Swords 'n Magic and Stuff cover
Swords 'n Magic and Stuff screenshot
Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Adventure, Indie

Swords 'n Magic and Stuff

Patch 1.3.11 - Windows 7 & 8 fix!

Hey everyone,

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that we have a new patch going live in just a few minutes and it fixes probably 95% of the reported bugs over the last two days AND it should fix issues players are running into with Windows 7 and 8. (Turns out Unreal Engine doesn't like you guys and doesn't care if you can play games anymore. But Janna does, so she's got your back.) This patch also fixes the insane skill curve for crafting and balances the combat skills better so you've got a bit more of a grind (which may or may not be a good thing to you).

The bad news.

In short, skills are being reset one last time and I'm terribly sorry.

The long of it is that a few days before the update I rerolled the experience system as you already know. Unfortunately what we've learned after over 12 hours of hunting for an answer, is that the reason that new system wiped everyone's skills out is because we changed the name of a variable, which apparently serializes it as a new variable, essentially resetting it to 0.

The big problem here is that when we realized that was probably the case, we tried changing it back... which doesn't work, and then serializes the variable again. Which ultimately means that it no longer matches with your current skills again.

The dev team and I are thinking of some way to make it up to you guys for all your patience and I'll let you know if we come up with anything.

Anyway. On to the patch notes:


Improved:
Crafting curve buffed significantly
Combat skill curve balanced better


Fixed:
Potentially fixed Windows 7 and 8 crashing problem
Various dialog typos
Various item description and name typos
Spending gold through dialog updates HUD
Faction now displays correctly without having to restart game
Fixed Hope Harbor stair collisions
Fixed invisible rock near fishing cave in Azura
Arrows do accurate damage now
Cultists now spawn the correct amount
Fixed repeat cultist quest
Fixed ice cave quest (chest reset for players who were locked in the quest)

Farm 'n Forge Update is LIVE

Hey guys! The update is finally here!

The Farm 'n Forge update lets you now go out into the world and farm, forge, cook, and craft with all your friends! It also brings with it a whole new area, and a host of other new features like mounts and destructible loot. Check it all out down below!



What's New?



The Farmlands



The Farmlands is an entirely new zone that is over twice the size of Azura Island. This place is chock full of new quests, new enemies, and a whole lot of secrets! Ride your mount around the rolling farm fields, go shopping at Moonberry Farms, or take a stroll through the bustling streets of Sleepy Haven

Crafting




Carve powerful bows, forge deadly swords, and sew the coolest outfits with the all new crafting system! Blacksmithing, carpentry, and tailoring are all brand new for this update!

Farming




Head to one of the many community gardens throughout Tirawyn and start growing your own crops! This update adds a huge variety of seeds to grow to use in cooking and crafting alike! Make sure you get yourself a watering can so you can keep your crops quenched.

Cooking




Take all those new crops you've been growing, and all those resources you've been gathering and cook up something tasty! Tons of new foods have been added with this update with all kinds of buffs. Eat heartily and drink deeply to become the best adventurer!

So much more...




Before we get to these monster patch notes, I have some bad news. Two days before the update we realized we had to reroll our skill system to account for all the new crafting and farming going on in the game. We needed something more robust. Due to an odd issue in transferring skills to the new system we discovered that skills were only being transferred in our editor builds, but not in shipped builds.

When we finally discovered the issue it was too late to fix without delaying the update and rolling the entire skill system back, which could have taken a few days minimum to find another solution.

What does this mean? It means that skills have been reset to 0.

I want to personally apologize for this. I know you all worked very hard for those skills and we already clamped them once on you. We do everything we can to save your progress between updates and the entire dev team has been working nonstop on the issue all night long trying everything we could to salvage the skills.

On the bright side, you'll want to start fresh anyway back on Castaway Rock so you can pick up all your new crafting skills and learn a few recipes from the castaways there.

Once you've got the hang of crafting, head to the docks in Hope Harbor to help fix the ferry and journey over to the mainland where you'll discover the Farmlands! Don't forget to check out changes on Azura though! We've snuck some additional quests into Ramshackle as well as a few new baddies to bump into along the way.

Thank you for all your support as we update the game. We love Swords 'n Magic and want to grow it into a memorable experience for everyone. Please leave your feedback on the Discord and share your videos and streams so we can watch our hard work be enjoyed.

Stay safe out there in Tirawyn! (And don't forget to keep yourselves fed!)

Patch Notes:
New:

  • The Farmlands zone, the town of Sleepy Haven, and a section of the Windless Woods; along with a new map.
  • Broken ferry added to the docks in Hope Harbor. It needs to be repaired by the player in order to reach the Farmlands.
  • Mounts added back into the game, which can be managed at various stables in the world.
  • 500+ new items added. This includes: crafting materials, cooking ingredients, farming seeds, new weapons, new hats, clothing items, potions, and much more!
  • Crafting - tailoring, carpentry, and blacksmithing. Use resources at one of the many designated crafting stations in the world to craft dozens of different recipes, along with new skills for each.
  • Cooking - the ability to cook various recipes at a cooking station or campfire, that increase a new cooking skill.
  • Farming - plantable seeds added to Tirawyn which players can plant, water, and harvest (either in a planter or at one of the community gardens spread throughout Azura, the Farmlands, and Sleepy Haven) to increase a new farming skill.
  • Ores can now be smelted into ingots at a smelter.
  • The ability to learn recipes.
  • Players can now equip different clothing outfits that can be acquired through shops, crafting, and quest rewards.
  • Tons of new quests to experience in the Farmlands, as well as 4 new quests in Ramshackle Reef.
  • Plenty of new NPCs in the world.
  • Several new enemies added.
  • Passive farm animals: chickens that lay eggs and sheep that can be sheared.
  • Buffs added to potions and food that give the player different stats.
  • New potions (with new effects) added.
  • (Most) NPCs now move around to make the world feel more alive. Certain NPCs also have facial expressions based on player dialog choices.
  • Renting a room at an inn now allows players to sleep in a bed to restore health, and set their spawn location.
  • Stone Golem mini boss.
  • Grid system for loading and unloading actors in the world to improve performance.
  • A clothing tab in the collections to store all your outfits.
  • Breakable pots and crates added to the world that drop various goodies.
  • Additional bank slots can now be purchased.
  • 4 New Music Tracks.
  • Shops added in Ramshackle Reef.
  • Bandits can now be found on Azura Island.
  • New tutorial NPC to teach players about crafting.
  • Time based events.
  • Kickstarter Tailor Tier rewards.
  • Blocked off areas outside of the available Farmlands/Windless Woods area to prevent players from exploring unfinished areas.
  • Time of day is now displayed on the HUD.
  • Level tracker displayed HUD.
  • New XP system and curves.
  • Cobalt chests.
  • NPCs belonging to factions can now temporarily increase or decrease a player’s standing with that faction as a result of short-term actions. (Don’t upset the town guard!)
  • Humanoid NPCs are now capable of combat.
  • A dynamic NPC dialog camera.
  • Northern lights can be seen behind the mountains of the Northest North.
  • Brand new mountain models added to the Mainland.
  • Secrets. Shh.
  • And much more...


Improved:

  • Griffon egg’s model.
  • Griffon nest’s appearance.
  • HUD display updated.
  • Camera tweaks.
  • Ore nodes' appearance changed to match the resource you will get from breaking it.
  • Bestiary has been temporarily disabled as it gets a makeover.
  • Drop rates changed.
  • Various quest improvements.
  • Improvements to the buff bar above the health on the HUD, along with new icons.
  • Changes to Castaway Rock NPCs.
  • Resources can now be picked up with a single button press.
  • Various Azura NPCs now give you crafting recipes or outfits as you complete their quests.
  • Sound effects for various things.
  • How data was handled when loading the game.
  • Performance.
  • Time manager.
  • Existing Azura quests.
  • Erma’s shop now sells outfits and tailoring supplies.
  • Azura Island guard questline reintroduced with changes.
  • Updated skybox.
  • New sky colors throughout the day/night cycle.
  • Adjusted day/night durations slightly.
  • And much more...


Fixed:

  • Footstep sounds.
  • Looping music issue.
  • Various typos.
  • Certain floating objects/misplaced objects.
  • Reputation groups are hidden until you unlock them.
  • Adding items to the bank will now only transfer the amount that can actually fit.
  • Weird outline inconsistencies.
  • Fiora’s house.
  • Dialog now respects the UI manager.
  • UI management refactor.
  • Chat component is properly on HUD.
  • Inventory scrollbars are no longer visible until you have enough things in your inventory to warrant scrolling.
  • Fixes for chat multiplayer replication issues.
  • Fixed up some old helmets
  • Rock that stuck out of the performance platform in Ramshackle.
  • Added a missing post to the pier in Ramshackle.
  • When the bank is at 50/50, you can now correctly add items to existing stacks in the bank.
  • Fixed various ladders.
  • Dryads no longer grow hair when putting on hats.
  • Basalt no longer takes an additional 20 wood from the player when turning in his quest.
  • Made Maggie's directions to the cellar more clear.
  • Fixed bug where menus (inventory, journal, map) would still toggle while typing in the journal search bar.
  • Refactored Inventory open/close logic.
  • Pressing esc while inventory is open will now close inventory before opening the pause menu.
  • Palm leaf is now named "Stinky Leaf".
  • Hitting tab while reading a note from inside your inventory will now close the note, rather than closing the inventory but leaving the note open/
  • Rats now de-aggro - no longer will they follow you to the ends of the earth.
  • Updated bone collision.
  • Fixed a bunch of mesh materials.
  • Replaced a bunch of crate materials.
  • Martin no longer incorrectly tells players to go to the construction yard for work if they've completed Dave's Hammer quest.
  • And much more...

Farm 'n Forge Update Information

Hey everyone!

I’ve got a huge announcement for you today. Well a few actually. The team has been working hard and getting a lot done. We’ve added 500+ new items since the last update. There’s been a ton of work on backend programming which will help with performance. Not to mention new quests, areas, features, the list goes on.

So let’s address some stuff on that list. Our roadmap lists our spring update with crafting, cooking, housing, farming, and the Farmlands zone. Now first, we know spring is over (thank you for your patience). With our changes in team members, we’ve had to push back, but I promise it was worth the wait. We’ll be reassessing our roadmap and posting a new one after this coming update. Derailment done, back to the spring update.

Here’s what you can expect to be included in this update:
-Crafting which includes:
Cooking
Tailoring
Woodworking
Blacksmithing
-Farming
-Farmlands zone
-The town of Sleepy Haven
-A portion of the Windless Woods zone
-Stables to manage your mounts
-New mounts to collect
-Equipable outfits
-New enemies
-500+ new items
-NPC’s schedules and AI
-Destructible pots and crates
-New music and sound effects
-Guard faction
-Purchasable bank slots
-Tons more

I know everyone double checked to see if housing was included. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the cut for this update. Which means it’ll be coming the update after. We are excited to release this first phase of Farmlands and continue to grow it as you all play and give us feedback. We want to make sure each update is done right and we aren’t cutting any corners to get there. Feedback is a great way to make sure we are going in the right direction.

So when is this update going to be released, you ask? Good question. July 22nd is the official update day for our Farm 'n Forge update! See you all on the mainland soon!

If you are a Twitch streamer or YouTuber, we are offering first looks before the release date. If you are interested, you can reach out to me through Discord (Janna#2424) or email (janna@kindredgames.net), or even better, submit a request on Keymailer or IndieBoost!

Development Digest July 10th-July 16th 2021

Hey everyone!

This is what the team has been working on this past week that will be included in the update on the 22nd. Again, we have lots of secrets and final touches going in so you'll see a smaller list. This next week is ALL about bug fixes and tweaks as it will be launch week. For next week's update, we'll be posting the actual update with full patch notes on Thursday! We can't wait for you all to play.

Everything posted below will be included in the July 22nd update.

