We have just patched the game to version 0.3.2 to fix the following reported issues:
Fixed an issue causing campfire cooking spots to float in air
Fixed an issue causing iceboxes max limit to not work
Fixed an issue causing mapping to not work by walking in locations
Fixed an issue causing terrains to disappear in certain positions
Fixed an issue causing inventory to break if an item decays while time is passing
Fixed an issue causing arrows to get stuck in their own collider rather than animals
Fixed an issue causing pelts to not persist when loading a save
Fixed an issue causing craftbench to break with toolless crafting
Fixed an issue with arrow pickable collision box
Thanks to everyone for the support and see you in game!
Dev Diary 1 - Open World Sale & Performance Improvements
Greetings everyone and welcome to our first Developer Diary! First of all, we are happy to announce that Northern Lights is now part of the Steam Open World Sale for a limited time! Check our STEAM Page below for a 30% OFF discount:
We have also issued an update to solve some performance and compatibility problems related to certain PC configurations. Full changelog below!
With the new optimizations in place, we observed up to double the framerate on certain AMD GPUs (low & mid-end Polaris/RX500 and Navi/RX5000 architectures). and as a side effect, we also observed a boost in performance on pre-RTX series Nvidia graphics cards (1000 series and lower!)
0.3.1 Changelog
Improved performance for AMD Radeon and older Nvidia GTX graphics cards.
Improved overall memory usage of the game.
Updated engine to Unity2019.4 to solve some memory corruption issues related to AMD Ryzen CPUs.
Fixed some UI issues.
Fixed some rendering issues.
Fixed some input system & rebinding issues.
Another thing that we wanted to mention is that we have started working on overhauling and polishing the main mechanics of the game! This will bring a lot of quality of life changes in both core mechanics such as the health or inventory systems, as well as side mechanics such as interactables, fishing & hunting systems etc.
Along with these changes, our 3d artist and our animator worked on creating a higher quality, more detailed, hands model, along with brand new animations for most of the in-game actions, for that extra immersion!
Also, we started to add some features that we had planned for a long time but we had to postpone due to time and budget constraints.
While there is not much we can show for now, we will keep everyone posted in the future dev diaries!
As always, we want to thank everyone for the support and feedback! And as Northern Lights is still an Early Access title, we encourage everyone to get in touch with us over Discord or Steam Community about potential issues or ideas!
Spring Update: New World, Performance Improvements, Better Nature loot and More!
The Spring Major Update for Northern Lights is now LIVE on STEAM! And to celebrate its release we are offering a -25% discount on the Steam Store for a limited time! To learn more about the discount, check out our Steam Page.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1090800/ A lot of work and effort has been put into all the features and changes that made it into this update, and such, we want to outline a few of the important ones. So without further ado:
We heard you! Based on the feedback we've received, we redesigned the whole world of our game to be more fun to explore and feel less like a walking simulator while maintaining the core experience of the game! More vegetation, less empty space, better design and more intuitive navigation, the new world has it all!
The new island also spans a vast road system that connects the big locations. Got lost? Just find a road and follow it, maybe you will reach civilization!
The addition of location signs across the world also means that there is no more wandering around in nature without finding anything! Road signs can be taken as hints to what you'll find at the end of your journey!
The caves scattered around the island also got redesigned from ground up, with brand new assets, extra detail, and better level design. No more plain corridors with nothing to see around!
On top of that, we also added new ambiance and detail sounds to caves for that extra immersion!
The new world also comes with improved loot spawning! This means that it will be easier to find natural resources in places where they should be.
We have also introduced group spawning, meaning that you can find more resources of a kind in a location that is rich in a given resource. This is still a work-in-progress feature and we will keep improving it with the next updates based on your feedback!
Performance just got better! We've made sure to fix a big chunk of the freezes & hiccups that were occurring during playthrough (some we are still looking into though), as well as to improve the general performance of the game.
The scalability of the graphics settings and the performance in relation to hardware was also addressed, meaning that changing the settings will actually make a difference in performance now!
Along with the big changes, we have also improved and fixed the following:
Added camera warm filters in interiors
Added an extra ping in intro quest to facilitate navigation to the objective through blizzard
Added back some missing audio lines to some dialogues
Added some new sounds to water, vegetation and caves
Improvements to animal and loot spawning balance
Improvements to sound design
Improvements to world survey mechanics
Fixed various issues with herb spawning
Fixed various issues with graphics
Fixed various issues with interactables
Fixed various issues with UI
Fixed various issues with quests and objectives
Fixed an issue causing some particle effects to tank performance
Fixed an issue causing credits to be unskippable upon finishing the story
We are also aware of all the issues that have been reported during the past few weeks. Unfortunately due to the sheer amount of work that has been put into making this update possible, we were unable to look into those issues in time for this release. We will investigate and solve them as soon as possible!
