UnReal World News

Greetings everyone!

As you may know I'm spending sort of a year off from coding and concentrating more on the real world stuff. But the absence from the development chambers doesn't mean a radio silence. I'm happy to post a little news and photo feeds occasionally to stay in touch with You adventurers out there, and that's what people have wished for too. So here we go ...

I recently had a minor accident with my right hand and now need to keep a cast for a month, but that's not stopping the roaming in the woods. Hehe, you know this from the game too - the many activities might be slower, but doable.
So here's a photo greetings from one beautiful May day in the grove forest. These woods are half an hour walk away from UnReal World development chambers. This is a very special place since there are lot's of conifer forests to see here in Finland - as you may have noticed in the game too - but this kind of grove like leaf tree habitats are more rare.




And by the way, if peeks into these 2022 real world endeavours is your cup of coffee I'm building up a habit of more regular posts at my buymeacoffee page:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SamiMaaranen
It's kind of like an alternate media channel to see and support not the game development, but the game developer's lifestyle. Or whatever.

Take care everyone,

-Sami (UnReal World creator, gap year adventurer)

Going Rogue: A Festival of Persistence has started here on Steam and oh yes, that's a sort of celebration that suits us so very well!

From the player's point of view it often requires persistence to roam the harsh wilderness pursuing your way to survive in the far North. From developer's point of view it also has required quite a bit of persistence to keep developing the game for the past 30 years.

UnReal World has its' roots very deep in the roguelike genre. Sami (UnReal Word creator) was an avid player of the pioneer roguelikes such as Hack/Nethack, Moria and Omega back in the day. And it was those games that inspired him to get on the roguelike path and start creating UnReal World.

Taking a look at the screenshots from 1992 and 2022, it appears we've stayed somewhat true to our roots ...
1992 - UnReal World 1.00b

2022 - UnReal World 3.71

...but well, on the inside it's been a journey of 140,000 lines of code so far.
Should you wish to experience all that Going Rogue sale is one chance to enter into the far North with a discounted price.

Cheers! Long live the roguelikes!
ːurw_sageː

On Thursday 24 February, president Putin launched a devastating attack on a sovereign country of Ukraine and ever since the Russian forces are continuing to pound Ukrainian cities, including residential areas, with missile strikes and artillery fire. There is no excuse for this war. The civilians, including children, are suffering to the extent where Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II has emerged.

We support Ukraine and have made contributions to relief efforts.
We support Russians that stand against the senseless actions of the Russian government.
We have players from all over the world, from Ukraine and Russia too.
The majority of common people are not to blame for the madness and destruction, but the common people are to suffer from Putin's war. It needs to stop. We ask you to raise awareness, and work for the peace.
Do not stand aside, do not tolerate this, and help if you can.

In nearly every country you can find organizations such as Red Cross and Unicef who accept donations for Ukraine. For news, if you haven't been following, for example The Guardian has summary article of Russia’s war in Ukraine with pictures, maps, and videos:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/07/russia-war-ukraine-complete-guide-maps-video-and-pictures

You are online, you can find more news sources too. If in your country the world events are being filtered by the propaganda, censorship, restriction of information or freedom of speech try to reach beyond that. It takes some effort, but we support your efforts.

And once more; raise awareness of what is happening, work for the peace, do not stand aside and help those in need.

This year, in 2022, we are celebrating the 30th Jubileum of UnReal World.
The game was first released in the summer of 1992, so the 30-year milestone will be reached this summer.
Now what will this special year of celebration bring upon us, and the game?

When it comes to coding and development, I will be taking it real easy. It is likely that we'll see some updates to the game, but mostly I'll be devoting my time for variety of other things. So I'll kind of celebrate the 30 years of development by taking a year off from the usual coding flurry. This also allows me to better contemplate on the future of the game as there some challenging overhauls in our sight. One is moving to higher resolution and modern aspect ratio. The year is early, and these thoughts are scattered, so more news on this front will follow later on. But yes, it is truly so that I will take a year off from the usual, practical, hands-on development. Planning, brainstorming and a little something easy paced remains, though.

Nevertheless, during this year of celebration we will be bringing you some recreational content from the North, out and away from the development chambers. What it will be exactly remains to be seen, but I'm sure this year off will bring along many occasions, incidents, experiments or artistic projects to share or publish. There are some ideas bubbling under already.

On this thursday, 27th of January, it will be my 47th birthday. I started working on UnReal World at the age of 15 and two years later, at the age of 17, the first version was released to the public. Now the 30th Jubileum, or 47th birthday, may feel like an occasion to offer me a drink or something, and for that purpose I quickly created "buy me a coffee" page.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SamiMaaranen
It's a simple support channel I've been asked to allow even earlier. Now it's up and will remain so at least for this year. I'll reserve the right to decide the drink to buy with your support :) , but big cheers anyway!

So these are the news to start this year with. Feel free to comment or ask if something comes to your mind.

Yours,
Sami (UnReal World creator)

The developer is currently out the office ...

He's skiing in the woods following two elks...

He will be back occasionally and eventually.

The midwinter and holiday season is at hand, and Steam Winter sale is also about to start soon.

It is time to send you our warmest Season's Greetings with a few moody photos from this very day.
Thank you for 2021 to those who already roam the UnReal World, and welcome into the Far North, all you new adventurers.



We have just passed the Winter Solstice on northern hemisphere, and the amount of daylight now slowly starts increasing. Otherwise the winter in Eastern Finland continues in decent -20 degrees celsius temperatures with delightful amount of snow. Sami (UnReal World creator) heads towards the real world in horizon.


Merry Christmas, Tree. This mighty spruce grows beside the village road, not very far from the development chambers.


Now let's survive the midwinter, and see you again in 2022!