Hi everyone! It's time for me to shed some light on the next update coming to DevLife! But before we do that, I want to remind you that the game is available for -60% off during Steam's Summer Sale! It's our biggest discount yet, so it's a great time to purchase it in case you are still undecided!
Unfortunately, as you can see, the plan for releasing it in the first half of 2023 didn't work out, mostly due to the lack of free time and other responsibilities that required my attention. So once again, the full release will be postponed until the next year with a plan to release the next update when it's finished somewhere this year. But enough of the bad news! It's time to talk about the new features coming to DevLife in the next update. There are three main things that I want to focus on: the decision system, Interactive Events about music, and the new map. So let's maybe start with that!

New Map

As you can see in the screenshots below, the map is coming together very nicely, and a lot of it is already mostly finished. This new location, situated at the beautiful ocean shore, will become the second location in the game progression, offering the option to hire employees as your family house won't be able to accommodate them anymore.

[previewyoutube=jHvoRSeXtRk;full][/previewyoutube] Making a location near the ocean required us to rework how the water looks in the game, and I hope you will like the new effect that we've managed to achieve! Of course, a new location means new, dedicated Interactive Events that will take place exclusively in it. I hope you will like them as we plan to make them quite impactful, literally influencing how the map looks. It will be quite a challenge to achieve it, but I think the final effect will be worth it!

Decision System

To give you more agency over the life of your characters, I've decided to implement a new decision system that will allow you to start certain Interactive Events and not depend entirely on RNG and what the game presents to you. Most of them are repeatable within given cooldowns, and some have additional conditions for their start and appearance. You can see all of the available decisions in the new, dedicated panel shown below. Of course, it's still a work in progress, but you can get an idea of how it will look in the final version.

Music Interactive Events

The focus of this update in terms of content is mostly on the music. There are two main branches of it: learning instruments and going to concerts. We plan to add six different instruments that you can choose to learn and eight music genres that can become your favorites. For now, the impact of these new events on gameplay won't be very spectacular, but it will allow for some more roleplay and lay the foundation for the full release of the game, where they will become far more important with the relationships system. But that's a story for another time.
For now, I would like to remind you once again that, during the Summer Sale, DevLife is available for -60% off and that, as always, you can join our Discord server if you find any bugs or have feedback about the game or the new features that we plan to add to it! Thank you for your time, and remember to stay hydrated! Roman and Roman Studio Team