Howdy Scientists,

There were two major bugs making the game very slow at times, one occurred outside during the night especially when there was some light nearby, and the other one happened randomly but was more frequent when you had lots of crops.

The game should now run at 60 FPS most of the time. ːsteamthumbsupː

Many thanks to those who sent bug reports about these issues, it helped a lot!

Howdy Scientists!

What's new in Alpha0.7 ?

• Customize your containers with a name and an icon.
  
• Create a robot dog who can be called anywhere and fetch items from your containers.
  
• Destroy and/or move buildings.

Howdy Scientists!

This week, I worked on all the bugs that were submitted for the new Alpha 0.6 version, don't forget to download the new version manually if you disabled automatic updates.

There was also a recurring issue of the artifacts being too difficult to find, so I introduced an artifact detector that you can build. I think this is an interesting game mechanic that I could build on. I'm considering adding an "Augmented Reality" skill that would permit to use more than one detector at once, and you could for example visualize soil conditions, plants diseases, pollinator status, ... Let me know if you have other ideas!

Howdy Scientists!

Just a quick preview of what I am currently working on :

• New crafting system : I wanted to make crafting both more simple and more fun, so I made a visualization of the probabilities of getting a better quality item as a spinning wheel.
  
• Compost mini-game : animals now give manure that is great for composting, and you can try to balance the nitrogen and carbon content (commonly called "green matter" and "brown matter") to make the process faster. You can also add worms to cut the waiting time in half.
  
• Friendship panel to track gifts that NPCs like or don't like : the panel is updated when you make a gift that is liked or disliked, or during dialogues if a NPC gives a hint about something they appreciate.
  
• City improvements once you become mayor : the 3 new areas of the map can now evolve (3 areas with 4 possible states make 64 possible combinations). Each upgrade has 3 flavours : best for community (parks and activities), best for productivity (power plants, marina), and best for the environment (ecological reserve)

I expect to publish the new version before the end of the month.

If you haven't already, please consider writing an honest review of the game, it helps a lot!

Howdy Scientists!

My deepest apologies for the long wait, this is a big update and this year has been a difficult one for me. Future updates will be smaller and more frequent.

What's new ?

• All dialogues have been rewritten, NPCs have different things to say every day of the week + some new dialogue events when their friendship level increases. I tried to add a lot of humor, but they will also give you hints about their favorite gifts and personal stories.
  
• Bigger map with 3 completely new areas (Waterfalls, Volcanic area and tropical beach)
  
• There is now a fast travel system that you can unlock
  
• Each season now has 3 different music themes, for a total of almost one hour of original music composed by Irene Chan.
  
• The number of artefacts that you can bring to the museum has doubled (34 artefacts)
  
• New food recipes (Cheeseburger, Satay, Vol-au-vent, ...)
  
• Entering a building is not automatic anymore, you have to click on the door (Your pointer will change if it is currently open/available)

I did my best to remove all the bugs, but there are many different play styles and configurations so chances are that there will be more bug fixes coming soon. Remember to press F8 to submit bug reports, especially if you are blocked since there is a "teleport me to home" function that should hopefully correct most issues.

I made many changes according to the bug reports and suggestions you sent me, but some are not done yet. Do not worry, they are still on my todo list.

The old savegames won't be compatible with this new version. If you want to continue playing in version 0.4, you can go to Steam properties -> BETA and select the alpha04 to get them back.

Thank you all for your support!

Ben

Howdy Scientists!

I've been having some health issues for the past 4 months, thus the development has been a bit slower than anticipated. But I'm still aiming for a spring release for the world and dialogue update (probably just before summer, but that still counts as spring, right !?)

Here's a little preview where you can see two of the three new zones that are added to the map.



There is still a lot to do (as you can see some areas are still a bit "empty"), and all you see in the video is subject to changes, but it should give you an idea.

Howdy Scientists!

Just a quick word about the game soundtrack : next week I will add 8 new tracks composed by Irene, for a total of 17 tracks in the album. I will also double its price to $3.99. Of course, if you already bought the DLC, you will get all the new tracks for free.



Currently there is a -35% discount on the price, that is +/- $1.30 for almost one hour of music. You probably won't see such a great deal once the price is raised, so if you are interested, now is the best time to buy!

Other than that, I'm still working on the game update planned for Spring. I don't have much to show because it's mostly dialogues, refactoring, and rebuilding the world from scratch, but I'm making good progress!

Howdy scientists!

Just a quick message to let you know that I'm still working full time on the game. The next update will be major, with a complete world redesign and expansion, new dialogues and a friendship system. There will also be 8 new music tracks that Irene is currently working on (for a total of +/- 1h of original music!). Daniel already started working on the endgame (zones on the map that will evolve according to your choices).

This is a big update and it will take time. I'm expecting to publish it in March, but at this point there are still a lot of unknowns and it could change.

Ben

Howdy Scientists!

The latest update fixes a few bugs that were reported after the alpha 0.4 update. Many thanks to all the players who sent me bug reports, it helps a lot!

• Fixed: The Quiz would not start correctly on Friday nights
  
• Fixed: nested loops didn’t work in BotArena (they are not required to finish the levels, but now they work properly)
  
• Fixed: the uppercase letter I appeared as an empty square on Turkish computers (Thanks to Istvan Toth for the explanation)
  
• Fixed: changed northwest fence's collider so that you can’t get stuck on it
  
• Fixed: prevented dialog to occur at the same time as entering a building (could lead to a "black screen" bug)
  
• Fixed: there was a 1 second freeze when upgrading a building
  
• Various performance optimizations that should improve the framerate

Howdy Scientists,

I just published the latest update that brings buildings, two new animals and the possibility to grow crops inside.



Warning: This update is not compatible with the previous savegames. I try to avoid this as much as possible, but sometimes the changes on the game are so important that it would require too much work to keep backward compatibility. If you have an unfinished game that you want to continue, you can either configure Steam to not install the update automatically, or go to the steam game properties/beta window and select the alpha 0.3 branch.



The plan now is to work on the new dialogues and give more depth to all the NPCs. In November, Daniel will work on new graphics to extend the map to its final version. It is probable that the next major update will take place at the beginning of 2021, but if I have the time I may do a smaller update before that because I'm not satisfied with the current crafting system. I will also do minor updates to fix any bug that I might have missed.