FIVE: Guardians of David FOR Mac®!

[76561198247876728]

FIVE: Guardians of David FOR Mac®! (5/31/2016)

At Kingdom Games we strive to make our games as accessible as possible. In the beginning of this year we introduced Spanish localization and are continuously working to make even more languages available. Now, we expand the accessibility of our game with pride and announce FIVE: Guardians of David for Mac®!

Release Notes (Mac)

FIVE: Guardians of David for Mac is LIVE!
FIVE: Guardians of David is now live and available for Mac! FIVE for Mac is launching through Steam Play, meaning the game is available on both platforms for all players. If you purchased FIVE for PC, you also get FIVE for Mac!

Lighting Adjustments

FIVE: Guardians of David received a lighting pass in various levels to provide a smoother gameplay experience.

Localization Support – Text Sizing

As of February, FIVE: Guardians of David is available in Spanish (additional languages coming soon)! All in-game text and comics can be switched to Spanish language via the Game Options menu. We have adjusted in-game text boxes so that any selected language fits properly and is readable in all provided spaces.

Key Bindings

Want to switch your keyboard hotkeys around? Any changes made to Key Binding Settings will be saved and will remain the preferred default every time you launch the game.

User Interface Visibility

While in-game, players can utilize the ‘Z’ key on their keyboard to hide the User Interface (for screenshots!). Using the ESC key to pause the game will automatically re-enable the User Interface.

Fixed – Loss of Input

Exiting the Save Game menu with the ESC key properly closes the menu and resumes the game.

Steam Overlay

There are known issues with using the Stem Overlay on Macs; we recommend disabling the Steam Overlay before playing FIVE: Guardians of David on Mac.

To Optimize Framerate

• Disable Steam Overlay
  
• Run game in Windowed Mode
  
• Lower Resolution
  
• Disable Shadows, AA, Anisotropic, and V-Sync
  
• Lower Light Count

Spanish Localization Update (4/26/2016)

Spanish language support added!

Major Update 1.1 – OPTIMIZATION, ENGINE UPGRADE, AND MORE! (2/29/2016)

Kingdom Games is proud to announce that FIVE: Guardians of David Major Update 1.1 is live! We’ve focused on optimization, navigation, Impact & responsiveness among many other tweaks and changes. Our optimization passes have drastically improved frame rate across the entirety of the game! Many of you pointed out that navigation was difficult and followers were not responding appropriately and we’ve made great strides to improve both across the game.

Many of you have mentioned our abilities lack the oomph and power that they all appear to have. What is Impact & Responsiveness? When you activate an ability it should quickly respond and provide the type of impact, sound, screen shake, and beautiful visuals that you would expect from a powerful ability. We’ve made great strides to improve Impact & Responsiveness for all of the Mighty Men.

Environment Optimization

FIVE: Guardians of David has had a significant optimization pass across the entire game. We could not be more excited to share the results. The optimization pass touched on everything including art, design, and engineering. Players will experience smoother gameplay throughout!

Optimizing is an ever present thing in our lives, and we will always be working to improve performance for as many configurations as possible. With this update, we take a large step forward. Enjoy.

Navigation

The entire game has received extensive work, tightening up the navigation grids used within the environments. These efforts benefits players with smoother and more reliable movement and combat actions.

Engine Upgrade

We took the step of upgrading the entire game from Unity 4 to the latest Unity 5 version. This upgrade aided in extensive performance boosts. On average, we see a 100% improvement across the game. We’ve seen framerates double on most configurations.

Localization Support (COMING SOON!)

We have taken steps to begin converting the game to support various languages. We feel it is very important to offer the game in as many languages as we can over the course of time, and these initial steps will allow us to do that. Expect to see these languages released in the coming weeks and months. We are going through the content process now and testing the system to ensure it’s a complete localization (excluding VO). All in-game copy will get converted to the proper language via drop-down selection in the options (Once available)

Combat Visual Improvements

In order to help communicate all of the action, several visual changes have been made with the addition of lighting and better color use to distinguish the player, follower, and enemies. In addition, blade trails and other VFX are showing their true glory, with smooth actions and pounding force.

User Interface Change

We wanted to give players a clear health and stamina view for the controlled hero, so we redesigned the main ability bar to give it more mass (no more see through areas that had been non clickable), but also a color that allows the information to be read more easily and not blend in with the background. We really like the new design and would love to hear if you do too! Post any suggestions you may have to improve upon this new version.

Another change you will notice is the Auto Equip feature in the inventory screen, now has a couple of options for you to choose from, that will make better selections based on a type of item increase you are looking for.

Start of Game Alterations

This was a big one, but we feel we have listened to feedback and addressed the comments about the start of the game being a bit slow. We addressed this by expediting the player through parts of the first 4 levels, which we determined to not be critical to story nor character development. Players should find this experience to be far more enjoyable and streamlined to get you into the meat of the game quicker.

Level Configurations and the Save/Continue System

The version of the continue markers and the save system at launch, didn’t mean our goals, and as comments showed, added confusion or frustration to the player. As that is never our goal, we have made an initial pass to address some of the frustration.

How it works now:

• During the play session, the continue markers work as progress through a map.
  
• A Save Game will save what map you are on, but not your progress in that map.
  
• Removed all A/B map scenarios. Where you save, is where you start
  
• You will now also get a mission to exit the area to help guide you when an area is complete

Finally, we want to add that we are actively working to add a better solution for a “Town Portal” system in future updates. Stay tuned!

General Improvements

As with any update, there are a number of various fixes throughout the game to smooth out. This update is not different. Below you will find a number of fixes within the update that did not exactly tie into any of the above larger improvements.

Detailed Change List

Navigation

Bosses

• Stopped Uriah from trying to path into the Wilderness Near Kir-Hareseth boss fight
  
• Moved Genubath's spawn to make sure he does not get stuck
  
• Fixed the colliders on all the bosses that are giants or enlarged

Brook Besor

• Fixed up the navigation at the beginning of the map
  
• Fixed captive entities so they run out of the doorway correctly
  
• Fixed the David follower who was having trouble pathing

Baal-peor

• Fixed a portal issue at the end of that prevented followers from entering mini-boss character area

City of Jerusalem

• Adjusted navigation and a building collider near a set of stairs so FIVE followers to do not get hung up/have trouble pathing
  
• Moved ambient spawner that was located off the APEX grid in the marketplace area, these enemies now spawn and behave correctly

Rabbath-Ammon

• Updated navigation

City of Azekah

• Fixed the navigation grid on one of the archer towers and the navigation grid near a brazier in the barracks, player should no longer be able to walk off the grid at the archer tower

City of Nebo

• Fixed the navigation so the player can reach the first cache
  
• Turned off the highlight on destructible weapon boxes when destroyed

Helam

• Collision fixes

Fixed minimaps for:

• Valley of Salt
  
• City of Aqaba
  
• Rabbath-Ammon
  
• Cave of Adullam
  
• City of Azekah
  
• City of Gibeah
  
• City of Gath
  
• City of Rabbah

Engine Upgrade

• Upgrade from Unity 4 to Unity 5
  
• Updated RTP to v3.3 (Terrain system)

Localization Support (COMING SOON!)

• Implemented back-end support for upcoming localization efforts

Combat Visual Improvements

• Updated material reference of thrown pots (Shammah abilities)
  
• Prayers that are active will now display an icon under the hero health and status
  
• Added icons with tooltips to the buff/debuff bar for whenever a character ability is used
  
• Icons also go away when buffs expire
  
• Added FX for when a character uses a prayer ability
  
• Updated buff abilities to have prayer FX corresponding to the character that uses the buff
  
• Assigned new hit VFX to boss attacks
  
• Created unique hit effects for Bear Trap and Conduit to the Lord
  
• Assigned hit VFX to critical field in all FIVE abilities and attacks
  
• New VFX for critical hits
  
• Added/Adjusted camera shake to abilities
  
• Updated NPC attacks with appropriate HIT-VFX (orange splash)

User Interface Changes

• Ability bar changes to improve readability of your character’s health and stamina
  
• Moved the mini bar from the upper-left of the screen down to within the new ability bar

Auto Equip within the character sheet has had an overhaul, try it out!

• NEW – Select from Offensive, Defensive or Utility Auto Equip
  
• Re-factored the calculations
  
• Fixed a few instances of using percentages incorrectly
  
• No longer using player stats for most calculations, it caused doubling up of numbers for already equipped items

Start of Game Alterations

• Valley of Elah - Cut down on number of enemies
  
• Cave of Adullam - the cave is a shorter experience, focusing instead on the story moment of the Lion encounter.
  
• Gibeah - the first of the stealth encounters was too long and was intended to be more of an introduction of what is to come, rather than a full map of the gameplay. We have now reconfigured it to be more as we initially intended, a taste of stealth and what’s to come with Ariella.

Level Configurations and the Save/Continue System

• New missions to let you know that you’ve completed all missions within the map, it’s time to move on.
  
• When you save within a map, you will reload back to the beginning of that map.
  
• No more saving in a secondary map and starting way back at the beginning of a primary map!

