Crystal Road - Change Log v0.0.7

This one's a HUGE list. The vast majority of the month was spent polishing and making sure that bugs were taken care of. If things go as planned, it should be smooth sailing with the next update now that a lot of these are out of the way.

New Content

• Implemented Mail Box/Mail System: This was done as a solution for what happens when the player is walking around with a full inventory and an NPC tries to give them more items. We floated a few ideas around but decided that a mail system would be the best approach when it comes to gameplay. Mail boxes will be placed in key locations around the world and the player will be able to receive letters from NPCs. (Plus we get to design a mail carrier NPC later on.)
  • The Player’s Mail Box has no max letter limit.
  • Mail can be accessed at the Mail Box next to Kaneko’s inn.
  • Only 1 item can be attached per letter: Not limited by stack size, so technically 99 of the same item if they stack that high.
  • Letters have visual indicators when they have an attachment.
  • Letters cannot be deleted until their attachment has been removed.
  • NPC’s will mail the player their quest reward items if they have no space in the inventory at the time of completing the quest.
• Debug Console Can Now Grant Gold and Test System Notifications
• Save System Extended: Now saves quest tracker toggle state and player’s mail.
• Added Hazels Theme: BGM now plays when talking to her and accessing her shop.
• Overworld Map Improvements
  • Map has been expanded slightly to the south.
  • Two empty terrain plots have been added where NPCs will set up their shop or home later. The exact position of these may be moved around a bit as development continues.
  • Pathways have been changed into ones that blend together a bit better.
  • Mist Barrier added to all sides of the map.
  • Mist Barrier now uses crystal shader for visual effect.
  • Trees now have an idle swaying animation. This will be modified later to react to things like the weather.
  • New props implemented. Dead trees, stumps, debris.

Polish

• Refactored Input Code: Cleaned up some of the backend code that controls what gets enabled/disabled during NPC dialogues and cutscenes. Things like preventing the inventory from opening, settings menu from opening, etc.
• New Content Quests Now Start Automatically: If the player manages to complete all existing quests in a build, any new quests that were added in an update will now start the next time they load into their save.
  • Additionally, Quests no Longer Trigger an Auto Save on Completion: This is done to prevent issues with quests being completed during cutscenes and possibly duplicating. Can’t really see any issues with this yet other than players being able to reload a save to get an item they want from a reward or something like that. Keeping an eye on it for now.
• Improved Item Slot Selection in Inventory and Toolbar: The item that is currently being moved will now follow the mouse until it is placed in another slot. This should help with some of the confusion when it came to moving items around. A few other polish things were done with these slots to improve performance.
• Refactored Shop System Code: Minor cleanups in the back-end in order to keep development smooth later on.
• Notifications Improved: System is now able to queue multiple notifications and display 3 different types.
  • System Notifications: General messages, errors such as not having enough inventory space.
  • Item Notifications: Items gained or lost. Also displays amount and quality now.
  • NPC Notifications: Small bits of text said by NPC along with their chibi avatar.
• Updated UI: Several UI components have been updated to match a warmer theme.
  • Start Menu
    • Header bar size reduced.
    • Button text replaced with actual buttons.
  • Player Inventory
    • Panels Resized
    • Item Description Panel now shows how much stamina an item costs or restores.
    • Item Panel now includes additional information about an item, such as positive or negative effects it may have.
    • Removed Whetstoninan Flame Reaper joke text since we’re done testing that. (Item still exists in code for laughs.)
  • Toolbar
    • Restored bag/settings button functionality and updated visuals.
    • Stamina Bar Visibility Improved.
    • Clock Repositioned to Top Right Corner. (Clock is going to get an update later when it shows the current day and possibly the season.)
  • Skill Menu: Partially Updated. This will receive another round of polish later on. Skill nodes still look a bit too metallic.
  • Quest Tracker
    • Updated color scheme and changed objective checkboxes.
    • Font sizes and styles have also been adjusted.
    • Position on screen has been moved to the left hand side.
    • Quest Tracker can now be hidden by clicking on the panel, or toggling it in the settings menu.
  • Shop Menu
    • Added visible scroll bars to all shop panels.
    • Fixed issue with panel size that was cutting off a slot’s price display near the bottom.
    • Added sky gradient backdrop to reduce clutter from seeing the overworld while in the shop.
    • Added character Chibi for personality flair. Only applies to Hazel at the moment.
  • Item Slots
    • Item counter has been moved to the corner of the slot instead of the bottom right.
    • Resized item icon in slot.
    • Slot Price Display in Shop Menu has been adjusted to fit better.
  • Sleep Menu
    • Shrunk menu down to a smaller single panel.
    • Sleep Amount Slider appearance changed.
    • Added Kaneko Chibi for personality flair.
    • Player is no longer able to sleep 0 hours and must sleep at least 1.
    • Background added that changes gradient color with the time of day.
  • Settings Menu
    • Visuals Updated and Resized
    • Added Help Panel: Moved on screen controls that were on the top right into the settings menu and into this panel. The Help panel will be updated later on with additional game information.
• Improved Player Targeting: Tab can now be used to cycle through multiple targets that are in the player’s range. (Multiple farm plots for example. This also helps prevent issues with NPCs or items that may end up stacked on eachother during gameplay.)
• Farming System Improvements
  • Targeting Reticle: Holding a tool or seed now enables a reticle around the farm plot that will be affected.
  • Player Can Now Walk Behind Crops: Sprite layering has been fixed and crops now show properly in front of the player.
  • Crops Lifespan Extended: Crops will now take 2 in-game weeks to die out as opposed to two days. This timer only counts if you haven’t watered the crop. Growth/Death rate will be adjusted again when a proper day length is implemented.
  • Some Crops now have Idle Animations
  • Newer Crops now give EXP.
• NPCs now rotate to face the player during dialogue.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Quest Menu Access Issue: Some quests were preventing menu access after completing them, or when completing one of their objectives.
• Other Menus Can No Longer Be Opened While in The Sleep Menu
• Player Eye Color now saves and loads correctly.
• Fixed Debug Console Causing Menus to Open(In Theory): This bug may still exist but I haven’t been able to replicate it after changing some scripts around. It was one of those weird ones that only happened sometimes.
• Fixed Cutscene Soft-Lock Bug: Quitting the game during a cutscene such as Hazel’s Campfire, would cause issues when loading back into the game. The player’s quest objective wouldn’t update and you’d be stuck roaming forever without being able to finish the quest.
• Fixed Input Errors in Splash Screen and Main Menu: Attempting to open menus within the splash screen or main menu would cause null reference errors in the backend. This may have been causing the game to crash.
• Fixed Hazel’s Trail Mix Bug: Buying Hazel’s Trail Mix and placing it into a handheld slot was sometimes soft-locking the game. Some sprites were missing for the overworld version of the item that shows up in the player’s hand.
• Notification System Bug Fixes:
  • Notifications No Longer Overwrite Each Other
  • Fixed Stuck Notification Bug: Notifications were getting stuck when opening a menu. This was due to it using standard game time which was being paused within menus.
• Fixed 99 Stack Item Duplication Bug: Attempting to stack an inventory slot that had 99 items in it with a stack that had less than 99 was causing both stacks to become 99. Effectively duplicating a ton of items.
• Fixed Double Click Item Deletion Bug: Double-clicking an item in the inventory was causing the item slot to clear itself. The game didn’t know what to do when trying to swap a slot with itself.
• Shop System Bug Fixes:
  • Players are no longer able to buy items if their inventory doesn’t have enough space. Transactions now fit as much as possible and complete a partial trade if there is only enough room for some of the selected items. (WILL NOT BREAK A STACK.)
  • NPCs can no longer buy more items than their inventory can hold. This was only possible through the debug console but it would have been an issue later on when there are more items.
  • Player was not paying or receiving the full amount of gold in a transaction. Trades were registering as if there were only stacks of 1 item in them regardless of how many duplicate items the player was selling.
• Audio System Bug Fixes:
  • BGM and SFX levels no longer reset when changing between scenes.
  • Talking to NPCs now fades audio instead of starting the song abruptly.
• General Grammar and Typo Corrections

Known Issues

• Crops May Not Load Properly: Save files from version 0.0.6 and below used a different type of crop system and may not load from version 0.0.7 onward. If you are experiencing crashes, please let existing crops die out, or create a fresh save.