Mar 31, 2023

Characters, Animals, and Utility Systems

Starfall Protocol - info

Hey, Galaxy Explorers!🚀🌌

We trust this message finds you in high cosmic spirits. In the past month, we've been diligently working on crafting various characters and animals to enrich your gameplay experience. Let's delve into the diverse universe awaiting you and your crew!

CHARACTERS👩‍🦰

Our goal was to develop a minimalist yet expressive art style, enabling a vast range of customization options to strengthen the bond between you and your crew members. Our extensive character customization system offers endless possibilities for personalizing your crew, including head and ear shapes, eyes and eyebrows, facial and hairstyles, scars, tattoos, and biomodifications! We're also adding variety in terms of height, eye and ear placement, and head size for that extra touch of individuality. We've strived to create an art style that is unique, simple, visually pleasing, and modder-friendly. We plan to release art/modding tutorials later, making it a breeze to create your own character mods in Nebula! This initial art pass features only a few assets, but it already showcases the potential for crafting diverse and expressive characters, both in terms of their visual characteristics and in-game traits and personalities.

As crew members face challenges and sustain injuries, their appearances will evolve to reflect their experiences, adding depth and realism to your adventures. Take Jammer, for example: After engaging in a fierce battle, he suffers significant wounds, losing an eye and an ear while accumulating numerous scars on his body and face. As time passes, Jammer heals, and with the aid of advanced biomodifications, he receives "prosthetic" replacements to compensate for his impaired hearing and vision, showcasing his resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity (at least his hair stayed intact).

As for body design and clothing, you can expect a range of stylish outfits for your colonists to wear, providing an excellent opportunity to show off your style during intergalactic voyages and diplomatic meetings! Additionally, we've recognized the value of adding hands to your pawns for a more immersive experience. With the addition of hands, we can display a broader spectrum of expressive behaviors. Whether your pawns are sweeping floors, carrying resources, or engaging in furious fistfights, their hands will enhance these character actions in a lively and dynamic way. Body designs and hands are still being heavily worked on, so we'll keep you informed on our progress in the coming updates. In the meantime, take a look at some of our first art pass on clothing designs!

ANIMALS🐮

Interstellar animals in Nebula have adapted to thrive in various environments, exhibiting intricate behaviors and relationships within their ecosystems and with your colonists. Some animals serve as valuable food sources, while others provide resources or can be tamed as pet companions. However, be cautious of species that may threaten your colony with direct aggression, venomous attacks, or by spreading disease, as well as those that may damage your infrastructure or consume valuable resources.

For example, the Solaris Tortoise is native to arid deserts. Their durable, heat-resistant shells are invaluable for crafting heat shields and protective gear for colonists. Also, their eggs and meat provide great trading opportunities or a nutritious meal for times of hunger!

UTILITY SYSTEMS🔧

In Nebula, managing your colony's utility systems is crucial for success. As you traverse the galaxy, you'll need to maintain a keen focus on various aspects, such as power generation, plumbing, oxygen supplies, and heating. Ensuring that your crew has access to clean water, breathable air, and stable living conditions without freezing to death in space is essential to keeping them healthy, efficient, and motivated. Carefully planning and upgrading your utility systems will help you adapt to new challenges and make the most of the opportunities you encounter in the vastness of space! You will be responsible for constructing and managing your pipe and wire networks, making sure each part of your Starship has access to the required utilities!

Stay tuned for upcoming updates with more in-depth information on utility systems. We're excited to share how these aspects will impact your gameplay and decisions as you explore and conquer the galaxy!

As always, we appreciate your support and enthusiasm, and we can't wait to hear your thoughts on the characters, animals, and utility systems we're developing! Your feedback is invaluable in helping us create an immersive, dynamic, and captivating experience for all of you!

If you're interested in becoming a backer, we invite you to visit our BackerKit Store:
{LINK REMOVED}

If you further support our efforts, consider joining our Patreon community at: https://www.patreon.com/nebulagame

Don't forget to connect with us on Discord for all the latest updates and discussions: https://discord.gg/nebula-934034696239738891

All the best,
The Nebula Team

Mar 31, 2023

March News Update

Verdant Village - exodussoftware3

As usual time for an update on what’s been going on with Verdant Village. The answer to that question is a bit complicated. Sort of something between a lot and not a lot depending on what you interpret as progress.

