Congratulations to the Leaderboard contest winners!
The first leaderboard contest for the new "Creature Quest" game mode has concluded and it's time to announce the winners!
First Place - NuclearMedic
With a blistering run of 1 minute 2 seconds NuclearMedic is the winner of the first contest!
A Hall-Of-Fame map will be added to the game to commemorate this achievement; the map will have unique vistas honoring each contest winner (for posterity to ponder over their heroic deeds) and NuclearMedic will be the first recipient of this honor!
Second Place - Sexy Vultures
1 minute 17 seconds.
Third Place - Gaming_Darksouls
1 minute 52 seconds
Fourth Place - Lantea
1 minute 57 seconds
Fifth Place - Yama-in
2 minutes 4 seconds
Sixth Place - evernewjoy
3 minutes 24 seconds
~~~
In addition to the Hall-Of-Fame entry the first place will also be awarded 5 Steam keys of Drunk On Nectar, as will the Top 3 places. Others will receive 3 Steam keys of DoN as a show of appreciation!
Contest winners will receive a message from a Steam account affiliated with the game so be on the lookout for that :)
Next Creature Quest
...Is brewing in the lab and will be announced soon.
Stay tuned!
That's it for this round of news, do check out the first Creature Quest if you haven't already and be sure to provide any feedback you may have for the game as well.
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
Landscape, Lighting & Leaderboards
DoN's lighting has been reworked. The entire time-of-day cycle and season simulation has been carefully honed to fix various lighting issues/bugs that crept in over time and to beautify the existing product.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so.......
The woody stems you see there is a Milkweed :) The full milkweed release is coming next week but there's already some really gorgeous pictures of DoN's bees nectaring on pink-white Milkweed flowers coming to life; those will be shared soon :)
Critical bugfix for leaderboards crash
Leaderboard crash related to Steam avatar cache has been fixed. This issue was mostly directly affecting new players from earlier this week but also some others. This patch now ensures a smooth experience for the first Creature Quest.
*...DRUMROLL...*
Leaderboard Contest is almost up!
The first Creature-Quest-Leaderboard-Contest (hey, that rhymed!) concludes on 10th April 2017.
As a reminder here are the prizes to be won:
1st place - Win 5 keys and a Hall of fame entry: Permanent place in DoN's In-Game HoF!
Top 1-3 - Win 5 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
Top 4-10 - Win 3 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
If you haven't yet participated int the contest, check out the new Creature Quest mode and see kind of score you manage to muster! More Creature Quests are planned and will the ongoing focus for at least a couple of weeks. Multiplayer/Co-op Creature Quests are also being investigated.
That's it for this patch, more pics below!
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
~~~
Play as Female Jumping Spider in the Leaderboard contest!
You can now choose to play as a Female Jumping Spider in DoN's latest Creature Quest!
This was a request from a user in the community and it made perfect sense, so it was swiftly executed :)
Here's a video personally narrated by me walking you through the Female Jumping Spider:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRbMM-jr27E
Win Prizes by reaching the leaderboard Top 10!
The leaderboard contest just got underway and Steam user NuclearMedic is currently the lead with a blistering 1:10 seconds (as of writing!).
Check out the new fun map, get your name on the leaderboard and win these prizes:
1st place - Win 5 keys and a Hall of fame entry: Permanent place in DoN's In-Game HoF!
Top 1-3 - Win 5 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
Top 4-10 - Win 3 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
The first contest will run until 10th April 2017!
~~~
More creature quests are headed your way, so please check out the first one and provide feedback!
Again, The female Jumping Spider came about as a request from the community, so feel free to ask; you never know how soon your request might be realized :)
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
Play "Lady Love" Leaderboard challenge! [Prizes for Top 10 players]
Creature Quests are gameplay-focused maps with support for leaderboards and eventually co-op, multiplayer and more.
Leaderbaords Released!
Today, the first leaderboard challenge "Lady Love" is out.
You play as a female or male Jumping Spider on a quest to reach Lady Love / Sir Love on the other side of a deceptively placid lake. Here's a video of me (Venu, DoN's Dev) playing the challenge with narration!
1) Male Jumping Spider:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMvwyHtAqlo
~~~Prizes for Top 10 players~~~
Get your name up on the leaderboard and win some nifty goodies!
1st place - Win 5 keys and a Hall of fame entry: Permanent place in DoN's In-Game HoF!
