What's up Rockhounds?
Oh man, gamedev can be rough sometimes... We've released the Demo just over a week ago, and we're already rolling out an update with a LOT of fixes, tweaks and improvements.
The problem is: Becoming successful on Steam is increasingly about momentum, and we simply don't have enough of it to justify participating in Next Fest, so we've decided to opt-out of the event.
We've set our goals high with Rockhounds. We want this game to be enjoyable over extended playtime, and that means that we've built a lot of mechanics, but we've not spent enough time getting them all to be balanced properly. Some of you have been very helpful by providing a review of the current demo both on Steam or on our Discord, but also we realize that we just don't have the momentum yet to participate in Next Fest.
So, we're taking a breather and will come back stronger at a later time. We believe that what's deferred is not lost. Despite this, we're still rolling out the update to the demo.
Here's what's new (or changed)
Accountants and Scientists now follow the player around instead of finding their own way to safety
The investigate side objective for the "Rig Security" contract no longer block players from restarting the mining rig.
Resources are now only awarded when players reach the shuttle during the mission extraction
More "FTUE" tool-tips were added to explain the basics even better
Many, many UI / UX improvements, some small but significant
Lootdrop balancing, making scavenging for loot more worthwhile
Overall performance improvements, pushing those extra frames
Fixed several issues with contracts (thanks to your feedback!)
Resolved several issues with players disconnecting
The card pack reveal was updated, now showing more details for each reward
Skipjack has a new skin, and fits in better with the Rockhounds
Switching a contract now unreadies all players
Resolved issues with the backend for time-based events (like refreshing vendors, or fabricator usage)
Resolved an issue that caused the game to freeze while loading
Fixed parts where you could fall off the map (whoops!)
Fixed a bug where contracts weren't synced to clients properly
Fixed a bug where enemy scaling wasn't properly applied for clients
Loot crates can now drop refined minerals
Help us out!
If you want to help us out, you can do any of the following;
Play Rockhounds as much as possible (preferably with a squad of friends)
Like our posts, place your comments and share it on your socials
Tell your favorite streamer or content creator about Rockhounds
And of course, as always, make sure to join our Discord.