Beta (April 19, 2019) update is now available for download. We've added more hints around the starting area related to leveling up, but more substantial changes are coming in the next update, including (WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS!) a playable introductory dream. All melee weapons that you can pick up should show up in the inventory now, too, but some ranged weapons do not, and some weapons don't have a weapon trail or sound effects.

• Improved eating effecs for the Great Heart. (The effect will be added for the other hearts too)
  
• 3 new bonfires at Barry's Field.
  
• 2 new bonfires around Town of Fortuna.
  
• 2 new bonfires in the Wilderness.
  
• The north side of the Barry's field starting area changed.
  
• Info boards next to certain roads.
  
• "HEARTS WANTED" posters near imps.
  
• Allow save games that are in an unplayable state to proceed without crashing.
  
• Melee weapon grid has two new entries; it's a tidier 9x5 grid.
  
• Fixed a bug where entities in the interiors would get messed up when saving, because an unloaded entity factory synced entities with a live entity database when it should just use its own entities directly. They have already been synced during unloading.
  
• Fixed a bug where entities in the spawn queue could be deleted, but not removed from the spawn queue, causing all kinds of potential trouble, including items picked up by the player not correctly removed from a world after save game migration in all cases.
  
• Improved the collision shape at Town of Fortuna's tavern stairs.
  
• Optimization: HideComponent was missing from dozens of objects, and as a result they would get drawn from the other side of the map.
  
• Optimized several particle and point light effects.
  
• Attached villager labels to head bones so the labels move nicely with the character head movement. (WARNING: SPOILERS!)Also for Northern Guard, Sleepless Knight, Solicitors, Boris the Butcher, Colonel Lutz and General Lupus.
  
  [WARNING: SPOILERS!]
  
• Snow Peak band members spawn and despawn properly according to the siege status.
  
• Town of Fortuna tavern has a new scene setup before the Snow Peak band moves there.
  
• Enchanted Hammer wasn't handed to Smithy after the quest was completed.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Raving Lunatic could fall through his pedestal.
  
• New description for the Drowned Heart.
  
• More clues for the Ghouls.
  
• Little Mitten polish.
  
• Mayor Marquardt table scene is more robust.
  
• Priest Holloway sleeping scene is more robust.
  
• Queen Ingrid quest experience bug fixed.
  
• Dream Desert gear particle glitch fixed.
  
• King puppet cannot be destroyed by accidentally striking it.
  
• Significant items are categorized correctly with the Cobolds. Made the categorization more robust: it is now directly written in the significant item's template.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Death Dealer removed free-standing items from the game, but didn't put them in his inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Death Dealer took items from altars and cauldrons. Now it is only allowed to take them from corpses.

• Go to your Steam Library.
  
• Right click on Hardland, and go to Properties, then Betas.
  
• Enter the beta access code WhereTheFoxIs, hit check code, and select full_beta from the drop-down list.

That's it! Steam will download the beta for you.

The reason this beta is behind a branch and password is that the likelihood of uncovering new critical issues is still fairly high, and I'd like those issues to bubble up to the forums instead of people being left alone with them. That's more likely if you are jumping into the beta through this announcement. So, if you encounter things that prevent you from progressing in the game, be sure to let me know on the forums.

I'm really interested to hear reactions about the game itself. If you are feeling really adventurous, a very rough timeline of your playthrough (when you discovered what) would be super cool. If you get stuck and simply have no idea of what to do or where to go, I'd like to hear about that, too. Something that's off? Let me know. Something you particularly like? Yep. Just create your own individual topics on the forums so I won't miss your feedback.

I want to point out a couple of much-requested features which aren't yet part of the beta:

• Controller hints i.e. letting you know which keys do what in various situations.
  
• In-game controller remapping.
  
• Proper gamepad support for the inventory and the menus.
  
• Understandability of the inventory i.e. "Where did my new items go?" and "Did I just use an item?"

