Evening, all! Just another little status update from us. We're very pleased to announce that we have a hugely talented duo of composers working on Frontier's soundtrack. Their work will help us to capture the true film-esque Western atmosphere we are aiming to achieve. You can check out their tracks- some of which will be used in the game, alongside new material, here. One thing you would all have noticed from our screenshots so far is that our protagonist doesn't have many items of clothing. We'll be getting started on an expansion to this soon, with plans to add plenty of new pieces, including your all-important jackets and waistcoats, top and bowler hats, and smart pants for when you aren't out working. We aren't sure how much of this will make it into the update release depending on the timing, but work will begin on this shortly. We've been discussing trains for a while now, and have marked a railway up as our first major addition after everything so far is out for you guys to test, and after we've had a chance to respond to feedback and make improvements/additions to the base systems. This will form the basis of trade, allowing you to import and export goods from an external line. We've been talking about a transport line as well, but aren't too sure whether we'll be doing this just yet as there are a lot of details we'd have to work out when we get there (i.e. is the line static, and always there at the beginning of a new game, or would we actually expand it out to allow players to build their own routes?)- this is certainly on the table, however, and we'd like to include it alongside the import/export system. And now, back to work! There are still many hours of darkness left.

[ 2017-05-12 22:06:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

So, it's definitely time for some news from us. I feel like I've repeated myself with this many times over so to summarise (please don't take this as any sort of a rant- I'm just outlining what's going on to try and better explain why everything is taking so long): At this point, we're still not ready, but the rebuild is coming together now. We are still very much here, and working 7 days a week as we have been for several months now, and will continue to do so until the game is ready. All of our future plans are still on the table, and will be relatively easy to put into place once the framework is finished. All I can say now is that it's going well, and will take as long as it takes, and I personally guarantee that work will continue at this rate until the first true beta is out for you guys to explore. The first full release will be followed by intense change cycles- back to daily-or-so updates as we first provided (the reason we're unable to do this right now is that due to the amount of work involved, we have to finish the full rebuild before we can release the base version, but then we can get back to intense update cycles as we had initially, with constant improvements- only on a solid base this time around). Once we have all of the feedback in and polishes made, we'll move onto new features and begin the real Early Access cycle. We've been hearing a few comments about us not understanding the resources required, and even points about us not knowing what we're doing based on an unfinished product, which I believe is down to the fact that we're yet to publish our first true build. At the same time, we appreciate this of course, because we can see that we still have a very interested community which wants to see the project completed! I'm still glad with our decision to go down the EA route so early, as it's allowed us to gather a lot of feedback with the initial builds and take these thoughts into consideration with the rebuild. The main time constraint right now is multiplayer, which I'm building in response to lots of requests for online gameplay, which is going extremely well. There is an enormous amount of work involved with every system due to security, because cheating has to be prevented for all features. In short, each system means that I have to consider offline gameplay, online gameplay (i.e. how things sync up, how people could try to exploit the system, and how things can be handled and compressed to cut down on bandwidth usage), and then of course we have to finish it off with all of the artwork. To try and better explain this, take something as simple as picking fruit from a cactus. In singleplayer, it's pretty simple- add the fruit to the player's inventory, hide the fruit on the cactus model, and tell the framework to keep an eye on the cactus and regrow it's fruit over time. With multiplayer, it's a lot more complicated. If somebody wants to pick the fruit, they need to tell the server what they want to do, and simulate all of this locally with temporary data (Frontier's lag compensation system, so you don't notice any delay between asking the server and waiting for it to reply, which is included with every single networked system). The server then needs to check that the data they sent is valid, whether the cactus is ready for harvesting or not, and also that the player is close enough to be able to pick that fruit. If it's allowed, the server needs to reply to the player with their temporary data and the real data to replace it with, and also tell everybody else that the cactus was harvested. If any of the checks fail, then we know that the player was cheating, and the server then kicks them automatically. Likewise, when the cactus regrows, everybody needs to be notified that it's once again ready to be harvested, and they need to update their local knowledge of that cactus. This is all done with a heuristic LOD system, which basically means that updates are calculated based on time, and objects are only processed when players are nearby. That's for something as simple as harvesting a plant- you can imagine how complicated things get when for systems such as framework security, identity verification, item syncing, etc. It will all be worth it in the end, allowing us to build a secure and efficient multiplayer environment to expand on. Now, with all that out of the way, let's take a look at what's been going on!

Map Integration

The full 64km² terrain is now integrated, complete with ultra-HD rendering, PBR materials and a lightning-fast LOD system (in both single and multiplayer). All games are randomised to add some variation. Plants, including grass, trees and cacti, and certain structures such as mines, are generated randomly at the beginning of every new game to allow us to stick with a high-quality base map while bringing exciting semi-procedural generation, to add some extra depth to each playthrough.

Mining

Karsten has built an awesome mine kit for us to use, which is now finished up and integrated. As touched on earlier, mine interiors are randomly generated at the beginning of every game, giving you different layouts to explore.
Mines contain respawning veins for ore collection.

Smelting

The mining system also encompasses a full smelting setup, which will fully come into play when ingame economies (with imports and exports) are added. For now, ingots are very useful crafting resources, which are made by smelting ore in a furnace, fuelled with wood, coal or even charcoal.
The are currently 5 metal resource types in game; iron, copper, lead, silver and gold (though coal and sulphur can also be found in mines). Basic iron, copper and lead ingots can be made for crafting, but silver and gold can be smelted into bars of masses 50oz, 100oz, 200oz and 400oz. This is geared toward trade at a future date, to build the foundation of an economy- more on this later!

