Hey ducks! It’s been a little while!
Since the last update, we’ve been hard at work on the Switch version of the game. After a few days of development it became clear that it was going to be a much bigger job than we expected. I’m going to put it simply - the Switch is so outdated performance-wise that its toaster-class hardware could be beaten by a modern $50 smart phone. If we were ever going to get this game running at 60fps it was clear that a lot of the game systems would have to be rebuilt from scratch and almost every single part of the game would need to be modified.
Now, many developers would see this as an enormous headache (which, to be fair, it is), but I saw it as an opportunity. A chance to go through every part of the game and make all those little changes I wish we could have made the first time. The best part of all, all of these updates will be made to every version of the game, not just the Switch version. This is no ordinary update, this is Duck Life 9: Directors Cut!
You’re probably thinking “Okay, so what’s changed then?”. It’s a fair question, but not one that’s easy to answer because we have made literally thousands of changes! If you’ve been waiting for a reason to replay the game, this is a perfect opportunity to see what’s changed for yourself. Below is just a small sample of some of the things that I can remember updating:
- New cutscenes
- New music (19 new tracks!)
- Improved controller support
- Improved sound effects
- Improved performance
- New outline and highlighting system
- New alerts system
- Better shadows
- New training centre
- New museum
- New arcade
- New button selection effects
- Different music for day/night
- Improved lighting
- Improved salon / tattoo shop / dye shop UI
- Improved overworld area mouse control
- Wider duck selector
- Upgraded dialogue system
- Added new grass, flowers and mushrooms
- Training game balancing
- New improved flock info popup
- You can now select items on the prize reveal scene to see their descriptions
- New animations
- Ducks now have voices in the flock
- Improved flock cursor for gamepad control
- Added rarity levels for equipment and meals
- New cooking pot system
- Custom colour grading system per scene
- Price balancing changes
- Sped up jelly coin machine
- Bug fixes
Let us know what you think about the new update by leaving us a review :)