Village Monsters v1.06 fixes one of the most annoying bugs I have ever been responsible for: the dreaded duplicating cutscenes. It also cleans up a number of other major and minor bugs that have been reported.
Work continues on the much larger update which I'm tentatively calling v1.1.
Bugs Squashed
MAJOR: Fixed an issue where cutscenes would repeat indefinitely
MAJOR: Fixed a crash with cutscenes
MAJOR: Fixed a crash when interacting with tamed critters outside of the barn
Fixed issue where skipping a cutscene could cause problems in other cutscenes
Fixed seeds not properly stocking / restocking in the general store
Fixed a number of issues that could prevent "flavor" critters from spawning
Fixed various typos and other embarrassing gaffs
Improved performance across Linux platforms
Note: There may be a rare instance in which you see a cutscene repeat one additional time. However, they should not repeat further after this. If they do, please report it as a bug. In general, any save older than Spring 10th is fixed.
Village Monsters is my first ever creation. I am very proud of the work I did, and the many kind words I've received from players has been beyond heartwarming.
I have notebooks from back when I was in 1st grade detailing a game where you live with video game monsters, and now nearly 30 years later... it's real! People are playing it!
But, to be frank, Village Monsters is in a very rough state right now. I've already released 5 bugfix patches, and after looking at the reports on my desk, I have a long way to go.
I want to use this post to address the biggest problems, how they came about, and what I'm doing to fix them.
The Problems
My top priority right now is fixing the issues that were introduced during the final push.
For context, a technical bug with my developer tools caused me to lose 2 months worth of work the literal night before the original launch date. It sucked. You can read more details here.
I had already been crunching for months, so this last-minute disaster nearly broke me. In a fit of reckless optimism, I opted to manually stich the game back together over the course of a week. I had hoped adrenaline and the code being "fresh" in my mind would help pull off a miracle.
I was stupid and exhausted. While my approach ultimately was "successful", it has (predictably) introduced far more problems into the game than before.
Over the last week, I've identified two of the largest ones.
Problem #1
World Flags are not working properly across the board. These flags control nearly everything in the game, such as holidays, events, and story cutscenes. The knock-on effects are tremendous, and it's my top priority to fix.
Problem #2
There are many features that were disabled in the final moments of release. Some intentionally (due to time constraints), others due to bugs or source control issues. There are many lingering issues due to this. My next priority is to test, fix, and reenable these features.
The Solution
I've been investigating my code and player save files since last week. I have a really good idea of what needs to be fixed and how, and I've already started on working through it. Things are going very well, especially now that I've had a chance to sleep and regroup.
You guys deserve a fixed and polished game, and no amount of words, roadmaps or timelines will get you that faster. To this end, I'll continue doing rapid smaller patches to fix crashes and urgent bugs, but I'll otherwise keep a low profile until I've finished the work necessary.
I want to extend an enormous thank you to everyone who has supported me. From the very first Kickstarter, to 2019's Early Access release, to last week's v1.0 launch. I don't take any of you for granted, and I won't stop working on Village Monsters until it's in a state worthy of your support.
Village Monsters v1.05 + A Quick Note
Hey Villagers
Village Monsters v1.05 is now available, and it fixes exactly one bug. It's a terrible one, so I wanted to provide a longer explanation.
The bug occurs during the Cool Stuff event in the Summer. It's bugged, and it loads a cutscene with no dialogue. To avoid crashing, the game attempts to pull dialogue from another source - in this case, debug dialogue.
The dialogue it randomly chose is extremely inappropriate and contains offensive language. v1.05 disables the event entirely and removes all offending text from the game outright.
Why is this "inappropriate" text in the game at all?
There are two features in Village Monsters where I check for profanity and slurs.
Players can send letters to villagers, and villagers attempt to "read" what you send them. I have profanity checks in place to see if you're sending them awful things and they will respond negatively if so.
In addition, there was once a feature where villagers could reply back to your letters using the same words and language you used in the letter. It used a type of text generation known as a Markov Chain. I have further checks here to ensure that the simple AI used to create these letters didn't accidentally send something awful.
To test both of these features, I had ~40 lines of text that I used for sending letters. 10 of these lines of text purposefully contain inappropriate words to ensure the game handles them correctly. The line in the Cool Stuff cutscene is one of those.
---
Even though this text was never meant to be seen by a player, I should have taken far better precautions.
To this end, I have deleted all offensive debug text I used for testing, and will use a different solution for this testing going forward.
