- Update from Dev - I haven't forgotten Yosemite Forest Ranger, however... - 27 May 2026
Hello everyone, I wanted to let you guys know, that I haven't forgotten Yosemite Forest Ranger, however...I did have issues with the state of the projects.. Most days it felt like I had to work against the Engine instead of with the Engine..This compared with a new day job and a bunch of negativity from people about the game, made me feel burnt out...So it's been a long while, since I've put the project aside, let it rest, few weeks ago I picked it back up and tried to recover it from all the Engine issues I had..I've been wrestling through the issues as much as I can.."And there is only 1 conclusion I could take..Start over, mostly..This mostly means the whole code base needs to be replaced and adjusted..I have done this before at the time of the Reboot. I really liked the way and direction the Game was going. However It became more and more of a struggle then a cool project.Long story…
- NEW Update v0.0.05H1 - Hotfix + Adding Difficulty Settings - 23 March 2025
Intro: First things first, thank you all for the interest in yosemite Forest Ranger, and most of all for all the Feedback I've been receiving! And because of that this is the first small update that honours some of that feedback! Fixed some small things, Added Difficulty Settings and Started new things. Update v0.0.05H1: New Features: Added Difficulty Settings - Available in the GamePlay Settings. (These will only work while Playing, e.g. NOT in the Main Menu.) Fixes: Shrunk the Death bag Back pack.. xD Fixed some of the POIs not showing their Proxy Meshes (Low Res Versions) from far away. Extra Info: Difficulty Settings: The Difficulty Settings come in three settings. Relaxing, Default and Survival. For now the Difficulty Settings only have influence on the Stats; Food, Hydration and Stamina. So in the back end I work with multipliers the default is x1. Relaxing does a x0.5 and Surviva…
- NEW Update v0.0.05 - Let there be Music! Radio Station Quest. - 8 March 2025
Intro: First things first, I'm sorry this Update took so long.. (Jeez, I feel like I start these Update logs the same every time..) However this update will be great! At least I hope so! In this Update you'll get to fix the Radio Tower and have the Radio broadcasting throughout the valley again. As you may remember from the intro video the Radio Tower got destroyed by a Lightning Strike.. DJ T. the host of the Yosemite Park Public Radio, whom you might remember from the into video, will ask you to help out by fixing the Radio Tower. You can find a letter on your windshield, which will get you started. By searching and acquiring a few items as well as than solving some puzzles you can repair the Radio Station. When you finished everything and the Radio is on again.. Be sure to check out your mailbox! ;) I wanted these puzzles and Item searching to be a challenge, therefore you must reall…
- NEW Update v0.0.04 - Memory Bank, NPC Cars and Felling Axe - 11 December 2024
First things first, I'm sorry this Update took so long and has relatively little Content in it.. I wanted this update to include the Vendor/NPC Routines but after working on it for nearly a month and hitting a wall every other day I felt I should just put that aside for now. Therefore we have this update now which makes the world feel a little more alive as well. Update v0.0.04: New Features: NPC/AI Vehicles Drive on main roads. Memory Bank - Available in the Inventory Topbar. Felling Axe and new Animations for Tree chopping. Changes: Lowered the Interaction length on items - You might need to scroll the camera in and out to find a sweet spot that works for you. Changed Texture size on some boulders to be less pixelated. Removed the Rusty Hatchet. - (If you had it and saved it should still work?) Fixes: Fixed Voice Line when fueling vehicle. Fixed Car collision with trees and other vege…
- NEW Update v0.0.03 - 17 October 2024
The Public Playtest Event, was somewhat successful, it was in a way cause we found some bugs. But the amount of participants was very little sadly. However I crunched down on the bugs and therefore here is the new update! As usual if you have any issues or find any additional bugs, please let us know on Discord or the Steam Discussions!
- Experimental Update v0.0.03-Experimental - 6 October 2024
New Features: New Intro Trailer/Teaser Trailer Voice Lines for numerous things. Letters on some cabins (with spoken text/read out loud) Keys and locks, Some Cabins are locked. Can you find the Keys? New Keychain "subinventory" to keep all keys together. Electricity, some POIs require electricity to turn on lights or use certain logic/items. Some Generators are broken and require a specific tool to fix. Several new POIs (Not all are marked on map, so explore!) Lantern buildables for buildsystem. Building now requires a hammer to be equipped Most buildables need to be placed in a Landplot (Findable or buyable at certain POIs) Smaller animals (Rabbits) Added bridges to some trails Changes: Ranger SUV will deal damage when hitting animals (Certain speeds will instantly kill) Lookout Towers now require Power to have lights Retextured Most Trails so they look more natural now. Retextured Rive…
- Reminder: Public Playtest is SOON! Also GIVEAWAY in Discord now! - 1 October 2024
. Just as a Reminder: Sunday October 6th at 2PM CEST the Public Playtest will go down. We, the devs, will be in a Voice Chat in Discord. Available to you all for a chat, Q&A and you guys get the opportunity to play the NEW Update that's we've been working on! There is also a GIVEAWAY going on in Discord! You can win a Steam Key to Yosemite Forest Ranger! Click the Button below to join the Discord!
- MEGA OPPORTUNITY for you: Help us PLAYTEST Yosemite Forest Ranger! - 20 September 2024
We will plan a LIVE Event where you can JOIN US in an Experimental Playtest. You have the opportunity to hang and Play with us right it in the Discord or Chat. And Play this new build. More Details will be discussed in the Stream below as well as the planning of the Event along with some new gameplay in the Update!
- Fixed minor launch error - 6 July 2024
- Fixed a packaging error that prevented a clear launch of the game.
- HOTFIX EA Reboot v0.0.02-H2 Update - 6 July 2024
Hotfix: While working on the Project during the DevStream yesterday I found a tiny bug that needed squashing. I recreated the Widget that shows when you interact with a couch or bed. This widget let's you set the amount of hours you want to sleep for. I recreated this to allow for Controller Support. However with setting this something went wrong for Keyboard and Mouse support. - Fixed Mouse input and processing of Value of hours in "Amount of Hours to sleep Widget" So if you have the most up to date and current version of the game in your Menu Screens you should see the version number on the right that shows: EA Reboot v0.0.02-H2 Next Content and current works: Keys & KeyChain: I also want to keep you up to date on what I'm working on, in means of content. I have made great progress on the "Key System" and the locked doors. It seems that it's working as I intended, it will require addi…
- HOTFIX EA Reboot v0.0.02-H1 Update - 21 June 2024
Hey Guys, Hotfix: As requested by the community I added this small Hotfix that allows the Controls for Vehicles to be remapped. It took a bit of figuring out but now you are able to remap the controls. So if you have the most up to date and current version of the game in your Menu Screens you should see the version number on the right that shows: EA Reboot v0.0.02-H1 Patch Sizes... Another thing I noticed and that I'm looking into is the Patch sizes... I believe this current update requires a 18GB download? That's insane and I'm looking into optimizing this, it's an issue of "communication" and "understanding" between Unreal Engine and Steam. Next Content and current works: Another thing I wanted to tell you guys is, in the meantime I have been working on the next Content update, this one will be focused on bringing back the Keys and Locked doors system. It's taking me a bit because of…
- The Reboot is here 2.0 - 8 May 2024
Hey Everybody, So I'll try to be brief, which is not my strong suit, at all.. Apologies: First of all, my apologies about the Trash state of the previous update. Our Internal tests went way better than the actual release. Which is always tricky and something we try to avoid.. With that said, I am so proud to announce that we now have worked out A LOT of things and this version is going to run WAY better. And for the people that weren't able to load the game before, you will very likely be able to do so now! Explanation (What happened, why it take so long?): What happened? So what happened was, when we released the previous version we did a lot testing before releasing, however we were and still are with only a very small group of Playtesters.. Like only 3 or 4 of us, and one of us was on a long vacation. You can imagine it is hard to test everything with so little people especially Hard…
- Quick Update from Dev | What's going on behind the scenes. - 13 February 2024
Hey Awesome people, I wanted to update you guys quickly to let you know what is going on. First of all thank you all for your support and patience through this journey, we have a vision and ambition that needs time to make great. Sadly I had some family stuff going on a few weeks ago. My mother passed away and we have alot of work to do IRL to make make sure everything is handled properly and right. That means I have not been working on YFR a lot the past few weeks. And I will not have the amount of time I used to have before this, for a while. In the mean time we noticed alot of people having issues with their memory and the game somehow hogging all of it and basically choking their PC. Long story short here is the deal for the upcoming weeks/month(s): The Farming Update is as good as done, I was mostly tweaking some settings, timers and code. However with the memory issues I feel not…
- Hotfix 3 | More Performance Optimization - 30 November 2023
So I will be honest right away guys. I've been pulling my hair out with this. There are so many different things that go on within a Game Development process, usually there is a team of several people behind a game. I'm just 1 guy, solo, with a full time dayjob and a family. I've spent nearly each evening on the issues at hand. I feel like i got alot of FPS issues and hitches fixed. However it is still hard to make it look great as well as make it perform well as well. If the game is not running well for you, try tweaking the graphics settings. Also try to lock it at 30 fps to see how that does. The gameplay does not require 60 or 144 fps, if you want that it is a personal choice and I can't garantee pretty looks and 120+ fps at these times. This is also due to the Unreal Engine 5 and their newest technologies not being well optimized yet. I have chnaged some technical stuff in the back…
- Hotfix 2 | Saving Fixed, More Performance Optimizations - 18 November 2023
Hey Guys, I fixed the Save System in this Hotfix, took me all day to find that one line/one checkbox.. If you know, you know.. xD Also Hacked down alot in the materials of alot of meshes so that the ShaderComplexity went down. I also changed the amount of LandscapeGrass that is rendered on Epic Settings to make it look more pretty. You can now ofcourse lower your settings to get Higher FPS, however: If you change your Graphics to Medium or Low and Textures dissapear (Into gray blocks), up the Effects Setting (to High). I'm not sure why this is happening, Unreal Engine 5.3 is very, very hungry on resources and has some weird behaviours. Hopefully Epic will fix this soon! Enjoy, let me know if there are any issues! See you in Discord or the Steam Forums!
- Hotfix 1 | Performance optimizations - 18 November 2023
Hey Guys, I'm sorry the launch was a bit rough. I've changed the Landscape Material and some other textures. It seems to be a lot better already. I did notice some Texture artifacts on the LAndscape and the Grass Distances, might require some tweaks. But for now it'll have to do with this. It's 2.20am here, Imma take a nap, and I'll look into the above issues in the morning. If you find any other Bugs, please report them, either through Discord or in the Steam Community Forums. I hope you enjoy! Thank you for your patience. With Warm Regards, Thursten
- Reboot is FINALLY Live! Huge Sale AND New Store Page | Yosemite Forest Ranger - 17 November 2023
Hey everyone! First of all thak you SO much for your patience and continued support. The Reboot of Yosemite Forest Ranger took a long time to build. But now we have a great foundation to build upon and expand. With that, feature updates and content updates should be quicker to roll out. Enjoy the new Reboot of Yosemite Forest Ranger NOW, along with a whopping 65% Sale and all new pictures on the Store Page. I hope you will enjoy the new Update, or rather new game that is has become. If you have any issues, questions or suggestion. Don't be afraid to reach out. Either through Discord or right here on Steam in the Community Discussions. We are always open to chat and hang out! A few of the IndieGoGo campaign rewards can already be found in-game. And I'm working fast to put the rest of them in as well. Again thank you for your patience and support. For changes and features, please check th…
- THE TIME IS FINALLY HERE! RELEASE OF THE REBOOT! - 13 November 2023
Yosemite Forest Ranger COMPLETE Overhaul Update! It's been over a year in the making. And it's FINALLY here! A complete new game, with the same ideas and story, but better and more beautiful. Check out the announcement Video below! In short: This update will basically mark the Reboot of Yosemite Forest Ranger, it's a whole new game. Mechanics you've known from what we call the Legacy Version will be in this, as well as LOADS of new mechanics. Ofcourse we'll keep adding new content along the way. However I had to draw the line at some point for what to include in the first version. When? This Friday (November 17th)! The update launches along with a HUGE Sale! Check out the Picture at the bottom of the Post to see what you can expect. Feel free to share this, Stream it, Record videos, whatever!
- YFR | TPoC v0.3 | Chop Trees, Building, Dynamic Day/Night/Weather, WildLife - 21 August 2023
Hey Guys, This will be a rather long DevLog, I'm sorry, however I will show you a lot of cool stuff that is new in this TPoC Version of Yosemite Forest Ranger. This includes (the basics of), but is not limited to: My New Foliage System (Better loading times and performance) Tree Chopping Drivable Ranger Vehicles (with Gas Usage System) Dynamic Day/Night Cycles Dynamic Weather and Seasons Sleeping to skip Time (and Weather) The Start of the Building System The Start of Wild Life!! And more that you will have to find out yourself! ;) Important note (is also mentioned in the vid): I will not include the Story or Voice Lines in the first few iterations of the Game Updates (after the TPoC). Also we're getting close to an MVP so stay tuned! 🤩 Check it out for yourself NOW! And please let me know what you think! I could also use some suggestions for POIs and places to explore and go to, so if…
- YFR | TPoC Update v0.2 | Please read. - 6 August 2023
Yosemite Forest Ranger TPoC v0.2! Please watch the video below and see some of the Pictures, In this very short video I tell you a bit about the new version on the TPoC Branch, I'm leaving for Vacation tomorrow. Please check it out if you'd like and I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Please keep in mind again, this is a Technical Proof of Concept, not a game, even in this build, some things were somewhat rushed and may not work as expected, ofcourse I'll fix that as soon as I'm back from vacation!
