Solace Crafting News

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you had a nice Christmas or whatever may be going on wherever you are. For me, living in Japan, New Years is a much larger holiday than Christmas, and is just around the corner.

I know it's been a long time since the last update, and I apologize for that. I went back to working on Solace Crafting full time in October, but ended up running into some health problems and decided to take more time off. In case anyone reading this doesn't know, I had some semi-serious health problems in July that forced me to take 3 months off of development. I was taking 3 pills a day during that time and am down to 1 pill every other day, so I'm doing a lot better, but am still not 100%.

During my time off I have spent a fair chunk of my time studying not only Unity and game design, but game production. The unfortunate truth as an indie developer is that there are 10+ professions you have to learn. Production manager is an important but not often talked about profession when it comes to indie games. The quite extensive paid course on design and production that I went through was well worth the money, and has me looking at things in a quite different light.

Solace Crafting was originally built within Unity 2018 and eventually upgraded into Unity 2019. Recently I've been playing with Unity 2021 and there are definitely some significant performance improvements to be had, though the conversion process to a scriptable render pipeline is likely a lot of work, but something I do want to attempt.

Prior to upgrading engines, or anything that serious, I need to finish the improved multi-lingual support and full controller support that were both left mostly finished in October. I've also got some things lining up for January that will hopefully turn into a great way to start a fresh year!

There are a lot of less than amazing decisions I made in regards to design and production in the early years of Solace Crafting, but the game has come a long way overall and I'm going to give it a few more pushes to see if we can't get it into a better composition all around.

Best wishes to everyone in 2024!

Kyle Postlewait
Big Kitty Games

This has been in the works for a long time, and is still not quite a complete solution as I finish plugging in some UI elements (there are a lot of them) into the full controller support system, but I wanted to get it up onto beta to get some feedback as I'm not actually a controller player myself.

Currently the biggest problem as I see it for full controller support is choosing which is more important:
1. Being able to cycle between next and last targets with R2 and L2
or
2. Being able to cycle between next and last hotbars with R2 and L2

As I've been torn between this, there's currently not a pre-bound key for targeting, though using any offensive skill will generally try to target whatever is in front of you. Currently I am leaning towards putting next target on the far right button (B for me), and maybe putting last target on the select key, as something not generally used, but there if you need it.

One of the biggest challenges of this patch was actually merging the 3+ months of on/off work that were spent on the controller support branch and the 3+ months of bug fixes that were being done on a separate branch. I spent pretty much the entirety of the past three days just getting everything to come together properly, and still have some weird unanswered questions why git (version control) was behaving the way it was with certain files, but all's well that ends well.

There are still some oddities I'm ironing out though, the save and quit menu is not highlighting properly, even though it is technically being selected properly from top to bottom, as well as the solace interface, and some things here and there. But for the most past the game is fully playable with a controller, so again I wanted to get it onto beta in it's current state in hopes of some feedback or suggestions from more experienced controller users ːsteamthumbsupː

And of course there's a round of random bug fixes to go with everything.
More to come over the next few days.

v 1.0.4.28 2023.10.11
- Added controller support (90% working, some changes pending)
- Fixed Q and E to rotate and R to autorun triggering even when certain windows are open/input fields are focused
- Fixed dragging inventory slots to the hotbar not working
- Fixed certain monster abilities throwing an error
- Fixed recipes unlocked in multiplayer not showing up in the crafting UI immediately
- Fixed the initial loading screen not loading any text where it should say loading in at least English
- Fixed a number of harmless localization errors firing in the recipe details UI
- Fixed starting the game for the first time throwing a harmless localization error
- Fixed a harmless error that could fire from PlayerSkills when starting up
- Fixed an error caused by animal corpses sometimes being improperly added to misc save data

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

This weeks fixes from the beta branch are now live on the default branch.

I'm still mostly going through the bug tracker reports that have built up over the past couple months during my absence, in order of severity. The game's definitely running quite a bit smoother with this patch though than it has been for a bit, my apologies for that. A mix of rushed changes and outsourced mistakes had a number of systems causing inter-related problems here and there.

