Dev Update: Hotfix #6, New Island Progress

Hey Everyone,

Hotfix #6 is coming soon. It will probably be the last patch for the Preview branch. We've finished the Orchard Port gameplay, we're finalizing the Journal and we're making improvements to the Steam Roller.

Key Changes

• Orchard Port gameplay: finished and smoothed out

• Journal: added entries and side objectives for locations and the drillship

• **Steam Roller: improved driving, **added audio

• **Bugfixes: fixed the **jittery camera when walking on stairs or trash

There's a lot of smaller usability improvements coming along: interaction with the Drillship during repair, trolley interaction, placement of various items, and more. We also plan to give players some small pointers regarding the Steam Roller: a poster, a note, or something similar.

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Next major updates

In case you missed the last Steam post, here's a quick summary of what's next for Volcanoids.

• **This Summer: **classic Volcanoids gameplay on the new Island, full progression, placeholder terrain

• **The Fall: **new locations and gunplay improvements

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The development

The white-boxes for most of the locations in "Area 1" of the Island are done. This covers roughly a third of the island. The locations include:

1. Wrenchlow Mining Village

2. Darksaddle Coal Mine

3. Seismotorium Research Station

4. Ravensdale Mansion

5. Stormwatch Bastion

6. Smogmere Sulfur Mine

7. Capital City

8. Imperial Rose Cruise Ship

9. Wrecked Submarine

10. Boss location

Before making the final locations, we need to think about their placement in the world. Our focus is to bring verticality into the Volcanoids. This includes tall cliffs, deep ravines, bridges, tunnels and facilities hidden in large underground caves.

Early prototype showing some of the features:

The head of the founder, carved into the face of the cliff, overlooks the Capital city. What would you expect to find inside the head?

The prototype features a lot of empty space filled only with trees. We plan to "shrink it" a little so there's less empty space and the content is more densely packed. Some amount of empty space might work if we give you the Steam Roller early enough.

To expand on exploration, we’re considering a feature where you must first discover a landing site to unlock it - either by scouting on foot, driving the Steam Roller, or acquiring the coordinates. Once found, you can call your drillship there or keep exploring.

What do you think about this feature?

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How to play the preview

1. Launch Volcanoids as usual.

2. In the Main Menu, click "New Island preview".

3. The game will automatically close and switch your Steam branch to "preview".

4. Wait for the update to finish, then click "Play".

To go back: Simply click "Back to old island" in the main menu.

• The Volcanoids Team