Survive the Nights News

Survive the Nights is now 35% off for the Steam Lunar New Year sale! If you have any questions before purchasing, please join our discord and speak with the developers or other players within our friendly community.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/541300/Survive_the_Nights/

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Hello all,

We’ve continued sorting through found issues in 1.6 while developing our 1.7 and 1.8 patches. Last week we announced that we would be switching the 1.7 'design' and the 1.8 'solo/server file' updates around. James is hard at work continuing solo and server files. As you can imagine, this doesn't make for very exciting devblog material. On the other hand, Andre and Jos have been focused on 1.8 design work. Andre has been focused on lighting among other things and Jos on level design and power grid development.

[h3]Interior Lighting[/h3]
Interior lighting has been and still is a challenge in a world as large as ours. This task is made even more difficult with our dynamic day night cycle. We needed to find a solution that didn’t take hours/days to compute and didn’t cost a ton of overhead performance. Traditional light mapping wasn’t possible in combination with a day and night cycle.

Realtime GI (Global Illumination) is unfavorable at such a large scale and the need for light probes in every structure is unrealistic. Baking this properly and getting the lighting to behave with our streaming setup was also a problematic. Along with these issues, this method will soon be deprecated in the Unity engine. This option also is more costly when it comes to performance.

In the end and as of right now, we’ve gone with our own solution. We have darkened the ambient lighting in interiors. Doing this provides a much darker interior without any performance hit or baking process. The outcome is rather fitting for the overall style of Survive the Nights.

Interior Ambient Lighting​

[h3]Power Lines[/h3]
Jos continues to design the power grid, creating a realistic and in the future usable system. This task is made easier with the help of some backend tools but there's still a lot of hand design that goes into it. We will have a more detailed outline of the power grid system in a coming update including exactly how it will eventually function. In the mean time here's a quick look at some larger lines crossing some woodland and river.

Spanning the Gap​


Headed out of Power Plant​

[h3]Merch Shop[/h3]
We have opted into a 3rd party seller (Teespring) to provide those that have requested it the ability to pick up some cool merch and help out the team.

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Hello all,

We’ve continued sorting through found issues in 1.6 while developing our 1.7 patch. As you might have noticed from the title, plans have changed slightly. In order to try and keep things timely we’ve decided to swap our design and server file updates around.

[h3]Solo Play, Server Hosting and a Change of Plans[/h3]
After quite a bit of thinking, we have decided to change things up a bit here. As you know, we have been working on our graphical overhaul for some time now and it's going great. Over the last week or so the team has been testing development builds. Updated textures, props, lighting and environmental changes are really coming along. We have made our initial pass and feel there's a bit more time to spend with a graphical overhaul so that's exactly what we'll be doing. We're switching up our 1.7 and 1.8 updates. Alpha 1.7 will now consist of the MUCH requested solo and hosted gameplay.

[h3]Solo Gameplay [/h3]
Take a look over at our steam community pages, our reviews or any of our social media platforms and you'll see one glaring request..single player! You will find both solo and hosting options in the 1.7 patch. You will be able to host a solo game session without the need to adjust firewall settings or open ports. Allowing for a local server to run in the background which will emulate single player.

Joining a Solo Server

Solo Server Setup

[h3]Hosted Gameplay [/h3]
Players will be able to self host a co-op server natively from their own machine (Windows/Mac). This will allow you to host a server for just friends or anyone if you choose to list the server publicly. You'll be in charge and the server will only remain up when you're online so no need to worry about griefers. Outside of opening the relevant port and allowing firewall access, this method of play should allow for an easy setup co-op experience.

Hosted Server Setup

[h3]Server Files[/h3]
Solo and Hosting in game aren't the only options. We'll also be releasing our linux server build so you can host on a dedicated machine or VPS. These servers will run just like our current official servers and be able to remain online indefinitely.

[h3]In Closing[/h3]
Our idea with this update is to allow players to experience the game in the way they want without over complicating things for the player that just wants a co-op or solo experience. All config editing is done from in game as well as database backup and management.

You can expect the new 1.7 (Server/Solo play) some time in feb and the now 1.8 (design/graphical) update some time afterwards.

[h3]Merch Shop[/h3]
We have opted into a 3rd party seller (Teespring) to provide those that have requested it the ability to pick up some cool merch and help out the team.

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Hello all,

We’ve continued sorting through found issues in 1.6 while developing our 1.7 graphical overhaul base. Below we’ll discuss just a few of the changes you can expect to see in our next patch.

[h3]Interior Redesign[/h3]
The graphical update isn't just environmental and exterior based. We'll also be introducing updated props, new textures/normal maps, interior vertex painting and new props among other features. You'll find new models throughout the world and there will be more to come as we move forward. This initial update will include a large chunk of redesign but there will be more to come in the future. We will release a forum thread alongside the graphical update. This will allow the community to post suggestions on props that need updating. Below is a gif and a sneak peak at some of our interior design changes.

Interior Design Rework​

[h3]Electrical Grid[/h3]
As some of you may know, we have always planned for a fully functional electric grid. You will start to see the beginnings of this system in the graphical update in the form of power lines and small sub-stations. The power grid will be rather extensive even in its initial introduction. You'll find multiple power line models and a detailed, well thought out 'grid system'. Outside of the future mechanics of providing power, these lines can be used as a guidance system. The image below details this plan rather nicely.

Electrical Grid​

[h3]Merch Shop[/h3]
We have opted into a 3rd party seller (Teespring) to provide those that have requested it the ability to pick up some cool merch and help out the team.

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Hello all,

We’ve continued sorting through found issues in 1.6 while developing our 1.7 graphical overhaul base. Below we’ll discuss just a few of the changes you can expect to see in our next patch.

[h3]Vegetation Improvements[/h3]
We've wanted to update vegetation for a while now. Keeping that in mind. we also didn't want to totally change the current vibe. The team and many supporters feel that the current look fits the game nicely. Andre has shifted his focus onto vegetation improvements. We've added new variants, reflections and normal mapped surfaces along with improving wind reaction. You will also notice density improvements, making the island feel a bit more lush.


Vegetation Improvements


Vegetation improvements and Shadowing


Vegetation Density Improvements​

[h3]Interior and Exterior Prop Update[/h3]
Along with world design, this update will also cover some improvements on interior and exterior props and textures. We've reworked shaders for interiors. You'll notice that they're far darker but at the same time more detailed and scarier. Ambient lighting has also been heavily tweaked and improved to adjust with the time of day. We will focus more on structure design and lighting in an upcoming devblog. We will also continue to improve textures and models with community feedback as we progress through alpha builds.


New Textures Props and Shaders


Improved Prop, Texture and Shader​

[h3]Merch Shop[/h3]
We have opted into a 3rd party seller (Teespring) to provide those that have requested it the ability to pick up some cool merch and help out the team.

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive