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Go-Go Town! News

Go-Go Town! Developer Update - 19th July

Hello all!

It's been a busy week for us, with our first iteration of the Preview Branch now up and running, so we'll keep this short and sweet.

[h3]Minor Update 3[/h3]
We pushed out Minor Update 3 which you can read about here. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2195120/view/4263301698051769537?l=english

[h3]Wiki[/h3]
Our wiki is growing, and we've got a great community of folks making it better than we even thought possible. You can check it out here: https://gogotown.wiki.gg/ and if you want to chat about it, head to our Discord.

[h3]Preview Branch[/h3]
ETA: Steam users ~July 22nd – 25th

We've pushed what we're calling our Preview Branch live, which is where we'll be testing out things like AI issues, bug squashing and things like that. It seems to be working well with folks in Discord, so our goal is to bring it to Steam next week.

[h3]Major Update 1 - Player Suggestion Pack[/h3]
ETA: Mid-August

Once the Preview Branch is live, we'll be diving headfirst into this, and we'll share some updates next week as well. With that will also come an updated Roadmap - nothing that we haven't shared here, just want to make sure we're keeping everything up to date with the changes we're making!

Cheers,
Emily

Go-Go Town! Minor Update 3

A New build is up (0.4.51.15912EA)

Optimisation
  • Mesh optimisations for all heaviest impacting farm items
Bugfixes
  • Updated various localized strings
  • Fixed issue where removing couriers from homes would act as if you removed them from their job
  • Fixed issue where users can assign an npc to multiple jobs in co-op
  • Fixes for character getting stuck on load

Go-Go Town! Developer Update – 12th July

Hi all!

Another week in, and another update from me 😊
As promised last week, I’d have some updates for you this week on the following:
  • Further details on the Preview branch
  • Details on what Minor Update 3 will contain
  • An ETA on when Suggestion Pack is expected to hit Preview Branch (and then main game)
  • Updates to our Living Roadmap
[h3]Preview Branch + AI Updates[/h3] ETA: Discord users 16th – 17th
ETA: Steam users ~22nd – 25th

The updates to the AI system are just about done and we are starting to do some internal testing. Based off our testing, this is *really* helping solve the issues that have been reported.

However, we expect there’s still going to be some user experience issues around this (people standing still) without understanding why. The preview branch is going to be fantastic to help us work through these!

We are also putting the finishing touches on the Preview branch. While spinning up a branch isn’t too hard, the reason we are working through this is for a few reasons
  • We want to keep your save intact; should you swap from the ‘game’ branch to the ‘preview branch’ we want to make sure your saves get backed up so you don’t lose your progress or end up with saves being ‘locked’ to this branch so you can’t go back to the normal game branch
  • Save file updates; this means we need to increment your save file data in a way that makes sure if you use the preview branch and then go back to the game branch your saves won’t load in the game branch. As preview branch has its own data, it could create a lot of weird and wonderful issues if you could load it in the main game!
  • Reporting tool; we need to make sure that we are getting details of which branch you are on should you report bugs to us, so we need to get this updated to work with multiple branches.

We’ll be rolling out this branch as an invite only to Discord users next week to confirm that the branching, save backup, and reporting tools are working as expected.

Once we are happy that this is working as expected, we’ll open this up to Steam users and include a post for how to access the Preview Branch on the Discussion Forum.

[h3]Minor Update 3[/h3] ETA: 15th July

This week we have fixed a couple of potential blocker issues, as well as starting some work on optimising some art assets
  • Fixed issue where users can assign a npc to multiple jobs in co-op
  • Fixes for character getting stuck on load
  • Mesh optimisations for all heaviest impacting farm items

If you are still getting a loss of player controls (especially after co-op play) do please let us know! We want to make sure we aren’t losing any issues that need to be solved here.

[h3]Major Update 1 - Player Suggestion Pack[/h3] ETA: Mid-August

As we are just wrapping up Preview Branch and AI updates over the next week, the team (especially the programming team) haven’t had a chance to roll up their sleeves and start digging into this. This means we’ll be looking to start on this the week of 22nd July.

Once the team has a chance to focus on this, we’ll make sure to let you know how it is going, and we’ll be aiming to post some updates (screenshots, videos, etc) so you can follow along with it and see the progress, as it is in progress 😊

[h3]Updates to the Living Roadmap[/h3] ETA: Week of 22nd July

This one has falling by the wayside this past week. This is on me and I’m sorry for this! I was out for a couple of days not feeling well (I am better now) but that means I had a lot of work to catch up on this week and into next week, so I have this marked for week of 22nd July now. (see note below)

I have a bit of time off booked next week, so the next update will come from someone else on the team. It’ll also be less wordy - I know I overshare :D

We will give you an update on the Preview Branch, and we’ll push out a small update once Minor Update 3 is live.

I’ll be back for the update on July 26th, and I’ll make up for lost words by bringing you a juicy update and my hallmark oversharing, hopefully about Major Update 1! -Cheryl

Go-Go Town! Minor Update 2

A New build is up (0.4.48.15829EA)

General Gameplay
  • Aliens will now arrive via train after phoning home .
  • Updated Courier Guide Entry Image to remove 'Hire' Text.
  • Updated Description on Mana Harvester to mention the Mana Node placement restriction.
  • Adjusted minimum interaction distance for various storage props to lessen the occurrence of workers being unable to path to destinations.


Optimisation
  • Slight performance improvements for storage bins with lots of items.


