The new Island Creator Update is now live, restart Steam to download the update! We invite you to watch the video below for a better overview, but here is the patch notes on the menu this week:
Custom Groups and Material sets are now shareable via the Steam Workshop!
Complete overhaul of Steam Workshop Window.
Materials now feature auto fill options, you can customize fill settings per layer and paint the whole island in a single click. These are also part of the material sharing, so downloading other creators material setups and applying them to your islands is now super simple.
Dynamic Grass is now an option to generate grass blades procedurally anywhere that layer is painted. Options for thickness, softness and height variation can create long hay fields or lush meadows equally well.
Spectator camera option for smoother screen recording to show off your creations in style.
Temperature slider to preview how your island might look in different biomes in the main game.
Character now selects clothing from the starter items in the main game and randomizes the colours to match.
New cliff assets.
Updated grass assets.
The standard array of bug fixes and optimizations.
Travelers! First of all, thank you for your patience, we are glad to share that 0.0.6 is now live. On the menu, you’ll find that we redesigned the logical game progression. This new approach is closer to what we envisioned for Worlds Adrift. The world is now divided into Biomes. As such, you’ll find the first four Biomes: Wilderness, Expanse, Remnants, Badlands separated by natural weather barrier. Each biome will have its own loot, resources, schematics, rewards & secrets to discover.
One of the totally new gameplay features we’ve added is cooking. Forage berries or use a campfire to cook meat, you’ll need to regenerate your health by eating. More changes come under the form of the revamped sky core. You now have one sky core per ship that you can upgrade. Having one sky core per ship will allow you to have more space to customize your ship.
You can now climb any surface making it easier to explore islands or simply have a higher point of view from your ship flag pole. You’ll also find the new “Global illumination” lighting change that will make Islands, caves and interiors look better than ever before.
As usual, this is a new patch,with lots of new content and we would truly appreciate your comments & feedbacks below!
Full Patch Notes:
KNOWN ISSUES & WORKAROUNDS
<*>Occasionally, after the client has been running for a few hours, approaching a new island will cause a 5-10 second freeze, after which the player will be thrown off the ship. Restart the client to fix.
<*>Logging in onto a moving ship may result in the ship having moved out from under the character by the time the character loads in.
<*>Climbing on very bent ship panels will do serious damage to the player: Avoid these for now.
<*>The client will enter a ‘not responding’ state or crash occasionally: Restart the client to fix.
<*>When taking control of a helm or cannon, a player will sometimes be seen in an incorrect place.
<*>WiFi may incur problems: Best played on an ethernet connection for now.
NEW FEATURES IN ALPHA 0.0.6
<*>Biomes have been added to the game, with the first four implemented.
<*>Biomes determine loot tables, resources, schematics, and rewards.
<*>Biomes determine creature variants and behaviors.
<*>Biomes determine surrounding weather barriers.
<*>Sandstorms have been added to the game.
<*>The start of the game and key schematics have been revised, along with the Knowledge tree.
<*>A rehaul to the atlas sky core has been implemented: ships are now restricted to a single core, which is upgradeable through attaching specific addons.
<*>A completely revamped lighting solution for island caves and interiors has been implemented.
<*>Creatures’ corpses can now be salvaged for meat, which can be cooked and eaten to regenerate player health. Harvesting trees also gives berries, which also regenerate health.
<*>Objects abandoned on islands will eventually sink into the ground and decay. You may come across an island with the buried wreckage of another player’s adventures.
<*>Lightning striking from the death clouds below will hit islands and excite the atlas within, burying some objects forever and bringing others to the surface.
<*>Ships and ship parts have a new aesthetic; both materials and damage should now show properly.
<*>Players can now combine the same resource of different qualities. The new quality is a weighted average of the two previous stacks.
<*>Metal scrap deposits have had their placeholder art replaced with final assets.
<*>Sails have had their placeholder art updated; animation and audio added.
<*>Ancient revival chambers have had their placeholder potat - err, art - replaced with final assets.
<*>Saborian databanks have had their placeholder art replaced with final assets; animation added.
