This week, we've received a lot of updated translations for 0.5.0. Thank you translators! While our native language is Dutch, we still struggled to translate some words from English to Dutch. We understand how hard it can be to translate the game :)

Last Sunday we released a new patch. The recently updated autosaving caused some issues where autosaving rapidly slowed done and save files grew quickly. It has been patched now.

During the first week of the new year, we've had a lot of discussions regarding what we want to accomplish in 2018. We're very excited about the planned content and we'd love to hear what you think of it!

Stairs

A much requested feature, and we've finally thought of a way to add them that'll hopefully work. The dynamic shadows in our game currently only work with cubes so we were afraid adding stairs would result in weird lighting.

We've been discussing the problem and finally thought of "quarter cubes" or "half half slabs". From the side, it'll look like the image below. The grey cubes are the current blocks, and the orange cubes would be the new "stairs". At least they can be used to scale the current blocky stairs a lot quicker and simpler :) They'll have half the height and half the width of current blocks, but the full length.

We haven't tested stairs yet. If it works like we hope we do, they might be added relatively quickly. If it doesn't....



0.6.0: Builders & Diggers

The next big content update will include diggers, and builders will be added in a later 0.6.* version. The process will probably work like this:

1.) Unlock diggers with science
2.) Open the command tool and select them
3.) Click on two blocks to select the 3D area in between
4.) Place "job spots" right next to the selected area. One job spot is enough, but you can place more to speed up the process

Builders will require an extra option where you can select which block they use to fill the area. We're still debating whether we should add an option where colonists only build walls instead of filling the entire selected area.

We've thought about adding colonists that can build blueprints, even blueprints loaded from the Steam Workshop. We'd love to add it, but you'd need to find a way to visualize the direction of the building you're placing. We're still unsure of how to deal with this problems, so we might move on to 0.7.0 after having added diggers and "simple" builders.

0.7.0: Brave New World

The next big change after builders & diggers will be an entirely new world. We've only added the new ores to the world since 0.1.0, but haven't changed anything else about the way hills, forests, biomes, lakes and oceans are generated. We'd like to change this significantly. We want to use a 3D instead of a 2D heightmap to generate the world, allowing us to create more complex and interesting terrain. We want to add rivers and cliffs. And most of all, we want to add new biomes, and ways to explore and colonize them!

The Far East

Travel in the direction of the rising sun, cross the great steppe and explore the Far East. Start a new colony and discover new crops and building materials, and produce precious silk!

The Tropics

Travel to the equator and survive the desert to discover savannas and jungles in the Tropics! In the hot climate you can grow plants that aren't available in more temperate regions, allowing you to produce sugar and spices.

The Arctic

Colonies in the inhospitable polar regions of the world rely on fishermen and shipments from other colonies for food. An arctic colony will be necessary to mine precious resources like diamonds and importanium.

The New World

Sail west and pray you'll discover a new landmass! Discover unique plants like cacao beans, potatoes and tomatoes and send their seeds to other colonies.

Multiple colonies

Colony Survival has always been about running one colony, so a lot of systems will have to change and new systems will have to be developed to allow players to run multiple colonies. For example, stockpiles should be tied to individual colonies instead of the player.

Burghers

The new resources, like silk, sugar and spices, will be necessary to recruit a new kind of colonists: . They're more skilled but also more demanding than regular colonists. They need a "luxury bed" crafted with silk instead of straw. They require meals cooked with sugar and spices, or they'll leave your colony.

A burgher can act as an overseer in a distant colony. You can then remotely "posses" the burgher and make changes to the colony without actually traveling there.

Burghers can also trade goods from one colony to another. Players will be able to set up "trade deals" that either happen with a regular interval (every day, every 3 days, etc.) or when the relevant item reaches a certain level in the sending or receiving colony.

Ships

Walking to the other side of the world is tedious. Use a small ship to traverse the world quicker. The ship will require many planks, iron rivets, steel parts & linen.

Importanium

We'd like to add a precious resource that can be mined in the Arctic that we think of like some kind of "medieval uranium". Burghers can use 'importanium' to raise the power level of your colony. We also like to add new job blocks that consume power and are also operated by burghers. One example would be a furnace that can smelt all ores, that doesn't require fuel, and that can smelt multiple ingots simultaneously.

0.6.*

As you can see, we'd like to add a lot of different things to 0.7.0. Instead of letting you wait for a long time without updates, we'd like to release as much content as possible in separate updates to 0.6.3, 0.6.4 etcetera. For example, the ability to craft ships or to start multiple colonies could be released separate from 0.7.0.

We've made a very basic and ugly map that roughly shows our ideas for the new world map. The center is pretty much unchanged, but the biomes in the east and west are brand new.



Animal Husbandry

Animal husbandry is definitely a thing we want to add to Colony Survival. Your colonists should be able to keep animals to provide them with a source of food and new materials. Animal skins can be used to create leather and parchment. Chickens can provide a colony with feathers, and sheep can provide wool. Milk can be used to create milk and butter. Animals would add a lot of new content and jobs.

Multiplayer improvements

Players have been asking us to improve the multiplayer for a long time now and we definitely want to do it. Players should be able to run a colony together and to trade with each other. Protection from griefers would also be very useful. Perhaps declaring war on each other will also become a feature, but we aren't sure about that!

2019: Splitscreen

Splitscreen is also a thing we'd love to see in Colony Survival, and we've decided two things about it:
1.) We want to add it before the definitive release
2.) We will not add it in 2018

It's a feature we love but it's sorely missing in nearly all games. We hope to discover it'll be relatively easy to add, but perhaps other game developers skip the feature for very good reasons ;)

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That was one of the longest Friday Blogs ever and if you've managed to survive this wall of text up to this point, we'd love to hear what you think of it! The plans are becoming more detailed every day but they aren't set in stone, so if you've got input, this is the time to share it!

Bedankt voor het lezen!