We’re extremely excited to present the very first major content update for Laysara - the Ice Altar Update!
Here’s a video summary of what we are adding:
So, to reiterate:
Ice Altars - Two new buildings, which grant production boost (25% and 50%) for nearby buildings, when provided with Ice or Sacred Ice - new resources produced in 2 additional new buildings! We’ve described this feature and our reasoning behind adding it in our last post, so check it out if you’re interested in more details.
New Scenario - Venture onto Plain Rock with our three characters and familiarise yourself with the new altar mechanics.
Effect filters - which we decided to add only a few weeks ago, so I’ll go back to them in a second!
Three new music tracks - To make your return to the kingdom of Laysara more refreshing!
Tons of smaller changes and bugfixes - see full patch notes below.
Effect filters
This is something we’ve heard you ask quite a lot! We totally agree that this is a great quality-of-life improvement, so we’ve managed to squeeze it into our schedule and add to this update!
Before, you’d have to click on every building to see its range and there was no way around it. It was quite painful to check if all of your houses in any given district are in the range of, for example, Praying Places.
But no more! From now on, clicking on any effect granting building will also highlight the ranges of all other buildings of the same type.
But no more! From now on, clicking on any effect granting building will activate the corresponding global filter, highlighting the ranges of all other buildings of the same type. You can also manually select such a filter at any time from the handy drop-down menu.
We certainly hope this feature will make your lives easier! We already cannot believe how it was possible to play without it 😅
New scenario and mountain available in Free Build: Plain Rock
Three new music tracks
Introduced Effect Filters
Balance changes:
Incense Maker now requires 6 Herbs, not 12
Gold Mine and Mint are now available on research level 4, not 2
Lift Towers require now 3 Lowanders, not 5, and have an upkeep value of 5, not 10
The monetary penalty for an overloaded Lift Station Base increased to 150 from 50
Lift Station Base is now run by 14 Artisans, not 16 Lowlanders
Herbalist is now run by 5 Monks, not 7
Cedar Groove is now run by 7 Monks, not 8
Summit Temple is now run by 42 Monks, not 90
Yak Utopia’s upkeep value decreased to 75 from 100
On Splintered Soul, Summit Temple requirement for Ornamented Cedar decreased to 6 from 8
On Splintered Soul and Smothered Flame, Ice is now available from import
On Mount Plenty, Sacred Ice is now available from import
On Talontop, Sacred Ice is now available to export
Values of upkeep and required workforce are for the Professional difficulty and scaled for the other ones
Bugfixes:
Mr Plow works properly for grouped buildings without road access
Changing the quantity of bought/sold resources no longer changes the Trade Post’s UI panel size
Fixed the Summit Temple build stages counter on Temple’s UI
After finishing the Summit Temple completion animation, the camera no longer can clip inside the mountain geometry
Disabled Forestries are no longer blocking avalanches
Fixed potential block when going back through objectives, which was causing the “Continue” button to disappear
Allow to complete a scenario when fulfilling the Summit Temple without completing previous objectives
Don’t stop highlighting a house after upgrading it while it’s being highlighted by selected effect granting building nearby (or via a filter!)
Tweaks:
Added a setting for turning off the edge scrolling
Added animation for resources going from mines or to Summit Temple
Limit resources density on cables when going to Summit Temple
Multiple minor tweaks in texts in all languages
Added Mint to Treasury Buildings selection panel
Adjusted height of a warning icon above multiple buildings
Added info about Shaft’s required workforce and upkeep to Shaft button tooltip
Additional text for Artisan in the money tooltip when paying high penalties for buildings buried under avalanche snow
On the money tooltip, the workforce penalty split into the human-workforce penalty and the yakforce penalty
On Talontop, move the camera to Salt deposits after being tasked with producing Smoked Meat
Don’t play the Summit Temple completion animation when loading a game where this animation was already played
Hide more text when minimizing Summit Temple's objective
Lowered volume of Copper Mine, Hay Dryer and Rock Crystal Mine sounds
Avalanche danger visualization better aligned with the grid
We’re in Save & Sound!
Hello everyone,
We're just popping in to let you know that we are featuring in this week’s Save & Sound sale, alongside many other cool titles with fantastic soundtracks! Be sure to check it all out!
As always, we hope you’ve been enjoying Laysara. We’ve loved hearing everyone’s feedback and seeing all of your builds, so thank you for sending those our way 😊
That’s all for now, enjoy the event and we’ll see you soon!
Quite OK Team
A sneak peek into the first major content update!
Hi folks!
It’s about time we show you what we’ve been up to recently!
As you know, following the EA release, we addressed the most critical issues and added several quality-of-life improvements. Since then, we’ve focused solely on the bigger stuff - new content and mechanics that will expand your toolbox while helping you establish prosperous mountain cities. The first batch is close to being finished! So today, let’s take a look at what to expect from Laysara’s very first major content update!
