Roguefort Playtest · published
Roguefort Playtest - 0.14.0
Hey everyone,
First of all, thanks as always for the extraordinary amount of bug reports, suggestions, and discussions over the last few days. I've been working around the clock to get to it all, but it's all thanks to you.
The numbers are kinda nuts - 77 of the bug report and suggestion threads are now implemented. There were 66 bug and 11 suggestions in total that I got to this build. I think this is probably a record. Special mention to RubberyChicken who (I am not kidding) submitted nearly HALF the bug reports and suggestions in this build :-)
I'm not sure who or how many people read these patch notes, but I'll give the tl;dr headline changes here, then below the jump is the dot point detailed notes per category. I've also credited everyone as much as possible so we know who posted what and what was done to fix/address it - please see the detailed info below for more. If I missed anything please let me know - I try my best! Please also note that what I'm writing here is me (Tim) talking, and what is below my sign-off is summarised dot point changelog notes with the help of AI (Claude), which is derived from the git commit messages. Just full disclosure so you know what's 100% me and what's assisted by AI.
Co-op gets a huge amount of work in this build. Quite a few things were broken or a bit janky but should be fixed now. That said, AJ and I tested the co-op and somehow some other stuff seems to have regressed (especially building). So, another big round of work on this next week... sorry about that. But for now, it will probably be, on balance, much better than before for co-op play.
Exploration and world generation gets a big amount of changes and additions too. Deep forests are now traversable with game trails and paths and glades carved into them and there's stuff to find in the clearings (thanks SamV!), so it's worth exploring in and of itself. Sailing now tracks/charts the ocean as you explore (before it left it just dark). The gold economy had a big balance pass too - you'll see that wealth tapers off later in the game, DoT kills finally pay out like direct kills, and a lot more.
The Steam Deck got a massive polish and QoL pass as well, thanks to some great discussions and suggestions and reports. I hope it plays better and I can't wait to sit down on the couch myself and give it a proper whirl.
A huge amount of QoL and polish passes and fixes for the UI and the UX. Hopefully the game feels more accessible and legible and more "intuitive" during play. This includes stuff like auto-wait during fishing, visual UI feedback when enemies attack you so people can track what's causing damage etc, cheese presses using mats from nearby storage, auto-explore not walking like a drunken sailor for no reason. Heaps of stuff - all of it is detailed below for those interested.
There were also notably a big number of changes - including early stages of redesigning - of the spells and perks. This is in large part thanks to NalathniDragon - thanks so much for all the reports and robust discussions. BTW there's a lot more to come - I only scratched the surface here on this build.
I'll sign off here and I hope you enjoy 0.14.0! Happy weekend everyone.
Tim
**Co-op**
* Fixed "A processing error occurred" on every turn of a three player game. Three
per-slot arrays were still sized for two players, so the second half of every
turn was dropped. The cost side of an action stuck and the remedy side did not,
which is what left townsfolk dying of thirst and made some animals impossible
to kill.
* A joiner now sees the party's buildings. The host's world modifications crossed
the wire and were thrown away, so a joiner was blocked by walls that were not
drawn. This also holds across a save, quit and resume.
* A joiner can trade with settlement vendors again. The creature snapshot dropped
the field that says a creature can trade, so the joiner could never open a
vendor.
* NPCs no longer introduce themselves as "undefined" to a joiner. Their post and
home town were dropped from the snapshot.
* A joiner's stealth meter no longer treats every creature in the world as
five-tile-sighted. Creature senses were dropped from the snapshot.
* Townspeople are asleep at home and NPCs have somewhere to work on a joiner's
machine. Their building anchor was dropped from the snapshot.
* A joiner no longer swings at their own summoned minion, and enemy telegraphs
appear again.
* Co-op partners animate. They were standing frozen and teleporting a tile at a
time in 2.5D and first person, and in 2D their movement was suppressed
outright and their strike carried a position instead of an identity.
* A sleeping partner now looks asleep to everyone. The prone pose read the local
machine's own rest mode.
* A joiner gets their own hunger and thirst warnings. They were printing on the
host's banner instead.
* A joiner is congratulated on their own level-up. The fanfare was being raised
after the game had let go of who was acting.
* A joiner offered a spell-mastery upgrade now gets the modal to choose in. The
choice was also pinning the host behind a blocking window.
* A joiner drowning or dying in lava no longer downs the host instead.
* A joiner can fish. The wait that brings the bite never left their machine, and
one of two lines owed to them in the same turn could vanish.
