Ylands News

tl;dr
- Update 1.5 is OUT!
- Exploration revamped
- New Native American Assets
- Improved shooting and grenade throwing
- Custom Bitmaps

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Explorers of Ylands rejoice! Update 1.5 - Enhancing Exploration - is finally out for you to try and enjoy, and it brings a host of new goodies and improvements for Exploration, many of which had been requested by the community for a long time.

We have reworked and revamped the Exploration experience from the ground up, offering a truly engaging and exciting adventure, in the veins and spirit of what we originally envisioned for Exploration many moons ago.

Players can now travel to and explore countless different islands, in different biomes on their trusty ships, linked to their person for the first time ever - creating a new bond between players and their vessels.

And this is just the beginning! Update 1.5 is but the first stepping stone for an amazing Exploration experience - over the coming months, we will keep updating Exploration until it is as good as we can make it and the community is happy with it.

Of course, we have packed this update with some other goodies, improvements and fixes as well - read on to find out more!

Update 1.5 - Enhanced Exploration - major features

Exploration update first phase: the beginnings of the new and improved Explore experience is here; players can now use the brand new world map to sail to different biomes, where they can explore (and exploit) procedurally generated islands. Ships will now be tied to players so they can use their favourite vessel to explore the high seas.




Native American assets: we have added a whole slew of new assets for both players and creators!




Custom bitmaps in the Editor: creators will now have the option to import their very own bitmaps into the game, opening up a brand new dimension of customization options.






Shooting weapon improvements: we have made major improvements to how bows/crossbows & grenades are handled within the game; make sure you try them out!




....and hundreds of fixes, improvements to every aspect of the game!




For more detailed information about the changes and additions, head over to our new Exploration Feedback section with a handy FAQ made by Aleš 😉 - we would love to hear what you think of the new Exploration and how we could improve it. Also, check out the changelog for all the juicy deets 😁

To keep track of all the latest news, follow Ylands on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Until next time, stay classy!

tl,dr
- New Assets
- Native American weapons
- Sunplate Armour
- New Monster
- New Random Encounters for Exploration un Update 1.6

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hey there Ylanders!

As with every update, 1.5 is bringing a lot of cool stuff, including revamped Exploration and custom bitmaps. But another great addition to the game will be the heap of assets, that are coming to Ylands.

The theme of our assets in 1.5 are Native American cultures and we have a slew of cool new items, that you'll be able to add to your games.

First off we have added some very neat weapons to the Native American tribes in Ylands, be it the feathered crossbow, bow or rifle and the Shaman will get a unique set of clothes. We have also added a new Chieftain headdress, which will be also craftable in Exploration. Another craftable additions are the new stone tablets depicting different creatures of myth and legend and a new totem block representing the Wendigo. The Wendigo is also getting his own statue, which you'll be able to craft in Exploration and will be a good way to warn adventurers off of a certain dangerous area 😉



But that's not all! We have also added a new Sunplate armour set to represent pre-Columbian cultures in Central America with their own choice of cool weapons to choose from. This will also include some new stone furniture to go with the aesthetic.



And finally, a new monster is joining the mix: The Totem Golem! A fearsome adversary that communes with nature and fiercely defends the natives from harm.



And the best thing about these additions is, that now our designers have them available and will be adding them to Random Encounters for update 1.6 so look out for these in the future 😁

And that's all for today, so until next time, stay classy Ylanders 👋

tl,dr
- Experimental Build for Creators to try out new Update
- Cool new features in Editor
- Sneak Peek into new Exploration at the end 😉

Hey there Ylanders!

1.5 is nearing its release and with it countless new adventures in our reworked Exploration, though a lot of work still awaits us to make the experience perfect 😊

But before we release 1.5, we wanted to give our Creators a chance (especially now with the competition still in progress) to try out their games in our improved and fixed Editor to make sure, everything works, as it supposed to. That is why we would be very happy if the brave among you dived into our Experimental branch and gave the Editor a spin. But beware, there are a few things you should be aware of before you do, so please read very carefully the Exploration Build post so you don't lose any of your data during transfer.

But what can you expect in this Experimental branch? Well you can check out the full changelog in the Experimental branch post itself, but just to name a few:

Improved profile page

We've improved the profile page (accessible by clicking character portrait in the Main menu). See your favourite games, your friends' Avatars or their friends.



