Abandon Ship news & patch notes

Ahoy Captains! We thought we'd keep you in the loop about our plans as it's been a while since our last update: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/551860/view/3672159223604827173 This October will mark our 5-year anniversary of the full release of Abandon Ship, and you'll know from our other anniversaries we like to give away free updates that coincide with them, so we're planning on doing something similar later this year. Recently we've been busy on our new game, which releases today. You may recall in our last free update one of the new ships was themed around this new game: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/373a805bfa86ba744bc336cb1186074fa9a8f079.png We thought that if Abandon Ship was giving a shared-world nod to SENTRY, then it was only fair that SENTRY returned the favour, so we hid a piece of Cult-themed graffiti in one of the levels: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/bc40b3595ac0099f714495c3077688c98ab1ad65.jpg A bit of fun? Or a hint towards the MCU-equivalent for Fireblade Software? Anyway, do check out SENTRY if defending spaceships is your sort of thing. Oh and we've heavily discounted Abandon Ship - I like the idea that when we launch a new game, we also have a sale on our previous games as a sort of studio celebration. Since we're only 2 games in to our journey, consider this the start of a tradition :) Thanks for all the support, and we'll see you in the Autumn... The Abandon Ship Crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png

Ahoy there Captain, you should be sure to check out all of the excellent games in the fest that Valve are currently running: Pirates versus Ninjas! What's more, you can grab Abandon Ship for 70% off - show them ninjas who's boss! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4fa4d7d65378d19fe2f58352b9d3683b6684cdfd.jpg

We are excited to announce that we are once again supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Oceans Day! The WDC World Oceans Day Sale is already live and runs until 15th June, 10am PDT 2023, and you can save a fin-tastic (groan) amount of money on loads of awesome games. We will also donate some of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/484207824d8b0c0369650daabadce646e36403ba.jpg WDC, Whale and Dolphin conservation (UK registered charity no. 1014705) is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins. Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by:

• Stopping cruelty from deliberate harms such as whaling and captivity.
• Creating safe seas, free from the threat of pollution, collisions with vessels and accidental entanglement in fishing gear.
• Winning recognition of whales and dolphins as sentient, socially complex beings, and our allies in the fight against climate and nature breakdown.

Whales and dolphins have suffered from terrible harm - deliberate and accidental - and their homes and populations are under threat. But it's not too late. Together we can still help them recover and flourish and they can help us reconnect with the wild, and repair the damage we have caused. If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://whales.org/ You can find many other amazing games in the sale here: https://bit.ly/OceansDaySteamSale23 Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/73a70c60393d03657583307561052f71ccdc1685.jpg

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/fed7550490e427cfa7210763a335482c823ce179.png Ahoy Captains! Rewind 5 years to February 2018 and we released Abandon Ship into Early Access, so we thought it appropriate to mark the occasion with a new free update. The night we launched, we shot to 4th in the Global Top Seller charts, which was an amazing accomplishment for our little micro-studio to achieve on its debut title.

What’s new?

We’ve added three new ships to the game, meaning since our full release we’ve now expanded the roster with 15 free ships! Here’s what the latest additions look like: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/2dcda34207d128c804e01ff9ec4ef25393a74dc7.png The left and centre ships are of the Cutter and Schooner classes, and to acquire their blueprints you’ll need to capture them intact once you’ve encountered an enemy version. The right-most vessel is a Warship class, and cannot be attained in the usual fashion. This one is unlocked upon completing a special event that has an accompanying achievement. For those that have been following our work, you may find this particular ship oddly reminiscent, and that’s because we’ve based it on the player character from our upcoming game SENTRY. Here’s some concept art of that new ship alongside a model of a SENTRY for comparison: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/1e23d177b547591262cdd2938763daaae5f86c43.png Because this is a special case ship, you won’t see any enemy with this skin; it’s a player-only vessel. As to where the event is located, I won’t spoil anything as I know some of you are very good at detective work :) If you’re interested in learning about SENTRY, you can check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252680/SENTRY/ We’ve also done some other small updates which you can find listed in our patch notes. For existing owners, if you see the version number has updated in the main menu to 1.3.19921, you have the latest build. Thanks for the continued support! The Abandon Ship Crew PS – here’s our social links if you’d like to be kept up-to-date on our latest news: Twitter TikTok Facebook YouTube Discord Instagram Website You can also follow our studio’s page on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/firebladesoftware/

We're very happy to be hosting the third iteration of the Guildford Games Festival on Steam, which runs from December 1st through to the 5th. All of the games on Steam developed in the GU postcode area can be found on this page, many with discounts so it's a great opportunity to pick up some deals! Click on the image below to be taken to it: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/f9c720c956db8269993c21a1471adc9afd73e1f0.png Just like in the 2020 and 2021 versions, the page artwork contains nods to local landmarks (this time the castle and statue on top of the cathedral feature heavily) as well as plenty of references to the games made in Guildford. Here's the artwork from previous years:

2020:

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/97752700678621626c905ce5f2020cc0d1afe089.png

