Release Notes


v0.2.3.24 - April 1, 2011


Today's release brings some mighty features to the table, namely: variable height and sculptable terrain, water with realistic particle physics, realistic 3D buildings, building interiors, a building and lot modding tool, 6-Tier fully functional public transit system, trains and tracks, zonable and in-game-moddable airports, infinite (planet-sized) buildable areas, new zoom from street level up to planetary view, realistic weather effects, realistic tectonic plate simulation (earthquakes), a fully customizable road system (1 lane streets to 12 lane super highways), smooth-curved transporation systems, an all new simulation engine, multiple lot density classes, multiple wealth classes, a full range of zonable public services, zonable powerplants, zonable water treatment and distribution facilities, a powerful new user interface complete with graphs and datamaps, volumetric clouds, dynamic (day and night) lighting, and last but certainly not least, full multiplayer support. And yes, the game is still 8MB.


Some may say: "HA! April Fool's!", but we, on the other hand, say: "It's only a matter of time."


The truth is that this was a rather slow month for us and most of the time we did spend was on internal "under-the-hood" stuff which unfortunately will only benefit the player in the long run. Some things worth mentioning that did get in are the addition of terrain custom textures in DirectX 9 and a debug tool to remove invalid roads (that can't be deleted) and other bad things (until these issues are actually fixed).


We do, however, plan another major release either in May or June where some of the above mess might become a reality. More on that next week.


TIP: If you already have a previous version of the game and are essentially upgrading you can just press cancel on the DirectX installer. This redundancy will be fixed soon.


Minimum Requirements:


  • Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
  • 1 GHz processor
  • 1 GB of system memory
  • Hard drive with at least 50 MB of available space*
  • Support for DirectX 9.0c, Shader Model 2 and 128 MB of graphics memory

* Does not include space requirements of DirectX and Visual C++ Redistributable which may be anywhere from 20kb to 500 MB depending on what has been already installed.


What we install:


  • Synekism v0.2.3.24
  • DirectX Redistributable
  • Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable
  • GPU-Z.0.5.1.exe (to check DirectX support - removed after installation is finished/aborted)

NEW FEATURES:


Core:


  • when going in overview the vertical bar (the toolset) will be disabled and hidden
  • saving will now be indicated with a "Saving..." notification, so you know the game is frozen for a good reason

Tools:


  • pressing F2+R will try to fix any road issues you may be experiencing; this is a temporary workaround until we fix the actual issues
  • to avoid some other problems with our toolset we temporarily added a minimum distance from the city border (100 meters) under which you will not be able to zone

Engine:


  • finally brought custom map textures to DirectX 9 (and made them fit better in general)

BUGS NOT FIXED:


Engine:


  • it seems more noticeable now but in DX9, after some play time, roads seem to develop memory and are not cleared as one drags them about; this will be investigated/fixed in the next releases