These and about 150 other bug fixes and improvements are all things we'll be working on next. In the meanwhile, here is a lo-fi version of the controller hints for keyboard + mouse to get you started:

Game: WASD to move, E to interact, Shift to run, Ctrl to sneak, Alt+WASD to dodge, Space to jump, M for the map, I for the inventory.
Inventory: Left button drag to move items around, right button drag to move all items of a type around, right click to eat/drink.

Enjoy the update.

Kimmo

Beta Iteration 2 is now available for download. There are a few of critical fixes in there. A special thanks to Charleston for the detailed bug reports.

This is also the first time save games are migrated to a new update. Any killed hostiles will come back alive during save game migration, but all your inventory, conversation topics with NPCs, and character stats should remain intact.

[WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS!]

• Smoother running for the fox in the intro.
  
• Fixed a bug where the introductory text dream didn't work.
  
• Much more accurate damage shapes for WildBoar and WildBoarFodder.
  
• Fox Mask neck part aligns with the player's neck.
  
• Wild Boar Mask texture fixes.
  
• Goblin King Mask has sideburns and looks more unique.
  
• Barry's Field cavalier hat is visible in the inventory if picked up.
  
• Added mini-boss fight to Desert Graveyard.
  
• Particle point light flickering bug fixed.
  
• Added "Hearts Wanted" posters at Root Hall.
  
• Catodon Key couldn't be obtained under specific conditions.
  
• Apple Special shows up in inventory.
  
• Added growth component for mushrooms.
  
• Frozen Lake portal takes player to the correct entrance.
  
• Adventurers' Guild set dressing and character placement tweaked. Fixed floating characters.
  
• Added atmospheric point light effects to several landmarks: Healing Altars, Goblin Treasure, Animal Party, Adventurers Guild, Cursed Mansion exterior and Root Hall gate and the Hall of Kings.
  
• The Root Hall gate opening -sequence was missing.
  
• Entering the Root Hall staircase -sequence was missing.

• Go to your Steam Library.
  
• Right click on Hardland, and go to Properties, then Betas.
  
• Enter the beta access code WhereTheFoxIs, hit check code, and select full_beta from the drop-down list.

That's it! Steam will download the beta for you.

The reason this beta is behind a branch and password is that the likelihood of uncovering new critical issues is fairly high, and I'd like those issues to bubble up to the forums instead of people being left alone with them. That's more likely if you are jumping into the beta through this announcement. So, if you encounter things that prevent you from progressing in the game, be sure to let me know on the forums.

I'm really interested to hear reactions about the game itself. If you are feeling really adventurous, a very rough timeline of your playthrough (when you discovered what) would be super cool. If you get stuck and simply have no idea of what to do or where to go, I'd like to hear about that, too. Something that's off? Let me know. Something you particularly like? Yep. Just create your own individual topics on the forums so I won't miss your feedback.

I want to point out a couple of much-requested features which aren't part of this first beta:

• Controller hints i.e. letting you know which keys do what in various situations.
  
• In-game controller remapping.
  
• Proper gamepad support for the inventory and the menus.
  
• Understandability of the inventory i.e. "Where did my new items go?" and "Did I just use an item?"

These and about 150 other bug fixes and improvements are all things we'll be working on next. In the meanwhile, here is a lo-fi version of the controller hints for keyboard + mouse to get you started:

Game: WASD to move, E to interact, Shift to run, Ctrl to sneak, Alt+WASD to dodge, Space to jump, M for the map, I for the inventory.
Inventory: Left button drag to move items around, right button drag to move all items of a type around, right click to eat/drink.

As always, enjoy the update.

Kimmo

The whole game is now available for playing in a branch called full_beta. This is how you activate it:

• Go to your Steam Library.
  
• Right click on Hardland, and go to Properties, then Betas.
  
• Enter the beta access code WhereTheFoxIs, hit check code, and select full_beta from the drop-down list.

That's it! Steam will download the beta for you.

The reason this beta is behind a branch and password is that the likelihood of uncovering new critical issues is fairly high, and I'd like those issues to bubble up to the forums instead of people being left alone with them. That's more likely if you are jumping into the beta through this announcement. So, if you encounter things that prevent you from progressing in the game, be sure to let me know on the forums.