Working on:

  • Bug fixing
  • Tweaks and fine tuning
  • Models for items that have temporary knapsacks (food and recipes and some drops)
  • Performance improvements
  • Q&A video

New:

  • Added a clock to the HUD
  • Farmlands Map
  • Enemy NPC’s
  • NPC camp zone
  • Quest specific items
  • Secret quests
  • [redacted] to help get [redacted]
  • Wolves AI
  • Attributes! Luck, mining, chopping for potions and food
  • Community gardens
  • Sleepy Haven and Farmlands music
  • Northern lights
  • Cooking station
  • NPC alert
  • Sleepy Haven Faction, [redacted] Faction, and [redacted] Faction
  • Generic knapsack for items that still need icons
  • Food items
  • Crafting recipes for all food items
  • Sleepy Haven NPC’s and travel paths
  • Beehives around Farmlands
  • Sound effects for creatures
  • Harvestable wool from sheep
  • Banners
  • Shops in Sleepy Haven
  • Secrets - I can’t even try to redact this. It’s just lots of secrets
  • Jenkins’ stable for new mount in Farmlands
  • Bank slots are purchasable
  • Hovering over food shows the buffs in the tooltip before buying
  • Icons for new items

Improved:

  • Performance in Farmlands and Sleepy Haven
  • Drop rates
  • Clothing names
  • All crafting buttons in with sound effects
  • News page
  • Buff bar
  • Josie’s dialog to help with new farmers
  • Bestiary has been temporarily disabled as it gets a makeover
  • Seeds not grid based so can plant on garden plots to your liking
  • Current in game food’s descriptions to show updated info

Fixed:

  • Mount Cameras
  • Various typos
  • A bug where leveling up in a crafting window doesn't add new recipes to the list
  • Bug fixes to the max. Testers have been hard at work finding the bugs so we can knock them out before the update!

Development Digest July 3rd-July 9th 2021

Hey everyone!

You'll notice that this week's list is shorter than previous lists. There is one great reason for this: I'm withholding secrets from you! There are so many things going on over here that I don't want to spoil NPC's, quests, locations, or anything else! All the details are moving in! We've got our dedicated testers hard at work making sure everything is running smoothly.

Everything posted below will be included in the July 22nd update.

Working on:

  • Farmlands Map implemented
  • Buffs
  • New animal AI and animations
  • Optimization
  • Fixing bugs

New:

  • NPC situational expressions
  • NPC animation and expression dialog triggers
  • Set up ways to craft most weapons
  • Added more resource nodes to Farmlands and Azura
  • Created new Castaway Rock tutorial NPC for crafting
  • Added "broken" state to ferry, with black smoke vfx
  • Set up dialogue conditions and events for Jib to set the ferry off when construction is done.
  • Set up horse vendor in Hope Harbor
  • Set up stables in Hope Harbor
  • Added Soupy outfits for Kickstarter backers Tailor Tier
  • New arrows
  • Bandits
  • New shops in Sleepy Haven
  • New shop in Ramshackle
  • Added new levels in prep for level streaming
  • Some slight performance updates
  • Dynamic NPC dialogue camera
  • NPCs notice and look at other actors
  • Added new cobalt key and chests
  • Added more loot to chests
  • Added new clothing items
  • Added new recipes
  • Added a new crafting station to Ramshackle
  • The great wall
  • New music for Moonberry Farms
  • Out of bounds manager
  • Quests, secret quests, NPC’s, items, the list goes on!
  • Farmlands map

Improved:


  • NPC head tracking
  • Castaway rock NPC's
  • Tweaked drop tables and loot
  • NPC/AI healthbar
  • Looping music issue

Fixed:

  • Fixed mud slimes
  • Fixed tons of old and new bugs
  • Puck's quest
  • Scarecrow texture fixed

Development Digest June 26th-July 2nd 2021

Hey everyone!

Below you'll find what the team worked on this past week. These are not patch notes, but a sneak peek at what's to come for the next update. We've posted an announcement as to when the next update will be out. That announcement will be coming to Steam very soon, but for now, the update will be released July 22nd!

