Demo Update v.0.3.17

Time for a medium sized update. Yet again we've jumped some version numbers as I've been testing with the community. Again the focus is mostly on stability and performance since launch is getting ever closer.

Save Update

Unfortunately this build does need to break saves in order to move to a more stable system going forward. This comes with me discovering some issues with how I was separating saves from the demo vs the full game and transferring demo saves to the full game.

• Added a save trigger to the demo when you succeed (so completed saves are actually where you last stopped and not when your last auto save was)

• Fixed game not handling save reload properly when exiting to menu or reloading to menu from death

Opening Flow A new opening flow has been added. The changes are designed to help direct you a bit more as you leave the cabin for the first time and get to the bridge to exit the docks. This should reduce some of the learning pains for new players.

Bindings and Input

• All primary actions are now bindable (this includes unbound actions like quick turn L/R)

• All inputs now have icons instead of text displays, this applies to the binding UI and the tutorials

  • This was part of my investigatory work into gamepad / steamdeck support which is ongoing

• Added mouse over readable versions for instruction panels, this is disablable in the game options

Physics

• Physics reduced from 100fps to 80fps

• Max frame delta changed from 3fps to 15fps

• These changes decrease physics death spirals in worse case scenarios (ie. lots of crabs in the hopper) and improve base CPU performance

Improvements

• Fully removed boat damage klaxon (it was already playing only in some contexts before) the collision sounds are audible in all contexts and this should remove the ambiguity for the "did this collision cause any hull damage" because yes they all do.

• Tweaked handling for equipping items and then clicking on hotspots that were already highlighted,

• Small art tweaks across the ship

• Increased bait supply capacity from 5 > 6

Fixes

• Fixed some input binding bugs

• Fixed water fx clipping into boat (both on deck and in the lower deck)

• Made anchovy colliders bigger

• Made the players breath particles world space so you should only really see them when you stop moving

• Fixed walls/surfaces that you could previously click through to navigate which were not by design (some thin surfaces are still flagged to not block the players movement trace by design)

• Added decorative strings for ambiguous terms in input bindings

• Improved some Ai pre built paths

• Made paralomis jump to target slightly later cause it looked dumb

• Fixed some over optimised animation controllers breaking init if not visible ie. bait refill station tube

• Fixed button in signature UI that wasn't framed right

• Tweaked animation for coffee so you shouldn't see fingers through the cup

• Fixed one case where it was possible with a 1 second window to begin winching a trap that was already breaking its rope and causing it to get into a weird unhookable state

• Fixed initial ship rotation on load save (it would start 0,0,0, then snap a frame late) causing some issues including docked saves at refill station from the reverse direction rotation the ship back to the other orientation, this also added a mad initial physics kick to any physics objects on the ship

• Reduced some GC allocations

• Fixed bandage dropped by healing station animating funny if the ship is moving

• Shifted the player world trace back to reduce chance you can use it to clip through surfaces

• Minor navmesh pass

• Replaced old push off walls code with new method that just uses the navmesh so it's a bit cheaper

• Tweaked base camera offset slightly

• Better culling logic to reduce overhead slightly and get more reliable results in the case where you were standing on the edge of two + zones

• Some more rendering optimisations

• Fixed trap queue not being reloaded when a save is reloaded causing desync between traps that have/haven't been baited in order

• Increased cam draw dist from 3500>5000 to prevent clipping

• Made tossed bait visual on ground bigger to make it harder to miss

• Fixed bug where things dropped in the hopper could collide with the gates and get knocked out

• Also tweaked the ocean trigger zone

• Fixed case where holding RMB on exit hotspot would trigger inventory on release

Happy Crabbing, Nick