This is update 1.2.0 and we have been at work on some things, kinda, well sort of, definitely not busy playing Zelda.

Particle Effects Galore To kick things off with this update we have added/extended a wide number of particle effects in the game, including but not limited to: a player trail (visible both in-game and on the map), extended walking effects, replaced wind effects, new breathing effects when it's cold out, semi-random whirlpools to the water, new water splashes, and last but not least a variety of uncommon insects.
Time And Weather Extension More times of day have been added for further variation and time of day colors have been made more consistent. Wind effects have also been changed so that the player is "pushed around" by wind a bit more. To accompany weather, seasons, and times of day we also added a basic temperature system to monitor how hot/cold the player currently is. A bit of a sidestep to the normal weather mechanics, we have also added a gravity changing mechanics where some islands will have more or less gravity, while this is not the largest addition it should help to make certain islands feel different. To better monitor these changes and more we also added new UI components to show the weather/time of day/gravity level.
Vegetation Extension We have also added several new smaller vegetation models with different levels of rarity, coming up to doubling the total amount of vegetation. We have also added new sound effects for some that were missing, recolored trees for autumn/winter seasons, and re-scaled all vegetation to be a bit more "normal" sized compared to the player. Different tree types now have different drops when interacted with and can randomly drop items when being approached from a distance.
Player Movement Changes Some changes to the player have also been made, and while not as large of a change as the others, they are still worth note. The player has been made overall weightier and slightly slower. The player options under the gameplay section have also been removed as a couple of them were pretty pointless and the others were reworked into new gameplay mechanics. Player height is now a camera option to adjust camera height, and player jump height is now a "hold the jump button down" gimmick where the longer it is held the higher the player jumps.
Miscellaneous Finally we have arrived to the miscellaneous section with, as always, a range of oddities. With this update we have added some basic fire mechanics, allowing the player to light found fire-pits, as well as allowing them to turn sticks into small fire-pits of their own. The new fire system also plays into the new temperature mechanic as when the player is near them they will warm up over time. The map has also received some love here with being made much cleaner and the larger map actually being larger and showing more to the player. The map clouds have been reworked as a part of the particle effects overhaul and new semi-permanent clouds will stay on the map even after the player have discovered that area. We know it's been a few months since the last update, but we got caught up updating one of our other games (Slave RPG) and then caught up playing some hit new releases, so whoops. But of course we would like to thank everyone for the support as always, take care, and see you next time!

[ 2023-07-02 21:56:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is update 1.1.0 and we have added/changed some pretty large things since launch.

Several New Shop Items To kick things off for our first major update, we have expanded the in-game shop with four new items to purchase. These items range from cosmetic additions for the dog, to new modes of travel, to upgrades for the fishing mini-game. We hope these new additions add some extra variety to exploring the isles.
Added Anomalies Speaking of more variety, we have also added several anomalies that can be randomly found when exploring. These anomalies will spawn roughly around points of interest or animals and can have a variety of different effects when approached. In addition, these anomalies will become more persistent the further the story has progressed, just like some already existing secrets.
Expanded Fishing Mini-Game We have also added to and changed some aspects about the fishing mini-game in this update. It still is pretty bare-bones in terms of how it is played, but there are now different types of fish that can be caught, and each type of fish has different requirements depending on the current season/weather. Along with the previously mentioned new shop upgrades with a larger tackle box for more bait, and an upgraded fishing pole for easier catching and quicker hook times.
Reworked Exploration A pretty large change we are bringing into this update is to make exploring the islands a little more involved. The map has had a reworking, a few smaller aspects about its design have been changed, but it also now comes in two different sizes that can be switched between rather than magically zooming in/out. The compass also now only shows POI when they are relatively close, but after being discovered they will remain on the compass from further away. The big offset to the compass being effectively nerfed is the addition of a new meter to the right hand side of the compass. If you have ever played Far Cry 2 before, you may remember hunting down blood diamonds with a meter that flashed the closer you got to them and stayed on if looking directly at them. This new meter works in a similar way, but only stays on when looking vaguely at a POI.
Miscellaneous A new other noteworthy things to wrap this update up: we have added five new POI to find while exploring, added new physical markers to the main menu to display story progression, and have touched up on a few smaller corrupted/magical island variation components. We would like to thank everyone for our launch a little over a month ago and hope you all have a great day!

[ 2023-03-28 22:21:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is update 1.0.0 and we have added quite a few things since the last update.

Added The Story In Full With the past few updates we have been adding support for the story content and with this update all of it is finally implemented. The story is not necessary to go through by any means but can be found along-side randomly exploring islands. In addition to the notes that can be found, there is an additional post-story unlock for completing everything.
Added Oddities To expand on the hand-made content a bit in this randomly generated game, we have added new Points Of Interest that are unmarked on the map and much more rare than standard points. There are only a few different types of these for the time being, but they should provide a bit of variety while exploring and taking photos.
Added New Points Of Interest In addition to adding oddities, we have also expanded on the amount of marked Points Of Interest. There are 6 new POI to find, making for a total of 16, with most of them having some level of variation.
Added A Camera Borders Option We have also added a new camera option with camera borders. This new option adds various UI elements while taking a photo to better frame them.
Expanded On Teo's AI This update also expands upon Teo as a companion while traveling island to island. The dog can now react to photos taken of him, the petting mechanic has been changed a bit, he can now randomly pee, and can randomly bark.
Updates Recap We also wanted to go back through a few of our last updates leading to release and highlight some of the previous larger changes since the last public release. Previously visited islands are now tracked, there is a new seasons system that changes the appearance of islands, added a simple fishing mini-game, replaced old vegetation and expanded on it, added a shop system, added more overall camera options, added more animal types to discover. We would like to thank everyone for following us and we hope you enjoy our game!

[ 2023-02-25 00:18:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

This one is more of a technical update than anything else, but we still had some additions and changes to show off!

Previously Visited Islands Are Now Tracked To kick things off this time, all islands that the player visits are now tracked. When a player re-visits an old island the map information, POI, and animal discoveries will be automatically filled out for them. This does not apply to custom created islands, but we thought it would be a neat mechanic and helps encourage people to visit new islands instead of farming old ones for money or stat improvements.
Added Achievements Coming up on release there are a few key things we needed to include and achievements were one of them. There are a total of 20 to be had and they can all be tracked in the journal.
Added Key Rebinding Another pretty necessary feature to include before release would be key rebinding. With the last update we nailed down controller input, and with this one you can now rebind (most), keyboard and gamepad interactions.
Added Steam API Support The last pretty small technical addition we made with this update was adding support for Steam API, so things like achievements would actually trigger when playing on Steam. Not much else to say here though.
Miscellaneous Last but not least we have the miscellaneous category, and to start it off we redesigned the shop. It can now only be accessed from the main menu, and is themed after some on-flight shopping catalogues. We also added another purchasable item with changing how custom islands work: the ability to use them now must be purchased and additional settings for them can be bought. We also included in this update the plane that the player uses to get from one island to the next. The main menu has been altered a bit to make use of this new plane model, new audio is included when loading into an island, and the plane can be seen overhead flying away after it drops off the player. Thank you all once again (for the hundredth time) for the support, and we can't wait for launch!

[ 2023-01-16 22:20:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are still hard at work on our next game and have a new devlog highlighting some of the biggest additions and changes we have included!

Added A Seasons System A fairly large visual change we have made is the introduction of seasons to Somerholm. With the turn of different seasons, vegetation, weather, animals, and overall color-tone will change. The "default" look the game had before this addition is marked as Summer. Spring will feature a more blue overall tone, flowers, guaranteed berries in bushes, and less overall wind. Autumn will have slightly less of a grass-line near the water, more of a grey overall tone, orange-brown grass and trees, less smaller vegetation and some dead trees. Winter has the largest amount of changes, with even less of a grass-line neat water, a more grey overall tone, brown grass, more dead trees, the least amount of vegetation, and the least amount of animals. Hopefully all of these changes will help to add even more visual variety to islands.
Added A Fishing Mini-Game A pretty notable addition we added with this update is the ability to fish where-ever water is deep enough. Fishing at the moment is fairly simple and akin to something like Minecraft's fishing system. There is a limited amount of bait per island and the odds of fish catching the hook will change with the weather and seasons. Fishing has never been a large planned component of the game, but we do like having support for it, so we may add more complexity to the system in the future, but no promises.
Added Full Controller Support Getting ready for release, there are a few features we needed to start adding, controller support was one of them and now it's fully implemented! Menu controls will work in a similar fashion to our last game, "accelerating hotkeys" in that a virtual mouse is moved around by the controller joysticks. In addition to support for controllers we also added some controller specific options: light-bar enabled (for controllers that support it), rumble enabled, and virtual mouse speed.
The Start Of The Story With the last update we started adding story support, while not finished we have added the start of the story and have implemented support for the rest of it. We can't share a whole lot in this section right now, but we still wanted to make a note of it while we continue to add everything in the game.
Miscellaneous A few additional things to note for this update, not including any misc. changes we have made along the way. In the last update we added the ability to kick physics based objects to make the world a little more interactive, and with this update we added the ability to shake trees and cause pine-cones and twigs to fall from them. To also help with performance logging we added a more in-depth frame-rate UI option to track frame-rate lows, frame-rate highs, and rendering milliseconds. We appreciate the support, hope everyone is having a good holiday season, and are looking forward to sharing more in the future!

