Hello, everyone! Today, I would like to summarize the results of the recent Steam Next Fest and discuss my plans for bringing the game to release. There will be fewer images and more text.
First, thank you very much to everyone who played the demo at the festival! <3 The result: 3,000 players, +3,500 additions to the wishlist. You wrote a lot of feedback in reviews, on the steam community section, and on discord. There was both positive and negative feedback. I will try to fix all the flaws and issues that were mentioned.
I analyzed all the feedback and identified the main problems in the game that can be fixed:
At the beginning of the game (the first few hours), there is too little content, and players get bored.
The pace of the game is too slow, settlers work too slowly, and the day passes too quickly. Often you just have to wait.
There is a lot of routine: it gets boring to constantly mark resources for gathering, assign settlers, etc.
The game is not very intuitive, the interface is uninformative. The tutorial is not clear enough.
Sometimes the AI of the settlers does not work well: they often carry items one at a time, search for food, tools, and resources in a suboptimal way, and search for available work in a suboptimal way.
Players cannot customize the game to their liking: there are practically no settings, no key rebinding, no difficulty settings at the beginning, no flexible map selection at the beginning.
I will try to fix all these issues before release.
The release is scheduled for early 2026. I have about a few months to finish the game. Here are the new major features I want to implement:
Prosperity points system. The more technologically advanced the tools and clothing used by the settlers are, and the more technologically advanced the buildings you construct are, the faster prosperity points will accumulate each day.
Tree of Laws. Each law will make it easier to manage the settlement or simply give a permanent bonus. Examples of laws: automatic settlement of homeless people, the ability to produce items up to a limit, all residents behave as handymen if they do not have available work, etc. Laws will be purchased with prosperity points.
Annual plan system. These are essentially bonuses that last for one year. Each spring, the player will be able to approve plans by spending prosperity points. The set of available plans is very limited, but new plans can be found randomly on the world map.
Also, I mustn't forget about improving the existing functionality. Here are the points I would highlight:
Improve the world map to make it more interesting and challenging to explore.
Improve fights with enemies so that they are not so simple and boring. Add more tower defense elements.
Add more QoL features that will simplify management: gatherers' huts, advanced priority settings, prohibiting residents from using certain tools or eating certain foods, baskets should be equipable and add new slots to the inventory, and much more.
Fix all the flaws that became apparent after the demo festival.
To be continued!