The Steam Summer Sale event is live! Steam does not post "minor updates" to the store page for users that do not own the game, so I wanted to post an update on the progress of the current beta branch 0.6.4. I was hoping to get it stable and ready to push live prior to the Summer Sale, but as it turns out, rewriting tens of thousands of lines of code from scratch is a pretty time consuming endeavour! Though the benefits of the time spent are already there and obvious, I just need a bit more time to polish out the bugs. In short, 0.6.4 is a major overhaul of the world generation code as well as the save file structure. The new world generation code is able to load an area, for example after teleporting 10 kilometers, in just a couple of seconds, whereas the old system (still on the default "live" branch) could take upwards of 45 seconds. Save file count has also been reduced down to under 1%, meaning a fully explored terrain used to generate up to 129 files, but now those are all contained within a single file. Steam cloud saves seem to have a terrible time when there are a lot of smaller files, so I'm hoping this will improve the problems people have been having when using cloud saves prior to 0.6.4. The new system also uses a new algorithm for file compression/decompression that is much more stable than the one I was using. Data loss is completely unacceptable with any software, and unfortunately the software I was using was, albeit very infrequently, caused data corruption at times for seemingly no rhyme or reason. Overall there is a lot more code in 0.6.4 that was hand-written by yours truly meaning there is actually going to be a lot more control over game and world settings. For example how far to render trees, buildings, grass, terrains, and distant terrains will all be able to be managed individually, letting players further tune their graphics depending on their computer specs. Currently I'm fixing bugs related to multiplayer caves which were added into multiplayer for the first time just last week. There are still however a few things left to upgrade before 0.6.4 can be sent to the "live" default branch: - Terraforming - Farming - Procedural Towers - Floating Islands - Non-chunk based biomes Note: I have not marked the game as "multiplayer" nor with "supported languages" on the Steam store page, because they are works in progress, and I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. Multiplayer is quite functional, and getting better every week, but still needs work. The UI also supports 30 "major" languages, which make the game at least playable if you can't read English, though they are incomplete, and fallback to Google translations unless a community member has been kind enough to correct them via crowdin.com/project/solace-crafting. I know it isn't a lot of "fun" not having new things like fishing, cooking, new recipes, and more town functions not being added while this upgrade is going on, but I hope everyone will agree that it was a smart decision once the patch goes live and everything is running clean and fast. It's actually quite draining for me as a solo developer because I too have a lot more fun adding in new things, but again, I really feel this has increased the base quality of the game flow a lot and am glad that I decided to make the effort to improve the foundations that everything else runs on top of. Meanwhile, Pixel Noise, our audio guys, are starting work on new sound effects for all of the animals and monsters. If the Summer Sale goes well, hopefully I can funnel more funds their way to improve the overall audio experience of the game. At some point a major upgrade to player animations will also be necessary, just to remind everyone that the current animations are not intended as a final solution. All in all, 3D, open world, multiplayer programming is tough business for a solo developer, but progress is steady, and I'm very much looking forward to the various planned feature from here on! Please join us on Discord at: discord.gg/SolaceCrafting for discussions on suggested features, and for posting bug reports. If you'd like to help test 0.6.4 you need only to opt into the beta branch by right-clicking Solace Crafting in your Steam Library and clicking on Properties. Stay safe, and happy gaming!
[ 2020-06-26 02:20:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
- Solace Crafting Linux [2.77 G]
Background
My name is Kyle Postlewait (35) and I got into game development years ago because I can't find the game that I want to play. I am not a veteran game developer. I do not have any published AAA titles. I am self-taught and I make mistakes. Having said that, I'm tired of survival crafting games being abandoned, focusing only on PvP and guns, or turning into major time sinks. I quit my day job in February of 2018 to focus on Solace Crafting full-time, and am doing everything I can to make a great fantasy survival RPG despite the tremendous challenge that is game development. Please don't buy into early access expecting a fully polished AAA game and then give it a bad review. In return, I promise to make sure that this game is NEVER ABANDONED. If sales are more than enough for me to survive, then I can hire more help. First and foremost I will always work to secure financial longevity and legal stability, and maintain all intellectual rights, never selling power to sponsors, publishers, or anything that could endanger continued development.
Early access ends when there is enough content to constitute selling the game without the above warning. Even after we leave early access the game will continue to be improved and expanded on, and has a long list of planned features post early access including other dimensions and multiplayer.
All features listed on this page are undergoing constant improvement and are subject to change.
Short description
Solace Crafting is a crafting and building heavy survival RPG focused around player crafting, building towns, and summoning NPC townspeople. With an open class system, open-recipe crafting, customizable enchanting, modular building, defensive structures, town management, distance-based difficulty, and an infinite game world, players are free to move and level at their own pace. With an uncapped leveling system you can try to push further than anyone ever has. You can try and make the ultimate sword, staff, or anything, thanks to complete control over all recipe settings. Build massive towns full of NPCs not limited by physics-based construction. Seek out rare enchants and exotic resources.About the game
SurvivalSolace Crafting starts out much like similar survival games: you need to make clothes to avoid freezing to death, you need to find food to keep from starving to death, and you should build shelter from the dangers of nightfall.
Crafting
Once you are surviving it's time to evolve. Build resource processing and crafting facilities to create improved weapons and armor. Leveling up your professions levels up your recipes and allows you to unlock new recipes and crafting abilities. Our crafting system is quite unique, allowing even the creation of custom sets. I definitely recommend you watch the getting started video available above.
Role-Playing Game
Once you're armed and ready it's time to push back against evil and it's minions. Level-up and develop your character using an open-class system of evolving skill trees. Mix melee, ranged, magic, and heals however you like. Skills are being designed with fun and visual uniqueness in mind, not minimalism and strict balance.
Solace Crafting
Crafting and placing a solace will allow you to instantly return to it from any other solace in the world, letting you create your own points of interest. Be careful though as the further you travel in any direction, the more difficult everything becomes. In order to level up a solace you'll have to defend it from waves of attackers that will try and stop the procedure. Build static defenses to help protect your solaces during upgrades.
Town Management
An upgraded solace allows you to summon townspeople. In order to summon higher level NPCs you'll need to push deeper into the wild, setting up towns of various sizes as you go.
Astral Travel (not yet under development)
When the time is right you will find your way to the Elemental Planes. Most heavily affected by the infectious anger and hatred, these have becomes dimensions of extreme danger, both environmental and sentient. You must find out where the hatred stems from and find a way to put an end to it once and for all. The Elemental Planes are also the birthplace of all resources mundane and exotic alike. Only here will you find the purest, most powerful resources for crafting and enchanting equipment worthy of a hero.
Developed by a gamer
I started learning how to make games years ago because the design decisions of so many of the games I played often made so little sense to me. Here are some of the design decisions I refined over the years that I do my best to uphold:- No pay-to-win, no pay-to-play, no paid DLC, no gacha or gamble mechanics
- No metered progression
- Level any and all professions freely, no arbitrary caps
- Minimal sub-ingredients, minimal crafting and refining timers
- Completely open, point and level based branching skill trees
- Multiple, incremental skill points every level
- Classic roles, not forced balance. Some classes may be harder than others.
- Unlimited player levels
- Completely open physics-based world, no off-limits
- No "realistic" building physics that destroy everything
- Unlimited access to parallel realities (alternate seeds)
- Shape and color your avatars freely instead of using preset races
- Allow alternate characters in the same world
I know how to, and will accomplish everything written here. It's only a matter of time. If the game sells I can hire help with what I'm bad at and focus on what I'm good at.
I know a lot of fans of the survival genre are pretty jaded, myself included, after so many titles have lost their leadership, changed projects, or plain given up. I'm here every day hoping to heal that sore and would very much appreciate your $15 support if any of this interests you. There are months of frequent patch notes and forum discussions between me and players here on Steam as proof that I'm capable of more than a couple new items after weeks of silence, something far too common in game development!
Multiplayer, and all of its many features will absolutely be implemented when a much more content rich single player experience has been achieved. Multiplayer like single-player will be PvE oriented and grief prevention/anti-cheat will always take top priority. Turning single-player towns into multiplayer guildhalls complete with defense quests and special achievements is something I very much look forward to, and have quite a few plans for.
Unix and Mac support will be tested and released soon.
The best is yet to come!
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+
- Processor: Dual Core 3 ghzMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 680
- Storage: 8 GB available space
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