Hello dear shopkeepers!
It has been some time since the last Custom Game Update. Check it out using the link if you have not seen it yet. The team has had a couple of weeks of vacation during the holidays to recharge with friends and family which was much needed.View game page
Today we are excited to bring you a new update with a bunch of cool new improvements. Let's get into it!
Employees Update
You can now hire an employee every 5 shop levels up to a maximum of 3 employees. Employees can now also be given a different task other than restocking. For example, a cashier employee will stand at the counter and assist customers with checking out and a marketing employee will head into town to increase the number of customers that visit the shop.
Milestones
The concept of milestones has been added which introduces more employees, higher slot displays and storage options to be unlocked at Bep every 5 shop levels up to shop level 15. This aims to make the progression feel more gradual and rewarding once you obtain it. A window with milestone progression has been added to provide some insight into milestone tiers.
New Display Colors
9 new color options were added for the Eext display set bringing the total up to 12 colors to pick from for the 7 furniture pieces in this set. Below you see all 12 colors for the 1 slot displays and a couple of examples of how that may look for the other displays in that set.
Lighting Rework
The shopkeeper used to receive additional lighting to make sure the areas surrounding the shopkeeper are well lit during day and night time. This used to be done with a spotlight right above the player and one on the camera. Some players noticed that this caused strange lighting situations near buildings in the village or putting the camera close to things. It turned out that disabling these lights also improved performance by a lot. After some investigation and experimentation we landed on a much cheaper method of lighting that is also more flexible and customizable.
Terrain Rework
At face value you may notice that the edge of the map looks different than before. The edge of the map used to appear like an empty void which you can see in the images below.
The terrain rework in this update basically removes the size constraint that used to be in place. Several technical reasons related to grass and trees prevented us from doing this right from the start but it's great to share that this is no longer a limitation that we have to worry about moving forward. In the gif below you can see how the terrain now updates if the camera gets near the edge.
Snow Update
The terrain rework originated from a desire to fix a bug where indoor foliage would appear white during winter. This could have been fixed with an exception of sorts but fixing this bug properly tied into the urge to make the snow season look a lot better than before. All seasons will now gradually transition into the next season where snow gradually removes grass as winter comes around. The terrain surface during winter is a bit sparkly to reflect the light and you can see snowflakes throughout the season. A ceiling can be removed from a floor tile to allow the sun and snow to come in which adds a small animated effect. Indoor foliage will now also remain lush and green when kept inside but will take on the seasonal color when placed outside.
Domain Portals
The different areas in the game (shop, home, etc...) are called domains and traveling to another domain is done by physically leaving a domain. With this update we have added domain teleporters to make it visually clear where a domain ends and when entering teleports you somewhere else. Sometimes a domain portal might not be usable such as when playing through the tutorial or if the shop is open. When that happens you will see that the visual feedback of the portal has changed to indicate that it's not usable.
Updated Structure Colliders
This update marks the end of a big manual update to structure colliders which should fix all the floating and clipping furniture that you may place on or near walls and pillars. This creates some creative new possibilities by placing a wall shelf with a product underneath a window sill or placing a lantern on a pillar to mimic a lamp post. We are excited to see what you can come up with.
Future development
We are already making good progress on the next update where we would like to focus a bit more on crafting content. For development updates we are sometimes posting things on Discord where it's really easy for us to drop images, videos, or just have a chat with you. If that sounds interesting then join the community following this link: Discord
As you know, the industry is also having a rough time where it is difficult to make ends meet so it would help a lot of you could leave a review on Steam or share this update in your network.
Thank you for reading until the end. Now let's get to the full list of patch notes!
Patch 15318
ART
Extended the environment reflection probe to fix a harsh reflection falloff near the end of a domain.
Fixed Covik and Craailo wall plants colliders as they were too large and this made using them too rigid.
A portal effect was added to indicate when the shopkeeper will travel between domains. A green version indicates that it's traversable while a red version indicates that it is not traversable.
Updated structure colliders on all pillars to reduce floating on pillar mounted furniture.
Updated surface colliders of the Karel wall set.
The village clinic now has a lake around it.
Updated surface colliders of the Kroma wall set.
Updated surface colliders of the Korstel and Karel wall pieces.
TECH
Fixed an issue that would sometimes indicate that some input could not be reassigned. This does make it possible to assign the same button to multiple actions so use with caution.
Fixed a button remapping issue that would flip the horizontal axis when using the keyboard arrow keys.
Snow has been added and winter has been reworked to fix the issue of indoor foliage being affected by seasons. This was most noticable during winter when indoor foliage appeared white.
Fixed an issue where you could still water a planter even if everything was done growing
Additional customers from marketing employees would not be counted towards the additional time per customer, causing the shop to close too soon when you had multiple employees doing so
Employees can now level up, and their performance increases accordingly
Removed finite terrain limitation in favor of a terrain chunking system. This terrain limitation was initially in place for performance considerations but that is currently no longer an issue. This should alleviate any terrain constraint restrictions and also prepares for future ideas.
Added the Cashier employee job type
Multiple employees can now restock at the same time
Employees will now search for another target immediately when the target they were going to was manually restocked by the player
Fixed flashing when editing furniture
Replaced two player facing spot lights with a custom lighting model to improve performance, visuals, and control. This also fixes the light hotspot issue that occurs when being next to a tall building.
OTHER
Fixed a typo that prevented the Place Armor Displays objective from progressing.
UI
Improved Event detail panel description by splitting up the tags into buy & sell categories, and added a tooltip that shows how much it modifies
Unlock menu at Bep now shows when certain furniture becomes available if it's locked by milestones
Added a popup when you hit a new milestone (level 5, 10 and 15)
Added a tab to the menu to see the milestones
Added Employee count to the employee menu
Added the Smelter & Armament Workbench to the unlock window, with a description on where it's unlocked
Fixed a minor layout issue that caused the scrollbar of the detail panel to be in an inconsistent position
BALANCE
You can now hire more employees based on your shop level
Added tiers to furniture, which now unlocks certain furniture after certain levels to avoid just unlocking the best stuff immediately.
Hotfix 15334
TECH
Adjusted colliders and sometimes models on several wall furniture to allow better wall placement or enable pillar placement. The affected furniture assets are: Cocos, Commandeurs, Conakry, Congo, Corne, Costerman, Candawala, Candawalou, and Clover.
Removed the collider on floor trim Korstel as it was causing unintended collision errors on placement.
Farm domain did not have water collider height set so it was possible to walk on water.
UI
Esmee was selling variations that were marked as not unlockable.
The recipe button in the crafting menu would not work consistently.
Hotfix 15338
TECH
Clicking on the NPC waiting at the trader point / counter will now also trigger the interaction
Potential fix for the restock error
UI
Trader & Counter tooltip was overlapping the product text
Hotfix 15342
TECH
Disabled runtime thumbnail camera when it is not being used as it was causing needless overhead. Also named all thumbnail type cameras for easier debugging.
Fixed issue where the progress bar at the counter would crash the game if an employee was serving a customer whose patience timer expired before the interaction was over.
UI
Added additional null check in the inventory menu