Hi everyone!

You’ve all been eager to hear about the release date, and we finally have one! Before diving into it I'd like to apologize for not having it sooner. Due to a problem with track building that caused a month delay (we had to rewrite it entirely), it was impossible to determine the date reliably until a few days ago.


After many considerations we decided that Derail Valley is set to be launched in Early Access on January 18, 2019. With the tracks issue now resolved and optimization/balancing remaining to be done, we decided not to rush for December as any news of Derail Valley release would be overshadowed by Christmas sales and AAA releases. By launching a few weeks later we aim to avoid the clutter and have the much needed time to complete our press kit, share the game with influencers and press, make a new trailer, and generally prepare the stores for launch.

Moving the release a few weeks was a difficult decision for us to make, but we hope you’ll find the reasoning behind it understandable. Reactions of our Discord community where we initially disclosed the news have been warming, and this kind of support means a ton to us. Thank you!


Northern region of the Derail Valley world


We’ve done a lot of work on world development during the past few months. As of recently, Derail Valley features a nearly finished railway network of about 200 km, with 15 detailed industries containing their own yards and stations. You are free to move in this world as you will.


Terrain, railways and industries currently present in Derail Valley, covering a 256 km2 area


Sawmill station


Steel mill in the distance

It takes hours of gameplay just to visit all the places, and the track building rework now also makes it vastly easier to modify the layout in future updates. We made sure the railways are diverse, ranging from curvy uphill mountain cliff routes, to flat high-speed mainlines, all seamlessly connected.


Derail Valley now simulates a realistic industry chain, featuring 36 resource types to be transported between industries. This makes a virtually infinite network of procedural jobs where you could, for example, transport iron ore to the steel mill, then steel slabs to the machine factory, then road cars to the harbor, and so on in a continuous manner.


Diagram showing industry chain in Derail Valley. Click for high resolution.

Each industry generates jobs according to supply/demand rules shown in the above diagram. Deciding which jobs you will take or which way you will haul them is entirely up to you. Job types range from shunting, (un)loading and hauling, and you can even combine multiple haul jobs where you see fit. Previously we wrote about how job taking works (grabbing physical job booklets in station offices), and you can also see this video to get a better idea. More examples coming soon.

To load or unload trains you will need to push a specific lever, found at every station.


Some types of cargo can be seen exposed on flatcars


As Derail Valley requires dealing with multiple items, like the switch remote or job booklets, the game now features a 10-slot inventory that you can carry items in. This is particularly useful outdoors as, apart from going for the slots directly, you can also reach behind your back to add or retrieve the last used item. This makes actions like yard switching very simple.


Reaching for the wallet in a nearly full inventory

Completing jobs will issue bundles of money, which you can then place in your wallet. To pay for items or services such as refuelling and repairs, you will need to physically bring the wallet close to the cash register. More on that in gameplay videos soon!


Derail Valley money


As many of you know, our goal with Derail Valley has not only been to make a cool game, but really to push train simulators and VR to the next level, in as many aspects as possible. There’s only so much we were able to do as a 5-member team in this short time, and we would love to do so much more.

Whether we will have a chance to continue this trend greatly depends on the awareness of the game prior to release. Your help in this regard would be greatly appreciated. In the little time remaining until launch, we are considering setting up certain community goals on our site, to be measured by social media activity (view counts, followers...). If you guys would be able to successfully complete them, we’d be able to give something back in return, as we’d have more time left for development. If it all works well we might be able to squeeze in the railbus to the game at release! More info on this soon.


Recently we remade our Derail Valley and Altfuture sites. Check them out! We also updated our roadmap, now more accurately showing which features will be present in the game at launch and which are planned for later. Note that due to changes in development we won’t be featuring NPC/traffic trains at launch, but rather as a later update.



That’s it for now! We hope you enjoyed the update and until next time we will keep posting new videos and screenshots on our social channels. If you’re interested make sure to follow us on Reddit, Twitter, Discord, YouTube and other platforms (more links on the website)!

Thanks!

-Slobodan

Hi everyone!

As most of you probably know, we’re nearing our newly-announced Q4 2018 Early Access release (exact date TBA). While a huge amount of work has been done on the game already, there’s still a lot remaining to be done, and we want to keep you guys up to date with general status:

First off, Derail Valley now has a teaser trailer!

https://youtu.be/irovFD2meTc


Over the past year we completely revamped the world tech, due to the need for more control over terrain sculpting. The world now features rivers, gorges, viaducts and tunnels, which were missing in the previous iteration. Needless to say, graphics improvement has also been significant!






