Heya folks! We'll be streaming our usual, pre-recorded gameplay as part of the Games From Germany Steam Event. Tomorrow afternoon, Dom will also do some actual live streaming in the afternoon CET, so this is a sneaky announcement for those avid readers of our announcements! <3
๐งช Beta Patch 0.5b - Big Balancing Update
Feedback is essential for us to successfully add new features and improve Dorfromantik together with you. Of course, it helps us a lot if you are specifically trying to test features that we have listed up in the Beta Patch Notes for the current update.
๐ป Community Feedback: We highlight items that we have implemented based on community feedback or suggestions. We look forward to your feedback in our Steam Community Hub or on our Discord server.
About the new balancing
Patch 0.5 will bring improvements to our general balancing. We have two main goals we want to achieve with these changes.
Improving the general experience
To improve the general experience, we increased probabilities of generally more useful tiles (e.g. lake variations or tiles with only one or two segments on them) and reduced the probabilities of very difficult or awkward to place tiles (e.g. tiles with many individual segments or tiles including the Y-shaped segment). Note that tiles are still chosen randomly, so all combinations (even very rare and unlikely ones) can appear.
Preventing the game from getting easier
Our second goal is to make the difficulty level such that it is theoretically possible to play an infinite session without it getting easier at some point, which diminishes the value of progressing further. It is in the nature of perfect placements that a larger (perfectly built) world means a reduction in overall tile spending, as placement options increase and fewer tiles are needed to close edges. However, we like the principle that a perfectly built world means the basic requirement for a theoretically ever-expanding game.
That's why our balancing starts with the quests: Previously, a certain number of active quests on the map meant a reduced spawn rate of new quest tiles (about 1 in 20 tiles), but it remained at that level no matter how many quests there were. This resulted in maps in the late game having hundreds of quests active at a time and caused the stack to tend to increase instead of decrease after a certain point. Because of this, with this patch the probability of new quests continues to decrease until it reaches 0% when there are 15 active quests (not counting flag quests or preplaced tile quests).
So, in any case, from 0.5 onwards, it becomes more difficult to achieve extremely high scores. We have not yet been able to conclusively determine whether this solves the problem completely. Therefore, feedback from you would help us a lot, especially from the players who have already reached high scores of 100,000 points or more. We appreciate your feedback here in the Community Hub or in discussions on our Discord server.
0.5 Release and effect on the leaderboard
We plan to release the 0.5 update in late February or mid-March, depending on your feedback and how well our balancing changes work. We're definitely open to improving the system further, so we look forward to hearing what you think! Due to the changes in balancing, it will be more difficult to reach high ranks on the current leaderboard starting with patch 0.5. Our plan is to archive the current leaderboard as an "Early Access Highscore" leaderboard for the 1.0 release and start a new leaderboard where everyone plays at the same difficulty level. Games started before 1.0 will continue to be entered on the Early Access Leaderboard, while highscores from 1.0 will end up on the new Leaderboard.
Changelog 0.5b
Balancing
Changed probabilities of many tile presets. This should result in a higher spawn probability for generally more useful tiles and a lower probability for difficult tiles
Increased frequency of all lake variants
Water Train Stations spawn frequency decreases as the game progresses
Unified Quest difficulty across different quest types (e.g. it now should be just as difficult to complete a field quest as a forest quest)
Introduced a limit of quests that can be active on the map at once (not counting flag quests or preplaced tile quests). The main purpose of this is to prevent the game from getting easier in the very late stages
Usability
๐ป The first 5 tiles of a game will now always have one or two empty edges so they will never be incompatible with the empty starting tile
๐ป Click on quests markers when highlighting offscreen quests (by pressing "H") to move camera towards them
Rudimentary Controller Support
Most ingame actions can now controlled with a gamepad (tile slot selection, tile rotation, tile placement, camera controls, offscreen quest highlighting, toggling menu)
Press left joystick to switch between two tile slot selection methods: moving through the tile slots via joystick or selecting tile slots with cross hairs by moving the camera
Gamepad menu navigation, gamepad key remapping, input-independent tutorial texts / tooltips, quest edge highlighting and creative mode controls are not yet implemented
Other
Save game preview images are now loaded when the save game selection screen is opened instead of when the game starts, improving loading times when you have many save games
reward images are now also pre-rendered instead of being generated on start, improving loading time
improved tile stack animation behaviour
tile preset 2A-2A-2A (with 3 segments occupying two edges each) can now spawn
๐ Thank you for helping us with your feedback and testing new features!
๐ป Community Feedback: We highlight items that we have implemented based on community feedback or suggestions. We look forward to your feedback in our Steam Community Hub or on our Discord server.
๐ป Bug Reporting: While we try our best, it is never possible to find, and fix, all bugs. Especially for a game still in active development. Should you come across a game-breaking bug, or experience the game crashing, please submit a Bug Report in the way we have outlined in the Steam Guide below. Please do also make ample use of our Bug Report Forums here on Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2442517576
Changelog 0.4.1
Usability
๐ป Mouse buttons can now be assigned to actions via the rebinding menu. Exceptions are the left, right and middle mouse button since they would conflict with our default click & drag navigation input
Bugfixes
๐ป Global biome configuration is now persistent over multiple sessions
๐ป Quest on top of the tile stack no longer changes when reloading a game
When having a locked tile stack in Creative Mode, repeatedly placed tiles keep their rotation instead of resetting their rotation whenever a tile is placed
Highscore now also uploads when it didn't change but wasn't uploaded before because of Steam time limitations
Other
Midwinter biome is no longer unlocked by default, it now requires Landscaper V to be completed
Updated Russian, Swedish, Portuguese translations
Even more memory optimization, reducing RAM usage by another 5-10%
๐ Thank you for your continued support!
๐งช Beta Patch 0.4.1b - Bugfixes & Improvements
Feedback is essential for us to successfully add new features and improve Dorfromantik together with you. Of course, it helps us a lot if you are specifically trying to test features that we have listed up in the Beta Patch Notes for the current update.
