Happy New Year Shopkeepers!
This is the first update of the new year as we're getting into the swing of things again after some much needed rest and relaxation over the holidays. With the holidays and half the team sick for a period of time it's a bit of a smaller update compared to the previous one, but there is still plenty to see! From optimizations, to overhauls, to fixes. So sit back with some vegetable soup or a steamy beverage to prevent getting sick and play some relaxing Winkeltje to forget about the cold wet outside. Now if only I had taken some of that vegetable soup... I might not have gotten that plague event after the holidays.
Update Highlights
Next up in the UI overhaul is the Customer HUD, a fresh lick of paint and some love and care has resulted in an updated look for the customer HUD. Nameplates will only show up when they are within the player's range, resulting in a much calmer screen. Customers will now make a sound when they found something they want or when their patience has run out. The patience now shows yellow when a customer has found an item they wish to buy, and red when their patience has run out.
In the previous update we added support for double walls and a set of wide arches to plan out your shop with. With this update, we expand on the double walls with some double shutters and large windows. These can help create a large storefront or provide a great view on a garden and are great ways to let in some extra light.
In this update we introduce a new stance on how crafting is done. Now you will no longer craft an item of a quality, but you will simply craft an item and there is a range of qualities that can result from that. We feel like this better highlights the feeling of getting more comfortable with the craft and creates a better diversity for item qualities to sell. This change really opens up what we can do with crafting to make it even better and we've got some cool stuff in the pipeline to make crafting more engaging and interesting.
Farming Rebalance
We've always felt that farming felt rather lackluster and there really wasn't enough reason to pick it over any of the other crafting methods. With this change we hope to alleviate that lackluster feeling a little. The order of the unlocks for farming has been changed, with the kitchen gardens now being the first ones to unlock and the planters later. When you unlock a planter you get some free seeds to go along with your planter, so you can put your green fingers to use right away. Harvesting crops will now always give you some seeds as well as an additional chance for an extra seed, so you can keep farming to your heart's content.
Of course, for this update too, we're interested in your thoughts on these changes, so feel free to let us know what you think in the comments. Or join the Discord (https://discord.gg/ZSMEenk) where you can get in touch with us and the rest of the community, and where you can sneak a peek at the change logs as the game is being made so you know what to look forward to or what you can expect on the unstable beta branch.
And of course, here are the full update notes.
Update Notes:
New
- Community Request: Trashcan UI Revamp - Trash bin radial menu now subdivides items into categories and, if applicable, quality groups.
- Community Request: Graphics - Added support for resolution 3840 x 1080.
- Community Request: Shopbuilder - Double width window options for all wall types.
- User Interface - Added confirmation before unlocking a crafting station.
- User Interface - Clicking on the objectives header will now open the objectives menu.
- Customer HUD - Customer patience shows a red ring when patience has ran out.
- User Interface - Customer claiming an item will now have a yellow affirmative ring around the item request.
- Audio - Nearby customers claiming a requested item or running out of patience will now have audio feedback.
Changes
Balance
- Community Request: Farming Rebalance - Rebalanced farming unlocks & rewards.
- Balance - Planters are now unlock through the farming objectives and are no longer unlocked through leveling.
- Balance - "Gardener" objective requirements raised (3->30).
- Balance - "Harvester" objective requirements raised (8->50).
- Balance - "Farmer" objective requirements raised (30->120).
- Balance - "Industrial Farmer" objective requirements raised (15->250).
- Balance - Reordered seed and vegetable unlocks. Whenever a vegetable unlocks, the seed now also unlocks.
- Balance - Farming objectives now also unlock seeds and vegetables.
- Balance - All seed prices increased because of farming rebalance.
- Balance - Sunflower Bouquet now unlocks at level 4 (was level 18).
- Balance - Tulip Bouquet now unlocks at level 18 (was level 4).
- Crafting - Leveling up crafting now grants you a chance to craft a higher quality item, rather than always getting the item previously associated with that level.
User Interface
- Main Menu - The background in the main menu scene no longer forces a winter scene.
- Customer HUD - The Customer HUD has an updated look.
- Customer HUD - Customer names are only shown for the nearest customers.
- Customer HUD - Customer patience now starts to slowly blink when patience is running out.
- Crafting - The crafting item info tooltip no longer shows the probable crafting quality value as the result can now vary much more.
Performance
- UI - Increased the drawing efficiency of the top bar.
- UI - Significantly improved drawing performance of the Objectives HUD, Top Bar HUD, Inventory HUD, and Customer HUD.
Fixes
- General - Shop doors will now remain open if the trader is inside.
- General - Items that are added to the player inventory are now always marked as unlocked
- Shopbuilder - When placing a new wall, the pillar collider is also checked to avoid inconsistencies in placing furniture inside a pillar.
- Shopbuilder - When removing/placing a wall it now correctly ignores shelves that are close to the wall but aren't attached to it
- Shopbuilder - Window shutters with an outside floor tile on one of the sides were treated as being indoors.
- Shopbuilder - Walls with multiple colliders now correctly validate furniture.
- Furniture - Wall mounted furniture should now correctly be marked as incorrect when there's multiple on both sides of a wall.
- User Interface - Confirmation windows related to paying debt should now pause the game. This addresses an issues where coins were added after the debt payment check was already performed.
- User Interface - Fixed a mouse selection issue causing a raycast not to return the first hit furniture.
- User Interface - Updated the sprite atlas asset to account for a shift in the icons. This caused some icons to appear wrong.
- User Interface - The tutorial text on the player should now no longer be jittery.
- User Interface - The open shop label on the entrance should no longer appear when standing next to the entrance when the shop closes.
- User Interface - Interactable objects that are enabled while next to the player should now highlight.
- User Interface - Pressing escape after having cloned a planter would prevent any further interactions.