A sign of life! - Development update December 2021
Hello everyone,
So... It's been a while! The last big game update (v0.6.2) was back in August of 2020. In the meantime we haven't been sitting still, but what is going on?
Behind the scenes a lot has happened in terms of the team. The project's original lead developer who you might know as 'Hudell' on the Steam Community Hub and the Orange Season Discord server is no longer affiliated with Fantasy Farming: Orange Season. No, nothing happened. He's just off to do other things! Thank you for everything, Hudell!
The team that was working on Fantasy Farming: Orange Season under Hudell is still there, and a veteran from the team has taken over the lead role. Introducing: Rafael & Kazz! Them and I will be the main points of contact both here and on Fantasy Farming: Orange Season social media/Discord.
In the meantime, a lot has happened on the development side behind the scenes, check this out!
When summer comes, some villagers like to test their skills in the water
Updated day/night cycle
The mines are getting expanded. New maps and system are in the oven
BUT, what about game updates? With this change in management, another decision came. Fantasy Farming: Orange Season was built on an engine that does not fit with our plans for the title. This is why we decided to start a porting process to the Unity engine. We expect this process to be done around May of 2022 and it'll come as a free update right here in Early Access on Steam. This also means that in the meantime, we will unfortunately not have any game updates for you in the meantime.
However, what will we have? From now on every month, we will post development updates to show you what kinds of new stuff we're adding to the game, that will become available once the Unity version of the game launches once we're ready!
If you have any concerns, please let us know through the Steam Community Hub! We'll see you in the next development update ;)
-Marten, Rafael & Kazz
Update v0.6.2 patch notes
Hey all!
Another patch just went live, which means we are at v0.6.2! This patch introduces new villagers, a new fishing system, sheep and animal petting! Check out the full patch notes here:
Improved the graphics of trees, animals and mountain areas.
Redesigned festival locations
Added 4 completely new villagers to Orange Town: Gary, Yumiko, Shinnosuke and Kaori
Expanded possible interactions with Orange Town Villagers: Martin, Mia and Prince
Added portraits for every villager
New brand fishing system with dozens of new fish
Changed the way wild animals behave once tamed. They now have a regular routine and they sometimes will leave gifts for you
Added new barn and coop interior
Added sheep to the game, which introduces wool
You can now pet farm animals and talk to them as your voice soothes them
Implemented changes to the way farm animals are managed
Added wind animation on trees
A lot of bug fixes and improvements to general usability
Changed game zoom level
Added A few new sound effects, including footsteps
Upgraded internal engine code
New way to load and manage gamepad profiles
I hope you all like it! Please let us know any feedback you may have on the Steam Community Hub ;)
-Marten
Welcome, new Summer Sale players!
Hi everyone!
As we've gotten quite a lot of new players with the Steam Summer Sale, I just wanted to let you know that we're still very much looking for feedback on the game! Any feedback we could work with is interesting to us, so if you have any, feel free to leave it as a Steam Community Hub post, or join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/soedesco to let us know!
Stay tuned for our next update post!
-Marten
List of bug fixes for the week
Hello everyone!
You may have noticed the game had many tiny updates during the week. Those updates were fixing some bugs that you reported since the release of the 0.6.1 version. Here's a list of them:
Some Sacis could be found multiple times.
Sarah appearing on top of a fridge.
Player could walk through the lumber near Raphael's house.
Error when loading saves generated between versions 0.2.9.2 and 0.5.0.6.
Devin events not triggered for new players.
Affected area not updating when trying to place buildings.
Graphic glitch under bridges during winter.
Serge was not saying anything on weekends.
Passage to the mountain top not working when riding a horse.
Cindy was invisible when inside the inn.
Some villagers were appearing on the forest map by error.
Fatal Error when talking to Nathalia.
Some seeds were lost when trying to use them too fast.
Finding many Sacis without changing areas could sometimes crash the game.
Fishing achievements were not being triggered.
Raphael's Random Request was not being marked as complete and not rewarding the player.
Some cutscenes were locking the player.
HUD not refreshing when max fatigue increased.
Saci disappearing without animation on his introduction cutscene.
Brittany not saying anything.
Interactions not triggering properly in some positions.
Other than those bugs, there have also been a few other minor changes:
Moved some objects that were too hidden and hard to find.
The game will now give you more information if a save file fails to load.
Replaced the town sign boards that shows requests and festivals.
Updated the festival list.
Pause the game when Steam Overlay is active.
Stop spawning items over player objects.
Made cheat codes harder to trigger by accident.
Show number of fish caught on the main diary.
Show money made and spent on the main diary.
Replaced town building signs.
Updated female character picture on the character creation screen.
Update v0.6.1 patch notes
Hi all!
It's Marten here with some great news, because update v0.6.1 is live! This brings a LOAD of good stuff like new home upgrades, businesses, villages a completely new cooking system and much more! Here's full patch notes for this update:
Send seeds to the farm storage when lacking inventory space
You can now change items and tools while riding your horse
Added the Sacis
Added termite nests
New house sprites
New home graphics
Changed Brittany’s house
Changed Julia’s house
Changed Rory’s house
New general store
New blacksmith
New inn/restaurant
New library
New carpenter workshop
New clinic
Added a spa
New tasks
New villagers: Duke, Sarah and Thalia
New house upgrade
New cooking system
New animal and friend list on the diary menu
Improved save/load menus
Changed the way crops die
New conversations
New heart events
New furniture shop
New sound effects
Balanced ores, mines and tools
Separate contents of each trash can
Replaced town building signs
Updated female character picture on the character creation screen
Various bug fixes
Now, this is a BIG list and I hope you'll all like it. Let me know if you do, and if you have any feedback, feel free to share it in the Steam Community Discussions :D
Have fun!
-Marten
New publisher for Fantasy Farming: Orange Season!
Hi all!
My name is Marten, and I'm Community Manager at SOEDESCO. I'm proud to announce that we've partnered up with Tropical Puppy to publish Fantasy Farming: Orange Season! I've got a message right here from the guys over at Tropical Puppy for you all:
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Hello everyone, I'm here today to announce that Tropical Puppy is partnering up with SOEDESCO , who will be Fantasy Farming: Orange Season’s publisher!
SOEDESCO is a Dutch company that has published over 40 games worldwide on a variety of platforms, including PC and the main consoles. Their games offer a wide variety in genres. I've been working with them for a few months now and I believe that they are a great fit for the game. Their team has shown to be great fans of farm-life games and their experience with publishing and the business side of development will be very valuable for the game.
We're looking forward to working with them and make the most out of Fantasy Farming: Orange Season together. We will continue to develop the game with the same drive and spirit as always!
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Now of course, in the future you'll also be hearing from Tropical Puppy again, but I'm also here for you if you have any questions! By the way, to join the conversation you should join our Discord server to stay up to date at https://discord.gg/soedesco
That's all for now, thanks!
-Marten
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season Update 0.6
Hello everyone! Orange Season update 0.6 is out now!
This update brings a lot of bug fixes and general improvements to the game, but more importantly it finally includes the option to date villagers.
I'll keep this announcement short this time so you can go ahead and spend some quality time with your favorite Orange Town residents, but you can check the in-game changelog for detailed information!
Orange Season Update 0.5.1
Hello everyone! Today I bring you a new update, version 0.5.1. Here's what's new:
World Changes
The beach was added back in the game, with a new layout, new graphics and a new location. There you can catch sea water fish and other exclusive items.
You can access the beach through a new area that was added to the right of your farm, or by going down from the town in the passage near Gabriel's house.
This new area between the town and the beach is mostly empty now, but in the future it'll be used for building a petting zoo, where you can keep all the wild animals you tame.
There's also a new shortcut from your farm to the mountains, making the mines faster to reach.
New Mines
The layout of the mines has changed to be better manageable. Some areas may require an upgraded hammer to be accessed, while others are available from the start but can be accessed faster after you upgrade the hammer.
Blue and White crystals are now more easily dropped, but limited in quantity. The game will also boost the crystal drop rate every day that you don't find any, so you can hit the mines every now and then with an increased drop rate instead of going there everyday to try your luck.