Custom bitmap import

As you have already seen in last weeks Dev Diary, Creators can now import their own images to be used as game UI (panels, buttons, icons...) or even in custom particles. Please note that all custom bitmaps are checked before the game is made visible on Workshop.



Dynamic lights visible on mobile devices

We keep tirelessly working so that your mobile gaming experience is as close to PC as possible and made big improvements regarding lighting in mobile games.



Terrain roughen tool

Making a natural-looking terrain is so much easier with this new tool and with a couple of modes to try out too.

Unfortunately, we couldn't fit some of the bigger gifs unto Steam, so we are hosting them on gifyu.

https://gifyu.com/image/j0Ni
https://gifyu.com/image/j0NR

Controlling a non-player object

Two new instructions have been added: Get Horizontal Input / Get Vertical Input, which will return player X / Y controller input. They can be used in new Event Listener event - On Fixed Update to "animate" any object as if controlling the player. Please note that this feature currently works for SP games only.

https://gifyu.com/image/j0QJ

And much much more!

So please check out the post about the Experimental Build and see you in Ylands Creators and stay classy 👋

P.S.

Pst. Explorers. Come here. Don't think we forgot about you. I sneaked out a small sneak peek at the new map system just for you 🤫

https://gifyu.com/image/j0Nj

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

tl;dr
- Custom Images added for more personalised UI's
- Usable in Particle Effects
- Shareable via Compositions

Hey there Ylanders!

While we are working tirelessly on update 1.5, the first part of the big Exploration overhaul, our Editor team has also cooked up a pretty nifty new feature and as you might have seen in the video above, it will be a lot of fun 😁

We're calling it "Custom Images" and what this lets you do, is import your own images into the game and then use them in a variety of ways. So for example, as you have seen in the video, you can make the HUD much more personalised and add images, that aren't available in our catalogue. You can also use these images in custom windows or on custom controls when making a game for the mobile platform. 



But that's all still very much the domain of the UI, but another area, where you'll be able to use your Custom Images is in particle effects, so now you will have absolute control over the special effects featured in your game.

Adding new images will be done through a new Custom Image Library game logic and it will be very simple and straightforward and it won't work just in games, but also in Compositions. This way you can then share whole libraries via compositions.

Of course, there will be a system in place to make sure vulgar and inappropriate images aren't uploaded into the game and before the update, we will post here on the forums rules, on what is acceptable to upload and what isn't.

And that's it for today Ylanders, so let us know, how you are planning on using these new Custom Images and until next time, stay classy Ylanders 👋

tl;dr
- New Grenade and Bow improvements
- Better animations and aiming
- Coming in Update 1.5

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hey there Ylanders!

Some pretty exciting news today adventurers regarding bows and grenades. Yes it is a bit of a weird pair up but hear me out 😅

So first off we made leap and strides in bow shooting and in 1.5 we'll be introducing countless improvements, but the ones you'll probably notice the most is the appearance of the actual arrow while shooting the bow (and the crossbow btw and I will not get drawn into a discussion if a crossbow is technically a bow or not 😁) and the overall aiming improvements we made to the bow. For instance, you'll be able to see the trajectory after you fire the arrow, making it easier to correct your aim. Bow animations have been also improved, but maybe most interestingly, now when you hold the bow drawn for too long, your arms will get tired and your accuracy will suffer greatly, making your shot much more unpredictable. 

The second item on our list today are the grenades. Grenades are very powerful weapons but haven't seen too much use in Ylands, because they are cumbersome to wield and inaccurate. Well no more! Grenades now how two modes. The quick throw (which is the standard mode) lets you toss a grenade fast in the direction you are facing. The height of the throw is affected by the angle you are looking at the target. But if you press down the right mouse button, you enter the aimed throw mode, in which the trajectory of the grenade will be visualised and you'll be able to lob that exploding pineapple 🍍 exactly where you want it. 

Improvements to both the Grenades and the Bows are great fun and even our team of Designers made a small multiplayer map to try it out and had an awesome time with it 😁 So a lot to look forward to 😊

And that's all for today Ylanders, so don't forget to tune in into tomorrow's stream at 16:00 CET and until then, stay classy Ylanders!