So lay back, wipe the sweat off your forehead, and feel free to enter into the far north for discounted price. It's easier there in the summer - you'll see.
It's been enjoyable adventuring in the real world too, so let's share a some selected content about how life has been around the development chambers of both Sami (creator) and Erkka (co-designer).
Firstly, here's a new primitive music piece by the said fellows. The recording took place in the spring around Erkka's chambers: https://youtu.be/jdSW9Z46DhE
And secondly, few images from around Sami's neighborhood:
Cheers and happy summertime!
Real world greetings from a grove
Greetings everyone!
As you may know I'm spending sort of a year off from coding and concentrating more on the real world stuff. But the absence from the development chambers doesn't mean a radio silence. I'm happy to post a little news and photo feeds occasionally to stay in touch with You adventurers out there, and that's what people have wished for too. So here we go ...
I recently had a minor accident with my right hand and now need to keep a cast for a month, but that's not stopping the roaming in the woods. Hehe, you know this from the game too - the many activities might be slower, but doable. So here's a photo greetings from one beautiful May day in the grove forest. These woods are half an hour walk away from UnReal World development chambers. This is a very special place since there are lot's of conifer forests to see here in Finland - as you may have noticed in the game too - but this kind of grove like leaf tree habitats are more rare.
And by the way, if peeks into these 2022 real world endeavours is your cup of coffee I'm building up a habit of more regular posts at my buymeacoffee page: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SamiMaaranen It's kind of like an alternate media channel to see and support not the game development, but the game developer's lifestyle. Or whatever.
Take care everyone,
-Sami (UnReal World creator, gap year adventurer)
Going Rogue - since 1992
Going Rogue: A Festival of Persistence has started here on Steam and oh yes, that's a sort of celebration that suits us so very well!
From the player's point of view it often requires persistence to roam the harsh wilderness pursuing your way to survive in the far North. From developer's point of view it also has required quite a bit of persistence to keep developing the game for the past 30 years.
UnReal World has its' roots very deep in the roguelike genre. Sami (UnReal Word creator) was an avid player of the pioneer roguelikes such as Hack/Nethack, Moria and Omega back in the day. And it was those games that inspired him to get on the roguelike path and start creating UnReal World.
Taking a look at the screenshots from 1992 and 2022, it appears we've stayed somewhat true to our roots ... 1992 - UnReal World 1.00b
2022 - UnReal World 3.71
...but well, on the inside it's been a journey of 140,000 lines of code so far. Should you wish to experience all that Going Rogue sale is one chance to enter into the far North with a discounted price.
Cheers! Long live the roguelikes! ːurw_sageː
We stand with Ukraine and ask to raise awareness
On Thursday 24 February, president Putin launched a devastating attack on a sovereign country of Ukraine and ever since the Russian forces are continuing to pound Ukrainian cities, including residential areas, with missile strikes and artillery fire. There is no excuse for this war. The civilians, including children, are suffering to the extent where Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II has emerged.
We support Ukraine and have made contributions to relief efforts. We support Russians that stand against the senseless actions of the Russian government. We have players from all over the world, from Ukraine and Russia too. The majority of common people are not to blame for the madness and destruction, but the common people are to suffer from Putin's war. It needs to stop. We ask you to raise awareness, and work for the peace. Do not stand aside, do not tolerate this, and help if you can.
In nearly every country you can find organizations such as Red Cross and Unicef who accept donations for Ukraine. For news, if you haven't been following, for example The Guardian has summary article of Russia’s war in Ukraine with pictures, maps, and videos: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/07/russia-war-ukraine-complete-guide-maps-video-and-pictures
You are online, you can find more news sources too. If in your country the world events are being filtered by the propaganda, censorship, restriction of information or freedom of speech try to reach beyond that. It takes some effort, but we support your efforts.
And once more; raise awareness of what is happening, work for the peace, do not stand aside and help those in need.
The 30th Jubileum, 47th birthday, and sort of a year off
This year, in 2022, we are celebrating the 30th Jubileum of UnReal World. The game was first released in the summer of 1992, so the 30-year milestone will be reached this summer. Now what will this special year of celebration bring upon us, and the game?
