Have you ever wondered how Ylands visuals come to life? Here is your chance to peek behind the scenes. As you probably don't know, there are jackals coming into the game one day and we will use their visual production as today's example! Also, you might want to know that jackals are monogamist, as they mate for life.
Step 1 - Game Design idea
Here it all starts and ends. The game designers figure out that jackals are the way to go for the next content update and provide seemingly endless list of specification like: In which regions can you found jackals? How fast and aggressive are they? Can you tame them? Something like our community Ylands wiki!
Step 2 - Art brainstorm and sketches
It's art's turn! How to integrate a real jackal's visual into the low poly art style of Ylands and meet all of the game designers' conditions at the same time? That's what artists brainstorm together and create first sketches. Based on those sketches we can figure out the Ylands jackal's final look!
Step 3 - 3D model and wireframe
The next thing we need to do is to add one more dimension. No biggie! Once the 3D model is ready, we create its wireframe that connects parts of the jackal's body so that are influenced by each other's movement. Sounds easy and smooth, right? Well, just wait 'till it starts moving!
Step 4 - Animation
Let's play a game. What are all the kinds of movement that Ylands animals can do?
Walking, running, several attack types, jumping, getting hit, getting petted, feeding on a bait, you get the point, there is a lot of them. Now, the animators animate animations for the jackal, and it comes to life!
While it would be great to give you a sneak peak of a moving jackal, the animations are quite complex and usually take the longest time in animal creation. Instead, we will offer you this cool story: A long time ago, when it was the honey badger's time to be animated, we couldn't find any suitable reference of a real moving honey badger. It was a real struggle. You don't expect this to happen, but luckily there was a family of honey badgers in the nearby zoo. We shot our own reference videos and now the Ylands honey badgers can happily roam the Tropical Region. Yay!
Step 5 - Implement
*Insert some very important, but very non-artsy and technical animation-controlling gibberish here.* When the technical necessities are done the game designers will add finished jackal to the game database and set their specifications like hit points, where you can find them, and so on.
Voila! New doge good boys are ready to be let out. Woof woof woof woof woof!
Btw. You might wanna know that each jackal family has their own yipping sound that only members of their own family respond to. Cool, right? The whole process usually takes several weeks, and it is quite similar for almost every entity that needs to be manifested in the game. Hopefully, you've enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes of Ylands art creation and we wish you a great weekend.
Stay Classy Ylanders.
Dev Diary #272 Uncommon Community
Ahoy Ylanders!
We are back today with a really sentimental diary entry. We've known this for a long time, but today we are in a bit of a "touchy feely" mood, so we wanted to stop and appreciate the fact that our players form if not the greatest then definitely the friendliest gaming community ever!
There are no cry messages like: (read in broken English) "WHY YOU DIDIN'T RUSH B AS I SAID YOU #$.@&^!%* YOU @#$%^&!!!" ever to be encountered. Just never. That is something beautiful and quite uncommon among gaming communities.
Since you are all so classy, we want to express from the bottom of our hears the biggest THANK YOU!
This was one of the most epic parties ever. You can find more screenshots and also videos from the party in #cag_stories room on our server.
What can I do on Ylands Discord?
1. You can get in-game stuff for free - #announcements
Here and there, there are some competitions and C.A.G. call to arms that helps us spread the word of the Guild and our beloved game. Right now, we are collecting beautiful screenshots, mainly from newborn adventurers and their Ylands adventures, which can earn them a Puffer Captain pet. So go and get yours! ❤️
2. Show off your screenshots - #screenshots_ylands
Whether it is something you built or great natural views you have encountered on your journey, share it!
3. Find new friends to play with - #looking_for_group
Join someone who is looking for a party or feel free to reach out to others. Really, you have nothing to be nervous about, we are all super friendly here.
4. Let other knows you are streaming - #streamers_or_videos
The game should be Ylands ofc, and this is the room to do it!
5. Solve your issues with game - #troubleshooting
Need to ask something? Think you discovered a bug or weird glitch? Have a game suggestion of any kind? Choose one of the # rooms in the TROUBLESHOOTING section and get in touch with us and the community.
6. Meet the legends and become one of them
There are few hardcore celebrity-Ylanders who are super active and have stayed with us for a while now. Helping everyone new on board, sharing epic ships and detailed interiors that only the most experienced of our artists could create. Seriously we are often astonished with your creations, and again, thank you for that.
Honorable mention: Handofthesly is working on our wiki since 8th May 2017!!! We couldn't be more grateful as they are doing great job. Yet it is a lot of work for only one person, so get in touch with them in case you want to join on the wiki-duty, their Discord nick: "handofthesly #1492". Thank you so much for everything you do for the game Handofthesly!