<*>Characters have gained the ability to climb. Press Q when near a surface or object and your character will grab on; WASD will control your climb.
<*>Player respawn rules have been updated: timers have been added, random respawn is now limited to two uses per day and keeps you within the current zone, and respawning to any revival chamber now immediately severs your connection to your existing personal reviver.
NOTABLE BUGFIXES IN 0.0.6
<*>Upon logging in following a crash, players will no longer constantly get reset to the pre-crash position and state.
<*>When approaching a new island, the client should now only rarely freeze for a notable amount of time. There will still be little hiccups that will be optimised away in a future update.
<*>Players, when ragdolled, will no longer exert extreme forces with their limp body.
<*>Cannon shells should no longer rubberband, causing havoc on their own ships. Their damage calculations have also had various bugs fixed.
Rendering objects on islands has been significantly optimized. Framerates should increase noticeably.
<*>Ships rubberbanding while flying has been significantly reduced.
<*>Building parts onto the hull of ships will no longer result in extreme framerate degradation.
<*>Many situations where ships or ship parts silently stopped functioning (fuel tanks being a common example) have been fixed.
<*>Sometimes the connection menu would lay over the in-game screen, making it impossible to play. This has been fixed.
<*>In-game broadcasts have been fixed; messages, including those notifying players of an upcoming maintenance, should be visible again.
<*>Trees should no longer duplicate when chopped.
<*>Mysterious clumps of metal or eggs should no longer spawn at specific points in the open air.
<*>Ships should no longer log out when docked to the shipyard - regardless of the status of players.
<*>Islands with missing assets now have them showing appropriately. Murals now show their logograms correctly.
<*>This is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but large in the minds of shipbuilders everywhere: the Artificial Horizon placement has been fixed!
APPLY FOR OUR FINAL ALPHA PLAYTEST!
Ahoy travelers!
We’ve got some fantastic news that you’ll want to hear ...
Worlds Adrift is about to head into Alpha 6 and we need even more stalwart crew members to sail the skies and find adventure where others dare not tread.
Now will be YOUR LAST CHANCE to join an alpha playtest before we start closed beta!
To apply, make sure you register on the Worlds Adrift site [www.worldsadrift.com/register] and once you've activated your account you'll receive an application link. The deadline to sign up is midnight on 1 March, 2017. If you have already applied to a previous playtest and been unsuccessful, don't worry, we have your details already and you don't need to re-apply. If you're already in a playtest, there's also no need to re-apply.
To discover all the features that you’ll be able to try out in the next playtest, check out the latest blog post.[www.worldsadrift.com]
We look forward to seeing you and your crew in the skies creating your own adventures.
See you soon.
The Worlds Adrift Team
x o x o
BLOG POST - NEW THINGS FOR ALPHA 5, AND RELEASE DATE UPDATE
Hey there everyone,
Many of you may have guessed this already, so it won’t be news to you. We initially listed that our release date would be at the end of 2016. The end of the year is approaching fast, and you haven’t heard anything from us about the when you’ll all be able to play the game. So what’s happening? When can you assemble your crew and start sailing the skies? Bossa, what is going on?!
“We’ll not launch a game that’s not ready, that is a commitment myself and the team have made to ourselves early on.”
It’s definitely worth giving that blog post a re-read (or an initial read if you haven’t checked it out yet), because everything written there still applies to now. We really did hope to release the game in 2016, but we still have a little more work to do to ensure the game is fun, balanced and of course, optimised. It was gratifying to see that you, the community, also stressed the importance of releasing Worlds Adrift when it is in tip-top condition rather than rushing it out half-baked. We really appreciated your candour on this matter and it certainly gave us pause for thought!
Therefore, we wanted to confirm to you all that Worlds Adrift will now be launching on Early Access in Q1 2017.
On the subject of the Alpha playtests, you will be pleased to know the next one is imminent and this will be the biggest one to date yet. We will also be testing out some very significant features in the game that take us much closer to the version we will be releasing. Some of the things we have added to this build are:
Knowledge - Islands now have ancient Saborian databanks scattered around. Scan these for Knowledge, which you can use to specialise your character in the Knowledge tree tab of your character sheet.
