What's next?

Changes

Regions

• Added 4 Regions to the game; the Polluted Woods, Rural Ruins, Highways and City regions.Created new landmarks for each region.
  
• Created new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for each region
  
• Added a scouting landmark for three regions; Watchtower for the Polluted Woods, Church for the Rural Ruins and Skyscraper for the City.
  
• Regions can now be revealed by using the scouting landmarks.
  
• Added a handmade world map with all regions.
  
• Added a choice between handmade map (regions) and random spawning (0.4.2 and down) game modes when starting a new game. Regions will only be present in the handmade map for the time being.
  
• Adjusted the World Map visuals to correctly reflect the region.
  
• You can now use the arrow keys to move around on the World Map and sail freely.
  
• You can now toggle camera and movement on the World Map, allowing you to move using WASD.
  
• You can now click to a location and the town will move there.
  
• You can now click and hold to move your town to your cursor.
  
• You now bump into landmarks on the map. You can not go closer than your building radius.
  
• Landmarks show their boundaries on the map.
  
• Buoy markers and landmark projects will no longer be cancelled upon World Map movement. This will only occur once they breach interactable radius.
  
• Added a visual to indicate where drifters will moor onto landmarks in the map view.
  
• A radial menu showing energy has been added around the townheart on the map so you can quickly glance at remaining energy.
  

Behind the Scenes

• Worked on the World Editor, allowing us to craft a handmade map.
  
• Added region functionality to the World Editor.
  
• Added underwater highway functionality to the World Editor. This was used to test if underwater roads can lead players to city regions.
  
• Made and improved landmark creation and testing tools, allowing us to more rapidly create landmarks.
  
• Improved Salvageable and Non-Interactable prop handling, allowing leftover pieces and unique animations.
  
• Made tools to balance each region's resources.
  
• Correctly textured and re-imported older props, increasing performance but destroying older saves in the process.
  
• Fixed input handling. Key-binds for each player will be reset upon playing 5.0 and up.
  
• Adjusted how camera dragging works.
  

Visuals

• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the City region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the City region.
  
• Remade the Solar Still visual
  
• Landmark Map Visuals now scale with camera movement.
  
• Energy bar will now pulse when you're low on energy.
  
• Re-implemented flag that shows completed landmarks so players can properly see it from a distance.
  
• Fixed missing resource visuals that showed as pink in-game.
  
• Increased shadow resolution on high(er) quality settings.
  
• Added an animation for drifters picking up resources while swimming.
  

Balancing

• Rebalanced the entire game to smoothly work with new region functionality.
  
• Fishing Chair now handles fish per region and does not require you to be near a fishing spot.
  
• Drifters will now only be able to catch bottled fish when using the fishing chair. This change has been made in tandem with the daily limit that can be set on the fishing chair so the limit can be linked to cooking recipe requirements.
  
• Map movement now costs 2/3 as many Eels.
  

Fixes

• Various fixes were made to be able to correctly implement all new features.
  
• Fixed issue where boats could be linked to multiple mooring points.
  
• Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a LandmarkBehavior reference not being restored properly.
  
• Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a bug with Energy producers.
  
• Fixed issue where arrow keys could not be bound as input
  
• Fixed issue where boats would moor at a mooring point to which they were not linked after loading a saved game.
  
• Fixed issue where region jump button was deactivated after loading a saved procedural game.
  
• Fixed issue where agents that were no longer on any pathfinding graph would be lost forever.
  
• Fixed bug where seagulls would not salvage Floaters from plastic patches.
  
• Fixed annoyance where drifters would fish all day long in the fishing chair. It is now possible to set a daily limit for fish caught in the fishing chair.
  
• Fixed issue where on low resolutions the main menu could get obfuscated by the road map visual.
  

Misc

• Removed experimental camera as it was no longer worth it to update it during development.
  
• Removed cost per mile from World Map HUD as the information became obsolete with the new map.
  
• Removed resource counters and population counter from the HUD.
  

What's next?

How do I test this update?

Patch Notes

Regions

• Added 4 Regions to the game; the Polluted Woods, Rural Ruins, Highways and City regions.
  
• Created new landmarks for each region.
  
• Created new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for each region
  
• Added a scouting landmark for three regions; Watchtower for the Polluted Woods, Church for the Rural Ruins and Skyscraper for the City.
  
• Regions can now be revealed by using the scouting landmarks.
  
• Added a handmade overworld map with all regions.
  
