of the Lobby) and player options (bottom right p…
- Keep the Keep v.1.22.0: Encyclopedia & complete AI Support! - 18 February 2023
Greetings, dear Keepers! Today we are happy to announce a multitude of awesome updates that will make your keeping much more enjoyable. First of all, we’ve completely overhauled the Encyclopedia screen: from now on, you shall see all of the relevant stats of any given tower next to its narrative description. This is very important for you, good folks, to understand how every tower operates and what are its strengths and downsides, it’s the number of health points and shooting range. Furthermore, we have added 2 more tabs to the Encyclopedia - Characters and Rules: the former will tell you some lore about the characters of Keep the Keep while the latter will finally shed some light on all the battle mechanics present in the game. Did you know that every Tower has its own initiative that it activates upon? Do you know why and how Soldiers and Golems move around and choose their targets? W…
- Keep the Keep v1.21.2 is out: small upgrades and bugfixes! - 4 February 2023
Greetings, fellow Keepers! A good day for an update, wouldn't you agree? Today we're releasing a bunch of small but noticeable changes that will make your Keeping better: 1. We've added a Privacy Policy to analyse your actions in the game and improve our levels' quality, both their balance and engagement. All of the data we collect is anonymous, as we're only interested in the stats here, not in your private affairs. Not to worry! 2. The infamous Mac exit crash was finally dealt with. In the future, we will make sure there are no such game-breaking issues anymore. 3. AI upgrades - the AI will be smarter about the tower placement related to Barracks, not to block their exits and also won't be careless enough to build towers under their own Sappers. More fun to play with, and in the next update, we shall be expecting Barracks tower support. 4. UI Quality - better Character dialogue skip i…
- Keep the Keep v1.21.0: Back in Action! - 25 January 2023
Greetings, fellow Keepers! We hope this update finds you in good health and mood. It's been a long while since the last change to Keep the Keep was officially announced, and there are a lot of tales to tell of what happened since then. 1. Welcome, Meridian4! First of all, we have successfully found ourselves a publisher, Meridian4! That might be a small step in terms of game design or gameplay, but it's a rather big vote of confidence for us. On that notion, we're quickly moving towards the game release! 2. The Story is finally there! The single-player Campaign is now complete, with all of its 48 Levels and whopping 16 381 words of dialogue! There are all kinds of different conversations exploring personal and diplomatic topics, as well as some dry humour and even short poems. Yes, indeed, at least one of the characters involved is a big fan of rhymed verses. Besides, we're introducing…
- Keep the Keep v1.18.0 is out: All-Around Improvements and Linux Support - 27 May 2022
Good day, fellow Keepers! Today we are introducing quite a bunch of new features and fixes for Keep the Keep. Took us a while, perhaps, but we are keen to address every issue that you might find out (please, report either here on Steam or join our Discord to do so) and also pump some good things as well. Let's get into it. 1. The story advances We are covering the next block of levels related to the usage of Barracks with this new update, further expanding on Key's story and introducing a new character into it (which you may see above). As Key and Isaac finally find some common grounds and come to terms, a new threat is looming on the horizon. Will they be able to handle it? Up to you to decide! 2. Editor Improvements From now on, you will finally be able to select whether you would like to fight a Static AI (basically skipping turns, good for making puzzles) or an actual AI opponent wh…
- Keep the Keep v1.17.0 is out: Story Advances, QoL Improvements! - 14 May 2022
Greetings, fellow Keepers! This Friday we bring you a multitude of goodies: 1. Story Progress! Keylin's story, which started last time, advances forward to explore the new lands, overcome various challenges and meet some new people as well. While we have made a little bit of a retcon on mission "Cannonfrontation" to make the plot fit better, generally the character relations get more deep and complex, different political opinions are being spoken out, parleys and battles are happening and we are sure you're gonna like it a lot! 2. Campaign Fog of War While it was cool to see the whole map, it's about time to spice things up a fair bit. From now on, only the unlocked area of the campaign shall be shown while the rest will linger somewhere in uncharted territories, hidden behind the famous fog of war. A bit cliched, perhaps, but also more authentic. We gotta keep some secrets from our dea…
- Keep the Keep v.1.16.0: Story and Characters! - 29 April 2022
