Angeldust News

Here's the list of changes in Angeldust v3.1:



Of course I'm flying on a drakeling. Of course we now have MXAO, ambient light, depth-of-field (DoF) and FXAA. Of course this is amazing!


Our Itch.io page now lists an 'Angeldust PostFX for Windows' download containing an official OpenGL shader add-on for Angeldust. Currently available for Windows 7 and up, it greatly enhances the graphics:



You will need a solid desktop-class GPU to run Angeldust PostFX, but I'm sure you'll like the new ambient occlusion, ambient light, depth-of-field and anti-aliasing effects! Just wear sunglasses to prevent snow blindness:



Major thanks to 'Alex makarov' who suggested the idea for making an Angeldust PostFX add-on. And he helped out greatly with finding a solid initial solution.


In addition to the Angeldust PostFX add-on, there's a new sprite pack to enable the Ultra detail level for 2D sprites. You'll need about 6 GiB of video ram (VRAM) to run this, but everything looks pretty sharp using it!


If you have the donator badge (or up) you can now fly around on the drakelings in the game. If that isn't awesome enough, there are even more donation incentives now:

• instant access to the 'pet snack' to tame creatures
  
• a brand new, cheesy 'cheese' block
  
• (just to remind you:) you can fly dragons!
  
• exclusive, new colors for your heroes:
  

Angeldust v3.0 brought daily quests. Angeldust v3.1 brings weekend quests! Every weekend, during the entire weekend, you'll have to hunt creatures that are more difficult to find and kill. See if you can rise up to the challenge!

For example, today (as of writing), we're trying to hunt… uhhh… this thing:




More graphical improvements: heroes, ridden creatures and pets now have movement trails. This way you can more easily see where others are going and what's happening around you:



Thanks to 'Alex makarov' (again) for posing handsomely.


Angeldust v3.1 brings totally awesome spark showers. We already had these in the main user interface, but now you'll see sparks flying around in the game world too.

These sparks celebrate joyful events like heroes leveling up, discovering new creatures, materials or trees and progressing on your quest. For instance, I don't know what happened here, but it's very joyful. Many spark. Wow!:




Quick note: you can now use the shovel, axe, blocks and trees while riding a creature. This is especially cool (hint hint!) while flying on a drakeling since you can now easily navigate in 3D and build to your heart's content.


Builders: pay attention! In Angeldust v3.1 you can upgrade your devices! Just keep swinging your hammer on the device as if you were repairing it. If you get a critical hit, the device will become more powerful. So, swing on:




The telecharger has changed almost completely. Location load/save buttons are visually connected now. Friends take up an entire row and buttons now have icons for building permission, private chat and world location:



In addition, if you are currently in one of your claimed lands, the button will be highlighted in yellow.


You might have wondered… private chat? Yes! Angeldust v3.1 comes with private chat (1-on-1) and friend chat (all online friends). Enter a private chat by clicking on the text balloon next to a friend's name.

You can enter friend chat mode by toggling the new, uppermost button in the chat log:




Big news! In Angeldust v3.1 you can name your land claims. You can manage land claim descriptions on the Angeldust website at PlayAngeldust.com, and while claiming new land:



The telecharger and holo charger will show land claim names:






Angeldust v3.1 ships with a completely re-architected rendering path. Mainly to support the Angeldust PostFX add-on, but also to majorly improve rendering performance. Here's a technical list of changes:

• increase 2D sprite resolution for smoother animations and movement
  
• speed up weather particle (rain, snow) lighting performance four-fold
  
• switch to a single, per-frame depth-buffer pass
  
• improve vertex shader level-of-detail thresholds
  
• optimize entity door detection and door sound tracking
  

I've also found the time to (finally) implement something that's been on my wish-list for years. 2D sprites are now rendered with less overdraw. Previously heroes would be rendered up to ten times over, pushing GPUs to their limit.

Now only the visible areas of sprites are rendered, reducing GPU load from 1300% to less than 100% for complex sprites. Here's what the GPU now sees. Kind of:




There are two new very rare, very legendary creatures in Angeldust v3.1. But you'll probably never find them. Just thought you should know.


Speaking of legendary discoveries. Over the years some players have reported not being awarded creature kills in rare cases. I've found the root cause and finally fixed this problem once and for all.

So if you do manage to find those very rare, legendary creatures that you'll never find, you will always be awarded the discovery bonus and additional goodies.


