Dev Blog #3: What we’ve been working on lately

It’s been a while since our last update, so we wanted to check in and share that development is progressing nicely. Many systems and features are now taking root, while we continue growing and nurturing ones already in place. This includes a wide range of core systems, including building and research, combat, animations, procedural world generation, and more.

With that being said, we would like to give you a bit of insight into the current state of some of those systems, and a taste of what’s in store moving forward.

Take a peek at our latest video:

Procedural World and Epics

We’ve continued polishing and expanding how worlds are procedurally generated, adding more variety and overall structure to them.

• New epics were added across the world, including more corruption-based epics, making exploration feel more distinct as you travel

• We’ve done a lot of additional work on starter crash sites

Caves, Oceans and Lakes

Caves received a major content boost with the inclusion of many new modules, entrances and end pieces, which have been added across Soft Metal, Ant Hive, Bee Hive, Crystal, Mushroom and Generic cave types.

• Cave generation has been improved, and caves are now less likely to end after a single room

• Creatures have also started moving in – currently limited to Ant Hives – and they can now navigate and engage in combat inside procedural caves

• Resources can now also be harvested underground, giving caves a value beyond exploration

Underwater areas went through a major overhaul, with a lot of visual reworks, various additions, and a general polishing of the ocean.

• Several new creatures have started appearing underwater and are using pathfinding to smoothly navigate the procedural underwater environments

Lakes are now swimmable, both on the surface and underwater, complete with appropriate visual effects. Plus, effects and pathfinding have been added to creatures with the swimming ability.

Base Building

We added new construction and crafting stations to support upcoming gameplay:

• The Research Table, a brand-new crafting station that will become central to exploration and discovery on your adventures

• The Blueprint Table, a central hub for blueprint capture, management and placement

• A Drying Rack, a vital survival station used to process resources into consumables

• The Stove, your go-to station for cooking meals and baking tasty treats

• A Smelter, where raw metals are refined into ingots ready for crafting

• The Trinket Table, a workbench for crafting trinkets that will give you all kinds of helpful boosts

• An Archery Target, because testing your aim should be a part of base life too!

We’re also expanding the list of placeable backpack items, allowing many more materials, ingredients, and creature parts to be displayed in your base. Whether you want a cosy setup or something more... unconventional, that choice is yours!

Additionally, we’ve adjusted some of the existing stations to streamline overall progression.

Blueprint System

As a part of our ongoing base-building work, we have now fully implemented the blueprint system, to make building, sharing and rebuilding your bases easier.

Here are some key features:

• Blueprints can be captured, named, saved and shared, with all saved blueprints being synced through the Steam Cloud, and shared across all characters on the same account. The system will include its own interface, featuring a Crafting and Blueprints section.

• We have also added the possibility to deploy externally hosted blueprints into the game client without restarting the game

• When capturing or placing a blueprint, you can choose whether to include interactables and decorations and even preview the decorations before placing

• Color-coding is also available, giving players an easy way to coordinate and plan construction more clearly

Blueprints are our way of saying “That was cool! Now do it again, effortlessly.” We hope this helps future builders bring their creations to life with ease!

Cataloging and Research - Part 1

We introduced the first part of our cataloging and research system, which will eventually tie into photography, missions, society communication, and rewards (more on these later!)

For now, we focused on the core loop:

• Players can craft a Research Table to begin studying their discoveries

• Research currently includes Creatura and Materia, with Formulae and Curiosa coming later

• Research works similarly to crafting: select an item, provide materials, queue it and wait for completion

Players will receive in-game notifications as new research becomes available, with completed research granting rewards later.

• Materia entries are one-shot unlocks,while Creatura research is designed to unfold in more steps over time.

Each completed entry will add visual and written information to your Journal, gradually building a clearer picture of the world you are discovering.

Journal Improvements

Speaking of the Journal, to better support the cataloging and research systems, we developed it beyond our first iteration, and it now includes:

• Question marks that will indicate unresearched information

• A visual indicator that will highlight fully researched, unread entries

• Researched items, which will appear with icons and expanded descriptions

These systems will turn exploration into progress, give insight into the mysteries of the island, and good reasons to keep snooping around the island.

Combat and Animation Improvements

We’ve also spent a good amount of time refining combat and related animations, focusing on responsiveness and difficulty.

Some of these adjustments and additions include:

• Several improvements to combat visualization, including critical hits being more clearly highlighted, damage numbers fading out at a distance, improving collision detection during combat and polishing motion warping during combat to make movements and attacks feel more natural

• We reworked and tuned combat timings for humanoids, and rebalanced combat values for T1, T2 and T3 creatures to better define early-, mid- and late-game encounters

• Perfect parries are now slightly more forgiving, and enemies will properly react when you land one, making successful timing feel more impactful on both sides of a fight

• Initial implementation of underwater combat, which will be expanded over time

• New weapons were added

• Performed weapon balancing, adjusting the damage and impact damage values of different weapons

• We added 3D models for cursed weapons, including:

  • Axe

  • Spear

  • Pickaxe

  • Uncommon, Rare and Epic Ogre Clubs

• Reworked the effects of item durability upon death

• Changed item durability damage to a variable value rather than a flat one

• A lot of improvements were made to various player-side animations, such as blocking and parrying

• Lastly, we also added taunt animations for players, because sometimes combat is as much about attitude as it is about damage!

Environmental Hazards

Playing with fire

We’ve started fleshing out environmental hazards, such as fire and how it affects gameplay. There are now two distinct phases:

• Warning phase: When you stand too close to a qualifying heat source, a Burn bar will appear as a warning, giving you a clear indication that you will start taking damage. The surrounding environment and your Fire Resistance will affect how fast it fills.

• Damage Phase: Once the bar fills completely, you’re on fire and will take damage until it depletes. Rolling on the ground, being in the rain or swimming can reduce the duration of the Burn effect.

Water-related improvements

While working on hazards, we also improved water-related danger visualizations.

• A new screen effect is now activated when the player starts taking drowning damage, making it much clearer when it’s time to surface.

Steam post image

Miscellaneous

• We implemented a lot of additional loot drops, harvestable items and craftable items, and made changes to existing ones

• GPU-side optimizations

• Game-side optimizations

• and much more!

This update is very much about setting up many systems that will grow over time, and we’re excited to keep iterating on them, so please keep in mind that things may be changed or adjusted in the future.

P.S. After a busy Christmas season, we’re diving into work on the taming and companion system, while the Dodos and Snuggets keep us warm. Thank you for your continuous support of our journey and stay tuned for the next update!

Would you like to know more? Then make sure to join us on social media and Discord, where we regularly share screenshots and short videos of the game.

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