APICO News

Hey Beekeepers!

We're excited to be a part of NextFest this year. As part of it, we'll be doing a devstream to play through some of the Beeta and show off a few things not in the demo! We'll be streaming on 2nd October at 7pm BST for a good few hours!



Hope to see ya there!

Hey Beekeepers!

So the playtest has sadly come to an end, but on the plus side it meant an end to the torrent of bugs I had to fix :')

Whitethorn's QA team were busy testing the game at the same time too, so there's lots of fun little bugs that we managed to catch here.

Thanks so much to everyone that reported bugs or gave us feedback in these last few weeks!
This patch is a lot of bug fixes but also a few balance tweaks and little changes, including the save slowdown bug! I also added in the achievements to Steam, however you can only unlock the achievement for getting the Dream Bee and the Jurassic Bee at this point, just so that we can test the achievement unlock with Steam overlay. Once it's all working I'll add in the unlock triggers for all of the other achievements.

For Mod Creator's there are also a few new API additions and some long needed fixes to custom NPCs.
Enjoy!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Honeycore Crystals now sell for 3 honeycore each, Honeycore Shards are still 1 honeycore each
  
• Bottles now only cost $1 each
  
• Mainlander Money now sells for $25 each
  
• Added the ending sequence SFX
  
• Tweaked world gen for the demo to try and avoid awkward lake cut-offs
  
• Weather, recipe, altar, and noticeboard notifications now auto-dismiss after a short period on PC like they already do on console
  
• Heaters + Coolers need higher levels of bees discovered before being unlocked to encourage using the biomes before getting spoilt by machines!
  
• Town Noticeboard now only needs you to have discovered 6 bees to start handing in quests
  
• Beenjamin quests in the Town Noticeboard have higher bee produce added to the reward pool
  
• Skipper quests in the Town Noticeboard now give a proportional amount of mainlander money (i.e. requirement is 3 bottles, you get 3 moneys)
  
• Bobbee quests in the Town Noticeboard have honey frames added to the reward pool
  
• Merchant quests in the Town Noticeboard now correctly pick from ALL tracks in the game, not use the first 6
  
• Clock in the corner now explicitly says day/dawn/dusk/night
  
• Added in the ability to unlock the achievement for Dream Bee + Jurassic Bee so I can test some achievement things!
  
• Re-ordered Beenjamins shop stock to be in order of level unlock
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed dropped items not deactivating off-screen
  
• Fixed auto-save not clearing the discovery list each save, meaning save files grew exponentially until the save was impossible to complete
  
• Added a fix to automatically clean up your save if you have one of the saves from 1.6 that had this exponential issue
  
• Fixed not being able to place tiles underneath potted plants
  
• Fixed lights deactivating offscreen too quickly
  
• Fixed being able to stack flowers by shift placing them
  
• Fixed noticeboard text in window mode being cut off
  
• Fixed some book elements in window mode being cut off
  
• Fixed repeating paragraph on quest "Get Building"
  
• Fixed mead buffs counting down while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Beeboxes/Beebanks not updating the output when a bee matching the current selected bee stats is added
  
• Fixed blessed queens counting as 2 bees in Beeboxes + Beebanks
  
• Fixed not being able to right-click drop infused mead onto more of the same mead as the right-click drinks the mead instead
  
• Fixed being able to interact with the world with the mouse while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Shrub Saplings being liars and saying you can use them in Squeezers
  
• Fixed being able to highlight beebox/beebank gui elements outside the menu
  
• Fixed tree health showing -0.0 for a split second when punched to death
  
• Fixed being able to sell Honeycore Crystals + Honeycore Shards to NPCs for Rubees
  
• Fixed not being able to sell Honeycore Crystals + Honeycore Shards to Bobbee for Honeycore
  
• Fixed being able to put honeycore in Bobbee's buy slots
  
• Fixed drained treetap still showing a "next produce in 10s" gui tooltip in the menu
  
• Fixed tiles being able to be duplicated by hammering extremely fast and on a specific frame - or at least I've made it harder to do anyway haha
  
• Fixed Bottler not resetting tank to be empty after using up all the liquid when bottling something
  
• Fixed using red close buttons or "Bye" in NPC dialogue menus not closing all menus in Focus Mode
  
• Fixed being able to still hand in noticeboard quests when you haven't got the items on you
  
• Fixed Extractors putting output items in the frame output slots
  
• Fixed being able to close crates while the noticeboard is open and have the quest still able to be handed in
  
• Fixed not having enough honeycore in shops showing the wrong tooltip
  
• Fixed flower mutation not creating a pool, so it was bias to higher tier mutation recipes
  
• Fixed normal mead in quest icons not having a full tooltip
  
• Fixed mouse held item not resetting on new world creation
  
• Fixed some types of mead not having effect info in quest icon tooltips
  
• Fixed both Barnabee and Abbee crashing when opening their shop and < 10 bees/flowers are discovered
  
• Fixed Beekeeper's Delight not being discovered by default
  
• Tweaked collision slightly to avoid a rare "one way" deep water layout - if this messes up collision in general then you can blame a123qwertz567 and Dues!
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]

• You can now specify an "item_sprite" property in obj_definition and menu_obj_definition to use an alternate 16x16 image for items + slots
  
• You can now specify a "tier" property in the bee_definition and the game will try and put the bee in that tier. If there is no room it will try the next tier up, defaulting to 5 if no room anywhere
  
• Added api_define_gif() - similar to api_define_sprite() but will append your given name with "gif_" instead allowing it to be used in quest definitions
  
• Added api_blacklist_input() which allows you to prevent standard input on a specific menu object oid when open, like how writing in signs doesn't open the book when pressing G as you type
  
• Fixed api_get_inst_in_circle() and api_get_inst_in_rectangle() crashing when used
  
• Fixed api_define_item() and api_define_object() setting the "shop_key" value to true regardless of what you give it (meaning all items became key items)
  
• Fixed dialogue not working for custom NPCs
  
• Fixed custom NPCs throwing an error when trying to buy custom items from them
  

[h2]Modding Docs[/h2]

• Updated docs with new properties for the definitions
  
• Updated Sample Mod to include an example gif sprite to use with a quest definition
  
• Updated the api_define_quest() example to add a gif
  
• Added api_unlock_quest() to the docs as it was in the API but missing from the docs
  
• Added api_define_gif() definition
  
• Added api_blacklist_input() definition
  

Hey Beekeepers!

All good things must come to an end, and for the APICO Playtest sadly this is the end!

Thanks so much for everyone who took part in this and helped squash out nasty bugs and give us great feedback! We really do appreciate it
If you haven't already, we'd love to hear your feedback on the Beeta!
The Beeta feedback form is completely optional and you don't have to answer all the questions - they're there just to give you some things to think about around different parts of the game.
If you have the time we'd love to hear from you!

https://forms.gle/ckphRtAJC26GrHVJ9

For us now there's a long slog ahead of fixing everything, finishing off QA, finishing off localisation - and then starting the long and dreaded console certification process!

It won't bee long beefore we'll be looking at the full release and be able to announce some dates, but until then if you want to come chat with us you can catch us over on our Guilded community!

https://guilded.gg/tngineers

Thanks again, and bee good!
Love Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Coming into the final few days of the playtest now, thanks so much for everyone that has been playing and giving us feedback and reporting all the weird and wonderful bugs - the game is now starting to get towards some sort of stability (dare I say it)

I did change the save system slightly so.... maybe make a back-up just in case?
I did test it hella loads though ;(
(Game files are named like gamesave-json and found in your %localappdata%)

This update is mostly bug fixes, although I did tweak the saving to remove the delay, update 4K screens to have the right scale level, and rebalanced a bunch of products that will probably make me public enemy no. 1 in your greedy capitalist honey baron eyes.

Also there's 3 new tracks in the game and they are so freaking good - BroduxBlue is coming close to finishing off the last track now and I think we'll have an OST ready to release soon on Bandcamp/Steam/Spotify :o

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Saving the game now takes a little bit longer (1 whole second!!) but now it won't freeze the game so you can just keep on truckin', don't say I never treat you all
  
• Added tooltips to make it clear that pressing escape on a highlighted menu closes ONLY that menu and pressing escape when not highlighting a menu closes ALL open menus
  
• Updated "Microscope It Out" quest to explain the recessive + buff symbols (≡, +, -)
  
• Added the ! bubble above the player when drowning to make it clear you are drowning and will be teleported if you remain "stuck"
  
• Added 3 new night-time tracks that can also be bought from BroduxBlue - Pascuorum, Rubicundus, and Cineraria (they are sick check them out)
  
• Updated scaling for 4K monitors, it was scaling at 4x when it should of been at 5x (3200+) and 6x (3840+) respectively (I can't afford fancy monitors so I didn't know this soz)
  
• Doubled the amount of honey made per frame extraction (5 frames = minimum 1 bottle worth, higher productivity trait = more honey obvs)
  
