Hello Survivors,
This build brings you the long awaited Autosave feature, Quick Save/load, Rock Holder, Pack untying, Splitting item stacks in the inventory, UI fixes and refactoring of the game initialization engine.
Version numbering system update
As of this update, we switch to a more straightforward versioning number with the format a.bbx.c.d. Looking at this update version we have 0.61e.1.0 with the following meaning:
- 0 - This represents the Alpha stage and will switch to 1 once we exit Early Access
- 61e - This is the current version and changes with every Major update. The “e” stands for Experimental
- 1 - This is the patch number related to the Major update number and increases with every patch
- 0 - This is the hotfix number related to the Patch number and increases with every new hotfix
Autosave
The new Autosave system will automatically save your progress at regular intervals or based on specific events during gameplay. This system will be an additional saving system running in parallel to the already implemented manual saving system.
The autosave system will be unique to each player profile and will hold dedicated autosave files for experimental and regular game builds.
The Autosave system will not override Manual saves.
When enabled, it will perform autosaves in the background as follows:
- After the set time in the settings passed
- Not implemented yet: After completing a quest
- Not implemented yet: After reaching a new level
You can also set additional autosave triggers based on specific events:
- When waking up
- When leaving an island (by swimming, by canoe, by raft)
- Every morning and every evening
If you select “when leaving an island”, the following applies, to avoid autosave flooding:
- For the system to recognize that you are leaving an island, you have to physically be on an island before leaving. Sailing around in the ocean passing islands, will not trigger this type of autosave
- “Leaving the island” means that the water beneath you has a depth of at least 8 meters
- The autosave triggers once you have distanced yourself from an island by at least 60 meters
Quick Save/Load
You can now perform a Quick Save with F5 and a Quick Load with F8. Quick save is a faster way of performing a manual save. Quick load will perform a quick load, which will load the latest save (this looks at both manual saves and auto saves and picks the one that’s the newest one)
Rock Holder
Your survivalist life just got easier and more organized. Clean up around your base, bring resources from other islands back to your homestead safely or attach it to your raft to transport them wherever you may sail.
Get multiple items from Holder
You can now take out multiple items out of the item holders, without having to drop them from your hand before being able to pick another one.
Pack Untie
You can now untie all item packs.
Inventory stack split
You can now split item stacks by holding down SHIFT + Fire (default: left-mouse-button) and dragging the items to another inventory slot. The splitting happens automatically 50/50.
Refactored game initialization code
Another refactoring round took place this and past month. While this might seem unnecessary to the player, it was key to refactor the code for future-proofing of the game. When we started coding Escape the Pacific, the code was slim and we added new features in a super rapid way to be able to test what’s possible or not. As time passed, this snowballed into intertwined bugs created by no-so-clean code (as we call it).
Refactoring can be only appreciated by fellow coders and we understand if you’re not happy with this. However, we know already that you will be happy when the game loads faster, in a code-clean state every time and hopefully with less annoying bugs.
Changelog
- Autosave
- Quick Save/Load
- Rock Holder
- Get multiple items from Holder
- Pack untie
- Inventory stack split
- Refactored game initialization code
We have set up a Patreon for those who wish to support game development further. Steam announcement here: Patreon News.
The entire team is thanking you for your support, suggestions and most of all for your patience.
Do you like our game and want to help the development even more? We look forward to every positive review posted on our Steam page and thank everyone who decides to support us along the way!
Please be aware that during the 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!
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask us. We will do our best to answer your questions as detailed as possible.
Peter,
G4GTeam.