- The one where The Duel is about to begin - 6 September 2026
Hello everyone!Long time no see, Cody here to get you up to speed with the dev side of things.I want to kick off this post by apologising for the long silence — sorry, everyone!A lot has happened in the last few months, but here's the good news: The Duel DLC is done.Well… almost. I still have a few bugs to fix here and there but all the contents and features are in. Over the next few days I'll start sending out the backers’ keys! If you supported this project through one of Cranio's Kickstarter campaigns, keep an eye on your inbox (and that pesky spam folder), you'll get your key soon enough.As usual, early access for backers helps me smooth out the rough edges and fix the last few issues — your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.For everyone else, the release date is just a few weeks away, so be sure to wishlist the DLC!What's next?Many of you have asked what’s coming next and…
- The One Where the Priority Lane to Colorado Finally Opens - 1 May 2026
Hello there! With this post, version 1.6 finally arrives — also known as the one where The Colorado Connection DLC gets released!Well… sort of. As tradition demands, the DLC will first be available to those who bought it on Kickstarter during the Legendary Box and Cranio’s Expansion Pack campaigns; so if you are one of these players, keep an eye on your inbox (and spam folder) in the coming days.If you bought the game during the latest Earned Authority campaign, you’ll have to be a bit patient, because I’ll receive the list of backers only once the late pledge is closed.Now, a heads‑up: due to the copious amount of changes this DLC introduces under the hood, I might extend the backers‑only access a bit longer than usual — just enough to make sure the public release flows smoothly and with as few leaks as humanly (and digitally) possible. I also need a little bit of time to correct a few…
- The One Where The Colorado Page Is Connected - 9 April 2026
Hello there!I hope you are all well and fine in these trying times; Cody here with a small update on the state of the project.As you might know, I'm currently working on The Colorado Connection. I'm aiming for an early‑May release so, as always, the schedule is tight, but confidence is high.The Steam store page of the DLC is now online, so if you don't want to miss the release, you might want to add it to your wishlist!The Colorado Connection will introduce a new map with two new dedicated mechanics: building bridges and activating productive settlements.If you bought The Leeghwater Project, you'll also get a new private building, the Heliport, and three new External Works that synergize with the new mechanics.As with The Nile Affair, I had to change the visuals of some elements to better fit the digital adaptation.In particular, the Productive Settlement Tiles are no longer categorised…
- The One Where The Server Crashes - 12 March 2026
DAM!As you might have guessed by the title of the post, just a quick FYI: the multiplayer server crashed for reasons still unknown. Everything is now back to normal but unfortunately the online games that were running have been lost.Sorry for the inconvenience.Have a nice day!Cheers,Cody
- The One Where the Backers Get to Irrigate the Nile First - 23 February 2026
Hello there!Cody here, with some good news! With this post comes version 1.5, and with it The Nile Affair DLC.Initially, it will only be accessible to those who backed the project on Kickstarter, and in about a week it will become available on the store to everyone else.So, for those who backed the project, keep an eye on your inbox — you’ll receive your key within the next 48 hours.For everybody else, be sure to add it to your wishlist so you’ll get a notification as soon as it’s out!This week I'll be on hotfix duty, plus some tweaks on the AI, so as always, don't hesitate to write on the forums or at "digital \ craniocreations.com" if you run into issues or bugs.If it's not too much to ask, please attach a zip with the game files when writing to us for an issue. That way I'll have more chances of identifying the problem ( hopefully ).Depending on your operating system, you can find th…
- The One Where the Nile Store Page Appears - 26 January 2026
Hello there! It's a bit late, but happy new year everybody! Today I'm here with a quick update on the upcoming DLC The Nile Affair. The Steam store page went online a few days ago, so if you don't want to miss the release, you might want to add it to your wishlist! Work is proceeding: I'm currently defining the tutorial contents and getting ready for its implementation. After that, I'll have to localise all the new content and tweak the AI so that it can handle the new mechanics. Last but not least, as much debugging and bug fixing as possible. Still quite a lot to do but, all in all, the DLC should be on track for a release at the end of next month. For those that are not familiar with the boardgame, The Nile Affair will introduce a new map with a dedicated new mechanic: irrigation. If you bought The Leeghwater Project, you'll also get a new private building and 3 new external works th…
- The One With the Dam Achievements - 15 December 2025
Hello there! Cody here, to keep you up to date on what's going on. The Achievements Are Here (beta first, then full release) First off, I'm increasing the game version to 1.4 (b.1194). Why? Because this build introduces the very first batch of Steam Achievements! For the first few days, achievements will be available only on the public beta branch so that I can test them a little more and maybe have a bit of feedback before releasing them to everybody. To join the public beta: Right-click on Barrage in your Steam library Select "Properties…" Open the "Betas" tab Choose public beta from the drop-down menu As always, if you run into bugs, crashes, or other issues, please report them here on Steam or email "[email protected]". If possible, attach a zip of your game files that you can find at the following paths (note: some folders are hidden by default): Windows: Users\ \AppData\L…
