Live on Stage at gamescom & Development Summary - July 2025

I have exciting news for The First Explorers. Let's dive right in:

Live on Stage at gamescom!

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Find Your Next Game Show

Yes that's right.

I will reveal all new Gameplay in the Find Your Next Game Show live on stage at gamescom next week!

The FYNG Show starts on Wednesday, August 20th at 05:30pm CEST and my spot will be around 06:15pm CEST. The show is in German, but will be covered worldwide by several outlets to make it also accessible for non German speakers.

New Gameplay Video Next Week

After the massive success of the commented Gameplay I published last year (over half a million views on YouTube alone!), it was an easy decision to record new gameplay about the current state of the game again.

So, I'm happy to announce that the new Gameplay Video will launch directly after the FYNG Live Show on Wednesday, August 20th at 08:00pm CEST on YouTube!

Deep Dive Q&A

But that's not all.

I'm also part of the FYNG live stream program later next week. I'll join a deep dive Q&A on Friday, August 22th at 01:30pm CEST together with the German streamer Maurice Weber to talk in detail about the new visuals and the new mechanics.

To shorten the wait a bit I have prepared a short monthly development summary of what I worked on last month:

TFE Development Summary - July 2025

🛠️ Plenty of bug fixes

🛠️ Started to replace character types with a much more performant system to draw and move a lot of settlers at once

🛠️ Other Performance improvements to several areas of the game (e.g. navMesh async generation)

🎨 New color grading and post processing to get a more vivid and bustling feeling

🎨 Designed and implemented the Roman Waterworks building

🎨 Designed and implemented the Roman Bakery building

🎨 Designed and implemented the Roman Coin Mint L1 building

🎨 Designed and implemented the Roman Weaver building

🎨 New Mineable Mountains environment visuals and details

🎨 New River environment visuals and details

🎨 New Lake environment visuals and details

🎨 New Ocean environment visuals and details

🎨 Added Waterfalls

🎨 Small slopes are now more visible to give a natural indication for levelling effort

And that's it for now, make sure to tune in next week and have a look on the new Gameplay Reveal.

Hope you're as excited as I am. See you next week!

Best, Sebastian