- Another Patch Arrives - 2 July 2024
Hey Everyone, We just launched Build #155, which fixes some small issues with the new localization options, as well as some other small bugs that have been there a while longer. And while we were at it, we also put in some more graphical tidbits. In some way, level design is like having a huge model railroad set. You can always build new stuff and add it … no matter how big or small, it will always make the set more interesting :D All the best, Kalle from Tunermaxx
- Willkommen, Bienvenu, Welcome! - 27 June 2024
Hey Everyone, Summer isn’t exactly the best time for skiing - unless you do it in virtual reality of course! So we’ve kept busy and tackled the topic of localization. That always takes quite a bit of logistic effort, but we have now managed to add subtitles to the game and even add three additional text languages: French, Italian and Spanish! Due to our non-existent budget, we had to go with machine translations though. So if you are a native speaker and notice something odd, don’t hesitate to tell us here in the Steam discussions or on our Discord. There, we also have a list of SteamVR game keys for other games that we’re offering up to people who help us out improving the game. If you’re interested, head over there and take a look! https://discord.gg/qwpkpeAdXu From our experience, longer sentences of flowing text are mostly translated okay, because some context can be gathered by the…
- Big Interactivity Update! - 3 June 2024
Hey Everyone, As usual, we have been busy and now it’s time to share with you the results of our endeavors. As some of you may have heard, we have begun porting Snow Scout to the PlayStation VR2 and of course, that gave us some new ideas how to improve the game. So aside from the usual polishing of little details and minor bug fixes, we have now made almost all interior objects interactable, so you can now put all the objects in your ski huts exactly where you want them … or, you can simply throw them around to let off some steam, hehhe. We've nicely summed up these changes in a little trailer: https://youtu.be/_WtQhXbBWLk As you can see there, we have expanded on the possibilities of the recently introduced realtime lighting, and added working light switches as well as an actual light source to the lighter. And while we were busy dealing with lighting, we also re-lit all exterior locat…
- The Big Spring Update is here! - 8 May 2024
Hello Everyone, It was quite a lot of unexpected work to get past issues arising from a neccessary Unity update, but finally, we can present another huge update for Snow Scout. You've probably noticed already that the game uses a stylized low-poly look, but that doesn't mean the graphics have to be simple. So we quadrupled all texture sizes and added bump maps and other effects to a lot of surfaces. Also, there is real-time lighting now, the water system has completely been replaced and there are much more life-like skiing particles. If you've played the game before, it's really important to know that we have overhauled the entire saving system too, in order to make it more reliable. That means previous saves will not be compatible with the current version. In case you want to finish an old game you started, you can switch to the beta branch of the game and continue with the previous bu…
- Pimp My Slide! - 15 March 2024
Hey Everyone, We're still working to further improve Snow Scout's visual fidelity - at the moment, we're upgrading some materials and shaders. Among other things, this results in a completely new look for the water in our resort - be it the small stream pictured here, lakes or waterfalls. Also the terrain gets a bit of an overhaul and we're re-lighting all outdoor areas. However, all these changes went hand-in-hand with an huge upgrade to the underlying Unity version, which means a lot of stuff has to be cleaned up after, and we won't be able to publish all these updates before it's all done. So stay tuned while we pimp this slide, and if you haven't bought the game yet, now could be the best time, as Steam's Spring Sale comes with a 67% discount … and once we're really satisfied with the games look & feel, we won't discount it as highly anymore. A very special tip for people in the kno…
- New Year's Update - 3 January 2024
The beginning of a new year brings a taste of freshness, but it doesn't mean you have to stop your old routines. So we ploughed right through and have put together a new update with a lot of fixes for bugs that were reported by the community. And while we were at it, we threw in a bunch of graphical refinements as well, like this updated look for the "cannon shack". Now you can fire Bertha with even more verve than ever before - just don't drop those shells, okay? And in case you should come across any more issues, don't hestitate to report them here or on our Discord. As always, we reward players who find some issues or bugs or contribute to the game in other ways with Steam keys for games from other studios. Visit our Discord for details & the list of games we have currently available: https://discord.gg/qwpkpeAdXu Last but not least, we'd like to wish everyone a fantasic new year 202…
- The Big Holiday Update Is Here - 21 December 2023
Hello Everyone, It's that time of the year and someone has decorated one of the trees on beginner's hill with some nice, shiny baubles. But that's not all of course; a huge load of game data has also arrived and as usual, it improves some of the games visuals, sounds and mechanic and gets rid of a lot of bugs that were reported by the community - as recently as yesterday, actually! So if you come across any issues, just let us know and we'll have our code elves fix it at once! For people who have played already, one change that is definitely noteworthy is that the "sharp turn" function on skis is now done with the trigger button instead of grip. After someone suggested it and we tried it out, we immediately felt it makes more sense that way, as it makes handling objects much easier, while holding the ski sticks. Other than that, I'm happy to report that finally, my list of things I want…
- Another Small Update - 5 December 2023
Hey Everyone, A player had the interesting idea of eating all the available food on the first day, thus soft-locking the game progress. I must admit it never occured to me someone could do that, but that is exactly why it's so important to have other people test your game. For a small studio, this can be a very time-consuming and expensive process - it's not by accident that my own playing time of Snow Scout on Steam is over a thousand hours, testing only. But again, since we know the game so well, the "real" players out there, like yourself, surely will always come up with ideas we haven't thought of. And this is why we reward players who find some issues or bugs or contribute to the game in other ways with Steam keys for games from other studios. Visit our Discord for details & the list of games we have currently available: https://discord.gg/qwpkpeAdXu At any rate, the game now has a…
- Black Friday Update - 20 November 2023
Hello Everyone, Autumn is upon us and that can only mean one thing: Winter Is Coming. But before that, there is of course always Black Friday. We here in Alpine Europe don't even know what this is about exactly, except there are a lot of sales. So this is an opportunity as good as any other for us to release another update for Snow Scout, featuring the latest improvements. Most notably, based on player feedback, we have once again expanded the tutorial to provide you with some more insights how to best go about your new job as a Snow Scout. This little extension is optional though, so Vreni will ask you if you want to do it or not after the regular tutorial is done. If you're starting an additional playthrough of the game, you can skip the whole introduction by the way by simply switching to skiing mode once you have picked up your equipment. Other than that, all of Vrenis additional di…
- Another Big Content Update Arrives - 24 October 2023
Hello Everyone, As I've already reported in last month's update, we've taken the plunge and spent some more money on our fantastic voice actress Kimberly, so she could record new lines for the game. The result is that we now have about thirty minutes of extra recordings, used in additional conversations the most avid Snow Scouts can have with their charming supervisor, Vreni. A bunch of smaller tidbits are splattered all across the game for your enjoyment. Also, the very industrious streamer KroyVR, who recently showed off 300 VR titles on Twitch, was so nice to include Snow Scout in his selection and gave us some new ideas - for example, there now is the possibility to reduce the AR brackets in the game to half their components or turn them off entirely. Another new feature is a "trash detector" app, that you will get after recycling half of the trash that is scattered around the ski r…
- Now With Even More Voice Acting - 12 September 2023
Hi Everyone, We've had some recent player feedback that our skiing tutorial should be even more detailed, so we've finally taken the plunge and paid our wonderful actress Kimberly Krall again to record new voice lines. Of course, we haven't left it at the tutorial, but gave her another 10 pages of text, which should amount to roughly another half hour of recorded narration. In this update, we've included the revamped skiing tutorial as well as some other tidbits here and there, that round the existing narration off even better. In the next month, we'll focus on including the bulk of the new narrations, which are basically optional, "endgame-style" stories about our host Vreni herself. Once we're done including those, the PCVR version of Snow Scout will be done and we'll move towards porting the game to standalone VR systems and hopefully PSVR2. Until then, have fun with the new narratio…
- Yet Another Update is Here! - 12 August 2023
Hello Everyone, We've been at it again and just released Build #139. Since we got some more feedback from the community, we implemented changes to clarify some things, like adding new signage to make clearer which skiing ground has which number, and also improved player guidance in some situations. Other than that, there are of course lots of graphical improvements like better interiors for the ski huts complete with new visual effects, new sounds and we even put in some new lines from Vreni which we hadn't used before. So we hope you'll enjoy this new build. Aside from some little graphical tidbits, our to-do lists are almost done now. However, we've been told by players that the tutorial could even be more extensive to explain everything … but that would mean we'd have to record new lines from our wonderful actress Kimberly, which will cost money of course. But we'll see what we can d…
- Vive Wands are finally fully implemented, plus other improvements - 4 August 2023
Hey Everyone, Just a quick intermediate update - We got more feedback from the community regarding optimal button mappings for the trusty old Vive Wands. Also, it seems through a recent OpenXR update, the hand rotation was quite a bit off. Thanks to the help from our player Bob who sent us some pictures, everything works as it should again. On the Wands, you can now use the menu button to bring up the in-game tablet, and switching between skiing and walking is done by clicking both touchpads at the same time. As you can see, changes like that can be done quickly if you help us out a bit. As small developers, we can't have every available piece of hardware here, so feedback on specific devices is highly appreciated. To put it into perspective for you; we did buy a Valve Index in order to make the "Grip Force" setting work as planned - and the device together with controllers and light ho…
- More Graphics for Less Money :D - 31 July 2023
Hey Everyone, Once again, we spent the week pushing pixels, adding a whole bunch of graphical improvements to Snow Scout, along with the usual dose of feature improvements, polishing and bug fixing. And this week, there is also a really nice discount on the game, which is even more interesting for people who already own our game Rainbow Reactor on Steam - as our new "VR Bundle", which contains both games, is of the type "complete your collection". This means, if you already own one of the games, you'll get the full discount on the other one as well. That way, Snow Scout is available for just under a tenner for the very first time! No matter if you are proud new owner of Snow Scout or a returning player, our offer still stands that if you help us out with bug reports or reviews, we have some keys for other SteamVR games to give away! Visit our Discord for details & the list of games we h…
- Another Big Update Arrives! - 24 July 2023
Hey Everyone, We've been hard at work again, and this new build took a bit longer because Unity decided to make an update to their newly acquired collaborative workflow software PlasticSCM, now known as Unity Version Control System - and it stopped us dead in our tracks. Despite support's best efforts, we couldn't continue for a couple of days and even lost a bit of work. Not to whine (too much), but these are things you have to keep up with as a small developer, on top of everything else, like nasty SteamVR updates for example, which also caused us quite a bit of trouble lately. But anyway, let's get to the good news already! Of course we implemented lots of improvements across all areas of the game, be it graphics, sound, narration, bug fixing and even whole game systems. The most noticable upgrade in that regard is probably that we completely revamped the "snow cover testing" mini ga…
- Comebacks And New Beginnings - 7 July 2023
Hey Everyone, This week brings another update for Snow Scout. Aside from the usual polishing and bugfixing, I am happy to report that our lead graphics artist Michael has decided to make a comeback and add more work to the game - unpaid I must add, so he deserves a lot of credit for it! First thing on his agenda was to contribute a new version of the beginner's hill area which now gives players more space to complete the tutorial in an orderly fashion. In the coming weeks, he will continue to touch up all other areas of the game as well and add some new models here and there. So keep your eyes peeled and until then, have fun with the latest build #128 Another tip for fitness-friendly VR fans to get even more out of Snow Scout is to install the YUR.fit app for Steam. It measures your calorie usage when playing VR. After some extensive self-testing, I'm happy to report that according to m…
- Huge "Snowy Summer" Update Has Arrived - 29 June 2023
Hello Everyone, We've been keeping up our recent sprint of updates and today, the biggest update in recent memory goes live. Most prominently, we have revamped the in-game tablet computer with a new, pixelly retro OS and it can do a lot of useful new things now. For example, there is pathfinding with position markers for the next goal, there is a to-do list to keep track of your daily duties, the Scoutpedia is a kind of mini-wiki on all topics that could be important for a budding snow scout, and there is also a Birdpedia that shows off your findings of your feathered friends, in hand-made pixel art. Of course, in conjunction with the last 3 updates, all of this comes together in a big way to improve the game in all areas. In total, we have tackled a whopping 266 issues of all shapes and sizes to make the game look, sound and play better. Still, we recently struggled a bit with OpenXR,…
- Wax On, Wax Off! - 17 June 2023
Hello Everyone, In this week's update, it's all about the polish! We didn't add any new features in the last couple of days, but rather spent improving what's there. So as usual, there are a lot of improvements in the visual and acoustic realms as well as smoother gameplay and tweaked controls. Among the more noticable changes are the ski lifts in the two biggest skiing grounds, which have more convenient drop-off points now and are more pleasant to use. It's the variety of ingredients that make the stew, as they say in the virtual alps™, and in that vein, the Snow Scouts now even have two different types of canned stew on offer. Small details like that bring more spice to life, so we hope you enjoy all the little tidbits here and there. Keep on scoutin', Kalle from Tunermaxx
- Puttin' on the HUD - 11 June 2023
Hello Everyone, It was another busy week here at the Tunermaxx office and we're happy to report that Build 112 has just gone live. This one introduces a lot of new features that make use of our "AR HUD": Now, there are tutorial animations, warnings for dangerous terrain, and while doing a ski race, you can keep track of your current time. Also, level exits are now marked through the magic of augmented reality and you're notified when the game progress has been saved. Other than that, there are a bunch of audiovisual improvements, as usual. A bit more important is the introduction of "relaxed seated mode", which I snuck in early last week already, but it deserves to be mentioned in this news post as well. Once you've activated "stick pushoff" in the tablet computers' movement settings, you'll be able to move on skis by pressing the thumbsticks forward in an alternating rhythm. This makes…
- The Scouts Are Back On Duty! - 4 June 2023
Hello Everyone, After a somewhat lenghty wait, the scouts are finally back on duty! As some of you probably know, the financial situation in the PC-VR sector is a bit difficult at the moment. In respect to Snow Scout, it's even harder, as I simply made my VR "dream game" without minding too much what most people actually want to play. To me as the game designer, VR means as much immersion as possible, so I pretty much play everything in a standing position. On top of that, I really love movment-intense VR games, which are a great way to burn calories while playing. Turns out though, most players prefer playing VR sitting down and being relaxed instead of active. So I probably should have known that Snow Scout would not sell too well - but it turned out not to sell at all, more or less. So after we worked on the game full-time for 9 month with 3 freelancers, I had spent about $135,000 an…