Top 1-3 - Win 5 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
Top 4-10 - Win 3 keys of Drunk On Nectar!
More goodies may be forthcoming in the days to come :)
The first contest will run until 10th April 2017. Please upload a video of your leaderboard run to Youtube to help spread the word :)
So put your Jumping boots on, because Lady(/Sir) Love is waiting on the other side of the lake and you're not the only Phidippus Regius in town!
~~~
Multiplayer Creature Quests
Upcoming Creature Quests are anticipated to have multiplayer/co-op focus. More info on this soon; new creatures are planned for specific quests too.
While Lifecycles, metamorphosis, mating, reproduction are still central to the game, Creature Quests will allow players to enjoy new quests and content while providing the core simulation sufficient breathing room to blossom to its full potential.
Get your name on the leaderboard!
That's it for this update! Get your name on the leaderboard, win some prizes and have fun being Drunk On Nectar :D
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
~~~
Addendum; other patch notes:
Universal Cam - A new control/camera scheme
Consistent camera mechanics across landscape/stalk/leaf/flower
Turn creatures using R-Stick / Mouse when you're moving
Auto-Free-Look when creature is idle (R-Stick or mouse)
Smart Camera picks best viewing angle for moving creatures
Controls will obviously play a huge role in your ability to register the best possible scores so do post any issues you run into and they will be looked into earnestly.
Enjoyed Drunk On Nectar? Write a Steam Review!
~~~
Please consider taking the time to write a Steam review for DoN :)
If you enjoyed the game, definitely leave a review to help more awesome content come in sooner. If you haven't played the game in a while, controller support, improved visuals and other goodies have come in recently so check out the latest version.
Your candid feedback is also a great tool to allow focus on areas that need most attention.
~~~
So take a few minutes to write a Steam review for DoN today!
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
Controller support released! "Challenge Maps" with Steam Leaderboards up next...
Controller Support Released
Pick up your gamepads and give the little creatures a whirl! They feel so different with a controller; opens up new dimensions in everything from from Flight and camera to smoother turning for caterpillars. Your feedback is essential in getting this right, so please post any issues you run into and they will be addressed quickly :)
--
DoN's Gameplay Evolution - "From Simulation to Symphony"
The goals of a Simulation are often very different from the goals of super-fun-over-the-top gameplay and so far the game has veered towards the former, often sacrificing rich gameplay possibilities at the altar of quasi-realism.
In many cases features that were meticulously crafted over years or ground-breaking technical achievements (DoN's 3D-pathfinding system is capable of powering an entire flight-based racing game!) have been vastly under utilized.
The current Survival mode was always meant to be a stop-gap arrangement until full lifecycles (Mating/Reproduction/Egg-laying) would open the floodgates, but until that happens, the serious issue of DoN's gameplay being hamstrung into a small fraction of what it could (and should) be, cannot be ignored. And rest assured, it hasn't been ignored:
--
Enter: Challenge Maps & Leaderboards
Challenge Maps, powered by Steam's leaderboards are envisioned as maps with simple and fun objectives for players to enjoy and master various gameplay mechanics while competing with each other for best scores. From Jumping Spider quick-reflex wizardry to Dragonfly aerial acrobatics to Butterfly-Bee pollination flight-athons, the possibilities are endless. Conveniently, they're also trivial to implement compared to the staggering complexity of DoN's actual game world, so this won't hold back development of the core game by any means.
The first challenge map: a lake scene agility challenge for the Jumping Spider is coming up soon! More to follow depending on feedback, reception, what not.
--
Build v1.2.4 Notes
A number of bugfixes, camera changes and visual improvements have gone into this build along with Controller support. Random map generation has been improved, Depth-Of-Field reworked.
Here's a few images of the new visuals:
More visual improvements are on the way. Random map generation may be sidelined in favor of traditional hand-made maps if necessary too.
--
The road to Multiplayer
Ultimately, this is the road to multiplayer support. Instead of tacking multiplayer on as a plain addon to the existing product, DoN's entire gameplay is being reimagined to ensure that Multiplayer and Co-Op (both are now confirmed features :)) have a solid foundation to build upon - i.e. richer gameplay and game modes that are fun and worth your time.
That's it for this update, but the blistering race to the next one is already underway!
Forward March, Drunk On Nectar!
With ❤,
- Venugopalan Sreedharan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS: Special news!
