A preview build of the upcoming 1.7 UI update is now available via the GOG or Steam beta option tab (access instructions below).
For the past months, we have been working hard on a complete rehaul of the UI. Phase I is almost complete and we are excited to bring you a preview build, so that you can all take a first hands-on look at the new revamped Foundation interface.
We still have some outstanding improvements to make in Phase I, but now is the perfect time for us to gather your feedback. We would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions in the preview feedback thread here (Steam) or GOG forums. Alternatively, join us on Discord where we have a dedicated channel for the 1.7 UI preview.
Vanilla (non-modded) save games from the current live build should, in most cases, be compatible with the preview build. However, as always with a preview build, we thoroughly recommend trying a fresh game to get the full benefit and experience from this update.
Many mods will require a migration update and will not initially work, and as such, modded saves will likely need to wait for mod updates and the full 1.7 update. We will be working closely with the modding community to help them get updated as quickly as possible during the preview stage.
Preview build saves will be compatible with the full release of the 1.7 UI update
Phase I is a huge foundation [Warning: pun overuse] for more improvements to come with subsequent phases looking to fine-tune the art style, improving usability and UX as well as looking deeper into accessibility features and then final UI polish.
We hope you enjoy the new look UI and we look forward to hearing your feedback.
Access instructions
If you would like to take a look or help test out the update preview you can gain access via:
Steam
Right-click Foundation in your Steam library
Click on properties
Navigate to BETAS
Choose the preview – Next Build Preview option
The game will automatically update but if it does not you may need to restart your Steam client.
Please note: The preview build is work in progress and may contain some bugs. Any Bugs you might find can be reported here on the Steam forums or you can join us on Discord where we have both feedback and bug reporting channels.
GOG
Open the Foundation game, options menu within your GOG Galaxy library
Choose Manage installation -> Configure
Within the Betas channels choose preview
Click OK
The game should automatically update but if it does not you may need to restart your GOG Galaxy client.
Please note: The preview build is work in progress and may contain some bugs. Any Bugs you might find can be reported here on the GOG forums or you can join us on Discord where we have both feedback and bug reporting channels.
It’s been a little time since our last communication but this does not mean we have been resting on our laurels. We know you are all eagerly anticipating the new UI and the improvements that will come with it.
An update on the UI rehaul progress
The very first phase of the new UI implementation is nearing completion. With that said, we would like to share with you some of the work that has been involved with creating the new UI, and to let you know what has been going on in the background for the past few months.
Late last year, we teased you all with some sample images of our UI rehaul. These initial images were conceptual and only a taste of what to expect. Since that time, our UI/UX designer and a good chunk of the team have been busy implementing the full redesign in-engine.
If you have played the game and seen the old UI you will be well aware that although it was functional, it was lacking in many places, not particularly intuitive and also not very aesthetically pleasing. As such, the redesign has required major work. Every menu, icon, HUD element, feedback module… it’s a long list… needed to be updated, redesigned and in some instances built from scratch. Such is the cost of progress.
Once the new design foundation (pun intended) was laid out and agreed upon, work could begin on asset creation, whilst in the background, we ramped up work on the engine. What came out of this was a brand new Interface tool (imaginatively called the GUI editor). This tool effectively allows us to build, visualize and tweak the interface without programming (because yes, the old interface used to be generated purely by code). As we progress, we’re constantly making the editor even more powerful, to allow for new features in the game for you, the players.
On top of this we have been making further updates to the engine to allow for enhanced UI visuals including better font rendering, to improve scaling, for the large differences in resolutions throughout the player base.
Much of the new interface is now in place and we are on the final run toward testing, feedback, tweaking and subsequent release. There are still a few elements that need to be worked on, some remnants from the old UI that need to be replaced and we will need to further tweak and improve on the work so far before release.
We know you are eager to see more teasers of what’s to come and of course we wish to oblige…
In other news
The UI has not been the only focus of recent development work. Some of the team have also been working in the background on more long-term goals such as overall art direction and preparation for future content updates.
Some of you may have noticed the changes to the market tents in a social media post some time ago, this was only the start of a broader improvement in the overall art direction. Further work has since been carried out on buildings such as the bakery and in time we will revamp and enhance the majority of the art and assets within the game.
The art team has also been working to design and create tools that will allow for a better way to render environmental aspects and transitions within the game, such as those between grass, sand and rocks. Similarly, they have been looking at ways in which to improve the look and variation of environmental factors such as vegetation, lighting and overall ambiance.
