We've heard your requests for the ability to relocate constructions and ways to restructure the town. It posed some interesting challenges and flabbergasted us for a while, given the game's setup, but we found a solution. Enter: The Architect! This specialist allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines, or just move some buildings around.
We've also been working on improving performance, the game should run smoother now :)
What's next?
We are working on adding controller support to the game! We want to make sure it feels right to play on a controller and on the Steamdeck, and it’s also going to help us explore the possibility of bringing Flotsam to other platforms in the future. We'll start testing this on experimental soon.
Early Access 0.7.5: The Architect
The Architect! This specialist allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines, or just move some buildings around.
The Architect
New Construction: Architect Station. The Architect station unlocks the 'Architect Mode'.
Added the 'Architect Mode', in this mode you can move or store buildings and thus re-structure the town.
Updated the tech tree to implement the Architect.
Added The Architect specialist.
Fixes
Fixed issue causing salvaged landmarks to no longer be greyed on the map.
Fixed issue where drifters could get stuck planting seeds after saving and loading.
Various small fixes to inventories.
Fixed issue where some seeds on landmarks would be null and not be salvaged nor shown.
Fixed issue where drifters would only haul 3 items when doing import projects.
Fixed issue where drying buildings would spawn audio errors.
Fixed material memory leaks caused by the resource visual setup.
Various small fixes to map movement.
Fixed issue where construction variations wouldn't show.
Fixed some items not showing the correct throwing visual.
Fixed issue where the Decoration preview would get stuck when it was active while a park was being deconstructed.
Fixed issue where birds would be destroyed when they were perching on an energy pole that was being deconstructed.
Performance
Adjusted underwater tiles to have simpler geometry.
Added LODs for Fish Sticks, Town Tugger and Solar Panels.
Reduced resolution of various textures.
Removed unnecessary foam underneath some constructions.
Texture updated for large storage yards.
Resource visuals no longer cast shadows.
Changes to the physics so it stays consistent when changing the game-speed.
Various other improvements to the physics.
Misc
Wind streaks no longer rotate with the camera.
Updated LODs for walkway pontons so they don't disappear on lowest settings.
Various changes to the UI to make it more consistent.
Changed the visuals of the Food Truck as the texturing style was outdated to the current game's visual style.
Changed the visuals of the Water Container to increase its readability.
Changed the visuals of the Solar Still to properly reflect it's boundary size.
Updated the Townheart's propeller build-blocking area to more properly show the blocked building area, also allowing for some leeway.
Properly tagged Goods, Mushrooms and Tools to sort in the top bar inventory.
Made some changes and fixes to our sound editor.
September development update
Hey Drifters,
Time for a quick development update! The ‘Architect’ has been hanging out on the experimental branch for a little while now, which gives us a chance to make sure all bugs are hunted out. :) Considering that patch has quite an impact behind-the-scenes, it’ll stay there for a little while longer until we’re confident that everything will run smoothly.
In the meantime, we are neck-deep in research and development, working on adding controller support to the game. We want to make sure it feels right to play on a controller and on the Steamdeck, and it’s also going to help us explore the possibility of bringing Flotsam to other platforms in the future. This is a big feature, which will take a while.
So, what’s next?
Once we've wrapped up the Architect Update, we’ll start testing out the controller support. After that we're turning our attention to an important issue: the absence of a tutorial. While it might not be as flashy as brand-new content, we’re ensuring everyone has a smooth onboarding experience. In the meantime, we're also looking at a simple farming system and fine-tuning the food pipeline.
0.7.5: The Architect is ready for testing!
0.7.5e1: The Architect
Hey Drifters, We've got a small update for you to test out: The Architect! We've heard your requests for the ability to relocate constructions and ways to restructure the town. It posed some interesting challenges and flabbergasted us for a while, given the game's setup, but we found a solution. Enter: The Architect! This specialist allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines, or just move some buildings around.
It's a highly experimental feature, and we're hoping to get some good feedback on it to iron out the kinks. Enjoy the update!
What's next?
This update will most likely be in experimental for some time, in the meantime we'll push some performance updates to it to further smooth out the gameplay.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Early Access 0.7.5e1: The Architect
The Architect
New Construction: Architect Station. The Architect station unlocks the 'Architect Mode'.
