War Islands News

Hey everyone, sorry for the frequent patches. This one is important since the shop wasn't working properly. I still need to balance the coins to make it easier to buy new gear though.

• Fixed Characters ragdoll mode teleporting player randomly to beginning of the game
  
• Fixed Translator and Shop Dabirius not working
  
• Default Items now show on the Wardrobe menu
  
• You can now close the Game Menu by pressing Escape (Esc)
  

Cheers,
Lucas

Hello, it's me again!

I'm back, after a little bit of a break! Here's a quick update to War Islands, fixing a few issues:

• Fixed custom keybinding of WASD movement not working properly
  
• Added the Honey Cave mountain to the Main Menu so you can see it on high FOV settings
  
• Fixed intial Wookikota puzzle explosive barrel sometimes not going all the way when not blocked by a snail
  
• Christmas season disabled
  

Cheers,
Lucas

Hello everyone! Today I'm happy to announce that War Islands just got a brand new update ready for you. This time it's more of a major feedback update, I've read the reviews and the comments on the Community Hub and decided to gather it all for a single large update. Here's the key new features:

• Jonathan now has a sword!
  
• Almika now uses the Boomerang and Staff (Boomerang is no longer a Jonathan weapon)
  
• New skills for Jonathan, Sarsi and Almika
  
• New Character UI Screen
  
• New Melee Combat Lock On mode
  
• Skill Points are now given when you complete main quests
  
• New Intro tutorial puzzle
  
• New keys added for custom keyboard binding
  
• Puzzle helper signs can now be disabled in the settings menu
  
• New Bullseye textures for explosive targets
  
• Crosshair now becomes red when aiming enemies
  
• Mount system to help easily jump in/out of sea turtles and other animals
  
• Split Screen Keyboard & Controller mode
  
• Main characters can now swim!
  
• Sharks are now actual NPCs!
  
• Main characters clothing/hair physics added
  
• Various game bugs fixed
  

So for this post I would like to do a breakdown of the reasons why I've decided to make these changes and how I think they really benefit the game!


One of the things that always bothered me a little bit is how the characters were originally designed, when I first created them, I don't think I did a good job of making sure they felt good. Also stuff such as having a boomerang melee attack never really made much sense.

As of today, Jonathan now has a sword and no longer uses the boomerang, the boomerang has been moved to Almika so she can do two range attacks. The weapons are now actual items in the game and you already start with a crossbow and sword for Jonathan, staff and boomerang for Almika and lastly claws and armor for Sarsi.

The importance of having those as actual items is because I've refactor the way the game deals damage by now getting the damage from the weapon itself, meaning in the future I'm planning on adding weapons that deals more damage.

This leads us to the next topic,

"The controls feel loose"

It took me a while to figure out this one since it's not an easy thing to change. I eventually realized that all melee attacks in general were really difficult to do. Seriously on previous versions of the game attacking with your boomerang was hard since you most of the time would miss your attacks.

Now the game has a brand new combat system that makes your character lock on enemies so you can strafe sideways and dash without worrying about facing the right way. Brand new animations were added to make this happen!

For ranged attacks, some such as the boomerang also got some love, in fact, the boomerang was completely redesigned as well and it's more of a quick auto aim attack for Almika. The boomerang can be used on certain skills as well but those are now made more for a support role.

"I managed to slip off the pier and into the water like 5 times in a row because the whole movement is so jerky. Did I mention this means instadeath?"

I personally think the movement in the game is relatively good, happy to further improve it but I did realize that it makes absolutely no sense to just touch the water and get insta killed by a shark. So that's why sharks are now npcs that see and chase you. With that in mind I decided to go a bit further and straight up add swimming mode to all main characters.

For now there isn't much in terms of what you can do underwater though, maybe in the future this can be expanded. Happy to hear more feedback on this!

"movement is clunky."

I couldn't figure out exactly what is clunky but a few things were really bad for sure, one of them is how there was basically no way to mount a sea turtle, essentially you just had to jump at the right time and location. Now that's also fixed, when you jump to a turtle the game snaps you to her shell meaning you no longer randomly fall or miss it.

"The controls are not freely configurable (try the number block, right ctrl key or the keys above the arrow keys)."

I would like to apologize for that one, I never really thought about adding all possible keys available for keybinding in the game, so this also got some love; you now can use most of your keyboard and mouse buttons. (I believe I covered all supported by the game engine)

"is the one player on keyboard and one on joystick feature still unavailable?"

Not anymore! You can now play War Islands having only one controller for your friend. So you play using Keyboard & Mouse and your friend a controller. Heavy improvements to how the game detects controllers as well, you can pick how many and which controllers to use!


Lastly, the Christmas quest is back! This time the tree is sitting outside, get ready for some action fighting the evil snowmans!


This is my first time making a post going into details exactly what each individual review and comment has to say about the game and trying to improve that. I hope I got your feedback right as I'm trying my best to ensure the game feels great.

There's a few more improvements I would like to do but couldn't be ready for the Christmas season so I had to postpone.

I genuinely hope you like these changes! Lucas

Hey everyone!

I know this small update came out of nowhere but it's just some minor improvements to the game to make it more enjoyable!

• Improvements to the initial game tutorial: The game now explains Almika's possess ability, points Jonathan to the Fort lever and saves tutorial state if you quit the game during the tutorial.
  
• Fixed game being too dark on low graphics settings: It now uses the correct lighting setup even in low settings, it's a small cost to performance to ensure accurate brightness/color levels.
  

That's it really, a quick one :)

Cheers,
Lucas

Hey everyone! I'm happy to announce that The Battle Of Nine Lives Update is out now! Call your friends and return to War Islands on this brand new update! Lots of new quests, items and puzzles to beat!

[h3]Key Features:[/h3]

• New Main Quest! Meet Me Halfway: Continue the story of Jonathan, Almika and Sarsi by going to the Honey Cave in order to find a cure for Sarsi, fight the cats and meet Nekomata (the cat's leader)
• New Level! Morumotto Forest: This level will provide two new side quests and extra puzzles for the game, including a brand new weapon for Jonathan!
  

Check out the trailer if you haven't seen it yet!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
If you already have a save game from past updates, don't worry, you can use it to continue playing the storyline just fine. As soon as you load your save game it'll automatically add the Honey Cave quest for you. Don't forget to also visit the Morumotto Forest for new undiscovered side-quests!


A few major bugs from past updates were also fixed, such as screen input indicators not showing for your friends, crash fixes and even some issues with restarting the game were fixed.

There's also lots of game balancing tweaks for Wookikota Forest, not only by tweaking enemy spawn frequency but also separating the Snail Maze puzzle into it's own separated area, If you beat the maze you'll get a cool new Snail Armor for Sarsi!


So what do you think about this update? I would love to hear your feedback, feel free to share your thoughts on the Steam Community Hub or directly on our Discord page!

Lucas