Which is why each infiltration mission is carried out by two operatives. Oftentimes you’ll never see the other operative, as they’re only for emergencies, backup, moral support and cookie dispensary.

But why am I telling you this? Agent Trif has been captured, yes, and it is up to me, FabiotheTurtle, to make sure our mission is seen through! And probably save him, but that’s later.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes.

The devs are back from holiday! There was about three weeks between their last streaming session, but now they’re totally back in the development groove.

The last set of streams held near the beginning of July heralded some nice bits of goodies. I was there to witness the whole thing happening, but Trif was carrying the camera and all, and with the whole captured thing… I got no pictures.

What I can recount for you however, is that there is a lot more content to be coming along soon. For the mappers out there, this includes a bunch of new tilesets, functions and even a few actors or two. For the “playtesters”, this just means there’s more stuff to play around with!

Now, what specifically can I tell you about?

“Boss” Fights

Strewn throughout the main adventure will be various instances in which, in other games, would indicate maybe a large mech dropping from the ceiling, a sudden dramatic music change and perhaps the restriction of a core game mechanic. This is not the case, except maybe that large mech thing…

Certain actors are intrinsically more powerful than other actors, as anybody who’s faced off against several Ninjas or even a Metalface will tell you. If they’re sufficiently geared up, they become even harder to kill, requiring elaborate strategy and thought.

Here’s an example that segues nicely into my next topics. Strictly speaking, that picture was taken from the livestream that happened not long ago, and is possibly still happening right now. Frankly, there are a lot of things going on in this image, so let’s break it down.

That half-Metalface half–Porygon looking thing is called a Metaldroid. Metaldroids are similar to your run-of-the-mill Metalface, but lack the empathy and compassion that only human brains will supply. They are ruthless killer machines, capable of everything a Metalface can do, but more menacingly. Watch out for these guys. There are a few more actors to keep an eye out for as well, but you’ll have to wait for those.

Actor Piloting

The keen-eyed and mapmakers among you will notice that part of the Metaldroids actor data, it’s actor mode is set to “pilot.” In this image, the Metaldroid is the pilot of the Jetbike, meaning that it will spawn in the map riding the Jetbike. This is available to a vast range of actors, and there are a few different actors that can be ridden.

The complete list is unknown, but I will tell you this: Hamsters and Wasps are capable of being ridden. You may not believe me, but you weren’t there man. There was so much destruction, so much debris. I’d never seen so much oil. What’s worse, is both actors are capable of firing and targeting independently of each other. Keep that in mind!

I also hear there’s a way to tame wild Hamsters to let you ride them, but it sounds a wee bit dangerous to me…

New Items

In my surveillance of Agent Trif’s antics, I managed to see a small array of new explosives being developed. Whilst I only saw one in action, I can only assume the damage they do.

Molotov Cocktails are becoming a thing, and they seem to be the answer to the previously introduced Nitrogen Grenade. Upon detonation, they release a burst of flames along the ground into your unsuspecting foes feet, and heating them up. Dynamite is ready too, which probably creates a bigger boom than your standard grenade. Or maybe not! Who knows.

On top of that, item selection has an improved interface, in which upgrades now show the max amount that they can have.

Other than that, the developers have now officially entered 100% production mode, meaning new content is not really going to be created, but rather their full attention is being directed at Adventure Mode and it’s pending release.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rescue Trif. Yell if you see anything.

Even top–class industrial intelligence thieves can enjoy a good summer vacation. As a result, the next Intel Report will probably be in the middle of August, after which they will return to normal schedule. Keep an eye on the official Twitter account and have a Cobalty summer, people of the Northern Hemisphere—and a chill winter to you southeners!

Unless you’re a winter person like your trusty information snatcher, of course. How about we stay inside and take a look at some new Adventure hotness instead?

I bring lots of delicious screenshots and a bit of accompanying banter today—and perhaps a little secret hidden somewhere in the article.

Before we get buried deeply in Adventure mechanics and whatnot, take a look at the green stuff in that picture. No, not the lights. Look to the right. See that gooey waste? I know you like shiny things, but don’t touch that. Perhaps you know that radioactivity has been in the game for a little while now, but like unstable atoms decay into new nuclides, this feature has changed quite a bit. Getting in contact with radioactive material will gradually and randomly impair your movement, and attacking others physically will spread the green fun! Note that non–organic enemies will not meet their demise from radiation alone. It’s probably not the best idea to get in a fistfight with a radioactive robot that doesn’t have the brains to die from it—especially not if you’re not armed with a Nano Dispenser to cure your greenness.

