Offsprings of the first men, once again, welcome back to another #FeatureFriday! ːthetreeoflifeː

The journey with TFM: The First Men continues, and we couldn't be more excited about the path that lies ahead. As we approach our next major update, our team has been relentlessly refining and enhancing the core aspects of our game. ːFistpumpː

A prominent focus for our team has been flow refinement. Our objective? To ensure your time in TFM feels smooth, logical, and fulfilling. We've been hard at work reshaping character progression, with particular attention to childbirth—a vital component of any creation story! ːreexcitedː

Stay tuned for more exciting updates. As always, your feedback and support have been our guiding light. ːkrlvlupː

Total number of additions implemented this week: 28 ːhappyhfː
Changes made in response to community input and assistance are 57% and marked with ːhappyheartː

ːhappyhfː [Content] Dreadcap Gnolls can now be claimed. Their main construction is Overseer Doruk's Tent.
ːhappyhfː [Content] Added 18 new doodads, including new stone sculptures for Masons.
ːhappyheartː [Content] Hunters can spawn Bone Collector dogs as a reward for collecting critter bones.
ːhappyhfː [Content] New feat and skill for Preserver: Stress Reliever/Stress Relief.
ːhappyheartː [Content] Adventurers can now come across Heavy Branch out of Wood as a patch choice after picking a class if they don't have any weapon equipped.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Arachnia's Escapees' Camp characters throw potions when crossed by party members.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Added faction perk boosting stamina for Orcs upon claiming Arachnia's Escapees' Camp.
ːhappyhfː [Balance] Slayer, Preserver, and Protector gear-crafting now require Carpentry Workshop, not Masonry.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Removed Spiky Arena from Arachnia's Dreadcap Gnolls dungeon and added another trainee.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Boosted the Endurance of Arachnia's Overseer Doruk. Diggers in his room join combat if any are struck.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Reduced effectiveness of the Withered debuff.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Withering Touch has a longer casting time and shorter cast range.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Withered debuff now has a 10% chance to interrupt worktime activity once per Sun until cured.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Characters are two times less likely to be haunted if ancestors are properly buried.
ːhappyhfː [Balance] Doubled Stamina replenishment effects of common craftable food items.
ːhappyhfː [Balance] Crafting times of craftable food items increased to 30 moons from 20 moons.
ːhappyhfː [Balance] Preserver's First Push feat is now a stackable reward.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Renamed Makeshift Club to Heavy Branch and nerfed its effectiveness.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Reduced chance of acquiring injuries due to starvation stages.
ːhappyheartː [Balance] Halved Movement Speed penalty starvation stages.
ːhappyhfː [UI/UX] The map view now displays objectives and claimable main constructions.
ːhappyheartː [UI/UX]Added alert: "Character is haunted by an ancestor."
ːhappyheartː [UI/UX] Enlarged Ghosts' selection circles.
ːhappyhfː [UI/UX] Several new sound effects for the user interface.
ːhappyheartː [Fix] Removed Arachnia's "Weaponcarver's Table" side objective chain.
ːhappyhfː [Fix] Fixed Cloak of Winter's old stat energy modifiers and effects.
ːhappyhfː [Fix] Fixed the issue where Eryndor's Damaged Library was walkable.
ːhappyhfː [Other] New parameter decision for collecting specific items from the ground.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/700820/view/3645154111861441212
Before we wrap up, a quick shoutout to two incredible events currently taking place on Steam: "Land of the Crescent: Games from Turkey!" and "DreamHack Beyond". We're thrilled to be a part of these showcases, shining a spotlight on the rich tapestry of gaming culture from Turkey and beyond. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to join us there. ːSmallRedHeartː

https://steamcommunity.com/games/700820/announcements/detail/3664275387883515658
Have a wonderful weekend, and see you all next Friday! ːgearthumbsupː

Happy Friday, RoboEngineers!

Last week, we announced our new update schedule as well as the release date for RoboCo Copper. This week, we’re taking you behind the scenes of our progress with RoboCo VR!