These changes and improvements to the art style will not be part of the upcoming UI but you will be seeing more of them in the future.
We will update you all with an ETA for the release of the UI update in the coming weeks.
Happy New Year everyone! We hope you all had a wonderfully festive holiday!
We are thrilled to present to you today, an updated roadmap that contains information on many of the new features and content coming to Foundation this year.
Updated Roadmap & Release Schedule
Our objective is to release 3 major updates over the course of 2021. The first of which will be the much anticipated new UI.
This will be followed by 2 Core Updates that will bring an array of new features and additionally continue to improve on the UI and UX.
We have set out below further information on what you can expect to see in these updates.
Update 1 will bring a major improvement to the game in the form of the UI rehaul. You can expect to see a new HUD, building menus, villager menu, information panels and of course much, much more.
The main HUD will see a plethora of improvements that will contain easily identifiable information on resources, events & quests as well as more information panels for quick overviews of your current village.
Many of the information and management panels will all be tied together in an easily navigable and streamlined “Book” (name subject to change). The Book will include tabs and shortcuts that will link directly to facets including: Villager information, Workplaces, Estates, Budget, Resources and your Army. Each tab will include improved ways to sort and search for information that you need, all at your fingertips.
A new main menu will include more detail when looking through saves, a new options menu, help menu, mod menu,… in fact every aspect of the UI will be new and improved and as such will also bring a host of UX improvements.
We will continue to build upon the UI/UX Update with further updates and improvements after its initial release.
Estate Mechanic
Core Update II will focus on improving the Estate mechanic. Your influence with an estate will vary over time, creating a choice of which estate(s) to invest in. Increasing your influence with one estate will have an effect on other estates and as such will affect the path you choose when building your village.
Building Decay
A new feature will be introduced with Core Update II in the form of Building Decay. Every placeable building will require maintenance and if not maintained the building will decay over time.
In order to maintain buildings within your village, you will need to place and staff a maintenance workshop. Each workshop will prioritize and maintain buildings that require repairs and pull resources that are needed to repair those buildings.
As buildings decay, productivity and desirability will be affected and if allowed to decay too far, buildings will become unusable and will need to be dismantled.
Houses occupied by villagers of lower status than the house, or left uninhabited for too long will begin to decay and may require repair.
Further UI/UX Improvements
Core Update II will also continue to improve upon the UI and UX with more accessibility options and menu improvements, taking into account player feedback as we further build on the previous UI/UX update.
Core Update III will add a number of new features that will change the way in which your village population can vary as well as bring new and improved detail to maps.
Families & Aging
A family mechanic will allow for the birth of children who will age, work, create their own families and eventually pass away, bringing a full cycle to village life.
Diseases
Varying factors will increase the chance of villager disease that will come with consequences to your workforce if left unchecked.
Graveyard
As your villagers now walk through the valley of death they will need a place to be laid to rest.
Map Visual Edges
Map edges will be visually improved.
Terrain Biomes
Varying biomes will add to the variety of map environments.
Resource Fertility
Land fertility will differ, depending on environmental factors allowing for crop-specific fertility.
Cobblestone Roads
A much requested feature will see the introduction of cobblestone roads that will increase efficiency in your villages.
The updated roadmap can be found over on Trello where you can keep up-to-date with all the progress.
Up to Full Release
More features will be implemented up to the full release, including:
A major expansion and overhaul of the narrative elements & events
Vehicles – where appropriate, villagers will be able to own and use horses
A third level of housing status and density
A Safety need will see more use for soldiers and defense structures
New monuments
Information map – a zoomed out map showing an overview of available resource nodes and layers
Map generator
Pastures – allowing for zoning of livestock areas
…and more!
Post Release
The full release will not be the end of development and we will continue to work on features not yet implemented such as a map editor, creative mode and a photo tool as well as work on further DLCs that were planned as part of our original Kickstarter campaign.
Today we are announcing the release of Alpha 1.6.23.1021!
If you have been reading the recent Devlogs and News you will have seen that we have been working on a content patch for the recent 1.6 Mineral & Craftsmanship update.
This patch will provide some polish to the 1.6 update and bring with it some highly requested quality of life improvements as well as additional features. You can check out the summary of the patch contents below, which includes a full changelog.
Promotion Sorting
We have received many requests for an improved promotion window more specifically the ability to sort promotions.
This content patch will now allow you to sort the population by various parameters whilst also being able to easily focus on a villager’s workplace, their house, and the villager themselves, making it much easier to identify those you wish to promote.
More Names!
Another request that has been high on the agenda has been for more names. You will now find 1000 new names added to the game, so you should not be seeing Female #44 or Male #808 for some time. Note: More work on names will come with a planned family feature in a future update.
Additionally, we have added the ability for you to rename villagers. You can now have all your family, friends or community members living in your villages.
Masterpiece Polish
Masterpieces were introduced in the recent 1.6 Content Update and this patch aims to polish up the Masterpiece systems as well as some visuals and an added bonus feature.
Masterpieces are sets of specific parts that can be added into a monument or be built as a standalone building. They are unique creations that include a bonus once built to meet certain conditions. The conditions for the bonuses have been tweaked with this patch to better suit the Masterpiece it relates to.
The Giant Gate Masterpiece has seen a little polish and now comes with additional parts for you to build the perfect entryway to your city. There is also the addition of a new wall for the Gate that will for now, be available via the walls menu once unlocked.
Melody Composer
A new melody composer can now be found in the Automated Fountain Masterpiece which will allow you to flex your musical talents and create beautiful music.
Additionally, you can now customize your church bells, controlling when the bells toll as well the tone of the bells.
Quarry Depots and Visuals
Quarries will now require a large crane be built which will act as a resource depot for the extracted resources of that quarry. Miners will store resources at these depots where they can then be used or transported to warehouses closer to your production buildings.
The stored resources within these depots will also come with improved visuals making it easier to identify the resources at-a-glance.
Improved AI
Villagers have got cleverer… bigger smarts… more intelligent, yes!
Builders will now prioritize a building site’s proximity to their builder’s workshop when looking for work. This will keep them from traveling unnecessary long distances and consequently, it also gives you a better opportunity to optimize the positioning of your builder’s workshops.
Needs fulfillment has also been improved with new AI behavior that will see villagers searching out close-by needs based on the fulfillment of their previous need. This should improve the overall behavior flow and efficiency of villagers in their free time.
New Animations
The team is always looking at ways to improve the Hurricane engine and one such improvement has enabled us to integrate animations into moving workstation parts. This new tool will allow us to bring a whole new level of immersion into your villages.
You will find a number of new animations with this patch including a couple of both new and improved, thanks to community feedback.
Help Menu Additions and Tooltips
The help menu has been tweaked overall and now includes a new section on Masterpieces. We have also added new tooltips for Masterpieces and warehouses to help explain their functions and relevant conditions.
Additionally, you will find a prompt when quitting to the menu or exiting the game. No more unintentional loss of game-time!
Bug Fixes and More
Alongside the changes above, this patch will come with a number of bug fixes and other improvements, including:
New sounds for mining and other workplaces
More UI tweaks, such as an improved resource list order
Changes to the mineral distribution system when prospecting mineral nodes. For example, Iron will be much easier to find earlier in your searches.
Multiple pathfinding fixes
And more… a full changelog can be found below
Modding wiki
Modding documentation and changes can be found over on the modding wiki.
Changelog
Thank you to everyone that has provided feedback, crash and bug reports. All of your reports have allowed us to fix a number of issues as well as make improvements as we continue to develop Foundation.
We can’t wait to hear your melodies! Join us on our official Discord server and join in the conversation.
Add: Allow villager renaming
Add: Church tower bells control
Add: Fountain sound
Add: Giant wall – unlock wall when unlocking the masterpiece
Add: Masterpieces topic to Help Menu
Add: Menus – Add a “Data will be lost, are you sure?” before Exiting the game or returning to the main menu.
Add: Quit to Main Menu and Exit to Desktop confirmations – Adjust texts
Add: Utility Agent – Villager AI improved for needs fulfillment
Add: Various tooltips
Add: Villager Names
Add: Warehouse/Granary tooltip
Add: Warning panel should remember last severity selected
Update Art – Various Masterpiece polish
Update: Army Manager – “Army” and “Battle History” should be sticky at the top while you scroll down.
Update: Improve builder’s priority system
Update: Improve trade quantity inputting for high numbers
Update: Masterpieces – Prevent unusual combinations of conditions and masterpieces
Update: Mineral Depots – Add entrance arrows for the crane.
Update: Monument – Legacy Rustic Church – shape and collision adjusted
Update: Monument – Market – Market Table, of any type, should be a mandatory part of the construction.
Update: Resource list order
Fix: Anim – Glass Smelter – missing tool
Fix: Audio – Different behavior when reaching speed 0 using the “-” and the “spacebar” button.
Fix: Bailiff – Prospection tools are missing from the animation.
Fix: Churches – Remove the priest text
Fix: Core – Never Block House Entrance
Fix: Deserialize and reapply crop yield bonus
Fix: Farm Fields – Performance takes a hit when switching from Sowing to Growing.
Fix: Fisher – Bonus is not adequately applied during bad weather, reducing the yield instead of augmenting it.
Fix: Goldsmelter – Worker from the indoor workstation exits the building through the wall when the work cycle is done.
Fix: Knight Statue – missing marble texture
Fix: Major Performance issues when opening the Low Warning notifications on a large city.
Fix: Masterpiece – Barracks construction steps can be seen floating when attached to the top of another part.
Fix: Masterpiece – Fountain can still be unlocked even if a villager leaves during the bad weather event.
Fix: Masterpiece – Lush Garden bonus effect is not functional and does not increase the splendor of the building.
Fix: Masterpiece – Standalone masterpiece with the Maintenance effect will display it in the global game rule when it shouldn’t.
Fix: Masterpiece condition – Must be part of Great Hall not updating in general tab when assigning function
Fix: Military Quests – User can receive hard and extreme difficulty missions without having met the requirements.
Fix: Mineral Deposit – Rare – Sometimes unrelated materials are deposited into the quarries.
Fix: Monastery – Doors attached to herb garden are preventing the monks from entering the building.
Fix: Monks – Incorrect situational message when working
Fix: Monks – Monk leaving winery work station doesn’t use path
Fix: Monument – Changing the material set apply the last choice
Fix: Monument and Building window seems to open far away from building and to expand out of screen.
Fix: Need Cycle – Villager will stop going for needs under specific circumstances, resulting in multiple needs to be skipped even if plenty are available.
Fix: Need unfilling on load game (housing and church)
Fix: Pathfinding – Pathing through the wooden keep for soldiers issue, depending on the setup.
Fix: Pathfinding – Rare situation where the builders cannot path to build decoration onto the bridge.
Fix: Pause Game – Possible to have state in which the game does not resume from pause.
Fix: Prevent soldiers and bailiff from lossing happiness while on mission/mandate
Fix: Prospection Mandate – Ensure window has a maximum size and a scroll bar to allow for large number of deposit.
Fix: Rustic Church – Door C does not allow to enter the church core if placed on a tower
Fix: Rustic Church – Specific setup will prevent villagers to path properly into the core.
Fix: Save and Load – Noticeable dip in happiness when reloading a save game.
Fix: Sheep Statue – Impossible to build a sheep statue, the statue is never delivered to the building’s location.
Fix: Some masterpiece game conditions are very CPU expensive when moving the whole building
Fix: Statue – If a building containing a statue is cancelled during construction, the statues orders are not cancelled.
Fix: Stone Quarry – Initial construction posts are floating when the construction begins.
Fix: Various visual FX tweaks and fixes
Fix: Warehouse / Granary – Possible to exceed maximum capacity.
Fix: Warning pannel – Some workplaces aren’t showing the “full workplace” warning
Fix: Wooden Keep – Height adjustment arrows are located too high
Crash Fix: Crash when mod dependency is hidden on mod.io
Crash Fix: Rare crash – Game crashes when deleting an Automated Fountain when there’s nothing else built in the game.
Crash Fix: Rare crash – Game crashes when deleting part of the tavern bridge and reload the save.
Crash Fix: Rare crash with no space for housing notification
The Mineral & Craftsmanship update added some big content and systems to the game and the team have been working to fix any remaining bugs but also to polish the content that was added.
Consequently, we are now working on a content patch that will add some further improvements to the recent update. This patch will not only improve on some of the visuals but will also expand the masterpiece parts.
1.6 Content Patch
More specifically the 1.6 Content Patch will include:
Visual improvements to the quarry depots
Visual improvements to the mineral deposits including improved textures
Improved mineral distribution
Visual tweaks to Masterpieces
New parts for the Gate Masterpiece
New sounds for mining and workplaces
New animations including workshop and building animations
We are sure you will be excited to hear that the 1.6 content patch will also include the following QoL improvements:
Promotion window sorting
Many more villager names and the option to rename villagers (planned)
With that, let’s take a closer look at what the team are currently working on…
Buildings & Masterpiece Polish
Claudine and Loup-Gabriel have been enhancing some of the building visuals, polishing current buildings with improved basements and grounded doors as well as working on the new Masterpieces.
