Homeseek News

Hey everyone!

[h3]Welcome to the fifth issue of our devlog! This week, we're happy to share our updates from your feedback on the playtest.[/h3]

• Citizens now leaving work will automatically get replaced by available citizens. This covers the case where citizens go to medical as well (they get replaced by the one that just exited the medical). So no more going around to search who left from where!
  
  
• Working hours have been increased by 2 hours. This change fits the survival concept better and gives the player more time to interact and adapt to the settlement within a day.
  
  
• All buildings have been rebalanced based on the previous change.
  
  
• We fixed a few game-breaking bugs that were mostly occurring during save/ load.
  
  
• Consumption calculation on the tooltips of the HUD has been improved.
  
  
• Notifications will now display specifically the reason that citizens have left or died.
  
  
• Better quality of water than the requested will now be acceptable during expeditions and events.
  
  
• Citizens now get assigned to workplaces starting from the healthiest one.
  
  
• Did some serious optimization, and you should see a major difference.
  
  
• More improvements for UX across the board.

And with that, we will officially close the playtest to focus on releasing the game.

Next week we will complete the series of changes we announced here that were entirely based on your feedback. Thank you for helping us make a better game. Keep those feedback coming!

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Don't forget to follow our Twitter and join the Discord for more discussions, tips, and development updates:



See you in the wasteland.

A new demo build is here!



[h3]Demo v.0.7 patch notes[/h3]

• Difficulty settings are now available!
• Citizens will now produce resources as soon as the work shift starts (before they had to get to the workplace to do so). This should make the resource “predictions” more accurate but also reduce the difficulty and the room for error.
  
• Some quests have been reworded for more clarity.
  
• Tooltips for connections and distribution issues have been improved significantly.

On another note, our localization is still ongoing so don't be alarmed if you spot some fields that might be wrong or not localized.

[h3]Most of our changes are based on your feedback and comments. You can see a small roadmap of changes in the previous Steam post![/h3]


Don't forget to join the Discord for more discussions, tips, and development updates:

Hey, colonists!

Welcome to the fourth issue of our devlog! This week, we're happy to wrap up Next Fest and address your concerns from the demo.

Based on your feedback, we are working on the following features:


This was the most requested feature of all. Rest assured that it is almost complete and will soon be deployed!



One of the major concerns was the performance of the game, so we are working very hard to improve it as our highest priority.

• Currently, citizens do not contribute to a building’s functionality until they get there. This makes the “prediction” of produced resources highly inaccurate. We might make the functionality of the building irrelevant to whether the worker has arrived or not. This will make the game much easier to calculate as well as mitigate the punishment for not placing the buildings optimally. We’d love to know your thoughts on this;
  
  
• Medical and health were one of the most confusing mechanics based on your feedback, so several improvements are being implemented;
  
  
• You no longer need to shuffle citizens when they seek medical treatment. An unhealthy citizen seeking aid will replace a healthy citizen that has been healed by the medical centre.
  
  
• Buildings available for the scenario will be displayed in the construction list as locked, in order to prompt player to explore and help them understand where new techs come from (with the appropriate tooltips of course!);
  
  
• A couple of quests were a bit cryptic including the Rationing quest. They will be modified to clearly display the task at hand.
  

• There will be several improvements on the building tooltips regarding reasons they are not functioning, especially for the converters (Wetlands, Farm) and the distributions;
  
  
• The Community Center slider is a feature few have understood or used at all, so it will be removed to avoid confusion;
  
  
• Consumption of citizens will be displayed in a clearer way to avoid confusion;
  
  
• Notifications will be emphasized and extended in duration;
  
  
• Unpause will change to resume previous speed;
  
  
• Change the selected building to build will be fixed;
  
  
• Having better water quality than the requested in expeditions will be fixed;
  
  
• There are still some issues with unsupported resolutions, we are still investigating, if you experience this issue please reach out to us in the forums or on our discord;
  
  
• The leading factor for choosing workers in buildings is being reevaluated.
  

[h3]There’s more on the way but these are the top priorities. Keep your feedback coming, we really appreciate it![/h3]


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During Next Fest, we also ran a fun competition where our players show off their survival prowess for a chance to win a game key. We decided to add in a third key, given out at random to a lucky winner.

Thank you for everyone who participated, and a special thanks to those who persevered in replaying the game to get the best score possible! It was certainly fun for us to see the various ways you approached the game and adapted your survival skills.

[h3]And the winners are...[/h3]

Top scorers
Mubbles - 101%
Unseen Warrior - 100%

Lucky winner
KezerB - 97%

Congrats to the winners! We will be contacting you individually for your prize.

The fun doesn't stop here as the demo will stay up indefinitely and we will let you know when an update is available. If you're curious how Mubbles got that impressive 101% score, drop by our Discord to discover their secret!

[h3]When you complete a level in Homeseek, you’ll be presented with a score screen. Understanding the metrics there can aid you in improving your gameplay—and your colonists will thank you.[/h3]

Courtesy of clyall90 on Discord - Can you beat their score?



The time played and days survived metrics are self-explanatory. These don’t affect your score directly; they’re just informational. Feel free to challenge yourself: How quickly can you win and with how high of a score can you do it? Alternatively, how long can you last without running out of resources and bringing your colony to a bitter end?



Next, check out the three segments relating to your settlers. The yellow circle is the number of survivors at the end of your run. The middle shows you how many people perished under your rule. The final metric in the gray circle is how many people abandoned your settlement in favor of the deadly unknown. You want higher numbers in the first category to raise your score.



The next section shows how many locations you’ve explored during your expeditions, how many technologies you’ve researched and upgraded, and the number of laws found and voted on. The more explored locations, researched techs, and voted-on laws, the better your score. (The outpost is something you will encounter later in the game.)

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[h3]Now that you know what the metrics mean, you can adjust your strategies to improve them. [/h3]

Be sure you have medical centers to heal your populace and that you work quickly to provide settlers with less contaminated water as you’re able. Finally, be sure they have shelter and enough to eat—within reason. Strict limits can still be necessary to ensure your stores are not too quickly depleted. That’s where your laws come in.

Explore with intention. Plan out your route and be sure you pack enough supplies. Send out multiple expedition parties at once if you have the manpower.

Finally, make use of the things you discover. Each law and technology you encounter can be the difference between life and death for your settlement. Be sure to employ them as effectively as possible to have a better chance at survival and a better score at the end of your run.

[h2]—[/h2]
[h3]Show off your survival skills and win a game key![/h3]

Play the demo and join our Discord to share your score at the end of the first level. We’ll award the two highest scores with a game key. But since survival is based on a mixture of skill and luck, we’ve also decided to open the contest up to a third winner—A third key will be given out at random to one lucky player, and all who enter the Discord contest are eligible!



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[h3]Need more help?[/h3]

Check out our previous editions of the survival guide to help you get settled in to Homeseek’s harsh and unforgiving world.

[h3]We’re so excited to announce that we’ll be participating in Steam Next Fest from June 19th – June 26th at 10am Pacific![/h3]

Here's what we have in store for the exciting week ahead:


[h2]Updated Demo[/h2]

Play the newly polished demo and practice your best strategies as you gear up for release. In case you missed it, check out the patch notes here!




[h2]Developer streams[/h2]

Keep an eye out for two exciting dev streams with exclusive first looks into the multiplayer mode as well as an opportunity to chat with the devs directly!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2093000/view/5729189223721833771
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2093000/view/5729189223721874990



[h2]Your Chance to Win![/h2]

Think you have what it takes to survive the barren wastes? Take a screenshot of your best score at the end of Level 1 and post it in our Discord. The top two high scores will win a game key!







That's it for now. Stay hydrated and we'll see you real soon!