As you may know from our (Mostly) Complete History of RoboCo devblog, RoboCo originated in VR. We started working on the desktop version of RoboCo in 2018 and, while that’s the version of RoboCo so many have come to know and love, we have never given up on our dreams to also bring this compelling robotics experience to VR. We’ve come a long way since the initial VR prototype. Check out the video below to get up to speed on what the VR version is like!



You may recall that when we announced the release date for RoboCo on Steam, we also talked about how RoboCo will be a standalone title for the Meta Quest 2 and that VR compatibility would be added to the PC version of RoboCo free of charge!


RoboCo VR, both the Meta Quest 2 version and the Steam update, will now be releasing in 2024.

It was a difficult decision but in short, the reasons why we’ve delayed RoboCo VR are very much in line with why we updated our release schedule for RoboCo on Steam Early Access. Our scrappy development team is working on BOTH RoboCo VR and RoboCo 1.0 for Steam, and, in order to make sure both games are the best versions of themselves they can be, we need to make sure we’re optimizing our team’s time and resources as effectively as possible. It also allows us to improve upon features like these…


***This footage was all recorded from RoboCo on The Meta Quest 2!


We've ported our tutorials to VR to help players get building! Our initial tutorial and our RoboRepairs now include VR-appropriate steps. It also uses a dotted line to guide you to its user interface callouts.



For this recording, we're showing the initial tutorial in the Sandwich Server challenge that you're used to, even though this tutorial will actually be moving to one of our mini-challenges. No sneak peeks there yet, but stay tuned!


Cameras in VR are super important! A good VR camera can give a sense of presence, while a weak one may make you queasy or disoriented rather than immersed. Different players also have different comfort levels, so VR cameras often benefit from being customizable. Those of you with long memories may recall that RoboCo's VR camera has three modes when driving your robot in Live mode: Step Follow, Smooth Follow, and Free Look.



Our Step Follow camera is designed for the most common player who wants the camera to keep up with their robot but might get motion sick from a Smooth Follow camera. The Step Follow camera automatically teleports you to catch up after your robot gets too far away. But user testing revealed that it was updating too eagerly, so we've changed its behavior. The Step Follow camera now waits for your robot to be far away from you and for you to let go of transmitter controls. Just that single rule change yields a night-and-day difference in how it feels. As a player, you now feel in control of when the camera updates, but it also doesn't take conscious thought and becomes second nature.

We also got rid of any automatic snap rotation in favor of manual snap rotation. This is what we've always wanted, but RoboCo has a lot of controls so we had to figure out how the control scheme could accommodate it without disrupting other controls. You can now manually rotate by squeezing the grip button (to tell the game you're trying to move the camera and not the robot) and then flicking the joystick left or right to snap rotate in 20-degree increments.


Good VR controls give you a tactile connection to the virtual world through your hands. In a complex building game like RoboCo, you also need access to a wide range of tools for editing. While sometimes you just want to grab a block and move it, at other times you may want to multi-select specific parts on your robot and move them only along the X-axis.



To make these edits quick and easy to access in VR, we've been remapping some controls and we've also been updating our VR selection tool to have more intuitive behaviors for selecting single parts, multi-selecting, and deselecting. We expect to continue tweaking controls based on user testing feedback to ensure that VR is as intuitive and usable as possible.


Since we last updated on the VR front we also have:

• Updated the flow upon completing a challenge so that players are guided to their Results on the tablet.
  
• Ported features to the file system of the Quest 2 so that robot saving and loading, campaign progress, and all other game data work on that platform.
  
• Ported robot sharing to the Quest 2. We've set up a workshop that will allow Quest 2 players to share their robots with each other, much like Steam users can. Please note that the Steam workshop and Quest 2 workshop will not share the same uploads due to the different accounts and backend tech.
  
• Dug into all the technical aspects of RoboCo to optimize the game for increased performance! Some of these performance optimizations will benefit PC or PC VR. Others are specific to the Quest 2 so we can bring all those squishy humans and that sweet robot physics to a standalone headset with no need for a PC! Optimizing is another initiative we expect to be ongoing as we eke out every frame.