Purple Rave

Previously an industrial settlement at the very edge of technology itself, Rocket City has deteriorated to a wasteland for droids on the verge of extinction—That is my theory, but the history of the area still seems a bit cloudy. For now, we can at least investigate the current state of affairs a bit closer. Let’s enter the Rocket Saloon!

Looks familiar? Oh dear, it’s the shady hideout from last time! Oxeye wizards, what have you done to this place?! …Ah. They’ve added life.

These purple–eyed robots don’t seem too happy to talk. Life really has to be tough in these parts. But look, our new friends have names! And more intelligence! Here’s a fellow that doesn’t want hugs:

Guess what happens if the scum doesn’t keep its distance? Your wonderful friends will dance with you! Or, you’ll be the one doing the dancing. To the beat of their bullets. While running for your life or perhaps ridding the entire city of whatever robotic beings remain. I wonder how long it’ll take before someone declares war on the entire universe and exterminates all life from Adventure mode.

Home Is Where The Guns Are

Rest assured that you’ll still have a place to take refuge even if you manage to disturb the tense peace in the saloon. Digging around in the architectural plans, I found something very interesting: Serving as the hub between Adventure mode levels is nothing less than your own spaceship!

Throughout your space conquest, you’ll undoubtedly stumble upon weapons of various types, and carrying all of them would be like someone stashing 2304 cubic meters of dirt in their pockets—I mean, who’d do that?! Luckily, you’re going to have an entire ship to store your collected tools of destruction in. Offensive assets aren’t all there’s to it, though:

Before entering a level, you can equip appropriate weapons, shields, hulls etc. to maximize your chances of success. This doesn’t just apply to Adventure maps, though: Can’t beat that tough Challenge node? Gear up and return to it once you’re properly prepared!

Your ship isn’t fully ready, though. These pictures are from prototypes, but you should get the idea from it—Grab your gear, stare at the big display thoughtfully, and jump into a level!

In Other News

In the previous report, I asked you what you thought about the upcoming mode’s life mechanics. Thank you for your replies! I’ve injected every single comment in the researchers’ idea logs, and it seems they’ve found a proper solution. You expect me to tell you the result? Hah, that’ll be a surprise for later! It’s not like I don’t know yet. Not at all.

You’ve helped me out with something else too, however! I asked via Twitter and Facebook what you’d ask Cobalt’s lead musician, anosou, if you had the chance, and I got plenty of brilliant suggestions! I’ve strapped him to a chair, but he’s not quite talking yet… Maybe I need to remove the gag from his mouth. He shouldn’t last more than a week though, so keep an eye on the blog for the interview!

Finally, don’t forget the Mapmania livestream I’m hosting with the Duke on June 14! Community member Janeator has even started a map jam for the stream with the theme ‘colorful’, and the entries already look dazzling! Check this thread for more information!

See you soon with a hopefully more cooperative musician!

It’s all starting to pay off.

In the beginning of my hobbyist hackery, I managed to uncover tidbits of information about the various versus game modes of Cobalt. While exciting, it wasn’t truly what I was searching for. But today, let’s talk a bit about the dark secret of the Oxeye Labs:

Adventure mode.

Peeking in the researcher logs, I’ve learned that a lot of work is being put into the upcoming console port of Cobalt, and networked multiplayer is progressing steadily too. A lot of code restructuring is happening to speed up development, but the next big step for Cobalt is receiving some love too!

In case you missed it in the previous report, the game will be entering the beta phase once the first part of the Adventure mode is shiny enough to be thrown at us. The above screenshot is an early picture of an area outside Trunkopolis, which we’ll soon enough be able to explore in our beloved metallic hulls ourselves! The question is: How much affection can one associate with a Metalface?

In the Adventure mode, quite a lot. As opposed to the more disposable ‘Faces of the versus modes, this long anticipated game mode will feature persistent characters. The adventure consists of several chapters containing stages. While the important bits are the Adventure maps themselves, some events will be based on existing game modes such as Deathmatch or Challenge (For this article, let’s call these ’special events’.), and winning these will make it rain with volts! Or, at least, you’ll earn volts. Water and electricity don’t mix well, even on distant planets in the future. The (hopefully dry) volts and perhaps other rewards can be used to upgrade your character which you’ll be using in the normal Adventure stages.

