Cloud Chamber Receives First Major Update & Some Discount Coupons

If you own either Frozen Synapse or Frozen Cortex on Steam you might have noticed that a shiny new discount coupon for Cloud Chamber has popped up in your inventory. The two Frozen titles are developed and published by Mode 7, while Cloud Chamber is the brainchild of Investigate North, so you might be wondering what the connection is. Paul Kilduff-Taylor, joint managing director of Mode 7, had the following to say about the unusual partnership:

“Cloud Chamber is a really fascinating take on both game design and narrative. It’s something that plays with a lot of interesting ideas. We try our best at Mode 7 to make games which have original mechanics at their core and our audience tends to be people who embrace that. We think it’ll be cool to introduce the Cloud Chamber and Frozen Synapse communities to each other and see what happens! It seems like every concept under the sun has been done in indie games now, so it’s great to see another project which attempts to confound that.”

The voucher enables players to grab the game for a 50% discount and is valid until 8 October, 2014. We quite enjoyed the massively multiplayer story concept of Cloud Chamber and it got a well deserved 8/10 in our reviewback when it launched.

Christian Fonnesbech, creative director of Investigate North is also quite pleased with the collaboration and had the following to add:

“Cloud Chamber is a real cultural shift, in terms of how games have worked before. But we’re finding that when players get it, they really love it.

“We’ve already got a fantastic, passionate community who really get into the collaborative style of play, and who collectively are shaping the story for each other as they unravel the game’s mysteries by working together. It’s so new that we were all wondering exactly what would happen and it is now just incredibly exciting to see players from all over the world become this global think tank – and we can’t wait to see how things progress when exposed to a new audience.”

Players who already own Cloud Chamber will also be happy to hear that the game has just received its first major update. Apart from addressing some technical issues, the update also makes it easier for players to access the elusive locked areas of the game. Check out the full change log below for more information about the update. Don’t forget to check out the full version of Frozen Synapse and the Early Access version of Frozen Cortex either.

Cloud Chamber full change log:

“It has turned out to be harder than intended to get likes from other players,” explains Cloud Chamber’s creative director, Christian Fonnesbech. “This means that unlocking restricted nodes becomes a little too difficult. This seems to be because Players are simply commenting more than they are liking. So, to help fix this problem, we have changed the algorithm, so it now counts comments as likes for the sake of unlocking restricted nodes.”

Easier to unlock restricted nodes. Comments on a post now also unlock restricted nodes in that level, just as likes do.
Fixed bug when scrolling in feed or forum. Feed and forum should no longer freeze up while attempting to load more content and should load smoother.
A number of changes to communication between game and server to reduce risk of disconnections. Improved error messages to help troubleshoot connection issues.
Fixed bug. Downvotes now no longer help unlock restricted nodes or win “best” badges
Fixed a few bugs and styling issues in message function.
Fixed a few bugs in the “Flag” function.
Fixed bug. Deeplinks in “Top Contributors” should now work.
Fixed path between the nodes “missing worlds” and “It’s a big universe”in part 5 (used to send players on a detour)
Added STEAM avatars. Players can choose Steam avatar as profile image
Fixed bug. Clicking tagged usernames in the forums now opens the correct window.
Additional minor changes to leaderboard, spelling in some nodes etc.