Snacko News

Meowllo!

Tiny patch updated early today to fix the drop rate of saplings from trees. This should be especially noticeable in the Mushroom Forest, as they weren't dropping at all from Pine and Redwood.

We're currently working on 0.9.4, our next major update.
This one will be part one of three major updates to address NPC behaviours and overall worldbuilding.

[h2]🔖 0.9.4 will be targeting quests[/h2]
If you've already played the main story quest, all of that progress will carry over to 0.9.4 - the next update is mostly new content around the town, NPCs, and the currently unfinished skill system.

There's some changes to existing (non-story) quests/how some things are unlocked; so if you've already unlocked some of those things in 0.9.3, you'll get a mail message asking if you want to reset the relevant progression.

We're also going to lift the restriction on one NPC per role in this upcoming update.
0.9.4 onwards, you will be encouraged to have multiple shopkeepers on your island to unlock all the items and shop stock.

Part of this update is also porting over part of our internal tooling (snackoEd) to be displayable publicly on the wiki, so players can peruse the quest tree.



These quest changes have been very important to make sure we can continue scaling the game and adding in content that we want to implement going into and beyond 1.0, so thank you for being so patient!

[h2]⭐ Thank you for 100,000 wishlists![/h2]
We reached 100k wishlists a few days ago, and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone: players, future players, and people incessantly nagging their friends about Snacko.



At the risk of getting too sappy in a patch note(?), I'll just say both recursive and I deeply appreciate the feedback, posts, and messages we receive. It can get a little isolating sometimes working every day, but we're excited to wrap up 0.9.4 and get it out the door~

We also debuted a new trailer at the OTK Expo pre-show that focuses more on gameplay! We hope this trailer is better at communicating what there is in the game and how it plays.

I had a lot of fun making it, so I hope you enjoy 💝

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Remember the issue where if you had a lot of stuff, Nobu Jr. wouldn't show up to deliver your purchase? So we implemented a fix that they will look for somewhere to stand even if the area around your house was filled with buildables, even if it meant Bibbles had to stand on the roof.

Well, this fix is now applied to all the story cutscenes as well to prevent softlocking if you placed your house with objects in front, like trees.



Here's the file I tested with...I tried putting something everywhere I knew NPCs could spawn hehehe.

This was mainly happening in the early game, where there were a few cutscenes, like introducing the MIAOs or the Sprite that could cause a softlock.

Another fix is talking to certain NPCs in the morning could result them in just not saying anything at all.

Yesterday, we also pushed a couple of patches for:

• Pine and Redwood Saplings couldn't be placed
  
• Toasted Birch was no longer dropping Tangerines
  
• Sand rivers and ice had movement bug that prevented speed from building up
  

We're currently working on some map polish and quest system re-hauling as part of our NPC polish, so you'll see smaller hotfix patches like this as we work on bigger system things parallel to keeping our eyes out for issues or balance tweaks.

Thank you for playing~

I finally figured out why Miss Curator was being stubborn when you tried to turn in the "Charity Work" quest while she was working. It had to also fulfill the box that "you haven't talked to her today" yet.



She didn't want to say hello, so I gave her a little fixy wixy nudge, and now it should stop softlocking you when you go to turn in a quest during work hours.

Also fixed were some quest task loading issues that were crashing save files on load, or putting older save files in a softlock with the "Upgrading Tools" quest.

Mya~ Mini hotfix! 📬

• Barrels will now properly despawn on destroy
  
• Slight drop chance buff to Diamond Shard (8.33% → 12.5% on Frozen Rock (Iron))
  
• Myst Flowers, Turnips, and Wheat have a low percent chance of dropping Myst Crystal on harvest
  
• Consistent Black Petal drops in the Desert Canyon on Deadwood Trees to address Black Petal shortage
  
• In the same vein, Black Petals now have smaller drop quantity range on Sunflowers, but will always drop
  
• Removed limestone drop from Skull in Desert Canyon
  
• On first use of Kart, now faces proper direction
  

We keep a close eye on everyone's thoughts when we push out new balance changes. If you feel like something is an egregious grind, please let us know! We'll continue keeping an eye on the current drop table state and adjust accordingly as we move forward~

Meowllo~

Did you miss me?? We’ve been a bit busy, but here it is! The first part of making the game feel better by gutting all the old systems that just didn’t scale up to keep up with Snacko’s size is here: item drops!