2021:

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/db7beffe392f44f3010c98b2590c43b6344ff975.png There's an unusually high concentration of games studios in Guildford and it has a rich gaming history, so it's awesome to be able to showcase these all in one place. If you'd like to find out more, you can visit the guildford.games website.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/70e7964cdd21874f8c4fb9233280b89892e6ebce.png Abandon Ship is in the War Child Steam Sale from 24-31 August! A % from every copy sold will go to War Child, which supports children affected by war in Ukraine, Yemen, DRC, CAR, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Check it out here, get some games and feel good about supporting a worthy cause: https://bit.ly/GameAction (you can also click on the banner at the top of our Steam store page while the event is active)

This patch is to fix a bug that was raised on the Steam forums about an issue with the Devilrock tutorial. If the player triggers the Devilrock event in the port, then opens up the Ship Management menu and removes all the mortars from their deck, then enters the event as usual they would become stuck.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/57b2b68cac957a5339ca9ef2ed4bc2cca98ff21c.png Ahoy Captain, As we mentioned here, we're updating the game with some of the additions from our recent ports - the first of this is some general bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug with the AI demanding surrender. The option to choose surrender meant the player received a reward instead of a penalty.
• In the Haunted Revenge quest (in the Shattered Empire region) only three of the four gates would bar. This meant you could escape the map when you shouldn't have been able to.
• Polish translation polish - 4 missing strings have now been localised, about 280 minor spelling, grammar, capitalisation corrections.
• Fixed some broken quotation marks on newsletter names.
• Added new newsletter names, removed hard bounces and unsubscribes.
• Made the Fireblade Software logo on the main menu a clickable button that opens the Steam overlay and a browser to our studio Steam page.
• Added a capsule to show our latest game.

If you see the version number has updated in the main menu to 1.3.18410, you have the latest build. As we continue working on the Abandon Ship ports we'll implement some of the new features from those back into the PC version - that may be a while, as we're juggling those plus our new project SENTRY - busy times for such a small team as ours! Thanks, Gary, Adam & Alex

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/3956dc1205158bd7231c6a4521934d939b81975d.png Ahoy there Captain! We've updated our soundtrack with a bonus song. For a recent trailer we thought it'd be cool to do our take on a classic sea shanty - but of course this being Abandon Ship it had to have a dark twist on it >:) You can find the soundtrack from our composer Aaron Miller here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/848370/Abandon_Ship__Official_Soundtrack/ If you already own it, then the new song should automatically download. If you'd like to hear the song, here's the trailer with it on: (If you're interested, we talk a little about how the mobile versions will impact the PC here) We're hoping to have a small update for the PC version soon! Thanks, Gary, Alex & Adam

We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Oceans Day! The WDC World Oceans Day Sale runs until 13th June, 10am PDT 2022, and you can save a fin-tastic (groan) amount on Abandon Ship - we'll be donating 50% of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.* {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/d08852b4406a3dc0c8d2469da7ab1e3c821b1f37.jpg WDC is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins. WDC defends these remarkable creatures against the many threats they face by fighting to stop whaling, end captivity, prevent accidental entanglement and deaths in nets and create healthy seas. They also advocate for the vital role that whales and dolphins play in fighting climate change and keeping our planet healthy. Their vision is a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free. If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://uk.whales.org/ You can find many other amazing games in the sale here: https://bit.ly/OceansDaySteamSale Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/210245d66abc772eff36911224dd0d271c1e2105.jpg *50% of our net developer revenue from this sale will support Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Whale and Dolphin Conservation is a UK registered charity (no. 1014705)

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/8770f376a7d8dc276d8f040ea88fa7baf474d53d.png Ahoy Captains! Along with our partners from PID Games, we’re pleased to announce that Abandon Ship is coming to new platforms! First up is the mobile version, which you can pre-order from the Apple Store here and the Google Play Store here. There's a few reasons we're posting about that on Steam:

• There's been some features for the new platforms to do with optional crew automation, camera zooming and panning in combat that if they're suitable, we'll look to getting in the PC version.
• Spending more time on the game has flushed out some obscure bugs we'll port across to PC.

The latter point is something we'll look to do sooner rather than later, while the introduction of new features is hard to plan for right now, as we're a tiny team juggling both this AND our new game SENTRY, which will imminently release its announcement trailer. A lot of work has gone into the ports so they remain faithful to the original version, retaining the art style, fidelity, framerate and gameplay. You can check all this out in the trailer here: Keep an eye on our various channels for more port-based announcements (I'm sure you're curious about other platforms, but we can't say anything... yet)! Thanks, Gary, Adam and Alex {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/21bca34f61e24012401019cf9bdf38112bf3db8d.png

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/27477d5d121f30d788cdbbb7ed43a230a33546d4.png Happy Halloween, Captains! We thought we'd surface to remind you about a particularly spooky part of the game that you may wish to revisit...

