• Added player model

it is interacting with the world as you can see it in the video by default you only see it in the mirrors and it's shadow, but you can enable it fully, like it is in the video, or disable completely.

• Added smooth "animations" to gearsticks and handbrakes
  
• Added a small drop cam, you turn it on/off with F4

if you are in a car, it will be mounted to the car

• fixed 3rd person view in bus's passenger seats
  
• fixed a loading error
  
• this was already there in the previous beta, but:

You can push the car while steering if you stand next to the driver side door, look at the steering wheel and press F
sometimes the car just wont move, if that happens push it with the old way a bit and then try again

You can access this version if you right click the game in your steam library, select properties, betas tab, and from the dropdown menu select "beta - upcoming version test"

Many people asked about the multiplayer (especially seeing this the player model)
My plan is to release a few content and feature update (along with fixes) and then I will try multiplayer, first splitscreen, and then "real" peer to peer one through internet.

Thank you for playing and your patience! ːsteamhappyː

v2020.06.12c

• Added custom radio station at fm 99.2, supports: ogg, wav, mp3
  you can enable it in the settings and either copy your music to
  c:/Users/yourname/Documents/TheLongDrive/CustomRadio/
  or set a different path which already has the music you want, it finds songs in subdirectories too.
  Keep in mind that mp3 loading is much slower compared to ogg, it can cause lag when a new song comes (even when the radios ingame are turned off, because of how the radio system works).
  You don't have to rename the files.
  
• Fixed settings not saving (hopefully)
  
• Fixed Reverse, Brake and Tail lights not behaving as intended
  
• Slightly decreased cleaning stuff spawn

This pic has nothing to do with this update, but looks nice.

If you have any problems or questions leave them here, thank you for playing and testing! ːsteamhappyː

v2020.06.11:

• Saves, Screenshots, Settings are now stored in the documents folder
  C:/Users/YourName/Documents/TheLongDrive/
  if you want to continue your old save, you have to move it there, previously they were stored in the data folder inside the game's install folder
  
• Added Paint Cans to paint cars
  
• Added Wire Brush to remove rust
  
• Added Sponge and Polisher Liquid to make your car shiny and to wash off blood
  (it no longer disappears after reloading the game)
  
• Added Compass
  
• Odometers now move smoothly instead of snapping
  
• Trip meter is now saved correctly
  
• Engine Cooling and Liquid pouring is now faster while sleeping
  
• The weight of your piss (inside you) is now simulated!
  (it affects your overall weight)
  
• Doors are now easier to open (you can look at the glass parts too while opening them)
  
• You can now tune things while zooming
  (like the radio)
  
• Fixed reflections on mounted car parts being black sometime
  (especially hubcaps)
  
• Fixed trunks and hoods having regular door opening sound
  
• Fixed an inventory bug
  
• Fixed save button disappearing
  
• Fixed a few collider issues on cars
  
• Fixed a collider issue when putting down stuff from right hand
  
• Fixed rear doors not spawning
  
• There are now news about the updates in the main menu
  
• Added A New Vehicle {-.-}

v2020.05.28:
(this was already out, but there was no post about it yet)

• Added peaceful mode
  
• Added trip meter for one of the cars
  
• Fixed driving controls help not showing in that car
  
• Fixed fluids not pouring from car tanks (broke taps)
  
• Fixed taps (hopefully didn't broke anything)
  
• Fixed one of the wagons and its trunk not spawning
  
• Fixed bullet holes rotation
  
• Limited rabbit count

v2020.05.27

• Better Performance
  majority of crashes fixed and CPU usage optimized
  
• Draw distance is Much bigger
  max is now 25km instead of 3km (and it runs better)
  but can only be set from the main menu
  
• New Road Generation
  it is more "natural" now, it turns and follows the terrain more dinamically
  
• New Terrain Generation
  there are no more endless valleys or cliffs
  it looks better
  has more clutter
  it's performance is better
  
• New Building Generation
  there are now buildings in the whole desert too (with loot)
  
• New Save System
  got much more stable
  you can have as many saves as you want and name them
  in the menu you have small screenshots for them
  things like airfresheners are now staying on the car
  
• New Fluid System
  manual pouring got more reliable
  you can now pee properly into the engine or coolant
  filling speed got faster
  
• New Camera modes
  Car chase view (3rd person view) got way better
  camera can be dropped now by holding C
  holding it down again the camera will look at the vehicle
  
• New car variations
  some of them have removeable rear seats
  
• Bus got more stable and detailed
  it now has:
  gauges
  floor panels
  engine and coolant
  
• Trailer got more stable
  but be careful when pausing the game while driving on high speeds!
  
• A few items have now condition
  radio
  binocular
  bbgun (the worse the condition the weaker it is)
  
• New Animal
  it is friendly
  
• Exploding things now make other exploding things explode also.
  (yeah)
  
• Added basic damage
  parts can fall off of the vehicle
  to install the wheels you have to remove the hubcap
  
• You can now focus with the binoculars
  
• New songs on the radio
  no copyright ofcourse, all original!
  
• Radio keeps playing in your inventory
  
• New Radio Content on almost all channels and a new German Station
  
• New filters
  Gray Scale
  Sepia
  
• New settings
  Antialiasing
  Anisotropic filtering
  And a few things got moved around and changed
  
• When paused, GPU usage is now very low
  
• Added sleep help text to a few places
  because a lot of players don't know that you can sleep by holding V
  
• And a few smaller things we forgot :D

This took a very long time, the next update will come much sooner and it may include new car(s), new item(s), spray can to paint parts, rust removal, fluid separation, etc...

