Derail Valley News

Hello everyone!

We’re here with more information about Simulator, the upcoming major update to Derail Valley. This post is not so much a progress report, but rather oriented toward clarifying a few things about the update and making a few small announcements. Be warned - it's a bit lengthy.



For the start, a quick summary of the previous two months - frankly, not particularly exciting ones. We've made a countless amount of bug fixes, cleanups and all kinds of wrapping up all across the project. We’ve transitioned from nearing the finishing phase to actually being deep in it. We’ve also expanded the team by a valuable member, to help us finish sooner (more on that below). Probably the most interesting to you - we’re weeks away from starting posting a lot more media about the update.

[h2]Boarding the 2023 hype train[/h2]

In the previous post we said we could see a possible release sometime in the first half of 2023. So far that time frame remains viable, with the launch in Q2 being the most likely.

Starting January 9th and until release, we’re going to be making two media posts each working day on our social media. Each post is going to include a screenshot or a few-seconds short video highlighting a particular game’s feature, a notable piece of content or an artistic shot.

We will be making these posts on Discord, Twitter, YouTube (posts/shorts), Reddit, Facebook and the newly opened Instagram and TikTok accounts - so make sure to give us a follow on your preferred platforms!

You can open images in new tab for higher resolution.

Our list of things to post about has close to 200 items. With artistic shots added to the mix, even though we’re talking posting twice a day, that makes it up to half a year worth of content to post - of which 95% will show something that’s new to Simulator, or improved in it. Since we intend to release the update sooner than that, at some point we will probably start making more than two posts a day.

The posts will initially show the basic things like shots of different types of landscapes, road vehicles, weather and similar, but over the months they will progress to showing more of the new UX, the new train simulation features, locomotives and more. Basically, the closer to the release the more revealing the content.

[h2]Frequently asked questions[/h2]

We’ve been getting a lot of the same questions over the months, not rarely from players who are frustrated and highly concerned for Simulator taking so long. While all of these questions were answered in previous news posts already, please allow me to address the concerns in this format and hopefully remove any ambiguities:

[h3]Why would you show us two posts a day instead of all of it at once?[/h3]

We’re still many months away from the update being ready for launch. For that day to be successful (and frankly, we really need it to) we need the peak of community interest to be then, and not many months prior.

That said, we appreciate our fans and, with the individual small pieces of content being posted sooner, want to provide you with something to look forward to every day, while not letting the cat out of the bag prematurely.



[h3]Why does it take so long to finish the update anyway?[/h3]

A lot of the game was basically remade from scratch. The code that makes trains do anything is all new. A lot of the graphics rendering features are all new. The way the game loads/reloads sessions is all new. The user interfaces are all knew. On top of it there are many, many more features that didn't exist before (there's a link to more details in a reply further below). It takes a lot of work to bring all these things together to a coherent whole, as bug free as possible. This is a huge update, and once we reveal all that's new it will start to make more sense.

[h3]Why did you remake so much of it?[/h3]

There was a lot of necessary corner cutting we've done in the past when we had less resources. For the game to progress, and the many new features to be added, we had to drastically improve some things. For the first time ever, we were in a position to not rush things and do them properly. It took longer than it was originally planned, but we saw that as a good investment for the future of Derail Valley.

[h3]Couldn't you have split the update into smaller individual parts?[/h3]

Not in an efficient way. To avoid downtime, it's necessary that people in the team start and finish their projects at different times. Since projects on Simulator have many dependencies amongst each other, despite being done in parallel, it's impossible to time them to all be finished at a certain time, unless we're strictly pushing for a release.

And doing that is wasteful. Cutting it into multiple releases would have caused a lot of depending projects and team focus to be disrupted. In the long run, this would have drastically postponed the update from reaching the state it's in now, it would have devaluated its publishing potential and left a bunch of design "scar tissue" that we'd then need to spend significant time on mitigating. In the context of this particular update, the gain from the higher release frequency would have been net negative.

This is not to say that small quick updates should never be done. We've done 40+ of them when it made sense, but sometimes it's more efficient to work continually on major updates that take a long time to finish.



