- 2 months ago
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00:00Hello and welcome dear travellers. This is our Ancient Forge devlog and today we will talk about
00:16all great stuff that is coming to Hotel Galactic. My name is Camilla and today with our technical
00:22director Adam we will talk more about what is coming to Hotel Galactic on December 18th and
00:28about all the new features that we will introduce to you with the next patch. Our early access release
00:34was an extremely difficult time for us so we faced some backlashes from our poor priorities during
00:41the production and all our bad decisioning made throughout the development process. Today we are
00:48coming to tell you more about how we are going to fix things, what will change in Hotel Galactic
00:54and how we are going to proceed further with the development process. That was not the release
01:02we were all hoping for and for that we are deeply sorry. To show you how much we are grateful for
01:08your full support since the release we are going to release a free DLC full of decorative items a lot
01:15of new decorations for your rooms. Without further ado let's talk about Hotel Galactic new patch.
01:27Hi everyone I'm Adam I'm a new technical director at Ancient Forge. We will talk about the new features
01:34and a deep systemic rework that we conducted in the last few months. Our decision to start a complete rework of
01:42the AI of our workers of our guests was extremely difficult decision and I wanted to ask you as
01:50our technical director why we exactly needed that to move forward with patching the game with adding new
01:58content. What caused us to make the decision? Usually we make a quick prototype and then we have an analysis phase.
02:05What can break? What are the edge cases? What are the interactions with the other parts of the system?
02:14For unknown reason this part was skipped. The new features worked only in the most naive scenario
02:21and sometimes breaks the previous mechanics. Okay so we implemented something without the testing and
02:30then when something new was added it was basically breaking the previous part. Yeah exactly. First
02:35example incomplete implementation of drag and drop. After the drag walker's task was blocked for the
02:43rest of the game. Second example guest is eating at restaurant. Player decide to pack to create their table
02:51and after that the guest is stacked because his table no longer exists so he don't know what to do and
02:59it's freezed forever. So that was the part that basically caused all of the problems that our
03:04players reported to us after the early access. Yeah most of the restaurant problems. Okay and also I think
03:12some of other problems as well but yeah it's yeah but the logic is the same. Yeah okay right now we have
03:19five months, around five months after the early access release. First two months and all the
03:26first patches that we introduced were about to fix the current problem that the players reported to
03:34us but from the technical perspective technical wise where are we standing at right now? In the first two
03:41months we were duct taping things. Yeah. Then we realized that it's not the way and we have to step back
03:51and make a deep systemic rework. But for what? What it will give us? It cleared the path for the new
03:59mechanics and the new patches. Okay so without it it would be hard to add new things without breaking
04:08things that were already duct taped. Yeah. Okay. We reinforced our QA and introduced a complete testing
04:16pipeline for our game. We definitely improved the QA part and we are sure that right now our QA process
04:26is very efficient but what has changed in the code itself? We reduced the behaviors to two templates
04:33go and do and carry. So when we fix a bug in carrying a wood this bug is also fixed in carrying a
04:42furniture or dish or any other items. Yeah. We also added a system that tracks who uses which object.
04:50This prevents collisions between characters. Okay exactly like in the example with the table you
04:56mentioned before. Yeah. Okay. So from what are you saying I assume that you will not be able to pack the
05:03table that is in use currently anymore, right? Correct. But I think the players always find a way to
05:09surprise us. Okay so I think we would all like to know how it exactly worked previously, how it worked
05:18now and how it will work in the future. Previously the guest was stacked. Like we said. Like we said.
05:26Now player cannot issue the order to pack this table to the crate. Of course we want to keep improving
05:33this allowing players to pack the object without the need to block this action but this is still in progress.
05:39Okay so right now we are preventing them from breaking things but we want to fix it to not cause the break.
05:48Yeah. Okay. To ensure the proper user experience. Okay so I think we defined kind of a solid base
05:56for our code right now and it will make the implementation further easier for us but
06:02what exactly players will see from this rework? What will be their reward? They will see much less
06:12stacks, freezes and blockers so the gameplay should be smooth and without bugs. Some mechanics had to be
06:20rewrite from scratch. For example the backpack. Previously it's sometimes it's work sometimes not.
06:29Okay. A kind of lottery. Yeah. Kind of. And now the backpack will allow the workers to carry more items.
06:43For example three or four wooden locks. Okay but will we observe the situation or animation when
06:52the worker is carrying things and dropping them to their backpacks or how it will work exactly?
06:58Yes. In one of the next patches probably. Okay so this is still in progress. Yeah. But still we are going to
07:08present the possibility to carry more items on the hand of the worker during the upcoming patch. Yeah.
07:17Okay. That's actually very nice because you know carrying all of those resources can be really exhausting.
07:24Yeah especially during building. Yeah. When you have to carry 10 resources. Yeah the wood. Yeah.
07:30Yeah definitely. Basically if you have a backpack you can carry more in your hands. Okay.
07:39Yeah this is a very useful thing for the workers to carry more in the hands when you are using backpack.
07:46This is definitely reasonable. Of course we will implement the animations in the future.
