Greetings fellow gamers!

Many of you have probably noted an obvious slowdown in development since Update 1c was released last year. First and foremost, I would like to absolutely reassure you that development is, in fact, continuing and Update 2 is currently in work, with Update 3 and 4 already planned out.

But why did this happen? Well, that's a story I thought I would never find myself in a position to tell, but here we are. So strap in! There's a lot of back context needed.

In 2013 I decided to learn to program as it was the only remaining skill left I did not have to make a video game. I had no experience what so ever outside of doing mods/scripting for various games over the years. I spent 8-9 months of my life doing nothing but working at Lockheed Martin as an Avionics Technician 8-10 hours a day, and another 8-10 at home learning how to program in my language of choice, Java. After roughly a year it was time to go pro, and I started development on Retro-Pixel Castles, or eventually to be renamed, Rise to Ruins. I saved up (or have been saving up, more accurately) around $90k working at Lockheed, because I lived out of a suitcase moving from one military base to the next every 4-6 months for 5 straight years. So, I did the totally rational thing you do when you want to completely change career paths into a job with an extremely high rate of failure that you have literally zero professional experience what so ever in doing, I quit my current job at Lockheed Martin.

Yes, you read that right. My first ever attempt to "go pro" happened within a year of learning to program and I quit my very secure job to do it. Despite all odds, I was successful in the attempt. I also got an Associates Degree in Psychology at a local community college and bought a house in cash (87k, near-condemned foreclosure) while doing all this because it was necessary. Thanks to my former military service I could go to college for free. In fact, they paid me roughly $1,200/mo to go on top of paying for books/tuition, it's how I fed myself in the early days of this. I also needed a place to live during this ridiculous adventure too, and reducing costs was key to my strategy working, so what better cost reduction than removing rent/mortgages all together? Long as I was in college for free and getting paid $1,200/mo to educate myself for the next 4 years, I could survive.

Development on Rise to Ruins itself was blistering fast as a result, because this whole plan would implode within 4 years when my education benefits ran out. It's easily a whole story in of itself, but I'll gloss over that for brevity's sake because that's not the point of this already really long announcement. Basically I dedicated years to work, spending a good 10-14 hours a day usually 7 days a week at the height of it just chugging out patches during Early Access. Fast forward to Rise to Ruins officially releasing in October of 2019, right before the pandemic started. My plan was (and still is) to continue to support the game post release. Rise to Ruins has done me very well financially, supporting my and my wife's lives without either of us having to get outside jobs.

But there's a problem. While Rise to Ruins does in fact currently support my livelihood and the entire 4 year plan became irrelevant by year 2 because Rise to Ruins' income started to support me and my wife by itself, it still isn't enough to finance the next game. The next game, code named "Project Mary", is another project that will likely take me multiple years to complete with a very long Early Access cycle. I cannot guarantee I can duplicate Rise to Ruins' Early Access success again, and Rise to Ruins' sales revenue will eventually dwindle. It must, it's just the nature of how it works in this business.

So, how do I get around this problem? Money. Lots of money. Well, Rise to Ruins makes decent money, but still not enough, I can't assure it will be there forever and I am against taking money from publishers and what not.

Coronavirus has entered chat.

In 2020 one of the worst pandemics in human history began and to my disadvantage, only a few months after Rise to Ruins released. I was faced with an awkward problem as I was locked in my home. I needed to find proper funding for my second game and I absolutely abhor taking money from publishers. I'm a solo developer and it's going to stay that way. The pandemic amplified this problem because it limited what I could do to solve my funding issue.

I knew Rise to Ruins profits couldn't sustain development for the multiple years needed to complete Project Mary, and a Kickstarter also wouldn't be right as an already successful company running a Kickstarter for funding is bad optics in my opinion. Even with full continued patch support, Rise to Ruins will eventually drop under the bar its sales support me, that's just how it works unless you have a mega-ultra-hit like Stardew Valley, Rimworld, etc that generates so much cash on the front end it doesn't matter. Rise to Ruins still had done me well, at the time of making this decision I had no debts of any kind, house and car paid off in full, and over $200,000 in my savings account. That sounds great, but it still wasn't enough to accomplish my goals and as I said previously, I felt a Kickstarter would be in bad tastes (and potentially not raise enough money anyway). I had to figure out how to generate even more cash during a pandemic without relying on Rise to Ruins, so I could work on the game without any future cash flow fears.

