So, two weeks in Early Access. And it has been quite a wild ride so far. While we cannot go into details, we can confirm that the game is doing pretty well so far and above our expectations. And oh god, all that feedback - that's pretty amazing. We were able to fix quite a few issues you reported. And also found quite a bunch of interesting ideas we'd like to implement in the game. Thank you all. Thank you all so much. Like, seriously, we can't thank you enough.
Having that said, let's take a look at what we are working on right now. Of course, we are tweaking a lot of balancing things and are fixing some bugs in the background. But we're also working on some new content for Highrise City. Also, keep an eye on the Roadmap to make sure to stay updated.
While we will rework the streets at some point, our artists have been working a bit on the textures recently. It will make them look a bit more realistic for now (You probably won't notice the change on the screenshot but in a big city it feels and looks much better now):
Old
New
Detail
We're also adding more animations for the citizens and buildings so that the miniature world feeling will improve a bit as this is definitely one of our cornerstones. We're not yet sure if these will be made available already in the update planned for April though. But we're working on that. What definitely will be in that update is the first iteration of the building editor.
We already had to make quite some adjustments for the game underneath. Every object in the game now has a unique ID and when you create new buildings with the editor, Steamworks will give it a unique ID as well. That basically means that you can add infinite additional buildings if you want to. The first version of the editor will be filled with the assets we already have in the game. So you will be able to use these to modify them or create new buildings out of them and adjust everything with parameters. From colors to lights to basically everything.
The next iteration will then allow to implement external assets. Although we will have to write a documentation about how the game exactly reads the files. But we'll get there.
We are still positive that the editor will be available by the end of April. But it might be early / mid May as well, depending on how fast we can make progress. We will most likely ask a few Discord users to test out an earlier build soon.
Patch 1.0.1 Apr 04 2022 Released
Greetings Builders,
Thank you all for your feedback. We're working hard on improving the game and adding new content. The building editor is making quite some progress and we're quite positive that April is still realistic for the release. We've got tons of other things on our list as well, from improving the landscaping tool to adding shopping malls to improving the traffic system (and yes, also working on the streets itself). These things will take some time. In the meantime we plan to update the game itself with regular patches every one or two weeks.
A new update has just been released. The full changelog is here:
Most industry buildings can now be moved (Button is located in the building menu)
When removing waterpipes, the system with the most knots will stay active
Resource-Icons on vehicles scale with the camera distance
Two more buyable areas have been added to certain milestones
Heavily improved the Unreal Garbage Collection (this should also reduce the number of crashes*)
Fixed a crashbug in the trading system
Fixed a crashbug in the loading system
Resource Statistics now calculate deactivated buildings correctly
Production increased for Mill and Backery
Winepress now needs glas instead of iron
Removed noise from parks for now
Some later unlocked production buildings now need more workers and offices
In the options you can now activate that audio continues while you have tabbed out of the game
Fixed multiple translation errors in various languages (Japanese update incoming soon, other languages in the future as well)
Unreal Engine 4 Logo now doesn't do that white flash at the beginning
Trading menu has a new tooltip
Harbor must be activated to work
Buying a new area doesn't open an empty menu anymore when clicking on that area
*On the crashing: You can share crashreports and savegames with us. We hope that with fixing the garbage collection most of the crashes should be gone for now (We have the game now running without a crash since 6 hours on various machines with previously crashing savegames). But you never know. So we're really thankful for the reports as they help us improving the game a lot.
Also, did you know there is a screenshot mode?
Patch V1.0.1 March 28 2022
Greetings Builders,
A small update today. Furhter ones will take a bit longer, especially new content. For that, please also take a look at the Roadmap.
Changelog
Added a Button to open the folder with Savegames in the Load & Save Menu
Autosave-timing deactivated if the frame is less than 5 minutes
DirectX12 hidden in Advanced Options for now due to crashbugs related to it. If DirectX12 is selected, it won't be hidden anymore however
Waterpipes can be placed correctly in Water
If a game gets saved manually, autosave counter gets reset
Calculation of people in the population menu is now displayed correctly
Patch 1.0.1 March 26 2022 Released
Greetings Builders!
We took the weekend to keep working a bit on the game. Thank you all for the feedback so far. Keep in mind that major changes and updates are still in the works but will require some more time. However, the first changes have arrived - most based on player feedback (and based on what we saw on Twitch, Youtube and other platforms).
