Jan 29, 2019

Build #49 - Derail fixes, respawn button, cleared trees/rocks, Oculus SDK & more

Derail Valley - Altfuture

Hey all,

We read and watch most if not all of your feedback, therefore making a prioritized list of issues. We can't address them all at once, but we started with the most critical ones. Build #49 is now up! Here's what we could do in the past few days:

Respawn at nearest station

When you derail, a pop-up will inform you that there's a respawn button in the menu. The button will teleport both you and your last used locomotive to the nearest station. This is especially needed for our non-VR players.

No more loading savegame in the middle of nowhere

Savegame, being work in progress and unable to save trains and ongoing job, now clearly says so in the main menu. In addition, rather than spawn you in the middle of nowhere without a train, loading will instead spawn you at the nearest station, along with your last used locomotive. Note that the savegame still cannot save ongoing jobs.

Fixed derailment issues

There was a bug with loaded/heavy cars being too sensitive to derailment. This should be fixed now. We are also testing potential fixes for derailments occurring on straight tracks, as well as the tender being prone to fly away or at least derail. Please let us know if you experience any of these issues again.

Oculus SDK on Steam

Oculus SDK is now available as a launch option on Steam. For many players on Rift, the performance is much better running an Oculus SDK instead of SteamVR. This option is not useful for other types of headsets.

No more trees and rocks on the tracks!

There should be a lot less of them, at least!

WMR controls improvements

We've done an initial iteration of improvements for WMR controllers, with help from our awesome testers. Please try the game and let us know. Note that if you're unable to use the switch remote (or some other items), it might help to toggle the option in Main Menu > Misc > "Use grip to teleport (Vive)". These controls are work in progress and will be further improved.

Apart from these, there have been other smaller changes:

Full changelog:

Physics:

- Fixed heavy/loaded cars being very sensitive to derailment
- Potentially fixed tender being prone to random derailments
- Temporarily removed water hatch for testing
- Potentially fixed random derailments occurring on straight track
- Fixed unpause doing damage/shaking to vehicles

Gameplay:

- Added “Respawn at nearest station” button
- Teleports you to the nearest station together with last used locomotive
- Note that the locomotive will be restocked to new condition. This is temporary.
- Clears all your active jobs
- Added a “you derailed” tip, explaining what to do

Savegame:

- Game now loads player spawned at the nearest station from save location
- Like “Respawn” option, it also spawns last used locomotive, in new condition
- This is a temporary workaround until the savegame can handle ongoing jobs
- Now every station has at least one locomotive
- Added note to main menu that savegame is work in progress
- Fixed player being flipped at game load if savegame was made in a flipped train

World:

- Greatly reduced trees and rocks on tracks
- Added an extra locomotive spawn stub track to many stations
- Fixed a few railway bumps and irregularities
- Updated schematic maps and some faulty track names

Controls:

- Improved Windows Mixed Reality controller mapping (WIP)
- If unable to use the switch remote (or some other items), try toggling option in Main Menu > Misc > Use grip to teleport (Vive)
- Fixed Rift joysticks being difficult to flick when playing in SteamVR

Tutorial:

- Tutorial tip now points to individual items in the locker
- Fixed locker interior being dark

Oculus SDK:

- Added Oculus SDK as a launch option on Steam
- Somewhat improves performance for Rift users
- Not to be used with other headsets

Dec 5, 2018

Release date, world map, industry chain, inventory

Derail Valley - Altfuture

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.

Release date:

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

World development:

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.

Industry chain:

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

Inventory & money:

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

Community help:

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.

Updated roadmap:

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

Oct 5, 2018

Teaser trailer, new world, locomotion, missions & general status

Derail Valley - Altfuture

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

Revamped world tech:

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.

Complete train simulation, damage and servicing:

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.

Teleport, Smooth Locomotion & Non-VR controls:

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).

Missions (jobs) and career:

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).

Pushing the limits - the genre’s, and our own:

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

Mar 20, 2018

Status report & Roadmap

Derail Valley - Altfuture

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

What's next?

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

Roadmap / what’s coming at launch:

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 status?

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

When’s the release planned for?

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

Mar 20, 2018

Status report & Roadmap

Derail Valley - Altfuture

The steam locomotive is in the works

What's next?

Shunter dashboard has been redesigned to show all the needed information

Roadmap / what’s coming at launch:

Beta status?

The new WIP tanker car in the wild

When’s the release planned for?