Dear swordsmiths,
Today we’re releasing the first Bladesong feature update since its Early Access launch! We have overhauled our camera controls and improved some common complaints around our commission logic.
Free the Camera!
Up to now, Bladesong’s camera has been locked to the blade. This works in simple cases, but falls apart if you’re e.g. working with wide guards or using creative techniques for more interesting blade shapes. With this update, the camera is finally free!
- Middle Mouse Button (hold): Pan the camera freely
- Middle Mouse Button (click): Pan the camera directly to the mouse cursor
We’ve also added an alternative control scheme for those who prefer:
- Alt + Right Mouse Button (hold): Pan the camera freely
- Alt + Right Mouse Button (click): Pan the camera directly to the mouse cursor
- Ctrl + Right Mouse Button (hold): Smooth zoom
This new camera makes shaping and decorating complex blades and guards much easier, and allows for more interesting camera flights and screenshots.
Better Commissions
Material style requirements are now much clearer, with a more direct relation between resource consumption and style points. For example, if a customer asks for five points of Gold style, you can now solve this commission with exactly 5× Gold. As a bonus, engravings with materials now contribute to style points, too.
A two gold, five silver commission being solved with just the right amount of resources.
Our Sharpness rating had its share of problems. It didn’t work well in some cases and honestly just wasn’t the right approach under the hood. For this update, we’ve completely replaced the formula with one that, in our eyes, works much better and now attributes proper sharpness to your blades, be they hollow-ground, single-edged or fullered.
A single-edged, fullered cross-section – definitely sharp, and now rated properly!
Coming Soon: Even Better Commissions
We wanted to get these improvements out quickly, but work on commissions isn’t over. We are aware that commission requirements at times clash with the customer dialogue. Our gameplay setups are currently under full review, and the dialogue-gameplay match will be improved over the next weeks. We’re also working on different ways to make the creative process more engaging and improve commission variety.
Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear how these updates work for you – please let us know in the comments or on the Bladesong Discord.
– David and the Bladesong team ⚔️
Full changelog:
- New: The camera can now be positioned freely with the middle mouse button.
- New: You can now pan the camera directly to a target position with a middle mouse click.
- New: Alternative camera input mapping: alt + right mouse for pan, ctrl + right mouse for zoom.
- New: Engravings with materials now cost resources and count towards style requirements (e.g. gold).
- Fix: Resource cost and material/pigment style requirements now have a direct relation.
- Fix: Wrap parts and engravings now contribute to book style requirements.
- Fix: Sharpness is now properly computed for hollow cross-sections, single-edged blades and fullered blades.
- Improvement: Rebalanced resource cost of sword parts.
- Improvement: Reduced maximum AP cost of commissions.
- Improvement: Objects can now get closer to the camera before being clipped.
- Improvement: Various audio tweaks and improvements.