We are almost done with the butchering table, after some testing we will release it on both main build and demo, in the worst case it will be up in a day or two.
So far I have modeled 10 fish, covering sea, lake, river and cave biomes
And we have prepared the animations for the fishing, unfortunately I didn’t manage to compress the animations yet, so it will be extra 50mb of file size until we find a way to compress them without everything glitching out.
We are starting to plan out a Kickstarter campaign, we expect to launch it if the next Steam sale doesn’t get enough copies sold.
We are also going to shut down the devblog soon, we will keep making the weekly updates here on Steam.
Friday Progress Report 283
With the critter catching update live we begun work on the next update, the first part of the fishing update will be up next week, bringing the Butchering Table, which will allow players to extract meat from Crabs and Lobsters.
The butchering table will be a furniture you can build with wood and metal, and will contain the first interaction of the crafting system we will use to replace the smithing forge placeholder.
While my brother implements butchering/fish cleaning I begun working on the fish models, here a Rainbow Trout
We have plans for 20~30 fish by the end of the month.
V0.49.0.4
Changes: Wind particles now shrink to avoid going inside walls
Bugfixes: Wind particles no longer spawn underwater
V0.49.0.3
Bugfixes: Fixed the critter detection mode to retain part of it when the bugnet was forcibly removed due to entering water Made small improvements to animations
V0.49.0.2
Changes: Added a visual effect to see the wind direction. Improved the confirmation box in the settings window.
V0.49.0.1
Bugfixes: Fixed not being able to jump out of water anymore Fixed the calculation for the Critter Collector achievement
Critter Catching Update
Critter Catching Update is live!
We have created 70 critters to populate the world, and they are all collectable!
Critters are spread through biomes, time of day and seasons! Yes seasons, this is the first part of the season implementation, while the temperature is still disabled we have begun changing the atmosphere of the game as days pass.
Critters have 1 in a 1000 chance of being a Shimmering Variant, these super rare critters are very valuable and look great as decorations.
Ants: Found mostly in cliff walls walking in orderly lines, they can be scared away by approaching and will despawn after moving far enough. Several can be easily collected at once with the Bug net.
Bees: Moving in swarms through the plains, bees are harmless, right now they just move randomly, but one day we want to give them better AI and make them detect nearby flowers.
Beetles: Rare and valuable insects, beetles are hard to find and to catch, they will fly away if approached carelessly.
Butterflies: The first type of critter you will see, they are very common and easy to catch.
Cicada: The noisy summer ambiance generator, they live mostly in the bamboo forest during summer.
Crabs: Inhabiting Edengrall beaches and shallow waters, there are 3 crab species, 2 are edible, the butcher table will be added in a week or two to allow you to gather crab meat, right now they are just decoration.
Dragonflies: Flying above water bodies, these delicate predators are tricky to catch since you cannot use the bug net while swimming, be patient and wait until they approach land.
Flies: The common fly is a bit harder to find since the city is kept very clean, but they do exist.
Glowflies: Decorating the grassfields during the night, these glowing insects are very easy to spot from range.
Grasshoppers: Grasshoppers and locusts hide in grass during the day, crickets make noise during the night, you can hunt them down to have quiet nights.
Hornets: While they look scary when flying towards you, don't be afraid, they don't sting (yet)
Isopods: Cute little bugs that roll into balls when you startle them, usually found in caves.
Ladybugs: Right now they make good decorations, later on they will be your best weapon against pests eating your crops.
Mantis: They hide in tall grass and fly away when threatened, be vigilant and sneaky if you wish to catch them.
Moths: Slow and large flying critters dotting the night sky, a lot of work went on the shimmering variants.
Poofah: A fantasy critter native to Edengrall, these little buggers poof into fur balls when threatened, making a squeaky noise and alerting other nearby Poofah.
Roaches: Everyone's favorite nasty buggers! Don't worry, they don't fly.
Scorpions: Despite the scary appearance these are harmless, getting close will only cause them to run away.
Slugs: The poor things can't run away from you even if they wanted to.