There are also new kinds of rocks to be found on the mines and on the mountains, each one requiring a different hammer level to break.
Keyboard Mapping and Controller Profiles
The keyboard mapping screen was fixed to allow customization of the key controls. The gamepad mapping screen was replaced with the controller profiles screen, where the game will detect what kind of controller you are using and show what actions are mapped to it.
I've also implemented support for the nintendo switch joy cons, with different mappings based on which joy cons you have connected and how many. Playing with a pair will behave the same way as any other controller, while playing with a single joycon will have adapted controls for the smaller number of buttons.
Diary screen
You can now check the list of items you've shipped, as well as checking the detailed progress of the game.
There are also new keys to open the inventory screen directly.
Tool Upgrades
From now on, you'll need to acquire experience with each tool before you are able to upgrade them. If you have already upgraded a tool that you don't have enough experience on, the game will temporarily downgrade it until you reach the required exp. You won't need to redo the upgrades.
This update also includes two Fishing Rod upgrades. The upgraded rod will attract fish that swim close to the bait, allowing you to catch fish that only swim far from you. The fish location, spawn rate and prices have all changes with this update as well.
Graphics
Some graphics have been improved, while others were added in this update:
New Fences
New Town roads.
Five New Villager Portraits
New Weather Effects and Weather Announcement TV Channels
Festival Announcement TV Channels
New emotes
Small changes on the town layout
New graphics for weeds, tree stumps, logs and stones
Other Changes
You can now buy ores from the blacksmith after you ship a certain number of them
You can buy lumber from the carpenter
The game will show what kind of crop is sown on your farm when you approach it
The game will show animal names when you approach them
The hay maker now turns wheat into hay as well.
New tasks.
The bank and debt systems were removed from the game.
The miner's guild was removed from Orange Town. You now get access to the gold mine by upgrading your hammer.
The mushroom people were removed from the game.
Since the mushroom people were underdeveloped, with no personalities and nothing but the promised ability to open passages on caves, I've decided to replace them with new unique characters. I'm writing a few new villagers that will show up in the next few updates and are going to be much more interesting.
What's Next?
The dating system is finally being implemented. It'll most likely be released in an update two months from now.
Orange Season Update 0.5
Buckle up everyone, as Orange Season v0.5 is finally here!
The changelog this time is much larger than usual, so I'll try to keep things short. Feel free to reach out if you want to know more about any change.
New Mouse Controls:
Playing with a mouse was too complicated before, but now almost everything is done with a left mouse click. The game will automatically determine what it should do based on what you clicked on. A few actions still have specific commands, like double clicking to remove a building / fence / machine / sprinkler. You can also right click an item or tool on the HUD to quickly use/consume it.
New Save System & Steam Cloud:
I changed the way the save files are stored. From now on, the game will generate a file with your character name that will hold all of your data. Those files can be opened and modified with any text editor (like windows' notepad) but be careful of what you change, because you can easily break the data structure too. The game will also sync your save files with Steam Cloud now, so you can play the same save file on multiple computers. Do make sure all of your computer clocks have the right time, or this feature may cause an older save to overwrite a new one.
New Menus and Interfaces:
The thick of this update is that every menu screen has changed: the game loading, title screen, main menu, storage, shipping bin, trash, item shops, animal shops, recipe list and probably more that I'm forgetting right now. I'm very excited to finally share all those new interfaces, because I've been working on them since last year. A few of them (like the tool list) may be looking incomplete because they are prepared for some new features that are not yet implemented in the game.
Maps:
Probably the most requested feature of the game on recent times, the maps are finally in. Press the map key anywhere to load a map showing the whole area you're in and the location of any villagers within it. The villagers will appear inside their houses if they are awake there, but will disappear from the map if they are unavailable.
Credits Screen:
Press the map key on the title screen to access the game credits.
New Teleporter Requirements:
You'll need to befriend Annie and complete a series of tasks to receive the teleporter now. If you load a save file that already has the teleporter, it will be removed from your inventory.
Machines:
You can now ask Viktor to build machines for you, like the mayo maker and cheese maker. Put an item in, get another item out of it. There are no timers, but with the exception of the hay and feed makers, you can only put in one item at a time.
