About the Game
Rebuild society. Survive the Apocalypse.
Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is a colony simulation game with tactical combat that takes place in the midst of a demon apocalypse. The gates of hell have opened and unleashed relentless demons into the world -- but you can fight back! Guide a group of survivors through the mayhem -- hiding from hellspawn and building a sanctuary. Survive by gathering resources, crafting equipment, defending your base and sending teams to scavenge for supplies. Research human technologies and practice the dark arts to find a way and send the demons back to hell.
To survive is to prevail. Will you survive Judgment day?
But you and your friends vow to fight back. You find an isolated valley and build a base, a shelter for yourselves and other survivors you may find. The Apocalypse may be here, but your hope is still strong. As long as you're alive, mankind has yet to be judged. You will find a way to save the world, send the demons back.
Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is a colony simulation game with tactical combat that takes place in the midst of a demon apocalypse. The gates of hell have opened and unleashed relentless demons into the world -- but you can fight back! Guide a group of survivors through the mayhem -- hiding from hellspawn and building a sanctuary. Survive by gathering resources, crafting equipment, defending your base and sending teams to scavenge for supplies. Research human technologies and practice the dark arts to find a way and send the demons back to hell.
To survive is to prevail. Will you survive Judgment day?
Features
- Build your base in the midst of a demon apocalypse
- Explore a randomly generated world overrun with hellspawn and scavenge essential resources
- Fight creatures of the abyss in real-time tactical combat with pause
- Level up and customize your survivors
- Craft your own equipment, tools and weapons
- Research lost technologies to unlock new structures and equipment
- Practice the occult and use the demons own dark magic against them
Story
It's the Apocalypse, the end of the world. You were camping with some friends when the invasion began. Somehow, you managed to survive and flee. Soon, however, you found that you were a few of the lucky ones. Your demon encounter was not an isolated incident. The town was aflame, it was Judgment day.But you and your friends vow to fight back. You find an isolated valley and build a base, a shelter for yourselves and other survivors you may find. The Apocalypse may be here, but your hope is still strong. As long as you're alive, mankind has yet to be judged. You will find a way to save the world, send the demons back.
Screenshots
11 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
On the site: Build 11749037
Up to date
This patch consists mostly of smaller bug fixes.
View on Steam
- Fixed issue with the multi-crafting skill where it either didn't consume any resources at all and kept crafting the same item, or crafted twice as much as intended, but then removed two entries from the queue which have already been paid for. It will now craft twice the amount of items when triggered, but remove one from the queue, so the extra one is free as intended.
- Lookout points in outposts no longer show that you get bonuses from multiple nodes. This bonus was never intended for lookout points, and was never given, but the text incorrectly indicated that it did.
- Fixed a problem that was caused during map generation, sometimes the generated map was invalid, and the game generated another one - which was invisible to the player - and slightly corrupted the save file by keeping all the objects from the original generation in a particular data set, which affected the ability to get achievements that counted objects of a certain types (like logging corporation).
- Also added a check for these corrupted saves that fixes them as soon as you load the game, so you will now be able to get these achievements even if you had one of these saves.
- When switching from resource nodes view to POIs in the world map, it will now restore your last filter.
- Fixed a bug in reordering crafting priorities - when dragging to the end of the list it would put it in the wrong spot (only happened after unlocking some quest related crafting recipes).
- Added a missing translation in non-english languages when showing that specific tasks were disabled for specific survivors.
- Fixed an issue with some log messages (at the bottom right of the screen) not appearing in Chinese and Japanese languages.
- Fixed a bug where clicking on a tile in the base opened an outpost window, if a tile with the same x/y coordinates in the world map had an outpost on it.
- Reduced a little the frequency of extra rescue missions in the Outposts DLC game mode.
- Fixed a bug that caused vegetable production to be too high in outposts when playing in Desert Survival mode.
- Fixed icon for the "terrified" status effect, it was shown as positive instead of negative
Hey all,
Another patch - this one mainly for Japanese players because their story/campaign wasn't working. I hope this is the last one for a while, but if I find out about more critical issues I'll patch them ASAP.
In case you missed it - here's the post about the latest major update (19):
https://steamcommunity.com/games/455980/announcements/detail/3709320260509453947
View on Steam
Another patch - this one mainly for Japanese players because their story/campaign wasn't working. I hope this is the last one for a while, but if I find out about more critical issues I'll patch them ASAP.
- Fixed a bug that prevented campaign & story texts from showing up when playing in Japanese.
- When selecting an enemy, the info panel now takes into account difficulty settings and shows more accurate stats. It only shows base stats, however, so it doesn't take into account temporary effects on the specific selected creature (like spell debuffs, auras, etc).
In case you missed it - here's the post about the latest major update (19):
https://steamcommunity.com/games/455980/announcements/detail/3709320260509453947
Tweaked footprint (mainly late game when you have lots of objects) and fixed a few bugs:
View on Steam
- Lowered footprint of farms from 1 to 0.5.
- Lowered footprint of buildings from 4 to 2.5.
- Lowered footprint of mines from 5 to 3.
- Lowered footprint of altars from 5 to 4.
- Fixed issue where 0% bonuses were being shown after re-rolling rescued survivors.
- Fixed bug that let you disband a taskforce when out of base and those survivors were lost.
- Fixed issue where resource nodes were not spawned when playing with Outposts DLC and Desert Survival mode. I apologize but this fix will only affect new games started after the fix.
- Fixed issue with save files from before patch 2 that had survivors that were assigned to outpost tasks and then left the outpost but remained assigned to those tasks.
This patch fixes a few issues around outposts and other new features introduced in update 19. Thank you all for reporting issues and helping resolve them.
View on Steam
- I've made both free DLCs part of the main game, so you will have the option to play them even if Steam didn't install the DLCs. You can still choose whether to use them or not whenever you start a new game. I did this because I've noticed the Steam client sometimes doesn't download the DLCs like it's supposed to, and some players played without even knowing they were missing.
- Survivors assigned to outpost tasks now gain experience, albeit at only 20% the rate that they would working on these tasks in the main base. The lower XP rate is due to them not eating, drinking, contributing only 50% to footprint, and not counting towards the survivor limit. Also, they work and gain XP 24/7, they don't spend time sleeping or walking around the base.
- Level-up notifications will now appear on survivor portraits in the outpost window.
- Fixed: injury tooltip on survivor portrait wasn't updating with correct time remaining.
- Fixed bug: When loading a save with a survivor assigned to an outpost task, you could assign the same survivor to another task without them being removed from the previous task.
- When loading a save that suffered from the previous bug, survivors will be removed from all tasks but one. Be sure to review and re-assign as needd.
Fixed a major issue when loading a game from previous builds, it would calculate the estimation of the number of times that you were raided incorrectly and make the game impossibly difficult. This would also happen if you loaded a game from the current build before you were raided, but after 10 days have passed (possible in lower difficulties).
The fix will also recognize impossibly high raid counts when you load your game and fix it, so if you've been affected by this issue it should be fixed now.
-------------------
Other fixes/changes:
- Tweaked the extra raid difficulty when playin with outposts, it will start a bit later and increase more slowly.
- Updated the OriginalConfigs included in the game installation, used as reference for modding.
- Fixed an issue that crashed when loading some saves from previous versions
View on Steam
The fix will also recognize impossibly high raid counts when you load your game and fix it, so if you've been affected by this issue it should be fixed now.
-------------------
Other fixes/changes:
- Tweaked the extra raid difficulty when playin with outposts, it will start a bit later and increase more slowly.
- Updated the OriginalConfigs included in the game installation, used as reference for modding.
- Fixed an issue that crashed when loading some saves from previous versions
Following the last update in which I updated the game engine, this patch adds a couple of fixes:
Thank you to all who reported and helped debugging these issues.
View on Steam
- Fixed an issue in which the game wouldn't run in countries that use a comma as decimal point rather than a period. The game was trying to parse our config files using the computer's locale (using a comma) and was failing because all our config files use periods for decimal points.
- Saves from previous builds are now marked as unsupported, and when trying to load them you'll see a message with a link that explains how to roll back Judgment to the previous build in order to continue your save files that cannot be loaded with the new engine version.
Thank you to all who reported and helped debugging these issues.
This fix was long overdue. Most of you won't feel any difference, but it took a lot of work to upgrade our game engine Unity from the 2016 version to a newer version that fixes issues in which the game didn't work with newer Intel systems without some hacks and workarounds.
Unfortunately, the new version of the engine is unable to deserialize saved games made with the previous build (it's a different version of .net). If you wish to continue a save made before the update, please use Steam's beta branches feature to roll-back to the previous version of the game, and return to the latest version when you're ready to start a new game. You can find instructions here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/455980/discussions/0/3767860527650318614/
In addition:
- A few small text bugs were fixed as well.
- Fixed a bug that would return speed to x1 after combat even if the setting to do so was disabled.
Upgrading a game engine is a major and risky undertaking. While the game was thoroughly tested, some bugs may have slipped past our testing. Please let us know if you encounter any issues.
If you happen to encounter major issues, you can always roll back to the previous version (see the link above)
View on Steam
Unfortunately, the new version of the engine is unable to deserialize saved games made with the previous build (it's a different version of .net). If you wish to continue a save made before the update, please use Steam's beta branches feature to roll-back to the previous version of the game, and return to the latest version when you're ready to start a new game. You can find instructions here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/455980/discussions/0/3767860527650318614/
In addition:
- A few small text bugs were fixed as well.
- Fixed a bug that would return speed to x1 after combat even if the setting to do so was disabled.
Upgrading a game engine is a major and risky undertaking. While the game was thoroughly tested, some bugs may have slipped past our testing. Please let us know if you encounter any issues.
If you happen to encounter major issues, you can always roll back to the previous version (see the link above)
https://i.imgur.com/oWfDBgc.jpg
Survivors,
It’s summer, it’s hot, and it just got hotter. A new update for Judgment is now available on Steam, with a new, FREE DLC will let you fight of demons in the Desert!
The Desert Survival DLC opens up a new game mode which takes place in the desert, and changes some of the game mechanics. The desert is more sparsely populated, so a bit harder to find places to scavenge, and as if that is not enough, your base is also much less self sufficient, at least in the beginning - so you will need that scavenge more than ever.
If you like our work, don’t forget to Wishlist & Follow our upcoming survival city-building game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1076750/Dream_Engines_Nomad_Cities/
You can also follow us on Twitter, join our Dream Engines newsletter, and come chat with us on the Dream Engines Discord server.
Desert Survival is a free DLC, anyone who owns Judgment can download and play it. Moreover, the DLC unlocks the desert game mode, but you can still play the regular “Vanilla” mode even if you download the DLC, so there is really no reason not to.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/d47075911f14466648602fac219929c9217b635f.jpg
Here are some of the Major changes when you play the desert survival mode. Read below to see what other changes we have made in the game that will affect both this new and the base mode.
All in all, the desert survival challenge is significantly harder than the vanilla mode, and we recommend it to experienced players that have already played Vanilla and are familiar with the game. We also recommend starting with “Challenging” and not jumping straight to “Tough”.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/5964fb90a7b0124c962717a80dbd27e9b97d41cb.jpg
Other than our work on the new game mode, we also went over all your feedback, and implemented several improvements and changes, many of which were requested by the community. Here are the main changes. For a full list, see below.
It's been more than 4.5 years since we started working on Judgment. Now, with this DLC, we plan to focus most of our efforts in the near future into our next title - Dream Engines: Nomad Cities (you’ve already wishlisted it, right?).
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/e2bc1406efba35cc06a354d1c056edcf4725f2d0.gif
Judgment continues to be very important to us and will always be in our hearts. We will continue to support it, chat with players in the Judgment Discord server and on the Steam forums. We will fix bugs as needed, and perhaps later down the road we will release more content updates, special challenges, or any other neat idea that may come up. But first let’s enjoy this new content, and see how well it is received by you, the valued members of our small community.
If you want to chat with us, Discord is the best place to do so, but we still regularly check the Steam forums as well. Other players in the community are very helpful, so these are the best places to find answers to any questions you may have.
Thank you all for your continued support!
View on Steam
Survivors,
It’s summer, it’s hot, and it just got hotter. A new update for Judgment is now available on Steam, with a new, FREE DLC will let you fight of demons in the Desert!
The Desert Survival DLC opens up a new game mode which takes place in the desert, and changes some of the game mechanics. The desert is more sparsely populated, so a bit harder to find places to scavenge, and as if that is not enough, your base is also much less self sufficient, at least in the beginning - so you will need that scavenge more than ever.
If you like our work, don’t forget to Wishlist & Follow our upcoming survival city-building game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1076750/Dream_Engines_Nomad_Cities/
You can also follow us on Twitter, join our Dream Engines newsletter, and come chat with us on the Dream Engines Discord server.
Desert Survival DLC
Desert Survival is a free DLC, anyone who owns Judgment can download and play it. Moreover, the DLC unlocks the desert game mode, but you can still play the regular “Vanilla” mode even if you download the DLC, so there is really no reason not to.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/d47075911f14466648602fac219929c9217b635f.jpg
Here are some of the Major changes when you play the desert survival mode. Read below to see what other changes we have made in the game that will affect both this new and the base mode.
- Your base map will be a desert biome, with a new sandy terrain and different resource distribution. Rocks are now more common while trees are less so.
- Building farms and planting trees require seeds that can only be found by scavenging.
- There are two types of trees, dead and live ones. A live tree will yield wood and seeds while dead trees only yield wood. Most of the trees in your starting map will be dead, but any tree that you plant will be live, so you will never “lose” seeds (unless you sell them).
- Farms, trees and wells can only be built/planted on the dirt parts of your baes, not on the sand.
- By default, enemies and loot contents of scavenge missions will be hidden. You will see which enemies are there, so you can estimate the tier/difficulty, but not exact numbers.
- Removed the rain dance ritual and rain collector building. You'll have to work harder to get food and water.
- A lot of balancing changes around food and water. A single survivor can handle more farms, but each farm feeds less survivors, so you'll have to work harder to gather materials and build farms, but once you do you will need more or less the same amount of survivors to feed your people.
- The world map now has desert in the center, and grass/forests are rarer. Scavenge areas in the desert are much more rare now, so you will need to search farther to find those much needed seeds and other important loot.
- By default, survivors will only eat one food type per meal, even if more are available, to conserve food. Players can change this if they want to gain multiple food type bonuses.
- New desert combat maps.
- Visual changes to some terrains and trees.
All in all, the desert survival challenge is significantly harder than the vanilla mode, and we recommend it to experienced players that have already played Vanilla and are familiar with the game. We also recommend starting with “Challenging” and not jumping straight to “Tough”.
Changes to all modes
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/5964fb90a7b0124c962717a80dbd27e9b97d41cb.jpg
Other than our work on the new game mode, we also went over all your feedback, and implemented several improvements and changes, many of which were requested by the community. Here are the main changes. For a full list, see below.
- When starting a new game, players now have more customization options, including if they want the campaign story or not, if they want to enable the intro combat, and if they want the Halloween content or not.
- A new very important setting allows players to play with loot & enemies hidden in the world map. You can still see which enemy types, but not numbers and loot. This adds some extra challenge and a random/surprise element to the game, which I personally love. These are displayed by default in Vanilla, but hidden by default in the desert challenge.
- Many UX and ease of life improvements, including around defensive positions before being attacked, destroying multiple objects and font readability improvements, and being able to better control how many food types your survivors eat, balancing food spending and bonuses received.
- Added several decorative objects that will allow you to create settlements that are more aesthetically pleasing and customized. You can also customize the appearance of objects that have several variances such as trees, beds, and the new decorations.
- Fixed several smaller but annoying bugs reported by our community.
What’s Next?
It's been more than 4.5 years since we started working on Judgment. Now, with this DLC, we plan to focus most of our efforts in the near future into our next title - Dream Engines: Nomad Cities (you’ve already wishlisted it, right?).
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/e2bc1406efba35cc06a354d1c056edcf4725f2d0.gif
Judgment continues to be very important to us and will always be in our hearts. We will continue to support it, chat with players in the Judgment Discord server and on the Steam forums. We will fix bugs as needed, and perhaps later down the road we will release more content updates, special challenges, or any other neat idea that may come up. But first let’s enjoy this new content, and see how well it is received by you, the valued members of our small community.
If you want to chat with us, Discord is the best place to do so, but we still regularly check the Steam forums as well. Other players in the community are very helpful, so these are the best places to find answers to any questions you may have.
Thank you all for your continued support!
Full Change List
- Mechanics [Community Request]: There is now an option to hide the exact enemy numbers and loot contents of scavenge missions, making the game less predictable and require more trial and error. This is hidden by default in the desert survival mode but displayed in Vanilla.
- Mechanics [Community Request]: When an attack is incoming, survivors will no longer get tired or hungry. This will allow them to prepare for the attack without having to worry about starving or becoming tired just as the enemies are about to arrive.
- Mechanics [Community Request]: You can now destroy resources to prompt more of them spawning. Beware, there is a cooldown before more can spawn.
- Balancing [Community Request]: Limited the trader cooldown for neighboring settlements to 25 days, preventing them from becoming irreperable if you decline too many help requests.
- Content [Community Request]: Made most of the halloween content a separate setting which you can toggle on/off when starting a new game. Some of the decorative content remains in the base mode as well.
- Content [Community Request]: Added decorative objects - flowers, statues and roads (they don't affect walk speed, but they can help with base planning).
- UX: You can now control how many food types your survivors eat. Instead of eating one of each enabled type to get maximum bonuses, the player can now limit how many types survivors eat to save food without having to enable/disable specific types. By default they still eat as many as they can in vanilla mode.
- UX: Changed new game user interface, allowing for more customization options.
- UX: Added a reset button to game settings.
- UX: Rain collectors now show different images depending on how full they are.
- UX [Community Request]: When a survivor enjoys bonuses from eating multiple food types there will now be an icon showing that in their info panel (when you select them).
- UX [Community Request]: When an attack is incoming, you now see a timer near the notification icon.
- UX [Community Request]: When an attack is incoming, you can now manually give the "go to defense stations" (from the colony management panel) before the game suggests it, and stay in those positions until after the attack. Useful for complex bases.
- UX [Community Request]: A destroy button has been added to the create multiple tasks menu so you can destroy many objects at once (like trees, walls). Not that you will not get resources from destroying trees this way.
- UX [Community Request]: Added an option to toggle whether speed returns to normal after battles or continues in the same speed as before the battle (different players had different preferences, this is the way to make everyone happy).
- UX: When you have a confirm window (such as the one asking if you're sure you want to quit, or if you want to send your survivors to defensive posts) now acccepts keyboard shortcuts Enter/Esc.
- UX [Community Request]: Improved our font so some numbers are clearer, especially the digit "1" and period/comma.
- UX: Can now shift + click several objects in the "create multiple tasks" tool, instead of dragging a square area (or in addition to)
- UX: You can now enable/disable mods or change languages without restarting the game.
- Visauls: Change game saturation a bit, and players can now contorl it.
- Visuals: Can now customize appearance of objects that have several random options (such as beds, trees, and many of the new decorations)
- Fixed Bug [Community Request]: fixed some issues with combat preparations and guard towers.
- Fixed Bug [Community Request]: metals and other resources will no longer spawn on the edges of the map where you can't build mines.
- Fixed Bug [Community Request]: when adding a skill that affects survivor health, their health will immediately update now, instead of having to wait until they change armor.
- Fixed Bug [Community Request]: fixed a bug where after loading an autosave in which survivors were on their way to their defensive posts, they wouldn't continue to their positions after the combat started.
- Fixed Bug [Community Request]: missing localization to the text that explains some settings can only be changed from the title screen.
Survivors,
Our latest update, 15.1, breaks away slightly from our usual pattern of releasing a major update every few months. However, we felt it was important to put the changes and upgrades in this update in your hands as quickly as possible.
15.1 introduces a few small improvements, and one total overhaul to our level-up system – with the intention of giving you a lot more flexibility and control over how you develop your survivors over time.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
A full list of changes can be found at the bottom of this post.
Existing players are familiar with the old leveling up system. After gaining a level, players will be able to select one out of three skills. Those skills were selected at random from a pool of skills when every profession has a slightly different pool to choose from. The original goal was to offer a lot of randomness and replayability – even two survivors with the same profession will end up very differently because they will have different options and paths to level up and customize themselves.
The result, however, was underwhelming – it created a great deal of imbalance between survivors, as some could specialize while others ended up being a weaker jack-of-all-trades. At times, players reported they felt they had no ‘right’ choice as they didn’t want any of the three skills – and were just leveling up so they could get to the next. It also made balancing a lot harder, especially as it was harder to predict when players would unlock key skills, such as those allowing the use of rare and powerful weapons.
The new system does away with all of that – while preserving the core balance of the old system and all the old skills. However, instead of a random pool of skills, all the skills have been arranged into fixed, linear categories, or branches. Every profession has access to 8 (out of 23) of those branches. So, for example, an engineer will have access to the construction, crafting, evasion, mining, quarrying, research, tech weapons and tools expert branches.
Every time a survivor levels up, they gain a skill point they can then invest in any of the skill branches. In total, survivors can learn up to 4 skills at every branch, with the final skill often being a ‘capstone’ skill and offering very strong abilities, unlocks or even specialization options. The final point in every category, and sometimes earlier, offer more than one option, allowing for even more customization.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/c2d71d4d6f259b4ce493c31fd36401a257e7ab00.jpg
It was important to us that we keep the element of randomness and replayability, however, so all survivors will still have their own random starting skills, that can have a very significant impact on gameplay and your decision on how to level up and customize your survivor – and whether you want to make them a highly specialized powerhouse, or well-rounded characters that can help in many different aspects of the game.
We also increased the maximum skill points from 6 to 8 (levels 5 and 6 provide 2 skill points each), so any survivor can end up unlocking two capstone skills.
The result, we feel, is more intuitive and transparent and offers a lot of room for future modability and expansion. Early feedback has been very positive and we’re very excited about the future of this system
This update was a shorter one, but we did get a chance to add some usability and quality of life improvements that you requested and weren't too big.
One of these is a neat new stat called "Efficiency", you can see it for every survivor in their skill window, or for the entire colony in the Colony Management window. This stat shows how much work gets done relative to the time spent in the base. So if a survivor has no bonus or penalty in crafting, and they spend 18 out of 24 hours crafting (the rest is spent on traveling from place to place), then they have a 75% efficiency (they got 18 man hours of work done in 24 hours). If the same survivor had a +50% crafting speed, then their efficiency would be 112% (27 man hours of work in 24 hours). This stat is a good indicator for how efficient your base economy is.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/2c44051144d8d241052a193feb48a24d0bddff7d.jpg
Other usability changes include showing more information about rituals, showing how long until an effect expires, making Night Howls give a warning before you are attacked, and a few others.
We made the extra effort to support old saves, so you can load old saved games, however your survivors will lose all the level-up skills they had. Instead, they will get skill points according to their level which you can use to purchase skills using the new system.
The new level up system is fully supported and the Modding Guide was updated. However, older mods that define level-up skills using the old system will not work properly. We expect the game will still work, however, all the changes in this area will not affect the new system. See the Backwards-Compatibility breaking changes.
Feb 17 - Fixed a bug in which performing a ritual that creates an effect (like rain dance) while the effect was already active from a previous ritual would cause the game to freeze when the effect expired.
Feb 20 - Fixed a bug in which opening a cage in rescue missions would not spawn a survivor in the edge case of getting a survivor that has a penalty in one of the tasks, and all other survivors in the game have that same task disabled.
View on Steam
Our latest update, 15.1, breaks away slightly from our usual pattern of releasing a major update every few months. However, we felt it was important to put the changes and upgrades in this update in your hands as quickly as possible.
15.1 introduces a few small improvements, and one total overhaul to our level-up system – with the intention of giving you a lot more flexibility and control over how you develop your survivors over time.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
A full list of changes can be found at the bottom of this post.
New level-up system
Existing players are familiar with the old leveling up system. After gaining a level, players will be able to select one out of three skills. Those skills were selected at random from a pool of skills when every profession has a slightly different pool to choose from. The original goal was to offer a lot of randomness and replayability – even two survivors with the same profession will end up very differently because they will have different options and paths to level up and customize themselves.
The result, however, was underwhelming – it created a great deal of imbalance between survivors, as some could specialize while others ended up being a weaker jack-of-all-trades. At times, players reported they felt they had no ‘right’ choice as they didn’t want any of the three skills – and were just leveling up so they could get to the next. It also made balancing a lot harder, especially as it was harder to predict when players would unlock key skills, such as those allowing the use of rare and powerful weapons.
The new system does away with all of that – while preserving the core balance of the old system and all the old skills. However, instead of a random pool of skills, all the skills have been arranged into fixed, linear categories, or branches. Every profession has access to 8 (out of 23) of those branches. So, for example, an engineer will have access to the construction, crafting, evasion, mining, quarrying, research, tech weapons and tools expert branches.
Every time a survivor levels up, they gain a skill point they can then invest in any of the skill branches. In total, survivors can learn up to 4 skills at every branch, with the final skill often being a ‘capstone’ skill and offering very strong abilities, unlocks or even specialization options. The final point in every category, and sometimes earlier, offer more than one option, allowing for even more customization.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/c2d71d4d6f259b4ce493c31fd36401a257e7ab00.jpg
It was important to us that we keep the element of randomness and replayability, however, so all survivors will still have their own random starting skills, that can have a very significant impact on gameplay and your decision on how to level up and customize your survivor – and whether you want to make them a highly specialized powerhouse, or well-rounded characters that can help in many different aspects of the game.
We also increased the maximum skill points from 6 to 8 (levels 5 and 6 provide 2 skill points each), so any survivor can end up unlocking two capstone skills.
The result, we feel, is more intuitive and transparent and offers a lot of room for future modability and expansion. Early feedback has been very positive and we’re very excited about the future of this system
Efficiency
This update was a shorter one, but we did get a chance to add some usability and quality of life improvements that you requested and weren't too big.
One of these is a neat new stat called "Efficiency", you can see it for every survivor in their skill window, or for the entire colony in the Colony Management window. This stat shows how much work gets done relative to the time spent in the base. So if a survivor has no bonus or penalty in crafting, and they spend 18 out of 24 hours crafting (the rest is spent on traveling from place to place), then they have a 75% efficiency (they got 18 man hours of work done in 24 hours). If the same survivor had a +50% crafting speed, then their efficiency would be 112% (27 man hours of work in 24 hours). This stat is a good indicator for how efficient your base economy is.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/2c44051144d8d241052a193feb48a24d0bddff7d.jpg
Other Changes
Other usability changes include showing more information about rituals, showing how long until an effect expires, making Night Howls give a warning before you are attacked, and a few others.
Previous Saves
We made the extra effort to support old saves, so you can load old saved games, however your survivors will lose all the level-up skills they had. Instead, they will get skill points according to their level which you can use to purchase skills using the new system.
Mod Support
The new level up system is fully supported and the Modding Guide was updated. However, older mods that define level-up skills using the old system will not work properly. We expect the game will still work, however, all the changes in this area will not affect the new system. See the Backwards-Compatibility breaking changes.
Full Change List
- Mechanics: New level-up system in which survivors that level up get skill points that they can choose which skills to improve from 8 options, that differ per profession. Some skill levels allow choosing from several options.
- Usability: Added Efficiency display per survivor and for the entire colony, that measures how much work they perform relative to time spent in base
- Usability: When hovering an unlocked ritual in the research info window (press right click on a research subject), you now see what altar the ritual is cast in.
- Usability: When hovering a ritual, you now see how long the ritual effect will last and the exact bonuses of the effect.
- Usability: Active effects (such as those created by rituals) now show how long until they expire when hovering their icon.
- Balancing: Night howls random event now has a warning before the attack on your base, just like regular base attacks
- Balancing: Settlement related events happen less often
- Balancing: Settlement help requests now give bigger bonuses to relationship when successful and lower penalties when failed.
- Balancing: Close Encounters now guarantee at least 2 tiles between survivors and enemies.
- Balancing: Made tier 2 melee enemies a bit stronger, and possessed a bit weaker.
- Content: Replaced the hellgate combat map with something much nicer
- Content: Added new special skills that do more than improve stats, such as a skill that lets survivors sometimes craft items for free, or get double yield when mining a single resource.
- Modding: Translation mods (mods that modify Texts and Help files alone) are now eligible for achievements.
- Fixed bug: Ancient Manuscript would incorrectly give science research points instead of occult.
- Fixed bug: When using the Mutate Soul ritual, survivors will no longer lose the skills they earned by reading books.
- Fixed bug: After editing task force members the info window in the bottom left did not always update immediately.
- Fixed bug: Game will no longer break when a survivor has more than 6 combat abilities.
- Fixed bug: Fixed mouse-hover feedback on flag icon in the title screen.
- Fixed bug: When enabling "approve actions", research costs will no longer be removed even if you choose not to approve.
- Fixed bug: Sometimes tiles appeared as if they were within enemy vision range but would not aggro when a survivor stepped into them.
- Fixed bug: Hovering over the "Manage" button would show the "Priorities" tooltip.
Patches
Feb 17 - Fixed a bug in which performing a ritual that creates an effect (like rain dance) while the effect was already active from a previous ritual would cause the game to freeze when the effect expired.
Feb 20 - Fixed a bug in which opening a cage in rescue missions would not spawn a survivor in the edge case of getting a survivor that has a penalty in one of the tasks, and all other survivors in the game have that same task disabled.
Survivors,
Usually we release larger updates farther apart, but we're making an exception. There's been an issue that's been bugging many of you (and us) - which is the level up system.
So here we are with patch 15.1 in the beta branch, which improves several smaller issues, but the main change we want to test ASAP is the new level-up system for survivors.
The full patch notes of this update will be published when the update is released on the main branch.
Reminder: To play on the beta branch, right click the game in the steam client, select properties, and then select "beta" from the betas tab.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
German and Chinese translations have been added and the the latest build is fully translated to these languages.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/c2d71d4d6f259b4ce493c31fd36401a257e7ab00.jpg
The "choose one of 3" system that works rather well for X-com, was feeling a bit out of sync for us. Many of the skills are just stat improvements, and not game-changing abilities, plus we have so many different skills in our game, that it just doesn't work like that.
So we changed it. Now, every level you will get a skill point, that you can use to improve one of 8 skill categories. The more you improve in the same category, the better the rewards, and at tier 4 of each category you get some special skills, more than just stats in most cases. In some cases, you may even select one of several skills when improving a category, allowing for even more customization.
Which categories are available depend on the survivor's profession, and now you can choose any of those to improve, without any RNG limitations. But it was still important for us to have a random element, because part of the challenge is to make the best of what you get, and not just use the same winning strategy every time you play. For that reason, we kept the starting skills, which tend to have a very large impact, larger than most level up skills.
We left the level 6 limit for now, and will probably increase it in the full release, although levels 5 and 6 give you 2 skill points, for a total of 8 skills you can choose, allowing you to max out 2 categories per survivor.
We hope you like it, let us know what you think.
We made the extra effort to support old saves, so you can load old saved games, however your survivors will lose all the level-up skills they had. Instead, they will get skill points according to their level which you can use to purchase skills using the new system.
The new level up system is fully supported and the Modding Guide was updated. However, older mods that define level-up skills using the old system will not work properly. We expect the game will still work, however, all the changes in this area will not affect the new system. See the Backwards-Compatibility breaking changes.
View on Steam
Usually we release larger updates farther apart, but we're making an exception. There's been an issue that's been bugging many of you (and us) - which is the level up system.
So here we are with patch 15.1 in the beta branch, which improves several smaller issues, but the main change we want to test ASAP is the new level-up system for survivors.
The full patch notes of this update will be published when the update is released on the main branch.
Reminder: To play on the beta branch, right click the game in the steam client, select properties, and then select "beta" from the betas tab.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
German and Chinese translations have been added and the the latest build is fully translated to these languages.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/c2d71d4d6f259b4ce493c31fd36401a257e7ab00.jpg
New level-up system
The "choose one of 3" system that works rather well for X-com, was feeling a bit out of sync for us. Many of the skills are just stat improvements, and not game-changing abilities, plus we have so many different skills in our game, that it just doesn't work like that.
So we changed it. Now, every level you will get a skill point, that you can use to improve one of 8 skill categories. The more you improve in the same category, the better the rewards, and at tier 4 of each category you get some special skills, more than just stats in most cases. In some cases, you may even select one of several skills when improving a category, allowing for even more customization.
Which categories are available depend on the survivor's profession, and now you can choose any of those to improve, without any RNG limitations. But it was still important for us to have a random element, because part of the challenge is to make the best of what you get, and not just use the same winning strategy every time you play. For that reason, we kept the starting skills, which tend to have a very large impact, larger than most level up skills.
We left the level 6 limit for now, and will probably increase it in the full release, although levels 5 and 6 give you 2 skill points, for a total of 8 skills you can choose, allowing you to max out 2 categories per survivor.
We hope you like it, let us know what you think.
Previous Saves
We made the extra effort to support old saves, so you can load old saved games, however your survivors will lose all the level-up skills they had. Instead, they will get skill points according to their level which you can use to purchase skills using the new system.
Mod Support
The new level up system is fully supported and the Modding Guide was updated. However, older mods that define level-up skills using the old system will not work properly. We expect the game will still work, however, all the changes in this area will not affect the new system. See the Backwards-Compatibility breaking changes.
Survivors,
Three months ago, we decided to postpone our release date to give the final material more polish. The result of that decision was our previous update, “The Neighbors”, that introduced the neighboring settlements mechanic and many other improvements and features.
In Update 14 we focused on polish and ease of life while rebalancing the skill tree and other problem areas, and adding some new content and mechanics.
In this update, we continue the polish and problem-solving trend, while still adding some new content and mechanics that we felt were missing. One of the problems we tried to tackle was repetitiveness in later stages of the game, and we did that by adding more unique items and making enemies different from one another in more than just some stats.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/2577879bc954dee05b0bb8edb08a8a72b7e17159.jpg
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
A full list of changes can be found at the bottom of this post.
Survival in the harsh world of Judgement is in no way easy, but we also didn’t want it to be predictable. We offered a wide range of equipment and abilities that can shake up combat and turn the tides of the battle, but so far it has been pretty much one-sided. In update 15 we change that.
Many higher tier enemies will now have new, powerful, passive abilities that may very well require you to change your standard strategy based on your enemy’s composition. A Succubus will create an aura that will bedazzle male survivors around it. Others will rend your armor, cause splash damage or more lasting damage than normal.
More enemy abilities will be added in subsequent updates.
One of the biggest concerns we’ve heard from you, the community, in the past few months has been concerning traders. We heard that the mechanic is not serving its purpose and is pretty much useless.
We were in a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, we didn’t want traders to be overpowered and provide an easy way for players to gain high tier equipment, making research and crafting redundant. On the other hand, we did want them to be a viable way to boost your strength, and for the arrival of traders to be something that players look forward to.
So in this update, we’ve made some changes to improve traders. First, we increased the chance of a trader offering something that the player will be interested in. Traders will now offer more items, a few of which are guaranteed to be equipment. We also changed the item selection algorithm, instead of being completely random, we now try to prioritize at least a few items that you are likely to be interested in, in your current situation. This algorithm is moddable and can be tweaked. Second, we added some valuable items that can only be acquired through trade. Last, we increased the selling price of equipment to 25%, like raw materials, so it’s a bit easier to acquire enough scrap to buy valuable equipment.
So far in the beta branch, the feedback has been positive and we believe we got this right, although we may still tweak and improve it.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/69afc1044c6f377bb0d96f0fa0a9b5937557ee96.jpg
As explained above, traders will now offer a new range of usable items that are capable of benefiting the players in numerous ways. You will find journals that allow you to retrain your survivor’s skills, get an XP boost or learn an entirely new skill. Others may gain you research points, or help you rescue additional survivors to join your colony.
In the Inventory window, there is now a new “Use” tab that lets you use these items that you purchased.
Two new combat mechanics have been added - Auras, and Splash Damage.
Auras are a passive ability that can boost or debuff surrounding units. The Succubus, for example, now debuffs male survivors around it, making them less efficient. Two new items that your survivors can wield have been added as well, providing various benefits to surrounding survivors.
Splash damage is a passive modifier that allows a unit’s basic attacks to deal a percent of its damage to other units surrounding its target. For example, the fire-spitting Caorthannach will deal 50% of it’s damage to other survivors. Shotguns will deal some of their damage to surrounding enemies as well.
We hope these new mechanics will increase the tactics involved in combat missions further beyond cover, flanking and active abilities.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/f4c87b7d54eee91d1d663a05f74dcc71e74189e6.gif
This feature has been requested many times by the community – the ability to designate ‘rally points’ for your survivors, pre-selected positions they should take when the demons invade. A new ‘Defense Planning Mode’ option in the Colony Management window, will let you view each survivor’s designated position and assign new positions.
You will also get two warnings before any imminent invasion to your base – one will be in time to recall some of your task forces back to base, and another one right before the invasion, just in time to activate the defense plan and send your survivors to their defensive positions.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/18c27f35e6095d10dce810b81d57f62eb2a81326.jpg
Another feature strongly influenced by community feedback, Temporary Damage is a new mechanic that has a meaningful effect on the flow of the game. Most of the damage your survivors receive will now be temporary. This damage can be healed using medkits or other active combat abilities and is also automatically healed as soon as the fight is over.
A smaller percent of that damage will be longer term ‘Lasting Damage’, and can only be healed by resting at your base or by using medicine at the infirmary. Natural healing has also changed a little, survivors will no longer regain health while working, however, they will regain health much faster while sleeping.
This new mechanic allows you to engage in multiple fights in distant biomes before being forced back to camp, making exploration less tedious but also deeper strategically, as you now have to carefully consider your survivor’s health both inside and outside of combat.
You can read more about this in our Dev Diary post.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/b8c448a4afb01dc2b2c4ffd638d660e7b5024e8f.jpg
Every update we deal with the arduous task of making Judgement both challenging yet rewarding. Whenever a new mechanic or new content are introduced, we have to make sure they don’t make the game too easy or too hard, and we always strive to improve our difficulty curve to be gradual and make sense.
There have been many changes under the hood in Update 15, many of them aimed toward the mid and late game, something that will become even more important as we get closer to the full release of the game that will be longer with more content.
We reworked the random enemy generator used for scavenging, defense, rescue and much more. It is now more flexible to control, and we used that flexibility to make the difficulty curve more gradual and scale better.
As always, we also offer a wide range of visual updates and improvements. There have been improvements to many structures and doodads such as barrels and bodies, and you should see this mostly in new the slums biome maps. We’ve also improved the blackish fog that covers the world post-demon-invasion.
Another new feature will make all armor worn by survivors visible in the game view, although this can be disabled via the options menu if you prefer to see the customizable clothing of your survivors.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/58aba1d9c17141a8a200206a600f464c0bb248a4.jpg
We’ve updated the modding guide to match our latest changes and explained some of the previously unexplained mechanics around the enemy generator algorithm. We also included in the latest build pretty much all the configuration files that were previously not included, such as those configuring the random events and the possible portrait combinations for survivors you find. Most of these are not yet covered in the guide but feel free to check the original files and ask us questions (preferably through our Discord Server) if you don’t understand something.
In addition to our effort in improving Judgment we have some other company news as well. A new team member, Harel, has joined us and taken over many of the design, marketing, and community management aspects.
We also recently launched a new Discord Server which you are welcome to join. We are very easy to reach through there, and you’re welcome to chat with us, other survivors or leave feedback / bug reports. We have a Settlement Name Poll going on right now, where you can offer names for settlements that will be added in the full release.
Last, we have a new Suncrash Website. The old one was looking pretty bad, outdated, and was using tools that made it hard to update. The new website is much simpler and was built internally using only HTML, CSS and Javascript (with the bootstrap framework).
Happily, the changes in Update 15 allowed us to continue to support older saved games, from Update 14. You should be able to continue your previous saves without any issues, even most of the balancing changes should easily catch up once you update.
Many mods written for previous versions should be able to work with this new update as well, but some, especially those adding or modifying world map biomes or difficulty settings will need to be updated. Also, any mods adding enemies or items in tiers higher than those we have in the game will need to make some updates to support traders and the new enemy generation algorithm. See here for a list of backward-compatibility breaking changes.
Older versions of the game are available through the "Betas" tab of steam (right click the game in the library, choose properties, then the betas tab, and select the version you want from the drop-down).
View on Steam
Three months ago, we decided to postpone our release date to give the final material more polish. The result of that decision was our previous update, “The Neighbors”, that introduced the neighboring settlements mechanic and many other improvements and features.
In Update 14 we focused on polish and ease of life while rebalancing the skill tree and other problem areas, and adding some new content and mechanics.
In this update, we continue the polish and problem-solving trend, while still adding some new content and mechanics that we felt were missing. One of the problems we tried to tackle was repetitiveness in later stages of the game, and we did that by adding more unique items and making enemies different from one another in more than just some stats.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/2577879bc954dee05b0bb8edb08a8a72b7e17159.jpg
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
A full list of changes can be found at the bottom of this post.
More Unique Demons
Survival in the harsh world of Judgement is in no way easy, but we also didn’t want it to be predictable. We offered a wide range of equipment and abilities that can shake up combat and turn the tides of the battle, but so far it has been pretty much one-sided. In update 15 we change that.
Many higher tier enemies will now have new, powerful, passive abilities that may very well require you to change your standard strategy based on your enemy’s composition. A Succubus will create an aura that will bedazzle male survivors around it. Others will rend your armor, cause splash damage or more lasting damage than normal.
More enemy abilities will be added in subsequent updates.
Traders 2.0
One of the biggest concerns we’ve heard from you, the community, in the past few months has been concerning traders. We heard that the mechanic is not serving its purpose and is pretty much useless.
We were in a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, we didn’t want traders to be overpowered and provide an easy way for players to gain high tier equipment, making research and crafting redundant. On the other hand, we did want them to be a viable way to boost your strength, and for the arrival of traders to be something that players look forward to.
So in this update, we’ve made some changes to improve traders. First, we increased the chance of a trader offering something that the player will be interested in. Traders will now offer more items, a few of which are guaranteed to be equipment. We also changed the item selection algorithm, instead of being completely random, we now try to prioritize at least a few items that you are likely to be interested in, in your current situation. This algorithm is moddable and can be tweaked. Second, we added some valuable items that can only be acquired through trade. Last, we increased the selling price of equipment to 25%, like raw materials, so it’s a bit easier to acquire enough scrap to buy valuable equipment.
So far in the beta branch, the feedback has been positive and we believe we got this right, although we may still tweak and improve it.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/69afc1044c6f377bb0d96f0fa0a9b5937557ee96.jpg
Usable Items
As explained above, traders will now offer a new range of usable items that are capable of benefiting the players in numerous ways. You will find journals that allow you to retrain your survivor’s skills, get an XP boost or learn an entirely new skill. Others may gain you research points, or help you rescue additional survivors to join your colony.
In the Inventory window, there is now a new “Use” tab that lets you use these items that you purchased.
Auras & Splash Damage
Two new combat mechanics have been added - Auras, and Splash Damage.
Auras are a passive ability that can boost or debuff surrounding units. The Succubus, for example, now debuffs male survivors around it, making them less efficient. Two new items that your survivors can wield have been added as well, providing various benefits to surrounding survivors.
Splash damage is a passive modifier that allows a unit’s basic attacks to deal a percent of its damage to other units surrounding its target. For example, the fire-spitting Caorthannach will deal 50% of it’s damage to other survivors. Shotguns will deal some of their damage to surrounding enemies as well.
We hope these new mechanics will increase the tactics involved in combat missions further beyond cover, flanking and active abilities.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/f4c87b7d54eee91d1d663a05f74dcc71e74189e6.gif
Defense Planning
This feature has been requested many times by the community – the ability to designate ‘rally points’ for your survivors, pre-selected positions they should take when the demons invade. A new ‘Defense Planning Mode’ option in the Colony Management window, will let you view each survivor’s designated position and assign new positions.
You will also get two warnings before any imminent invasion to your base – one will be in time to recall some of your task forces back to base, and another one right before the invasion, just in time to activate the defense plan and send your survivors to their defensive positions.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/18c27f35e6095d10dce810b81d57f62eb2a81326.jpg
Temporary and Lasting Damage
Another feature strongly influenced by community feedback, Temporary Damage is a new mechanic that has a meaningful effect on the flow of the game. Most of the damage your survivors receive will now be temporary. This damage can be healed using medkits or other active combat abilities and is also automatically healed as soon as the fight is over.
A smaller percent of that damage will be longer term ‘Lasting Damage’, and can only be healed by resting at your base or by using medicine at the infirmary. Natural healing has also changed a little, survivors will no longer regain health while working, however, they will regain health much faster while sleeping.
This new mechanic allows you to engage in multiple fights in distant biomes before being forced back to camp, making exploration less tedious but also deeper strategically, as you now have to carefully consider your survivor’s health both inside and outside of combat.
You can read more about this in our Dev Diary post.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/b8c448a4afb01dc2b2c4ffd638d660e7b5024e8f.jpg
Difficulty Curve
Every update we deal with the arduous task of making Judgement both challenging yet rewarding. Whenever a new mechanic or new content are introduced, we have to make sure they don’t make the game too easy or too hard, and we always strive to improve our difficulty curve to be gradual and make sense.
There have been many changes under the hood in Update 15, many of them aimed toward the mid and late game, something that will become even more important as we get closer to the full release of the game that will be longer with more content.
We reworked the random enemy generator used for scavenging, defense, rescue and much more. It is now more flexible to control, and we used that flexibility to make the difficulty curve more gradual and scale better.
Visual Updates
As always, we also offer a wide range of visual updates and improvements. There have been improvements to many structures and doodads such as barrels and bodies, and you should see this mostly in new the slums biome maps. We’ve also improved the blackish fog that covers the world post-demon-invasion.
Another new feature will make all armor worn by survivors visible in the game view, although this can be disabled via the options menu if you prefer to see the customizable clothing of your survivors.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/58aba1d9c17141a8a200206a600f464c0bb248a4.jpg
Modding
We’ve updated the modding guide to match our latest changes and explained some of the previously unexplained mechanics around the enemy generator algorithm. We also included in the latest build pretty much all the configuration files that were previously not included, such as those configuring the random events and the possible portrait combinations for survivors you find. Most of these are not yet covered in the guide but feel free to check the original files and ask us questions (preferably through our Discord Server) if you don’t understand something.
Other company news
In addition to our effort in improving Judgment we have some other company news as well. A new team member, Harel, has joined us and taken over many of the design, marketing, and community management aspects.
We also recently launched a new Discord Server which you are welcome to join. We are very easy to reach through there, and you’re welcome to chat with us, other survivors or leave feedback / bug reports. We have a Settlement Name Poll going on right now, where you can offer names for settlements that will be added in the full release.
Last, we have a new Suncrash Website. The old one was looking pretty bad, outdated, and was using tools that made it hard to update. The new website is much simpler and was built internally using only HTML, CSS and Javascript (with the bootstrap framework).
Previous saves and mods
Happily, the changes in Update 15 allowed us to continue to support older saved games, from Update 14. You should be able to continue your previous saves without any issues, even most of the balancing changes should easily catch up once you update.
Many mods written for previous versions should be able to work with this new update as well, but some, especially those adding or modifying world map biomes or difficulty settings will need to be updated. Also, any mods adding enemies or items in tiers higher than those we have in the game will need to make some updates to support traders and the new enemy generation algorithm. See here for a list of backward-compatibility breaking changes.
Older versions of the game are available through the "Betas" tab of steam (right click the game in the library, choose properties, then the betas tab, and select the version you want from the drop-down).
Full Change List
- Mechanics: Some of the damage taken in combat is now temporary damage, that is automatically regained after battle.
- Mechanics: Combat healing abilities can now only heal temporary damage and not lasting damage.
- Mechanics: Some items may now be used outside of combat for different bonuses.
- Mechanics: You can now perform "Defense Planning" that lets you pre-determine where each survivor needs to be when preparing for combat, and activate that combat plan when necessary.
- Mechanics: Added an aura mechanic, where some enemies and items provide bonus or penalty to units around them.
- Mechanics: Added splash damage mechanic, some enemies and weapons deal a fraction of their damage to other units around the main target.
- Mechanics: We've made some enemies more unique by doing more lasting damage than others, applying status effects on their targets, having auras that provide bonus to alies or penalties to enemies, or deal splash damage.
- Mechanics: You now get two warnings before combat, one that should give you some time to return some task forces to help with the defense, and the second one before the attack happens to give you some time to position your survivors for battle.
- Usability: Status effect (green and red arrow) icons no longer block clicks (like attack commands, selecting the creature under them, etc).
- Usability: You can no longer build on the map edges, because enemies spawn there and building there would cause them to spawn inside your base.
- Usability: You can now see which tier and how rare each item is. These affect its price, and strenght of weapons/armor, and when they appear in loot.
- Usability: When a survivor is attacked while idle (not attacking or moving, most commonly melee hiding behind cover), the survivor will automatically turn to face one of their attackers, so they don't get flanked unecessarily. They may still be flanked if attacked from several directions.
- Usability: Skills that allow survivors to equip rare weapon of a certain type are now labeled correctly. Previously it seemed that no weapons of that type could be equipped without the skill which caused confusion.
- Usability: The game now warns when changeing Anti-Aliasing settings that this may cause some recording software to become stuck.
- Usability: Can disable crafting stations, to prevent survivors from walking to remote areas for crafting (mostly useful for food table)
- Usability: Added an option that requires confirmation before performing a research, choosing a skill or using an item in the base. Enable from the options menu.
- Usability: Confirmation windows now appear on top of other windows instead of closing them.
- Usability: Now displaying "Can Equip" bonuses in separate lines in the skills window.
- Visuals: The armor that a survivors wear now determines their appearance in the game. Can be disabled if you prefer to see the clothing you selected.
- Visuals: Replaced the overall pants with another model, due to it being ugly and other technical issues.
- Visuals: Tweaked survivor body texture because they were too bright compared to the portrait colors.
- Visuals: Color tweaks to increase contrast.
- Visuals: Improved the fog.
- Visuals: Improved slums combat maps appearance dramatically.
- Visuals: Increased variety of barrels in combat map.
- Visuals: Increased variety of crossed bodies in combat map.
- Visuals: Tweaked dark angel a bit, making it darker.
- Balancing: New algorithm for choosing items that a trader offers, so that they offer more items that the player is likely to want at that given time.
- Balancing: Trader item tier now depends on player's own research tier, instead of game day.
- Balancing: Improved enemy generation algorithm to provide more control and allow us to create a more graduate difficulty curve.
- Balancing: Removed the "Enemy Difficulty" difficulty setting, that affected what types of enemies you would encounter. Use enemy progression and enemy stats difficulty settings instead.
- Balancing: Amount of loot (per stack) in scavenge now scales better with combat difficulty.
- Balancing: Reduced amount of resources requested by neighbors.
- Balancing: Shotguns now deal splash damage.
- Balancing: Lich now deals splash damage and applies a chill effect on its targets.
- Balancing: Succubus now has an aura that debuffs nearby male survivors.
- Balancing: Caorthannach now deals splash damage with its fire spitting attacks.
- Balancing: The Demon's attacks now apply a rend armor debuff that lowers survivors' armor.
- Balancing: Added some more low level loot options.
- Balancing: There are now always
- Balancing: Made imps and fire imps a bit stronger (increased their accuracy)
- Balancing: There are now more tier 1 scavenge opportunities in grasslands and less tier 0, when you get a bit further away from base.
- Balancing: Reduced the amount of equipment found while scavenging while increasing raw materials. There's still plenty to be found.
- Balancing: Made "rare" weapons and armor (those that required a skill to equip) a bit stronger to better reward having those special skills.
- Balancing: There are now guaranteed to be a few scavenge positions right next to the base with very easy fights (for that scavenge step in the campaign that is required to unlock the rescue mission).
- Balancing: Made some starting skills impossible for some professions (like Engineer and Brute, since most of the Engineer's benefits are around base work, while brute reduces work speed across the board).
- Balancing: Resources that require building mines to gather them will no longer spawn too close to the map edge (since you can no longer build there)
- Content: Added a few items that can be used outside of combat to give a survivor some skills that cannot be acquired otherwise. These items can only be bought from a trader.
- Content: Added a few items that can be used outside of combat to give survivor an XP boost, or reset their skills. These items can only be bought from a trader.
- Content: Traders now sell items that provide science or occult research points.
- Content: Added trader-only items that can spawn rescue missions.
- Content: Added more combat maps for Urban, Suburbs and Slum settings.
- Fixed bug: When an item had no sell price (like wood), you couldn't undo purchasing it because it was disabled in the sell window.
- Fixed bug: Limit survivor level to 6 (increasing above 6 was not doing anything anyway, only confusing)
- Fixed bug: When applying multiple effects on an enemy that would cause their walk or attack speed to be below 0% they would actually become faster. There is now a minimum movemenet speed of 0.1 and attack speed of 0.5
- Fixed bug: In some resolutions the game day would not be visible the load game screen
- Fixed bug: Sometimes when opening a help page it would be scrolled down unecessarily.
- Fixed bug: The research window scrolled down too much below all the research subjects.
- Fixed bug: Using combat abilities on patrolling enemies will now be considered as an attack and cause the enemies to become aggressive.
- Fixed bug: Defender profession now behaves like fighter in regards to preferred tasks.
- Fixed bug: There was no animation when using the training grounds.
- Fixed bug: A pathfinding glitch that could cause survivors to take a non-optimal path, which in turn caused the survivors to walk back and forth indefenitely in rare scenarios.
- Fixed bug: When priorities window is scrolled down and then survivors leave the base, then the window would open scrolled down unecessarily.
- Fixed bug: Healing in the infirmary would show incorrect numbers and use more medicine than was necessary in some cases.
- Fixed bug: Disabling environment effects would not work properly after switching from base to map and back.
- Fixed bug: Priest had 4 stalwart skills instead of 3, and only 2 dark weapons.
- Fixed bug: Survivors didn't heal while sleeping.
- Fixed bug: The same random seed would generate different results when used right after launching the game vs after playing and quitting back to main menu.
- Modding: Difficulty settings now have a separate configuration file, and some of their syntax has been changed.
- Modding: Can now configure the chance for the game to spawn male or female (or other types added in a mod). It's possible to create a female only or male only mod.
- Modding: Localized special survivor names so they can be localized as well
- Modding: Added remaining original config files to build, such as those responsible for random events and selecting default portraits for new survivors.
Update 15 is now available to everyone on the main branch.
Greetings survivors! Come around the campfire, we have important news.
We have just released Update 15 to the Beta Branch. Update 15 is a significant milestone for us: it is not only the first major update of 2018, it’s also part of our drive to polish the game and our mechanics towards final release. Update 15 contains a lot of additions and balancing, mostly based on community feedback.
As usual, we are counting on you, the community, to help us test Update 15, so we can bring it to the larger public as soon as possible.
The full patch notes of Update 15 will be published when the update is released on the main branch, but we want to give the highlights of what you will see if you update to the beta branch.
Reminder: To play on the beta branch, right click the game in the steam client, select properties, and then select "beta" from the betas tab.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
Edit: German and Chinese translations are now available for this version as well
A host of changes and improvements to traders, which will now offer the players more exotic items, including training manuals that will grant unique skills, special equipment and even XP boosts. A new algorithm will ensure the traders will offer more useful items according to the current situation of the colony.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/7786542f30cd56cdd421a6014aba19aa032f1566.gif
Survivors will now suffer temporary and lasting damage during battles. All temporary damage will be healed automatically after each fight, allowing task forces of survivors deep in enemy territory to act more often before they must return to base and heal.
You can read more about the history and thoughts behind this change here.
The demon host has evolved, and is now more varied and dangerous than ever. Some enemies may rend your armor, cause you more lasting harm, pierces through your defenses, and other characteristics that make the different types of demons more unique. You will be required to constantly think on your feet. With this, and the new aura and splash damage mechanics, combat just became a lot more tactical.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/e787a57c67e64df8335b1c767ba9c2b11315254e.jpg
A new "Defense Planning Mode" in the Colony Management window will allow you to assign ‘rally points’ for your survivors, and activate an alarm that will send all survivors to their stations when an incoming attack has been sighted.
Your survivor’s avatars will now visually display the armor they have equipped. This feature can be disabled from the options menu if you prefer to see the customizable clothing.
View on Steam
Original post
Greetings survivors! Come around the campfire, we have important news.
We have just released Update 15 to the Beta Branch. Update 15 is a significant milestone for us: it is not only the first major update of 2018, it’s also part of our drive to polish the game and our mechanics towards final release. Update 15 contains a lot of additions and balancing, mostly based on community feedback.
As usual, we are counting on you, the community, to help us test Update 15, so we can bring it to the larger public as soon as possible.
The full patch notes of Update 15 will be published when the update is released on the main branch, but we want to give the highlights of what you will see if you update to the beta branch.
Reminder: To play on the beta branch, right click the game in the steam client, select properties, and then select "beta" from the betas tab.
Want to stay up to date? Subscribe for updates
You can also follow us on Facebook or join our Discord.
Edit: German and Chinese translations are now available for this version as well
The Store is Open
A host of changes and improvements to traders, which will now offer the players more exotic items, including training manuals that will grant unique skills, special equipment and even XP boosts. A new algorithm will ensure the traders will offer more useful items according to the current situation of the colony.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/7786542f30cd56cdd421a6014aba19aa032f1566.gif
Temporary Damage
Survivors will now suffer temporary and lasting damage during battles. All temporary damage will be healed automatically after each fight, allowing task forces of survivors deep in enemy territory to act more often before they must return to base and heal.
You can read more about the history and thoughts behind this change here.
Demon Evolution
The demon host has evolved, and is now more varied and dangerous than ever. Some enemies may rend your armor, cause you more lasting harm, pierces through your defenses, and other characteristics that make the different types of demons more unique. You will be required to constantly think on your feet. With this, and the new aura and splash damage mechanics, combat just became a lot more tactical.
http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/19085862/e787a57c67e64df8335b1c767ba9c2b11315254e.jpg
To Your Stations!
A new "Defense Planning Mode" in the Colony Management window will allow you to assign ‘rally points’ for your survivors, and activate an alarm that will send all survivors to their stations when an incoming attack has been sighted.
You Can Keep Your Chain Mail On
Your survivor’s avatars will now visually display the armor they have equipped. This feature can be disabled from the options menu if you prefer to see the customizable clothing.
Current Release
Build 11749037
Uploaded Oct 07, 2026
System Requirements
OS
N/A
CPU
2.0 Ghz
RAM
8 GB RAM
GPU
Dedicated Graphics Card with 2GB memory - Onboard cards not supported
How to Install
1
Download all files
2
Extract the .ZIP file to a folder (use WinRAR or 7-Zip)
3
Run judgment.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Archive password
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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Download Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation for free. Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is a Indie released by Suncrash.