Good day, fellow Keepers! Today we have wonderful news for you: finally, our long 40-level Campaign is getting a proper plot story! Having a story in a game like this one might seem like a no-brainer, really, but there has always been a lot of work to be done yet since its initial release back in July 2021. Different priorities we had back then: implementing new towers, multiplayer features, AI and other useful things. But now, for the first time in all these months, we shall start taking care of the narrative. And here I humbly shut up and give the word to... Greetings! I am Keylin, an inventor apprentice from the free city of Evyreed. Dreaming of a better future for my people, I came from my village to the revered battle veteran, Master Gugo Borhond - to study both military strategy and tinkering. While he didn't really treat me any different than any of the other street boys initiall…
- Keep the Keep II Anniversary 70% Discount! - 12 April 2022
Greetings, fellow Keepers! Today is a very special day for Nebulate.me - it's been two years since we've made the very first prototype on Ludum Dare #46 and got quite a positive feedback from our audience. You could still play it for free on the Nebulate.me homepage, by the way. As one could see, the core idea has been there even back then in 2020, but the game itself was rather unpolished and lacked a lot of the content you see as normal today: the single-player campaign, 15 different Tower types, the Editor, the Quick Match mode, and of course the Multiplayer mode. Back then, we really believed that the Multiplayer IS the main reason to have Keep the Keep released, as it was incredibly engaging from our humble point of view - just getting to outsmart one another and get the other player cornered is really fun (well, at least for the winning side), and so we spent a lot of our developm…
- Keep the Keep v1.15.0 is out: The Golem, AI and Balance improvements - 26 March 2022
Good time of the day, fellow Keepers! This week, we proudly present you with a whole set of important updates! New Tower Type: The Golem First and foremost, we're going full speed ahead implementing new towers and increasing both your tactical flexibility and the overall game's replayability value alike! Tower of the week today is the mighty Golem, a hulking brute towering over puny little soldiers and other insignificant towers with its sheer scale! While very similar to Soldier from the Barracks in function, the Golem flounders around with the massive 3 health points, allowing it to survive a couple of hits with relative ease. Thus, when built up close and personal, the Golem will surely tear through the ranks of your opponent, sowing chaos and destruction as it goes and making them panic while trying to organise any semblance of effective defence. This, however, raises the importance…
- Keep the Keep v1.14.0: Defender tower and AI Improvements! - 19 March 2022
Good Day, fellow Keepers! Today we are happy to introduce yet another new Tower Type: the mighty Defender! This new Tower Type is, in fact, a very different version of the familiar and well-known Shield Tower: Defender has the same 2 health points, requires energy, can face both cardinal and diagonal directions... But here comes an important difference: while Shield tower protects itself from a given direction, Defender covers one nearby friendly tower instead, whatever it may be: a Keep, a Reactor, a Wall, a Soldier, etc. This allows for flexibility level unbeknownst beforehand since this new tower can be used both to quickly shield important nearby ally that's being pressed and to expand into the territory attacked by the opponent just as well. Indeed, the only thing important to keep in mind is that the Defender tower simply requires the allied tower to exist and have substance to it…
- Keep the Keep v1.13.0: Domain Tower and Campaign level overhaul - 6 March 2022
Good day, fellow Keepers! Well... probably, not as good as we'd like it to be, but still... we hope your dear ones are safe and you get to enjoy some playtime even during those days. 1. Today we are releasing to announce a new type of Tower - the Domain Tower. This tower is very different from all the other tower types you have seen (thus, we are being true to ourselves, keeping the towers actually separate from one another rather than replicating the same type over and over again with minor variations): Domain Tower expands your building area just like any other tower would Domain Tower is built immediately, thus showing the opponent your building plan for the turn Domain Tower can not be attacked by long-range towers such as Bow, Cannon, Catapult and Thunder, they simply ignore it instead; the same is true for the Sapper tower Domain Tower blocks Barracks and Soldiers; enemy Soldiers…
- Keep the Keep v1.12.1: Trailer, Demo and Quick Match! - 11 February 2022
Good day, dear Keepers! We hope you had a splendid week! Have you been wondering why did we go into silence for almost a month? Well, here's the answer: there was a lot of meta improvements we just had to release in one batch :) Here we go... 1. New Trailer As the new graphics actually changed the outlook of Keep the Keep quite a bit, it only made sense for us to also update our trailer, especially considering that the old one did not seem to be very engaging and not nearly as quick and furious as it should be! Thus, we have spent a couple of weeks refining our new game footage into something properly showing it off: Keep the Keep 2022 Trailer Now, after this part was quite over, we finally could be sure that the game would draw some attention whenever looked upon ;) And for the beautiful music, we are happy to thank Alexander Nakarada, check his art out here. 2. Demo Version We have re…