[h3]If the Simulator update is ready for capturing media, why don’t you just open the beta?[/h3]

Apart from desire to focus community attention on the eventual release date itself, as mentioned above, there are other reasons too. For example, our beta team is already carefully selected in a way that works best for us and the update, and they’ve been doing a great job for years.

There’s so much work on our plate that managing a large group of people hunting for bugs that we mostly already know about would be a massive, unhelpful distraction. Without many UX features in place (such as the tutorial, which needs to be done near the end of development), a lot of people wouldn’t get the right idea on how exactly to use or do certain things, and this would lead to more confusion than usefulness. We don’t want people having conflicting information and experiences on the release date.

Simply put, running an open beta would not be productive right now and would further complicate and delay the release. The very moment Simulator is ready for a hypothetical open beta, it will in fact be released to everyone.



[h3]What if your testers are insufficient and I would catch something they didn’t?[/h3]

The majority of bugs and UX improvements are actually handled internally, before even reaching the testers. None of those are the bottleneck - development speed is. When it comes to other suggestions and feedback, our testers are veteran players of Derail Valley, knowledgeable about trains, and for example their input a year ago was crucial in the update’s improvements to brake and powertrain simulation accuracy. Right now in the finishing stages, however, the activity is more focused on bug hunting and having more of it would not be helpful.

That said, we do want to expand the beta team when the update is ready for translation. This will provide us with fresh perspectives and experiences on varying hardware, so that we can make adjustments as needed. The day this will start has proven difficult to pinpoint however, because translations require the tutorial to be done, which itself needs pretty much every other feature to be finalized. Although it’s tough to say when, we’re getting there.

With that, I’d also like to remind everyone of our list of translator candidates per language. If you’d like to help translate Simulator to your language and eventually get beta access, please let us know on our Discord server. We’ll inform you how to apply when we’re ready to start.



[h3]This is Early Access. Why am I not given your latest version to test it right now?[/h3]

Buying a game in Early Access gives players the opportunity to try it, give feedback and support development before it is potentially finished. However, this does not mean that involvement of players at every step of the development is productive.

Now, I absolutely understand that many of you have been waiting for this update for a very long time. We didn’t initially plan for it to take this long, and for that I genuinely apologize. What matters is that we’ve endured through all of the hurdles so far, have been working on the update at our full capacity all this time, and are getting it ready for release.

[h3]What if you’re intentionally stringing us along, delaying the update indefinitely?[/h3]

That wouldn't work for anyone involved. Here’s why:

Even if it were to never receive another update again, the currently available version of Derail Valley is a stable, unique experience with over 50 hours of gameplay, priced less than what it’s worth (because of the long-term early supporter discount). We would gain nothing “upselling” the existing game by lying about an imaginary update.

Simulator is the most costly project we’ve ever worked on, more so than the rest of the game before it. Yet, it’s a free update for all the existing players. With its release we will increase the price of Derail Valley for new buyers, but for this all to pay off, the risk and challenge is entirely on us to make the update attract enough new players to buy the game - now at the increased price, three years after the original release.



Every day that we’re not releasing Simulator, we’re also not increasing the game’s price. This is at our own loss, owning up for the self-caused delay. And, mind you, the delay has happened only because with the changes made we want to make the project more cost effective in the future.

The players can only gain here. Every loss is on us. I see absolutely no way this could have been handled any more fair for the players than it has been, and especially compared to some of the competing products. There’s always going to be someone unhappy about it and that’s unavoidable.

Finally, if anyone’s wondering, the Simulator screenshots we’re posting are raw captures from actual well-performing test builds, free of image manipulations.

[h3]You say Q2 2023. How do we know that you won’t delay the update again?[/h3]

It's still an estimate, not a definitive release date. We are adamant on finishing, and can’t foresee any reasons for further postponements, however there's no guarantee. It’s in our interest more than anyone’s to release the update as soon as possible, but we think making sure it's stable and attractive at launch is more important than being early.



