We're excited to announce that Arid has won the Best Student Game award at the Dutch Game Awards of 2021! Of course this would not have been possible without the amazing community so again, thank you! You have been amazing and we are really honored of having shared this experience with all of you.
Three of our team members at the Dutch Game Awards!
Now, onto the next topic: Update 1.1.0 Since release, we have received a LOT of valuable feedback from you and have been hard at work to polish your experience in Arid. This update contains many quality of life improvements (special thanks to one of our programmers, Tim, for his extra additions to the inventory systems) and even more bug fixes.
What's next? First of all, we apologize for the period of silence. Since Arid's release the team has taken a well-deserved break and everyone is preparing for graduation. Some are working on personal projects, others are learning through internships in smaller and larger companies. The team has now scaled down but we will keep monitoring for any eventual issues that might pop up, so keep giving us feedback! You can get in contact through the Steam Forum, our Discord or the in-game Feedback report. Besides extra QoL and bug fixes the current version of Arid is finished and will stay free forever. This however does not mean our adventure is over! The future holds many possibilities and we're very busy making plans for our next steps and will update you as soon as we can!
Update 1.1: Release Notes
Patch Notes
GAMEPLAY
CHANGES
Added ability to sort containers
Added ability to merge stacks for containers
Added ability to name saves
Added option to disable item notifications
Removed level streaming layers to prevent issues with separate level loading
Updated item, recipe & status descriptions for consistency
Updated credit list with new beta testers
Updated splash screen & increased logo resolution
Various minor updates to narrative items in all levels
Various quality of life updates to save menu for better controller functionality
FIXES
FIXED - Issues with animal trap not being fixable in mining town
FIXED - Being able to ‘escape’ the death screen allowing you to continue the game afterwards
FIXED - Water source refilling after save
FIXED - Interaction text is no longer being saved to prevent weird text issues after loading
FIXED - Items disappearing after they’re dropped
FIXED - Ending sequence not triggering when having the crosshair always on screen
FIXED - Failed interaction animation sometimes bugging out and leaving dot on screen
FIXED - Blend camera position damaging you when you jump into it
FIXED - Collision of floors in Mining town not playing the correct audio
FIXED - Sandstorm effect not being removed properly during saving and loading
FIXED - Containers and other savable not being reloaded correctly
FIXED - Typo in Getting Closer to Bubba? objective
FIXED - AI not being able to teleport to location far away
FIXED - Player not receiving fall damage
FIXED - Over encumbered not being applied correctly
FIXED - Inventory slot count not being correctly shown when transferring or dropping
FIXED - Controller transfer and drop on the same button
FIXED - Torch not working
FIXED - Sandstorm effect getting applied without a sandstorm present
FIXED - Sandstorm achievement not getting unlocked when in a sandstorm cover
AUDIO
CHANGES
Added new sounds for stone material
Added sound for debris
Added unique sounds for running footsteps
Added sound to Campfire UI
Added sound for breaking wooden crates
Added sound for Objective Update notification
Added sound for repairing the bridge
Added sound for water footsteps
Added sound for breaking wheel
Added sound for holes in Mining town Cave
Added sound for floor
Added music for day/night cycle
Updated music for main menu
Updated various material sounds
Changed the occlusion distance of tiny water sources in caves
Changed volume of dirt pile sounds
Changed various elements of general audio mix
FIXES
FIXED - Issue with sounds spawning too close in moon valley
FIXED - Issue with book audio playing during the day/night music
FIXED - Rainfall sound is now of better quality
ARID Official Soundtrack - Available Now!
Hi Survivors!
First of all, we want to thank you again for the response to the game since release! We have been reading all the comments on both our Discord and Steam Forum and we are currently struggling to keep up with all the great content that you are sharing with us!
Since many from the community enjoyed the sounds of ARID and the Atacama, our composer, Flavio Cangelosi, put some extra effort to make sure that our dynamic soundtrack could be packaged as a complete auditory experience.
I am pleased to announce that ARID's Official Soundtrack is now available on Steam as a FREE DLC. Both in FLAC and MP3 320 kbps formats.
I'll take this occasion to also confirm that a patch is in the work. We have been reading all the feedback that you sent us, including the difficulties with finding sulphur, and we are almost ready to release it. Keep them coming!
Please keep in mind that as a student project, our academic year has now ended! Everyone in the team passed with flying grades and many are now moving to internships all around the world. This means that while we will still patch the most recurring issues, only a small core team is available, slowing down the pacing of the updates.
See you in the next announcement!
ARID has launched! ( Update 2 "Moon Valley" now available)
Hi Survivors!
We are excited to announce that Arid will leave the Early Access, today! It's crazy to think how much the game evolved since the demo/prototype from 16 weeks ago!
As a team of students, we would have never been able to improve the project this much during the last month without your help! We tried to implement as much feedback as possible for this update, along with some extra suggested features, but for us is never enough! So again, thank you! You have been amazing and we are really honoured of having shared this experience with all of you.
If you enjoy this newest update, don't forget to let us know and leave us a review! We are always open to talk and available for any type of question.
Let's move to the update that comes with this 1.0.0 Release!
BE AWARE: AS WE ANNOUNCED PREVIOUSLY, OLD SAVES WILL BE INVALIDATED. IF YOU WANT TO KEEP PLAYING WITH OLDER SAVES, USE THE LEGACY BRANCH.
