Hello everyone! The Before We Leave Wasteland update is now available!
This has been six months in the making, and it’s our biggest content update yet! And, as Before We Leave approaches it’s second birthday, we have a bittersweet announcement to make: The Wasteland Update will be our last content update, too. This might already be known to you, since we’ve already talked about it here and on Twitch/YouTube too.
See the Wasteland update trailer here! [previewyoutube="aM89PDZ-9Wc;full"]
Here are the full patch notes for the update
NEW FEATURES & BUILDINGS
Smart Shipping Smart Shipping is a whole new way to transport resources between Islands and Planets.
You just decide what amount of each resource you want on each Island, and the new system automatically transports resources around - taking them from Islands that have more than they want and delivering them to Islands that don’t have enough. This works between Planets too - just set up the Islands, and if the resources need to be shipped between Planets, they will be.
Smart Shipping is the default for new games - you can select the old shipping method in the Difficulty Settings. You can convert an existing game to Smart Shipping in the Settings menu once you’ve loaded the game. Smart Shipping games cannot be converted to the original shipping method.
Repeatable Research Once you’ve discovered and constructed the Research Institute you can research Repeatable Technologies. These give you a 10% boost in some areas of the game, and can be researched multiple times each! They’re arranged in groups, and each time you research any technology in a group, all technologies in that group become more expensive.
If you don’t know what a Research Institute is, here’s a hint: Build a Submarine and explore that one different Sunken Ruin on your first Planet.
Toxic Wasteland Occasionally, a Highly Polluted tile might turn into a Toxic Sludge tile! This will destroy any building on the tile, and turn the surrounding area into Wasteland.
Peeps cannot work in Buildings within the Wasteland, and will immediately leave. They will only enter the Wasteland unprotected to fetch resources or do a few actions such as demolishing buildings, but only if there is no other choice. The Peeps that enter the Wasteland unprotected will have to go home sick as soon as they finish their task (similar to Fatigue).
You can build Protective Elevators and new Protective Airlocks (the same thing, just without going up a cliff) to allow Peeps to change into Protective Clothing to access the Wasteland safely. They still won’t work in Buildings while protected, but can fetch resources safely.
In order to remove the Toxic Sludge, you need to build a Toxic Sludge Extractor on it. Once that’s been constructed and done it’s job, the Toxic Sludge - and thus the Wasteland - will be removed.
We’ve made Space Whale attacks happen less often, but the more Toxic Sludge tiles you have, the faster they get!
The Whale Charmer end-game building cannot operate on a Planet with any Toxic Sludge tiles.
Protective Elevators, Protective Airlocks and the Toxic Sludge Extractor are invented with the new/renamed Decontamination technology. The construction resources of the Protective Elevator have also been reduced.
Hub Buildings
Hub Buildings help the surrounding buildings, but don't do anything specific themselves. They are invented with the new Logistics technology. There are three kinds of Hub Building:
Relaxation Hubs make Peeps that live in adjacent Accommodation buildings become immune to one (player chosen) source of Unhappiness.
Storage Hubs automatically and instantly transfer resources between adjacent buildings, and also store, fetch and deliver extra resources for them.
Workshop Hubs make surrounding production buildings work faster.
Nanotech Spires
Nanotech Spires are available in new games only!
They can be found on some Middle Planet Islands and most Edge Planet Islands.
If you explore a Nanotech Spire, you can choose one of three options that will remake that Island. The choices are:
A small boost with no downside
A medium boost with a downside
A huge boost with a big downside
Choices are permanent and unchangeable, so choose wisely!
The Reclamation Spire
Entirely removes a deposit of Astrobaleenium! It is unlocked by the existing Laser technology.
QOL Updates
You no longer need to have a Library on each Island to access researched buildings (you still need them to gather and send research resources).
Added a Reclamation Spire building, which will entirely remove a deposit of Astrobaleenium! It is unlocked by the existing Laser technology
The strength of Weather Systems is now limited, according to how polluted your Planet is.
We’ve updated the layout of the Technology Panel, to make things clearer. Also, if you mouseover a technology, arrows leading to technologies that require it are highlighted accordingly.