When it comes to coding and development, I will be taking it real easy. It is likely that we'll see some updates to the game, but mostly I'll be devoting my time for variety of other things. So I'll kind of celebrate the 30 years of development by taking a year off from the usual coding flurry. This also allows me to better contemplate on the future of the game as there some challenging overhauls in our sight. One is moving to higher resolution and modern aspect ratio. The year is early, and these thoughts are scattered, so more news on this front will follow later on. But yes, it is truly so that I will take a year off from the usual, practical, hands-on development. Planning, brainstorming and a little something easy paced remains, though.
Nevertheless, during this year of celebration we will be bringing you some recreational content from the North, out and away from the development chambers. What it will be exactly remains to be seen, but I'm sure this year off will bring along many occasions, incidents, experiments or artistic projects to share or publish. There are some ideas bubbling under already.
On this thursday, 27th of January, it will be my 47th birthday. I started working on UnReal World at the age of 15 and two years later, at the age of 17, the first version was released to the public. Now the 30th Jubileum, or 47th birthday, may feel like an occasion to offer me a drink or something, and for that purpose I quickly created "buy me a coffee" page. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SamiMaaranen It's a simple support channel I've been asked to allow even earlier. Now it's up and will remain so at least for this year. I'll reserve the right to decide the drink to buy with your support :) , but big cheers anyway!
So these are the news to start this year with. Feel free to comment or ask if something comes to your mind.
Yours, Sami (UnReal World creator)
The developer is currently out the office ...
He's skiing in the woods following two elks...
He will be back occasionally and eventually.
Season's Greetings & Winter Sale
The midwinter and holiday season is at hand, and Steam Winter sale is also about to start soon.
It is time to send you our warmest Season's Greetings with a few moody photos from this very day. Thank you for 2021 to those who already roam the UnReal World, and welcome into the Far North, all you new adventurers.
We have just passed the Winter Solstice on northern hemisphere, and the amount of daylight now slowly starts increasing. Otherwise the winter in Eastern Finland continues in decent -20 degrees celsius temperatures with delightful amount of snow. Sami (UnReal World creator) heads towards the real world in horizon.
Merry Christmas, Tree. This mighty spruce grows beside the village road, not very far from the development chambers.
Now let's survive the midwinter, and see you again in 2022!
29 years of Labor of Love
Nominations for Steam Awards 2021 has started together with Autumn Sale, so get involved now.
Does 29 years of continuous development equal to Labor of Love?
Labor of Love, that's the category that suits UnReal World the best. First released in 1992 the game now sports 29 years of development with 140,000 lines of code - and counting. UnReal World has two Guinness Gamer's World Records due to being...well...a labor of love - and it's made by two-man team deep in the Finnish wilderness...
Sami (UnReal World creator) coding in the woods. Well, actually the development mostly takes place indoors but you get the picture, right.
Now did you actually have another title in mind that suits the category better? Be that as it may, this is our two cents suggestion for a true Labor of Love nominee.
Version 3.71 released
A small bugfix patch has been released to address the following issues:
- fixed: some faulty animal snow penalty calculations
On few occasions the fatigue rate of animals moving in the deep snow wasn't calculated right. This could result either in animals tiring too easily, or too little.
- fixed: distributing offered traded items among foreign traders wasn't always working
You might still end up in "can't carry" trade situation, even though the trading party would have capacity to carry the offered goods. Hopefully this is fixed for good now.
- fixed: Crash/shutdown related character data loss on Windows systems
On Windows system crash or computer power loss might result in character corruption which at its worst erased character data to the extent of making them unrecoverable. This issue has been now addressed with extra safety measures and internal backups which hopefully prevent the worst case data losses for good. Should you experience Windows crash the game now tries to recover character data automatically from internal backup files upon loading the character again. You may still loose some moments or few map loads in the character's life but the game hopefully goes on more reliably.
- fixed: UrW mobile controller not working on some systems
That's all folks! Happy adventures! ːurw_sageː ːurw_fireː
Halloween Sale equals to Kekri Celebration -- with a themed game title screen.
Once again we are taking part in the ongoing HalloweenKekri Sale with the pleasing numbers and haunting imagery. So let the new adventurers be respected with the discount, and the ancestral spirits with our special Kekri costumes and customs...
