Preparing For Launch
Greetings Pilgrims;
First, I have ended the beta ahead of this build. The beta players have been amazing, but I want to keep them out of this last build so they have some surprises for the launch. A huge thank you to everyone for their help with the game; it would not be nearly as bug-free and smooth without your feedback.
On a sadder note, I have decided to pull the translations. I am OK with having machine translations for the beta and the demo. But I am not OK with launching the game with terrible machine translations. I had hoped to get community help to polish translations, but it didn't happen. For that reason, I am temporarily pulling all non-English versions. My previous Steam title, "Game Dev Masters," had machine translations, and around 90% of the total negative reviews were basically "Translations are bad." I want to avoid any negative reviews for Ceres related to poor translations. I am very sorry to any non-English players who had planned to play the game. I can't move forward with bad translations. If the game succeeds, I will re-invest that revenue into getting professional translations, but there are no guarantees of success.
Let's get into the patch notes.
There have also been some significant tweaks and changes to the mid-game and late-game, but since players have yet to experience these aspects, I won't bother to list all of these changes.
This patch marks the finalized content for release. The following month focuses on aggressively testing for issues, optimization, and polishing. I still have a list of features and additions that I want to bring to the game, but these will be post-release updates. The amount of success the game finds will affect how much post-launch work we will do with the game, but even if it falls flat, I have at least 6 months to a year's worth of updates planned. Hopefully, it will find an audience, and I will continue to work on the game for many years, but there are no guarantees in game development. Thank you so much for all of your support and help with the game development over the last few years, and I am very excited to get the complete game experience into the hands of players.
First, I have ended the beta ahead of this build. The beta players have been amazing, but I want to keep them out of this last build so they have some surprises for the launch. A huge thank you to everyone for their help with the game; it would not be nearly as bug-free and smooth without your feedback.
On a sadder note, I have decided to pull the translations. I am OK with having machine translations for the beta and the demo. But I am not OK with launching the game with terrible machine translations. I had hoped to get community help to polish translations, but it didn't happen. For that reason, I am temporarily pulling all non-English versions. My previous Steam title, "Game Dev Masters," had machine translations, and around 90% of the total negative reviews were basically "Translations are bad." I want to avoid any negative reviews for Ceres related to poor translations. I am very sorry to any non-English players who had planned to play the game. I can't move forward with bad translations. If the game succeeds, I will re-invest that revenue into getting professional translations, but there are no guarantees of success.
Let's get into the patch notes.
- Added a new sorting option for your inventory to sort items by name.
- Changed all machines from having a recessed name to an extruded name that is more visible from angles.
- We have added sounds to the alien lifeforms. They will now make noise when they play animations above the flat plateau. To ensure it isn't annoying to players in their bases, they can only be heard when somewhat close to them.
- We have added a new sky camera view you can swap to while placing structures. This allows players to get a view from above to ensure the placement of base modules aligns with their plans.
- We have separated crafting material requirement texts into multiple text lines, allowing recipes to show which materials you have and which are missing. We use green and red texts instead of just making the text red if you have one of the materials but not the others.
- We added a delay to the sound played when damage is taken. This will prevent the groaning when taking damage rapidly from being too annoying. It will now only play once every 10-15 seconds.
- We added coffee as a drinkable liquid to the game. This new drink increases colonists' happiness and comfort and gives the player five extra max stamina every time they drink it.
- I fixed a variety of issues that could occur when deconstructing certain base modules that interact with colonists. These should be mostly fixed, but I will continue to debug this issue to ensure it is fully handled.
- Based on feedback, we changed the save and exit button locations in the options menu. We had an exit game without saving at the bottom, and a few players were hitting that by accident. So, we have shifted some button locations to alleviate this issue.
- Fixed some issues related to colonist's jobs and how they were displayed.
- Fixed an issue that could cause colonists who walked from the inside of the base to the outside to trigger your pilgrim to start losing air as if you went outside.
- Some upgrades in the research HUD are now hidden by default if they were gated by other unlocks. Some players were unlocking recipes for the Advanced Base Constructor before unlocking the Advanced Base Constructor itself. This leads to players having no funding left when they realize their mistake. To avoid this issue, recipes are hidden until you unlock other things. You can also show all gated recipes to see the complete list.
- We have added a new text message to the research HUD and the research display that tells you the most recent thing you unlocked or upgraded. This should help any players who unlock something and then forget what they just unlocked.
- Fixed an issue with deconstructing the wireless power room that would prevent it from getting the correct power production/usage numbers when reconstructed.
- Changed register storage to name storage as it was confusing.
- We have changed the size of the decorations, such as plants. They were too small, but now they feel appropriate.
- We fixed an issue where you could place buildings above the mission control room as the dish spins, allowing players to clip the satellite dish into structures.
- I have added a new precision rotation key (Default CTRL). Many players wanted machines to snap, but the free-form building system I implemented didn't really allow for that. To fix this issue, I have added the ability to get precise and rotate by flat single degrees. This will enable players to line up machines to their base perfectly.
- We have made a big proofing pass and improved all the texts in the help menu and item descriptions. We recently redid the data pads and mission tips, but now we have done the rest of the texts and improved them significantly. They are now much more straightforward and concise.
There have also been some significant tweaks and changes to the mid-game and late-game, but since players have yet to experience these aspects, I won't bother to list all of these changes.
This patch marks the finalized content for release. The following month focuses on aggressively testing for issues, optimization, and polishing. I still have a list of features and additions that I want to bring to the game, but these will be post-release updates. The amount of success the game finds will affect how much post-launch work we will do with the game, but even if it falls flat, I have at least 6 months to a year's worth of updates planned. Hopefully, it will find an audience, and I will continue to work on the game for many years, but there are no guarantees in game development. Thank you so much for all of your support and help with the game development over the last few years, and I am very excited to get the complete game experience into the hands of players.