Accessing Development Branches

[Matt]

 


How to Select Branches

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1. Within the Steam application, right click Kynseed in your library
2. Select "Properties" from the menu
3. Click the "Betas" tab
4. Choose either the 'latest' or 'experimental' branch

What Are Branches?

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You mean other than being the lovely thing on which a tree holds its leaves? In development terms, a branch is a sort of update channel you can subscribe to and change at any time. Whatever branch you subscribe to will automatically download an update whenever we push a new build out to it. Below is an overview of the three different branches we'll be using during development.


Main Branch
This is the default branch all players are put in at the start. In general, this branch will receive an update whenever we complete one of the major roadmap updates listed on the roadmap. As such, this will be the most stable branch and is what we recommend to the average player who wants no-fuss straightforward game updates.

• The default branch for all players
• The most stable branch
• Will still receive hotfixes as needed
• (We make every effort to keep saves as stable as possible on this branch.)

Preview Branch
Before we send out an update to the Main Branch above, we push the update out a week early for players who like to help us test things first. This assists in squashing out any bugs or feedback that we didn't quite catch in our own playtesting.

• Is where an update generally sits for about a week before going to the Main Branch
• A more iterative build and will occasionally have bugs/breaks, but most will be quick to resolve
• Feedback in this branch will be actively worked on, but some things may get pushed to future updates
• (Saves can sometimes be backed up from the Main Branch, but may occasionally break.)

Experimental Branch
Some players love getting their hands dirty by helping us playtest the more frequent incremental changes to the game. While it's by no means a requirement that you send us feedback if using this branch, we do encourage such players to work closely with us by sharing feedback and bug reports for this branch in the usual places (forums and Discord preferably). This branch is perfect for players who want to work more closely with us and have a more hands-on impact on regular development.

• 'Bleeding edge' development and will be the least stable
• Will receive the most frequent updates
• This branch's build notes will get posted in this thread and will cover details that get simplified for the Main Branch changelog
• Feedback is extremely welcome and encouraged for those participating in this branch
• (Save safety not guaranteed! Saves may possibly be imported from the Main Branch to hep mitigate this. That said, saves from this branch won't be transferable to other branches.)

 

[Neal]

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2276

+ Noticeboard setup
ᅠᅠ+ Three types of tasks to start with "Cook wanted", "Lost item" and "Item Wanted" that generate each day
ᅠᅠ+ Cook wanted has a limited time limit of the current day and then will run out of time
ᅠᅠ+ Each haven has their own board with tasks relating to the residents of that location
+ Adjustments underway to prologue that will add some extra content to it and include near daily 'autodad' messages to help guide the player (main area of WIP development right now)
+ Each house for families should have a delivery box where you can deliver requested items and leave gifts
+ NPCs waiting for gifts (relating to the noticeboard and favour tasks) have an exclamation mark for them
+ Going into the gift option for an NPC has any items that fulfil gift requirements appear first in the list and with sparkles to highlight them
+ A task can be set as the active task. Where applicable this will mark it on the world map with a location to go to. Pressing F1 or clicking in the left
stick will briefly trigger a trail from the player in the direction of the exit towards where you need to go (this might not always be the shortest route with shortcuts available to the player!).
+ There's a 'Add New Task' option at the top of the task list after the prologue now due to the Active Task using the A button to set it.
+ Wottyzit highlighting some interactables when the player has not used them
+ Pet whistle via Dismount mapping (default Tab/LB on gamepad). This allows you to summon, send home and get your pets to stay where they are (until you leave the level). Their status also lets you know whereabouts they might currently be!
+ Goddess statues upgraded experience underway. Gift to each of the 6 Goddesses during the week and on the last day of the week assign grace that could offer boons. Failing to offer will incur a negative grace that leads to curses if not countered. Not all boons/curses are effective as yet and are marked TBD if not setup.
+ Mailbox UI first pass to include archive and new mails that can be from npcs along with dev updates
~ Music for blacksmith extended in both regions
~ New item popup improved
~ The first slot for setting an item in the shop is blank so you can remove items already placed without having to replace them
~ Nav fix for house in Candlewych West
~ Minigame score screen minor polish
~ Various minor level updates
~ When apples go rotten from not providing an offering it makes a visible change to the apples on the trees
~ Various minor level improvements and fixes made
~ Market stalls now have more seeds available for sale
~ Chat boxes have different colours for NPCs to highlight their friendship rating with the player
~ Chickens can now lay eggs on a daily basis through a more friendly manner.
! Fix for exploit in fishing where leaving and returning to the area immediately spawned in new fish when they had been caught
! Shopowners should appear in their shops when you enter the level after they have already started work
! End of year tax setup now puts the player back at Day 1 of Spring
! Fix for autosave happening prior to being placed in bed leading to offset positions on reloading a save
! Fix for mapping to slot not working when the hover highlight was over a unmappable item even tho the dragged item was
! Can use shortcuts to go between the skill/npc status and the other 3 ui screens for consistency
! Fix for lantern not being detected correctly due to the second lantern taking over the active slot
! Shoppers should appear with correct exclamation and question marks when they are for existing NPCs
! Shoppers should retain opinion of actions carried out while they are shoppers
! Book pauses npcs in the background as intended
! Fix for escape not working correctly on backing out of creating tasks
! Fix for infrequent crash on teleporting between levels due to npcs trying to pick a new navigation spot while the new level is partly loaded
! Fix for trader not appearing in Candlewych Village
! Fix for farm monument map not being completeable
! Fix for nightly object updates not always happening
! Fix for stall exploit where you could sell a new item by changing it while a customer waited for a higher price
! Brounie offering works from any offering bowl by a house as intended
! Player must have sufficient friend rating to use a bed/oven/stove from another household similar to their trees