General Improvements

• NEW – There is a new selected character “ring” that is added to the foot area of the character you are playing. This maintains the color designation, but also gives a touch extra ability to identify who you are controlling.
  
• Fixed VO issues in Rabbath-Ammon: Abishai, Jashobeam, Shammah
  
• Fixed Brook Besor minimap
  
• Stopped most of the ISR army from ramming their shoulders into teen Abishai
  
• Unified floating tooltips
  
• Map Marker Tooltips have been updated to reflect Act and Level number
  
• Fixed game screen showing after load screen escape from welcome screen
  
• Adjusted distortion on 2 of Goliath's abilities
  
• Adjusted a number of treasure chests found throughout the entire game.
  
• Adjusted tent dissolve shader so it doesn't begin slightly burnt
  
• Set all character projectors to ignore background layer as well as object layer
  
• Updating mission reward XP to account for the loss of enemies and the removal of the Ariella Items mission XP.
  
• Fixed the text of several abilities that was off, specifically various ranks had incorrect titles and descriptions
  
• Updated all character circle projectors and materials, new textures/mats to support correct falloff to fix projector issues.
  
• Fixing minor UI bug where the level text would overflow because of the horizontal alignment
  
• Added color tinting to the party member left side portraits
  
• Updating art on the user ability bar.
  
• Made changes to tarp texture
  
• Added color shifting to the bottom ability bar
  
• Ragdoll of enemies has been updated to be more impactful
  
• Fixed Old Shepherd following you in Valley of Elah - all the way to the cave
  
• Fixed texture on cache
  
• Fixed volume saving issue
  
• Updated destructible vase prefabs to get rid of wonky scaled one with incorrect destructible component
  
• Initial steps taken to support various languages, expect those options in near future
  
• Fixed issue that was preventing users from changing the key bindings
  
• Put in a check within the SteerForPath component to prevent queuing an additional path request when a current request is still pending - This will help reduce the spamming of path requests in event arenas
  
• Removed the mission reward from the signal fires mission/event in En-Gedi Ridge
  
• Removed mission reward from the philistine captain mission in Village of Bethlehem
  
• Updated ground click ping
  
• Moved crit roll before animation so a different anim can be played on crit
  
• “Elite” enemies have had their treasure drops adjusted
  
• Added Goliath's 2H Sword from Goliath. Now Benaiah can use the artifact that drops immediately.
  
• Fixed Barakel's arrow summon reticule

Genubath Improvements:

• Minions no longer get hung up if hit by a state effect when trying to run out of the arena
  
• Minions also now RUN out of the arena instead of sometimes casually strolling out of the arena
  
• Fixed bug preventing player from using their standard attack from destroying the fallen towers.
  
• Updated timing for Genubath's 'charged swipe' VFX
  
• Updated material used in Genubath's landslide ability

Bread

• Bread icon now shows up properly on fresh load (first time loading from the title screen)
  
• Bread icon doesn't flash all the time
  
• Bread icon updates once Manna bread is unlocked
  
• New Ability Bar bread icons are in
  
• Fixed bread cooldown issue

Baal-peor

• Hooked up sounds on the Moloch statues
  
• Fixed issue with twitching enemy right before the mini-boss
  
• Fixed a spawner issue

City of Aqaba

• Added missing mission to the start
  
• Reduced number of ambient spawns at the start of

City of Jerusalem

• Fixed navigation near the bridge event so the player cannot walk of the right ledge

City of Azekah

• Reworked the mission so player cannot burn the tents while they are supposed to be burning the barracks
  
• Removed distortion sprites that were showing up as black squares

City of Gath

• Fixed the delay on the 'Heralds of War' mission complete, so the last set of refugees can run away properly

Wilderness Near Kir-Hareseth

• Fixed visibly blocked chest
  
• Fixed treasure chests not dropping loot
  
• Adjusted the Melech/Tahrea fight so the player is only awarded loot when both bosses are defeated

City of Gibeah

• Updated the text visuals on levels exit
  
• Added in the new stealth encounter cinematic at the start of the level, adjusting scripting as needed to make room for the cinematic

Cave of Adullam

• Fixed Shebitku so he drops the correct amount of treasure on death
  
• Moved Chest (from the boss arena to right before it. The player now opens the chest before engaging in a fight with the Giant Egyptian)
  
• Updated the text visuals on levels exit
  
• Re-worked Cave of Adullam scripted events to be more efficient

City of Rabbah

• There were two chests really close to each other, moved the first one back to the middle of the map, farther away from the second chest.

