Neighbors: Suburban Warfare News

Hello NEIGHBORS,

As announced in our last Dev Update, we had to postpone the Open Playtest because we made the hard decision to rework our matchmaking system. Previously Neighbors used local hosting, which will still be part of the game, but we are aiming to implement dedicated server usage.

Why? Fancy Shmancy matchmaking experience without getting kicked due to host problems and the ability to rejoin ongoing matches. ✨

To make sure everything goes smoothly, we have several test sessions with the community to check for bugs, errors, or if the whole thing just breaks the game [aww hell nah].

After successfully hosting two...yes you read that right...TWO matches on dedicated servers at the same time, we want to see how far we can go this Friday as we host a technical playtest.




[h2]WHEN?[/h2]
Friday, February 21st
16:00 - 18:00 CET

[h2]WHO CAN PLAY?[/h2]
Anyone who had access to the previous playtests, as we want to gather feedback from players who can compare the matchmaking experience to previous playtests.

[h2]HOW DO I KNOW IF I CAN PLAY?[/h2]
Please check your email folder associated with Steam and see if you received a notification from STEAM. If you received an email regarding access to the game, you are invited to join. If you did NOT receive an email, we are sorry, but you can look forward to future play sessions. 💛💚💙

Make sure to join our Discord to stay up to date and set yourself a reminder via the Discord Event tab!

Greetings,
Arti from IW




https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732430/Neighbors_Suburban_Warfare/

Hello NEIGHBORS,
It's time for a new video on our teeny tiny lovelyYouTube channel. ːpraisesunː

In **Dev Update #2** we bring you GOOD and Not-so-good news!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In the very first piece of content we produced in our lovely content studio, we have an important announcement to make that may seem bitter at first, but will hopefully turn out to be the abso-fricking-lutely-right decision we made.

Check out the video to learn more on the whys or if we've gone completely mad.



Make sure to join our Discord to stay up to date!

Greetings,
Artjom

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732430/Neighbors_Suburban_Warfare/

Hello NEIGHBORS,

We are SO excited to host the first playtest of the year. We have taken your feedback from the last playtest to heart and tried to address the most pressing issues immediately after we got back from the holiday hangover.

[h3]WHEN?[/h3]

Friday, 17th January 2025 12:00 CET - Monday, 20th January 2025 10:00 CET


[h3]ADDED[/h3]

The Jackhammer B.B.B AKA THE BISH BASH BOSHER 9000, manufactured by "Homewrecker" inc. 🔨as ultimate destruction tool. Drops in a big Mystery Drop.



Our second map Serenity Summit ❄️☃️ is now playable for the very first time.



Button Icons for Xbox and Playstation Controllers 🎮

UI Sound Overhaul and new music. 🎶



[h3]BALANCING & FIXES[/h3]

Day & Night adjusted. Nights are now shorter. Days get progressively longer.

Reduced the amount of shops from 4 to 2. Backyard and Kitchen buying stations have been removed to remove clutter and let the game flow more.

Beartraps are now destroyable with Melee weapons.

REMOVED Magpie (aka the bird in a nest) as it was destructive to the game flow and just OP.

Limited the amount of available traps per team. Teams now share an overall amount of buyable DEFENSE items e.g. Baseball pitchers (10), Beartraps (20), Spring Boards (15) Barricades (15), Barb Wires (8) etc.

LOTS of VALUE BALANCING like e.g. Health of Structures, Baseball Pitchers, Doreen Nerf and more.



We are kicking off the playtest with a Developer Stream on our Discord server and look to showcase our recent changes and of course play with the community.

Greetings,
Artjom

Hello NEIGHBORS and welcome to the first Steam Update in 2025!
We cooked up a pretty big one so let's get started!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Content of todays update:[/h2]

🧑‍💻 Feedback, polishing and getting back into action
🧑‍🏫 Community Translation
🎮 Q1 Playtest Announcement
📹Content Studio

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Back from the Holidays & Full Steam Ahead!🧑‍💻[/h2]

We're back and on track. 😎
The break gave us tons of energy to iron out bugs, glitches and adjusting various item values and game settings. So after the holidays we jumped right back into it and started to implement one feedback point after another.