Robots Aren’t Forever

I did write “persistent characters“, didn’t I? That’s right—In Adventure, you’ll join forces with other fellow Metalfaces! The research data seems to indicate that you’ll get to pick from your available characters at the beginning of each stage. This way, you can have several builds for different situations. The more, the merrier!

Robots don’t last forever, though. There will be a life stock system to add a bit of challenge to the whole deal. Easy is boring. How many chances will you have? I found two possible plans while digging:

Plan A: There is a global life counter like in many platformers. Losing a life will let you respawn in the same stage, but you’re kicked out of it if you’re wrecked all the way down to 0 lives. At this point, you can still enter stages, but dying will instantly kick you out, forcing you to restart the entire stage. Additional lives can be acquired throughout the stages and special events, so if you run out, you can clear some side missions to get a few more chances.

Plan B: There is a set amount of lives per stage, possibly starting at 3. Lose them all, and you’ll have to restart. While you cannot gain additional lives, you can find upgrades that extend your amount of lives per stage.

Since special events are not Adventure maps but special stages in which you gain unlockables and other rewards, these do not consume any lives—feel free to keep trying for that win! There may be small rewards for clearing a special event again, but nothing’s entirely certain here.

Personally, I’m not too sure of what I’d prefer—I have a tiny idea, but I want to hear your opinion! While I usually just steal information, it is technically possible to modify it too. Heh. Heheheh.

This screenshot shows a hideout in Rocket City: The city of Blasters, explosives, and edgy characters. Perhaps a bit like a sci–fi downtown New York City. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been to downtown New York City. Or to a sci–fi world for that matter. Nevertheless, you should trust no one in Rocket City, for while the inhabitants are somewhat peaceful, there is a dark atmosphere of tension here. Be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you may just get your poor Metalface into an unnecessarily bad situation…

These snippets of information from the Adventure sound extremely promising to me! I can’t wait to snatch a prototype and see it myself. As a fun fact, Adventure was actually the main purpose of creating Cobalt according to the official statements of Oxeye. Multiplayer wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked so well, it became a primary point of focus while establishing a solid foundation for the story mode.

Meanwhile, In A Parallel Universe

Some readers just don’t know patience. Some of those decide to take matters in own hands. APirateHat is one of them, and he decided to write the report for me. I did say I want to write about community things outside reports, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some here too!

“Hello and welcome dear readers to this Intel Report. As there is NO news about Cobalt this time I’ll instead tell you guys about something else. Clobat, the game by the amazing APirateHat has finally been released and boy is it great. APirateHat has been struggling for months to bring you this masterpiece and when you play it you will really wonder how he could just give this out for free.

The game is packed with content that will last for about 10 minutes depending how smart you are. The artstyle is just beautiful, each one of the characters hand drawn in Paint. Not to mention the puzzles which are quite hard. I actually had to THINK! Who could imagine that a game that comes out in this day and age actually has puzzles.

Other news, APirateHat might bring you his next game soon™. Rumour has it the game will be called “Cobakt”. I really hope this is true because I just can’t get enough of his games.

The end.”

Hmm. This isn’t that far off from what a review written by myself would look like, although we fortunately do have news about Cobalt. Get the brilliant adventure game Clobat for free at the Cobalt Vault!

Meanwhile, In An Intersecting Universe

What else is happening? Well, players are breathing. Next to that, they’re mapping! The Cobalt Vault has seen quite a few new maps recently, and one of them is by the Duke himself! When I asked him to describe it, he said it was “so awesome that your great great grandma knitted a sweater about it.” Well, he doesn’t lack confidence. Calor Shrine is a pretty map, and it’s also pretty fun to play! It’s maybe a bit too big, though, but here’s an important lesson: If even the Duke can map, so can yo–

*sound of frying pan hitting face*

“Map is amazing. Big is good. Go download at discount. Wait, no, just download. Duke doesn’t do discount!”

Uh… That hurt.

Either way, keep an eye out on the blog! We’re entering exciting times, soon transitioning into beta and unlocking the brilliance of adventuring in Cobalt. Of course, we cannot do that without a little community party.

As if that isn’t enough, I am planning a Saturday map reviewing stream with the Duke! The date has not been decided yet, but we’re going to team up and play some Cobalt multiplayer, reviewing as many of the cool community maps as we can live! You can suggest maps in the forum thread here or in the comments below. Also, remember to write what you think of the plans for Adventure! Which plan would you enjoy the most? Stay tuned for more information and fun times. Until then!

I had an emergency mission this weekend which hindered this week’s edition of the Intel Reports. Unfortunately, I must ask you to wait a bit longer. We’re shaking things up a little.

Extracting Cobalt development data is getting more difficult. As a result thereof, I have decided that reports will be given on a monthly basis onwards, starting May 1st. While this means more waiting time in between the goodie bags, it also means that the bags will be even more grand!

The reports will focus mostly on development now, but there will be more posts about exciting community creations and whatever else I spy with my little eye. If you stumble upon treasure before I do, feel free to recommend it to me on Twitter so I can consider snatching it!

Stay tuned—the gold rush resumes soon!

Bonus Note

Shout-out to the Russian Cobalt community! I don’t quite understand the language, so I’m using Google Translate to follow, but their community photos are amazing! I love this one.

We got a few sneak peeks at the upcoming main adventure mode in Radio Cobalt, but rejoice: I bring ye fresh treasure!

Uh, the other Metalface, you ask? Well, he’s… Invisible! Of course, he’s just cloaking. Always was a careful little fella.

It’s evident that the art monkeys have been hard at work here. Cobalt’s art seems to appear in bursts, and the Oxeye Labs’ very own surveillance devices proved exactly that: Not only does Kinten produce the graphical wonders, thewreck is part of the deal too! The routine seems to be that they find a theme which they wish to implement, collect a few truckloads of inspirational imagery, experiment on paper, and finally work on the sets of digital art to be included in the game. After perhaps a day or two of intensive crafting, the finished art is ready and rolling!

Art is interesting and all, but I sensed that there was more to learn from these screenshots. As I said, they’re straight from the upcoming adventure mode—Why is there a bar? Where is it? What is the solution to world hunger?

Feeling incapable of coming up with a reasonable answer to each of these questions myself, I decided to seek the enlightenment of a true master. Fortunately, the Duke was able to answer two of my questions, though he’s still working on the third:

“It was wise of you to seek me, fellow agent!
I see how it is. Obviously, some random general from somewhere figured that sending a ton of Metalfaces to an empty planet would be a good idea. Something fluffy… no, treasury! Something about a treasure only the leader knew about…
They didn’t find anything and the personality matrices in the Metalfaces got really bored, so they reprogrammed a guard thingy into a babbling bartender and built a bar in some old sewer ruins. Don’t ask. (And don’t tell Food & Health Inspection. Wait, never mind, robots can’t get sick that way. Duke knew that.)”

Is this theory of the Duke correct? We shall see for ourselves one day, and here’s the deal: Based on information classification values from the not–so–well–encrypted development database, that day might be soon! It has been known for a while that the game is soon entering the beta stage, and it appears that this milestone will introduce a portion of the adventure mode to the game! Leaving personal lab rat conspiracy theories aside, this will serve to give the community a taste of the full mode and allow players to influence the development of this story–oriented game mode.

The Cap’n Goes Down with the Ship

In the Duke’s idea of the backstory of the Zigma bar, he mentioned a treasure which they didn’t find. That might be because map maker Fenced01 found it first and put it in his map, Sunken Treasure, a Team–Strike map that will test your abilities as a certified treasure hunter—or perhaps just a killer robot.

Water has always been a bit hit–and–miss for me in this game, but it works quite well in this map! Going in the water gives you more paths to navigate through the stage, but as your rolling speed is heavily decreased, you cannot deflect bullets down there! See an enemy about to leave the water? Take him out from higher ground while he’s still defenseless!

The map is very asymmetrical and, as a result, imbalanced. However, given the half–time side switches in Team–Strike, this is not a problem—It’s fun! I really think th—

“No, Duke time now! As the super official Duke of Cobalt, I proclaim this map as awesome! Perfectly tailored for the Team–Strike game mode. Yours truly could easily see this map become a must–have! However, it needs a bit of polish. The details rock, but it lacks shadows, lighting, and some more… floomph? Not too much though! The Duke loves the barren look it so proudly displays. Duke away!”

