Firekeep
Upgrade Data Corruption Fix, and "SuperBuild" bugfix
- Pulper & Sawyer no longer freeze the game on being built.
"SuperBuild" Fixed
- Pressing all available building options will no longer result in a single building that produces all the outputs of all possible buildings.
Reset Island Not Clearing UI Icons fix
- Fixed Full Version incorrectly labelled "Demo"
The Roguelike Rebuild is Here!
Today I’m happy to announce that Firekeep’s getting a long-awaited, much needed overhaul in this latest update. I’ve completely overhauled the UI, the core building systems, the level selection AND rebuilt the upgrade trees to make them modular!
This update has been a long time coming, and is based on all the great feedback I've been getting from players. In previous versions, the only major challenge was learning how all the different buildings upgrade, then choosing your preferred optimal building combinations, then using that combination until you reach the final island. With this update, I'm hoping to give players a wide array of options to express themselves and explore, while also having to plan strategically around their current building options - that being said, there's still a ton of buildings to come, so you likely won't be able to complete tougher islands in this build just yet. Don't worry - more buildings are coming, and you won't have to wait as long as it took for this update. There's also an updated Demo with all of the new changes if you just want to sample the new stuff!
Thanks again for your patience, I really think this update was needed, and I can't wait to hear your feedback in the Discord!
Cameron
Hotfix: Restart Button & New Game stability fixes
- Restart Button now works correctly.
- New Game button will now correctly appear when returning to the title menu from gameplay.
- Added additional logic when starting a new game to prevent the game from hanging.
- Reverted a change from last patch that would gradually move the constellation map further and further off the bottom of the screen.
Save File Corruption and Constellation Map Fixes
Added:
- System that detects a save with a completed board more consistently.
- Improved handling of saves that start in the Constellation map and don't have a board loaded yet.
- Changed how the Constellation map generates points to (hopefully) reduce instances of two linked points with no other connections.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the board wouldn't appear if the game was exited during the transition to the constellation map.
- Fixed a similar issue where the board would load in all blank tiles if the game was exited during the transition out of the constellation map.
Desert Buildings update and new Center Tile Buildings
Additionally, I've made some changes as to how the center tile works. I was getting a ton of feedback about how even though the islands were randomly generated, players felt that every island played out more or less the same. To fix this, the original Campfire has been broken up, and new central tiles have been added - for these, you'll choose one of two tracks to follow that will give different benefits and require you to build your island differently. For example, here's the Old World Relic, which is an abandoned high-rise:
If you choose to rebuild it, it'll require materials and amenities but produce tons of villagers. If you choose to recycle it, it'll give you easy access to advanced materials, but require villagers. Hopefully this should still allow for some strategy and player choice while also mixing up the challenges of different islands!
There's still Water and Mountain building sets in development, so the balance and design of existing buildings is an ongoing task! If you want to get involved, drop by the discord, and let me know what you think of the new buildings and new center tiles!
- Cam
Patch v0.5.06 - Save/Load Stability and General Building Effect fixes
Patch Notes:
Gameplay Fixes:
- Markets now send and receive Food resources correctly.
- Market upgrade cost changed to be more in line with other network buildings, specifically requiring a resource other than the one they transport.
- Pasture now accepts the listed Resources correctly.
- Constellation map should be better at identifying dead ends and supplying new, disconnected map points so the player doesn't get stuck.
Save/Load Stability Pass
- Added systems to recover from, and discard corrupt save files.
- Distributed Save/Load functions across multiple frames.
- Added a system to validate saves and wait for them to complete successfully.
Resource-For-Resource Building Effect Pass
- Buildings with multiple, specific input types (Mills, Pastures) now better account for mixed input types and should increase and decrease output correctly, in addition to locking and unlocking the correct specific resources.
- Buildings with effects that increase their outputs for resources should be more consistent overall in refunding input resources and proportionally decreasing their output.
"Branching Out" Update is now Live!
Thanks so much for your patience, this patch contains major fixes, quality of life improvements and new mechanics and buildings for you to try out!
New Mechanics
Platforms
With their own unique buildings, the Platform special project allows you to finally connect to those distant tiles! Give them a try, and let me know what you think, and also what kind of buildings I should add to them in future updates.
Resource Networks
But what's the use of those far-flung tiles if you can't use their resources? New buildings such as Storehouses, Tram Stations and Markets will share resources between them, letting you break the rules and move resources across any distance!
