Hi everyone! This has been a pretty crazy and amazing month for the game!
We are now officially at 12K wishlists! HUGE thank you to everybody. And thank you for the older wishlists for sticking with me - I want to take my time making sure the game is going to be solid for a 1.0 launch, especially for my first game.
The youtube cinematic was amazing for us this month, our discord rapidly grew which helped get it to a solid amount of people playing the beta, which really helps me with feedback and making sure we are 'finding the fun'
After all the new attention for the game, in the end I'll just keep doing what I was doing - Work on the darn game and show progress - I don't like promising or talking about things I haven't prototyped or have working yet
Time based fish is now possible, so we can have night-time or morning-time based fish. It's nice to have as a option now
The catching system has been overhauled, you won't notice this but it was HUGE to make progress on this for my side. It's a lot easier to add fish to areas, and putting them into a catch-rate category
This is going to be a beefy alpha that will take a while, there is still a lot of mechanics and ideas to help make the fishing experience more exciting and fun, as well as adding more to the biomes
I will make a new youtube video soon to showcase all the new stuff I've been doing the last 2 months, between all the new town progress and the biome work happening
You'll now find little mounds of dirt near bodies of water that can give you 1-2 bait for the region
It seems to be doing really well and people are enjoying it! We'll keep finding ways to reward exploration and interaction with the biomes
Also added a message to pop up to tell you how much bait you've gained
The bubbles mechanic seems popular! It increases biterate by 3X
They appear and disappear in different biomes and bodies of water
In the future I might need to add a 'maximum amount of times hit' so that they disappear after you've hit them after so many times for balance
I've been doing some more fine-tuning to the fishing rod experience to make it less janky
Lure no longer slides around on water, it stays where it lands
Nice little splash animations happen while your reeling, and it bobs up/down while in water
Made it so while a fish is biting, you can't accidentally hit cancel anymore, playtesters on the discord mentioned wanting this QOL
This will be a never ending battle, we'll keep chipping away at making it feel better
Eel - Very rare, only catchable at night-time
Mullet - Common
Luthrainian Shad, a twist to the american shad
Poison Piranha - You don't want to catch these in parliament... not very valueable
Gold Shiner - Name is deceptive, they're quite common and cheap
Bullhead - Uncommon
Sardine - Super common for ocean
Poison Sardine - Yuck
Parliament is almost wrapped up! I am doing some final touches this weekend and then I will begin planning the fourth biome
I need a few more fish created to add a bit better balance for some of the new fishing spots here
This was a difficult biome to complete, it is the first time introducing the 'Xeno' creatures that the ancients were battling. This was always part of the vision and story, but I struggle with character art and took me a while to figure out their look. I'll be doing a pass to add them to the ocean biome later
Bit of a sneak peak to the other 'ancients' during the war