[Update] 27 Apr 2023: For players who played on multiple devices prior to the v0.2 update, please read the post here.
Greetings Researchers!
The controller support update is live! 🎉 More information below:
v0.2 Update Notes
🎮Controller Support
- The game can now be played with an Xbox controller.
- The game will detect the control scheme (Keyboard/Mouse or Controller) and change its display accordingly when receiving an input.
- Input prompts will be displayed in-game as glyphs, and an in-game keyboard has been implemented for naming the player and creatures.
- Implemented tool wheel for switching tools.
- Most of the gamepad controls can be remapped from the Options Menu.
Happy with how the keyboard turned out!
✨Improvements
Reduced some tedium when managing multiple creatures
- Hold the interact key (LMB or A) to pat multiple creatures, without having to click on them individually (similar to harvesting crops).
- Collecting a creature produce will also count as 'patting' the creature. This reduces the number of interacts needed when managing creatures.
- For wild/untamed creatures that have been observed, interacting with them will get them to drop an item without a popup. Interacting again will bring up a popup dialogue with their diet information. This reduces unnecessary clicks to close the popup in mid-later game.
Clearer UI
- Going back from the Customisation page shows a confirmation popup (to warn that any changes made in the customisation will be lost).
- When attempting to delete a save, the confirmation popup will show the player name of the save to be deleted.
- Display "Loading..." when loading a save.
Optimisation
- Optimised some parts of the code, and fixed a bug which led to unnecessary instances being created when you own a farm teleporter. This should help with lags occuring after year 1.
💻Better Support for some wider resolutions
- To better support larger resolutions, all hand-drawn art were resized and imported so that the quality is kept. I've done passes for the following resolutions: 3840x2160, 3440x1440, and 5120x1440.
- For 32:9 resolutions like 5120x1440, the start menu should no longer be cut off.
- Increased font sizes for some fonts, especially for resolutions larger than 1920x1080.
- The game should also be more zoomed in for larger resolutions (consistent with how it looks on 1920x1080).
☁️Cloud Saves
- Steam Auto-cloud has been enabled for the game. You can verify that your saves are on the cloud if the Cloud Status states that it's "Up to date" (see below).
- If the 'Cloud Status' doesn't show, you can check your Steam's Settings > Cloud > Enable Steam Cloud synchronization for applications which support it.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: For Cloud Saves, I could only test on the Windows PC & laptop that I own. I'm unable to test for cross-platform saves (such as to Linux/Steam Deck) at this time. As such, it may not work as expected for cross-platforms. Please help us by letting us know if it works for you, and we'll work on resolving any issues!
📂Backups
- A save file backup system has been added. Backup saves will be created whenever players save their game. This will help mitigate issues with save file corruptions (e.g. when the PC shuts down while saving).
- For existing players, a set of backup files will be created on launch if there are any existing saves.
- You can find your saves and backup saves by following these steps:
1) Open Run app (Windows + R key)
2) Copy this to the field: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ResearchStory\
3) Press Ok.
📝What's next
Phew! This was quite a hefty update, but I'm glad to have worked on the important technical stuff before moving on to adding more content! 🎉 After patching any critical issues that may come with this update, I'll work on the Inventory QOL as promised. After that, we'll work on the first major content update (Will share details soon!)
Hope you enjoy the changes! I've been enjoying sitting back while playtesting the game myself :)
- Miki