I am so sorry. It's beyond inappropriate that people had to see this. I hope my explanation makes sense, but obviously I understand any damage has already been done. I can only hope to regain your trust.
Village Monsters v1.04 Patch Notes
Bugs Squashed
MAJOR: Fixed further softlocks due to incorrect flags in the intro
MAJOR: Fixed further crashes related to skipping cutscenes
MAJOR: Fixed crash when talking to Mock in the first few weeks of the game
MAJOR: Fixed crash when talking to Zigi in the summer
Fixed time staying paused when re-entering the town hall basement
(The town hall basement, long considered haunted, has finally been expunged of evil spirits and associated curses and bad luck)
Investigating
The following are a list of reported (or discovered) problems that require more investigation. I will update ETAs as I understand more about the problems.
There appears to be an issue with projects (Village & Home) that I am currently investigating
Events (Holidays, birthdays, etc.) do not appear to be triggering.
Console is not working correctly. The cause is under investigation
Village Monsters v1.03 Patch Notes
Three patches in three days!
...I suppose that's not something I should be super proud of...
I believe I've cracked the majority of the urgent bugs that crop up in the first few days of the game, so I'll now turn my attention to other matters.
I anticipate releasing a new patch every 1-2 days as fixes roll in.
Bugs Squashed
MAJOR: Fixed softlock caused by going back in the basement after finding the key
MAJOR: Fixed crash caused by duplicate lost items
Fixed progression issue related to trash and propaganda in the village
Fixed incorrectly lighting from being used in the morning in some instances
Fixed a large number of minor issues related to the transition from night to morning
Fixed issue causing a huge number of treasure spots from appearing each day
Fixed overlap bug for Pishky and Alistair in Overflow on day 1
Changes / Balance
Reduced spawn rates for items in the village
Added more details sent in the Report Bug feature to help investigate other bugs and issues reported
Investigating
The following are a list of reported (or discovered) problems that require more investigation. I will update ETAs as I understand more about the problems.
There appears to be an issue with projects (Village & Home) that I am currently investigating
Events (Holidays, birthdays, etc.) do not appear to be triggering.
Console is not working correctly. The cause is under investigation
Village Monsters v1.02 Patch Notes
Bugs Squashed
MAJOR: Fixed common crash when digging up certain items (they would appear as just a red X)
MAJOR: Fixed instances were skipping a cutscenes results in a crash
MAJOR: Fixed rare crash related to mail and packages
Fixed SFX issue with the pick with the last swing
Fixed issue where certain treasures had an incorrect sprite
Various typos fixed
Changes / Balance
Generally, digging spots takes a couple extra swings with a Level 1 pick axe
Skipping cutscenes is now smoother and less jarring
Investigating
The following are a list of reported (or discovered) problems that require more investigation. I will update ETAs as I understand more about the problems.
There appears to be an issue with projects (Village & Home) that I am currently investigating
Events (Holidays, birthdays, etc.) do not appear to be triggering.
Console is not working correctly. The cause is under investigation
Village Monsters v1.01 Patch Notes
Bugs Fixed
Major: Fixed crash during the 2nd day when speaking with a villager
Fixed a number of "flavor SFX" (birds etc.) from being incorrectly loud during cutscenes
Typo Corrections
Village Monsters v1.0 - "The Big One" - is now available!
Hello Humans!
Sorry to keep you waiting!
Village Monsters v1.0 - "The Big One" has launched! It is now available on all platforms.
What's New?
Everything!
Story & Progression
The biggest change in v1.0 is the addition of story and progression elements.
You are a human who has arrived at Eidolon Village - a town of monsters - in surprising fashion. Unfortunately for you, humans aren't welcome in this world anymore.
As you await your fate, you learn that the village has something more important to worry about: it's scheduled for imminent destruction.
Soon after, your freedom is tied to the fate of Eidolon. The village is given a short two year reprieve, and now it's up to you - through court-mandated community service - to save the village and win your freedom.
More Stuff
There's more critters to catch, more fish to hook, more plants to grow, more treasures to discover, new secrets, new perks, new visitors, new events, new areas to explore, more dialogue, more cutscenes, more friends, more enemies.
Chances are, if you liked something about Village Monsters before, there's even more of it to enjoy now.
Less Stuff...?!
Features and content that weren't working great in Early Access have been trimmed, simplified, or cut entirely.
Some things may return in future updates - especially the things that were cut recently to avoid further delays.
However, many are consigned forever to oblivion - and good riddance! I think everyone will agree that Village Monsters is a tighter and more complete experience without the extra baggage.