Personally, I’m very happy with everything. I’m not much for extensive planning, but I’m forcing the matter in this case as I should have done from the start. Real quickly though, for those out of the loop, it should be said that per the last update the game is going on a sort of hiatus while I remake it in a new engine. As mentioned before, if you already own the game you can play it for now and eventually you’ll get the new version for free. There’s a variety of reasons for remaking it but if you want the details you can check the previous post linked below.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1236900/view/3647390066644268292

So, this month has been a planning extravaganza. While the game isn’t changing in massive ways I basically had nothing that really resembled a design doc for Verdant Village. At the beginning I had a word doc that was several pages that basically said (very useful) things like “Alchemy will be a system that exists”, with little to no details describing the system. This left me to work out the details when I made the system which resulted in many an issue.

I now have not one, but several documents for the game. The main design doc is currently 46 pages long and I think its done, bar any minor changes to finalize things. Aside from this I have several other documents that are still works in progress detailing items, zones, secrets, rewards, quests, holidays, lore, events, etc.

The design document is the most important one however. It basically lays out every system in the game as well as more generalized notes to adhere to during design. There’s lots of little things like focusing on a more consistent UI, adding flare to various elements of the game to make it generally feel better, and various modifications to systems that will hopefully relieve pain points as there are several things that I think are rough for new players and even experienced ones.

Aside from that, like I said, every system is laid out in detail. Most things are remaining the same, however there are some changes that I’m considering. As this is all still in the design phase its subject to change, but I’d like to have it locked in by the time I begin coding in earnest. While I don’t want to spoil everything, I am curious for external opinions. I think I’m prone to complicating things in a game in the name of player progress, but I don’t want to go overboard. Below are a few things I wanted to mention and see if anyone had an opinion on. These aren’t all the changes but they are a few of the larger ones.

Decoration Buff (for lack of a better term): If anyone has played My Time In Portia I believe they have something similar. The idea being that by decorating your house and farm you get a buff. I haven’t determined what, but was considering something along the lines of additional stamina. Unlike Portia where certain objects give certain buffs this would be more of a score you get by adding objects in general so you can place what you want and still get the benefit.

Automation: While I won’t be specific on this, it’s a system I’ve had on my mind for a long time. In terms of theming this would keep to the games current theme, so you won’t be making industrial machinery. It would instead be something probably more based in magic. The idea would be to automate some, but not all, tasks. Things like auto gathering plants, automatically being given certain basic resources each day like stone, clay, or wood, and other such things. All of this would run on a power source that you would still have to supply so it isn’t completely free.

Hybrid Seeds: This is something fairly simple that I was considering. Looking at farming it sort of dead ends before it begins. There isn’t really anything different about it at the end from when you start. Generally, you just have more crops and they are probably watered automatically for you. This idea is meant to change that a bit. Basically, the general store will sell a smaller variety of seeds. The player can then build a small structure on their farm that allows you to cross breed seeds to get new crops. These cross breeds are remembered and there would be ways to obtain seeds you’ve made after you have made them once so you don’t need to cross breed them every time. In addition to this I wanted to add a few end game crops so you have something to strive for.

Grand Market: This one is sort of big. As the name implies, it’s a big market. The general idea being that this something of a task generator, a system for making money, and one of the end game challenges if you want it. The general premise would be that you would gain access to this market at some point in the game. Every couple of days or so the market generates requests. These requests can be for any item in the game and are randomized. As well as it being any item the requests are timed. So basically you can take on jobs to create specific items and you get more money for doing this task than you would be just selling the item at a store. Also requests would be themed so some might be all about alchemy objects while others are all livestock products. As far as end game goes I would like make a set of very difficult perhaps even a year long requests for players to complete.

That’s some of the new stuff that I wouldn’t mind getting an opinion on. There are a few other things as well, along with tons of changes as mentioned but I don’t think its stuff that needs to be brought up here.

Another thing to mention is characters. I don’t know that this really matters because I don’t think there was a ton to go off of in the current game, but still I thought I should mention it. I’m currently creating a database on characters. No characters are being dropped but some are changing a bit. Appearances may be altered and backstories might change for them. Like I said I don’t think it really matters but I wanted to mention it as its currently what I’m working on. There wasn’t a ton to go on with the current iterations but I can say that the updated versions have many more details to work with which should result in more fleshed out personalities and stories.

This sort of thing ties into writing. While the current version of the game has a setting that is sometimes eluded to it is pretty scattered and not terribly well made. I went back and drew up a legit lore document for the game world that solidifies what was already there. It also has plenty of extraneous details. I somehow doubt this world’s creation myth is really going to come up much in a farming game, but it exists now and will probably be hidden away somewhere in the game.
All this is generally being done to hopefully enhance the world. The way I see it these are the types of games that players can spend tens if not hundreds of hours in. The world should be a character like anything else that brings you into the world. So while not all of it will be super relevant to your quaint little farming life it will hopefully serve to flesh out the world a bit.

