Dev Diary #11

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

The 0.5 Rainy Roads is still a few weeks away (we're aiming for end of July) even though originally we planned to release it one of these days. So what‘s the deal, you may ask?

The weather system is in place; we drive cars in the game, you can build on them... If the only place you‘d ever drive those were nice flat roads (just like the one in the trailer), we would be able to release the update way sooner, but if you take a look at how a common yland looks like, you‘ll see they don‘t look anywhere near this. The problem with making anything driven by a physical simulation is that it‘s quite difficult to make it right.

There‘s also another reason behind the delay. The team has been growing rather fast lately - no, that‘s not the word - it‘s been growing incredibly fast. Just to give you the rough idea of what‘s going on, two new designers will be joining our team just this month. New animators are coming onboard, new programmers as well... everywhere the headcount will (at least) double.
We thought we would be able to put all our effort into releasing Rainy Roads and that only then we would fully focus on all the time-consuming things that rapid team growth invariably brings. But the changes gained momentum incredibly fast, and so now we‘re bringing new people to the project, adjusting plans and shifting priorities while we‘re getting 0.5 ready at the same time. Just to be clear - we're not complaining, quite on the contrary! It‘s astonishing to see all the new skilled people come in; one can only try to imagine what we will be able to achieve with so much manpower! 

 

With the pieces we're adding your car can look like this... but just like with ships you can use almost anything to build the vehicle of your dreams 

 

I‘d also like to use this opportunity to tell you more a bit about our updated plans for the Steam release. Our current plan is to enter Steam Early Access sometime in November (you can tell it's serious with us giving you the exact month ). As you might have read in one of the previous Diaries, those who already own the game will get their Steam key before that. Before Steam there will be two updates: 0.5 Rainy Roads and 0.6 Uknown Update. It is too early to talk about the latter - let‘s just say that it will introduce a new great feature that especially our designers have been looking forward to for a long time ;).

A lot of effort will go into both polishing and bringing you small but important features that you‘ve been asking for (for more information about those look here).

And that‘s it for now - in the next week‘s Sneak Peek we‘ll look at what engines will be available in the next update and how much fun you‘ll have with them. Until then, my fellow ylanders, stay classy and have a great time! 

[Hurricane43 36]

Great Dev Diary, thanks for the info and insight into what is going on b3hind th3 scenes...

Can't wait to built a nice new car and have a tour of my island...

I wonder if with cars being introduced will the islands become much larger with 0.5 update or is that for a later point in time?

I wonder also if I can place my car on a ship and transverse the sea with my car on my large ship? 

Thanks much for the update.... This is an amazing game... 

 

[Miguel Preguisa 443]

3 hours ago, Hurricane43 said:

I wonder if with cars being introduced will the islands become much larger with 0.5 update or is that for a later point in time?

I don't think so. They would certainly tell us about something so big. 

3 hours ago, Hurricane43 said:

I wonder also if I can place my car on a ship and transverse the sea with my car on my large ship? 

Yes, you will be able to do it.  

(correct me if I'm wrong)

 

I hope that somebody will make a race track soon. I can't wait on some crazy races with crazy cars and crazy drivers. 

[Hurricane43 36]

I will have to dig up some dirt or a lot of it and extend my islands ?

Ah a race would be awesome, I would love to make blacktop roads with gravel and or other ingrediants...  

[TingeltangelFlo 5]

i hope the next logical step to enginse and ships and cars are...... Blimps or other sort of airships :3 and floating islands. 

[silentghoust 15]

On 7/8/2017 at 1:21 AM, TingeltangelFlo said:

i hope the next logical step to enginse and ships and cars are...... Blimps or other sort of airships :3 and floating islands. 

+1 for airships.

So with cars, is it simply that the vehicles are having a hard time with the uneven terrain? Or the lack of any flat generating terrain? Also with said vehicles, will this affect the overall scale of the game? 

[SamMonahan 36]

Thanks for the update!

I do have to say, airships and submarines would be an amazing thing to have. Having the ability to float my base in the sky (and have it move) would be amazing! (even if its just a giant balloon with a cab no bigger than the small ship)

[Mistrane 19]

Just a word for congratulation ! Great ! Just hope, if you can enlarge the size of the world or the number and sizes of Ylands ? Hope it's possible for exploration ! Have a good day ! and "bravo"