Skyfear News

Skyfear's August update brings a ton of fixes and changes to accommodate the new-player experience. The #1 priority after this update is getting bots into multiplayer.

But for now, the highlights include:

[h3]Spores & Lairworld[/h3]

• Earned Spores will now appear in the post game menu as icons
  
  
• Icons will now appear over Spores in the Lairworld, providing more context from far away
  
• Improved visual effects and readability of Spores and the egg element
  
  
• Added a Welcome Screen that explains Spores to new players
  
• 1 Spore will now be given to you upon starting a new save, so that the Lairworld has a working example for new players immediately
  
• Fixed an issue where Spore claim UI would dissapear if you didn't have enough Material but tried to claim it
  
• Added trees to spore vegetation spawns
  
• Spore vegetation now has more wind animation and color
  
• Spore vegetation spawn radius and population adjusted
  
  
• Lairworld spawns have all been moved towards the center cave area
  
• New players will now start with 2000 Material and a bit of starting XP, making their first battle or two a lot more lucrative and more likely to start seeing spores early.
  
• Spores will now be colored a bright silver if the spore contains a cosmetic, and brown/bronze if contains a title or emblem. This will be reflected on the Icon as well. This should allow players to make more informed decisions when traveling to new spores.
  

I'd seen a ton of data suggesting that the purpose of the Spores x Lairworld just wasn't clear enough without explaination, I am hoping that these new things help connect the dots better.

[h3]Quality / Improvements[/h3]

• Nametag fixes and behavior improvements; in most cases behavior should be improved, but I am aware of a few new (revived?) bugs
  
• Removed more leftover debug prints.
  
• Changed speed where firing bolts is prevented to 3005, up from 3000, to attempt to handle rare cases where speed vector is fluctuating.
  
• Added magic, perks, and ability unlock %s to career stats
  
• Fixed a few stats related issues
  
• Added more information regarding unlocks, loadouts, and spores in the Help menu
  
• Brought back music during battle
  
• Added more music tracks
  
• Battle intro music moved to play on Countdown, instead of first time you spawn in. Less overstimulating
  
• Removed multiplayer menu forcing a particular soundtrack to play; will now just continue playing whatever was playing
  
• Adjusted a lot of default settings, including music volume, camera position, camera shake & tilt (set to 50%)
  
• Lowered default AI difficulty
  
• Material pickups will now float towards you when you get near, making pickups both less clumsy and more satisfying
  
• Fixed an issue where audio mix defaults used by the reset button in Options was not equal to the actual defaults
  
• Adjusted unlocks delivery data, made some of the newer scales more rare
  
• Adjusted default friendly and enemy team color options to be the most visually distinct of the available options
  
• Letting go of zoom while sprinting now returns your FOV to the sprint FOV, running around during combat now feels much better
  
• Added Leaderboards to the Post Game menu
  

[h3]Features[/h3]

• You can now switch teams during battle, so you can manually re-balance teams if they need to
  
• Added spectator; you can now cycle through players or freecam, and play with the camera during battle
  

Read full commit log here.

[h3]Changes to Updates[/h3]
After delivering monthly updates since March of this year, I've come to the conclusion that
scheduled monthly updates may not be ideal for my development style, being a solo developer. I've decided to slow down, avoid crunch, and prioritize quality over quanity.

Currently I'm putting all attention on getting bots in multiplayer, because that's a significant factor in the game's long term heartbeat. But everything else on the roadmap is also on my mind. I also want to update the official website and get more marketing material put together. I will still be issuing patches or small updates to address bugs and immediate issues, but for the time being, the monthly cadence is being subsided. It was a good thing to try, it can be monthly again at some point, but right now I want to make sure I'm doing solid work and not rushing.

See full roadmap here.

Thank you for your patience, support, and thank you for playing - developer, telekrex

Links
FAQ YouTube Instagram Discord Reddit

[p]This month's update is focused on bug fixes and clean-up, so it's smaller than the last few. That said, there's some larger things that have progressed in the background that will come soon.[/p][p][/p][p]Here are some of the highlights that've been done since June:[/p]

• [p]Adjusted/improved position/scale of spine cosmetics[/p]
• [p]Adjusted/improved position of horn cosmetics[/p]
• [p]New option/feature: Input Feed on/off, on HUD - shows you a feed of what inputs are being pressed[/p]
• [p]Added some extra lighting around the player at all times[/p]
• [p]Fix an issue related to joining servers[/p]
• [p]Ability charge % added to the HUD under the same setting as Show MP/HP[/p]
• [p]New texture used for Grid environment[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where bots would sometimes not use the current sessions respawn timer value[/p]
• [p]Improved player class component loading[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where match feed would not display when bots spawn/respawn[/p]
• [p]Made the scoreboard slightly wider in-game[/p]
• [p]FOV interpolation slightly increased in speed overall, it just feels slightly better[/p]
• [p]Death Rune now emits actual environment light in addition to its glowing material[/p]