The Haunted Seas

The Haunted Seas revolves around the story of a Captain with a tragic past, lured to Death's own realm for past deeds. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/fd6811e613e57258b9681817df198eab35fe90f6.jpg Once you've entered the area the normal rules don't always apply, so expect to navigate environments unlike ones you'd usually encounter... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/41d966564c838c88b0a69a8094575bf2698331e7.jpg Some of which are actively hostile and will seek to crush you: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/77f550ce9dfbf0e96fdee287a7d75f1b9907bca2.jpg You may find yourself trapped in maze-like warrens, or maps that require a riddle to be solved to allow progress: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/9256f81cabd0c878197fefdd2d077454fd602018.jpg Your main adversary are the ghostly vessels that prowl these dark waters: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c7350495fdc230ad1fed4c6e35e2c75f0ee1f86b.png (Remember that you can equip these ship blueprints/skins if you can capture them intact!) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c9f23aa30771535aba28baab4cc3273b02b28159.png These ships are manned by soulless automatons, individually weak, but can be resurrected by the tough Wraith-Captain, so for players who like anti-crew tactics, focus your fire on the leader. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/68bbbbc121098672ba2ab50763f84bb87b439790.jpg Each of these ghost ships comes equipped with a special Mortar: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/2a8d42ca435d30e86cf20707f4892a51467fad78.jpg Once the shells detonate on your deck, they spawn a horde of weak zombies - make sure they don't swarm lone crew members. As if Ghost Ships weren't enough, there is also a Zombie Kraken stalking one of the maps: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c30d74ab797ab3145863a6887b25672d485308a8.jpg

How to reach the Haunted Seas

You can choose to access this realm in either the main game or via a standalone story. For those who wish to dive into a 2-hour(ish) self-contained story, choose "The Haunted Seas" option from the New Game option on the main menu. If you're in the main game and you've got past Act 1, the world map opens up. Sail toward the north-west corner and you can gain access to the Haunted Seas here: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/20ee69e412578ec88354349a159c1c0299dd3fc3.jpg Then visit the port of Mox-Mortis and commence the side-quest. As with all of our side-stories and the main game, they cross over in interesting ways - so it is possible to obtain the Ghost Mortar weapon for yourself if you successfully escape the Haunted Seas and then visit a secret location elsewhere in the world.

Other Horror-themed areas

If you're in the mood for more horror-themed areas, visit Duskvale in the Shattered Empire region - and if you crave a particularly oppressive and insidious expedition, visit the Spider Islands. This entire area is permeated with arachnids of all shapes and sizes, huge webs trailing between islands: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/55dc49d6108892539af756a6cdb7191f2a41476d.jpg In battle, giant spiders descend on both ships, a constant threat that makes battles particularly dangerous: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4d11d366543286ff32029139dab7c330262c066e.jpg If you suffer from arachnophobia, perhaps best steer clear of this region! Happy Halloween, From the Abandon Ship crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4acebf28c8ee9615a2a2258a62513aaa30441fbd.jpg

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/43facfee95bc085e38754d8dfabebeba1c8128c7.png Ahoy Captain! Earlier this year we celebrated our Early Access anniversary by giving away some free ships, and as it's been 1-year since we released version 1.0, we're doing it again! Here are the three new vessels we've added in this latest free update: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/ad4341e233da8f1239a10d319bab9b5e59ba09a4.png These correspond to the Frigate, Galleon and Cruiser classes, so if you come up against one in battle and manage to capture it intact, you can equip it's visual blueprint and command it yourself. To continue with the celebrations, the game is 50% off for a Daily Deal, so move quick to snap it up - it won't be discounted this much for a while. To check you have the latest version, the number in the bottom-right corner of the main menu should read "1.3.14934" or later.

Best Micro Studio Nomination

Fireblade Software has been nominated for the best Micro Studio category in the Develop Star Awards! This has been a lovely surprise, especially to be nominated among such other fantastic micro-studios. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/6dbd29d2927ca96754c32338be7d9269a90b7c17.jpg

What's SENTRY?

You may have noticed on the Abandon Ship page a mention of this, which is our new game! It's very early in development, and while we'll eventually have a snazzy announcement trailer we thought we'd put our work-in-progress up on a Steam page. It shares some interesting elements with Abandon Ship that may not be initially apparent, so check it out - and if you're interested or want to stay updated on our progress, smash that Wishlist button ;) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252680/SENTRY/ {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png Stay safe out there Captains, and thanks for all the support! The Abandon Ship crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/5815c5bb8c7fab26e6931fc6b9781fc49c67085a.jpg

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/da656ee67d8731ec42160a31218b4540c8d6b58d.png Ahoy, me hearties! With "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" rapidly approaching, what better time to provide an update on goings-on at Fireblade Software HQ :) To get in the pirate-themed mood, I suggest listening to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBmpDE9-0A4&t=34248s&ab_channel=SUPERSKRAT

Incoming Update

We've got a small update that we're planning on releasing late October. It's got some cool free content we're sure you'll enjoy and we'll probably time it to coincide with our one-year anniversary of full release. If you want to get your name in the game as a randomly generated crew-member, there's still time to make that update, so if you're interested read the following for all the details: https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/3025727250385485868

What next?

