Dear Community! We're pleased to announce that the first playable demo of the new version is finally available! It is available as a separate Beta branch on Steam - if you select it, you will still keep the current Java version and the new version will be downloaded into a separate subfolder. This first demo will serve as foundation for future update, and once it's a bit more fleshed out, it will replace the Java version (but of course you will still be able to play the Java version at any stage). We've also prepared a new survey for the demo and would appreciate your feedback: https://forms.gle/7Tf95343NQtgSUou8
In order to get the demo, just rightclick on Rising World in your Steam library -> Properties -> Betas -> select "New Version Preview" and wait until the download is ready. When launching the game, a dialog shows up: Select "New Version" to launch the new version of Rising World. NOTE: Always launch the game from your library, do not launch it right from the "Downloads" section because this always launches the default Java version.
However, there are a few important things you need to know about this version:

Features and Content

This version is quite limited and it lacks several features and any serious gameplay content. It rather serves as "tech demo" and is meant to give you a very first impression of the new version. We've also disabled some features in this version - for instance, only a small part of the world is generated and many plants and forests are missing. Here you find a rough overview of some of the features of the demo version: https://forum.rising-world.net/thread/11064/

Performance

We're using Unity new scriptable render pipeline, more specifically the HDRP which has a rather high base overhead - much higher compared to the Java version. In return we're able to achieve much better scalability, especially if the world consists of lot of buildings. This means it's extremely important that your machine meets at least the minimum requirements of the game (which are stated on the store page). However, if you experience performance issues, please let us know! There is definitely room for improvements

View distance

One important note about the view distance: Basically the new version is able to achieve much larger view distances compared to the Java version. On the one hand, chunks are now twice the size. On the other hand, values are treated a bit different in the new version; while a view distance of 20 chunks, for example, referred to 20x20 chunks around the player in the Java version, this value now refers to 20 chunks in each direction (effectively being 40x40 chunks now). In other words: A view distance of 50 in the new version would be equivalent of a view distance of 200 in the Java version

Weather

There are a few weather effects available which can be set via console command. Just like in the Java version, type "weather " into console (if you put a "1" at the end, the weather changes instantly). In addition to the weather effects of the Java version, there is now snowfall available (which covers the world in snow over time). The names for these effects are "snow" and "heavysnow"

Linux

There are unfortunately a few bugs in Unity which are out of our control. They were reported to Unity. For instance, it's currently not possible to change the resolution on Linux without restarting the game (Mac and Windows are not affected by this issue). There are a few other issues as well, but if you find any bugs, please don't hesitate to contact us

Multiplayer

Unfortunately the multiplayer part isn't fully ready yet, but we already wrote the code with multiplayer in mind - so it's basically almost ready. It's our intention to release a working multiplayer shortly after the upcoming building update

Plugin API

Unfortunately the plugin API isn't ready either - this means it doesn't work in the demo yet. There is still some work to do, but we've set up a new section in our forum which contains more information about the new API: https://forum.rising-world.net/thread/11062/

Future

Obviously the demo took a lot longer until it was ready - much longer than expected. We're so sorry about that, but we also appreciate your patience! Good news is that many core mechanics are now implemeted or almost ready (and this was the most time consuming part), so we should soon be able to get into a state where content can be added more quickly

Feedback

We really hope you enjoy the demo! Even though it's still very limited and cannot be considered a full game, it should already give you a good idea of what Rising World will look like in the near future. We are looking forward to your feedback, please let us know what you think about the new version! As mentioned above, we've prepared a survey for that purpose: https://forms.gle/7Tf95343NQtgSUou8