You can travel anywhere in this world by train, or even climb a mountain if you enjoy a good view. As stated in the past the size is 256km2. After the revamp it turns out to offer a lot more room for railways than we originally anticipated, so for now we will be sticking to this world size, even though technically the game supports a much bigger size if need be.


With the two locomotives planned for release (shunter and steam) all planned train simulation features are now complete. The aim is to make them enjoyable to both newbies and veterans. Taking into account the remaining development time available, we distilled the essence of train driving into various individual features, without going too deep into details.



For example, to drive the shunter you’ll have to start its engine first. Running the high RPM will heat the engine up, and if it overheats it could shut off or cause damage, which will then cost you money to repair. The engine will cool down faster if you are getting air through the radiator.

Going uphill while pulling heavy cargo might require deploying sand, or the wheels will slip and potentially get damaged. Fuel and oil levels need to be monitored too, and you will need to refill your locomotives at service stations. Make sure you don’t hit something hard, because apart from damaging the engine and wheels, you can also break the windows!



The steam locomotive will have you shovel coal, light up fire, regulate water level and generate steam with optional help of blower and draft valves. The cut-off will regulate ratio between power and top speed. We aimed for a fine balance between the steam locomotive being realistic and fun, with simple instructions to players who are not familiar with the inner workings. Veteran skills will make your trips more efficient, but everyone should be able to drive the steam locomotive.



To gain access to the steam locomotive, you’ll need to earn it first. Completing train driving jobs will earn you money, with which you can buy an appropriate license to unlock the locomotive. This will also apply to the other three post-release locomotives that we’re cooking.


We put a lot of effort to make controls feel right in Derail Valley. Being a VR game, we opened up a number of options to play it, and for each we aimed to make it as high quality as we could.

https://youtu.be/AwAk_t5iPWY

With the combination of teleport and smooth locomotion, you’ll be able to play in very tight, seated playspaces, as well as standing, room-scale, teleporting or strafing, or using both simultaneously, with optional comfort tunnel and snap rotation. Finally, a non-VR option will allow you to play the game without VR, in case you don’t have a headset yet (more on that in the future, as it is still in development).


Design and technical basis of missions (or rather jobs as we call them) are complete. To get a job you’ll walk into a station office and pick one up from the table. Currently we have shunting and freight haul jobs, each clearly describing the steps to be taken in order to be completed. Completing a job on time will no longer be a requirement, but only a money bonus.



The jobs will earn you money that you can spend on licenses. As you acquire licenses for heavier trains, you will unlock more difficult jobs as well. Eventually during Early Access this will progress further into passenger transportation.

The game world now features a specific cargo chain of cities and industries, which will generate all the missions through supply & demand (more on that in a future post, as this too is still in progress).


Making Derail Valley is tough. We ran into countless obstacles, some of which we’ve overcome and some of which still remain. Pretty much all of them are bound to us needing more time, but the time is up. That said, it feels the timing is right to explain why we are doing what we’re doing, and what our concerns for the launch are.

Back in 2012, as a couple of friends, we used to play train sims. While initially it was a lot of fun, as time passed by they didn't seem to age all that well in our eyes. A point came where we found ourselves wishing for what they could be, rather than enjoying them for what they are. Dated graphics, physics, limited gameplay and complicated manuals made us think that even we could make a better game.

It just seemed logical that a train simulator could be built in a modern engine, with more immersive controls, graphics, sounds and seamless, fun gameplay. It could have proper derailments and a simple interface with clear instructions that everyone would understand.

Then VR happened. It showed great potential, but missing lengthy games, that could be played for hundreds of hours, allowing you to get lost in a large world to explore and have something new going on every time you play it.

Throughout the past two years that we’ve spent developing Derail Valley, our aim remained to do all that. Very ambitious, but we went for it because we wanted to make train sims and VR better for everyone.

