New Cycle News

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you all very much for your interest in New Cycle so far during Next Fest. All of us at Core Engage sincerely appreciate your support, and we're still working tirelessly to continue to make the game as good as it can be.

With that, we have a mid-Next Fest update that we hope will make some of our international players happy: We have added German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and Russian language support to our playable demo. Though they are not 100% complete, we, our partners at Daedalic and our localization partners have been working around the clock to get these languages to a presentable state, and so we wanted to put them in your hands as quickly as possible rather than delaying further. Thank you for understanding.

We'd like to extend especial thanks to our German players for your vigorous interest in our work recently, and hope that this localization effort can serve to illustrate our commitment to giving you back what you've given us.

We hope you continue to enjoy New Cycle's demo and that you will look forward to more improvements in the future.

Alp Geven

Hello everyone,

we are happy to present the new demo to you in a small video showcase prepared by Raptor.

You can find more details on the updates made to the new demo in the post here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2198510/view/5728063323821619396

Don’t forget to join the Discord to engage with our community and development team:

https://discord.com/invite/9abhwteMAw


You can find the demo right here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2273760

We hope you are enjoying the new demo and are looking forward to your feedback.

Hello, we would like to remind you that we will be releasing a refreshed demo on June 18th at 19:00 CEST as part of Steam Next Fest.

First of all, we would like to thank all of our players who embraced and supported us after our first demo release. In the revamped demo, we've addressed a few issues that you let us know you would like to see changed (stopping time to allow building and other actions, indicators describing the door directions of buildings, etc.). In addition to the changes and improvements we have made based on this feedback, you can also find the following additions in the revamped demo.



Community Health: Each individual in a society has a certain health value according to the fulfillment of their needs. The overall community health table will show you which factors affect this variable positively or negatively. These can be as varied as the quality of the food you approve for distribution, the current seasonal conditions, or unusual biological or environmental factors, and you will need to work to balance your community's well-being and your resource distribution more carefully.

New terrain system: We are now trying to provide a more realistic sense of environment on rough terrain. Terrain correction takes place automatically after the player's construction commands.

Music: Added three new season-themed soundtracks.

Camera and FOV: Added new camera limits that provide wide-angle viewing. Added customizable FOV setting within a certain range.

Roads, Bridges and Tunnels: We have improved our roads, which were one of the areas we were most lacking in in our first demo. Now there are no limits on short roads and we offer placement options that give the player more freedom. Depending on obstacles along the terrain, you can build bridges or tunnels along the way and create new transportation solutions to physically difficult locations (the demo map will not cause much trouble in terms of location access).

AI NPCs: Still very new and in development, we plan to have some of the individuals, communities or representatives of our universe appear as AI characters and some of the quests, problems, legislative proposals and diplomatic activities will be communicated by these characters in a dialog with the player's participation. AI content, which will not have a critical role in the traditional gameplay and the entire game universe, will help to make the experienced universe a little less repetitive and less pre-orchestrated. Only one such controlled and limited addition of AI characters to the New Cycle universe will be present in this demo and will be tested to gauge your reactions to this very new technology.
Precipitation rate and annual expectation: Precipitation rate, which will be represented by two indicators in the lower right corner of the main UI, is one of the most important variables in the New Cycle universe. It will try to convey to the player the general drought or productivity value expected for the next year according to the annual precipitation. Agriculture, animal husbandry, the amount of organic raw materials collected from the surface, and the renewal rates or productivity rates of underground water resources will vary according to the precipitation rate. The rainfall probability indicator is a seasonal expectation rate, one of the side mechanics to be managed through a series of technologies that can be manipulated to increase the probability of rain with an advanced community.

Overview panel: The new UI panel will function as a repository of summary information across the universe. From community health to a summary of overall share distributions by class, from electricity production and consumption to a maintenance status report of buildings, it is an addition that you can use as the main admin report panel when managing your settlement.

NPC voiceovers: Added a set of voiced reactions that summarize the status of the selected npc based on community morale or indicate its mode. This voice-over content package, which we planned as Hopeful, Angry, Sad, Desperate, only works with Hopeful samples in the demo.

Changes and improvements:
The in-game time can now be reduced down to 0.1x speed. This solution was conceived in response to requests from players who wanted to stop time and perform actions.
Buildings now often have 3D cursors that indicate their front facades, which NPCs use as doors.
Removed prohibitive limiters for road construction.
The speed multipliers for construction and transportation workers have been changed and now have a movement speed more in line with in-game time.
Food production multipliers have been updated and the natural proportion of each food item's value level has been revamped.

We thank you for your interest after all these topics and we would like to remind you that New Cycle belongs to a game genre that cannot be fully experienced without the full implementation of all gameplay and story elements. This necessity of the genre and the restrictive nature of game demos have forced us to make changes, add limitations or simplify the game economy at many points. We have seen how understanding you are in these matters in our first demo release journey, and this is more than enough to make us happy. Thank you again for your understanding and we wish you a good time with the new demo.

Alp Geven

Hello everyone,

This is a collective announcement about what we have been working hard to finalize since April. Thanks to the interest and appreciation you have shown us since our first demo release, we have had a more enjoyable and productive production process despite the intense workload. We hope that these improvements and developments will help to provide you with a more fun and rich experience.


Devside

New Rugged Terrain System:
In the first demo version, the terrain was designed to work in the traditional way, like a flat plate. As of today, the New Cycle universe features uneven terrain. This approach helps to achieve a more organic look of the universe, and in some ways brings the environmental experience closer to being more aesthetically pleasing and realistic. The extra ruggedness on large treeless surfaces also helps to produce shadows at certain angles, eliminating the sense of repetition that the surface can create for the human eye. When constructing buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, etc., the area you choose will be automatically smoothed and flattened to a certain extent.

