Home By The River Update 10 and Launch!

Today Home By The River launches on Steam and it's been a long and great journey for me in learning more and making a game with deep mechanics.

What is HBTR?

Home By The River is a unique builder game set in a dystopian not too distant future. You move to a polluted land by a river so that you may build your clean reactor secretly, and hide from the mighty Sigil Corporation. Construct your home & lab, farm, harvest, cook, earn money, gain virtue, clean pollution, get your technology out to the world, and so transform your dystopian world forever by your efforts. Enlist Pioneers of various professions to help you in your cause! You can play single player or LAN co-op.

These updates apply to both the demo and full versions of the game:

• I've added a drone beacon tile that allows the player to summon up to 150 enemy drones for good old drone combat fun. When you destroy drones you gain money and exp. At level 4 you can use a Lightning rod workbench to power up your weapon against drones and make short work of them. This adds a bit more variety in how you can earn income besides farming, the game dev mini game, investing, etc.

• Drones coming on the first day is too intense because most players are still learning the basic construction controls. Drones will now come from day 7 onwards.
• Your lightning rod now auto attacks instead of having to left click. Some players were struggling to control the player with the keyboard and attack with the mouse. I've simplified it and now the player just has to focus on keeping their distance from the drones. The lightning rod auto attacks with precision making drone combat easier.
• The lightning rod emits a trail when attacking drones so now you can see more easily which drone is being struck as it auto attacks.
• Clicking on potted plants will teleport you to them like many other props. Now you can place these strategically to beautify your home and for fast travel.
• For each objective where you need to place a particular tile, that tile type will now have a golden border in your construction/props menu to help you find it easier.
• Energy never stays at zero. You will have at least one point so you can keep on constructing or harvesting until you sleep or drink etc. to recharge energy. I noted that new players like to remove trash and dead trees and suddenly find they don't have energy and they don't understand why they can't build then. I don't want players to feel frustrated so I've made this change so you don't feel stuck at the beginning of the game.
• I've changed the prayer book tile appearance to a standing book because some people thought it is a bed.
• I've updated some of the icons that show in the Objectives panel. In particular wherever Supply Chain Workstation is mentioned I've put its icon instead of the props icon. This is to help players understand that they need to place and use the Supply Chain workstation in order to unlock the mentioned tile (e.g. solar panel).
• I've added a global condition console which you can unlock from the supply chain workstation at level 2. Using this console you can see the current state of Sigil Influence, global prosperity, and global environment.
• The random gift box now appears as a reward for twelve tiles placed. I've done this to give the player a clearer notification that they've received a gift box. I've also made opening of gift boxes through the inventory more noteworthy so the player can have some enjoyment from clicking through them to open them, because you can collect a lot of gift boxes!
• I've added sounds for when you collect commodities and I think this adds to the giving the player feedback on their gaining of those commodities.
• I've added sounds for when drones lose health. I find this gives nice feedback especially when striking them with the lightning rod.
• I've added more coin sounds throughout the game to help make it more obvious when you are receiving money.
• I've added a subtle footstep sound to the player to add a bit more liveliness to the game. I've also made the characters more buff in appearance.

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