* Mining no longer parks a joiner on top of the rock. Tile health was never
synced, so the two machines disagreed about which swing was the last one.
* Manna recovers for a resting joiner. The rest tick was paid to whoever was
acting, and sleeping has no acting player.
* A joiner's build menu reads the right materials. Two of the three spendable
container stores never crossed the wire, and a typed-wood build was gated on
the wrong player's pack.
* Co-op modals no longer open for the wrong player, or over and over.
* You can resume an existing world in co-op. "Play with friends" lists the worlds
you already have, not just a fresh one.
* The host has an always-reachable invite code. Pause then Co-op now shows the
Steam lobby code as well as the relay code.
**Gold, trade and the economy**
* Kills from damage over time pay tapered gold the same way direct kills do, and
wage back-billing is clamped.
* Wealth taper and the Homestead Ledger are surfaced in the HUD and the hints.
* A geode's gold reward pays out. It was credited to a field nothing in the game
reads.
* Buying one war-cheese recipe no longer re-rolls the other recipes still on the
shelf.
* A full-pack purchase in The Old Mouth no longer voids the goods, and any
purchase that cannot fit now asks first.
* Community chest and auction listings accept rare-and-above items.
* Vendors carry stock that matches their overworld biome, which makes the dune
strider and highland yak reachable.
* Bridge goods added: moor pony, post courser, barded charger, ship of the line.
* Taking back something you put in someone else's shelf is no longer stealing.
* A picked meadow flower no longer reads as stolen. Local produce was hung on the
stolen tag and inherited the accusation with it.
**World and exploration**
* Game trails and glades are carved through deep forest. The density stays, but
it is passable again, and the clearings have something in them.
* Sailing charts the sea it crosses. The map opened from the deck, but the voyage
was still black.
* Boarding a ship no longer despawns every nearby enemy.
* Ship damage reaches the combat log instead of existing only as floating text.
* The open sea is described and populated as sea rather than as land.
* Cheese caves are no longer sampled into the open ocean as one-square
"islands". 241 of them were.
* A cave boss that burrows now comes back. It was being deleted for standing in
rock.
* The market square no longer holds a single blob of NPCs. The city's open-air
venues were single points rather than areas.
* Signposts are no longer sealed inside fence rings.
* The market stone is out of the alley it was corking, and out of the smithy it
was standing in.
* Notice boards and the town furniture you actually bump into no longer plug a
one-tile alley, and a piece with nowhere to go now searches the whole plan for
reachable ground.
* A base built in swamp or bog keeps its pond, and enemies stop phasing through
its walls.
* Rumoured locations show their real names instead of debug ids, including in old
saves.
* Map rumour markers are pins the player can actually see.
* The minimap no longer names locations the world map has never heard of. The
dots were queried at six times the discovery radius.
* Cobwebs burn.
* The village gets up at dawn, on the light curve rather than the day boundary.
**Quests, NPCs and creatures**
* A dungeon whose last floor had no boss, and whose clear-quest could therefore
never be turned in, is fixed. The generator's spawn blacklist and the runtime's
walkable whitelist were different lists.
* A boss killed in an earlier session still reads as BOSS SLAIN. The record was
session-scoped.
* Quests that came back blank are repaired, and so is the Completed tab.
* A quest offer no longer blinks out when you step into a doorway. The errand was
being searched for around the player.
* One Enter no longer answers two stacked overlays, so a quest offer underneath
the level-up modal cannot accept itself.
* The Crystal Monument no longer flees, wears a villager's body, or offers two
Talk rows. It was flagged as a townsperson.
* Death in The Old Mouth respawns you somewhere. The list of scenes the respawn
path unwinds went stale when the social hub shipped, and there is a rescue for
saves already in that state.
* The covered market stops crying trespass after dark, and sneak stops latching
on in The Old Mouth.
* The priest performs the curse-lifting service the herbwife has been promising.
* Cursed gear explains itself, naming the Purging Rind rather than just refusing.
* Named NPC killers take no article in the death message, so it reads "Les the
Guard" rather than "a Les".
* The wake-up line no longer names an enemy you cannot see.
* An attention cue appears on the creature that interrupted your movement or
started combat.
* Summons time out while you are on another floor.
* Pets on Stay stop teleporting to you and flickering.
* Cages holding a pet look different from empty ones.
* A looted dungeon shelf no longer refills with the same books every time you
re-enter.