Lots to do though, hoping to get town building features fleshed out a bit more, and more building textures in asap.

v 1.0.4.27 2023.09.09
- Added a check to reassign Basic Attack and Recall to the hotbar in the event of skills being reset
- Added mouse over text on map icons for Shrines, Monoliths, Rifts, and Totems (English only for now)
- Added solace names to solace map icons
- Reduced the spawn rate of Rifts outside of badlands
- Reduced the spawn rate of Goblin Totems outside of swamps
- Reduced the spawn rate of Monoliths outside of Grasslands and Mountains
- Fixed remaining adventuring skill points printing incorrectly for Jobs
- Fixed a storehouse duplication bug
- Fixed hold to walk and always run not working
- Fixed Spiritualist passive skill for Magic Damage awarding Magic Crit Chance (this will reset your skills if you had it)
- Fixed player skills in MP not downloading spent totals properly
- Fixed changing gatherer assignment not updating changes immediately in MP
- Fixed harvested Hornet Wax not showing properly for client in MP
- Fixed some Squire, Scout, and Apprentice skills that got messed up in version control
- Fixed storehouses changing resources to T0
- Fixed Masonry spent points showing Woodworking spent points
- Fixed shrines not properly awarding buffs
- Fixed Imps disappearing as soon as their rift is closed
- Fixed Rift Spawn Rate setting
- Fixed Monoliths and some other objects spawning at improperly low rates
- Fixed finishing drinking a stack of water in a container throwing an error
- Fixed several non animal specific items printing out animal specific names

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

I finally got in a full work day today! I hope that doesn't sound condescending, but I've had a really hard time looking at a screen for very long without getting dizzy and, frankly, sick. I'm doing a lot better this week, though still only 60-70%. I made it back to the gym yesterday for the first time in over two months, and was only able to walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes after some light weight lifting, where I used to run for 30 minutes 2-3 times a week. I am definitely getting better though ːsteamhappyː

I've spent most of today going through problems mentioned recently in Discord and on the Bug Tracker. As always, bugs really have to take priority, but I am excited to get into adding some of the suggested features we've got posted and voted on in Discord. Assuming nothing strange arises, these changes will be pushed to the live version in the near future.

Happy gaming!

v 1.0.4.24 2023.09.04
- Added a check to reassign Basic Attack and Recall to the hotbar in the event of skills being reset
- Added mouse over text on map icons for Shrines, Monoliths, Rifts, and Totems (English only for now)
- Added solace names to solace map icons
- Reduced the spawn rate of Rifts outside of badlands
- Reduced the spawn rate of Goblin Totems outside of swamps
- Reduced the spawn rate of Monoliths outside of Grasslands and Mountains
- Fixed Masonry spent points showing Woodworking spent points
- Fixed shrines not properly awarding buffs
- Fixed Imps disappearing as soon as their rift is closed
- Fixed Rift Spawn Rate setting
- Fixed Monoliths and some other objects spawning at improperly low rates
- Fixed finishing drinking a stack of water in a container throwing an error
- Fixed several non animal specific items printing out animal specific names

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

This patch merges all of the current changes on the beta branch onto the default live branch. I was hoping to finish a bit of upgrading I'm working on on the skills and skill points systems as there are still some small bugs floating around with those, but time has been steadily moving forward, and the longer beta and live fall apart the harder it is to track which bugs have or have not actually been fixed yet.

My health has been a lot better this past week and a half. My family convinced me to take Monday and Tuesday off to spend some time together and focus on getting better. I'm just past 3 weeks now on the medication that has been helping me out of lot. Hopefully next week I can start reducing the frequency or dosage and keep moving towards a full recovery.

I am hoping to get back to a mostly full-time schedule for the rest of the week, and appreciate very much everyone's patience and understanding with the unforeseen unfortuitously combining with the untimely.

v 1.0.4.23 2023.08.19
- Refactored localization system to fix the root of a variety of recent bugs related to stats, skills, recipes, and monster abilities
- Improved breath and temperature logic
- Improved effect and buff logic
- Raised minimum healing percentage from 0 to 10
- Added a catch for attributes going null, causing players to not load
- Added a debug to print the current language in use to logs to help track future problems
- Fixed effects reapplying repeatedly
- Fixed a skill upgrading issue
- Fixed players saving in caves reloading their position improperly in MP
- Fixed an instance where client data could be not saved properly in multi-player
- Fixed a harmless error related to monster sounds
- Fixed cave changes not being saved properly in some cases in multi-player
- Fixed a problem with learned/unlocked recipes blocking the recipe list from refreshing
- Fixed a bug preventing new character creation
- Fixed a variety of equipment names and icons not displaying properly
- Fixed Market town building displaying as Stoneworker
- Fixed a bug preventing new character creation
- Fixed a number of attribute, adventuring, crafting, and harvesting skill tree problems
- Fixed entity abilities being able to stack
- Fixed an error with multiplayer audio calls
- Fixed harvesting throwing errors
- Fixed some skills not properly applying to new characters that chose starting classes
- Fixed strong harvest cooldowns not working
- Fixed Rhinos named improperly
- Fixed Lamp Posts not being able to spawn in multiplayer
- Fixed debuffs spamming errors
- Fixed a Buff UI refresh problem
- Fixed a console error
- Fixed damage over time spells applied to monsters applying all ticks immediately
- Fixed some models rendering in front of water
- Fixed crocodiles and hipos getting stuck walking in place

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker