Hi everyone!

It’s been a while since my last update. Balancing a full-time job and coding a game is quite the challenge, and honestly, this version caught me off guard with how long it took. It was originally supposed to be just a minor patch with a few bugfixes. However, I ended up implementing several features that took way more time than expected – I’ve poured 128.5 hours into this version alone! Because of that, there isn’t a ton of new playable content this time around. It’s mostly bugfixes, the mythical new outline system (a big visual upgrade!), along with a few neat features and QoL improvements. Let’s run through the main changes.

As I mentioned earlier (and dedicated a post to), around 45 to 50 hours have been spent trying to finally implement a custom outline solution for my game. In the end, there are still some minor bugs, but it kinda works, and I’m personally happy with the result. Outlines can be based on mesh or material color, and they can become transparent, larger, smaller, or enabled per-object, etc.

The second largest feature is the “lift and move” skill set! Now almost every placeable object (except for the campfire and placed torches) can be moved via physics interactions. Be careful, though: if you flip objects upside down, you cannot use them! If you flip a crafting table or a crate, you need to flip it back upright before using it. This skill set lets you lift up objects to do exactly that.

On top of that, almost every placeable object now has a health bar and can be fixed using the new repair kit. And no, you can’t just build a wall of crates to shield yourself anymore! If you try, Goners will actually start attacking and breaking through them. I’ve improved the AI to handle this, which also lays the groundwork for the next major update.

Aside from that, there isn’t a massive amount of new content. However, you’ll notice new damage popups, a red screen vignette when taking damage, an auto-equip feature (Left Alt + Click), and plenty of QoL improvements. You can find all of these, along with the bugfixes, in the full changelog below. I spent a lot of time refactoring many systems, so it will be way faster to add new content.

Don’t forget: this is the final patch before the first major gameplay update! The next update will introduce new enemies, a dodge-roll skill, varied enemy attack patterns, chests guarded by enemies, and a lot of other exciting features that will finally make the game worthy of its name. Stay tuned, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out on Discord!

P.S. I’ve also updated the thumbnail for Itch.io! I really like how the new outlines look in it, and I hope it’s a nice step up from the old one. Just keep in mind that it’s still a placeholder until I can afford to commission a real artist. And before anyone asks: no, it’s not AI! It’s just a screenshot of an in-game scene with objects placed directly in front of a pixel-art camera.

Changelogs:
[Huge thanks to Hussamisen for the useful advice on features and for discovering many bugs!]

[ADDED]

• Outlines! Now almost every object has an outline that makes it easier to spot. If you don’t like it, you can disable or tweak it in the options menu.
• Auto-Equip is here! You can now just hold Left Alt and click an item to instantly equip it into the correct slot. No more dragging around!
• Added a red damage vignette overlay. You’ll now get a clear visual warning when taking damage, drowning, burning, or starving.
• Numbers go up! Added popup damage numbers so you can actually see the damage you’re dealing and receiving in combat.
• Added health to almost every object in the game
• Added a repair kit.
• When holding a repair kit, objects will now show a health bar so you know exactly how damaged they are.
• The game now signals when it needs to be updated!
• Added a developer console (enable it in the options) packed with commands if you want to mess around or test things.
• Brand new custom in-game cursor!
• The game now automatically fetches changelogs and update info directly from our servers.
• Added some nice audio feedback for dropping, dragging, releasing, and shift-clicking items.
• Added many other sound effects (e.g. tools breaking)
• Placeable objects can now magically align themselves with the slope of the terrain.
• More graphics options! You can now cap your FPS, choose your graphics API (DX11/12/Vulkan), and swap between windowed or fullscreen modes.
• New skills to lift up objects and move them around!
• The map can now be rotated according to the player’s orientation

[CHANGED]