But before we answer the "what," let’s address the "why" - what was our reasoning behind the choices we made for adding content to the game?
Genesis
In recent months, we’ve received a wealth of feedback—from Steam reviews, forum discussions, and our Discord server, to reactions from streamers and YouTubers playing our game. We’re incredibly grateful for this input and make it a point to read and analyse every piece of feedback we can find! It helps us identify the most important aspects of the game for you and determine where we should focus our efforts while developing Laysara during Early Access. This is exactly what guided our decisions here.
In Laysara, one of the key resources to manage is space. You may not notice it at first, as there’s always a new region to expand into - and that’s good, you should be expanding! However, as time goes on, things can become quite packed. Eventually, you may reach the physical limits of what you can do, with no way to harvest more resources or increase production output from any given district. Wouldn’t it be great to have the option to boost production efficiency and get a little more from a fully developed region?
Another issue frequently raised by players is that it’s natural to group buildings that produce or process the same resources into production districts. Organising your city this way makes it easier to understand where goods are produced and helps with the logistics and transportation. However, it doesn’t provide any real benefits in terms of production efficiency. This feels like a missed opportunity from a game design perspective - if that’s the most enjoyable way to play, the game systems should encourage it.
At some point, we realised that we could address both of these issues simultaneously! And that’s why we began working on…
New mechanic: Ice Altars
Ice Altars are a new class of buildings that can boost production efficiency within their range, provided they are supplied with ice.
(please note that building models have not been finalized yet!)
Production efficiency boost? How does it work, exactly?
It’s quite simple: buildings near Ice Altars will produce more output resources from the same amount of input resources. This means the number of workers, yaks, and upkeep remains unchanged, but the production output increases.
Supplied with ice? Where can I get ice?
Well, it’s not just *any* ice - Altars require ice made from avalanche snow. It sounds quite dangerous, but luckily, the Monks have come up with a clever way to scoop up avalanche snow and, with a little help from our friendly yaks, repurpose it into ice cubes! Which happen to be perfectly suited for an Ice Alter ;)
(please note that building models have not been finalized yet!)
Are there many kinds of Altars?
Yes, there are two: the standard Ice Altar and its more powerful counterpart, the Divine Ice Altar. The standard Ice Altar uses only ice as an input resource and provides a small production boost, while the Divine Ice Altar requires a special type of Sacred Ice and offers a larger production boost in return. How do you turn ice into Sacred Ice? It’s easy - just smoke the ice cubes with some burning incense!
(please note that building models have not been finalized yet!)
Other goodies
To give you a chance to familiarise yourself with the concept and optimal use of Ice Altars, this content update will feature a brand new scenario set on a new mountain, specifically designed to showcase this mechanic. Let’s experience how the Monk explains the idea to the Lowlander and the Artisan - and see how they react!
Of course, Ice Altars will be available in all other scenarios, allowing you to add them to your existing cities or start a new playthrough with this new tool in mind.
This update will also feature a brand new music track, enriching the soundtrack and making revisiting the world of Laysara feel fresher for all mountain city builders out there.
Additionally, we will include some bug fixes, tweaks, and balance changes - nothing revolutionary, so rest assured that the economy of your fully built-up mountain won’t crumble after the update!
When the update will drop?
Well… we don’t know yet! ^^’ We’re currently finalising the assets, and then we’ll move on to localisation and testing, so it shouldn’t take too long! Actually, speaking of testing…
We need you!
If you already have Laysara in your Steam library and would like to help us by checking out the update early and sharing your feedback, we’d love to hear from you! Join our Discord and claim the EA Tester role, and we’ll keep you updated on what happens next very soon :)
That’s all we’ve got for today, cheers everyone!
Quite OK Team
Hotifx (ID 14148)
Hotifx (ID 14148) is now live!
This hotfix addresses only one issue: after the custom difficulties update, in some games on standard difficulties avalanches stopped working properly (were never occurring). This has now been fixed.
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
Game update: difficulty levels customization & new challenges
Hey, hey!
We’ve just introduced a new feature to the game: difficulty level customization!
In this new menu, you can customize numerous gameplay parameters and tailor the playing experience to exactly your liking! Not a big fan of avalanches? Turn them off. Annoyed by short building ranges? Expand them! Enjoy the game in a way that works for you :)
Also, a “side effect” of adding this menu is the ability to see what exactly changes based on a difficulty level. If you want to dig deep, you can see all the numbers and modifiers that are affecting your playthroughs.
New challenges
We’ve also added two new challenges: Peace and Profit and Ultimate Insight, both on two brand new (albeit small) mountains that can also be played on in Creative mode. They will also make an appearance in a different game mode in the future, but it’s too early to talk about that! :)
The Peace and Profit challenge forces you to get the most out of the fertile and rivers-rich mountain called Rivergreen Knoll. In this challenge, you need to achieve a highly positive money balance, but Donations Spots are not available! So, it’s all about exporting what you can.