It's Kekri, not halloween, in the Far North.
Kekri is an ancient Finnish harvest festival celebrated in the fall when the annual agricultural activities were all accomplished and the harvest collected. Kekri meant the end of the crop year, which was a big turning point. It was the time when the souls and spirits of the dead wandered around and visited the living. The ancestors were respected and welcomed. Sauna was heated up for them, and meal prepared too. The living celebrated accordingly, and so do we.
Kekri Goat
Kekri time included tradition of Kekripukki (Kekri goat) figure. People would dress up as horned creatures, wearing furs or coats upside down, and went around in their disguises and were offered food and drink. So, what does a decent developer of tradition rich game do to follow the tradition? Yes. He dresses up as Kekripukki.
Well, hello there, any foods or drinks to offer? Some purchases will do as well.
Kekri-themed title screen
Again this year the we have launched a special Kekri-themed game title screen for duration of this sale & festivity period. The theme screen becomes live shortly after this annoucement, so allow the game to update and enter UnReal World for more haunting imagery.
Celebrate & Participate
We wish you happy Kekri time - or happy Halloween if that suits you better. All in all, now just celebrate and participate in the festivities at this special time of the year.
:urw_sage::urw_fire::urw_tree:
Version 3.70 (stable) released
UnReal World version 3.70 has reached the stable stage and is now released and live. Your game will auto-update and characters from the previous version are compatible with the new version.
If you were playing 3.70 beta versions, you should know that there's also new content added since the last beta. And if you weren't playing beta versions at all, then prepare to discover a lot. You'll find changelogs later in this post, but first a little look at the key features with a few screenshots.
Key features of version 3.70
The key features of version 3.70 version deal with the moon and the moonlight, fibre processing with new textilecraft skill, snow penalty for all the creatures and snow crust, lots of new character portraits, tying equipment adjustments and additions, crafting fishing rods and hooks and usage of baits, option for metric units, and so on. The list of additions and fixes is long and you can find the full changelog at the bottom of this post.
Trudging through the deep snow the escaping elk tires itself easily while the hunter gliding with skis on snow crust travels easily.
There are lots of new character portraits added, and also an option to ask whereabouts of village water supply.
The autumn nights are already dark, but during full moon there's enough light for example to go fishing - with self-made fishing rod and hooks, that is.
Textilecraft in action. We have a new batch of harvested nettles retting in the water, and prepare to spin some yarn from earlier extracted nettle fibres.
Version 3.70 changelogs
First, here's changelog since the latest 3.70 beta version. New content to be aware for those who have already been playing the beta versions.
3.70 (stable) changelog - new content since 3.70-beta 3
- added: whole lotta new portraits, and specific portait categories for old men and sages
A good bunch of new portraits have been added for kids, female and male characters. There are also two new portrait categories specifically for old men and sages. Portraits in these categories are exclusive for those type of NPCs and can't be associated with other NPCs nor chosen as a player character portrait. MIGRATION NOTICE: NPCs generated in the previous versions continue to appear with their previously generated portraits.
- added: bowstrings as a separate functional part of a bow
Bowstrings are now featured as a craftable item of their own. Bowstrings wear out in use and thus need to be replaced every now and then. Crafting any bow now requires also a bowstring item, so you need to have a bowstring ready in order to make a functional bow.
* crafting a bowstring
Bowstrings can be crafted from [M]ake-menu under [W]eapons category. Bowstrings are made out of multiple strands of yarn twisted together, but also thin cordage can be used for a makeshift bowstring. Upon crafting a bowstring you can select the material, yarn or cord, to be used. It's faster to make a bowstring from a cord and the required length is also far lesser, but bowstrings made out of cords are also always of lesser quality. Your textilecraft skill determines the success of making a bowstring. Due to item usage complexity bowstring crafting is hard-coded and not to be found in editable diy_*.txt file.
* bowstring breakage and replacement
Good quality bowstring can last up to thousand of shots or so. The lower the quality the faster the bowstring is prone to break. When the bowstring breaks a message is displayed and the bow gets described as "bow with no string". Naturally you can't shoot with such a bow anymore until a new bowstring is added. You can check out condition of a bowstring in strung bows with