Thank you for being patient and have a nice drive in the desert! ːsteamhappyː

• Added buildings along the road
  
• Added buildings in the desert
  
• Loot is now spawning at both of them
  
• From now on you can listen to the radio even if it is in the inventory
  
• The wheels are no longer 'disappearing' when the game is paused (this fixed an other somewhat larger bug)
  
• fixed Car3's consumption gauge
  
• lowered sand hills height a bit

Since the save system is still not working, items which are too far away from you will disappear, and buildings will always spawn new items if you go far away and then back.

I didn't had too much time to test it, so if you have please test it and leave your feedback here :D
but aside from not being able to save and no basements (and wells) and maybe the mountains being sometimes still too tall (or cars too weak at low rpm) this beta should play very similar to the completed update.

As always, you can access it if you go into your steam library then right click the game, select properties, then in the betas tab from the drop down menu select "beta - upcoming version test"

And there is now a "new" old version available: v20190329 which is the first ever build of the game, in case you missed it on april 1th.


And in case you're wondering, playing through Half Life Alyx was very fun and I can't wait to do it again (and again), if you have the chance to get VR and play it, don't hesitate! ːsteamhappyː

The new road generation is finally finished. (at least I hope so)
It is now generating till 5000km and can support multiple "important objects" which it generates around, like the terrain.



The 3rd person camera got significantly better, still not perfect, but if you remember the old one...



You can now enable "grayscale" in the settings, if you want it for some reason.



And there is now a sepia filter too!



You can now "drop" the camera. (by holding C)



Or make it look at you. (by holding C again)



You can now focus with the binoculars. (not zoom)



And there is now a simple damage .
(parts falling down if you collide)
Inspired by Runden's damage mod.







In the settings you can now turn on/off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering.
And there is now a main menu again, and you can select with which car you want to go.

Making the road was really hard, I hope you will find it more entertaining to look at these pictures than I did back when I was working on it:


















Now the next thing to do is

• the building generation (both near the road and in the desert with loot)
  
• updating the save-load system to be able to save the new road and buildings
  
• and making it more stable with unity job system
  
• adding draw distance slider (harder than it sounds, really)
  
• re-adding the bus

And of course a lot other things are left, but the update is taking long enough already.
I still can't say a date, but these things in the list even combined should be very easy compared to the road.

If you want to try this version, you can access it if you go into your steam library then right click the game, select properties, then in the betas tab from the drop down menu select "beta - upcoming version test"

Lot of people asked how to get rid of the snow in the default version.
You can download Runden's tropical mod from our discord server,


(it has other things too)

or if you select the previous version v20191103 in the betas tab, it will download that, and your saves should work (I'm not sure), but of course you won't have the christmas items, snow and bus.

I know a lot of time has passed since the last update, I know the feeling, I've been waiting for a new Half Life since 2007 (a bit more than half of my life (56%)) and today Half Life Alyx comes, so I will now take a rest from developing TLD and play it. We will stream it with Gus on our hungarian youtube channel Gamingkanális, if you are interested.

Thank you for your patience and if you try the beta, please leave your feedback here! ːsteamhappyː

After these annoying, but good looking failed things:







I was able to more or less put together a road which resembles how the new one will look like together with the terrain:










If you want to try this version, you can access it if you go into your steam library then right click the game, select properties, then in the betas tab from the drop down menu select "beta - upcoming version test"
This is just a test version with no save-load, no main menu, no loot and buildings near the road, and the road is just 20km long, but you have plenty of fuel, so you can go and explore the huge desert.

Thank you again for playing and your patience! ːsteamhappyː

The "big update" will come next year, 'till then here is a "little" surprise for you, but only if you were good this year! ;)



Old saves should work, if you have any problems with loading a save, going back to the main menu and loading it from there could help.

If you don't want winter, you can always switch back to older versions:



Thanks for a few textures to DotterG, who made the winter mod previously!

Now there are cacti, small rocks, grass and buildings which are in the desert in the default version, like water towers, watchtowers and rusty ships too.



You can disable them independently to test how much they affect performance.



And you have now a "compass" in the ashtray, which points at the starting house, and a bit more gas, if you want to go on a longer adventure in the big desert :D



There is a binocular too, but I forgot to adjust it's camera, so it may behave buggy sometimes.



Please test it if you want, so we can see if the performance is still better, than in the default version :D





This is just a test version again, so there is no road, no loot, you can't save, there is no main menu.

Next thing will be the road, then maybe proper buildings and fixing the loot spawn and save system.
Thank you for your patience! :D

Edit:
You can access the test version by right clicking the game in you steam library, click properties, then betas tab, and there from the drop down menu select "beta - upcoming version test" and it will download.

There is no cacti and small rocks yet, but hopefully those will not add that much stress to the CPU.



It can easily keep up with high speeds.
The distant terrain's draw distance is 100km (in the current version (v20191103) 30km is the max).
The previous gif can make the mountains and the map look small, but:



The map is now about as big as Earth (40 075 km at the equator, that is now the map's side length, and you can go "around")
So far the mountains were spawned by the cacti spawn system, and that caused a few problems especially with a lower draw distance.



But now the mountains spawn in about a 10km radius, they have a new system, and they will not depend on the cacti or the high resolution terrain (which only spawns as far as you set the draw distance).



So it seems like the unity job system will get the job done, as the CPU usage is lower and things will be more stable. Those who have crashes with v20191103 will most likely not have anymore after this update comes out.
(if they were caused by multi threading issues)

You can access the TEST version through steam betas (Upcoming version test) but it doesn't have main menu, you can't save or load, there is no road, no items, settings may not work, but there is a car with a full tank and a big desert.

(and this new generation supports multiple "important objects" around which the terrain generates, not just the player ;) )

There is still a lot of work to do, but hopefully we can release the update before Christmas.

Thank you for your patience! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICuW-nQeWmc