**Perks, spells and the character sheet**
* Lingering mastery zones use the spell's own footprint instead of a hardcoded
radius.
* Avalanche Wheel with the Twin Lance upgrade no longer kills through a solid
wall. It picked its target by distance alone and never walked the tiles
between.
* Rind Wall keeps its size and stops leaking on diagonal aims. The footprint was
measured in Euclidean units rather than tiles.
* Perk cards stop quantifying stats that are simple on-or-off gates, such as
Creature Ping.
* Perk cards name the right facet of the perk. Tags were authored by hand from
the unlock activity rather than read off what the perk pays out.
* On-wait charge perks pay out while fishing. The wait key burns a turn on three
paths and only one of them fired the trigger.
* "+1 manna on kill" no longer promises a payout that deer never make.
* Grand Affineur's Ward stops claiming a radius bonus from Concussive Craft that
it does not get.
* Smoked Gouda Fog's tooltip no longer hand-writes a duration the shape does not
own.
* Curd Golem and Rind Shard have their own spell icons rather than sharing their
family glyph's creature sprite.
* The QUIET stat now actually quiets you. It only ever scaled the armour
surcharge, so on the builds that wear it the arithmetic cancelled out to
nothing.
* Marsh-Step's description is corrected: it gates weather and deep-snow slows,
not mud.
* The Status menu says what each status does, not just the twelve that draw a HUD
chip.
* The stat glossary extends to equipment.
**Interface and controls**
* Steam Deck controller pass: an L2 chord layer, an aim mode, world-map zoom, and
parity between build and cast.
* Tooltips are drawn in the game's own style rather than as OS tooltips, and they
dismiss when their subject is gone.
* The Affinage Arts menu scrolls on a Deck, and a scroll drag no longer dismisses
the panel.
* The Spell Belt no longer locks a full satchel out of the wheel, and sibling
panels with the same overflow problem are capped and scrolled too.
* Auto-belt fills the first slot you see as empty.
* The quest-log scrollbar can be dragged.
* The HUD stops colliding with itself and the minimap at large font sizes.
* Map-anchored markers no longer paint over the HUD panels that hide them.
* The hover name card sits next to the thing it names in 2.5D.
* A Detailed combat log option keeps the combat popups in the message log.
* The killing blow says how hard it landed, in the same words as an ordinary hit.
* Wheeling over the message log scrolls it instead of zooming the world.
* Zoom no longer writes a "View zoom N%" line to the message log.
* The drink shortcut falls through to the next water container instead of
stopping at an empty one.
* The eat shortcut falls through to food in your pack instead of being a dead
key.
* Auto-travel runs straight down a straight road instead of veering.
* The world map opens from your own deck.
* The wind readout shows a dash for a wind that cannot move you, rather than an
arrow.
* Death sites say how long your gear will wait for you.
* A player name using Unicode bidi overrides can no longer scramble the UI around
it.
**Crafting, items and art**
* The cheese press pulls from nearby storage like other crafting stations, and
the drying rack, the last pack-only station, pulls fresh grass the same way.
* The Driftwood Raft is a turn-1 craft.
* A treasure map no longer vanishes from your pack after the log said it went in.
Every map shared one stack key, so a second map merged onto the first and
destroyed its cache.
* The item named "undefined" in cheese caves is a real item.
* A dropped item reads the same rarity colour on the ground as in the pack.
* A named berry bush forages as its own species when bumped.
* Cave mushrooms named as a specific species pay out that species.
* Wild Thyme draws as thyme rather than three red flowers.
* Two forageables no longer draw on one tile, and four remaining paths that could
stack flora are closed.
* The Affineur's Nose is filed with the cheese recipes rather than the armour
ones.
* The equipped sling is painted art rather than a bow.
* Harvesting a tree narrates itself once instead of three times.
* Fishing skill levels out loud, and where you fish decides what it teaches.
* Auto-wait while fishing waits for the bite and breaks on danger or low vitals.
* Caged pets render.
* An authoring side-note that had been pasted into a lore book is removed.
* A peaceful cheese cave no longer plays combat music on entry.
* The "+#" that floated up after building a wall named the tile character rather
than the thing you built.
* Market-hub floor items survive a save taken inside the hub.
**Other**
* The game process no longer survives Save and Quit, which was inflating Steam
playtime. Closing the window now quits.
* Releasing a companion no longer opens an OS dialog and drops you out of
fullscreen.
* Led-cow trough feeding is covered end to end.