Quality of Life
An endless number of changes have been made to make the game easier, simpler, and more fun to play.
The economy, energy expenditures, passage of time, and more have been tweaked and rebalanced to be smoother.
Many new user interface elements have been added or modified to make things easier. Filters help you manage your inventory better, while new dialogue menu makes interacting with villagers more dynamic.
What's Next?
First: I'm going to get some rest. It's been a long weekmonth year. I'm ready to catch my breath.
I then immediately have jury duty to worry about on the 23rd. Seriously. It's been a weird few weeks, guys.
Please expect a short amount of radio silence from me. I haven't gone anywhere, I'm just recharging my batteries.
After that, I'll start on the usual round of bugfixes, quality of life changes, and incorporating your feedback. As always, you can submit feedback in game, send me an email, a Twitter DM, or a Discord message.
I'm gonna level with you: I'll be spending a good deal of time fixing bugs. My list of "known bugs" is pretty big already, and I only expect it to grow after lots of new people start hammering away at this monstrous release.
I realize that sort of thing isn't something you should admit, generally speaking. But it's not like I can hide it. I've been more than transparent (for good or ill) about the woes I've been dealing with getting this release finished.
Don't worry, I'm here for the long haul. I got big plans for the future of Village Monsters.
For now: welcome home, humans!
Update on the Update on Village Monsters v1.0 Release
Hello Humans!
It's been a strange week!
I began the week by sprinting confidently toward release, but just as I was about to cross the finish line I ran face-first into a brick wall.
It sucked. A lot. But dwelling on it won't help, so I've dusted myself off and I'm ready to move forward.
Current Status
The manual workaround I spoke about last update has been completed successfully.
I am now re-testing the final version. I expect this to take the remainder of the weekend. Devs aren't able to do a weekend release anyway, so this actually works out.
Right now I am aiming for an early morning Tuesday release. This gives me the weekend to focus on testing, and then Monday I can wrap it up and go down my release checklist.
I have confirmed that I can build the final version of Village Monsters and can upload it on Steam and Itch, so there will be no further obstacles.
I will continue to post live updates on Twitter and Discord. I also did a developer live stream yesterday showcasing parts of the game while I tested things and answered questions.
What Happened?
I want to be as transparent as possible about what caused all this, but the details are pretty technical.
In short, building the release version of Village Monsters caused my development environment (GameMaker Studio 2) to crash. I could run it just fine on my own computer using the virtual runner, but could not package it for release. This was a problem.
After much testing, and pulling hair out, I discovered the root cause. An IDE bug was causing a large number of junk files to clog up my project directory. These files were (apparently) harmless, but would lead to a crash when I tried to build the final release.
I use source control (git), but it was frustratingly unhelpful in this instance. The junk files were being created nearly every time I created a new asset, meaning nearly every commit since the bug was introduced contained junk files.
In addition, I could not simply cherry pick the "good" files and leave behind the junk files. It was all too intertwined, and removing the files outside the IDE caused even more file system corruption.
My only recourse was to clone the last good build of the game from January and manually port over the changes commit-by-commit. It was tedious work of nearly 300 commits, which is why it has taken me so long.
In addition, testing has become an even more important priority, as manual work (especially performed by a tired, cranky developer) is far more prone to errors and mistakes.
Thankfully that did the trick. I've gone through the entire release process multiple times with success. There should be no further issues.
Update on Village Monsters v1.0 Release
Hello Villagers
It's now 1:00 PM Pacific time and Village Monsters v1.0 still hasn't released. I wanted to explain what's going on.
Late last night I encountered a very unexpected technical problem during the final stages of building the release. The good news is that it's unrelated to Village Monsters itself - it's a problem with my developer tools.
The bad news is that until it's fixed, I can't proceed with the release. It's like driving 3,000 miles to photograph the Grand Canyon, only to find your camera suddenly stopped working. It's an agonizing problem.
I have spent all day trying to find a workaround. Thankfully, I have one. However, it requires a lot of manual, time-consuming work. I can't find another alternative.
I'll need ~20 more hours to complete this work, plus another round of testing of the (new) "final" release.
This will force me to postpone the release by a few more days. I don't dare give another ETA until the final build is literally in my hands and ready for release, but the moment it's ready, it's all systems go.
This has been a very exhausting experience. Thank you all so much for your patience and support throughout. The kind words of encouragement I've received through Twitter and Discord have been wonderful, and more than I deserve.
