Research Story News

- Fixed a crash that happens during Rhea's Purple Heart Cutscene

Thank you for the report!
Miki

[h3]Greetings Researchers![/h3]

v0.9 update is now available for all Researchers to play! Here are some highlights:

[h2]🍻 New NPC, Layla![/h2]
Layla is Lisa's younger sister. She'll be moving into Shimmerbrook from 3 Summer Y1 onwards (on a Wed/Sat/Sun). She has a bubbly and outgoing personality, and you'll see her helping around Mugs & Darts on her work days!



[h2]💬 Lots of new NPC content[/h2]
- Added 20 Heart Event Cutscenes (non-romanceables)
- Receive more mail as you get closer with the townsfolk
- Casual Hangouts with minigame
- 3 new Side Quests
- New daily routines for several NPCs



[h2]🍳 Cooking System[/h2]
Obtain 5 cooking utensils and craft a variety of food! With 48 cooking recipes, many of the existing crops and animal products will come in handy. Other than being a better source of energy, some food also give certain buffs when eaten.

For researchers who've upgraded their homes, the Food Cabinet can now store items. When cooking, ingredients will be pulled from the cabinet before the players' inventory.



[h2]📝 Daily Summary[/h2]
A few of our players have requested this feature (since almost day 1!) and I finally managed to implement it in the game. The daily summary tracks not just your shipped items, but also submitted scrolls and relationship changes!

Dear Chinese players: There are still some missing translation related to the new update, but we'll be updating the game as soon as we have them all ready. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience!

There's lots of other smaller changes as part of this update - full patch notes here.

[h2]✨1.0 Roadmap Update!✨[/h2]
The Early Access for Research Story has gone on for longer than I had initially planned, so thank you to all researchers for your patience! We're getting closer each day, and I now have more clarity on the remaining updates towards 1.0. Here's an updated roadmap:



Finally, thank you so much again for playing Research Story! The game wouldn't be where it is today without your feedback and bug reports. A big portion of the v0.9 update came from player suggestions, from something as large as the Cooking System, to the more innovative Casual Hangout system, to smaller QOL features like the Daily Summary and balancing changes. These are all implemented because players wanted it!

As we go on towards 1.0, there are also other areas where player suggestions will be implemented, including adding a Wardrobe (in the v0.10 small content update); more decor and specifically, display cases; alongside major content such as the continuation of the Main Story Quest (players wanted more after the current MSQ ends, and better worldbuilding in general)... I hope to cover as much as possible, but being a sole developer for the most part, I'll have to prioritise certain additions over others (I'm sure you already know!). Regardless, keep your feedback coming so that I get a sense of whether we're heading in the right direction, and know where else to improve!

That's all for now! I hope you enjoy the update!
Miki 🤍

Dear Chinese players: There are still some missing translation related to the new update, but we'll be updating the game as soon as we have them all ready. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience!

The v0.9 update focuses mainly on non-romanceable NPC content, as well as adding cooking to the game. Several QOL features and changes have also been added.

[h2]New NPC Content[/h2]
New townsfolk: Layla
- Moves to Shimmerbrook sometime from 3 Summer Y1 onwards!
- Her bubbly personality breathes new life into Shimmerbrook!
- Tends to the Tavern while Lisa is away, and works as a barmaid on other days.
- On her rest days, she often meets up with other townsfolk for a chat!

All townsfolk up to Yellow Hearts
Non-romanceable townsfolk can now reach up to Yellow Hearts. Each of them has a Heart Event Cutscene at Gray/Purple and Green Hearts.

Added 20 Heart Event Cutscenes
- Alfie Green Heart Event
- Greydohr Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Kipp Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Layla Gray Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Lisa Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Niamh Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Remus Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Sesame Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Yun Xi Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Zi Purple Purple Heart Event, Green Heart Event
- Kyr Green Heart Event

Mail
- Added 31 letters that players can receive, depending on their Heart Levels with certain NPCs and progress in the game.

Side Quests
- Lost Mail
- Home-cooked Meal
- Seeking Starburst

New/Updated Routines
- Yun Xi Monday Routine
- Yun Xi Rainy Rest Day Routine
- Lisa Monday Routine
- Lisa Friday Routine
- Lisa Rainy Rest Day Routine
- Zi Monday Routine
- Rhea Even Week Tuesday Routine
- Yan Yan Even Week Tuesday Routine
- Kipp Thursday Night Routine
- Remus Wednesday Routine
- Remus Sunday Routine
- Theo Sunday Routine
- Greydohr Friday Routine

[h2]New Hangout Mode: Casual Hangouts[/h2]
There are now two types of Hangouts:

1. Story Hangouts that can only be completed once. All romanceable townsfolk currently have 3 Story Hangouts.
   
2. Casual Hangouts (NEW) that are repeatable. Added the first location (Garden) for Casual Hangouts, which can be gone on with any NPC. During Casual Hangouts, players can fill a "hangout meter" by participating in activities or by collecting floating yellow hearts.
   

[h2]New Feature: Cooking[/h2]
Cooking has been added to the game! If you've already upgraded your house, you can dive straight into it with just a few additional purchases of cooking utensils.
- 5 Cooking Utensils added: Bowl & Whisk, Glass Bottle, Pan, Pot, and Oven.
- 48 cooking recipes added
- Food Cabinet can now store items. When cooking, ingredients will be pulled from the cabinet before the players' inventory.

[h2]New Feature: Food Effects[/h2]
- Some food, when eaten, will give players a buff. This is separate from the buffs players get from potions. Most of the buffs increase certain RNG chances. A few of the buffs are specific and quite favourable, such as giving players energy regen and preventing players from fainting from exhaustion.
- The Cake item (can only be made from cooking) can be given to NPCs on their birthdays for a significant relationship boost and unique dialogue.

[h2]New Items[/h2]
- Ingredients/Intermediate food items: Salt, Pepper, Sugar, Flour, Heavy Cream, Butter
- Food: Scrambled Eggs, Mashed Potato, Buttered Corn, Potato Salad, Berry Sparkle Salad, Crunchy Salad, Vinegar, Chamomile Tea, Violet Herbal Tea, Mint Drink, Gloomberry Jelly, Cactus Juice, Watermelon Juice, Cloudberry Milkshake, Stars and Sparkles, Sparkling Dew, Miracle Drink, Sweet 'n Sour Fish, Bloomy Delight, Waffly Breakfast, Garlic Butter Shrimp, Garlic Bread, Stir-fried Veggies, Flaming Crunch, Meaty Burger, Stuffed Eggplant, Spooky Stew, Meaty Stew, Pumpkin Stew, Seafood Stew, Special Shrooms Soup, Dumplings, Three-Egg Bean Soup, Cheesy Baked Potato, Cubed Roots, Darkroot Gratin. Seafood Casserole. Pizza. Chestnut Cookie, Cake
- Cooking Utensils: Bowl & Whisk, Glass Bottle, Pan, Pot, Oven

[h2]New Feature: Daily Summary[/h2]
- A daily summary of players' progress will be shown when going to bed. Progress will show if players have done any of the following: submitted a Research Scroll, sold an item in the Shipping Bin, have NPC Relationship Point updates.

[h2]QOL Changes[/h2]
- Added 2 hotbar slots in the inventory (6 slots -> 8 slots).
- The Shipping Box now shows 32 slots instead of 1 slot.
- Autocrafters (Feed Crafter and Bait Press) now take from chests first before the inventory.
- Autocrafters: Added tooltip for name of crafted item.
- Items that can be purchased from the General Store are now categorised for easier navigation.
- Shop Items now display Energy information where applicable.
- Noticeboard: Notices that have not been read are highlighted in orange.
- Other researchers' books: Books in the Violet Archive that are unread are highlighted in orange. Keywords in books have also been highlighted.
- Added visual indicator for Auto-collectors when placing.
- Added visual indicator for Shade Cloths when placing.
- Added ability to take 1 item out from Autocollector (using RMB or X).
- On top of unique recipes, the Caravan now sells a food item and a craftable item, which is randomly selected every Wed/Sun.
- The Journal now indicates if a researchable is any of these types: Flower, Herb, Fruit, Vegetable, Diurnal (Creature), Nocturnal (Creature)
- Item Descriptions now show an icon for Flowers/Herbs/Vegetables/Fruits.
- Some controls for KBM now has glyphs as a guide (e.g. moving/splitting items in the inventory).
- Tool grid adjustment no longer happens when player is having a creature sit/follow or when picking up a placed item.
- Added visual indicator for the number of floors left for Cool and Warm Buff icons.

[h2]Balancing Changes[/h2]
- The 1st and 3rd Sundays of each season will never rain.
- Year 2 creatures have a slightly higher spawn rate.
- Cool Potion requires 1 Ice Chunk instead of 2.
- Fishing Minigame for certain fish (such as Cliff Climber) has been adjusted: Lowered reel bar decrease speed after feedback about the minigame feeling unfair/impossible sometimes.
- Daily chat with NPCs increases Relationship Points (RP) by 30 instead of 15.
- Gifting loved gifts increases RP by 70 instead of 65.
- Crafting Berry Bait requires 2 berries instead of 3.
- Crafting Fish Bait requires 1 insect instead of 2.

[h2]Misc Changes[/h2]
Controls
- Holding a food item and pressing the Eat button (RMB/X) will no longer also pick up a placed decoration.
- [KBM] Double clicking an item in the hotbar also holds/keeps the item.
- Glyphs for certain actions are now hidden when not in use (e.g. Quest/Journal shortcut).
Locations
- Updated Stoneworks interior.
- Updated Tavern Level 2 interior.
NPC
- Added Kipp Portrait (Sad)
- Added Lisa Portrait (Worried)
- Changed Yun Xi's rest days from Tue & Wed to Mon & Tue.
- Changed Lisa's rest days from Mon to Mon & Fri
- Added White Egg to Zi's Loved Gifts.
- NPCs now have a "Favourite food", which gives +90RP when gifted (Loved Gifts give +70RP). It's recorded in the Friendship Tab.
- Remus' Loved Gift: Potato Stew is shifted to be his favourite meal.
- Added Garlic Bread to Remus' Loved Gifts.
- Yan Yan's Romantic Date can now only be scheduled in Spring, Summer, or Autumn.
Items
- Updated artwork for Cooking Stove
- Woodram Milk can now be consumed for 15 Energy.
- Sparkling Leaf can now be consumed for 3 Energy.
- Wild Violet Jelly selling price increased from 25G to 35G.
- Cheese selling price increased from 10G to 21G.
Noticeboard
- Added Campfire Tip in Spring
- 16 cooking recipes can be learnt from the noticeboard, under the "Let's Make Some!" series.
6 New Achievements
- Charismatic (Gain Green Hearts with 15 NPCs)
- Home Cook (Cook 10 dishes)
- Commis Chef (Cook 20 different dishes)
- Sous Chef (Cook 40 different dishes)
- Push Through (Beat exhaustion from overwork)
- Sweetie (Give a Cake to a townsfolk on their Birthday)
SFX
- Updated grass footstep SFX

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]
- Fixed hotsprings replenishing energy even when game is paused.
- Fixed fishing reel SFX persisting if passed out at 3AM while fishing.
- Fixed infinite gypsum exploit by saving and loading in the Mines.
- Fixed unable to rotate decor if hovering over other placed decor.
- Fixed visual bug when holding an item and starting an activity during a Hangout.
- Fixed visual bug causing some highlighted strings to have an extra spacing.
- Fixed visual bug causing creature perks to show up while in the Creature Pen UI.
- Fixed being able to interact with certain other UI (e.g. Teleporter) while the Creature Pen UI is open.
- Fixed being able to save the game while trying to move pens, which caused pens to be gone on game load.
- Fixed being able to open chests while trying to move Pens.
- Fixed being able to pick up placed item while trying to move Pens.
- Fixed pen not displaying during build mode if a creature is moused over.
- [Controller] Fixed a bug that opens the auto-feeder UI when assigning a creature.
- [Controller] Fixed a bug that can cause players to open the Chest UI and creature UI simultaneously, causing an overlap.
- Fixed grammatical errors in Eira's stutters.
- Fixed some typos.
- Localisation fixes.

