Development Summary - July 2026 & Patreon Update!

Hi Explorers,

The Monthly Summary for July is here!

It’s been a great month of development for TFE. I've implemented the pause & resume mechanic, the ore distribution on mineable mountains system and invested some more time in improving character movement.

This time I also got a Patreon status update for you! 🙂

TFE Development Summary - July 2026 & Patreon Update

Monthly Summary

Pause & Resume System Implementation

🛠️ Implemented Pausable & Resumable logic for Construction Sites, Farms, Taverns, Cookhouses, Marketstalls, Harvest, Production and Recruitment buildings

🛠️ Refactored logic flow for pausing and resuming to make it robust

🛠️ Fixed a bug, that output stacks of paused buildings do not count down

🛠️ Fixed, that road construction fails after pause/resume logic was implemented

🪟 Pause/Resume Button click triggers corresponding core logic and shows an animation if pending

🪟 Header of Building Widget shows paused state and building widget greys out if paused

🪟 Flags on buildings indicate if paused or not

🎨 Added bigger & nicer building flags

Character Optimization & Movement

🛠️ Improvement - Controllable Characters accelerate and decelerate when moving

🛠️ Improvement - Implement slope aware Navigation Mesh costs, so that settlers prefer flat paths

🛠️ Implemented blendspaces via Character DataAsset

🛠️ Refactoring - Make striking logic more robust and bullet proof

🛠️ Fixed, that carrier walks on spot when they just went into strike state

🛠️ Fixed, that worker walks on his idle spot if he's idling

🛠️ Fixed, that Sawmill Worker walks against Navigation Mesh island after sawing

🛠️ Fixed, that Sawmill Worker gets stuck at work when picking up softwood

Ore Distribution System & Minor Stuff

🛠️ Defined Ore & Ore Veins classes and implemented Vein PCG Logic

🛠️ Ore System populates empty GridPoints and distributes different density ore within ore veins (configurable)

🛠️ Improvement - Urgency got increased for loose stack bundles

🛠️ Fixed, that Small Storage counts don't reflect the actual stack in the slot

🛠️ Fixed, that resources from storage are not used

🛠️ Fixed Tool/Weapon getting lost if carrier is interrupted in recruitment process

🔄 Shared how the new improved flags & pause mechanic work + insights into upcoming features (Patreon)

📀 Pre-Alpha July game update deployed to all Patreons with Praefectus Level or higher (Patreon)

✨ Secrets

A Quick Update on Our Patreon Journey

I want to take a brief moment away from the code to talk about the current state of our Patreon and what it means for the development of The First Explorers.

As of today, our community has grown to 156 paying Patreons, alongside additional 103 free members following the game's progress. What is absolutely massive for me as a solo developer is that our paying supporter count has remained completely stable for over two months now.

I always emphasize that game development is a marathon, not a sprint. Because I am balancing the creation of TFE with a day job, having a steady, non-fluctuating backer count is the single most important factor for the health of this project. It provides the financial predictability required to effectively plan out the 4-week development cycles and reduce my day-job hours safely.

Because of your ongoing support, I have currently reached 75% of our short-term goal: securing enough predictable income to cover two full working days a week dedicated entirely to the game.

Hitting that 100% mark for those two days a week is our next immediate milestone. Looking further ahead, the mid-term goal remains reaching full-time coverage, which would allow me to pour all of my professional time directly into TFE.

In return for this incredible support, I give my absolute best to deliver substantial, high-quality game updates every single month.

I want to emphasize, that every new feature, fix and improvement I share in the monthly summary posts is already integrated into the next game update. What you read about in the devlogs is exactly what you get to play.

Thank you for making this journey possible.

Next pre-alpha game update for Praefectus Patreon supporters (or higher) is scheduled for August, 21st.

Best,

Sebastian 🙂