Aloft News

[h2]Hey there travelers, settle down and listen,
[/h2]
Hello everyone! Remember how we said we would be working at a reduced pace for the summer? Well, we had a lot of fun, we took some vacations to enjoy the nice (fickle, humid, hot) Quebec weather, and now we’re back on track to keep creating a badass, awesome, fun and wholesome Aloft game!

Since the last devlog where we talked about tools, corruption, enemies and all that good stuff that’s still in the demo for you to enjoy, we kept working at a reduced pace, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t work though! We took the time to improve the visuals and the gameplay of the game to add more systems, improve the pacing of the demo and, of course, interact with our awesome community.

If you want more regular updates, we do encourage you to join our Discord, it’s full of good stuff, and we share updates more often and in a more casual way.

[h2]Next Fest[/h2]
In early June, we put out a pre-alpha demo for the Steam Next Fest to see what people would think of our upcoming game and the answer was astounding! We had more than 100K views on our streams, 100+ gameplay videos, tens of thousands of new wishlists and hundreds of Discord members, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and it’s telling us we’re moving in the right direction.

The demo we put up for the Next Fest has been kept up, because we like having people play the game and have fun!

[h2]Navigation system overhaul[/h2]
As you may have noticed in that previous GIF, the sailing system has been completely overhauled to make it better, more intuitive and with a more depth as well! Now, various sails offer different levels of flexibility, wind efficiency and durability. Players can also build rudders to help steer the island and floaters - horizontal sails - which enable vertical movement. The new sails must be strategically placed to help you pilot your island through the more dangerous areas of the hurricane, whereas the other structures provide necessary guidance to the island.


[h2]New assets[/h2]
In addition to the navigation system overhaul, we also implemented new assets for the sails, windmills, helm and rudder! Those are way nicer than

The current sails are made of leaf fabric, which is the lowest tier of fabric available in the game. It’s not very resilient or efficient, but it’s cheap and easy to make. Leaves are a fairly common resource to find after all! They’ll be the very first thing new players will use to sail their islands and explore the world of Aloft.



The windmills we’re very happy about, they look great and have a bunch of customization options available to them right now. Just like the sails, windmills are limited to leaf fabric for now, but you can select different blade patterns and amounts. We think they look absolutely badass, and some players have been putting them to great use.



Finally, the helm has been upgraded from its placeholder status to full-fledged 3D asset! It works in the same way, as the piloting center of your flying island.


[h2]Survival fest[/h2]
Next week, we will be participating in the Steam Survival Fest. Of course, the game will not be on sale (as it is not being sold at all) but a new version of the demo will be up and running for you to try out! We have addressed several bugs, improved the gameplay and added tutorial features. You can find the full changelog in the patch notes posted next week along with the new demo. Of course, a new demo means that previous saves will be destroyed which is a bummer, but at this stage of development, we are unable to make old save files compatible with new versions.

[h2]What’s next?[/h2]
For the rest of the summer, we’ll be working on bringing our animal concepts to life, but also to make our own non-placeholder character model! We have great concepts we cannot wait to show you, and with Joanna on board, it’s going to look amazing in 3D as well.

We’re also working on improving our starting biome, to bring to the level of quality we expect to have upon full release, it is one step closer to our full-blown vertical slice which we’re hard at work bringing to life.

Given the additional team members, the higher rhythm of work we’ll be taking on, you can expect more devlogs to come, roughly every month, or earlier if we have important, urgent news to share with everyone.

If you want more Aloft content or would like to give feedback, be sure to wishlist the game on steam here and join the Discord server using the image below

Interested in more ALOFT demo gameplay? Look no further!

If you want to join us for more ALOFT, come hang out on our official discord!

We are suped pumped to be presenting our newest demo to you, the fabulous Next-Fest-goers!

Our very first Stream will take place on Monday, 2pm PT // 5pm EST with more during the week! The devs will be onboard to chat and discuss with everyone, answer questions about Aloft and the development of the game!

More Livestreams will be happening all throughout the week, so stay tuned for those!

If you want to join us for more ALOFT, come hang out on our official discord!

Hello everyone! First of all, let us apologize for the delay since the last devlog. Aloft has reached a turning point in the project and, our solid demo in hand, we are now looking for serious funding to back the production. Fortunately, there are some very interesting grant programs in Canada that we want to use to launch the production in full. We are also in discussion with several publishers that are interested in Aloft as much as we are. In short, we’re in a good place, and it’s going to get better.

That being said, we kept working on Aloft during the last month, and we have a bunch of stuff to show you today. A lot of the things we were discussing and presenting during our firsts devlogs have now come to fruition.

If you want more regular updates, we do encourage you to join our discord, it’s full of good stuff, and we share updates more often and in a more casual way.

[h2]New Trailer[/h2]
You might have noticed our Steam page got a little update with new screenshots and a new trailer, so without further ado, here you go!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Vegetation[/h2]
The first thing you may have noticed is that the trees and foliage have been upgraded from our placeholder trees to much nicer placeholder trees. They’re from a great Unity asset that suited our art direction, and we decided to include them in our game for now. Given the limited time available to us, we decided to put our efforts in all the other great features you can see in the trailer right now, rather than trees. Of course, good-looking trees add a lot of character to our islands, that’s why we went that way.

[h2]Wind walls[/h2]
You also noticed all that nasty weather and the damage it caused, right? Well that’s because our intrepid hero ventured into the very first Wind Wall. They are the primary gating
mechanism in Aloft as they block the three rings and the Hurricane walls block ascension to higher levels of altitude.

When going through a wind wall, the players and their islands will be assaulted with powerful winds, rain, sleet, thunder and more exotic dangers. They must steer the island, repair their sails and protect their buildings all at the same time, to be able to get to the calm zone. Once they are through, they will be able to access the second ring, getting ever closer to the hurricane.


[h2]Tools[/h2]
Last time, we were fighting and gathering resources with puny placeholders, and they weren’t bad, but they were not game-ready. Behold our tools in all their 3D glory!


Now, the tools and weapons in Aloft are something interesting. They’re the same thing! Mostly! Players will be able to build and repair their tools, and they are all used for both resource gathering and combat. The only exceptions to this are the bow and the sword, which are exclusively combat-focused. The first tier is built of stone, wood and rope to tie everything together. The second tier is made of sharpened petrified bones, as seen below.


The third tier isn’t modeled in 3D yet, but it’s made of lightning-smelted glass and malachite fused together to create glass and copper weapons. Does it look absolutely awesome? Yes, yes it does. We cannot WAIT to get them in 3D and in the game!


[h2]Combat[/h2]
We’ve shown you the dynamic movement before in the Devlog #4 and that was pretty cool! How about you pit your movement skills against a real, live* mushroom guard? Well now you can!


Use combos while fighting to optimize your damage output, but watch out for the flanking maneuver of the Guards, they’re not fighting fair! Each creature has its own combat style, but for the guard it’s all about rushing in and going for the kill. Be careful however, because if you aggro too many creatures, you will be swarmed, and that’s never a good thing. For now, players will be able to escape by flying away, but with the different monsters we have planned for you, you may not be able to do it for long…

* Mushroom creatures aren’t real and cannot hurt you

[h2]Corruption[/h2]
You may also have noticed the weird, mushroomy, smoky island full of shroom guards in the trailer, well that’s one of the many corrupted islands you will encounter during your travels in the world of Aloft. The mushroom disease in Aloft eats all the flora and fauna and leaves only empty shells of islands, full of giant parasitic fungus. They look pretty, but they’re not good for you or the ecosystem.


So how do you get rid of those darn fungi? Well, that’s a topic for another devlog, but it involves those big-ass mushroom cores that spew toxic spores all over the place. To get rid of the corruption, you will have to go in, kill the monsters protecting the core and whack it until the core is exposed. Then, use some extra-strength alchemical purifying liquid to clean up the mess. Sounds messy and kind of difficult? It’s on purpose, you didn’t think Aloft was going to be all sunshine and rainbows, right?


[h2]What’s next?[/h2]
For this summer, we will be working at a reduced pace, because summer is nice. This means that we will publish devlogs less often, because we will have less things to share with you on this platform. However, we stay active on our discord, so you should really follow us there.

That being said, we will be working on getting the sails and windmills in 3D, they’re complex pieces of machinery, and we are glad to be able to take the time to render and texture them correctly. Of course, along with windmills come building automation, which we will be overhauling to make it smoother and more coherent with the updated windmills.

Our concept artist will also take the time to craft some delightful key art which will adorn every conceivable surface of our office as soon as possible. She does incredible work, what can we say?

We have also started work on one of the most interesting aspects of Aloft, the Titans! There’s a sneak peek in the trailer, but we won’t say more right now, only that it’s awesome.

If you want more Aloft content or would like to give feedback, be sure to wishlist the game on steam here and join the Discord server using the image below

If you want more Aloft content or would like to give feedback, be sure to wishlist the game on steam here and join the Discord server using the image below

We decided to take a different approach for this devlog. Considering our development rate and the things that were coming down the pipeline, we waited a little longer before writing a devlog to make sure we had loads of content to share with all of you and IT’S GOING TO BE GREAT!

[h2]Buildings[/h2]
We’ve talked about buildings in the devlog #3 and shown you some UI and some of our concept art, and now all that’s been modeled, textured, integrated and polished! And you know, a picture is worth a thousand words, so we’ll just show you what our designer built this week with most of the building parts integrated. As you can see, we’re missing windows and the windmills still need some love ;)



We have more pictures and GIFs in our discord server that you can check out here

[h2]Island editor[/h2]
Did we mention how our team is awesome? Sometimes, we plan for a feature to take up to two or three weeks of work and our lead developer knocks it down in just a couple of days, because he can.

That’s pretty much what happened with this island editor! Now this definitely isn’t final, there’s still work to be done on the UX and some assets, but it’s definitely a great way to create something that’s truly yours. These islands can be exported from the editor and imported into any game, to appear as one of the random islands in the appropriate biome.

Now, that gif isn't great, but trust us, it's a fun tool to use!

[h2]Monsters[/h2]
Remember the guard monster concepts we showed in devlog #4?


There he is! At the time of writing, we are currently implementing that model in the game and you will be able to fight him for some precious loot. We’re really looking forward to showing everyone even more monster content!

[h2]What’s next?[/h2]
In the coming weeks, we’ll be working on implementing the guard monster in the game as well as getting combat right. We will start working on some weather events as well and modeling the protagonist character. We’re really excited for what’s coming!

Are you excited about these features as well? What do you like most about stage design systems like we have? Let us know in the comments below or on our discord, with the link below!

If you want more Aloft content or would like to give feedback, be sure to wishlist the game on steam here and join the Discord server using the image below