Hello Fellow Magnates! This was a month of polish and bug fixing! Last month we ended up delaying our latest version (v0.6.1) so that we could fix a few bugs surrounding serialization. As a result of our testing, we identified a whole bunch of other features that needed polishing and fixing. Along with these fixes, we also began implementing a lot of the new furniture assets we have been posting in the last couple of months

While most of this last month’s work focused on small fixes, we were able to begin implementing the new artwork which we have been showcasing on our discord and Twitter recently. This is the culmination of our efforts to reshape the game’s art style and direction.





We have had a lot of small AI improvements and bug fixes but also a few big improvements as well. The first being how guest needs increase/decrease, Guests will now sleep at more realistic times (night-time) and won’t go do activities (like take a shower or use the toilet) until the threshold for that need is reached. Guests and staff will now also display an emoji showing how they feel about something they just did, ate, or interacted with. This should help the player identify if there is anything that is causing their guests to be unhappy



This last development cycle saw the largest amount of bug fixes yet. We developed a couple of different debugging tools that helped us accomplish this. We’re now able to record the exact actions taken when building walls/rooms. We also added a temporary console command menu where you can enable a debug mode and get access to more backend information for guests/staff in live builds. These tools will help us better manage our workflow as we continue to improve on systems. You can check out our changelog below.

If you have any questions, feedback or just want to talk please join us on our discord! And don’t forget to Wishlist us on Steam if you haven’t already

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• New “Blue Moon” Set
  
  • Bar
    
  • Variety of restaurant tables
    
  • Host Stand
• New “Diner” Set
  
  • Variety of restaurant tables
    
  • Host Stand
• New “Basic Diner” Set
  
  • Variety of restaurant tables
• New “Pink Dream” Bathroom Set
  
  • Toilet
    
  • Sink
    
  • Bath
    
  • Shower
• 2 New receptions
  
• Jukebox
  
• Massage Table + Stand
  
• 2 New Sets of Couches
  
• 4 New Beds + revamp of Old Beds
  
• 12 New Paintings/Frames

• Fixed some staff pay-related issues (staff can become unhappy/happy depending on their pay)
  
• Guests/Staff now spawn more spaced out instead of on top of each other
  
• Fixed Spa attendant behavior not working
  
• Decreased the speed at which needs increase at
  
• Guests are much more likely to sleep at night/appropriate times
  
• Guests now use the correct minimum quality in evaluating their rooms and experiences
  
• Characters now display emojis above their heads to communicate their current mood/experience
  
• UI
  
• Guest/Staff Activities now display a more user-friendly name instead of a backend one
  
• Alerts/Objectives now animate open/close/hover
  
• Alert/Objectives sizing and color fixes
  
• Staff UI now displays an emoji representing their happiness
  
• Guest UI now displays an emoji representing their mood
  
• There is now a popup that tells the player when they have completed an objective and gives a reward
  
• Player can now zoom the camera much closer
  
• General UI fixes (sounds, animation, sizing)

• Saving/loading
  
  • Fixed issue where guests are not selectable after loading
    
  • General Saving/Loading bugs
    
  • Increased Stability
• Showing the correct amount of stars for an average rating of previous meals
  
• Fixed issue with building walls on outer edge causing errors
  
• Fixed an instance of the bug where the ground/flooring breaks
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not overwrite a save
  
• Made furniture reachability a factor in whether a facility is functioning or not. (A kitchen with its equipment being inaccessible will now be ‘nonfunctioning’)
  
• Fixed Maintenance person not spawning correctly (missing body parts and stuck in the carpark)
  
• Fixed pausing/unpausing issues where leaving some UI menus would unpause the game when the player had previously set it to be paused
  
• Cant place furniture on Guests or Staff now
  
• Reduced the speed of the max fast forward to help prevent issues with characters pathfinding at that speed
  
• Fixed issues where you couldn’t filter the furniture selection menu
  
• Fixed UI issue where you couldn’t close the furniture moving menu with “ESC”
  
• Fixed some guests having two “guest types”
  
• Fixed Guests leaving earlier than they should
  
• Fixed Guests using the incorrect stay length
  
• Fixed an issue where guests would sometimes spawn when none of the facilities had staff employed

--Save file optimization
The delay time when saving after the update is reduced by about 50%~70%.

--Other
Descriptions have been added to the display of options for poisoning and hospital application.

--Bug fixes
-Fixed a bug in which the object displaying the location before the explosion of the giant turtle bombing did a small amount of damage.

-Fixed a bug where the movement speed was abnormally fast when the interaction and the dash key were pressed simultaneously on the map movement scaffold.

- ??PanelManager hideAllPanels now hides the character creation panel

Zarc here with some exciting news!
Exophobia was featured at the last New Game+ Expo livestream with an upbeat new trailer, ending with a bang with a release date and platforms reveal!

If you missed the event you can re-watch it entirely here!

If you just want to see the trailer check it out...


What are you more excited about? Let me know!
See you later, Zarc

The Steam Game Festival was the first time we showed Alekon to people who didn't personally know us and weren't biased to like it, so we weren't sure what reaction to expect. With nearly 4000 demo installs, and a lot of feedback on the Steam forums, on our Discord, and on Twitter, we were floored by how much people seemed to enjoy the game.

