Wild Woods News

[p]Hello adventurers,[/p][p] We’re excited to share the next major update with you: Hotjoin and Save Games! 🥳🔥💯[/p][p][/p][h2]Hotjoin ✨[/h2][p]With Hotjoin, you can now join an ongoing party via room code, quick join, or a Steam friend invite (the latter only works if you haven’t started the Wild Woods yet or are still in the main menu). After choosing one of those options, you pick your skin and a role. Afterwards, you'll see the others, and with one more click, jump straight into the adventure 🐯🌲🦁[/p][p]We know connecting may still be tricky for some, but this feature should already add value to your gaming experience 🤗 We’re also planning to add Hotjoin to local games in the future, which will require a different system.[/p][p][/p][h2]Save Games ⏹️😴▶️[/h2][p]From now on, every time you leave camp, your run will be saved automatically. When you load the game, you’ll start right after camp. The save file will be deleted once you finish the run (win or lose).[/p][p]If you play as a group, everyone gets their own save file. You can continue your run with the same team, with others, or even solo. In the future, we’d like saves to happen when entering camp, but that will require changes to world generation.[/p][p][/p][h2]Group Management 👥[/h2][p]The host can now kick players and block them from the current run, preventing anyone from repeatedly trying to rejoin.[/p][p]
[/p][h2]Official Patchnotes 0.2.0[/h2][p][/p][h3]New[/h3]

• [p]Hot Join Feature: It is now possible to join games that are already in progress.[/p]
• [p]Steam Friend Invite: It is now possible to join a game played by friends or be invited to one via Steam.[/p]
• [p]Save Feature: Every time you leave a camp, your game progress will now be saved. You can continue playing these saved games both online and offline. The saved game will be automatically deleted once a round has been completed. [/p]
• [p]Group Management: The host can now remove players from your current session and change the visibility of the session while playing.[/p]
• [p]New network option entry for setting the default room visibility in network lobbies.[/p]
• [p]New network option entry to hide the room code in an online lobby. Useful if you want to stream your game.[/p]
• [p]New jumping into the water and cutting gras effects.[/p]
• [p]New menu for selecting the player skins in the lobby.[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Quality of Life Improvements[/h3]

• [p]Unified some ui elements, like popups and buttons.[/p]
• [p]In Safe Camp, everyone no longer has to sit around the campfire for the game to continue. Instead, a timer starts as soon as at least half of the players have gone to sleep.[/p]
• [p]The in-game pause menu now shows the region, room code and privacy state of the current game.[/p]
• [p]You can now always see the currently selected region in the online menus.[/p]
• [p]Obstacles along the way like treetrunks are now highlighted more clearly.[/p]
• [p]The boxes in the elite event now throw away resources that are lying beneath them when they land.[/p]
• [p]Boss upgrade rewards will now be replenished using regular upgrades when there are no special boss upgrades available.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Balancing[/h3]

• [p]Attention! Due to a bug in the last game version, players only took half damage on all difficulty levels.[/p]
• [p]Totems are now thrown out of their station when the wagon takes damage, instead of simply falling directly to the ground.[/p]
• [p]Some Wagon & Rosie upgrades no longer perform their actions if the corresponding station is damaged. For example, the Turret or the Wave Defense upgrade.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Sometimes it wasn't possible for everyone to participate in the battle against the second boss.[/p]
• [p]Pressing Alt F4 during gameplay caused the game to crash.[/p]
• [p]Sometimes enemies lost their target and simple stood still.[/p]
• [p]An invisible mouse cursor could still select elements on the user interface.[/p]
• [p]If no wagon skin was ever selected and the language was changed, an error could occur.[/p]
• [p]Brook, the badger boss, played his defeat sound a little too early.[/p]
• [p]Sid played her appearance sound a little too early.[/p]
• [p]Players could no longer be knockedback in the air by enemies.[/p]
• [p]Players only took half damage on all difficulty levels.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Known Issues[/h3]

• [p]It sometimes looks like enemies are healed when hit on clients with a bad connection.[/p]
• [p]If you quickly navigate back in some menus when opening them, you may get stuck in the navigation. In most cases, the only solution is to restart the device. [/p]

[p][/p][p]We can't wait to see your ✨ new high scores! ✨ Now that you can save your game, nothing should stop you from playing endless mode for hours on end! 🔥 😄[/p][p]Wish you all a catastic week! 🐈‍⬛🤗💚[/p]

[p]Hello adventurers,[/p][p][/p][p]we hope you’re all having a great summer! 🌞
Since HotJoin remains our top priority and keeps us busy most of the time, we’re dedicating this DevLog to the feature itself and want to share some deeper insights with you:[/p][p]
[/p][h2]Why do things sometimes take longer than they seem?[/h2][p]The It's easy, you just have to add XYZ phenomenon.[/p][p]For HotJoin, we first had to find an approach that reliably works with our existing multiplayer architecture. We tried three different approaches—and only the third one turned out to be viable.

[/p][h2]Starting point (Version 0.1.4)[/h2][p][/p][p]Our game is split into multiple scenes. Before the refactor, there were essentially two: a Menu scene and a Game scene. For HotJoin to make sense, we wanted players to choose their skin and role before joining.[/p][p]In 0.1.4, the lobby lived in the Menu scene. When everyone was ready, all players switched at the same time to the Game scene. The game waited for everyone because loading game-relevant data happens locally on each system. In the Game scene, we then loaded the network objects—everything the cats interact with.[/p][p][/p][h2]First approach[/h2][p]Keep the scenes as in 0.1.4. The host sends the necessary information on request to late joining clients who want to join from the menu.[/p][p]Result: Acceptable for one client. Multiple simultaneous joins led to synchronization errors between clients. On top of that, the amount of data we needed to send with this approach was too large 😥[/p][p][/p][h2]Second approach[/h2][p]We added an additional Data scene containing all important network objects that clients need for HotJoin.[/p][p]Result: Unfortunately, our multiplayer plugin synchronized all objects with the clients by default, which made a data scene pointless 🥲 While people were still in the lobby, you could already hear the rest of the group fighting evil badgers. The integration of Steam Friend Invites also showed that a Data scene alone would not be enough. We needed a different approach 🤔[/p][p][/p][h2]Third approach (0.2.0)[/h2][p][/p][p]We decoupled the Menu scene completely from the networking layer and moved skin and role selection into a separate Room scene. The required network objects can be preloaded there, and late joiners can fetch all the information they need for a consistent entry.[/p][p]From approach two, we learned that while all objects are synchronized by default, you can disable synchronization for specific objects. In the room scene, we therefore only load the essential objects. Only when the countdown has expired do we synchronize the rest of the world, and the group or individual hot-joining clients switch to the game scene in a controlled manner.[/p][p][/p][h2]Conclusion[/h2][p]With the new structure — Menu → Room scene (selection & warm-up) → Game scene — we were able to reduce waiting time by loading important objects before entering the room. We also now have a standardized entry path that we can target both via Steam Friend Invites and save games (everyone always loads into the room first) 🥳 As they say, hindsight is 20/20. If we had known right away what wouldn't work, we would have started with the third approach 😅[/p][p]
Okay, enough talk — time to put the final touches on HotJoin. You’ve been patient, and we can’t wait to get it into your hands very very soon 😲🥰🐯[/p]

[p]Hello everyone,[/p][p] Summer is vacation time — and yes, we took that to heart! 🌞​🏝️​😴​ Over the past month, we’ve been taking things a little slower and recharging our batteries. But don’t worry, the team will soon be complete again, and we’ll be back in full swing! 🤗[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][h2]HotJoin 🎮[/h2][p]One of our most requested features is finally taking shape: HotJoin. We’ve made great progress, and while it’s not quite ready yet, we’re definitely getting closer day by day 🥳 Since HotJoin lays the groundwork for SaveGame, that feature is coming along nicely as well. We hope to share more concrete updates with you very soon! 🤞[/p][p] [/p][h2]Third Biome ☃️[/h2][p]We’ve also continued work on the third biome. And while the temperatures outside might keep climbing, we’ve got some cold views for you ❄️🥶[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

• [p]Continue working on HotJoin and SaveGame[/p]
• [p]Continue development of the third biome[/p]

[p][/p][p]We wish you a relaxing summer time (hopefully with a little less rain than here in Hamburg 😅)! 🌞​🍨​🏝️​[/p]

[p]Hello everyone,

Over the last few weeks, our main focus has been on finishing the ✨ newest update ✨ perfectly in time for the Steam Summer Sale. What better way to start your summer than having an adventure in the Wild Woods? 🌞​🎮​🍨​[/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][h2]Update Preparation ✨[/h2][p]Our latest update went live a couple of days ago. It included six new languages, numerous bug fixes, and new visual effects 🔥 Like, did you catch how smooth it looks when you're cutting through the reeds?

This cute little splash wasn't ready in time, but it's soooo adorable that we couldn't wait to show it to you! 🥰
[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][h2]Third Biome ☃️[/h2][p]Last month, we started a Discord thread to collect your ideas for the third biome. You all came up with some great suggestions! Thank you so much! 🙏[/p][p]The best part is that some of your ideas match ours perfectly (sometimes they're almost the same) 🙌 Seeing this is super helpful for making further decisions. Therefore, we took some of those ideas, combined them, and developed them further. We've even tested some of them in a simplified version 🎮 This allows us to experiment with ideas and figure out which ones could actually end up the game and which are great but can't be implemented.[/p][p]One suggestion that we explored further is how the cold could also affect daytime and freeze resources. But how would you survive the cold when it's always there, and how would you gather the resources you need? 🥶❄️ So, the next step was - and still is - developing new game mechanics to help us survive this scenario.[/p][p]Furthermore, we like the idea of using snow as a new interaction point: snowball fights with enemies, snowstorms as a new challenge, Rosie stuck up in the deep snow, and so on 🌨️[/p][p]We’re super excited about everything that could happen in the new biome. And, of course, as soon as anything other than "it's getting cold" is set in stone, you'll be the first to know! 🤗🥰[/p][p]
[/p][h2]Updating to Unity 6 🖥️[/h2][p]It's great to have new features and optimizations that help our workflow. On the other hand, such a transfer is very time-consuming and causes new bugs 😅[/p][p]
[/p]

• [p]Keep working on HotJoin[/p]
• [p]Rework the lobby UI (mainly to improve the skin selection)[/p]
• [p]Continue working on the third biome[/p]

[p]
[/p][p]Have a pawsome day! 🤗🥰🌞​🎮​🍨​[/p]

[p]Miao, Miau, Miyav, Mňau, and Няв!
[/p][p]
Perfectly in time for the Steam Summer Sale, we've got a new update for you! Is there a better way to kick off the summer than gathering your friends and starting your adventure through the Wild Woods? 🤗​🔥​🌞[/p][p][/p][h2]New Languages 💬[/h2][p]As we mentioned in the last Dev Log, we were almost done implementing more languages. And now, with the newest update, they're finally available! 🥳 On top of the languages we already had, you can now play Wild Woods in Ukrainian, Italian, Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, and Czech 💚[/p][p][/p][h2]A lot of bug fixing 🛠️[/h2][p]Our latest patch notes include a bunch of bug fixes. We're happy to cross many of your reports off our to-do list! 🥳
This also includes the missing upgrades ‘Chain Heal’ and ‘Friendship Bracelet’. Some of you remembered them from the earlier days, and now they're back again! 🥰[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Official Patchnotes 0.1.4.[/h2][p][/p][h3]New [/h3]

• [p]6 new languages (Ukrainian, Italian, Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, Czech).[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Quality of Life Improvements [/h3]

• [p]Updated from Unity 2022.3 to Unity 6.[/p]
• [p]The herbalist's staff now glows when it is charged. [/p]
• [p]If you press ‘Continue’ while your score is being animated, the animation will now be completed immediately. [/p]
• [p]Mouse enemies now flee when there are only mice left. [/p]
• [p]The difficulty bonus is now always displayed at the end of the score board. [/p]
• [p]The slow area of the Billowing Gloom-Boom now smoothly disapears. [/p]
• [p]The posion area of the Smelly Berry now smoothly disapears. [/p]
• [p]The outline target effect of the Blade slinger is no longer influenced by post processing. [/p]
• [p]The performance when loading objects has been improved. [/p]
• [p]The 'Fire Supply' upgrade is now deactivated at sunrise if it was previously active, and is reactivated at night. [/p]
• [p]If your mouse cursor does not move for 5 seconds, the cursor is automatically hidden now. [/p]
• [p]Lots of sound improvements and a new night track in the second realm. [/p]
• [p]The potion station should now be much easier to access in the first boss arena. [/p]
• [p]The potion station buff has now a much nicer visual effect. [/p]
• [p]The lily pads in the second realm are now moving in the water [/p]
• [p]The reed’s sharp leaves in the second realm now indicates more that it does damage and makes nicer effects when it is cut. [/p]
• [p]Sometimes the camera worked against you when you were trying to get a treasure chest, that should be a bit easier now. [/p]
• [p]Players now get their armor points back after surviving an ambush event. [/p]

[p][/p][h3]Balancing [/h3]

• [p]Palisades now also cause damage to enemies. [/p]
• [p]The deep water around the second boss arena no longer causes any damage. [/p]
• [p]The Fire Supply upgrade is now activated by holding down the button, which makes it possible to light the fire in between to activate Fire Sparks, for example. [/p]
• [p]Destructible torches now have more health. [/p]

[p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• [p]We’ve fixed a significant issue that affected how object destruction was displayed on clients. Previously, players would often see incorrect or duplicated animations and sounds when objects were destroyed, especially when connected to a host with a weak or unstable connection. This looked like lag but was actually a problem with how we handled prediction on the client side. [/p]
• [p]The 'Chain Heal' Upgrade & the 'Friendship Bracelet' were not avaible in the game. [/p]
• [p]'Fire Supply' always consumed two wood at maximum level and 'Fire Sparks' triggered twice. [/p]
• [p]Enemies' health bars were sometimes not visible when the 'Night Light' upgrade was purchased. [/p]
• [p]The light of the 'Lantern' upgrade was sometimes active during the day. [/p]
• [p]When clients collected coins, they were sometimes credited with more, which was then immediately deducted again. [/p]
• [p]Totems in the boss arena should be transferred to the next realm. [/p]
• [p]Entering the next realm should only be active when you have selected a reward after the boss fight. [/p]
• [p]Fixed some spots were enemies could spawn behind the wall. [/p]
• [p]We replaced the majority of wall colliders, hopefully preventing some cases where players could glitch through walls [/p]
• [p]Smelly berries sometimes had no visible poison area. [/p]
• [p]The boxes in the first boss arena had no impact explosion effect on clients. [/p]
• [p]Reed in the second biome had no impact animation when they dealt damage. [/p]
• [p]Some effects had visual glitches when they where in front of an attack telegraph, like falling leaves, the slow area of the Billowing Gloom-Boom and more. [/p]
• [p]Auto-attack sometimes did not stop when the game window lost focus by Alt-Tab or otherwise. [/p]
• [p]Sometimes incorrect Fire Sparks were spawned that did no damage on clients. [/p]
• [p]The Blade slinger could already activate enemies in the Guarded Camp by simply targeting them. [/p]
• [p]You couldn't throw gold into Rosie's pockets if you played as the Hearbalist standing in front of the cauldron. [/p]
• [p]The ‘Bonus Chance’ upgrade should not notify you twice if it has been purchased. [/p]
• [p]If you left the tutorial, some of the sounds in the round afterwards no longer worked. [/p]
• [p]The wagon sound was never played since early access. [/p]
• [p]Sounds for wet feet in the second realm were not played. [/p]
• [p]Changing the main device in the options can no longer be triggered by pressing the Back button. [/p]
• [p]If you left an online lobby, it could happen that the next lobby contained additional fake players. In most cases, only a restart could help. [/p]
• [p]When navigating with the mouse in the options menu, some sounds were missing. [/p]
• [p]If your input device has lost the connection during a session and you navigated back to the menu, missing text entries such as ‘What’ or ‘Test’ should no longer appear. [/p]
• [p]Quickly navigating back and forth in the main menu should no longer lead to serious errors. [/p]
• [p]If you reconnected an input device that had previously lost its connection, you were sometimes no longer able to navigate through the menu in the game. [/p]
• [p]It was possible to open the menu while you actually wanted to leave the game. [/p]
• [p]At the beginning of the second boss fight it could happen that players were hanging in the air until the boss fight was over. [/p]
• [p]If you voted at the same time at the crossroads, at the beginning of an new realm or in front of the boss, it could happen that the vote was incorrect. [/p]
• [p]Sometimes you couldn't move after a cutscene if you jumped directly in front of it. [/p]

[p][/p][p]We wish you all a pawsome day! 😎🌞🍦[/p]