Quality of Life Changes & Fixes
Saving & Loading
Should work now. Thanks for your patience while I dug through this one, and please let me know if any issues crop up!
Atmosphere Progress UI & Mechanics Change
The island's atmosphere now increases or decreases faster or slower based on your surplus/deficit of O2, and now adds or removes an entire ring at a time instead of going tile-by-tile. Additionally the UI element now shows a progress bar to let you know how close you are to an increase or a decrease!
Restart Island Button
By far the most requested community feature, now you can restart your current island without affecting your overall progress!
New Dev Diary
Check out me talking about some of the design considerations that went into this update, and the key issues with Firekeep that I'm hoping to solve:
Additional Patchnotes
- Overhauled building effects that require resource inputs, will now only lock the inputs once the effect has "used" them. (e.g. Gardens will be able to refund Compost inputs until the extra Food production is actually sent to a different building, and will be able to refund again if that extra Food production is itself refunded).
- Overhauled the building UI panel to differentiate between resources locked from upgrading the building and resources locked by building effects. Created new icons to correspond to different effects.
- Building UI Panel - moved building atmosphere effects beside the building title, hopefully make the building description icons less crowded.
- Villager chain no longer produces Disease, changed to Sewage.
- Rebalanced "Meeting Place" building, no longer provides Amenities but upgrade chain is more useful, including:
- Latrines and a "Sanitation" track that removes Pollution.
- Inns, which can spread Firelight to neighbouring without relying on the central tile (but don't contribute towards completing the current island)
- Shrines- upgrades to powerful community-centered buildings like Chapel and School, plus Parks, which give Amenities and access to the "Saplings" special project.
- Markets, which transport Food between them across any distance.
If you've made it this far, hope you enjoy the new patch, and feel free to get involved in development by joining the Discord!
Yet Another Quality of Life and Bugfix Patch
Patch Notes
Overhauled the in-game menu and options menus and added some quality of life features:
- The building panel now displays current or queued upgrades, and gives players the option to cancel the upgrade.
- Added a "Main Menu" button to allow players to reset their constellation from the Title Screen without having to close the game.
- Added the ability to toggle between Fullscreen and Windowed Mode.
- Added the ability to toggle whether moving the cursor to the edge of the screen will move the camera (Edge Panning).
- Added the ability to change the game's display resolution.
- Removed the weird hexagon menu, moved the main menu to a sidebar.
And finally, addressed the following bugs:
- Fixed nature tiles not reverting to their basic level when their tile loses atmosphere.
- Fixed desert tiles' ground sprites rendering on top of buildings.
- Fixed the "Tree Planting" special project having -2 or less uses.
- Fixed audio sliders not saving their states between sessions.
- Fixed a bug where the player could un-pause the game during the title screen by cycling the options menu.
- Fixed tile UIs becoming inactive after swapping to a new island.
As always, join the Discord if you want to get involved in development! I'll be posting design q's, surveys and progress over there, and getting feedback from the community.
Stability, Quality of Life and Community Bugfixes
Patch Notes
Overhauled the map transition system to hopefully make setup and teardown more consistent. This will be further expanded on in later stability patches, but currently is robust enough to address the following bugs:
- Resources persisting from previous maps.
- Tile tags (Grass, Trees) persisting from previous maps, allowing Saplings to be placed on Void tiles.
- Beacons and other Firelight structures improperly triggering map completion.
- Buildings persisting from previous maps.
- Tiles containing multiple buildings.
- Resources persisting from previous maps.
- Upgrades, Special Projects and Buildings from previous maps continuing in new maps regardless of eligibility.
- Players being able to spend "ghost resources" from previous maps to upgrade buildings in the current map
- New Game generator generating incorrect or impossible maps.
Added additional functionality to the Constellation Map generator to address the following generation issues and bugs:
- Constellation generator can now recognize when a player is in an "island" with undiscovered points left, but no connections to them. It will now reveal a random, undiscovered point so the player can continue.
- Discovered Constellation points displaying only a line, but no clickable point.
- Constellation points being generated with no associated map.
Additionally cleaned up UI issues and problems with UI scaling on larger monitors.
- Fixed an issue where the "Apply" button in the Options menu wouldn't un-pause the game.
- Fixed incorrect Building Panel scaling on 21:9 monitors, resulting in it clipping off the bottom of the screen.
- Fixed an issue where the Special Projects drawer was not resetting properly, resulting in visual bugs, inaccessable projects, and crashes.