- Major Update - Hard Survival, Environment & Bug Fixes - 11 February 2026
Over the last year, I focused on making the game deeper, more stable, and more alive. This update cycle includes major gameplay systems, UI improvements, and a large wave of bug fixes. Highlights Expanded City2 simulation with better NPC behavior, talking systems, daily routines, and navigation updates. Major gameplay server/entity updates for more reliable spawning, lifecycle handling, and world interactions. Hard-survival mechanics improved with crafting, cooking/drinking flow, inventory interactions, and progression balancing. HUD and manual experience upgraded with new in-game guidance and cleaner inventory/manual workflows. Ongoing world and voxel generation improvements for environment stability and content iteration. Gameplay Improvements Better first-person gameplay tuning, including movement and player-rule updates. Expanded item and interaction systems: equipment behavior, pic…
- Special Update – HUD Toggle Feature + Sneak Peek at Upcoming Features! - 16 January 2025
Special Update: HUD Toggle Feature + Sneak Peek at Upcoming Features! Hello players, We’re excited to bring you a special update based on your feedback! It is in the "unstable" branch. Here’s what’s new: New Feature: Hide the HUD You asked, and we listened! You can now hide the HUD (Heads-Up Display) for a more immersive gameplay experience. How to Use It: Press F4, then navigate to the Game Menu to toggle the HUD. Important Note: Hiding the HUD also makes the inventory and map invisible. These menus will still function but won’t be visible while the HUD is hidden. Please keep this in mind, as it could cause some confusion during gameplay! This feature is perfect for players who love taking scenic screenshots or seeking a more immersive playstyle. Let us know how it works for you! Preview: Upcoming Features in Development We’re also sharing two new features that are currently work-in-pr…
- Merry Christmas - 25 December 2022
Merry Christmas to you all. This has been quite a turbulent year. Sometimes I was afraid that I would have to play Fallout in the real world. This has also affected the direction of Synthetic World's development. I am currently working on a hard survival game mode that is as close to Bush Craft (surviving in the forest) as possible. I have watched quite a few videos and have been in the forest myself. And don't worry the normal game mode remains. Hard Survival Features: Simulation of poisoning and diseases. Injuries do not heal immediately, but have to be bandaged. If they are not bandaged the player bleeds to death. Balanced diet is necessary to keep the body at 100%. Campfires consume wood. They must first be lit with embers. Sleeping is necessary. To sleep well you need a shelter. There are several available for this purpose Camps can be built piece by piece in one place. To do this,…
- Small Patch: Update Crossbow Icon - 7 April 2021
Hello, I fixed some small bugs: Damage of cross bow is increased Added impact impulse when object is hit by cross bow bolt Sheeps try to avoid water Enemies stop moving when dead Enemy may no hurt sound, when dead
- Happy Easter: New Update and Bug Fix - 5 April 2021
Happy Easter, I have uploaded a new version of my game. This time included are many bug fixes that previously crashed the game. New features New Tree Textures + Higher Resolution Better Tree Rendering New Landscape Renderer Improvements regarding the cross bow Better Grass Texture Better Grass Rendering Updated "Start World" Screenshots The new forest. We fixed the bug of the "flying trees" (thanks to V.). In the back you can the new forest with a building. This is how the forest looks like in a flat landscape. Upcoming Features Completely new rendering engine that supports Vulkan, OpenGL ES, DirectX 12, OpenGL and Metal. Ambient Occlusion + Procedural Materials (when this is done, I will rework all 3D models) Spherical Harmonics for Light Probes Radiosity (2 variants) AI: In a very small level 2 AIs could make war with each other (attack cities, destroy them, found settlements). That i…
- Merry Christmas - 24 December 2020
Dear friends of Synthetic World, I wish you all a happy and blessed holiday season. In view of the corona pandemic, I hope you are all healthy. An eventful year lies behind us: In the Synthetic World new cities were created and a new game mode was introduced in which you have to free the world from robots. I have also laid the foundations for many other innovations. For example, next year all 3D models will be revised. I want to bring more exciting buildings, which are waiting to be discovered, into the landscape. Likewise, in the new year there will be the new crossbow, which of course you can make again yourself. I have also made progress in AI, the algorithm that brings cities to life is now designed. The volcano renderer is also 50% finished. It is already working in low end mode. This will further increase the rendering speed. And then as a special experiment I started with a VR po…
- Update: Cities, Small Settlements, Buildings - 15 September 2020
This update finally brings cities, settlements and buildings. The individual settlements are connected with roads. The buildings contain beds, tables, chairs, lamps and zombies. Updates: Automatically generated cities (big city, small city, single settlement) New Building Prefab system that allows you to create buildings in the 3D editor, which can then be used by the world generator. New Building Editor Better roads "EvalAI" mode where robots dominate the landscape. They can be defeated by destroying the computers in the fortresses. Street crossings Sleeping bag Many new furniture (stove, cupboards, lamps, bathtub, beds) Land generation Better HUD that displays nearby enemies Bugfixes Actually I wanted to add a quest system, but currently I didn't want to do that because I might have created new bugs. Will be in the next update.
- Robots have conquered the landscape! - 21 June 2020
Robots have invaded the landscape. They monitor every square inch with their surveillance drones. Don't get caught, or you'll have their fighter units on you. And don't try to attack their strongholds where the control computers are. They are protected by dangerous self firing devices. So keep your eye on the sky! ----------- As you can see, I've devised a new spawn system. Instead of just randomly appearing monsters, this only happens when you get caught by a threat. This also applies to zombies and skeletons (the control computers have transformed people with a virus and use them as soldiers). New Features: - Better effects (for the laser of the Battle Drone) - New monsters: surveillance drone, observation drone, automatic cannon, combat drone, control computer - Better castles - 3D models that are individually animated. - Bug fixes during level generation. - Improved audio system I w…
- Let it burn (part 2) - 2 June 2020
Hello guys, that took a little bit longer than expected. I uploaded a new version to Steam. The player and other entities can now start to burn and can also die of burn wounds. Then I updated the dynamite. The resulting damage on the voxel does now look much better. And as I also like big explosions I added the "Mega Explosive" entity. You need a 3D Printer, Coal, Petrolum and Sulfur. Then you can craft it. Or you can use the cheat (press F2 to go to the console): addItem('Voxel_MegaExplosive', 10) Here is a screenshot: Just for fun, I used multiple explosives to make a hole in the ground. Next time I will update the spawn system and add new monsters!
- Let it burn, baby! (Part 1) - 17 May 2020
So todays update is all about fire: - Placed entities like the construction set can now burn. - The new trees can burn - The muzzle flash on the weapons is repaired. - Now the fire emits light when it burns: Additionally the trees now drop seeds and can grow! It is in the unstable branch!
- Tweet: Bug fix - 10 May 2020
I uploaded a small bug fix: - Rendering of particle effects is restored - Drag and Drop is now working again
- Update: A small patch - 7 May 2020
I uploaded a small patch: The wood blocks are now floating on the water. The pregenerated Start_World is now updated to the latest version of the world generator Engine Logging: If you have an AMD graphics card you might perhaps know that the shadow map does not look "very nice". I am trying to find this bug, so I added logging to the 3D engine.
- Update: Faster 3D Engine, Better World Generator, Game Play - 5 May 2020
Hey guys, I increased the speed of the 3D engine. Now a much more detailed landscape is possible: I also updated the world generator: Just for fun I added an ocean: And I connected all caves with each other! The world generation speed is now 5 times faster! Note that in order to see the higher view range you need to increase the "View Distance" in the game settings. Along with this I added a lot of bug fixes regarding the trees, player movement, GUI, plants, textures and so on. The new version is in the unstable branch.
- Trees, Buildings, Editor and Engine - 3 April 2020
Hello and welcome back, before we start with the development update, I want to wish you all a good health. These are hard times during the Coronavirus crisis. I hope we all get better soon. Assets In the last weeks I had the flu, so I had a lot of time to create new assets: New houses for the city generator: Till now I used random generated houses. This looked not very good, so I started to make hand made buildings. Along with the exterior, all these buildings have furniture and waypoints for the NPCs Forests: I created 5 new tree types and made the forests more dense. This is possible because of the new tree rendering system. I created over hundred new models that can be used in the game. I created furniture for the kitchen, food, city elements, windows, doors. Just for fun I also created adventure game assets. I also updated the engine: The low end rendering engine is now a high perfo…
- Tweet: First village generated by the AI - 20 January 2020
Yes! The first village generated by the AI! This is only a debug view. When it is finished these buildings will actually be placed in the landscape! We will improve the performance in the next weeks so that we can create bigger cities. And we are testing other AI algorithms.
- Uploaded a new version to the unstable branch - 12 January 2020
Hey, I just uploaded a new version to the unstable build with the new trees. You need to create a new map with the generator to see them (so do not use the predefined map with the seed 0). Be aware: This is only a testing release. It could be that a map create with this version can't be loaded in a later version.
- Tweet: AI and Forests - 10 January 2020
Now most of the visual bugs in the trees are resolved: I will upload an unstable release as soon as possible. And I implemented several AI algorithms that will drive the city generation: - A* Planning - Alpha-Beta Adversary Search - Monte Carlo Tree Search Except for the first one these algorithms are normally used in Chess AI / Go. I am excited to see how they work out. The first tests will be on a small landscape of several hundred meters.
- Tweet: Trees in the game - 5 January 2020
First screenshot of the new trees in the game! There is still much to do. The trees currently create holes in the ground and some trees do not have leafs.
- Tweet: New trees are now generated by the world generator - 2 January 2020
The new trees are now connected to the world generator. So exited to see them in the world! When they are cut down they will collapse to the ground and fall into pieces.
- Tweet: Castle Generator and Happy New Year - 31 December 2019
The basic castle generator is now working. Every castle has it's own dungeon. Happy new year! The AI language compiler (C to PDDL) is finished and the shadow rendering for the low end render system makes progress.
