development update #59
Hello everyone,
It has been another fruitful week. Quite a few important problems have been solved and a few new-ish ideas implemented. We are edging ever closer to our big update to the build. I will stay away from the trap of trying to precisely predict the date of this update but I will say that it looks like the update will be on steam in less and two weeks and one day, probably.
Panda Platy Female:
Panda Platy Male:
These two lovelies are Panda Platies. Platies always seemed to me to be very relaxed and peaceful fish and after a week or two of intense work painting betta fish it feels good to add a fish to the game that is just happy to be there and hang out. Fortunately there are quite a few Platies still left to paint and we are still yet to add Mollies and Swordtails to the game but we hope to have at least two species of each added by the end of the year.
Auto Enabling Powered Devices:
This sped up gif shows a new feature that was added this week. Electrical devices now have the ability to turn themselves off and on again depending on the circumstances of the water chemistry (or if their operating system crashes hehe). In the above example there is a small aquarium with some plants inside that are consuming more Co2 than is coming into the aquarium. This causes Co2 levels to drop and eventually the Co2 will be completely gone and the plants will eventually suffocate.
New Airstone Settings UI:
However the new "Auto Enabling" feature is activated and the airstone checks to see if the current Co2 saturation is below the minimum Co2 saturation threshold. If so tt turns itself on and keeps adding Co2 into the water until it reaches the maximum Co2 saturation threshold at which time it turns itself off.
These thresholds are set by the player for each device that they add into the aquarium that uses this feature so there is a lot of room for fine tuning and experimentation. Setting both thresholds to Zero will cause the device to turn on and stay on indefinitely. This now works with all electrical devices that are currently in the game. That also includes in the plumbing. All the devices that regulate temperature, Co2, oxygen etc all use this feature now. There are some devices that will not use it. Certain devices use a passive or chemical process to modify water chemistry and can't be turned off. Co2 and oxygen scrubbers use a chemical reaction to remove gas from water in the exact same way that Gas masks use activated charcoal to remove harmful chemicals from the air. The only way to turn these off is to remove them from the system.
One of the more striking aspects of the above gif is that it appears as if the aquarium is breathing. These devices are life support after all and we think this features adds another layer of interest and depth to the game that might be overlooked.
Some of you who read last week's post may have been slightly tickled to read that we are going to reveal an upcoming feature that we had previously decided not to add.
The new simulation system works in a slightly more realistic way than the previous iteration. For instance if we put a single filter in an aquarium that is full of waste it will eventually filter out all of that waste. The old system did not do that, it simply reduced the waste by a certain amount and that was that. It was highly deterministic but lacked a sort of intuitive chaos that is inherent in natural systems. the initial version of fishery that was released had a simulation system similar to what we have now but it was all chaos all the time. We have learned a lot in the last year and now we can solve these problems.
The auto enabling feature we just added will allow players to control their aquariums without lots of busy work all the time. It can be a system that is set up and left alone with only minor tweaks needed as new organisms are added. It also allows more experienced players to push the boundaries of what is possible.
The light bulb moment came to us when we were thinking about what the natural equivalent of this artificial life support is. This is because we want players to be able to try and set up an all natural aquariums without any artificial life support if they want to try it. It will also play a big part of a career mode storyline. But what natural mechanism can allow such a thing to occur???
A day and night cycle of course! (this is the teased feature)
Yes it was staring us in the face and was even mentioned by players on the forums many months ago to which I replied "nope". Though in my defense I felt I did not have enough reasons to add a day an night cycle into the game at that time because of game worked. I am also not a fan of just added features to the game just because most other simulation games have it or because it just helps things to be real for the sake of being real. Most of the important features on the game need to have at least a semi-good reason to be there and at this point in development having a day and night cycle solves a lot of problems.
Photosynthesis and respiration. during the day plants breathe Co2 and exhale oxygen while but at night they breathe oxygen and exhale Co2. The Co2 and oxygen levels fluctuate in opposite directions as these cycles progress. This ensures that if left alone and under the right circumstances the Co2 and Oxygen levels will exist in a state of balance over time and never spiral out of control unless there are large changes to the system. These changes in an aquarium could take the form of leaving the light on for too long or suddenly adding many more plants or fish.
Algae can now be simulated in a more interesting and natural way because algae growth is often attributed to having too much light in an aquarium that also has an abundance nutrients.
Fish like to rest at night so that allows us to add more behavioral variety to our fish. Most fish also like to spawn early in the morning at first light. This ties in nicely with the breeding features we are about to add.
Now that we are adding breeding features suddenly the concept of age has some importance and has a use. Fish will have lifespans and grow over time from fry to juvenile to an adult and hopefully die at an old age happy and contented with lots of babies. This also means that players will also be able to track the age of their entire aquarium.
Some fish are nocturnal and are more active at night. Some live so deep in the ocean that there is no sunlight. Yes we are going to add angler fish and other deep sea beasties but players will need an aquarium with very low light in order to keep them happy.
There are a lot of smaller features and interesting game tweaks that will happen as a result of adding a day and night cycle. It is not a particularly difficult feature to add but like every other feature it will start off pretty basic and we will build upon it over the months. The first version will most likely just be a bit of UI that shows the time of day, players have the option to turn the light off and on and there will be changes to fish and plant behaviour. The speed of each day will not be realtime of course. Our initial thoughts is that each day might be around 12 minutes. No doubt there will be lots of discussion and testing until we get it right.
Well this post is getting a little too wordy so more details on exactly how the day/night cycle will work will have to come at a later date and with more visual aids.
As usual we wish you all a very good weekend and thank you all for your continued support of our weird little aquarium game.
