A little talk about the future, a Thursday patch, a lighting pass

Hi everyone. I have a little patch here.

Patch notes:

• Substantial lighting pass on every map. Many areas and objects should be better- and more softly-lit for people playing with baked lighting (i.e. without Lumen).
• General performance improvements, particularly targeting older CPUs and low-VRAM GPUs.
• Tweaked aerial browsing behavior to make bounces, boings, and bonks more consistent.
• Fixed the Experience Simulation in the Exposition.
• Improved collision in cliffs and valleys.
• Plugged a hole in the Woods exhibit in the Exposition.

Also: Now that we’re a little past the EA release and all the big fires are out, I wanted to share a little roadmap for the game.

I’m going to do three things in the very near future. I’m not sure yet what order I’m going to do them in, but I am going to do all three. They are:

1. The “Lawman” update.

This will be a smaller content/polish update for the game. It will not contain any new levels. I currently plan for this to be the only content update during Early Access that does not contain new levels. It is intended to be a kind of coda to the first act of the game, and also to finalize the foundation that the rest of the game will be built on. Some of the work going into this patch will not be immediately visible, but it will have a number of playable additions and changes, such as:

1. The introduction of a new character.
2. Additions to existing questlines, both items and dialogues, to help set the stage for the second act of the game.
3. New enemy types and a pass on enemy behaviors.
4. A wide range of small touches (QoL, visual, mechanical) that I’d intended for release, but did not have time to put in.

I’m also considering adding story-based achievements as a way of helping players to understand when they’re up-to-date with the content currently in the game. I’d then include similar achievements in major content updates going forward so that players have a way of measuring when they are in a good place to put the game back down and wait for more content updates. I feel a little torn on this, though—I know some people really enjoy the mystery of not knowing when they’re caught up, but others feel more negatively about that unsurety. If you have thoughts on this, I’d like to hear them.

2. I’m going to go be alive.

I don’t normally plan on sharing details about how I structure my work. However, I know that a lot of people look to a game’s activity after an EA release to gauge if a project is going to be maintained, regularly updated, or abandoned, and I think that’s reasonable, so I’m going to choose transparency here. Here are the bullet points:

• Barring unexpected events, goblinAmerica is going to be my full-time focus from now through to 1.0. The work is planned out. I know what I’m going to do, I have the resources to do it, and I’m very excited about what is coming up for the game.
• The winter here in NYC was very cold and long and nasty. The weather since ~mid-May has been incredible, but I’ve barely gotten to enjoy it, because until a few days ago I’d been working 120-hour weeks preparing the game for releasing and then patching the game post-release. I’m very excited to get to what’s next, but it is time for me to balance the scales and go be alive now.
• What this means: I am generally still planning on monitoring bugs, performance concerns, etc., and addressing them as I can, but there’ll be some periods this summer during which I’m less responsive. If you email me about something, and I don’t respond for a couple days, I don’t want you to think, “Gil is dead and goblinAmerica is never being finished.” I want you to think, “Gil is in a field somewhere,” and I want you to smile.

3. I'm going to put the game's current soundtrack online.

I appreciate and am touched by how many people have asked for this, and I'll make the game's songs available to you in some way.

Once those three things are done, the next thing is:

The Dealey Plaza/White House update.

I’m planning for this to be the general format for content updates going forward: Two levels at a time. Of course, what’s a level, really? Could be almost anything.

That’s the plan. I will, of course, continue to address performance concerns and bugs as they come up. Enjoy the patch, have a nice day.