But bugs aside! I'm really interested to hear reactions about the game itself. If you are feeling really adventurous, a very rough timeline of your playthrough (when you discovered what) would be super cool. If you get stuck and simply have no idea of what to do or where to go, I'd like to hear about that, too. Something that's off? Let me know. Something you particularly like? Yep. Just create your own individual topics on the forums so I won't miss your feedback.

I want to point out a couple of much-requested features which aren't part of this first beta:

• Controller hints i.e. letting you know which keys do what in various situations.
  
• In-game controller remapping.
  
• Proper gamepad support for the inventory and the menus.
  
• Understandability of the inventory i.e. "Where did my new items go?" and "Did I just use an item?"

These and about 150 other bug fixes and improvements are all things we'll be working on next. In the meanwhile, here is a lo-fi version of the controller hints for keyboard + mouse to get you started:

Game: WASD to move, E to interact, Shift to run, Ctrl to sneak, Alt+WASD to dodge, Space to jump, M for the map, I for the inventory.
Inventory: Left button drag to move items around, right button drag to move all items of a type around, right click to eat/drink.

I'll let you know when the next batch of improvements is ready to go. Enjoy the beta!

Kimmo

The changes for the beta are in the bag. The week will start with a few days of playtesting to ensure everything runs fine without showstoppers, after which I'll upload the first full version of the game to Steam for you to play. Pretty excited for that! From there it's all about seeing how you guys react to the game, clearing lower priority bugs and compatibility issues, as well as improving controller support and the understandability of the game where it's lacking. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing about your experiences of the game's structure and the perceived level of difficulty. But that is all for the next post.

Kimmo

Fingers crossed being sick is done for the spring. It took more time than I hoped to get over what turned out to be two different real-world bugs, but this week I finally got a full week of coding in. I didn't get everything finished for today, but I got about 50% through the last two big things I'm working on for the beta: combat and saving. The changes to saving, in particular, are pretty important; previously we've just wiped all progress when a new update comes out, but from here on all progress will be retained between updates.

Once all that is done, presumably sometime next week, we'll take a few days to test the game to make sure everything is ready to go before finally launching the beta. I'll talk to you more in a couple of days!

I have been sick from right after the last post. While I'm starting to feel ok again, the rest of the family is getting hit now, which means it will likely be another full week before I can really start working on the game again. The new ETA for the full beta is at the end of the month. Sorry about this!

The full changelist for the update I've now uploaded is some 250 items long, and although most items are related to things outside the demo, I'll list about 150 of them here so that you can get a better picture of what went into it. The next milestone is the first full game beta version. I'll post news about how to access it at the end of next week, once we've completed some additional work for combat and saving, as well as done that ever-so-crucial extra round of playtesting.



- Don't reload the entity templates each time the player enters a new world. This may or may not help with players running into a bug where the game crashes when templates can't be found.
- A possible fix for a bug where the game crashes in PhysX after loading a new world, because query caches were not correctly deleted.
- Fixed a bug where query cache shape pointers were left hanging if a physics object was first de-activated in updateHide() and later destroyed. This is a possible cause of crashing in PhysX.


