NOTE: There is a known bug with multiple player-controlled animals which results from using saves that predate the newest patch. If encountering this bug, please try starting a new save.
FIXED:
Crocodilians getting food stuck in their mouths when eating from animals that require multiple bites
Crocodilians getting stuck swimming in circles
Animals moving in a direction as a group occasionally sitting down briefly and sporadically
Disclosure Statement Regarding the Former Manager
Hello everyone,
I’m writing to you all today on behalf of the Saurian team in my capacity as new co-manager of Urvogel Games. We feel an ethical duty to inform our backers of an internal crisis that we’ve been dealing with for the last few months. We hope you will read this statement in its entirety to fully understand where we are coming from. Late on December 4th, 2020, while writing a public statement on the current state of Saurian, I asked the former manager of Urvogel Games for copies of our bank account data for a blog post intended to provide the Saurian community with accurate, up-to-date information on the company’s expenditures. The former manager had always been the only member who had access to our bank account, so no one else on the team could access this data themselves.
After resisting cooperating with the inquiry at first, the former manager eventually confessed that he had been stealing funds from the company. Having now gained control of our company bank account from him and conducted an audit, we believe that he stole around $75,000 since 2016. This amounts to significantly more in funds than any single member of the project earned legitimately throughout our entire history. It is an egregious injustice to all of our customers and backers, and to all of us on the creative side who worked and bled for this project--often for free or while being paid wages far below industry standard.
We have settled this situation out of court, and do not plan to pursue legal charges. We made this decision for the following reasons:
1) It allowed us to quickly remove the former manager from the company and appoint new management, which was best for the production of the game and our own morale.
2) It allowed us to contractually secure repayment of a fraction of the stolen funds without a prolonged legal ordeal, which would take vital time and money away from the game.
3) It allowed us to make this statement without fear of legal retaliation.
This decision was not easy for us to make, but this course of action will best help the Saurian team ensure the game’s completion. We are devastated by the actions of our former manager, and we as a team are taking steps to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again -- starting with a new management structure that prevents any member from having the singular power of our former manager. As further reassurance, I’ve stopped taking pay from the project and have taken another full-time job; I will not be financially dependent on Saurian while executing its managerial duties for the foreseeable future.
To be clear: development on Saurian will continue. Out of necessity, we will be re-examining our current development plans and pipeline as we find our way forward, and figuring out how best to offer more transparency as we initially wanted to before this crisis. However, this team is motivated by passion, principle, and kinship--a fact that allowed us to weather this hardship and others that would have broken many other teams by now. We hope to see you along for the rest of the journey.
Thank you for reading, Henry Meyers Co-Manager, Urvogel Games
Hotfix 2.1.3764
Hotfix 2.1.3764
NOTE: There is a known bug with multiple player-controlled animals which results from using saves that predate the newest patch. If encountering this bug, please try starting a new save.
CHANGED:
Frequency and durations with which AI will stand their ground in combat
Decreased distance that family AI will stray from each other
FIXED:
Blood decals on bodies leaving white outlines when washed off
Pectinodon feathers lacking backfaces
Player sometimes dying immediately upon load
Fixed behavior indecision loop during combat preventing animals from attacking at full speed in some circumstances
Fixed buoyant corpse tails sticking upwards
Dakotaraptor scent nodes sometimes appearing too small
Player getting stuck in water when jumping in or falling in
Fix to prevent scent camera turning off abruptly at sunrise/sunset
Fixed footprints on some animals not matching their rotation
Fix to prevent the player from getting stuck after RPR
Fixed Triceratops AI IK sometimes bugging out after sitting down
Hotfix 2.1.3717
NOTE: There is a known bug with multiple player-controlled animals which results from using saves that predate the newest patch. If encountering this bug, please try starting a new save.
CHANGED:
Pectinodon can now be RPR’d
Decreased Tyrannosaurus spawn rate
Social AI now will chill for a bit if they get stuck in behavioral loops between tending to social needs and personal needs
Reduced range at which children AI are willing to stray from parents
FIXED:
Fix for rain happening ahead of schedule
Fix for black screen visual bug
Fix for Anatosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Denversaurus not using their bite attacks
Improved player IK targeting reference position, meaning less jitter in certain circumstances
Made crocs unable to try to threaten while swimming
Fixed issue with certain AI stuck when trying to eat food
Here’s another update on the road to our next playable, introducing a new AI and several new gameplay systems, implementations, and tweaks, in addition to some optimizations.
NOTE: Save files from previous versions of the game may no longer work with this update, although they remain on your computer. Your control settings will also be reset to default, and may need to be remapped.
Enjoy! -Urvogel Games
ADDED:
New AI animal: Pectinodon
New scent and tracking system, with trackable:
Species-specific footprints, sized by age
Blood decals on ground when external layers are pierced
Poop
Particles indicating scents, which decay over time
Blood decals appear on animals when their external layers are pierced
Nocturnal / diurnal spawning modifiers for AI
New audio soundscape system
Pectinodon added to encyclopedia
Camera aiming keybind for use with scent system
CHANGED:
Spawning system completely rewritten
Max simultaneous AI animal guideline reduced
Large and small animals now share same spawning limit
Player turn logic should now be more fluid
Rain is now more common and stronger, as is flooding
Pain animations can now interrupt attack animations
Highlight activation radius for scent particles increased
Scent nodes now last significantly longer
Scent nodes now spawn farther apart
Increased turning speed for player Dakotaraptor and some AI
Decreased AI group member aggression in certain circumstances
Tweaked AI hiding spot selection logic
Optimization: certain AI colliders now culled when distant
Optimization: physics update rate reduced
Optimization: various small memory and CPU usage reductions
Optimization: scent node handling rework to make for better performance
Didelphodon sensing range increased
Chamops can now steer towards targets better
Player now able to re-bind two actions to same input in Control Mapper
FIXED:
Settings and resolution reset bugs
First-time startup resulting in very low resolution
Group animals should no longer be as overrepresented in population
Rain audio now matches visuals consistently
Dakotaraptor AI threatening endlessly
AI decision making issue preventing animals from committing to eating behavior when in group with low thirst average
AI memories now correctly update over time
Controls ‘restore defaults’ button now works correctly
Issue with players getting stuck in/after RPR
Certain small critters being content to hang out underwater
Underwater color is now blue or blue-ish when in saltwater
Image tearing when camera is underwater
Player look IK target changing too rapidly in certain situations, especially RPR
AI should be less likely to get stuck stuttering in place or moving in tight circles
Hey everyone, here's a hotfix with some small fixes and tweaks for some commonly reported issues.
-Dakotaraptor acceleration speed increased -Attempt to fix Triceratops herd directions changing at extreme angles -Increased hitbox size on Dakotaraptor mouths, which should help increase RPR attack success
