Keep It Running: Together News

EARLY ACCESS 0.7.2.1
- Game should now automatically re-connect if initial connection
to a session fails due to the invalidation error.
- Host should no longer leave the session when a client is kicked/disconnected.
- Added testing code to further improve connection related things.
New popups may appear during connecting and disconnecting
to sessions.
- Added new decoration, collission and improvements to the
Deliveries town map.
- Improved Lorry steering.
- Improved repair QTE so it can no longer be spammed.

KNOWN MAJOR BUGS:
- Lorry is somewhat jittery and spazzy client-side, depending
on ping amount.
- Having the pause menu open will stop player movement
when inside the Lorry even if the Lorry is moving.

This patch fixes and improves things mainly for Deliveries, but also includes some fixes for Twitch and Shifts.

EARLY ACCESS 0.7.1.7:
- Improvements to night sky and lighting.
- Fixed texture errors in town landscape.
- Improved some of the town models and added more decorations.
- Added collision to a lot of the town objects.
- Basic implementation of Boss in Deliveries.
- Boss will hunt players if the team is behind on delivery quota.
- Added quota counter to Lorry, so players can see how many boxes are left to be delivered.
- Improved navigation mesh in town map.
- Added Mine entrance to town map.
- Fixed error in Twitch commands cooldown code that would block the '!kircommands' command.
- Fixed Twitch command cooldown only running on Deliveries.
- Added rain & thunder to Deliveries.
- Fixed fog not covering entire town map.
- Box will now despawn when delivered.
- Improved visibility in Lorry by having less dirty driver-side windows and two extra small windows in the center.

KNOWN MAJOR BUGS:
- Sometimes joining a team fails because the Steam servers fail to validate the session. Simply joining again should work. I am testing a fix for this, which should be ready next patch.
- Sometimes kicking a player or a player leaving due to a connection issue also invalidates the session for the host.
- Lorry is somewhat jittery client-side, depending on ping amount. I've improved this somewhat but this needs further work.
- Having the pause menu open will also pause player movement when inside the Lorry even if the Lorry is moving, causing the player to clip through.

[p]Hello factory workers,[/p][p]I've just pressed that big green "release" button. Scary! Exciting! Looking forward to hearing what you think of the game :)[/p][p]Of course, being Early Access, the game isn't entirely finished just yet. So what is there and what is not?[/p][h3]Shifts:[/h3][p]The main section of the game are the factory 'Shifts' and this section has been finished and tested a lot already thanks to the closed beta. My thanks go out to everyone whom participated, your feedback has been invaluable.[/p][p]You can already play the Shifts entirely from beginning to end, including the Custom one. Of course there may be some minor bugs that we haven't caught during the beta yet, so please report it if anything goes awry.[/p][h3]Deliveries:[/h3][p]There is however another section of the game that I decided to add somewhat... last-minute: the Deliveries. This section is based on the same steam-truck racing through a town chaos that the first Keep It Running game has. Originally I didn't plan on adding this to Together as I didn't know how to make it work in a multiplayer setting. As you can guess I eventually came up with some ideas and started implementing these.[/p][p]I had hoped to get it in a more complete state before today's deadline. The Lorry (steam truck) is fully functional, there's a town map and there's even some very derpy horses pulling their carriages.
The main mechanic for navigation and delivering toy boxes also works and the entire delivery can be completed. You also get funds rewarded.[/p][p]There are a few things missing though:[/p]

• [p]No functional Boss, though the basic framework is in place for him.[/p]
• [p]No other monsters such as the Clockwork Demons and Competitors.[/p]
• [p]Most buildings are still ugly placeholders and most of the extra decoration is missing.[/p]
• [p]There are no penalties etc yet.[/p]

[h3]The Plan:[/h3][p]I will be spending the coming month getting Deliveries to a completed stage. The month after I want to focus more on bugfixing and polishing everything. I also want to add more Achievements and rewards. Once everything is as perfect as can be I can take a look at implementing (the bigger) community suggestions. I will make further announcements about that by then.[/p][p]I hope you enjoy my game. Feel free to ask me questions, give suggestions or invite me to streams! :)[/p]

Now with with the Demo released I can focus on adding the final things to the game and fixing the last couple things.

I was a bit apprehensive about adding the Deliveries section, the part of the game where you drive a 6-ton steam lorry through the town to deliver the toys. Mainly due to it being mostly physics based and overall not very suited for a multiplayer scenario.

After some experimenting I've come up with a new approach from scratch so that there's no "physics jank", whilst keeping the core of the gameplay intact. I've also expanded upon the original concept, much like with the Factory.

Players can walk around inside the lorry whilst it's driving without issue and can hop in and out of it easily.
The boxes and coal are still fully physics based, but behave nicely with the new lorry system.

Steering and the overall controls are much more stable than in the original game. There's overall more interactivity too, such as opening/closing the tailgate.
As you can see there's an (untextured still) compass now that shows the direction of the next target of delivery. Players will have to manually unload a box from the lorry and place it into a designated spot, with a bell sounding on successful delivery. Navigation is no longer provided by the Boss, players will instead have to figure out the quickest route themselves with the compass to aid them.

Of course the monsters will also return in this section of the game, but I'm also going to redesign these concepts from scratch as the Boss is no longer present in the lorry itself. Instead I want to experiment further with the Clockwork Demons and Competitors. The Boss will surely make appearances too, especially when players fail to do the deliveries properly.

The difficulty selection board is now updated with all the difficulty stages for Deliveries:


The release date of the game is still 23th of June 2025. Since the core gameplay mechanics for Deliveries are already implemented I'm not worried that this section will be too unfinished for an Early Access release as I can now mostly focus on designing the town map and get a complete gameplay loop.
However there will likely still be some bugs and missing minor things in this section at the time of release. I will post more info about this during the release itself.

Don't forget to try out the free demo and let me know what you think about the Factory

Go check it out and let me know what you think!

The tutorial and 2 special shifts are available. You can play alone or in a team of up to 4 players. Voice chat and everything works too but Achievements and Leaderboards are disabled for the demo.


Have a gander and let me know what you think! :D

Of course this is in preparation for Steam Next Fest in June. The release of the game is now planned for June 23th 2025, with a discount extending into Summer Sale ;)

In the meantime I'm working hard on adding Deliveries to the game, which will feature an updated Lorry (two, even) and a brand new map!

Here's the WIP of the new Lorry:

It will feature enough space for 4 players: two in the cabin and two in the back with the boxes, or three in the back. it depends on your teamwork preference of course.
The new Lorry uses simulated (kinematic) physics that I'm coding from scratch, to make it more stable for networking and the fact that there will be players that need to stand and sit inside it.
This should make for much less physics jank.

More info on the Deliveries portion of the game coming soon.