Hey, everyone! So for today's hotfix, we've added a few items, fixed some bugs, and confusion. We've changed some crafting methods and requirements for different items. Let's go through it!

• We have added a workbench to Northern Regime. This item will now show up in your crafting menu and building menu. You can only place it outside on the terrain. We'll have different workbenches that will be placed inside your structure. Some items will require you to be near a crafting bench. Here is a small list; Bullets, pistol, rifle, wall, roof, platform, stairs, pliers, weapon repairs for all items including pickaxe, pistol, rifle, and hatchet. So, basically, every large item requires a crafting bench now.
  
  
• Weapon health and repairs. Previously the only items that needed repairs were your pistol and rifle. We have added repairs to your pickaxe and hatchet now. All repairs take pretty much the same amount of resources. The damage rate on your pickaxe and hatchet is not bad. Each strike with a pickaxe deletes -2 health and a hatchet is -3. Your weapons do not deplete in health while attacking deer or soldiers.
  
  
• Stones We added stones to the crafting and inventory system yesterday but now they are an item you can find. Before in-game there were the stones/rocks on the ground you could not pick up and that confused players, luckily now, you can pick them up. Each stone give 1 stone to your inventory.
  
  
• Hunger Increasing Health If your hunger is now over 70 percent it will slowly increase your character's health over time. It is not the quickest thing as a bandage would still be a more realistic approach, but if you aren't in combat and just wondering I guess there wouldn't be a reason to waste a bandage.
  
  
• Mouse Sensitivity Slider We have added a slider to adjust your sensitivity in-game. It is located in your setting page. Please note that you most likely need to go change it right away! If you hop in now it will most likely be set to 0 because the number doesn't exist in your save. So just go edit it and save your game and you won't any longer have that problem. The smallest sensitivity is 0 and the highest is 150. If 150 is still too small for you, we can raise the cap.
  
  
• In-Game Guide Book We have added a guide book for in-game use that uses illustrations to explain how to do specific things. I'd recommend you check it out I think it's pretty cool. Right now there are only four different pages explaining the basics, but we are going to be expanding on it every single day until we have covered everything. I hope even right now it will clear up a lot of the confusion.
  
  
• Trading Is In We have added trading. You just need to walk up to a camp and press tab near a soldier. A little trading menu will come up on your right. Right now you can only buy things from soldiers they won't sell you anything. This is the way it will be until we add friendly camps, with union soldiers. You can expect this with-in the next week or so.

We've made a couple small tweaks. I can't for the life of me remember them all but here are a few.

• Changes some of the levels for being able to craft a pistol and a rifle.
  
• Hunger and Temp do not go down as fast anymore
  
• Some food now increases hunger bar more.
  
• Optimization Boost When we added the new pickup system there was a lot of lag that came with it. We realized our code was actually pretty sloppy and misdirected. We have since cleaned it up and increased the average framerate by 15-20.
  

Once again, everyone, these changes would not have been made if it weren't for all of your suggestions and criticism so thank you so much and keep it coming!

Once question I have is; are you guys enjoying the frequency of these updates and hotfixes or would you rather they come out once a week or longer?

Thanks!

Hey, everyone!
Today I am calling this new build an update because it does change the game in a semi-major way. Because it isn't our normal or planned update, which should be every two weeks I am calling it 3.0.2 instead of what it would be; 3.1.0.

BUILD IS LIVE

• Resource Gathering
  
  We have changed the gathering of ores and other items. Some items still use the old system and will remain that way. Previously we used a timer system, you would click the ore, the timer would start, then at the end of the timer the object would disappear and you would receive the items. The changed version: Now you need to wield your pickaxe or hatchet depending on the mineral you are wanting to mine. You need to be with-in a short distance of the object, you then look at that object, click it and an animation will play of your character smashing the object. All items take the same amount of hits right now; 4. We're going to be changing that shortly.
  
  
• Destroying Doors
  
  If you haven't heard, we changed some camps to cabins. Before you had to shoot down the door in order to get through. This has been changed. Although it's been changed you can still shoot the door down. Now you can smash the door down with a hatchet or pickaxe.

• Notice
  
  Please notice; because you need a pickaxe to mine iron and because you need iron to make a pickaxe it doesn't "compute" to make a pickaxe you'll now need stone. Stone is a material we have yet to add, for now when you log in you will automatically receive 25 stone, 7 more than what is needed. Pickaxe will not require repairs until we can add stone.
  
  The new animation for mining is currently a placeholder and will be changed until we can get an improved version.
  
  Some audio used for the new improvements are also placeholders that will be improved in some upcoming hotfixes.
  