Be aware! Old saves will still work, however, we strongly recommend starting a new game if possible as some data from the old map will not be carried over with the save upgrade, and certain aspects of the play-through might break. And as a side note, it is still possible to access the v0.2 version of the game by accessing Library/NorthernLights/Properties/Betas and selecting the legacy_v0.2 branch!
As always, we want to thank everyone for the support and feedback! And as Northern Lights is still an Early Access title, we encourage everyone to get in touch with us over Discord or Steam Community about potential issues or ideas!
UPDATE 0.2.2 and our ROADMAP for Future Updates
We are happy to announce that Northern Lights version 0.2.2 is now LIVE on STEAM! This version is focusing on bug-fixing, as well as improving the overall user experience.
Item selector now display required tools when no suitable item in inventory
Blizzards now start as a regular snowfalls and progress to blizzard rather than starting abruptly
Tool/melee items no longer require tool for mending
Added more rifles and ammo through world
Removed wetness from some fuel items
Improved compass usability
Fixed an issue causing farmstead house to have stairs blocked
Fixed an issue causing ski resort hotel to have missing floors
Fixed an issue causing farmstead barn doors to not work correctly
Fixed an issue causing condensed milk to not display as consumable
Fixed an issue causing placed pelts to not save
Fixed an issue causing wrong scaling in some interfaces containing sliders and toggles
Fixed an issue causing item slots to display blank white texture instead of descriptor icon when selecting items
Tweaked curing pelts duration values
Tweaked hit boxes of Fox
Tweaked campfire requirements
Tweaked thermos temperature decay rate
P.S. We are still investigating an issue related to surveying that is causing some locations to not get detected by survey while in proximity. If anyone still encounters the issue, please let us know in the Report A Bug community section and provide a log file as explained in the sticky thread of the section.
Northern Lights Development Roadmap
We are also happy to announce that our new Roadmap is here! As we promised in the previous posts, we have created a new roadmap containing our development plans for Northern Lights. Full roadmap and details available below.
Improved Game World – A new, compact and beautiful island. Locations will stay in the same place, but the island will be manually shaped by us in a more effective and intuitive way.
Mechanics, UI & Sandbox – We are remaking the whole game core to be simpler while also remaining challenging. Interface will also be completely changed. You will stay less in menus and more in the unforgiving nature! Last but not least, the Unlimited Survival game-mode will finally make its appearance.
Graphics Overhaul – We are working on upgrading the graphics renderer of our game, which will allow for better graphics and more optimization, with the added possibility of integrating raytracing effects at a later point.
Release & CO-OP Mode – Q4 will mark the end of Early Access and will be dedicated to the transition to Full Release, as well as to bringing the CO-OP mode to life. Survive in the harsh Siberian wilderness together with up to 4 players in the most awaited feature, the co-op game-mode.
Thank you for reading and for all your support and understanding!
Northern Lights Patch - 0.2.1 NOW LIVE!
We are happy to announce that Northern Lights version 0.2.1 is now LIVE on STEAM!
Changelog 0.2.1
Overhaul of binoculars mechanics to be more intuitive. Surveying now works automatically when looking through binoculars, if there is a location in sight.
Fixed an issue causing decimals to show on fire time left
Fixed an issue causing Military Bunker to break post processing upon leaving location
Fixed an issue causing Military Bunker Quest to sometimes freeze character for a while before starting
Fixed an issue causing Military Bunker Quest to sometimes not trigger the ending objective
Fixed an issue causing some wooden floors to not allow placing things on them
Fixed an issue causing 0% condition items to not disappear from inventory
P.S. We are still investigating an issue related to surveying that is causing some locations to not get detected by survey while in proximity. If anyone still encounters the issue, please let us know in the Report A Bug community section and provide a log file as explained in the sticky thread of the section.
Note
We want to remind everyone that Northern Lights is in its Early Access stage so there might still be a lot of bugs to be ironed and a lot balancing to be done.
Because of this, we encourage everyone to use the Report A Bug button found in the Game Menus in order to reach to us about possible issues! Also don't forget to join our Community and Discord Server where we have chats dedicated for feedback and new ideas!
Thank you for reading and for all your support and understanding!
Northern Lights Hotfix - 0.2.0p1 NOW LIVE!
Hello everyone!
We just pushed a small hotfix addressing 2 game-breaking issues that have been reported after the release of 0.2.0!
Here is what's new:
Fixed issue that was causing climbing ladders to freeze the game
Fixed issue that was causing water to get stuck in pots when melting snow
Sorry for any inconveniences these might have created, and thanks for understanding!
Northern Lights Update - 0.2.0 NOW LIVE!
Hello everybody!
We are happy to announce that Northern Lights version 0.2.0 is now LIVE on STEAM.
This is our first major update, which is focusing on improving stability and core functionality of the game, along with various fixes to issues that have been reported by the community.
We are also aware that the development pace seems a bit slow between the updates but we want to remind everyone that there is a lot of work involved in fixing and improving the game, and we are only three developers working on the game full time!
Changelog 0.2.0
Added support for changing control bindings. (and preparation for future controller support)
Added support for inverted mouse look settings.
Added support for metric-imperial unit conversion .
Added support for skipping cutscenes in game.
Major improvements to AI performance and spawning count.
Major improvements to ground loot spawning count.
Major improvements to footstep sounds.
Major improvements to world streaming & unloading performance.
Major improvements to snow rendering at night.
Major improvements to overal interactibility with world objects.
Mending and shredding are different UI panels now.
Fishing yields smaller fish more often now.
It is possible to take all items in a storage structure at once now.
It is possible to craft the max possible ammount of a blueprint, as a separate craft button.
Map opens focused on the player location rather than centered now.
Map also displays location names under the icons now.
Quests display heads up notifications when starting or updating now.
Stats on HUD now blink red when too low.
Fires now display their burning time left when hovering mouse on them.
Improvements to River Village locked house's mechanics & loot.
Tweaked carcass harvesting tool decay values.
Tweaked bonfire warmth bonus.
Fixed issue causing nature objects to not disappear when harvested. (branches, trunks etc.)
Fixed issue causing looting to not work correclty if the character is walking while pressing E on smaller objects.
Fixed issue causing corpses to not yield sub-items in container items. (i.e. empty bottles without the content)
Fixed issue causing shivers to have incorrect audio clips in russian.
Fixed issue causing fishing huts to display as bridges on map.
Fixed issue causing heads-up text to get stuck on screen when leaving to menu.
Fixed issue causing heads-up text to not scale correctly with non 16:9 aspect ratios.
Fixed issue causing fire UI to no longer update time while opened.
Fixed various collision issues.
Fixed various localization text.
Future plans and Roadmap
Along with the upcoming fixes and minor improvements, from now we will also focus on overhauling the game and user interfaces to make the gameplay more intuitive and to get rid of as much redundant menus and user actions as possible, along with making the game more immersive.
Our plan for the near future is to improve existing gameplay features, add new gameplay elements, add more locations and landmarks to explore, and to make the interfaces easier to use and more intuitive to the end user. Improving the performance of the game, along with the graphics fidelity, will also remain one of the top priorities.
We will release an updated roadmap with more details shortly.
Update on the Chinese Localization
As some of you might know, we promised to add Chinese Language support with this update.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that we encountered some issues with our previous Chinese translator, this is not yet possible.
We are currently looking for a new chinese translator and we will see how we will go about it in the near future. We will post another update as soon as we figure it out!
Note
P.S. We want to remind everyone that Northern Lights is in an Early Access state so there might still be a lot of bugs to be ironed and a lot balancing to be done.
Because of this, we encourage everyone to use the Report A Bug button found in the Game Menus in order to reach to us about possible issues! Also don't forget to join our Community and Discord Server where we have chats dedicated for feedback and new ideas!
Thank you for reading and for all your support and understanding!
Northern Lights Patch - 0.1.5 NOW LIVE!
Hello and Happy New Year everybody!
We are happy to announce that Northern Lights version 0.1.5 is now LIVE on STEAM and comes with a lot of improvements and fixes to both performance and mechanics!
Changelog 0.1.5
Major improvements to overall performance of the game
Major improvements to particle effects performance
Major improvements to herb spawners performance
Added support for audio localization
Added russian audio to game
Added updated turkish file to localization manager
Notebooks can now be shredded into tinder
Fire starting now consumes/decays starting items even if failing to start a fire
Balancing of cooking pot and frying pan weights
Balancing of marker decay ratio
Balancing of firewood burn rate
Balancing of cabin fever mechanics to make more sense
Balancing of wetness values for drying rack and ground drying to make more sense in relation to time
Fixed an issue causing HUD stat chevrons to display incorrect trends
Fixed an issue causing journal to not display correctly in other languages
Fixed an issue causing a cave to not load in game
Fixed an issue causing game to stutter when looting or triggering afflictions
Fixed an issue causing passive stats to not recover correctly
Fixed an issue causing interactables UI to sometimes not work correctly
Fixed nature objects that were floating in air
Fixed various text from localization
P.S. We want to remind everyone that Northern Lights is in its first days of Early Access so there might still be a lot of bugs to be ironed and a lot balancing to be done.
Because of this, we encourage everyone to use the Report A Bug button found in the Game Menus in order to reach to us about possible issues! Also don't forget to join our Community and Discord Server where we have chats dedicated for feedback and new ideas!
Thank you for reading and for all your support and understanding!
MadGoat Studio wishes you Happy Holidays!
Hello everyone!
With the Winter Holidays around the corner and 2020 coming to an end, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and all the best for 2021!
We really appreciate all the support we've received from you throughout this year and we are looking forward with hope and excitement to what 2021 will bring.
Our team will be off between the 24th of December and the 2nd of January, resting and enjoying time with our loved ones. Yet, if any game-breaking bugs appear in our game, we want to assure you that we will be around to fix them :)
We hope you will enjoy playing Northern Lights during this winter holiday, and we look forward to seeing you all again in January!
