Hello, everyone!
We are starting to work on adding in a lot of future content, and as a result, these features will require more testing. For those who want to participate in testing, you are able to switch to the beta branch of Merchant’s Guide by right-clicking the game from your games list on Steam, selecting ‘Properties’, clicking the ‘Betas’ category, and under the drop down for ‘Beta Participation’ select ‘beta - beta testing’. This will switch your game mode to the beta branch. RESTART STEAM if you switch between branches! Even when you switch to the beta branch and it shows that it downloaded an update, it is important to restart your Steam Client to ensure you are on the proper version of the beta branch.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
If you have an active save game that you don’t want to lose, please back this up! You may do this by going to your local folder c:/Users//AppData/LocalLow/Bearplane and copying the ‘Merchant’s Guide’ file to a secure location outside of that directory path, usually directly onto your Desktop.
We recommend if you are going to test the beta, always start a new game profile, as that will give the most pure version of the new features, however, unless otherwise mentioned, all features should work in new games as well, though likely more prone to bugs.
Speaking of bugs, THEY WILL HAPPEN ON THE BETA BRANCH! When we add things to the beta build, that is for large scale testing, and that means they are things that the two of us developers were unable to feel like we can sufficiently test them just between each other.
If you do test the build and find bugs, please don’t hesitate to report them. The best way to do so would be via Discord, which you can find a link to on our Store Page. You may, however, also message/tweet to us on Twitter or make a post on the Steam Community Page.
Finally, also note that the beta isn’t just for bug testing, but feedback gathering! The feedback we have gotten from you, the community, thus far has been invaluable in helping us make the game as good as it can be, and we hope that it will keep coming!
The beta launch features some major new features, including a new game mode (Leisure), Merchant Skills and XP tokens!
Thanks for any participation, and we hope you enjoy these small samplings of the future of The Merchant’s Guide to the Kingdom!