Hello Ranchers, 👩🌾👨🌾
Hope you all are safe and doing great.
Since our last big update, I was hesitating about what the next move for The Ranchers' development will be. There were two paths: whether we should prioritize the mines exploration with the Monsters/combat system or the open-world production.
It was a hard question to answer as each choice brought its pros and cons.
For me, I want The Ranchers to be something that stands out from the other farming sim games, not another Stardew Valley clone with a bunch of upgraded mechanics or a “better” art style.
I want The Ranchers to be something big, and most of all, something different!
Like many of you, I grew up with games like Harvest Moon, The Sims, and GTA, and I played the hell out of games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.
My vision for The Ranchers since the beginning was: what if all those games had a child? 😀
A new game that combines all the mechanics and fun I love about those classics? What will that game be? How can it honor the legacy of those classics while being different and take the farming sim genre to the next level?
Reconnecting with this initial vision made that prioritization choice a lot more lucid.
Since we’ve made great advancement on the farming and the Sims side of it, now it’s time to tackle how much of the GTA spirit should be put in The Ranchers. Moving forward with the Open World production it will be then.
Sooo, now it’s time for my favorite joke: We decided to cancel The Ranchers and start working directly on The Ranchers 2 😀 (I’m probably the only one who still finds this statement fun :D)
Joke aside, we took the opportunity of rethinking what the heart of The Ranchers is, to revamp and upgrade everything we weren't happy about in the current build, starting with the game visuals!
🧑🎨Fresh and consolidated Art Style.
There is a lot to talk about here but to make it simple and quick: The whole game art style was rebuilt from scratch for a more unique and modern look with a stronger visual identity.
Here is a quick sneak previews:
Now that the foundation of the new visuals is here, I will be sharing more details through new gameplay videos and screenshots with you all in the upcoming weeks ;)
🎧Studio-grade audio system
Last summer, I had the opportunity to work with two of the greatest sound designers in our industry. I did learn A LOT about sound, music, and how they can be a great vehicle for creating unique experiences and emotions in gameplay.
How little details can make a huge difference in terms of making what's happening on the screen more believable, more alive.
One of the more famous quotes I was hearing from all those very talented people is “The visuals are half the picture, the sound is the other one” (something like that :D )
Therefore, all the audio systems in The Ranchers were also rebuilt from scratch 😀
There is also a lot to talk about here too, but basically everything, literally every sound was remade and remastered from scratch.
To summarize it in a few bullet points:
- New ambiance sounds that make each day feel different. The ambiance sounds also change depending on the player zone and time of the day (crickets, frogs, Owl... by night; different bird species sound per day...)
- New Weather and Weather sweetener sounds: you can, for example, hear the wind sound changing (sweeteners) if you are near a metallic building or a wooden one. You can also hear different sound sweeteners if it’s raining and you are near trees with wet leaves…
- New vehicle engine sound: engine power and power type (gasoline, diesel, electric engine) does now have their unique distinctive sound. You can tell about a vehicle's characteristics just by listening to its engine sound.
- Livestock sound: all the animals' sound has also been revamped from scratch for every breed at every growth stage for better audio fidelity. Now you can also know what is “the state” of your animal (happy, sad, sick, angry…) just by listening to its audio.
- A more rich player footsteps sound that changes depending on the surface type.
- Every player interaction now has audio feedback...
- 60 new music tracks (Yes! 6 and 0 😛 ); Including 12 exclusive music tracks per Season to avoid any sort of repetition. The music is controlled by our new music algorithm (called MozArt - why not? 😀 ) that shuffles between music playing and silence in a very specific manner to avoid ear fatigue. It seems that music is all about the notes that we - don’t - play!
- The whole game audio is now compatible with Stereo and Surround format: 5.1; 7.1 and 7.1.4 (Dolby Atmos)
🚀 Performance by design
Unleashing the team's creativity without any limit (no performance budget) was for me the best way to move forward and see how far we can take it further.
It’s totally irresponsible and foolish, but in the end who cares? We are making this game for fun! 😀
Oh boy! And I did pay the expensive price for it. Optimizing the new art style with all the details and the huge FOV/Zoom level was a nightmare! 😀
Now that all of it is behind us, I do look at it as one of my greatest journeys in programming! I had the chance to deeply explore the abyss of Unity game engine and learn how to get the most of every piece of it.
Today, I'm very pleased to share with you that The Ranchers, runs very smoothly on the Steam Deck (Linux), Rog Alley (Windows), and all the middle ranges PC handled in the market.
Now we also benchmark the performance of every new piece we do add on those devices before moving forward, making them our minimum target hardware.
Also, The Ranchers has now a native integration of AMD FSR2 AND Nvidia DLSS leading to more performance gain and wider hardware coverage. With those techs The Ranchers can also run on old/slow hardware and still be greatly playable without compromising any bit of its visual quality!
🍎One more thing!
I’m also thrilled to announce that The Ranchers is also coming to MacOS (Intel and Apple silicon) day one!
More explicitly, if you are one of our Alpha backers, you will be able to enjoy The Ranchers on your Mac starting from the next build update.
🗺️Now what’s next?
As you know by now, we are currently building the Open World of The Ranchers. Without spoiling anything, the world map is composed of 5 different main zones:
- The “agricultural zone” is where your ranch is situated among other ranchers.
- The city center
- The industrial zone
- Forests/Swamp zone
- and the desert.
The “agricultural zone” production is done, and by the time I’m writing this book, we are heavily producing the city center. Other zones should follow a lot quicker now that all the foundations and tools are here.
It was a true headache knowing at which stage we could release a new build update for our Alpha backers. But because now the main game loop is heavily relying on the “agricultural zone” and the city center, releasing a working build can only be possible once the production of the city center is completed. At least when the first pass is completed.
I know that many of our Alpha backers were expecting all of this to be available right now, but it’s simply impossible given the new scope of the game/map and all the major changes we did introduce in the latest months. It still needs more work, and trust me it’s totally worth it!
Don’t be sad, don’t hurt me on discord or social media (please! :🙏😊 ), The Ranchers is a work of love and it’s your enthusiasm and support that get us out of the bed each day! ❤️🔥
The Ranchers will be released in early access in 2024 as expected. It’s truly gonna be great! And that’s what matters the most. It was never about the When but always about the What!
2024 it will be, and we are thrilled to be there! 🔥❤️🔥🔥
At the end, I sincerely want to thank you again for all the love and support we did receive from you all and count on us to bring to your keyboards and controllers the ultimate farming sim game! ♥️
As always I will keep you updated and I can't wait to share more with you in the upcoming weeks.
Cheers,
Ethan
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501310/The_Ranchers/