Hello, Survivalist: Invisible Strain has been out of early access for one year! Well actually that was two days ago. Anyway, seems like a good time for a sale, so Survivalist: Invisible Strain is participating in the Post Apocalyptic Festival on Steam from April 27th to May 4th, with a 50% discount! This festival was instigated by Red Rover Interactive the developers of the upcoming EngineFall, and includes some awesome games like Pacific Drive.

There's also a new patch in publicbeta today, v277. I'm working on a new unannounced project these days but I'm still doing bug fixes, translation work where needed, and some gameplay tweaks on Invisible Strain (more info in the FAQ). This has some bug fixes but also some more hint messages telling people about how to deal with enemies with body armor (i.e. use armor piercing ranged ammo, or blunt melee weapons) as I've noticed a few people finding that difficult.

I've also added a few more resources to the map in Story Mode, like lead, steel and iron in dumpsters, and given traders some gunpowder to sell you, in the hopes that that will enable people to start making ammo - and armor piercing ammo - sooner. Most significantly, Wishkey Falls Militia now have a lead mine instead of a flint mine so you don't have to go so far afield for it (if you can persuade them to team up with you, or if something were to happen to them, that is). Here's the full change list:

• Fix for occasional crash in New Game menu when clicking on multiple different mods

• Fix for required fuel amount not being shown correctly in litres when hitting the road

• Fix for approval/respect/morale being badly aligned on brain scan page

• Always show Community tab on inventory screen in Sandbox Mode, and once Kelly joins you OR you are out of the starting area in Story Mode

• Added some more tutorial/hint messages about how to deal with armor and ranged weapons

• Added a little more explanation about save tokens and don't overwrite both saves in the specific case where Lost Item quest spawns some zombies

• Pause game if gamepad gets disconnected (only in single player)

• Changed Wishkey Falls Militia to have a Lead mine instead of Flint, gave the Guardians a Flint mine

• Added some more crafting resources around Story Mode so it's easier to start making ammo

• Enabled some parts of the debug menu on XBox (it's still jank though, and needs a mouse + keyboard)

• Updated Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese translations

Finally the previous patch, v276, is now on the main branch and XBox. This means that v275 and v274 are also now live, which gives us the complete Ukrainian and Indonesian translations, as well as some big updates to the Russian, and a lot more bug fixes.

v277 will be in the "publicbeta" branch on Steam for a while, before pushing it to the main game and to XBox. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable

• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them

• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

Hello, I've released another small update in the publicbeta branch. This contains some fixes and support for mods, and translator support. Also a slight tweak to combat; previously if you kept swinging your melee weapon at a zombie without being close enough to engage, they would back off, and you could in theory keep doing that forever - now after a few seconds of that they'll just attack no matter what.

• Fix for crash in SIS Extended: Adaptive Combat

• Fix for Out Of Sync errors in multiplayer if one player has previously run SIS Ageing without restarting the game since, and the other hasn't

• Fixes for some errors in speech parameters, and added support for a female version of the word 'someone'.

• Fix for exploit where you could keep swinging your melee weapon at a zombie forever without them attacking, as they waited for you to stop swinging

• Possible fix for NPCs being slow to react to stuff on Huge maps using SIS Map Settings mod due to pathfinder queue getting backed up

• Changed IsAnyoneInConversationWith condition to check all members of the community if you specify one (for modders)

• Updated Japanese translation

Like the last patch I haven't updated the main branch or XBox as I want to give it a bit more time to settle.

v276 will be in the "publicbeta" branch on Steam for a while, before pushing it to the main game and to XBox. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable

• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them

• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".