V0.0.34 Early Look Patch Notes
Warning: Old politicians, saves, and more may not work properly as the game's engine and architecture has been re-written for future performance, scale, ease of development, less bugs and unpredictable behavior.
A beta branch has been added to the game for this early look update.
This early look is earlier than I expected and many features are simply not fully complete yet and won't work properly.
I also made some progress on the Mac and Linux versions of the game. I had originally planned to release a Mac version for this update and onward but I ran into other issues with the Mac version. I hadn't looked into it fully. As for Linux, I basically can make a experimental Linux build for the game now. I'll have to see when I want to actually make the experimental Linux build.
Over the next few weeks I'll be working on completing this update to match prior parity and finishing up the new features this update is supposed to have. The Early Look will be a beta branch version of the game, for the full game and the demo.
Expect many features to not really work properly currently, but that is the price of progress so far.
There may not be another major update until after the game releases into its current Early Access release date. As I have to make sure the game is as bug free as possible entering Steam Next Fest.
New Game Engine
The game has been ported to a new custom game engine. The game now incorporates databases into the game, the codebase and architecture has been just about rewritten 4 times in a month. As you can imagine, that means I probably didn't have time to fully make sure everything in the game is up to prior parity.
Saving and loading games probably won't work or may not work properly on the new engine. Same with scenarios. Elections may not update government office holders yet and other features may be unfinished or incomplete.
This is an early look for a reason. Don't expect to really be able to play the game. It is mainly meant for a quick look. A vote on the discord was overwhelmingly for the early look. Thus I am releasing it tonight.
Additions:
3D maps for several countries. Japan, United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and more.
Real cities for the United States, and more countries.
World generation options, party count, real cities or procedurally generated, and duplicate ideologies for parties.
Full-screen settings option.
New UI for country select, a new screen to view country details in the country select.
New way to create elections in the election simulator.
Changes to how elections are won or lost and what factors go into it.
New coalition party popularity system that leads to more realistic maps party popularity wise.
UI for party popularity and voting tooltips have been changed.
Early supporters carousel added to the main menu. I have not added everyone to the list yet.
Features not fully complete yet in the new update:
Election night screen in the campaign and maybe in the simulator may have incomplete features or functionality that isn't working as expected yet.
Wiki still needs some changes and updating. The UI has been changed but not fully done.
Unfinished party progression mechanics where you climb the ranks of your party.
Unfinished non-voting sessions with debates and more.
Unfinished new election campaigning system.
Unfinished party mechanics like meetings and more.
Unfinished custom laws feature.
Unfinished custom ideologies feature.
German Kreis maps just need some final changes and touches before they are working properly.
Japanese Prefecture maps are not fully finished or integrated yet.
Canadian Federal riding maps are still not fully finished and need to be re-made besides Ontario. Quebec being a close second.
For presidential elections at least in the election simulator there is a new way to view them. A broadcast election night similar to a TV broadcast is now available. It does not work for any elections yet just for the United States presidential election. I am not sure if it works in the campaign yet. There may also be slight bugs and inconsistencies. It uses generic TTS voices for now. You can disable these if you'd like.