Progress Update on Goodlands!

Hi everyone!

I've been wanting to write an update post for Goodlands for a while now. I got out of school back in June, so I've had quite a bit more free time to work on development for the past month and a half. There's so much to share, but first two main items to discuss:

1. I'm taking the demo down on August

2. At this point, I'm fully focused on the development of the full release and, because of this, I don't have anymore updates planned for the demo. The demo is also quickly becoming unrepresentative of the full game, and I only want to put the best foot forward when marketing Goodlands.

3. For the full game, I'm planning on a release in December 2025/January

4. I've made a lot of progress towards this goal over the summer — once I'm back at school I'll be primarily working on content creation (making characters, quests, skeletons, easter eggs, etc.) in addition to multiplayer integration :)

Now for specific updates:

A common refrain in the demo feedback was the desire to forgo the dig site fetch quests and get some more hands-on gameplay related to excavation. My solution to this is having short mini games related to the three tools (shovel, pickaxe, and jackhammer). For each mini game you successfully complete, a fossil crate spawns in. Failing a mini game means your crew will come in to help – it will take them a day to produce one fossil crate. So, with this model you can excavate the site entirely in a matter of minutes, as long as you pass all the mini games :)

There are now three fossil crates per site instead of one, and each fossil crate corresponds to a portion of the bones found at the site. So, if you deliver less than three crates, you'll only be cleaning a portion of the bones. Here you can see some combinations of bones for the hind legs of the albertaceratops depending on which crates have been delivered. I've also added in a zoom feature for cleaning :)

The difficulty of the mini games varies across dig sites, so I've added in this little sandbox near the main campsite where you can practice the mini games to your heart's content (and adjust the difficulty, too).

Speaking of dig sites, when you discover a site you get this cool print out from your ground penetrating radar machine.

In other news, I've implemented fishing into the game at long last! The gif might be hard to understand because it is like 5 fps, but the mini game is essentially a hybrid of the Stardew Valley fishing game and the bouncing DVD logo from way back. You have to try and keep your bobber on top of the fish as it bounces around the box. There's still a lot that I need to add to make fishing complete; as it stands currently, it is one of my top priorities for this month.

Another common request from demo players was an enhanced map and a quest log. Well, we've got that now! I made this three ring binder that has tabs for map, excavation sites, minor fossils, NPCs, notes, fish, cows, and polaroids. Here's a look at the map. You can click on the grid to get an up-close view of that section on the right. There will be icons on the right that you can click on to get more information. There will also be a marker denoting player/truck location and more landmarks to help with orienteering.

For the NPC section of the binder, I wanted cute photos of everyone you meet along with information about what they want/need from you and where they are in the park. When you first talk to a new NPC a polaroid photo will be taken of them and added to the binder... as you can see happening with Larry below.

Here's how all the 2D cows will be found... jumping on haystacks around the park! (Credit for this cow goes to Vertebral Giant). The cows will also appear in your binder as you find them.

I've also been working on truck upgrades. Here's the nitro boost upgrade. I actually got this working ages ago, but I had to update the code this summer so I'm showing it off now.

A big update is the caravan/trailer. Instead of a tent, your character will sleep in this trailer (now that's an upgrade!). This will also be where you can modify the look of your character. But the best part is that you can add a hitch to your truck and take the trailer anywhere in the park. This means you can sleep anywhere you want! If you want to fish for a whole week, you can plop the trailer down next to the lake and go crazy. Or maybe you need to work on my dig sites in a far-off corner of the park... just bring your trailer with you and hang out there for a few days. I think this will help make the size of the park much more manageable in the full release.

There's also now a proper inventory system! You can access any item in the back of your truck and carry it around. This allows for consumable items like dino- mite, fuel cans, etc. as well as tools like a fishing rod, pickaxe, etc. It also means you can hand-deliver items to NPCs.

Here's the pickaxe in action — cracking open rocks to find amber (currency). Amber can be used to buy consumables, truck upgrades, fishing gear, and more.

Last thing, I haven't really worked on this over the summer at all, but I think it's worth showing here. I'm planning on integrating multiplayer into Goodlands. As stated above, that is one of the main things I'll be working on over the next few months in preparation for launch. Here's a gif from a multiplayer test I did with my wife earlier this year.

So, that's about it for gifs! There's a lot of other things I've been cooking up that I can't show off right now, but I hope this gets you excited for the full release at the end of the year. I'm also working on all the bugs that you all have reported, as well as features that make the game more accessible and enjoyable to interact with (making the truck handling better, improving the camera, etc.).

Lately, I've been most active on the Goodlands discord, which you should join if you want more frequent development updates. I'm also very receptive to feedback and suggestions, so it's a good place to make an impact on the game.

If you enjoy posts like these please comment below. I'd be happy to make more.

Thank you for your continued support!

Josh