What do these things have to do with each other? Urban Legions, of course!

GRAVITY: I have adjusted many of the events that pop up randomly in the game so that the player's approval will gravitate back to zero (0). I realized this when I was ignoring these events testing other things, like the Butter Zombies. My character quickly turned into a super villain. With the approval gravity well, players can now do nothing and result in a neutral character, bordering between hero and villain.

SHIRTS!: A CafePress site is now set up with tshirts. Currently, two styles are available: the UL logo on white/light shirts, and the comic book wanted poster (as used on the website's frontpage) which is used on the darker/colored shirts.

CONVERSATIONS: Players are now able to "talk" with various NPCs in the game. Each has a default set of topics, and more topics open as the player learns of different sub-plots. Each player provides their own perspective of a topic, often revealing more details and hints in the game. There are at least five citizens in the game now, with several more on the way. And, at least one of the NPCs is attackable (eventually, you will be able to battle any/all of them).

ARENA FIGHTING: Speaking of battles... The Astroland Arena is open for combat. Players can select to fight either a hero or a villain for $100. Conquer your opponent, and you double your money, and maybe a bit of experience on the side. Who are these heroes and villains? Why YOU, of course! The game takes a snapshot of another player's character, and you do battle against a player-as-an-NPC (PlayerNPC). Combat does not negatively affect another player's character, and does not change the course of another player's game.

The mayor wants calamari! A new challenge is now available.

Speaking of challenges, I changed it from "monthly" to "mayoral". This challenge took much longer than originally planned, because I had too much fun throwing a few different ideas into it, and it turned into a bigger challenge than originally intended.

In other news, with one fix to how events are randomly spawning across the city, I am tweaking the disapproval levels for non-attempted events as they time out. While testing the above challenge, I went from hero to super villain very fast and have a long, hard struggle back upward.

In other other news, Phil and I started a blog at livejournal. There's only one entry. I suppose this blog will be for non-news news. Things like discussing our decisions behind the game features, what we're working on behind the scenes... Anything really that is not fit enough to declare in the news or forums. If you'd like to view it, you can find it here: Urban Legions Blog

And finally, I must agree with Phil. Woo hoo for six months of gaming goodness zooming by! A big thanks to everyone supporting this huge endeavor. We are both pleased with how far we've come, where things currently stand, and how many people have and are still discovering UL. We are also excited about all the things yet to come.

Trunkets!

We are getting ever close to finishing what we consider version 2.0, and are happy we are able to release the changes as we complete them, versus all at one time. I know it is anti-climatic, but why make people wait? And, no... There will not be changes in pricing or turn style. In fact, the last update allowed you more freedom to travel around using less turns!

Keep giving us feedback, good and bad, so we know how we are doing. We love making this game, and hope you are all enjoying it as much!

-Phil
CEO, interNEKO Ltd. Co.
Urban Legions Development

We want to thank everyone that has supported us along the way. The game was complete when it came out, but for those that have been with us the whole time can testify it has changed greatly for the better.

First, many thanks to Doug for the continual content creation. New chapters and ton of side quests have been added. Not to mention what he is about to unleash. His continual contribution to the game makes it grow and grow.

Next is Phil, who has been adding new features and updates to the engine. These have not only added new experiences and fixed bugs, but have allowed Doug to make more robust game scenarios.

Also, thanks to the patience of our family members. We would thank others, but that is it. Two man band.

Lastly, but not leastly, thanks to the players for playing, and reporting cheers and bugs they have found. This game is for you. If you don't keep us informed, we can't make it what you want. We always try to reward those who bring bugs and fresh ideas to our attention.

We still have a ton planned for this game, and are on track. Keep enjoying!

Hello good people (or, possibly evil. I don't know. I have checked everyone's approval ratings)

We have two new features available: Chat and Challenges

Chat — Have a question while you're playing, but don't want to switch over to the forums? Maybe you just want to give a shout out to the other denizens of Macropolis? We've rearranged the character pane to make room for the Chat Box. Like the forums, we ask that you please keep things civil and not to post spoilers. Don't make me turn this car around!

Challenges — Mayor Quibbling now has two new additions to her office in Capitol Crest. The first is a bulletin board which posts any current challenges. By completing challenges, your character(s) can earn tokens, which are good for the other feature. The Mayoral Gift Shoppe is now open for business. They do not accept cash, only challenge tokens. Items available in the Gift Shoppe are like the challenges, as they will come and go.

In other news, we've had a few responses to our call for artists. Thanks to all that responded. I look forward to working with you.

More on the way! Happy gaming!

When people play Urban Legions, what they see is the hard work of two friends who have spent gobs of time, a lot of serious (and not-so-serious) discussions and a little bit of money. The one thing Phil and I would love to embellish is adding artwork to the events. Unfortunately, neither of us is very talented in this area, and can't really afford to hire anyone to provide artwork.

And so, we are asking for your help. Would you or an artistic friend like to contribute to Urban Legions? As I said, we can't offer much in the ways of money (at least not in these early stages), but these are some ways we can scratch each other's backs:

• If you are a budding, new artist trying to establish yourself (or know someone who is), we can offer some of that “real life experience”. In exchange for use of the artwork in-game, we will provide a link to your website, including a by-line. We will also list you and your link on the credits page as a contributing artist.
• If you enjoy playing Urban Legions, we can provide extra turns, specialty items or abilities for your character, or other perks only available to contributors.
• Of course all artwork rights remain with the artist. As long as the art does not infringe upon Urban Legions, interNEKO, or Pegamoose Games, we believe the artist is free to do what they want with their artwork.

If you or someone you know might be interested, send us a note via our Support page. As much as we look forward to watching the UL community grow, we also look forward to building you a bigger, better world to explore.

Thank you!

You may have noticed a sudden surge of events popping up as you play. This is a very good thing!

A couple of you pointed out on the forums that you hadn't seen certain events in a while. We investigated this further and have been working on a few tweaks to the game. The sudden surge is a major step in the right direction. But, we still have a few more things to check and adjust.

If you notice something in the game that doesn't seem quite right, or notice that you haven't seen something in a while, or if you even spot a little typo, please send us a message from the support page (the best way to reach us) or post about it in the forums. To those of you who worry you might be bothering us with this kind of stuff... It is never a bother to hear feedback from you. Without your feedback, we might let these things slip through the cracks. So, please, let us know what you think!

Thanks everyone for playing!

Urban Legions now contains plot content up through Chapter Two! Woo hoo!

For those who need some help with plot, please post questions on the forum pages. But, if you think your question contains spoiler information, please use the spoiler tags (ex. [spoiler] Plot question [/spoiler] ).

Also, a few of you who have helped provide us with some bug fixes and awesome feedback, should have been contacted to help us further test playing with multiple characters.

Much, much more to come! If you have any opinions on what you'd like to see or suggestions for features, send us a note via the support page. We'd love to hear what you have to say.

It pleases me to see so many people drop by the forums to ask questions and/or compare notes. That's great, because that's what they're for. If you discuss specifics about the content, we ask that you use the spoiler tags to prevent leaking too much information to those who don't want to know.

For those who have not yet experienced our forums, you might want to pop in at times. Not only can you compare notes with other players, but we post update information... both feature and content updates. Posts regarding feature updates often happen as the feature is updated. Content related updates are posted once a week, typically on the weekends.

And, as always, thanks to all who send us feedback or report bugs. Whether you have good or bad things to say, we always like hearing from you!

We have broadcast the release of Urban Legions to several sites already, and have more to submit. But, if you are willing to help share the love, and blog about us or let your favorite gaming news site know about us, let us know. We may even reward you for your heroic deed.