Our city is evolving. Before diving into the changes, we want to thank all the players who shared their thoughts about the game. We welcome all kinds of reviews. Good ones motivate us even more and bad reviews teach us what to improve. Most players have been kind so far reaching out to us on Steam forums, on Discord, social media and through emails and they shared their views about the game. It surprised some of them how open we are to communicate. We are and we will be.
This is the first major update to the game. We are unlocking a new Dreamworld island, introducing new NPC's with a questline, introducing a new metric and new personality tracks. This update will be followed by many hotfixes and Friday updates and we believe it will change the overall feel and experience positively.
Connecting Both Worlds
One common feedback we received from the players who played the game extensively was the lack of connection between the Realworld and the Dreamworld. In our initial designs we had some features connecting the both worlds but after iterating the game they were lost. So we decided to bring a whole new feature to the table. (Almost) everything you encounter in the Dreamworld is the direct outcome of your actions in the Realworld. Currently we track 3 things. How much time your character spends on:
- Working - Improving Interests - Improving Friendships
We connected those actions into spawners in the Dreamworld. So you will see more trees, stones, remium rocks, lir flowers etc.. depending on your actions.
Moreover, our new metric Dreamworld is another strong connection between the two worlds.
Happiness
Unfortunately the implementation of happiness isn't yet complete but you will see it in the upcoming updates shortly.
When your character is happy, everything is a bit easier and faster in the game. It takes time to make your character happy but it degrades slowly as well.
The new personality tracks will be closely tied to happiness and the new island and your spirit guide is the primary way to feed your happiness.
The interpretation of this feature can be, if you live a balanced life and if you keep your inner peace you become happy. Though every personality have a distinct definition of "balanced life" and "inner peace".
Visual Improvements
One of the most common feedback we received was the lack of liveliness in the city. We decided to tackle this issue in multiple steps. Adding animations here and there is very useful but the city combined with the Dreamworld is massive and putting custom animations everywhere is taking tremendous amount of time. We started working on it but moreover we wanted to give the city a little bit of simulation so it starts moving on itself. In this update we introduced sun / moon movements and city dwellers walking around the city. We also added some conditional animations on some entities. We believe it paid off. But we won't stop here, we will add even more intellect to NPC's and objects so they will decide what to do according to the circumstances in the upcoming updates.
We introduced a few character animations and new female hair styles and we'll keep'm coming
New Island in the Dreamworld
Once you complete your first personality track (Introvert / Extrovert) you are tasked to repair the bridge on the East side of the primary island. The new island has a new biome so it has new resources allowing you to make new items and herd new animals.
You will also meet a new NPC on that new island who will guide you through finding your spiritguide.
Randomized Quests and Gem Collecting
In previous versions, NPCs in the Dreamworld had some static trade options as a way of acquiring Red, Blue, Yellow gems. We tweaked that a little. Once you complete the questline of each NPC they now randomly ask for a new item each day. That new item is the result of some complex crafting / processing and you need to complete that task within a single Dream sequence. The master atelier is a crafting table dedicated to deliver these requests.
To help you out we now have a juice bar in the Dreamworld that gives you power ups for a limited duration.
The overall idea behind these changes is to give more options to crafting and allowing specialization. We will put more weight on specialization in future updates.
Another way of finding gems are fishing and mining. There is a slight chance of finding gems in Dreamium ores and we will enable a special fishing rod that can find gems in some special spots.
Currently the randomized quests can be severely unbalanced but we'll do our best to improve them soon.
The Hamster Wheel and the Concept of Energy
To unlock the new level in your Personality Tree, you will need to power it up. Electricity? Kind of. You will craft an hamster wheel and once you feed your hamster, it will start running and produce energy for you. You will put that energy on a powerslot near your tree and voila! You can start unlocking new personality traits as long as the power goes on.
Balance Changes: (Some not implemented yet)
- Polisher now requires 2 rubbers - Well now requires 4 timber 4 cutstone - Wishing well now requires 2 edgar dung + 10 cutstone - Distillery and Lucidium Melter now requires 4 remium ingots - Large Chest now requires 2 remium ingots 2 rubbers and 2 wuut flower - Shears now requires 2 twigs 2 remium ingots 2 tul flowers - Durability of axe and pickaxe are increased to 100 from 80 , - Durability of remium axe and pickaxe are increased to 320 from 200 - Durability of golden axe and pickaxe are increased to 640 from 400 - Dreamium axe is on its way to be craftable soon! - Remium / golden axe and pickaxe now require 1 stack of agitwigs instead of 2 agitwigs - New item: Stack of agitwigs - Stack of agitwigs works as fuel as well - New item soil : Craftable from 2 pebbles - New item fertilizer pack: 10 soil + edgar dung
Following Juice Bar items are being added very soon:
- Anx booster: Gives haste at the cost of extra stress - Pumpkin Smoothie: Earn lucidium while putting items to lucidium melter - Wuut Cooler: Reduces stress but slows you down - Lir Mix: Slight chance to find gems in ores - Tul Bomb: Using an axe / pickaxe have a chance to drop extra wood / stone
Finaly as a big update for some: Egg is now always available in Mani Market!
