After a road that was almost as long and arduous as that of Kharandar and his merry band of explorers, we have finally reached our destination: the closing chapter of the Expedition storyline is now available to all owners of At the Heart of Ruin! The free content is accompanied by a slew of performance improvements and tweaks, which we believe, improve the games significantly.

One year ago to the day we shared an article about the Conflagration Village, a place we hoped you would never have to visit in game: the dwelling the Cleansing Conflagration – a gang of pyromaniacal, murderous scavengers – call home. Though it may not look much at first glance, it is a place of terror, sacrifice, and depravity, where there are artifacts and effigies aplenty to remind you of what cruelty goes on there.

Vagri! We released a bunch of fixes for the last update (Expedition Part 3) yesterday, and now we are following up with the list of changes. There is a fair amount of stuff here, many of which were quite nasty, or at the very least, persistent, so we’re glad to have hunted them down. We hope this batch will make the experience much better.

This week’s update brings the chunky penultimate chapter in the Expedition storyline – a series of free updates that expand At the Heart of Ruin. The action and the drama really ramps up in this one, and the intrepid vagri accompanying Kharandar’s folks in their journey into the forsaken core of the fallen Dwarven kingdom will have to make some really tough decisions. Although one last part is still missing to conclude the storyline, the expedition is now closer to its destination than ever before, tensions are mounting, while the terror and discoveries of the forgotten western coast will shake even the most stalwart of explorers.

The Riven Realms have a grim reputation for the many wastelands, deserts, and cursed locations inside their confines. However, even in such inhospitable environments, life has found a way to cling on. In some cases, new life has thrived, demonstrating an almost uncanny resilience and adaptability. This, however, is not a unique trait of the Riven Realms. Quite the contrary.

In the video game industry of the last decade or so, it has become increasingly common and appealing to talk about involving players in developer decision making, though what this means exactly can vary greatly between projects. In this article, we’ll discuss some elements related to eliciting, handling, and incorporating player feedback in Vagrus, so if you are interested in how you all had an effect on this game, dive right in!

If you have been following our updates, you might have noticed the mention of Exploration Encounters receiving vignettes. What are they? In this context, vignettes are small pieces of lineart (in an ink-on-paper style) that accompany bits of text to invoke a certain atmosphere. Vignette sets are assigned to Exploration Encounters based on their location, environment, and foes. For instance, the districts of Dum Garok have their own sets of these illustrations to invoke the place’s unique character. A whole other set of them appear in Exploration Encounters in the Ember Mines.

This week, we have two things to talk about that are close to our hearts: we were invited to speak on the Into the Indies podcast, and we’ve just released a brand new update! Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of both.

Into the Indies

We’ve had the pleasure of appearing on Indie Game Picks before in the form of a written interview, but this time felt different. In this Into the Indies episode, our Creative Lead Geri Mácsai and Project Lead Gábor Szutorisz had the chance to sit down and truly reflect on the journey – how it all started from humble, uncertain beginnings, and how Vagrus slowly took shape through years of persistence, experimentation, and learning.

Recently, we’ve shared quite a few exciting updates – our latest patch with fresh content, the new Cultured Supporter Pack, and being featured in the Steam Daily Deal, to name the highlights. The response from our community has been incredible, and we truly cannot thank you enough for the support!

Today, we bring you a shocking announcement: Dwarves absolutely love their mines! And, this week, we’re bringing you some more Vagrus art in the form of, well, a Dwarven mine. Joking aside, as some of you know, the Mines of Ukzular is a location in the upcoming second part of the update that continues the story of Kharandar’s expedition into the heart of ruin. These are free, chunky updates that add significantly to an already alluring pile of content in our At the Heart of Ruin expansion.