We’ve updated which construction category some of the Buildings are in - some of the categories were way too full!
Landing your first Ship/Spaceship will automatically grant you the Shipping/Spaceflight technology.
Repairing other ruined buildings (including the initial Ruined Generator) will grant you the technology needed to invent it (or one of its prerequisites instead if you don’t have that yet).
Significantly reduced the amount of time technologies take to research.
Updated the costs and timing of many early game buildings to be quicker and cheaper
Decorated roads with no Power Pole reduce the impact of any Gloom effect.
Building construction now begins as soon as any resources are at the construction site, rather than once all resources have been gathered.
Peeps that have eaten Meals or Good Meals carry more resources per trip than usual.
Peeps that have drunk Smoothies or Good Smoothies work longer than usual before returning home.
Allowed the Stepped Warehouse to be constructed on Swamps.
Desalination Plants can now be constructed on high tiles, and next to inland water sources.
Added a nicer snow effect.
Happy Peeps will now take over jobs from sad/hungry Peeps, to help prevent spiraling into disaster.
Added a dropdown in the Shipping Manifest, so you can change the source or target Islands for a Shipping Lane.
Added more personal messages from Peeps when they are (or were) hungry, thirsty etc.
Updated credits
Updated text to remove references to Colonization.
Added Japanese localization
Added more loading hints
Ruined buildings will reorient towards a neighbouring road when repaired
Fixes
Re-balanced Gloom values for some buildings.
Bridges can be repaired from either side
Fixed an issue that could cause the Elevator sounds to play infinitely
Fixed some textboxes that were not deselecting properly if you press ‘Escape’
Fixed warehouse storage ratios when dragging them
Fixed some visual banding in the atmosphere shader
Whale Charmer tech now requires Battery Power tech
Protective Elevator can now be constructed with either/both Clothing and Good Clothing
In new games, prevented the First Island on a planet from being Swamp or Rainforest (as they're hard/impossible to land the spaceship on)
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the cliff side models to hover slightly higher than they should, creating gaps in the terrain
The Whale Charmer and its upgrades are now cheaper and require varied resources
Elevator sounds are now quieter
Allowed building Shelters on Swamps
Made Automated Desalination only produce salt when next to ocean
Made Show Planets button responsive if you toggle from Show Planets to Shipping Mode and back
Fixed being able to select road upgrades that haven't researched yet via hotkeys
Fixed Tutorial objective "Speed up time" not completing after changing the game speed using keyboard shortcuts
Fixed Shelter not costing Crystals in the Apocalypse Soon scenario
Don't cancel music when moving between planets
Fixed Airships not doing the right thing if the Port they're loading at gets upgraded
Fixed an issue that was choosing an invalid location for the Crystal Island
Fixed an issue when building an Elevator down into a hole containing an Ancient Ruin
Fixed an issue with Ruined Bridges that was making them unable to be repaired in specific situations
Made Deactivate Tutorial Button slightly larger
Don't list both Very High and High Expectations in population tooltip
We hope you enjoy the Wasteland update and we can't wait to hear all the stories you will have to tell us about your experiences with it!
We also recommend you take shelter in our [URL]Discord server with the Before We Leave community and discuss all things Before We Leave!
The Wasteland Update celebration broadcast!
Kia ora Peeps!
We're celebrating the launch of our largest and final content update with a broadcast from Sam Barham, creative director and lead developer of Before We Leave! It will be live on Tuesday the 15th March at 10am NZST. Sam will show you all the cool new features, and answer questions from you all, if you have any... 👀
Keen to see more streams from us? You can find all of our old Steam broadcasts and Twitch streams over on our YouTube channel! our YouTube channel!
Thanks for reading and see you for our broadcast!
The Wasteland Update - Coming March 14th!
Greetings Peeps!
Today we come to you with the news that you will hopefully find very exciting! 📣 The Wasteland update is coming to Steam on March 14th! 📣
We have big gameplay additions coming in this update, featuring the following
The update's namesake - the Toxic Wasteland effect!
