development update #63
Hello everyone,
We have uploaded a new build. Yes. we are surprised too. We had a bit of a shorter week this week. After finally uploading a build on Monday evening we took Tuesday off to recover then spent the remaining days fixing some minor bugs and making some nice changes.
Algae and Waste:
Algae and waste visualisations have been modified. Algae now grows on the glass. This will be very useful for when we add some suckermouth catfish and other algae eaters.
Waste:
The textures of for waste visualisation have been repainted. Getting the exact right shade of brown that works well on all objects is quite tricky. As is determining how much should be covered up by the waste.
We also added back the floating algae and waste particles into the water. These slowed down the game quite a lot when we tried it many months ago so we are taking baby steps and using very simple looking particles with very simple shaders and will keep updating them little by little until everything looks nice and is fast.
help:
The help system has been changed to utilise more screen space so things don't feel so cramped. I hate scrolling through menus in games just so i can find out why something is not working. We removed the old in-game help menu and replaced it with some panels for each subject. When players enter help mode via the bottom menu they can then choose from a selection of subjects in a manner similar to other menus in the game.
Hopefully this way of doing things will be clearer. We can use the whole screen if needed and there are no other UI panels visible to distract your eyes. The subjects are displayed in alphabetical order and we will be expanding them more every week. We would have liked to add some new ones this week but it was a shorter week and we just did not have time.
The next subjects that we will add to the help will talk about the changes to the simulation system that were made in the last week. I saw on the forums someone was having trouble understanding what is going on in the new version which just tells us we have to hurry up with putting useful information into the help system.
There were a few other nice tweaks that were made this week. All the fish have now been scaled to match their approximate real world size. Their swimming speeds are also related to their size so not all fish swim at approximately the same speed. Their size is also taken into account when they shoal together so they don't all bunch up into a small space.
Some upcoming changes that will be made to fish will also included slightly more stricter rules about population. The rule of "One inch of fish equals one gallon of water" is going to be put into the game. That means if players want to have a 60 litre/16 gallon aquarium they can't fill it with 50 neon tetras and expect them all to be happy. At most you would expect to fit around 13 of them. Or at least that is what the person at the aquarium store might advise you.
This may seem to some that we are artificially trying to add more obstacles or just trying to make player's lives more difficult. Fishery is missing a lot of structure in many areas and how aquariums are stocked is an important part of keeping fish in real life. To be clear, the game will not prevent players from over stocking their aquariums but the fish may become stressed. At least that is the plan. We will probably tweak the the numbers to be more forgiving if it takes too much fun out of the game. These changes will probably enter the game in early December.
Next week will be a full week and there is much to do so we shall have a rest tonight and make lots of notes. We also expect to be uploading a new build next Friday so keep an eye out for that.
We wish you all a great weekend.
The Fishery Team.
We have uploaded a new build. Yes. we are surprised too. We had a bit of a shorter week this week. After finally uploading a build on Monday evening we took Tuesday off to recover then spent the remaining days fixing some minor bugs and making some nice changes.
Algae and Waste:
Algae and waste visualisations have been modified. Algae now grows on the glass. This will be very useful for when we add some suckermouth catfish and other algae eaters.
Waste:
The textures of for waste visualisation have been repainted. Getting the exact right shade of brown that works well on all objects is quite tricky. As is determining how much should be covered up by the waste.
We also added back the floating algae and waste particles into the water. These slowed down the game quite a lot when we tried it many months ago so we are taking baby steps and using very simple looking particles with very simple shaders and will keep updating them little by little until everything looks nice and is fast.
help:
The help system has been changed to utilise more screen space so things don't feel so cramped. I hate scrolling through menus in games just so i can find out why something is not working. We removed the old in-game help menu and replaced it with some panels for each subject. When players enter help mode via the bottom menu they can then choose from a selection of subjects in a manner similar to other menus in the game.
Hopefully this way of doing things will be clearer. We can use the whole screen if needed and there are no other UI panels visible to distract your eyes. The subjects are displayed in alphabetical order and we will be expanding them more every week. We would have liked to add some new ones this week but it was a shorter week and we just did not have time.
The next subjects that we will add to the help will talk about the changes to the simulation system that were made in the last week. I saw on the forums someone was having trouble understanding what is going on in the new version which just tells us we have to hurry up with putting useful information into the help system.
There were a few other nice tweaks that were made this week. All the fish have now been scaled to match their approximate real world size. Their swimming speeds are also related to their size so not all fish swim at approximately the same speed. Their size is also taken into account when they shoal together so they don't all bunch up into a small space.
Some upcoming changes that will be made to fish will also included slightly more stricter rules about population. The rule of "One inch of fish equals one gallon of water" is going to be put into the game. That means if players want to have a 60 litre/16 gallon aquarium they can't fill it with 50 neon tetras and expect them all to be happy. At most you would expect to fit around 13 of them. Or at least that is what the person at the aquarium store might advise you.
This may seem to some that we are artificially trying to add more obstacles or just trying to make player's lives more difficult. Fishery is missing a lot of structure in many areas and how aquariums are stocked is an important part of keeping fish in real life. To be clear, the game will not prevent players from over stocking their aquariums but the fish may become stressed. At least that is the plan. We will probably tweak the the numbers to be more forgiving if it takes too much fun out of the game. These changes will probably enter the game in early December.
Next week will be a full week and there is much to do so we shall have a rest tonight and make lots of notes. We also expect to be uploading a new build next Friday so keep an eye out for that.
We wish you all a great weekend.
The Fishery Team.