First of all, this update lays some groundwork for a new questline - the first of a series of more significant updates to come that bring more content to the game. With that said, here is the list for this particular update!
Demo
🚨 Reminder 🚨 The free demo includes the first Act of the main story including all relevant side quests. You can get a feel of the game this way before purchasing the full version. All saves and achievements will carry across!
All changes listed below which are relevant have also been rolled into the Demo version. Enjoy new players! 🤘
Updates
Skye's Quests: The first quest from Skye's storyline is now available! Begin your journey in understanding more about the Shadow Beasts by assisting Skye with her research.
Skye can now be found at a new research camp near the beaches in the Worm's Tail Island region.
Skye's quests are an optional late-game addition and is available to the player after Act 3 of the game.
Obtain a useful new "Key Item" for completing this quest.
Skye has been removed from the initial "Introduce Yourself" quest and her introduction is now handled by her own interaction.
New environmental details have been added to the Worm's Tail Region and the Magisters Ruins area.
The map screen has been updated to feature the new environmental details.
The Quest HUD will now provide a countdown timer for quests that are based on time progression. (As apposed to the previously vague "Wait a while..." text)
Reduced the time taken for Lucas to build in the "Set the Stage" quest from 5 days down to 3 days.
The village building camera movement is now restricted to the area in which it can build, and can no longer move far outside the game's relevant region.
The main quest "A Blocked Cave" will now be added to the players journal when exploring within the area of proximity to the cave in the Illisor Steppes region. (Previously the player needed to interact specifically with the cave to trigger the quest).
Bugfixes
Various fixes to spelling throughout the game and dialogue.
Fixed an issue where the player could pick up furniture items when their inventory is full, causing a loss of those items.
Fixed an issue where the snap rotation options were off by 10 degrees on two of the angles.
Fixed an issue where free camera movement was possible in the village building mode, where it should be more restricted.
Demo Only: Fixed a rare issue where the player could get soft-locked with time based quest progression due to the Spring-only season loop. Reaching the end of Spring in the demo should now trigger completion of these quests.
New Village Buildings
A new building with their own benefits have been added to Lucas' village building options.
Raised Platform - available in Act 3.
New Blueprint Recipes
An assortment of new blueprints have been added to Lucas' shop allowing further customisation and decoration. These are available at different parts of the game progression:
Fence Gate (which opens and closes based on proximity)
Canopy Shelter (Orange)
Canopy Shelter (Blue)
Canopy Shelter (Red)
Hay Bale
Wooden Shelf
Circular Stone Plinth
Square Stone Plinth
Weapon Rack
Cart
Crate (Wood)
Crate (Wood Large)
Crate (Clothed)
Crate (Desert)
Crate (Hard Wood)
Spoiler Item: 4 different "hero statues" (available after game completion).
The screenshot below is just an example of what I have done with these new buildable items. I am looking forward to see what other people will do with them!
I am using this months newsletter as an opportunity to talk about the current state of development and future plans that will hopefully take the game to version 1.0 and exit Early Access. Aside from that, expect the usual feature round up and community contributions!
As always, if you've played the game and feel like leaving a review, head over to the Steam page and write a few words - it always helps!⭐
The Road to Version 1.0 🛣️
I never intended Tales from The Dancing Moon to be in an Early Access state for very long, and as I'm entering my 5th month of development I've been thinking about what exactly it would take to get the game into it's full releasable state.
Ultimately, I've narrowed it down to TWO things:
Skye's Questline
Loyal players may have noticed a particularly quiet villager in Illisor. Skye - who currently resides down by the docks - has been wistfully looking out to sea, contemplating the events that are unfolding around you and the town. I’ve been slowly mulling over her quest-line as the Early Access has progressed, and I think I’m in a position where I can start having her story unfold.
As part of her quests, I’ll be moving her location to The Worm’s Tail Island region, where she will be investigating the origins of the Shadow Beasts. All the while allowing the player to discover new weapons, resources, locations and lore along the way. This will also make the Worm’s Tail Island region a much more interesting and worthwhile location for the player to visit in the game.
I consider Syke's content updates to be a 'mini-DLC sized' which I'll be rolling out gradually in subsequent updates, therefore it will take a bit longer to do than my usual patches. That’s the intention anyway!
Content, Content, Content!
The second piece of the version 1.0 puzzle is content. Tales from The Dancing Moon began as an RPG framework. Creating the building blocks for a game that can support quests and a variety of mini-games like farming, fishing, combat, and more.
Right now, the game supports enough things to get the player through the main quest and finish the story it tells. Sure - there’s been a few Early Access patches that adds a few more sandbox and craftable things, but I know that a lot more can be done here.
I’ll be adding a few things whilst I implement Skye’s quests, but even after that I’d like to add a lot more things the player can unlock and sandbox with, including more seasonal content as the player progresses in in-game time. This is also the sort of content that can also continue after the full release.
So all that farming, fishing, crafting, building and city-building you can do in the game? You should expect more variety to these things as I move closer to that 1.0 release.
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I've always been proud that I released Early Access in a "story-complete" state, but the completion of the above two things will allow me to bring it over the edge to a full release. I hope you stick around for the ride!
Patch and Updates Recap 🛠️
[0.9.17] introduced an advanced marketplace feature to the Illisor Plaza, with procedurally generated market stalls and merchants to add immersion and variety to each of your days, and a trading system that can get you some extra coin through buying and selling goods!
Community Spotlight 🌟
Do you want to be featured on the community spotlight each month? Make sure to post your screenshots on social media or the Discord server!
BU4U Gaming over on YouTube has started their own playthough of the game, I'm excited to see if they'll carry on with it! You can watch Episode 1 and 2 already on their channel.
MooseGaming is back with Part 6 of his YouTube playthrough!
McLana and Izzi took a few snaps this month which I'd love to highlight for this months community spotlight, Check out them out down below!
That's all for this months newsletter, thanks for tuning in and playing!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider downloading the demo or trying the Early Access of the game, you can even just Wishlist if you like! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on Threads or Twitter!
Enhanced Marketplace: The Illisor Plaza market strip will now grow in size as you progress in the game, making the village feel more alive as you play. See below for screenshots of this new feature!
Procedurally generated merchant's will now sell goods at the market, providing a randomized set of stock at a cheaper rate per day. Not every day is the same, so look out for what's in store!
Procedurally generated stalls make the market strip look slightly different every day.
Cheaper market rates introduces new trading gameplay. Will you buy limited goods for convenience? Or sell them on for the standard rate via the market drop box?
More variety to these shops will be added in future updates.
The shopping UI has been slightly adjusted, and now includes a "Stock" column for merchants with limited supply of items.
A tooltip will now display when attempting to gather resources (wood, stone, etc) when you're inventory is full.
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue where the player could not pick up more museum artefacts that stack in their inventory if all of their inventory slots were occupied.
Fixed an issue where the in-game time will reset to the beginning (Year 1, Spring, Day 1) when using the Wardrobe item to customise your appearance.
Let's take a look over the last month and highlight some community contributions!
Spring Sale, and Reviews! ⭐
First of all - a big thank you to those who have joined us recently after picking up the game during this months Spring Sale. This is the first time Tales from The Dancing Moon has been on sale, and I'm happy to have a bunch of new players join and experience the story. I hope you're having fun!
If you haven't already - please consider leaving a review. It always helps, even if there's room for improvement!
SteamDeck Verified! 🎮
Following on from last months newsletter update, I managed to provide a patch which bumps the SteamDeck rating from "Playable" to "Verified", this is due to some accessibility improvements such as font scaling, which enhances it's playability on smaller screens and higher resolutions.
Patch and Updates Recap 🛠️
[0.9.16] Brought a whole bunch of fixes, better consistency to the UI, and introduced an important update allowing font scaling! Players can now increase and decrease the font-size used for story, dialog, quests and other prompts to improve their comfort of reading.
Future Sneak Peek 👀
As the stability patches have become less frequent, it has allowed me to think more about creating updates that provide more significant and meaningful changes to the game. What's more is that I am always happy to receive feedback and ideas for those changes over on the Discord server!
Here's a little peek into one of the changes I'm planning for the in-game market place, which will hopefully bring a little more variety and life into the Central Plaza, with new stalls to wander through and merchants to purchase from.
Community Spotlight 🌟
McLana over on the Discord server has shown off a bunch of screenshots, including a clever use of storage using the building systems and a calming winter fishing on the lakes in the evening! Thanks for sharing McLana!
That's all for this months newsletter, thanks for tuning in and playing!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider downloading the demo or trying the Early Access of the game, you can even just Wishlist if you like! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on Threads or Twitter!
This is just a short news post to announce that Tales from The Dancing Moon is now considered "SteamDeck Verified!"
Recent UX updates such as font-scaling greatly improves the readability of text on small screens with higher resolutions, and now passes all the checks needed for verification!
Thank you to everyone who has requested these kinds of accessibility features and helps me prioritise the things that greatly improves the experience and welcomes new players to the game! 😊
Font Scaling: A new setting in the main menu allows you to adjust the font-scaling of quest, dialog, item descriptions, and other HUD related text.
Overall font-size consistency has been improved across all of the UI. As a result, there may be some differences to how text size was displayed before.
Standardized UI prompt layouts across the game, bringing a more consistent UI experience when navigating throughout the game.
The item received popups have been moved to the left side of the screen to accommodate for the font-scaling changes.
An auto-scrolling logic has been added to the active quest HUD display if all the tasks can not fit on on the screen. This is to assist rare occurrences when using a combination of high font-scale settings and lower screen resolutions.
The input buttons on the crafting menus have been moved to a more consistent location than the rest of the UIs.
The initial UI prompt on the map screen has been redesigned.
Input glyph sizes for shoulder button and triggers have been slightly updated to improve readability.
The scrolling areas for conversation dialogs now scroll smoothly when using the mouse wheel.
If you notice anything out of the ordinary related to these updates, please report it via a bug report on the Discord or the forums. :)
Bugfixes
Typo fixes on Myrill.