Portraits of the main characters:
Your own character and the first 10 marriage candidates now have a portrait picture that will be displayed whenever they say something. Some of those characters had their styles changed on this update as well. And since many people had trouble with her name, Cinth was renamed to Cindy.
New Conversations:
Every character that received a portrait on this update also received dozens of new conversations. Only one of the new conversations will be triggered per day and it'll usually be the first thing the villager will say that day. Most of those are related to the beginning of the game, so don't mind if a character you've been talking to for ages suddenly act like they barely know you. Tasks and Cutscenes may require you to have seen some of those new interactions.
Some of them can only be triggered during spring, but it doesn't need to be on year 1.
New Tasks:
Other than the tasks I mentioned on previous items, there are also new fetch quests. Nothing too exciting, but they can give you some extra friendship points.
New Tool Behaviors:
Some tools will work in a different way now. The watering can will always be used on it's max level, so you don't need to hold the tool button anymore. The sickle will also be used on it's max level when cutting weeds, but it will only cut crops if you click on them (one at a time). When cutting crops with the sickle, there's a chance you'll receive back a seed for it. Cutting weeds with the sickle will also give you the weed item that you can now use to make hay. The other tools like the hammer, axe and hoe do not have an area of effect. The axe and hammer will always have the strength of it's max level, while the hoe will have a faster animation and a largely reduced stamina consumption when upgraded.
Changed availability of animals in shops:
I've reduced the number of animals available for sale on the shop (for example: 8 kinds of cow instead of 32). Mostly because there were many animals that were only a couple pixels different from others. Now each animal is unique.
Changed Crops/Seeds Prices and Growth Time:
I changed the prices of several seeds and crops to rebalance everything. A few seeds also changed their growth time, but those changes were minimal.
New weekly shop:
On saturdays, you can find the salesman on the restaurant, where he'll be selling you random items that you've shipped before, as well as some very rare items that can fetch a high price.
Pause time inside houses:
Previously the game would only pause the time inside your own house. Now it applies to all houses. Many players asked for this and it also makes things easier on my side, as I no longer need to implement Serge kicking you out when you decided to sleep right in the middle of the store. Sleeping on the floor will not recover stamina and fatigue when if time is paused.
Even more:
There has been a lot of other small details that I changed during all this time that this update was cooking. See if you can find anything.
Next Update
This is not yet a promise, but version 0.5.1 is planned for August. It should include the portraits of the other villagers and some new festivals, among other things.
I'm also working towards completing the dating system, which will be included on version 0.6.
A huge update is coming later this month
It's been nearly nine months since I released version 0.4 of the game. Version 0.5 was supposed to come only three months after that, but many things delayed it's arrival. It is finally going to be released on June 24th, with a lot more than I had initially planned.
The first big thing I started working on after the september release was an overhaul on the mouse controls. It was a popular complaint among players that those controls were too complicated. That happened because when I first started it, I wanted the game to have the same controls as the PSX Harvest Moon game. Mouse and Keyboard controls were only emulating a controller instead of being used directly in the game. That changed now.
The next change was one of the most requested features: a map. Yes, it's finally here! There are three maps available on the game now: the town, the mountains and the forests. You can see by the image above that the villagers will also be tracked in real time on it, simplifying the job of all stalkers.
While I added the map and changed the mouse controls, Ryan was busy drawing new menus for the game: title screen, inventory, calendar, shops, storage, trash cans... every user interface has been replaced with something much better. For example:
Other than all the visual changes, there is a lot of new content on the game: new tasks, hundreds of new conversations with villagers, new items to be found on the caves and machines. You can buy any of the machines by talking to the blacksmith, but they require rare materials and a decent amount of money. The machines that are already available are:
- Mayo Maker
- Cheese Maker
- Bird Feed Maker
- Hay Maker
- Seed Maker
If you have already played the game before this update and befriends Annie, you'll get an alert when you load your save file, saying that the teleporter was removed from your inventory. To acquire it again, you'll need to increase your friendship with Annie and complete a few tasks. Nothing too complicated.
Those were just a few spoilers about what's coming on this next update. There's still a lot more. Stay tuned.
