Battling Bulls (Devblog)

https://youtu.be/jS2Jr0Br58o We are all cranking away on the many, many little things that need to be in good shape for Early Access release (PC/Mac) — refining interface elements, optimizing the game for lower-end hardware, polishing many aspects of gameplay, and, of course, a great deal of bugtesting and fixing — but we’ve also got a few new features. Mostly we are waiting until we’ve got the game out before we tackle these, but recently our lead Unity developer Tommi spent some time setting up bull elk fights. Here’s how the National Park Service describes these battles: “The mating season (rut) generally occurs from early September to mid-October. Elk gather in mixed herds—many females and calves, with a few bulls nearby. Bulls bugle to announce their availability and fitness to females and to warn and challenge other bulls. When answered, bulls move toward one another and sometimes engage in battle for access to the cows. They crash their antlers together, push each other intensely, and wrestle for dominance. While loud and extremely strenuous, fights rarely cause serious injury. The weaker bull ultimately gives up and wanders off.” (National Park Service - Yellowstone) As always, it’s one thing to get the basic functionality working, and another thing to refine and polish it — so you can see some visual glitches in today’s video. We’ll try to get those fixed up soon but we won’t delay the initial Early Access release for PC/Mac. We will keep adding features like bighorn sheep and multiplayer in the months after release!