[h2]What to expect (and not expect) in the update[/h2]

Will there be multiplayer in Simulator? Or ever?

No. Multiplayer was never a planned feature. We wanted to test the possibility of adding it at some point, but there are way too many things on our plate for us to get to it. If we ever do multiplayer, it will be in a separate product.

Is the map getting expanded in Simulator?

No. Apart from minor prop additions and bug fixes, there are no changes to the map, tracks or industries coming in Simulator. We plan on working on track and industry improvements immediately after launch, depending on its success, however the map size won’t change. We do, however, intend to have one or more new maps as DLC in the future.

Are jobs getting improved in Simulator? Are we getting any new cargo types?

No. Same as the answer above, we have many plans in regards to improving jobs and cargo in the base game, but the work on that will only start after Simulator, depending on its success.

What about AI trains? Passengers?

No. Precursor for them is the map/track improvement mentioned above. We’re still a few years away from AI-driven trains and passengers, if things go well.

Will there be Steam Workshop?

Probably not yet in Simulator, but if all goes well, the plan is to have it added later, as soon as the rest of the train mod infrastructure is deemed stable.



So then, what is coming in Simulator?

You can see the exact list of features coming in Simulator listed in one of our previous posts, split into three lists. We will highlight these in more detail over the next year:

ENVIRONMENT TRAIN SIMULATION USER EXPERIENCE

What’s the status of mod support in Simulator?

A big part of Simulator is the all new powertrain simulation for steam and diesel vehicles. The new code was made with train mod support in mind, so that modders can make new locomotives, conceptually similar to those included in the vanilla game, more easily, practically without programming.

While this considerably increases the speed at which the new locomotives can be created, it’s still not made very accessible to modders. We want to give that some shape in the next few months, but we aren’t sure yet to what extent it will be finished and documented for the Simulator release. If all goes well, we will be rapidly improving these systems immediately after launch.

With that I want to point out that modding trains into Derail Valley is still going to be rather difficult (the game itself is rather detailed), but easier than before. For mods that aren’t trains, there’s no planned support and they will continue to be developed the same way as before.



[h2]Zeibach joins the dev team![/h2]

In our eternal battle to reduce the time it takes to finish Simulator, we’ve expanded our team by a new programmer - none other than the DV modding rockstar, Zeibach!

You may know him as the author of many of the most popular Derail Valley mods, such as Zeibach’s Realism Overhaul. As one of our long-time Discord community members and a day one Simulator beta tester, a few weeks ago he became part of the Altfuture team. In the following period he will be taking care of what’s left of the work on train simulation and train mod support. These won’t be some groundbreaking improvements just yet, but they drastically help offload our team and will shorten the time to release. Over the years Zeibach and us have both found that we strive for the same goals and vision behind Derail Valley, so instead of doing things double, joining forces made perfect sense for everyone.



Before you say that we should've done this years ago, I just want to make it clear that it wasn’t coming up with the idea that was the hard part, but actually making it happen. Getting where we are today was made possible only by the enormous effort from the people on our team and the support from our players, and none of that should be taken for granted.

Having Zeibach join Altfuture marks a historical moment, because this is the first time our team has reached 10 members since its humble beginnings, almost exactly a decade ago. However, it’s worth noting that not everyone on the team is a developer, and of those who are, not everyone is available 24/7. We are no AAA with infinite resources that could make all the perfect moves. This project is still a very difficult, risky endeavor with no guarantees, despite how easy it may all look from the outside. I hope everyone can understand the human side of the journey, and appreciate that, while we have surely made some mistakes along the way, we are still going.

-

With that I’d like to thank everyone for your support. We’ll enter the new year with more hard work and a bunch of new screenshots and short videos coming your way. Remember to stay up to date with us and discover Simulator on a daily basis by following us on: Discord, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and TikTok.

Until then, all of us at Altfuture wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays!

-Slobodan

Hi everyone!

This message is a quick one. If you would be so kind, we'd greatly appreciate if you could take a moment and vote Derail Valley for the "Labor of love" award this year!



