Dear Backers,

We are back from vacation and hard at work in this surprisingly hot Danish Summer. Since we are not used to that here in Denmark, the office turned into a real sweatshop - air conditioned offices are not the norm here (insulation is).

Despite the heat we have managed to make good progress with the game and are implementing the next features on the rollout plan.

We recently put out a small hot fix update for JAF, to get rid of some of the worst bugs that were reported following the big update.

We have collected the feedback we got from backers on both Steam, feedback mails directly from the game and the JAF forum and summed it up to give a better overview. Not all of the feedback and suggestions are there, but that doesn’t mean that it is not noted down :)

See the list here: Bugs, Suggestions, Feedback Overview Round 2

Our next immediate goal is to get a build ready for Gamescom, which we can use to show off the game to journalists. The build will include some of the features for the next big update, which is planned for the end of August, so the journalists can get a quick preview of what’s to come. 

Competitions Winners

As you all know we decided to prolong the modding competition to get more entries and to give the level designers a bit more time to work on their levels.

Item design competition

We got a fair amount of entries for this competition unfortunately not all of them could qualify as they were more or less a text with a photo attached, which means we would need to spend a lot of time working on the image to make it fit. Like our other competitions there is a chance that other entries than the winners make it into to game.

The winners for this competition was decided by the team

• Dinosaur Plush (Nakano) - Wins a Wireless Headset + Item in the game  
• Ivan Bear (Shanga) - Wins a Mouse + Item in the game  
• Espace Wreck (Grim) - Item in the game  

Dinosaur Plush:A certain dinosaur not anyway related to the annoying, pathetic, furry and purple dinosaur which is, by some, thought to be hung, shot and run over. This green dinosaur should be loved instead.

Ivan Bear: A cuddly bear, dressed up in what appears to be a Soviet uniform. Counter-propaganda at its best...

Espace Wreck Board Game: Set in the isolated trunk of an ancient french car lost in the graveyard, players lead a small army of armored Termitetinators in a ferocious fight against hordes of ants, gin stealers!

We picked the Dinosaur Plush for its subtle reference to JA2 and the questionnaire you get to answer when creating your IMP.

“A certain, annoying, pathetic, furry, purple dinosaur should be:

• 1. Held up as a loving role-model for children's morals and values.
• 2. Hung from a tree.
• 3. Hung from a tree and shot.
• 4. Hung from a tree, shot, gutted and run over by a Buick.”

We probably have to do a few tweaks to the images and their description to make them fit, but overall they should stay close to what has been submitted.

A special thanks to Grim for submitting a lot of items in good quality, let’s see if more than one of them make it into the game.

Here is a quick view of some of the other items we received :)

Krasnodar design competition

The design of Krasnodar was a major task that only 3 backers took on. Grim, Shanga and Claudius. Both Grim and Shaga have been busy with their levels the last two weeks, but to keep the competition fair, we decided to only count the entries up until July 14th. However, with the current improvements on Shanga’s and Grim’s maps we have decided we are going to implement both of them in the actual game and tweak them to fit accordingly :) 

The level designers decided the winner for this competition.

• 1. Grim - Wins a Wireless Headset + A Mouse + Sector in the game 
• 2. Shanga - Wins a Wireless Headset + Sector in game as a bonus 
• 3. Claudius - Wins a Mouse 

Grim’s Sector:

Shooting Yard
East Entrance

You can see a lot more screenshots and download the sector to try out yourself on Steam Workshop

Shanga’s Sector: 

Bridge
Farm

You can see a lot more screenshots and download the sector to try out yourself on Steam Workshop 

Claudius’s Sector: 

Game Room
Chopper

Claudius did not add his level to Steam Workshop 

Congratulations to all winners and a big thanks to all who participated in the competition. 

We will contact the winners for their address information after sending out this update. 

Lastly, a big thanks to Logitech for sponsoring the physical prizes. 

Gaming Mouse

Wireless Headset

Headstart Clarification and access to Steam Early Access 

We have now been in Beta for a few months and are happy with the all the feedback and responses we have been getting for the game. Therefore, we have decided to start opening up the game to other kickstarter backers in tiers $25-$65 over a specific time period. We will start by giving access to backers in $50-$65 tier, then $35-$42 tiers and lastly $25 tier. 

For the Headstart we plan to add a release candidate to the Early Access branch one week before the official release date, which means that everyone who has access to Steam Early Access will get a Headstart. 

The plan is to send out keys to backers in tiers $50-65 in week 33, whereas $35-42 backers will get codes in week 37. We also wanted to give something to backers in the $25 tier and therefore we will give them the access to Steam Early Access once we have uploaded the final release candidate. 

We are happy that we are able to take this approach and we are looking forward to your feedback on the game. 

Thanks for your support!

T-shirt sizes and choice of model 

We have started running through the surveys for info on the T-shirts and which model people want. Unfortunately it seems the survey was not so easy to understand, which is mainly due to the fact that Kickstarter only lets you send one survey and probably also bad communication on our side.

A lot of people answered no to the question regarding the Extra T-shirt, but we also asked for the T-shirt size and choice of model for the T-shirt that came with the Tier in the same question. ($100Tier and up, except for all digital tiers)

We will start contacting the people who did not pick a size and model on Monday to see if they actually do want a t-shirt or if they want us to keep the funds to develop the game instead ;) 

The people who did not pick a model at all will get one with the JAF Logo. 

Concepts for T-shirts:

Normal model is in update 3 (New Logo on it) 
Hamster model is in update 7

The Deadline for replying is Monday the 18th of August 2014 

Gamescom 

We will be attending Gamescom this year, but we will only be hanging out in the business area at the Nordic Booth. We may briefly venture out into the treacherous consumer area for a quick breather between interviews, we currently have 21 interviews scheduled for JAF in a two day period, so it is going to be busy. If you see us, feel free to say hi, we won’t be hard to spot as we are wearing black polo shirts with a BIG Full Control logo on the front and several game logos on the back. 

Until Next Time! 

The Full Control JAF Team

Yay! Will have my map ingame! Grats Grim, Claudius, Nakano :) And a big thanks to FC, that headset will certainly help with streaming :)

Looking forward to instructions how to email you the source files so they work this time.

Congrats to all the (very deserved!) winners (that are mostly the same ones, not that I'm surprised hehe). Great work guys and thank you for your hard work, especially on the sectors. I wish I wasn't so damn sucky with that kind of stuff. :-(
Looking forward to seeing both sectors in the game and to the next big update end of the month.
All of the items look cool, but I absolutely love the dinosaur for the same reasons FC did even though Nakano forgot the very important gutting. :D
Ivan Bear reminds me of something, if only I knew what. ;-)

Delightful update!

The "Bugs, Suggestions, Feeedback Overview Round 2" is a great initiative! That's nice communication.

About the competition, i'm very honored and happy for having my sector and an item in the game, but even more that Shanga's sector makes it in the game too! We had a lot of fun learning how to work on the editor side by side, and i love his work and great ideas. It will be a pleasure to discover his base in the final game.

I wish more people had participated in the level design, as it was a very nice experience. Maybe it was a bit early in the development to start this kind of competition, as the assets are limited and only big backers have access to the game. Anyway, I hope our maps will encourage more players to come to the modder's side. At this stage, the game is already very moddable (thanks to FC and Shanga for pushing to it), it's quite unique in the game dev world. Opening the audience with progressive game access will help, more people will be able to mod the game in the next future.

Hum, It's a shame, i've spotted some errors in my item's description while i read it in this very thread, here is a fix :
Espace Wreck Board Game: Set in the isolated trunk of an ancient french car lost in the junkyard, players lead a small army of armored Termiteators in a ferocious fight against hordes of ants, gin stealers!

Good luck for the gamescom. It looks exhausting from here, with those 21 interviews. I hope some will be readable in english, i guess you will put some links to them on the forum in due time so we can enjoy the infos and spread the word.

Congrats to all.

Looks that I have to put the map on Steam WS (this time with a Global Light), will do this this week end. I hope the procedure is easy. :-)

Very easy.

In JAF, click on "mods", click on your mod, and then click on "publish". Done!

Now in Steam Workshop, you can do several things to enhance the mod's visibility. You can edit the description, add screenshots, etc.

If you want to update the mod, just go back in JAF and on your mod, instead of "publish", you will have "update". Just click on that to upload the new files from your mod's folder.

Thanks Grim. Will do.

Thank you Full Control / Logitech for the competition again and congratulations to all the winners. I see very familiar names there.

That dinosaur plush (in reality it's a dragon plush, but I hid the wings) is my ~20 years old bedtime toy. I am happy he got into the game :) I promise my merc will always carry it with him if found. And if someone is wondering, plush has retired from the duty and is watching the world above from my bookshelf.

It certainly has been warm. Luckily my summer vacation (3 weeks, everyday full of sunshine) ended on Sunday and I am back to the air conditioned office.

Nice maps! The heli just reminds me of JA2 in Drassen. But could need come cool tribals so it looks more suited for guerilla tactics =)

I really love the board game and the fext for all items. 

What give me a headache...now the suggestion/feedback list is on steam? And I can't see all the small topics we discussed here, not even on the suggestion part the end!? Would be nice if all of you read through and add important stuff in the comments section.

I hoped for someone to make a icecream or icecream truck, perhaps the island was to hot.

It looks like my white rabbit plush (my submission to the "design an item" backer reward) will have some ingame company.

I have put my map on Steam Workshop.

I have loaded pictures too, how do I pick up one the pictures as front image? I haven't found the option yet. I'm quite a slow learner :-) 

I don't know the official answer, but i modified the "thumb.jpg" file under "Jagged Alliance Flashback\game_Data\StreamingAssets\Mods\<your mod>\" by resizing one of my screenshots to 512x512 px.
That way, it appears as front image in steam workshop and "mods" panel of JAF.

Thanks again Grim. It worked like a charm.

Hello,

I sent $100 through Kickstarter, because I wanted a backer t-shirt. Is the $100 a digital or a non-digital?

Also, I didn't get a form about the credit roll name.

On Kickstarter it says:

"Your name in the ‘special thank you!’ credits roll"

I sent my money, but with my girlfriend's PayPal. Obviously, I'd like my name in the credits roll, she wouldn't want her name there. Is there a for m for that?

Digital or non digital t-shirt..I am confused. $100 Tier is a physical tier

We'll have to do a follow-up for the names on the list..originally planned just to be KS names. 

Never mind, now I'm getting it. :) 

What's the difference between the digital t-shirt or a non-digital shirts? Different desing? (Sorry for the too many questions.) 

digital t-shirt... you rascals, you made us all backers order a physical t-shirt and you always had digital ones for download, eh? hue-hue-hue...send me the link to the 1GB one, please...and give me some RAM memory to download too, as a compensation. Or else!

Hehe...I just wrote digital t-shirt because of your post..as I was pretty confused with what you meant. There is no digital t-shirt :P Besides the pictures we used on the Ks of course.

@Shanga Yo got me...we're keeping all our digital t-shirt for ourselves...muhaha..and NO RAM for you :) 

The first preview.

http://www.xgn.nl/preview/58243/jagged-alliance-flashback-oude-glorie-herrijst

Do we get a confirmation if we send you the T-shirt size email? I'm asking because I got a strange reply stating Full control support is/was at vacation.

I don't plan on sending a reply, have 65 mails so far.