In preparation to the exploration update we begun working on the assets to replace the current mine. I usually make all our assets, but this time I found a few decent ones in the store, we are still going to redo the materials to make them blend better in the game.
There will be two types of mining nodes, the permanent quarries and the metal veins, the quarries will always be in the same position and you can mine them as much as you want spending your stamina to gain resources, while the metal veins will spawn inside caves and in cliff walls mining them will destroy the veins, but they will slowly respawn after several ingame days.
Limestone quarry, will allow you to gather mortar (cement) and in the future when we change the building system to allow different materials you will be able to gather Limestone to build with white stone.
Stone quarry, lets you gather common stone for building.
Clay deposit, lets you gather clay to make shingles and vases
Friday Progress Report 390
We are finishing our commissions, soon we will be back to working on Edengrall fulltime, and the money we saved should keep us working on it for a few months even if the sales remain weak. In the worst case we will find another commission mid 2025 and work part time again, whatever happens we are not giving up.
There will be very little progress during december, but after we finish our side jobs we will resume work on 2 main things: -Removal of placeholders -Preparing for exploration update
We want to finally get rid of the placeholder gathering locations (the mine and the wooden cart near the town's entrance) by adding proper mining nodes and cuttable trees, the work on mining nodes is halfway done, the Pickaxe is mostly implemented, but we still need some more work to get it in the game.
The exploration update need 3 main things: -Adaptation of the grass system to allow dynamic load and unload (this will take a long time by itself) -Proper LOD models for all plants using the imposter system (halfway implemented) -Dynamic loading and unloading of terrain (might also take a while)
The expansion of the map will probably impact the performance, so in the worst case we will also need to optimize the game further, and squeezing more FPS out of the game is getting harder and harder.
After the exploration update we will also unlock the temperature and food spoiling mechanics, there will be a few special containers to keep food from spoiling, but the greenhouse mechanic will probably take a while to implement.
We expect to finish these by mid 2025, after that we want to finish the Fairy Colony and the special movement options they unlock.
Final Museum Update
Features: Added Books to the library: - Every day a few books will be available for the player to read, the interactable books will be slightly out from the bookshelves. - Each book will grant knowledge on a critter or fish, or level your lowest skill a bit.
Changes: Changed Darkwood textures to be softer on the eyes.
Bugfixes: Fixed a crash related to getting in a game -> returning to title screen -> loading a saved game Fixed a bug in the custom model section of the character creation Fixed a couple null pointer exceptions Fixed Axolotls not going in any aquarium, it now can be properly added to the general aquarium Fixed the habitat hitboxes
Friday Progress Report 389
We are almost done implementing the final museum update, the books are already spawning, but we have to finish the interactable part of it.
We also went through bug reports, so next update will have new fixes.
After this we might be able to add the Pickaxe tool and Mining nodes finally removing the placeholder mine, but no guarantees, we have a deadline on the other project for next month.
Starting from January 1st we should be back to working on the game fulltime and development of the Exploration update will resume.
Friday Progress Report 388
The 210 library shelves will soon be filled, the book groups are done, I have made 40 variations, so it is very unlikely you will see two shelves with the same books in them.
The book groups have proper LOD models, so they should not affect the performance.
All we need is the code now, my brother is busy finishing up the current work batch from our other job, so this update will take a week or two, then we will finally be able to start the EXPLORATION UPDATE!!!
There isn't much else to report, I was also busy most of the week.
Friday Progress Report 387
The library is being worked on, there are 210 empty bookshelves that need to be filled, so I am making 5 variations of book lines to fill the shelves, 3 out of the 5 are done. Each line has 2 books that can move (the others are a solid block glued together), these two books will be used to let the player know they can interact with the bookshelf, each day about 5% of the shelves will have books you can read to gain free skill experience or critter/fish knowledge. This update is quite simple, but it will still take a while because we are very busy with the other work.
Friday Progress Report 386
We have added a new skill and tool, you can now find Mysterious Mounds on any sand or dirt terrain (no caves), each biome has a different loot table. Mounds only respawn every 28 days, so you can only dig them up once per season.
Mounds in the beach are very easy to spot, and on the Bamboo Forest are also quite easy since the grass is lower there, but on grassland they are well hidden, so to find them the main way is to use the Shovel alt-fire, it activates your treasure sense in a pulse that highlights hidden treasure. But your Fairy can also spot and highlight the mounds for you.
If you are loading an old save the Shovel will appear in your inventory, and the mounds might take a few ingame hours to spawn.
Each Mound has a random amount of treasure, the more treasure the bigger is the chance an Artifact will be found, artifacts can only be found once per year, so if you want a duplicate to decorate your house you have to wait until your second year.
After talking to Frederick once you can access the pedestals in the museum and place Artifacts there for a debt reduction if playing on survival mode, there are two tiers of Artifact:
Common artifacts are Pottery and Bronze Medals, these grant 1% debt reduction. Rare artifacts are Fossils and Brass Medals, these grant 2% debt reduction.
This reduction does stack with the critter and fish bonuses. In the future decorating the museum will also improve your standing with the citizens of Edengrall.
V0.73.0.0 ~ 25.10.2024 ~ Unity 2020.3.46f1
Features: Added Scavenging Skill Added the Shovel tool Added Hidden Treasure mounds Added Some bait-only critters like Worms (they do not count as collectable critters) Added 30 Artifacts to place in the museum for debt reductions Added a buildable Furnace The Fairy can now find hidden treasure mounds
Changes: Changed the sound effect for finding a new critter or fish You now need Raw Quartz to make Glass at the furnace
Bugfixes: Fixed being able to place fish as furniture The Fairy should no longer pester you if you are managing menus as long as the mouse is moving Fixed a Display bug in the skill levels at the Forge/Gathering UI Fixed a Display bug in the Butchering/Filleting UI
Friday Progress Report 385
We are almost done with the Shovel features and the museum, the optimistic prediction is that the update will be up next week.
I have made loot tables for each biome: grasslands, beach, bamboo forest and the grass variations (irrigated, fertile, pasture and superior), each giving different loot, some have better chances for different items and some like the bamboo forest have plenty unique items that can only be dug there.
The 30 artifacts can be placed in the museum pedestals found in the first floor, like the aquariums they can only interacted with after speaking to Frederick and they will award a debt reduction in survival mode.
After this update there is only one more museum feature missing: books. Elly will no longer pretend to have books, there will be plenty in the shelves, but the book update will have to wait a bit because we got some other work pilling up and we will have very little time to develop until next month.
Friday Progress Report 384
The forge has been implemented, you can now build your own instead of using the one in front of the blacksmith.
The shovel is halfway done, you can dig the hidden treasure nodes, but the alt-fire that lets you detect them is not done yet.
Digging will reward between 1 and 9 items with the animation getting faster the more treasure you find. Digging spots will repopulate very slowly, we will make them a bit more common for now, but when the map is expanded they will be more spread appart and will require some exploring to find.
Right now possible rewards from digging are: Money, Stone, Ore and Quartz (for glass), Worms (fishing bait), Truffles, Roots and rare artifacts to place in the museum. We expect the update to take about two weeks to be finished.
Friday Progress Report 383
We got a break from the other job, so we are implementing the Shovel!
Since you will be able to dig up useful items like raw materials we will add a buildable forge to proccess them into building parts, so you don't have to go to Eduron's forge every time.
The dig spots will reward you a lot of resources for the time and stamina invested, but they are very limited and take several weeks to spawn, this feature will get better the bigger the map is.
We expect to have something ready by the next friday, see you there!