Added the 'Architect Mode', in this mode you can move or store buildings and thus re-structure the town.
Updated the tech tree to implement the Architect.
Added The Architect specialist.
Misc
Made some changes and fixes to our sound editor.
Updated shader editor.
0.7.4 QoL: Housing OUT NOW!
0.7.4: QoL: Housing
Hey Drifters! The Quality of Life: Housing update is here!
Changes to morale back in patch 0.6 unfortunately resulted in the removal of multi-drifter housing. However, we understand the importance to proper neighborhood building, so we set out to reintroduce it while keeping it in line with the new design. You now have the option to build solo and duo houses, as well as a boarding house that provides temporarily shelter to drifters.
Furthermore, we've implemented some other improvements, such as a small map movement update: Previously, clicking behind the boat on the map would cause the town to turn towards that location. However, we've made a change to make the town reverse to that spot instead. This option is in addition to reversing by holding both mouse buttons, and should smooth map movement.
What's next?
Next up is the Architect specialist! We've heard your requests for the ability to relocate constructions. It posed some challenges and had us flabbergasted for a while, given the game's setup, but we found a solution. Enter: the Architect, a specialist that allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines,... or simply move a few buildings around :)
Enjoy the new update!
Early Access 0.7.4: QoL: Housing
Version 0.7.4 is a small Quality of Life patch that updates housing and offers new housing options.
Housing
Changed housing constructions. Known houses are now: Solo Tent, Solo Shack, Solo Cottage.
Added new housing for two drifters at once: Duo Tent, Duo Shack, Duo Cottage.
Added new house: Boarding House. This house provides a home for 5 drifters but can not be upgraded.
Solo Cottage, Duo Shack and Duo Cottage have decoration slots on them.
Reworked all housing visuals.
You can now assign drifters to different houses.
Town Movement
Clicking behind the boat will now make the boat go in reverse instead of trying to rotate towards that location. This is in addition to holding both mouse buttons to reverse.
Animations
Added animation for the Recycler.
Added animation for the Toolmaker.
Added animation for the Doctor treating a patient.
Added animation for patients in Med Pods.
Added animation for the Apothecary.
Added animation for gathering dead wood.
Added animation for collecting landmark salvageables from the ground.
Fixed mishaps in reroll animations.
Reworked Cooking Reroll and Idle animation.
Reworked Research, Athletics and Construction Reroll animations.
Fixed some animation mishaps.
Misc
Shuffled construction categories a bit: There's now a 'housing' category and a 'storage' category. The 'Town Movement' category has been repurposed as a 'general/town' category.
Updated some constructions to create more readability.
Updated colors on some constructions to theme their purpose.
Added icons showing the width of each park.
Fishing Chair is now properly scaled at 6x2 as originally intended.
Various improvements to the performance.
You can now build upgrade constructions without building the base construction first.
Fixes
Decoration are now correctly rotated as shown in their preview when placed.
Drifters now stop constructing when it is night.
Fixed issue where upgrading would take as much time as building the construction from scratch.
Fixed issue where some particles didn't show.
Fixed issue where loading a save before a drifter died resulted in errors.
Fixed issue where loading a save where drifters were deconstructing caused them to sometimes get stuck.
Fixed issue where deconstructing a building lead to export inventories of producers to exceed their maximum, causing drifters that deconstruct it to get stuck.
Cancelled items now get moved to a producer's export inventory, resolving issues where items would either get lost or not be in the correct inventory.
Fixed issue where items of cancelled production projects would be stuck in the import inventory after a load because cancelled recipes were not persisted.
Fixed issue where processing a dead drifter would cause an error when assigning drifters to tasks.
Fixed issue where deconstructing a walkway could remove a pathfinding target and not allow the game to save anymore.
Fixed issue where drifter would not stop fishing while de fishing chair was deconstructed.
Fixed issue that caused constructions to stay in place when immediately deconstructing them after placing them.
Fixed issue that caused no paths to be found to decoration slots, causing stutters and making the plants appear instantaneously.
Fixed issue where animations could sometimes take much longer to salvage dead and fallen trees.
Fixed issue where the 1x1 park did not show an available decoration slot.
0.7.4: QoL: Housing is ready for testing!
0.7.4e1: QoL: Housing
Hey Drifters, We've got a small update for you to test out, an Quality of Life improvement to Housing! The changes to morale back in patch 0.6 unfortunately resulted in the removal of multi-drifter housing. However, we understand the importance to proper neighborhood building, so we set out to reintroduce it while keeping it in line with the new design. You now have the option to build solo and duo houses, as well as a boarding house that provides temporarily shelter to drifters.
Furthermore, we're testing out a small map movement improvement: Previously, clicking behind the boat on the map would cause the town to turn towards that location. However, we've made a change to make the town reverse to that spot instead. This option is in addition to reversing by holding both mouse buttons, and should smooth map movement.
What's next?
This update shouldn't be in experimental too long! After it, we're doing a test run for the 'Architect'. A specialist that will allow you to re-plan your entire town,.. or just move some buildings around.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Early Access 0.7.4e1: QoL: Housing
Version 0.7.4 is a small Quality of Life patch that updates housing and offers new housing options.
Housing
Changed housing constructions. Known houses are now: Solo Tent, Solo Shack, Solo Cottage.
Added new housing for two drifters at once: Duo Tent, Duo Shack, Duo Cottage.
Added new house: Boarding House. This house provides a home for 5 drifters but can not be upgraded.
Solo Cottage, Duo Shack and Duo Cottage have decoration slots on them.
Reworked all housing visuals.
You can now assign drifters to different houses.
Added new building category for housing to not clog the general town category.
Town Movement
Clicking behind the boat will now make the boat go in reverse instead of trying to rotate towards that location. This is in addition to holding both mouse buttons to reverse.
Animations
Added animation for the Recycler.
Added animation for the Toolmaker.
Added animation for the Doctor treating a patient.
Added animation for patients in Med Pods.
Added animation for the Apothecary.
Added animation for gathering dead wood.
Added animation for collecting landmark salvageables from the ground.
Fixed mishaps in reroll animations.
Reworked Cooking Reroll and Idle animation.
Reworked Research, Athletics and Construction Reroll animations.
Fixed some animation mishaps.
Misc
Updated some constructions to create more readability.
Updated colors on some constructions to theme their purpose.
Added icons showing the width of each park.
Fishing Chair is now properly scaled at 6x2 as originally intended.
Various improvements to the performance.
Watchtower and Radio have been moved to the 'Town Movement' category.
Fixes
Decoration are now correctly rotated as shown in their preview when placed.
Drifters now stop constructing when it is night.
0.7.3 Endless Journey OUT NOW!
0.7.3: Endless Journey
Hey Drifters! The Endless Journey update has arrived!
This update has been in the making for quite some time, fine-tuning procedural and hand-crafted maps, testing various aspects like map feel, progression, town movement and more. With that, we're delighted to finally present the final version of the world map and the town movement! You can now travel eastward continuously forever, no limits!
What's next?
The Quality of Life: Housing update, featuring multi-drifter housing and other improvements, was temporarily postponed to prioritize this update. Now that 0.7.3 is live, we're shifting our focus back to the QoL update.
Enjoy the new update!
Early Access 0.7.3: Endless Journey
Version 0.7.3 introduces the 'Endless Journey', allowing continuous eastward movement without limits!
Endless Journey
Implemented an endless map, where you can continuously move eastwards. This consists of continuous multiple hand-crafted tiles.
Created various map tiles and map starting tiles.
Removed the option to start in the handmade or procedural map, as these are no longer relevant.
Map
Added table and paper map visuals to the map view.
Plastic, Wood and Seaweed Map visuals now are scaled based on the amount of resources in them.
Map landmarks now lose color and gradually turn grey/sepia when salvaged instead of spawning a green flag when empty.
Added scouting markers above marked landmarks.
Generators and Books will now be marked by rescued drifters as well.
Various map visual polish and fixes.
Scouting regions now scout regions on subsequent tiles.
Landmarks
Added Shops landmarks: Electronics Store, Bike Shop, Book Shop. These have a low chance to appear in the Rural Ruins.
Added restaurant landmark, a Rural Ruins food landmark providing a smaller amount of food.
Added many variations to existing landmarks.
Added twigs to some Polluted Wood landmarks that provide Firewood.
Fixed issue where selection circle would not appear around selected landmarks.
Misc
Various fixes and tweaks to landmarks.
Various small tweaks to the map.
Updated landmark names and descriptions.
Balancing
Batteries storage 1.500 Eels -> 1.000 Eels.
Townheart Beauty 25 -> 50.
Removed negative liquids stat for thirsty drifters. Added negative liquids stats to hungry drifters. Reduced severity of hunger.
having -10 Morale will now cause 0% levelling speed for those drifters.
Performance
Increased performance for particles.
Removed unnecessary particles.
Fixes
Fixed issue with drifters getting stuck after upgrading walkway pontons with electricity poles on them.
Fixed issue with map landmarks not properly turning gray/sepia.
Fixed crash caused by cleaning up landmarks when going to main menu.
Fixed a mushroom landmark not being reachable by boat.
Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck unloading a construction before upgrading.
Fixed issue where loading a save would crash when the town's polygon collider was updated.
Fixed bug where doctor and patient would get stuck when patient would be cured because the disease time expired while the patient was still in the MedPod.
Fixed bug where turning the MedPod off would not cancel all projects related to the MedPod (would not eject the patient).
Fixed bug where loading a procedural save would result in the map borders not being setup correctly.
Fixed issue with loading a save that has a death drifter still in the community. This could result in an instant Game Over on loading the game.
Fixed issue where returning to an unsaved drifter on a rescue landmark would cause an error.
Fixed issues with newly added simplified and traditional Chinese characters.
Fixed issue where NavMeshNavigator wasn't repositioned correctly after loading a save with a drifter on a landmark.
Fixed Navigator errors when moving drifter navigator after moving the town.
Fixed bug where game could not be saved when Landmarks that had been saved gained additional actions.
Restored morale need cap to 10.
Fixed frozen flotsam rotation.
Fixed map road and region lines intersecting, causing z-fighting.
Fixed park tiling issue.
0.7.3: Endless Journeys ready for testing!
0.7.3e1: Endless Journey
Hey Drifters, We've got a new update for you to test out; The Endless Journey! With the work done testing and tweaking the handcrafted maps over the last few patches, we've combined the procedural and handcrafted maps into one continuous experience. You can now move endlessly eastward moving along various handcrafted tiles.
What's next?
With the addition of the endless map, we're moving forward with the features that build upon it. In the meantime, a Quality of Life: Housing update will add multi-drifter housing, as well as other small patches coming in 0.7.x.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Changelog
Early Access 0.7.3e1: Endless Journey
Endless Journey
Implemented an endless map, where you can continuously move eastwards. This consists of multiple hand-crafted tiles put behind each other.
Created various map tiles and map starting tiles.
Removed the option to start in the handmade or procedural map, as these are no longer relevant.
Landmarks
Added Shops landmarks: Electronics Store, Bike Shop, Book Shop. These have a low chance to appear in the Rural Ruins.
Added restaurant landmark, a Rural Ruins food landmark providing a smaller amount of food.
Misc and Balancing
Various fixes and tweaks to landmarks.
Various variations for landmarks added.
Various small tweaks to the map.
Batteries storage 1.500 Eels -> 1.000 Eels.
0.7.2p3
Hey Drifters!
After an extensive amount of testing on the experimental branch, we've implemented walkway upgrades and fixed a plethora of issues :)
Early Access 0.7.2p1, 0.7.2p2, 0.7.2p3
Walkways
Walkways can now be upgraded. Plastic -> Wood -> Tiled -> Grass.
Walkway segments now decide cost, have beauty and weight instead of the pontoons.
Balanced costs, beauty and weight of walkways.
Increased beauty of the Townheart 15 -> 25.
Fixed issue with deconstructing walkways resulting in stuck drifters and stuck walkways.
Upgrading Grass walkways will result in a Tiled walkway, and vice versa. This does not cost resources.
Fixes
Fixed issue where dead drifters would still need a home.
Fixed issue where upgrading a producer with the required items to upgrade would be in that producer's export inventory, would bug out the upgrade process.
Fixed issue where constructions with decoration slot did not have a description.
Fixed issue with wrong amount of water shown in water storages.
Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck when loading a save when his boat was still moored at a landmark.
Fixed issue where drying racks would not always show the resources being dried.
You can no longer right-click to remove water from Solar Stills.
Fixed issue where drifter portraits reverted to their default pose when opening the menu when the game was paused.
Fixed issue where producers did not show an error when their export inventory was unable to be emptied.
Fixed issue where a walkway wouldn't build.