Future Updates
We will focus on implementing balance changes and the new personality tracks along with missing animations and sound FX for these additions.
We decided to leave the UI overhaul to the next major update which will come around mid-summer. We implemented mouse to the new UI but there are many other changes and they are not compatible with the current UI unfortunately.
We are planning on adding a simple event system until the next major update. We will keep our Thanks God It's Friday updates with new features and content.
Let us know what you want to see more. You can use Steam forums or Discord
and you can follow our roadmap and current bugs on our Roadmap board
Feel free to write an email to circadiancity@nowherestudios.com as well.
We try to reply to all feedbacks!
Thanks God It's Friday Update #9
Welcome to the first update of the new year. We will keep the pace of our updates this year as well. But as we are changing a lot of things in the game, you might have to wait for the next update, as the next update will probably be a MAJOR update.
Let's talk about this update first and then tease the major update a bit later on.
Quest Reminders
This is part of a bigger update line. We want to enable random quests and event based quests and they will have their openings. Now NPC's can welcome the player/greet them in different ways and if they are waiting for the player to complete a quest, they always remind that before start talking about anything else.
We added those reminders and more will come on this.
Watering/Fertilizing Tiles
The farming in the Dreamworld was kind of dull without being able to nurture them. But watering and fertilizing needed that we improved the tile system of the game. We did and enabled them. From now on, we will add more crops and various ways to use them in the game.
Completing mother statue now unlocks well and watering can items
You can speed up the growth of crops 50% if you water them
NPCs remind you about their quests
Sheeps require 4 carrots instead of 1 (we need to put a progress bar later to reduce confusion)
Bug Fixes
Fixed a visual bug about tilled ground
Fixed a visual bug causing rain drops on doors and inside buildings
Traders in Dreamworld now correctly displays the lucidium icon as a currency instead of gold icon from Realworld
MAJOR UPDATE IN THE UPCOMING WEEKS
It tooks us some time but we completed the redesign of the UI. We started the implementation but we want to change the whole UI at once (all the menus, panels, HUDS, game start menu). The new UI will have mouse as well but unfortunately we can't make it until this major update.
Another sneakpeek from the new UI:
So what to expect from the major update:
- A new dreamworld zone, with new characters, recipes and crafting table ( a new biome!) - Intuitive / Observant personality traits will be unlocked - Background animations & walking around extras in the city - Happiness metric that will effect increasing the effectiveness of social actions / interest improvements.
Here is an animal concept from this new biome:
Hotfix of the Hotfix
The last hotfix created a bug to plant seeds in the game. Yesterday night we reverted the game to an older version and now we fixed all of the bugs and we're entering the new year bug free :)
Have a happy new year and don't miss 2020!
Temporary Downgrade to previous version
The last hotfix disabled players to plant seeds as we have been working on ground tiles lately.
This is a major bug preventing the progress of the game so we decided to revert to a previous version until we solved this issue.
Hoping to fix both problems within this year :D
Personality Tree HOTFIX
Bug Fixes
Addressed a bug that prevented players from progressing on a personality stage (ie introvert/extrovert) after having completed 5 skills from a single branch
The giftbox no longer appears to the same character after being opened
GiftBox HOTFIX
Our Christmas present for you is delayed because of a missing asset :( Now it's fixed.
Bug Fixes
The missing texture of the giftbox is updated
Thanks God It's Friday Update #8
Happy Hollidays everyone!
We got some new content to share with you!
Romance
We had some flirt options in the game before this update. But with this update there is a new mechanic related to flirt. When you are interacting with an NPC you can flirt with, now "flirt" appears as an interaction option.
Currently, improving your romance with an NPC doesn't give you anything but we are going to add some new content in the Dreamworld that would be unlocked with the power of love!
We would like to hear your ideas about what to add.
New content and update
We have new female and male hat options for character creation
Whenever you unlock a friendship quest, your relation with that NPC doesn't improve further until you complete that quest
Each new level in your personality tree now requires the previous level to be crafted
There is a surprise left to your door!
Bug Fixes
We fixed a bug allowing you to unlock later(not yet implemented) stages in your personality tree
UPCOMING WEEKS
- Timed quests are going to be available soon! (In the Dreamworld and Realworld) - Watering and fertilizing tiles will be reworked soon!
Hopefully we'll finish those until next week!
As always, I need to mention:
We decided to have a full redesign of the UI. That's a lot of work, therefore mouse implementation will come with that UI update.
We are aiming for 3 major updates in 2021. More info about those major updates will be shared soon.
Let us know what you think and what you want to see more in the game.
Have a nice weekend!
Wearables HOTFIX
Sorry for not having a "Thanks God It's Friday Update" last week. We have been working to fix some bugs. But don't worry, the bugs are fixed and we have some content and features for the upcoming Friday.
Bug Fixes
Solved an issue causing player cloths to lose colors
After eating Fish and Chips, "greasy fingers" are applied properly (gives better chance for the Arcade Machine)
Solved an issue causing player hats to disappear from the inventory on add/remove
Thanks God It's Friday #7 Version 0.5 is here!
