Hey everyone!
I've been a little quiet lately, but today I wanted to take some time to talk about what I've been working on, what's going to be coming up next for Musgro Farm, and give a small peek of how the full game will evolve...
To get the small stuff out of the way: Today I'm releasing a small demo update with some "under the hood" changes to lay some groundwork for things that are coming in the future. It's mostly bug fixes and behind the scenes work, but I'll list the full patch notes below.
So what's next?
Steam Next Fest
Firstly, Musgro Farm is going to be in the June iteration of Steam Next Fest, starting on June 9th! For anyone who isn't familiar with it, Next Fest is a periodic event on Steam which highlights demos of upcoming games. It's a great way to find new and exciting upcoming games, but it can also be a huge boon to visibility and help get the game some more attention.
In the days leading up to Next Fest, I'll be releasing a bit of a content update to the demo. Up until this point, the demo has mostly been aimed at getting a "linear" preview of what the game plays like - it's a pretty straight path towards making Simple Vegetable Soup, and the different ingredients you need in order to do so.
In this Next Fest update, I'm going to be including a couple new buildings and a few more crops/recipes to add some variety and "breadth" to the demo content. They won't be anything as involved and complex as the Simple Vegetable Soup, as I'd like the demo to remain somewhat focused - they'll be more like the Mixed Greens and Pickles as little side-chains with a couple new layouts and options.
Future Demo Plans
People often want to know what else will be coming to the demo and if it'll be sticking around, so I figure this is a good time to lay that out:
As mentioned above, the demo is really intended to be a semi-narrow demonstration of "here's what the game plays like". Because of the complexity of the game, I think it necessitates a bit of time and content to really get a good feeling, so I've tried to be a bit generous with how "deep" the demo lets you get. I also want to be sure it doesn't let you wander too far from the linear path of getting to see the core mechanics of the game.
As it stands right now, I think the demo does a pretty good job of balancing those two things. I may add small content updates like this upcoming Next Fest update here or there, and I likely will be back-porting UI updates, QOL type changes, and bug fixes as they make their way into the full release, but as it stands I don't have any plans for any major additions to the demo.
I also don't have any plans to take it down - I expect it to be live as a preview for anyone considering purchasing the game.
Still hungry for more content?
Beta Plans
I'm constantly working behind the scenes on moving the game closer and closer to a full release. As of recently, I've been a bit more focused on trying to get the "next stage" of content ready for a beta release. I'm currently polishing up the next few game systems that will come right after the last techs in the demo in order to get these into a presentable/testable state.
The first iteration of the beta will likely contain the ability to unlock a bit more land and some related upgrades, as well as a couple more "tiers" of recipes, and some new requirements/features around higher ranks of fields and buildings.
This beta iteration will likely be starting up for Ko-Fi subscribers in the next month or two. I'll be sure to post about it both here, and on Discord when it's ready :)
Post-Demo Gameplay
Now that things are becoming a little more solidified, I think it's a good time to start sharing little glimpses into some of the things coming in the full release. Starting with some of the groundwork for the full-game's gameplay loop, I want to share how "more land" works in the full game:
Once you progress far enough, there's a "Farm Expansion" technology in the General tech tree. As you may have noticed, the map is broken up into "grid tiles". In the demo, you're just limited to the first one, but in the full game, each point you put into the "Farm Expansion" technology will allow you to purchase another of these tiles.
Each tile is treated as it's own "District". Each District will be allowed it's own District/Farm Center, which each have Collection and Sale Trucks. This will allow you quite a bit more "throughput" of the items you sell, but will come with some limitations...
Fields, Buildings, and Trucks will only be able to interact with those within their District. This means connections can only be made with other plots within the same District, and Input and Collection Trucks can only grab items from other plots within their District. As such, each District will function as a semi-independent entity, but future technologies will provide a couple ways to specifically move items from one District to another... Which I'll talk about a bit more in the future ;)
That being said, a long-standing goal of mine has been to make sure that the game will be able to support a lot of Districts. I can't make any specific promises or anything right now, as bottlenecks are sure to arise at some point, but right now the "simulation" speeds of most things are looking pretty promising. Vehicle pathing is looking to be the biggest limitation at the moment, but I have some ideas for massive optimizations to be made there that hopefully will keep that all in check...
Wrap-up
That's all I'll share for now... I'm hoping that as the beta progresses and I nail down some more systems and mechanics, more things will be set in stone that I can share here over time.
As always, I'm excited to hear what everyone thinks as things progress, and I'd love to chat or answer questions here or on Discord!
Below are the full changes for today's release, and I look forward to sharing the new little demo additions in the next month :)
Full Patch Notes
- A few fixes to Contract generation to generate more "relevant" and beneficial contracts.
- Increased worker counts on Large and XL Waste compactors to make them more closely match small ones
- Fix large frame spikes/stutter when adding/removing plot selections when many plots are selected
- Fix recipe times not loading in Recipe Picker
- Fixed a few rare bugs in Truck pickup logic and rating systems
- Simplified some Waste Truck logic, made most of it directly mirror Input Truck logic
- Many "under the hood" systems reworks to allow more flexibility for future changes