Angeldust v3.1 comes with a boatload of new blocks: orange marble doors, opaque wooden doors, clouds, smoke and thick smoke.

'space is green' is decking out his awesome tower with smoke and cloud blocks. They bubble and puff quite nicely. And I'm totally NOT trying to show off flying on a drakeling (donate!) and Angeldust PostFX:




For everyone playing in the 'old-fashioned' visual style: everything now looks much crisper thanks to a nicer texture filter. In the future I might improve this even more, but for now it looks pretty decent:

• Ridden creatures no longer follow heroes
  
• Pets wait in the regular game world when entering The Void / Hero battle!
  
• Improved user interface control highlighting
  
• Fix keyboard and game controller user interface navigation away from filter buttons
  
• Added in-game tips on 'world' location, build permissions, taming and donating
  
• 'R'-key now both opens and closes the telecharger
  
• Support even more game controller models
  

If you like Angeldust, please write a positive review on Steam! You can also stalk us everywhere. Thanks in advance:

• Steam reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/app/488440/positivereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent
  
• Developer live stream: https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/AngeldustLive
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Community Discord server: https://discord.gg/m8FekP3
  

Here's the list of changes in Angeldust v3.0:


A beautiful, new 3D visual style is now the default on desktop platforms after lots of testing in Early Access. This new style demands a new trailer, so here's the brand new 3D Angeldust trailer on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP2th7gFdTQ


There's dozens of new screenshots everywhere, professionally localized into eight languages. Here are two great cinematic snaps. There are a load more on the Steam store page and the Angeldust website, PlayAngeldust.com:






Angeldust now features daily quests. Each day you can hunt a specific creature to receive a reward and increase your rank on the all-new quest completion leaderboard. On first sign in, you'll get a new hint:



You can always view your current quest on the world map, accessible from the telecharger and using the 'M'-key:



Competition for the top spot on the quest leaderboard is currently very fierce, so try your best to complete your quest every day if you aim to be number one!


Bad puns aside, you can now have your very own pets in Angeldust. Each of your heroes can tame a small creature using the new 'pet snack' item that is given to players with the donator badge and up.

The pet snack will automatically show up in your inventory. Use it on a creature of your liking to tame it. Here you can see some pets and the pet snack in the hotbar (in the vibrant 'Cartoon' visual style with new artwork):



You've probably already seen the new trailer's ending shot, but for those who missed it, it features a fighter with a dog pet. Feels good man:




Want a pet? Don't want to donate? You're in luck! Frank "Firefly" Lucas, the creator of Angeldust, hosts a very special Angeldust lottery every livestream on YouTube and Twitch.

Enter your ticket to participate in the lottery and maybe you are the next player to win the all-new 'lottery winner' badge that gives you the pet snack item.

Subscribe, follow and check out:
https://youtube.com/angeldustlive
https://twitch.tv/AngeldustLive




Angeldust v3.0 introduces a PvP-leaderboard listing your Hero battle!-score. Find out how many points you got for shooting others and compare your performance with your friends! Use the sorting buttons on top of the leaderboard to access all statistics:




Yup. Y'all asked for it. We now sell official Angeldust merchandise. Mugs, shirts, posters, stickers, device cases, pillows. The only thing missing is mouse pads. Coming soon, hopefully! Check out the merchandise here:
https://www.redbubble.com/people/MetagamingBV/shop/recent




The entire build toolchain and underlying frameworks for Angeldust have been updated. 64-bit support is improved. Angeldust now features level-of-detail for distant game world elements and you can set your view distance to three new, "very distant" distances. Enabling scenes like these:





Not only has the maximal view distance greatly increased, it now also renders more accurately, preventing flicker even in complex scenes. Check out this beautifully layered forest shot:



Talking about rendering, there no longer are weird texture holes in distant geometry. Here's a screenshot of the problem that is now fixed:




Continuing our story about rendering improvements—Android users will no longer see missing walls or floors. And performance on iOS is greatly improved. Here's a comparison shot of Android rendering with and without missing walls:



The Android build of Angeldust now also supports accessing notifications, the system menu and even switching apps. Reported crash rate is now very close to zero in practice. It's now always a good day to play Angeldust on Android. Or as Android—whatever floats your boat.


