🌱 The "In-Between" Update
Howdy there Seedlings. Things have been stirring in the depths of the castle, as we've just completed work on a sort of 'in-between' update!
For those of you who've been following along with us in The PixelCount Post and elsewhere 'round the community, you've likely been reading about how we recently found ourselves taking a step back to look at the game thus far and realising some elements we added in the early days were in need of revisiting. Namely: improving player purpose, better pacing, refined feature introductions, and overall quality of life improvements.
This was a bit of an unscheduled stop on our roadmap, as originally we planned to dive straight into the relationships update next. No doubt our first pass of relationship features will be an important leg of our journey, which is why we wanted to make sure we had a solid foundation to build atop it first. In fact, some of the things we improved in this current update were things that had been relatively unchanged since the prototype days, and the game's done quite a bit of growing since then!
Reading In-Between the Lines of Code
Those of you lurking around our forums may have noticed the presence of
a Developer Branch thread. For those unfamiliar with 'branches', they're a bit like a specific game update channel you can subscribe to and change at any time. There's our main branch of course (which is the default everyone starts with), and then we have two development branches. The main branch is reserved for only our more cohesive and stable of builds, but the other branches are good for anyone wanting to follow development more closely.
Development branches do get updated more frequently as well, but the caveat is they'll be less stable. We recommend development branches for any players interested in getting their hands dirty with ever-changing builds while working with us closely to give feedback. Just hop over to the thread above to read all the details.
On a similar note, keen-eyed community members may have also noticed that
our roadmap has been updated with new subsequent updates to come. We've also begun putting general status indicators into the 'entire journey' section to give a feel for where various elements of the game are at. Though there is undoubtedly much work still ahead, the game is continuing to get ever-closer to that point of shaping up and fully blossoming.
Speaking of, we look forward to updating that section of the roadmap in the days ahead to reflect today's new build. For being an impromptu update, there's a fair bit that's been packed into it. Read onward for a casual overview, or click the changelog link down below for the big beefy list of everything.
Goddess Offering System Expanded
- Further developed Goddess offering with an updated system, UI, and SFX
- Gift to each of the 6 Goddesses during the week and on the last day of the week you can assign 'grace' (which can offer boons)
- Failing to give sufficient offerings over time will incur a negative grace, which will lead to curses if not careful
- Not all boons/curses are added as yet and are marked 'TBD' if not yet implemented
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'Thatterway' Sparkling Waypoint
- Many tasks can now be set as 'active'
- Where applicable, this will mark it on the world map with a location
- Pressing F1 or Clicking Left Stick will trigger the 'Thatterway', a magical sparkling trail that'll point the way to go
- (Though this might not always be the shortest route, as many shortcuts are hidden all over the world!)
- Using the Thatterway is of course entirely optional for those of you who prefer exploring without such aids (looking at you Fable gold trail)
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Other Bits
- The beginnings of the noticeboard are in place
- Delivery box to drop off task or gift items for each household
- Initial setup to start receiving letters via mailbox
- Pet whistle to summon or dismiss owned pets (very handy!)
- Added the 'Wottyzit', a small faery that draws your attention to new interactive elements and then flies away
- Reworked the game's Prologue to provide additional tasks and to better pace out the introduction of new features
- Nearly all tasks carry over after the Prologue to make for a less abrupt transition
- Various UI additions and polish
- Additional engine improvements and bug fixes of all sorts (see link below)
- For a complete look at all changes, check out the full changelog
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A huge thank you, as always, to all our supporters for helping make this impromptu update happen. We hope you are as excited as us to continue along this game development journey together, with our sights set firmly on the relationship update ahead. Though for now we must raise the drawbridge, hole up in our laboratories, and begin cooking up our next concoction (aka, update). Talk again soon!
Love,
PixelCount
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