Improvements to Road System, New Bridges, and Tunnels:
All the deficiencies of the road system experienced in the first demo have been fixed and the production has been completed with improvements. (There is a small shortcoming regarding the blending between terrain and road material at road ends). The inability to build short paths has been resolved. Curve or grid-based road building has been adjusted to work with the same efficiency and performance.



Mechanics for the construction of bridges or tunnels that are integrated into the road system have been added to enable the crossing of cliffs, hills, or mountainous regions that pose a physical obstacle to accessing certain parts of 3D maps. Depending on the type of geographical obstacle, the appropriate infrastructure component (wooden or metal bridge and tunnel) is automatically incorporated into the road construction by the system, requiring extra resources depending on the distance. The construction method works in the same way as for roads. Just like the construction of a building, the road mechanics flatten and smooth out uneven terrain surfaces according to a certain mathematical framework.

Volumetric Lightning and Fog System Upgrades:
The world of New Cycle is a setting where seasonal changes, extreme natural events, and other environmental factors heavily influence the natural lighting and feel. We've made improvements and additions to our entire lighting and fog system to support natural lighting and the production of volumetrically satisfying visuals in the open air.
We now have many areas where we can enhance our systems, such as regional mist effects, regional volume in areas with lots of trees and pollen generation, and animated fog with external colors and textures that can represent air pollution. With these capabilities, the universe of New Cycle is now equipped with qualities that better suit the dramatic and realistic texture of the era it wants to visually convey.

Marketing and events

Next Fest Demo Process, Publishing, Market Plan, and Announcements:
First, the content of this brief is to describe the oddfundamental changes and refinements that have been made to the infrastructure of the entire 3D universe generally. To get ready for our first demo release, we had to use several components that we had produced at the design stage. At this stage, we have almost no dated or dissatisfying components left. On that note, we have a structure that we are much more confident and less likely to have problems that may prevent consumption. We want to emphasize again that creating such a reliable product is a challenge that requires a lot of effort for a small team. In this respect, we would like to state that we have not changed our completely independent production approach and our goal of releasing mass-oriented games without losing our indie spirit, and we are about to finalize our potential publishing partnership talks.
We are happy to share that we will be releasing a new original trailer at Future Games Show this evening at 7PM CET. In the following week, we will also deliver a second major update outside of the 3D universe, focusing on game mechanics and administrative tools. We expect to be ready to announce our publishing partner in the same week. Recognizing that we're covering a lot of ground in a single announcement, we are trying to run as transparent a development process as possible.


Additionally, we'd like to announce our participation in Steam Next Fest. With our updated content and new features, we aim for you to have a fun demo process again and we are preparing for it accordingly.
Once again, thank you sincerely for your support and interest.

Core Engage
Alp Geven

Here is our summary list of the developments, integrations, and adjustments we made in February 2023 as part of our revised production plans based on the reviews and feedback on the demo we released as part of the Steam Base Builder Fest. Thank you to all the players who tried the demo version and provided feedback, you are a massive contribution to the development process, and we are working even more enthusiastically to move forward with the development process.


Changes:
- In the demo, we had a function to swiftly construct copies of the building selected by typing +Shift press. Additionally, considering the popular demand, we started the works for implementing a new feature in our "Build" menu to enable players to construct a copy of the already-existing buildings in a serial manner.

- According to the feedback, the unnecessary and fast flow of the minute counter in time was inconvenient, so we removed the minute tab for now and edited it to show only the time of day. By adding another layer to our mechanical setup that determines the time flow of the universe and allows the user to play at three different speeds, we added a new layer that can flow at 0. We also added a new time interval feature that flows at a pace of 0.3.


Development:
- We added a feedback method where people living in the settlement criticize or support the current situation with randomized sentences according to the current mood (positive, negative, and neutral). This method currently works with five female and five male voices in English with different accents as British, American, and Asian.

- For the advisor system, we added bonuses and methods of obtaining 15 different advisor characters in addition to the UI infrastructure and storyline to make it playable in the following demo version.

- The "birth" and "death" systems have been completely implemented. Mechanics related to the death of various reasons and birth that we could not make it to the demo release have been brought to completion and integrated into the game. The birth rate governed by gender ratio in society, general morale, the status of diseases, the possibility of open settlement, and such multipliers is tuned to increase the workforce in a long-lasting story directly.

- Our general LOD system was missing a lot in our application in the demo process. LOD configuration for environmental elements was added and opened to customization as manageable from the general settings tab.

- Before the demo release, we had finished our preparations and substructures regarding the localization. Now, we started integrating language content by 100% in terms of UI and its elements and by 70% in terms of story and in-game texts. For the Early Access release, in addition to English and Turkish, we are working hard and swiftly to support German, French, Polish, Russian, and Spanish languages. We plan to add Simplified Chinese and Japanese into our localization repertoire post-Early Access period.


Bugfix:
- We added control elements to the 'Buildings VFX Load' process responsible for some Crashes.

- Our road system was our last-minute mechanic, so it had some unfinished features. On that note, we improved our L-shaped road-pulling process and added UI plugins that express our rule that short-distance roads cannot get built more clearly.

- We have activated our terrain collision and automatic camera positioning part, which we have not yet added to Free Camera mode. We have added the necessary fields on settings to edit camera controls.

- We detected the bugs from some third-party components and started the improvement works. Also, when necessary, we created alternative routes.