Customisation Profiles

During a graphics overhaul, I added in a pretty unique feature- graphics profiles. The system allows you to easily customise exactly which graphics tech your game uses, which can seem a little technical in some areas, but is very straightforward to use. This includes the basics such as antialiasing, bloom and motion blur, all the way to ambient occlusion, chromatic aberration and advanced colour grading. Profiles are saved to a custom file format, making it easy to grab and share between machines. We may kick off Workshop support with these, to make stylised graphics profiles readily available to everyone.

HAARP

Our brand new weather simulation and control system, dubbed HAARP, is now fully integrated. We've done away with rain and storms for the time being to keep a consistent dry, scorched theme, and I have instead put more time into the core. This is shown throughout the screenshots, but to note the hidden features, there is full mist, atmospheric scattering, a 30-phase HD lunar cycle, dynamic star simulation and it's all fully deterministic, allowing it to be synced in multiplayer by simply grabbing a few bytes of data when a player joins.
Next, I'll be finalising the major systems. We're still waiting on some animation work, but I'll get to work on completing the tree chopping and mining systems as soon as I have the files. This will complete all the basic gameplay features. From there, I have a lot of minor tweaks to make, before doing a deploy test for multiplayer, at which point we will do final testing and then release the rebuild. A huge thank you goes out to everyone for sticking around with us. I never wanted to spend half the time we already have doing this, but it's unfortunately a necessary evil. Please stay positive, and don't lose hope- we are still here, 100%, and the next time you see a post about the game being dead, please remember that we're right here, in the background. We'll try to keep you all as up-to-date as possible via Twitter, but we don't always have enough new content to grab screenshots constantly since most of the new features are all in code. On the whole though, things are going very well, if slowly, and we're approaching wrapping the base up!

[ 2017-04-23 21:06:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for some news! We're making great strides now and are at a point where we can show off what's been going on. Lots of the main systems have been wrapped up and polished, and everything is starting to take shape!

Terrain

First off, a huge tip of the hat goes to Karsten for his awesome work on the terrain design! We're bringing you an all-new 64km² gameworld to explore and make your own! Shown here is a tiny slice of the whole thing; the final details are still being wrapped up, after which we'll be adding an enormous river and populating everything with cacti, trees and plants for you to harvest.
The terrain layout is very specific- there are lots of passes and vantage points which are perfect for ambushing players on their way back from a mining trip, or getting revenge on your rivals. And with plenty of secluded spots up on the rocky plateaus, you can discover the perfect spot for your hideout!

Weapons

The weapons systems are nearing completion. I've designed them in a way which will let us add new weapons with ease in the future; the basic animations are all motion capture clips, which are controlled through code while playing the game to reposition the player's hands and arms based on the weapon they're using.
The holstering system is fully procedural- you can carry a primary firearm on your back and a sidearm on your belt. You can easily swap active weapons through your inventory.

Building

The building system has been rebuilt from the ground up to bring the best performance possible. Additional polish and features will be added as the project progresses.

Miscellaneous

Certain building blocks now allow for item storage. The backend is in place for locking container access to certain player- by default we are leaving containers open so anybody can open a container, but a server option will be put in place to either lock container access to the player who placed the container, and/or to allow the owner of the container to grant access to other players themselves. I've commissioned a set of animations from a master mocap studio which has worked on high-profile AAA titles, which include swimming and crafting clips. These will be retargeted ingame to keep them aligned with the camera view. I've finished a kick/ban system for all multiplayer servers. Servers are VAC-secured as standard to detect clientside cheats such as aimbots, while our own security systems actively monitor hacking (for systems such as the inventory, crafting, building, and so on), and kick cheaters from your servers. You can easily kick and/or ban players from an ingame menu. And for the inevitable- the timeline. Trust me, nobody wants to get this update out to you guys more than I do, but Lacuna won't push it out until we're totally happy with the core systems. Everything is getting there now- we'll post further announcements when we have enough new visuals to show off!

[ 2017-02-15 11:31:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

While we're all working on new features, we have a quick preview of the upgraded animation system to share with everyone. It features all-new clips, blending techniques, IK (headlook, foot placement) and a robust combat system. Next up is to finish the remaining multiplayer framework features, and then we'll get started on tools/weapons. The inventory and building systems have been upgraded.

[ 2016-11-15 00:25:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Long time no see, huh? Don't worry, we've been very busy. After missing out on the first investment, we decided to evaluate our setup and work out a way to get things rolling on our own. And I'm pleased to say that we've made a lot of changes to ensure that we can finish Frontier. The animations were causing a lot of trouble, and we ended up in a dead end with the system we had planned. This has been rethought to make it easier to build, and while we still have to do this, we won't be running into the same issues. From reading through the forums, it was clear that multiplayer is high on the list of what you guys want to see. Bearing this in mind, we pulled all of the art assets we wanted to keep, and scrapped every last line of code from the original project. Why? Rather than wasting time converting old systems to multiplayer early next year, and having to work out the bugs as we go, we decided to put down the project so far as one big test. We've learned a lot and won't be making the same mistakes twice. This is what we've achieved since scrapping everything about 2 weeks ago:

• Can host a server on your own PC
• Can join a friend's server by IP address
• New custom save system (no more XML for save files); .sav files for players, .svr files for servers
• Total graphical overhaul; PBR for everything
• Chat system on servers
• All-new character creation system with dozens of extra options
• Inventory system working over network; rebuilt to use lists instead of a grid, with a carry weight feature based on your stamina
• New XP/stats system with classes in addition to the old ranks
• Character data syncs over network

Things are moving along nicely and while we still have a lot to do, the boring parts are out of the way and we have a good base ready to build on. There are a handful of things left to sort out with the framework but that will take a couple more days at most, after which we will begin on the new animation system and start to build the systems from there (mining, hunting, etc.). The animations are by far the most time-consuming area; coding the systems will take no time at all. But for now, let's take a closer look at what's going on.

Multiplayer

Our plans for multiplayer are to eventually allow you to rent a dedicated server which is online 24/7, but for now we are limiting the system to self-hosted games. This means that you need to be playing for your friends to join your server, but it's free. We hope that this is a relatively short-term setup, for now though it's simply not viable for us to do this with dedicated servers. Our goal is to use the Amazon EC2 cloud to host servers, eventually. As of now, I think our system is pretty neat. When someone joins your server, their PC talks with yours to find out info about the game. They first ask if they have a save file (when somebody saves their game the file is sent to the host and stored on their PC), and if they do then all their data is sent over and they can play. If not, they are sent to character creation. This prevents cheating by players, but the host is free to change save data, which is something we did on purpose. Save files are managed by your SteamID, which is unique, so there can be players with the same display names without any save conflicts. Our code has been planned to keep bandwidth as low as possible so you don't need a great connection to play without any lag. The data which has to be synced will increase when we add in new systems, but we're confident that multiplayer performance will always be good, even on self-hosted servers.
The chat system is finished and lets players talk with each other at any time. It can easily be hidden or brought back up with keyboard shortcuts so it doesn't get in the way.
Other players can easily be identified by their "marker", which appears above nearby players. This shows their name, class, and rank. We haven't fully built the player class system but the idea is that players can unlock new class types as they progress. Each class has 3 levels (subject to change) which you can use to show off your achievements. For example, as you rack up hunting kills you will progress in the hunter branch and earn new designations. And if you have huge trading profits, you can unlock new trader classes to show on your marker. There is already a large variety of classes written into the system, but they won't be functional until we've built all the supporting systems so you can actually unlock them.

Graphical Update

We've mentioned PBR a few times in the past, but for those of you who don't know what it's all about, here's a brief summary. In short, PBR (physically based rendering) uses a combination of textures to push graphics to the most realistic limits. We use real-world material data to make objects shine (literally, sometimes); it's all about lighting. Wood reflects light differently to leather, and this is all taken into account to create the most realistic effects possible. The colour and intensity of light sources affect surfaces, as shown below.
Shown above is the character creation scene at 4 different times of the day. As you can see, every object changes based on the lighting, just as they do in the real world. This even applies to the plants scattered across Frontier's landscape. Speaking of which, I worked on some new techniques to create hand-drawn plants for the game, which are very performance-friendly but look complex. We'll be building a library of trees, grasses, flowers and bushes to populate the new map with.

Character Creation

Character creation has undergone a major overhaul, with tons of new options added. This is all done with PBR, too. We've also brought in stubble for the face and head as new hair options, which weren't in the first system. Eye colour can now be changed along with skin colour, which were bugged previously.

I came up with some scary-looking abominations while testing:
Hair has been thought out in a new way to let it work properly with hats. Each type of hair now has two versions; full, and clipped, which is where the top half is sliced away so it all fits under your hat. The game works out if a player is wearing a hat and then displays the correct type of hair.

Terrain

We can't show anything just yet but Karsten is hard at work on the new terrain. This will replace the map everyone is used to seeing so far. This is the first sketch of the design, which is mostly accurate though the coastline has been changed slightly.
There will be distant mountains visible in the background and certain exists which are blocked by rocks and other obstacles. When we add new map zones in the future, they will be connected to these exists and the obstacles removed, so you can walk from one zone to the other without us having to build everything in one go. We'll post more updates on the map with early screenshots as Karsten progresses over the coming weeks. +++--------------------------------+++ We hate to keep everyone waiting, and we know that there's certainly been a lot of it, but we all agree that this is in everybody's best interests. Our reasoning is that through multiplayer there will be a whole new angle to the game, and player interaction will make the entire experience much more enjoyable. With multiplayer, we should be able to make enough sales to expand the team without the need for outside investment, and we can progress from there.

So, when is this all coming?

Soon™ It all depends on the animation more than anything, and if it goes especially smoothly we can maybe think about a release around Christmas time. This is not guaranteed in any way, and it will probably take us longer, but development has been stepped up significantly. Frontier is my full-time job, and Karsten and Dazalius are spending every possible minute to ensure that we can complete our plans. We all want to say one more enormous thank you to those of you who have stuck around through the uncertainty over the past couple of months. We've heard some concerns, and rightly so, about the devs being quiet on the forums, and as a result I will resolve to check the forums daily to keep on top of your posts. Feel free to drop a comment below with your thoughts on the new plans, or leave a message over on the forums!

[ 2016-10-14 21:54:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all, So, some good/bad news today. Let's start with the bad news; unfortunately, we were unsuccessful with the initial investment, however we received excellent feedback from the team at Microsoft and they loved the idea, plus stated that they agree Frontier could fill a very large gap in the market. The only thing they were unhappy with was the sheer size of the project; they believe that we're being too ambitious, though that's what I like to hear! On the upside, I have some further investment meetings lined up. It's unlikely that we'll receive any funding for at least a couple of months, likely a little while longer, but one rejection is far from the end of the road. Crowdfunding (not Kickstarter-esque, I mean crowdfunding in larger amounts from serial investors) is also a possibility if we are unsuccessful. We will keep working on things while sourcing funding. As expected, it will take a while with just the three of us but as always, we are not giving up and would like to remind everyone that we will do our best to make this work. A quick note on development- I managed to fix some major issues with the new player controller so we are certainly getting somewhere. We'll let you all know when we make more progress.

[ 2016-09-01 09:53:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi guys, I did not want to make this post until I had some more solid news, but given the recent forum posts I think it is important to tell you all this now. Because of the small team size, I have been looking into funding options. Creative England run an excellent startup fund and after a formal application, I have been invited to pitch to themselves, Microsoft and a panel of investors in person. I didn't want to post this just yet, but it seems important at this stage to let everyone know what's going on. If successful, Lacuna will be opening a local studio with an extra 6 full-time developers and one more part-time contractor, while the three of us will continue on the project. If these conditions are met, we will also be launching on Xbox One after the PC, Mac and Linux builds are in beta. With those levels of staff, we can aim for a multiplayer release in February 2017. The first week will be aimed at cleaning up the project and finally getting the non-PC bugs fixed, which will be easy with a full studio. As of writing, nothing is finalised but I am feeling highly optimistic for the future. I just have to ask everyone to relax a little; I know things have been painfully slow lately but we are honestly doing everything we can to move things along. I will post an announcement as soon as I have news. In the meantime, we have made a lot more progress. Clothing is now fully working in-game, and functions are in place to swap clothing with a single line of code (so once we add more outfits, they will take literally seconds to integrate). There is also a range of hairstyles and facial hair options for you to choose from!

Karsten has been finalising the mine construction kit and I love the new details! Once the player animations are upgraded we'll spend a couple of days on new resources so you can explore mines and learn locations for resources (if you need gold, go to mine A, etc.). We're excited to move this to multiplayer- you'll be able to capture and hold down a mine with your friends, export the resources and make a huge profit. Outlaw-style players (and NPCs) will attempt to rob your shipments, so make sure to send some guards!
As I said above, we can't promise anything just yet but I will have more info soon. We ask that everyone please remembers this- there has been a lot of worry on the forums lately, but we will not stop until Frontier is complete. This is a very personal project for us and remains out highest priority, and we hope that you all stick around with us to see Frontier grow! Thanks as always, -Josh

[ 2016-08-16 08:47:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Things are starting to shape up nicely now! The default male outfit is ready to be added into the character customisation system and should be fully working with the animations this week. I think Karsten did a really nice job with the texture on this one!
He also finished stitching together the first version of the first mine, which will be available to explore in the next update. Instead of surface mining, you'll have to explore mineshafts to find ore veins if you need any metal. Rocks above the ground will still be useful for providing stone, but you won't find random golden nuggets so easily. Note that the mine still needs some hanging lanterns, barrels and loot before it's fully fleshed out.
When the first "beta" map arrives (planned for within 3 months), gold panning will give you another option for finding riches. In preparation for the next map, we've been making yet another round of adjustments to the terrain shader, trying to achieve a more realistic look.
There's also a neat little feature coming with 0.3.0- ultrares screenshots. We discovered SuperSampling, a technique which can dynamically change the game resolution. It's heavy on FPS so we're adding it along with screenshots- it will double the quality of images captured ingame! Here's a sample:
We are also pleased to announce that our original website is back online after some domain issues- you can now find us at www.lacunacorporation.com. We will be expanding the site over the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading! I'll post some screenshots once the clothing is fully integrated. We're excited to finally be making significant progress with 0.3.0! And as always, feel free to come and check in with us on the forums!

[ 2016-07-17 21:02:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys, Long time no see. We've been quiet the past month and there have been some concerns on the forums that the project is no longer on track and even a couple of questions that we may have given up on it. Well, I just wanted to quickly clarify that Frontier is far from over and the reason that we've been quiet is simply that there's sadly not a ton of news to share just yet. A ton of progress has been made but the vast majority of it is backend, meaning that even though countless hours have gone into the next update so far, most of it is code so you can't actually see what's changed in the game. And that would be pretty boring to share! I don't believe we ever actually told you about the team size, and in light of recent events now would be a good time to clear things up. BlazeMcNight has left the team, and it's important to note that he was our PR manager (which is also why the forums have been a lot less lively). As a result, because he wasn't a developer, the actual work rate has not decreased and the effective team size is the same. It simply didn't work out between us and we have gone our separate ways. Now we are left with only myself, Dazalius and Karsten. Frontier was built by the three of us since the beginning, with the exception of a couple of freelancers who were with us for a short while when we started the project (though their work has since been replaced by our own). The amount of work we have is no small task even for a well-staffed studio, which is the main reason things have been slow lately. So, what exactly has been done since last time? Well, while they're certainly nothing fancy, I went ahead and grabbed a couple of screenshots of the work-in-progress systems so you can see at least some of the progress. First up, this is the default male outfit. It still needs texturing but I created the models for ingame tests in the meantime. The female outfit will be pretty similar and you won't be able to change clothes until a couple more updates into the future, when we add in multiple clothing items. Better than running away from bears with no clothes on though, right?
I'm currently working through the 1st/3rd person system, which is being extremely awkward. Because of current project constraints, I am the only person who is able to work on the player update so in short I'm doing a job for several developers on my own, which is why it's taking so long. Right now I'm working upwards of 14 hours a day to get it done ASAP but there's still a long way to go. Please just know that we haven't abandoned the project in any way- in all honestly, it's an enormous task and these things take time but it will be worth it in the end.
I'm still considering various options for making it work better but on the whole the base is pretty solid. Once I've finished this, I'll integrate Daz and Karsten's work into the main project and 0.3.0 will finally be ready. The bad news is that right now, I really can't say how long it's going to take me because I keep running into issues and having to adapt to them, but fingers crossed it will be as painless as possible. Again, we haven't been active on the forums much lately but I'll do my best to answer your questions. We all want to personally thank everyone who has stuck with us through development. It sure is a shaky bridge but we will continue to do everything we can to get this out to you guys in good time. Thanks again!

[ 2016-07-02 11:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We've been a little quiet lately but we're making great progress. The inventory rebuild turned out to be a bigger task than we first expected, and is still being worked on. This has given me time to look into an old character avatar system available for our engine. It worked well so I extended it to work with our setup and character generation is now integrated. You can customise everything from your character's gender to forearm length. I also have it saving and loading characters with each save file, and the systems are in place to add clothing. There's still a lot to be done but I'm working on this every second I can, and it will make multiplayer possible once it's finished. We had to come up with a way to replace our first-person rig with a full 3D setup, and this is a very efficient solution. It will keep performance impact to a minimum when we extend everything to multiplayer. This will be the next major update- the game is sort of in "surgery" right now and we have to close everything up before it's playable again. Right now my biggest problem is an issue with applying animations to the loaded characters. Once it's fixed I need to create some basic clothes to act as placeholders for the time being. This will just be a single outfit in the beginning- more clothing models will be added in future updates. Speaking of clothing, we've had some questions around armour and combat gear. Plans are to eventually add leather armours, and similar lightweight gear to help with damage reduction. These are far-off plans, but they're definitely a part of customisation we want to include. I've also replaced the old camera control setup with a brand new controller. You can now CTRL-scroll to zoom in or out, and you will seamlessly jump between 3rd and 1st person mode if zooming in past a fixed value. It's possible to jump between modes without zooming by hitting 'V'. The camera is attached to your character's head, so your eye level always depends on the character size you choose. Here's a quick preview:

I will be working on this all week, and hopefully the animation issue will be resolved by the weekend. I'll then be able to rebuild all of the old tool systems with the new 3D rig. It's a big job, but once it's finished we'll be ready to expand the game with all sorts of new systems. Our environment artist has also been hard at work building a construction set for us. It's a kit of mine sections for building structures you can explore. One idea we have is to add in the ability to purchase mines, to create a realistic economy on servers. This would be beside other lucrative roles, so there are many different ways you could build a fortune. Here are a few renders of his work:


He has also been trying out a few ideas for the first map update. We are aiming for an iconic Western setting with desert lands, plains and even rivers. He designed a "monument generator" which creates layered sandy landmarks which will be scattered across the landscape, and this will form the basis of the new environment. They are all unique- below is a preview of just one variant.
You can see more of his creations at: https://sketchfab.com/playdagaimz We are still at a junction with the Mac and Linux issues. We are doing our best to resolve them but it's very difficult for us to trace the cause of the problem. We have ensured that everything we do is suited for multiplatform use, and the rendering chain is configured to work with both DirectX and OpenGL- in other words, the most common causes of these sorts of problems simply aren't there. It is still a work in progress but we are determined to find out what is causing this issue and we will continue to look into fixes. We apologise again to everyone who has purchased the game for Mac and Linux and would like to remind you that we haven't stopped working on the problem. That's about it for our first Devlog. We will post more of these inbetween updates so everyone can keep up to date on what we're doing. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to post in our Steam forums or leave a comment below and we will get back to you as soon as we can! We have a lot of upcoming plans and the team is excited to create the huge simulation we've pictured since the beginning!

[ 2016-05-23 15:00:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Evening everyone, 0.2.0 is now available for you to download through Steam. However, the campfire and container system has not been added in just yet- we were integrating it to work with the existing code but after testing all week, we've realised that the inventory system is going to have to be rebuilt again for everything to work seamlessly. The good news is that we're only expecting this to take 4 or 5 days, so the campfire and container features should be available by the weekend (possibly mid-week, if we're fast). For now, the full survival system has been added and you can eat the (raw) meat you collect while hunting. 0.2.2 will let you cook meat over a campfire, store your items in certain items of furniture and will also bring some new plants and food items for you to eat. Another new feature has been brought in with 0.2.0. This wasn't planned, but I thought we needed something more interesting for the thirst system than just wells (which are also available), so you can now build "cactus taps". These are wooden bowls with hollow spikes which you can hammer to cacti- they will drain water from the cactus and accumulate over time. You can refill your hip flask with fresh water by selecting the flask and interacting with the water. Along with various bugfixes, improvements and optimisations, some random structures have been placed on the map to make things more interesting. The new map is well underway and the whole terrain will soon be replaced with an enormous plains biome.

0.2.0 Changelog:

• Full survival system with temperature-affected hunger and thirst
• Earn XP for almost everything you do, rank up and build your character
• Upgrade your stats (health, stamina, max hunger and max thirst)
• Unlock perks to help you tame the wilderness
• Navigate the frontier with your new built-in HUD compass
• Discover new locations and earn more XP for finding the most secretive spots
• Wells placed around the map- refill your hip flask at these
• Cactus Taps added- use these to drain water from cacti
• GUI overhauled- almost all of the UI elements have been retextured from scratch and are now optimised for multiresolution scaling without any quality loss
• Terrain shader upgraded to include random perlin noise generation, heightmap blending and more realistic light handling
• Player notification system to keep you informed of your status.
• Various optimisations and bugfixes

As always, we're available on the forums to answer your questions and respond to your feedback. Thanks again for the continued support! We'll do our best to get 0.2.2 out ASAP.

[ 2016-05-08 20:48:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for another update from our team- we've all been hard at work getting the next update ready but there have been a few unexpected bugs. We expect to have them ironed out, along with finishing off the remaining new features which are coming in 0.2.0, by Friday. We are confident for a release this weekend.

0.2.0 Overview

• Full survival system with temperature-affected hunger and thirst
• Use a campfire to cook any meat you harvest
• Store your items in furniture with storage capacity
• Earn XP for almost everything you do, rank up and build your character
• Upgrade your stats (health, stamina, max hunger and max thirst)
• Unlock perks to help you tame the wilderness
• Navigate the frontier with your new built-in HUD compass
• Discover new locations and earn more XP for finding the most secretive spots
• GUI overhauled- almost all of the UI elements have been retextured from scratch and are optimised for multiresolution scaling without any quality loss
• Terrain shader upgraded to include random perlin noise generation, heightmap blending and more realistic light handling
• Various optimisations and bugfixes

If all goes according to plan, 0.2.0 will be out for download this weekend.

[ 2016-05-03 20:26:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've been quiet for the past week or so but work is continuing- the next update is well underway now. Hunger, thirst, campfire cooking, XP and levelling are coming soon. We've aimed to make the survival system as realistic as possible- thirst will deplete depending on how hot you are, healing is based on how much food you've eaten (so if you're starving, you won't heal and will die unless you eat something pretty quickly), and all consumables have different properties. The properties allow us to link the systems together, so roasted meat may fill a lot of hunger but will make you more thirsty, while a berry might restore a little of both. You will earn XP points for all sorts of activities, and ranking up will allow you to upgrade your vitals and unlock perks. This system will be expanded on heavily in the future. We are always optimising the game, and certain parts of the code have been streamlined further to make things more smooth. This comes along with a few minor bugfixes. We will post more detailed news closer to release!

[ 2016-04-19 11:39:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've made a few changes today and have some news on the Mac front. If you're having issues on Mac, please try the instructions outlined at the end of this post.

So, what's new?

Today I have been doing some tests with mesh destruction and it went very well. Destructible glass has been added to decanters and fancy glasses- if you shoot them or throw TNT at them, they will dynamically fracture into glass shards with almost no performance cost. This system is ready to be added to other objects- we aren't sure how far we are going to go with the destructible environment but for now it will be limited to glass items. The framework is in place to allow us to fracture large models while taking gravity and structural integrity into account, so if you shot a support out then the material above would collapse. This will likely be added to certain objects already in the world- stone statues and bridges, for example- but not to full player-built structures (or else there would be a serious FPS drop). There are also multiple bugfixes and changes included in 0.1.4. Here is the full changelog: Frontier v0.1.4 Alpha Changelog: -Added destructible glass for decanters and drinking glasses. -Made furnace craftable. -Fixed issue with saloon doors not saving. -Upgraded glass distortion shader. -Fixed placement issues with certain objects. -Refined some textures and normal maps. -Fixed issue causing cursor to be visible when starting a game.

Mac Issues? Try this

We're still working on the Mac and Linux issues and we now believe that it may be a permissions error. If you are on a Mac and are unable to launch, please try the following and let us know if it works:

• Open up a terminal
• Type "chmod +x" (without the quotation marks)
• Find the game executable (your steam apps folderFrontier.appContentsMacOSFrontier <<< this file) and drag it to the terminal
• Hit enter

We aren't sure if this will fix it but our team does not have access to a Mac for another couple of days, so if somebody could let us know if our suspicions are correct that would really help us out. If this works, we will simply automate this process so when you download the game it automatically has the correct permissions. Marked for fixing in the next patch are some minor but annoying bugs, such as firing while in a menu. This will be out before too long.

[ 2016-04-09 19:04:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today's update has gone very well. Several bugs have been fixed and I rebuilt the old loading screen into a clean and responsive system. Now the people who have experienced hangs while loading should no longer see this issue. Here's the full changelog: Frontier v0.1.3 Alpha Changelog: -New main menu music (licensed by AudioSparx) -Main menu saloon update -Added a lightweight loading screen -Fixed issue preventing interaction with crafting stations -Fixed issue preventing doors from being opened -Fixed mounted head collision problems -Fixed light chunking problems -Tens of component retrieval calls packed into one line of code for optimisation -Ambient lighting tweaked to prevent artifacting -Point light processing tweaked to fix contrast glitch -Various minor optimisations

[ 2016-04-08 00:22:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, Today we've got a new update for you all. We've revamped the main menu, fixed a few problems and made some minor tweaks. Here's the full changelog:

• Main menu replaced with saloon scene
• Changelog added to main menu
• Information tab turned into basic help section
• Ambient music added to main menu
• Fixed issue with saving certain blocks (mounted heads, crafting stations and doors)- reported by Zord
• Fixed issue with getting stuck in crafting menus- reported by Zord
• Made various tweaks to certain object shaders
• Added new normal maps
• Upgraded candle flame simulation

[ 2016-04-06 18:33:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again! My apologies for all the announcements- I said earlier today that we'd discovered a bug with the engine which was out of our control. However, I did manage to track down the source of the problem- it's a long and boring story involving multiple monitor settings and how they're handled by the game. We disabled the update calls for them and you can now launch in fullscreen mode, in any resolution, without having button issues. You still have the option to launch into windowed mode (which you can even resize across multiple monitors, just drag the window and it will scale accordingly), and you can toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode in the options menu or by hitting alt+enter. booglover23 reported a bug with the furnace to our team this morning- we've fixed that in this patch as well. You can now make all the ingots you want! During testing, I noticed that the inventory icons are not always scaling properly- they might look a bit too small for their slots in some cases. We're aware of this and it will most likely be fixed in the next patch, along with a couple of other minor issues we came across.

[ 2016-04-04 23:06:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, With the launch of 0.1.0 earlier today, we were expecting all of the GUI bugs to have been fixed. However, we're still receiving bug reports of buttons being out of place and panels not being the right size. We have a temporary workaround so you can still play while we work on a fix. The issue itself is a bug with our engine, and it seems that many developers are having similar issues- unfortunately it's not open-source, so we can't actually fix it ourselves. This issue only happens in fullscreen mode so if you launch in windowed mode it should work. You can also switch between fullscreen and windowed mode ingame by pausing the game, and selecting the fullscreen button in the options menu (or just hit alt+enter). We'll keep you all updated. Hopefully we will find a fix for this soon.

[ 2016-04-04 14:14:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Evening, all, We're very happy to announce that 0.1.0 is finally here! We'll go over all the details in just a minute, but before we get started we want to let our Mac and Linux users know that fixing their issues is now our top priority. We've been swamped under with the rebuild for 0.1.0 which put the game in a difficult state for testing- now that it's stable, we'll be able to look further into your issues. We have a couple of leads and will be following them over the coming days. Again, we apologise for the delays- this has been unexpectedly difficult to fix, but we hope to have a patch out soon. In the meantime, if you're on Windows, you can now download 0.1.0 through Steam! Here's a brief list of what we've been up to:

• Inventory code rebuilt from scratch
• Crafting system rebuilt from scratch
• Building system rebuilt from scratch
• Save/load system rebuilt from scratch
• Workbench added
• Toolbench added
• Wooden door added
• Saloon doors added
• TNT added
• New 3D flower and fern models
• Heightmaps added to ground textures for a realistic 3D effect
• Terrain shader colour handling tweaked
• Starting area added
• Many bugfixes, stability improvements and optimisations

We will be focusing all our attention on fixing the Mac and Linux builds before we continue working on the game, but we've already got plans laid out for the next update. As always, we'd love to hear your feedback and read your bug reports, so give us a shout on the forums if you're having any trouble with the new version! We're expecting to hear a few minor bug reports over the next couple of days, and if that's the case then we'll release a patch sometime this week, hopefully also fixing the Mac and Linux standalones. Enjoy! -The Lacuna Team.

[ 2016-04-04 01:06:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for another update on where things are at! Our lead programmer is hours away from finishing the rebuild. The inventory, crafting, saving and building systems have been rebuilt from scratch, fixing bugs and bringing new features to the game. There are now various crafting systems; some things can be built by hand, but for other recipes you'll need a workbench. The building system also allows you to dynamically change floor height, so you can have more control over your creations. Buildings are now grouped, so when you create a structure we can identify it as a building. In future updates, this will be used by NPCs to figure out what you've made. There are too many changes to name in this post but most of them are behind-the-scenes; things which make the game much more stable and bugfree. Once this is ready, it has to be integrated with the main project. This is the next big task as everything needs to be recreated around the system upgrades, and we are expecting it to take about a week. This is just an estimate and we will not be revealing a release date for 0.1.0; it could take longer, but may take even less time. We'll give you all a surprise update once it's ready! So, what new features are being added? While 0.1.0 is focused on bugfixes and improvements, there are some new features too;

• Wooden doors- interact to open and close
• Saloon doors- these automatically swing open when you push them by walking through, and bounce back into position
• TNT- a multi-use tool, perfect for hillbilly-style hunting, easy DIY butchery or even mining. Simply light and throw (and run)
• A wildlife update- new, handcrafted 3D flowers, ferns and plants which sway in the wind, bringing a more realistic look to the environment

Features are subject to change and may be improved further before 0.1.0, depending on how much time we have. We are aiming to get this out ASAP, but it's still hard to judge when we will be finished. We're sure it will be worth the wait! As always, we are available on the forums every day- we encourage you to come and have a chat with us about development! Thanks!

[ 2016-03-25 22:47:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've been quiet for the past few days so we wanted to quickly let you all know what we're up to. The code rebuild is going very well. Our lead programmer has made a lot of progress so far, and we are still on schedule for 0.1.0, which is due to be released around the end of the month (or shortly thereafter). The first human NPC is now in the game, and is going to be used to demonstrate our dialogue system. He is a merchant, so you'll be able to talk to him and buy items to help you on your travels. I am still working on getting everything set up but this will most likely make it in 0.1.0. We've also made a ton of optimisations and tweaks for a better user experience. After 0.1.0, our focus will be on adding in new features as the core features will be in a more polished state. This will give us the chance to work on new systems, while also updating existing ones. We plan on revamping the weapons system to make it more modular- this will let us add in new firearms in less time. There is still a lot of work to be done, but know that we're working around the clock to get things ready! Thanks again, -The devs.

[ 2016-03-20 19:09:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, Today we have another update for you all. This will resolve a couple of the issues people have been having and also brings a couple of new features.

Changelog:

• Added furnace preview- turn your ore into ingots
• Added ability to select hotbar slot using number keys
• Fixed issue with wooden planks falling through ground
• Tweaked terrain shaders for a more themed look
• Various code optimisations made
• Several minor bugfixes (GUI issues, timing issues and other small problems resolved)

We are aware of issues a few of our Mac users seem to be experiencing but we have not yet been able to track down the source of the problem. It seems that the game is launching for some users but not for others, so it is most likely a conflict or a missing dependency. We are continuing to look into this issue and apologise for the delays, it's hard to work out what's going on as we are unable to reproduce the issue. We hope this will be resolved soon. In the meantime, if everyone could keep the bug reports and feedback coming we'd really appreciate it! Thanks guys, and don't forget the devs are around on the forums to answer your questions :) -Josh.

[ 2016-03-15 23:31:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

I spent the weekend working on a little smelting system for the game. You can throw your spare ore into a furnace and it will automatically mould it into an ingot for you. Check it out here: YouTube This will be making it into 0.1.0, along with the other new crafting mechanics. It still needs a lot of polishing off, but it's a good start. We're planning on making it so you can eventually pick up and drag items, so you won't even need to use a GUI- you'll just pick up your ore and drop it into the smelter.

[ 2016-03-13 20:39:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Evening, everyone, In light of recent discussions, we've decided to announce the first major update for Frontier so you cann all get a better idea of what's coming next. We will stoll be releasing additional patches before this update is out, so don't worry- we won't be going AWOL while we work on this.

Frontier v0.1.0 Alpha

0.1.0 Alpha is planned for release around the end of this month. The Early Access launch revealed a lot of bugs and with the help of the (awesome) community, we've already released two patches to tackle the worst of these issues. But things are still unstable, which is why the first uodate will be centered around stabilising our core code and overhauling the crafting system.

• Rebuild inventory, building, crafting and save system code from scratch to fix bugs and increase stability
• Add in new crafting mechanics, including smelters and workbenches plus campfire cooking
• Many minor bugfixes, tweaks, optimisations and other various changes to improve your Frontier experience

The first map zone will be arriving not much later. The current map is a very basic demo. We will soon be replacing it with the "plains zone", a 16 square kilometre map which will be just one of several areas you can visit in the final game. We have a lot of things going on right now which are mostly focused on getting the current features working flawlessly, but before too long we will begin to develop exciting new gameplay features. NPCs are going to be a very important part of the game so we want to get started with those as soon as we can. And finally, on behalf of the dev team, I want to say a huge thank you to the community! We have now been on Steam for 6 days and we've read and used tons of player-submitted bug reports already. We've been receiving great feedback so far and people have been very understanding where bugs are concerned, and we're excited that we can now start to really turn Frontier into a memorable experience with input from our players! As always, our door is open so to speak- you can come and have a chat with us on the official Steam group discssion forums about anything game-related. We have been extremely busy lately but we try our best to reply to everyone as fast as we can, so please check back for a reply :) Thanks, -Josh, Lacuna Corp.

[ 2016-03-10 23:23:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.0.3 Alpha is now live! You can download this patch via Steam as soon as you are ready to explore! We've been getting a lot of bug reports concerning the inventory and crafting systems. These should now (mostly) be resolved, meaning that you can craft everything once again. You should have no trouble picking items up either now, which was an unusual issue caused by the last update.

Changelog:

• Terrain shader overhauled
• New terrain textures and 3D effects- no more "flat" looking ground
• Terrain colourmap applied- "green" terrain bug fixed
• Item pickup bug fixed
• Crafting not creating item bug fixed
• Grass shader optimised for lower graphics impact

If you've been experiencing any severe bugs, we hope this resolves the issues you've been having. If there are still any major problems we may have somehow missed, please give us a shout on the forums so we can get them fixed ASAP. Thanks, -Josh.

[ 2016-03-10 22:30:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you've updated to v0.0.2, you've no doubt noticed that the terrain has lost it's colour. None of this is happening on our end- everything looks great until we build the standalone games; the terrain is only corrupt in the compiled game. Which means something is messing up in our shader code when exporting, most likely. I thought this would be a quick fix but we are going to have to spend some more time looking into it. We apologise for the unexpected bug and hope to have it resolved in the coming days! Thanks, -Josh.

[ 2016-03-08 21:59:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Frontier v0.0.2 Alpha

The first update for Frontier is now available for download through Steam. It is targeted to fix some common issues people have been experiencing.

• GUI rebuilt to prevent any resolution issues- UI will now dynamically resize itself to your current resolution
• Loading screen removed and code compressed to reduce wait times
• Options menu added to pause screen
• Added the option to invert mouse Y-axis (by request)
• Added the option to change mouse sensitivity
• Added a volume control slider to the options menu
• Fixed bug with hunting knife which caused it to play sound whenever selected
• Fixed quit button on main menu
• Minor optimisations made

The first major update for Frontier is planned for the end of the month. The inventory, crafting system, building system, save system and framework is currently being rebuilt. This will fix the vast majority of issues players are currently experiencing, and will dramatically increase game stability. If we have enough time, we will be bringing the first iteration of crafting mechanics- while it's possible that we won't be able to squeeze all of this into update v0.1.0, we have planned:

• Cooking
• Workbenches
• Smelters
• Basic storage

As always, the devs are available to speak with everyone on the official Steam group forums/discussions tab. Come and let us know if you find any new bugs and we'll look into them ASAP! We know this hasn't been the smoothest of Early Access launches but the community has been very supportive and we thank you sincerely for that! We've already received a ton of feedback and bug reports, and it's helped us to track down the major issues and patch them pretty quickly. There are still a lot of problems but the first month or so of EA will be dedicated to patching bugs while working on update v0.1.0. We are aiming to make the game much more stable within 2-3 weeks. Thanks guys, -Josh.

[ 2016-03-07 21:36:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

The "Missing Executable" error our Mac and Linux users have been experience should be resolved now. Please redownload Frontier through Steam and let us know how things go on your end!

[ 2016-03-06 15:29:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

First of all, a huge thank you from the developers to everyone who has supported the game so far! We're happy to see all the feedback we're getting, and it's really going to help us out. There are a lot of bugs right now, but the devs have been working through them already. We're planning a patch soon which will fix a large number of the issues people have been having. The first few weeks will be about fixing bugs and polishing off game features, and then things will start to get exciting. Our lead environment artist will be creating our enormous gameworld, a large reconstruction of the Western frontier, which we will work with the community to design. We also want to get a full player model in ASAP so we can get to work on multiplayer. I have been away from my PC this weekend but I will be back home soon to answer all the questions on the forums, and then I'll look into issues with the Mac version. Some people have been reporting a "missing executable" error, so please bear with us- I'll have that fixed up as soon as I can. To anyone who has been disappointed with what they have seen so far- please remember that Frontier isn't supposed to be in a stable state at this stage. We purposely released v0.0.1 knowing that there were bugs present so that we could gather feedback and resolve these issues with your help, which has been working very well so far. Upcoming updates will rework the save system (our lead programmer has already done this), revamp the main menu format, fix the current bugs (as many as possible in the timeframe), plus our current systems will be improved. What about weapons and tools? Why is there only one rifle? That's by design- before adding more weapons, the idea is to get the code powering our rifle perfect. That will allow us to extend the system to new weapons with minimal issues, meaning it will save time in the long run. In the meantime, please keep sending your bug reports in! We'll look into every last one of them and aim to resolve your issues in the shortest amount of time possible. Thanks, -Josh.

[ 2016-03-06 08:22:51 CET ] [ Original post ]