The Ultimate Insight challenge on the other hand is focused solely on Monks and getting to the high research levels. The mountain for this challenge, The Enclave, offers the perfect spots for building astounding monastery complexes… but not much more. Also, this challenge has a little twist: you have a fixed number of Lowlanders and Artisans at the start and you cannot increase their population - you have to use this workforce in a most efficient way!
And that’s all we’ve got for you this time :) We’re back from vacation and we’re already working on new gameplay features that we’ll be adding to the game soon.
Thanks for all the feedback and support!
Quite OK Team
PS: To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID (14133), restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
New patch & explainer video
Hello, hello!
This time we don't have only a new patch, but also something for those of you who still haven't decided if Laysara is a game for you. We did our best to showcase the specificities of our game in this 4-minute clip, so you can make an informed decision if you should give Laysara a try :)
For those familiar with the game: let us know if this is an accurate summary :)
New patch
Besides a few minor things, we've implemented probably the most requested mini-feature - an FPS cap. Also, there is a new challenge for you to try!
To be honest, this time the list of changes is quite short, and that's because of two reasons:
1) The months before the EA release, the release itself and the following weeks were pretty hectic for us. We need a moment to cool down, maybe even get some vacation time for the first time in forever. Being indie game devs is fun, but we haven't figured out how to reconcile it with stuff like work-life balance just yet ^^'
2) We've already started working on some more substantial changes, but it will take us some more time to complete them.
Hopefully, that makes sense! That's all we've got for now, but we'll be back soon :)
Cheers!
Full patch notes:
New challenge! It's called Way of Artisans - can you build a city without any other caste members?
FPS cap option added to the graphics settings
Buildings requiring river removed from the building selection menu on Hopespark Hill because there are no rivers there
Game speed changes now to 1x on a Summit Temple cinematic start
Fixed crash when trying to move avalanche barrier/gate
Potential fix for a rare crash in transport route visualization logic
Added debug information to help investigate some other rare crashes
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
Hotifx 7 (ID 13971)
Hotifx 7 (ID 13971) is now live!
Patch notes:
Fix for key bindings resetting after closing the game
Fix for crash when launching the game on Linux (Linux is not officially supported, but the game seems to be working just fine on Proton)
More debug information to help fix the crash on the loading screen (this one proves to be a tricky one)
Windslab: the topmost Snow Cap can't be affected by Avalanche Inducers anymore (the map was designed this way from the very beginning)
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
Hotifx 6 (ID 13960)
Hotifx 6 (ID 13960) is now live!
Patch notes:
Fix for a game crashing due to clicking on a not updated building status icon that was a result of a fix for a flickering icons issue)
Fix for missing building status icon for the Hay Dryer building (that was a result of a fix for a flickering icons issue)
Fix for some very rare cases of absurdly long game load times
Potential fix for crashes during a loading screen (unfortunately, the last one didn't help)
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
Patch adding hotkey for moving buildings and fixing flickering icons
Hello!
We've just uploaded to Steam our biggest patch to date. The main thing is a slightly reworked "Move" function: it is now accessible from the toolbar, just like Copy or Demolish tools, and comes with its own hotkey (Left Ctrl, possible to rebind), making it to move buildings much easier, especially in bulk.
Full patch notes are available below, but just one more thing: -20% launch discount ends tomorrow, so if you are waiting to buy the game, you may take that into consideration :)
Patch notes:
A tool for moving buildings was added to the toolbar and got its hotkey
Changed default values of autosave settings (num: 3, frequency: 5 minutes), this change will affect only those who didn't change these settings
Fixed a bug with flickering/invisible status and upgrade icons above buildings
Fixed a bug with invalid indicators of desired satisfaction level, when satisfaction drops in level 4 houses
Fixed a bug making it impossible to scroll down/up the resource list in the Lift Station Base menu
Added an error message when rebinding keys left some actions without keys assigned to them
Added a possibility to assign the same key for an action during the standard game and during Photo Mode
Added sound when demolishing building using button in building's menu
Tweaked positions of shaft cabs
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
Hotifx 5 (ID 13912)
Hotifx 5 (ID 13912) is now live!
Patch notes:
Fixed a very rare bug with money balance having abstractly low/high values. Turns out, it was a manifestation of an even deeper level problem, which was causing some crashes - so they won't be happening from now on either.
Potential fix for crashes during a loading screen
Fixed a bug with displaying required resource counts in the 4th objective in Demon's Rest (provide scholarship to Monks)
To see if you have the latest patch, check the ID of your current game version by holding Left Alt in the Main Menu. If it's not the latest ID, restart Steam - this will force it to detect the update.
PS: We've already started working on a first patch with some more complicated bug fixes and small quality-of-life improvements (hotkey for moving buildings).