Hey there everyone!
Christmas time is here and we are all locked up in our houses. With Covid vaccines on the corner this perior of our lives seem to be ending soon. While you are still at home, we are sure you have some time to play some games.
This is a special day for Circadian City as we are doing our first version increment since our Early Access release. This is still a Friday Update but a bit bigger than usual. Let me quickly remind you the updates we're planning.
During the Early Access we will have 3 major updates to the game including the release of version 1.0
We will unlock a new Dreamworld map on each of these major updates along with new personality options, features and content.
On our regular Thanks God It's Friday Updates, we also bring some lesser features and content. This version 0.5 Update is bigger than our usual Friday Updates but still smaller than a major update.
Please also note that this update is only for Windows versions of the game. Due to Covid conditions we didn't have access to the Mac in the office therefore we couldn't get the update on Mac this week (It will be possible next week I suppose)
Long story short, we have two new important features:
WEARABLE ITEMS AND CHARACTER CREATION UPDATE:
We updated how character creation works. New and updated faces, hairs and hats! We will update some more on the upcoming weeks. Please tell us how you like them.
We had some negative comments on the woman face types and we worked a bit on them. We would like to see your comments on them as well.
Currently you can't find many hats during the game. But it's possible to add/remove new hats to your characters. If you watch the Razbuten 's stream this week. He will share an easter egg on how to unlock some hidden content!
There will be more hidden contents in the future.
ADDICTIONS
Now, sugar and caffeine are addictive in the game. Any item you consume including sugar or caffeine increases a hidden metric that might make you an addict to these ingredients.
Don't worry though, if you can hold against the coffee or sugar crisis, in about 3 days you will get rid of your addiction.
You can keep consuming these items in moderation, but if you try to abuse them, the addiction is waiting there for you :)
We will enable addiction for alcohol as well in the future but it's related with the happiness mood and it's not in the game just yet.
When you are addicted to an ingredient there are a few things to look after and you can find them under your Moods & Metrics UI.
Time to Crisis: This shows the time you have left until next crisis. Typically around 4 hours when you are awake.
Coffee/Sugar Crisis: When you are in need of consuming some coffee or sugar. Every hour you don't consume these items you receive +1 stress
On the UI we have a known issue that these temporary metrics don't show as a rate but rather they either show as full or they don't show at all. This was designed this way in the beginning and we will change it soon to reflect the real values.
BALANCE CHANGES / BOOSTERS
Some of the new items have descriptions including morning, afternoon, evening and after midnight. They describe the time of the day you do these actions.
From Midnight to 6 AM is considered "After Midnight" From 6 AM to 12 PM is considered "Morning" From 12 PM to 6 PM is considered "Afternoon" and from 6 PM to midnight is considered "Evening"
Garlic Fish: Gives Bad Breath for 4 hours, reducing your the rate you earn friendships by 75% but also gives double effect from stress reduction actions (if consumed in the evening)
Beef Stew: 25% Chance to remove addictions instantly (if consumed in the evening)
Milk with Honey: 50% more energy gained during sleep (if consumed after midnight)
Major Update Sneak Peek:
We are still working on remaking the UI of the game. This takes time and we will enable mouse controls with that update. Tell us what you think about this new look:
- Join the discussions and experience the hype on Discord
Thanks God It's Friday Update #6
Hello Citizens,
As promised, we keep adding new content & features until v 1.0.
Temporary Status Effects
Apart from the permanent boosters from personality and mood based boosters from motivation,stress etc.. we are adding item based temporary boosters and effects to the game. Some of these effects are conditional.
We implemented additional effects to 4 food items:
Omelette gives additional hunger for 2 hours if consumed in the morning (between 6AM 12 PM)
Classic Breakfast gives additional 5 motivation if consumed in the morning
Ham and Cheese sandwich gives additional 10 energy if consumed in the afternoon (between 12PM 6PM)
Steak with Mushroom gives 25% boosts to all interest gains if consumed in the evening (between 6PM and midnight)
We want to implement more content of this type in the following weeks. Let us know what you think.
We are also working on the visualisation of these effects on the new UI to come. We're not doing much for the old (current) UI anymore.
Improvements to Schedule System
NPCs can be found in more than 2 localtions within the same day
Friendship quests might have an outcome of changing the schedules of NPCs
Some changes to the schedules of some shops and NPCs
Bug Fixes
We fixed a rare bug causing the game to disable schedule system (thefore NPCs were not appearing and building doors were missing)
UPCOMING WEEKS
We are working on the wearable items in the game and also adding some animations around the city. We were aiming to finish wearables this week but it is left to next week.
Addictions to coffee, sweets and alcohol are on their way next week as well.
A new mechanic for romance is coming. Similar to chatting with NPC, flirting will be an option for some NPCs)
As always, I need to mention:
We decided to have a full redesign of the UI. That's a lot of work, therefore mouse implementation will come with that UI update.
We are aiming for 3 major updates this year. More info about those major updates will be shared soon.
Let us know what you think and what you want to see more in the game.
