Settlement Survival Devlog #2

Hello everyone! Here comes our Devlog #2. It’s earlier than exception. I was thinking we should accomplish Q3 plan step by step recently. But obviously, things are not going exactly direct.

Don’t worry! Development is all right anyway. We are here just to announce something important to you.

It has been about 300 days passed since our game released in Early Access. We received tons of advice and feedback. Most of them fixed, and some still in process. Settlement Survival is getting better and better in a visible speed. All of this owe to not only our hard-working developers, but also dear players. Thank you and loving you!



Then it’s time to tell you the things really matter. And I’m starting from uncertain ones.

In our plan, the fully release will happen at 1 year after EA release. Now, our game still gets much space to improve. It’s not complete to us. So we can’t ensure we will achieve there 100%, but guarantee that our team work hard to make it as soon as possible.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1509510/Settlement_Survival/

On the other hand, the Q4 update road map is not clear now. But many issues which you players mentioned are added to the schedule and pushed forward. For example, we have 3-4 musicians now helping us to improve game music and sound effect; The designers are setting about overhauling tutorial, and handed over an excellent design; We are also improving game numerical status to make it more reasonable.


(this means: fixing.jpg—from our game designer group)

Maybe we could announce new road map later, when we make all things settled on schedule.

Uncertain things are about talked out here. Now I’m telling you some definite matters. This blog is supposed to release on the day Steam Survival Fest begins—yes, Steam sorts Settlement Survival in “Survival” but not “Simulator”, I’m not surprised at all.

PS: we will revise game price immediately after Steam Survival Fest.

Another matter about game content which should be paid attention is our update a little bit earlier before the blog release. Do you still remember the promise “happiness and health system will be overhauled” mentioned in Devblog #1? That’s it. As the update blog is telling, the “H&H overhauled” update has been released in alpha version. You can have a taste now if you right click Settlement Survival at Steam client, chose “properties” and then opt “alpha” beta. We will also collect bug reports, crash reports and players’ feedback to fix as quick as we can.

WARNNING: The very most important matter is that old game saves will NOT work on “H&H overhauled” version.

In the past, we made great efforts to ensure players’ saves are not influenced by our updates and improvements. But today we must make a difficult decision.

The reasons why we are forced to abandon old saves are many. First, we are hard to get rid of more and more old fixes and updates, they may cause cross bugs. Secondly, the functions we would like to create are more core than our imagine. So we changed lots of basic game blueprints and codes in the process of overhauling H&H system. The new H&H system got big change on data structure, overhauled algorithm logic, and our developers surely overwrote the underlying codes. Those influenced many genres of items and the whole technology tree.

As a result, new game version gets millions of differences from old version. we must decide.

However, we know that players are in love with your own town. So we will release an extra “beta version” to support players’ old saves. You can check the words at the end of this blog to make sure you know how to get it and return to your old town after H&H overhauled update release.

Now we come to some details in the “H&H overhauled” update.



On the most concrete and perceptual surface, we got percent numbers and influence element explanation in the module of H&H, at status bar.



We finally say goodbye to “ANNO CAN-OR-CAN’T”, get specific numbers there. You can easily see and seize the H&H system, then adjust related technologies, buildings and productions. You also get a new module in citizens’ status which showing their needs you mustn’t ignore.



AAAAAAAAnd, we finally bring toilet to our game: now the shxt will appear around the living houses of citizens—welcome to the Middle Ages! That’s a big problem for citizens H&H. But you can solve it by unlocking the technology “latrine” in line #1, column #1 of livability, and build a common toilet for citizens.



Besides, our promise about the building model optimizing is also going on in an orderly pace. After this update, you may find a lot “new” buildings appear in your town.

Finally, Settlement Survival enabled console in game, you can use “shift+~” to open it. The codes which you can type in the console and get some surprise will be written in our blogs. [code#1:XXX]

BTW, we made lots of furry Idle Chickens for our community, but few players joined our event and won them. Don’t regret that now, the players won the Idle Chicken will have one extra mystery console code!



Besides all big news above, we certainly have more updates and improvements in the “H&H overhauled” update. In the future, our new UI, music, action art, language support will be updated/improved one by one or together, too. Thanks for your patience! We would like to make all of those come out sooner! To guarantee that, Gleamer Studio works hard today and every day!

Wish you have a good time in our game!

FYI. The gift for the winners in “most beautiful town” activity is shipping now! There are an Idle chicken and a card which signed by all Gleamer team members in the package!



Guides of switching to Beta version：

1. Switching Method
   Right-click Survival Settlement in the Steam LIBRARY, select Properties - BETAS, and choose the game version(beta-beta084) you want to participate. No need to fill in any code and the game will switch to the version of your choice after closing the window. (In some cases the game may need update and Steam restart.)
   
2. Game Saves Compatibility
   In cases of major content changes or new contents, game save file in Beta and stable version may not be compatible.
   We will try to avoid this situation as much as possible and will post a notice about save file usage in advance if necessary.
   
3. Warning
   In Beta version, you may come across more bugs or crashes. No need to panic. Just contact us through the following ways.
   

Contact us: Discord - Join our community Discord Steam community - Join Steam community