Hello everyone! We've been a little quiet here, and we think the reasons are clear — since Feral Blue's commercial results are not extremely great, we have to deal with various contract works. It gives us not that much time to work on the game, but on the other hand, if we don't work as developers for hire, we won't be able to deal with Feral Blue at all.
Today we wanted to report two things, actually.
1) This week, Maslenitsa is celebrated in Russia and other Slavic countries. This is a period of 7 days before Lent when overeating pancakes is mandatory. In honour of this event, we and other developers from Eastern Europe have teamed up and launched a special event on Steam. There are loads of really strange Russian games (strange in a good way) and nice discounts, Scroll down to find a very simple yet elegant recipe for blini.
2) Today we are releasing an update that will remove the limits previously set in the mechanics. To be more precise, all cargo holds now are 10x bigger.
We received several requests from the players and considered them fair. Initially, we planned that the restrictions would nudge the player towards expansion and state-building. But since the whole piece of gameplay with the management of the player's empire is delayed indefinitely, there is no sense in these limits now.
Also, we do some tinkering with Unreal Engine 4.26 in the hope this allows us to level up the visual state of the game a bit.
Happy New Year!
Hello!
Our team at Snowbird would like to wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Although this year was a quite a challenge for everybody, and, unfortunately, we were not able to keep all our promises to you, we're looking into the future with careful optimism, and hope that we would release ongoing projects and start develop new projects as well.
See you all in 2021!
PS. Just a short reminder for all of you - ongoing Winter Sale on Steam is the best and last chance to buy our games in 2020!
Autumn sale and user unterface improvements.
It's been almost month since we released our experimental build to the open beta test. We were really excited to read all your comments and suggestions regarding new log interface and gameplay overall.
Thanks to your feedback we were able to fix some interface and game glitches, improve stability of the game and tune up some visuals.
Now we are ready to set release status of the resulting build.
For those of you who missed our beta announce here is recap of the changes made:
One and most wanted feature which was finally implemented in the game and anticipated by almost anyone, is revamped captain's log. Log was rewritten from the scratch and now you can use it. Finally.
Using log and its filters you will be able to:
Track damage to the ship.
Track crew changes.
Track resource usage.
Check cabin's maintenance.
Check quests progress.
Review other useful game events.
Also following improvements were made:
Pull-down feature to the quests list. You can switch between three top quests, making any of them as your current goal.
Improved the interface of diplomacy for players, now it is possible to view the relations with factions and persons, and to set direction to chosen persons.
Several bugfixes
Overall stability and performance of the game improved.
And since it is Autumn Sale on Steam we do invite you to take part in it and buy our games with decent discounts to support our work.
And last but not least - we made an announcement of the new game in 'Eador' series (our famous turn based strategy titles) - please check details at news page
Improvements to User interface.
Hello everyone!
If you’re wondering where we are , don't worry, we are still working on the game. Now it’s time for improvements and changes in the game interface.
This improvements awaits you:
The addition of a disclosure to the list of taken quests. The first three quests on the list will be available for choosing and you will be able to choose an active quest to be indicated on the main page of the list.
Improved the interface of diplomacy for players, now it will be possible to view the relations with factions and persons, and to choose the direction to them.
Diversified and improved main captain's journal. Now you can track damage to the ship, crew changes, resource usage and a lot of other options. You can choose a category and track a whole day changes on the ship.
The changes in the interface have affected several mechanics, so they are available to you in the open-beta version of Feral Blue, to update it you need to right-click on the game in the library, select properties, then Beta versions and select Open-Beta from the list.
We would love to hear from you about your impression of the changes.
Discounts, new ships and emergency supplies.
Hello!
As promised, new content and fixes are out today.
Pirate sale on the doorstep of your Steam! We have significantly reduced the price, so hurry up to buy a game with a big discount or a whole set of games from us.
A pack of games has appeared on sale: Blood and Gold and Feral Blue in a single bundle, especially for you if you missed our previous game about adventure in the Caribbean sea!
New ship line for the People's Republic: the Floating Fort, the Floating Citadel and the Steam Citadel, all quite agile and well-armed ships.
New mechanic to set an emergency threshold for supplies in the hold. When the specified resource is down to this value, the crew would rather suffer hardships than waste the valuable cargo for their own needs. Use this function to preserve the goods that need to be delivered elsewhere or conserved for some important purpose. Whenever you get a mission to deliver goods, the cargo is reserved automatically, increasing the emergency threshold. After completing the mission the default threshold value is restored.
The trade and barter interface now displays the value of emergency threshold. If the deal takes the player outside the emergency limits, a warning pops up.
Starting ship of the Mori faction has been updated.
The help screens are redesigned, their content is brought up to date.
You no longer need to quit walking the town streets in order to initiate a dialog with the city government, trade or outfit your ship.
Fixed some errors in trade and cargo hold screens.
New ships and emergency supply
Hello all!
We have added a number of new ships to the game, along with some changes to the interface. The People's Republic has got 3 new vessels: a smaller Floating Fort, a Floating Citadel and a powerful Steam Citadel. Besides forming a backbone of the People's fleet, these ships may serve you as a seaborne home, too - providing that you can capture them, of course.