- "King's Stake" relic can be acquired from WizardStone landmark.
- "Sleep won't come with enemies nearby." + removed the sleep button if sleeping's not allowed.
- 4 new rock assets for decorating roads: RockFlat01 - 03. Rocks_Grey_Tiny_Multiple_02.
- A few clues about Erp. The ingredients for his recipe are also now in his inventory, to spill when he dies.
- A new interaction type FocusOnly which allows the player to look at secondary targets if there are no primary targets to interact with.
- Accurate collision shape for "Your Mask".
- Added Skeleton, Undead and Goblin encounters to the world map.
- Added activation flags for Healing altars.
- Added hat, fork and knife for Father Bunion.
- Admiral Rodriquez ships appear when boars leave.
- All possible items are visible in the player's inventory container. All the items are in fixed positions. If the player doesn't have an item, it will be only faintly visible. This gives a completionist aspect to the game, and improves the layout and understandability of item equipping and use.
- Area_EasternPort_Goblins defined for Goblin music.
- Barry's Field Shipwreck area polish.
- Brief dialogue for Rodriguez in the northern harbor, after Ulf kills everyone in the Port of Palms. A few more little clues. Finalized dialogue for thieves selling Lock Picks.
- Brief dialogue for the Witch about the Death Dealer's relic. Edited the note on Ishmael's door, and the FarText for the Stone Wizard (now the relic inside the wizard is the voice speaking). Description for the Knight's Key.
- Capra's Book Chest in Limbo Guild corridor.
- Capra's Journal Chest in Interior-CapraWindmill in Barry's Field.
- Cathedral Cliff path decorated.
- CellarGrimaldi has custom chest called "Grimaldi Treasure" which contains random heirlooms and an Union Ring that player can pick up.
- Changed any interactions that are currently non-actionable because you're missing for example a key to open a door, to be focused and highlighted correctly, but their interaction button hidden.
- Changed stacked shovels in CellarHolloway and SkeletonKingTomb to Shovel_Prop with only one as a pickup.
- Cobold Forest has more plants growing, some biome changes and custom weather.
- Concert flute is the "definite" elven flute, made matching textures for the three variants.
- Cork assets on bottles should react properly to scale changes and some of them were missing hide component.
- Custom hat for Tanya.
- Custom inventory icons for Baron's Key, Battered Shield, Catodon Key, Coffin Key, Domovoi's Fork, Forbidden Key, Knight's Key, Mangled Shield, Mayor's Key, Monk's Key.
- Custom texture and inventory icon for Great Cross Shield.
- Custom texture for GoblinStrong helmet.
- Damage animations are played back as regular additive animations instead of actions for all the NPCs.
- Desert area road side grass.
- Dialogue for the goblin king Erp, and a new dream recipe for him. Edited dialogue for the monks guarding the relic in St Fortuna's Rest. Changed "Goblin Healer" to "Goblin Priest."
- Disable cycling when the player is in the Fortuna Church area. Cycling is still allowed when sleeping inside the area, however.
- Disable motion blur for one frame when a camera cut takes place.
- DisableDeathSpawnPositionOrientationRandom and DisableDeathSpawnImpulseRandom base templates.
- Don't pre-simulate the Eldest King to fix a bug where it might float away when teleporting to an altar. Will not happen in the real game, but added to the confusion in dev builds.
- Doubled the transform buffer size for instanced rendering to stop meshes from disappearing. NOTE: Potential performance implications -- CL39735 refers to long spikes as the reason for keeping this buffer small. An error gets output in the error stream if the transform buffer is full.
- DreamDesert indirect lighting and fog fix.
- EjectInventory inner spawn radius increased to prevent tangled objects when opening chests. Also biased it towards top as there's usually more room above chests.
- Elven Citadel uses WoodElf_ElvenCitadel_Generated template that doesn't accept stones.
- Emmeline the Mistress in Cursed Mansion exterior.
- Enemy labels attached to head bones. A more casual idle aggro pose.
- Extensive set dressing near roads and next to Animal Party house.
- Extensive world map decoration. Additional bonfire near Wizard Stone and some other new areas.
- Fern can be cut down. (and it grows back)
- Fixed a bug where "everyone" was called Halli; names and descriptions and stats are now generated based on a random seed from a timer as opposed to fixed one.
- Fixed a bug where animations were not immediately updated after spawning resulting in the T-pose being displayed for the first frame.