Obelisk, MIAOs, crafting...item collection is actually very central to Snacko’s gameplay loop, and we felt like it deserved a clear coat of polish to live up to the rest of the game’s newer features and level of thought put into it.

Nothing felt more frustrating than clearing all the rocks to get 2 measly Citrine Shards.

We outgrew the old way of handling resources and drops quickly, but recursive has gone through the diligent work of converting every single way items spawn into the world into the new system. It was a lot of work, let alone the work that went into creating the new drops and the backend tools to set it up.

[h3]Let’s all clap for recursive! Thank you![/h3]





Okay, so, the above screen snips make you feel like you’re an investment banker or something, right? At least, that’s how I feel using it.

This let’s us control a couple of aspects:

• Which items drop at what % probabilities
  
• And when it does spawn, what is the % chance it drops X amount?
  
• And are there any conditions that can affect these drop rates?
  

For example, Aquamarine Shards will now spawn a bit more frequently if you try to hunt for them in the Mushroom Forest on rainy days. Lapis Shards will be more common when you venture into the Desert Canyon after dark.

You also have a very rare chance of getting three shards in one rock!

This gives us more creativity to keep the resource gathering experience feeling rewarding and dynamic, while giving us better control over balancing for grinding in early game versus late game.



One example of this are the changes to Citrine and Emerald Shards. To help players get from the end of Grassy Plains to Desert Canyon, where the game first forces you to upgrade your tool, the spawn rate for Citrine and Emerald Shards are higher in the Spring.

This way, just by naturally playing and bonking the rocks in the farm, town, or Plains, players should have more than enough Citrine Shards to get into the Desert Canyon. Higher drop rates on the Citrine Shards means we can allow players to get that +1 Pickaxe and Axe easily without ruining the balance of giving the player too many gems, as Citrine effects are generally more geared towards the early game where money is still a tight resource.

Outside of just resource nodes, this means we were also able to add non-fish items to the fishing pool. On top of fish spawns should reflect their % chance better, you now also have a % chance of nabbing yourself a useful item while fishing in the Mines. You might get some garbage items, like a Boot, but you also have a shot at some handy materials, like a Fastener.




Another part of the new item drop system meant we could modernize the farm tiles: the harvest animation has been sped up, and items now pop out. You also have a chance to get other items, like Plant Material.

Harvesting large plots of farms should now feel much faster and fluid.

As always, with these new balance changes, we’ll be keeping an eye out on everyone’s progress and feedback and adjust accordingly when something is over or undertuned!

• Added mirror to Mikan’s house so players can change their appearance early game
  
• Item drops in the mines no longer go through the walls and out of the mines
  
• Traditional Desk now allows you to place items on top
  
• Spinach can now be placed
  
• Farm tile rocks, etc. now share the same drops as the ones in the farm outside the tiles, making it consistent
  
• Fixed issue with gamepad routing in the shop screen
  
• The wiki has had its data reimported to better match up with the new items and changed recipes
  

This patch had a ton of hidden work to bring our old systems out of technical debt and setting ourselves up for being to create more engaging systems to work around our planned quest and NPC improvements.

We hope that even though on the surface, item drop %s are not the most exciting, you’ll feel a positive difference in your gameplay.

Thank you very much for reading~
We’re always around in Discord. If you have any thoughts on the new drop rates, please let us know!

[h3]More updates are coming! See you very soon ( ･ω･)ﾉﾞ[/h3]