Spiders: There are two main types of spider, the jumping and the long legged variants, each has a different behavior, but neither will bite you.
Snails: Slightly more agile than slugs, the snails of Edengrall can escape by entering their shells and rolling away.
Wasps: Dangerous looking and moving in swarms, don't worry they can't sting you, but they wish they could.
The new tool added is the Bug Net, it can catch several critters at once, and its special is a toggle that lets you detect hidden or camouflaged critters, the range of the toggle increases as you skill up in Critter Catching.
There is also a new menu, the Collections menu, it is a bit empty right now, but it will be filled with info and stats later on, we will expand it further on the next update.
Speaking of the next update, it will be something of a continuation of this update, next we will be adding fishing!
Patch notes 0.49.0
Bugcatching Update Main Features: Added a new tool, the Bugnet. You can also grab critters with your own hands, if you can get close enough without spooking them! Added 70 different critters, and each of them has a rare Shimmering variant (0.1%)! You can also place captured critters in the world using the hammer with the new tab for placeable items!
Changes: Insect ambiance sounds are now tied to actual insects, collect them all and it should stop. Added a sound effect for the New Game and Continue buttons Added a sound effect for Sleeping. Added Saturation and Contrast post processing sliders to the graphical options Added a Collections screen where you can see what insects you have collected so far, with more stuff to track to come. Implemented LOD option for the grass Made the mouse wheel scroll lists more consistently, and implemented holding shift to scroll faster
Bugfixes: Fixed the grass shader being too thin. Fixed not being able to sell some items after save/load. Fixed the close button not working on the character screen
Friday Progress Report 282
We have finished all the 70 critters, each with a shimmering variant
There are many types and behaviors, they are also spread out through the ingame year, so this is also the beginning of the seasons mechanic, fish and forageables will also be spread through the year, so the world will be less static starting from this update.
Included in the critter list there are lobsters, crawfish and crabs, most will be edible, but the fish cleaning mechanic will only be added next update with all the fish, so right now they don’t do much.
The Bug Net tool has a new type of special, instead of a charge up into a big move, it changes the player into Critter Sense mode, making you move slowly, but highlighting nearby critters, very useful to find camouflaged critters or little buggers hidden in tall grass, Blue colored critters are new ones, Yellow are critters you already collected before.
There is also a new screen (default key biding ‘O’) It shows the critters you collected before and shows the silhouette of the ones you haven’t seen yet, the screen is a bit empty right now, but in the future this screen will serve a small encyclopedia filled up slowly with info about critters, crops, fish and more.
This screen will also have a lot of player stats, stuff you collected so far and more miscellaneous info.
Other than collecting, critters don’t have much use right now, but they will be fish bait next update, and then pets for faeries on the following one, you can also sell them to Catarina.
Friday Progress Report 281
The update is progressing just fine, we will probably get it done by the 31th and release on both main build and demo, there will be at least 60 different critters, not counting the Shimmering variants, and what is better, the systems we are building for this update will greatly speed up the creation of the fishing system, spawning, critter AI, capturing, many of these will be recycled for fish.
The critters are split in different biomes, seasons and time of day, this is the first feature that will be affected by seasons, fishing will also follow spawning different fish every few weeks.
The implementation of critter behavior is almost done, last few parts of the update are:
-Collection Screen: UI that shows which critters you have collected so far and if you have collected the Shimmering variant of each critter. -Bug Net special: The bug net special will be very different from other tools, instead of a powerful move you will instead gain Critter Vision highlighting critters hidden in tall grass -Dynamic spawn checking: Right now critter spawners only check if critters should despawn and be replaced by another type of critter if the player is far away, we will try to make these checks even if the player is close without having critters disappear right in front of the player -Achievements: at least 5 new achievements -Ambience based on bug proximity (cicada, bees, wasps, flies and cricket): Noisy buggers will actually affect ambiance sounds
Changes: Added an offset to their animations, so groups of insects should no longer all animate in sync Added swarming behaviour where multiple insects fly around in a swarm