- Keep the Keep v1.11.0 released: Game Speed Improvements! - 16 January 2022
Good day, fellow Keepers! As usual, we have good news for you today - a new update has arrived after the last two weeks of development! So, what have we done? 1.A couple of new options for the Settings screen - "Animation speed" and "Fast Tower Animation" - Animation Speed is pretty straightforward - ranging from "Very Slow" to "Very Fast", it allows you to speed up or slow down the game, which will be quite useful if you would prefer to enjoy the animations a bit more or a bit less. - Fast Tower Activation, on the other hand, is a trickier and efficient way to streamline the game process. Essentially, instead of waiting for every tower to be activated in turn, we activate groups of towers of the same kind and the same player simultaneously instead, both shortening the turn animations and making them more spectacular, as you could imagine, towers shooting barrages of cannonballs instead…
- New Year, New Graphics: Keep the Keep v1.10.0 is out! - 1 January 2022
Happy New Year, fellow Keepers! We hope you had a blast celebrating the end of 2021, and are so glad to present you with a rather big update we have been working on for the last month or so! Finally, we have fully revamped the World Campaign graphics - and this is now ready for you to enjoy! As we've learned to model things on our own, so a more consistent style for Keep the Keep has grown - this shiny, naive and cartoony low-poly landscape is what we are aiming for and will be drawing like in the future. Some extra shaders, perhaps, some life for the countryside, wavering flags and rotating windmills... more is there to come, but rest to be assured, we're heading for a fairly convincing look! While it might have taken a while to accomplish, we are quite sure it's been worth it. Now, the next thing on our roadmap is to upgrade the trailer and make sure the game does not look unattractiv…
- Keep the Keep v1.9.0: Graphical Updates - 10 December 2021
Happy Friday, fellow Keepers! Have you missed Keep the Keep? This week we have some good news and a nice graphical update for you! - Better model for the CannonTower as we generally move in a more cartoony graphical style - New firing / explosion animations for the Towers so it would look more convincing and impactful for the viewer - Fluttering flags all around, making the whole landscape more alive Imagine how much better would the view be with the wind moving trees and crops around, water flowing through, mills rotating, etc. With your help, we're sure to eventually reach that day. What do you think, how would you prefer to see the game graphics evolve? All suggestions and ideas are welcome, both in our Discord group and directly in the comments here. And while the update is rather small this time, we are preparing something big to come in the following weeks: a totally new and graph…
- Keep the Keep v1.8.0 is out: Graphical Upgrades! - 26 November 2021
Good day, fellow Keepers! Have you missed us for the last few weeks, perhaps? Well, today we have good news for you: it's about time to finally reveal our work and plans for the following weeks! As we have heard from our players, the graphical solution we have as well as the orthographical camera do not provide the best impression overall. Thus, we have taken the liberty to spend previous weeks learning Blender and working on the graphical improvements! While it takes a lot of time to develop, we wouldn't want to delay the updates any longer and the upcoming Autumn Sale is a perfect occasion to show you the new Combat Themes. Behold, the Summer! We hope you find the new view perspective to be as attractive as we do, as well as the improved shading system, not to mention the whole tileset of new models that we have developed on our own, way more flexible and consistent way to present the…
- Keep the Keep v1.7.1 is out: AI-driven Campaign Levels and AI improvements! - 5 November 2021
Good Friday, fellow Keepers! This week we keep our past promises: as you can remember from the last update, we planned to split important story-driving, learning levels from the ones that will simply propose an interesting challenge to solve for the people willing to try. Here's the new campaign map update: As you can see, from now on the main campaign line will be reasonably straightforward and have a very reasonable difficulty (corresponding to received feedback from the players), while the optional campaign branches will sometimes be really, really challenging (just make sure to check out those towers and castles standing aside). Besides 9 extra levels that we have developed for you to try, there were quite a few tutorial and AI bugfixes, related to the tower expansion, target AI prioritisation and Barracks usage. Yes, indeed, the humble Barracks became better in the hands of our sti…