Occasionally, a Highly Polluted tile might turn into a Toxic Sludge tile! This will destroy any building on the tile, and turn the surrounding area into Wasteland.
Peeps cannot work in Buildings within the Wasteland, and will immediately leave. They will only enter the Wasteland unprotected to fetch resources or do a few actions such as demolishing buildings, but only if there is no other choice. The Peeps that enter the Wasteland unprotected will have to go home sick as soon as they finish their task (similar to Fatigue).
You can build Protective Elevators and new Protective Airlocks (the same thing, just without going up a cliff) to allow Peeps to change into Protective Clothing to access the Wasteland safely. They still won’t work in Buildings while protected, but can fetch resources safely.
In order to remove the Toxic Sludge, you need to build a Toxic Sludge Extractor on it. Once that’s been constructed and done it’s job, the Toxic Sludge - and thus the Wasteland - will be removed.
We’ve made Space Whale attacks happen less often, but the more Toxic Sludge tiles you have, the faster they get!
The Whale Charmer end-game building cannot operate on a Planet with any Toxic Sludge tiles.
Protective Elevator, Protective Airlock and the Toxic Sludge Extractor are invented with the new/renamed Decontamination technology. The construction resources of the Protective Elevator have also been reduced.
A new shipping mode
Smart Shipping is a whole new way to transport resources between Islands and Planets.
You just decide what amount of each resource you want on each Island, and the new system automatically transports resources around - taking them from Islands that have more than they want and delivering them to Islands that don’t have enough.
This works between Planets too - just set up the Islands, and if the resources need to be shipped between Planets, they will be.
Smart Shipping is the default for new games - you can select the old shipping method in the Difficulty Settings. You can convert an existing game to Smart Shipping in the Settings menu once you’ve loaded the game. Smart Shipping games cannot be converted to the old shipping method.
Hub Buildings for better resource transport and management
Hub Buildings don’t do anything themselves, but they help surrounding Buildings.
Relaxation Hubs make Peeps that live in adjacent Accommodation buildings become immune to one (player chosen) source of Unhappiness.
Storage Hubs automatically and instantly transfer resources between adjacent buildings, and also store, fetch and deliver extra resources for them.
Workshop Hubs make surrounding production buildings work faster.
Hub buildings are invented with the new Logistics technology.
These are some of the key new features from the Wasteland and we can't wait for you to try it out when it launches on March 14th!
We also recommend you take shelter in our [URL]Discord server with the Before We Leave community and discuss all things Before We Leave!
Before We Leave news - No more content updates?
Kia ora! We have some important news for you this week:
The Wasteland Update news
Testing and QA is wrapping up for the update, so we’re hoping to have a release date for you all very soon. As always, you can access all the new features in the update right now by opting in to our Experimental Beta Branch here on Steam.
No more content updates?
At this stage, The Wasteland Update is likely to be the final content update for Before We Leave. This doesn’t mean we won’t be bug fixing - it just means there won’t be any new features added to the game.
Sam and I go into detail in our most recent news video, and I’d strongly encourage you to watch it for all the nuance that’s there!
[previewyoutube="20xvAVakNsI;full"]
For those of you who are a bit time poor, here’s a TL;DR -
The Wasteland Update is our biggest (and hopefully best!) update yet and we’d love to end on a high note!
Before We Leave has been in development for around 5 years now, and it’s time to move on. Speaking of which…
We’ve begun work on something new 👀
Q&A
If you have any concerns about us ending development on future content updates for Before We Leave, please feel free to ask in the comments below! The team and I will endeavour to answer them for you after the weekend.
Thanks for reading everyone, and we’ll see you next week! 😍
Before We Leave news - We're back!
Hi everyone! Happy 2022! It’s been a strange month, both equal parts quiet and very busy. Here’s a recap of what we’ve been up to:
New Peeps!
We have two new team members! MJ is our new programmer/game designer, and Tom is our new senior artist - some of his art is actually in Before We Leave already, in the scenarios we made last year. MJ & Tom joined us earlier in the month and have been making themselves indispensable to our team already. If you’d like to learn more about them, go check out the shiny new About Us page on our website!