- Fixed a bug where any characters brought in using CharacterTransformationComponent could fall through the environment, because the spawner entities get run from far away, and thus the characters are allowed to go through one step in the physics simulation without anything underneath them before being pulled out by the hide system. The hide update for an object is now run right after a transformation or when being cycled in.
- Fixed a bug where incorrect fade durations were applied in transitions after coming out of the intro. Fixed a bug where landmark weather would not have an effect after the weather was changed by TimeAndWeatherChangerComponent. Removed the weather template from Mods.txt as unneeded.
- Fixed a bug where item descriptions can be partially outside the screen.
- Fixed a bug where new entities were not initialized during the first frame causing the characters' gear to appear a frame late.
- Fixed a bug where real interactions were not prioritized correctly over FocusOnly. Fixed a bug where entities with labels could get real interactions which would not, then, be shown. Allowed FocusOnly to work through obstacles.
- Fixed a bug where switching from windowed to full screen would not correctly re-create the world textures.
- Fixed a bug where the default UserConfig didn't set the shader define HIGH_QUALITY.
- Fixed a bug where the menu master volume was not applied to all GUI widget sounds.
- Fixed a bug where the mesh opacity of mesh particles was random.
- Fixed a bug where the player came out dead from inside the Goblin King.
- Fixed a bug where the player's equipment showed up a frame late after teleporting.
- Fixed a bug where the transition from the intro to Hardland didn't work.
- Fixed a bug where the weather particles came in a frame late after teleporting.
- Fixed a bug where the weather particles were both saved and created from scratch with each loading of a world, quickly bringing the number of particles up.
- Fixed a bug where the world textures were not getting re-created when the resolution was changed.
- Fixed a bug where two Goblin King's near each other would play the eating sound every other frame. The memory for the event sound previous frame information was shared between instances of an animation, which was wrong. The implementation also gradually consumed more and more memory.
- Fixed a bug where you could always steal from Baron von Sparkle and Ulf the Wolf. Fixed another bug where Baron von Sparkle wouldn't attack you if you snuck up on him to talk.
- Fixed a bug where you could interact with things from inside a dead Goblin King.
- Fixed a bug where you couldn't get out of Ingrid's tower after the Dream Desert. Portal information is transferred upon entity transformation. Removed unused code.
- Fixed levitating Bonfire at Adventurers' Guild and some additional polish.
- ForkSilver_Prop.
- Freja has a piece of meat.
- Functional version of Chestmaker's chest.
- GoblinTreasure landmark music area defined. Changed some objects.
- Grand Jester's scepter is a golden replica of Elder King's fist.
- GrassLow01_Filler that doesn't remove CPU grass.
- If you go into the Inner Citadel without being enlightened, you will be gated by a dream that takes you back to a campfire on the public side of the Elven Citadel.
- Improved food lists in generator.
- Improved wooden chest behavior.
- Inconspicuous Monk's mission works. Added support for setting animations based on flags. Added support for dealing damage to specific factions only.
- Increased the number of regions created around the starting position.
- IngridEnding and Bonfire Intro road set dressing.
- Inventory icons for broken standard shield, broken round shield. Commander's Shield asset and icon updated to make it more distinct.
- Ishmael's house on top of the cliff in North East corner of the map.
- Key_WitchCoffin on Holloway's table. Some set dressing in his room, moved gold below bed, added book to the nightstand.
- Lady Capra's camp below Ishmael's house.
- Larry's House template warnings fixed, removed obsolete data.
- Linus will be in Snow Peak when the beer delivery to the Mountain Sheep has been completed or sabotaged. Fixed a bug where Isolde, the old lady, would be in her demo main menu position when the demo was not enabled.
- Lorelei dialogue tweaked to from "behind the windmill" to say "in the windmill".
- Made "low settings" look closer to the ground truth.
- Map Markers for Cobold Cave Rocks.
- Map colors for healing altar names are the same as other HUD text colors.
- Markers for harbors. (Eastern Port, Merchant Union, Northlands Harbor)
- MerchantCorpses have Union Rings.
- More detailed textures in Giant Fish and Giant Tavern. Some additional set dressing.
- Most main landmarks have descriptions. TextSequences has a new watermelon dream. Kuolema's Armor and the Secret Key have descriptions. Edits to Gus's dialogue and the generic thief vending menu.