[ 2022-12-12 21:50:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are still hard at work on our next game and have a new devlog highlighting some of the biggest additions and changes we have included!

Just like last time, there is no new playable version out, but we still wanted to let everyone know how development is going so far. Going forward there probably won't be a new release of the game until launch date (hopefully early 2023).
Replaced And Expanded Vegetation Kicking things off this time, we have replaced all of the previous tree models and added new tree types. The new tree models and variations should add a good amount of variety while exploring different islands. We also added a second type of mushroom that can be found, re-worked the model and variation of reeds, and added fallen over tree logs and barren tree stumps.
Added A Shop System We hinted at the stats system and progression with the last update, and we are now happy to show it off and explain how it works out. The player gains money while filling out the journal per island as well as advancing different stats. This money can be used to purchase different upgrades in the shop section of the journal which includes: additional camera rolls, expanding camera setting bounds, improving the map, and having a bed roll and tent spawn near the player start on each island.
Setting Up Story Support While we are still working on the story component for the game, we have set up the basics for how everything should come together. The story is set up around finding different notes left behind [redacted], and can be discovered in non-linear means. The notes are left around specific island seeds and while the player can find them naturally, it may take a while or be difficult, so the new shop section in the journal can also be used to purchase island locations where notes are left.
Added New Animals The deer have been roaming around by themselves a little too freely as of late, so we added a couple of new animals to find. Turtles and flocks of birds have now come to Somerholm and can be discovered in a similar way to how deer are found. We have also expanded on the AI for deer since they were a little basic, and they can now audibly emote and periodically bend down to eat.
Added New Weather Effects We have also added a few new weather effects and some additional ones planned for a future update. To start we have added rain splash particles to the camera when outdoors and looking up at the rain. We also added a new ambient fog system to add some additional variety to weather types and island appearance, kindly created and provided by Gamepeler. In the future we also will be adding support for snow and possibly even season changes.
Miscellaneous Wrapping things up for today we have some smaller changes and additions that we still wanted to mention. Firstly, the game has generally run pretty smoothly, but performance has still been a focus for us, especially when expanding the vegetation. With this update we have added a few new video options and reworked some generation aspects to improve upon performance on the whole. Secondly, while this update did not add any new points of interest, we did expand on the different objects that can appear in/around POI and added new objects entirely. Keeping in theme with how we have handled the boxes that could be found in buildings in the past, all of these new objects are physics based, which ties into our next small point. We have added the ability for the player and the player's dog to kick around any physics based objects, similar to older FPS games. Once again, we appreciate everyone for their support and wish you all a good day.

[ 2022-11-11 21:58:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have been working on our next game for a bit, and while we don't have a new playable version, we do have an announcement for some features we have been working on!

We know that any news could have come a bit sooner, we've just been busy. In any case we hope you enjoy what we have to show off today.
Added A New Journal System To start things off for this update we added a new journal system. This journal will incorporate the map, island info, and photos onto the same screen, as well as include the new stats menu. The map is now a bit smaller, but has 3 levels of distance and includes icons for discovered locations. The island info is also changed a bit, now showing a brief description for each of the island modifiers instead of just the raw info. Finally the new stats menu includes a breakdown of various player stats as well as a brief progress stat for each (we will show off more of the progress system in a later update).
Added Sleeping Bags In addition to the journal, we also added sleeping bags that can be found at random points of interest. The player can use these sleeping bags to pass time and possibly change the weather on the island.
Added More Camera Options What would a photography game be without a few more camera options? In addition to what we already have for the player to mess around with, we have also included options for: camera tilt, chromatic aberration, fisheye, and hue shift.
Expanded Dog AI For the last major bit of update news that we have, we expanded the AI for Teo a bit. He now supports different action states for a greater variety of "dog-like" actions. For now we simply added the ability for him to become tired and lay down to rest, as well as the ability for him to become tired of constant petting and become annoyed with the player.
As always we appreciate the support from you guys and look forward to sharing more with you about our game! Thank you and have a great day.

[ 2022-10-11 01:23:00 CET ] [ Original post ]