Today is more than 6 years since we started work on Derail Valley, and almost 3 years since it was launched in Early Access. A tremendous amount of work has been done throughout the years, and the biggest changes are yet to be revealed with the release of Simulator, the next major update coming later next year, that we're working on very hard.

If you’re curious about progress on Simulator, and have read the previous news posts (this one and this one), note that we will have another progress write up in about a month. Bug fixing and project cleanups have been the major activity so far, but there’s also some new exciting tidbits to be revealed!

Thank you so much!

-Your DV team

Hi everyone!

It's about three months since our last news post, and we wanted to give you some new information on the update progress and show you a couple of screenshots.

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The work on Simulator has been going well, as usual. Finally, as we near the end, we begin to see what aspects of the update can be called done, or at least what it will take to finish them. So, we'll talk a bit about that in this post.

I’ll start with perhaps the biggest goal we’ve reached this year -- putting it all together to a coherent whole. While we've been adding and testing new features internally on a daily basis, for nearly a year the game was not in a shape where much of it was presentable. We were finally able to change that a few months ago, and have been building on top of it since. In that period, our closed beta team was kind and eager to jump in and help us thoroughly test the update and find plenty of quirks that needed fixing.

We’ve been updating the beta almost every week since. It was pleasing to see no major issues being discovered, and feedback mostly revolved around small improvements that we either had in the plans already, or that are relatively quick to do. However, it’s worth noting that a LOT of small improvements had to be made, and many still await their turn.



We're showing more screenshots today because, finally, visual aspects of the game such as day and night cycle, fog, rain, window droplets, lightnings, lighting, reflections and others are pretty much done and more or less represent the finished product. Along with them come the necessary adaptations for VR and settings for low-end hardware. While creating all these features we were adamant on keeping the performance good, and it does play well on the PCs we and the testers have tried it on. However, we are yet to do thorough testing on low-end machines and VR when everything else is complete too, so whether there's additional work to be done on this remains to be seen.

In regards to visible objects, we finished the several new items that are coming with the update, as well as over 25 road vehicles you can see parked around. The new water implementation is done, and the improved HAZMAT and derailing effects are being worked on right now, to be done in a few days.



Another very important thing that we seem to be weeks from finishing is the structural design, both in code and UX sense, of how the game is dealing with multiple user profiles, sessions, saves, scenarios and difficulty presets. Unfortunately it's not something fun or visible that we can showcase outside of the finished product, but it took a lot of time to do, admittedly many more months than originally anticipated. The whole scope of that work wasn't really possible to be known in advance, until we dug deeper into the matter.

Now that it's almost done, the rework really seems to have transformed the game's usability. For example, starting a sandbox run at a particular location with a particular train, just to try out something quick, without having to ruin your ongoing career session, is a major convenience. So is being able to go back to the last autosave when a cat unexpectedly jumps in your lap, causing the entire oil well industry to blow up. We've all been there.

On that note, the design of new graphical user interfaces, as well as localization systems are all in place too, with relatively minor work to be done as we get closer to starting accepting translations. More on that in a few months.



We’ve finished all the diesel locomotives and added them to the game, along with their behaviors, sounds, textures and other aspects. This includes DE2, DE6, DM3 and DH4. Implementation of old locomotives had to be fully redone, mind you, to accommodate for the new train simulation code. Most of their graphical assets received an update (or a revamp) too. The steamers S060 and S282 currently have their models finished, but remain to be added to the game in terms of simulation.

The new train simulation code is a behemoth that took us about two years to write from scratch. There’s a LOT of work put into it, mostly future-proofing the game for new locomotive additions. This is something that's not particularly visible, but is very important in the long run.

With that said, a lot of work still remains to be done on train simulation in regards to mod support. Originally we wanted to keep this for after the update, but we see now how that could slow us down in the future. There are important decisions to be made, and we’re currently working on finding ways to reduce the necessary work to a minimum possible timeframe. At this point it looks to be in the 2-5 months ballpark, and remains to be seen.



Another important aspect of Simulator that wasn’t really properly announced in the past, but was added subsequently and is for the most part finished, is the all new external camera driving UI. I won’t go into details of how this works just yet, but being able to drive the trains from an outside view with intuitive camera controls and contextual UI elements makes it a whole new experience for the nonVR players.

Driving in first person view has been improved too, with the ability to freeze the camera and use your mouse cursor to operate the levers and buttons. The game now offers a really nice balance of using both camera views and many controls methods, depending on your mood and the activity at hand. There are also proper tools in place for easy camera and scene setup, for taking videos or screenshots like the ones shown here. You’ll hear more about all of these features in the future.

With that I should also mention that the game is now powered by a robust difficulty parametrization system, which took a while to implement and lets you setup the game in a whole range from being a “noob-friendly relaxing arcade” to “hardcore realistic simulator”, with individual parameters on what’s allowed and what isn’t -- such as for example the external camera usage. Going forward, we want to continue expanding the game in both directions simultaneously, expecting the most players to find fun somewhere in between. This is why the game will ship with three difficulty presets, but you’ll also be able to make your own.



On the VR side we've replaced controllers with proper hands that naturally adapt their grasp to levers and buttons in their vicinity, adding so much to the immersion. The game also features a whole new inventory experience, consolidated between VR and nonVR -- but more on that later. Of the larger things remaining to be done, apart from the leftovers of train mod support and steam simulation, there’s the environment sounds system and reworked tutorial. Then, of course, there are a myriad of small things remaining, as well as translations, marketing material and other necessary logistics. It may not sound like a lot, but it is still an overwhelming amount of work left.

So, with that, we can see Simulator possibly getting released in the first half of next year. Our aim is the first quarter, but the eventual date may be later and it cannot be foretold yet. Whether the update will be ready in three, five or more months from now remains to be seen. However, as we get closer to the release it'll be easier to reveal more details, so we'll keep making these progress news posts at approximately every three months. Hopefully there won't be many more until the release date is in sight.

As we’ve mentioned previously a couple of times, with the release of Simulator the price of Derail Valley will be increased for new buyers. The new price will be $39,99, slightly more than previously announced. We're making this increase to help support our efforts. We think the new price will be rather fair given the recent developments not only in our game, but also the world and the train sim market itself.

I hope you enjoyed this update and as always, thanks for your patience! We're getting there!

-Slobodan

Hi everyone,

Many of you are curious about how it’s going with our next major update, Simulator, so this post is intended to bring you up to date.

In the past five months since the previous post, there's been a lot of progress made on the update. It is currently in the final stages, and we are putting a lot of effort to release it as soon as possible. That said, there's still plenty of work left to do. We think we're about 3-5 months away from the release. Please understand that this is an estimate based on the current status, and it still may change.

It's been a very productive and busy period, which brought us significant improvements to graphics, UX, train simulation and bug fixes. Our team, which grew from six to nine members last year, has further solidified its coordination and workflow in the meantime, and has been hard at work continuously.



What made it difficult to share our progress more openly and establish a reliable release date is that, as we were developing Simulator, we were also cleaning up the project on the fly, which is a rather unpredictable process. As we explained in the previous post, we took this direction now because we see it as the most valuable course of action in the long run.

That is still part of the reason why we don't share more screenshots and videos about the update - it'll all be displayed when it's done. Another, bigger reason, is that with the release of Simulator, the price of Derail Valley for new buyers will be increased to $35.99. We want to delay the update as long as necessary until we're sure that our game is undoubtedly worth that price. It is because of this, too, that we want to attract attention after the update is released, not before.

All that contributes to us being more quiet than usual in this period, but rest assured that the update is in continual full development. It already is the biggest project we've ever worked on. While some of the upcoming features have been announced before in broad terms, at this point we can list them in a bit more detail:

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All of the listed features and content are either done or nearing completion. They will be showcased in full detail in our In-Depth video series in days prior to the release.

At this point we’re past the major reworks too. For a few months already our daily work has been revolving around bringing everything together to a coherent whole. That alone is a challenge in terms of coordination, UX and performance and will take at least a few more months to finish and test properly. We also want to have enough time to dedicate to marketing, once it is all stable.

With that I'd like to remind everyone that we’re still a small team living off of the game’s sales and not a high-budget AAA studio that some are comparing us to. Our gateway to more resources and increased production is Simulator itself, which is why we are so careful to do it right, and to not overhype it before it is made publicly available.



During the development of Simulator we’ve also managed to work on things that are yet to come after the update, such as new industries and cities, new cargo types, new locomotives and cars, gameplay improvements and other, mainly of art and design nature. We'll probably have more information about those later next year, after Simulator.

If you're wondering about Simulator beta - please note that we already have a very helpful, carefully assembled closed beta team. It is small, but sufficient for our needs, and has already helped us shape this update, significantly. Our bottleneck has always been in production, not testing. We will, however, further expand the beta team as we get closer to the release with winners of the upcoming translation contest. We'll have more information about that later, as first we need to finalize the game texts/features in order to start the translating process.

As always, thanks so much for your support and patience over the years! We'll see you in a few months with more information.

-Slobodan

Hi everyone,

Making this news post doesn’t come easy, as undoubtedly some people will be upset, but I think being honest and transparent is the right way to go about it.

Over the past couple of months, during development of our next major update, Simulator, we saw an opportunity to improve upon various small things in the game, beyond the scope of what was originally planned. This includes things such as the expanded brake simulation, better inventory system, water physics, a massive game manual and many others, which weren’t initially considered for this update, but do shape the overall quality impression of the game.

We chose to do this now because doing these improvements on the fly, along with other changes necessitated by Simulator, showed to be much faster than coming back to them in the future. There’s also a high quality bar that we need to meet, and we can clearly see that community expectations for the update are higher today than when it was announced last year, especially with the large influx of new players as of late.

The scope expansion did bring the risk of not meeting the March release date, but ultimately, we did it to make Derail Valley a better game. At this point we can see that we won’t make it till March without rushing, and have decided to postpone the release instead.



Despite the postponement, development is progressing very well. The team is bigger and more productive than ever, and we’re already close to a feature freeze, with the added quality improvements. The reason for the postponement is simply - we are tight with time to tidy things up and don’t want to rush the finishing stage. Even after development is done, there are activities that need to fall into place, such as translating, creating press material and other. We want to have enough time to properly deal with everything, instead of rushing like we had to do with every former major release.

We know many of you would like us to release smaller updates more frequently, or at least write a monthly developer journal, to ease the wait and make it shown how much work is really being put in. Unfortunately, neither would help with getting things done faster. On the contrary, both would add significant friction to our decision making. Smaller updates aren’t feasible when doing core rewrites of the game, and developer journals lead to premature or too high expectations from the community. We’ve done both, so this is talking from experience.

We do however actively answer questions on our Discord, and with it being a more real-time based platform with less eyes pointed at any particular chat message, I do tend to reveal more information about our plans and ongoings there, rather than here on Steam and other social media. Ironically, our community member SmashedFinger just compiled some of the quotes from Discord into two lists, Unlocks and Future Plans, and they are actually quite a good overview of minor bits of information, for anyone interested.

With that said, for now, we can just ask for more patience. Derail Valley is in Early Access after all, and its development path is always evolving. We, too, are super eager to finally reveal Simulator - when it's done.



If you’re wondering about what’s coming in Simulator and after it, please see our previous post. When we're absolutely sure the update is ready to be further revealed, we will come out with new screenshots, a trailer and the definitive release date. It will take at least several more months to get to that point.

Those of you who may be interested in helping us community-translate Derail Valley from English to virtually any other language, and would have time to do so, please let us know on Discord, Steam forums or email ([email protected]). Soon we’ll organize a translator contest, and the best candidate(s) per language will be given access to Simulator beta. Many candidates contacted us already, and we're looking forward to seeing various new languages come alive in Derail Valley! We will have more information about the translator contest soon.

At the end I'd like to thank you all for the understanding, support and feedback, over the years. It motivates us greatly to do more, and better.

-Slobodan