[previewyoutube="wf7yQ_LWjZo;full"]
Update 2: Moon Valley
Moon Valley Area:
Explore a new large mining area of the Atacama, scavenge the abandoned Saltpeter Plant, discover the events behind Santa Loressa and reach the ending of this campaign.
If you prefer to play in sandbox, disable the quest system and explore freely! This last map might be closer to the crash site that you might think...
Metalforging and High Quality Tools:
We added an higher tier of tools, that can be crafted only at a specific crafting bench. While their uses is numbered, the energy cost is minimal and the bonus reward in crafting is often doubled.
New threats:
Without spoiling too much, we added some threats to both day and night. We are not sure which ones are more terrifying!
Other Features
Voice Acting:
We loved collaborating with Samantha Slade for voicing our main character, so.. we added more! There are now more than 100 new voice lines added to the entire game. A good reason to forgive us for wiping clean your saves and enjoy the game with amazing voice acting!
Hardcore UI:
Far from the eyes, far from the heart... but not really! You can now hide the Sun Exposure and rely exclusively on the sounds (and the character complaints)!
UI Rework (Part 2):
Not as large as Part 1, but we managed to iterate on the UI that were still left behind, such as the saving screen, death screen and the repair interface.
Achievements:
Another reason to start a new playthrough of the game! With achievements linked to the progression, some linked to the exploration and few for completionists, there should be a little bit for everyone!
More bug fixing and balance changes!
Special Thanks to the Community!
You joked about it, we added it! You can now find a viscacha in each of the maps, along with a new shishkebab recipe! No killing allowed!
Chilean players might also notice some additional easter eggs in the Mining Town...
What now?
We will keep monitoring for any eventual issue that might pop up, so keep giving us feedback! You can get in contact trough the Steam Forum, our Discord or the in-game Feedback report. We might take 2-3 days off to focus on our final exams (the game is not enough to pass the year!), but we are still here nonetheless.
Follow the game, more news will be shared soon!
Update 2: Release Notes
Patch Notes
Gameplay
CHANGES
Reduced amount of unrefined wood needed to craft planks from 2 to 1
Reduced amount of time that a plank burns from 60 to 40 seconds
Crates have a higher chance of dropping unrefined wood when disassembled
Increased spawn chance of salt and alcohol in crates and barrels
Insects can now be gained from dirt piles
Added small wind gusts throughout the game
Bed has a new visual
Improved performance in certain places
Narrative lines now get queued
Reduced energy cost multiplier for using hands when disassembling from 2.2 to 2.0
Reduced energy cost multiplier for using pickaxe when disassembling from 2.0 to 1.9
Players can now craft tier 2 shovels
Updated Aloe juice description to match it’s actual effect
All metal items that require a tool to disassemble now give a minimum of 2 metal scraps when disassembling
Dropped items no longer despawn
Water filter, broken lantern and oil barrels are now properly being saved/loaded
Updated recipe descriptions to match their outcome
Players can now craft and cook a shishkebab.
Reduced Alcohol energy gain from 300 to 200
Reduced Charqui nourishment gain from 300 to 200
Increased energy consumption rate on normal difficulty from 0.55 to 0.58 per second
Increased sun exposure depletion in shade on normal difficulty from 0.5 to 0.8 per second
FIXES
FIXED - Player able to have mild and severe sunburn at the same time after loading in a save file
FIXED - When removing multiple items across separate item stacks, occasionally the amount of items removed wouldn’t be correctly calculated.
FIXED - Player occasionally has enough items in inventory but fails to craft item
FIXED - Fireplace triggering the infinite desert status effect
FIXED - Not being able to interact with certain objects when having the setting “press to interact” enabled
FIXED - Multiple narrative lines occasionally playing at the same time
Audio
CHANGES
Added Circling plane sound
Improved sound for stepping on wooden planks
Added sound for repairing a broken bed
Added sound for repairing a broken campfire
Added sound for repairing a crafting table
Added sound for repairing a metalworker
Added sound for stepping on wooden stairs
Added sound for interacting with crafting table
Added sound for selecting an item in the crafting table
Added sound for pressing back button in crafting table
Added sound for tool breaking
Added sound for interacting with saltpeter
Added music specific to certain times of day and night
Added sound for adding oil to the torch
Added sound for stepping on cave ground
Added sound for interacting with water barrel
FIXES
FIXED - Inventory closing sound playing when closing a container
FIXED - Menu music continues to play after pressing continue in menu
User Interface
CHANGES
Status effects now show a countdown timer if they aren’t permanent
Attributes now change in color based on their danger status
Dropped items will now show their stack size when hovered over
Item description in the inventory will now show how much an item will change attributes
Updated UI for repairable objects
Updated UI for objective system
Added Hardcore UI difficulty setting, this setting reduces the amount of UI visible to the player
Improved controller support for Difficulty menu
FIXES
FIXED - Option menu increase/decrease button being unresponsive occasionally
FIXED - Option menu cancel resolution not working
FIXED - Lower texture quality settings will now affect actual quality for textures
FIXED - Interaction popup sometimes not disappearing after interacting when having the setting “press to interact” enabled
Thanks for taking the time to read the patch notes! See you with the next update. You rock!
