Hello Ranchers,
I hope you are all safe and doing great!
First of all, my deepest apologies for the recent silence. As you all know, the recent world situation was a bit scary for all of us and we were affected like everyone else with what's going on as we do have partners, friends, teammate in both sides and our top priority was to make sure that everyone is safe first!
Despite all this turbulence we have managed a great progress in developing the game, and I'm truly proud of all the efforts given by our team, and very grateful for all the support we have received from the community to overcome all these recent challenges!
Many thanks from the bottom of my heart for all your support, love and understanding ❤️
This DevUpdate is a special one as we do have many surprises and great news we do want to share with you!
Without further ado let's start by presenting our new batch of bachelors:
Character Reveals
Meet Alicia, Ivan, Hazel and Bruno (left to right).
Alicia is not just any bachelorette in The Ranchers world! With a sturdy character, she has a good sense of how fashion can be a self expression tool. She runs ones of the very famous clothing boutiques in The Ranchers Country city center.
Ivan is a passionate hunter. He is the person to reach out to if you need to know anything related to hunting or firearms. His dream is to open an armory shop in The Ranchers Country, find love and start a family.
Hazel the famous local travel and foodies influencer, will she have time for both love and a booming career?
Bruno You need a truck, a bike or even a sport car? Bruno is your man! He is by far the most skilled car and bike expert and enthusiast in the Ranchers Country. He owns and runs (with his brothers) the most luxurious car dealer shop downtown. He is also an eligible bachelor.
New Vehicles!
We're excited to reveal four new categories of vehicles that we introduced in The Ranchers world. Each vehicle has a specific set of states like speed, handling, acceleration, passenger capacity, storages capacity and energy need/consumption...
Vehicles can be bought from one of the car dealers in the Ranchers Country to make deliveries, transport your animals, explore far away places or simply to cruise around with your friends or beloved one!
Energy is key!
Depending on the type of vehicle you are using, some of them, for instance bicycles, will drain your player energy while others will need electricity or fuel!
For example, you can refuel your vehicles with thermic engines at one of many gas stations in the Ranchers world and if you do plan to go off-road for a longer period make sure to have some fuel jerricans just in case ;)
Here is an example of how refueling your Kamikazi with a fuel jerrican will work:
And of course, driving conditions are also related to the weather conditions :)
Your livestock are going places!
In The Ranchers, you can transport your livestock from one place to another and with good reason: transporting them to the veterinary, the city farmer's market, livestock events & contests... Or simply feeding your animals for free by bringing them to some prairies once there is no more wild grass in your ranch :)
Some livestock can simply be transport on bicycles :D
...And some will need a proper truck to transport them safely:
The Systemic Engine!
The Ranchers is built on top of our in-house "Systemic Engine" layer, which is a technical term to brag a bit and say's that all props in the game are interactibles and do react to the weather conditions, players/NPCs interactions and to the classical elements (water, fire, air...).
We took huge inspiration from games like the Zelda breath of the wild and how having a "Systemic Engine" can bring a huge level of realism, leading to a unique and totally autonomous world simulation while giving our players an unseen level of freedom by experimenting with The Ranchers open world.
And to illustrate all of this, we did prepare a small set of video to showcase how all of that work by taking a simple example, as "How to cut a tree in The Ranchers?":
Method 1 - By using your Axe (or any sharp item - Yes, you can use a fork!)
Method 2 - By using your car or truck
Method 3 - By using guns
Method 4 - By using your imagination!
One other way of using your imagination or your knowledge is to be able to answer those types of questions like: "How to create charcoal in a forest?"
Nomally charcoal is an abundant resource found in mines, so it makes total sense to get it from there. BUT there are also many clever and free ways of doing just that and the game will never tell you about them!
It's really up to you and your knowledge to discover all those secrets ;)
Let's start spoiling one way of achieving that:
Burning 🔥 wood logs 🪵 will turn them to charcoal!
But be aware, that only works when it's ☀️, when it's 🌧️ ...that's another story :)
And here is how it looks like in game:
You think you get it? Great!
Here are other questions: "How to make cement?", "How to make glass?", "How to make butter?" and the list goes on... :D
The Ranchers is going places too!
We are truly excited to announce that The Ranchers will be optimized day one for the Steam Deck!
What's next?
That's all folks! Hope you have enjoyed this "exceptionally long" update! As always, your feedback is more than appreciated!
Feel free to join us on Discord to let's us know what do you think of all those announcements.
Oh yeah, The Ranchers is coming to Kickstarter 🎉🎉this July🎉🎉!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Make sure to join our Discord Server, Wishlist The Ranchers on Steam and subscribe to our Kickstarter page to don't miss the precise date and when the Kickstarter campaign will go live!
Kickstarter backers will gain exclusive access to our closed Alpha! So if you want to play The Ranchers earlier and shape it with us, make sure to secure your exclusive closed Alpha copy!
Thank you SO MUCH for reading,
Ethan
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501310/The_Ranchers/