Hi everyone,
the new Escape the Pacific version 'Alpha 27' is now available.
For this update we were mainly focusing on improving the Wind and Sailing mechanic. The Bow has been finally added and the Collectibles system has been upgraded a little too. There are some new trees added also.
To improve the Sailing mechanic it was needed to recheck and balance the ocean and wind system too. Generally said, the Sails are now generating more force to move the raft and the wind is also more balanced around its average values for the given day. There was added some more randomness into the wind profile while the needed average speed was preserved. The ocean waves also react softer to calmer wind. The Ocean, Wind and Sailing system together is the most complex feature in our game so it will be fine-tuned and balanced more times in the future to achieve the best possible results.
The very first implementation of the Bow and Arrow system has been added also. It is now possible to shoot the sea gulls while they are roosting on their nesting rocks. There are many aspects of the Bow and Arrow system which we have to - and of course - will have improved as we will work more on it and expand it continually in future releases.
The Collectibles spawning system has been reworked a little to generate more meaningful amounts of spawned items and to provide more balanced variety. There are also some new interesting collectibles added. The Thick and Medium Candles last longer as the Thin ones do.
The newly added tree/bush types are nicely increasing the variety of the islands flora and they are providing easier way to get long and small sticks as to chop down a palm tree.
Some issues with the Wind and Weather system were also fixed. The generated daily wind and weather profile is now correctly saved/loaded - the wind speed, direction, cloudiness and rain amount is working correctly.
Changelog:
New features:
01. Added: Craftable Primitive Bow
02. Added: Craftable Simple Arrow
03. Added: Feathers
04. Added: Sea Gull meat
05. Added: Collectible Bread
06. Added: Collectible Cheese
07. Added: Collectible Medium and Thick Candles
08. Added: Ficus Tree
09. Added: Oleander Bush
General:
01. Changed: Collectible functionality reworked for Barrel to have water in it
02. Changed: Better Collectible spawn functionality
03. Changed: Water profiles changed to have more waves in some lower wind speeds
04. Added: Some randomization into the Wind profile
05. Changed: Boat Sail Force increased
Fixed:
01. Fixed: Issues when some objects were levitating after travelling to/returning from remote islands without a save/load
02. Fixed: Papaya fruits on tree not spoiling now
03. Fixed: Correct island coverage generation (sometimes the new trees weren't spawned)
04. Fixed: Wind direction and Speed is now set to correct values after Save/Load
05. Fixed: Cloudiness is now set to correctly after Save/Load
06. Fixed: Rain amount is now set to correct value after Save/Load
07. Fixed: Small Barrel can't be inserted to the Backpack anymore
08. Fixed: Small Crate can't be inserted to the Backpack anymore
We plan to continue with checking and testing the Raft and Sailing mechanic some more. Issues regarding them will be solved with higher priority. We plan to work some more also on the newly introduced Bow and Arrow. The additional plans include also the Smoker, Salt, different liquid types... Besides these new features the Animal's AI will be still on the agenda as the new Sailing UI and the new Menu. We will work also on solving the new issues and we will recheck some older issues too. also. Other new features will be added as implementing of the planned features and fixing of the issues will allow us.
Thank you for your patience and for your constructive feedbacks helping us to get rid of the issues as fast as is possible.
Please be aware that during early access phase game code could change as much as affecting gameplay when loading/saving savegames from earlier versions. To always be on the safe side make sure to start a new game with each update. Thank you!
G4GTeam.
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask us. We will try to answer your questions in detail.