Many features in Derail Valley, though seeming logical to exist, have never been done before. There was no rulebook on how to do them, nor a comparable game to look upon, not to mention coming from a country where serious game development is only just picking up. Hence, we constantly learned, evolved our plans and vision, and it was difficult to keep everyone informed of the latest ongoings, especially after having secured funding about a year ago. Now that we’re nearing the release, some of our concerns are getting firmer and we think it’s a good time to let you know about them:

1) Our funding ends in January

In the past, we wrote that our funding will last us through Early Access. That is no longer the case. Initially the aim was to release a much simpler game to Early Access earlier, and that we’d spend the rest of the time going toward full release. However, having learned more about people’s expectations, we realized that a lot more under-the-hood reworks should be done immediately, and as a result postponed the release.

A lot of the said work will save time on updates during Early Access. Many features, content or designs planned for Early Access are partially done already. That said, once the game is out, we will not have the funding to back us up, and thus depend on the launch success financially. We will look into the possibility of getting further funded from another source in the meantime, to be able to complete the game to its full potential without depending on early release.

2) Pricing change

We’re thinking of launching at $19.99 USD (rather than the previous $15.99). This comes after reassessing the current situation, with the game including a lot more work done at launch than we originally anticipated, and considering that some players expressed concerns that previously planned price increase in several tiers during Early Access would not work out well. With this initial price, we would aim to probably increase it only once later on when it is complete. Please let us know your thoughts on this.

3) Completeness at launch

With the release date coming, we’re aiming to focus on polishing what’s already in the game, rather than adding new content. That said, there are still a few major features remaining to do: completing the railway network, non-VR controls, inventory, career-progression and NPC trains.

We don't know if all of them will be completed without hurdles in the weeks prior to release, but either way we’ll make sure that the game is fun at launch, playable and that it runs as well as we can make it.

Of course, being in Early Access, there will surely be some imperfections and bugs. During the previous year we made a good track record of releasing new builds to testers almost every week. We plan to continue doing so after release, providing fixes and new features on a regular basis.

---

Finally, we are so happy seeing how many of you share our vision of Derail Valley, and it’s a pleasure to have read and heard so much feedback from everyone over time. We read every single comment and email we get!

In the next period leading to the release we will be posting new media content daily (or almost daily), including screenshots, short videos and not-so-short videos!

See you soon with the next update!

-DV team

Hey all,

Last December we wrote about getting funded for the Early Access development of Derail Valley. Since that day nearly all of our work involved various paperwork, hiring, getting an office, installing internet, buying furniture, assembling PCs, setting up software...

A few weeks ago we were finally done with most of it and dove back into development. It’s not just the two of us anymore - we are now a 4-member team, joined by a new artist and a programmer (Syberia and Forsaken Box on Discord, respectively). If you're a programmer in Belgrade, we still have one open position!


The steam locomotive is in the works


Our immediate focus is on resuming regular updates to the beta version of the game and reaching the initial Early Access release as soon as possible. This also includes increasing awareness of the game, so you can expect us showing more of the game content as things get done.


Shunter dashboard has been redesigned to show all the needed information


As promised, here’s our roadmap for Derail Valley!
ROADMAP LINK

Note that it is a subject to change (in fact it’s likely to change a lot eventually, depending on circumstances), but it will give you an idea of what we’re aiming at, both for the initial release and the full release later down the line, given the available resources and timeframe.

Separated into several phases, the roadmap also shows our planned pricing level, which will be $15.99 at launch (or Steam-suggested equivalent in your country), increasing gradually up to $27.99 as more content and features get added during Early Access.

Let us know what you think about our roadmap! Feel free to discuss it on our forum, or Discord!




Beta has stagnated for some time, but now we’re focused again to releasing beta builds every week. As soon as some basic things get implemented (we are working on some terrain tech improvements), we will start expanding the beta team with our favorite testers from the now huge list of applicants.

If you’re planning on applying to beta now, take into account that due to a big backlog of already selected testers, we will be only accepting testers with exceptional motivation, communication skills, presence on Discord, and knowledge about trains or train sims.



The new WIP tanker car in the wild


The last months spent on the funding definitely took a toll on our release date, but it will pay off immensely in the months to come. While our full release is scheduled for 2019, the Early Access release will come notably earlier. We’ll let you know the date closer to release.

First we want to make sure the game is fun and playable, as well as having a proper awareness in the train sim and VR communities. Spreading the word of Derail Valley would greatly help us right now!

Thank you for the patience, and see you soon with more news!

Links:

Steam Forum
Discord
Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Website

Hey all,

Last December we wrote about getting funded for the Early Access development of Derail Valley. Since that day nearly all of our work involved various paperwork, hiring, getting an office, installing internet, buying furniture, assembling PCs, setting up software...

A few weeks ago we were finally done with most of it and dove back into development. It’s not just the two of us anymore - we are now a 4-member team, joined by a new artist and a programmer (Syberia and Forsaken Box on Discord, respectively). If you're a programmer in Belgrade, we still have one open position!


The steam locomotive is in the works


Our immediate focus is on resuming regular updates to the beta version of the game and reaching the initial Early Access release as soon as possible. This also includes increasing awareness of the game, so you can expect us showing more of the game content as things get done.


Shunter dashboard has been redesigned to show all the needed information


As promised, here’s our roadmap for Derail Valley!
ROADMAP LINK

Note that it is a subject to change (in fact it’s likely to change a lot eventually, depending on circumstances), but it will give you an idea of what we’re aiming at, both for the initial release and the full release later down the line, given the available resources and timeframe.

Separated into several phases, the roadmap also shows our planned pricing level, which will be $15.99 at launch (or Steam-suggested equivalent in your country), increasing gradually up to $27.99 as more content and features get added during Early Access.

Let us know what you think about our roadmap! Feel free to discuss it on our forum, or Discord!




Beta has stagnated for some time, but now we’re focused again to releasing beta builds every week. As soon as some basic things get implemented (we are working on some terrain tech improvements), we will start expanding the beta team with our favorite testers from the now huge list of applicants.

If you’re planning on applying to beta now, take into account that due to a big backlog of already selected testers, we will be only accepting testers with exceptional motivation, communication skills, presence on Discord, and knowledge about trains or train sims.



The new WIP tanker car in the wild


The last months spent on the funding definitely took a toll on our release date, but it will pay off immensely in the months to come. While our full release is scheduled for 2019, the Early Access release will come notably earlier. We’ll let you know the date closer to release.

First we want to make sure the game is fun and playable, as well as having a proper awareness in the train sim and VR communities. Spreading the word of Derail Valley would greatly help us right now!

Thank you for the patience, and see you soon with more news!

Links:

Steam Forum
Discord
Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Website

We got some amazing news - we’re funded for the entire duration of Early Access!

In February we will expand our team to five members and work on Derail Valley for at least one full year during Early Access. That’s without taking into account actual revenue which should allow much more. This pretty much guarantees us delivering a full game in early 2019, with Early Access starting in a few months. Here’s what it means:

• We can focus on development without dependence on initial success
  
• We can reveal our full roadmap for the final game (coming in the next months)
  
• We’ll have regular updates during Early Access (starting early 2018)
  
• High chance of bringing the game to completion (early 2019)
  
• We’re very motivated to do this

Some of you might remember that last summer we’ve spent a month preparing an application for funding. It was for the Serbian Innovation Fund, an organization focused on funding innovative technologies here in Serbia. Recently we were informed that we made it to the finals, and then invited to pitch in front of the jury of international investors. Out of 237 company applications from all kinds of industries (including medical, agricultural, machine, etc.), we were among the 25 to receive the funding. Here's the cool part:

We retain full freedom to do what we believe is the best for the game, without sketchy compromises. In fact, our vision and plan for the Early Access development is already on paper, and our only obligation to the Fund is to actually deliver what we set in it, on a quarterly basis. We will reveal this roadmap in the following months, and we think you’re going to love it.

---

As a team of a few people who started making Derail Valley with our own savings and an ambition to make a dream-game of every train sim fan, we’re super thankful to the Serbian Innovation Fund and their jurors who recognized our potential and agreed to fund us. There will surely be many obstacles and hiccups along the way, but we’re determined to make Derail Valley the best train simulation out there and possibly this way help VR market grow and become more affordable.

Finally, thank you all for the support and feedback you’ve sent us - without you we wouldn’t have had anything to show to the investors as proof that this is a game you want. Do spread the word about the game - tell everyone that it’s coming, and it’s going to rock!

We will be opening job positions soon in more detail, but in summary we are looking for developers already located in Serbia: two experienced gamedev programmers and one experienced gamedev 3D artist. If you live in Serbia, fit the criteria and would love to work with us on Derail Valley, send us an email with CV and portfolio to alternativefuture@gmail.com.

In the next post we aim to reveal the upcoming steam locomotive (you can see some interior shots here already)! I’ll also sneak in a reminder that we’ve got a Discord. Feel free to drop by - we are active there daily.

Thanks for reading and see you all soon!

We got some amazing news - we’re funded for the entire duration of Early Access!

In February we will expand our team to five members and work on Derail Valley for at least one full year during Early Access. That’s without taking into account actual revenue which should allow much more. This pretty much guarantees us delivering a full game in early 2019, with Early Access starting in a few months. Here’s what it means:

• We can focus on development without dependence on initial success
  
• We can reveal our full roadmap for the final game (coming in the next months)
  
• We’ll have regular updates during Early Access (starting early 2018)
  
• High chance of bringing the game to completion (early 2019)
  
• We’re very motivated to do this

Some of you might remember that last summer we’ve spent a month preparing an application for funding. It was for the Serbian Innovation Fund, an organization focused on funding innovative technologies here in Serbia. Recently we were informed that we made it to the finals, and then invited to pitch in front of the jury of international investors. Out of 237 company applications from all kinds of industries (including medical, agricultural, machine, etc.), we were among the 25 to receive the funding. Here's the cool part:

We retain full freedom to do what we believe is the best for the game, without sketchy compromises. In fact, our vision and plan for the Early Access development is already on paper, and our only obligation to the Fund is to actually deliver what we set in it, on a quarterly basis. We will reveal this roadmap in the following months, and we think you’re going to love it.

---

As a team of a few people who started making Derail Valley with our own savings and an ambition to make a dream-game of every train sim fan, we’re super thankful to the Serbian Innovation Fund and their jurors who recognized our potential and agreed to fund us. There will surely be many obstacles and hiccups along the way, but we’re determined to make Derail Valley the best train simulation out there and possibly this way help VR market grow and become more affordable.

Finally, thank you all for the support and feedback you’ve sent us - without you we wouldn’t have had anything to show to the investors as proof that this is a game you want. Do spread the word about the game - tell everyone that it’s coming, and it’s going to rock!

We will be opening job positions soon in more detail, but in summary we are looking for developers already located in Serbia: two experienced gamedev programmers and one experienced gamedev 3D artist. If you live in Serbia, fit the criteria and would love to work with us on Derail Valley, send us an email with CV and portfolio to alternativefuture@gmail.com.

In the next post we aim to reveal the upcoming steam locomotive (you can see some interior shots here already)! I’ll also sneak in a reminder that we’ve got a Discord. Feel free to drop by - we are active there daily.

Thanks for reading and see you all soon!

The project is financed by the Innovation Fund from the budget of the Republic of Serbia
from the division of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development,
through the Serbia Competitiveness and Jobs Project (loan agreement with the World Bank).

Hey everyone,

Closed beta signups for Derail Valley have begun!

As announced in our previous post, we will be providing beta access to selected core community members on September 30, and slowly expand it to more testers over the following weeks and months.

Apply for the beta here:
CLOSED BETA SIGNUP FORM

Note that we don’t guarantee access to every tester who signed up. Amount of approved testers will be limited and we will prioritize those who have actively participated in discussions on forums or Discord, as well as those who have logged in significant amount of playtime with the demo.

Note: Steam lets us see playtime of demos only if you played them recently. If you haven't played Derail Valley demo in the past two weeks please start and close the game so it becomes visible on your Steam profile under “All Recently Played”.

We’ll start with a small group of selected testers and during beta include more testers with each update. Updates are aimed to be made on a weekly basis. If you’ve been given access, you will receive an email from us.


In case you missed it, give our previous post a read. Our goal with the beta rollout is primarily to provide something new to those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the now postponed release, but also to receive feedback, performance and bug reports regarding new features.


In the next days we’ll establish dedicated channels where beta testers will be able to provide feedback, discuss updates between each other and receive information about beta updates. We’ll include those in the beta access confirmation email.


We are calling it closed beta as it gives beta access for the Early Access release. However the game itself is in pre-alpha state, and will only be in alpha when it is released in Early Access.

As expected the game is incomplete and heavily in progress. Initial “beta” release will showcase some additions, but expect a lot of missing features, content and polish (especially due to transition to the large world). From the initial beta release we will be updating the game regularly, adding missing features and content.

Until we get the game to a more satisfactory state, please note that we ask testers not to reveal any information about beta content publicly, including descriptions, reviews, screenshots or videos. You will be able to share this information with other testers however, and later publicly once we’re happy with the game’s state and have explicitly permitted sharing.


We’re yet to determine how long the beta signups and beta access will last. This will probably be as long as it takes us to get the game to the intended level of completeness for Early Access release.

Hey everyone,

Closed beta signups for Derail Valley have begun!

As announced in our previous post, we will be providing beta access to selected core community members on September 30, and slowly expand it to more testers over the following weeks and months.

Apply for the beta here:
CLOSED BETA SIGNUP FORM

Note that we don’t guarantee access to every tester who signed up. Amount of approved testers will be limited and we will prioritize those who have actively participated in discussions on forums or Discord, as well as those who have logged in significant amount of playtime with the demo.

Note: Steam lets us see playtime of demos only if you played them recently. If you haven't played Derail Valley demo in the past two weeks please start and close the game so it becomes visible on your Steam profile under “All Recently Played”.

We’ll start with a small group of selected testers and during beta include more testers with each update. Updates are aimed to be made on a weekly basis. If you’ve been given access, you will receive an email from us.


In case you missed it, give our previous post a read. Our goal with the beta rollout is primarily to provide something new to those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the now postponed release, but also to receive feedback, performance and bug reports regarding new features.


In the next days we’ll establish dedicated channels where beta testers will be able to provide feedback, discuss updates between each other and receive information about beta updates. We’ll include those in the beta access confirmation email.


We are calling it closed beta as it gives beta access for the Early Access release. However the game itself is in pre-alpha state, and will only be in alpha when it is released in Early Access.

As expected the game is incomplete and heavily in progress. Initial “beta” release will showcase some additions, but expect a lot of missing features, content and polish (especially due to transition to the large world). From the initial beta release we will be updating the game regularly, adding missing features and content.

Until we get the game to a more satisfactory state, please note that we ask testers not to reveal any information about beta content publicly, including descriptions, reviews, screenshots or videos. You will be able to share this information with other testers however, and later publicly once we’re happy with the game’s state and have explicitly permitted sharing.


We’re yet to determine how long the beta signups and beta access will last. This will probably be as long as it takes us to get the game to the intended level of completeness for Early Access release.

Hi everyone,

It’s been a long couple of months, and finally we’re here with some notable news - both good and less so. To get the bad stuff out of the way - sadly we won’t be ready for a September release. There are many factors behind that outcome, some of which I’ve explained further below. Still, knowing you guys are eager to try the new content, we’ll soon start with closed beta signups, to begin rolling out at the end of month!


Onto the progress - the huge news is that now we have a working proof of concept for large worlds. It was hands down one of the most critical milestones for Derail Valley, and probably the most complicated we’ve done so far too.



From the moment we’ve launched demo Update 5, bgr and I have been working day and night on this, among other urgent distractions. After a ton of research, testing, planning, development and practicing black magic, just a few days ago we’ve finally got the full new world tech running in VR. The system is not flawless and there’s a lot of things to improve still, but currently it runs fairly well on a GTX 970.

Judging by the screenshot alone it might not seem like much of a breakthrough, but there’s a few important things to note:

• The world can now be literally the size of a small country
  
• It works in VR

The large world system was built in such a way that the world’s size is virtually ineffective on performance. It also requires minimal human input in order to expand it with more content, however it is not completely procedural - we retain human control over gameplay-dependent aspects of it (i.e. where we want hills and valleys to be, and how high, as well as the distribution of biomes and vegetation on them).

With the technical and artistic foundation complete, it is now fairly simple to add more surface area. The world is currently at 16x16km2 (64 times the demo world), and we’re planning to at least double it later during Early Access.


Roughly painted map defines where we’d like mountains, hills and valleys to be. Our system then creates a detailed photorealistic world from it that runs in VR

Rather than tediously placing assets by hand and building fake “corridor” environments, we made this system to create a truly vast world with a living railway network. We want to invoke the feeling of the player taking a small part in this world, able to choose missions and routes seamlessly, without the limitations of pre-defined “scenarios”.


See that mountain in the background? You can actually get there by train!

Railway remains to be added as the final essential feature, which will also be a combination of human input and procedural generation. Currently the generator is able to create meadows, fields and forests, and during Early Access we’ll expand it with a lot more biome and vegetation diversity, including rocky cliffs, rivers, lakes, swamps, towns and other geographical features. Once we’re done with the essentials, we’ll make a dedicated devlog describing how our large world system works in a lot more detail.




While the large world milestone is great news, it took us longer to get here than we anticipated. Thus, we won’t be able to finish everything we planned for September Early Access release and have to postpone it once again. It’s entirely our fault for the repeated faulty release estimate, but nevertheless here’s some contributing factors that you guys should know:

Although we’ve been a three people team, only bgr and I worked on the majority of the game for quite a while now. Several times this has led us to miscalculate plans that depended on three people actively working on the project but had two instead. Our third team member does great work and remains involved with Derail Valley, but due to not being able to focus entirely on our project he opted out from being a vital member. As a 2.1 person sized team now we will essentially retain the same productivity rate, but just be better at estimating our progress.

Some delays came from the tools we use. The large world system relies on a few great third-party Unity plugins, some of which are still in development and some not even released yet. Their postponements, some of which measured in months, directly affected our own estimates. Still, developers of those plugins actively work on the plugins and some directly communicate with us in solving problems together, and without their heroic efforts a game with ambitious scope like ours would’ve been impossible for 2.1 persons to tackle. Good news is - we’ve got most of core dependencies under our control now.



Finally, one of the biggest delay contributors was a rather positive event - an opportunity to submit our project for consideration to a local technological innovation fund. Considering that it’d allow us to hire more developers and bring the game out of Early Access much quicker - independently from actual revenue success - we thought focusing on submitting Derail Valley there had higher priority than releasing the game on time.

Preparation for that submission (which had 1st of September as deadline) took us a whole month, and resulted in us creating a very detailed project plan which defines what the game will have when it’s finished, and what it will take to get there. We’ll turn that plan into a roadmap for you guys to see as well once we get the urgent stuff out of the way. Regardless of whether we’ll be awarded the grant or not (which we’ll find out in a few months), it’s another rather important milestone done. Wish us luck, as we believe the positive outcome of this submission would be very significant for the future of Derail Valley, but also for the future of VR and train simulations in general.




We know you guys are eager to try out the new stuff, and considering we’ve already postponed the release date once, we felt it would be unfair to do the same thing again without some way to compensate for it.

Therefore, in late September we’ll start rolling out beta access to Derail Valley fans in whatever state the game is in at that moment. Beta will last as long as it takes us to finish the Early Access release version. We won’t give any estimates for the release date anymore, but you’ll be able to judge completeness based on beta and directly influence the release date with your feedback! We have the steam locomotive in development already, so you can expect to see that too in rough form.

Considering that the release version will still be in development at the time of beta rollout, those of you who’ll get into the beta first might experience FPS drops, hiccups, and things of that sort. We will aim to eliminate any critical problems before releasing the game on Early Access.

The only thing we will ask during the beta is not to post any reviews, comments, screenshots and videos of the beta content publicly, until the game is released - simply because it would be the best for the project if the highest fan and press attention is focused at the time of launch, rather than spread-out when the game is still not yet available for purchase. We will however have our internal beta Discord channel where you guys can discuss new features, share media with each other and give us feedback.

Very soon we’ll make another announcement with a link to a beta access request. Stay tuned!

---

That’s it for this update. We've also updated the store page descriptions to reflect better what the game will offer when it's released. In the meantime please spread the word as it’s always helpful to have new players trying the demo or new fans joining the community! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, let us know on our Steam forum or Discord!

Hi everyone,

It’s been a long couple of months, and finally we’re here with some notable news - both good and less so. To get the bad stuff out of the way - sadly we won’t be ready for a September release. There are many factors behind that outcome, some of which I’ve explained further below. Still, knowing you guys are eager to try the new content, we’ll soon start with closed beta signups, to begin rolling out at the end of month!


Onto the progress - the huge news is that now we have a working proof of concept for large worlds. It was hands down one of the most critical milestones for Derail Valley, and probably the most complicated we’ve done so far too.



From the moment we’ve launched demo Update 5, bgr and I have been working day and night on this, among other urgent distractions. After a ton of research, testing, planning, development and practicing black magic, just a few days ago we’ve finally got the full new world tech running in VR. The system is not flawless and there’s a lot of things to improve still, but currently it runs fairly well on a GTX 970.

Judging by the screenshot alone it might not seem like much of a breakthrough, but there’s a few important things to note:

• The world can now be literally the size of a small country
  
• It works in VR

The large world system was built in such a way that the world’s size is virtually ineffective on performance. It also requires minimal human input in order to expand it with more content, however it is not completely procedural - we retain human control over gameplay-dependent aspects of it (i.e. where we want hills and valleys to be, and how high, as well as the distribution of biomes and vegetation on them).

With the technical and artistic foundation complete, it is now fairly simple to add more surface area. The world is currently at 16x16km2 (64 times the demo world), and we’re planning to at least double it later during Early Access.


Roughly painted map defines where we’d like mountains, hills and valleys to be. Our system then creates a detailed photorealistic world from it that runs in VR

Rather than tediously placing assets by hand and building fake “corridor” environments, we made this system to create a truly vast world with a living railway network. We want to invoke the feeling of the player taking a small part in this world, able to choose missions and routes seamlessly, without the limitations of pre-defined “scenarios”.


See that mountain in the background? You can actually get there by train!

Railway remains to be added as the final essential feature, which will also be a combination of human input and procedural generation. Currently the generator is able to create meadows, fields and forests, and during Early Access we’ll expand it with a lot more biome and vegetation diversity, including rocky cliffs, rivers, lakes, swamps, towns and other geographical features. Once we’re done with the essentials, we’ll make a dedicated devlog describing how our large world system works in a lot more detail.




While the large world milestone is great news, it took us longer to get here than we anticipated. Thus, we won’t be able to finish everything we planned for September Early Access release and have to postpone it once again. It’s entirely our fault for the repeated faulty release estimate, but nevertheless here’s some contributing factors that you guys should know:

Although we’ve been a three people team, only bgr and I worked on the majority of the game for quite a while now. Several times this has led us to miscalculate plans that depended on three people actively working on the project but had two instead. Our third team member does great work and remains involved with Derail Valley, but due to not being able to focus entirely on our project he opted out from being a vital member. As a 2.1 person sized team now we will essentially retain the same productivity rate, but just be better at estimating our progress.

Some delays came from the tools we use. The large world system relies on a few great third-party Unity plugins, some of which are still in development and some not even released yet. Their postponements, some of which measured in months, directly affected our own estimates. Still, developers of those plugins actively work on the plugins and some directly communicate with us in solving problems together, and without their heroic efforts a game with ambitious scope like ours would’ve been impossible for 2.1 persons to tackle. Good news is - we’ve got most of core dependencies under our control now.



Finally, one of the biggest delay contributors was a rather positive event - an opportunity to submit our project for consideration to a local technological innovation fund. Considering that it’d allow us to hire more developers and bring the game out of Early Access much quicker - independently from actual revenue success - we thought focusing on submitting Derail Valley there had higher priority than releasing the game on time.

Preparation for that submission (which had 1st of September as deadline) took us a whole month, and resulted in us creating a very detailed project plan which defines what the game will have when it’s finished, and what it will take to get there. We’ll turn that plan into a roadmap for you guys to see as well once we get the urgent stuff out of the way. Regardless of whether we’ll be awarded the grant or not (which we’ll find out in a few months), it’s another rather important milestone done. Wish us luck, as we believe the positive outcome of this submission would be very significant for the future of Derail Valley, but also for the future of VR and train simulations in general.




We know you guys are eager to try out the new stuff, and considering we’ve already postponed the release date once, we felt it would be unfair to do the same thing again without some way to compensate for it.

Therefore, in late September we’ll start rolling out beta access to Derail Valley fans in whatever state the game is in at that moment. Beta will last as long as it takes us to finish the Early Access release version. We won’t give any estimates for the release date anymore, but you’ll be able to judge completeness based on beta and directly influence the release date with your feedback! We have the steam locomotive in development already, so you can expect to see that too in rough form.

Considering that the release version will still be in development at the time of beta rollout, those of you who’ll get into the beta first might experience FPS drops, hiccups, and things of that sort. We will aim to eliminate any critical problems before releasing the game on Early Access.

The only thing we will ask during the beta is not to post any reviews, comments, screenshots and videos of the beta content publicly, until the game is released - simply because it would be the best for the project if the highest fan and press attention is focused at the time of launch, rather than spread-out when the game is still not yet available for purchase. We will however have our internal beta Discord channel where you guys can discuss new features, share media with each other and give us feedback.

Very soon we’ll make another announcement with a link to a beta access request. Stay tuned!

---

That’s it for this update. We've also updated the store page descriptions to reflect better what the game will offer when it's released. In the meantime please spread the word as it’s always helpful to have new players trying the demo or new fans joining the community! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, let us know on our Steam forum or Discord!