Hey everyone, I hope you're doing well!
This past week ended up being very productive, focused on polishing and improving the game!
Here is the changelog:
-Massive in-game performance optimisations, with an average 40% FPS gain on the computers I tested the new build on!
-Huge additional FPS gains inside all menus, with an average 50% FPS gain on the computers I tested it on (on top of the previous improvements).
-Major upgrade to the save system to make it much more robust and resilient.
-Added a dynamic resolution slider in the Options menu to improve performance on GPU bottlenecked PCs.
-Added currently owned materials next to required materials in the crafting and build menus (in the 0/3 and 7/3 format).
-Added a horizontal HUD placement slider, allowing players with multi-screen setups and ultrawide monitors to move the left and right HUD elements closer to the middle of the screen.
-Improved the level design around the Sandlurkers, with analysable eggs that they are guarding and a more immersive description of the creatures.
-Fixed a visual glitch that happened when the player returned to the surface, where the underwater effect would remain for a few frames after leaving the water.
-Increased the spawn distance of most fish so they don't appear too close to the player.
-Improved the Shallow Waters level design with more large rocks surrounding the starting islands.
-Improved the exploration behavior of medium-sized peaceful sea creatures so they clip less through their environment.
-Made sure the Flowing Sands fog always appears when the player is in range.
-Reduced the performance impact of fog particle systems, like the one visible in the distance at the end of the demo.
-Improved the visuals of HUD elements like the bottom right notifications.
-Improved how water surfaces throughout the game are managed for better performance.
-Configured the Steam Cloud save feature.
-Added more sound effects throughout the game.
-Added better ambient audio tracks throughout the different game biomes.
-Prevented actions from starting if the player moves while holding the action key and then targets an interactable object, now requiring the key to be released first.
-Improved the Amberhelm fish behaviour and added many sound effects to its different states.
-Added safeguard code to make sure all standard fish stay underwater.
-Added all sea creatures to the creature database.
-Added another page to the creature database.
-Moved the axes and pickaxes crafting category to the top, as it felt like the most natural category to be focused on when opening the crafting menu.
-Improved the colliders of the Reef Wood trunks.
-All these changes are now live in the latest uploaded demo build (v0.8.30).
I still plan to start the Playtest very soon, most probably by the end of next week!
I'll update you on the start date and how to join the Playtest in the next weekly update :)