Jade Spring News

[p]Hello everyone! First of all, thank you so much everyone for playing and enjoying Jade Spring; I’ve been so happy to hear people’s comments and ideas since the game came out on Steam on the 13th. OMG, Mukluk covered the game (you can watch it here), I couldn’t believe it. And it also got a play-through and review from AngryZorric. I’ve got a bunch of decorations that I’ve started, and all this makes me really excited to finish them and get them all in the game. Thanks again, from my heart, ahhh.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]A lot of your feedback has been applied and there are some more things coming soon! I’ll be adding banners which can clear and reset your garden, so you can start building from scratch. I’m also looking into adding an undo button. And I know a couple of people have run into the weird issue where the world goes blank and you have to restart the game. It feels like an engine bug, which has been very difficult to track down, and I’m really hoping that it was fixed with the upgrade to Godot 4.4.1. I’ve been talking to Godot community folks and will keep watching this issue closely![/p][p]For now though, here’s the 1.2b version of Jade Spring ! There are a couple of new features but it’s mainly comprised of lots and lots of bug fixes. I’m hoping to make the game really stable over the next few versions while I continue to work on new decorations, and then put out a release version with a plenitude of new stuff. Here’s a list of everything that’s been changed and fixed:[/p][h3]Changelog (1.2b)[/h3][p]Note: the Jade Spring 1.2b version will be a bit bigger than it has been in the past (about 130MB). This is because the engine that the game uses (Godot) has also updated, and I’ve just moved Jade Spring up to that new version.[/p]

• [p]Quickly find walls, floors, etc with category tiles in the decoration pane.[/p]
• [p]Fixed several instances of stuttering on load (transition to Godot 4.4.1).[/p]
• [p]An effect will display when Ratchet has optional dialogue.[/p]
  • [p]Contributes to the ‘My Friend Ratchet’ achievement.[/p]
• [p]Added a banner which will turn you into a miniature Jade Bot![/p]
• [p]Added ‘String Lights’ decoration.[/p]
• [p]Added an option to clear the shader cache in settings.[/p]
• [p]Directing the camera upward or downward will guide the Jade Bot to ascend or descend.[/p]
• [p]‘Enter’ and ‘space’ keys can now be freely bound by the player without conflicts.[/p]
• [p]Directional movement keys can be changed to control the rotation of the camera rather than strafing.[/p]
• [p]Fixed skill button conflicts where skills could be used simultaneously or while manipulating decorations.[/p]

[p]Minor bugfixes and improvements[/p]

• [p]Fixed the camera spinning out of control at low FPS.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where the sun would no longer be rotatable after returning to the main menu.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the menu art flickering on load.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the Slyllama website button spawning multiple browsers.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the appearances of some text and dialogue boxes.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where the window mode might not update properly in settings.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where selecting multiple decorations might miss some decorations.[/p]
• [p]Attenuator marker is now properly aligned to tracks.[/p]
• [p]Reduced the intensity of Jade Bot engine heat distortion.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Karma eligibility not updating properly in decoration pane.[/p]
• [p]‘Warp to safe point’ button no longer opens screenshot folder on right click.[/p]
• [p]Updated credits.[/p]
• [p]Various small wording and bug fixes.[/p]

Read the full notes on the website!

Jade Spring is available on itch.io! I’m really hoping that the Steam version will be available soon, but I am still waiting on a reply from them. The design in the image was built by apricot, who was able to make a whole new beautiful atmosphere in the game!

It’s a beautiful day outside. Flowers are blooming; birds are singing… On days like these, kids like you… Should try out the Jade Spring beta, which went up last Friday! OMG, I’m so thankful for the comments I’ve received from the people who have played the game already. A special thanks to apricot (Jade Spring’s incredible principal character designer), our testers, and Poksmox, who very kindly tried the game out on his stream.

I’ve collected a list of things I want to add and fix, and I’m hoping I can have the first lot of changes done this week! There are things on there ranging from grass clumps to plushie decorations to (possibly) being able to duplicate a selection of items. I’ve received a lot of great feedback and suggestions, and I also have a bunch more decorations in mind to add. (There are also thoughts of an expansion, hehe, but that will come a little later.) I really hope everything goes well with getting the game through Steam because it will make it a lot easier for people to update (which is the main reason I’d planned for Steam). For now though, I’ll also be adding a little indicator on the main menu of the itch.io version which tells you if your version is behind the latest one.

Thank you again to anyone has tried out Jade Spring. There will be more updates to come here and on Bluesky; I’m thinking of making a behind-the-scenes video describing some weird and interesting stuff behind the game! For example, there is an inaccessible weed which will haunt the underneath of the map forever; it’s there so that the “crumb” system (weeds, bugs, and Dragonvoid blights) will never be fully unloaded.

Read the full notes on the website!

Hello everyone! Oh boy, I can’t believe it’s already April; Jade Spring is five months old (and 530 commits in). In March I put together a little tour video and set the Steam store page live, in addition to completing the game’s little tutorial story and adding a bunch of features (like “jumping puzzle mode,” which toggles gravity for your Jade Bot, and a “ping” feature that allows you to find weeds and bugs hiding nearby).



A bunch of work has been done to improve how the game runs, especially on older computers and GPUs. Anti-aliasing can be changed in the settings menu, and I’m finding that disabling it on those older machines can seriously increase performance. I’ve also added some graphics presets to make picking suitable settings easier! Because it’s a small and casual fan-game I want to keep it quite lean – the package size is under 130MB at the moment. And my thinking in general is that Jade Spring should be able to run on any PC that can run GW2.

[h2]Testing, Releasing, and Expansions[/h2]

I’ve just gotten access to Steam key distribution, so I’m gonna start a broader private test of this tiny game in the next couple of days. I’m really keen to have other people try it out as soon as possible, so I’m thinking of publically releasing the beta in May, if this month’s testing and additions go well! The version of the game would be a completable version of Jade Spring, just without some core decorations. The main thing I’d be hoping to get back from a beta release are a lot of suggestions and bug reports which I can use to make the game as polished as I can. It’s spicy because while I want to release it in its neatest and tidiest state, I also happen to be an absolute newbie; and there are some things I can only learn and apply by seeing them happen in action! So I’m trying to find a good balance between the two, and I’m so lucky to have such cool and understanding folks around.

If everything went well, the plan would be to take the beta tag off between June and July, and release the game with an additional set of decorations, “Xunlai Neon”. This is an idea I’m super excited about: a collection of cyberpunk-style Kaineng noodle stands, neon signs, air vents, and substation components! In general, I love the idea of being able to release small expansions to the game every now and then.

As always, thank you so much for following Jade Spring’s progress. I started working on it as a way to learn game development, and to understand what I enjoy about my time in Guild Wars 2 so deeply. (Actually, a wonderful interview with their art director Aaron Coberly was published recently, which accompanys my feelings quite well.) Seeing interest build in the game has been unfathomable, and I’m determined to put something out there that will be fun, relaxing, and filled with details.