- Beast Hour №28. Open Alpha starts 22 December 2023 at 5 PM UTC! - 17 December 2023
Raiders and Beasts! December is the start of winter, cold, pre-holiday time and one of the most important Beast Hour updates! Open Alpha From 22 December, 5 pm UTC, we invite everyone to play Beast Hour any day and time – the Оpen Alpha starts! Download the game beforehand at the Steam page. Our team has been preparing for this event for a long time, and all the previously promised updates are ready to make the game more exciting, diverse and interesting!!! Vampire We've told you about this Beast before. Because you know him well - it's time to try this terror that flaps in the night! Let the hunt begin! Map and Statistics Map went through several updates. Whether you've participated in the playtests or this will be your first time playing Beast Hour, there will be something to look forward to! And don't forget to check your place in the TAB-leaderboard of the match! Skins and Lobby You…
- Beast Hour. №27. October 2023. Fiend - 31 October 2023
Raiders and Beasts! The end of fall is the scariest night of the year! This day ghosts, werewolves, vampires and other horrible creatures wake up and go hunting. And now, after a long sleep, a creature of darkness awakens, and its name is Fiend! Fiend is just gaining strength and has not yet reached the world of Beast Hour. But our team has already collected data on the appearance and behavior of this dark Beast. Mirror, mirror on the wall… Hearing the word "Fiend" each person imagines a different thing: from small tricksters, to great servants of darkness. But what, usually, all such creatures have in common? These are horns! Horns demonstrate power and create an intimidating appearance, as well as symbolize cruelty and ruthlessness. In some mythologies, horned demons are considered to be holders of hidden knowledge and supernatural wisdom. And some believe that the horns serve as keys…
- Beast Hour. №26. September 2023. Playtest - 8 October 2023
Raiders & Beasts! As we bid farewell to summer and embrace the autumn winds, we're thrilled to finally unveil the date of the Community playtest and tell what we are working on currently! Community playtest Our team has worked a lot since the previous playtest fixing bugs and improving many things which you can read about in our previous post. So now we have a stable build and need your help to check everything and get your feedback. Enter the haunted city from 13 October, 5 pm UTC, to 16 October, 7 am UTC, if you dare! NOTE: the features described below are in the development right now and won't be presented in the coming Community Playtest. New terror look We spoke about this before: welcome the flying Beast in all its beauty. The final detailed Vampire model with updated textures & materials will make Raiders and Werewolves tremble in fear! Compete! The TAB-menu is getting the final…
- Beast Hour. №25. August 2023. Playtest - 4 September 2023
Raiders & Beasts! The summer is ending... and we're gearing up for another round of public testing and have some exciting updates to share with you. Dive into what's coming next for Beast Hour – discover what we've added & changed to make our game even better. Winged horror We've been teasing the new Beast for a while now, and the time has come to play this winged monster! The Vampire model will be updated and finalized in the future, but that does not change the fact that you will already be able to immerse yourself in all its unique abilities in the upcoming play test. New features of the haunted city The Beast Hour universe continues to grow, and we've revamped the map with this update. New structures and captivating details will strengthen the gloomy atmosphere of the haunted city and tell its stories. The full set of escape mechanics like invisibility mist, lifts, walls that allow…
- Beast Hour. №24. July 2023. Beasts visual - 2 August 2023
Raiders and Beasts! We've already told how Raiders were created and what concept was used for them, so today it's the Beasts' turn. Beast Hour wasn't originally planned as the game with unique characters: all Raiders were knights in armor, and the Beast was only the Werewolf. Hence the name of the game is Beast Hour, which means 'Werewolf Hour'. But when we decided that Raiders needed to be diverse, so we did the same for the others. In fact, Werewolves are one of the most mainstream characters in the mass culture, ahead of them are only zombies, but they didn't fit the concept of our game. By the way, there aren't really that many games that allow you to play as a Werewolf, although a lot of movies/books/series feature these creatures. The early Werewolf concepts We approached the creation of the werewolf with great care, we didn't want to make it too human, for example, as in "The Wol…
- Beast Hour. №23. Июнь 2023. Матч мейкинг - 30 June 2023
Raiders and Beasts! Today, we will explain the reason behind having 8 players in the game session. The game was initially planned for 10 players: 8 Raiders and 2 Beasts (we've already told about the first idea of the game). We've planned an unusual 'team vs team' mode, where the Beasts would compete with each other for the Raiders, and the latter could play both individually and in groups. In fact, this concept is similar to Dead by Daylight, but with more players. Team vs Team Then we decided to try a team variant of 5 Raiders vs 5 Beasts. We took inspiration from Nosgoth, a game with 8 players in one match (4 for each side), for this concept. The experiment turned the game into a complete deathmatch: players began to run in groups, parkour took a back seat, and the large map became less meaningful for chases. Also, unlike Nosgoth, Beast Hour has no class divisions (like Tank, Support,…
- Beast Hour. №22. May 2023. Characters customization - 31 May 2023
Raiders and Beasts! Today we'd like to talk about characters' skins – the feature we started working on not so long ago. That's quite a frequent question on our social media, if we're planning to add customization in the game. And the answer is always - yes! All multiplayer games have skins, which devs regularly add into the game. That brings more variety and personality, because you can not only play as your favorite character, but also change his or her appearance as you like. For quite a time our artists have been designing different skins, that would fit perfectly into the overall atmosphere of the game. This includes radical re-coloring of the standard look, as well as new appearance that completely transforms the character. From time to time we share such arts on our social media. However, we started to implement the customization system in the game itself just recently. Standard…
- Beast Hour. №21. April 2023. Raider's visual - 30 April 2023
Raiders and Beasts! Gameplay and concept art usually come alongside. Cases when developers think of their game as "gray boxes" are pretty rare, since the story and characters one wants to play spontaneously appear in the mind. Parkour knights The very first idea for Beast Hour was a gothic castle, where knights should run away from beasts. So we chose medieval setting and put armor on all Raiders. Since from the beginning parkour was the key idea for the game, we quickly dropped the idea about knights as it would be impossible to run fast and deftly in heavy armor. So a new Raider concept, which can be described as the mix of medieval age and steampunk, appeared. This visual was simplified, we left only greaves, helmet, and bracers. But even this seemed to be too much. Plus there was a problem with the weapon - what a knight without a sword - it wasn't clear what it should be and how th…
- Beast Hour. №20. March 2023. Gamedesign - 31 March 2023
Raiders & Beasts! Today we'd like to take a look at the genre of asymmetric PvP games and share our experience of developing Beast Hour. All new – well forgotten old This genre exists for a long time and a lot of games have been released. When Beast Hour development started, we tried to find as much information about the first asymmetric games as possible. Then Giants: Citizen Kabuto, released in 2000 by Planet Moon Studios, caught our eye. This game is quite unique, as there are three races involved in a single match: 5 Sea Ripers, 3 Meccaryn and 1 giant Kabuto. Analyzing other games is necessary for understanding the genre and a great source of inspiration for development. That's why we tried to study everything that could be useful in any way, mostly such games as Dead by Daylight, Evolve, Last Year, Predator: Hunting Grounds, Deathgarden. Not a DbD-clone Of course, the main idea of…
- Beast Hour. №19. February 2023. Drake! - 28 February 2023
Raiders and Beasts! It’s time to melt cold Winter days with the flame of our new character – Drake! Short backstory In the article about Vampire, we’ve talked about how we came to the decision to make each character unique. Still we left something unmentioned: for each Raider we’ve chosen the element. Electricity coupled perfectly with the steampunk and fitted to the lore of our first Raider. That’s how Zelus, a scientist of the Industrial Revolution, was created. As for Udoku, her poisonous gas was very suitable for the look of World War I anti-sister of Mercy. Drake concept After we’ve created two characters, we started to think what element should be chosen for the next character. The answer didn’t take long – fire! So, we started creating some concepts for Drake in the style of steampunk and even dieselpunk. Then we’ve decided to make the design closer to the era of the first half o…
- Beast Hour. №18. January 2023 - 31 January 2023
Raiders and Beasts! It's already the end of the first month of the new year. We hope you've had a great holidays and have returned to your work/study full of energy and inspiration! New Year gifts from The Beast As a small present to our community we prepared and posted an unusual gif on our social media: Beasts and Raiders are dancing can-can. And in the game itself, Zelus got a New Year's hat! You may remember that the Werewolf wore the same hat last year (It's interesting, who will try it on the next year?). The playtest we all are waiting for! But it's not all! Just like you, we're waiting for an opportunity to play Beast Hour with all of you. Now it goes like this: we've already prepared the main content and now are just fixing some bugs, but, what's more important, our engineers are working on the netcode. Stay tuned to our social media, there we will tell you about the test in ad…
- Beast Hour. № 17. December 2022. Summary of the year - 30 December 2022
Raiders & Beasts! Another year of Beast Hour development is behind. In today's newsletter we'll recall some of the coolest and the most memorable things that have happened this year as well as share our future hero plans! News and streams It was at the beginning of 2022 when we got an idea to regularly post news about Beast Hour in this format. We published the summary of 2021 and so it started – there was not a single month we missed and each time we shared something exciting about the game both on Steam and via emails. Not only do we not plan to stop doing so, but we want to make these newsletters even better and more informative. Share your suggestions for new formats and topics in the comments! By the way, alongside the newsletters, at the beginning of 2022 we also started making Beast Hour Q&A-streams, so that you have a direct way of communicating with us. We are a very open team…
- Beast Hour. №16. Map development and backstory - 1 December 2022
Raiders & Beasts! In today’s newsletter we’d love to share with you the haunted city development plans as well as the backstory of this scary place. IMPORTANT NOTE: The following screenshots have been taken from a development build of Beast Hour and some of the map enhancements are not yet ready! Follow us on social media to see how the game evolves and changes. Haunted city is divided into five districts: garden, burning, industrial, spider and city center. Let’s talk about each of them individually. The Garden district It got its name thanks to lavish greenery – this is the only place in the haunted city where you can find living trees and blooming flowers. It’s situated right at the foot of a high mountain. A good place to start our trip because the main source of Arkana, the most precious resource of Beast Hour universe, was originally extracted from under this very mountain. An ext…
- Beast Hour. №15. October 2022. Vampire! - 31 October 2022
Raiders & Beasts! Today's newsletter is going to be a special one. It's Halloween time – the night of pumpkins and glowing eyes, of bats and spooky stories! It's time to tell you more about the Vampire – our new Beast in the game! It's important to mention that the Vampire is still in development. Do not expect this Beast to be added in the next public Alpha-test. Nevertheless, we've already put so much work into this character, so we've got A LOT to share with you! Where did it all begin? it’s necessary to start from the beginning. The original idea of Beast Hour could be described like: "knights run away from werewolves in a gothic castle". As one of our very first gameplay prototype testers noticed back then: "the game is like Super Mario with multiplayer & Werewolves – all you can do is run, jump and collect coins". Game rules were very simple – in the beginning of the match two ran…
- Beast Hour. №14. September 2022 - 30 September 2022
Raiders & Beasts! September has started and ended so swiftly, we can't believe it! We've been so busy making new content for the future Alpha test! Map changes, new features, quality of life improvements – all of it is coming soon! Let us show you what we’ve got in stock for you! Map visuals First off, the map of the game. Our artists, 3D-modelers and level designers have been very busy adding variety to the haunted city. Underground pathways and landmarks have been added, along with improvements in the natural environment – and that's just the beginning! Nicknames The gameplay feature you’ve been asking us a lot for is the addition of nicknames. Now it’s possible to assign your in-game nickname, so the next time you fight or kill someone, they will know your name (or vice versa)! No more freezes As we’ve explained in one of our previous newsletters, the freezes that took place at the s…
- Beast Hour. №13. August 2022 - 31 August 2022
Raiders & Beasts! The 3rd Beast Hour open playtest took place at the beginning of August. Now, we're making changes and preparing for the next and the best playtest yet! Let’s have a look together at Beast Hour's development updates. Action logs Something is constantly happening to you in Beast Hour. To help you keep track of everything, we have added an action log feature. Now, each time you collect Arkana, fight with other players or escape Beasts, there will appear a special notification in the left part of the screen, showing the experience received. Less penalty for falling down We often hear that new Beast Hour players have difficulties with parkour playing as Raiders. It’s true that our movement system takes some time to get used to. There can be a short superhero-style stun upon landing if you fall from a great height. Now, it takes much more height for the stun to occur. Sound…
- Beast Hour Survival Fest – Livesteam with Devs. August 2022 - 5 August 2022
Beast Hour – asymmetric steampunk PvP-parkour horror game🐺 Raiders & Beasts! August 7th, 6 PM UTC, PLAY Beast Hour: run, hunt, fight for 3 hours straight! Watch the stream and play with the devs! Join the pack on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/beasthour Discord: http://discord.gg/5KFaakTP24 Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeastHourGame Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beasthourgame/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/beasthourgame Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeastHour Website: https://www.beasthour.com
- Beast Hour – Steam Survival Fest - 2 August 2022
Servers * Since 2022-07-15: improved server matchmaking, games are found faster. Map * Minor map bug fixes and decoration improvements (check out the Industrial District =) Mechanics * Since 2022-07-15: added Ropes that quickly raise Raider to the top of the wall. Beasts can destroy them. Udoku Hiro * Since 2022-07-15: default size of Gas Throw clouds increased. * Since 2022-07-15: Gas Throw Upgrade #1 Spraying increases cloud size more. * Gas Throw direct hits deal increased damage depending on the amount of poison stacks on the enemy. UI * The Howl UI-mark now tells Raider how much Hunt time is left. * If Raider becomes invisible while being marked by Beast's Howl, the Howl UI-mark turns gray, showing that Raider isn't visible to the Beast at this moment. * Beast Howl ability icon tells Beast how much Hunt time is left. Settings * Added sound settings (master volume, music, Keep's voi…
- Beast Hour. №12. July 2022 - 29 July 2022
Raiders & Beasts! The second test of Beast Hour is over. We’ve received A LOT of feedback – thank you for participating and telling us your ideas. New tests are coming, so stay tuned and don't miss out! During these amazing playtests and after them you've been asking about many things. We try to answer everyone on Discord, Twitter, Reddit, via DMs, etc. as new questions keep coming all the time. This particular newsletter highlights the most popular topics and shares some plans for the future. Server-connection issues When the servers go live for the first time, something always goes wrong. And it did. The most noticeable problem was waiting for the connection to a match. Some people spent up to 30 minutes looking for a match. That was really unfortunate. BUT! The combination of the dev team work & cool advice of server engineers from our community worked like magic! During the second t…
- Beast Hour. №11. June 2022 - 1 July 2022
Raiders & Beasts! It’s been a crazy month for us all as Beast Hour Alpha-test has finally started! We as a team are so proud to have such a dedicated and overall great community and we're happy you are with us on this journey:) Alpha-tests Important date in Beast Hour history: 19th of June, 2022. This day we had our first public test and it lasted for three hours straight. Our goals for the test were: 1) Get your feedback on the gameplay (btw, you can leave it here – it’d help us tremendously) 2) Check out how the servers are working. Right now we are preparing the next version of the game which can take some time as we do want to make the game better and not just release the same build. The exact date of the next test will be announced later – stay tuned and join our Discord! Things we’re working on We decided to focus on a few main issues first: 1) Udoku felt underpowered compared to…
