Update log
Full Chronicles of Vaeltaja: In Search of the Great Wanderer update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Performance
- Maps
It was a dark and stormy night, Traveler...
This month has been quiet, but in this case it's definitely a good sign; calm before the storm, some might say. I've been working very long hours to bring the immersion of Chronicles of Vaeltaja on the next level, and I am happy to tell you that it's only a matter of days until dynamic weather arrives to the Kingdom of Twin Falls! This has been one of the most challenging tasks I've encountered during the development, and I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to do it, but somehow here we are. Usually RPG Maker games use 2d layers to create weather effects, but since Chronicles of Vaeltaja is 3d game (also with Nvidia 3D Vision support), I wanted to take a step further: The weather effects are created with particles and they have actual depth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this may even be the first time that RPG Maker game has real 3d weather system.
It was a hard task and I almost gave up at some point, but something kept me going and I even ended up re-designing the whole thing. And I'm glad I did the re-design, because I realized I could also let the system handle the daytime changes. This means that I was finally able to get rid of the heavy parallel processes that handled the changes before. Currently there are three weather conditions: Rain, storm and clear. Rain and Storm both have three intensity levels: Light, medium and heavy. Snow will follow later with the Great North update. Weather effects can also be disabled in the Options menu.
Another feature that I haven't talked about outside Discord is the support for 1440p resolution, so no more stretched scaling for those who use 2k displays. Because of this I had to adjust the positions of message window and minimap/compass, and I increased the font size a little bit. Somehow I managed to squeeze more performance out of the engine, so weaker CPUs should now perform better with the game, but I still wouldn't count on mobile CPUs. If someone is playing this on Steam Deck, I would be interested to hear how it performs after the update, since I don't own one.
And there's something for those, who want to speed up the combat: An option to increase the battle animation speed or disable them completely. The update also finally brings the Magic Map enhancements (notes, markers, legend window), option to swap Turn and Strafe keys, Camera Reset button, and I'm glad to tell you that the 'mouse turning bug' is history. There are some small graphical enhancements too: The stairs of the Old Tower and Pramean Lighthouse will get new sprites, so does the Condemned Army of Onkalo to separate them from the Zombie Knights. But there's more... The Temple of the Prophets gets a proper boss; the Phantom Commander.
More details and rest of the fixes will be revealed with the patch notes, once the update will arrive. And when does it arrive? During the weeklong sale that already started while you were reading this. I wish I could be more specific, but there are still some small adjustments that needs to be done. I'm currently in the middle of the final testing phase, so there shouldn't be anything time consuming left to do. The weather system already consumed my time more than enough, but these things happen, and I think that in the end it was worth the trouble.
Anyway, you will know that the update has
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