The interface now features a new functionality to reserve an emergency threshold of supplies in the hold. Use it to preserve the goods involved in a delivery mission or otherwise needed elsewhere.
We have also redesigned the help screens to make it easier for the new players to learn the gameplay of Feral Blue.
These features and updates will go live shortly. Keep an eye on the news!
Update Notes (July 2)
Hello all!
Reminder: there are only a few days left until Steam summer sale ends. This is your opportunity to purchase Feral Blue with a discount of 33%.
Our previous, rather significant update featured new game mechanics (the vassal system and the caches) and updated existing functionalities, such as town economics and trading with other factions, in order to keep the game fresh for our long-time fans.
This update aims to help new players embrace and understand Feral Blue from the first sight. It introduces major interface updates based on your feedback and some internal testing, and also adds some missing gameplay elements.
So, without further ado:
At the beginning of the game you can complete some simple missions that direct your exploration of the map and help to accumulate your starting capital.
Complete the first mission for a juicy reward - or ignore it and keep the customer's resources for yourself.
Trade profitably. We have changed the trading interface to make it clearer and more convenient to use.
Track the spending of your resources. Daily statistics are now displayed in strategic map mode.
More freedom in towns - you can now select different actions without having to leave and reenter.
Point and click interaction with objects on strategic map. Simply click on town or ship, and the interaction dialogue will pop up once you come close enough.
Boost your firepower - the armaments purchase screen now features tips; its interface has been streamlined.
We are near and eager to help - help screens have been updated with new informative graphics and a navigation system.
The update also features a variety of small fixes and improvements to make the game more comfortable to play.
Status update - UI and summer plans
Hello everyone,
there is a new status update from the team. First of all, we are extremely obliged to you all for the feedback you've provided. There are some nailing comments that will help us to deliver a better game. We think we should highlight 灭资兴无's list of comments in particular - great job!
In the meantime, we are going to concentrate on UI for a week or two. A city screen and a trade screen must be reworked significantly, since we have implemented them as a temporary solution and now it's just about time to proceed with a more user-friendly solution.
If we're talking about gameplay wise than additional policy making mechanics, more city related management and more quests are still on the agenda and should be added via several batches through the summer.
Take care and stay safe!
A vassal system and the first sale
Today is a big day — we are releasing a relation system, which will allow you to collaborate with other captains. If earlier our oncoming ships were some kind of muddy Others, just abstract "they", now it is always a person with a name and character.
The system starts with fairly simple features: those captains either sympathize with you, or not really, but eventually it will be developed in a much bigger mechanics. Right now the attitude towards you will be determined by nationality (this is the kind of thing that will survive in any Flood), as well as your behavior.
Captains will give tasks, i.e. quests that have been presented earlier in the game. The more tasks one completes, the better attitude one receives. Why do we even need our reputation in the eyes of these comrades? Two or three captains under your command already form a sort of fleet. And where there is a small fleet, a state will soon emerge.
In addition to friendly and hostile captains, we add a system of caches. In general, this is the pretty same mechanics from that Treasure Island book by Stevenson: like captain Flint, you can bury the loot (or honestly earned commodity) on a secluded island. There it will lie in complete safety with some minor chances of looting (since you are not alone sailing around the seas) or damage from rainfall (the climate in this world is so terrible).
The urban economy has also been refined. Two points: 1) now for visiting a city you need to pay port dues and if you don’t have enough water, then please trade somewhere in the sea 2) having captured the city, you get access to trade with other fractions. Resource binding for each city in the game was made by us at the very start of Early Access and now - hell yeah - we are cobbling it together. You choose your city, choose a partner city, then enjoy an increase in turnover (until, of course, war happens).
Finally, those ships that implied rigging now received it (one can say, a sailboat without all these rigs looks like naked). In terms of gameplay, rigging refers to the sail system, so if damaged it's counted as damage to a propulsion system.
Since it was a really huge piece of work for us, we'd be happy to offer you a 40% discount for the next three days. Cheers!
Mechanics
There is a reputation in relations with other captains
Added a system of "vassality", that is, hiring captains in your faction and giving them orders
Added storage system for goods on the islands ("caches")
Cross-Faction Trading Added
Graphics
Added rigging for sailing ships
The line of industrial buildings in cities expanded
Added a new location for island missions
Ropes and rigging
Hi everyone,
there is a bit of news on how the Feral Blue project is going. The last two weeks were spent on implementing our maritime feudalism - which can be briefly described as a system of lords and companions. And if you had a chance to play Mount & Blade, you would have an acquaintance with such a mechanics. Sure thing it requires hours of testing before it would be ready for release, so we might need about a week for tackling this feature.
Additionally, we are going to arrange some rope stuff and rigging for our ships. Initially we had have to remove it from the original models for the sake of optimization. Now with being fully optimized these ropes can be finally introduced. And shall we add that without proper rigging a sailing vessel doesn't look sumptuous enough.
