Another week has flown by and another minor update has been released to clear a few more bugs as we continue to work on the Content Update.
As you may have seen we have been cleaning and improving the live build recently, we hope you have enjoyed the minor changes.
So what else has been happening?
Bug Reporting
We have been working to improve the bug reporting system and player feedback loop via the tracker. This has helped greatly with both pre-testing and release of the recent updates. Going forward this will help to ensure we can release future major updates as clear of issues as possible.
2019 Quebec NUMIX Awards
We recently found out that Foundation has made it to the finals in 2 categories at the 2019 NUMIX Awards!!
– III Independant Games (TRIPLE I) – Production with the highest International profile
Winners will be announced on May 9th! Less than 2 weeks!!
But what about the Content Update?!
We hear your calls for more… even everyone at the back.
It is coming but there is still much work to be done. We are keeping things under wraps for a little bit longer but we can tell you there has been good progress. We will begin preliminary testing on one new feature next week. Hopefully more news on that in next weeks’ devlog if all goes well.
A few weeks ago a little easter egg was spotted in the photo of Michael. If you missed it then here is a bigger hint:
More Improvements
Along with the new content that is being created we have also been working on improving what is already in the game. We saw a quality of life update a couple of weeks ago and we will continue to improve the current content as we integrate the new.
As you can see job assignation has been getting a medieval makeover:
That’s all we have for you this week Lords and Ladies, but we will leave you with one of our favorite community created screenshots of the week.
As you may have noticed Alpha v1.1.8.0418 was released yesterday!!
The new update brought with it some bug fixes and balancing tweaks as well as a few quality of life changes. Amongst other changes, you can now adjust the game resolution and change from fullscreen to windowed mode.
We have improved the budget window to give more information particularly on traded goods.
There have also been some optimisation fixes so you should find you have a few extra fps, particularly on larger villages/towns.
You can see the announcement and full change log here.
As mentioned in the last Devlog we have a tracker for reporting bugs. Please feel free to discuss bugs here on the Forums or Discord but the best place to report bugs is via the tracker which is being monitored by our QA Manager.
A week in focus
This week with the sad and shocking fire in Paris some of the Discord Community decided to try and recreate Notre Dame in Foundation. One of our Moderators, Helron, created this beautiful reproduction:
What we have been working on
This week has seen a focus on the minor QoL update though work continued on the upcoming Major content update. With the release of the 1.1.8.0418 update it is full steam ahead on the next content update.
We will be bringing you more news of the update in the coming weeks.
As always a big thank you to everyone providing bug reports, suggestions and feedback.
That’s it for this week… We hope you enjoy the new QoL update! Let us know if you find any issues and stay tuned for more news.
Welcome to the first issue of the Foundation devlog!
Q. So what is this devlog thing all about?
The community is requesting more information about updates and the progress of the game and this and the future devlogs will hopefully help to keep you updated on what we are working on.
We plan to bring you a weekly (or at least every 2 weeks) devlog with information on what the team have been working on and as we get closer to a major content update, maybe share a few sneak peeks of the new content.
Q. When will you be releasing updates?
Each update we put out will need to be tested and balanced as much as possible and as such if we keep putting out minor updates with small content patches this will ultimately take longer to create fix and balance them all.
Due to the nature of the game and genre it is more efficient for us to build and test major updates with as much content as we can fit in. So expect larger gaps between major updates though we will put out smaller bug fixes and balancing tweaks between major content updates.
Q. So what have you been up to?
Well, it has been a very busy period since the Early Access release, which was followed by a flurry of bug fix patches. The art team have been busy through all this creating new content, animations and environmental effects. We have also been showing the game at PAX east as well as expanding the team to not only increase the speed of production but also to create a better feedback system to you, the community.
We plan to have a new testing and feedback system for each update to try to ensure as bug free releases as possible whilst also feedback to the community regarding any issues that may be found.
The bug/suggestion tracker will be used to its full capability so if you have any bugs please report them to our bug tracker where we can review them and feedback information regarding fixes: https://www.polymorph.games/tracking
We have expanded the team
Since the start of this project the team has grown from the original beginnings with our two co-founders Phil & Leo to a fantastic team of 10 talented people. One of the (not so) new members to the Team is Michael…
Michael has been working tirelessly on new animations for the villagers plus other more hardy beasts 😉
As mentioned above we are working on a better feedback system to the community. Leading this project is Nicolas our new QA Manager, along with myself the Community Manager we will do our best to feedback as much information as possible to keep you all in the loop.
About those updates
As you may have already heard we are working hard on the next major content update, which will see a major overhaul of the mission quest system. This, plus more content will take some time. We will bring you more news regarding the content update in future devlogs.
We are also working on a smaller quality of life update which will be coming soon! The plan is to release the update next week but this will depend on how testing goes and if we find any major bugs in the build.
With the minor update we will be focusing on some food production balancing issues. Fish consumption will be lowered (halved) and flour production will be increased. We also plan to look at some of the costs for buildings, decorative items and in particular Fish trading.
More QoL changes coming with this update will see:
Windowed mode and resolution selection
Auto-save and quick-save cloud options
Auto assign will assign the villager with the closest house
There will also be a variety of fixes and optimisations:
Building will turn red and be forbidden to place. This is currently not working correctly on some buildings
Prevent doors being blocked on higher density housing
Prevent planting in water
Optimise wall rendering
Optimise wheat rendering
These last 2 points should help out some fps issues.
There will be more improvements and fixes to add but as you can see this next minor update will bring some needed fixes and changes.
To close the devlog we will add that the Soldiers and monks will now have seperate needs… Talking of monks…
That’s it for this week, look out for more news next week and if testing goes well we should see an update!