Edengrall News

We have finished all the 70 critters, each with a shimmering variant



There are many types and behaviors, they are also spread out through the ingame year, so this is also the beginning of the seasons mechanic, fish and forageables will also be spread through the year, so the world will be less static starting from this update.

Included in the critter list there are lobsters, crawfish and crabs, most will be edible, but the fish cleaning mechanic will only be added next update with all the fish, so right now they don’t do much.



The Bug Net tool has a new type of special, instead of a charge up into a big move, it changes the player into Critter Sense mode, making you move slowly, but highlighting nearby critters, very useful to find camouflaged critters or little buggers hidden in tall grass, Blue colored critters are new ones, Yellow are critters you already collected before.



There is also a new screen (default key biding ‘O’) It shows the critters you collected before and shows the silhouette of the ones you haven’t seen yet, the screen is a bit empty right now, but in the future this screen will serve a small encyclopedia filled up slowly with info about critters, crops, fish and more.



This screen will also have a lot of player stats, stuff you collected so far and more miscellaneous info.

Other than collecting, critters don’t have much use right now, but they will be fish bait next update, and then pets for faeries on the following one, you can also sell them to Catarina.

The update is progressing just fine, we will probably get it done by the 31th and release on both main build and demo, there will be at least 60 different critters, not counting the Shimmering variants, and what is better, the systems we are building for this update will greatly speed up the creation of the fishing system, spawning, critter AI, capturing, many of these will be recycled for fish.

The critters are split in different biomes, seasons and time of day, this is the first feature that will be affected by seasons, fishing will also follow spawning different fish every few weeks.



The implementation of critter behavior is almost done, last few parts of the update are:

-Collection Screen: UI that shows which critters you have collected so far and if you have collected the Shimmering variant of each critter.
-Bug Net special: The bug net special will be very different from other tools, instead of a powerful move you will instead gain Critter Vision highlighting critters hidden in tall grass
-Dynamic spawn checking: Right now critter spawners only check if critters should despawn and be replaced by another type of critter if the player is far away, we will try to make these checks even if the player is close without having critters disappear right in front of the player
-Achievements: at least 5 new achievements
-Ambience based on bug proximity (cicada, bees, wasps, flies and cricket): Noisy buggers will actually affect ambiance sounds

Features:
More insects.
- 1 bee
- 2 wasps
- 1 horner
- 2 ladybugs
- 2 scarabs
- 5 beetles
- 3 grasshoppers
- 4 moths
- 1 slug
- 2 glowflies

Changes:
Added an offset to their animations, so groups of insects should no longer all animate in sync
Added swarming behaviour where multiple insects fly around in a swarm

Features:
Implemented the first stage of critter catching
- 8 Butterflies.
- 3 Spiders.
- 1 Bucko.
- 1 Poofah.
- 1 Glowfly.
You can place captured critters in the world using the hammer.
Implemented LOD option for the grass.

We are going to release an alpha build tomorrow with the core of the bug catching system, what we implemented so far are the bug net main action, and a few insects:

8 Butterflies: Butterflies just fly slowly and close to the ground, they are very easy pickings for the bug net
3 Spiders: Jumping spiders stay hidden in the thick grass, getting too close will cause them to show a cute animation, getting closer will cause them to jump away and escape.



1 Bucko: Buckos are a special creation of one of my favorite Vtubers Amiya Aranha, I added them to the game as a small little reference. They do not react to the player, only to nearby Dreamweaver Spiders.



1 Poofah: Poofahs are little critters I invented, they are a tiny insect that inflates and fly away when the player gets close.



I have modeled a total of 45 bugs, but we haven't implemented their behaviors yet, the modeled bugs waiting for AI are: Wasps, Moths, Isopods, Slugs, Snails, Beetles, Ladybugs, Flies, Glowflies, Bees and Cave Poofahs.



Also a small warning, tomorrow update will come to a fix to the grass system, we had a bug where about half of the grass was not rendering properly, by fixing this the amount of grass basically doubled, if the FPS drop is too high for you, go to the grass settings and switch to half-grass, this will result in about the same grass density as before the patch, you can also now switch the grass LOD if you want denser grass, but don't mind things getting choppy when far away.