I think a certain someone is a tiny bit obsessed with this ’spontaneous writing’ thing. He has a point though: The map has a great theme & layout, but it’d look a lot more dynamic and interesting with some clever contrast between lights and shadows. Remember that, potential map makers in training!

It’s been a pleasure writing for you as always, fellow players! Come back next week—Meanwhile, add a bit of treasure to your User Maps list by downloading Sunken Treasure on Cobalt Vault!

Even mysterious intelligence hackers have to attend school, and as a result, some weeks I won’t be able to feed you with my inner wittiness as much as normally. This is one of those. I ran off with a few screenshots nevertheless!

Destructible power sources are joining the mix—They can even be armored and have shields!

Finally, a bit of mysterious disco club poster art! Who will be the mystery guest?

What does the self–proclaimed Duke of Cobalt say about these pictures?

“5a7a7a7a2e2e2e206d7973746572792067756573742e2e2e206d7573742062652064756b652e2e2e
206f662064616e636520666c6f6f722e2e2e”

Ah, he’s asleep. He has this weird habit of snoring in hexadecimal…

Will Trif conquer all of his education shenanigans? Come back next Friday for more Cobalt goodies!

Last week, I promised to steal Oxeye’s level art creation process. I can’t believe it, but the lab technicians actually discovered my intentions! They hired a team to counter–hack. Turns out they’re pretty cool people, so we joined forces and formed the Cobalt Investigation Agency! Comrades, get out your inner Leonardo. We’re going to the gallery.

…Just pretend that was cool, okay?! What do you think I am, a wandering wizard of words or something?

First, here’s my favorite piece of fan art as warm–up!

The Creation of Mona Levela

We have tons of cool community maps, many of which can be found in the Cobalt Vault, but our favorite game of guns has its share of official maps as well. Fact: They look pretty good! But how are they made? I’ve managed to dig up a few pictures from the process.

Here’s a level that our beard overlord jeb designed:

It has quite a few doors!

While these locales may be prettier than the scraps of mapping I’ve attempted myself, they’re nowhere near the quality level of finished maps. What happens next?

Kinten, the great art magician, steals the map and beautifies it. With his pen and Photoshop, he takes a close look at the map and crafts custom tiles specifically tailored to it. See those doors? I don’t, because they just got changed.

There’s a lot more where it comes from! Click this for more! And this! Another! Even more! Interesting, I say! …Oh, there’s one more.

Throw these in the mix and touch it up a bit, and you get…

Is this even the same level?! ‘Cause it’s on a whole different level of quality! Get it? Level? Never mind.

This map isn’t in the game just yet, but if you manage to break free of the state of trance induced by its coolness, you’ll probably notice the level name—and prefix. It’s a Puzzle map! There are currently none in the game, but I checked up on the Challenge submode, and surprisingly, it’s a game mode featuring puzzles! The details aren’t completely decrypted yet, but it’ll feature a different way of racking up points than we’re used to.

In Other Nets

Our frenemies at Oxeye Labs like to keep logs of everything they do there, which is quite fortunate for us, but thewreck’s log was quite short this week. He’s been doing a bit of field work at Fatshark, and there are very good news:

Networking! Progress!

Nothing is certain yet, but it seems like the shark will be getting online multiplayer, and if the shark gets networking, the PC & Mac versions of the game will too. Hopefully, we’ll all be able to roll around together someday!

A Cup of Community

I mentioned the glorious map sharing site known as Cobalt Vault earlier, which is a great way to fill up that User Maps list in–game, but it can be hard to keep track of all the new maps and works in progress. Fear not—Janeator is here to save the day with a new Twitter account! Follow @CobaltMapmaking for the mintiest of minty maps!

For more community news, the Cobalt Forum Content Team has just gotten a new member! FabiotheTurtle has written his first post, featuring the brilliant Multikill mod which has just been updated to work with the newest edition of Cobalt. It’s one of my favorite mods, so go check it out!

Two weeks ago, we took a look at a cool map. That was fun; let’s do it again! However, I won’t be the one doing the talking here. One of the members of the Cobalt Investigation Agency may or may not have threatened to publish those pictures of me dancing to Caramelldansen which he may or may not have snatched, and to avoid the absolute annihilation of the human race, I’m going to let him write a few words each week. My dear friends, I bring you the self–proclaimed Duke of Cobalt, and the map he’ll enlighten us about is…

“Overall a very fancy ‘n very compact map. A bit fruity with all the shadowy surfaces. Random loot is lel, makes map control hard. Good thing I’m the duke of map control.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. It feels like there’s a tad bit too much Phaser action going on, but overall it’s a very cool map with interesting gameplay!

That’s all for today, folks! Come back next Friday for more metallic babble!

Trif’s here, and I’d like to say that I like jeb’s beard. And frequent updates. So I stole both. Okay, maybe just one of them.

v124i Alpha of Cobalt is out in the wild, and I want you to download it! “But Trif, where did v124c go?!” I learned that Oxeye had several prototypes waiting to be snatched, so I took the shiniest one! We’ll take a look after staring at this glorious animated picture!

I like trains!

The freshly baked update adds Hadoukens— erm, moving platforms to the game! More specifically, map wizards now have a new spell that allows them to properly add moving stuff. While it can be used to put flying carpets in maps, it serves an even more glorious purpose:

Notice the train in the bottom of the picture? It moves. The newest dark next–gen technology adds more dynamic atmosphere features to the level editor. Make good use of this new weapon, wizards. I’ll be stalking you waiting at the vault.

Gotta go slow

The evil scientists continue their possibly dark experiments with the essence of time itself. Bullet time has been refined once more, no longer trapping you like a Chrono Bomb when a throwable is getting out of your danger zone—unless it is a Chrono Bomb, of course.

Should you be dissatisfied with the default bullet time mechanic, the custom settings have been glorified to suit the entire audience. Other than changing the amount of slowdown, the options now tweak the range of reaction enhancers a little bit, and activation speed a bit more. You’re going to pick the “None” option, of course. Real gladiators experience the world in bullet time naturally anyways.

Freeze! ‘Nade time!

If you’re reading this from the Northern Hemisphere, you have successfully survived the winter—but the danger of freezing to death is not gone, especially not if you hug a Nitrogen Grenade! The newly introduced tool of icy destruction now delivers an even more cold death, exploding on impact with greater power than before. Obviously, it’s for peaceful scientific purposes. …Right, guys?

The developers have given the other explosive devices some love too. Opening doors is lame, kicking them in is cool, but making the door fly open with the sheer impact force of a grenade is even cooler! That’s right, you can now blast open a door with a grenade followed by another one, a rocket, or whatever surprise you have in your arsenal!

Finally, the beautiful little boxes that indicate you’re about to be shot in the face have been made more… discoish. It’s a wonder of colors, and it’s so marvelous you should see it in its full glory. Go in–game and check it out!

The Breakdown

Fine, you want the change log, don’t you? You’re in for the raw list of awesomeness? I’m in a good mood. Take it.

Alterations:

• Another small Bullet Time tweak. It feels fantastic!
• Made the speed at which the reaction enhancers activate part of the bullet time setting and also tweaked all bullet time settings to be more useful.
• Moving tiles is now possible in the editor in a more controller and free system!
• Improved predator ai slightly.
• Improved Nitrogen grenades
• Facing away from flashbangs is even better
• OnScoreReached working and more options.
• Improved fires warming ability.
• Bopo now follows the player.
• Warning boxes now come in player colors!

Bug–Fixes:

• Fixed some eye and light animations on actors ai feedback
• Fixed offers can get stuck when teleporting

Next week, we’re stealing Oxeye’s level art process! That’s a secret, though. Don’t tell them. See you.

…The Hope? The Hoarder? I need some sort of code name. The Helixian?

I’ve been absent for a while! After my vacation secret alpine mission, I was met by some mysterious men with lab coats and syringes! I’m not really sure who they were or what they did, but I seemed to catch some sort of illness after their experiment!

I’m getting back in action, however. As promised, there’s some community craft in this week’s report. Tons of it. Am I forgetting something important? Definitely not. Let’s play the community game.

There’s No Eridium Here

The developers recently revealed that we’re not getting in–game level sharing in the near future, if at all. While that’s sad and all, this community isn’t a place where we cry. It’s a place where we don’t give a single drop of care and go fix the problem ourselves—at least if your username is Northcode. In the ancient days of the early Cobalt alpha, we had the Cobalt File Database. Now, Northcode brings you:

The Cobalt Vault! You can check it out right now at cobaltvault.no!