Alright, I think that’s it. I apologize for the long post. It’s a lot easier to write a lot when you are just talking about stuff you are going to do and not what code you actually wrote in a month. As much as I’d like to have an ETA on the new version of the game I don’t have one. The only thing I can say is that Steam allows for beta branches. What I will probably do at some point is have an opt in beta so if you want to play the new version you can while retaining access to the old version.

Anyway, I’m off to write more characters. Thanks for your patience and support. With any luck actual coding will begin in April and I’ll have something of substance to report next month.

Mar 31, 2023

Major Update: Friends and Foes is out now!

The Iron Oath - sennin

Hello mercenaries!

The Friends and Foes update is now live! We've received a lot of valuable feedback and bug reports during the last few weeks, and we want to give a big thanks to everyone who helped us playtest the update on the test branch. We also appreciate everyone being patient and supportive as we worked to get this update complete over the last several months. It was a big undertaking for just the two of us, and the amount of testing and tuning needed was comparable to when we were preparing to launch the game last year.

While there is still a bit of refinement to be done, we're happy with how it turned out, and we feel all the changes accomplished what we set out do: giving players a better sense of progression and choice with their characters, and making combat more engaging and less repetitive with new enemies and mechanics.

Before diving into all the changes, we want to address the feedback we've received on the update's difficulty. Players will be happy to hear that we've raised up Accuracy to be more in line with how it was prior to this update. While we do want players to have to work a bit make their Basic Attacks land (with Flanks, Staggers, Stuns), we realize that missing half the time by default isn't fun either.

With regards to overall difficulty, Battle-Hardened is now a bit easier than it was when the update first went onto the test branch. It may still be a bit too difficult right now for new players (or players who haven't played in a while), but we don't want to make any drastic changes right now since it would affect the other difficulty settings. For now, we've added the ability to switch your difficulty setting at any time in the pause menu, and we'll also be adding some new difficulty settings (and tuning existing ones as needed) in a future update.

Finally, we want to say a quick word on the state of dungeon exploration. Due to all the changes, dungeons are currently a bit barren right now. Our goal for the next major update is improving the whole dungeon experience by tweaking some mechanics, adding more event types, and also rewarding the player with better loot.

With all that out of the way, let's move onto the changes made with the release of Friends and Foes :)

Friends and Foes: Summary of Changes

Attributes Overhaul: Attributes have been reworked, and a new 'Mending' attribute has been added that increases the potency of Heals and Damage Shields (Power is now solely for abilities that deal damage).
Levelling Overhaul: On level up, the Attribute Points you gain can be spent towards ranking up attributes of your choosing. Overall, the increases are much more significant than before, and characters have a higher potential for growth.
Level Cap: The level caps have been adjusted. From levels 1-20 you will gain both Attribute and Ability Points on level up. Level 20 is the new softcap, and from 21-40 you will only gain Attribute Points (3 per level).
Class Abilities: We've adjusted the base function of a few abilities to make them a more attractive option.
Full Ability Trees: We've made adjustments to almost every ability tree, and the 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades are now fully implemented (totaling 252 new choices). They can be upgraded at level 5 and level 10 respectively.
Increased Party Size: The maximum number of characters in a party has been increased from 4 to 5.
New and Modified Conditions: We've added some new combat conditions and have tweaked a few existing ones. Conditions now last longer and play a much larger role in combat now, especially when dealing with certain enemies.
Reworked Enemies: We've reworked a lot of existing enemies, changing their stats, abilities, and passives. Overall, enemies are now more specialized in what they do, and are more statistically and mechanically different from one another.
New Enemies: We've added 30 new enemy variants into the game for more variation from fight to fight.
Enemy Traits: Elites and Bosses now spawn with Traits (from a pool of 50) that add an extra strategic consideration when fighting them, ranging from statistical increases to unique combat mechanics. You can view their traits by mousing over their portrait or sprite.
Combat Deployment: The deployment zones available for both sides are now more varied (it's no longer always left vs right!).
Line of Sight and Ranged Unit Mechanics: We've made some adjustments to Line of Sight, making ranged units less effective in certain situations when shooting through other units to hit their target. Ranged units will no longer be able to target and attack other targets when they have an adjacent enemy. They must either move, or attack the adjacent enemy (and deal 50% damage)
New UI Screens: The Manage Roster and Storage screens have been completely redesigned. Other screens now have their own dedicated windows (they will also be receiving a redesign in the future to match the style of the new roster screen).
Codex: We've added a Codex screen that contains information on all enemies, enemy traits, and combat conditions. To view the codex entry for an enemy, simply right click their portrait.
Combat Frequency: Due to increased party size and adjustments to enemy stats, fights now take a little longer on average. To compensate for this, we've lowered the number of fights in dungeons to 2, 3 and 4 for Short, Medium and Long dungeons respectively. Don't be afraid to be a bit more liberal with your ability charges!