There's more than a dozen new blocks, and six new bushes that you can all buy from the in-game shop to spice up your builds. Enjoy new combinations of colors and block styles:




The Angeldust sign-in form now features three additional social media links, and also show your pet! Here are all social media links:
YouTube—https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
Twitch—https://www.twitch.tv/AngeldustLive
Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
Instagram—https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
Discord—https://discord.gg/m8FekP3
Twitter—https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive




With the addition of pets comes another slew of creature-related features. The intelligence of your horse, moa or bear has been improved so that it now follows you at a distance. Hopefully you won't ever lose your mount again!

You can now also abandon your mount or your pet from the Angeldust website, PlayAngeldust.com


The builder hero can now use his hammer to repair in-game devices to extend their lifespan. Just swing your hammer at whatever thing you want to repair and it'll be good for another lifetime:




We now have (GM) / game master player accounts to help out new players. To make sure you are dealing with a real GM, the telecharger will now list player badges:




Metagaming B.V. (Angeldust's publisher) no longer stores your e-mail address. Instead, a cryptographically secure hash value is stored and used when resetting your password. All old e-mail address information has been scrubbed from the Angeldust database.

The Angeldust website at PlayAngeldust.com has also been cleaned from any tracking code, old cruft and legacy code. It's faster and more beautiful than ever before. And it now also lists item type descriptions and hints!


Are you an advanced Angeldust user or content creator? There are three new settings files you can add to your Angeldust settings folder:

• window_width.txt — enter the width (in points) for the Angeldust window
  
• window_height.txt — same as above, for window height
  
• anti_aliasing_samples.txt — set the MSAA / anti-aliasing level (2 / 4 / 8 …)
  

• 'R'-key now opens up the telecharger
  
• Added 'huge' third-person view distance
  
• Fix trees/objects sinking into panel blocks
  
• Improved 'The Void' / Hero battle! status message wording
  
• Fixed rare quick messages menu disconnection bug
  
• Ignore biome discoveries when in wonders / claimed land
  
• Fix saddle shortcut sometimes triggering a 'quick shovel' action
  
• Fix house demolition leaving tiny trees or garbage
  
• Improve appearance of recently dismounted creatures
  
• Fix frozen hotbar after entering The Void with second hotbar selected
  
• Fix hand-painted visual style flat, corroded steel metal texture
  
• Fix column block face visibility calculation
  
• Added additional in-game tips
  
• Make the saddle shortcut ('E'-key, top action button, saddle button) skip forward during game replay playback
  
• Added 'following' cinematic camera mode
  
• Fix V-sync not being properly initialized at start up
  
• Increase highest discoverable creature level
  
• Fix incorrect item selected after opening and closing world map
  
• Fix world map not showing after standing still for a longer time
  
• Support even more game controller models
  

If you like Angeldust, please write a positive review on Steam! You can also stalk us everywhere. Thanks in advance:

• Steam reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/app/488440/positivereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent
  
• Developer live stream: https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/AngeldustLive
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Community Discord server: https://discord.gg/m8FekP3
  

Here's the list of changes in Angeldust v2.24:


This is a biggie. For eons players have asked for a better way to navigate the world. BOOM! A spiffy world map is now easily accessibly using the 'M' key and from the telecharger:



Tons of details went into the map: your actual hero is shown rotated towards your viewing direction. It has a trail of the path you took. Shows new areas, materials and trees that you can unlock. Has coordinates (ooh, shiny!). You can zoom in and out to ludicrous levels. Have fun charting a course and watching your builds from above!


Angeldust v2.24 adds two new interactive blocks: the holo scroll and the holo charger. The former one allows you to add messages in the game world that players can read when stepping upon the block. The holo charger block lets players teleport to your land claims:




While on the topic of messages: the Russian translation of Angeldust has been completely revised and edited by a small team of community volunteers. Thanks to Alex Makarov, Noddrog and konorpwnz for doing a stellar job!


To help new players on their way in the (sometimes) dangerous world of Angeldust, there are now a multitude of tutorials and tips that pop up in the beginning:



You'll now also see item descriptions in the shop. Hurray for progress!


Angeldust now runs in 64-bit mode on Windows. Many bits. Much wow. In practice this means way better performance, support for 'ultra' detail textures and potentially support for even higher view distances. Enjoy!