Patch 2 Hotfix (1/21/2016)

• Helam- Altered final cinematic so that movement is not restricted in following level.
  
  
• Fixed soldier robovoices in Eleazar intro comic
  
  
• Fixed missing cache VO
  
  
• Reimported loot data to remove 75% evasion items
  
  
• Fixed Edomite Shawl icon
  
  
• Fixed destructibles not dropping currency

Patch 2 (12/22/2015)

Enemy Adjustments

Overall many of the enemies you will face in the adventure, have been modified and tweaked to better represent the difference between the various styles. This can range from Hit Points to damage and critical % chances. Be wary as you venture forth…

Tower Shield Entities

• Now correctly use their "Hunker Down" ability

Added VFX to archetype enemies

• Berserker leap
  
• Berserker combo attack
  
• Dragoon spear jump

Alchemist Archetype

• Fixed it so alchemist can't be killed upon activating death explosion ability
  
• Fixed targeting so death explosion will hit both enemies and friendly, not just friendly
  
• Added alchemist specific VFX
  
• Fixed VFX so they will persist after his untimely demise!

Spread Shot Archetype

• Spread shot enemies now turn in place, they'll face the player and continue attacking instead of remaining stationary

General

• New VFX will activate under members of the FIVE who have fallen in combat.
  
• New Game Start Loading Screen and all loading screens altered to a new style
  
• Added the new "Donation Comics" that are unlocked via the Donation Takers.
  
• David no longer becomes invulnerable after multiple deaths
  
• Cloth armor icons better resembles style when worn
  
• Ambient and Environment sounds turned off during comics
  
• Moved icons under fog layer and fixed icon referencing issue
  
• Miracle Stone "Pillar of Fire" item tooltip had wrong title ("Flames of Fire"). Corrected title tooltip.
  
• Edomite cloth armor icons updated to better reflect actual armor
  
• Enable tooltips for minimap icons
  
• Tent objectives are now properly highlighting when the player has the quest to burn them
  
• Distractions pots size has been reduced to not look like a watermelon being thrown.
  
• Switching to a member of the FIVE who is defeated at the same time, no longer pauses the game indefinitely
  
• Fix to menu dropdowns being left on screen if escape was pressed while in options.
  
• Fixed bug causing some keys not to be reassigned properly thus not updating ability bar with change.
  
• Fixed a bug where missions beyond act 1 were not giving out money awards
  
• Fixed a bug with donation allowing an item to be donated more than once.
  
• Loading Screen tweaks to improve placement and readability of information

Heroes

• Added disabled icons for the inventory and ranked abilities buttons
  
• Added sounds to Shammah's cut scene in Act 2
  
• New trail VFX colored for enemies for most enemy basic attacks
  
• New color-coded projectiles for sling, bow and javelin
  
• Sling should look proper on character sheet
  
• Armor skinning textures fixed on various pieces
  
• Updated melee attacks that had weapon trails
  
• Changed the action bar so that ranked abilities can be brought up when playing as the teens

Ability Adjustments

The focus of most of these changes was to adjust the abilities that have no cost to use, yet do comparable or more damage than abilities that do have a stamina cost.

Abishai

• Aimed Shot: Damage buffed to be brought more in line with Shammah's Charged Shot. Now starts at 150% damage and scales to 200% damage. Old values were 120% to 145% damage.

Benaiah

• Bite of Vengeance: Damage nerfed. Starts at 50% damage and scales up to 60% damage per strike at max rank. Ability used to be 60% to 85% damage per strike.
  
• Cleave: Damage down 10% across all ranks, from 100% damage to 90% damage at max rank.

Jashobeam

• Quick Attack: Slight nerf to max rank damage and a buff to base rank damage. Max rank down to 40% damage per strike from 45% damage per strike. Base rank up to 32% damage from the old value of 25% damage per strike.

Shammah

• Spread shot: significantly nerfed from 7 shots at 100% dmg down to 5 shots at 45% dmg at max rank. Ability now starts at a base of 3 shots and 35% damage, ranking up the ability now increases the amount of shots and the amount of damage alternating each level.

Uriah

• Line in the sand: buffed to deal more damage, from 150% to 200%. Tooltip also updated to show the damage it deals. Uriah lacks AoE abilities so we're scaling up the one he has.

World

Act 2

• Adding fire icon VFX for a mission indicator to help guide players to the brazier
  
• Lowering the collider on the most southwestern siege tower so it does not interfere with player navigation.
  