- Papakha can be acquired from Snow Peak.
- Particles can be rendered to offscreen buffer to so it's possible to change their resolution.
- Player damage effects changed.
- Praakh doesn't fall through the docks.
- Pre-simulate the snow falling down.
- Put the Wish of [Whatever] in a chronological order. Added an inventory slot for the Old Diary Page (Elena's mother's diary page).
- Reformatted dialogue menus for Rodriguez, to make him respond differently if you've already spoken to him at another port when you book a voyage. FarText for the Raving Lunatic. New description for the Death Dealer's relic. Minor edits.
- Removed all old style shouts and reactions.
- Removed expiration component from bone props.
- Road leading to Village Vonsmark cleaned up so it's not possible to fall into the crack between the road and the wall.
- Rolling cloud shadow popping fix.
- Separated ports and altars from each other as teleporters.
- Shortcut between Town of Fortuna Cathedral and Town Well.
- Simple terrain radiance for low TerrainRadiancePS_LowQuality.
- Sir Kuolema scene polished in Village Vonsmark.
- Skeleton King Tomb ghouls are sleeping at first, they wake up when "VergerMet" flag is set.
- SkeletonKingTomb polish, added custom ghoul brain chests.
- Skip expensive lighting calculations on low settings.
- Some additional set dressing in Snow Peak.
- Sort point lights according to view distance to reduce flickering in Cobold Cave and other scenes with more than 32 point lights.
- SpoiledWatermelon pieces scale according to parent size.
- Terracotta Vases don't need label.
- The 500 gold is used when the player actually teleports with Rodriguez, not when the map screen opens up. Make the teleport markers usable directly in the exported files.
- The Fortuna Church relic-stealing sequence works. The worshipping monks act as relic guards, too.
- The Harlequin One has new dialogue about relics (replacing the dialogue about the staff). The monks in St Fortuna's have edits to their dialogue about stealing the relic. The Provider, Prophet, Miser, and Mystic masks in the Glass Passage have two sets of FarText: one before the stolen mask is returned, one after. New description for the Silver Fork; moved two-pronged Pitchfork description to three-pronged Pitchfork.
- The foliage appears on the frame after teleporting.
- The relic guards in the Fortuna Church talk about the evening instead of midnight.
- The scene with Ingrid at Fortuna's grave will reset if you start running away from it. Sleeping at the campfire after talking to her will function correctly, and turn the campfire into an unlit one again.
- Town of Fortuna cathedral book stand no longer breaks when kicked.
- Town of Fortuna wizard area polished.
- TownWell landmark polished.
- Traveling with Rodriguez no longer takes you through the dock into the water at the destination.
- Unhealed Wound (Limbo Guild) can be accessed in all situations.
- Unified map screen text colors with inventory screen.
- Unique Goblin King "Erp the Knightcrusher" at Goblin Treasure.
- Unique asset and icon for Lucretia's hourglass.
- Unique inventory icon and mesh for King's Western Fist.
- Unique inventory icons and meshes for 3 King's Splinters. (arc, bent, branch)
- Unique inventory icons for the three flutes.
- Unique items and their icons for Sir Kuolema: left and right spaulders, armor, spear and two shields (player can equip the other).
- Unique marker for the ship to improve harbor readability.
- Wave animation fades out with distance.
- Weapon icons unified and added missing HammerSmithFortuna.
- Weather changes immediately after teleporting.
- Weather tweaks, better implementation of MoonHalf template.
- When unmounting Freja or any ridable wild boars, the player won't disappear anymore. Furthermore, any items collected will be correctly retained.
- Windmills are visible on the map.
- Witch Mathilda despawns and appears correctly in her house after the town well scene. Improved her coffin special effects.
- You can teleport out of Altar Malpris to three individual healing altars (001-003). Fixed what appears a bug in teleport visibility evaluation.
- You talk to the Commander automatically inside Ulf's villa after sabotaging the Merchant Union vault gate to ensure certain information is passed and the quest activated correctly. Kazik won't stop you from getting out of the vault after having the final conversation with Ulf (he didn't stop it before either, but acted as though he would). You don't have to go through the entire final conversation with Ulf to get the Catodon Key; he'll leave it behind for you to collect if you didn't get it from him, and you'll also get the relic. Various bug fixes related to the final conversation.
- You won't spend the ticket with Rodriguez if you select the same port.


