Dear UMes 🤗
We are extremely excited, to finally announce the release of the next UMeFate pre-alpha tech demo, version 0.0.9! 🥳
If you haven't yet, please visit UMeFate Steam page and request access to the playtest.
Also, if you haven’t already, please add UMeFate to your wishlist, to support its development. UMes will really appreciate it! 🤗
It has been a heck of a long year ride since October 2024, where the previous and one of the first proof of concept tech demos was released. On the one hand, tons have changed since. But on the other hand, this version is still a lot to be desired. It is technically very barebone at the moment and infested with various bugs. However, we are happy with the general direction of UMeFate and the reached milestones according to the roadmap, even if far from ideal. More about changes is highlighted further in the reading.
One of UMeFate target philosophy, is to keep pushing updates to the community and not to be discouraged by the unfinished, or broken game. This can get fixed over time. There is also a thin line, how long wanting to keep polishing mechanics, before releasing anything. Too many titles have been worked on for years, before they even get the chance to see the daylight. If not canceled beforehand. That is especially true for life sim games, which are one of the most complex game types to make. Various well known games (i.e. Minecraft) followed that philosophy, releasing updates regularly since early alpha. So to avoid the bad fate of UMeFate (pun intended), providing continuous updates is part of the future UMeFate core goals. While the last update was nearly a year ago, next updates are planned to be more frequent. This is hopefully possible, due to the critical underlining design changes over the period of 2024 / 2025.
Also, for the last 2 months, UMes have been mainly focused on polishing and fixing what has already been implemented. No new major features have been added since, to ensure cleaning up this tech demo for release. It took longer than anticipated to get to this point, also considering a bit of free summer period under the sunshine 😎. But the stability of the core features is the key here, even if not bug free in overall. This will be an ongoing constant wrestle for upcoming months and years of UMeFate development.
List Of Discussed Topics
What To Expect In The Current Pre-Alpha Tech Demo
What Not To Expect (Yet)
Video Showcase
So What Is New And What Has Changed
Why It Takes So Long
Why Focus On Building First, Vs Gameplay
Currently Working On
What Next
Known Critical Issues
What To Expect In The Current Pre-Alpha Tech Demo v0.0.9.214
Basic building mechanics (as shown in the video).
Ability to save and load structures as blueprints.
Ability to save map with constructs, roads and landplots.
Terrain map editor (shown previously on the blog post https://antyversum.com/2025/04/11/umefate-map-editor-splitscreen-timelapse-46/).
Split-screen for at least 2 players (up to 4). This was also shown previously, around Easter 2025 on the blog post https://antyversum.com/2025/04/17/umefate-pre-alpha-happy-easter-egg-splitscreen-party-47/.
1st and 3rd person views with corresponding control schemes. UMe character, which is now standard for UMeFate.
Up to 1000 inhabitants (currently walking randomly).
Various bugs 🙂
What Not To Expect (Yet)
There won’t be autonomy / AI. Such work will start soon.
No interaction with objects. Also, upcoming work.
No crossroads. Future work.
No Audio.
No functional lua modding.
Considering the state of the UMeFate Pre-Alpha Tech Demo, UMeFate is welcoming all types of feedback, as long as it is constructive and relevant. UMeFate has an ingame feedback system, which allows to collect game information, while players can leave comments, or bug reports. This report will be sent to the discord, for devs to review. More information about the feedback system is available in the game.
Video Showcase
Let's break it down now, what UMes present in the released video of the current update. It showcases compilation of multiple short gameplays.
The video starts with a simple castle showcase on the hill, with its surroundings and the player controlling own UMe character. This build is also part of the default map Step Platoe in this demo.
Then there is a quick camera shot of an older castle. Unfortunately not saved at the time of making it. The link to the blog discussing this, can be found further in the next section.
Next, the video presents main menu options to select multiple players in the split screen and selecting control schemes (mouse, keyboard, gamepad). After which moving camera shots to the actual brief split screen gameplay.
Then following into the timelapse showcase of the map editor in the split screen mode.
Further video cuts show timelapse building of the castle.
And similarly for more modern type of communal skyscraper structure, with saving, loading and stacking floors.
Next video moves to presenting land plots editing.
Followed by placing road layouts.
Finally video is finishing at showing the selection of created landplots, which the can be used for building.
So What Is New And What Has Changed
UMeFate v0.0.9.214 brings massive and critical changes for further development over its past version from October 2024. Some mechanics had been decided to be done early in development, even if they were planned for much later, as it happens to influence further systems designs. And putting such work for later, could introduce more work and need of redesign, or even prohibit implementing certain systems.
For anyone interested in the previously planned changes, please check out the previous blog post for more details
https://antyversum.com/2025/06/29/umefate-pre-alpha-building-castle-and-upcoming-next-tech-demo-50/
The following list introduces core changes and the most significant ones:
The primary and most critical change was to implement a split screen feature. This affected and propagated into the design of various other mechanics. For example UI, or input systems. Interestingly, many systems were already aligned with the split screen support, so these works were easier to be integrated.
UI was another requirement and effectively a design challenge. Especially due to the fact of needing to support multiple players on one PC. The UI design for a split screen in UMeFate is significantly different from other split screen games. That is because of the UI which allows it to be controlled with a pointer movement, as if it was a mouse. While the player can choose control schemes using, mouse, keyboard, or a gamepad. This is still in the process of refining. UI also required a ton of attention, polishing and bug hunting, so it works responsively, to what the player does. UI also was extensively expanded in functionality. Especially in the new map editor.
Adding / extending tooltips system on UI icons.
Saved maps, constructs and items, now have “rotatable” thumbnails of icons, when hovering a pointer over a given item. This is a pseudo feature, which allows you to see items in 360 like rotation.
Up to 4 players inputs needed to introduce controls, such that 4 players can play at once. To achieve that, this is a bit of a mix from older days and modern controls schemes. For example, the classic setup is keyboard + mouse for single player. Alternatively it is possible to play with a gamepad. For two players, it is possible to play either with gamepads, keyboard + mouse and also keyboard for second player. Or mix with one player using a gamepad.For 3 and 4 players, the last two players are required to use gamepads. The first two players have options of keyboard + mouse and mouse control scheme.
Added basic map editor.
Added basic roads support.
Added land plots along roads. Considered to be reworked in the future.
Land plots can be partially modified.
Preparation for multilingual support. Not yet finalised.
Introduced saving constructs. Now save as sqlite.
Introduced a saving map with roads, landplots and constructions.
The main menu was reworked. But this will be changed again in the near future.
General optimisations, especially during loading saves and models.
Added ramps, as an alternative to stairs. Something which has been planned in the future, along with floors.
Floors generation.
Reworked spawning of constructs blueprints. Player can save their own constructs on landplots setup.
Added wall height and width changing options.
Changed old Fog Of War decal based system. For now is a blue type box for FoW, which activates if the player's camera reaches the permitted region. The current system is a placeholder.
Graphical optimisation. Changes to the rendering pipeline.
Terrain generation and baking. This is under consideration of rework.
Rework of feedback / bug report system.
Fixed tutorial system.
Added some temp furniture. These are placeholders at the moment. But function as mods. When adding new furniture, some model files are auto generated, based on the main file, like LOD (level of details).
Changed how the fog of war (FoW) works, due to the introduction of split-screen. The current system is a placeholder only, until finding a proper solution.
Implemented and improved game launching loop. But the game restart is not fully functional. So to restart the game, ideally need to close down the whole game app and launch it again.
Why It Takes So Long
There is a saying in game dev (and not only); the last 10% is your 90%. Meaning, if you think you are almost done, and come to final polishing and tidying up, this (10%) process takes an extra huge amount of time, in comparison to the time that already took to get there (90%). Suddenly you realise that you are already spending at least half as much just polishing bits.
Well, admittingly it took just a bit over a few weeks that was planned and noted in a previous blog post.
https://antyversum.com/2025/06/29/umefate-pre-alpha-building-castle-and-upcoming-next-tech-demo-50/
But the goal is finally reached.😰 Yet, I would say a “healthy” amount of overdue excess, from the initial estimate. In short, not idal, but also not too bad.