Here's a pic of us in our dorky glory -
The Wasteland Update
Our biggest content update yet, the Wasteland Update, is coming along nicely! QA and localisation is underway. I’ve also begun gathering footage for the trailer! We don’t have a release date yet (sorryyyyyy) but rest assured it’s still coming!
Our Twitch streams are coming back!
Our Twitch streams will be returning on Wednesday, the 2nd of February at 10am NZST! It feels like an eternity since I’ve streamed and hung out with you all, so I’m very excited to get back into it! See you there?!
The BWL Gamepedia
The Before We Leave wiki has been revitalised! Many thanks to our longtime mod and friend DeadM8 - he’s put in an enormous amount of work and effort, so go check it out, and perhaps edit an article or two as well? We need all the help we can get!
That’s all for this week! Thank you for reading and see you all again in a fortnight ❤️
Save 50% during the Steam Lunar New Year Sale!
Greetings peeps!
We've got some awesome news to share with you today! Before We Leave is currently 50% off during the Steam Lunar New Year Sale!
Rediscover what was lost and nurture your reborn civilisation in Before We Leave, a city building game set in a cozy corner of the universe. Grow, gather and manage resources to help your settlements thrive, and share goods between the hexagonal lands and planets around you. Relax and expand the fabric of your growing societies and create a solar system of happy planets at your own pace. Not everything will go your way, though - use your wits and research solutions to overcome the challenges that your ancestors once faced.
That's not all though! We're also super excited to offer the fantastic 36 track soundtrack with a 25% discount too. The soundtrack was composed and produced by award-winning composer Benedict Nichols. Enjoy a relaxing fusion of music, from gentle guitars that soothe the spirits of your Peeps to the upbeat folk music of your industrious civilization. It's a perfect accompaniment to watching the stars go by!
We also recommend you take shelter in our [URL]Discord server with the Before We Leave community and discuss all things Before We Leave!
Before We Leave news - Meri Kirihimete!
Meri Kirihimete (Merry Christmas) everyone! We’ll be starting our holidays this afternoon, but before we vanish for a few weeks, there’s a few things I wanted to share with you all.
The Wasteland Update
Our next content update is coming along nicely, with a wealth of awesome community feedback coming in, as well as necessary changes and tweaks being made. It’s shaping up to be our biggest content update ever! Unfortunately, this means we haven’t been able to meet our Q4 2021 deadline for this update - we haven't set a date in stone, but we're hoping to have it complete by the end of February. Our lead dev Sam and I talked about it in our most recent News video over on YouTube. The whole Balancing Monkey team did some retrospectives too, so if you’re keen to hear us talk about our weird and wonderful year, check it out :)
[previewyoutube="_Rwinenz-qo;full"]
You can access what work we’ve done so far on The Wasteland Update by opting in to our Experimental Beta Branch: more information on that here. You can always find the most recent patch notes for the branch in the comments of this Steam post.
2022 Roadmap
We’ll also be developing a new Roadmap for Before We Leave next year once our plans are set in stone. Stay tuned for more information on that, too.
New People
We have two new staff members starting in January, and we can’t wait to introduce them to you! If you watch our Twitch streams, you might already know about them…
Out of Office
As I mentioned before, the Balancing Monkey Games team will be out of the office as of Friday afternoon (December 17th) through to the 11th of January. If you encounter any issues with the game that you’d like addressed, please contact Team17 via this form.
We can’t wait for a relaxing holiday, and we hope you get one too!
Well, I think it’s time to wrap up this blog post! Thank you very much for reading and for your support this year - it’s been a humbling experience watching our community and the studio grow in tandem <3
See you next year!
- Emily, Community Manager
The Wasteland Update Beta is here!
Kia ora koutou katoa!
We've updated our Experimental Beta branch for our next update! There are many new features such as;
A new shipping mode
Hub Buildings for better resource transport and management
The update's namesake - the Toxic Wasteland effect!
Jump down to the bottom of this post if you want to read the patch notes ASAP!