Fixed issue where you could no longer plant any decoration.
Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck inside plants.
Fixed issue where save file couldn't load due to a broken plant.
Fixed issue causing drifters to get stuck when upgrading a construction.
0.7.2 The Engineer is OUT NOW!
0.7.2: The Engineer
Hey Drifters! The Engineer update is here!
With the recent addition of parks and flowers, the current build radius quickly got too small. So, with this patch, we're changing up how building space and town movement works! Previously, a radius defined how close your town can move to landmarks, but now it's now based on your town's actual shape. This means that, if you build your town in the shape of a triangle, you'll be moving a triangle around on the map. If you decide to make a squiggly wave of a town, you can slither inbetween landmarks like a snake. All up to you!
In addition, the max building range has been increased from 50 to 150, allowing you to build 9 times as much as before.
What's next?
We're still working on the next map updates, forging it into a continuous experience. In the meantime, a Quality of Life: Housing update will add multi-drifter housing and other various improvements.
Enjoy the new update!
Early Access 0.7.2: The Engineer
The Engineer and Town Movement changes
New Specialist: The Engineer.
Updated town collision to use the town shape as a collider.
Implemented Physics-based town movement.
Maximum build radius increased from 50 to 150.
Town now has a weight cap. Once the cap is reached, you can no longer build.
New construction: Town Tugger. The Town Tugger adds 2000 weight capacity.
The Townheart has 4000 weight capacity.
Weight tiers are now based on a percentage of the total weight capacity.
Removed double-click town movement.
Improved click-and-hold movement to now support reverse movement.
Energy Pole, Walkways and the Town Tugger can be placed regardless of weight capacity.
Town Weight is now calculated using the sum of all constructions, not counting items any longer.
Construction weight is no longer calculated from item weights.
Re-balanced all construction weights.
New Overlay: Weight Overlay. This shows the weight above each construction.
Added a tutorial showing different ways to move the town.
Town movement now has a cooldown when 0 energy is reached.
Electrocrafter, Electric Scrapsmith and Electric Desalinator can only be unlocked if you have an engineer.
The Electrocrafter can only be worked by The Engineer.
Fixes
Fixed landmark UI error where it would state you're not in swimming range when you needed tools to salvage.
Fixed issue where main menu would not load correctly because PlayerData was empty, resulting in the main menu consisting of only ocean.
Fixed a 4 length tiled walkway sometimes showing as a grassy walkway instead.
Fixed issue that caused a boat to not despawn correctly when moving away from the landmark it was moored.
Fixed issue where closing a landmark panel would spawn an error.
Fixed issue where game would give an error when generating a new world.
Performance
General performance improvements.
Misc
Added Engineer and Botanist idle animations.
Various small changes and fixes.
Wood walkways beauty score from 1 to 0.
Grassy and Tiled walkway beauty score from 2 to 1.
0.7.2: The Engineer now ready for testing!
0.7.2e1: The Engineer
Hey Drifters, We've got a new update to test out; The Engineer! With the recent addition of parks and flowers, the current build radius quickly got too small. So, with this patch, we're changing up how building space and town movement works. Instead of a circle defining how near your town can move to landmarks, it's now based on your town's actual shape. If you build your town in the shape of a triangle, you'll be moving a triangle around on the map. If you decide to make a squiggly wave of a town, you can slither inbetween landmarks like a snake. All up to you!
In addition, the max building range has been increased from 50 to 150, allowing you to build 9 times as much as before.
What's next?
We're working towards 'finishing' the work we did with handmade maps, and forging it into a more continuous experience, increasing the map size. We'll be rolling out some tests after this patch goes live.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Changelog
Early Access 0.7.2e1: The Engineer
The Engineer and Town movement changes
New Specialist: The Engineer.
Updated town collision to use the town shape as a collider.
Implemented Physics-based town movement.
Maximum build radius increased from 50 to 150.
Town now has a weight cap. Once the cap is reached, you can no longer build.
Townheart adds 3000 weight tugging capacity.
New construction: Town Tugger. The Town Tugger adds 1000 weight capacity.
Weight tiers are now based on a percentage of the total tug capacity.
Removed double-click town movement.
Fixes
Fixed issue where closing a landmark panel would spawn an error.
Fixed issue where game would give an error when generating a new world.