Repeating my normal methodology of throwing my whole-everything into a problem, I dedicated a ridiculous amount of time in one of the places I thought I'd never find myself; The soulless depths of the stock market. I studied, studied, and studied more. My whole life existed for one reason and one reason alone; Learn the market and use it to secure funding for Project Mary.

So uh, yeah, again in my life, against all odds, I did it.

As of writing this, I have turned $200k into $2.5 million dollars. That was actually higher before the recent tech crash in February and early March, where I broke a staggering $3 million. I am now pulling back from active investing, and transitioning to a semi-active-passive thing, so I can refocus on what's important; Rise to Ruins continued development, and starting development full time on Project Mary. I should hopefully have a minimum sustained additional income of $10k/month (that's not a typo) throughout all of Project Mary's development without actually touching the $2.5 million. That's not assured, but it seems likely.

This process impacted everything in my life, including my own mental health, that I'm still recovering from as I write this. Trust me folks, money doesn't buy happiness and while I have a lot of it now, the past 8 months have been absolutely exhausting and downright destructive to my mental health. I will simply need time to recover.

I hope you guys can forgive the lack of patches over the last year as I went through this adventure, and have gained some understanding as to why I did it at all in the first place. But, one thing is now certain for Rise to Ruins', Project Mary's and most importantly SixtyGig Games' future as a whole:

Funding Secured.

(EDIT/Update: No you ridiculously awesome goofballs, I didn't yolo into $GME. :P)

This is a smaller patch full of a ton of small quality of life improvements, bug fixes and balance changes. This patch was originally going into Update 2, but I decided to break out some of the Update 2 content and move it to a smaller patch, so you can get some of the new improvements and changes early, without having to wait for Update 2 later. Enjoy! :)

Check out the change log for all the juicy bits, and if you find a bug, don't forget to report it on Discord or the Steam Forums. :)


Miscellaneous Changes

• Essence Collectors no longer deliver essence when out of range of the village.
  
• Drones now only harvest resources when there is not any already available within the corruption.
  
• Resources now decay twice as fast on corrupted tiles.
  
• Non-monster buildings are now slowly destroyed if they are caught in the corruption.
  
• Reduced the overall amount of resources generated when a very large or highly upgraded building is destroyed.
  
• Blood Slimes no longer can spawn boosted.
  
• Blood Slimes now die slowly when they're not on the corruption.
  
• All slimes now will no longer regain hit points unless they're inside the corruption.
  
• Blood Slimes no longer level alongside the corruption or current day.
  
• Rock now regrows at an extremely slow rate, roughly 1/20th the rate of trees.
  
• Rock now remains selected after harvesting.
  
• Added hot key support for object upgrade buttons, but the hot keys must be assigned manually.
  
• The hot key for dismantling buildings is now unassigned by default, but can still be assigned in settings. This is to prevent new players from accidentally triggering a dismantle action they can't reverse, but still allow experienced players to have a hot key if they desire.
  
• Nerfed the Flame Spell's damage by 50%

Bug Fixes

• Range is no longer improperly generated on initial load.
  
• Fixed the never-ending god XP tally sound that sometimes occurs on the world map.
  
• Fixed a rare bug that would crash the game in the event a mob would drop off a resource to a building that has just become out of range, and still had remaining resources to drop.
  
• You can no longer start an upgrade on a building out of range of the village, causing the game to crash.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause the mouse to move too far when you increased or decreased the priority of a building on the building list panel.
  
• Fixed some overlaying text on the building upgrade panel on some buildings.
  
• Fixed an issue where several mob related perks would not apply correctly to the mobs.
  
• Blight settings are now properly saved in custom game mode templates.
  
• If a blessed villager has twins or triplets, all of the children will be born nephilims.
  
• Fixed a few typos in the tool tips.
  
• Fixed an extremely rare bug where sometimes mobs would reset their AI, and no longer be "dead" even if they have no hit points.
  
• Fixed a bug that could sometimes trigger invulnerable slimes.
  
• Slightly optimized the building destruction code.

The Rise to Ruins soundtrack is now uploaded all over the internet, including Spotify, Amazon Music, Youtube, Google Play and more!

