This week was a "tying up loose ends" week for the game due to me not being able to complete all of my work last week because of a family emergency. The family member in question is doing well. Thank you to all who expressed their well wishes.
There were quite a few small/trivial changes made to the game this week which are not terribly interesting to speak about. One slightly interesting change is to the way we display the version of the game when it is started. Before this week it has been displayed as a slightly cryptic software version number like 0.45. That has now changed to a simple build number. Our latest build released onto steam is build 35.
Plumbing Backdrops:
One of the more interesting changes made was adding the possibility for players to change the backdrop of the plumbing area. Up until now players could change the backdrop behind the aquarium only. Now that has changed and once we add more choices of backdrops players can make their creations feel a little more unique and interesting.
The only backdrop available for the plumbing area for the moment is solid colour. It will not share all the same backdrops as the aquarium itself. This is because there is meant to be a distinction between the plumbing area and the aquarium. The aquarium represents creativity, a sort of colloquial definition of chaos theory and butterfly effect, ecosystems etc. Whereas the plumbing area represents artificial life support, rigid parameters, machinery, limited choices etc. This distinction should be present is the type of backdrops available so things are thematically consistent.
Last week the backdrop list was posted on the forums which has some ideas for the directions we are going for both backdrop types and as always you are invited to make suggestions. We are working on some new backdrops already and are fixing up the existing ones to be better.
We also managed to fix a few minor bugs for backdrops. Mostly these were around robustness and efficiency. One interesting fact is that both backdrops are loaded at the same time and sit on top of each other in the scene but they are attached to certain "visibility" layers which the camera chooses to see or not. This means switching between plumbing and aquarium modes will not trigger the unloading and loading of backdrops because that would be slow and inefficient. This method will use a little more memory but it is not like loading a huge level from a AAA game.
A new entry into the quick help window was added that talks about backdrops.
Selection/Manipulation Tool Settings UI Toggle:
A toggle button was added for showing/hiding the selection and manipulation tool options. These options are quite useful but they can get in the way sometimes. Players can now hide them to avoid unnecessary clutter in the UI.
Another small thing that has caused much irrational irritation to myself was the design of the water level UI. In previous builds players would need to adjust a horizontal slider in order to change the vertical height of the water which disturbed me. The weird thing is that it was myself who implemented the first version of that UI which forces me to conclude that I must have temporarily taken leave of my senses when creating it. Gladly this has now been fixed and I am feeling much better about the whole situation.
Marquee selection or the "selection rectangle" feature is about 90% finished. This sort of thing is commonly found in realtime strategy games where players can draw a box across the screen and anything that is fully or partially inside that box will get selected. The only thing left to do for this feature is to fit it into the game and have it not clash with existing selection features that use the same mouse clicks and gestures. It is not a particularly hard thing to do but I would rather not rush to squeeze it into this week's update because I am sure I would miss something. I am pretty confident it will be in the game next week though.
Work has been progressing on making new fish. The next fish pair are rather special and require changes made to the fish ai before we release them into the game. These changes are long overdue anyway so I am personally happy to be getting them done. Hopefully we will have something to show you all next week.
Well now I am off to the forums to curate the lists some more. There have been a large amount of suggestions and questions that I have fallen behind on yet again.
We wish you all a good weekend,
The fishery Team
development update #51
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the delay with this weeks updates. A new build should be uploaded either tonight or tomorrow. There was a serious medical emergency with a family member that happened towards the end of the week which as far as the game is concerned meant that I could not finish everything I wanted to this week. However a good portion of the work did manage to get finished but the rest of it will be finished next week in a sort of "tying up loose ends" update. This will include organising the selection and manipulation options into a hideable UI, marquee selection (fingers crossed) and new entries for the help menu. We also should be able to add a new fish, fix some bugs and add a few more tweaks and enhancements here and there.
Dragon Mosaic Guppy (Female):
Dragon Mosaic Guppy (Male):
Finally we managed to get these lovelies finished. Sometimes the most colourful fish are tricky to paint because quite often painting is a discipline where the painter uses as few colours as possible to describe something. This male guppy just had so many colours that it starts to look more like a fruit salad than a fish if one is not careful.