As briefly mentioned earlier, making a life sim game, is one of the most complex type of the game to make. Being for the most part a solo game dev, with a great support from my lovely GF 💖 and her artistic soul, it takes a huge amount of energy, skill set and effort, to be even able to develop such a game. Also, either need be brave enough, or stupid enough. Or both 🙂
Either way, there is huge demand in life sim games. There are very few in the works and many more have been canceled during their production. Yet with current available technology, there is an opportunity lurking behind the corner, to be able to approach this endeavour. It would be unwise not trying to tap on it.It is worth mentioning, on such large projects team of people are working. Unfortunately, UMeFate at the current time is not in a position to get more help. Hence progress takes time and resources. Yet many titles started with a single developer, and year+ later being able to grow the team. And if an opportunity arises and lucky enough, at some point eventually hoping to find more helping hands, once the right time comes. Honestly, it comes down to personal commitment in UMeFate, consistency and determinism in the project. 💪
Ideas are not an issue. Having plenty of these. But converting an idea into a working piece of the program and fun at that, it is where the challenge and the time play the main factor. The process involves the system design, prototyping, integration, testing mechanics. And of course debugging.
Looking from the production cycle point of view, implementation of new features requires prototyping, experimenting, trying out new ideas, throwing out what is not working. Often reworking and refactoring existing systems. Not everything is known beforehand. Especially for an indie developer, who tries to make something that hasn't been done yet in such types of games. Here for example having a large living population on the playable map, dynamically switchable 3D camera and controls, or splitscreen functionality.
Often comes down to the point, where one system works well in isolation, but complexity and challenges comes, when starting or orchestrating such a system with a whole game. All sorts of quirks, bugs hunting and following fixes take the time. From a few hours on simpler problems, to even days, on more complex systems.
While continuous playtesting helps a lot in finding various issues, this however takes a significant portion of the development time. But it is critical, to be able to reduce the range of problems and bugs. Usually it falls down to finding a way, to reproduce the issue. Then hunting becomes easier.
On top of that not only bugs were hopping here and there, but development is plagued occasionally by various technical issues. Sometimes it is something simple like lack of internet access. Other times, there are corrupted files, software, or assets, which need to be identified and fixed. It really can be anything related to tech.
Why Focus On Building First, Vs Gameplay
As you may be noticing, the current focus in UMeFate development so far was on making functional constructing buildings, rather than specific gameplay and characters mechanics, their relations etc. This is due to the choices of the design direction. Which leads to the requirement that UMes need to live somewhere rather than sleeping in the open fields. Hence needing some form of habitation, like houses. Also, working on tools from ground up, like for example map editor, which is now accessible for the players.
Another important element is that making split screen systems required changes on previously existing building systems. These took time to get them working right to the current state.
But as mentioned in previous blogs in coming months, the focus will be shifting toward UMes interactions and their autonomy (classic old school AI).
Currently Working On
Currently solving anything related to social media and updating Steam page.Ensuring covering what is needed for this huge update 🙂
What Next
Further work and their updates are planned to be pushed more often to Steam. This is to help keep traction.
First priority will be to fix some of the outstanding critical bugs, lurking here and there. Some are related to saving / loading. Other related to building itself. At least to a more stable and playable state. Furniture are not saved in certain cases. Ramps cutting floor is not saving in the custom blueprints.
There are various UI bugs to be fixed, which wasn’t a priority for this release.
Need to improve the functionality of the main menu. Further in the future, this main menu lobby will be reworked again. It is a continuous experiment and trying different things.
Then finishing the system for supporting multi languages. Largely done already. And yet to be moddable.
With the above out of the way, characters interaction will be focused. And this will be huge work on its own.
Along with upcoming character autonomy, basic interaction with objects will be introduced.
Also what is important, interaction between players in split screen mode is planned to be added.
Known Critical Issues
There is range of bugs that UMeFate still suffer with. Some most prominent and critical one are as follow:
Restarting the game loop is not fully functional. Doing so, will cause bugs. Need to close the game application and reopen it again.
Some UI elements are overflowing. Need scrolling, or smaller UI groups.
Main menu graphics settings may not trigger changes correctly.
UI pointer with user controls as helper, is incomplete and may display incorrectly.
UMes NPCs may have issues to traverse on ramps if slopes, or steps are too big.
Objects are not always saved. Especially when editing floors structure.
Editing landplots on which construction is placed, may desynchronise save and construction may be not saved.
Placing long winded roads can break landplots' layout. Saving them can cause bugs.
Cut floors (i.e. for ramps / stairs) are not saved for created custom blueprints.
Building ramp and switching to different UI mode, doesn't reset the state of land plot selection.
Some tooltips may be missing.
With all that being said, UMes wants to emphasise how excited they are about this release and can not wait to show you more. 🥳
Until the next one 👋