All revenue (Less various store fees) from purchasing or listening to the soundtrack does not go to me, rather it goes to Rise to Ruins' composer, José Ramón "Bibiki" García. So if you want to support him directly by throwing a few bucks his way, be sure to buy the soundtrack! :)

If you're interested in listening or purchasing the soundtrack on various platforms, you can click here to get started!

Additionally, if you just want to jam out on youtube, you can find the full OST here.



And finally, always remember, the full sound track is always available unobfuscated within the game files, in .ogg format, just poke around the /res/music folder. But buying the soundtrack online is a way to support RtR's awesome composer, and get the files in a more appropriately organized format for easy listening on multiple devices. :)

The first free post release content patch has arrived, introducing The Magic Update!

This update includes a complete and total overhaul of the spell casting mechanics, as well as a ton of new spells. It also includes double the perks the game released with, a ton of bug fixes, balance changes, and general improvements.

Specter mechanics have been changed quite a bit in this patch as well, so be sure to checkout the "New Walls and Specter Mechanics" category below and read it carefully! ːrtrheartː

Check out the change log for all the juicy bits, and if you find a bug, don't forget to report it on Discord or the Steam Forums. :)


New Walls and Specter Mechanics

• Added Crylithium Curtain Walls, Crylithium Walls and Crylithium Gates to the game. They all can block specters and ghosts from passing through them.
  
• Specters and Ghosts can no longer cross crystal patches.
  
• Regular Curtain Walls no longer block specters and ghosts from passing through them.
  
• All old saves before this patch get their Curtain Walls updated to Crylithium Curtain Walls automatically and free, so late game villages don't get overrun with specters after this change.
  
• Reorganized the walls category into two subcategories.

New Perks

• Labor Golem and Holy Golem Duration perk removed as they serve no purpose anymore.
  
• Tons of new perks added, more than doubling the original perk list. There are too many to list here, so just take my word for it and enjoy! :)
  
• Removed "perk rarity" from the game. This feature used to determine how common certain perks were, now all perks have an equal chance of being unlocked.

Spell and Influence Overhaul

• New Spell: Construct. Uses your godly powers to assist in constructing buildings, but requires the resources to already be delivered to the build site.
  
• New Spell: Divine Blessing. Bless a villager, causing their next born child to be a Nephilim with superior strength, dexterity and lifespan.
  
• New Spell: God Tower. Summons a magic bow tower with unlimited ammo. Requires a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. Can be dispelled with the Dispel Structure spell.
  
• New Spell: God Wall. Summons a magic wall that will help block all types of monsters, including specters, from crossing. Requires a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. Can be dispelled with the Dispel Structure spell.
  
• New Spell: Harvest. Automatically harvests resources from the region, dropping them on the ground for your villagers to quickly collect. Make sure you cast this in range of your village, else nobody will come pick anything up!
  
• New Spell: Holy Potatoes. Sprouts magic potatoes from the ground, really handy if you've just completely run out of food or want to create a new patch elsewhere in the village!
  
• New Spell: Holy Wood. Sprouts large erections of wood from the ground, really handy if you've just completely run out of wood or want to create a new patch elsewhere in the village!
  
• New Spell: Dispel Golem. Dispel a previously summoned or combobulated golem. Will work on any golem in the village, including the ones you did not summon yourself. Typically should be used to dispel labor or holy golems to regain some of your maximum influence.
  
• New Spell: Dispel God Structure. Dispel a previously summoned structure to regain some of your maximum influence.
  
• A new type of influence mechanic has been added. Now some spells can last forever, but they take up a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. For example, Labor Golems now last forever, but permanently reserve 300 points of influence on your influence bar until you dispel them, or they are killed by monsters.
  
• Some spells like Conjure Essence and Flame can now be continuously casted, meaning you can hold down the mouse button to continue casting them rather than clicking.
  
• Many of the old spells now have cooldowns, but have also been buffed or rebalanced accordingly.
  
• Labor and Holy Golems no longer die slowly over time, but do require influence to be maintained.
  
• Slightly reduced how much maximum influence the player gets per villager.
  
• Uncorked the influence absolute maximum, there is no longer a maximum cap on how much total influence you can have.
  
• Your maximum influence now uses the entire bar (visibly), but the amount of maximum influence still increases per villager.
  