The site is still being developed, but so is Cobalt. The beast is armed and ready to snatch your maps out of your metal paws, and if you ask nicely, it may even give you a few to download. See that Cobalt folder in your Documents? If it doesn’t already contain a folder called ‘maps’, go create it right now. Put stuff in there, and it’ll appear in User Maps in the game! I’m quite fond of magic tricks.

As of my writing, the Vault holds 26 projects, of which community member Janeator owns around 58. Got maps? We’d love to play them! If you need a map making crash course, FabiotheTurtle got you covered with his text and video tutorials!

Got feedback about the site? Here’s the forum thread. You can also accidentally run into the creator through IRC in #cobalt on EsperNet.

Videos Galore

I like videos. As friends, though. We saw a lot of cool ones appear on the magical intertubes through the past few weeks. Here are some of my favorites.

First up, one dosis of what–am–I–looking–at–ohthat’sfunny by the one and only DolanCZ:

Some sort of magic barrier is preventing me from embedding videos, so you’ll get a link. Here.

Marvelous. Simply marvelous. See that piece of montage parody, though? I want more.

Pickselate delivers.

And now for something completely different.

Cobalt doesn’t have that many derivative works just yet, but Librus is in the process of cooking up something in Flash– It moves! There’s not much yet, but he recently showed us a test animation or two, and the style is already giving me major nostalgia trips back to my childhood Flashventures. Good luck with your animation brewing, Librus.

Learn to Fly

Okay, that wasn’t completely different. We need something crazy like flying around with a supercharged Phaser—I didn’t make that up. Isogash did.

He’s making a new modding API, and he wants you to know that Cobalt modding is the easy kind of wizard magic. To prove that, he made the DeathPhaser mod which beefs up the Phaser a bit.

You can find the source of the black magic on the forums, and if you want to get technical, download the mod files and place them in daisyMoon\controls\ in your Cobalt game directory (You may have to create the controls folder yourself.).

It’s A Map!

The Hoarding Helixian Hero of Hope runs on delicious bytes of data, and I ran all out of them. In my quest for a refill, I stumbled upon a fresh map—not the treasury kind, but a battlefield! Turns out it’s cursed with a spell that makes me share it here. There are many excellent–looking maps I haven’t had the chance to play yet, but perhaps we’ll look at those another day. For now, behold: It’s a Deathmatch collaboration between Janeator and phaser master Isogash, and it’s called Abandon Hold!

You can find the Cobalt Vault project page here.

I like this map because it does what I expect of a good battlefield: It has areas for different types of brawling, a good selection of power weapons, and it makes sense.

These two fellow community crafters did a pretty good job, but if you truly want to earn my love, make parkour maps. More parkour maps. Mó̷̧r҉̨e̸ p͏͘͜͜a̷̡r̷͢͞͡k͜o͢u̴͠r̷̶̛̕ m͎̕ą͈̘̋̊̂̃̏̉p͚͆͘s̖͎ͦ͊͗̂̓͑. We need them.

Until Next Time

This week’s report ended up being pure community content, but as I’m getting back in the groove, I’ll hopefully be able to snatch something fancy for you next time. Until then, keep on rolling!

Happy birthday, Kinten. We demand cake!

…Hold on. I just felt a great disturbance in the Oxeye download repositories.

There’s a new update for your favorite warranty–voiding robot combat simulator, and if you’re still reading this instead of playing, chances are that you want a quick briefing of the major changes. Chances are also that you’ll get one.

Last Friday, we stole a sizable chunk of Arcade and Team–Strike intel from Oxeye’s bottomless pit of secrets. I also got the honor of meeting their overprotective firewall, leaving you with just a picture of the new Deathmatch hotness. Naturally, witnessing the power of their dignity–destroying army of virtual killer robots getting up close and personal, I decided to do the only reasonable thing: Post more information!

They hired a test team, a brutal force of veteran gladiators mercilessly trampling through the forest of in–house prototypes. Features were evaluated, malfunctions were blown to pieces. I considered disguising as a knight of honor to sneakily acquire a copy of the prototype version, but I decided that simply stealing it while laughing maniacally was far more entertaining. Enough epic tales of Robin Hood style heroism for today; let’s jump in.

The Winning Advantage

Almost like they want to bury my disillusioning writings in a sudden outburst of publicity, Oxeye started a radio show this week. A closer look at the fresh vein of propaganda shows us the things that aren’t in v123.

