By My Side News & Patch Notes

Thank you for all your feedback over the past weeks! This is the biggest update By My Side has received so far. Alongside brand-new content, we've fixed many of the issues reported by the community and completely reworked several core gameplay systems.

🛠️ Major Improvements

Completely reworked airplane Entering and leaving the aircraft is now reliable, even with a full inventory. Cargo storage saves correctly, fuel mechanics have been improved, and emergency landings on remote islands no longer cause softlocks.

New swimming & diving system Characters now move more naturally in water, diving has been improved, reaching the ocean floor works correctly, and boats and rafts behave much more reliably.

Improved building system Doors, stairs, building previews and object rotation have all been refined, fixing many placement issues.

World & terrain improvements Numerous collision issues, terrain bugs and environmental details across the world have been fixed and polished.

Save & load fixes Various issues affecting vehicles, inventories, cargo and world persistence have been resolved.

Many additional improvements Animations, interactions, vehicles, camera controls, UI elements and countless smaller bugs have also been addressed.

🌊 New Content
✈️ A fully functional airplane with cargo storage and fuel mechanics
🏝️ Multiple new islands waiting to be discovered
⛏️ A first mine with new resources
🤝 New NPCs, trading mechanics and a trust system

The new islands are part of the endgame experience, so we'd like to keep most of their secrets hidden. Players who venture far enough across the ocean will discover much more for themselves.

Thank you to everyone who reported bugs, shared feedback and supported By My Side. ❤️

🛠️ Major Improvements

New swimming & diving system Characters now move more naturally in water, diving has been improved, reaching the ocean floor works correctly, and boats and rafts behave much more reliably.

Improved building system Doors, stairs, building previews and object rotation have all been refined, fixing many placement issues.

World & terrain improvements Numerous collision issues, terrain bugs and environmental details across the world have been fixed and polished.

Save & load fixes Various issues affecting vehicles, inventories, cargo and world persistence have been resolved.

Many additional improvements Animations, interactions, vehicles, camera controls, UI elements and countless smaller bugs have also been addressed.

🌊 New Content
✈️ A fully functional airplane with cargo storage and fuel mechanics
🏝️ Multiple new islands waiting to be discovered
⛏️ A first mine with new resources
🤝 New NPCs, trading mechanics and a trust system

The new islands are part of the endgame experience, so we'd like to keep most of their secrets hidden. Players who venture far enough across the ocean will discover much more for themselves.

Thank you to everyone who reported bugs, shared feedback and supported By My Side. ❤️

Hey everyone! 🐕 A big update — and a lot of it comes straight from your feedback. Highlights: 🛒 New: The Wagon Build a wooden wheeled wagon at the workbench — the summer alternative to the sled! As you pull it, the front wheels visibly steer into the turns and the wheels roll along. The sled still glides best on snow, the wagon rolls best on bare ground — hitch either one to yourself or to your grown dog. 🛷 Sled overhaul A fresh, nicer model. The pull rope now sags naturally like a real rope and goes taut when you pull — no more stiff bar. 🎵 All-new soundtrack Fresh, hand-picked music for day, night, winter, spring and danger — plus a brand-new menu theme. All seamlessly looped. Sit back and listen. 🎧 🛠️ Polish & fixes - Logs and branches in the world and on the vehicles better proportioned - You can no longer walk through the sled and wagon (finally solid!) - Fixed an old dog-appearance bug — your companion always shows as the right friend - The demo now starts with the wagon Thanks for your feedback — it's exactly what keeps this game growing! 🐕

New - Item tooltips: every item now shows what it's for and where to get it — or what it's crafted from — in all 8 languages. No more guessing what a part does or where a resource comes from. Bug fixes - Recipes that produce the same item (e.g. Cloth from Wool or from Fiber) are now clearly distinguishable at the workbench, and their tooltips show the correct ingredients. - Pressing without a hammer no longer places random items — only the active hotbar item gets placed. - Tasks (e.g. "Build 6 walls") now tick off immediately once the condition is met. Other - The deep-sea creature has been temporarily removed while we fix it. It'll return, improved. Thanks for playing and for your feedback — the tooltip request came straight from a review! 🐕

