Hello Researchers!
For those who celebrate Easter, I hope you had a good time! 🐣🐰 I don't celebrate Easter myself, but took a day off on Good Friday to relax a little.
Here’s a progress update for the past couple of weeks (updates will only be live later this month):
More UI implementation 🎮
Ah, more UI work - we're getting there! The Map is an example where players can cycle through key locations using the LS based on the map layout:
✅ Other UIs completed: Selecting save files, Customisation, Recording Stations, Shops, Mini-games, Journal, Quests, Profile
More specific target handling 👈
Previously, we added a system that finds the nearest interactable object. It mostly worked, but there was an issue with overlapping interactables (e.g. creatures in their pens - we could only target the pen and not the creature). As such, we implemented a sorting system to prioritise common tasks (such as trough and creatures), and also a way to toggle between the nearest objects by pressing RS. Players can also use RS as a mouse cursor.
Trough and chicken are prioritised over the pen. Using RS can be a fallback option for more specific targeting.
Placing Items 🏡
Since items are placed on a grid system, players can use RS to navigate and choose the exact spot for placement:
Optimisation ✨
I’ve also reworked and optimised some parts of the code, which hopefully helps with the lag that some players are facing after playing for about a year in-game.
What's next
The above changes will be live as part of the controller update later this month. Thank you everyone for your support and patience as we continue development! 💗
I've updated the remaining to-do list. One of the things I hope to address soon is better support for wider resolutions. I'll also try to add the inventory QOL that we previously mentioned - but if that takes too long, it'll probably be moved to a different update.
To-do for the controller support update:
- Remaining UI (Job Board, Fishing Map, Animal UI)
- In-game keyboard for naming player & animals
- Updating tutorial & adding glyphs
- Controller remapping
- Adding Steam Cloud support
- Better support for wider resolutions
- (Given enough time) Inventory QOL (Auto-sort, Auto-add/pull from chests, and Coloured Chests)
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you're enjoying these devlogs! ✨
- Miki