March has flown by, and with it the weather has slowly turned from wet and rainy to... well still wet and rainy cos it's the UK baby!!!! Here's what's been going on…
Mudborne
Another friend joins the gang! Ell took part in a week long game-jam, and the result was Mudborne, an APICO-like focused around frogs + mushrooms.
Speaking of friends joining the gang, we have a new TNgineer! Some of you might recognise StarVenus/Beenus from Discord or /r/APICO, we’re delighted to announce she’ll be joining us as a social + community manager!
It’s getting a bit hectic managing 3 (now 4) games, so reinforcements were needed, and have arrived!
FTBS Steam Page!
Feed The Beasts finally has a steam page, so you can get those wishlists in and follow us for updates on the progress of the game!
We’re slowly edging towards a demo release, and can’t wait to share it with you all!
Butterfly Competition!
Some of you may remember our “Design A Bee” competition back before the butterfly update - well we’re doing another one, and this time it’s for designing your own butterfly!
February has been and gone - I know it's the shortest month but damn that was quick! Here's what's been going on:
Moth Symphony
Our favourite moth composer released their debut album, Moth Symphony! Moth is currently three for three on composing TNgineer game music so might as well be one the family and they deserve the shoutout!
As you might have seen, we’ve started planning out the next major content update for APICO - What Lies Beeneath!
This update will cover fishing, deep sea diving, coral reefs, more bugs (and actual bugs), and a whole lot more! Follow along on Ko-Fi for the February devlog that’ll be out in the next week or so to find out what we’re up to <3
Toktik???
God help us all I’ve only gone and make some Tiktok accounts! But fret not, for next month we’ll be introducing our first new TNgineer to join the team who’ll be taking over our social media + community management and will be at least 40% less cringe than me*
If you want to get in early you can follow APICO, FTBS, and Rift Breach over there RIGHT NOW
Achievement Unlocked!
This month we also applied for the Xbox Dev programme and got accepted! We’re still signing some paperwork but once settled it means we’ll have our own Xbox DevKit, Hivemother help us all…
We got accepted from proposing Rift Breach (so guess thats happening now) - but should also help us sort out APICO’s Xbox build, which has been in limbo for a hot minute/hour/day/year/century
So that’s a wrap on February, bee safe and we’ll see you next month!
Love,
Ell & Jamie <3
*thats a big ask I know
Papilio 2.2.2
Hey Beekeepers!
Some more small fixes and a few multiplayer tweaks - thanks to the people who reported these! I’ll be off on a short break with my partner for the next week, so catch ya soon <3
~ Ell
Multiplayer
Fixed some issues with beehives offscreen of the host acting up for the client
Fixed host Rehabeelitators sometimes clearing client slots before the client recieved the repopulation points
Fixed an issue with nurseries not always giving the client the repopulation points
Fixed clients not getting "beetrice" points from the offspring of host hives
Bug Fixes
Fixed camera issue still ocurring at the bottom of worlds when not in a boat
Fixed some tooltip transparency issues
Added a check to respawn jurassic hive if RNG of the worldgen somehow missed it
TNgineers News - JAN2023
Hello friends,
A new year has begun! I’d like to say I eased back into things slowly after having Christmas off but I literally started the month by releasing a new game lol. Here’s what we’ve been up to:
Butterfly Charity Donations
With the butterfly update for APICO we had a new influx of players beeing introduced to the wonderful world of bees! This also meant we could make a new batch of donations to various conservation, pollinator and butterfly charities.
To celebrate the Lunar New Year on 15th January, we finally released a Simplified Chinese localisation for APICO! This had been a long time coming and we can thank Whitethorn Games for helping arrange this.
So like I mentioned, a new game is here! Sadly not Feed The Beasts just yet (although that’s well on it’s way!). I wanted to work on a much smaller scope game to help me creatively, and the result was a small “player-cedural” sci-fi dungeon crawler called Rift Breach that I made in 3 weeks.
Well I say new, but truth be told we’ve never had a website for TNgineers, only APICO! Now that we have 3 games to keep on top of I wanted to make a one-stop shop for all things TN to try and keep on top of things.
You can check it out over on tngineers.com, which has some general information as well as links + presskits for all 3 games!
So that’s a wrap on January, bee safe and we’ll see you next month!
