Happy Waning Gibbous, Y’all

No full moon? Big deal! I can release a new demo whenever I want, and that’s exactly what I’ve done!

Ok, so this is just Alpha 1.02 which contains the core features of Alpha 1 + some extra bugfixing, polish, and even a few new features

Go download it!

As with Alpha 1, it comes with the usual warnings: there’s plenty of missing content, placeholder features, bugs, and more. However! The game has reached a level of stability and features that I feel comfortable graduating it from Pre-Alpha to Alpha

If you haven’t heard yet, there is a Kickstarter coming for Village Monsters tomorrow, September 12th. As such, this very well might be the last public pre-release demo. All Kickstarter backers at a certain tier will continue to get these free demos every couple months, but if that’s not for you, don’t fret – a final public demo will be released before the game in October 2018!

Alpha 1.02 Changes

This is patch release for the main Alpha 1 release. For full notes related to Alpha 1, head to that section below

• MAJOR: Added a skeletal version of the quests system and added the first quest to meet all the villagers
  • Find the quests system in the Log tab of the Compendium
• MAJOR: Added potion-like effects to several food items
• Fixed an issue with the abandoned house registering as “indoors”
• Fixed some weird interior tiles
• Fixed an issue where some picket fences lack collision
• Fixed an issue where menus would popup while submitting feedback via the mailbox
• Fixed a rare crash related to selling an item
• Added indoor lighting to some houses that lacked it. Sorry for leaving you in the dark, villagers!
• Made the raft inaccessible as it was causing more issues than it was worth
• Adjusted several collision boxes to make more sense
• Adjusted draw radius to be a bit less aggressive
• Improved UI to for the Home Customizer and Cooking Tools
• Added a better cooldown to the cooking pot to prevent re-opening it immediately afterward
• Even more new critters
• Even more new furniture
• Lots of mischievousness bug fixes

Alpha 1.01 Changes

This is patch release for the main Alpha 1 release. For full notes related to Alpha 1, head to that section below

• Fixed a common crash bug related to thunderstorms

Alpha 1.00 Changes

Village & Outskirts

Village

• Major: Much of the village has been rearranged or changed to accommodate new features
  • Four new houses have been added to the residential district
  • A new shop, the General Store run by Bottes, has been added to the village
  • The still-unnamed Treasure Chest merchant has been changed to only sell furniture
  • Stapes & Saley finally turned that weird old skull into a proper house
• New decorations – like new rocks, trees and flowers – have been added about the village
  • Benches have also been added throughout the village
• A new town plaza has been added near the Historical Society
• Graves have been added to the church. It’s creeping everybody out
• More lightning has been added around town

Lake

• A mysterious old tower has been added to the Lake west of town

Forest

• A new forest has been added to the west of town

Beach

• A new area, the Beach, has been added south of town. Enjoy watching dancing palm trees and kick a beach ball around
• The villager Pots has decided to move to the Driftwood House at the Beach
• You can go fishing in the ocean
• A whoopie pie truck has been spotted at the beach. I bet it sells whoopie pies!

Overlook

• A new area, the Overlook, has been added east of town

The Ruins of Soon

• An in-game record of future features has been added to the game. It’s called the Ruins of Soon

Other

• The player no longer auto-enters closed doors (like when trying to enter a house from the outside)
  • Instead, press A to open it up – assuming it’s unlocked
• All interiors have had shadows added to give them a better feel

Villagers

• Major: Most villagers now have additional things to say after the 1st day passes
  • More dialog will be added in an upcoming patch
• New collisions have been added to each villager

Villagers

• The following new villagers have moved in:
  • Rainboy, the Elemental
  • Bavarian, the Blob Chef
  • Serin, the Tree inside Overflow
  • Lucy, the Artistic Golem
• New dialog and portraits have been added for each new villager

Merchants

• You can now sell items at Bottes’ store (the General Store)
• Many new items and furniture are now available to buy

Creatures

Critters

• MAJOR:  A new behavior for ground critters has been added
• MAJOR: Critters may flee for good if you scare them too much
• Several new critters have been created
  • Dusty
  • Capricious Cumulus
  • *hearts
  • Many more
  • Stop reading this! Go find them!

Flavor Creatures

• A new bird, the Sparrow, has been added to the skies
• A new bird, the Fat Chicken, has been added to the ground
• A strange ‘bird’ has also been added to the skies

Hobbies

• There is now a confirmation dialogue before donating items to the Historical Society

Critter Collection

• MAJOR: Captured critters can now be tamed into pets via the Pet Bowl furniture item
• Pets can be fed to reduce their wildness and make them more friendly
• SFX plays when the net is swung

Botany

• MAJOR: A new hobby, Botany, has been added to the game
• Plant fruit at various dirt mounds to grow fruit trees
• Water planted trees each day to ensure they grow
• Once they reach full maturity, fruit trees can produce additional fruit

Cooking

• MAJOR: A new hobby, Cooking, has been added to the game
• It’s quite basic, but bring 3 food items to the cooking put inside your home to whip something up

Player House

Customization

• MAJOR: Furniture placement has been completely overhauled
  • Press and hold C (Keyboard) or Y (Gamepad) to turn on Customization Mode
  • While in Customization Mode, walk up to a furniture and press Z (Keyboard) or A (Gamepad) to move it around
  • You may move furniture with the arrow keys, mouse, or right analog stick
  • C (Keyboard) or Y (Gamepad) again to turn off Customization Mode
• Placing a furniture (that you bought at the store) now places you in Customizing Mode automatically
• Helper text has been added to make it easier to navigate customizer mode

Furniture

• Many, many new furniture items have been added to both the store and villager homes

Other

• A new player-specific mailbox has been added in front of the player’s shack
  • On occasion, the player may receive mail. The mailbox indicates new mail
• A morning news program has been added to the television
  • Tune in to hear random headlines from the village and elsewhere

Systems

Weather

• A new weather type, Hail, has been added
  • A new particle effect was added to represent hail on the ground

Mail

• MAJOR: A new system, Mail, has been added to the game
• New UI (letterhead) has been added to support letters
• On occasion, the player will receive mail from villagers
• The player will also receiver mail from the mayor before a special event
• Players may go to the red mailbox near town hall to submit game feedback via the mail system
  • Mail sent via this system will be actually emailed to me, so make use of it!

Items

• The bounding box that detects item interaction has been made easier to hit
• Some items have been renamed

Food

• Many new fruits have been added to eat

Potions

• MAJOR: A new type of item, Potions, have been added to the game
• Potions can have major or silly effects to the player and game systems when consumed
• Potion of Transparency: Makes you transparent and prevents critters from fleeing from you
• Potion of Tepid Torpality: Time progresses slower for awhile
• Potion of Posthaste Passage: Time progresses faster for awhile
• Potion of Fast Feet: You move quicker for awhile
• Potion of Fewer Features: You temporarily become a silhouette

Treasures

• New ore and treasures have been created and seeded around town. Happy hunting!

User Interface

• Major: A new screen is now displayed at the end of each day. It displays some flavor text and a tip for getting the most out of the game
• Major: A new title screen is now displayed at game start
• All fonts in the game have been replaced by Peepo, a pixel-font
  • Using a pixel font means that this is now officially an indie game

Dialogue

• MAJOR: Dialogues may now have choices which triggers branching dialogue and other actions

Inventory

• MAJOR: Item Cards have been added for each item to display vital information
  • Item cards contain sprites, type, descriptions, and flavor text
  • Some item contain stories, and you can flip the card to view it
• A new row has been added to the inventory for mail management

Compendium

• A new page, the Village Map, has been added to the Compendium
  • The player’s current location should be properly reflected on the map…but no promises
• A new page, the World Map, has been added to the Compendium
• A new page, the Log, has been added to the Compendium
• A new page, the Calendar, has been added to the Compendium
  • The Calendar tracks the current day, elapsed days, and marks upcoming events
  • The Calendar is otherwise very basic

System Menu

• A new system menu has been added when Escape is pressed
  • The game will no longer close immediately after hitting Escape
  • The system menu can be controlled via the keyboard even when in Gamepad mode
• You can now toggle the music on / off from the System Menu

Other

• Months have been renamed and updated where appropriate

Improvements

Village & Outskirts

• New interior tilesets have been created to create better variation
• Grass has been added to the base of trees to make them more…uh…natural?
• Trees now have a cooldown before you can shake them again
• Shadows have been added to every building, decoration, and entity in the village
• Collision boxes for each building have been adjusted

Village

• The town tavern, Overflow, has been completely redone and improved
  • This includes an actual interior complete with bar & kegs
• Skunkwork’s treasure chest merchant shop has been recolored and redesigned to be a bit less garish

Historical Society

• You can now donate treasure-based items again at each pedestal

Crossroads

• The crossroads has been improved and rearranged to accommodate new areas
• Signs have been added to the Crossroads to make it easier to navigate

Player & Dog

• A new SFX has been added for indoor footsteps
• A new walk speed, called “Walk” has been added for keyboard users
  • Toggle it with Control

Dog

• You may now interact with the dog like all the other villagers
• The dog’s portrait has been fixed
• The dog sprite has been improved. It should no longer look like she’s wearing lipstick

Creatures

• Generally, ground-based creatures should no longer spawn in the middle of water
  • They still might want to go for an occasional dip, though

Critters

• Full animations have been added to the Coldsteel Hedgehog
• Full animations have been added to the Pocket Horse
• Full animations have been added to the Beholden
• Critters now properly collide when indoors
  • (no promises for outdoors)
• The Sap Fly now have a proper behavior
• The Sun Fly has been renamed the Watt Fly
• The gnome now has a shadow and animation

Flavor Creatures

• All flying flavor creatures have been completely redone to be less ugly

Hobbies

• Hobby tools now have proper “use” animations
• Hotkeys have been added to each tool to quickly bring up via the keyboard
  • 1 = Bug Net, 2 = Shovel, etc.

