Today, we come to you with both a reflection on the journey we've shared so far and a glimpse into the future of Northern Lights.
As many of you know, Northern Lights has been a labor of love for our small indie team of only three people. Back in 2020, we released our biggest project to date, only to face challenges that stemmed from our lack of experience. The launch didn't meet our expectations, and we struggled with optimization, content, and originality.
Without second thoughts, we embarked on a journey to reshape Northern Lights, releasing significant updates in May 2021 and the game-changing Overhaul update in January 2022. Your support and enthusiasm fueled our passion, and we are immensely grateful for the community that stuck with us through thick and thin.
However, as time passed, interest in our game decreased, and sales went down, forcing each of us to seek additional employment to sustain ourselves and our families. Despite our best efforts, Northern Lights, while now in a better shape than before, has still not recovered.
Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads, contemplating the future of Northern Lights. After careful consideration, including thoughts about quitting development altogether, we've made a decision: we will be continuing development on Northern Lights. But that's not all – we are also excited to share that we are working on a brand new game that incorporates all the lessons, improvements, and gameplay systems we've developed during the Northern Lights journey.
We understand the concerns that may arise, and we want to assure you that every enhancement we make in our new game will also find its way back into Northern Lights. This is not an abandonment; rather, it's a new chapter that allows us to explore fresh ideas while ensuring Northern Lights receives the attention it deserves.
We've faced challenges and learned valuable lessons along this journey, and we believe that our experience will shine through in both projects. We recognize the complexity of this decision, and your understanding means the world to us. We are eager to provide more information about our upcoming game soon, in a later post.
Now, let's delve into the details of today's update, where you'll find improvements, fixes, and additions that further enhance your Northern Lights experience.
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New Craft! Crafted Cooking Pot
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New Mechanic! Homesick wellbeing mechanic for Hard and Prey difficulties
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Bow mechanics rewritten from scratch
- --- Bow animations are now smoother
- --- Bow draw tension now affects projectile speed and drop
- --- Flying arrows are now rotating according to trajectory and drop rather than always facing forward
- --- Fixed most mechanical issues with bow
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Rifle mechanics rewritten from scratch
- --- Rifle animations are now smoother
- --- Rifle is now bolt action
- --- Fixed most mechanical issues with bow
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Improvements to building blueprint placement mechanics
- --- Added surface placement rules for blueprint placement
- --- Fires cannot be placed on wood platforms now
- --- Tents cannot be placed on wood platforms now
- --- Ground traps can only be placed on terrain now
- New game intros can now be skipped
- Added sounds to Doors and Containers
- Added random rotation to spawned loot
- Added Salt graphics in Salting Spots
- Added a notification for new items when crafting done
- Added a notification for having no Arrows left when using Bow
- Added icons and colors to Sanity and Health-Stats depletion and gain notifications
- Added icons and colors to No Ammo, Inventory Full and Missing Item notifications
- Added Harvest All, Consume All buttons in Inventory Contextual menu
- Added HUD Controls hints for Watch
- Improvements to HUD Controls hints
- Improvements to New Game Intro Cutscene
- Improvements to Clothing balance in Weather Station
- Tweaked first person clothing resolution
- Tweaked Wellbeing regen value, disabled Wellbeing regen for Hard and Prey difficulties
- Fixed camera twitching when having affliction visual effects or aiming/un-aiming weapons
- Fixed a road between River Village and Fishing Camp clipping through terrain
- Fixed affliction notifications shown on load game
- Fixed quest dialogues playing on load game
- Fixed bow aim animation switching to rifle aim animation if drawing while bow is breaking or right on loading new arrow
- Fixed UI text becoming blurry after resolution changes
- Fixed exterior audio not getting muted when entering undergrounds
- Fixed picking up arrows freezing character for one frame
- Fixed wood house floors not allowing object placement
- Fixed interior volume bounds blocking building placement around building doors
- Fixed mouse pointer getting pixelated on low texture settings
- Fixed hands clipping through clothing
- Fixed building placement obstacle checking issues when there's a collider under building floor
- Fixed building floor collision issues in Comms Outpost, Forestry Lookouts
- Fixed building floor collision issues in Lighthouse
- Fixed building floor collision issues in Gulag
- Fixed building floor collision issues in some Cabins
- Fixed building floor collision issues in Airfield Hangar
- Fixed building floor collision issues in Bunker
Once again, thank you for supporting us in our endeavors! We're excited to share more updates with you soon. Stay tuned!