Generation Exile News

[h2]Thank you everyone who checked out Generation Exile during Next Fest![/h2][p]With the Next Fest event itself wrapped up, we went heads down this week to get in a bunch more fixes that were more involved or higher risk, and thus we didn't feel comfortable pushing for them during Next Fest itself.[/p][p]But as we will be leaving the demo up for quite a while yet, we wanted to ensure that anyone coming to check it out between now our Early Access launch will get the best experience we can provide as well as addressing some of the bigger issues folks who had already checked out the demo were running into.[/p][p]Full patch notes are below but a couple of highlights:[/p][h3]Better ultrawide monitor support! [/h3][p]It's still not at the level of robustness we are planning for the Early Access launch, but it's a big step forward. For now, having the full render resolution wider than 16:10 is not officially supported and where might be some visual bugs, but the functionality should be fine. And if one selects Borderless WIndow with a 16:9 or 16:10 resolution, the rest of the display will letterbox and otherwise work quite seamlessly. This would be our recommendation for anyone playing the demo on an ultrawide display for now and we'll get everyone with a mighty drive-in theatre screen display (which includes some members of our team!) properly accommodated come Early Access.[/p][p][/p][h3]This accursed problem[/h3][p][/p][p]We finally tracked down and addressed this very vexing bug! This one was quite a gremlin, as the cause was isolated to anyone who has an OS locale setting that represents decimal numbers using a comma rather than a period, e.g. "twelve and a half" being formatted 12,5 (as compared to 12.5).[/p][p]We might make a more detailed forum post if anyone is interested in the deep details of Why Computers Might Have Been a Mistake, Actually. but the tl;dr version is there a few OS-level .NET calls that perform file I/O that by default will take any number read using the OS locale setting, which most of the time is correct and wise! However, in this instance, we are using SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics) for many of our UI assets and technically, an SVG file is actually just a huge list of coordinate points and modification operations to those points. But that meant the seemingly innocuous OS call we made to read values like "12.5" out of our SVG asset files would absolutely choke if the OS locale expected to be getting decimal numbers in the form "12,5" instead. Once we found the issue, the fix was very easy (use a slightly different OS file input call) so everyone, everywhere - regardless of how you scribe fractional numbers - will now have their UI render correctly.[/p][p]Also included are a heap of stability, performance and QoL updates as well![/p][p]And as an additional note, unfortunately due to the scope of the changes needed, any saves from a prior version of the demo won't load correctly in this update.[/p][p][/p][p]Our next updates will likely gear toward our push for Early Access, but if there are more things you'd like to hear about please let us know in the discussion forums or at our feedback site: https://www.generationexilegame.com/support/[/p][p]Thank you again for being with us![/p][p][/p][h3]Patch notes (demo version 0.3.11)[/h3]

• [p]Fixed UI vector images rendering error occur on machines where the OS locale settings use commas as decimal separators[/p]
• [p]Added better support for monitor aspect ratios wider than 16:9/16:10[/p]
• [p]Added some missing structure/resource icons[/p]
• [p]Various UI polish and adjustments[/p]
• [p]Improving handling of cancel structure build state[/p]
• [p]Improved stability after loading a save game[/p]
• [p]Fixed a couple bugs causing sound effects to fire multiple times in quick succession in some very specific circumstances[/p]
• [p]Fixes for various narrative event issues[/p]
• [p]Various performance improvements[/p]

[p]We come to the weekend of this fine Next Fest on the most sinister of all Fridays. Hopefully none of you have been visited by... entities overnight.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We just pushed another update to the demo of Generation Exile! This patch was primarily focused on improving clarity and system feedback around a key component of a game like ours- placing structures on the map! After some excellent feedback from players, we realized that one aspect of building placement was not as self-presenting as we intended. Or at least one system was contributing to this friction more than the rest.[/p][p]The design intent is that most key "people-oriented" structures initially need to be built near the central Hub structure and then the by expanding the "power grid" with certain structures, (heh, to be a touch reductionist, it's pylons from Starcraft, basically) And then separately from the radius of the power grid, there is an actual enumerated amount of power available, with certain structures drawing more power than others, etc.[/p][p]While there are other city-builder/management that have a notion of power grid increasing its area of effect as well as separately modelling the actual power production vs. draw on the grid, given our theming and presentation we realized that conflating those two separate systems ("what is the area of power grid" vs. "what is my power generation vs. consumption") was not actually providing much. That specific intertwining of mechanics was something of a hold-over from previous iteration and exploration around this aspect of the game's design. So to make things clearer, we have adjusting the presentation of the "power grid radius" system to be "Signal" instead. We have updated the iconography and explanatory text.[/p][p]It's fully possible we'll continue to iterate on the theming of that system as we move toward Early Access, but this feels like a marked improvement to the game's intelligibility without losing anything, so we wanted to prioritize getting this update into our demo before Next Fest concludes. We also continue to get as many low risk, high reward optimization improvements into the demo as well.[/p][p]\And if you got a enjoyed the Generation Exile demo but haven't had a chance to leave a review yet, taking a moment to do so really helps us out and helps surface the demo to other players who might not have seen it in Next Fest yet!\[/p][p]As always, thanks to everyone who have provided great feedback on the demo that helps us make informed, ideally high impact changes like this. We hope you can find some other great demos to check out during Next Fest and if there's anything especially catching your eye, let us know in the discussion under this post.[/p][p][/p][p]Full patch notes follow:[/p][p][/p][h3]Patch notes (demo version 0.3.6)[/h3]

• [p]Revised existing "power grid" system to be called "Signal" instead to better convey its intended purpose and behaviour[/p]
  • [p]Updated UI and icons to support Signal presentation[/p]
  • [p]Revised name/description of a few structures to support Signal presentation[/p]
  • [p]Revised onboarding text to support revised terminology[/p]

• [p]Updated build mode ("ghost" structure attached to cursor) feedback to better convey reasons why a structure cannot be build on a given tile[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with a few structures where there minimum or maximum capacity was not set correctly[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with some narrative events where memories on some characters in the event were not being set correctly[/p]
• [p]Adjusted sizing and presentation of some UI panels[/p]
• [p]Ongoing performance optimizations[/p]
• [p]Other various small fixes (text colour highlighting, typo fixes, etc)[/p]

[p]The third day of Next Fest is wrapping up, and we've updated the Generation Exile demo once again. Focus remains primarily on optimizations and fixing critical bugs, but we did manage to sneak in a few more hair options. Or to be more precise, lack of hair options...[/p][p][/p][p]It's remains absolutely great getting interact with folks checking out the game, thanks again for being here with us![/p][p][/p][p]Full patch notes follow:[/p][p][/p][h3]Patch notes (demo version 0.3.4)[/h3]

• [p]Fixed to various structure assets that were occasionally display incorrect states.[/p]
• [p]Cleaned up styling on some text panels.[/p]
• [p]Added hairstyle and beard options, adjust categorization of various options in the character creator.[/p]
• [p]Additional performance improvements for End of Turn Processing.[/p]
• [p]"Clean Tiles" Development Level goal count no longer decreases when converting to a reserve area.[/p]
• [p]Reduced number of tiles needed for "Clean Tile" requriement across a number of development levels.[/p]
• [p]Various small fixes to narrative events.[/p]
• [p]Various additional minor fixes (text clarifications, button labels, etc)[/p]

[p]The second day of Next Fest comes to a close, and we're continuing to make updates to Generation Exile's demo! Update to the demo just went live, mostly focused on improving performance and fixing some of the more disruptive bugs we've had reported.[/p][p]We're also aware of a rendering bug on the main menu affecting a handful of players. We haven't been able to reproduce this issue internally, but some very helpful players have sent in some detailed reports (thank you!) to assist with the detective work. We suspect it might be related to some specific hardware configurations (maybe specific GPUs?) and how they handle some aspect of the vector graphics implementation we have for our UI. This is a pretty low-level issue - and might actually be a new and exciting engine bug we've discovered - but we're continuing to investigate and want to see this bug eliminated for everyone its affecting.[/p][p]Thanks to everyone who has checked out the demo and shared their thoughts and feedback about the demo so far, it really is great to receive any and all of your experiences![/p][p][/p][p]Full patch notes follow:[/p][p][/p][h3]Patch notes (demo version 0.3.3)[/h3]

• [p]Performance improvements for End of Turn Processing.[/p]
• [p]Other performance improvements for hex map interactions.[/p]
• [p]Added a few more beards and (lack of) hairstyle[/p]
• [p]Adjust Brownout crisis event effects:[/p]
  • [p]Brownouts can now only occur on one building at a time.[/p]
  • [p]Reduced frequency of brownouts.[/p]
  • [p]Reduced chance of brownout occurring.[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where interactivity UI wasn't appearing in some narrative events.[/p]
• [p]Fixed issues relating to some structures not fully restoring their UI state after a savegame load.[/p]
• [p]Fixed various bugs in the execution of some narrative events.[/p]
• [p]Various additional minor fixes (text typo fixes, button labelling, etc)[/p]

[p][/p][p]We are so excited for you to be able to play our demo for Steam Next Fest! And you can play it literally right now.


[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Our sustainable solarpunk city-builder, you are aboard humanity’s first and final generation ship, a last-chance expedition now teetering on the rim of collapse. One step at a time you must rebuild society and the ship’s fragile ecosystems — using only what you brought with you — in this turn-based narrative city-builder.[/p][p]The demo is the first section of the game, where you must begin the restoration of the first of the ship's many distinct biomes. There is no time or turn limit to the demo, [/p][p]We've also been hearing tremendously valuable feedback from those folks already checking out the demo, and we've already pushed an update, addressing issues some have been bumping up against, improving performance and yes, even patching in one truly colossal set of eyebrows. Full patch notes are below![/p][p][/p][p]Having people finally able to play what we've been working very hard on for a very long time is a major step for us and we could not be more grateful to any of you who are choosing to spent your time with our game.[/p][p]We'll be back again as Next Fest continues and if you have any feedback about the game, or if there's anything you can help us with, please let us know the Discussion forums or via our website.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3] Patch notes (demo version 0.3.2)[/h3]

• [p]Fixed waste pile duplication bug when relocation waste piles[/p]
• [p]Waste piles should no longer be moved to tiles if structure is being built on target tile[/p]
• [p]Fixed missing condition evaluation on final development level[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with tiles not correctly updating their visuals on game load[/p]
• [p]Capped maximum level reachable by a character to 6[/p]
• [p]Added display of current build version to lower right of main menu[/p]
• [p]Performance optimizations to improve end turn performance[/p]
• [p]Performance optimizations to improve frame rate in narrative events[/p]
• [p]Various fixes for issues that occur during narrative events, including some that could result in a soft-lock[/p]
• [p]Better detection of default display settings on initial launch[/p]
• [p]Various additional minor fixes (text clarifications, tweaks to main menu and loading screen, etc)[/p]