Dorfromantik News

Yes, it is finally time! We are stoked to finally get the long-awaited Creative Mode into your hands! In this new Mode, you have an unlimited supply of tiles to build the landscape of your dreams. There are no quests, no pre-placed tiles and absolutely no pressure at all.



Additionally you can skip tiles you don't want to place, delete already placed tiles and adjust the types of new spawning tiles to shape the world according to your ideas in the best possible way. This is the first update to Creative Mode and we are currently working on further improvements and requests from the community.


We are very happy to be a part of this year's Gamescom as part of the Indie Arena Booth. Similarly to last year, our friends at the Indie Arena Booth have built a virtual booth and experience you can visit for free until Sunday evening! Feel free to drop by the 'the looking glass' panel virtually during Gamescom or join us on the official stream on Sunday at 17:00 CEST.



This is a jam-packed week with lots of announcements and events, here's a quick overview:

Wednesday 25.08
• Creative Mode update available for Dorfromantik
  
• Indie Arena Booth launches as virtual Gamescom experience with Dorfromantik via Ubisoft Entrepreneurs booth starting at 22:00 CEST
  
  Thursday 26.08
• exclusive new trailer on IGN's Gamescom Showcase at around 22:30 CEST
  
  Friday 27.08
• (in German) joining GAMEVASION for Games&Politics talk at around 14:30 CEST
• livestream developer Q&A on Steam at 18:00 CEST
  
  Sunday 27.08
• joining Indie Arena Booth livestream for interview at 17:00 CEST

To celebrate the new Creative Mode update, we have built a new demo that allows all players to test Dorfromantik for free during Gamescom and the following 3 days till Wednesday September 1st. The demo contains the new features such as the Creative Mode from the new 0.2 update and the established Classic Mode. Feel free to have a quick look at the tutorial if you are new to Dorfromantik, as it will quickly guide you through the most important steps. If you enjoy the demo, check out the contests below where you can join to win Steam Keys everyday during Gamescom.


We will be randomly giving away Steam Keys for Dorfromantik every day and you can win Steam Keys for Dorfromantik by playing the free demo and joining our Community Contest.

Read here more to find out how you can join.


If you didn't have any luck with the community contests, we have a 10% discount for Dorfromantik and the soundtrack for you until next Wednesday September 1st.

💛 Screenshots by Yekky & Timo via Discord

🧪 Beta: If you also want to test new features earlier and help with your feedback the development of Dorfromantik, then find out here how you can participate in the public beta.

🌻 Community Feedback: We highlight items that we have implemented based on community feedback or suggestions. We look forward to your feedback in our Steam Community Hub or on our Discord server.

This update is the first of our 0.2 cycle, finally bringing you the creative mode and unlimited savegames along with many performance improvements and more. Keep in mind that we will keep on iterating and improving these features, so be sure to leave us your feedback and suggestions on Discord or in the Steam Community Hub.

Creative Mode
• new game mode with infinite tile stack
  
• option to skip unwanted tiles
  
• creative mode configuration menu giving you control of spawn probabilities of different element types
  
• options to switch individual biomes on or off in creative mode
  
• 🌻 possibility to continue your classic mode session in creative mode after the session is over
  
• 🌻 added delete tile functionality: press ui button or rebindable hotkey (Alt by default) to enter "deletion mode" - when active, click on any tile to delete it
  
• new creative mode sessions start without a starting tile
  
  
  Save Load System
• 🌻 support for an unlimited amount of savegames in both classic and creative mode
  
• one autosave slot each for classic mode and creative mode
  
• every saveslot behaves like an autosave slot as well as soon as it has been saved once
  
• store a screenshot for each savegame, which is displayed in the savegame selection menu and on savegame related confirmation screens
  
• reworked game mode and savegame selection screen
  
  
  Performance
• fixed issues causing huge memory usage when loading or quitting a game - this should reduce loading and quitting times by up to 75%
  
• reworked the rendering system - this should significantly improve the rendering performance for trees, houses and decoration
  
• changed biome transition zones for trees: instead of blending their colors, trees between biomes are scattered to create mixed forests
  
• toggling decoration on and off should now be almost instant and decoration costs much less performance in general
  
• reduced particle effect memory usage
  
• enabled incremental garbage collection to reduce performance spikes
  
  
  Bugfixes
• 🌻 prevent tile placement while over an ui element (sometimes causing accidental placements when clicking a button)
  
• 🌻 fixed scroll view in settings menu, allowing all players to reach parts of the menu being cut off in widescreen resolutions
  
• fixed game getting stuck when reaching GameOver in tutorial
  
  
  Localization
• 🌻 updated localization for most languages
  
• 🌻 fixed typos in Simplified Chinese and Polish
  
• 🌻 added missing character to Ukrainian font
  
  
  Other
• switched to a custom build pipeline, which allows us to build for all target platforms and stores simultaneously
  
• added tooltips for new features
  
• 🌻 added previously missing tile presets: 3A-2B and 3A-2B-1A
  
• 🌻 removed tile placement animation for tiles being loaded from a savegame (this could cause faulty screenshots with gaps between tiles)
  
• added information about the specific build number to the credits screen
  

Note: Not all languages are completely localized, there might be missing texts in Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian and Norwegian. We will update the translations as soon as they're completed!


