Devlog #69 Summer Sale & Progress Update

[h2]Greetings, Martians![/h2]

Welcome to the Sol #60 since our landing on Mars!

In this devlog #69 we will tell you more about the upcoming Major Content Update and what we've been focused on in the last few weeks, but first...

[h3]Welcome new players![/h3]

For those of you who have just recently joined us on our adventure: please remember that Occupy Mars is a huge and complex open-world sandbox survival game for fans of the genre. The game may be hard to understand at first, but to make your start a little easier please check the following links:

In case of any issues please remember that you can always press F4 while playing the game to automatically send feedback (including screenshots and logs) directly from the game.

[h3]What we've been up to[/h3]

1. Engine upgrade

Since the last update v0.122.2 we have started a huge rework of the game (in preparation for the Major Content Update) including raising the Unity Engine version. We had to do this since the previously used version had a texture limit and we couldn't add any more objects to the game. Together with the engine version bump you should notice performance improvements and some graphics quality improvements.

2. Save system rework

Once the game was successfully adapted to the new engine build our next focus was a rework of the save system, which seemed to cause the most issues reported by players. We found that the problem was related to system language & culture settings, that's why it only occurred for some players and was so hard to track down. But it should be finally solved!

3. Content & Features

Next we focused on adding the content planned in our Kickstarter Roadmap including but not limited to: New Vehicles, Heavy Suit, Wind Turbines and much much more. Below you will find some sneak peaks of those features. We will write more details about them in the next devlog. You can also re-watch our yesterday's stream to get a closer look at some of the things we are preparing for you :)

Our plan was to release this update for the Summer Sale (so between June and July), but making smaller updates without upgrading the engine was no longer possible. Ironing out the issues related to upgrading the engine took way longer than we initially expected, that's why we didn't make it on time with the major update release. We still need more time for testing and improving the new gameplay so our current schedule for the release of the big update is August.

We want to ensure that this time, a much larger number of players will be pleased with the improved quality of the game after the update. Therefore, we believe that dedicating additional time to fine-tuning it will be worth it.

and while we all wait for the update...

[h3]New Bundle with Astro Colony[/h3]

We have just launched a fresh bundle together with Astro Colony. It's a cool space game made by our friends. The bundle together with the fact that Summer Sale is still running makes it a great value for the price!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/32436/Occupy_Mars__Astro_Colony_Bundle/

[h3]Summer Sale[/h3]

The Summer Sale will last until Thursday July 13th so there are only a few days left to get Occupy Mars and other games from our studio with the biggest discounts of the year!

Wishing you a fantastic weekend in Space!

Warm regards,
The Occupy Mars Team