Working on:

  • Started blockout for Moonberry Farms
  • New drop rates for all crates, pots, chests, etc.
  • Kickstarter Tailoring Tier outfits being added
  • Item names & descriptions for all of the new items
  • Creatures & Critters AI
  • Sleepy Haven quests
  • Buffs for food recipes

New:

  • Multicrafting
  • New craft amount to the recipe struct
  • Weapons on Azura's crafting materials
  • Recipes to craft those weapons
  • Crafting icons
  • Gain skills with workbenches and crafting
  • Fabric and thread items
  • Items needed to tailor the fabric and thread
  • Recipes for all of the above
  • Set up saving for new stable system
  • Basics for stables menu
  • Added Stables dialog event
  • Added mount default data
  • Mount slots can now be set to active mount
  • Added new smelter tip for ore smelting
  • Added a save mount function
  • Mounts
  • Library in Sleepy Haven
  • Extra NPC tools for managing IDs and tasks
  • Rowhouse furnished
  • NPCs can open doors
  • Guard barracks
  • Clothing collections tab
  • Farmlands weapons
  • Recipes for above
  • NPC faction buff/debuff with dialog event
  • Tailoring and carpentry stations working
  • New crafting area in Hope Harbor for all your crafting needs
  • Port NPCs move around
  • Museum interior for Under Construction complete
  • Arrow now gives you the recipe for Mooki Arrows
  • Added a new recipe unlock pop up
  • Carryable sheep food and sheep food spawner
  • Bakery interior blocked out
  • Stables furnished
  • House at entrance of Sleepy Haven furnished
  • Items specific for quests

Improved:

  • Updated arrows
  • Updated item tooltips for arrows
  • Bug fixes and tweaks to crafting XP
  • Items are equippable and useable while workbench is open
  • Smelter inventory is networked now
  • Various quests to work better
  • NPC pathing and task selection preference
  • Set up world event system for dialog
  • Removed arbitrary kill progress bar
  • Updated some loot drop amounts
  • Updated items that were priced wrong and had wrong details
  • Rearranged HUD
  • Changed level up sound
  • Updated mount icons
  • Updated some sound effects

Fixed:

  • Various typos
  • Jed’s dialog if you’ve returned his lost item
  • Reputation groups hidden now until discovered
  • Adding items to bank will now only transfer the amount that can actually fit

Development Digest June 19th-25th 2021

Hey everyone!

Below you'll find what the team worked on this past week. These are not patch notes, but a sneak peek at what's to come for the next update.

Working on:

  • Sleepy Haven Library
  • Grid system for loading and unloading actors
  • Tinkerer's Workshop
  • Ready for crafting recipes to go in!

New:

  • Added a lantern to the ferry
  • Set up speed based particles on the ferry
  • Gave the ferry some smoke
  • Smelter box
  • Smelter model
  • Smelter bellows
  • Interactable bellows
  • Radial progress bar widget for smelter
  • Added Oob to NPC data table and gave him dialog
  • Bank interior finished in Sleepy Haven
  • Three new housing interiors in Sleepy Haven
  • Stinky leaf resource nodes to Greenskull camp
  • Quest items in Finn's Furnishings
  • Quests for Elizabeth in Farmlands and new items for quests
  • Added a new breakable spider egg for the cave
  • Added a new light shaft actor and material
  • Added new dust specks particle
  • New items for cobalt and copper ingots, also charcoal
  • New resources for darkwood, maple, rough leather and thick leather
  • Set up the basic crafting window layout
  • All NPCs in new data structure, all NPCs now editable in NPC editor
  • Beginnings of full NPC combat
  • Big crafting updates
  • Added functions for learning and saving recipes
  • Kickstarter Tailoring outfits
  • Kickstarter Design an NPC outfits

Improved:

  • Ferry wheels can now handle change in rotation speed
  • Replaced the hover sound on inventory slots
  • Quest system overhaul
  • Interactable updates
  • Kyara now gives the player tips on how to get better at farming
  • Unlocked the door to Finn's Furnishings
  • Minor changes to Henry's dialog and the quest description for Bukk's quest
  • Cleaned up the spider cave a bit
  • Gave resource nodes the ability to trigger quest events
  • Updated Tanglewort and Glowstalk materials
  • Smelter button functionality finished, including cancel button
  • Smelter has replaced forge at Blacksmith shop
  • Updated Alfred's quest
  • Re-implemented the ability to buy bank slots via dialogue
  • New clothing SFX. Applied to clothes equip

Fixed:

  • Two typos in Tammy's dialog
  • Removed farmland trees that blocked sightline of windmill
  • Collisions on farm stall in Ramshackle
  • Filled in weird gaps in Fiora's house
  • Picking up the key for Erma's quest advances it
  • Cleaned up foliage and removed duplicates
  • Gave the ferrymaster a door on her house
  • Fixed weird outline inconsistencies

Development Digest June 11th-18th 2021

Hey everyone!