07:53Okay. I think we know pretty much about the rework. So thank you for sharing all the all the details
07:58with us. But we also have to move for other topics. We have prepared a lot of great things for our
08:06community for our patch and also we observed some some suggestions from our community. We talked with
08:15them especially on Discord. So thank you everyone for dropping your suggestions and helping us improve
08:22the game. But we decided that we also need to implement some quality of life changes. Can you tell us more
08:31about it? You requested building up to seven floors. I would request even for 10 floors if I could.
08:38That's almost double the previous four floors. Yeah but four floors is like not enough to you know to use
08:45the creativity so I had to request more. And I know that the community wanted it as well so. So we're
08:52testing it now and it can happen. It will happen I hope. I hope it will happen because we are waiting for it
09:00eagerly and I'm pretty sure that our community is waiting for that as well. But what other quality
09:05of life changes we are improving now? We also reworked. And we like to rework. Yeah. The research tree.
09:12Previously it was a maze of the chaotic researches. Yeah it was super detailed, very small. We had to
09:22scroll in, scroll out, move somewhere there. Yeah there was a lot. Yeah so now there is a whole new
09:30research trees with branches. Yeah actually we categorized things and I myself added some categories
09:39to that to spread the decoration from the researchers that are more related to mechanics or our hotel
09:48stuff. So yeah. We also wanted to add some life to the hotel. So now the guests will talk to each other.
09:56So basically we are introducing a small part of guest interactions already. Yeah. Okay. We also
10:03implemented a big vendor change. That's actually nice because we saw that vendor you know bring a lot of
10:14random items starting from different furnitures from different sets like items that were implemented
10:21but were not working or other things that were not very usable at the moment. So what he will bring us
10:29now? Mainly the resources and ingredients. The useful items. Yeah things that will help us craft things. Yeah.
10:36Okay. And from all I know there will be also a special slot where he will be carrying floor patterns
10:44and wall patterns to you know help us express our creativity in the hotel. Exactly. Okay so besides all of
10:52those reworks and features that we change we have also a lot of new things like for example compendium.
11:00In such a complex game this is required to add a lot of information and kind of introduce players with
11:08what they should do how they should proceed with the gameplay and that part for us will be will be a
11:16compendium. It will contain a lot of information from starting with the lore which is very complex and
11:22very lore heavy as you can see from from the dialogues and all of the story that is happening but
11:28we will also introduce a lot of new content regarding the lore. Can you tell us more?
11:35I personally can't wait for the new VIP guest. Princess Pavonis. And Sir Scallis is coming with her.
11:44She also brings a unique minigame. Walk a Derek. That player can play in Arcade Room. Yeah this is
11:50actually the first minigame but we are planning to implement more of them and also we will have some
11:56movies in the cinema so I think that will be a nice addition to the general gameplay. Yeah definitely.
12:02It is a great way to keep the player engaged. Okay we are introducing new story, new VIP,
12:11some kind of minigame. Do you think we are ready to introduce such a big part of new content
12:18with our code now? It will be a huge test for our code but I'm sure it will perform. What's more we added
12:24a new rating system? Previously the reviews were random but now it depends on the satisfying of the
12:31guest needs. Okay so the rating system is a very great mechanic and this is a very complex one that
12:37includes also the guest design. So right now we are only implementing a base of it right okay so we
12:45will continue to improve it but for now we have also two more great news. Guess who's back? Demo is back
12:55and our demo is not like previous time the separate story but right now it's the very start of the game
13:03and it will show you how the game improved so if you tried the game earlier you would definitely like to
13:12give it a second chance but if you don't know the game and if you had no occasion to play it earlier
13:19you would definitely like to see how we improve that and if right now the game is what you would
13:25like to play. Our new demo will be available on December 18th together with the start of Steam
13:32Winter Sale so if you would like to try it and see on your own eyes how we fix the game I encourage you
13:39to try it on December 18th. All your saves will be transferred to the main game if you decide to
13:45continue your gameplay after the demo so you can keep your progress. I think we're almost ready for
13:51the new December patch. So do I but there is still one important thing that we need to say to our
13:58community and unfortunately it's related to the saves. Unfortunately your saves will be lost so if you
14:06played Hotel Galactic earlier do have it in mind that you have to restart the game. We decided to
14:14restart the saves because it will help us prevent the future breaking of the game and due to a lot of
14:24saves that were corrupted previously we want you to start the new build on completely new profile.
14:31Okay so we have to summarize we have new features we have new mechanic we have the VIP guests and
14:38the lore we have compendium we have reworked research three and a lot of quality improvements
14:45but we have something else. Yes and the Steam sale. That's right the most important part of course guys
14:51for the first time our Hotel Galactic will be on 25% sale during the winter sale on Steam
14:58and to celebrate that we would love to invite you to watch our Twitch drops because we implemented
15:06additional mechanics which is Twitch drops and thanks to that we will be able to give you way more
15:13free items only by watching how other people play so this is this is wonderful and also I think that
15:22will be a very nice surprise for many of you because we will launch a contest and this will be a big one
15:31you might remember our customized Steam Deck from the first contest that we launched during the Kickstarter campaign
15:39so this one will also have this great reward come back but also will contain 49 other rewards to win so guys
15:51remember about the contest remember about the Steam sale and I hope to see you soon at Hotel Galactic
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