Anyway, we could go on like this for a while so, you better check the server on your own.
How do I get to the Ylands Discord?
Right here! Just click the link below and start meeting people and let's grow the Ylanders community together. ❤️
https://discord.gg/ylands
Dev Diary #271 Infinite Story Storage
Ahoy Ylanders!
Today we want to ask you a BIG question. What is REALLY important in Ylands?
"Crafting?" Nah. Not important.
"Exploration?" Maybe. Let's say, nice to have.
"Fighting?" Uh, of course NOT!
"Ships! This must be it. For sure, what can be more important than ships?" Yes! Ships are cool. BUT! Surprisingly enough, we believe that the answer is stories. Memories that we experienced together with our friends and close ones. Just as in real life!
"One time, when we were testing the game, one of our devs got lost at the sea at night, so others have made her a fire on an yland so she could find the rest of the team. It was scary but then our heroine finally saw a small light. Until the last moment she thought it's other devs, but it turned out it was a random player from Turkey who joined our testing session."
- Aleš, story from our developer's Friday feedback playtime
"I loved that one time when we were streaming with Spectrumnist and encountered even more mutated bears in an ice cave while chatting about Sims 4 challenges and Spec shot me in the head. By accident ofc... That was so funny."
- Anna, and her "ouch" moment also on a video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1685649285?collection=cNBNiA9s1hb4Mw&t=02h26m19s
"Remember that time, when we ran into a terrorbird for the first time and you were so excited to tame it and name it Alyssa, but we couldn't find any bananas anywhere, so we sailed to another yland and got lost in the storm for like 2 hours? You went bananas! XD But you did befriend that terrorbird and now you have bunch of new stories with Alyssa!"
- Patrik, and his could-be-true-if-my-wife-played-Ylands-with-me story as he did look for bananas to tame terrorbird and got lost in the storm just the other day all by himself.
And this is just the tip of an iceberg. See for example the adventures of FluffDaSheep Gaming, there are so many stories in this single video:
That is why we presented the handbook and lore in 2.0 update, and why we want to continue to improve and expand those aspects of Ylands. What about you and your stories? Share them with us right here in the comments! We can't wait to read them all and experience some more together.
See ya and stay classy!
2.0.3. Patch Changelog
HIGHLIGHTS Items missing after the players' dead Ranged weapons damage optimization Blueprints can be built and stay on the yland Story Yland's general bug fixing Tutorial's general bug fixing
Changelogs 2.0.3
[YLD-44889] Fixed: Players could not locate their items after death. [YLD-45021] Added: Mobiles: New pop-up message informing the player of low RAM on the device. Fixed: Mystery Ylands: Ysla vulcana, Distress signal, Far reaches, Keras yland, Fortress library, Town in peril, Ember yland - various bugs fixed.
Dev Diary #270 Encountering Randomness
Ahoy, Ylanders!
First Dev Diary in the renewed 2.0 Ylands is finally here, and it is quite arbitrary as you will soon see.
The C.A.G. editorial team has made the executive decision to let the dice decide this diary's theme, and it's random encounters! What a coincidence, right?
Disclaimer: As you go through today's diary you will encounter several very fun and very arbitrary facts about random encounters in Ylands.
Random Random Encounters Fact N°1
The oldest, still accessible random encounter in Ylands is this friendly campfire. It stayed with us since Ylands 1.0. Cool, right?
What are Random Encounters?
Hmm... how to put this simply. There are encounters in Ylands and whether it's a native civilization, a shipwreck with a bunch of ghosts and loot, or some fancy monument, they are not easy to find. You kinda just have to wander around the world to randomly encounter them. Also, they are fun! Never forget to mention when something is fun, that is classy adventurer 101 stuff.
Random Random Encounters Fact N°2
With update 2.0 we added 33 RE's! (Yeah, that's random encounters for short.) Also, can you guess why 33? The answer is super obvious and will be revealed by the end of this Diary.
New 2.0 update RE's
There are many new RE's in update 2.0! It would take hours to write and read about those. Luckily, we can't and don't want to spoil all the randomness there, but we can definitely show you at least some of those!
Embalming Temple
It seems that skin care business is having a hard time in Ylands, so we decided to give it a bit of a boost. In Arid you can now find a fella who is embalming the deceased. So, in case you need some skin care, you know where to go.
Random Random Encounters Fact N°3
Did you know that there is a DayZ themed RE to be found? Well, now you do!
Ancient Ruins Encounters
New ancient ruins were discovered in the Tropical region with the update 2.0. They seem to be some kind of blend of eastern islands and Latin American culture. Also, it is said that when the weather is right, lucky explorers can get a glimpse of elemental spirits here!
Random Random Encounters Fact N°4
Yup. That is the number of all active Random Encounters in the world of Ylands. Can you guess why 299? The answer is still obvious, and same as the one to the question before. It's RANDOM! Tadaa.
I hope we all agree that this diary encounter got as arbitrary as it can get but feel free to let your inner randomness loose and post a totally stray comment below and as always, stay classy!
2.0.2 Patch Changelog
HIGHLIGHTS
* ADVENTURE AWAITS IN YLANDS 2.0.2 *
Story yland devil name tag fixed
Fixed button order to launch Emotes
Eating from Inventory fixed
FIXED
Fixed: Mystery Yland: Lost Light - Added Loot Chests, and introduced sharks to local waters. Fixed: Mystery Yland: Jagged Jaw - Explosive kegs won't kill players from afar anymore. Added Loot Chests, rebalanced enemies and cannons for Tropical Biome. Fixed: Mystery Yland: Imaginarium - Freeze after reconnection. Added Loot Chests, and removed coal from the island. Fixed: Mystery Yland: Fortress Library - Cipher being indecipherable due to font change. Returned the Mystery Yland to the Taiga region map. Added Loot Chests. Fixed: Mystery Yland: Ysla Vulcana - Returned the Mystery Yland to the Taiga region map. Added Loot Chests. The pirates have arrived! Be on the lookout while exploring! Fixed: Mystery Yland: Far Reaches - Added Loot Chests. Jotunns started to encroach upon the iceberg. Who knew they could sail? Reworked parts of the script to limit cases of stuck Heart Of Frost entity.
[YLD-25449] Fixed: Eating and drinking from inventory. [YLD-44604] Fixed: Emote picking grid in the radial menu was using a different collection for display purposes and selection. [YLD-44722] Fixed: Naming an animal with localization key.
Ylands 2.0 Update Dev Stream
Chat with Ales Ylands' project lead and Anna the Community Manager about the biggest Update Ylands had!
Ylands Update 2.0 is live! ⛵
"Go to the Arid region and claim every bit of clay that your ship can bear, Adventurer!"
"It is said that an abomination inhabits nearby caves. You know what to do, fellow Adventurer."
"Hello Adventurer, the Guild needs your help! Travel across the high seas and map the lands on the very top of this world. Can you do that?"
⚓Join the Classy Adventurers Guild, the doors are open!⚓
The Classy Adventurers Guild is in a dire need of assistance! We have an important mission in the world of Ylands and we need every adventurer we can get to help us out! Anyone who hears the call of adventure, or the sea, or the mountains, or whatever you hear in the back of your head, you are the ONE to help with our crucial tasks.
Which tasks? Oh, you know, mapping distant ylands, slaying vicious beasts, preparing yummy meals, building castles and latrines, riding the waves and animals, discovering new materials and new technologies, looting a bunch (only the bad guys, of course), laughing at your friends' jokes and so on. This list is literally endless, just as all the stuff you can do with the C.A.G. in the world of Ylands. It's fun, so hop aboard!
How can I join C.A.G.?
Short answer: Easily. You are welcome.
Long answer: Download the game (it's free) and dive into its immense world. Or simply launch it, if you already have it downloaded. All available platforms are here: ylands.com/adventureawaits
Even longer answer: There is no "even longer answer" because it really is that easy. So just go ahead, pick your platform and download the game. Or just launch it and update it on your platform if you already have it downloaded.
🛡️What is the Classy Adventurers Guild?🛡️
We are humble, world class, renowned, and also the only guild in the world of Ylands. Whatever happens here, it is probably our wonderful Adventurers' doing. Classy, yet noncorporate place to spend your time. We are super pet friendly, and we love to flex the fact that our working hours are 100% flexible.
What can you find on the payroll? Uh... good feeling, personal growth, new friends and a lot of new experiences. Sometimes dangerous situations, death in rare cases, but mostly FUN! Did we mention fun? Yea, you get that too, and a lot of it! Also, anything that you find along your journey, like gold, treasure, riches, or bananas.
⚔️Already an Adventurer?⚔️
Classy Adventurers Guild is proud to have its current members already on board - without you, C.A.G. would not be here today, opening its doors to new members. We have been following your feedback on the operations of and missions into the world of Ylands and we can say that it has been an absolute pleasure and we cannot wait to hear more!
Why delve into the world of Ylands now? What's new?
The world is vast and wonderful. There is something new around every corner. But this update specifically, C.A.G. is happy to announce that Ylands are getting:
Lore - the Classy Adventurers Guild and the first campaign-like yland
Improved tutorial - smoother onboarding and new player UX
Handbook - helps players navigate the game and presents them with Ylands lore
Combat improvements - stamina, dashes, and power attacks to make combat more challenging but fun
Assets & Crafting - new and simpler interface that helps players craft literally anything
Better terrain generation - more diverse and more varied individual ylands
New main menu and shop – easier, less overwhelming, simple to navigate
Multiple gameplay improvements and content - sailing with wind, easier fast travel, new random encounters, etc.
Who is C.A.G. looking for?🔍
Adventurers of all kinds!
Are you curious? Are you human? Do you like to chill? Do you fancy having fun and gathering resources or getting creative with tools building ships and all sorts of structures? Are you keen on exploring new regions?
If you answered YES at least once, then this gig is TAILORED for you! And trust us, we don't hire just anyone...
Oh! And don't forget to bring your friends!
Seriously, we need all the help we can get. Show this posting to your mum, pals, coworkers, boss, dad, grandma, kids, pets and spread the word! Also, if you would be so nice, please leave us a review on Steam - not really sure what it means, but the instructions said it should be included in this advert so here it is.
Thank you and stay classy, fellow Adventurer! We can call you an Adventurer already, right? You are on board and joining the Guild guided by my exquisite advert, right?
PS: There is a shopping spree in our Classy Adventurers Shop! Claim any emote for free as they are 100% off or go for the Exploration pack with a 50% discount. That's what we call a bargain! PPS: Looking for Changelogs? Here they are: https://ylands.com/community/topic/32344-20-adventure-awaits-changelog/
Dev Diary #269 Handy Handbook
Ahoy Ylanders!
The new big fat update is on the verge of happening and today we will share with you probably the biggest new feature revealed so far! Everyone who will join the Classy Adventurers Guild (meaning every Ylander) will get their own Handbook.
A Handbook? What is that?!
TL;DR it's a super cool guide that's gonna give you all sorts of juicy Ylands lore and quest. Some are easy-peasy and great for newbies, while others are gonna test even the most veteran Ylanders out there (Looking at you YoHas). Follow your Diary journal from the day your ship sank all the way to the end of the story. Every time you do something new or cool in the game, your character will have their own ideas and notes about those things, which might push you towards further exploration and fun! So, for example when trying to swim underwater for the first time, your character might observe how a certain piece of equipment might make flip-flopping in the water easier and faster, scribbling their idea down in the Diary. You will be guided through your first crafted campfire, your first sailing, and discovering new lands. It should help you and new players understand why you learned each recipe and where to find things in the world.
Not only that but you also get a list of things you might want to achieve next. Therefore, becoming an experienced adventurer is much easier now.
Here are some leaked sketches
As Horatio Reginald Elmwood is not the most thoughtful and disciplined of adventurers there are some leaked pictures of the Handbook, so check those out! These will appear next to important events in your Diary.
We're stoked to bring this feature to you as we think it's gonna help you connect with the world of Ylands even more!
So, get ready to dive into The Handbook and let us know what you think. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Thanks, and stay classy!
Dev Diary #268 New Weather On the Edge
Ahoy Ylanders,
So, sailing to the edge of the map so you can travel to the next yland, is cool stuff, right? You can feel the adventure in your veins! Water splashing, the soundtrack playing all around, fish vibing, sun shining, and other cool Ylands stuff that we all love.
Maybe at first, but when it's your three hundred and forty-fifth sail to another yland it feels kinda pointless, and you are 100% right! So, we do what? We go and fix it! From the upcoming update, all you need is to be ready to steer your ship, and you are good to go.
But wait there is more! Quick question: What was the weather like when you arrived at a new location the last time? Let me guess, it was sunny! Did I get it right? I'm not trying to be 5head or anything but yea, I got it right. 😁 That's just how it is, but not for long! Starting with the next update, the weather and the daytime upon your arrival at a location will be random.
"More dangerous? Probably. More fun? Definitely!" - Horatio Reginald Elmwood
We thought that the adventure atmosphere would be way more tangible when you arrive at an unknown location during a night or a storm or, you know, both. Also, we like to think that all kinds of weather in the Ylands are quite beautiful so showing that off seemed like a good idea.
Anyway, that's it for today, wish you a great weekend, and let us know what you think about these changes in the comments!