• Influence gained per tick is now based on a percentage of maximum influence rather than a fixed amount.
  
• The spell select panel and spell descriptions panel have been completely overhauled.
  
• Revised many of the spell descriptions.
  
• Added a spell radius display when you have a spell selected.
  
• Reduced the particle count on the influence bar.
  
• Buffed conjure essence spell, it can now produce more resources per cast, and perks can boost it further.
  
• Slightly reduced influence generation rates.

Miscellaneous Changes

• New range generation "trimming" system, that will remove generated range in areas not connected to the village. Added to cut down on villagers straying away from the village and getting killed. Note that corruption resistance will still generate even if range does not.
  
• Increased the storage counts of equipment storage.
  
• Screenshot files are now tagged with the version number of the game they were taken with.
  
• Cleaned up some of the mouse tooltip message positions.
  
• Added pointer lines from selected buildings to the building's occupants or workers.
  
• Added lavender color trees to the game. Currently only used for the Holy Wood spell.
  
• Added holy potatoes to the game. Currently only used for the Holy Potatoes spell.
  
• A new mob type called "Nephilim" to the game, that is currently created via the new Divine Blessing spell. These new villagers have longer lifespans and boosted stats.
  
• Changed the pregnancy icon to look more like a rattle.
  
• Kitchen now increases worker's cooked meat and boiled egg refine time when upgraded.
  
• Updated the graveyard's tooltips.

Bug Fixes

• Added fix to buildings to prevent them from being stuck at >100% completed on load after receiving a perk that reduces construction resource requirements.
  
• Fixed several minor typos.
  
• Fixed a rare endless loop crash that could happen if monsters tried to spawn from a completely blocked in corrupted fire pit.
  
• Fixed a minor bug that would cause villagers to not lose hunger points when they mated.
  
• Fixed some animal mating issues.
  
• Fixed the construction outline and abandoned graphics for all gates.
  
• Fixed a very rare crash caused by an endless loop in the trajectory calculation code.
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing work speed reductions due to high wind to be calculated twice.
  
• Fixed a bug that wouldn't allow any golems to get their level increase perk unless the player had the wood golem level perk.
  
• Charmed monsters no longer threaten tiles.
  
• Fixed an issue where mobs would actually lose hunger, thirst and energy slower when working, rather than faster.
  
• Fixed a minor bug that could cause newborn animals to spawn the wrong color.
  
• Fixed a minor bug where catjeet elders would not show up on the population panel when the filter was set to "Elder".
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes specters could be banished to inside your village.
  
• You can no longer upgrade the outpost while it's already being upgraded.
  
• Fire pit construction can now be paused.
  
• Fixed purple color crystals minimap color.
  
• Slightly modified Casas, Wyvernedge and Death Pass to add more valid animal spawn locations.
  
• Burner no longer trigger the energy usage tip when built.
  
• Doggos now count on the domesticated stats panel.
  
• Fixed the upgrade description panel text from overflowing on the Established Ranger Lodge description.
  
• Ranger lodges no longer count on the problem panel as homes with no food.
  
• Fixed the missing blank panels on the combobulator category on the right panel.
  
• Fixed a interface scaling issue with some ultrawide monitors that would cause buttons to be hidden under the UI.
  
• Fixed a very minor bug where the save system would claim it's converting old road map save data when it wasn't, and the data was already converted.
  
• Catjeet children are now counted in the children total on the population totals panel.
  
• Blood Moon and Eclipse countdown delay timers are now properly saved.
  
• Fixed a rounding issue on the perk list totals.

I am giving out up to 100 FREE copies of Rise to Ruins to anyone who Follows, RTs and replies to this post on Twitter with their "proof" they are staying at home during the #CoronavirusOutbreak!

I'm not telling you what the proof is, just have fun with it. ːlunar2020ratinablanketː

Have fun, and wash your hands!

Click here for help on accessing the Unstable branch!

Update 1 Unstable 2 has arrived! This patch adds tons and tons of new perks (more than double!) as well as tosses in several bug fix and other general improvements. This is also the "Feature complete" build of Update 1. Barring any issue, Update 1 should be fully released very soon. So make sure you dig deep for those bugs! ːrtrheartː

Enjoy!


New Perks

• Labor Golem and Holy Golem Duration perk removed as they serve no purpose anymore.
  