New Shipyard - The new Shipyard makes its debut! Build your custom ship frame exactly how you want: tall and skinny or wide and flat, small and sleek or big and bulky, it’s all up to you
Loot - Islands now contain lootable containers, where ancient schematics are now found.
Pistols - The crossbow has been replaced by the pistol, which should be easier to aim with.
Combat - ranged combat has had a complete overhaul, and rebalance, so ship combat will involve lots of cannons, and big ship fights.
Male character - Many of you have been asking for this feature for a long time. Well, it’s finally here. You can now play as a gentleman of the skies.
Sails - Sails are now craftable and attachable to decks. A ship now only technically needs a core and a sail to fly, though it’s probably still a good idea to add a reviver. Pay attention to the direction of the wind!
Thank you for your time. We look forward to seeing you in the skies in in Alpha 5!
Cheers
The Worlds Adrift team
NEXT PLAYTEST ANNOUNCED & HUGE ISLAND CREATOR UPDATE NOW LIVE!
We are very happy to announce our latest playtest is now open for applicants. This will be the largest playtest yet and adds a myriad of brand-new features, including the Shipyard where players can create unique ship designs of any shape or size, updated UI and controls, improved framerate, new creatures, and plenty more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djl3RzTnMvg
To apply you simply need to register here: https://www.worldsadrift.com/register/
If you have already registered on the site check your inbox for an email from us with the link to apply! If you have previously registered for a playtest with us, you don't need to register again. We have your details!
Application are open until noon GMT on the 18th November.
Not only is there a playtest but we also have a BIG new update for the Island Creator update today! So much Worlds Adrift...
This is the list of everything new in the Island Creator, just for you:
Gameplay objects
- Murals with editable pictograms and glyphs to create your own stories.
- Loot ruins and containers to populate your islands with collectibles in the main game.
- High value chests to create focal points and reward players for exploring your island.
- Databanks which reward knowledge in the main game.
New Assets
- More Saborian blocks, walls, windows, door frames, broken walls etc.
- New set of metal ruins including pipes, platforms and more metal junk.
- Decorative statues, lights (working and broken) and more ornamental pieces.
- Hanging vines, wall vines and roots foliage.
- New surface textures and existing textures have been improved.
New Character Controller
- New rappelling functionality, new grapple boost move, improved general grappling and falling physics.
- Player now slip down unsafe surfaces.
- Some clothing variety.
- Player's position can now be reset to the initially clicked spot with the 'R' key.
General Improvements
- Painting tool made more responsive and the fill bucket with min and max angles now has better blending.
- Scrolling lists made much more responsive with lots of items.
- Fonts in certain UI areas tidied up and made neater.
- Auto pressure sensitivity for stylus.
- New foliage lighting.
- Planar handles added to movement gizmo.
Love and kisses,
The Worlds Adrift Team
x o x o
NEW Rusty Assets for the Island Creator
Hello, Iain here!
We really love what the community has been making with the Island Creator so far, but we’re always looking to flesh out the list of assets people have to play with. When we asked what we should make more of, one thing that came up multiple times was additional mechanical ruins. Up to this point you’ve had only these six unique pieces!
These are quite bespoke shapes and you’d have to be pretty creative to incorporate them into other things in your islands (besides isolated ruins or a big junk yard), so as well as adding more to this collection, we decided to give you some more “building block” pieces from which you can build your own industrial ruins on your islands.
To start with, Jack made some really LOVELY PIPES (and I mean, seriously lovely).
These things can help break up any empty spaces or link from one set piece to another. That way they can act as a kind of path for players to follow.
Next up are some more unique storytelling items. Aside from the mailbox-type one on the left, these were inspired by the kind of shapes and structures you can find in steel mills.
The mailbox was built with more of a loose function in mind. It can be used to connect certain objects or again, just break up any long, empty or monotonous spaces.
Here are the parts that I hope you can really fill out spaces with.
Six individual platforms, four girders, and some broken ladder pieces.
And here’s my first punt at putting some of these into use.
