Snacko News

Meowllo! We’re going into full-fall territory now. But, the dev team is in winter…because of the final biome: welcome to the Frozen Tundra~



[h2]❄️ FROZEN IN TIME[/h2]
We had a lot to do that popped up between when we first started this biome and now, when it’s finally finished. Optimization, bugs, UI code rehaul…



All those trees in the distance are fake planes! They’re flat!! ALL FAKE!! We hope this makes the game run better 🥺👉👈

But, after two months(!!) it’s completed. It’s come a long way from the sketch. This was one of those places I had a very strong idea of what I wanted from the beginning, so I set out with the goal to recreate it as close as I could to what was in my imagination.



Some changes were made once I could walk around it in the game, but the gist of it stayed the same.



This was, by far, the most time-consuming environment to do. It was essentially two: the inner cave and the outside.



But! It’s done. So let’s say bye-bye to all the terrain modelling, and hello to…the rest of the game. Props, furniture, NPCs, the list goes on and on and on and on-




[h2]📈 PROGRESS ON OTHER THINGS[/h2]
There’s also a lot of other things we’ve been doing in the backend that we can’t talk about. Sorry! Just trust us, we’re doing lots of work. OK?

OK. Well, onto the things we can talk about: cutscenes.

We’ve brought on Ken, who you may remember also being our tech artist who made our great water shader and some VFX. He’s now on cutscene duty to wrangle the spaghetti that is cutscenes inside Snacko.



Let’s say thank you to Ken for wrangling this noodle monster. We hope you enjoy the cutscenes and interactive tutorials, because they take a lot of time (save me).

I’ve also made some progress with things like the different signs for each biome.



Now that I finished that, I was able to send out Kickstarter reward surveys for the signs and the other custom assets. For the other tiers, like just game keys, etc. we’ll be sending those out later. Thank you for your support!



I’m especially happy with the Frozen Tundra’s sign. Look at that little snow overhang. Very cute.

We’re also working on an in-game achievement system. These icons were very fun to do, we hope you enjoy collecting them!



[h3]Anyways, that's all for October. We'll see you next month 🐾[/h3]

Meowllo! It’s now pumpkin season. Which means you should go pick up a Trick or Trick Nobu Jr. sticker from the store. You can give this fat baby pumpkin boy a new home. Sparkly!



Anyways, that aside, we have been working on some detail-oriented things in September. Stuff that you won’t really notice in the game, but if we didn’t do it, you would definitely notice. My favorite kind of work to do 😥

[h2]🏃‍♂️ LOADING VERY FAST[/h2]
So, one of our pain points in the past has been the absolute chonker that the Grassy Plains (and to an extent, all the other maps) has been in terms of resources to load. Well, it’s the Plains, right? So there’s a lot of grass, and flowers. And you can collect petals from the flowers, so they need collision. And you can chop the trees, so they need-

You see where I’m going with this, right?



Anyways, this absolute chonker took about 28 seconds(!!!) to load on our computers, and it would just straight up crash the Nintendo Switch.

So we had to fix it. And fix it we did! With a combination of ✨magic✨ and 🥴headaches🥴 we have solved our conundrum.

[h3]Step One: reduce the number of foliage objects that had data in it[/h3]

A no brainer, right? Less data to load, the speedier it becomes! Except we didn’t want to make the Plains completely bald. Instead of just wiping all the flowers and grass off the face of Snacko Island, we swapped out the foliage in places you couldn’t reach with instanced static meshes. They’re like shadow clones of things, so they don’t take up a lot of resources.



This alone reduced the load time of the Grassy Plains from 28 seconds on PC to about 13. So much better, but still not good.

[h3]Step Two: bake down the data from the foliage objects when the game is being packaged[/h3]

The thing that was taking the longest was the first load of a level. Once the code generated the data for the foliage objects, it would go much quicker. So, why not do that process before the game turns into an executable? That’s what we did!



Recursive made this handy Resource Bakery (sounds delicious, but there’s no bread involved, sadly). Every time foliage would be changed in a level, you’d just have to bake in the information. The data tied to each tree and flower then gets rolled up along with the rest of the game. Essentially, it’s almost like we’re pre-loading the game before it gets installed on your system.

This has reduced the total load time of the Grassy Plains to a snappy 3 seconds on our computers, and 6-7 seconds on the Switch!! Congratulations 🎉

Now that we can vomit more foliage everywhere, I’ve taken the liberty to fill up the horizon with more trees and bushes in the farm, and added vistas to the town so you get a sneak peek of the Mushroom Forest and Grassy Plains.



I mean, since you’re walking there from the town, it makes sense to be able to see it, right?



All that optimizing aside, we’ve also been working on other things, like fixing our tutorials to include instructions for controllers, fixing inventory UI bugs because…of controllers. And adding controller support. We’re starting to hate controllers, just a bit. No one said it was going to be this hard?

[h2]🎨 DYE-ING TO TRY[/h2]
Before I bore you with more…stuff. Here’s something we’ve been working on recently: multiple dye slot support for objects! It gives us the ability to define dye slots and parts on an asset, and apply a separate color for that part. You can have a circus barn set up with clown colors.