Love,
Ell & Jamie <3
Papilio 2.2.1
Hey Beekeepers!
Just a few small fixes for the last update, including the weird camera bugs at world’s end!
~ Ell
Bug Fixes
Fixed inventory highlight not updating when scrolling the mouse wheel
Fixed the weird camera shenanigans when at the edge of the world
Fixed predictor/beebox/beebank card chars overlapping too much in Chinese
Papilio 2.2.0
Hey Beekeepers!
A small update to celebrate the Lunar New Year by (finally) adding Chinese as a new language option to the game!
Plus a few little fixes while I was there (as a treat)
新年好!
~ Ell
Changes
Added Chinese! 新年好 <3
Various performance tweaks, mainly for consoles, but PC should also benefit
Moved shop button on NPCs to be more gamepad friendly
Crash Fixes
Fixed the "Unable to find instance sc_butterfly_despawn" crash
Multiplayer
Fixed changing a habitat's species not syncing with other players
Bug Fixes
Fixed not being able to use the net on the computer when using a gamepad
Fixed not being able to interact with Moth(ense) when using a gamepad
Fixed not being able to use the net on the Hivemother's door when using a gamepad (r u sensing a theme)
Fixed pinned menus still using their pinned position if you switch to a gamepad
Modding
Fixed custom menu change event not firing on standard change event triggers
Papilio 2.1.3
Hey Beekeepers!
Hope you had a wonderful holidays, and happy new year to you all! This is just a small update to address a few bugs and MP issues - there’s another patch on the way for some other MP issues and a few steamdeck related bugs.
~ Ell
Changes
Productivity values have been changed so that "sluggish" - "normal" (1) (4) bees take a little bit more time to fill a frame
Added a warning to natural beehives when breeding two different bees to make sure it's clear these will not crossbreed
Nearby or active Jukeboxs & Tape Players will now show on the map so you can hunt them down and silence them
Reduced the speed of NPC dialogue menus
Crash Fixes
Fixed crash "sc_button_press variable .unlocked cannot be resolved"
Multiplayer
Fixed a multiplayer bug where a player joining for the first time couldn't use the butterfly/solitary bee books without crashing
Fixed a multiplayer bug where the backpacks created by the client could merge/override with player backpacks
Fixed a multiplayer bug where the joining player couldn't click on anything (but could still move) until you interacted with a menu
Fixed a multiplayer bug where the controls/accessibility menu GUI moved with the player
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with beehives not onscreen when the game loaded not getting their flower list set properly
Fixed an issue with Royal Trumpet effect only working once for beehives offscreen
Fixed clicking a gate marker triggering a mouse click in the place the marker was before you teleport
Fixed Nana not remembering what you talked to her about when you speak to her in the dream (bless her)
Fixed Hermit Bee not being calmed by the flowers that say they calm it in the flower book
Fixed Glitched Bee counting to total for Barnabee/Beenjamin dialogue options
Fixed Cargo Boat going invisible when sailing far enough away from it's own menu
Fixed typo with Royal Trumpet
Modding
Fixed crash when using the player menu as a target for api_add_slot_to_menu()
Fixed api_get_zoid_from_inst() and api_get_inst_from_zoid() giving an error when trying to use them
Papilio 2.1.2
Hey Beekeepers!
Just a small patch to cover a few little bugs in advance of any new players who might pick up the game over Hivemas, as a little butterfly did tell me that the game + OSTs will be on sale over Xmas! <3
~ Ell
Crash Fixes
Fixed corrupted butterfly items causing a "gml_Script_sc_butthotel_alarm0" crash when used in hotels
Bug Fixes
Fixed Lunar Magazine not being in the dictionary so not spawning
Fixed Sto's location being wrong in the Full-Beetal Alchemist quest
Fixed the last two butterflies' "flowers" staying blackin the butterfly book when discovered
Fixed a certain bee not showing any special produce info or having a completed heart post-it
Fixed Frostips not showing their special effect in the tooltip
Fixed seeing "ghost" butterfly icons on lilypads (icon but no butterfly)
Fixed some non-flower butterfly spawning issues
Modding
api_add_slot_to_menu() and api_use_item() should now trigger the menu's change event
Papilio 2.1.1 HF1
HF1: Fixed lunar bee letter missing from dictionary
