Patch 1.1 was released! Some puzzles have been changed. Now they have become more complex and interesting. Also, decorative changes were made in some places on the island, in particular, in the maze of bushes.
Hello explorers! Man a whole lot has happened since we released va004 of Sapphire Safari on Itch for our early adopters. The feedback and support have been absolutely amazing and we have been on the top sellers for a while now! The energy surrounding the project has renewed our vigor considerably and we have been hard at work making the next patch.
Before we get started though, thank you very much for your patience in waiting to hear any sort of news from us, it took much longer than I anticipated to get my new house setup, then we had a funeral and lastly, my family and I were hit with COVID, 3 years of avoiding it only for us to get nabbed now. Feels bad man. The rest of the staff has been working diligently though.
So production update time! We have expanded our team with a second programmer! His role right now mostly consists of adding extra features into the game, stuff that we were considering adding in much later once the core gameplay loops have been added. Things like our UX for the main menu and other things.
Main Menu
The biggest feedback we received for the first build was the lack of the main menu, so we got you! Originally it was going to be something really simple but the new programmer has jumped into it with both feet giving us a 3d environment to float around.
This is just the first pass at least, from this menu you’ll be able to look at your photos, your upcoming quests, the new Monpedia function, choose your playable character (male or female), and choose the island destination along with the time of day you want to explore in!
Game settings wise we have all the standard stuff, which should allow for older hardware to tweak settings as they need for better performance. We also will have values in there for choosing how the Futa content works in the game.
Off.
Low spawn chance.
Medium spawn chance.
High spawn chance.
We are not 100% sure how we will handle the content offerings if Futa is turned off completely (stuff like quests taking a photo about Futa etc), but that is a problem for future us.
Other notable settings are the photo output changes, basically, you can set up how big the photos the game takes will be, options right now allow for matching the current resolution of the game, along with scaling down and up from that point. Naturally taking massive photos will impact the game performance.
Scaled Resolution
Photo exported at a percentage of game resolution. Exporting at 0.5 is 50% creates an image half the resolution experienced in-game. Warning high values may cause hitching when taking photos.
Fixed Resolution
Export images at the specified resolution. This may provide images framed differently from what is seen in-game depending on the monitor aspect ratio. Warning higher resolutions may cause hitching when taking photos.
Monpedia
This feature is very exciting to talk about, basically, as of the next patch (hopefully), we will have the first iteration of the Monpedia, an auto catalog system for documenting the wildlife on the Sapphire Islands.
Filling out the entries for a species increases the familiarity which will allow the player to get closer to the Monster Girl and eventually open up interactions with them.
Doll System
Alright here is the big cheese, the whole reason for our move to UE5 and the main reason we had massive downtimes from the original release of Sapphire. The Doll system is our overly complicated interaction system with ultimate customization for interactions with an unlimited number of participants. Let me elaborate…
Each position in our game requires a tone of prep and planning. Since every pose will need to have a tone of locking points created and those points documented correctly.
This next build will include the Missionary position and configuration options for that pose as well, and maybe the Jacko pose as well. Depends on how long it takes. However, each model in the game is capable of matching these poses and the system will intelligently blend these poses together. So if you grab buns leg and pull it to an unrealistic position once you let go of the leg she will move it back to a more comfortable position.
These customizations sit between animation loops and facial expressions. Here are some better examples of this in action.
Also in terms of insertions, we are working on a “rubber” type system to not leave weird-looking gapes. Manually fitting everyone to all Monster Girls would end up being a lot of work so building something more automatic is ideal.
Narrative
This is a really interesting portion of development that should help deliver better experiences to players using our systems and such. The basic idea of the game is as follows:
The Sapphire Islands are discovered, they are teeming with brand new species of animals called Monster Girls who have shown alarming curiosity for Humans. The first team of scientists/explorers head into the islands and eventually stop communicating with the outside world. Your job is to follow in the footsteps of the first team and discover their whereabouts. The secondary objective is to document the wildlife.
In terms of NPC’s here is what we were considering to help deliver the story. Keep in mind the names will likely change in the future.
First Team:
Bucky: The team's Anthrozoologist. Bucky has a reserved type of personality but is constantly compared to his father's achievements. Wishes
Claire: The team’s Ethnologist. Very eager to make a name for herself Claire is the type to dive into any opportunity and get her hands dirty in the process.
Chad: The team’s Ecologist. By the books and professional in every regard. Chad is also the most senior on the team.
Second Team:
Player Character Oscar (male): A wildlife photographer known for his extreme patience and award-winning photography.
Player Character Jamie (female): Fresh out of college and ready to make a name for herself.
Professor Frida: Advisor and handler for the Second Team visiting the Sapphire Islands, she will be running the ship and helping plot the course for the duo of Oscar and Jamie.
Whatever character you choose the other will become an NPC who has their own tasks and roles in the game.
Timeline
The last point I want to bring up in this post is our early adopter release timeline. We want to give ourselves at least a month per patch to do three “sprints” of development with one sprint for testing and bug fixing. This means that each patch should drop at the beginning of each month if nothing explodes. This next patch we are looking to drop around September 1st.
On October 18, Them's Fightin' Herds will launch on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch! We'll have full crossplay and rollback netcode!
We've got a new trailer showcasing each of the seven characters available in the base game:
Wallpapers of the character cards in this trailer are available in our public art kit.
Preorders are open on the Maximum Games Store, but you can also buy from major retailers. Both physical and digital purchase options will be available for all platforms. Also check out the Deluxe Edition, which includes the Season 1 Pass.
