Well, we took a break. Didn’t want to spend the summer months working on virtual festivals, but party at actual festivals, during this post-covid era. Also, some major personal stuff happened, causing me to simply lose interest in developing the game for a while.
But we couldn’t resist getting back to work, performing some major updates, including updating the Unity version we were using, some graphical improvements, some simulation additions, and much more.
So much more in fact that we won’t be discussing everything in this update. Instead, we’ll be posting more short videos of the stuff we’ve been working on to our Youtube channel, and we’ll post some very technical devlogs to steam, to better outline how we’re building the game and the challenges we are facing. This type of content is what I like to write most of all, though not very interesting to those of you who simply want to play the game.
Also, we've had to accept that we won't be able to release the game in full this year. We aim to go into Early Access in the first quarter of 2023, with the aim to release the full game in the second quarter. We promise to keep you updated. And you don't have to wait that long to play the game ...
Coming to Steam Playtest!
As you may know, we’ve been alpha testing the initial versions of Festivals - Headliners since the start of this year. We used a complicated system with a Google form and custom scripts and emails to send out Steam keys, which would grant alpha testers access to the game.
Due to problems with this workflow, we’ve decided to start using Steam’s Playtest feature, which allows us to get new builds out to players a lot quicker and easier, along with a more streamlined way to manage tester signups.
The Steam Playtest page is up now, just head over to the regular Steam page to sign up, and we’ll be starting to grant access to early birds very soon!
New Simulation of Activities
Probably the biggest change that was made has been to the underlying simulation used by both visitors and performers, soon to be joined by crew. To be able to do an accurate simulation, all characters in the game now have a list of activities they want to do at your event - like watch a specific concert, have a meal, or take a rest at some picnic tables. These activities are shared with other members of their group - just like you would at an actual festival!
Graphics Enhancements
The most notable graphical improvements are probably the Bloom and Dynamic depth of field, both of which can be enabled and disabled using individual settings. Dynamic depth of field changes the focus of the camera as you zoom in and out, allowing for a more natural appearance of the game.
Also, we've added bits of shrubbery and long grass to each of the demo festival sites, providing a more authentic and diverse look, especially in combination with the Bloom and DoF effects.
UI Tweaks
The InfoPanel, which is shown when you select an object or a character at your event, has been updated and extended to include things like scheduled activities. Also, several bugs were fixed which caused the panel not to be shown when selecting something. Furthermore, we've added a "follow" function which allows you to follow a visitor or performer around your event, experiencing everything as they would!
Development Update 003
A new year, a whole lot of exciting new stuff for Festivals - Headliners! Continue reading to catch up on everything new!
Alpha Release
As you probably already know, we’ve released an initial version of our game to our Alpha testers, looking to gather feedback from the earliest stages of development.
Livestream & YouTube channel
We've recently created a brand new YouTube channel where you can watch a recording of the livestream we did for the alpha release. We hope to upload a lot more content in the coming months, so be sure to like & subscribe!
Bug Fixes
Through the feedback we received, several issues have come to light. Most of which we already have fixed, however some will take some time to iron out. We’ll highlight some of the bugs that we fixed here.
Event Phase Countdown Time
The countdown displayed in the toolbar has been fixed, it is no longer displaying the total amount of minutes, but only the amount of minutes relative to the remaining hours. Thanks JeffreyT for pointing this out to us!
Before and after:
Unable to select Visitors
An issue where you were unable to select Visitors to open the Info Panel has been resolved, you can now easily see what your visitors are up to and how they are doing.
Character Rotation
Visitor characters would walk to the object they want to interact with, but they wouldn’t rotate to face it. That’s why, at stages, up till now, the visitors were looking in random directions, basically anywhere but the actual stage. We’ve added a quick fix for this, but will make improvements later on. For now, the crowds at stages seem a little bit more realistic at least.
Top-down View
The top-down camera view is now working properly and can be used to gain a quick high-level overview of your festival site and how visitors are spreading.
Edit mode improvements
Switching between the selection, object placement, and delete modes was very confusing and didn’t work very well. Also, it was hard to see if you delete mode was on, so you might accidentally delete objects you just wanted to select. We’ve reworked the toolbar logic to make switching between edit modes a lot more intuitive, and now change the color of the entire toolbar to red if delete mode is active.
Introducing Entrances & Exiting Visitors!
We’re very excited to announce the addition of Entrances to the game, which Visitors use to enter and exit your event venue! We’ve also added a temporary placeable fence to be used for crowd control, to help guide your visitors in the right direction.
In a future version, a network-like tool will be provided to place fencing, lay power lines and construct temporary paths. At the moment, visitors will only move back towards the entrance at the end of the event, they won’t be de-spawned.
A new Festival Site
We’ve added a new, even grander, event site to the game! The City park is 250 x 250 meters large, and is surrounded by a road and buildings, as you’re in the middle of a bustling city!
Behind the scenes, we’ve built this site using new terrain generation tools we built, including some theme management tools to make surface painting a bit easier. At a later stage, we will build upon this to allow theme changing in game, so you could host an event in the desert, or a snow-covered site!
Adjusted spawn rates
We've adjusted the total number of visitors which can be spawned to the other sites to be a bit more realistic. We're still in the process of building and optimising the simulation, so you'll have to wait a while before you can really crank up the number of visitors.
Tutorial, Scenario’s and Objectives
A Tutorial is now available inside the game, which can be used as a checklist to make sure you have everything setup to receive visitors on your festival site! Under the hood, the tutorial is part of the new scenario system we’ve been working on.
We’re also working on a new “Scenario” gameplay mode, which we hope to try out soon, where you will be challenged to host great festivals, under demanding circumstances. At a later stage, these scenarios (and their objectives individually) will be shown as Achievements on your Steam profile, so you can show off your skills to your friends!
Character names
Your visitors and artists now automatically get a name assigned! We've included 100.000 unique names which will be used by default, but you can also use a custom list of names. We'll include a guide on how to set this up on our Steam community soon.
Alpha Release Christmas Party
We would like to invite everybody interested in our game for our online Christmas Party Livestream on Saturday the 18th of December, where we hope to push out the very first alpha version of the game to our testers!
We'll play through the game in its current state, show some behind the scenes stuff, explain a bit about our testing process, how you can take part in this, and update you on our release schedule for the coming year!
Make sure to be there for exclusive perks, or watch it back whenever you feel like it over the holidays!
Development Update 002
We've been working hard and have some exciting events planned for the Holiday Season!
Activities
Activities are here! Which means that groups of characters are now walking around your event site in a somewhat logical manner, navigating between stages and performances. Visitors will take breaks from enjoying concerts on stage to get drinks, and will have a meal at logical times during the day. Right now activities have been added to visitors only, we'll be adding them to artists soon, and will add crew and crew-specific activities before the Early Access release.
Performances
As mentioned in our previous update, we’ve been working to get Artists & Performances into the game & on-stage! While not much to look at now, the groundwork has been laid to add more music, animations and light shows for your visitors to enjoy. We've included a limited selection of artists and premade performances, but you'll also be able to add your own performances, with custom shows, and share them through the Steam workshop!
Night time & stormy weather
We've made some great steps in our day/night cycle, as any festival only truly comes to life at night, when the sun has set, and the entire site is lit by all sorts of colorful lights. The lights will be added before the next update, so for now the festivals are completely dark at night, but this already looks a lot more realistic then our old day/night cycle. Also, we've been working on wind, so now when the game is paused, trees won't continue to wave like there's a storm passing.
Menu’s, Loading Screens and Settings
As we’re preparing for alpha testing, we wanted to polish up the experience players go through as they play the game. We’ve added loading screens to make it more clear what is happening while the game is running, and improved the existing menus to provide more functionality. We’ve also started on settings, allowing players to configure the game in a way that works best for them. For now you can scale the UI, and switch between windowed and fullscreen mode. We’ll also be adding settings to change the behaviour and movement speed of the orbit camera very soon.
Testers & Translators
We hope to start alpha testing later this month, and are still looking for people who are eager to give our game a try and help us get the game ready for release. We're in high need of testers right now, but are also looking for people who want to help out translating the game. If this is something you might be interested in, let us know using this form.
(Alpha Release) Christmas Party
We also would like to invite everybody interested in our game for our online Christmas Party Livestream on Saturday the 18th of December, where we hope to push out the very first alpha version of the game to our testers! We'll play through the game in its current state, show some behind the scenes stuff, explain a bit about our testing process, how you can take part in this, and update you on our release schedule for the coming year! Make sure to be there for exclusive perks, or watch it back whenever you feel like it over the holidays.
Next Up
As mentioned above, our top priority for the coming weeks is to get ready for our alpha release, for which we need to do quite a bit of work still, like adding lights on stages, and adding placeable light(mast)s to plop around an event site, and improving on artist performance animations. Also, we’re working on a special top-down view, including an informational layer, which gives players one clear overview of their entire event, and we hope to be able to include this in the alpha release as well.