The Fishery Team
It has been another fruitful week. Quite a few important problems have been solved and a few new-ish ideas implemented. We are edging ever closer to our big update to the build. I will stay away from the trap of trying to precisely predict the date of this update but I will say that it looks like the update will be on steam in less and two weeks and one day, probably.
Panda Platy Female:
Panda Platy Male:
These two lovelies are Panda Platies. Platies always seemed to me to be very relaxed and peaceful fish and after a week or two of intense work painting betta fish it feels good to add a fish to the game that is just happy to be there and hang out. Fortunately there are quite a few Platies still left to paint and we are still yet to add Mollies and Swordtails to the game but we hope to have at least two species of each added by the end of the year.
Auto Enabling Powered Devices:
This sped up gif shows a new feature that was added this week. Electrical devices now have the ability to turn themselves off and on again depending on the circumstances of the water chemistry (or if their operating system crashes hehe). In the above example there is a small aquarium with some plants inside that are consuming more Co2 than is coming into the aquarium. This causes Co2 levels to drop and eventually the Co2 will be completely gone and the plants will eventually suffocate.
New Airstone Settings UI:
However the new "Auto Enabling" feature is activated and the airstone checks to see if the current Co2 saturation is below the minimum Co2 saturation threshold. If so tt turns itself on and keeps adding Co2 into the water until it reaches the maximum Co2 saturation threshold at which time it turns itself off.
These thresholds are set by the player for each device that they add into the aquarium that uses this feature so there is a lot of room for fine tuning and experimentation. Setting both thresholds to Zero will cause the device to turn on and stay on indefinitely. This now works with all electrical devices that are currently in the game. That also includes in the plumbing. All the devices that regulate temperature, Co2, oxygen etc all use this feature now. There are some devices that will not use it. Certain devices use a passive or chemical process to modify water chemistry and can't be turned off. Co2 and oxygen scrubbers use a chemical reaction to remove gas from water in the exact same way that Gas masks use activated charcoal to remove harmful chemicals from the air. The only way to turn these off is to remove them from the system.
One of the more striking aspects of the above gif is that it appears as if the aquarium is breathing. These devices are life support after all and we think this features adds another layer of interest and depth to the game that might be overlooked.
Some of you who read last week's post may have been slightly tickled to read that we are going to reveal an upcoming feature that we had previously decided not to add.
The new simulation system works in a slightly more realistic way than the previous iteration. For instance if we put a single filter in an aquarium that is full of waste it will eventually filter out all of that waste. The old system did not do that, it simply reduced the waste by a certain amount and that was that. It was highly deterministic but lacked a sort of intuitive chaos that is inherent in natural systems. the initial version of fishery that was released had a simulation system similar to what we have now but it was all chaos all the time. We have learned a lot in the last year and now we can solve these problems.
The auto enabling feature we just added will allow players to control their aquariums without lots of busy work all the time. It can be a system that is set up and left alone with only minor tweaks needed as new organisms are added. It also allows more experienced players to push the boundaries of what is possible.
The light bulb moment came to us when we were thinking about what the natural equivalent of this artificial life support is. This is because we want players to be able to try and set up an all natural aquariums without any artificial life support if they want to try it. It will also play a big part of a career mode storyline. But what natural mechanism can allow such a thing to occur???
A day and night cycle of course! (this is the teased feature)
Yes it was staring us in the face and was even mentioned by players on the forums many months ago to which I replied "nope". Though in my defense I felt I did not have enough reasons to add a day an night cycle into the game at that time because of game worked. I am also not a fan of just added features to the game just because most other simulation games have it or because it just helps things to be real for the sake of being real. Most of the important features on the game need to have at least a semi-good reason to be there and at this point in development having a day and night cycle solves a lot of problems.
Photosynthesis and respiration. during the day plants breathe Co2 and exhale oxygen while but at night they breathe oxygen and exhale Co2. The Co2 and oxygen levels fluctuate in opposite directions as these cycles progress. This ensures that if left alone and under the right circumstances the Co2 and Oxygen levels will exist in a state of balance over time and never spiral out of control unless there are large changes to the system. These changes in an aquarium could take the form of leaving the light on for too long or suddenly adding many more plants or fish.
Algae can now be simulated in a more interesting and natural way because algae growth is often attributed to having too much light in an aquarium that also has an abundance nutrients.
Fish like to rest at night so that allows us to add more behavioral variety to our fish. Most fish also like to spawn early in the morning at first light. This ties in nicely with the breeding features we are about to add.
Now that we are adding breeding features suddenly the concept of age has some importance and has a use. Fish will have lifespans and grow over time from fry to juvenile to an adult and hopefully die at an old age happy and contented with lots of babies. This also means that players will also be able to track the age of their entire aquarium.
Some fish are nocturnal and are more active at night. Some live so deep in the ocean that there is no sunlight. Yes we are going to add angler fish and other deep sea beasties but players will need an aquarium with very low light in order to keep them happy.
There are a lot of smaller features and interesting game tweaks that will happen as a result of adding a day and night cycle. It is not a particularly difficult feature to add but like every other feature it will start off pretty basic and we will build upon it over the months. The first version will most likely just be a bit of UI that shows the time of day, players have the option to turn the light off and on and there will be changes to fish and plant behaviour. The speed of each day will not be realtime of course. Our initial thoughts is that each day might be around 12 minutes. No doubt there will be lots of discussion and testing until we get it right.
Well this post is getting a little too wordy so more details on exactly how the day/night cycle will work will have to come at a later date and with more visual aids.
As usual we wish you all a very good weekend and thank you all for your continued support of our weird little aquarium game.
The Fishery Team