Thank you for all the feedback right after the 1.0 release — a lot of this comes straight from you! ⏸️ Real Pause The pause menu now truly freezes the whole world in single-player — time, animals, weather. A clear "⏸ Game paused" shows it. Perfect for when the phone rings. (In co-op the game keeps running for everyone, with a clear note.) 🪢 Rope Winch — now for yourself, too New: tie the winch's rope to yourself, keep working normally (dig, build) — then press to be pulled back up. Great for getting out of deep pits or up from ledges. 🕳️ Digging & Filling You no longer get stuck in the ground when filling holes. And your shovel now lasts much longer. 🐕 Your Dog Is Tougher Your companion now has far more health and stays by your side much longer when things get dangerous. 🐺 Predators Wolves and bears chase and attack cleanly again — no more freezing mid-hunt. 🪵 Easter Egg The firewood piles scattered around the world can now be looted for planks. Keep your eyes open! 👀 📚 Tutorial The first-steps guide now covers digging too — so you know where stone and ore are hidden (in the ground!). We're looking forward to many more updates and new content — thank you for being by our side! ❤️

The big day: By My Side is now version 1.0 — thank you to everyone who joined us through Early Access and shaped the game with your feedback! You can now see the version in the main menu (important for co-op: both players need the same version). 🔌 Power & Water — Finally Clear - Holding a cable or hose makes all connectable devices glow (gold = power, blue = water), with step-by-step prompts: look at a device → → walk to the target → . - Underground routing is now shown at every step of laying — no more hidden option. - The demo's step-by-step help named a wrong key — fixed. 🚧 Fence Preview When placing a post, the ghost now shows preview rails to the neighbouring post — you instantly see whether your fence will connect. Too far apart? The game now tells you. (Thanks for the forum report! 🙌) This is just the beginning — many more updates and new content are on the way. Thank you for being by our side! <3

🏠 Build Upwards — Multi-Storey Houses - New piece: Intermediate Floor. Snaps flush onto your wall tops — walkable, and the next storey's walls go right on top of it. 2 planks. Leave one cell open for your stairwell. - Stairs stack properly now. Place a second staircase on the upper floor, offset from the first, for a real stairwell. Previously the second one silently dropped back to the ground floor and landed inside the first. - New piece: Ladder. Vertical, snaps to the outside of a wall, and stacks — one segment per storey, so you can reach any height. Just walk into it to climb; walk forward at the top to step onto your roof. Those solar panels are finally reachable. (Space / Ⓐ to drop off.) - A room on your upper floor now counts as a real building — it keeps you warm through winter. 🐕 Your Dog Follows You Upstairs Your companion takes the stairs, walks your intermediate floors, and comes back down with you. Farm animals stay on the ground floor where they belong. 🐺 Animals Behave Better - Predators no longer freeze mid-hunt. A wolf that bit you used to stand perfectly still for a full second while its attack cooled down, then sprint after you again — a stop-and-go stutter. Now it stays on you until it can strike again. - Fleeing animals no longer jitter at the shoreline. Deer and llamas cornered against water flip-flopped between "run away" and "sidestep" every single frame. They now commit to a direction and run along the water — and they check both sides, so they stop running into bays. 🔨 Building Fixes - Demolishing now hits what you're pointing at. Aim at the wall, the wall comes down — not the foundation under it. The targeted piece lights up before you confirm, so you always see what's about to go. Previously walls and foundations sat almost on top of each other and the game basically flipped a coin. A one-time hint explains it the first time you stand at your build with an axe. - Rotate hint added. Workbenches, furniture and devices show Rotate while placing — and only on pieces that actually rotate. - Eating from your hotbar works while standing on a foundation. - Walls on strip foundations can be painted again, inside and out. 🖱️ Mouse & Aiming - Fixed: the mouse cursor could disappear for good. If you were holding right-click to look around when the window lost focus — alt-tab, Steam overlay, a Discord popup — the game never learned you let go, and the cursor stayed gone. - The cursor now returns exactly where it was after looking around, instead of jumping to the screen center. - Aiming follows your camera while the cursor is hidden. Demolishing and the hoe now target the center of your view instead of sticking to a stale point. ❄️ A Better First Winter New games no longer roll a blizzard on day one. You arrive to a snowy world you can actually see — and the first winter night still hits you with everything it's got.