With adding Switch to release, it has made our work to-do list very fat. But it’s OK! Just knowing it isn’t crashing every other minute on the console is giving me a lot of happiness. We can’t wait for you to play Snacko! But first, finish the game…

[h3]Alright, well back to work. See you next month![/h3]

Meowllo everyone! This month, we’re bidding goodbye to summer, and hello to autumn! The new season also brings in new biomes…and new family members! Nobu Jr IRL has a baby brother now…meet Maru (Jr)!



Yup. We named another cat after an existing Snacko NPC. Way to make it confusing, devs.

[h2]🍄 THE MUSHROOM FOREST GROWS[/h2]

Remember the sneak peek of the Mushroom Forest’s terrain last month? We’ve improved upon that and also finished the resource nodes and foliage for the biome. There was…a lot!



This isn’t even all of it! I was honestly not expecting to have to make so many different items for this biome, but I think one of a forest’s charms is having a wide variety of flowers, mushrooms, and trees.



I also made the shadows in the forest a lot darker, and the sun shining through the canopy a lot brighter. Really adds to the forest mood, huh?



[h2]🐾 NEW DEV FRIENDS![/h2]

Thanks to our publisher’s and your continued support, we’ve been able to seek help for Snacko dev goodness! Huey Games is partnering with us to bring Snacko to the Nintendo Switch! There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make sure the game runs as it should. We’re so grateful to have their expertise on board so we can focus on other parts of Snacko’s development. And just between you and me? Apparently, Snacko has been running OK so far in their preliminary tests…



There’s also new VFX to enjoy by Adam deGrandis! He’s been doing ameowzing work bringing Snacko to life with fluffy effects.

[h2]❄ A SNEAK PEEK[/h2]

We have one last biome to model the terrain and resources for! Here’s an early preview…🧐



[h3]…And that’s it for this month. We’ll see you next devlog 🌼 Thank you for reading until the end![/h3]

Meowllo everyone! We’re in the midst of another heat wave, but this time a bit more mild. The hot weather really fit in with some of the work we’ve been doing, though…

[h2]🌵 DESERT CANYON[/h2]

The terrain for the desert canyon has been completed! We tested walking through the map to make sure everything feels right! It’s still empty, as filling it up with enemies, resources, and foliage will come at a later date.



It looks a bit empty, but it’s much more alive than where we left off last month!


Although the foliage and resources aren’t placed, they’re modelled and textured, ready to go!

[h2]🍄 COMING NEXT…[/h2]

The Desert Canyon and Grassy Plains aren’t the only places you can explore in Snacko! We have a new one that was just started…I wonder what it is 👀



[h2]🪑 MOVING TOGETHER[/h2]

We’ve continued work on the new building system! Last month, we showed a sneak peek of the new item indicator. This month, we worked on a few features we’ve been wanting to add.



Yup, that’s right! Now you can easily move fence posts and they’ll reconnect. ✨Magically✨. Before, you’d have to walk up to each individual fence post and whack it with your axe once or twice. It took a lot longer, and made the experience of decorating your farm a bit tedious when you’ve changed your mind.

In the theme of the fence changes, moving a surface - like a table or bookshelf - with objects on it will move everything together!



So once you’ve decorated your bookshelf just right, you won’t have to redo it all over again if you just want to move it a smidge to the left. Handy, right?

[h2]Anyways, that’s all for this month! Thank you for your support, and reading all the way to the end! 😊[/h2]

Whew, we just had a nice little heat wave hit us in the pacific northwest. Half a week from this past month was spent doing absolutely nothing trying to keep ourselves (and the cats) cool. It wasn’t very fun. However, there are still some fun things we can show you from June!


[h2]🌵 It's deserted[/h2]
A new biome is under construction! Welcome to the Desert Canyon. Right now, it’s quite, um, empty.

Even with the Grassy Plains, it took quite a bit of work to go from sad cube to the nature-filled map it is today.


The desert isn’t any different. He’s still in his infancy, so he looks a little barren, but he’ll get there one day!


[h2]🍔 Can I has cheesburger?[/h2]
We had some mismatch of food items leftover - some goodies had the icon but not the mesh, and vice versa. Here’s some of the new 3D models in-game!

We have drinks, salads, soups, and some new entrees.

The cheeseburger is my personal favorite…it looks delicious…

Along with the 3D models also come with new icons! Some of the food items didn’t have icons, and some of them weren’t consistent with the bowl/plate or plating style, so we needed to tweak a few pixels here and there to make the icon match the mesh.

[h2]🏗️ New building system soon…[/h2]
We talked about this more in our mini-devlogs for Ko-fi and Patreon supporters, but we’re hard at work on a new building system!

The old building system would’ve been difficult to use with a gamepad. We also had parts of our system that could’ve been optimized better so it can run on the Switch.

The UI still needs some love and attention, so we’ll just leave it at that for now 😉 Once it’s done, we can’t way to show you!

[h2]That’s all for this month! We hope everyone is having a great summer, don’t forget to drink water! 🐾[/h2]