Voting is underway in the A Break in the Clouds Challenge in the Dystopika Discord[discord.voidswithin.com].

The lonely night streets beckon: light, shadow, and street neons whizzing past as the speaker bass rattles your seat. This is the "Night Drive" challenge - an exploration of solitude, movement, and the silent beauty of nocturnal journeys in the city.

To learn more about the challenges and how to submit, please swing by our Discord[discord.voidswithin.com]. Submissions will be open until February 27th in the #dys_challenges channel.

Past Highlights can be found in the Hall of Fame[dystopika.com]

(Cover image credit: Kishor, Unsplash)

A small but powerful gift to our Community Challenge participants prior to the experimental launch of Mod Support.

• Photo Mode: If the new "Lock" toggle is active, Photo Mode will now retain your previous settings the next time it is opened. This allows you to switch back to build mode without losing your photo mode composition. These settings are also saved whenever the city is saved, so you can easily resume your last photo mode session after closing the game.
  
• Photo Mode: The Camera Height slider range has been expanded to -6 / +6 for more dramatic angles.
  
• Photo Mode: Sun Color now applies to both sun and moon objects
  
• Photo Mode: Taking screenshots at a different resolution than the current game resolution will now take an additional 1-2 seconds, depending on your system, to allow the temporal fog to resolve properly and produce a more accurate image

• Fixed some Photo mode settings that would not reset correctly
  
• Fixed a camera judder when entering Photo mode.
  
• Fixed a problem where the Sun Color and Intensity sliders would not always apply changes consistently.

This is the first of several planned enhancements to Photo Mode including camera movement modes, additional settings, and quality of life improvements. Stay tuned!

Thank you everyone who participated in the Detective Story Challenge by submitting and voting on their favorites in the Dystopika Discord[discord.voidswithin.com].

This week's selected highlights were submissions by: rogler, Interesting, MoldySubset4600 (Matt's pick) .

The clouds have finally parted after weeks of relentless rain in Dystopika! Now's your chance to make the most of the elusive sunshine before the downpour returns. Capture the beauty of the new dynamic cloud formations and soak up the sun while it lasts.

To learn more about the challenges and how to submit, please swing by our Discord[discord.voidswithin.com]. Submissions will be open until February 10th in the #dys_challenges channel.

(Cover image credit: Jason W, Unsplash, 2003)

A hotfix update to address some minor issues related to Steam integration.

• Fixed some issues with fetching latest news from Steam potentially creating too many requests
  
• Fixed an issue where a second instance of the game would open in some circumstances

Thank you everyone who participated in the December Challenge by submitting and voting on their favorites in the Dystopika Discord[discord.voidswithin.com].

This week's selected highlights were submissions by: rogler, JiEndo, Hamster.

Based on feedback, we are reducing the timeline for submissions. A week is too short, a month is too long, so we are trying a bi-weekly format. We need to make some adjustments to the submission bot in Discord, so for now please submit directly to the submissions thread in #dys_challenges.

They're gritty, often disillusioned figures. The cyberpunk detective is often the subject of the future noir story, uncovering crime and corruption amidst the rain and fog of these vast metropolises. Serving as a lens into the underbelly, they probe into the morality of our future selves. For this challenge, we're embracing film noir and the shadowy city.

To learn more about the challenges and how to submit, please swing by our Discord[discord.voidswithin.com]. Submissions will be open until January 23rd in the #dys_challenges channel.

(Cover image credit: The Animatrix, 2003)

A final update for 2024 brings a huge visual upgrade to Dystopika's sky, adding dynamic clouds, snowy weather, dynamic time of day, stars, and upgraded fog.

It's been a wild 6 months since Dystopika 1.0 and I really want to thank everyone who's played the game, left reviews, and joined our community. It's been truly a life-changing experience.

2025 will continue updates, with the introduction of Mod Support being our top priority.

Wherever you are in the world, I'm wishing the best to you and yours and see you in 2025!


Sky has been completely overhauled providing dynamic weather and time of day, plus new snow options in the City Settings (just in time for the holidays).

• Default Time of Day is now “Dynamic”, progressing through a full cycle in approximately 30 minutes.
  
• Stars are now visible at night (weather allowing).
  
• Sun and Moon’s tilt, orientation, and size are randomized as part of the city’s World Seed.
  
• Rain slider in photo mode has been changed to “Weather” and will control cloudiness as well as precipitation.
  
• Snow accumulates on rooftops when set to Snowstorm.
  
• Overall Fog quality has been improved.
  
• Fog Quality and Dynamic Cloud settings can now be found in the pause menu.
  
• A Noon option has been added to Time of Day presets

• Two new special holiday light fixtures have been added to support the December challenge competitors🫡

• Various game loading mechanisms have been completely rebuilt in preparation for mod support.
  
• Internal crash reporting has been improved to assist in tracking down some rare crashes
  
• Fog Intensity and Fog Height setting behavior in Photo Mode have been improved
  
• All unlocks are now available in Experimental mode

• Internal Light Streak settings have been adjusted for an improved, cleaner look
  
• Sun Intensity control in Photo Mode has been refined

• Various stutters when placing buildings have been eliminated
  
• Fixed a floating building in Eden district
  
• Fixed a bug where the Prop tool is active on game startup

Thank you everyone who participated in the Hanoi Old Quarter Challenge by submitting and voting on their favorites in the Dystopika Discord[discord.voidswithin.com].

This week's selected highlights were submissions by: thefuriouscat, JiEndo, asakn.

There was a break to the challenges while we developed a new Discord bot to handle submissions and voting.

Community Challenges will also now be running MONTHLY, to create more time for more players to submit, share ideas, and iterate.

Let's get festive, it's time for Tis' the Season.

To learn more about the challenges and how to submit, please swing by our Discord[discord.voidswithin.com]. Submissions will be open until December 31 in the #dys_challenges channel.

(Cover image credit: Brazil, 1985)