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2281

+ Prologue extra events in place on a few days
~ Improvements for proverb/recipe popup
~ Improvements around mailbox
~ Improvements with noticeboard event and cooking task presentation
~ Interact on items that you don't have permission should show red
~ Sped up the continue button appearing for the new day box
~ Father/sibling mention mailbox when there is new mail
~ Small adjustments relating to prologue changes including 'create task' unlocked earlier and goddess offerings not being possible till day 7
~ Goddess offerings initial balance based on favored items for gaining grace
! Wottyzit shouldn't appear for items you don't have permission to use
! While riding a pig you can't target them making other interactions easier
! Eggs won't appear in the middle of nowhere (due to a chicken at the same coordinates in a different level)

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

(this is roughly a release candidate for the main branch update which we are targetting for later in the week after further bug fixes and improvements!)

[Neal]

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2282
! Crash fix on changing between certain levels
! Mailbox on receiving new mail should have it hidden in the envelope

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2283
~ Some items shouldn't have a star rating for the new item popup
! Fixed situation where Twig wouldn't do his intro correctly
! Fixed sibling not showing up as expected to progress the story
! Fixed case where task might be deleted mistakenly and limited the ability to delete tasks to after prologue

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Experimental Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2295
~ Goddess pts offerings now correctly matched to the Goddess
~ Some further Goddess boons/jinxes/blessings/curses setup
~ Offering on Goddess day counts as top up for that day only with it resetting the following day
~ Adjusted pig riding speed down a bit
! Fixed a crash between certain levels when the player has a follower
! Fixed a crash with pig racing when the player's ride competes
! Fix for crash when riding a pig and trying to interact with the good store animal stall
! Objects with shadows shouldn't pop into when headed upwards
! Throwing minigame costs 1 brass to replay and you can't play if you don't have enough brass.
! Adjusted shop buying UI controls to be more consistent (that UI is still due to change)
! Fixed an issue where gifts for tasks wouldn't work because they were in the midst of shopping
! Adjusted position of holding object while riding pig
! Adjusted position of player riding pig while selling at a stand
! Improved riding pig player position while next to characters

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.15.2325
+ Adult player change at 20
+ Life mirror
+ Dating first pass work including locations to discover
+ Can create some extra custom task types (Goddess/Brounie Offering)
~ Animal food likes and dislikes improved on
~ Some improvements around following navigation (though more to be done)
~ Improvements to offering statue 'worship' state
~ New SFX for several player actions
~ Monument stone UI update (in progress)
~ Glow for home offering shrines gifted
~ World map background scrolls with movement
~ Updates for some of the level maps to a higher resolution version
~ Some task tidyup after the first season
~ NPC status now shows friendship level and an indicator of how far the level is from going up
~ Adjustment of shadow offset for npcs
~ Adjusted frequency of illnesses from lack of food to be a bit slower
! Fixed the screen judder when hitting collisions, particularly noticeable while riding the pig
! Speculative change to allow large address aware memory. This allows the game to use some more memory (3gb/4gb cap based on availability and a 32/64 bit OS respectively) which may be helpful in reducing instances of out of memory issues.
! Fix for Druida Cross lost item tasks having nowhere to place the item
! Can assign swords to combat hotbar using number keys
! Friendship point consequence for not completing a task with an expiry time
! Cleared npc quest markers if a task is removed
! Fix for npcs wandering off from playing the lute (they should fall asleep if not immune to it!)

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Experimental Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.16.2340
+ Road to marriage in place
+ Wedding cutscene first draft
+ After marriage spouse should live on the player's farm
~ Adjustments to Loverwood level
~ Adjustments to add a few extra books covering marriage
! Fix for crash on going to region with date where time has run out
! Fix for holding object positions for the adult player
! Fix for grouped objects not drawing based on a collision location
! Correct nav in Loverwood near Roger's house
! Fix for error in old gifting screen which results in unintended purchase from shopkeepers

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Experimental Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.16.2348
+ Larder next to stove in player's home. Can store up to 10 items
+ Scheduler for spouse hourly activities with some additional behaviours setup so they can help out around the farm
~ Further improvements round the marriage tasks and cutscene

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix

[Neal]

Pʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ Bʀᴀɴᴄʜ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ - v0.1.16.2371
+ Pixel font option that avoids antialiasing to provide a cleaner/easier to read font option. Some text may still need converting to display in that font. The setting is in the options menu under 'Pixel Font'
+ Mill setup to grind and create flour in a windmill
+ Sack outside player's house is the dropoff point for items collected by your family when the larder is full
+ Initial Divorce option now available from priest at a cost of Brass
+ Housekeeping book has a routine set per day of the week
~ Larger weekly request noticeboard task available
~ Digging minigame UI updated
~ Reward chance per level of digging and ability based on the quality of your spade
~ World map centers on the region you are in when opening
~ Housekeeping book UI improvements including a dropdown list to choose from of activities
~ Discord/Twitter button from options menu
~ Pig riding player anim works works correctly with always run setting and while walking
~ Larder stack count up to 5
~ Various minor UI/graphical improvements
~ Lemonade stand balanced to have less customers per hour
! Fix for portals in some regions not functioning correctly
! Fix for larder items being mistakenly removed in a different ui screen
! Fixes for a few minor control issues with cooking
! Fix for SFX incorrectly playing in goddess statue map screen
! No 'hang on' prompt while crafting as blacksmith apprentice

[+] Addition [~] Improvement [!] Fix