Heating up in Summer!

Summer is here and the weather is not the only thing getting hotter! We have begun work on some of the exciting and much-needed areas of the game such as the long-promised inside zones and the vital, highly-requested, save files! More details below.

Inside Zones

Rob has been hard at work adding the interior areas for the player house and cave on the beginning Skystead Ranch Island. Both areas are completely separate instances so some programming magic has been needed to ensure smooth unloading of the main playing area whilst loading the interior zone instance - this is made more complex with the save files which have also begun over the last month! A lot of work went into the player camera to ensure you can see inside as you rotate the camera. We took inspiration from games like Sims and worked out how to make the walls between the character and the camera disappear to allow you to see inside. We're sure some improvements can be made so we will be looking for your feedback when you get hands-on with future demos.

House

If you have played any of our demos, you will be familiar with the player house that you have been able to walk up to but not enter. Well, now you can! Our artist Laura spent a couple of weeks designing the tileable wall assets so Lee and Rob could get down to designing the layout of the player house and considering its purpose. Layout below:
*This player house links directly to player progression which will be started next on the roadmap As you can see, a lot more work is needed to finish the house, but the starting idea is now in the game. You will start with a small room for your basics, a bed, maybe some storage and a little decoration. Then as you progress you can make the room bigger and even add more rooms for utility! A Greenhouse to grow complex plants in your own house, a kitchen to progress further in the cooking mechanic and even a trophy room to showcase all of your fully unlocked Skylets (currently just a shrine to Shelly, we will add every Skylet to this room we promise!)

Cave

Unlike the house, the cave is a zone for Skylets and farming, just like the outside islands. The cave was an idea from very early development as we like the idea of a darker zone where all the Skylets who normally only come out at night will be able to live all day long without worry of the sun rising.
As caves are generally dark and damp, we have decorated the area with a variety of wonderful and whacky mushrooms, moss and other fungus-like vegetation - some of it even glows in the dark! The keen-eyed of you will have noticed a big crystal-like gem in the screenshot, we are planning on adding a little bit of game lore and player progression to things you will find within the cave - more about that in future updates!

Saving and Loading

This is a feature we knew we'd need no matter what - but something we are taking even further due to taking your feedback on board about wanting to have a Sandbox mode.
Unlike our previous games, we are developing separate save files for Skystead Ranch within the same game, allowing you to have many different Skystead Ranch save files on the same account! This is important for allowing you to play around in Sandbox mode and then switch over to the story mode without worry of losing either saved island. Due to the more complex Save Files, we are learning a lot and there is still a lot to do to get saving and loading working correctly. Check back in future updates to see how we've gotten on - good luck Rob!

New Skylets

Onto the cutest bit! New Skylets! Jack has been Modeling, Rigging, texturing and animating like a madman!
Left: Thaw Right: Skipling Last week alone saw the implementation of 2 brand new Skylets! Thaw is an ice golem-inspired Skylet that is related to the Bau and other elemental Skylets, it'll probably be a bit trickier to find than the others due to its slippery nature. The Skipling is the last of our Kickstarter backer Skylets, a huge thank you to our backers who supported us at this tier and helped us get their own designs into Skystead Ranch! This cute little bird will skip around your Skystead and has an eye for the shiny stuff! Keep your precious shiny items out of its reach or it might just take them to its nest for safekeeping.

Thank you!

As always, thank you all for your support! Share Skystead Ranch with your friends and make sure it's added to your Wishlists! Beta is getting closer along with more demos to try out. Keep an eye out for more news on this in the future.