New Backdrop Menu And Settings:
Most of my week was spent working on the backdrop code. Backdrops have not been worked on for quite a while but we do have a lot of very interesting things planned for them. Before new backdrops can be added to the game and existing ones tweaked it was necessary to update the UI so it is consistent with the rest of the game. That means allowing players to choose a backdrop from a scrollable list menu that uses icons and further control details of the backdrop via a "settings UI".
Seabed Backdrop Settings:
Above you can see some colour settings for the seabed being modified. The compression in the gif is not great but what is happening is that the water fog colour is being changed as well as the overall background colours. There is a lot more planned for this backdrop. At some point we will add some more things in the distance swimming around like whales, the occasional submarine, debris and small plants in the foreground, a crab or two walking about the floor looking for something to nibble etc etc
Abstract Shapes And Patterns:
This was alluded to last week, We have added a few more abstract backgrounds. Their colours are not by any means final but what is in this update should serve as an example of the types of things players can expect to see in the future. The whole idea of the abstract backdrops are similar to what is seen in product advertising. Usually the backdrop is designed to better show off the colours and shapes of the subject as well as just help make an interesting image.
The overall aim for backdrops in general is to have enough variations of themes and styles so that players can really make some interesting images and allow for a lot of variety and re-playability. The current set of backdrops up until this point are feeling rather boring because they are few in number and have not been updated in so long. We promise this will change and this update is the first step.
Probably early Monday I will create a backdrop list thread on the forums that has a list of the backdrops currently in the game as well as some that are planned and as usual we encourage you all to give us your suggestions.
This update also includes everything from last week too since we were not able to make an update last week. Check out last week's post to see what that includes.
We wish you all a pleasant weekend and look forward to improving Fishery more in the coming week.
The Fishery Team
development update #50
Hello everyone,
Apologies for uploading this a little late, it has been a very intense and interesting week. Unfortunately there is no update to the build this week because we are working on a few large changes that are not quite finished yet but we are quite confident that there will be a new build next week.
Hibuna Goldfish (Male):
One of the new fishes that will be in next week's update will be the male Hibuna Goldfish. It took an exhausting 12 hour painting session yesterday and a further 3 hours today to get it's paint job finished (but I may still tweak it at some point). It is such an iconic fish that it is very important to try and get it right. In addition it is also really good practice for painting scale patterns. Some fish have very clear and defined scales and we need to practice painting them so that when come to paint these fish we will be ready. For instance Arowana fish and the boeseman's rainbowfish are on the list of fish that are scary to paint.
We hinted last week that we would have another nice fish (both male and female) ready this week but we need just a few more hours of painting to get it right. On the bright side that means next week there will be 3 new fish added to the game.
Creation Mode Tweaks:
Time was spent this week fixing up quite a few annoyances in the creation settings. We focused on making it less clunky to create objects quickly and accurately. In the above example there are a few new parameters added and enabled to help this process.
There is an option to enable a preview material on the preview representation of the object you are creating. You can keep creating objects with subsequent mouse clicks rather than having to repeatedly return to the menu to drag the icon into the aquarium, which really became annoying. The UI for this has also been simplified.
These creation settings are now more consistent with the creation settings for plumbing objects which should make things less confusing and some more work will be done to the plumbing creating ui and settings to improve player interaction with that system.
The backdrop system has not been changed in a long time and in desperate need for of an update. An important part of this update is making it's user interface more consistent with the other user interfaces of similar creation features in the game. Which means having a nice menu with a panel with settings so players can customize settings within their chosen backdrop.
We have a lot of new backdrops planned and a few in various stages of completion. There are quite a few types of backdrop. At the moment the default backdrop is a flat grey backdrop. It is pretty boring but players may wish to have simple pure coloured backdrops. In the new version of this system players will be able to choose the colour from swatches from it's settings UI. Changing colours and other settings for each backdrop type is going to be the most interesting part of this system.
Ocean Backdrop:
One backdrop currently present in the game is the ocean backdrop. Eventually there will be a range of options that players can customize that include fog colour, enabling details like whales swimming in the distance, submarines, crabs walking about etc.
Radial gradient test example:
We are also adding a few more backgrounds that are most commonly seen in the advertising industry. Essentially these types of backdrops are all about making a nice clean presentation of whatever is the object of focus. There will be options for players to choose style and colours.
