Odd Realm News

Hey friends!

I'm still alive! I just wanted to give you a quick update so you don't feel like I've abandoned you.

I've been super busy fixing and re-writing a lot of world and rendering tech I wrote early in development. Since the beginning of early access a lot of bugs and minor issues or roadblocks popup from these systems, so it was passed time for me to clean it up. Unfortunately, this means nothing in terms of new content or features. However, with these systems written properly, I'll be able to implement things much easier and with fewer bugs going forward.

One example of rendering improvements is how I treat blueprints. Before, a blueprint would completely replace a previous block but create a facsimile of what was there. With the newer rendering system, I'm able to display two blocks occupying the same space. i.e., A dirt wall blueprint placed over a stack of wood logs.

Blueprints Example 1 Blueprints Example 2

Also, how I was handling transparency was a complete hack and kept me from having multiple layers of transparent textures. You may or may not have noticed graphical issues related to this but a lot of things (water for example) were really poorly implemented.

Some less interesting improvements are how I track items and other inventoried block points. Many a bug came from this area.

Anywho, no new or exciting features/content to announce but once I'm done this stuff, I'm hoping to jump onto improving and adding to rooms. I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Waylon

Hey fam!

Hope all is well with you amazing folks.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I won't be putting out any updates today. I'm currently working on a ton of stuff still and am nowhere near having a ready build.

This brings me to the topic of release schedules for builds and such. Up until now, I've generally tried to put out a new build each week with the alternating cadence of one week production, one week beta. I'm going to switch this to monthly themed production builds. Why the switch? Well, I'm finding it very difficult to complete bigger tasks within the two week window. I find I hurriedly put a feature in and push to the beta branch only to break things or to find out the feature was poorly designed. As well, I tend to lean towards working on smaller features out of fear of not being able to finish it within that time-frame. Aside from just being stressful, this often results in me having to scrap my weekend to put out hotfixes and, frankly, it's starting to burn me out.

So, with the new release schedule, it would look something like this:
-A new month begins (let's use September as the example) and I begin work on a themed feature set for that month.
-Week 1 and 2 of Sept. - focus on design, discussion with the community, and implementation of the feature set.
-Week 3 - Make changes and add content (by content I mean smaller things like items, props, art, etc - nothing huge) based on feedback, find bugs, focus on tuning.
-Week 4 - Nothing new is added to the build. Focus is 100% on bug fixes.
-Push new changes to production build on the first Thursday (so, I can potentially put out hotfixes on Friday if they are needed) of the next Month (October in this case).

I will likely put out beta builds at an irregular cadence based on this new schedule. It will depend on the feature being added and when it's ready for public playtests. So, there could very well still be weekly builds, but there's no guarantee.

Regarding themed builds, I'm also going to put together a roadmap for development, highlighting what each month will focus on. I'll post an announcement for this when it's ready.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Waylon

Hey all!

Just uploaded the most recent changes to the steam Beta branch.

This update is likely to be pretty buggy, so, only get it at your own risk.

Why is it a risky build? I've made a significant change to how light acts underground. Before, lights produced by torches and other similar devices would not penetrate the ground. Now it does. This may or may not cause problems because visibility was a huge part of determining whether your settlers could do something. Is that mining job visible? No? Ok, we won't do it. Now, you can see much further into the earth. So this might have issues where settlers think they can do something when they really can't yet. I've gone through the majority, if not all, the instances where this comes up but, hey, it's easy to miss things.

Also, the load times are slightly bloated because I'm doing some extra work with lighting and path checks. This week I'm going to improve load times but I thought I'd mention this as it may be noticeable to you.

So why did I make this change to lighting? I really want people to explore underground and to be able to find ore and dungeons easier. Plus, without light penetrating the earth, the game felt a bit claustrophobic or cramped.

Aside from lighting, I've add some additional props to the game to spice things up a bit. Things like hatches and death spikes but also more aesthetic items like hedges.

OH, I've also tracked down a bug with Tin ore not generating. Many of you were mentioning how hard it is to find Tin and, well, it was barely being generating. So, there ya go.

Anywhozle, here are the notes:

-Fixed a bug where the icon for liquids wasn't showing up in the filters for blueprints.
-Added 'Nax Hedge' prop.
-Added 'Nax Hedge Lantern' prop.
-Fixed a bug where rotatable blueprints wouldn't align with other blueprints.
-Fixed a bug where damage had double output.
-Entities will now prefer to walk on paths. And some paths provide faster slightly faster movement.
-Lights will now reveal hidden underground blocks.
-Fixed a bug where jobs couldn't be started from the block below if it had a platform.
-Fixed a bug where the fx for torches and other props would not line up if you placed a floor blueprint under the prop and then it was cancelled or finished.
-Fixed a bug where tin wasn't properly generating in every block type.
-Tuned iron to be harder to find near the surface.
-Increased drop rate of wood logs from trees.
-Updated art for Kalite.
-Added wood and stone hatches.
-Added wood and stone trap doors.
-Added wood, stone, bronze, iron, steel and rutile spikes.

This week I'm going to do a pass on terrain art. Now that you can see them with lights, they definitely need some visual treatment. Kalite is the only one I had time to update, so you'll notice blocks like Ember Rock, Ridgestone, Sandstone, etc, look like butt. I'm going to fix that!
As well, I wanted to spend the week focusing on various issues people have been encountering. Mostly minor or QoL things that have been stacking up while I implement newer features.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Waylon

Just a quick update to let you know that the production branch is now up-to-date with all the beta changes.

This update includes changes from:

0.8.11.0 Beta - Notif UI Update, Fixes, Events 0.8.12.0/0.8.13.0 Beta - New Room Actions Menu and Fixes

Additional changes/fixes:
-Fixed a bug where Ancients would take the last names of their companion.
-Fixed a bug where some of the human elder portraits were swapped.
-Fixed a bug where gooseberry wine had the wrong inline icon.
-Hitting 'f' will now have the camera follow the currently selected entity.
-Clicking a notif will now snap you to the event location.
-Brightened up workstation blueprint queue count text.
-Increased quality of props so rooms aren't all mediocre.
-Fixed another issue where ancients could starve while migrating.
-Migration carry amount now determined by carry skill of settlers on journey.
-Fixed a load hang bug.

Thanks!

Waylon

Happy Friday!


I know you folks are waiting for the production build but I'm going to keep these changes in beta until I'm happy with stability. It's not quite there yet. I'd like to move these changes to production tomorrow but I'll need to see if it still has major bugs to fix. Thanks for the patience. :)

There is one new feature which I've added to the game and that's Room Actions. This is a new menu found on the toolbar. It's where you'll find special abilities related to rooms. We're very light on these at the moment with the Farsight Beacon being the only room with an action currently. We have big plans for more actions though! Some that come to mind are:
-Town hall bell - ringing it sends everyone to the town hall except your fighters/militia.
-Trade with Merchant - we plan on adding a merchant-type room where travelling merchants will camp for periods of time. When they are in town, you'll be able to open the merchant screen with this room action.
-Arena/Tavern/Performance events - This isn't super fleshed out but the idea is you'd open and start things like performances for the settlement through here.

Anywho, we'll put many more in there but currently the Ancients are the only ones where you'll actually see this menu.

Here are the patch notes:
-Fixed a bug where you could use the pathing utility to see hidden places underground.
-Various performance improvements.
-Fixed a bug where blueprints counted as required props.
-Fixed a bug where container contents weren't spacing out name and quality.
-Added new Room Actions Menu.
-Added Farsight Beacon action.
-Added sfx for summoning Void Woken and Void Imps.
-Fixed a bug where some of the gods weren't able to attack properly.
-Fixed a bug where entities could work for free at a workstation if part of the required materials was not in the same pathing room as the player.
-Fixed a bug where summoned minions are allowed to fish. (NO FISHING FOR YOU, VOID IMP)
-Fixed yet another bug where battle music gets stuck because your newly tamed animals thinks the settlers are threats. I mean, they are but still.
-Added coin sfx for trading.
-Fixed a bug where npc spawns were still using coast spawn before border spawn.
-Fixed a bug where input sometimes wasn't read for some of the menu buttons.
-Fixed incorrect notification settings display text.
-Fixed a bug where workstation tasks weren't being started.
-Fixed a memory leak in workstations.
-Fixed a bug where blueprints with no item requirements (looking at you WELLHOUSE) were not being started.

Thanks! Have a great weekend. :)

Waylon