• Tons of new perks added, more than doubling the original perk list. There are too many to list here, so just take my word for it and enjoy! :)
  
• Removed "perk rarity" from the game. This feature used to determine how common certain perks were, now all perks have an equal chance of being unlocked.

Miscellaneous Changes

• New range generation "trimming" system, that will remove generated range in areas not connected to the village. Added to cut down on villagers straying away from the village and getting killed. Note that corruption resistance will still generate even if range does not.
  
• Increased the storage counts of equipment storage.
  
• Added "blessed" icon to the mob select and population panels.
  
• Slightly reduced influence regeneration rates.
  
• Buffed conjure essence spell, it can now produce more resources per cast, and perks can boost it further.
  
• Slightly reduced influence generation rates.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a interface scaling issue with some ultrawide monitors that would cause buttons to be hidden under the UI.
  
• Charm spell works again.
  
• Fixed a very minor bug where the save system would claim it's converting old road map save data when it wasn't, and the data was already converted.
  
• Fixed a bug that could crash the game if a blessed regular male villager impregnated a nephilim and the nephilim tried to give birth.
  
• Put in temporary fix for blessed nephilim child birth crashes so old Unstable 1 players already inflicted with the bug can continue to play their saves.
  
• If the father of a child is re-blessed after the father impregnates the mother, the father will not become unblessed when the mother gives birth.
  
• Fixed a bug that would allow you to attempt to cast some spells you don't meet the conditions for and not consuming the influence, but triggering the cooldown.
  
• Nephilim now properly live an average of 10 days longer than their regular counterparts.
  
• Resurrect spell cooldown now doesn't reset when you don't cast it in a ghost.
  
• Human Nephilim migrants no longer "become" regular humans after they arrive at the new region.
  
• Nephilim elders and children are no longer counted as unassigned workers list in the population list panel.
  
• Catjeet Children are now counted in the children total on the population totals panel.
  
• Nephilim are now counted in the children total on the population totals panel
  
• Nephilim are now tracked in the statistics panel.
  
• Blood Moon and Eclipse countdown delay timers are now properly saved.
  
• Divine Blessing no longer counts to the resurrection count goal.
  
• Fixed a few of the new spells not providing god XP or increasing spell cast counts for goals.
  
• Nephilim are now properly counted on the population panel (Yes, again)
  
• Fixed a rounding issue on the perk list totals.

Click here for help on accessing the Unstable branch!

Update 1 Unstable 1 has arrived! This patch adds a ton of small improvements and bug fixes, some balance changes, and most importantly a completely overhauled spell system! :)

This patch introduces a ton of new mechanics that can greatly impact the overall balance of the game. So be sure to let me know in the comments what you think of all the new mechanics and how they're impacting your gameplay so I can fine tune them for the eventual full release.

Enjoy!


New Walls and Specter Mechanics

• Added Crylithium Curtain Walls, Crylithium Walls and Crylithium Gates to the game. They all can block specters and ghosts from passing through them.
  
• Specters and Ghosts can no longer cross crystal patches.
  
• Regular Curtain Walls no longer block specters and ghosts from passing through them.
  
• All old saves before this patch get their Curtain Walls updated to Crylithium Curtain Walls automatically and free, so late game villages don't get overrun with specters after this change.
  
• Reorganized the walls category into two subcategories.

Spell and Influence Overhaul

• New Spell: Construct. Uses your godly powers to assist in constructing buildings, but requires the resources to already be delivered to the build site.
  
• New Spell: Divine Blessing. Bless a villager, causing their next born child to be a Nephilim with superior strength, dexterity and lifespan.
  
• New Spell: God Tower. Summons a magic bow tower with unlimited ammo. Requires a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. Can be dispelled with the Dispel Structure spell.
  
• New Spell: God Wall. Summons a magic wall that will help block all types of monsters, including specters, from crossing. Requires a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. Can be dispelled with the Dispel Structure spell.
  
• New Spell: Harvest. Automatically harvests resources from the region, dropping them on the ground for your villagers to quickly collect. Make sure you cast this in range of your village, else nobody will come pick anything up!
  
• New Spell: Holy Potatoes. Sprouts magic potatoes from the ground, really handy if you've just completely run out of food or want to create a new patch elsewhere in the village!
  