The Season 1 Pass is not out yet and will launch closer to the release of consoles. It will contain the following items:
4 additional playable characters (with Pixel Lobby avatars), released over time.
4 new stages unique to each character, as they release.
4 exclusive Pixel Lobby accessories.
1 exclusive palette for every character, including the ones in the season pass!
The exclusive accessories and palette pack will be unlocked immediately after purchasing the Season 1 Pass.
This is only the first bit of news to come this week. This weekend we'll be at Summer Jam to visit with players and drop an exciting announcement after grand finals! You won't want to miss it.
TFH releasing on consoles is not something we ever imagined would happen in the life of this project and was only possible with the assistance of our publisher Modus Games. They work on a lot of other great games too, so be sure to check out their full catalog!
Notice to crowdfund backers: We still owe some of you a physical release of the game. We're currently in the process of figuring out the best way to handle things given that our physical console versions are about to eclipse production of the exclusive PC backers edition, which we posted mockups for 2 years ago and is still moving slow as molasses for various dumb reasons that are entirely our fault. We will figure this out before long and make a dedicated post marking the way forward. We haven't forgotten about you.
Thank you to all our players past, present, and future for supporting our project, giving us meaning as creators, and being a part of this amazing thing. The stampede continues.
This dev diary was originally posted exclusively to patreon subscribers on 11th August 2022.
That last week dragged so much, but Chapter 3 is finally out to VIP DLC holders and high level Patreon tiers!
There were SO MANY changes across all scripts, chapters plus the new content, image gallery, replay gallery etc. etc. that I've been incredibly nervous that I'd miss some sort of major bug or that the game would be riddled with bugs. Thankfully there have been a grand total of 0 bugs reported so far! As a lone developer, that fills me with joy. Hopefully that's the bulk of the major changes done and it will be primarily new content from here on out. That should make the release process a whole lot less stressful!
Work has continued to the first part of Chapter 4 too with the first story scene completed and the second scene has begin. I call it the second scene but it will almost certainly become the third scene with scene that got cut from the end of chapter 3 becoming scene 2 however as that is much more complicated to create I left that for now due to my upcoming vacation.
I have an image to share with you this week HOWEVER this image contains a major spoiler. If you haven't played Chapter 3 yet, or if you have and don't want to ruin the cliffhanger then DO NOT LOOK HERE. Otherwise, enjoy!
I'm not sure if I will get chance to post another Dev diary before I leave for my vacation. If not, I hope you all enjoyed the content update and I can't wait to share some more stuff with you all!
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Patreon Subscribers get early access to Dev Diary content and other benefits. Check them out here. And of course if you haven't yet purchased the game...why not! Grab it here. Did you know you can get access to inter-chapter game updates, unlock all image galleries and other great benefits too by purchasing the VIP DLC? Check that out here.
Two days ago, we released the Major Update Highway to Elderlicht and thanks to your feedback we have been able to provide fixes to some of the issues you've been experiencing.
Fix softlock upon Dryads spawning: no more softlocks for you on Glenwald.
Fix softlock hover during skill execution: you can now safely use a skill and hover/unhover other skills on your hero. Especially with multi-hits ability.
Fix softlock "1 enemy remaining in Elderlicht": an enemy could spawn on a lost tile in the water. Now it can't and everything is perfect.
Fix number of wins on 0 to unlock Elderlicht: older runs from Glenwald Calling are now counted, allowing you to unlock Elderlicht in the Oraculum. Enjoy the new map!
Fix Back Protection perk: the perk is now triggered when you are close to the Jeweler, Alchemist and a few other obstacles in Elderlicht.
Fix Warp Gates that could not be destroyed: now, you can smash them to pieces and rebuild them somewhere else. As intended.
Fix "incorrect" input setting: one wrong input in the build with no localization has been removed.
We know you've been itching for what's next, and we're proud and so excited to officially announce the new Pirates Expansion - coming to Bang-On Balls: Chronicles on September 12!
This chronicle is packed with so much stuff, we don't even know where to start!
Between a dozen unique islands to explore, a variety of craft to sail the seas, a pirate supermarket, tons of loot, ship battles, tattoos, and new bosses, this is our most ambitious map yet. Keep your eyes peeled, for there are secrets abound all over these waters.
Catch the official reveal trailer for a taste of what's in store for ye next month and get ready to set sail on a new adventure! We thank you all so much for your continued support mateys. Arrr!
Hey everyone! We have our first larger patch for you all. We've addressed a bunch of the bugs that you all of been experiencing and reporting. We hope that this improves your experience with the game. As always, if you are still experiencing issues, please report them in our Discord through our ticketing system. Also, please consider leaving us a review if you haven't already as it really helps us out!
Changes
Enemies no longer avoid stepping on landmines.
Bug Fix
Fixed cursor not registering skill damage preview when cursor is already focused on target and hotkeys were used to select skill.
Fixed achievements not syncing with Steam. Open the achievement panel will re-sync all achievements.
Fixed Jeff moving to an enemy’s attack area when he tries to target player’s unit.
Fixed level preview missing sprites of bosses
Fixed multiple dynamites being spawned on the same tile.
Fixed multiple Minions being spawned on the same tile.
Fixed Lava not canceling enemy attacks.
Fixed Lava dealing damage to Lynette (Flying Unit)
Fixed Cryo Rain not attacking an enemy in Bush
Fixed when Butter/Mocha/Berry die and leave a Shade on the field.
Fixed Wand of Energy not healing target.
Fixed bosses attacking more than once when player changes their attack direction with certain skills.