The Angeldust PvP area called 'The Void' has been updated visually. Here's a quick preview:

• Fix level-up message level calculation for high levels
  
• Switch order of account badge and flag to be consistent
  
• Render account badges in more parts of the UI
  
• Add 'cherry blossom' and 'autumn leaves' trees to the shop
  
• Tweak PvP game mechanics in The Void
  
• Allow players to leave The Void anytime
  
• Restore player health points when leaving The Void
  
• Increase creature spawn rate near village
  
• Support even more game controller models
  
• Speed up game world chunk rendering
  
• Optimize vertex shader performance
  
• Fix Windows XP software OpenGL 1.1 crash on CAPTCHA display
  

If you like Angeldust, please write a positive review on Steam! You can also stalk us everywhere. Thanks in advance:

• Steam reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/app/488440/positivereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent
  
• Developer live stream: https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive
  

Here's the list of changes in Angeldust v2.23:


The sign-in form has been completely redesigned and is now tailored to your hero colors and the creature you last rode. You'll feel right at home when playing:




Speaking of big entrances: sometimes your Wi-Fi drops out. Sometimes a cat yanks your network cable. We've all been there (me too). You'd end up in limbo in the game. Not disconnected, but not being able to play. Angeldust v2.23 implements immediate reconnection so you can sign-in without having to wait a few minutes. Nifty!


This update brings account badges so you can see who's boss in-game and on the Angeldust website. The full list of badges is explained on the support page. Here's a quick preview:




Everyone's been asking for PvP in Angeldust since close to forever. It's here! Battle other heroes in a new game world area called The Void:



Try to make it to the top of the leaderboard! Rewards and persistent rankings will come in the future.


Oft requested: you can now switch to a second row of hotbar icons using the 'Alt' or '~' key and D-Pad up or down. The contents of the hotbar are now also saved so you can pick up where you left off. This makes building and fighting a lot easier as you'll always have the tools you need where you left them. Always Be Knolling.


This update adds a lot of community-requested blocks: cobwebs, colored hedges, stretched cloth, new cloth colors, rope nets, colored glass:




Angeldust will now show level-up messages for nearby heroes. And you. So you can all exchange GGs in style. And right on time. GG!


Angeldust v2.23 now shows area discovery progress in in-game announcements and the progress overview. This'll help you track your progress even better:



You'll now also correctly see your tree and object discovery progress when not playing the builder hero.


Speaking of trees and objects. As of Angeldust v2.23, you'll finally be able to discover (get rid of) the magical decorations in the game world. Here's a quick visual reference:

• Implement keyboard-based UI navigation
  
• Interpolate a single background for a more cinematic UI experience
  
• Connect scroll bar and filter buttons to scene contents
  
• Rate-limit OpenGL texture uploads to smoothen frame rate
  
• Greatly reduce space usage for compiled game data
  
• Add 'ultra' detail level textures for Cartoon visual style
  
• Improve water block reflection and shading
  
• Fix playback of long (1h+) game replays
  
• Update SDL to version 2.0.8
  
• Use fixed, customizable touchscreen button positions
  
• Fix extremely rare crash for out-of-range simulated projectiles
  
• Fix thin block geometry next to upside-down stair blocks
  
• Support even more game controller models
  
• Support safe UI areas on devices like iPhone X
  
• Lengthen fighter 2D flourish animation again
  
• Polished Angeldust 'action heroes' logo appearance
  
• Animate trampoline block top face texture
  
• Make critical-action pending visual effect more pronounced
  
• Add badges to UI elements where applicable
  
• Add DSP audio limiter to prevent sound clipping
  

If you like Angeldust, please write a positive review on Steam! You can also stalk us everywhere. Thanks in advance:

• Steam reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/app/488440/positivereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent
  
• Developer live stream: https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive
  

AMAZING! Angeldust developer Firefly will stream his 200th 'Angeldust Live!'-episode on June 15th, 2018. Come watch new Angeldust features that have been in development for years! 3+ unboxings! OLD prototypes! Chat, play and make friends!


The live stream takes place on YouTube (set a reminder):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMs8YpkSrg0



What's in these boxes? Come watch and find out!




Oldschool never dies. Firefly will show off some very old Angeldust versions and even play them together with others.




We found this intriguing poster plastered on a Facebook wall:




Again, the live stream takes place on YouTube (set a reminder):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMs8YpkSrg0

If you like Angeldust, please write a positive review on Steam! You can also stalk us everywhere. Thanks in advance:

• Steam reviews: http://steamcommunity.com/app/488440/positivereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent
  
• Developer live stream: https://www.youtube.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngeldustLive
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playangeldust/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeldustLive