Gold Hunter News

Now the year is coming to an end soon and we can look back on a long year full of events.
There were many ups and downs, but in the end we survived this year as well.

Successes included the Early Access release, regular livestreams, and feedback from our community.
Unfortunately, there are also failures, but we can also learn from them and use that positively for further development for us.
These included, for example, delays and also cases of illness, even though you can't always plan for everything.

Even though we unfortunately couldn't put an update under your Christmas tree yet, we can tell you in the meantime when the next update can be expected.
We have made so much progress and achievements regarding the next update in the last 2 weeks that we will be able to provide the update for you in January.

Since many have visiting family, friends and acquaintances over the holidays and New Year, the next livestream on Twitch will be on 2nd of January 2023.

We wish all players a Merry Christmas, relaxing holidays and a Happy New Year.

It's time for another dev blog.

The most important thing right at the beginning: My(cHaOsFaTz) health is fine again. So we can work again at full speed on the planned update.

Of course, there is a lot of work to be done before we can make the update available to you.
But before we go into more detail about the upcoming update, we want to talk about the topic of communication.

Communication and tasks

During my absence we noticed that there was a lack of communication. You had the information that I was ill, but no further details about what that meant for the development.
So no information about what the rest of the team has done or achieved during this time. Before we can go into that, we want to briefly explain to you what the responsibilities in the team are.

We have often received questions such as "What is the rest of the team doing?", "What is the status of the update?", "Why haven't the others continued working on the update?" and a few more questions related to these topics. Therefore, here is a brief list of the distribution of tasks that are directly related to the development of the game.

The development team consists of four people:
- There is me as the project manager and main developer.
- Another developer
- A 3D designer
- A level designer

This should make it clear that everyone has their own special area of responsibility. And if one of them is absent - due to illness or other incidents - then not everyone in the team can take over the tasks of the others, because special knowledge and skills are necessary for each area.

Another important thing that has been said far too seldom, and which we also want to clarify again today, concerns the working time or rather the possibility to work on the project.

All the people involved work on the project out of passion for the idea of the game, and the potential they see in the idea.
However, as the project leader and main developer in the development team, I am the only person who has the opportunity to work on the project full time. The other three team members each have a different main job and then work on the project in their remaining free time.
Perhaps this circumstance was not yet known to one or the other. Maybe this makes it a bit more understandable why the progress in recent times could not be as great due to my absence as it would have been if the whole team had been able to work on the project full time.

Where do we go from here and what will change?

As mentioned above, we are currently working on the next update. Our focus for this update is on the basic functionality and the most serious bugs. All other planned new functions and features will therefore be put on hold for the next update, because for us the most important thing is to clean up the existing content, which still has major errors in some places.
Due to the illness and the resulting delay, there will unfortunately also be no Christmas event in the game this year.

The next update is planned for this winter, but we can't give you an exact date yet, as there are still many open tasks to be completed.
As soon as we have released the next update, we will be able to work on adding more planned functions and features.

How is the progress since the last update?

Since a lot of time has passed since the last update, we want to show you what has been done or completed so far.

The changelog, which is not yet published, refers to the changes to the "stable" version on Steam, and not to the "experimental" version, as this already contains a large part of these updates.
The list is already very long and can already be viewed at: https://pastebin.com/sm28NgVq . However, changes are still possible.

What we want to show with this is that we have not been idle during all this time, but that there has already been a lot of progress.

Livestreams

What might also interest some players is how the livestreams on Twitch will continue. I have also thought about this with the team.
As of now, the plan is as follows: The livestreams will be divided into categories, firstly "developer streams" and secondly "news and talk".
The "developer streams" will probably take place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but there is no fixed time yet.
The "News and Talk" stream will take place every Friday at 7 pm.
So there should be something for everyone. In addition, the announcements for the livestreams will be communicated on all social networks.

Finally

We hope that we could answer some open questions and improve the communication between players and team in the future.
We wish you a nice rest of the weekend and stay healthy.

Another week has passed and we provide you with the next dev blog.
Since not so much time has passed since the last blog, there are not so many news.

The health condition of me has not improved yet, unfortunately. I will probably be out for a while.
The rest of the team is still working as usual, but can only compensate for my downtime to a limited extent. But as already mentioned, this will of course delay further development until I am feeling better again.

I hope to get better quickly so that I can continue to work on my outstanding tasks for the next update.
We also understand that this will cause a further delay until I am ready to work again.

The date for the planned update we have also imagined differently but health must have priority at this point. Unfortunately we can't give a date yet, but as soon as I'm feeling better, you'll be the first to know.

We will also get through this difficult time in the coming month and not let it get us down.

In this sense we wish you a nice Sunday and a good start into the new week.

It's that time again: it's time for another dev blog.
Some may have wondered at what intervals we bring the dev blogs, so we'd like to explain briefly.
The dev blog is intended to be an information medium in which we inform you as players about news, updates and progress.
Therefore, this blog may appear several times a month, but our aim is for it to appear at least once a month.

What I'm sure everyone wants to know: How is the update progressing and when can you play it - and that is what this blog is about today.
We've been working on the next update for many weeks, testing, fixing and also developing it further, but we also have setbacks and unplanned changes from time to time.
At the moment I have health problems, which is why we have not yet made the progress that we had planned for this period.

The whole team is trying to smooth out this situation and some tasks have therefore been redistributed to compensate for this problem somewhat.
This makes it possible for us to continue to complete the tasks, but not at the same speed as you have been used to.

That's why the last two Friday streams have unfortunately been cancelled.

Of course, this situation is not nice, but as they say, health comes first, because the sooner you feel better, the sooner you can work at full power again.
Currently, progress is not in line with our internally set schedule, but we are still trying to deliver the update in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, this first update will not yet contain everything that we have indicated on our roadmap for the next update. However, we are focusing even more on the most important bug fixes to significantly improve the game experience, especially in multiplayer.
Planned changes, improvements and bug fixes that unfortunately do not yet find a place in the next update due to the situation will be added in a timely manner.

When can you expect the update and what will the next update contain?
As already mentioned above, we are focusing on the most important functions in the game. An important point that has already been implemented in the "Experimental" and is currently still being intensively tested is the synchronisation of voxel editing in multiplayer.
Another function is, for example, the so-called "LoadingBay", with which you as a player can load a vehicle with items and then transport them across the map. This is supposed to be a significant improvement, both in single and multiplayer.
Furthermore, various bug fixes will also be included in this update.

We expect to be able to make the update available to you within the next few weeks.
Whether there will be a Halloween event and an update at the same time, we cannot promise at this point - due to the current situation.
But starting next Friday, we will try to make the livestream available again on a regular basis.

With this in mind, we wish you a nice rest of the weekend and we'll see you in the next dev blog at the latest.

From now on, there will be a Dev-Blog at regular intervals to inform you about current topics.
This will cover progress in development, general news and future updates.

In addition, we will discuss the individual topics in more detail in our weekly livestreams, always on Fridays at 7 pm on Twitch, to which we would like to invite you.
You are very welcome to ask your questions about the presented things in the stream - but also about other topics that have always interested you.

We are currently working hard on the next update, which will unfortunately take some time.

In order to bridge the time, we recommend that you install the "Experimental" version.
In this version you can already try out some progress and improvements in game mechanics, performance and multiplayer.
Here you will find instructions on how to activate it.





Apart from that, we are making great progress regarding the next update. This will be version 0.63, as the functions, improvements and also bug fixes are already very extensive.

Unfortunately, we can't give you a date for the update today, because we still have to invest some time.
This includes extensive tests, which are very time-consuming, so that everything works well in the end.

So that you know what you can look forward to in the upcoming update, we have summarised a few points for you here.

■ Fixing bugs in single- and multiplayer
■ More items
■ Improvement of the performance
■ Gold balance
■ better movements from the diggers
■ Running when crouched
■ Shopping carts to avoid carrying all items individually
■ Chains (to carry stuff with the excavator)
■ spoil behind the washing facilities
■ Loading system of items revised (so that vehicles no longer go flying)
■ Tank system
■ Marking posts to mark areas
■ Gold and dirt visible in the mats
■ and much more

To keep you up to date, you can check the status for the upcoming update and future content in our roadmap.

https://trello.com/b/EC8Gd7iP/roadmap-public-early-access

Otherwise, have a great weekend and see you on the next Dev-Blog.