• Goners can no longer attack other goners (sorry, it was too cheesy)
• Completely refactored the save system behind the scenes. It’s now much safer and prevents issues with missing or overwritten variables. It’s also way easier to add new saveable items.
• Refactored all items. Also easier to add new items and change their type or properties.
• Now the game saves while sleeping.
• Save files are now safely stored in your OS permanent directory (like AppData). This means you won’t lose your worlds when updating the game to a new version!
• Running is now less exhausting: it drains 3 stamina per second instead of 5, and jumping costs 10 instead of 15.
• Goners (enemies) got smarter. If you block their path or if they can’t reach you easily, they will now start attacking and destroying the objects in their way.
• Increased the Goner spawn chance from 10 to 16. Watch your back.
• Increased Hemp spawn by 50%.
• Adding a waypoint now places the waypoint by default on the player’s position – unless it’s moved with the mouse.
• Instantly updating navmesh when placing or moving an object.
• Your walk and run animation speeds now actually scale dynamically with your speed skill level.
• Changelogs (yeah – like this one) are fetched from a server so I can easily modify them if I forget something.
• Changed how levels are calculated for a smoother transition per level.
• Rebalanced all swords and tools. Generally buffed them, especially their broken states.
• You can now eat food directly from external inventories, like chests.
• If you accidentally release an item while hovering over the UI, it won’t drop on the ground anymore. It just snaps back to its slot.
• Reduced the player’s collider width from 0.25 to 0.2 to help you squeeze through tighter spots.
• Clicking on a crafting station now automatically opens your inventory with the correct station tab already selected.
• Upgraded the engine to Unity 6000.3.0f1 LTS for better performance and stability.
• Fallen stations can’t be used anymore until they’re placed upright

[FIXED]

• I have no clue when but additional lights didn’t show shadows anymore. Looking at older videos, this bug happened at least on ver v0.0.2, so nobody ever played a version with the additional lights shadows. I haveno idea how I didn’t notice before; it was literally a single line of code to be fixed.
• The player icon on the minimap now points in the correct direction when auto-rotate is active.
• Gathered dropped items will now automatically go into already existing stacks if there are any, saving space.
• Fixed white squares spawning for the first frame in crate slots when opening them.
• Fixed a bug where jumping into hemp would block the player in the landing animation.
• Removed dropped items from step detection sound (it would cause the system to play different sounds when walking around dropped items)
• Fixed particles not spawning when the player spawned and landed
• Fixed that annoying bug where you couldn’t drag an object if its UI suddenly closed.
• Fixed overlapping and interference issues when multiple different crafting stations were nearby.
• Fixed things breaking if you destroyed a Forge of Souls or a repair station while you had its panel open.
• Fixed object scale saving incorrectly (it was copying the X-axis for everything).
• Fixed the inability to move an item into a filtered slot even when it was a perfectly valid move.
• Fixed drag-and-drop acting weird from extra inventories.
• Fixed Elise’s mask turning completely white after the engine update.
• Fixed the Soul of Wood looking a bit too orange.
• Fixed a bug where you could create a new save with an already used name and just load that save.
• Dropped berries don’t spin in a massive, weird circle anymore.
• Removed the random “(1)” that showed up in the inspect text of some dropped items.
• The ground detection logic now properly ignores trigger colliders.
• Dead Goners finally have their hitboxes disabled, so their invisible corpses won’t block your path anymore.
• Fixed a bug where you would always get the exact same amount of experience (level 1 values) regardless of what you were fighting.
• The hammer actually uses its attack speed now.
• Typing “WASD” or “QE” while naming a map waypoint no longer moves your character in the background.
• Removed that random equip/unequip sound that played every time you loaded a save.
• Dropped items and triggers no longer cause incorrect footstep sounds when you walk over them.
• Removed the blinding white flash that happened the first time you opened an inventory UI.
• Simple storage objects no longer drop all their items twice when destroyed.
• Fixed many tools completing their action twice when they broke
• The repair station panel no longer stays magically open on your screen when you walk far away.
• Fixed a NullReference crash in the entity particle manager when entities were destroyed.
• Fixed some dragging issues with placeable object placeholders.
• Normalized Goner audio volumes so they aren’t deafening or too quiet.
• Normalized many sounds.
• Preloaded many sounds so the game doesn’t randomly lag when they’re played for the first time in a session.
• Goners no longer use the “goner” navmesh agent, which fixes some of their pathfinding bugs.
• Player and enemy blood particles actually play again! And particles last longer, no more blood on the ground.
• Goners don’t always sound like they’re walking on rock anymore.
• Fixed a weird edge case where the player could get stuck floating in the air.
• Placed torches work properly again.
• Tools actually function when broken (the fix for the double-hit bug accidentally broke them).
• Hit particles are back! They were missing on several objects.
• Fixed hit particle colors being completely wrong on most objects.
• Tool durability no longer consumes twice right before the tool breaks.
• The pickaxe holding animation now starts the moment you equip it.
• Fixed falling through the ground if you attacked immediately after shielding with a sword.
• Map chunks no longer drag in the opposite direction when moving the minimap with auto-rotate enabled.