• Fixing the navigation around sheep fences so the player paths through the fences and does not get stuck behind them
  
• The siege of Keilah and other interactive elements of gameplay

Act 4

• Prisoners are now represented with one mm icon which turns from pinging to static when player arrives in slave pens
  
• Turned off highlighter for prisoner icons
  
• Checkpoint added to Goliath the Gittite fight
  
• Removed some ambient spawns around merchant checkpoint
  
• A sound plays when clicking on the slaves to free in Heralds of War

Act 6

• Removed pots from the rooftops of buildings which would cause loot drops that the player couldn't reach
  
• Fixed some loose collision around north facing cliff that allowed players to fall off
  
• Fixed a bug where Enos arena failed to reset if the player left the
  
• Freed some donation NPCs that were embedded in cliff walls

Act 9

• Added some dynamic blockers to prevent the player from leaving the arena during the boss fight.
  
• Fixed bug 5268 - Couldn't complete 2nd scout outpost if played in a different order.
  
• Moved unreachable cache

Act 10

• Ulam should prove to not be a pushover any longer

Act 11

• Final boss gates are now correctly lowering after Zaham is defeated
  
• Israelite soldiers are now correctly deactivating if the player skips the Uriah cinematic
  
• Cleaned up collision in the valley outside the camp to make it easier to navigate
  
• Adjusted location two FIVE caches that were previously out of player reach
  
• Remphan had his visuals updated to look more as intended
  
• Some adjustments to loading levels from map table in Zion
  
• Blessing Givers will not eternally “ping” the minimap
  
• Fixed a bug where Zaham's damage values were flipped
  
• The Map Table mission script will not end early any longer.
  
• Update to world map level fixes display of number of found caches

Patch 1 (12/11/2015)

Highlights

• Follower Combat AI – The follower FIVE heroes will be far more interested in engaging the enemy
  
• Several locations have had their navigation cleaned up

Equipment

• Item Values added to Tool Tips
  
• Tint mask adjustments for various armor pieces

Zion

• Map Table adjustments to user experience
  
• Fixed a map that would on occasion allow a user to become stuck in limbo when loading from Map
  
• Zoom and ESC while using the map table should behave as intended now
  
• Quiz Adjustment (Question had a vague choice for an answer)
  
• Cave Story wall will not properly give tooltip to Act being highlighted
  
• Unlocked Vendors/Blessing Givers now ping the mini-map when they are unlocked
  
• Improved visual feedback for Quiz selection

Story

• Adjustments to various Voice Over lines throughout the game
  
• Naomi has a few new things to say (Added new VO for Naomi)
  
• Various Mini Map adjustments for map to be closer to actual locations
  
• Lots and lots of smaller issues resolved in all levels. From small sticking points, to new sounds added to events
  
• Update mini-map for prisoners of war mission
  
• Pigs of war mission no longer completes until after Eder’s dialogue is complete
  
• There is now music and fire sounds during the ending cut scene of 2.5
  
• Weapon crates now play sound when collected
  
• Several NPC characters have changed their clothes to better represent their personality
  
• David should no longer keep his picture around when he has left the group
  
• Well of Bethlehem now makes a sound when you collect water from it
  
• Some tents would not burn correctly, they are now properly flammable!

Combat

• Alchemists have been adjusted and are a bit more explosive
  
• Blessings have had their visuals modified
  
• Enhanced balance and stability within targeting system
  
• Some balance changes for Buffs, and leveling out a few overpowered abilities. Reduce any iWIN buttons
  
• Resolved some issues where character defeat was not behaving properly
  
• Splinter shot had its VFX adjusted to be correct with design
  
• Bread counter added to ability bar (Yay)
  
• New incapacitated effect will be applied to any of the FIVE who are defeated in combat
  
• NEW Voice Over to let you know you are out of Stamina when trying to use an ability
  
• Adjusting Hammer Slam cooldown
  
• Explosive Shot AoE size adjusted
  
• Explosive Trap AoE size
  
• Increased length of Shammah's pot throw abilities (Hornets’ Nest and Disease) to better match the particle

General

• Resolved an issue with map fog choking up the CPU
  
• Escape menu should behave normally and not show where it shouldn’t
  
• User can no longer open the area map(Tab) while paused
  
• Player is informed if they do not have enough shekels to purchase an item
  
• A certain chicken has become a bit more crazy…
  
• Loading screen adjustments for placement of information
  
• Fixed contention between “on death” animations and last animation before death
  
• Fixed aesthetic issues identified with swapping ISR and JEB clothing
  
• Sounds added for various object interactions
  
• Sound now plays when eating bread
  
• Fixed issue with Event context reset values after a game load/restart
  
• New game will properly reset donation values
  
• Fixed a bug when exiting the comic viewer, sometimes causing the game to get stuck