💛 Screenshots by lediandary & WitchyCraft via Discord

Feedback is essential for us to successfully add new features and improve Dorfromantik together with you. Of course, it helps us a lot if you are specifically trying to test features that we have listed up in the Beta Patch Notes for the current update.

Find out how you can participate in the public beta here.

🧪 Beta Feedback: We look forward to your feedback here in the Community Hub in the Beta Feedback forum or in our public-beta channel on our Discord Server.

🌻 Community Feedback: We highlight items that we have implemented based on community feedback or suggestions. We look forward to your feedback in our Steam Community Hub or on our Discord server.

Performance
• 🌻 reduced particle effect memory usage
  
  Bugfixes
• 🌻 fixed segments on preplaced tiles appearing on the wrong side of the tile when connected
  
• 🌻 fixed floating quest giver objects when they're on the first tile in a new or loaded game
  
• 🌻 fixed floating decoration objects when a lake or water train station is the first tile in a new or loaded game. Floating decoration might still happen sometime when placing lake or water train station tiles
  
• fixed objects changing color while being moved back and forth on the same spot
  
  Other
• 🌻 added previously missing tile presets: 3A-2B and 3A-2B-1A
  
• 🌻 removed tile placement animation for tiles being loaded from a savegame (this could cause faulty screenshots with gaps between tiles)
  
• tweaked biome colors
  
• updated localization for French, Spanish, Latinamerican Spanish, Japanese
  

💛 Thank you for helping us with your feedback and testing new features!

We are happy to be part of the Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom this year! Our friends at the Indie Arena Booth have once again outdone themselves and built a completely virtual online booth to be visited by everybody for free during Gamescom. We are excited to be part of the biggest shared developer booth in the world and planned many things for that period during Gamescom from August 25th to August 29th.



We have a new up-to-date demo ready for you, which will be playable for 1 week starting with the beginning of Gamescom on August 25th. You'll find the latest features from the currently worked on Creative Mode, as well as the familiar Classic Game Mode.



The demo will be available for a limited time only during Gamescom, from August 25th until September 1st. Please take advantage of this chance to try out Dorfromantik, and if you like it make sure to not miss out the 10% discount during this time. We will also release the Creative Mode Update currently on the Beta to everybody as a premiere for those who are already own Dorfromantik.



To celebrate the first updates of the Creative Mode together, you can play the new Mode in the demo for free from August 25th to September 1st. Therefore, during Gamescom we will be hosting Dorfromantik Steam key giveaways that you can participate in by sharing your creations from Creative Mode in the available Dorfromantik Demo. We will communicate the exact details of the giveaways at the Gamescom launch on August 25th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1455840


Last, but certainly not least, we would like to invite you to join us here on Steam for a Developer Q&A on Friday, August 27th at 18:00 CEST (Timezones). We will be showing off the new Creative Game Mode while answering your questions about Toukana Interactive, Dorfromantik, and Game Development. We will take questions from chat, but will also be checking the comments to this news for any questions so ask away!

We are looking forward to an adventurous Gamescom, feel free to visit us at the Indie Arena Booth or also in our Discord.

Team Toukana

💛 Community Screenshots by WitchyCraft & Ferdinand via Discord

💛 First of all, thank you for your ongoing support, patience and all the feedback and suggestions we are receiving!💛

Hey everyone!
The Team was super busy and we're taking the next big step in Dorfromantik's development.

Today we are very happy to officially announce that the Creative Mode is now live in our Beta Program!
"How can I join & play?" you might ask eagerly, well we have a detailed guide ready for you.

🧪 To try out the new creative mode, Join our Beta! Click here to find out how to join and try new features before their official release.

Important: The new update is currently on the beta branch only, since there might still be some bugs and issues we want to resolve before publishing it on our live version.

[h2]Creative Mode[/h2]
Our first iteration of the creative mode comes with these features:

• an infinite tile stack
  
• option to skip unwanted tiles
  
• creative mode configuration menu giving you control of spawn probabilities of different element types
  
• options to switch individual biomes on or off
  
• possibility to continue your classic mode session in creative mode after the session is over
  

We will continue working on it so please let us know what you would like to see in future creative mode versions!

Here you can see some creative mode and its configuration menu in action:




[h2]Save Load System[/h2]
Apart from the creative mode, this new Beta Update includes a reworked save load system, allowing for an unlimited number of savegame in both classic and creative mode.

• support for an unlimited amount of savegames in both classic and creative mode
  
• one autosave slot each for classic mode and creative mode
  
• every saveslot behaves like an autosave slot as well as soon as it has been saved once
  
• store a screenshot for each savegame, which is displayed in the savegame selection menu and on savegame related confirmation screens
  
• reworked game mode and savegame selection screen
  

Here are some screenshots of the new Save/Load Menu:




Besides that, we also worked on performance, loading time optimization and more. For the full list, please check out our 🧪Beta patch notes.

We're curious to hear what you think of this update! Please let us know your thoughts and suggestions in the Steam Community Hub or on our our Discord server. 💛