Christmas is here!
Time of Mariah Carey in shops on repeat and some devs trying to give you an update, so you have also a gift from us.
The new test build will be available in Discord within 24 hours, for all tiers.
I tried my best to cramp as much update into the last 2-3 weeks, so you'd have something from us as well - but there is nothing especially Christmas themed. I'll post an update log for the build between this one and the last Test build that was released on the 12.7. Many of you have probably played the build a week before that, there were some improvements there as well.
Changelog
Performance: On multiple front the performance is completely different. Some stats on what we saw on our own machine.
-10 Seconds less loading at startup.
-4 Seconds on loading a save.
-Fluent Skipping!
-Less lags in general
-Fluent Travel with the car (Stamina now gets deducted while traveling)
-Sleeping once more better
-SMS open faster and are more responsive
I am not done with the topic. But those were the things I was able to improve without having to refactor some of the bigger things (Exception phone system. That was big, that was pain).
Features:
We added or re-added some Features:
Boosters Paradise. This will give you the current active multiplier. Depending on the boost it can also give you Money, or Items. Type "PotatoKing" to test it.
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Activity type boosts stack with your Patreon Tier. Meaning if you are Silver, they are twice as powerful. If multiple boosts are active at a point, they multiply with each other. Meaning 2 boosts for strength that are x2, will be 2x2 = 4, if Patreon silver -> 8. Those boosts have a duration however.
The investments are not fully done yet, the system will make more sense if that is included as well.
As for the boosts themselves, the idea is that you can get some of them from marketing, some from the discord bots (to do) and some even in game.
Chat overhaul:
The chat finally got a design update. It's a lot more pleasing to the eye.
There is an additional system for the timestamps. We might change that later.
Cross fade:
There is a new Cross fade effect when the time changes.
I might polish this feature still a bit.
Working:
The work events are now more embedded into the sandbox.
You need to farm points to get to see the next event. There is certainly quite a bit of polish needed on this front. But I have some ideas.
Sandbox
You now need cooking and planting, as well as leveling much more than you used. Also because the base stamina went down to 20.
In return running is unlocked a lot earlier. Remember Agility, Strength and Constitution (the most) give you maximum Stamina.
Food can automatically or manually be consumed for extra Stamina. We have new receipes, as well as new buyable items.
The sandbox itself will be polished in the coming weeks. But first I need to test and adjust the investments that we have.
We also added over 300 renders and some older scenes. Including:
- New scenes with Mina & Ted at work.
- New Fang Scenes.
- Corruption based Scene with Melissa
- Added the University
- fish pond and fishing
Several bugfixes:
- Fixed issue with loading
- Fixed issue with pills (still hard to find atm)
- Fixed issue with light path
- Fixed issue with Scene Starter for Melissa
Warning at this point.
I will absolutely break the save/load system between now and January.
That is why this release will also include the new "Boosters Paradise" and a Boost to ensure you don't have to grind much if you want to play this release.
Tutorial to reduce grinding. Log in, load a save, go to settings. scale up your Tier. Go to Boosters Paradise and type in the code.
As for next release. Most of us have vacation. I will continue to work, but also won't be fully engaged the next 2 weeks.
This also means likely no Platinum updates in the following weeks after this build. Since we are also moving I expect the next Platinum build to be no earlier than 17.1, or 23.1.
The idea going forward is that Platinum Member get a build when we have one, while the rest get's an update about once a month.
With a bit of luck we soon can get out of the test build phase.
Last words
We are now over 7k renders in. That is bigger than many full fledged games that went for years.
I basically put a lit on marketing and we stopped putting out anything besides test builds.
But I think you can see overall why. This game, in my eyes, is shaping to be one of the most exciting ones in our field.
Having said that, we need new patrons, so we will try to finish the test-build phase as soon as we can and start marketing.
From my side, Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!
See you in 2025!
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