Settlemoon News

[p]Hello, Catalysts!! It's been 2 years since release! Boy, time flies, doesn't it?[/p][p][/p][p]As I said in the Dev Update, this game's pretty much done-and-done! I'm real satisfied with where it's ended up and the reception it's got. Still, cool milestone! I had to post SOMETHING for it.[/p][p][/p][p]Actually! While we're here! How about I post OLD DEVELOPMENT SCREENSHOTS?[/p][p][/p][p]Behold, the first ever gif i recorded for Settlemoon:[/p][p][/p][p]Placing buildings was the first thing I got working and it kinda all revolved around that. That building sprite is unused in the final game, but you CAN get it in your town if one of your buildings ends up being invalid.[/p][p][/p][p]Originally, items were going to be made using combinations of materials, instead of just dropping a single material to instantly make an item. The whole recipe thing ended up being really complex...too complex for this kind of game! I eventually brought it back as a sort of puzzle for NG+ with the weird distillery building.[/p][p]Check this out too, some of the first adventurers:[/p][p]You could probably already glean this from the "generic" depictions in game, but this set of adventurer cosmetics are considered the "default". They have an...interesting fashion sense, though, so you're rarely gonna get anyone looking exactly like this.[/p][p][/p][p]While i'm at it, here's the original draft of how I expected progression to go:[/p][p][/p][p]You can see that I stuck pretty close to the plan for the first 3 bosses, but diverged quite a bit for the latter half! That's just how things go during development.[/p][p][/p][p]Developing this was overall a lot of fun! If you're trying to get started on gamedev, it's really important to get the "game loop" closed as fast as possible. That means being able to launch the game, play it until a stopping point (like the credits!) and return back to the title screen without using any debug tools. Once you have that set up, it's just kind of expanding that loop until it's satisfying! For Settlemoon specifically, the loop was "place buildings, wait, get money". [/p][p][/p][p]One more thing before I wrap up this post: An early draft of the Quest screen![/p][p]This menu was REALLY tough. I had to convey a lot of info in an intuitive way...This big map looked nice, but it broke the whole "3 horizontal stripes" format the rest of the game was in. It would've been weird.[/p][p][/p][p]The quest menu is still kind of my biggest sticking point with this; i think if I were to do a big revamp (or a sequel...) then quests would be delegated to specific buildings instead of a whole entire other menu. But, sometimes it's best to just stick with what you got already! Redoing stuff endlessly can get you caught in a loop where nothing gets finished.[/p][p][/p][p]Anyway, that's it for now! Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing! I've been really busy with other projects, but I can't reveal any of them quite yet...Keep an eye out for anything with Lepioid on it![/p]

Hello, Catalysts! This update's intended to help the game be a little more self-sufficient. I noticed some very rare bugs where some save files would be partially corrupted. To help with that, I've beefed up the backup system and added a Load Backup menu in the title screen.

There's also a couple other bits of UI improvements; Steam screenshots should now work again (yay!) and I added a "time remaining" section to the loading screen. This is a...partial fix. I noticed a (again, very rare) bug where the loading screen would get stuck and I'm unsure if it's just processing a lot of time or if it's legit getting stuck somewhere. With that change, if it happens again (IF...) then that'll help narrow it down.

It's also just really cool to watch how much time it's simulating.

[h3]MENUS/UI:[/h3]

• The title screen now includes a menu for loading backup files. There are 5 layers of backups as well as one that's made just before starting a new moon.
  
• If a file fails to load, it now attempts to load backups more reliably.
  
• The "catching up..." phase of loading now displays how much time is left to simulate.
  
• Fixed steam screenshots being disabled.
  

Hello, Catalysts! It's been a while, hasn't it?

I hope everyone's been enjoying the game in its current state! Honestly, this silly lil' idle game did much better than I ever thought it would. Thanks!
but that begs the question...what have I been up to in the meantime? What about the game? Will X bugs ever be fixed????

[h2]What has Lepioid LLC been doing?[/h2]
if the game hasn't been updated, what have I been doing? Well, recently, I got together with some cool friends and made another game: Dreams of Aether! It's a fun little microgame collection that was a blast to work on. Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3463050/Dreams_of_Aether/

Once we got that all finished, I kinda had to take a break from gamedev, haha. It was kind of a marathon! But obviously I'd never stay away forever, so I'm looking to get back into the thick of it. Make some new things, update some old things, all that fun stuff.

[h2]What about Settlemoon?[/h2]
I think Settlemoon's pretty...setttled at this point! It's got a good amount of content and it's MOSTLY smoothed out. (i'll get to that in a bit.) I do have a lot of stuff that I think could be changed about the weird idle-townbuilder formula, but I think that's something better saved for a sequel or spiritual successor. Believe me, there's a LOT of stuff behind the scenes that I wanna do with Settlemoon's world, still.

Also, I have an Android port in the works! It's in a PRETTY good state but I'd still need to confirm everything on the port works and finalize everything on the storefront and legal end. When I think it's ready to release, I'll let you guys know!

[h2]Bug fixes?[/h2]
I'm aware of some rare bugs that are pretty game-ruining! Unfortunately due to the rarity and how much of the game's effects take time to happen, it's really hard to reproduce anything. I'm still gonna take measures to fix them, though! Here's what I'm planning:

• Much more robust save backups
  
• Better file management (manual backups and file select)
  
• Failsafe for getting stuck on "catching up..."
  

The actual timeframe of fixing these I'm not entirely sure of yet; unfortunately bugfixes are something that take a mysterious amount of time. So for now I'm chalking it up to "soon(tm)".


That's everything for now! Thanks for reading this, and again, thanks for sticking with my silly lil' game for so long!

Hello, Catalysts!
So, technically this is a smaller patch, hence why it's v2.4b and not v2.5. There's no new big features or buildings or anything in this, but there's a lot of little changes that add up, and some of them affect a lot of what you're looking at.
Namely: Text outlines!! Adventurer names and button labels have outlines on the text now, which changes the "visual identity" of the game a lot IMO. I'm a bit of a stickler for visual details.

I also rewrote the tutorial card to make it flow a lot better and unlock in piecemeal; i noticed a lot of players just skimmed through the card and forgot about it, since they didn't have any context for what they were reading. Now it should stay a lot more relevant!

[h3]UI:[/h3]

• Held items are a little more...glowy.
  
• Added new cooler-looking UI for hold clicking.
  
• Adventurer nametags and button numbers have outlines now! Extra readability.
  
• Fixed a 0 showing up when placing a building.
  

[h3]BUILDINGS:[/h3]

• Added a new animated hint to SQ4's building related to the hold clicking change.
  
• SQ4's building now triggers a save when activated.
  
• Refined SQ1's update popup a little so it doesn't have an awkward empty space.
  
• Nerfed update rates of SQ3's buildings to balance out with the decor buffs. (that got ridiculous.)
  
• The bloodmoon inn can now hold every item a normal inn can.
  
• Fixed warehouses not triggering when they only have items.
  
• Fixed warehouses rarely filling a shop with an item that wasn't already in there.
  

[h3]PROGRESSION:[/h3]

• Redid the tutorial card with new dialogue, rearranged pages and an extra page to help with pacing.
  
• The tutorial card now hides most pages and is shown piecemeal as the pages become relevant.
  
• Fixed milestones popping up on the prestige screen.
  
• Fixed SQ7 not saving its completed status through prestiges, causing it to start and immediately finish.
  

Hello again!

Tiny fix. Teeny fix. Probably not going to be the only fix. You know how these things go.

[h3]QUESTS:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash when attempting to pay for a boss quest.
  
• Added a failsafe if you somehow don't get the milestone for a boss clear the first time; it'll now attempt to re-unlock it every time you pay for the quest.