And that’s it for this week’s devblog! We hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look into what’s been going on in the world of RoboCo VR. Next week, we’re announcing our inclusion in a familiar game expo! 😉

For the latest news on RoboCo, follow us on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok! You can also connect with other community members and us by joining our official Discord and Reddit!

Available now for purchase on Steam Early Access!

Salutations, Industrialists! We're going into more depth on our Leader System for this Dev Diary! We hinted at several features in our last one about the Portrait System.

The Leader System works together with the Portrait System that we discussed in the last Dev Diary to bring immersive and deep gameplay to the players. There will generally be two types of leaders that go along with Special and Standard Portraits.

Special portraits will depict historical figures who were prominent in history, often possessing formidable abilities. And, Standard portraits will depict randomly generated characters, who you can recruit and mold into the leader of your own choosing—however, their traits will be more randomized and may, in fact, be very positive. Ultimately, how you utilize Special and Standard leaders is up to you!

Our main design goals for the Leader System are:

1. Allowing players to interact with historically meaningful characters and experience their pivotal impacts on historical progression.
   
2. Allowing players to use historical characters to administer the country.
   
3. Allowing players to nurture and grow leaders through different postings to improve their skills and leadership effectiveness.

While most of the images, outfits, military units, menus, and map layers in this vlog are all still pre-alpha renderings, which will likely change significantly before release, and some placeholders are used, we hope this video gives you a better understanding of where the development is going!

Gilded Destiny is set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and will allow players to live through the intricacies and challenges of the era. The game's central goal is to transform your chosen country from an agrarian society into an industrial one—where you'll lead your population from subsistence to wealth by controlling key economic, diplomatic, and military factors to achieve your goal.

Let us know if you have any questions or feedback in the comments below. And be sure to wishlist us on Steam to stay up to date!

Join our discord community today!
https://discord.gg/3d77T9gxDF

Barbaria 1.2.2 Patch Update

- Fix bug that allowed players to re-use their reinforcements under certain circumstances

The playtest would be postponed for one week (until next Friday), which should be enough time to fix the technical issues we found yesterday.

So, again - new date is 25 of August

Sorry for the inconvenience

And join our Discord chanell for fresh news and updates --> https://discord.gg/xyKqPq9FfM

Recovering a game made over ten years ago is quite a testing task.

One of the biggest mistake we made 12 years ago, is to write a game using components which was losing popularity even back then. Now those components are niche at best. They have changed its licensing scheme, they've changed the way they're used in your program. Luckily, it turned out to be possible to build an old version with modern instruments, however, it took some time.

Much bigger problem was lack of any single repository with game source files, both the program code and media assets. Actually, for an entire first week I was sifting through my old HDDs looking for materials and trying to assemble some sort of frankenstein. Some files were lost forever, so I had to adapt the source code to the new reality. Other files were from different game versions, and I had to change them greatly so they'd work together.

Despite the process taking much more time than expected, yesterday I finally was able to finish all three chapters of the game, even though there are some bugs remaining. And now we can say with the confidence - the game will be there for you.

• The engine has been updated to the latest version.

* Some improvements have been made due to the engine update, but there are still unstable parts. These parts will be continuously addressed by our development team. We will try to show better graphics or optimizations in the future by making use of some of the latest engine technologies by proceeding with updates.

• The modeling quality of grasss has been greatly improved.
  
• Added pine trees.
  
• Improved natural group generation algorithm.
  
• Improved the graphics of the natural world.
  
• Added a wind sway effect to the natural world.

• When attacking an NPC, the time for which the lowered affinity is maintained has been shortened.
  
• The bandit in the field has been changed to follow the attacking target first.

• The categories are separated according to mission importance.

• You can adjust the spawn density of the grass.
  
• "Maximum number of frames queued" can be controlled in graphics settings.
  
• SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) can be adjusted.
  
• You can adjust the render scale.

*In general, various options are provided so that the user can vary the graphics settings according to slightly higher specifications.

• Item research on workbenches has been changed to apply to all workbenches.
  
• When building with a hammer, the reason why it cannot be built is displayed as a notification message.
  
• When acquiring an item, it has been changed to be merged based on the items already acquired.

• Some changes have been made to the English translation of the Inventory UI.

• Fixed an issue where self-defense swords would fall through the ground under certain circumstances.
  
• Fixed an error where some characters were broken.

• Can break artifacts.
  
• Fixed an issue where horse colors would look different.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could move while the UI was on.
  
• The main mission in multiplayer has been temporarily suspended.

* In multiplayer, it will be changed to proceed with the main mission based on the host. Therefore, the missions that were individually progressing for each player will be integrated. As a result, currently received Personal Missions may disappear.

Hi everyone! We've just released the new update, featuring the new DE6 Slug and many other improvements to the game!





In real life when a locomotive reaches its end of life, some of its components can still be reused. Slugs are an example of that. They are modified diesel-electric locomotives, in this case a DE6, in such a way that they no longer have a diesel engine or a cab. What they do still have are the traction motors, and a body filled with concrete to make them heavy.

In Derail Valley the DE6 Slug is a "work train". What this means is that in career mode there's only one on the map, in a locked garage somewhere. The key for the garage can be purchased in the Harbor shop. Once unlocked, the vehicle can be moved around freely, and summoned using the comms radio, for a fee. In sandbox mode it's always available.




On its own the Slug is practically useless. When coupled to a diesel-electric locomotive via MU cable, however, it starts to make sense. Instead of feeding only its own traction motors, the locomotive now powers both its own and the Slug's motors. This drastically reduces the amperage per motor, allowing applying a lot more throttle without risk of overheating or slipping.

In other words, the Slug can help drastically increase the pulling capacity of a DE locomotive by utilizing its generator better at low speeds. However, this doesn't come without cost – apart from adding extra weight, the Slug's traction motors also provide significant additional EMF, making reaching higher speeds much more difficult.




Texture streaming – This update should bring a significant improvement to VRAM (and on some systems RAM) usage, as the game no longer holds all textures in memory the whole time but dynamically loads and unloads them as needed, instead.

Ray tracing – We've arranged it with Nvidia to support Derail Valley in their Freestyle feature, so if you have GeForce Experience installed and run the latest drivers you can enable filters for Derail Valley. The one we find most notable is SSRTGI, which does screen-space ray tracing (pictured below). Press Alt+F3 in-game to set it up.

QoL and bug fixes – We've made various small improvements, such as the ability to aim at items while zooming in mouse mode, or that unzooming in mouse mode now brings the camera back to its original position. Touch-based interaction with buttons in VR is now back too and this time works as intended (please do try it as it works great, and if you still don't like it there's an option to use Trigger instead). There are numerous other small improvements and bug fixes made, listed in the changelog below.

What's cooking? – We have many more things currently in development. Some of those are almost done and just need more testing to be included in the next build, whereas others are rather notable and are yet to be announced in the coming months!

• Added texture streaming
  • Instead of holding all textures in VRAM, the game now loads them dynamically
  • This drastically reduces required VRAM capacity
    
  • This also indirectly helps reduce RAM usage on PCs with limited VRAM
    
  • This should help prevent crashes and stuttering induced by RAM/VRAM shortage
    
  • Added options for this in Settings/Advanced
• Further reduced RAM usage (apart from texture streaming)
  
• Fixed corrupted saves being able to make the main menu unusable
  
• Fixed locomotive exploding being able to cause an error in driving UI
  
• Fixed turntable sounds continuing playing when the turning stops
  
• Fixed having a disabled right VR controller being able to break the game
  
• Fixed error caused by spamming keyboard shortcuts while teleporting into a loco
  
• Fixed “transform.SetParent” warning message spam in console
  
• Fixed AudioListener warning spam in main menu, in Oculus SDK

• Added Nvidia Freestyle support (Ray tracing)
  • Requires Nvidia GPU and GeForce Experience installed, latest drivers
    
  • Press Alt+F3 to enable the Freestyle sidebar where you can add and edit filters
    
  • We recommend giving the SSRTGI filter a try, which adds ray tracing
    
  • Note that this alters game performance
• Fixed smoke not blending into fog nicely
  
• Fixed some cases of water surfaces z-fighting when viewed from above
  
• Fixed comms radio laser not rendering well over smoke

• Added DE6 Slug
  • DE6 Slug is a stripped-down DE6 (has TMs, but no diesel engine or cab)
    
  • It’s a “work train” vehicle, located in a locked garage somewhere in the world
    
  • The garage key can be purchased in Harbor shop for $20k
    
  • The slug can be spawned freely in sandbox mode
    
  • Couple it to any DE locomotive via MU to distribute power to more motors
    
  • Doing this makes the locomotive engine better utilized at low speeds
    
  • It allows for drastically reduced overheating and wheelslip when accelerating
    
  • The slug is able to brake dynamically too
    
  • The slug is filled with concrete to retain traction, making it very heavy
    
  • EMF from its 6 TMs may drastically reduce locomotive’s top speed
    
  • The slug can only assist a single locomotive, the one that was MU’d first
    
  • Once unlocked, the slug can be moved around freely and never gets despawned
    
  • It can also be moved anywhere via comms radio work train function for $5k
    
  • The slug doesn’t receive damage and cannot be repaired
    
  • The slug model is made so that most DE6 skins work with it out of the box
• Improved steam lubricator mechanics
  • Fixed indicator not working correctly on S060
    
  • Mechanical damage now starts when oil level gets under 50% (was 100%)
    
  • Running gear now screeches based on oil level rather than damage
    
  • Remade the running gear grinding sound to be more noticeable
    
  • Lubricator now gets reset when paying fees, sleeping or rerailing
• Made accessing a fee for a single unit reset other sibling units to default state
  • e.g. paying a tender fee also disables the injector on the locomotive
• Fixed S282A and S060 brake pads not glowing when overheated
  
• Made loco remote “pair” button do nothing if user is not on a locomotive
  
• Fixed locomotives sometimes despawning prematurely (S060 in particular)
  
• Made DH4 reverser immovable when the vehicle is traveling over ~8 km/h
  
• Made DM3 lever knobs white for improved visibility
  
• Fixed S282B (tender) missing the wheel slide particle effects
  
• Modified price of caboose garage key to $20k (was $25k)
  
• Modified price of caboose summon to $5k (was $10k)
  
• Fixed DE6 warped metal look causing strange dark blotches on the side
  
• Minor tweaks to the S060 UV map and modeling

• Reworked zoom in mouse mode
  • Zooming now focuses on where the mouse cursor is
    
  • Unzooming now returns the camera to the original position
    
  • Held items now can be viewed zoomed in mouse mode
• Added setting “Within Reach” to Keyboard Driving difficulty parameter
  • This allows using the keyboard controls only in vicinity of train controls
    
  • This is now the default setting in Standard and Realistic presets
• Fixed lanterns falling off of S282 (and generally items when close to the vehicle edge)
  
• Fixed various inconsistencies with vehicle spawning
  • Comms radio spawner mode no longer offers locked vehicles
    
  • Comms radio spawner mode now includes work trains too
    
  • Removed the comms radio work train mode from sandbox game mode
    
  • Scenario train editor now shows locked vehicles with a locker icon
    
  • Trying to start a scenario with a locked vehicle now issues a blocker popup
    
  • Caboose is no longer missing from scenario train editor
    
  • DM3 is no longer possible to spawn or fast travel with when it’s locked
• Creating a new session now defaults the difficulty preset to the last used one
  
• Fixed train keyboard controls being able to cause issues when pressed during pause
  
• Made sit and lean states turn off when walking away more than a couple meters
  
• Fixed being unable to pick up items after placing them on bed/couch
  
• Fixed boombox changing modes during game pause
  
• Increased intensity and range of comms radio LED light
  
• Fixed being able to dislodge doors, levers and such with the fuel hose plug
  
• Fixes to minor missing or floating objects in stations

• Brought back physical touch interaction with buttons
  • Now works as intended, please give it a try
    
  • Can still be disabled in settings
• Simplified controller calibration
  • Pointer beam is now relative to hand and uniform across all controllers
    
  • Please let us know if calibration feels off and needs adjusting
• Fixed small items not always going to predefined position in hand, when grabbed
  
• Fixed shop scanner laser pointing down in VR
  
• Fixed some items being unable to be put in carabiner slots in VR
  
• Fixed being able to walk through thin colliders (e.g. turntable rod)
  
• Fixed UI interaction in localization test scene not working in VR

• Fixed career tutorial able to break if one avoids the steps that teaches how to jump
  
• Added career tutorial tutorial step teaching about the Lost & Found sheds
  
• Added a post-tutorial step teaching how to cancel jobs (trash bin)
  
• Added “Can’t save in tutorial” message in save manager, during career tutorial

That would be all for today's update. Thank you! We hope you'll enjoy it, and we'll see you soon with more!

-Your DV team

Dreamhack Beyond is right around the corner, Dudes, and you guessed it - we are in it! However, this bit of news isn’t just about that. We would like to showcase other things we have been cooking for your gaming pleasure!

But, but, but... before these beauties will be ready to be injected into your veins, you gotta follow and wishlist. It makes the algorithm gods happy and jolts our developers’ hearts with joyful exuberance - whatever that means.






https://store.steampowered.com/app/2330380/NecroGolf/



Space, the final frontier, a place devoid of the tight-ass bureaucracy. A place where a man can cruise in their Fiat 126p, lick batteries, and be a self-made cosmonaut! Unless you get raided by pirates, poisoned by a hot-dog from an unlicensed food-shuttle or scammed by Kovalsky at the spaceship dealer.

CosmoPirates takes card battling, deck building to the final frontier of cartoonish comedy. Pimp-out your ride, gather your crew, and take out the cringeworthy overlord. Be wary tho, for there always must be a Cringe lord - and on your journey you might just become one.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2466240/CosmoPirates/






If you are in for even more Hyperstrangeness, then embark in 77p egg: Eggwife on a quest whose crude, gory, toilet-humor can only be rivaled by games such as Postal 2, Duke 3D, or Goat Simulator. Master your bodily functions to perform such feats as poop-jumping and employ a wide range of "UK-Legal'' weapons such as the Applicator, Crossbowner and Stigmatic 77,000!

Does this masterpiece have a story? Yes, and a relatable one at that. Building a stable relationship isn’t that easy and our protagonist will need your help on his quest to find a new wife!

Unless he gets lost in the grocery aisle again.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1317020/77p_egg_Eggwife/



Let’s step down from the joyful sensory overload of the above mentioned games to something a little bit different. Something less strange and definitely more hyper.

In Empty Shell, a top-down roguelite survival horror, you will get thrown into a secret facility on a Japanese island. Having signed a contract which stated only one condition “recover the designated target”, you will soon learn why it is so important to read the fine print.

During each run, you will try to get the “volunteer” through the facility while dealing with limited visibility, dwindling supplies and whatever is out there, stalking and hunting you throughout the randomized maze of tight-corridors.




https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243110/EMPTY_SHELL/



If you are peckish and looking for something more crunchy to stimulate your strategic mind, then look no further than Spirit of Liberty, a hardcore, turn-based, historically accurate strategy game set in WWII.

Master the intricacies of the game’s systems to keep your units supplied and armed with the best equipment and dismantle enemy forces through combined-arms tactics and help from your cabinet of generals.





https://store.steampowered.com/app/1474770/Strategic_Mind_Spirit_of_Liberty/


As tradition commands, we have saved the best for the dessert! Hope you're still hungry for here comes our most ambitious in-house project so far.

Hordes of Hunger is a fast-paced action arena slasher with roguelite elements set in the dark fantasy setting of Ismer. A land engulfed by the living hunger, the cosmic horror known only as the Beast. You are the unlucky one still living inside the nightmare and the only way out is through it.




https://store.steampowered.com/app/2157710/Hordes_of_Hunger/