Listen to the features of this update get discussed at length in the Steam Broadcast our lead dev Sam did this week. It's available on our studio YouTube channel! [previewyoutube="aNSYbp_T72Q;full"]
Proceed with caution
Now, before we get to the patch notes, I have a warning and some disclaimers for you;
We make absolutely no guarantees that the version on 'experimental' is bug free. We'll do our best of course, but for example it's possible that saved games on the experimental branch will get broken or become invalid by the time we move a feature to the live game. We also do not guarantee that a feature released to 'experimental' won't then get removed again! Games saved in the Experimental branch will not load (or even be listed) if you go back to the live game. They should work fine when the main branch is updated, though.
TL:DR - When you opt in to this, please do so with caution!
If you're using the 'experimental' branch and encounter an issue, you can use the in-game feedback form by pressing F11. Note that this submits a game-specific log file and also some basic stats about your computer hardware each time you use it, but doesn't submit any personally identifiable information - so if you want us to follow up with you about something you submit, you need to let us know how in the feedback text! You can also chat with us in the Steam forums, in this dedicated feedback thread.
One more thing - new/changed text in the 'experimental' branch is only in English. Translation to the other languages we support is something that happens towards the end of the development process for each update.
How to enable the Experimental Beta Branch
If you've decided to jump in and play the Beta, here's how you can access it -
1) Right click on Before We Leave in your Steam library, then go to Properties. 2) In the menu, mouse down to Beta. Select that - you should now see a drop down menu. 3) Select the experimental branch. Steam will then download the branch. 4) Restart Steam and you should be good to go!
Patch Notes
Major Features
Smart Shipping:
Smart Shipping is a whole new way to transport resources between Islands and Planets.
You just decide what amount of each resource you want on each Island, and the new system automatically transports resources around - taking them from Islands that have more than they want and delivering them to Islands that don’t have enough. This works between Planets too - just set up the Islands, and if the resources need to be shipped between Planets, they will be.
Smart Shipping is the default for new games - you can select the old shipping method in the Difficulty Settings. You can convert an existing game to Smart Shipping in the Settings menu once you’ve loaded the game. Smart Shipping games cannot be converted to the old shipping method.
Hub Buildings:
Hub Buildings don’t do anything themselves, but they help surrounding Buildings.
Relaxation Hubs make Peeps that live in adjacent Accommodation buildings become immune to one (player chosen) source of Unhappiness.
Storage Hubs automatically and instantly transfer resources between adjacent buildings, and also store, fetch and deliver extra resources for them.
Workshop Hubs make surrounding production buildings work faster.
Hub buildings are invented with the new Logistics technology.
Repeatable Research
Once you’ve discovered and constructed the Research Institute you can research Repeatable Technologies. These give you a 10% boost in some areas of the game, and can be researched multiple times each! They’re arranged in groups, and each time you research any technology in a group, all technologies in that group become more expensive.
If you don’t know what a Research Institute is, here’s a hint: Build a Submarine and explore that one different Sunken Ruin on your first Planet.
Toxic Wasteland
Occasionally, a Highly Polluted tile might turn into a Toxic Sludge tile! This will destroy any building on the tile, and turn the surrounding area into Wasteland.
Peeps cannot work in Buildings within the Wasteland, and will immediately leave. They will only enter the Wasteland unprotected to fetch resources or do a few actions such as demolishing buildings, but only if there is no other choice. The Peeps that enter the Wasteland unprotected will have to go home sick as soon as they finish their task (similar to Fatigue).
You can build Protective Elevators and new Protective Airlocks (the same thing, just without going up a cliff) to allow Peeps to change into Protective Clothing to access the Wasteland safely. They still won’t work in Buildings while protected, but can fetch resources safely.
In order to remove the Toxic Sludge, you need to build a Toxic Sludge Extractor on it. Once that’s been constructed and done it’s job, the Toxic Sludge - and thus the Wasteland - will be removed.
We’ve made Space Whale attacks happen less often, but the more Toxic Sludge tiles you have, the faster they get!
The Whale Charmer end-game building cannot operate on a Planet with any Toxic Sludge tiles.
