Rusty's Retirement News

Hey folks,

It's the end of the Steam Next Fest, I just wanted to say thank you for playing the demo! I've collected lots of great feedback which I can't wait to implement into the game.

This demo has also helped me catch bugs with different operating systems (I'm looking at you Mac!) so I have a short list of features that need revising before release. It's better to catch them now with a demo versus a full release.

Talking about releases, I've decided to push back the release date to Q2 2024 - the extra time will allow me to properly focus on all the things listed above. The response has been nothing short of amazing so thank you for the massive motivational boost and the only reason for the delay is to make the game as best as possible! ːorange_heartː

With that said, I will leave the demo up for one more week, in case anyone missed the opportunity to try it out.

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[h2]Decoration Competition Winners[/h2]

Oh boy, this was a tough one! The competition was fierce, we had so many great entries, and I wish I could pick all of them to win - like honestly. I'll go over a few of my favorites before announcing the winners.

[h3]"Am I doing this right" haha this one made me chuckle - MattGesetzt[/h3]


[h3]My wife's favorite, aka the optimizer spreadsheet - numa_smells[/h3]

[h3]A bit of everything (plus Rusty chillin') - z41b3[/h3]


[h3]A beautiful balance between machine and life - Marine_Yanyan[/h3]


[h3]Loving the use of paths combined with robot stations - nattydew[/h3]


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[h2]And the winners are...[/h2]

[h3]ːorange_heartː ksss0929![/h3]

This one is beautifully symmetrical while still being packed with plenty of variety, decorations, characters, and crops all at the same time. Great job!

[h3]ːorange_heartː acaogoesmoo![/h3]

I love the wildlife that has blossomed near the wells, and I love that Haiku is also taking a break! ːHappyHaikuː

Congratulations to the winners, I will reach out soon to send over the rewards from the competition!

Hey folks, thank you for playing the demo for Rusty's Retirement!

I will be doing a small livestream while playing some of the game! I look forward to seeing you then ːHappyHaikuː

I've seen so many beautiful farms over the last few days and it gave me the idea to make a little creative competition for the community!

Make a pretty-looking farm, share it with me on Twitter/Steam, and the best farm(s) will win a limited edition physical copy of Haiku the Robot for the Switch (my prev. game) plus a Steam key for the full release of Rusty's Retirement!

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[h3]Here's my attempt: two nice bench areas with a cute path running down the middle of the farm while maintaining an efficient farm![/h3]


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[h3]Post your pretty farm on one of the following:[/h3]
1. Twitter (or X) with the hashtag #RustysRetirement
2. Artwork section in the community hub with #RustysRetirement in the title

The deadline for submissions is February 12th, and I will announce the winner(s) on the same day-
Good luck! ːorange_heartː

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[expand]
For those wondering, this is what the physical looks like:

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• Fixing the ‘Always on top’ feature for Mac in the previous patch accidentally inverted it for Windows. It should work correctly on both now.
  
• Auto-Save was overriding the Save button. I fixed this as well, the Save button should work as intended.
  
• ‘Clear Save’ also broke for some weird reason but it should be fixed now!
  
• Rusty and Haiku no longer get stuck picking a non-existent crop if it was demolished.
  
• Sometimes the game doesn’t initialize properly. This could be because it tries to load too many things at once. I’ve added a ‘Loading’ symbol at the beginning of the game which should disable once initialization has completed. For now, if it doesn’t disappear, try to close and reopen the game.
  
• In the future, I will look into spreading the initialization across multiple frames so that this doesn’t happen!
  

Thank you for your patience while I fix these things!
(Phew, I’m glad I did a demo just to catch these bugs!)

Link to previous patch notes

Hey folks, thank you for playing Rusty's Retirement so far! Here are a few quick fixes to some bugs that were found in the demo:

• Auto-save has been added and the game will pause to save every 15 minutes unless disabled.
  
• Always on top fix on Mac.
  
• I couldn’t reproduce the black background on Mac, but I have added an extra check to see if it helps solve the issue. If the issue persists, try closing the demo and reopening it again - this seems to work for most Mac users.
  
• Player log should collect fewer actions.
  
• In some specific cases, buildings would persist after demolition. Now that shouldn’t be the case.
  
• Rusty or Haiku would get permanently stuck on a building if it was demolished while they were working on it. For now, they will still try to finish the building but it just won’t spawn at the end (note to self: this needs reworking in the future)
  
• Transparent text sometimes appears on computers/monitors with anti-aliasing enabled. For now, please disable anti-aliasing and I will look for a more permanent fix in the meantime.
  

The 3 biggest pieces of feedback:

1. Yo, let me move my house
   
2. Yo, let me control Rusty’s priority
   
3. And yo, let me play vertically!
   

I’ve noted your feedback and I will make sure to include these for the full release.

Thank you so much for playing! The response has been nothing short of amazing and it makes me really happy to see so many people enjoy the game. Fun fact, this started off as a bit of a joke amongst friends and now it's turned into something pretty cool ːorange_heartː

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Please keep the feedback and suggestions coming, you guys have some absolutely amazing ideas, and I look forward to diving back into development to add them!