  
  ADDITIONS
  • Melee Weapons
    
    We have finally added melee weapons to Northern Regime.
    
    Please notice I've only spent 8 hours on this system as I just began this morning, just saying this as it may be a little buggy for the start. Expect hot patches throughout today and tomorrow for this addition.
    
    You can now use a hatchet or pickaxe to kill soldiers and deer. We have yet to set it for bears, it's not urgent because we're not sure if it would even be possible to kill a bear that close. Enemies take about two hits. The reason we made it so low is because of that fact you have to get so close to the enemy just to be able to kill them. Deer currently take 5 hits.
    
    
  • Sneaking
    
    Because we now have melee weapons the sneaking in Northern Regime will begin to expand. Enemies have only ever attacked if you were in their vision of sight which is about 90-120 degrees or so. Sneaking wasn't practical because they do attack if you fire off a shot. Now you should be able to get up behind someone and kill them without others knowing. Camps are quite small right now and the enemies are near each other, sneaking still isn't the most practical option because of that. We will begin to create larger camps that are more spread out. In addition, enemies will start patrolling. < This is not in currently but expect it sometime soon. We still need to add crouching to make these scenarios more realistic.
  
  
  NEXT HOT PATCHES
  
  Just want to let you all know what I'll be adding next as a hot patch. Because we have been getting so many suggestions and bug reports the next large update may not come exactly on time or contain what was originally planned
  
  
  • In-game Instructions Book
    We realize, from you guys ( Thanks again for all of the constructive critisim) That having the instructions on a web page is not the most optimal system. We also have noticed and heard from you all, that the instructions are outdated and not in-depth enough.
    
    We will be changing to an in-game booklet that will have many pages on every single item or system in the game. To better explain each system we will be using text and images/illustrations to define how they work. This is what I will be working on now and for the next 10 or so hours. I'm hoping this system will stop any confusion you have been experiencing.
    
    
  • Sticks & Stones Confusion
    Because some sticks in-game are there just for decoration and others to be interacted with, we realize how users are finding this confusing for their first time. We are going to work on a different terrain detail that will stop this confusion from happening again.
    
    
  • Minor Additions
    
    We may also be adding a map. It will take a while to brainstorm how it should work and then if we come up with a solid system we will begin adding it.
    
    We are also going to tweak hunger. When you hunger bar is high it will slowly increase health over time.
    
    Hunger & Temp have been changed to decrease a little slower than before
    
    A known bug that will need to be fixed is our experience and levels. For some reason they are not updating(experience) until you level up. It will be fixed in the next hot patch!
  
  
  OUTRO
  
  Thank you, everyone. I hope you enjoy. If anyone has issues with the new update please email me or post in the forums and I will respond right away. If you have any suggestions or criticism I would love to hear it!
  
  See you all soon!
  

Hey, everyone. This is a super small hotfix/update but I think it's pretty cool and should add a little more excitement or incentive to attack camps.

We swapped a few camp style outposts for confederate cabins. The only way to get into a cabin is to actually shoot the door down. To knock a door down it should take anywhere from 3-4 shots total.

These cabins have a cool design with beds, tables, chairs, and a fireplace. They also now have a ton more loot and food. What we are going to be doing is giving each base cabin a rating out of ten. one out of ten would be the lowest difficulty and ten would be the highest. The cabins will also get more complicated and larger depending on the difficulty.

This hotfix also includes a small optimization boost. We took most and every static detail in Northern Regime and combined it into one single mesh. This, in theory, should reduce draw calls which in most cases is the result of lag or poor performance aside from a lot of cases where it could be poor programming.

Once we have added a lot of confederate bases we will be taking away their respawn. Once you destroy a base the enemies will not come back and neither their items, however, the cabins will still be there but they will no longer have doors.

I'll be uploading another hotfix in the next few hours with some tweaks based on what everyone has been saying. We've received some complaints that the hunger and temperature are going down too quickly. We are going to alter it a little, but in the upcoming days, we are going to add difficulty levels.

This will be the last hotfix post because we need to start working on the next big update we won't be able to upload hotfix builds because the world won't be stable.

The next update is going to be on building and Construction. We'll hopefully be adding the following to the crafting menu; Torches, crafting table, fireplace, table, doors, door frames, a smelter for smelting minerals, a stove, and possibly a few others.

Thanks for the support everyone. Any questions, I'd love to answer them!

Hey, everyone! I have another Hot Fix for you. If these are too frequent please let me know, I don't want to bother everybody. I just thought it would be nice to notify everyone on what has been fixed or added when I upload a new build to steam. Today I have a short list that will hopefully increase the in-game "Quality of Like".