Bugfixes
  • Fixed Zone Time Clocks so they now show the correct time.
  • Fixed Weathervane on Farm Time Clock
  • Fixed rotation issues on Bridges.
  • Fixed issue when switching a worker to a maintenance worker when their last action at their previous job was a "harvest" action.
  • Stop Cheesy Fries from generating garbage when it is consumed.
  • Fixed issue where 'Metro Fountain' was not being counted as part of the 'Build a Fountain' Leaderboard Challenge.
  • Fixed issue where player could delete props in the sewer .
  • Various stability fixes.

Go-Go Town! Developer Update – 5th July

Hi all!

Another week down and another lengthy post from me 😊
There has been a lot going on at Sloth HQ, and I’m just going to dive right into it.

Minor Update 2 ETA: 8th July

This update is a tad smaller, as we are working on a number of bigger changes we want to get out to sooner that we originally planned (see AI, and Preview Branch topics below)
However, we do still have some updates for you this week that we think will make you happy 😊
  • Aliens will start arriving on the train; if you have already called them, they are coming back!
  • We’ve updated some AI pathfinding which should decrease some amount of AI ‘litter’ you are seeing around town
  • Minor Bug fixes
  • Minor Stability fixes


Major Update 1 – Player Suggestion Pack is the Winner! ETA: Details next week



After reviewing all the awesome feedback we received from our community, we decided that we wanted to give our community the opportunity to feedback into what our first major update would look like.

Thank you to all of you who voted, but also to those of you who have raised your feedback to us. This really helped inform where you wanted us to focus first.

The Suggestion Pack was voted on by the community, so this is where we’ll focus our attention first.
This pack will include the following updates:
  • Expanded Player and Town cosmetics
  • Open up a new area of the town map
  • Add in a new tourist ‘teleporter’ that ensures tourists can reach your new building area
  • Extend some zones to give a bit more space
  • *Stretch Goal: Zone customisation
We are excited about this pack and think it’ll bring a lot to players!

The team will need a few more days to investigate the details of the workload in this pack and we’ll have an ETA on it next week.


Ongoing AI Updates

In releasing Update 0.4.47.15713EA it uncovered a few bugs with how AI works, as well as some User Experience issues around AI and how it behaves.

I talked a bit last week about how AI is a spider web of systems here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2195120/view/4200250669025535502?l=english

AI is going to be an ongoing bit of work. We will continue to work on solving issues as an ongoing basis. And we’ll likely be featuring updates on a weekly basis about what we are doing, and what issues have been uncovered.

Some of the issues raised from the last update are:
  • AI will pick-up and put down an item repeatedly (sometimes looks like it is juggling)
    • This issue is related to it knowing it has something to do, but not being able to reach its destination. We have decided to rework the logic around AI’s pathfinding and decision-making to help with this issue.
  • AI continues to process items even when no storage is available
    • Under investigation!
  • AI not tidying up, or picking up stuff on the ground
    • This is an issue around how the AI is processing priorities, so we need to adjust the priority of this
  • AI harvesting new materials when items are on the ground
    • This is another priority-based issue; we need to adjust the priority of this
  • AI in Fishing Zone leaving piles of fish around
    • We are looking to move Fishing over to fixed fish-type catch spots. This means AI, and you, know exactly what you are getting when you drop a line in 😊 As this changes how fishing works, community feedback on this is going to be useful.

Speaking of community feedback… we are looking to bring forward our plans to adopt a ‘second’ branch. Which leads on to our next topic nicely!


A ‘Preview’ branch

Those of you who play a lot of Early Access games you may already be used to the concept of a second, opt-in, branch. Its name can vary, but you might be familiar with Beta, Unstable, Untested, Feature, Preview...

For us, moving forward, what we want to do is push our updates in this Preview (opt-in) branch and give it some time to percolate with our players before we adopt it into the ‘main game’ branch.

This is great, because it means we will be able to have some early dialogue between us (as developers and community) about what the impact of changes are, before we adopt them into the full game.
I’ll have more details on this next week – however, we are hoping we will have this adopted by Minor Update 3.


Wheels in Motion Pack

There is a bit of a silver lining here :D I know some of you were really excited about what this pack would bring to the table, and we promise it’s not getting scrapped.

What we are going to do with this pack look to split it out into smaller pieces and deliver these items over time.

The other nice thing about this pack is that it’s not all dependant on our Code team, so Art and Design have time to work together on this.

So, you’ll likely see our future Minor Updates containing bits from this.


What is a Minor and Major Update?

Just in case you are curious what these names mean. Here’s something I prepared just for you:

Minor updates are generally going to include following:
  • Include ongoing bug fixes
  • Include ongoing quality of life updates
  • Include small content updates

Major updates are generally going to include the following:
  • New major features! Yay
  • Large content updates
  • Gameplay updates


Living Roadmap Updates
We are now at the first juncture where we want to update our Living Roadmap! The winning pack for Major Update 1 will be reflected in this, and I’ll looking at updating with other details where I can.
I am sure there is more I could write, but honestly, I suspect you are just as excited as we are to start diving into the updates – both Minor and Major 😊


Next weeks update from me should be an exciting one:
  • Further details on the Preview branch
  • Details on what Minor Update 3 will contain
  • An ETA on when Suggestion Pack is expected to hit Preview Branch (and then main game)
  • Updates to our Living Roadmap

Let me just close this out by saying ‘Thank you’ to everyone who is joining us on this journey! We are a small, but mighty, team and we are working hard to make sure your voice is heard, and you continue to enjoy Go-Go Town! through each and every update.

- Cheryl