[h2]In-game text rework
[/h2]In-game texts has been reworked once again, to facilitate localisation and further text manipulation via .csv files. This greatly improved maintainability of texts and fixed a few bugs as well!

• Fixed several bugs that caused certain lines to be skipped:
  -- Rhea's Flower Viewing Event
  
• Some texts that refer to KBM controls while using controller has been fixed to show appropriate gamepad controls.
  
• More texts are colour-coded for clarity.
  
• [Localisation] Texts in CN tutorials are now colour-coded.
  

Thank you for playing Research Story! An updated Roadmap (v0.10, v0.11, v1.0 plans) is in our Update Post.

[h3][✨v0.9 is in development, to be released by the end of next week!✨][/h3]

[h2]Hello Researchers![/h2]

It's been a while since the last devlog - I just wanted to do another update before v0.9 goes live! Many things have been in development, and all the to-do list in our last devlog and more has been implemented:

💚 Non-romanceables Green Heart Events
✉️ Non-romanceables Blue Heart and Yellow Heart Mail
🍕 More cooking recipes and food effects
👫 New Hangout Type: Casual Hangouts
🎯 5 New Steam Achievements
✨QOL changes

Here are some of the more visible/interesting changes! Many of these has been requested by players, including a daily summary, casual (repeatable) hangouts, and better shipping box UI.

[h3]✨Daily Summary✨[/h3]
When players head to bed at the end of the day, a daily summary will show the key progress made by the player. Other than shipped items, submitted research scrolls and relationship changes are also tracked.


[h3]💛Casual Hangouts💛[/h3]
Casual, repeatable hangouts! Hangouts are now categorised into two types: Story Hangouts and Casual Hangouts. Story Hangouts (the ones currently in the game) can only be completed once, and has unique dialogue and character development. On the other hand, you can go on Casual Hangouts as many times as you wish. Currently, only the Garden location has been added for Casual Hangouts.


This lets players hang out with NPCs beyond the fixed number of Story Hangouts, and gives an alternative way for players to increase Relationship Points with any NPC! To make these casual hangouts more eventful, I've also implemented a minigame where players can collect hearts or complete activities to fill up the satisfaction meter of the NPC.


[h3]🍳Food Effects🍳[/h3]
As part of the cooking system, 24 out of 48 of the cooked items have Effects. This can range from things like getting a higher chance of finding a specific gem in the mines, to things like Energy Regeneration. These Food Effects are separate from Potion buffs, and can stack with effects from worn Equipment. Look at the regen go!


[h3]📦Updated shipping box UI, 2 more hotbar slots (6 -> 8 slots)📦[/h3]
The Shipping Box now shows the first 32 shipped items, but players can continue adding to it infinitely. The number of slots that our hotbar has is also increased from 6 to 8 slots.



[h3]What's after v0.9?[/h3]
Pretty exciting stuff, eh? :) I hope you're looking forward to the update! I'll be sharing a more detailed roadmap to 1.0 together with the update next week, but I'm looking at 2 more major content updates (including the 1.0 update), along with several smaller updates in between them. We're slowly but surely getting there!

Cheers!
Miki 🤍

A couple of small fixes regading creature trait interactions:
- Fixed unable to fulfil trait requirement of a creature with the Timid trait that is also a Predator (usually affects Dragonlings)
- Fixed Cave-dweller requirement fulfilled even though cave crops are planted far away.

Thank you as usual :)
Miki 🤍