• Rebalanced some of the bee special products to encourage selling honey/mead for better profits (honey bottle sells for $15, mead for $20)
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed Bobbee letting you sell anything as honeycore even when it's not honeycore (they are just so generous)
  
• Fixed gamepad mode not turning off in the settings when using a gamepad until you restart
  
• Fixed Worker bees requiring the wrong thing compared to what is stated in the book
  
• Fixed Canisters not having their base sell price added to the canister amount price
  
• Fixed being able to claim the Overview chapter reward for the Guide/Bee Book/Flower Book multiple times
  
• Fixed a notification not showing for Overview chapters when the reward is ready to collect
  
• Fixed books still showing a notification when all chapters are read
  
• Fixed not being able to interact with boats in hallowed water
  
• Fixed flowers placed in pots not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed honeycore crystal seeds not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed Abbee's Staff created nature items not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed smoker storage slots not allowing any items
  
• Fixed GUI hover tooltip not working for Cooler, Heater, and Smoker
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_menu_check_input' crash error
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_mouse_action' crash error
  
• Fixed tank not filling in Extractor / Centrifuges when there is a full canister in the tank output
  
• Fixed crash with Beenjamin hints after discovering all bees
  
• Fixed crash with BroduxBlue dialogue after discovering all bees
  
• Fixed an issue with the ending sequence needing 1 less bee than it should have
  
• Fixed gate items showing as pink cubes when picked up
  
• Fixed Combustus-infused mead having no effect
  
• Fixed Combustus-infused and Temperus-infused mead not showing effect info in the tooltip
  
• Fixed Temperus-infused mead effect ending too quickly because of it's effect
  
• Fixed land change with the Shovel not updating on the map until reload
  
• Fixed being able to shift-click items into the Propolis output slot of the Honeycore Centrifuge
  
• Fixed Tropic climate bees not saying say in the beebook hover tooltips
  
• Fixed "Any" climate bees not having their climate trait set when taken out of a beebox
  
• Fixed "Any" climate bees not saying so in the beebook hover tooltips
  
• Fixed beebook overview chapter making you need 1 more bee than you actually needed to claim the reward
  
• Fixed tile highlight showing when we had no hammer equipped
  
• Fixed charging machines sometimes crashing when loaded offscreen
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending dialogue
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending effects in the 5th biome
  

Hey Beekeepers!

This is a small update just to get you all up to speed with the fixes and changes that have been done for the Playtest/Beeta! Main things are fixing the light duplication/save lagging issue, adding an auto-save option that can be modified and turned off, and a few things to help clarify a few features that people seemed to be confused on.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Auto-save is now a setting, by default set to 10 minutes
  
• Auto-save only runs when the player isn't walking to reduce visible lagging for a splitsecond
  
• Tweaked the drowning respawn teleport to only happen when no books are open so its clear why you teleported back to spawn
  
• You can now view the contents of a backpack in the expanded tooltip like you can with crates
  
• Reduced a little bit of lag when saving by caching world tiles but ultimately you're trying to save 5mb of save data in an instant and GM doesn't have async threads for that tasty json stringify so ;'(
  
• Added tooltips to make it clear that pressing escape on a highlighted menu closes ONLY that menu - pressing escape when not highlighting a menu closes ALL open menus
  
• Updated inventory progress bar to only show the 10 demo bee icons
  
• Updated "Microscope It Out" quest to explain the recessive + buff symbols (≡, +, -)
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed the light source duplication on save, any saves with duplicated items will be deduped automatically when the game loads
  
• Fixed backpacks not working after moving through gates or teleporting back to spawn after being stuck in deep water
  
• Fixed a few typos in the quest + bee book
  
• Fixed seedlings made by flower spread not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed saplings that turn into trees not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed tapped trees not being visible until you move
  
• Fixed Centrifuge crashing when input item removed on a specific frame
  
• Fixed "Overview" chapters and the species title/latin being cut off on some screen sizes
  
• Fixed no shadows showing underneath lanterns and lamps
  
• Fixed Workbench not resetting the craft multiplyer when changing recipes
  
• Fixed leaving Royal Jelly in a hive preventing the queen from working
  
• Fixed Noticeboard UI not updating position properly after moving the noticeboard menu then opening a quest notice
  
• Fixed Noticeboard bee icon crashing when clicked twice
  
• Fixed being able to open menu objects through books
  
• Fixed cargo boat being drawn twice when moving left
  
• Fixed items held in the mouse not being saved
  
• Fixed + / - buff markers in traits being drawn in the wrong position for Productivity, Fertility, and Stability
  
• Fixed the missing help button on the inventory