P.S. At least a few people have requested that the old version be made available alongside the demo to scratch the open-world itch while waiting. The old version is playable right now by right-clicking Hardland on Steam, selecting properties, and pointing to "release_26" in the dropdown menu of the beta tab.

- Game pad controls remapped. Sprinting is on a separate key now.
- The mouse cursor becomes invisible in the dialogue menu if the game pad is used.
- Shadow quality improved in dialogue screens.
- Highlight popping reduced in dialogue screens.
- Added proper monologue for the Training Officer.
- Reorganized some food items in inventory.
- Improved the door handle 3D-meshes.
- Ghoul Brain icon and category fix.
- Accurate collision shape for Cinnamon Bun.
- Fixed bugs in the Glass Passage: Sage and Crone no longer disappear. Added point lights so it's possible to see in the Glass Passage.
- Fixed a bug where selecting dialogue on the game pad would no longer work after alt-tabbing out and back in.
- Fixed some dialogue choices in books that didn't work as intended ("Stop reading").
- Fixed a bug where Abbot Cotton levitated above the ground.
- Fixed several character glitches.

Kimmo

Hardland is 99% complete! That last major feature Timo talked about in the previous announcement, the story, is done and with it, we are preparing the game for launch. A pre-launch demo is now available, and it gives you a preview into 18 months of all the work that has taken place behind the scenes, but in particular: sound effects, writing, and music.

We did a lot of writing in 18 months. 750 pages. It's a novel's worth. But the writing in Hardland is not just words to fill empty space: it's become the most defining part of the game. Most of it is conversational and easy to breeze through. The more you pay attention to it and stop to think it through, the more the world shows a different side of itself. Literally.

Some of you have believed in this game from when it was little more than a sketch, and some when there was more but no real guarantee of the game ever reaching the finish line. Hardland was a bunch of ideas, swimming in a soup, slowly stewing. That's when outside support is needed the most. It's because of this leap of faith that I want to acknowledge the supporters. The pre-launch demo is exclusively for you guys -- we are closing Hardland off from new players until launch. Others will just have to wait. The launch date will be revealed soon!

I'm also looking for the final rounds of feedback. Reports about serious issues, game crashes, are downloadable from Steam's built-in reporting service, but if there is anything else wrong with this version that you think should be made better, this is the chance. I will be going through the threads regularly again from here up until launch.

Known issues:

• Loading at the beginning locks up the game until done.
  
• Potential graphics issues on AMD GPUs. This has not been tested in a while, and it's possible that we'll have to do a round of patching to resolve any issues here.

Six years of creating Hardland culminated in a truly surreal writing process that on many nights went on until first light. I hope it all translates over well; it resulted in the best game I've personally ever made, and one I have no hesitation letting speak for itself.

P.S. Check out the new store page.

Kimmo

We've been hard at work on the remaining features for the gold master.
There's one major feature we’ll highlight today, the story.



For the past five months we've been developing the story of Hardland in tight cooperation with an extremely talented writer, Chandler Groover.

In the interactive fiction world, he's best known for his contemporary text adventures. Some games he's written include Toby's Nose, where you play as Sherlock Holmes's dog; Midnight. Swordfight., where you travel through time at a masquerade ball; and Eat Me, where you have to escape an enchanted candy castle using only your mouth.



To give you a glimpse of Hardland's new content, here's 8 unedited minutes of gameplay from the latest build. Sounds are disabled and music is temporary, but that will change in the coming months as we start plugging in the final audio. The footage takes place in a small town, Port Pulgar, where a twisted character called Ulf the Wolf has taken control:



There’s also been an extensive optimization round to improve the performance of the game.

The list of the entire changelist would be enormous so that won’t fit in this post. This is an example of the daily submissions to our version control server: (check out the scroll bar on the right!) https://i.imgur.com/vUJnw3b.png

Almost forgot this: