💬 Dev Diary #1 - Refactor

=====🔧 FOREWORD 🔧====

The first thing we would like to address is THAT IT WILL BE A LONG READ. But bear with us, as we have a lot to say and discuss and we do everything in our power to be as transparent as the air. We are fully aware of many "stuck in EA forever" or other, much more dramatic, cases. Hence we plan ahead, and try to work as close as possible, with our players. Now, sit back and have a read :)

(The image is pure cringe. I know.)

=====🔧 THE JOURNEY 🔧====

Before we started working on Best Forklift Operator, we had a rather clear vision of what the game should be, how should it play and what should it have. From the Day 1, our heads were spinning with the ideas and possibilities.

But also, we were aware, that not everything we hoped for, can be implemented upon the release of Early Access. And it's not even about production, budgets or time restraints. It's about full awareness, that handful of people can provide only so many perspectives, and that when you are the creator of something - your views and opinions, might become biased.

Hence the Early Access. So we can interact with the community and join forces with you - to create something awesome for everyone, not just us. To cross-check what's important for us vs what's dear to you.

And I dare to say, knowing it is not a perfect score, it appears we... mostly delivered.

But you - wow - you guys DELIVERED a looooot more. With capital all letters.

Past 7 days we've been working around the clock. Talking to all of you. Checking reviews, discord, forums, refund notes, social media, comments, PMs, and DMs.

Everything has been recorded, categorized, archived, and sorted. Then put into a sheet, then put into another with filtering, then in another one with commentary and analysis.

From the Day 1 - we had a clear Roadmap. But also an awareness that we might have to adjust it after the release of Early Access.
The good news are: 80-90% of your expectations vs our initial Roadmap - matched.
What did not - was the priorities.

We wanted to focus on adding more content to the game, but you turned our eyes to many other aspects and so - we are in the process of shifting our focus and reordering the Roadmap.

(This one is supposed to be less cringy. No? Oh. Ok...)

=====🔧 FEEDBACK 🔧====

From over hundreds of reports, broken down into two categories, we came up with this:

Requested Features:

- HOTAS (Steering wheel, pedals, gearbox, joystick)
- Being able to rebind the controls on controllers and HOTAS
- Support for other Virtual Reality headgears (Valve Index, HTC Vive & others)
- Horizontal shift for forklift
- More vehicles
- Support for Ultra-Wide monitors, multi-monitor setup, and higher resolutions
- More missions/maps
- Better cargo and vehicle physics
- An option for "arcade" reverse gear
- Sandbox mode
- Adjust the placement of the gearbox to avoid accidental interactions
- Better/more realistic audio for vehicles
- More camera options
- Being able to play in VR but with controller/HOTAS instead of VR controllers
- Multiplayer
- Support for OpenVR
- Support for non-standard keyboards such as AZERTY
- Being able to adjust vehicles mirrors
- More info and polish for tutorial
- Height adjustment option in VR
- Tweaking vehicles forklift attributes (speed, acceleration, deacceleration, torque, slide)
- Backlights on the vehicles.
- Hand brake
- FOV Slider in options
- Interface indication of perfect score/time for missions
- Support for TrackIR

Known Bugs & Issues:

- Rare crashing upon launch/stuck at the title screen
- Missing virtual hands in VR mode
- The game is lagging on some devices.
- Controls randomly switch between connected devices.
- Reflection in mirrors is not dynamic in VR

Those lists are not complete and for the time being - we had to get rid of a couple of issues if the author was only one individual. E.g having AI NPCs walking around the warehouse, and being able to get killed... yeaaaaa, no, sorry ;D

(This one should be cringe - free.)

=====🔧 THE ROADMAP 🔧====

As mentioned above, our old, internal one - is outdated now. So it is kind of pointless to share it at this point in time. In the next couple of days, we will have many meetings and brainstorming sessions to come up with a brand new one - strongly influenced by yourr feedback from past 7 days.

Mind you - adjusting project Roadmap is no trivial task. You cannot just go and start from the top and move to the bottom. Some features take hours to implement, some other days, some different weeks and months, and some - are out of reach. The catch is to put everything in an order that takes many factors into the equation and keep the whole thing both doable and steady.
But don't worry! We got this. 😎

(This might be a bit cringe but hey - it is honest!)

=====🔧 THANK YOU! 🔧====

Words cannot express how grateful we are and for how many things.
The faith and trust you put in us. The joy you report when playing. Being able to get to know so many of you. Seeing you making all those huge jenga-like towers in-game, having fun. Posts upon posts of valuable feedback, suggestions, and requests... this is a LOT to digest.

But this is also a huge responsibility, and we are aware. You guys really put a juicy and fat smile on our ugly faces and we simply don't want to wake up one day to discover it's all gone. Quite the contrary.
We want more of it.

So stay tuned, and thank you.
It's a pleasure to be working with you guys.

~Gamedust
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