The idea of Advantage was that upon reaching the score limit in Deathmatch, a timer would appear to taunt you while waiting for that sweet win. If you got killed during the period of extended playtime, you’d lose a point—and the advantage.

I thought it was a cool feature, but the laboratory’s guinea pigs had a fair point—It was an anticlimactic and confusing way to end a match, especially one with a low score goal. Maybe Advantage will return in the future in a more refined shape, maybe not.

Advantage wasn’t the only revolution of the game mode, however. Let’s take a look at that jazzy screenshot again.

In an attempt to spice up long games of Deathmatch some more, dynamic pickup spawns were implemented. Three different types of pickups are visible in the picture:

• Weapon crates, the very heart of dynamic spawns. As seen to the left in the picture, these contain a specific type of weapon waiting for some love. Once picked up, the crate remains, slowly spawning another weapon of the same type. Players cannot pick up a weapon they’re already holding, but contrary to a previous statement, they can hold up to three different weapons.
• Throwable spawner orbs. Two of these green spawners are visible in the screenshot, in the process of spawning throwables. Similar to weapons, a Metalface can now only carry three different throwables. This is a global change in the update—see, this is what happens when you don’t exercise.
• Upgrade orbs. Pick up an orange blob to power up your weapon. For each death, at least one of these sparkly beauties will spawn—more if the victim had collected a bunch of these!

They don’t last forever, though. Each minute, the contents of the crates cycle to other tools of destruction. Furthermore, you want to be fast when you see an upgrade orb—they only last for 15 seconds before disappearing for good!

Why am I going into detail about a feature that was scrapped? Here’s the deal: It wasn’t! While it’s not on by default on all maps, delving into the settings before starting a round of Deathmatch will reveal a few neat toys to mess with, including pickup spawns.

For the arena designers out there, you don’t have to worry about adding you need to add loot spawns for the new fanciness. If your map has pickups, the game will use those as dynamic spawns when needed. However, should you so desire, you can set dynamic pickup spawning as the default system for your map. (Strikes by thewreck, bug that does indeed sound like a good feature! thanks for the suggestion!)

Fresh Prey

Everyone loves bleep bloops. Fortunately for your inner achievement hunter, Cobalt now features a solid set of achievements! Yay!

Disclaimer: I lied. Not everyone loves bleep bloops. If you’re one of those disturbed extraterrestrials, you can turn off achievement notifications in the settings menu.

Gotta Go Fast

Game mode changes and achievements are nice, but v123 has more tricks up its sleeve. The little brain exoskeletons have been upgraded with improved agility—double jumps are always available now, although you still get a height bonus for running before leaping.

The Metalfaces aren’t the only things that are faster now: Sluggers are now faster than ever, although they have less ammunition. If you’re a police officer, you’ll be able to transfer those mad pepper spray skills right into Cobalt! Shouldn’t you be blessed with a job featuring fancy uniforms and kitchen ingredient weaponry, you’ll hopefully be able to adapt soon enough. Be aware, however, that Slugger bullets are now deflected in a manner closer to Matter projectiles.

With these changes, the Sluggers can be devastating against opponents caught in the barrage of death, but think twice before picking these weapons against players who know their game: A perfect roll will not just reflect the first bullet perfectly but also all other projectiles that hit during the same roll. If you’re confident in your timing skills, spinning your battle droid at just the right time facing a barrage of fast Slugger bullets will throw them all back at the sender at even higher speeds! Gladiators, if you’re feeling competitive, now’s the time to start practicing.

The Silent Announcement: Cobalt for PlayStation

Are you thinking that Oxeye Laboratories are being completely innocent here, adding cool new features for pure entertainment? Think again. Reading the description of the first episode of Radio Cobalt teaches us that Oxeye is planning a large–scale invasion of living rooms all over the world! While Xbox users have been targeted for a while now, PlayStation 3 owners have reason for great concern too—Cobalt is coming for your console, further expanding the dubious empire of Oxeye.

Deserter for a Week

It’s time to wrap up for this week, folks. Before we do that, I have good and bad news for you: I’m on a secret alpine mission next week and will not be able to continue my quest for supremacy exposing the evil business going on at the lab. However, this means you’ll have two weeks with v123 to come up with the crazy things this community does, and if you’re crazy enough, you’ll earn yourself a free advertisement spot in the next Intel Report! Here’s some inspiration:

Make me proud, mysterious people of the Internet. See you in two weeks.