What all this translates into at a Game Developer? A loooot of meetings and discussions regarding balancing, items, game length etc. We can't wait to share what we've been working on later this week.

But speaking of translating: We NEED your help!

CEO David going through all changes in the next sprints together with the team.


[hr][/hr]
[h2]Community Translators Assemble!🧑‍🏫[/h2]



Our game's getting love worldwide and we've received quite a few request to offer support for more languages. Currently we have a 100% functional translation into English and - of course - Danish. But we recognize, that we should offer more. But it's hard for us to assess which languages we should focus on and we don't have the ressources to review every translation we receive. Aaand that's where Crowdin comes in.

[h3]How it works[/h3]Using Crowdin we are opening up a direct way to shape the game, because YOU can actually help us translating the game into your native languages. Crowdin is directly tied to our current development branch of the game and regularly (every few minutes) implements all approved translations directly into the game.

[h3]Step 1: Sign up on Crowdin following this link. [/h3]
In order to participate in the community translation you will need to create an account on Crowdin. Whether you are using your real name or an alternative nickname is yours to decide, but we will use your name in the credits when you've submitted at least 2000 words.


[h3]Step 2: Choose the language you want to translate OR request your language via Discord[/h3]
After setting up your account you should now be able to become a translator in the project called Motheaten/NEIGHBORS: Suburban Warfare and see the overview page with all languages, which are implemented right now.

What if my desired language is not set up yet? If you want to add another language please make sure to be a member on our Discord server and to reach out to me directly (@artimcf1y).

In the Project Overview you can see all languages, which are set up and their progress.


Every language will consist of three files, which are copied over in "almost realtime" into the game. The main file for the majority of translations is always called game.po. The other two files should be named Steam Store Page and Welcome Neighbors - (Steam news post). As we plan to update the store page itself with new descriptions fairly soon feel free to disregard this for now.

Every language features three files. The most important one being "game.po"


[h3]Step 3: Add a translation and rate submissions [/h3]
And this is where the fun begins! After choosing your language you will have an overview of all 12.308 strings, which need to be translated. It features item descriptions, key words, skills, neighbor descriptions, tooltips and more. Feel free to choose the strings you are most comfortable with and type in the translation in this overview or select specific strings to rate already submitted translations.



Use the filter and search settings to find the strings you want to translate. Type in your translations under the "Translation" column



Choosing a string will open this view on the right. Here you can see the string details, rate other submissions and compare the translation to other languages.



[h3]Step 4: Reach 2000 submitted words and be immortalized in the game. [/h3]
So If you're up for helping translate, we'd be forever grateful and if your account has translated 2000 words for the game you will be immortalized in the Credits + receive a digital token (we haven't yet decided what exactly, but it should be visible in the game like e.g. a "Heartsville Press" skin for a weapon or something).


The game.po consists of 12.308 different strings, which need to be translated


Stay tuned for more on this later in Q1!
Thanks in advance to everyone contributing. :)


[hr][/hr]
[h2]Not one but TWO playtests!
Playtest Q1 Announcement.🎮[/h2]




Oh yeah. The most famous P-Word in Heartsville is back!
We're excited to announce, that we decided to not have one, but two playtests in Q1. Please see the dates and timings below:


[h3]Playtest 1- Stability Playtest[/h3]
Friday, January 17th [12:00] - Monday, January 20th [10:00]


[h3]Playtest 2- Major Playtest[/h3]
Tuesday, February 11th [12:00] - Monday, February 17th [10:00]


Why two?
To be frank we just want to test all the feedback we have implemented since the last playtest back in December. Back then we received feedback regarding game breaking bugs and crashes, which hindered some players to have a fully-fledged experience with the game. That means we gave access to testers, who couldn't really play the game, which is...yeah...unfortunate. To make sure the game runs smoothly before we let in more than double the current amount of testers we've decided to squeeze in this so-called "Stability Playtest" right before that.

Who will be able to play?
Everyone who had access to the game before will have access again and we will also add more - albeit not a whole lot more - on Friday shortly before we kick it off. Keep an eye on your mail folders to see if you receive the notification.

Chances are reasonably high, that may not receive an invite despite having wishlisted the game. We are sorry for that, but hopefully you find solace in the fact, that the big playtest is in less than a month so you possibly don't have to wait too long.

We'll come around with a detailed breakdown of changes we implemented since the last playtest in another Steam Update right before the launch of this weeks Stability Playtest.

Make sure to Follow the game on Steam to see the news asap!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Moving camera stuff inside our visible walls!📹[/h2]

As teased in the previous video we are looking to expand more in the content creation side to showcase more of our talented devs, but also share more about the development of Neighbors in general. To do so we had to relocate our QA department and created our own little studio.

During the playtest we will utilize this room to stream on our Discord server and play games together with the community. Currently we ask to not share any gameplay of the current build, but as soon as we feel we are in a good state this room will also the place we will use to be live on the streaming sites like e.g. Twitch.

While you're at it make sure to SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel.

The new content studio at Invisible Walls with a general setup for streams, video updates and more.


[hr][/hr]

Bonus: The mighty Leloi is also working hard after receiving tons of complains about being OP.



Join our cozy Discord here.


That's all for now.
See you around the neighborhood!

Stay awesome,
Artjom

Greetings NEIGHBORS,

We've recharged our batteries after the Mini-Playtest last weekend and had the chance to look through your feedback and we gotta say....that's some quality sh*t right there. ːsteamthumbsupː

Our plan was to host this playtest in order to collect more data and adjust major gameplay aspects and YOU - the testers - have delivered BIG TIME. As we're currently wrapping up analyzing the data we wanted to share some tidbits and trivia. :)

[h2]PLAYTEST RECAP[/h2]

On Saturday at 12:00 noon we opened the Playtest to only a few thousands and expanded it throughout the day. Because of the very short notice and the Pre-Xmas stress we didn't really expect a huge turnaround. At the end we gave access to over 15.000 testers and in the end we hade 4300+ unique testers. So almost a third, which is suuuuper solid.

We can't wait to get going in 2025 and start implementing all your impressions to further polish the game as we are aiming to release Neighbors next year!


Some of the key facts and learnings we took away from the Mini-Playtest:

• 15.000 tester received access.
  
  
• 4.300+ unique tester in 48 hours.
  
  
• Unanimous OP character is this young, lovely lady, also known as "Granny" or "Grandma".
  
  
  Doreen is happy to have destroyed many, many players. These hips don't lie.
  
  
  
• Had our first Developer Streams for Neighbors. More to come in 2025!
  
  
• Leloi (also know as "THE DOG") is too strong and will in the future give opposing players the chance - but only the chance - of survival.
  
  
• A ton of players got absolutely destroyed by armies of Baseball pitchers. We will adjust it. Although it was quite funny. :D
  
  
• 200+ feedback forms filled out with almost 40% giving the game a 10 in the "Would recommend to a friend" question. THANK YOU!
  
  
  
  
  

[h2]INVISIBLE WALLS TEAM goes on HOLIDAY[/h2]

We are slowly winding down for the year with everyone from the IW team going on holiday after this week. Some of our team will leave Denmark to visit their families in their home countries like e.g. Germany and Lithuania, while the bulk of our team will have "hyggelige" Christmas days here in cozy Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden.

But we got one more thing: A lovely Christmas card from us and the neighbors of Heartville to YOU
Our beloved residents of Heartsville enjoying a nice bonfire with presents and coziness.

See you next year everyone!
- Artjom ːpraisesunː