We were able to watch streamers and content creators play, and got to see the game through their eyes. Some even reached out to us with pages of detailed feedback! In this devlog we'll go over some concrete lessons this experience has taught us.



Releasing a demo was a bit of a last minute decision, so we hadn't prioritized optimizing the game at that point, and while our workstations had no trouble with it, some players certainly had to lower their graphics settings or suffer bad framerates.

Given that we have a thorough optimization plan on the roadmap, we aren't super worried about this for the full release, but we did underestimate the issue for the demo.

What's more, we also realized that resolutions above 1080p are no longer a tiny niche, and they aren't always coupled with graphics cards that can run games effectively at that native resolution. We'll be looking into better supporting high resolutions in terms of performance, UI scaling, and letting the player know that they may be better off running at lower resolutions when they are experiencing performance issues.



One of the main tools that the player gets to play with in the demo is the donut, a versatile projectile that can be used as a treat or to get a fiction's attention. However, we introduce it on Dream's Doorstep, the hub area of the game, where donut throwing is limited to a minigame.

This lead players to completely forget about the donut by the time they went on their next photography trip, preventing them from progressing path unlocks or getting new poses.

To solve this, we're allowing unlimited donut use on Dream's Doorstep, so it becomes a universal tool, and adding a hint for players about it on their next photography trip to the beach.




The first photo scoring ceremony takes place in the beach wing of Dream's Doorstep. We placed it there intentionally, so players are encouraged to interact with the fictions they unlock before going back on more photo trips. This worked well, as unlike our early alpha tests, almost every player we've seen tried a few of the minigames before going back.

However, we overcorrected on this, and people had trouble figuring out how to return to the photography sections, as you have to leave the beach wing to do that. To solve this we've made Japley, the player's guide, offer to teleport the player to the level selection area.

In a similar vein, a lot of players chose to start the tutorial path again immediately after returning from it, instead of choosing the newly unlocked one that allows them to progress the game. To address this, we've made newly unlocked path signs more prominent, and will have Japley warn the player that they may be wasting time if they choose the tutorial path.


Probably the most frequently reported issue with the demo was that the music games were too hard. Difficulty in particular is one area where it's hard for us to detach from our biases, since we've played the game for so long, so it was great to get fresh impressions.

In response, we've tweaked timing to be more accurate in the rhythm games (Grumbo, Waltok), and made the visuals a lot easier to see in the aurora minigame (Celestios). We also fixed an audio bug that could result in the melody not playing during the latter, and added restart prompts to most minigames so players can retry immediately, without having to talk to the fictions again.




Until 2020, the fictions in Alekon behaved more like animals, never speaking or showing personality beyond their animations. Although this had its own charm, seeing the players' reaction confirmed that we took the right decision in making the fictions into characters. Grumbo's one liners alone have made him lovable and relatable to most players.

Speaking of which, we had a lot of fun hearing people do voices for the fictions during their streams! We wouldn't have had that opportunity had fictions remained speechless.




A concern we had while developing was that the game would be too short. As developers, we have instinctive knowledge of every nook and cranny, so it is natural for us to speedrun through it.

However, seeing players go through the game at a natural pace showed us that even players who aren't going for a 100% completionist run have plenty of content to engage with. Our demo is rather large, amounting to almost a quarter of the game, but we still didn't expect players to spend more than an hour on it, yet many have passed the two hour mark without running out of content.




One definite conclusion we reached was that participating in the Steam Game Festival was a worthwhile investment. We reached a huge amount of players, accumulated thousands of wishlists, and got great feedback that we could incorporate into the game. We would definitely recommend such events to other developers!


With all that said, we are still ever-hungry for feedback. If you've played the demo (free forever on Steam), did you experience issues we haven't mentioned here? Did you have fun? Do you have suggestions? Let us know on Discord, or on Twitter, where you can also follow us for fresh showcases of game features and progress every day!

bugfix

bugfix

- ??Aiming arrows no longer display on other ships

We have come a long way with developing Maritime Calling and we believe that now it's time to include community into development and allow you to help us scale the game. Entering game development scene is never easy for a small indie studio and we need every ounce of support we can get.



Kickstarter campaign for us is an opportunity to measure the interest for the game and help fund continuous development of the game. We are also at a critical point now, when we have finished building game core, but we need your help to go on.

So if you really like what you have been seeing so far (and we have a lot of tricks left in the bag), please consider supporting our game and sharing this game with your friends.

We will be giving away steam keys for alpha version of the game for the backers who support us in the first 48 hours, so don't miss an opportunity to have an early sneak peek on our game!

The alpha is already live and rolling and has been shared with the media, so you would be able to play it in the next couple weeks!

Thanks for checking out the game! I've been fixing bugs and issues that have been popping up all weekend that I wasn't able to find during development. It's the nature of multiplayer game development, which is really hard especially for a one-man team.

So here's what my community has been working on that is coming soon:

• New Characters
  
• New Maps
  
• New Gamemodes

The game will continue to improve over the coming days and weeks with frequent patches, which I'm sure you've noticed.

If you would like to make suggestions, just leave them in the discussions, or come on over to my Youtube channel and leave a comment.

There will be 1-2 weekly live streams on YOUTUBE, not Twitch, adding new content. Subscribe to my channel to be notified when the streams go live.

Thanks for playing and stop by every now and then to see the progress!

- Jeff (DevAddict)