Typo fixes on Beetroot items.
Fixed an issue where the player inventory tab would not show your latest items when using a controller to show the menu.
Demo
The demo has been updated with all the latest fixes and features of the Early Access, allowing better accessibility for new players who want to try out the fist Act of the game for free!
SteamDeck: Gamepad input UI icons now support the SteamDeck.
New Minigame: A new tile-based mini game has been introduced for the patrons of The Dancing Moon! Talk to Fergus at the start of Act 2 to initiate the quest and learn how to play!
The layout of The Dancing Moon Ground Floor has been slightly adjusted to accommodate the new mini-game update.
A new villager NPC has been added to accommodate the new mini-game update.
A new lo-fi style track has been added for the mini-game.
Leaderboards: Check how you stack up against the top 10 global players with in-game leaderboards!
The tile minigame Leaderboard can be accessed as soon as the tile minigame is discovered in Act 2.
Gameplay based Leaderboards can be found after the main quest is completed. They will be found on Astryn's Fishing Hut for fishes caught and The Eastern Gate for enemies defeated.
See the screenshots below to see what they look like!
Archery quest related lore has been added to the museum's lore tracker book after you have read them.
January 2024 Newsletter - Patch Recap & Official Guides!
Greetings Travellers!
I am over a month into the Early Access release, and I'm very happy with the state of the game right now. It's the most complete and stable the game has ever been, and players have been able to finish the game all the way through with positive feedback about the story - which is all I ever wanted when I released the game!
Real life commitments have ramped up since the release and holiday period, which means I've transitioned my time to delivering less-frequent but much more meaningful updates.
In the first section of this newsletter I'll be focussing on some of the updates that have happened since release!
A Favour 🙏
Before I jump in...
If you haven't already - please feel free to leave a review on the Steam page!
It's surprisingly difficult to ask for genuine feedback. Even If you've played just a small part of the game, I would really appreciate any kind of constructive feedback! 🙏
Patch and Updates Recap 🛠️
Let's take a look at some of the key updates that occurred over the last month since the Early Access release.
[0.9.12] Brought a quest with new archery based combat in Act 2. This addresses the much requested feature of distance based combat against those pesky shadow-beasts!
[0.9.11] Expanded the cooking and food gameplay by introducing new quests for Nicolas, along with a bunch of new ingredients and cooking recipes to experiment with.
[0.9.10] Brought a new quest type based on timed races into the game, making the sprint mechanic in-game much more clear to the player, which will no doubt be useful for the rest of the game.
[0.9.9] Was the start of expanding the crafting blueprints that can be purchased from Lucas, allowing more player sandboxing options in the village. Look out for more in future updates!
Official Wiki and Walkthrough Guide 📚
One request that has came up through the community of players is a guide or wiki, so I decided to start one as a means to provide a walkthrough/guide for players who just need a little nudge in the right direction if they get stuck.
Please Note: Tales from The Dancing Moon is a game with an emphasis on quests and figuring things out for yourself. If you need help it may be better to ask for hints on the Discord or forums before consulting this guide.
The guides focus on gameplay actions rather than story, to keep them as spoiler-free as possible.
Here's just a few highlights from the Tales from The Dancing Moon community of players!
ThePillowFort is back this month with a continued live-stream that starts their Act 2 journey. I've really enjoyed seeing the positive comments from their viewers as they've played along!
MooseGaming over on Youtube has been making his way through the game, and since last time I wrote a newsletter there have been 2 new Let's Plays. Go check them out if you have the time! Thanks Moose!
Izzi on the Discord server has been making use of the new object scaling features in the crafting gameplay, and has started making a cozy living area in their player home. 🥰
That's all for this months newsletter, thanks for tuning in and playing!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider downloading the demo or trying the Early Access of the game, you can even just Wishlist if you like! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on Threads or Twitter!
The Z key can now be used to toggle the combat target lock.
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue where the west direction keyboard input on the fishing mini-game was showing "E" instead of "A".
Reworked some music and sound logic in the fishing mini-game, which should fix a rare bug where the reeling noise would keep playing even after fishing.
Refined audio levels in the fishing mini-game.
Fixed an issue where the controller input icons for cycling the combat target was incorrect.
Fixed an issue where the player movement would hitch when sprinting and swapping to combat weapons.
Demo
The demo build has been refreshed with all the latest bugfixes from the Early Access.
New Quest: This update is all about long-range combat! Discover a new point of interest in the Noneye Desert region in Act 2 to start the "Archery Society" quest. Unlocks a craftable bow & arrow set to pick off those pesky shadow-beasts from a distance. Perfect for the rangers out there!
New lore books have been added to support the archery quests.
A new Noneye Desert procedural points of interest has been added to support the archery quests.
New craftable items have been added to support the archery quests.
Bugfixes
Fixed a potential logic conflict that would prevent the player from sprinting in the plaza.
Fixed an issue where not all carved pumpkin recipes were visible in Lucas' shop.
New Blueprints
Available from Act 2
<*> Decorative Tree A <*> Decorative Rock A <*> Decorative Rock B <*> Decorative Rock C