• New Spell: Holy Wood. Sprouts large erections of wood from the ground, really handy if you've just completely run out of wood or want to create a new patch elsewhere in the village!
  
• New Spell: Dispel Golem. Dispel a previously summoned or combobulated golem. Will work on any golem in the village, including the ones you did not summon yourself. Typically should be used to dispel labor or holy golems to regain some of your maximum influence.
  
• New Spell: Dispel God Structure. Dispel a previously summoned structure to regain some of your maximum influence.
  
• A new type of influence mechanic has been added. Now some spells can last forever, but they take up a portion of your maximum influence to maintain. For example, Labor Golems now last forever, but permanently reserve 300 points of influence on your influence bar until you dispel them, or they are killed by monsters.
  
• Some spells like Conjure Essence and Flame can now be continuously casted, meaning you can hold down the mouse button to continue casting them rather than clicking.
  
• Many of the old spells now have cooldowns, but have also been buffed or rebalanced accordingly.
  
• Labor and Holy Golems no longer die slowly over time, but do require influence to be maintained.
  
• Slightly reduced how much maximum influence the player gets per villager.
  
• Uncorked the influence absolute maximum, there is no longer a maximum cap on how much total influence you can have.
  
• Your maximum influence now uses the entire bar (visibly), but the amount of maximum influence still increases per villager.
  
• Influence gained per tick is now based on a percentage of maximum influence rather than a fixed amount.
  
• The spell select panel and spell descriptions panel have been completely overhauled.
  
• Revised many of the spell descriptions.
  
• Added a spell radius display when you have a spell selected.
  
• Reduced the particle count on the influence bar.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Screenshot files are now tagged with the version number of the game they were taken with.
  
• Cleaned up some of the mouse tooltip message positions.
  
• Added pointer lines from selected buildings to the building's occupants or workers.
  
• Added lavender color trees to the game. Currently only used for the Holy Wood spell.
  
• Added holy potatoes to the game. Currently only used for the Holy Potatoes spell.
  
• A new mob type called "Nephilim" to the game, that is currently created via the new Divine Blessing spell. These new villagers have longer lifespans and boosted stats.
  
• Changed the pregnancy icon to look more like a rattle.
  
• Kitchen now increases worker's cooked meat and boiled egg refine time when upgraded.
  
• Updated the graveyard's tooltips.

Bug Fixes

• Added fix to buildings to prevent them from being stuck at >100% completed on load after receiving a perk that reduces construction time.
  
• Fixed several minor typos.
  
• Fixed a rare endless loop crash that could happen if monsters tried to spawn from a completely blocked in corrupted fire pit.
  
• Fixed a minor bug that would cause villagers to not lose hunger points when they mated.
  
• Fixed some animal mating issues.
  
• Fixed the construction outline and abandoned graphics for all gates.
  
• Fixed a very rare crash caused by an endless loop in the trajectory calculation code.
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing work speed reductions due to high wind to be calculated twice.
  
• Fixed a bug that wouldn't allow any golems to get their level increase perk unless the player had the wood golem level perk.
  
• Charmed monsters no longer threaten tiles.
  
• Fixed an issue where mobs would actually lose hunger, thirst and energy slower when working, rather than faster.
  
• Fixed a minor bug that could cause newborn animals to spawn the wrong color.
  
• Fixed a minor bug where catjeet elders would not show up on the population panel when the filter was set to "Elder".
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes specters could be banished to inside your village.
  
• You can no longer upgrade the outpost while it's already being upgraded.
  
• Fire pit construction can now be paused.
  
• Fixed purple color crystals minimap color.
  
• Slightly modified Casas, Wyvernedge and Death Pass to add more valid animal spawn locations.
  
• Burner no longer trigger the energy usage tip when built.
  
• Doggos now count on the domesticated stats panel.
  
• Fixed the upgrade description panel text from overflowing on the Established Ranger Lodge description.
  
• Ranger lodges no longer count on the problem panel as homes with no food.
  
• Fixed the missing blank panels on the combobulator category on the right panel.

Greetings everyone! Now that Rise to Ruins has left Early Access, it's time to talk about how development will progress from here on out. As I've stated in the past, development will not end when the game leaves Early Access. But, I would like to change how patches work from here.