• Added crafting indications to display how many items you have compared to the number of items you need to craft that particular item.
  
  
• Added craft indicator message. Someone had said that they had no idea if an item was crafting or not. This is a small tweak but should make a huge difference
  
  
• Someone had said the voice clips for being hungry and cold were much too frequent and too annoying. We've increased the timing substantially. We agree, you really only need to hear or have an indication if you are cold or hungry
  every 5-10 minutes or so.
  
  
• We changed the model for the chests you can loot. They have now been changed to wooden crates. It looks and feels
  a little more realistic now.
  
  
• Added auto save message. We did not have a message to display when your game auto saved. Auto save before, also, did not actually save building only the items in your inventory and on your character.
  
  
• Added some minor terrain and world details. We are going to continue to do so as some players stated there aren't enough details. If you guys have any suggestions please feel free to comment what you'd like to see in Northern Regime's world.

The next hotfix we'll be adding will include improvements on enemy camps. We'll be changing it up quite a bit to make camps more desirable and interesting. I'll be uploading this as a hotfix as I believe enemy camps aren't the best they could be and need to be "Fixed".

Once again, thank you, everyone, for the support. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

A quick Intro
Hey, everyone! I appreciate all of the awesome posts on our forum as well as the reviews given today! We've taken all of the comments, concerns, bugs, and problems into account. We've gone ahead and fixed or changed all the problems that were brought to our attention.

Here is a list of fixes we made today

• Floating Enemies. We noticed some enemies were missing their correct box colliders and went ahead and changed them to fit properly. You should no longer encounter floating enemies or animals.
  
• UI aspect ratio issues. Some people were having a hard time seeing their entire interface depending on their monitor size or aspect ratio. We found a compromise by changing the location of the crafting box, as well, as the inventory page buttons. Now all aspect ratios should be supported. If we would have known before that not all were, we would have made sure that was a known problem, we are sorry for that.
  
• A lot of items and their uses were unclear. In the crafting menu, we have added a description to each and every item. You can now spend some time researching the crafting list to figure out what everything does.This should clear up any confusion.
  
• Save Confirmation We realized there wasn't a confirmation when saving. This left users confused not knowing if their game had saved or not.
  
• We fixed a bunch of other small bugs and glitches some people were experiencing. We are going to continue to do so.

Outro

If you're experiencing any other bugs, please let me know so I can work out these kinks. Thanks for the awesome birthday everyone!

Today we are introducing the "Player Skills Tree" this tree will give you certain upgrades and abilities as you level up in-game. Using the skill tree will be crucial to in-game progression.

• Bush Craft: Increases wood yield by over 50 percent.
  
• Miner: Increases Ore yields by 50 percent.
  
• Rifle Expert: Increases bullet damage by 75 percent making all enemies a one shot kill.
  
• Survivor: Hunger and Warmth decrease at a much slower rate. Eating does 2x more.
  
• Veteran: Decreases enemy bullet damage by over 50 percent.

The Skill Tree creates a new dynamic to Northern Regime. It will be up to you to decide whether to chose bushcraft or Miner first. It may take trial and error figuring out what crafting recipes take what materials and what you need to craft first in order to survive.


We have not worked out the system completely but we are very excited about it. Healing will no longer be simple in Northern Regime.
How It Works
Depending on where you get shot it will show you specifically on the anatomy analysis chart. If you get shot in the chest it will tell you what you need to craft to survive and heal your injury. Each part of your body will require a different medical kit. Some kits will be very rare and difficult to craft. This will make Northern Regime even more challenging!

Gladly Nothern Regime has been translated to Russian, French, and German. We will continue to expand and hopefully, have 12-15 total languages upon full release! Thanks, everyone!

Building in Northern Regime will be a little different than most survival games. Instead of building randomly with blocks, you will have the option to build on to a pre-existing foundation once you have found the corresponding blueprints which are randomly generated in chests.

Building Items

• House Walls
  
• An old style bed
  Bed's If you do not have a bed and die in Northern Regime, your save file will be deleted forcing you to start over. If you do have a bed your file will save, as well, you will have the option to press "H" and teleport back to your home.
  
• Add art like paintings or deer heads
  
• Add a carpet or rug
  
• Add torches for light
  
• Sawmill to collect wood
  And plenty more to come. Let us know if you like this system style.

We plan to add Head Hunters to Northern Regime after you have created your first home. They have seen you start to progress and become stronger so they have developed jealousy. They will spawn randomly and try to attack you.

