0.9 – The “Better life” update

Bigger updates

Before Steam release, we pushed one update every two weeks. It was a lot of pressure for our sole developer. We’ve decided to make only one update per month, and will be at least twice bigger! So 0.9 is the first of our big updates, we hope you will enjoy the improvements.

UI/UX improvements

The biggest work in this update was to improve user interface and user experience. Let’s be more specific.

Clever harvesting and recycling

Harvesting and recycling stuff on the map is way quicker. You don’t have to select the right tab anymore! Say you are on the crafting tab and you just lack one branch to complete an axe recipe, you can simply click on a sapling to obtain a branch, and then click on the craft button.

Intuitive building selection

Before this update, selecting a building requires to close the parchment. Not intuitive at all, I know… At the time I made that, it seemed pretty logical to me, and I needed players feedback to realise it was not a good design.

Anyway, now you just have to click on a building and its description will open. From there you can repair it, recycle it, or use its special abilities like fishing.

Storage in a separate window

Storage is not in the parchment anymore, but in a separate window. Food rationing slider now shows in this window when you select the Food category.

Simple objectives for starters

In replacement of the sorry excuse for a tutorial we had before, there are now a series of objectives that should guide new players in the first turns of their first game. We’ve studied the things new players were often missing and invited them to do it in the tutorial so they cannot miss it anymore.

Later we could add long-term objectives that will be like achievements for experienced players.

Other improvements

• A loading screen with a progress bar, displayed when you start a new game or load a save file.
• “In construction” and “damaged building” indicators always visible on the map.
• Waiting time for actions like crafting, fishing, working on a building have been drastically reduced (for crafting we went from 2 seconds to 0.15 second). So now this is nearly immediate so you don’t have to wait, and still this tiny delay gives feedback that makes you sure that the action was made.

Skills window

We asked players to vote for a feature (chosing between 3), and the winning one was a window showing information on skills evolution and unlocks.

Mine

This new building has to be placed next to an ore vein. It allows extracting large amounts of ore, which is essential when you start to produce metal tools. Using the mine is also quicker than breaking the boulders on the map.

Quarry

In the same idea, the quarry is an efficient and nearly endless source of stone, but requires to clear a large area to be built. Also, as you can see in the gif, this will alter terrain.

Localization

We’ve got translators working hard for us this month! The game is now available in three more languages: Portuguese, Russian and German. The Steam store page has also been translated.

I also worked on a tool that automatically finds missing translations, because I was always missing a few with each new update.

Minor changes

• Woodcutting and woodworking skills have been merged, as were mining and stoneworking.
• Cooking fish is now associated with the Survival skill. Villagers should now be able to learn Survival and Stoneworking skills (where before it was really hard to practice).
• When a villager is level 1 in a skill, practicing level 0 actions will make it progress twice less than practicing level 1 actions.
• Tree stumps are now removable with a pickaxe.
• Pressing Escape when a raft is coming to the island will instantly end the movement (so you don’t have to wait)
• Some buildings were showing material lines with a required quantity of zero. Those lines are now hidden.
• Removed “difficulty level” in save file previews

Bugfixes

I spent a few days on bugfixes. I wished I could have done more but we chose to focus on new features first. The interesting thing is that some of the UI/UX improvements fixed several bugs by just being implemented.

• Fixed bugs that occurred while loading a save (details are too technical to explain shortly)
• Bronze tools recipes now really produce bronze tools instead of rudimentary ones
• Screen resolutions higher than 1920×1200 are now selectable
• Fixed workshop requirement tooltip
• Fixed skill progress bar that was showing 100% before really reaching the next level (it happenned when the value was something like 99.7%, it was rounded to 100).
• Several minor UI adjustements