This week has been busy. See the update below!

Working on:

  • Level design in Farmlands
  • Smelter interactable
  • Began work on a new guard quest "Clear Cut Crime"
  • NPC Manager
  • New weapon models
  • Creature models, AI, and animations
  • Various models
  • Finishing up Sleepy Haven
  • Moonberry Farms
  • Crafting
  • Kickstarter design tier Tailoring outfits

New:

  • Bandit camp
  • Bandit banner
  • Tents
  • Finished detailing the Sleepy Haven entrance
  • Detailed DD's cart quest area
  • Detailed the fairy circle
  • Detailed most of the river
  • Blocked off Windless Woods
  • Added cave-in excavator NPC's with dialog
  • New (placeholder) crafting menu widget fits into existing container/merchant inventory logic
  • Initial clothing setup
  • Smelters have inventories now
  • Clothing now works in inventory and applies texture to character model
  • Equipped clothes now show up on game start
  • Tooltip to the "Track Quest" button
  • 158 wearable outfits
  • Spider gear
  • Glowstalk sprouts
  • Clothes are feature complete
  • Harvestable mushrooms and Tanglewort added to spider cave
  • Mini-boss room added to spider cave
  • Added spider cave level streaming volume
  • Shop item can now sell clothing on mannequins
  • Clothing shop mannequin now displays clothes with cloaks and dresses correctly
  • Erma's shop now sells a bunch of different outfits
  • Added a new clothing default texture for mannequins
  • Opened the Curio shop in Ramshackle (needs decorations)
  • Added interior to Cranston's Curios and outfits/hats for sale
  • Added Gems + Metals stand in Sleepyhaven (vendor items to come)
  • Added interior to Sleepyhaven outfit shop (vendor items to come)
  • Bee Enthusiast quest
  • Spiderfang dagger
  • Darkwood log resource
  • Setup space above tailor for housing
  • Oh, just a steamboat ferry, that's all
  • Added a light and particles to the ferry

Improved:

  • Removed unnecessary material slots from cliffs
  • Minor farmlands and Sleepy Haven terrain fixes
  • Extensive changes to the dialog of multiple NPCs that are part of the guard questline on Azura
  • Changes to the Stolen Shipment quest
  • Edited name, description and value of all starter outfits
  • Adjusted the clothing equip VFX
  • Time Manager
  • Cut down the trees in Azura
  • Smoothed out jaggy paths around farmlands
  • Added more to 1st floor of magic shop
  • Smelter now smelts!! But it always smelts iron. Awkward.

Fixed:

  • Fixed inventory TAB key bug that was introduced by fixing the journal search bar bug recently
  • Dialogue now respects the UI manager. This fixes the "press tab in dialogue to break the game in assorted ways" bugs
  • UI management refactor is done!!! WOOOO
  • Typo in bank description
  • Fixed code typos
  • Chat component is properly on HUD now instead of being on the PlayerController
  • Inventory scrollbars are no longer visible until you have enough things in your inventory to warrant scrolling
  • Game logo missing at game startup
  • Farmlands sublevel not loading
  • Fixes for chat multiplayer replication issues
  • Adjusted the position of a crate above Hoggin to no longer be floating
  • Typo in Xavia's dialog
  • Kip now lets you try to rent a room even if you don't have gold
  • Mando's camera
  • Collisions on fountain in Windless Woods
  • Krull is no longer wearing the tester hat + bugswatter. (Missed NPC when adding them all to the Data Table)
  • Fixed up some old helmets
  • Deleted spider web ladder
  • Rock that stuck out of the performance platform in Ramshackle
  • Added missing post to the pier in Ramshackle
  • When bank is at 50/50, you can now correctly add items to existing stacks in the bank

Development Digest

Hey everyone!

I started a new thing last week on our Discord server (https://www.discord.gg/kindredgames) where every Friday I post mini patch notes of what the team did for the week. I'll start posting them here as well as weekly dev blogs! So the below is two and a half weeks of updates. See you all next Friday!