In the past I tried to release giant major patches. A huge part of this was up until 2019 major patches broke your save data, so I wanted to be sure I added enough content all at once to make it worthwhile to start over. But, for a large majority of 2019 save files are no longer broken when new patches are releases, and I of course don't plan to break them moving forward from here.

So, what I'm going to start doing is stop releasing future patch Road Maps outlining huge patches with tons of content. Rather, I'm going to start releasing much smaller, more frequent patches and people interested in following very closely with development can either follow me on twitter, or join our discord.

Although there will still be occasional big patches, it really depends on what mechanics are being added. Some new mechanics may simply be so extensive they would be nonsensical broken up into smaller parts. For example, the recent hunting patch would not have made much sense if I broke it up into smaller pieces where I added just animals, then just hunting, then just animal pens, and then just butchering/slaughtering mechanics all individually as separate smaller patches. None of those mechanics would have functioned correctly without the other parts.

Just a reminder, as I said in the past all future patches will not be DLC. All future content will be 100% free, and included in the base game. Rise to Ruins will continue to get free content patches as long as I am selling enough copies to support myself and development.

Introducing the most important patch in the history of Rise to Ruins, Release 1! It's been a long ride, but I'm proud to bring you this milestone update.

In less than 24 hours, Rise to Ruins leaves Early Access. But development isn't over! Expect more free content patches over the years as Rise to Ruins continues to evolve and expand into an even more complex game with deeper mechanics.

For now though, check out the most extensive and important change log in Rise to Ruins history.

If you're looking for the recently released "Hunting Update" change log for InDev 34, check it out here.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Released the game. 🎉🥂🍻🍾

It's time to hunt! The final InDev version of Rise to Ruins has been released! On October 14th the game will launch out of Early Access and the next big content update you'll see after will be called the free "Content Update 1". Exciting times are ahead! :)

This update introduces a massive amount of balance changes, a new hunting system, new mobs, and a ton more. The list is simply too long to summarize properly, so check out the change logs!


Rangers and Hunting System

• Renamed the barracks to ranger station.
  
• Renamed guards to rangers.
  
• Two new buildings added, the animal pen and the clucker coop. Both buildings house animals that the hunters capture and return to the village. When full, excess animals are then taken by the cooks and slaughtered for meat in the kitchen.
  
• Rangers will now hunt for animals during midday, capturing them and taking them to animal pens or clucker coops.
  
• Rangers no longer patrol the perimeter of the village during the day time.
  
• Rangers no longer can post at outposts or barracks.
  
• Rangers now patrol the village during a blood moon, rather than the front lines.
  
• Rangers outside the village are no longer called when a village is in danger.
  
• Moved rangers lodge and outpost to the food and water category.

Animals and Cooking

• Four new animals have been added to the game, the clucker, entler, beefalo and rous. All four can be hunted by the rangers.
  
• Tons of new resources have been added, including raw meat, cooked meat, eggs, boiled eggs, raw hide, and feathers.
  
• Most non-monster mobs now drop meat and byproducts like raw hide upon death, including villagers and doggos.
  
• Doggos now only spawn on the edges of the map.
  
• Animals also spawn on the edges of the map.
  
• Wild animals try to seek out safe locations with food and water to congregate.
  
• Rebalanced all food.
  
• Doggos and other animals now require less food and water to sustain themselves.
  
• Doggos and other animals can no longer die of overheating or freezing.

Save System Optimizations

• The entire save system for object/building data has been completely rewritten, significantly reducing memory usage and save data size.
  
• Numerous changes and improvements to tons of modules have been done to drastically decrease save file size, save time, load time, and memory usage. (Note: The first time you load an old save it may take some additional time as it converts the data to the new format. I also strongly recommend loading and then saving and exiting at least once on every region just to decrease overall load time and memory usage on the world map.)

Balance Changes

• Cooks and bottlers can now manufacture with their entire workforce again.
  
• Doubled both the speed and damage of bows. (Resulting in 4x more DPS)
  
• Tripled the ammo capacity of quivers.
  
• Villagers now use hostile towers and corruption in their fight or flight mechanics.
  
• Tools now require wood boards and iron.
  
• Bows now require silk and wood.
  
• Iron armor now requires raw hide and iron ingots.
  
• Medkits now require silk and wood.
  
• Quivers now require feathers and wood.
  