- The One Where The ISP Is Causing Problems - 10 December 2025
Hello there!I just wanted to let everyone know that we are having a weird issue with our ISP and as a consequence of that the Barrage server is temporary unreachable. Sadly the issue is out of my control and I'm not sure how long is going to take to resolve. Offline playing is obviously unaffected.I'm sorry for the interruption.Cheers,Cody
- The One With Hotfixes and the Friday Drop - 26 November 2025
Hello there! Just a quick update with 2 main points. #1 To All the Backers Thank you very much to all the backers who bought the Deluxe version of Barrage—your support is invaluable! Thanks also to everyone who has already tried the DLC and posted feedback, reporting issues and bugs. I’ve been releasing a few builds already, and we are ironing out the last few wrinkles. One important note on the fixes: with the build associated with this post (b.1182), I corrected one of the incomes for the Netherlands faction. On the fourth penstock, it is now 2 machineries instead of the previous 1. By itself this isn’t a huge change, unless you have an ongoing game where that specific income has already been unlocked. In that case, I’m sorry—the update will break the save file, so you’ll need to delete the game. #2 To Everyone Waiting for the DLC We are going to put the DLC on sale on Friday (28/11/2…
- The One Where We Release Leeghwater (Sort Of) - 19 November 2025
Hello there! Cody here with a bit of good news! With today's post comes Barrage version 1.3, a.k.a. the one where we release The Leeghwater Project DLC. Before you get too excited (as you should), a small caveat: the DLC is "live" on the store and in the current build, but for now is not on sale and accessible only to those who backed the project during the “Legendary Box” Kickstarter campaign. If you are one of those backers, keep an eye on your mail in the coming days, you'll receive your key to activate the DLC. For everyone else, I ask for a little more patience. You'll be able to buy the DLC at some point next week, after we send out all the Kickstarter keys. Caveat to the caveat: if you bough the game during the last "Expansion Pack" campaign on Kickstarter, I've been told that the BackerKit is not closed yet so I'm afraid I can't send you the key just yet. Even if you are not pla…
- The One With the SPIEL Distraction - 22 October 2025
Hello there! Cody here, with another update to bring you up to speed on what's been going on lately. As you might have noticed, despite my optimistic timetable, the DLC The Leeghwater Project isn't out yet. This is due to a couple of factors. First off, let me tell you that the DLC is 95% complete. The main reason it's not out yet is that some of the graphic material needed for its completion and release is not ready yet. This is because—and I hope I won’t get in trouble for revealing this :)—the development of the graphic assets is handled by Cranio Creations, not Cranio Lab. Over the last month they've been extremely busy preparing for one of the biggest board game conventions in Europe: SPIEL in Essen. As a result, the creation of the assets needed for The Leeghwater Project DLC has been delayed until after the convention; that means mid-next week. The second reason why the DLC isn't…
- The One Where the DLC Isn’t Out Yet - 24 September 2025
Hello there!I hope you're all okay and doing great! I'm here today, not to announce the release of The Leeghwater Project DLC as I would have hoped, but to bring you up to speed with development progress.In short: I'm almost there. I'm currently working on the tutorial for the new features. Once that's done, the remaining tasks are: Finalising the layout of the 5-player map Localising the new content for all supported languages Testing and bug fixingI'm sorry I haven't been very active on the forums—I know I still have a couple of posts to reply to. I've just been super busy trying to bring the development of TLP to a close.On the plus side, I managed to sneak in a couple of nice quality-of-life improvements for the DLC: A floating zoom to help you see things better An animation speed adjuster to make things fasterI'll leave you with a little sneak peek of what's coming. Please don't ha…
- The One Where Medium AI Joins the Grid - 29 August 2025
Hello there!I hope you had a great summer! Before we begin, a big thank you to all of you for sticking around, giving us feedback, and leaving kind reviews! It all helps! As you might have guessed, this post announces the release of a new AI in Barrage—the very originally named Medium AI! While it’s not strong enough to challenge experienced players, I think it’s a solid improvement over the current Easy AI. It’s not 100% finished yet—there are still a few things I need to tweak, some situations to address, and a few XOs to implement. At the moment, the AI won’t take advantage of Mahiri, Dr. Octavious, and Amir - its ability to use Wu Fang is also limited. Not to worry though—work on the AI will continue, albeit at a slower pace, as it’ll be developed alongside other things. A quick heads-up: the new AI is a bit slower than the current one, so in rare cases it might take up to 10/15 sec…
- The One Where Cody Ghosts Mahiri (and Everyone Else) - 11 August 2025