Abstract-ish Patterns:
This falls under the category of "abstract patterns". This category of backdrops won't make sense to everyone but some players may wish to express an idea with their aquarium design which is better expressed and enhanced on a backdrop of something that is not exactly in a 3d space. This could include things like old paper (as seen in the image above) or certain types of floral patterns, very subtle gradients, bokeh patterns etc. This category certainly is not for everyone but there will be some interesting ideas added.
There will also be the realistic category which will have backdrops familiar to all. Players have asked for backdrops like, a child's bedroom, a family living room, the lobby of a business, a pet shop. We are definitely going to add these and much much more.
After we have updated the backdrop system next week we will post a new list on the forums with all the ideas we have for backdrops and of course you will all be invited to give us suggestions so stay tuned for that.
I got a little behind this week with replying to stuff in the forums. Most likely I will respond to questions and suggestions on Sunday after a little rest today.
As usual we wish you all a great weekend and look forward to getting a nice big fat juicy update ready for you all next week.
the Fishery Team
development update #49
Hello everyone,
We are back from our little break and the game build has just been updated. This post might be a little shorter than usual because we have mostly worked on painting new fish this week and the new selection features that have been put into this week's game update were detailed in last week's post.
Female Gold Platy:
Male Gold Platy:
We have added some Gold Platys. It was a good fish to help us ease back into painting after a little break. These were finished quite early in the week and some new fish are already in the process of being painted but not yet finished.
Male Hibuna Goldfish (Work in progress):
The Hibuna Goldfish is in the first stages of being painted. In our research we have found that there can be quite a bit of difference in the colours of these goldfish so to try and show that variation in the game we have made the male version which is shown above to have more red in it's colourings. The female will be more orangey. At least one, but hopefully both, will be in the game next week.
The other fish that is being painted is a very colourful guppy but we wont show it yet because we would rather it be a nice little surprise.
As was said before the other parts of this week's game update about new selection features were talked about in last week's post so we encourage you to look at that for a more in depth explanations.
Selection Mask UI
One small thing that is worth mentioning here though is about the UI for the selection mask. At the moment it is visible all the time when players are able to select things but this wont be the case for too long. A new selection ui is going to be put together that will also included the marquee selection toggle button and this ui can be hidden so there is less clutter on screen. This will be added towards the end of this month.
Next week is going to be quite busy indeed. Aside from painting fish there is a big pile of small changes that need to be made to parts of the fish ai, user interface, creation tools, bug hunting, bug fixing, career mode writing etc etc.
We wish you all a good weekend,
The Fishery Team
development update #48
Hello everyone,
A warm thank you for all birthday wishes that were written in the comments of last weeks post. I did in fact manage to take it easy this week and have a break. My colleague also felt the time was right to rest a bit so it was a much less intense week for both of us. There won't be an update to the game itself this week but there definitely will be one next week.
I did manage to add some small but interesting features to the game that have been on my mind for some time but it was done in a leisurely, stress free fashion.
Selecting objects at the moment can be quite tedious especially if there are many objects to be selected. A small feature was added to allow players to simply click and drag the mouse to select whole groups of objects without lots of tedious clicking. It is almost like a selection "brush" where players brush their mouse over the scene and it selects whatever it hits. It also solves the problem of selecting fish. Fish can sometimes move a bit fast and making a precise mouse click atop a fish can be tricky. Players can now just chase the fish with the mouse button held to select it and it is a lot easier. This feature can also be used when de-selecting objects.
The next step for easing selection tedium is to add marquee selection. Sometimes known as a selection rectangle. We have the main part of it working but it still needs some tweaks to performance before it can be added to the game. There is a good chance it will be in the game before the end of August.
This is quite a valuable feature to also reduce player annoyance when selecting objects. A selection mask. Essentially players can tell the game what type of object they wish to select in order to prevent them selecting something they have no desire to select but at the same time make it easier to select the things they do want to select. In the above example we are trying to quickly select all the rocks but because there are plants in the way they too get selected which is undesired.
This second example shows how simple it is to select the rocks when we tell the game to ignore the plants when calculating selections. It is much easier to select the rocks and there are no undesired selections.
More progress has been made with the Hibuna goldfish models. These were worked on more today and I think they are ready to go to the painting phase but I will sleep on it and have another look on Monday with fresh eyes to see if I there is anything that jumps out on them that needs tweaking. There is not really much difference in shape between male and female Hibuna's in real life, unless the female of pregnant, so I added some variation to the overall body shape and fins so both models are not identical. There will be similar small differences done to their painted textures that will allow players to see a difference between them more clearly without them look too dissimilar.
The forums have been a little busier than usual this week so more time was spent answering questions and researching fish suggestions. Before I officially add a fish to the fish list based on someone's suggestion I need to do a quick bit of research to make sure it is something we can actually do in terms of animation, model complexity etc. We made a list for food and for plants and already received some suggestions which have been added. There is a lot of Latin to be read on the plant list. More lists will be added soon so remember to check them out as well as the existing ones.
We are back to work on Monday so expect a nice game update next week with at least one new species of fish and a few small feature updates, bug fixes etc.
We wish you all a good weekend,
The Fishery Team
development update #47
Hello everyone,
The game build has been uploaded so feel free to check it out. It has been quite busy week with work being done on quite a few areas of the game and some of them are ready to show you all.
This is a work in progress model of a Hibuna goldfish. Which depending on where I look on the internet is also called the Common Goldfish or a Red Crucian Carp. You would be surprised how long we spend trying to find the correct names and descriptions to match the visual appearance of our fish. Surprisingly, information found on the internet is not always in accordance with the truth. We have instead ordered a few well respected books/encyclopaedias about fish, one specifically about goldfish which will clarify all in the near future.
As was said before the model is not done yet. Everything is more or less in the right place. The next step is to refine the shapes of the head and body and do another pass shaping the fins. Then small variations will be made to distinguish the genders. there is not a huge amount of difference between male and female Hibunas so we will rely on slightly changing some proportions and shapes a bit so the models are not identical to the naked eye. Furthermore they will be painted with variations. Male Hibunas, much like other goldfish, have these little white dots near they gills.
It is long overdue that we update the in-game help system so it actually provides help to players. In the previous two weeks we have seen some players express frustration about not knowing how to navigate the camera or are baffled by how the plumbing system works. We don't really have an excuse for not providing such simple features such as in-game help other than we have just been working on everything else in the game. Nevertheless every week from now on we will do our best to add new entries to the help system and update existing ones when we make a change. We have begun with help for the main controls and a more detailed explanation of the current state of the plumbing system. The button for quick help can be found in the top right corner of the screen.
Yes we have added cheese to the game. It is quite often used as bait by people looking to catch fish for sport or food because it's scent underwater is quite strong and curious fish cant resist a nibble. According to most online sources a good number of fish should not actually eat cheese long term because they do not have the ability to digest animal fat. This does tie into some features will be adding later to do with food.
The quality of food that players feed to their fish will affect their lifespan and behaviour over time. If players feed their fish the same fish pellets for a long time their happiness will decrease and their lifespan will shorten. Feeding them some of the more interesting foods we have been adding in previous weeks will have different outcomes such as increases happiness, longer lifespan, increased chance of breeding (ooh la la), reduction of stress etc etc etc. Not to mention in career mode the more interesting food will have a higher cost so players will need to balance their finances in order to feed their fish a really healthy diet. In the forums a food list will shortly be posted that will list all the food currently in the game as well as what we are planning to add so we encourage you to check it out and make suggestions once it is posted.
We are also adding cheese now for reasons explained below.
August 1st is National Swiss Day and our company is based in Switzerland, Furthermore some of you may have seen that Fishery has been on sale this week along with around 50 other Swiss games. So to commemorate these events we thought it would be fun to add the Swiss cheese and the floaty duck painted as the Swiss flag.
Next week we are taking a little bit of a break from normal work because it is my birthday and I have not really had a break yet this year. However knowing myself I will probably finish the goldfish model and add more entries to the in-game help. Also the FAQ on the forums needs updating along with the fish list. The suggestions made by people in the fish list thread has been fantastic and it is just growing and growing. I urge you you all to check it out and contribute.
More lists will certainly be added either tonight or over the weekend. As mentioned above there will be a food list. We are certainly going to add a plant list, coral list, decoration list etc. It really helps us to see what art content we can prioritise so we can reward you all for you patience.
There will of course be an update post like this one showing development progress next week so stay tuned for that. We wish you all a good weekend.
The Fishery Team
development update #46
Hello everyone,
A new build should be uploaded some time tomorrow (Saturday) if all goes smoothly with testing. We did not get to finish as much as we wanted this week but we still managed to get a new fish in the game.
Female Green Grass Guppy (updated fin colours):
Male Green Grass Guppy:
Finally I have finished the male green grass guppy and updated the female guppy's fins to match the colourings. These are halfmoon guppies. We are also going to add as many of the other types of guppies as we can such as spear tail, flag tail, round tail etc and we will paint as many varieties of colourings as we can too. There seems to be an endless amount of colourings so feel free to check out the fish list on the forums and make suggestions for guppies that you would like us to prioritise. Also feel free to make suggestions for all other types of fish too. The list keeps growing and it gives us a clear picture of what fish are most important for us to include in the game.
Next week I will make the new models for the common goldfish. I also feel a bit of a tingle in the brain to model another variety of goldfish too, perhaps a Ranchu or a black moor.
Fungi:
Fungi has been added into the game. They are a new object type that we introduced in last week's post. The main purpose of fungi is to help remove waste from aquariums without the need for an artificial filter. There are going to be story lines in career mode that require players to gain knowledge about how to create 100% natural and self sustaining aquariums that don't use any plumbing and fungi are just another tool in the toolbox to help players achieve that.
The white mushroom is called Psathyrella Aquatica. It was discovered in 2005 and is the only known gilled mushroom that lives completely submerged underwater and was found anchored in rivers that have quite strong currents. Naturally we had to include it in our game. You can expect to see some more species of fungi added in the future.
There have also been some tweaks to how shadows work. We are using a technique called "Cascaded shadow maps". To put it simply it allows us to calculate the shadows of objects close to the camera with more detail than objects further away. This not only makes things look better but reduces shadow rendering time for objects further away from camera. Objects further away from camera usually take up less screen space, therefore they are seen with less details and we can use a much lower resolution shadow map for their shadows.
Remember to check our progress next week to see some nice new fish models as well as some nice progress in other areas of the game. As usual we hope you all have a good weekend.
The Fishery Team.
development update #45
Hello to all of you,
There will be a new build uploaded within the next 24 hours but if all goes well it will be tonight. We have added some nice new art content:
Rummy Nose Tetra Female:
Rummy Nose Tetra Male:
I'm sure some of you are asking, what about the male guppy from last week that was promised? I got a bit too tired of staring it and needed to reset my brain so instead I looked at the unfinished fish list in the forums and found the Rummy Nose Tetra. Quite lovely little fish and they were a lot of fun to paint. The male blue grass guppy should arrive in the game next week, hopefully it will not defeat me again.
Banana Slice:
More food has been added. It just felt so right to add into the game. It also has a dual purpose. Bananas are high in Potassium which is a valuable nutrient that plants require. Soon the code will be updated so that certain food items rich in nutrients can be used to feed fish and also provide nutrients for plants. That way players won't necessarily have to depend on the artificial fertilizer balls or the plumbing nutrient injector to help sustain their ecosystems.
Ruins:
We also added two more ruin pieces that we introduced last week. The new pieces added are the single pillar sections that are not attached to a base block. Next week we hope to finish painting some more brick like blocks of various dimensions so players can start building things with a bit more structure. You can also see a lovely array of banana slices elegantly scattered around the aquarium.
Fungi:
This is Mitrula Paludosa. It is not in the game yet but it will be next week if all goes to plan. It is a species of fungi that grows in the water. We have not found pictures of it actually submerged more than halfway underwater but that is good enough for us to put it into the game.
Fungi is new object type to the game and it will be very useful. Fungi is what is known as a "decomposer" which simply means they break down dead organic matter. Their main job in fishery will be to provide a way to manage waste levels. Players may wish to keep waste at acceptable levels using purely natural means without a plumbing filter. Fungi will get the job done and will help make things look interesting in your aquarium. We have not decided precisely what their needs will be but it will be similar to the other forms of life currently in the game. They will be sensitive to temperature, PH and saltiness and they might add nutrients and other chemicals into the water in exchange for removing waste.