Stay tuned for a Twitch stream soon where I will take you on a guided tour of a new island to demonstrate some potential level design and storytelling uses for these new assets.
“So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you’re a programmer?”
In this video, we discuss Liz England's concept of The Door Problem. It's a great way to explain what all of the different roles in a game studio are, and what each person is responsible for.
We'd love to hear any questions you have and if there's anything you're curious about to do with game development.
Much love,
Oliver Age 24 and Vince
Bossa Studios
Worlds Adrift Blog - Island Creator Experts
Hey there, travellers of the skies,
You’ve probably seen some of the amazing player-made creations from our Island Creator by now. Many of you have already delved into the sweet art of island-making, and have produced vast, colourful havens amid the clouds.
We’re going to be updating this useful tool really soon - including such things as ruins that have a chance of containing loot in the live game, and ancient databanks that contain knowledge of the past. We can’t wait to see what you create with these new features added, but until then, we caught up with a couple of our top island creators, to see how they have found the tool so far, and what they have created.
“I'm Robert Stephenson and I've been using the Island Creator as a means to practice level design work while I try to move towards a games design career. The program stood out to me for the simplicity in it's scope but the width of it's possibilities. A difficult aspect of level design is how to present the player with a consistently interesting space, the limitation of the floating island appealed for this reason. The playable area is entirely determined by the premise of the island itself and the imagination of the designer. Trying to fill an entire horizon of gamespace as someone teaching themselves level design is a daunting task, whereas an idea can quickly be fleshed out in the island creator since the world is only ever as big as is necessary. There is enough complexity available to create something big and elaborate; but a small island with a great idea can be designed, finished and uploaded for people to see in a few hours.
The complexity limitation I was took as a challenge. It's very easy to make an island with a forest on it by placing a lot of trees. But trees are very intensive object to put into any game. Learning to use the more interesting assets available, like the trees or larger building structures was a lesson learned while using the program. For a 3D tool it was very simple to use as well. I have a little knowledge of Maya from university and the Island Creator was easy to pick up from that background. Learning the Island Creator itself took very little time, which meant that I could focus more on the level design than the interface itself.
The Islands I created with the program were each a lesson to teach myself. The inspiration for each being an aspect of gameplay I wanted to explore. 'The Maze' was my first big undertaken build, the enforced structure to focus on exploration within a recognisable space with a clear goal. However this clashed with the idea of the Worlds adrift gameplay in general, with very little verticality to the map. 'The Makers Sundial' was designed specifically as a response to this mistake when it came to creating a new Island. A truly vertical map with a real focal point on the top. It's very satisfying seeing an element or asset within the program and thinking of ways to use it that no one else thought of. This is a key part of the Island creator experience that I really enjoyed. The last big map I created with the program to date is called 'Utopia' and set out to be the culmination of all the lessons learned on the way. The map is maze like yet with large vertical elements, and a focus on grapple points to allow fast movement through a large city. I wanted it to become a showcase of what can be done with the program both from my point of view and from the community as a whole.
The possibilities of the Island creator grow with every update and the new features have made map creation faster and simpler. It's far easier to be imaginative and see ideas through when the tools are a help not a hindrance. It's a great little program to unleash creativity and get designing. And makes me even more determined to get past my QA days and into level/games design work.
“My background's in architecture and I've found the Island Creator to be a great sketching and concept development tool - I just start with an idea and go straight into the app without recourse to pencil and paper. And sometimes with no idea at all - simply doodling away with the components often bears fruit. Generally, I lay out the primary built form first and then sculpt the terrain to suit after creating custom groups for re-insertion. I like to alternate between the 'traditional' ruin + cave environments and something more conceptually playful. I'm bemused that Fast Franky's Fryland is proving to be more popular than Temple to the God of Flight but hopefully there's room for a multitude of approaches in the WA universe. I guess as long the environments are interesting and invite exploration then the aesthetic style is not too critical.
01 - Temple to the God of Flight
Initial attempt in WA – playing around with shape and scale. The structure developed first and once the head was added ‘temple’ evolved and the choice of god was a no-brainer. A conventional layout which assumes a fixed spawn point at the start of a processional route – of no consequence at all to visiting ships!