Fishing

• MAJOR: The fish system, including line strength and fish stamina, has been completely reworked and improved
  • Fishing has also been rebalanced to be a bit easier
• Labels and values have been added to the line strength and fish stamina bars
• While a fish is hooked, you may be prompted to move the rod to the left or right
  • Success in following the prompt gives you a bonus to line strength, while failure gives you a penalty
• Fish now fade in over time, and properly fade out at random intervals
• The fish has been improved, though you probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t said anything

Whistle

• The player no longer moves while the Whistle is in use

Watering Can

• A new tool, the Watering Can, has been added

Player House

Furniture

• The initial player home has been changed to include some new furniture items
• Furniture now has a basic hierarchy: Toppers (like lamps, flowers) may now be placed on Surfaces (tables, shelves) or the floor.
• The rug has been made a proper object and no longer is scaled weird
• It’s no longer possible to move furniture by mouse – it was only annoying people

Systems

• MAJOR: All systems have been migrated to the “Director” model, allowing for far more robust and interesting interactions with the player, the world, and each other

Weather

• Temperature now has more granularity, and changes with weather instead of with time
• Weather particle effects have been optimized and more evenly distributed around the player
• Weather changes only occur when there’s a new weather type (as opposed to every time the time changes)
  • This prevents issues where it briefly stops raining only to start raining again

Time

• Time change effects now occur via events
• The player automatically warps back to their house when the day is over

Music & Sound Effects

• Music is now properly refreshed as time and days progress
• All weather sound effects now play inside at a muted volume
  • Thunder now plays even while indoors
• A new sound effect plays for the Hail weather type
• The ocean has special ambient ocean sounds
• The village will now experience the occasional random birdsong
• Birds that fly overhead will also now occasional chirp if the player is close enough

Items

• All items have improved descriptions, flavor text, icons, and story
• The lantern has been adjusted to display correctly

Food

• Fruits have been turned into cubular shapes. I don’t know why.

Controls

• Keyboard controls have been massively improved
  • Movement is handed via the arrow keys

User Interface

• Player movement and time passage are now paused when menus are open

Dialogue

• The portrait name is now properly centered

Inventory

• MAJOR: The inventory has been completely revamped in style and function
• You may now hold many more items than before
• Upon using an item, the item ‘cursor’ will automatically move to the next available item
  • The graphical look of the inventory has been vastly improved
• The inventory can be toggled off via the Cancel action
• The inventory is automatically closed when an item is used
• Context-sensitive buttons are now displayed in each item card
• A new inventory mode, Pick Mode, has been added, and is used when prompt to select an item
• A new inventory mode, Sell Mode, has been added, and is used when items are being sold
• By default, the Bits (currency) counter is hidden until the inventory is toggled
  • The Bits counter is also temporarily displayed whenever you add or remove Bits
• It is no longer possible to “Use” items without first opening the inventory (it was too annoying)
• Using an item is now handled via the Z key or A button
• The image speed of sprites should be a lot less weird

Notifications

• Item descriptions have been removed from notifications, as it was very dumb of me to leave them there
• Notifications have been resized and improved
• Notifications have an animation when created
• Notifications time out based on rarity of event (rare notices take longer to disappear)
• New notifications always stay in the same place as old notifications rotate out
• A notification is created upon meeting a villager for the first time

New Area Notice

• The new area graphic has been replaced by a wooden motif
• The new area notice now animate

Compendium

• Each section has a new label identifying it

Clock / Calendar

• New icons have been added for each weather type
• The calendar icon has been improved
• Drawing of the clock and calendar have been generally optimized

Technical

Camera

• The camera surface properly resizes and refresh with each new room
• A new dynamic camera has been added to make things feel smoother and more relaxed

Collision

• A new, faster collision system has been implemented
  • Many collisions for objects have been adjusted

Debug

• The version number is now always displayed in the top left corner

Other

• A custom sprite scaling function has been added to scale sprites in a less goofy way
• A number of unused sprites have been removed fromt he game

Bug Fixes

• MAJOR: A common crash related to critter spawning has been fixed
• MAJOR: Many crashes related to “Using” some items has now been fixed
• MAJOR: A crash related to speaking with some villagers twice has now been fixed
• A rare crash related to the furniture balloon has been fixed
• A rare crash related to fishing has been fixed
• It is no longer possible to place furniture outside (whoops)
• It is no longer possible to place furniture inside other houses (haha, my bad again)
• Movement during room transitions have been fixed
• Trees should no longer trap you in an eternal leafy embrace
• Trying to use an item without a use no longer closes the inventory
• The bug net will no longer catch bugs if it’s not being swung (don’t ask)
• Rooms properly fade in on load
• The Capsule machine should be a lot less crashy
• Issues related to weather changing have been resolved
• Weather particles better track the player on map edges
• Lightning no longer occurs indoors
• A slight delay has been added to opening or closing the inventory to prevent weird behavior
• Fish should no longer ‘escape’ the fishing UI element
• Items in the inventory will now properly clear out if you use multiple of the same item
• Crashes related to picking up some gatherable items has been fixed
• The dog ball (and fetching) should work once again
• Sunflower layering has been fixed
• General layering issues have also mostly been fixed
• The Ornamental Beetle should no longer look like a total weirdo when spawned on trees
• Town lights should now turn on properly even when you aren’t in town