Development Digest

Hey everyone!

I started a new thing last week on our Discord server (https://www.discord.gg/kindredgames) where every Friday I post mini patch notes of what the team did for the week. I'll start posting them here as well as weekly dev blogs! So the below is two and a half weeks of updates. See you all next Friday!

Working on:

New spider cave level for farmlands
Terrain and foliage work around spider cave
WIP camera system to help prevent unnecessary camera clipping
Full nav mesh rebuild
NPC creator
NPC task system
Interior work in Sleepy Haven
Terrain cleanup in Sleepy Haven
Azura guard questline rework
Tiered farm area
Started setting up for splash potions
More detailing in the spider cave
NPC enemy detection
UI Management
Teek's & Sandy’s guard questline
Refactoring in-game chat
Faction modifications
NPC combat AI
Started looking at dialog to change hairstyle
Achievement ID for Steam Achievements

New:

Quest for Diana and Bukk in the Farmlands
“Iron nails” item - added for a quest, but may be used for crafting later
Spider cave props
Car wheels item
Spiderweb ladder
Smashable pots and crates
Added a bunch of destructibles throughout Azura Island
The Shrubrian
Created a river spline tool
Swimmable river alongside Sleepy Haven through the Farmlands
Updated the cave spline tool to be more versatile
Created new “muddy water” material for swimmable water
Added swimmable mud to the gulch above Sleepy Haven
Ponds and rivers now have splashy footsteps as you run through them
Human-size spider cocoon with animation
Added a plant to foliage brushes for farmlands use
Farmlands gems
Farmlands ore
Cotton field
Full NPC task list
NPC detection buildup based on distance/visibility for more forgiving aggro
Grant reputation dialogue event for NPC’s
An item for Carla's Note so the player can pick it up into their inventory
2 new harvestable herbs
A couple new materials
All inns in Tirawyn have sleepable and rentable beds now
Created a new NPC for the tavern in Sleepy Haven
Added all of Soupy's outfits in
Added Kip to the LT NPC and set his ID in-game

Improved:

Huge project clean up: tidied files into the appropriate folders and removed outdated and unneeded items in the project. This was a big job, but it’ll save us a lot of time down the road.
Fixed visual bug with in-editor items
Brand new sky textures
New sky colors throughout day/night cycle
Adjusted day/night durations slightly
Updated mining nodes to new cracked version so you can tell what you're mining
Updated mining drops for the new mining balance plans
Opal material
NPC combat movement
NPC customization options
More responsive NPC task finding
Made it easier for players to start the quest if they didn't take it the first time they spoke to Bukk
Stolen Toy quest (from guard questline) improved to match new update including parts of the quest, people involved, and dialog to match
Azura waterfall now uses transparency so you can see easier when swimming through it
Added some polish to Sleepy Haven
Updated all the mushroom models
Adjusted spider web color to match better
Shaped the ocean to match the mainland and islands
Updated bushes from spring versions
Did some terrain cleanup in Farmlands

Fixed:

Pressing esc while inventory is open will now close inventory before opening the pause menu
Typo in the journal in the ice cave
Palm leaf is now named "Stinky Leaf". Item description changed to represent this
Hitting tab while reading a note from inside your inventory will now close the note, rather than closing the inventory but leaving the note open
Cursor not recognized error during packaging
Quest world item material
Loading screen display image
Rats now de-aggro - no longer will they follow you to the ends of the earth
Updated bone collision
Fixed a bunch of mesh materials
Replaced a bunch of crate materials
Martin no longer incorrectly tells players to go to the construction yard for work if they've completed Dave's Hammer quest
Plant multiplayer replication improvements
Refactored Inventory open/close logic
Can no longer advance in the quest without having the required items
BP_HUD now tracks UI state. You can swap between map, inv, and journal as before, but pressing escape while any of those are open will just close them. You also can no longer open any of those menus while the game is paused
Fixed bug where menus (inv, journal, map) would still toggle while typing in the journal search bar
"Hand over the supplies" dialog option changed to "Here are the supplies." to remove confusion about the dialog being an action instead of what the player says
Made Maggie's directions to the cellar more clear
Basalt no longer takes an additional 20 wood from the player when turning in his quest
Harvesting herbs and plants no longer drops it on the ground first
Fixed some duplicate meshes in Sleepy Haven
Moved incorrectly placed foliage back to the terrain level
Added item ID's to Azura Mushrooms with the new harvest mechanic
No fences should be floating now
Cleaned up the merged stone fence (removed about 1000 draw calls from it)
Fixed the materials on the golden farm house
Fixed some dialog issues with old innkeepers
Dryad no longer grow hair when putting on hats
Resource nodes now drop items again
Resource nodes now don’t let things fall through the ground
Added stone physics mat to terrain
Scaled the Moonberry Farms sign to fit mounted players
Fixed collisions on some thorn assets
Garden signs no longer require farming levels to place
Ghosts cannot be interacted with unless the proper conditions are met
Fixed various ladders
Yenna remembers you now
Fixed a floating post in Rashackle
Removed an underwater river in the new farmlands river