Unknown Horizon

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Latest news

• Patch Notes·16 Jun 2026Official

  DEMO: 0.0.25-PROTOTYPE

  Build 0.0.25-PROTOTYPE has been pushed up to Steam to fix one small, but important, bug with our Demo build. Fixes:#00002 - smelting ore at campfire does not give metal
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• Announcements·15 Jun 2026Official

  Welcome Next Festers!

  Next Fest is here! That means the demo for Unknown Horizons is officially released!Yes I know I released it a few days ago. I'm allowed, I checked.Welcome to everyone who found us through the Next Fest campaign. For your benefit, here's a quick rundown of where we're at in the development cycle, and what you can expect from UH in the near future.What's In The DemoFirstly, it's important to point out that the demo version is considered a PROTOTYPE. It's playable, and it contains some elements and mechanics that we intend to keep, but long term (and even pretty short term) everything is subject to change... as you will see if you keep reading.The demo introduces you to the basic story, a basic "tutorial", and the first stages of the story, including:repairing your crashed shipvisiting other planets in the starting system"upgrading" your shipleaving the starting system and visiting othersexploring the whole galaxy (if you want to)discovering a nearby factioncompleting some missions to build reputation with a factionbuilding enough reputation to unlock the next stage of the storyBut... I am currently in the process of rewriting large chunks of the core code to improve it and to make sure we can take the game where we want it to be long-termWhere Are We HeadingMy current vision for the "final" version of the game is an open-world exploration game, but with a story that runs through it as you try to find your way home. The plan is for the story to have multiple endings, multiple ways for you to get home... or not. The method you choose (or get stuck with) will be largely based on your decisions in game, like who you choose to help, or where you choose to focus your exploration efforts. Will you explore how to generate a wormhole? Or maybe there's a way to bend spacetime, and warp home, or perhaps, this is where you were meant to be all along....What's Next?In a few months we will be entering the Early Access phase of the game. The code rewrite is currently going well, and...
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• Patch Notes·6 Jun 2026Official

  Out Of Memory - FIXED

  Firstly... Thank you for reporting the memory leak issue. I absolutely need people to report issues like this, rather than ignoring them and hoping it will just get fixed.As my focus is currently on the Early Access build, I failed to fully test the latest build of the demo after transferring it to using OpenGL, and that's on me. Lesson learned.v0.0.24-PROTOTYPE is now ready to test. I checked this one better.Sorry!For those who are interested, there was a function that was representing data to be rendered when it wasn't necessary, and this was happening every frame, so the higher the framerate, the more memory was being eaten... I fixed it with some checks and caching, and memory use is now much closer to what it should be (about 800MB, instead of what I saw in my testing, which hit 8.1GB at one point ːsteamthumbsdownː)
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• Announcements·1 Jun 2026Official

  Demo Released!

  The demo version of Unknown Horizons is now available!I'm calling the demo version a "Prototype" release because much of what is in the demo has already been tweaked, improved, or simply rewritten, but the essence of the game, the core game loop, will remain. Hopefully it will give you a taste of what's to come... but there is so much more planned.In the demo you will get an introduction to the story, repair your crashed escape pod and modify it to explore the foreign galaxy you have arrived in.The demo gameplay helps you familiarise yourself with how the game will work and introduces you to alien factions that you can befriend to help progress the story and find a way to get home.When I release Early Access later this year, with it's improved UI, and tweaked mechanics, it will contain the same story elements, and then we will progress the story and add more and more as we push toward release.Expect Early Access to drop before the end of 2026!See you at Next Fest... and see you on the horizon!
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• Announcements·27 May 2026Official

  Ready for NextFest!

  NextFest is just around the corner, and Unknown Horizons will be in the mix, so I've put together a demo build that will show off the start of the game and first act of the story. I welcome everyone's comments to help me shape the game into something that people want to play more.For those who have been assisting with the Playtest, the demo build is slightly different, some new graphics, some changes to audio, and few other teaks here and there. Definitely worth a look!However, don't be put off by the limited story and functionality available in the demo... big things are to come...What's Next after Next(Fest)?With the demo build done, it's time to push on toward Early Access, but the push is rather large!I've decided to perform a huge rewrite of the code to make it cleaner, more efficient and easier to maintain... which means I have basically started from scratch!Obviously I already have the current code to use for the complicated bits, but I am in the process of rewriting the game from the ground up. So far I have already completed the following:Completely rewritten menus, with a new appearance and mechanics Simplified "New Game" selection (a lot of those options we superfluous... lets keep it simple for now)Rewritten Intro screens, with a "graphical novel" approach to the opening story Rewritten Planet Scene, now with "circular" planets that you can walk all the way around, and a new flow to the tutorial dialogue and process New In Game UI (WIP) with updated Crafting system, changes to ship systems and repairs... basically it's just all been redone I'm excited to let everyone play this new version of the game, but I have a long way to go until it's as "complete" as the current demo build, so Early Access will likely be a couple of months away. When it comes, my hopes are that everything you can do in the demo will be available in the Early Access build, but done better, cleaner, faster and fun-er.Next Fest is coming June 15, the demo will be coming slightly befor...
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