We're splitting our time between Abandon Ship and our new super-secret project. We've not shared anything on that yet but if you're curious to learn more, your best bet for an early notification is to follow us on our developer page here: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/firebladesoftware We'll also have some more Abandon Ship-related news to share when the time is right, but I'm reminded of the phrase "loose lips sink ships" so will keep schtum ;) Hope you're all keeping well in these weird times. 2020 can walk the plank! The Abandon Ship Crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4fa4d7d65378d19fe2f58352b9d3683b6684cdfd.jpg

We've added more improvements to the Simplified Chinese, Polish and German translations. We've also fixed a bug in a quest where a new Friend or Enemy could be displayed incorrectly.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/e23ca3983a59ffe3d9e1ee3a1e9f00b6a1613294.png Ahoy Captains, We hope you are all well in these exceedingly strange times. We've added Polish to the game, which we're really happy about because it was an oft requested language. This joins our roster of the following supported languages - Simplified Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Turkish, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese! We've also taken the opportunity to add some fixes and improvements to German and Simplified Chinese, so thank-you to those who have submitted feedback. We're still improving both of those languages, so there will be more fixes to come later in April. If you have any feedback on any languages, you can post about them in this sub-forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/ For Polish feedback, there is a dedicated thread created by our translator here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/3100105561263864253/ Stay well everyone! The Abandon Ship Crew

Note - this post originally appeared here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/3100105561264326785/ We're re-posting it so that it appears in the correct "recently updated" section in the Library, otherwise you would have to search the forums to see it. We've added the latest Simplified Chinese translations, completing this language. The work-in-progress Polish translations have been made available, approximately 50% of the text has been translated. Finally, we've made some adjustments to Japanese and Simplified Chinese that should make the text much more legible in the UI boxes. While this doesn't solve every single instance, in general the text is much more readable where previously it was too small.

Note - this post originally appeared here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1752401163881328237/ We're re-posting it here so that it appears under the "recent updates" section, otherwise you'd need to search the forums to find it. To celebrate the 2 year anniversary of our Early Access launch, we've released three new ships to fight against and equip once you've captured their blueprint. We've also made some other changes/improvements/fixes, the full list is as follows:

• Changed Galleon health from 8500 to 8000 (this now sufficiently differentiates it from its neighbour classes)
• Game Language can now be changed via the in-game Settings menu
• Added new Sloop, Corvette and Man O War ship variants
• Fixed the Ship names database becoming broken after the first time it is used (so the ship name was defaulting to "Ship")
• Possible to get extra crew on a particular outcome of the "No Food" event even if you had maximum crew already. This was because the "Gain Friend" node didn't have the check for any room on the ship upon entry to the node.
• The key rebinding option menu now has tooltips.
• Added latest newsletter names and removed unsubscribes and hard bounces.
• Minor text fixes across multiple languages, lots of Spanish text improvements and new Chinese lines.

Note: We're re-posting our post full release patch notes that were originally logged in the forums. This post originally appeared here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1638675549005813704/ Added a failsafe check to our loading clean-up code to ensure it runs even if the first attempt fails.

Note - this post originally appeared here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1694969361104233456/ It has been duplicated here so it shows up in the appropriate section. We collected a handful of hot-fixes and updated the main branch with them. If the version number in the bottom-right corner of the main menu ends in 13338 or later, you have them in your game. The hot-fixes are:

• Puppet Master Achievement was not registering correctly
• You can now flee in shallow water combat arenas
• Increased Cult Timer
• The "Wait" button now shows the current time of day
• The Marines Dodge skill was rising too high, so this has been lowered. The Surgeons Heal skill was rising too low, so this has been raised
• Cutting the winch is slightly faster, and on automatic winches it will cease the overboard crew being winched in (giving you a greater chance of cutting them adrift)
• There was a gender specific term used in a message that didn't work if the player chose a female captain (this has been fixed in English, translated versions to follow in a future update).

We'll be keeping an eye on the forums/Discord for any other important issues that need hot-fixes. The other reported items we're working on will be packaged into a future Major Update along with new content.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/ed6961b0b354b3faadbcfb3e604a3c9009e9adb4.png 各位船长大家好 我是桑城汉化组的组长，这一次我们与“弃船逃生”的开发团队联手，推出了全新的汉化。目前我们已经完成了全部文本的翻译，接下来会逐步改善之前的文本，由于之前由部分志愿者所做，所以可能质量较为参差不齐，完善难度较大。因此我们希望与此同时玩家通过以下渠道进行反馈： 桑城汉化组 steam组 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/sangchenghhz 弃船逃生 steam讨论区 https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/ 为以免部分玩家无法使用社区功能，之后将发表有关steam评测进行收集反馈。 以上 Jericol Xiao

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c5c59959bd41223a248af4353a0514ebd44253b9.png Greetings Captain! Two years ago today we launched Abandon Ship into Early Access. The night we launched we hit 4th in the Global Top Sellers charts, which was an amazing success for our little micro-studio to achieve. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/31a406c0166c04f4ce7b985bb4c09bd853745fd3.png It was an important milestone, as it allowed us to spend time on implementing everything we wanted before leaving Early Access. To celebrate, not only is the game discounted for a Daily Deal, but we've also added three new ships for you to find - they're from the Sloop, Corvette and Man O War classes - and as long as you can capture their blueprint intact, you'll be able to equip them yourselves: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/452f0770b22296a8b0d2dd2175230c27be925d71.png We've also added the latest batch of Chinese translations, a new language menu plus some other bug-fixes and polish you can read about in the Patch Notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1752401163881328237/ To check you have the latest version, the number in the bottom-right corner of the main menu should read "1.2.13770" or later. Thanks for all the support! The Abandon Ship Crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/33bb6630e004c40ed090d87dffeb98f3350d1fdf.jpg

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/f2f3d7c9f81a7a09f7ecb423be2a11a81da9e0d2.png 各位船长大家好 我是桑城汉化组的组长，这一次我们与“弃船逃生”的开发团队联手，推出了全新的汉化。目前我们已经汉化了大部分游戏主要内容，虽然还有一部分剧情没汉化，但是在3月初正式汉化将推出。 与此同时，我们将持续收集玩家提供的建议，并对汉化进行改进，玩家可通过以下渠道进行反馈： 桑城汉化组 steam组 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/sangchenghhz 弃船逃生 steam讨论区 https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/ 开发团队：“We know that a lot of Chinese gamers are keen to get their hands on the game with a full translation. We're getting close now, and a lot of the text is already translated and available to play.” 以上 Jericol Xiao

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/8f349cb8bf94ec1be56d709787721f7027beb7b1.png Ahoy Captains - We've released an artbook! "The Art of Abandon Ship" has over 150 pages of lovingly crafted concept art and behind the scenes information on how the game was made. Starting with our original artistic inspiration, it covers every stage of development to the present day. If you're interested, check out the store page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1236550/Abandon_Ship__Artbook/ Below you'll find a few example pages from the book :) See you on the high seas, The Abandon Ship Crew {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/917722aa554c51bf4f92e3e93a3a591da013c59f.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/6fdbdc4c0b4c99b028d2091f6f0dfb0c542464bc.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/65775dc9e5668d14c4efc56c78e72e9c340521d7.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/71afb83a28660ff7f858e54d4573d2b665eb413e.png PS - Lots of people ask, but don't worry - new Chinese updates are on the way, our translators are working hard through the over 165,000 words in the game!

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/ea205336427f51c746ec325abc6027537dd0e700.png Greetings Captain, We've just added Japanese and Italian languages to the game. These join our already supported translations for Russian, German, French, Spanish, Turkish and Brazilian Portuguese. Chinese is next on the list, with just over 40% of the text in-game translated. As we have over 165,000 words it takes a while, but it is coming. Keep an eye on this post for translation progress: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/3726075043726578031/ Korean, Polish and Dutch translations are being done by the community, and they could always do with extra help - if you're interested, there are more details in the following link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/1693788384130852300/ In the next few weeks, keep an eye out for the release of our Art Book - you can see a sneak preview below. It's got over a hundred pages packed with amazing concept art, behind-the-scenes images and information about how we made the game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/de896a25e9cdde89b0c747aa0b7d4906116fd3b5.jpg We'll post more about the Art Book plus a little treat we have coming late February closer to the time. Oh, and we hope you all had a wonderful end to 2019! The Abandon Ship Crew

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/5e3dcee0eb2b0b059941e3abb28d00fc77110562.png There is an island in Abandon Ship with a solitary building on it. Sailing to its event marker will reveal entrances that require multiple codes to enter. By using clues hidden both in the game and our website the doors could be opened. Once inside, the final piece of a puzzle was revealed, allowing one person to win a special prize. That prize has now been claimed. This post is the first time Fireblade Software have publicly acknowledged the existence of this treasure hunt, and it will explain how and why we did this, along with quotes from two people – going by the handles of bytor_x86 and BeardedS0ul – that were racing to crack the code first. If you wish to complete the puzzle yourself without assistance, it’ll be best to stop reading now, as below will contain lots of spoilers. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png Back in 2016, approximately three months before we would officially reveal Abandon Ship with an Announcement Trailer, we started to create our website. We knew that players are often interested in the people who make the games they play, so we started to write “Meet the Team” blog posts. Collectively we weren’t enthusiastic about plastering our faces all over these posts, so we decided to show images of our working areas instead. When creating my post, an idea struck: what if we buried clues in the images for observant players to find? {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/473bce9bd2ad07cdd753e2cae562b11b13b9f09d.png Abandon Ship is a big game. There are over a hundred maps, each one with a unique island and event or quest. This was a very early goal of ours, and I was thinking about the sorts of things we could populate the world with. Having a treasure hunt seemed very appropriate. With thoughts of the Goonies “One-Eyed Willy” treasure, along with the James Halliday quest from Ready Player One swirling round my head, a very approximate plan was sketched out:

• That each Meet the Team (henceforth known as ‘MTT’ post would contain a clue
• In order to read the clue, you’d have to maximise the image (the post just showed a thumbnail)
• Except the first one, they should be easy to miss, only observant people would notice them
• The clues should have some sort of nautical theme or association
• You could follow these clues to access something in the game
• This would then allow you to complete the puzzle and the first person to do so would win something unique
• We wouldn’t acknowledge the existence of the clues until the whole thing had been solved

The MTT blogs were posted between August 2016 and January 2018. Within the images, either on our PC screens or notepads on our desks we had hidden Morse code, flag symbols, map co-ordinates, code that could only be broken by enigma machines and phrases (written backwards and upside down, requiring the person to flip and mirror them). The clues could be used both in-game in a special location, and combined with a secret website that would ultimately reveal an email address. The first person to message that address would win a prize. We also had two messages in a bottle that we spawned randomly around certain regions to give cryptic clues and act as the initial breadcrumbs. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/3d9ca9e54e3d111f831127d64979f20a63fc1898.jpg -- The bottles could appear in any one of 30 maps, spread across multiple regions -- With everything set up, it was just a case of seeing if anyone started following the trail we’d scattered around. We had no idea whether this would happen or not, fully expecting to have to drop a more explicit hint several months further down the line. How wrong we were. Abandon Ship graduated from Early Access on 22nd October 2019, and a few comments would crop up in our Discord, asking about the meaning of the messages in the bottle, and whether anyone had success with the barriers in the island building. A thread developed on our Steam forum, titled “Password for Barrier”. This is where several people started to make good progress narrowing things down. Talking with BeardedS0ul he explained how he took up the hunt: “After completing the story and the other modes of the game I still hadn't found the password. So I checked the steam forums to see if I had missed something that others had found. Shout out to Bytor_x86 that pointed me in the right direction”. Bytor_x86 was the first person to work out the messages in bottles referenced the MTT posts on the website: “No in-game event was about meeting a team, nor finding an assortment of pictures or images”, he said. “This made me think that I should be looking at developer profiles or something along those lines”. Once he’d discovered the correct posts on the website, the hunt was on. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/8214daaaf3af114873ae25bfb3573c7f822e5fc7.jpg The first barrier fell shortly after that, BeardedS0ul explaining “I was in the scouts as a child so noticed the Morse code right away, translated it and got an 8-letter result, just the fit for the first barrier”. With breaking the second barrier, Bytor_x86 had this to say about using the co-ordinates on one of the posts: “Google maps placed me in a park, so I went to check the list of attractions in that park, and found a statue with the name I was looking for”. Bytor_x86 originally thought at this point the treasure hunt was completed: “After unlocking both barriers and getting the remaining hidden achievement, I thought that was the end. Although the final event message was a bit open-ended, it still gave impression that victory had been achieved! Only when BeardedS0ul in Steam forums insisted that it seems to be deeper, I decided to check the images again”. While the in-game portion had thus far been defeated, the second half of the puzzle was yet to be broken. BeardedS0ul details how he used the clues in Aaron’s post to uncover the secret website: “I'm Danish and we learn a couple of different languages, German being one of them, so I recognized the words and googled them, focusing on naval and combat as this seemed to be a theme. Saw that it was about an enigma machine, its model and the settings for it. Found an emulator online, tuned the settings in and decoded the code and got a URL”. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/b81d8fbb37c4ca08dbc0481fdcdf108f10465151.jpg The next clue Bytor_x86 solved was the flag symbols: “The pattern of the flags immediately drew my attention, so tried to decode it starting with ICS flags. But those were missing some of the flags from the image, so I started looking at other sets. Eventually I found Popham's flags and I recognized the pattern”. While the clue was solved, Bytor_x86 confirmed that nobody had yet worked out how it should be used: “Figuring what to do with that was another story...” Meanwhile, BeardedS0ul was solving the remaining clue: “This one sent me for a spin. The legacy of Hashimoto… I went with a naval theme search, submarine captains and dead ends.” This forced him to take another approach: “I went back to the website and inspected its code structure to find clues. I found a reference to a plugin, so the legacy referred to was Kazuhisa Hashimoto's. I know the code by heart and typed it in and that sent me to a new page, one that asked for a login.” Only one clue had not been used thus far, and entering this as the password allowed progress to be made. But as BeardedS0ul discovered, it wasn’t over quite yet: “A new challenge, half of an email address, but could I find the rest?” That was when he recalled the final part of the in-game quest: “When you pop the achievement in game, you get an event flavour text, which contain another Morse code. Combining the two I sent the message. But did X mark the spot?” It did. On the 21st November 2019, the challenge was completed. Bytor_x86 emailed the secret address first, with BeardedS0ul doing so a mere hour later. When I messaged BeardedS0ul to say he’d missed out on being the first by an hour, he didn’t mind: “The quest and challenge was its own reward!” he went on to explain that he and Bytor_x86 had even collaborated: “We talked and helped each other. We agreed to only help people on Steam in a slightly cryptic manner so as not to ruin it for others”. But what of the prize? We wanted to commemorate this in the game, and name the island after the first person to discover it. After discussion with Bytor_x86 he wanted to use his handle, so next time you’re sailing through the Breeding Islets and navigate past “Bytor’s Rock”, you’ll know where the name came from. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/e393fbd26aebf7821e12a43c4e08e282d069ff6b.jpg