Hello there!It has been a while - I hope you're all doing great and having a fantastic (too much?) start of the week!I don't have a new version of Barrage for you today, but since I'll be taking 4 days off this week for a little bit of summer vacation, and since it has been a while since the last post, I wanted to keep you updated on what's going on.Medium AIAs promised I am working on a new medium AI. It's going..okay.It's not 100% complete but it's good enough to be released. What's still missing is some optimisation and some code specifically designed to take advantage of more complex XOs—namely Mahiri (from the base game) and the promo XOs—which are currently being disregarded by the AI.This is a bit of a compromise I had to make to stay on schedule, since I really want to release the first DLC by the end of summer (aka mid-September). As a result, the time I can dedicate to the AI…
- The one where we increased the version to 1.1 - 1 July 2025
Hello there!I hope you are having a fantastic week! Once again, thank you for your support, feedback and positive reviews.Today we are bringing you version 1.1 - introducing the custom game mode for the single player.It's a pretty straightforward feature that lets you choose which assets will be available during the initial draft or, if you feel like it, you can assign assets directly to a player.One quirk to be aware of is the First Player toggle ("1."). Its behaviour shifts based on whether you've manually assigned assets to a player. If no assets are assigned, the toggle determines who picks first in the draft. But if you’ve given any assets to a player—even just one—it instead decides who takes the first turn after the draft.Another neat touch: we haven’t restricted duplicates. So yes, if you’re in the mood, you can stage full-on mirror matches.Before I bid you farewell, here's a qu…
- The One Where the Slots Got Outlined - 21 June 2025
Hello everybody! Cody here to bring you a small—but not that small—update. A new build, v1.0 b946 is on it's way and here's what you get from it: Fixes+ fixed map building slot tooltip appearing on slots where no building by the player was possible (e.g. opponent' or neutral dams, basins that already had a player dam or power plants complexes where the player already had a power plant in place) + fixed "southern" power plants' positioning so that they now are in front of "northern" ones + fixed bug where map tooltips remained visible until the mouse left the map or another map element's tooltip was triggered + fixed bug on UI where Viktor Fiesler was shown as active during Germany’s bonus production, causing a “NotEnoughEnergyToFulfillContract” error when attempting to close contracts that were incorrectly marked as available due to Fiesler's bonus + fixed Octavious' power being availab…
- The One Where We Fixed That Tedious Bug - 4 June 2025
Hello there! Another post, another patch! Sooner than anticipated! As the first step towards implementing a new medium AI, I started refining the existing easy AI. While this patch doesn’t improve its overall performance score-wise, it makes it play way more reasonable actions. There are still some rough spots but, combined with a few fixes I was eager to put out there, you get yourself a pretty neat update. Build v1.0 b.923 is on its way and with it, the following fixes: - fixed a tedious bug where the game could get stuck after some animations on the energy track, mainly after receiving energy incomes at the beginning of the round - fixed a bug that would cause, at the beginning of a new round, during the incomes resolution, the turn indicator lights to quickly cycle on and off for the players that were about to resolve incomes like machineries or placing water drops on the map - tent…
- The last of the hotfixes - 30 May 2025
Hello there! Once again, I want to start by saying thank you to all of you for sticking around!! A huge shoutout to everyone who left us a positive review despite the initial bugs and issues—it really helps us out! As you might have noticed, it has been almost a week since the last build. That's because all the "easy" bugs have been squashed, and now most of the remaining ones are much trickier to fix; which generally means that I have no reliable way to reproduce them and pin down the problem. With that in mind, we’re shifting gears. The rapid hotfix phase is coming to an end, and moving forward, we’ll be slowing down the pace of builds to focus on new features and quality-of-life improvements - while, obviously, continuing to fix all the bugs you've kindly reported. In particular in the upcoming weeks, I'll be focusing on: - custom game mode for single-player (meaning you'll be able t…
- Hotfixes #3 - 23 May 2025
Good evening everybody! A new build (v1.0 b.862) is on its his way with this post - here's what you can expect! Fixes: + fixed wrong implementation of game objective "Least Developed Altitude" + AI - fixed bug "No more PowerPlant available to build" + fixed bug in optional actions popup preventing the player to confirm the optional action + small opponent boards - fixed fulfilled contracts counter not getting set when reloading a game + UNDO - fixed undo button being disabled during interactive incomes resolutions, preventing rewind to previous round + UNDO - fixed a bug where income resolution popup, if needed, would appear but then disappear immediately + fixed bug in actions popup footer not resizing when switching between productions with and without penstock rights to pay (EDIT: I momentarily reverted this last fix and released build v1.0 b.863 because it was causing Mahiri to cras…
- Oh no, not again - 22 May 2025
Hello there! Bad news - the server went down again last night, again for a power outage, this time of the building where the server is. Until the conditions improve and we can guarantee a better environment, I've taken the decision to take the server with me and move it to a less outage-prone location, which is definitively not my house. I'm really sorry for all the inconvenience. Cheers, Cody