The Gate Masterpiece, in particular, will see a new wall part as well as even more parts for you to build that perfect entrance to your city.
More Visual Polish
Enhanced textures are being worked on for the Mineral Deposits with Claudine currently working on a more refined Gold texture. You can expect to see more improvements to the deposits and quarry depots for the upcoming content patch.
Quality of Life Improvements
Christopher has been busy on a number of improvements including, updating the notification panel to remember your severity choice and refining the action button and warnings. These changes can be seen live right now in last week’s hotfix which also included Christoper’s work to allow multiple Masterpieces on the same monument.
On top of these changes, he is currently working on the villager promotion window to show more information in addition to some added control in the form of a sortable promotion list!
Building & Workshop Animations
Something we have been wanting to add for some time is more interaction between workers and the buildings, for example, the gold smelter pouring liquid gold from the cauldron when smelting.
Up until recently it hasn’t been possible… but now it is! With this newly created ability, Michaël has been working on new interactions between buildings and workers that includes moving parts on the buildings themselves.
Winepress now in actionIs the sheep checking in on the weaver?
Modding
In the past few weeks, we have been gathering feedback from the modding community to see what new features and content they would like to see unlocked. Armed with this feedback Max has been busy opening up new options for modders to create extra content.
For example, last week’s patches saw a new behavior tree for custom guard behavior. This will allow modders to create custom locators for guards so that they can patrol your villages.
Additionally, the recent patches have exposed a whole host of assets for modders to play with, such as building functions for the new quarries and workshops, masterpiece parts, villager jobs and much more. Full modding changelogs can all be found on the modding wiki pages.
Alongside this, Max has been working to add in some quality of life improvements and bug fixes for both modders and players alike. Modding logs have been augmented to catch errors in created mods and a useful QoL update has seen a new prompt when a player loads a save that might be missing mods. This will allow you to download the missing mods directly when starting a save game.
Both Max and Leo continue to work on performance optimizations improving the game for players and modders alike.
And Finally…
Vincent has been working on a top-secret project for a future update. Unfortunately, we can’t bring you more news on this just yet but it will bring some extra life to your villages.
To wrap up this Devlog we have some particularly exciting news that we know you will all be very happy to see. Dan has been working on the UI redesign whilst also improving the user experience wherever possible. The design phase is progressing very well and thanks to the UI tool that is being created by Ben, integration will start soon.
Once that big chunk of work is done, we will iterate both on the UX and the style of the menus, so expect changes along the way.
We are excited to reveal to you an exclusive sneak peek of the work so far:
You can see more samples of the work in progress UI in the recent article from Rock Paper Shotgun.
We would love to get your feedback, so don’t forget you can join us on our Discord server and let us know your thoughts.
… but first we would like to take this opportunity to thank every single one of you!
We have recently surpassed 200,000 sales of Foundation and thanks to all of your support and feedback we are able to realize the game of our dreams, and hopefully yours too.
From the whole team… Thank you!
The December Update
As you can probably tell from the title we are planning to release the next update before the end of the year. We will bring you more news and more details on the update once we are closer to release but in the meantime here are some of the things that will be making it into the next content update:
Villagers will move house when too far from their workplace. The lord will also have the authority to force them to move.
Jobs will be directly linked with villager status where you as the Lord will have more control over status promotion.
Improved military system with stats, levels, and equipment.
New production chain with two new buildings; The Hop farm & the Brewery.
New buildings parts and function for the Wooden Keep.
New Character visuals including new job outfits.
New weather visuals.
New sounds including workplace animation SFX as well as UI SFX.
New modding capabilities: Custom components and behavior trees .
The changes to job roles and villager status will be major and due to this, we are planning to release a preview build in order to test and gather player feedback on the new feature. Keep an eye out for further announcements on the preview build release.
We have even more planned for the December Content update and we will bring you more information soon.
And finally…
We are excited to announce our attendance at MEGA & MIGS 2019 this coming weekend!
If you are in and around Montreal this weekend then you can check out more here.
We look forward to seeing you there! -The Polymorph Games Team
