Hello Villagers!

Happy May Day!

Village Monsters v.0.70 is out now for all platforms. I had two goals with this release: completely overhauling the gardening hobby, and redoing how the game saves and loads data.

One of those probably sounds a lot more exciting than the other, which is why I’m calling this The Changes to Game Saves Update The Gardening Update!

To celebrate the release, Village Monsters is 10% off all weekend!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/679830/Village_Monsters/

Itch.io: https://josh-bossie.itch.io/village-monsters

Game Saves (Important!)

As I warned in a previous news update, any saves made before this release are not compatible with the new stuff. This means you’ll need to start a new game, though you will be able to import some key items (your wallet, inventory, etc.) from your old save.

This should be the last time I have to break save comparability while in Early Access.

• The entire save / load system has been redone to be more robust and even faster for slower systems
• Players who have an existing save can import some items – like silver, inventory items, etc. – into their new save by interacting with the suitcase in the player’s room at the inn
• The previous version, v0.65, will remain available as a Steam beta branch. Password: previousversion

Gardening

The vast majority of my time these past 4 weeks has been spent on improving the shamefully neglected Gardening hobby. To call it an “overhaul” seems an underestimate – the old system wasn’t just improved, it was deleted and replaced entirely by something more fun and interesting.

The changes are too big and numerous to fully capture in a change log… but I tried to anyway. Grab some seeds, head over to Agrarian Acres, and take a look yourself!

If you want to know more, check out this post on the Village Monsters blog.

• Mushroom Gardening has become simply Gardening
• Gardening is now performed via a special UI that’s accessible when interacting with a garden bed
• Garden beds now show a little preview of what’s growing in them (including any weeds)
• Each plant can be inspected and interacted with via this new screen. Your options depend on your Gardening Abilities
• You may now Cultivate plants in your garden. This allows you to perform actions such as watering the plant, adding items to the soil, etc. in order to encourage its growth
• Cultivation effects linger (usually a day or two) after being implemented. Look at the plant’s details to see how long it lasts
• At first, you can only water your plants to provide a modest boost. As you level up you’ll gain new ways to cultivate your plants
• You can also cultivate soil with any item in your inventory. This provides a random effect, and may be better – or worse – than just watering them
• Plants can now breed to create new plants automatically
• In general, your garden needs one open space, a male plant, and a female plant in order for plants to breed. Both parents must also be a certain level of growth first.
• Basic crossbreeding has been added: the look and base plant attributes are based on the mother plant, while growth rates are based on the father plant
• There is a very rare chance that the offspring plant will instead be a Hybrid. This is a new type of plant specific to the pairing
• Hybrid are rare and very valuable. They are, however, “infertile” and cannot be used to breed again
• A huge number of new plants can now be grown in your garden
• A small number of existing plants have been eliminated or combined with other plants
• All plant sprites have been improved and in some cases completely redone. This includes both mature and in-progress versions
• Each plants now have one or more Tags. These specify certain attributes for that particular plant
• Plants are now rated like critters and fish. Ratings depend on your skill as a gardener, and a higher rated item sells for more silver
• A number of new seasonal plants have been added to the forage list
• Plants can now be pruned from your garden. This allows you to remove a still-growing plant
• Pruning has a chance of refunding plant seeds back in your inventory (higher chance if just planted)
• This new screen can be used to plant new plants, inspect existing plants, clear out weeds, and more
• A new info screen now displays key details about your plan including its stage, what each stage looks like, when it was planted, whether it’s under any special effects, and so on
• Spores / Seeds have been renamed to simply “Starters”
• Wild mushrooms and plants now spawn a little more rarely
• Growth rates for all plants have been adjusted. In general, it takes longer for an untended plant to grow to maturity
• The Spore Extractor has been renamed to the Seed Extractor, and it’s currently out of order
• The existing mushroom growing spots in Agrarian Acres have been replaced
• The spore extractor found in Agrarian Acres now takes several days to produce usable starters

New & Improved Features

• Fleshed out the main Player page of your journal. It now lists your rank in each hobby and some general information
• Added several new catachable critters, like the Foliage Elemental
• A new type of chest has been added to the treasure rotation
• The “Spicy” effect has been changed to be a bit more useful
• Added several new “flavor critters”, like a spider, parrot, and more
• Changed player sprite transitions in some situation
• Improved look and behavior of cloud shadows
• Increased spawn rates for items on the beach
• Added large number of new items, furniture, and decorations. Look for them in villager homes throughout the village
• Added concept of Elemental Affinity
• Renamed Bonfire Beach to Balefire Beach

Changes to Graphics & UI

• Forageable items now have a sparkle to differentiate them from plants / objects that are decorations
• Added a slight drop shadow effect to all dialogue text
• Add transparency to dialog boxes
• Improved dialog box title and choices UI
• Improved the logic for selecting the next active item in a list
• Greatly improved the colors and look of your journal
• Added commas to large numbers, like your current cash
• Adjusted some UI terms and wording to be more consistent
• You can now rotate tools (via the tool menu) using Left / Right on the D-Pad when playing with a controller
• Random Name Generation – currently used for naming tamed critters – has been greatly improved
• Altered music logic somewhat
• Adjusted notification placement to prevent overlap when a lot of stuff is happening
• Player names are now restricted to 12 total characters

Changes to Game Feel

I’m still grinding away to find that sweet spot in game feel – something that’s both evocative of retro games (which is especially important given Village Monsters’ story) while still taking modern games into account.

• Player acceleration has been modified so that you move in whole pixels
• Most other “partial pixel” actions are now rounded up to whole pixels
• Default player speed has been somewhat increased
• Further adjusted player acceleration and friction
• Reduced player speed when stalking with the net
• You can now control movement via the d-pad (I have no idea why I didn’t have that before!!)
• The camera now tightly follows the player

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed a major bug in which the world state wasn’t being properly saved
• Fixed a crash when pressing “P” on your keyboard in some situations
• Fixed a crash related to cutscenes not properly being set
• Fixed the player sprite not changing when you transition rooms
• Fixed a variety of collision issue with outdoor decorations, like benches
• Fixed several collision issues in Memorial Meadows
• Fixed a few issues with garden weeds
• Fixed issue where beach shells would disappear
• Fixed apple trees still providing apples during off seasons
• Fixed an issue where critters would not flee properly if you approached them from certain angles
• Fixed an issue where swinging a net drains stamina too early
• Fixed some minor issues related to when the player character was in between states, or paused
• Fixed the “Exit” option not working on the title screen in some instances
• Fixed a graphical glitch in Dio’s house

Hello villagers!

Today marks the release of the first major update to Village Monsters. You’ll notice the version number is now set to 0.5 – is this officially the halfway mark?!

This update was guided by players like you! Last week I asked what I should work on next and you weren’t shy in giving me an answer: bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and improvements to Odd Jobs.

Part of these changes were already released last week, so this week’s patch is meant to cap that one off!

The next planned major update is for Friday, December 6th. I’ve yet to send out a poll on what that should include, but I should have that out later this week.

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow US villagers!

NEW

• Something is causing villagers to suddenly misplace items. If you find a lost item you should return it to its owner for a nice relationship boost.
• A large number of new villager conversations have been added to the game
• Fish and Critter ratings now alter their price – the higher the rating, the higher the sell price
• Tutorial Odd Jobs have been added to the game.
• A new option has been added to make dialogue text instant

IMPROVED

• Made the first attempt at re-balancing the economy. In general: individual items are worth a great deal more money, but you’ll see fewer of them per day. For example, critters spawn less, it’s harder to fish, and so on.
• System Options (Music levels, sprint toggle preference, etc.) are now properly saved
• Caught critters are now given a rating like fish
• Doubled the rate in which you gain relationship points with villagers
• The day and season of your save is now displayed under the Continue option
• The dialogue box now fades away a bit slower when you walk away from the speaker, and fades up a bit faster when you walk back toward them
• Notifications now trigger for additional actions (like giving away an item from your inventory) to make it clear something triggered
• Stamina only decreases during the Attack phase of fishing. Bad attacks expend more stamina, while critical attacks are free
• It now requires more stamina to clear weeds from overgrown garden plots
• All available Odd Jobs are now listed at the Job Board. You can still only take one one job a day (for now)
• Odd Jobs that have a timer will now give out partial rewards when the timer runs out
• Certain Odd Jobs will stick around for a bit instead of changing out each day to give you a chance to take them

FIXED

• Fixed issue where music levels would reset themselves when changing areas
• Fixed crash related to checking Critter / Fish traps after loading your save
• Fixed crash when placing a Critter trap
• Fixed crash with the Weeding job
• Fixed issue where mushroom plots would appear to “switch” on area transition
• Fixed issue with trap visibility
• Fixed issue with music sometimes changing to the wrong track on area transition
• Fixed potential performance issue in Town Hall
• Prevented occasional issue where you can act (and cause errors) as an Odd Job finished
• Adjusted controller deadzone to prevent certain movement errors
• Fixed notifications from spawning in strange spots
• Stopped casting your fishing rod when fishing traps are equipped
• Stopped controller rumble while fishing when a keyboard is being used
• Fixed issue preventing a few fish types from spawning
• Tweaked collision of a number of items to make them easier to pick up
• Fixed a few issues related to foraged items spawning incorrectly
• Cleaned up collision on Three Wall Island
• Cleaned up collision on a number of external objects
• Stopped fish from incorrectly stating you could eat them for stamina
• Stopped Seaweed from appearing in freshwater
• Fixed Komatoa collision in Overflow
• Fixed collision issue in Baba’s Bakery
• Fixed issue with Odd Jobs not sending you back to the right place
• Fixed flavor text issue for tamed critters
• Fixed issue with “flavor critters” spawning in incorrect locations
• Fixed occasional issue with teleporting home at end of day
• Stopped critters from spawning when time is paused
• Improved Odd Jobs in general to be less error prone
• Usual misc. fixes, performance and stability improvements
• Usual misc. typo corrections

Latest Download

Beta 3.0 “Pumpkin Pie” (November 30th, 2018)

Windows | Linux | Mac

Known Issues

• Collisions can be wonky. I replaced it with a new system earlier but found some potentially nasty bugs at the last minute and had to revert it
• There are lots of placeholders (text & graphical) – perhaps even more so than last time due to all sorts of new objects.
• In general this is still pre-release software and it’s important to go into it knowing that. As a reminder, final release is planned for Spring 2019.

Hello Villagers!

There’s a new demo coming to town. It’s nicknamed Pumpkin Pie and it’s releasing on later today (November 30th.)

It’s silly for me to keep saying things like “this is the biggest and most full featured demo yet!” After all, if I’m making forward progress then by definition each demo will be bigger than the one before it.

And yet… this is seriously the biggest and most full featured demo yet. It contains tons of new things and improves loads of existing things, but more than that it’s finally representative of the kind of game you can expect next spring.

Here’s some of the headlining changes.

New Fishing

The fishing hobby has changed – again – but this time it’s final. I promise!

You dash to hook the fish before it escapes. You then mash to reel it in as fast as possible. And when the fish fights back, you clash for victory.

Grab your fishing rod and head to any body of water to test it out.

Mushroom Gardening

A new hobby has been added to the game: Mushroom Gardening.

Mushrooms are grown from spores you can purchase from the general store. Once planted they require very little effort and will happily grow by themselves. Grown mushrooms can be harvested and then sold, eaten, or cooked.

To get started check out the mushroom plots over in the Agrarian Acres. Check out the book “Mad for Mushrooms” in the library for more info.

Cooking

Another new hobby has been added to the game: Cooking.

Of all the hobbies this one is the least finished (you can only cook basic soups for now), but future releases will add to your cookbook.

To get started, visit the kitchen in Overflow and interact with the cooking pot you see there.

House Purchase

You are no longer stuck at the inn! The shack east of town has been put up for sale and the deed can be purchased from the general store.

Keep in mind it’s not cheap – even this basic plot of land costs 10,000 Skull Silver. You’ll need to find a way to make some money; catching and selling fish and critters is a good place to start.

Effects

A new “effects engine” has been added to the game. You’ve always been able to quaff potions, but this is an entirely new system with complex interactions and features.

Many items now bestow different effects when used or eaten:

• Eat a Snowberry Shroom and you’ll become chilled to the bone.
• Stay up too long without sleeping and you’ll become exhausted and unable to run – though you can eat food to offset these penalties.
• Drink a Potion of Fast Feet and you’ll zoom around the map.

Check the player page of your journal to see which effects you’re under.

Up All Night

Your unfair curfew has finally ended.

Instead of teleporting back to bed in the middle of the night you can stay up indefinitely. To balance things out you now have an energy meter that ticks down throughout the day.

Running out of energy makes you exhausted which has a bunch of negative impacts, so you’ll want to keep it up by sleeping or eating food.

You can sleep at any time from a bed you own. Sleeping will also quickly advance time.

Improved Interiors

Many interiors – including villager homes, the village inn, and general store – have been improved. Enjoy new furniture, cozier layouts, and more personality in each building.

Mac Support

This marks the first demo where Windows, Mac, and Linux versions will release simultaneously!

Dialogue Improvements

Dialogue took a backseat with this release, though this is because its systems are largely finalized.

One big change is how villagers talk before and after you become friends. Villagers may at first come across as rude or distant, while others might be overly formal or reserved. On the other hand, you may witness complete personality changes in some villagers as they warm up to you and become close friends.

Note that you won’t be able to see these changes in the demo as they happen over the long term.

Quality of Life

As always a host of quality of life changes have been added to the game. Here’s a handful of them:

• The passage of time has been further slowed to make the game more relaxing
• “Helper Text” has been added to even objects in the game
  • Doors now tell you where they lead
  • Items for sale now display their name
• Many interactable objects now can only be interacted with when facing a specific direction. This prevents a lot of accidental interactions
• You can now sell multiple items at once to the merchant

Improved UI

• Inventory and System menus have been combined into an improved Journal
• Many UI elements have been cleaned up and improved
• New & improved fonts

And Lots More

There’s way more changes than I can document in this post. More accurately there’s more than I want to document. But here’s a few more things you can expect:

• New weather types and tileset for fall.
• Trees and vegetation have been improved.
• You can flush a toilet.
• Lighting has been tweaked.
• Loads of new furniture and decorations have been added to each home.
• Bonfires and torches now extinguish in heavy rain.
• Pishky bought a new hat.
• New secrets.

Good news, Appleheads: Village Monsters is now available on Mac!

You can download it right here

As with the Linux releases, the Mac versions will be labeled as “Lightly Tested” until I’m more comfortable with the process. On my old (~2009) MacBook it runs but at a low performance – which I suppose is to be expected from a 9 year old laptop.

Going forward all three platforms should release at the same time, which is a very big step for our little monster game.

Hit me up if you have any issues

Hello Villagers!

The final new version of the Summer Sherbert demo has been released. This is a small update containing mostly crash and display fixes.

The next demo is due out in October. See you then!

To grab the demo you should head on over to the download page.

Improved

• Added a slight input delay when opening letters to prevent immediately dismissing it without reading
• Toggling off Full Screen now returns the display to the default settings you started with

Fixed

• Fixed a crash in the library
• Fixed a crash related to end of day cleanup
• Fixed occasional dialogue overlap

Hello Villagers!

A new version of the Summer Sherbert demo has been released. This is a small update containing a number of fixes and quick improvements based on your feedback.

To grab the demo you should head on over to the download page.

Improved

• More intelligent ‘blockers’ have been added around exits and entrances to make them more obvious
• Improved the “New Dialogue” icon
• Increased the number of states in which it’s not possible to open the menu
  • This helps prevent some goofy situations and menu overlap
• Fishing has been re-balanced so it’s not always a gimme
  • A more in-depth fishing balance is due out next release
• Improved the overall look of some of the vegetable sprites
• Changed placement of “helper text” on villagers to make them a bit more centered

Fixed

• Fixed an issue where menus could open erroneously while writing feedback
• Fixed helper icons incorrectly displaying on items you can’t interact with
• Fixed issue where you couldn’t change journal pages with RB/LB on the gamepad
• Fixed a number of layering issues
• Fixed a number of typos in item descriptions