• Added a choice between handmade map (regions) and random spawning (0.4.2 and down) game modes when starting a new game.
  
• Adjusted the Overworld view's map visuals to correctly reflect the region.
  
• You can now use WASD to move around on the Overworld view and sail freely.
  
• Buoy markers and landmark projects will no longer be cancelled upon overworld movement. This will only occur once they breach interactable radius.
  
• Rebalanced the entire game to smoothly work with new region functionality.
  
• Fishing Chair now handles fish per region and does not require you to be near a fishing spot.
  

Behind the Scenes

• Worked on the World Editor, allowing us to craft a handmade map.
  
• Added region functionality to the World Editor.
  
• Added underwater highway functionality to the World Editor. This was used to test if underwater roads can lead players to city regions.
  
• Made and improved landmark creation and testing tools, allowing us to more rapidly create landmarks.
  
• Improved Salvageable and Non-Interactable prop handling, allowing leftover pieces and unique animations.
  
• Made tools to balance each region's resources.
  
• Correctly textured and re-imported older props, increasing performance but destroying older saves in the process.
  
• Fixed input handling. Key-binds for each player will be reset upon playing 5.0 and up.
  
• Adjusted how camera dragging works.
  

Visuals

• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the City region. (unfinished)
  
• Made new Landmarks for the City region. (unfinished)
  
• Remade the Solar Still visual
  

Fixes

• Various fixes were made to be able to correctly implement all new features.
  

Energy

• If an energy grid has energy storage available, generators will now start producing energy when the energy grid falls below a certain threshold. This threshold can be set per generator in both the building panel and energy grid overview.
  
• Drifters will no longer jump out of the manual generators when another project has higher priority. This would cause them to get stuck running back and forth between a generator and a workshop that required energy.
  
• The Oil-Powered Generator now has a higher priority than the Wood-Powered Generator.
  
• Improved readability in energy grid overview.
  
• You can now select buildings from the energy grid overview.
  
• Added tooltip to maximum inventory slider in the item generator panel.
  

Fixes

• Fixed workshops not always showing they are turned off in the energy grid overview.
  
• Fixed energy grid overview having small discrepancies in power production / consumption totals due to rounding.
  
• Fixed energy overview overlapping with borders when adding too many buildings.
  

Early Access 0.4.2

Building Grid

• Buildings where you can build at (such as the townheart and walkways) now generate a grid on each of their attachable edges where buildings snap to.
  
• Buildings will now show their grids when building around them.
  
• Grid visibility and Snapping functionality can both be disabled with 2 toggles found in the building menu.
  
• Walkways now display their boundaries.
  
• A visual is added for the propeller blocking buildings on the Townheart.
  

Building Improvements

• Added a collision tolerance. This will reduce edge cases where it looked like you could build somewhere, but couldn't due to a small overlap.
  
• While placing a construction, it will now align next to another construction.
  
• Walkways are now built one segment at a time. You can hold shift or set a shortcut to continuously place walkways.
  
• Walkways now show building buoys when they are placed and ready for construction.
  
• Walkway lines will now look for the closest intersecting building it can hook to. This makes for more natural snapping.
  
• Walkway integrity has been added, this means that walkways are no longer able to be deconstructed when it would cause a part of the town to become disconnected from the Townheart.
  
• Individual walking segments can now be deconstructed.
  
• Reduced the snapping distance when building.
  
• Buildings marked for deconstruction will now display building lines around them.
  
• Producers will no longer wait for their recipes to finish before being deconstructed. This means that drifters will immediately stop working and the construction will be marked for deconstruction.
  

Misc

• Producer recipes can now be cancelled, even if they are currently being produced.
  
• Overhauled the visual of the building radius.
  

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where a walkway could snap further than it's allowed angle if it snapped to another walkway.
  
• Fixed building buttons not starting a new construction when pressed.
  
• Fixed additional electricity grids being made when salvaging a building and cancelling it. This could cause certain buildings to never receive power, such as the research station, and thus not getting worked by drifters.
  
• Fixed floating worker position in the Unbottler.
  
• Fixed drifter name tags not updating correctly after reloading.
  
• Fixed bullet points not displaying in the update notes.
  

Behind the scenes

• We decentralized the building so we can more easily test it in a separate environment.
  

Recent Updates

Building Placement

Survival Guide

Polluted Fishies

Eel-Ectricity

Upgrade System

Scouting Update

The Crew Update

Quality of Life v2

Have you ever seen paper??

Gull-friend Update

Quality of Life v1

The World Update

Community Feedback Update

Hey drifters,

Early Access 0.4.1p5e1

Building Improvements

• Buildings that can be built at (such as the townheart and walkways) now generate a grid on each of their attachable edges where buildings snap to.
  
• You can choose to build gridless by holding control.
  
• Buildings will now show their grids when building around them.
  
• Added a collision tolerance. This will reduce edge cases where it looked like you could build somewhere, but couldn't due to a small overlap.
  
• Walkways are now built one segment at a time. You can hold shift or set a shortcut to continuously place walkways.
  
• Walkways now display their boundaries.
  
• Walkways now show building buoys when they are placed and ready for construction.
  
• Walkway lines will now look for the closest intersecting building it can hook to. This makes for more natural snapping.
  
• Reduced the snapping distance when building.
  

Fixes

• Buildings can no longer be built intersecting with a walkway.
  
• Fixed an issue where a walkway could snap further than it's allowed angle if it snapped to another walkway.
  

Behind the scenes

• We decentralized the building so we can more easily test it in a separate environment.
  

Hey drifters,

Early Access 0.4.1p4

• Updated / removed older pages of the survival guide that were no longer relevant / out of date.
  
• Added functionality for linking to the survival guide. These links are usually marked with a book icon. Clicking these will open the survival guide on the relevant page.
  
• Added a search bar to the survival guide.
  
• Added a button to go back to the previous page you were on.
  
• Made the survival guide smaller so that you can still see your town when you open it.
  
• The survival guide can now be dragged.
  
• Opening the survival guide no longer pauses the game.
  
• Added pre-generated pages for all the buildings in the game. These pages include extra info per building type, such as recipes, storage space, etc.
  
• Added pre-generated pages for all the resources in the game. These pages have info such as weight, pollution, where they are produced, etc.
  
• Added pre-generated pages for all the drifter backgrounds in the game.
  
• Added pre-generated pages for all the drifter attributes in the game.
  
• The survival guide is now constructed out of config files.
  

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where certain characters in the non-Roman alphabet would show as squares.
  
• Fixed Early Access "Ok" button having the wrong color.
  

Saves

• Saves are now stored per town / community in a folder.
  
• If you start your game with the old save file storage, a migration tool will move your saves to the correct folder structure. If there are any communities with the same name, they'll be placed in the same folder. This operation will only move files, not delete them.
  
• Due to the new folder structure, new towns may not have the same name as any saved town.
  
• Added a button to the main menu to continue your latest save.
  
• The load menu now shows all your towns, and the save files related to them.
  
• Instead of showing playtime on a save, a save now displays how many days you've survived instead. Older saves will show 0 days until saved in this version.
  
• Saves now display their size and file name as well.
  
• Added a button to open your save folder in file explorer.
  
• The pause menu now has a load button where you can load up older saves, or a different town.
  
• The pause menu now has a "Save As" button that displays all the saves of your current town. Here you can make a save file, or overwrite an existing save.
  
• The pause menu now has a "Save" button which will overwrite the most recent save of this town.
  
• The save overwrite prompt now warns you which save you're about to overwrite.
  
• Auto-saves are now made at the end of each day, instead of every 10 minutes. A maximum amount can still be set in the options menu, and the oldest auto-save will be overwritten if you exceed the set number.
  

Changes / Fixes

• Updated fonts so they switch colors correctly in different languages.
  
• Fixed save not loading if the resources on a landmark were changed and a drifter was in the process of salvaging it.
  

Balancing

• Reduced fishing time of drifters using the fishing chair.
  
• Slightly reduced drying times for Dried Bottlefish and Dried Unbottled Fish.
  
• Increased amount of starting food.
  
• Polluted drifters now lose all pollution when sleeping through Microbe-Plastics
  

Early Access 0.4.1: Polluted Fishies

New Pollution Mechanic

• Edible items now have a pollution amount.
  
• Drifters can get gradually polluted.
  
• Drifters that reach full pollution contract a disease.
  
• Added disease: Microbe-Plastics. Drifters that contracted Microbe-Plastics will be bedridden for a duration.
  
• Pollution is shown on drifter overview portraits.
  
• Items that are polluted will have a color that reflects how polluting they are.
  
• Added a survival guide page on Pollution & Disease.
  

New Polluted Fishies

• Added three new polluted fishes: Bottle Fish, Oil Gobbler & Bloated Flounder.
  
• Fishing now fishes up random fish. The odds of fishing better fish will increase as you clean up the ocean.
  
• Added Seaweed Sheet, which is used as an ingredient in certain food recipes.
  
• Added the Fishing Chair, where drifters can fish in the town. They'll fish up any fish in the swimming radius.
  
• Added the Unbottler, where bottled fish can be unbottled to reduce pollution. This building requires energy and has the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Fish.
  
• The Chop Shop no longer has the Bird Chow recipe, but it did gain the following recipe:
  
• Seaweed Sheet.
  
• Added the Fishwasher, where polluted fish can be cleaned and prepped. It has the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Filet.
  
• Gobbler Filet.
  
• Flounder Filet.
  
• Bird Chow.
  
• Re-introduced the Fish Sticks. It has the following recipes:
  
• Dried Bottle Fish.
  
• Dried Unbottled Fish.
  
• The recipes in the Fish Kabob have been changed to the following recipes:
  
• Grilled Gobbler.
  
• Grilled gobbler Filet.
  
• Grilled Flounder.
  
• The recipes in the Food Truck have been changed to the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Roll.
  
• Gobbler Roll.
  
• Quarter Flounder.
  
• Temporarily removed the Fishing Hut.
  
• The amount of pollution on food can be found in the item tooltip.
  

Research

• Certain research is now locked behind other research.
  
• Slightly reduced cost of Research Station, as it comes into play sooner now.
  
• Empty categories no longer show in research panel.
  
• Chop Shop, Battery, Scrapsmith and Watchtower are now behind research.
  
• Added research images to more construction research projects.
  

Balance Tweaks

• Weight tiers now affect energy requirement more gradually then before.
  
• Energy mileage has been increased which means less energy needed for the same distances.
  
• Reduced amount of food you start with.
  
• Reduced cost of Energy Pole.
  
• Reduced metal cost of the Seaweed Grower.
  

Performance Optimizations

• Reduced memory allocation of certain UI elements. This should reduce stuttering.
  
• Reduced memory allocation of animations. This should reduce stuttering.
  

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the drying rack would work at twice the speed it should.
  
• Fixed Captain's Log not showing the energy production and consumption correctly.
  
• Fixed error spam when a building with inventory visuals got deconstructed or upgraded.
  
• Fixed fuel requirement still showing in the research window.
  
• Fixed description of drifters producing energy.
  
• Fixed an issue where fish would show in salvage markers.
  
• Fixed an issue where the movement button on the map would not update when the set path became available.
  
• Fixed research panel not updating the next available research when research completed.
  
• Fixed research panel unlock button not updating when research was completed.
  
• Fixed warnings not disappearing when a drifter died.
  
• Fixed battery meters not updating on load.
  
• Fixed an issue where drifters would swap between electricty generators every 30 seconds.
  
• Fixed storages not being able to accept newly added items.
  
• Fixed an issue where the walkway segment status would throw an error and not update to the correct value.
  
• Fixed some Chinese characters showing as boxes.
  

Misc.

• Added generator storage visual.
  
• Changed item color backgrounds: Polluted items are now purple. Rare and Crafted items are now the same green.
  
• Updated the item tooltips improve color background visibility, and tweaked layouts to fit them.
  
• New icon backgrounds added to landmark, marker, production panels.
  
• The item tooltip now shows the weight of an item.
  
• Added movement cost back to the map.
  
• The movement button on the map now always shows, but will be disabled when you cannot move to a set point.
  
• Added warning for hunger / thirst.
  
• Drifters will now always prioritize the Manual-Powered Generator over the Townheart Crank.
  
• The salvaging attribute will now change the priority of landmark salvaging as well, instead of only changing the priority of the salvaging assignment.
  

Behind the Scenes

• Created a manual world editor to provide testing grounds for future patches.
  
• Added functionality to add images in text, which will be used for clarity in the future.
  
• Changed the way we store item information in the back-end, reducing the amount of bugs around drifters not eating.
  

Experimental Changes

• Added remaining storage visuals for certain fishes.
  
• Fixed Unbottler missing an energy overlay.
  
• Fixed Unbottled Roll referencing a missing term.
  
• Fixed daily report not counting consumed water.
  
• Fixed old saves with Nibble Fish breaking workshops.
  
• Fixed Unbottled Fish & Unbottled Filet having swapped resource visuals.
  
• Fixed plastic counter not displaying the right amount of Plastic Waste.