02 - Far Easterly Isle
Another exercise in ‘shape and scale’ inspired by the moai on the real Easter Island. Primary formal elements are Desert Rocks and Metal Wings with terrain downplayed and used as infill. Lots of different levels to explore or colonise.
03 - Mushroom Troopers
I wanted to experiment with ‘minimalism’ so limited the architectural components to Metal Screw, Icon Shield and Radiant Fungi. This island is intended more for settlement rather than exploration with the open plan floors lending themselves to colonists adding their own walls and divisions with movable scrap that can be harvested elsewhere.
04 - Saboriana Industrial Spawn Facility
I just wondered where all those large-scale components came from - an alternative try at a three-component strategy using Sky Column, Step Pyramid and God Statue with lots of help from Cave Foliage to bring a more human scale to the volumes. Not really an island, more of an exercise in trying to keep it simple.
05 - Saboriana Cargo Ship
I like the Saborian aesthetic but the sheer size of some of the elements makes customizing buildings a bit of a challenge – so I chickened out and went into the delivery business instead. Spaceframe courtesy of Memorial Pillars, mirroring elements about major axis and rotating groups – can’t wait for the Ship Builder App to launch.
06 - Fast Franky’s Fryland – Oft Visited Isle
For those primarily concerned with attack, defense and social engagement where exploration is secondary to rapidly harvesting critical supplies. Not just for fun – designed to beg the question as to who or what is to be responsible for placing ore and fuel. A discerning human designer or a procedural algorithm? Hopefully the former
07 - From Dust to Dust – Warriors’ Rest
This started with humble beginnings – I like the progressive decay implicit in the Simple Floor Tiles set and wanted to use them as the generating element. They dictated the way the terrain should be laid out and the warriors’ statues were already in an ‘experimental – WIP’ island of disparate groups.
08 - Island Chain Smoking
To be twinned with Fast Franky’s Fryland for those who can’t do a full meal without a fix or simply need to grab resources on the go. This one has similarities with Mushroom Troopers with many large-scale open-plan levels hopefully inviting colonization by bringing in cast-off items from elsewhere to create shelter at a smaller scale.
In conclusion I’m thinking that WA is going to be a fast-evolving, dynamic multiverse not just in game-play but also in the format of the islands themselves. So currently I want to test out a variety of types and not get stuck on one particular formal idea in order to see what appeals to the WA community. The islands should emanate a sense of identity and uniqueness and not just be seen as resource platforms for ship building and storage.”
Make sure you head over to Steam Workshop and check out these islands - even if you’re not the most creative person in the world, it’s a lot of fun swinging through clouds, exploring other people’s creations.
If you have any questions about the Island Creator and want to prod us for secrets about the update, come and chat to us in the comments.
The Worlds Adrift Team
x o x o
Game Development - How to get started!
We've started creating a series of youtube videos about how to get started making your own games, if that's something you've been thinking about doing!
You can check the first one out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZOxxpdbsAo
And our channel is here if you want to subscribe for future videos!
http://www.youtube.com/wearebossa
Much love,
Bossa Studios ːsteamhappyː
Male Characters - Worlds Adrift Blog Post
Hey Drifters,
Jack here to talk to you about our elusive male characters. It's taken a while but they are finally in-game, and while there are still a few kinks in the animations that need ironing out, they're well on their way to being the equal of their female counterparts.
A young engineer poses in front of an ancient statue he's discovered
At the moment all these characters have the same young-looking face, but we plan to have plenty of variants to choose from when the game releases.
As stated before, all of the clothing pieces are interchangeable between gender and so I have been busy going through all of the clothing pieces and creating the male counterparts for each one. One thing that became obvious early on in this process was that since I had designed most of the clothing pieces with the female in mind a direct translation often didn't work. With this in mind I began designing clothes for the male character, and found that these translated much better to the female character. We now have a good selection of male and female oriented clothes which are wearable by either gender with minor differences to cater for differences in body shape.
Here are a handful of said clothing pieces being modelled by the male character.