🎮 Steam co-op invites now work - Fixed the bug where joining a friend's game via a Steam invite got stuck at the main menu — the character select appeared, but nothing happened after. You now connect straight into your friend's world. - Under the hood: the Steam peer-to-peer relay wasn't being initialized, so the connection socket could never be created. That's fixed now. - The host just needs this update — friends can join even from a slightly older build. - Added a clear "Different game version" message when two players are on incompatible builds, instead of a silent failure.

What's new in this update Controller support — completely overhauled - Dog naming works with a controller — pick from suggested names, no keyboard needed. - Chests & inventory: after taking an item, the next one stays selected — you can keep taking items (previously the selection was lost after one). - Eat food with a controller (inventory and hotbar), now with a visible on-screen prompt (Ⓧ Eat / Eat). - Action bar now shows controller glyphs when a pad is connected. - All UI panels (chest, inventory, trade, equipment) now handle controller focus correctly — no more "nothing selected". Other - Fence building hint — explains that posts connect automatically when placed right next to each other. - "Report a bug / Feedback" button in the pause menu (opens the Steam discussions). - Localization fixes — co-op "invite a friend" text is now translated in all 8 languages; the demo's power step (English) now clearly says "connect them with a cable".

Update — What's New Multiplayer - Steam multiplayer is now live — play together with friends. New Player Experience - Added a tutorial / improved onboarding to help you get started faster. - Language selection on first launch (the game no longer forces German for everyone). Characters - New, higher-quality characters (male & female). - Character selection at the start of a new game. - Color customization (hair, clothing, skin). Controls - Added invert mouse options (Y and X axis). Visuals & Performance - Reworked, better-looking conifer trees with a much smaller memory footprint. - Smoother game start: the camera now glides to your character instead of cutting in. Fixes - Various smaller bug fixes and polish. Thanks for playing and for all the feedback — more to come! 🐕

🌲 Forest & world - Big forest pass: trees now have varied green tones and a natural, matte look — and you can no longer walk through distant trees. Saplings lost their glossy look too. 🧍 Characters - New character creation — pick male or female, each with their own animations and appearance. - Character backgrounds now show the correct title in your language (all 8 supported). - Existing saves stay fully compatible. 💾 Saves - Added 3 separate save slots you can load and play independently — your existing save is safe and keeps syncing via Steam Cloud. - Slots now show the day and mode at a glance: "Slot 1 · Day 24 · Hardcore." 🛠️ Fixes & polish - Fixed a rare bug where you could get flung far from your base while building. - Tables and chairs now have proper models you can't walk through. - Salvage refunds fixed · thermometer shows °F for English (°C elsewhere) · the controls overview appears again on a new game · bigger, clearer HUD icons. - Hardcore: enemies now hit 50% harder. 🎬 Demo - The controls overview reliably shows at the start (after the intro + naming your dog). - Added character selection to the demo. - Fixed a panel flashing during the loading screen. 🎨 Graphics - Capable mid-range GPUs (GTX 1060+/16-series, RX 580+/5000) now default to the High preset for a better first impression; lower-end/integrated GPUs stay on safer presets. All adjustable in Pause → Display / Graphics. - New players start in fullscreen by default.

# BY MY SIDE — #1 MAJOR UPDATE - On 10.07🐕✈️ ### The wild is about to feel more alive than ever — and this time, you decide who walks into it.

🧍 Choose your survivor

Begin your journey as one of two fully-animated characters. Pick who braves the wilderness — right at the start of a new game. Customize the look of your survivor's parts to make them yours.

