Upgrades, Outcasted, Royale, and more.

Hi all, exciting things are happening this week on Kovaze. 𝗨𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽 The Upgrade Shop is now live where you can purchase upgrades for your accounts! More upgrades will be coming in the future. We've heard some of the feedback on the prices of the current upgrades, but we want account upgrades to be a gradual and rewarding process. For now, we want upgrades to remain valuable. 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 A major Outcasted update will go live in 32 hours. The update will apply to all active games but should not be too distruptive to the existing gameplay. For those in an Outcasted, consider this a twist, and use this time to adjust your strategies accordingly. - Idols (and future advantages) will now be hidden inside of a map with 64 locations. - 8 of those locations will be the beach, where you can fish for food for your tribe. - There will be a water well to collect water for your tribe. Water will give you energy to search for idols and hunt for food. - Each game will have its own weather that changes throughout the day. The weather will range from 0 to 44 Celsius (or 32 to 111 Farenheit). - Hotter weather means you will have to drink more water! - When fishing, you are not always guaranteed a catch. The game will only announce successful catches. The game will not announce if you actually went fishing or if you went to search for an idol instead. - A hungry tribe will lose tribe morale, reducing their competition scores. The idea: we want Outcasted to feel like the real show, and that's exactly what we're hoping with this update. You will have to work with your tribe to collect enough food to ensure your tribe stays healthy, but if your tribemates are secretly hunting for idols when they should be fishing, your tribe will inevitably become hungrier and weaker. Other changes (this will not affect existing games): - Game size increased from 16 to 18 to allow for 3-tribe games. The Outcasted Update will be explained in more detail on the day, and we'll be here to answer any questions you may have! (Note: Some of the changes listed here may be tentative). 𝗥𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲 Royale will launch on the 25th of January (in 6 days). As this game is very large, we are doing a *soft* launch so we can assess the game in a low-risk environment. This will mean that we will be limiting the cast size for the first game, selected by a public draw (a reaping? 😱). The game shouldn't take long to finish though, and we'll open it up to the public immediately afterwards. For those not selected, you'll be able to watch the game and place your bets! More on this soon. 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝟳 With everything coming out this week, we're pushing sign-ups back by a week or two to not overwhelm everyone. As you may have heard, the theme for this season will be Traitors Inspired. The public will be heavily involved in this season, and will help our cast catch the traitors by banishing one of their sacrificial offerings! 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 The next competition to update will be Lucky Drop. We're aiming to make the game more fun and interactive by adding some pinball style flippers that you can control which will give you a bit of agency in the game. We've also been made aware of the Guitar bug with notes not registering on Mobile, and after some investigation, it seems this is an issue with iPhones preventing you from tapping 5 spots at once, however it seems you can fix it by enabling it on your phone's settings. We'll investigate this more and look into it, and if you have an iPhone feel free to join the investigation! 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀 We’ve recently been made aware of new websites launching that attempt to replicate the reality-game concept using AI web building tools. We have not been able to verify the safety and security of these platforms, and ask that you do not mention them on Kovaze. Remember to be diligent when signing up to any website, ensuring the proper practices are implemented to protect you and your data. Kovaze's codebase consists of over 150,000 lines of code, and a fully self-managed virtual server with DDOS protection and Scraper Bot prevention. AI cannot reproduce the level of cyber security required to protect you from the ever evolving threat of hackers. Remember to trust and support real Computer Scientists! 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 We're always looking for talented individuals that are interested in contributing to the art, animation, and development on Kovaze. We've reached out to some of you prior, and will reach out again soon. If you would like to contribute to Kovaze through your talents, whether it's for art or as a freelancing job, feel free to reach out to us! That's all from me, see you soon :)