Update v0.61.0 - Controls mapping, terrain improvements, much more!

But it's still advised to start a new game, as some changes could potentially corrupt the save.


VIDEO DEVLOG FULL CHANGELOG



Terrain texture have been upscaled by ~50%, along with some changes in the color palette. There are also improvements in weather effects, like snowflakes made bigger and more visible, enhanced rainbow and sunlight reflections.








Yes, it's true! It's finally possible to remap most of the game controls from the settings menu, including all the Survival Mode actions. In addition to this, most of the default control keys have been changed to reflect the keys used for similiar actions in other games; remember that now you can always change them at will!



One of the most common problems reported by players are the controls: they are difficult to learn and counter intuitive. Although I'm doing my best to improve the situation with little tweaks here and there, in order to effectively change the movements I should made deep changes in the whole system, which is pretty unlikely to happen. Therefore I hope the ability to remap the controls will help improve the situation, at least partially!




Main menu background has been replaced by high quality art from the artist Lukas Jevcak. The new background perfectly recreates the sense of mystery, wonder and loneliness felt during the game, along with the wild, inspiring environment.



The main menu music has been replaced by a longer, more inspiring track. In addition to this, game generation and loading phases pick a random screenshot of the game as background, instead of a black screen.




You have now the option to start as a bald or semi-bald character! Hair will gradually grow during the game, based on your conditions (as in real life, hair can grow more quickly based on some factors like metabolism and nutrition).



This still has no impact on the actual game, and you still can't cut them, but in future I'll expand this system to be more organically intertwined with the game mechanics.




Animals will now avoid (or try avoiding) obstacles from distance, not only when hitting them. This prevents them from always breaking your walls or hitting each other like bumper cars. In addition, several ecology balance tweaks should improve dinosaurs survival on the long term, although the work on this front is still in progress.

About the Taming system that I announced for this update, unfortunately I had to scrap part of the work done so far on it as I wasn't satisfied with it, so it will come with the next update if everything goes well this time!




Needless to say you should check the full changelog under the Survival tab to get a clearer idea of the amount of tweaks done to the Survival Mode.

Just to name a few, Stomach Fullness "cap" relation with metabolism is now inverted: the faster the metabolism, the higher the cap, allowing you to eat more. It also scales partially with Body Fat, which means that being fat urges you to eat more (and get even fatter).

Major rework of how maximum Health and Breath are calculated based on Metabolism, Nutrition/Hydration, body stats and skills.

Most of you will love this one: Building a Thatch or Walls now require less resources (especially wall).

Many, many other things...




This update brings the game to a level of polish that leads me to consider it closer to the full version than the initial alpha version: in few words, it's now over 50% "complete". I've used the quotes because DinoSystem will never be complete, as I'll continue improving it over and over, but there must be a time when I say "ok, it's a proper game now!".

Now let me stop dreaming and back to work, there is still a huge amount of features and content to add!


As always, please report any bugs, deliver suggestions, and help me share the word about DinoSystem!



Dan