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/ca55a831a6cc48c4b7c99660251875b11d95d6c0.png Ahoy Captain, We've released a new Major Update, our first since leaving Early Access. It's titled "Blade of the Assassin" and you can read about all the exciting new additions below. Your saves from the full release version of the game will work with this update, as will those on the recent Beta Branch update from November. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png Here's all the cool new stuff:

Second Combat Campaign

Our original combat campaign was a popular game mode from our very first Early Access release. Since then we've added many more environmental modifiers, so we wanted to bring all those together into a new combat campaign. The original had randomised ports and the maps were random-within-groups, which meant that RNG could have a massive influence on a particular run. We wanted this new one to be slightly different, so while there are still ten battles with up to five port visits for you to deliberate over, this time the ports stock all weapons and upgrades all the time, and the combat arenas are in a set order, so you can plan your runs and try different approaches in battle. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/bb3321d34db473574f9558efd698aaa3aec69181.jpg Like all our game modes, the story has some cross-over with the main campaign. It focuses on the mysterious Far Haven Assassin's, and for those people who have explored some of the farthest reaches of the world you'll gain insight into a character you meet.

More Ships

We've added six new vessels for you to fight against and capture their blueprints. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/276b22d5d1f8f5cab1a1811e5a5bd7d7622fb6e4.png We've chosen ship classes that had slightly fewer variants than others, so these cover the Schooner, Brig, Frigate, Corvette, Galleon and Man O War classes.

New achievements

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c85672dac0fd38cdbd5591f22409f4d4f9070908.png There are two new achievements you can get, both related to the new combat campaign. The first can be obtained by winning the final battle, while the second is a slightly tougher challenge. The vessel in the final battle is one of the new ships we've added in the update. It's called the "Fireblade" and is named after our studio. You can only find it in the final battle on this game mode - so the achievement relates to capturing it's blueprint. Remember that you cannot obtain blueprints for ships that are of a higher class than yours, and you start the campaign with a Warship. So you'll need to save enough money to get a better ship, make it to the end and capture it intact. Needless to say it's intended as a tougher challenge ;)

Japanese & Chinese Testing

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/db02a36578238f220711ed6563601d1e6f1b15f7.png Our Japanese translation is about 90% complete, while our Chinese translation is about 40%. We've put these in the game so that they can receive testing from our community, so if you find any problems please report them on our Translations Steam sub-forum. Once these languages are 100% complete we'll mark them as officially supported, but until then please consider them as work-in-progress.

Other Notable Updates

There's a lot of minor bug fixes and other improvements, and you can read the full list in the patch notes here. There are a few noteworthy additions we wanted to call out: - If there is an environmental modifier in combat it will now be displayed as an icon with tooltip on the middle-right of the combat scene. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4c4c8ac5887c2ab87109cf541093a3ee6aee0298.png - Enemy loadout information is now displayed over the enemy section display, so hover the mouse over individual sections to see what weapons and upgrades they have. This ties into visibility rules, so if you can't see the section health, you won't be able to see their loadout. Either get closer or purchase an Advanced Crow's Nest to gain better insight into enemy vessels weapons. - We wanted to give more reasons for engaging in faction battles, so there are a few changes with this system:

• Defeating a Cult Kraken Boss will now reward you by removing a random negative mental trait.
• Defeating faction pirate ships now reduces wanted level. Handy for if you find yourself pursued by bounty hunters, low on money with no floating outposts about.
• Ports in maps under faction control will now have a small price penalty.

- We've slightly increased the costs of the last four ship classes as a lot of people were maxing out everything too early. - There's also two new monologue images in the original combat campaign! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png As 2019 winds down, Adam, Alex and I will be taking a well-earned rest - but fear not! Early 2020 has more cool things in store, including Italian, Japanese and Chinese translations plus some other things that we can't quite talk about yet, but as soon as we can you'll be the first to know :) Thanks for the support, The Abandon Ship Crew

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/9d76c7c29dba897f7582e9750beebb0a1a62d514.png Ahoy Captain, The Beta Branch has been updated with an incoming Major Update! To learn how to gain access to the Beta Branch, click on this link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/ If the number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu ends in 13531 or later, you have the correct version. Your saves from the normal version of the game will work with this, although as this is the beta branch we would at least advise you to take backups of your saves just in case there is an unforeseen issue. Better safe than sorry! Your saves folder is located in here: C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Fireblade Software Ltd\\Abandon Ship\\Saves If you start a new game on this beta branch, you should avoiding going back to a prior version and continuing that particular save. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png Here's all the cool new stuff:

Second Combat Campaign

Our original combat campaign was a popular game mode from our very first Early Access release. Since then we've added many more environmental modifiers, so we wanted to bring all those together into a new combat campaign. The original had randomised ports and the maps were random-within-groups, which meant that RNG could have a massive influence on a particular run. We wanted this new one to be slightly different, so while there are still ten battles with up to five port visits for you to deliberate over, this time the ports stock all weapons and upgrades all the time, and the combat arenas are in a set order, so you can plan your runs and try different approaches in battle. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/bb3321d34db473574f9558efd698aaa3aec69181.jpg Like all our game modes, the story has some cross-over with the main campaign. It focuses on the mysterious Far Haven Assassin's, and for those people who have explored some of the farthest reaches of the world you'll gain insight into a character you meet. We really, really need your feedback on the balancing of this campaign. Is it too easy? Too hard? If anything, we'd like it to be more of a difficult challenge for experienced players. Let us know in the Beta Branch Sub-Forum or on our Discord.

More Ships

We've added six new vessels for you to fight against and capture their blueprints. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/276b22d5d1f8f5cab1a1811e5a5bd7d7622fb6e4.png We've chosen ship classes that had slightly fewer variants than others, so these cover the Schooner, Brig, Frigate, Corvette, Galleon and Man O War classes.

New achievements

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c85672dac0fd38cdbd5591f22409f4d4f9070908.png There are two new achievements you can get, both related to the new combat campaign. The first can be obtained by winning the final battle, while the second is a slightly tougher challenge. The vessel in the final battle is one of the new ships we've added in the update. It's called the "Fireblade" and is named after our studio. You can only find it in the final battle on this game mode - so the achievement relates to capturing it's blueprint. Remember that you cannot obtain blueprints for ships that are of a higher class than yours, and you start the campaign with a Warship. So you'll need to save enough money to get a better ship, make it to the end and capture it intact. Needless to say it's intended as a tougher challenge ;)

Japanese & Chinese Testing

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/db02a36578238f220711ed6563601d1e6f1b15f7.png Our Japanese translation is about 80% complete, while our Chinese translation is about 40%. We've put these in the game so that they can receive testing from our community, so if you find any problems please report them on our Translations Steam sub-forum. Once these languages are 100% complete we'll mark them as officially supported, but until then please consider them as work-in-progress.

Other Notable Updates

There's a lot of minor bug fixes and other improvements, and we'll provide the full list in the patch notes when the update is released. There are a few noteworthy additions we wanted to call out: - If there is an environmental modifier in combat it will now be displayed as an icon with tooltip on the middle-right of the combat scene. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/4c4c8ac5887c2ab87109cf541093a3ee6aee0298.png - Enemy loadout information is now displayed over the enemy section display, so hover the mouse over individual sections to see what weapons and upgrades they have. This ties into visibility rules, so if you can't see the section health, you won't be able to see their loadout. Either get closer or purchase an Advanced Crow's Nest to gain better insight into enemy vessels weapons. - We wanted to give a few more reasons for engaging in faction battles, so there are a few changes with this system:

• Defeating a Cult Kraken Boss will now reward you by removing a random negative mental trait.
• Defeating faction pirate ships now reduces wanted level. Handy for if you find yourself pursued by bounty hunters, low on money with no floating outposts about.
• Ports in maps under faction control will now have a small price penalty.

- We've slightly increased the costs of the last four ship classes as a lot of people were maxing out everything too early. - There's also two new monologue images in the original combat campaign! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c1ee64ac0c5e64775a9bf0b9bd078594ecfea9c8.png If all goes to plan we'll release this update onto the main branch before 2019 ends. Let us know what you think in the Beta Branch Sub-Forum or on our Discord, and if you haven't yet, please leave a review - we only need 18 more to hit 500, which is an important milestone. Thanks for the support, The Abandon Ship Crew

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/c15a51490155858ff53b506cf017caaf76130423.png Hello Captains, The Abandon Ship crew would like to extend a hearty thank-you for all of the support over our recent graduation from Early Access. All the reviews, forums posts and new Captains that have joined us on this adventure make a massive difference to us, and for that we'll always be eternally grateful. This update is to announce a new language has been added to the game: German. This joins our existing languages of Russian, Turkish, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese - with more on the way! As with any translation, if you spot any errors please report them on our Translations Sub-Forum. If you'd like to know the status of our work-in-progress translations, you can check out this post here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/3726075043726578031/ So what's next? We're working on free DLC that will add some cool new content, and you can keep an eye on the post here for further updates: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/8/1694969361094739175/ Don't forget you can have your name included in the game as a randomly generated crew-member by signing up to our newsletter - full details here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/1564364251352390803 And please keep on spreading the word and leaving reviews - just another 55-60 reviews and we'd break the 500 barrier, which is an important milestone :) Once again, thank-you for all the support, you're the best! Gary, Adam and Alex. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/26759769/903c6e52f58504371b3ce8de417007ddf373509c.png