Thanks to coverage by Youtubers, DoN has received a massive boost in the past two weeks! Here are some videos that significantly boosted the game's market performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpgx_p90x_s&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8RlnvcrQ1Y&t=7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOTsxOpaTY8&t=1s
My thanks to these individuals for their help!
Please tell your favorite youtubers about Drunk On Nectar. It's working :D
~~Fin~~!
New 2017 Trailer, New Map & several bugfixes for DoN!
With the milestone Monarch update complete and a vigorous marketing campaign for DoN underway, this very important update brings more polish to the product as a grand welcome for new players to the game.
2017 Trailer - Please Watch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6tz5fIVm5w
Please watch this trailer and provide your feedback! Share it around :)
~~~
Chemical Vision vastly improved
A rich medley of bright chemical trails amid colorfully saturated flowers & fauna for your eyes to savor!
~~~
New World Preset: "Temperate Forest Flowers"
World-Preset is DoN lingo for a random map configuration that is used to generate the game world. They're not maps in the traditional sense of the word, but since people are more familiar with that term I'll use that here.
Here's the new default map from various perspectives:
The new preset is very graphically demanding so if you're experiencing major frame rate issues try the previous default: "Temperate, Simple" or "Performance Friendly" presets instead.
Major bugfixes & Visual polish
As noted in the forums, a number of major bugs quietly crept in with recent builds. As DoN grows larger, the existence of several gameplay systems for each species means that sometimes new creatures and features will inadvertently introduce bugs.
You can help by reporting any issues you see; my thanks to the various players who reported some of the bugs listed below:
Various Jumping Spider walking issues fixed (rotation, getting stuck, etc)
Caterpillar animation jittering fixed. They're much smoother now.
Twilight transition fixed, major lighting/time-of-day improvements
Landscape improvements: View distance increased for all flora. Distant parts look less "empty" now. More to come on this soon.
Seasonal simulation: Herbaceous/perennial plants now properly "Spring up" (as they should) at the end of Winter season.
Grooming now hides the HUD for the duration of "groominess"
Players are encouraged to use Chemo vision through a new input hint
Frequency of Camera hints reduced. Some of them were getting way too obtrusive.
DoN's Next feature: Multiplayer (finally!)
Multiplayer support is finally happening. While the original roadmap had milkweed plants, grasshoppers, more land creatures, etc queued up, right now Mutliplayer offers an important way to enhance the existing product and open it up to a wider audience.
"Act - IV Mating & Reproduction" (you'll understand what I mean if you see the Monarch metamorphosis video!) will have to wait. Mating & Reproduction is still crucial to fulfilling DoN's animal lifecycle vision so it will be revisited at some point.
~~~
That's it for this update!
PS: Keep spreading the word about DoN!
A full-fledged Nature game absolutely needs to be made, it is gaming's final frontier and Drunk On Nectar is the game to make this happen.
You can help by telling everyone that a game like this exists!
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
Retweet DoN's Monarch Trailer to support the game!
All,
At this time DoN really needs your help in broadcasting its unique depiction of the Monarch's lifecycle and metamorphosis to more people.
Please retweet this on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/DrunkOnNectar/status/832495099854671872
If you aren't on Twitter, please share the Monarch Metamorphosis Trailer to your favorite subreddit or forum, or as a tip to gaming media sites.
Right now the game's ability to march forward and deliver more awesome features is directly linked to the success of its ongoing Metamorphosis marketing campaign, so please help :)
Metamorphosis - Mission Monarch Complete!
I'm thrilled to report that Drunk On Nectar has now become perhaps the first game ever to depict an animal's entire lifecycle in full 3D, at full scale, from a 1mm egg to larva to pupa and beyond.
Watch the Monarch Butterfly's complete lifecycle for yourself in this brand new DoN trailer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYr3xNqxkLU
Lifecycle overview
Playing as the Monarch Butterfly, here is the journey you will undertake :)
DoN's next journey
Promoting the Monarch Butterfly's foray into DoN and helping the game reach more people is the number one priority right now.
A lot depends right now on how many people this video reaches and you can help by sharing the Monarch Trailer on social media. Consider posting a link in your favorite subreddit or forum to help DoN get some visibility!
I'm confident this update will be a game-changer for DoN that will galvanize the game's development on several fronts, so a lot of effort has gone into it, in-game and in the trailer (whose music track was lovingly written only for DoN's Monarch!).
So may the twin-winged butterflies of DoN encircle the world!