Working on:

  • New spider cave level for farmlands
  • Terrain and foliage work around spider cave
  • WIP camera system to help prevent unnecessary camera clipping
  • Full nav mesh rebuild
  • NPC creator
  • NPC task system
  • Interior work in Sleepy Haven
  • Terrain cleanup in Sleepy Haven
  • Azura guard questline rework
  • Tiered farm area
  • Started setting up for splash potions
  • More detailing in the spider cave
  • NPC enemy detection
  • UI Management
  • Teek's & Sandy’s guard questline
  • Refactoring in-game chat
  • Faction modifications
  • NPC combat AI
  • Started looking at dialog to change hairstyle
  • Achievement ID for Steam Achievements


New:

  • Quest for Diana and Bukk in the Farmlands
  • “Iron nails” item - added for a quest, but may be used for crafting later
  • Spider cave props
  • Car wheels item
  • Spiderweb ladder
  • Smashable pots and crates
  • Added a bunch of destructibles throughout Azura Island
  • The Shrubrian
  • Created a river spline tool
  • Swimmable river alongside Sleepy Haven through the Farmlands
  • Updated the cave spline tool to be more versatile
  • Created new “muddy water” material for swimmable water
  • Added swimmable mud to the gulch above Sleepy Haven
  • Ponds and rivers now have splashy footsteps as you run through them
  • Human-size spider cocoon with animation
  • Added a plant to foliage brushes for farmlands use
  • Farmlands gems
  • Farmlands ore
  • Cotton field
  • Full NPC task list
  • NPC detection buildup based on distance/visibility for more forgiving aggro
  • Grant reputation dialogue event for NPC’s
  • An item for Carla's Note so the player can pick it up into their inventory
  • 2 new harvestable herbs
  • A couple new materials
  • All inns in Tirawyn have sleepable and rentable beds now
  • Created a new NPC for the tavern in Sleepy Haven
  • Added all of Soupy's outfits in
  • Added Kip to the LT NPC and set his ID in-game


Improved:

  • Huge project clean up: tidied files into the appropriate folders and removed outdated and unneeded items in the project. This was a big job, but it’ll save us a lot of time down the road.
  • Fixed visual bug with in-editor items
  • Brand new sky textures
  • New sky colors throughout day/night cycle
  • Adjusted day/night durations slightly
  • Updated mining nodes to new cracked version so you can tell what you're mining
  • Updated mining drops for the new mining balance plans
  • Opal material
  • NPC combat movement
  • NPC customization options
  • More responsive NPC task finding
  • Made it easier for players to start the quest if they didn't take it the first time they spoke to Bukk
  • Stolen Toy quest (from guard questline) improved to match new update including parts of the quest, people involved, and dialog to match
  • Azura waterfall now uses transparency so you can see easier when swimming through it
  • Added some polish to Sleepy Haven
  • Updated all the mushroom models
  • Adjusted spider web color to match better
  • Shaped the ocean to match the mainland and islands
  • Updated bushes from spring versions
  • Did some terrain cleanup in Farmlands


Fixed:

  • Pressing esc while inventory is open will now close inventory before opening the pause menu
  • Typo in the journal in the ice cave
  • Palm leaf is now named "Stinky Leaf". Item description changed to represent this
  • Hitting tab while reading a note from inside your inventory will now close the note, rather than closing the inventory but leaving the note open
  • Cursor not recognized error during packaging
  • Quest world item material
  • Loading screen display image
  • Rats now de-aggro - no longer will they follow you to the ends of the earth
  • Updated bone collision
  • Fixed a bunch of mesh materials
  • Replaced a bunch of crate materials
  • Martin no longer incorrectly tells players to go to the construction yard for work if they've completed Dave's Hammer quest
  • Plant multiplayer replication improvements
  • Refactored Inventory open/close logic
  • Can no longer advance in the quest without having the required items
  • BP_HUD now tracks UI state. You can swap between map, inv, and journal as before, but pressing escape while any of those are open will just close them. You also can no longer open any of those menus while the game is paused
  • Fixed bug where menus (inv, journal, map) would still toggle while typing in the journal search bar
  • "Hand over the supplies" dialog option changed to "Here are the supplies." to remove confusion about the dialog being an action instead of what the player says
  • Made Maggie's directions to the cellar more clear
  • Basalt no longer takes an additional 20 wood from the player when turning in his quest
  • Harvesting herbs and plants no longer drops it on the ground first
  • Fixed some duplicate meshes in Sleepy Haven
  • Moved incorrectly placed foliage back to the terrain level
  • Added item ID's to Azura Mushrooms with the new harvest mechanic
  • No fences should be floating now
  • Cleaned up the merged stone fence (removed about 1000 draw calls from it)
  • Fixed the materials on the golden farm house
  • Fixed some dialog issues with old innkeepers
  • Dryad no longer grow hair when putting on hats
  • Resource nodes now drop items again
  • Resource nodes now don’t let things fall through the ground
  • Added stone physics mat to terrain
  • Scaled the Moonberry Farms sign to fit mounted players
  • Fixed collisions on some thorn assets
  • Garden signs no longer require farming levels to place
  • Ghosts cannot be interacted with unless the proper conditions are met
  • Fixed various ladders
  • Yenna remembers you now
  • Fixed a floating post in Rashackle
  • Removed an underwater river in the new farmlands river

Development Digest (05-25-2021)

Hey everyone,
Just wanted to check in here on Steam. We know not everyone follows the Discord, my Twitch channel, or our monthly newsletter, so we’re posting an update here to make sure you’re kept in the loop as development progresses. In this post we’ll cover: a quick look at farming, a couple new helping hands on the team, and a look behind the curtain at some refactoring we’re doing.
Farming
You might be aware that we’ve been steadily working away toward this update for some time. With tweaks and adjustments, we’ve finally settled on how farming should feel in Swords ‘n Magic & Stuff. Our dedicated testing team has been hard at work testing the balance and crops. Here’s a picture from one of our testers who planted everything that will be available when the Farmlands update drops! If you look closely, you might be able to guess what each crop is.



New Additions
We’ve brought two new people to the team, both of whom are long-time community members. Exciting!
Our first addition is ddrosler, who’s writing quests and doing narrative design. He's already hard at work adding quests to the new Farmlands region, and so far they’re refreshing and fun. He previously submitted countless quest ideas to our #ideas channel on Discord, where you may also recognise him as one of our moderators. You'll have to wait until the update to experience his quests, but it will be worth it!
Our second addition is Soupytwin1, who’s creating textures for player and NPC outfits. He's already shown his talent by posting custom outfits on Discord in the #fan-content channel. He made well over 60 outfits before we even added him to the team. Here are a few of them:



Refactoring
When we committed to taking extra time to work on this major update, the team and I took a careful look at the performance of the game now and projected into the future. When building a systems-heavy game like this (especially right before we position ourselves to implement a handful of new systems like cooking, housing, etc), it's important to do everything you can to anticipate performance issues before they arise. As such, redesigning and refactoring systems is something we have to do from time to time.
The combat system is the first of the systems that needs work. Combat has changed a lot since launch. As features are added, removed and tweaked, the underlying code gets messier and messier. Odd bugs start to crop up, things start to feel less smooth, and the idea of adding more of our planned features like combat abilities starts to become daunting. So rebuilding this from scratch around the current design and with planned features in mind will save us countless hours in the future.
Similarly, our initial approach to the game's item database was to use a single data table. This is a pretty standard way to handle things, but as the game grows (and grows) things start to get messy. There are no problems yet, but pretty soon this will start to impact game load times. We're going to change our approach here to use soft references to items in the database which are only loaded as required.
While all this goes on, it's more or less business as usual for the non-programming side of the team. The new zone is steadily coming together, and we're more than excited to share it with you.
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So that’s it from us for now. We’ve decided to make a habit of posting here monthly to keep you all informed, but if this wasn’t enough information to whet your appetite while the update is cooking you can watch me develop the game in real time over on Twitch, where I stream twice weekly. Keep an eye on my Youtube channel – there might be another devlog in the next couple weeks or so. And I should mention that Joe (our animator and AI programmer) has been streaming a TON lately over on his channel. See you around!