• Heavily buffed rations.
  
• Rations now require a raw meat and a raw vegetable.
  
• All buildings that make the above mentioned resources now have had their storage changed to store those resources.
  
• Elders can no longer turn into zombies when blighted.
  
• Rebalanced zombies very slightly.
  
• Removed intelligence from the game.
  
• Removed happiness from the game.
  
• Completely overhauled entire resource storage system, now buildings can store fixed amounts of each resource type rather than a total of any resource types they can store.
  
• Completely rebalanced storage limits of nearly all buildings.
  
• It is now easier to push back the corruption.
  
• Maintaining infinite refined resources will now manufacture them regardless if storage space exists.
  
• Less monsters now spawn overall, but their levels increase more rapidly.
  
• Monster level increases extremely fast when the corruption is highly threatened. (Warning: If you pinned the corruption in your save, the difficulty may be unexpectedly much higher suddenly.)
  
• The corruption can now be completely destroyed, but it's extremely hard and time consuming.
  
• Doubled resource decay times for most resources, and tripled others.
  
• It now takes less trashy trash to make a trashy cube.
  
• Reduced farm range to 24.
  
• A fourth dark purple work selection color has been added to signal when a work selection has been threatened.
  
• When pushing back the corruption, it becomes more resistant and slower to push back the more pinned it is.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Workers now try to equip the best tools or food available rather than anything they can find.
  
• Loading tips moved to the main game, and now the game starts paused.
  
• Top popup panels no longer overlap the left panel's category buttons.
  
• Reduced the overlay font size slightly.
  
• Raw food renamed to raw vegetables.
  
• Slightly optimized mob rendering code.
  
• Perimeter generation code completely removed from the game.
  
• Changed Doofy Wild Doggo to Wild Doofy Doggo.
  
• Armorsmiths can now make leather armor.
  
• Wooden shield renamed to leather shield, and can also now be made by armorsmiths.
  
• The toolsmith can now make wooden swords.
  
• Villagers no longer enter a home when they claim it for the first time.
  
• Console banners are now smaller, 6 can be displayed at once, and they decay faster when there's a backlog.
  
• Tweaked the storage priority of many buildings.
  
• Resources can no longer be paused or banished from a building.
  
• Building perks are now retroactive.
  
• Wolfmere is no longer connected to Deepnesse
  
• Added a new "Make/Maintain until storage is full" option for all resources.
  
• Harvesting tasks are now set to maintain to storage limits by default, rather than infinite. Although the infinite option still exists if you want to use it.
  
• Made loot boxes more encouraged to teleport closer to the village.
  
• Added a "backup your saves" warning to old profiles loading InDev 34 for the first time.
  
• Changed the disclaimer page to remove mention of Early Access.

Bug Fixes

• Implemented possible fix for the "lazy bowyer" problem.
  
• Fixed a few incorrect tips and tooltip descriptions.
  
• Processed leftover trashy trash at the trash processor can no longer go over the storage limits.
  
• Fixed a typo in the Total Home Occupancy tooltip.
  
• Twitch integration text box now properly loses focus when you close the settings panel.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause object data to not load correctly on custom user maps.
  
• Fixed a minor bug in damage calculations RNG that could throw an error if the mob's stats were too low.
  
• Fixed a very minor layer color issue with the doggo sprite animations.
  
• Placing walls for construction no longer automatically deletes the topography under it.
  
• Fixed a crash when nomads tries to visit a village and the camp/castle was destroyed.
  
• Sleeping AI branches now obeys the booleans that dictates if they can sleep inside or outside.
  
• Fixed a bug where sleep and incapacitated animations would not reset properly.
  
• Fixed an Ancillary on Black Coast that could not be dismantled or reclaimed.
  
• Implemented bandaid fix for the resourceCount crash.
  
• Fixed an issue with refine AI if no storage exists anywhere for the refined material (even if the building would make space once a resource is refined) production would halt.
  
• Fixed a crash related to the clear out resources AI by deleting the clear out resources AI.
  
• Send villagers goal now counts correctly.
  
• Year calculations fixed (Yes, again)
  
• Fixed a string key call in the trash AI task list.
  
• Fixed a bug where a monsters "breakaway chance" would fire too rapidly in the day time, possibly causing some lag at dawn.