[p][/p]

• [p]Magpoint radius increased from 2500 to 3000[/p]
• [p]Magpoint movement timer changed from 30 seconds to 60 seconds[/p]
• [p]Magpoint movement speed will now ramp slightly slower or faster depending on how far away it has to move[/p]
• [p]Magpoint will now choose from available spots within 13000 units, instead of all possible spots, so at most it can only move half or less across the map[/p]
• [p]Cloaking now correctly hides player 'shadow' when activated[/p]
• [p]Various volume adjustments to some UI sound elements[/p]
• [p]Various fixes to environment sounds such as splashing water, waterfalls[/p]
• [p]Varius fixes and to suggested/generated servers and their settings[/p]
• [p]Added Pterosaurs page to How to Play[/p]
• [p]Fixed a typo in the How to Play menu[/p]
• [p]Added details about Spores light beam color to its How to Play page[/p]
• [p]Fixed Experimental branch save data issues - Will now use your Main save but as read-only[/p]
• [p]Fixed various Cloak issues[/p]
• [p]Melee now correctly deactivates cloak ability[/p]
• [p]Firing is disabled when above 3000 units/s speed[/p]
• [p]Fixed geyser accelleration + firing bolts producing an absurd force[/p]
• [p]Added a forced hard limit on movement to 7000 units (although being above 3000 is already unnatural)[/p]
• [p]Fixed rolling and meleeing making it possible to flip upside down[/p]
• [p]Fixed emblem color not applying to leaderboard listings[/p]

[p]See the full commit log here.[/p][p][/p][p]I would really like to continue working on stability, but there is also a handful of new things in the works, as you can see on the Roadmap. Several of these things I wanted done sooner, but I'm afraid I'm doing too many things at once, so I'll have to pick and choose and finish them one at a time over the next 2, 3, or 4 updates. If you would like to participate in discussion and influence development, consider joining the discord server.[/p][p][/p][p]See you on the Leaderboards!
- developer, telekrex[/p]

[p]This month's update expands the world of Skyfear:[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]The first new entry into the arena list brings a massive twisty pile-up of coral rock out from under a shallow ocean. This was one of roughly 13 new arenas that were half-made prior to launch. Any and all feedback on Castle is welcome, as that will greatly help me understand the aspects of Skyfear's environments that make battling fun, and help me decide which arenas to pursue next and what they'll need to have.[/p][p][/p][p]Want to see where you stack up against others in your region? Every hour, your stats are combined to calculate a skill score, and the list is posted in-game so you and your friends can see. This feature will be highly subject to change for now, as I expect it will raise questions and ideas for ways to improve it or features to tie into it. Feedback on this feature is extra welcome.[/p][p][/p][p]12 new cosmetics; 8 new scales, including a new kind of scales with shimmery effects, and 4 new spines. A lot more new cosmetics are in the works, coming in future updates.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

• [p]Server browser suggestions - the server browser will now generate game setup suggestions in the form of a server listing. Simply click to join and the game will automatically set up the hosting for you. This is intended to reduce friction getting into games, and intented to go hand-in-hand with bots in multiplayer, which is coming later.[/p]

• [p]Frost and Acid improved/buffed[/p]
• [p]Fixed some issues with Velocity perk[/p]
• [p]Made progress in the game's sound mixing, more to come[/p]
• [p]Store page got an update[/p]
• [p]Various tiny fixes[/p]

[p]See commit log for more (June Update collects everything between Build 264 and now, Build 269)[/p][p]LAN branch has also been updated to Build 269.[/p][p][/p][p]A couple weeks ago I did a poll in Discord asking what you are interested in for future updates, and here's the results:[/p][p] [/p][p]So, well, I'll adjust course accordingly. New magic types are in the works, but will need plenty of testing. Two big things also in the works are animation/dragon updates, and getting bots working in multiplayer. There's also quite a few bugs that need my attention. If you would like to participate in polls like this, please consider joining the Discord.[/p][p][/p][p]Hope everyone is having a safe summer, & hope you enjoy this update.[/p][p]See you in there![/p]

[p]Dev here, hope you all are having a good summer![/p][p][/p][h3]Upcoming June Update[/h3][p]Skyfear's June update will drop around the time of the Steam Summer Sale. Featuring a new battle arena, an all-new leaderboards feature, improved mutliplayer server browsing experience, lots of new cosmetics, and many tweaks and fixes. Here's a first look:[/p][p][/p][h3]Community Hangout[/h3][p]We'll be hosting our first Monthly Community Hangout on Friday, June 27th! From Noon to 4PM EST, join us on discord for playing multiplayer, having discussions, live streaming, and I'll be giving away free copies of the game![/p][p][/p][h3]Support & Following[/h3][p]If you've been enjoying Skyfear so far, please consider leaving a review! This helps a lot. Want to follow the discussion in more places? We also have a reddit and an instagram.[/p]