Busy times indeed. When working on art content it often feels like we make more progress than when working purely on code features which is good for the morale of us and anyone who has been following us for a while. The game is really coming together nicely and if we keep going at this pace it means we could add at a minimum 4-5 new species of fish per month. On top of that we looking to add more decorations, plumbing objects, food items, plants, substrates and backgrounds. At some point we will also return to adding more features but our updates were quite feature heavy at the start of the year and we need to balance it out a little before we go deep into code again. Some of the features that have been planned and ready to be coded are the undo system, a much better help system, selection sets, marquee selection, selection filters, more complex fish behaviour and emotions, floating plants and many many many more. The to-do list is enormous but we shall prevail.
We wish you all a great weekend
The fishery Team
development update #44
Hello everyone,
It is Friday once again and we are very glad to be able to say once again say that we have in point of fact actually succeeded in uploading a brand new build of the game on time and as planned.
We have been hard at work adding more new art content into the game.
Female Blue Grass Guppy
The is a female blue grass guppy. Unfortunately most female guppies look rather similar to each other. They have fleshy semi-transparent bodies and quite often mostly transparent fins. We used a bit of artistic licence with this one to keep it looking interesting and identifiable. As some of you may know the male guppies are more elaborately coloured. They are similar to peacocks in the way that they have larger tales with bright colourful patterns. He is still being worked on and we are aiming to have him done next week.
Ruined Pillar:
We have not added a new decoration in a while. This ancient ruin of a pillar is the first of a "themed pack" of ancient ruins that will give players more creative options. That is after all one of the main points of the game, creativity. There are lots of things that will be added to the ancient ruins pack. Statues, ornamentations, pillars, bricks, mosaic pieces, pottery etc. Hopefully it will be enough for players to design their own crumbling temples, streets or even an amphitheatre.
Kiwi Slice:
Kiwi Invasion:
More food has been added. A delicious slice of Kiwi fruit. Perhaps it is not a good idea to put a slice of kiwi into a real aquarium because it's PH is close to 3 which might upset the PH balance in an aquarium considerably. We have not added PH to the game yet but we will and there will be numerous items that modify the PH such as the kiwi.
Duck:
Quack!...There will be some items added to the game that may at first seem bizarre but are all part of the fun and will affect other things in the simulation. For instance there will be some items that cause behavioural changes in fish and other animals that will not be revealed be us but will instead only be revealed by players experimenting and observing. I shall therefore reveal no more about the secret of the duck. It's secret has not yet been added into the game but it will be added at some indeterminate point in the future.
Next week we hope to have more decorations finished and the male blue grass guppy finished and in the game. We hope you all have a great weekend.
The Fishery Team
development update #43
Hello Everyone,
At long last we should have a new build uploaded Sunday (tomorrow). We are just fixing a few small bugs. The update will include all the fish we have shown in previous posts as well as more bug fixes, performance tweaks, changes to fish behaviour and fish needs.
Aside from making sure all the changes we have made recently are not messing with the game's stability we have added yet more things this week.
Female Guppy (Unfinished)
Male Guppy (Unfinished)
A lot of time was spent on making the new guppies. Quite a bit more re-modelling and the painting process is under way. But we are not done with the guppies just yet as you can see in the images above. Both are partially painted and I think the male guppy needs some shape adjustments to it's tale. There is usually a lot of back forth in this process. Going from modelling to painting, then perhaps painting could use a little help by having a better shape to the model, so back to modelling and then back to painting. Then repeat until we are happy with the result. This is a fantail guppy. We do plan to add more types of course.
This week we have added some new fish food. The fish food currently in the game is extremely boring and we are in the process of making it more interesting. The first more interesting items of food are the slices of carrot and cucumber. They stay around long enough so that fish can have quite a few nibbles before the food item disappears whilst providing excellent nourishment. This also means players wont need to feed their fish so much. Furthermore we have made it so fish get hungry less quickly. There are a lot more interesting food items that we have planned aside from vegetables. Players will be able to drop dead flies onto the surface of the water and drop live bloodworms into the water and we are looking at adding live mosquito larvae because it is summer and I hate mosquitoes.
These changes to food tie into future changes we will be making to the needs of fish. Feeding them these new food items instead of boring fish pellets will increase fish happiness, which is a parameter not yet added but will play an important part in the game, instead of just decreasing their hunger.
It is a very busy time indeed with a lot more art content being worked on. Expect more interesting things becoming part of the game in the coming weeks.
