Hey everyone! It's been some time, but I'm here with a new update on the development of Cloudscape!
I've been working tirelessly on this game for the months since the last update. I want to actually make this update quick so I can get back to focusing on development, so I'm going to bullet point the development that's been done here since the previous update!
Wimnim Island is nearly finished! This includes multiple shops, a ranch, a farm, an insect museum, a bait and tackle shop with fishing record chart, a carpenter's shop and more. There are currently 18 villagers inhabiting the island, each with their own routines, dialogue, personalities, and more. This is nearly finished, aside from adding some cutscene events and filling out more of the villager's liked/disliked items.
Players can how complete projects around the island. Including a bridge repair, a cliffside staircase and upgrading their raft. More to come!
Villagers can now travel to other villager islands and into different areas other than their own home island
Chickens, Pigs, Cows and Sheep all can be raised from baby to adult and breeding system is in place with unique breeds/colors available
Fences now have alternate styles available! For some fences you can choose between a repeating fence, alternating fence, or long fence. This determines the spacing of posts between tiles, allowing for a more interesting look. Fences also now have working gates you can place down, to open/close for accessing fenced in areas or allowing your animals to come in and out. There are currently 3 fence styles in the game with 3 alternate styles per fence. More to come!
Animals can now follow you around! You can choose for one animal to follow you wherever you go. If you stay in one place for a while they will begin roaming around, but once you move too far they will run to catch up and follow you again. You can also send them home at any time.
You can feed animals and give them treats directly
Monster code has been revamped with some bugs fixed. I've also added a new monster, the Rolydillo, which will roll into a ball and attack you. Mud Globs have also been added, which will slam down and leave mud puddles behind, which slow you when you walk through them.
For mining I've added 11 new minerals/gemstones. There are also 6 different Lode items which you can break open to obtain a variety of minerals/gems
Revamped screen shake to be more consistent and feel better
Added the Bomb item, which you can place down to blow up lots of stuff! The bomb can blow up trees, rocks, grass, and even soft cave walls. It of course can also damage enemies (and yourself) so be careful!
Villagers can react to what colors of clothing you're wearing, what fragrance you have on, and more
Some villagers wear unique outfits for holiday events
Items crafted from recipes now automatically have their cost values based on the required ingredients and time/energy to create them
Cloud Guide panels have been added to help you through your first playthrough of the game. These are basically like a tutorial, which you can disable in the game settings if you don't need them.
All Holiday decorations/artwork have been finished!
Lots of bug fixes and improvements to the audio system. There's now a limiter for repeat sounds to prevent noise distortion when too many of the same sound play at once.
Item loading optimizations have been greatly improved. Using the Collections page to view hundreds of items now happens instantly instead of having a delay
Fishing system had a MASSIVE overhaul to greatly improve the feel of fishing, and the fish behaviors. Fish now struggle more realistically, creating a fun tug of war type feeling while fishing. There is no mini-game for fishing, you just catch fish like you would IRL. They pull away and swim around fighting you while you reel. You need to relax on reeling when they pull hard or they will get away or break the line.
All bait and lure works for fish properly now. There's a variety of bait and lure which can have different effects on fish biting behaviors.
Added 21 Shipwrecked artifacts to collect from fishing!
All Skill Rewards for fishing have been added and tested. This completes the fishing skill in the game. It's done!
Limbo mini-games have all been finished/updated/improved. Limbo is now 100% complete as well. There are 6 different mini-games to play in Limbo
Added Boomerangs! This is fully feature complete, with various Boomerangs, skill reward unlocks, and special abilities. There is a snake strike ability that throws the boomerang in a big S shape. There's also a quick tempo ability which rewards continuous hits by speeding up the boomerang each time up to 5 times. Boomerangs can also pick up items at a distance.
Watch on YouTube Added Shields! You can now hold a shield out in front of you to protect yourself from front facing attacks and projectiles. Skill Reward unlocks give the shield the ability to stun monsters who melee attack your shield at the right time, and you can reflect projectiles by shielding at the right time.
Added Sword skill reward unlock abilities. If you land consecutive hits with the sword you build up a charge which releases a big slash wave that wipes out everything in front of you. There's also a sword spin attack. Holding and releasing the sword will cause you to spin fully around, damaging everything around you.
Finished the ocean/lake/puddle shader. Oceans now have crashing waves, water distortion and ripples. All water now has a nice animated edge that meets the land
Watch on YouTube
What all this means is basically the first 10+ hours of the game are ready to go. With finishing Wimnim and pretty much all skills implemented, the last things left to finish the game would be the final 2 villager islands (which are in various stages of completion already) and more late-game things like marriage/having children.
There's also some work to do on the seasonal islands and seasonal dungeons. Finally, I need to finish up all of the promised Kickstarter rewards for things like monsters, villagers and furniture sets.
I can finally see the end of the tunnel on Cloudscape's development. It's hard for me to estimate exactly how much longer this last leg is going to take. All I can say is I appreciate everyone who has been patiently waiting for the game to release. I promise to you I'm working on this game non-stop. It's pretty much my only priority outside of taking breaks for a few hours for my hobbies and to reset myself. I understand I haven't been making these updates frequently enough and I apologize for that. I'm just trying to focus fully on the development but I understand that from the outside it looks like nothing is happening here on Kickstarter.
You're always welcome to follow me on various social media or join the discord, where I post more frequently as I'm just doing little quick updates or showing off what I'm working on at the moment. If you really want to know what I'm working on at any given moment you are free to message me here and ask, but please be nice about it! :)
I also would like to stream development soon, so if you're interested in seeing that, check the discord or twitter/facebook/bluesky social media accounts for updates on when that might happen.
Thanks everyone for your continued support and patience. I know that this game is way behind schedule but I'm working as hard as I can, and I'm happy that I can at least see the manageable chunk of game left to develop.
As for if the game will come to Switch 2 I'm unsure, but the game *should* work fine with a Switch 2. The game is still planned to release on all platforms that it was meant to release on.