V1.0.1 Mar 26 2022 Changelog:
Buildings can now be placed on crossroads a bit better (still not perfect, but we're working on it)
Collision for buildings and streets is a bit more tolerant now
If the mod "Buy all Fields" is active the number now only displays the correct number of areas which are still buyable
The Icon for no street connection is now displayed correctly
Number of workers gets now displayed correctly in the menu
City budget menu performance improved
Costs of leisure buildings is now displayed correctly
The demolish tool now offers a new mode which allows you to destroy buildings and zones at the same time
Collision with buildings and the mouse cursor during deactivated when you use the demolish tool
Reduced noise of doves
Building menu for glass now only gets displayed if the player has unlocked it already
When switching to DirectX12 a warning gets displayed explaining the issue a bit further
Sandbox mode now can be started with all milestones unlocked
Improved quite a few translations in English and German (other languages will be taken care of in the coming weeks)
Improved buildings farms on landscapes
In the options the correct name for "KeyShowAnimation" now gets displayed
Terraforming options now get saved
Updated the resources on the world map menu for all three maps
The Issue-Icons on the top left corner now display the correct number of missing resources
Wind Turbine now gets highlighted correctly with a mouseover
Building Information for Warehouses gets displayed correctly now
Decoration mode gets exited correctly if there is still an object on the mouse cursor
Scrolling on the borders of screen is now possible even if there are menus
Adjusted costs for level 5 zones
Increased production of Paper Mill and Printing House
Decoration mode: Icons for Location, Rotation and Scale now get displayed correctly
Increased Reasearch Points slightly for TradingCapacity
Adjusted gamespeed a bit
Hotfix for the crashes is out
Greetings Builders!
What a rough first day. Sorry for that. And thank you all for reporting the crashes. Thanks to the awesome community who provided us tons of reports and savegames we were able to fix the crashbug which was ruining the experience for quite a few users.
It was a rather weird bug which, for some reason, appeared for some users very early on and for others after like 12 hours. But the good thing is that we were finally able to fix it during our night.
Best, Michael from Deck13
Hotfix #2
- Finally found the crashbug, should be fixed now
Quick Hotfix #1
- Added a small timeframe so mainframe doesn't run empty. This caused crashes for some players. - General crashes should be reduced now (we are still investigating two more possible errors) - Fixed the Steamworkshop integration. You can now subscribe to mods.
Highrise City is out now!
Greetings Builders!
The time has come. Highrise City is finally out in Early Access. After 8 years of development out of which 7 1/2 the game was developed by one person, a huge milstone has been reached. I know, you are expecting some other things here, more like PR-Speech or something like that. Instead, I want to thank the whole team for their work. It has been quite a wild ride. And the journey has just begun. Thank you. You folks are the best and it is a honour to be working with you.
And now, have a launch trailer:
[previewyoutube="HQrZba5QI2s;full"]
For those of you, who participated in the Playtest and want to know what has been worked on since then:
New Content
More buildings have been beautified
Added Capetown as a Map
Added Rio as a Map
Implemented Steam Workshop (Buy All Fields Mod will release along the game)
Implemented Nexus Support (Buy All Fields Mod is already downloadable on Nexus)
New Background-Music (Total over 100 minutes music)
new UI Sounds added
Gameplay
New Traffic System. People now drive from their home to their work and back
Farm-Roads now do count as regular roads as well, allowing to create zones around them
Improved Grid System
Reworked Decoration System
"Ignore Landscape" option implemented for building streets (allows to create tunnels and bridges more easily)
Terraforming in Water is now possible
Fixed credit costs. Credit fees will now be taken from the account every 6 ingame hours
Keys F1, F2, F3 change the game speed now
If at least one building has been placed, the population now gets displayed
Added indicators for residential areas (homeless) and office zones (jobless)
Speeded up slow motion by 100% (it is still 60 times slower than the slowest time)
Is the current garbage storage at 95% no new garbage will be collected anymore
Improved placing of streets once again
Sorted the construction menu and cleaned it up a bit
Picking a building in the construction menu will highlight all buildings of the same type
Lots of changes on the balancing
Various bug fixes
New research "Buff Stack" and "Fusion Power Plant"
Visuals
Too much pollution and noise gets displayed now
Fixed flickering ground textures
Reduced maximum zoom out slightly
Added a option to enhance maximum zoom
Streetlamps now have light
Adjusted hints in loading screens to the middle
An effect happens when a screenshot gets taken
Icons of issues scale with camera distance
For widescreen monitors, the HUD can now be adjusted and must not stick to the sides anymore
Clouds can now be configured
Improved visual quality of mountains (still not final)
The landscape in the menu where you can buy new areas is more detailed now
Lots and lots of small UI changes and tweaks
Reduced amount of animals on farms
Reworked Ground Textures of buildings
Tweaked UI colors
Removed wild animals for now as they behave too weird.
Performance
Further improved Performance
Warning if DirectX12 has been selected
VSync limit can now be set correctly
Other
Traditional & Simplified Chinese (not fully finished yet)
Chinese Voice Overs
Additional English Descriptions
First Korean Iteration
Fixed lots of typos in German and English
Fixed various crashes in the loading screen
When ending pause mode, you can now directly interact in the game
Photo mode button also opens the explorer and the folder with Screenshots
Changed save location of screenshots
Export of all savegame-screenshots opens the folder
Sounds in the main menu can be adjusted in the options now
Reworked Main Menu
Steam Next Fest Live Stream of Highrise City
For those of you who did not participate in the Playtest the Demo might give you an idea of how the game works. But how do more advanced cities look like? How much will you as a player have to do in the later parts of the game? Time to find out! We'll be livestreaming the game on Steam.
Steam Next Fest: Highrise City Demo available now!
Greetings Builders!
The Steam Next Fest has started. And with Highrise City entering Early Access on March 24th, we wanted to give every interested player the chance to try out the game upfront. Which is why we are participating in the Steam Next Festival this time. The demo will stay up until March 1st.