Protective Elevator, Protective Airlock and the Toxic Sludge Extractor are invented with the new/renamed Decontamination technology. The construction resources of the Protective Elevator have also been reduced.
New Buildings
Nanotech Spires
In new games only, we’ve added Nanotech Spires.
They occur on some Middle Planet Islands and most Edge Planet Islands.
If you explore a Nanotech Spire, you can choose one of three options that will remake that Island. The choices are:
A small boost
A medium boost with a downside
A huge boost with a big downside
Choices are permanent and unchangeable, so choose wisely!
The Reclamation Spire
Entirely removes a deposit of Astrobaleenium! It is unlocked by the existing Laser technology.
Minor fixes and additions
The strength of Weather Systems is now limited, according to how polluted your Planet is.
We’ve updated the layout of the Technology Panel, to make things clearer. Also, if you mouseover a technology, arrows leading to technologies that require it are highlighted accordingly.
We’ve updated which construction category some of the Buildings are in - some of the categories were way too full!
Landing your first Ship/Spaceship will automatically grant you the Shipping/Spaceflight technology.
Repairing other ruined buildings (including the initial Ruined Generator) will grant you the technology needed to invent it (or one of its prerequisites instead if you don’t have that yet).
Significantly reduced the amount of time technologies take to research.
Updated the costs and timing of many early game buildings to be quicker and cheaper
Decorated roads with no Power Pole reduce the impact of any Gloom effect.
Building construction now begins as soon as any resources are at the construction site, rather than once all resources have been gathered.
Peeps that have eaten Meals or Good Meals carry more resources per trip than usual.
Peeps that have drunk Smoothies or Good Smoothies work longer than usual before returning home.
Allowed the Stepped Warehouse to be constructed on Swamps.
Desalination Plants can now be constructed on high tiles, and next to inland water sources.
You no longer need to have a Library on each Island to access researched buildings (You still need them to gather and send research resources).
Ruined buildings will reorient towards a neighbouring road when repaired.
Added more loading hints.
Rebalanced gloom values for some buildings.
Added a nicer snow effect.
Happy Peeps will now take over jobs from sad/hungry Peeps, to help prevent spiraling into disaster.
Added a dropdown in the Shipping Manifest, so you can change the source or target Islands for a Shipping Lane.
Added more personal messages from Peeps when they are (or were) hungry, thirsty etc.
Updated credits.
Started updating text to remove references to Colonisation.
Thanks for reading, have fun, and most importantly - tell us what you think of the new features!
Before We Leave news - 26th November
Hey everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving to all you US folks! It’s been a really busy fortnight, and I’ve got a few things to mention here, so I’ll try to make it brief!
Wasteland Update News - Sam and I chatted about the Wasteland update, as well as a bunch of other things in our news update this week! Check the timestamps in the YouTube description if you want to skip ahead to the part about the update - it’s about ten minutes in. [previewyoutube="bUDY77dczdE;full"]
Steam Broadcast - Chief will also be doing a Steam Broadcast about our update next Tuesday, 30th November 10am NZST. Here’s the event post if you want a reminder for when we go live!
If you miss the Broadcast, never fear! We'll be uploading it to our YouTube Channel too. Oh, and expect news about the Experimental Beta Branch soon…
Autumn Sale - We’re on sale for 40% off! Go treat yourself. If you already own the game, thank you! <3
Right, that’s it for this fortnight folks. This is our second last update for 2021 - the next one will be farewelling this crazy year. Hard to believe, huh?!
Thanks for reading <3
Emily, Community Manager
The Wasteland Update Preview!
Kia ora koutou katoa!
Our lead developer Sam (perhaps better known as @ChiefMonkey) will be broadcasting here on Steam this coming Tuesday, the 30th of November 10am NZST.
He'll be discussing features from our next content update that we've been working on (if you've seen our 2021 Roadmap, some of this might sound familiar to you).
So, if you want to get the latest on the update progress, what new mechanics it'll introduce to Before We Leave, and ask the brains behind the game some questions, please come watch!
If you miss the Broadcast, never fear! We'll be uploading it to our YouTube Channel too.
