Hello Players!
If you have found yourself looking at the big mountain and thinking "I want to cross it", then this patch welcomes you to do such!
The island was originally split up with the idea of letting players beta test on one side and then be presented with a fuller, more complete game on the other side. Hiccups happen and since it became a greater and more time consuming task than I had anticipated, I'm giving earlier access to the rest of the map.
With that said, there will be changes and there will be more additions added in newer updates. This is just the set up for the end of the story. The goal is to open up bits of interactions and key-events to the story per update, while still releasing a few minor game-mechanic based updates inbetween.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Due to a lot patchwork programming to fix old item IDs and issues with buildings not saving properly/duplicating when saved, all the item IDs and buildings have been reset.
Therefore it is HIGHLY essential to start a new game.
Old save games will no longer work as expected. Buildings won't appear and items will no longer show in inventories. This was unavoidable due to previous mistakes and the only fitting time to release this kind of an update was now before we advance properly in the game.
The previous patch is still available under "BetaUpdate36" branch for those who are not quite ready to restart.
Now, lets dive into the highlights!
Karma visualisation
To change the focus of the learning curve in the game, the "karma" bar in the book has been removed because it felt like spoondfed information. I've always wanted trial and error to be the focus instead.
Therefore, the previous karma indication has been replaced with visual environment changes. The saturation and hue of the game colors will now give a hint:
Good karma = warmer colors.
Bad karma = cooler colors.
The starting point is somewhere inbetween, so keep an eye out for the changes as you progress in the game.
More drastic changes to the hue/saturation might come later, but as this is completely new it is released in its testing phase to see if its more of an eye sore than a fun addition.
New equipment
With new exploration, comes new equipment. To help make your travel a little easier, a set of diving gear can be found across the map in various places.
The new equipment brings new equipment slots which opens up for a more customizable experience down the road. For now this is limited to shoe fashion, or no shoes at all if thats what you're into. ːsteamthumbsupː
New building costs and tools
Some of you might remember when the game released, that the building requirements were higher. It was trimmed down due to the lack of resource transportation, but due to the save reset, ID fixes and the cart's existence, the old building has been reimplemented.
This means that walls that previously showed 9 logs stacked ontop of another, but only required 6 to build, now actually requires the full 9 logs.
To make the building a little more balanced, new resources and a new cutting tool has been added to the game.
The sawhorses in the game have allowed players to cut resources horizontally, while this new structure will allow vertical cuts. This allows resources to be cut to appropriate sizes for buildings that visually don't need as large logs without losing valuable resources.
This tool is still in its early testing stages, so changes will occur. A better visualization of what the cut product will look like before the cut happens is already expected to make the next update along with proper building refunds for when a building is canceled.
Additionally there is a new storage rack made specifically for planks. The old log rack now only allows storage of logs and halflogs. Down the road, there might be added options to store the new resources as well.
Exploration
A construction sign is set up in different areas that is still under development. These sites can be worth checking out again in later updates!
Additional gameplay shots:
Upcoming plans
This past year has been heavily focused on planning the next stages of development and mapping out the rest of the land. While writing these patch notes, I felt like I should have been able to add more to the notes, but that would mean spoiling half of the fun!
I'm always a little careful in sharing what's to come, but one of the many reasons this took longer than expected was because I wanted a proper introduction of the new explorable areas. However, I've not been quite satisfied with how it has turned out, so until then you can keep an eye out for a teaser.
The goal with the upcoming updates is to give more options to affect the player karma, while also opening up section after section of exploration, story progression, cut-scenes, new animals and objectives until the end. And I can't wait to share the rest with you!
As always, below is an (almost) full overview of the changes and new additions!
Overview
New
Added new clothing slots.
Added new equipment.
Added new diving detection.
Added a new achievement.
Added a diving filter.
Added swimming goggles.
Added swimming fins.
Added oxygen tank.
Added a wristband keycard.
Added new map extension.
Added a new storage rack.
Added new building resources.
Added a mini-light to the book.
Added a new player karma visualization: Colors are now saturated or desaturated to indicate reputation status (Desaturated = Foe/Saturated = Friendly).
Added new tutorials.
Changes
Changed placements of crafting resources (medium rocks by cliffs, stones in paths, sticks by the edges of the forest, etc.)
Changed the book visuals.
Changed the visuals of the trees.
Changed the cutting process of the trees.
Changed amount of logs that can be transported in the cart 10 -> 6
Changed amount of planks that can be transported in the cart 13 -> 18
Changed amount of rocks that can be transported in the cart 18 -> 9
Changed in-game logo.
Changed the size of the building icons in the building menu.
Changed inventory tutorial visuals.
The log rack now only stores logs and split logs.
The animals no longer require different karma levels to be tamed.
Friendly points increased by wood armor are now halved.
Increased the eye-adaption adjustment speed.
Increased crafting costs.
Increased building costs.
Decreased shadow strength.
Improved inventory tutorial button sizes.
Removed
Removed camera rotation lag.
Removed destructible boulder.
Removed the achievements surrounding the boulder.
Removed two categories in the building menu.
Removed “Spacebar” diving. Swim movement is now controlled by mouse movement.
Removed the karma bar from the book.
Removed "diary" text from the book.
Removed snapping for two of the stairs buildings.
Temporarily removed ocean and lake environments due to auto-generated foliage issues.
Fixes
Fixed a bug where the player would lose stamina even if the player is no longer swimming.
Fixed a bug where night brightness started at 0.
Fixed a bug where night time would be pitch black.
Fixed a bug where the night brightness slider would not disable the reset button.
Fixed a bug where pressing “Q” would not flip pages in the book.
Fixed a bug where some notes could not be stored in the notebook.
Fixed a bug where some notes would disappear from the notebook when reloading the game.
Fixed a bug where pop-up notification would display a keybind unrelated to the message.
Fixed visual precision on player stats.
Fixed an animation bug on the character when the character was turning in place.
Fixed a bug where the scrolling in the building menu was inaccurate.
Fixed a saving bug where some buildings would load without their model shown. This might also result in some buildings overlapping or changing meshes for the first reload after the patch.
Fixed choppy animation when switching between food and weapons.
Fixed a bug where there was no walking animation when holding the bows.
Fixed a bug where one needed raspberries to craft pumpkin bait.
Fix issue where when above water and swimming, oxygen is still draining even if player has stamina.
Fixed a bug where the player had to leave lakes to regain oxygen.
Best regards,
Skylene