🌲 A living forest

Hand-crafted new pine trees, each with its own subtle shade, so no two corners of the woods look the same. Rooted a little deeper into the earth, and dressed in fresh snow when winter comes.

🎬 A cinematic arrival

Stepping into a new world now opens with a sweeping camera that settles you gently behind your survivor — and the interface fades in only once you've landed. Arriving is finally an experience.

✈️ Build your own aircraft — and reach a whole new world

The ultimate goal. Gather rare materials and build a flyable aircraft piece by piece — craft the wings, the propeller, the engine, the wheels. Then take to the skies… but take care: parts can wear and fail mid-flight. And where those skies lead?

✨ Leaner & sharper

Hundreds of megabytes lighter, better-looking characters, and a whole stack of polish under the hood.

Language & First Launch - The game now starts in your language automatically (detects Steam, else system language). No more German-for-everyone — unsupported languages fall back to English. - New language-selection screen on the very first launch — pick your language before anything happens. Changeable anytime in the pause menu. - All text now updates instantly when you switch language mid-game (previously parts stayed in the old language). Chinese & Japanese fully native. Onboarding - Controls overview on first launch (skippable, re-openable in the pause menu) — teaches things like hold right mouse = rotate camera and the build key nobody was finding. - Holding a hammer or a placeable now shows “ Build/Place” on screen. - Story (relaxed) mode is the recommended default now, not Hardcore. Polish - Campfire menu: buttons were clipped → 2×2 grid, fits every language; now closes it; added a top-right ✕. - Almanac (K): the top-right ✕ works again. - Companion/dog panel 10% wider. - Sled: take a loaded log back off with emptagain.

Hotfix - 0.5s delay before deconstruct starts

By My Side — Update Fixed - You could get stuck in the inventory: Esc now closes open menus/windows first, and only opens the pause menu when nothing else is open. - The chicken coop showed a duplicate placement preview — now only the correct one at your cursor. New - Deconstruct buildings: Placed structures (chicken coop, furniture, workstations and more) can now be removed — hold to deconstruct (small progress bar, release to cancel). You get ~50% of the materials back. (Foundations/ walls still use the quick Axe + .) Thanks to everyone who's already sent feedback — reports like these help a ton in making the game better, step by step.

Localization - 88 native-speaker corrections applied across 7 translated languages (EN, 简体中文, RU, FR, ES, PT-BR, JA) after a full native-review pass. - Fixed a real menu bug: the "German" option in the language selector showed the wrong language name in FR/ES/PT-BR/JA (e.g. a Spanish player picking "Español" would actually switch to German). Now correctly Allemand / Alemán / Alemão / ドイツ語. - Language-specific quality fixes: - RU: informal ты-register, genitive after numbers (+%d песка), gender agreement (Верный пёс-ищейка). - FR: consistent tutoiement (branche/gare instead of branchez/garez), "déjà occupé" instead of "déjà conduit", Bûche vs rondin. - ES: correct automotive terms (bujía, filtro de aire, "al alcance", "calado"), Spain register (papa→patata). - JA: fixed item-name-vs-recipe-name mismatches (陶器 vs セラミック, 煮込み釜 vs 大鍋, etc.), removed lazy katakana-English. - ZH/EN: terminology consistency; EN Title-Case on the new vehicle strings. - Verified: all 88 resolve correctly in-engine, i18n test green, 0 missing keys. Controller Support - Fences, gates, electric fences, boats and water intakes can now be placed with a controller (via the interact button) — previously impossible on a pad (keyboard/mouse only). Hard blocker fixed. - Vehicle controls on gamepad: engine on/off (D-pad ↑), headlights (D-pad ↓), handbrake (B) — plus matching on-screen button glyphs. Night driving / stall-recovery now possible on a pad. - Controller re-binding: you can now rebind actions to gamepad buttons in the settings screen (was keyboard-only). - Dog naming on controller: explicitly requests the Steam on-screen keyboard so pad-only players can complete the (required) naming step. Multiplayer / Co-op - Verified: paths, tree-felling, and dog breeds all sync correctly across clients. - Fixed: the vehicle was completely unsynced in co-op — the sync code existed but never ran, so each player secretly drove/repaired their own private copy of the truck. Now the vehicle gets a proper network ID, is shared correctly, no longer double-spawns for joining players, and has a driver "seat lock" (two players can't fight over the wheel). - Note for you: needs a real 2-machine test to fully confirm — can't be tested headless. players can't fight over the wheel). - Note for you: needs a real 2-machine test to fully confirm — can't be tested headless. Balance & Progression - Utility/Install Bench: nail cost 6 → 3 (it was a 3× outlier and gates both the power grid and the car battery). - Scrap: now buyable from the wandering trader, and dig drop rate 2% → 3% (it was the only resource with no non-mining source, yet feeds ~8 recipes). - Rubber: tree drop chance 30% → 40% (rubber→wheels was the vehicle's grindiest, streakiest step; this trims the bad-luck tail). - Reference timings from the analysis: full solar/power setup ≈ 22–30 min, roadworthy vehicle ≈ 20–25 min (chassis found <1 min near camp). Website & Wiki - Homepage: new Vehicle feature + detailed Vehicle and Living World cards, an 8-language line, and corrected the dog-breed text (removed the retired Shepherd → "Border Collie or Beagle"). - Wiki: new Vehicle & Paths section + sidebar entry.

Hey everyone,

Quick but important update before the weekend.

📅 RELEASE DATE CORRECTION

The store page currently shows July 3 — that date is no longer accurate. Due to a Steam review process delay, the actual release is now planned for July 6. Sorry for any confusion if you were waiting for today! We'll update the store page date as soon as we can.

🐕 MULTIPLAYER

By My Side supports online co-op (2-8 players, P2P) — host from the main menu or invite friends via the Steam overlay. This isn't showing as an official store category yet while we finish additional testing with Steam, but it's fully playable right now, including in the demo.

🌲 A MORE LIVING WORLD

We rebuilt how the world generates vegetation. Instead of scattered trees and flat grass, the world now has real density — open meadows, transition zones, and genuinely dense forest you can lose yourself in, with landmark trees and rock formations to help you navigate. Fallen logs in the forest are now real, choppable resources, not just decoration.

🐾 DOG BREEDS

Simplified the breed pool to our two fully custom-modeled breeds — Beagle and Border Collie — for a more consistent, polished look. If you had a different breed in an existing save, don't worry: your dog keeps its name, trust, and everything else, just a new look.

🔧 SMALL FIXES

Various under-the-hood fixes, including a tilling/hoe input issue and cleaner dog spawning.

Updated demo is live now.

Thanks for your patience — see you on July 6. 🐕

🐾 By My Side — the Demo is live, and our first big update is here!

It's really happening! Hundreds of you added the demo in the very first hours — thank you, from the bottom of our (and our dog's) heart. To celebrate, we just pushed our very first content update, and it's a big one.

🐕 Your dog — your companion for life

Find a dog and tame him with patience. He comes as one of three breeds — Shepherd, Border Collie, or Beagle — fate decides which one is yours.
He follows you, listens to your commands, and warns you of danger.
And he never dies. Predators can wound him — but you stay by his side and nurse him back to health. That's the heart of this game.

🦙 A world that's truly alive

New wildlife roams the land: llamas, grazing sheep flocks, bears, foxes and wolves.
A richer soundscape — every animal now has its own voice, so the world breathes around you.

🧶 Tame, tend & survive

Tame llamas and sheep, shear wool and craft warm garments against the cold.
A tamed llama even stands guard over your herd against predators.

✨ Polish & care

A smoother winter, fixes straight from your feedback, and 8 fully, natively translated languages.
solid saves — your journey is safe.

This is just a taste of what's coming. Jump into the demo, meet your dog, and survive your first days in the wild — together. 🐾 If you love it, add By My Side to your wishlist — it's the single biggest thing you can do to help us. And tell us what you think; we're reading everything. See you out there, OverLKD Studio

By My Side news & patch notes