This will hopefully create an interesting dynamic and a feeling of uneasiness. Will will hopefully throw in some traps and home defense. Maybe also the ability for bandits to steal or harm your home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QJ597BiY_E&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=NorthernRegime


Our crafting has changed for the better. It is more organized and stylized more efficiently. Crafting items will show up in a list form. You will click the item you want to craft and it will show up in a little crafting box. This crafting box will display the items you need and the quantity it takes to create them. When ready there is now a big button saying "Craft" you can click it and a timer will begin to progress until complete.


Be sure to check out our most recent development vlog. It shows some of the stuff we added to Pre-Alpha 2.8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1BptIwJ2Y8&ab_channel=NorthernRegime

Since Northern Regime releases into Early Access in just 30 days we have been working as hard as we can! I'm still a little sick so I haven't been able to make a development vlog, but I hope to make one soon.

This will most likely be the biggest update yet. We have been working and adding plenty of mechanics, systems, new items, new crafting recipes, and much more. We'll go over as many as we can remember in this update. However, this update will be the last of which we go into detail about items and new mechanics as we want some what of a mystery for when you first play Northern Regime.

Food
• New foods that can be found at camps and throughout hidden areas; Chocolate bars, beans, and beef jerky.
  
  Terrain Details
• Added new trees and bushes.
  
• Added large mountainscapes in the distance.
  
• Added a lot of small terrain details; rocks, sticks, tree branches, leafs.
  All of these detail additions really help make the world feel dense and mysterious. It's a small addition but makes the biggest difference.
  
  Textures & Models
• Added higher quality textures for the terrain and the character model.
  
• Added a much more realistic snowfall that actually appears on the grand near you for a particular duration.
  
• Added a super high-quality backpack model for the character. We decided to spend the money on contracting a very expensive artist for this, because the back of the character is something you will be seeing a lot of. It's important to have something visually stunning to look at.
  
  Sound & Audio
• We have been working on our custom sound effects. We have commissioned a small studio to create these. It's been going well, we are happy to have our own unique sounds.
  
• Our sound composer has been working super hard producing plenty of music for our soundtrack. We currently only have 3 songs in the soundtrack but we hope for around 12 or so by lunch. The music is really great and works well to set the in-game atmosphere.
  
  Crafting & Inventory
• We have spent an immense time on the crafting and inventory ui/mechanics. We have re-worked the ui for the inventory and the crafting menu. The crafting menu now has better icon images down by a professional. The inventory now has photo-realistic icons that make gathering items feel more satisfying. We haven't just been working on the visuals, we have also been working quite hard on adding awesome new items and crafting recipes. The most notable item we added was a rabbit snare. You'll be able to place as many as you want and they'll naturally trap animals you'll be able to cook then eat.
  
  Site & Steam
• If you haven't noticed, we launched a new trailer on our Steam page, also adding new screenshots. We'll most likely continue adding new images and videos as we get closer to launch because the game is changing so much in visual and just getting better generally. Our website has also been re-worked completely. We suggest you check it out pretty soon here we'll have a tutorial page for new players.
  
  Inventory & Weapons
• We want Northern Regime to be a pretty tough game. We have decided to add item health to tools, weapons, and traps. Previously you could use your gun or pickaxe for as long as you wanted to. Now they actually have health and durability. When a weapon loses all health it automatically is destroyed. In the future, we would like to make the particular tool you are using become less useful as loses durability. We also need to add toolkits. We have added a pickaxe and a hatchet; the pickaxe helps you mine faster, and the hatchet increases your yield.
  
  Combat
• Comabt is definitely getting better and more fun. We have added a weapon level system into Northern Regime. When you start out it is going to take you a while to kill an enemy(3-4 shots total) This is going to force the player to level up before taking on larger camps. There are 3 levels max, the 3rd level being a one shot kill. To level up you will need to craft rifle upgrades.
  
  Visuals
• Visuals are important to us(obviously not more important than gameplay). So we have been working a lot on different effects for the camera. The most recent is a radial blur. It's again a pretty small addition but it really does affect immersion. When scoped out it's pretty minor just around the edges, but when you zoom in it spreads quite far into the center making it feel like your character is actually focusing in on what you are aiming at. It makes combat really awesome and interesting.

So the early access launch date is final.(Hopefully lol). We will be releasing Northern Regime's alpha on February 17th at 1:00 pm Pacific Time. Most places in America that will be around 4:00 pm.

So a question most of you are probably wondering is "When will updates/patches come out?" The answer is Every second Saturday
So basically every 2 weeks. We would like to do it every week, which we originally planned for, but I think it would be best for everybody if we waited two weeks instead. We will be able to add more items, mechanics, systems, etc and also be able to focus more on bugs and errors you may experience.

We hope that everybody loves the game and it is everything you anticipated. I'll talk to you all soon!