๐ป Community Feedback: We highlight items that we have implemented based on community feedback or suggestions. We look forward to your feedback in our Steam Community Hub or on our Discord server.
Changelog 0.4.1b
Usability
๐ป Mouse buttons can now be assigned to actions via the rebinding menu. Exceptions are the left, right and middle mouse button since they would conflict with our default click & drag navigation input
Bugfixes
๐ป Global biome configuration is now persistent over multiple sessions
๐ป Quest on top of the tile stack no longer changes when reloading a game
When having a locked tile stack in Creative Mode, repeatedly placed tiles keep their rotation instead of resetting their rotation whenever a tile is placed
Highscore now also uploads when it didn't change but wasn't uploaded before because of Steam time limitations
Other
Midwinter biome is no longer unlocked by default, it now requires Landscaper V to be completed
Updated Russian, Swedish, Portuguese translations
Even more memory optimization, reducing RAM usage by another 5-10%
๐ Thank you for helping us with your feedback and testing new features!
2021 Retrospective
Hey everyone,
with 2022 getting ready to get passed the baton, let us look back onto 2021, specifically the last nine months, from the Release in March up until now. After that we will take a little peek at what's still to come up to, and including, full release. Grab a cup of hot cocoa (or a cool beverage of choice for our friends down south), and let's start!
Ah yes, humble beginnings. Did you know we never made a Steam Announcement on Release Day? Fun times! We were quite humbled after the Early Access release, and completely overwhelmed! Given we did not have a Community Manager back then - Dom joined us back in June! - and did not at all think there would be as many players, and as much feedback, as there were, it threw a little spanner into the works. Thankfully, we have gotten a better handle on things since.
This first phase also was our longest, spanning from Release in later March pretty much exactly five months, until Gamescom in late August. We went from a rough outlook of our plans shortly after Release to a proper roadmap, with concrete plans and formulations (and a later Full Release delay), in late june. This was also the first bigger announcement after onboarding Dom, yay!
We mostly fixed bugs, added QoL changes and feature during this phase. Keyboard Rebinding, Cloud Save support, and localizations are a few of the bigger items here.
Summer Time! this phase kicked off with Gamescom in late August, where we released the Creative Update. This aptly named content update brought the much-requested Creative Mode to the game. Can you wrap your head around the fact this was just four months ago!? We also reworked the Main Menu to allow better visualization of Savegames, as this Update also brought the Savegame system with it, which allows you to have multiple concurrent Classic and/or Creative games going at once, and to convert your old Classic Mode games to Creative Mode (or just keep them around as Classic Mode Saves to revisit).
During Gamescom, we held a "Creative Contest" based on the, then active, Demo's tile Limitation. You guys liked it, and wanted to participate despite already owning the game! We liked the idea and this evolved into our Creative Showcase competitions. We also held a live Q&A here on Steam, which was quite the set up! We enjoyed it a lot and we want to do another one at some point, probably closer around Full Release.
And just like that, it was Halloween! The most recent of the Content Updates, affectionately dubbed the Halloween Update, was released just in time for the big event.
This one was all about new Tiles, visual improvements, and usability! The big one was the Enchanted Biome, a mysterious biome. We also added new animals like everyone's favorite, the beaver, and a ruin which is a requirement in any Halloween update, no? Villages also got some glow-ups in the form of decoration: Bushes, creates, vases and, most importantly, pumpkins! Last, but certainly not least, we added partial lake tiles based on your requests - And we love them! We also upped our "Content Update Presentation Announcement" game quite a bit. Maybe even a little too much?
Our core dev team did not work much on Dorfromantik during this cycle, as they were busy writing their Master's Thesis, and outside of hotfixing the most egregious bugs, they pooled their energy completely into the upcoming Winter Update. Dorfromantik was named "Best German Game" at the 2021 German Developer Awards in early December. Lastly, we also launched the Serene City-Builder bundle with a bunch of our best friends:
So, where does the journey go from here, you might ask. First of all, we released the Winter Update right before christmas! We are taking some well-needed, deserved vacation time right now. Once we are recharged, its all eyes on 1.0 - Maybe we'll put out some things earlier, be it as a potential 0.4.1, or maybe even as a surprise 0.5 - Either way we'll also need to work through lots of feedback, lots of suggestions, and even more plans of our own! There are still some unresolved items, like Controller Support and the long-awaited Undo Button waiting for us, after all.
And then, once we release version 1.0? Well, to be honest, everything post the initial hotfix phase is up in the air. Maybe we'll take some time off after an intense year. Maybe we'll work on more content. Maybe we'll look into those, erm, what do you folks call them again, "Port", thingies. Maybe we'll do something completely different for a bit, just to confuse you! All jokes aside, we have some plans, and even more ideas, depending on the launch's reception. We also hope the world will finally be in a better place next summer, as we would like to meet you folks, and each other (That is, mostly our two remote co-workers, are they even real!?), in the flesh! No matter what 2022 holds for us, we would love to show off Dorfromantik in person at an event like Gamescom. Here's to Hope!
Genre: Puzzle, Simulator, Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Indie, Card & Board Game