Patch Notes for Friends and Foes (0.6.008)

Gameplay Changes and Additions

You can now change your difficulty setting at any time (except in combat). We will be adding more difficulty settings (and tweaking existing ones) with our next major update. With the new mechanics at play, we recommend starting on Adventurer, and then bumping it up to Battle-Hardened if you're finding it too easy.
Removed the old primary attributes (such as Toughness, Finesse, etc). Players now invest directly into combat stats such as Health, Power, Evasion
Starred attributes are now randomly assigned to characters to encourage different builds, instead of being fixed and dictated by their class
Power now only affects abilities that deal damage
Added a new Mending stat that handles the scaling of Healing and Shielding effects
Accuracy of Level 1 characters is now closer in range to where it previously was on the main branch (for those that have been playing on the latest test branch, it'll be 12~ higher than it was, 22~ if you only played the first version on test)
Reworked the XP table for leveling up, particularly beyond level 10 (late game should be a bit less grindy now)
Increased the level cap to 40 (with a soft cap of 20). From levels 1-20, characters earn both Attribute and Ability points. After level 20, they will only receive a reduced number of Attribute points
Reworked the number of Ability and Attribute points given at each level
The 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades (totaling 252 choices) are now fully implemented. A character will unlock them at levels 5 and 10 respectively
The majority of character traits have been adjusted so they're more impactful, and two new traits have been added that affect Mending
Adjusted the values of many enchantment scrolls to be more significant (particularly Health, Power, Damage Shield, and a few others)
Added a 'Scroll of Mending' Enchantment, granting +5/6/7/8/10 Mending depending on the scroll's rarity
All Gear has been slightly adjusted to better synergize with the new attribute system
All existing enemies have had their stats reworked and abilities adjusted. Enemies now have more of a specialized purpose.
Over 30 new enemy variants (many with new abilities) have been added to the game
Elite enemies now also gain +14 Defense and +50 Mending (in addition to their Health and Power being increased like always)
Increased starting coin across all difficulty levels (due to the party size increase)
On Adventurer difficulty: player Accuracy has been increased by 10, enemy Evasion has been reduced by 10, and Bosses have fewer combat traits
Adjusted starting XP when skipping the tutorial (so players don't need to replay the tutorial to start on an equal footing)
While in the prologue, the Inn now guarantees enough recruits to reach a party of 5 (and a Guardian is guaranteed to be among them)
Euric no longer takes a cut of your profits (and now works for free out of the kindness of his heart!)
Euric no longer has the Reckless trait (since it conflicted with his Fortitude trait)
Adjusted mercenary salary costs to be significantly cheaper, capping out around 300~ coin per year (it was too difficult to get ahead previously. This is more of a first pass, and we'll be revisiting salary costs again in the future)
Overworld Encounters have been made more difficult across the board to compensate for the fact that you don't need to save your ability charges for future fights (they were previously far too easy)
The difficulty of random Overworld Encounters is now more varied. If you are capable of beating '5 Skull' encounters, you will occasionally still come across 3 and 4 Skull encounters

Combat Changes and Additions

Max party size is now 5!
The combat deployment zones available to both sides are now more varied
Added over 50 enemy traits that can be assigned to Bosses and Elites, giving them increased stats and unique mechanics that will need to be considered as you're fighting them. Bosses will have 2-5 traits depending on the encounter difficulty, while Elites will always have 2.
Tweaked the Resistances and Immunities of most enemies.
Enemies now have Vulnerabilities to certain damage types (ie. Holy is strong vs Demons). Attacks against vulnerable enemies will do 25% more damage
Units can no longer target other enemies with ranged attacks when they have an enemy next to them. They must either move away (and incur an Attack of Opportunity), or attack the adjacent target and deal 50% less damage. This was done to give players more means of countering powerful ranged units (by jumping on top of them with a speedy melee unit)
Ranged units can no longer shoot through their allies from a distance to deal full damage to a target that is directly behind the ally. They will now do 50% less damage (due to partial Line of Sight) when attempting such a shot
When using Guard, that unit counts as a full Line of Sight blocker to enemies (meaning you can place a squishier character directly behind them, and prevent them from being targeted at all under the right circumstances)
The duration of most conditions have been increased, giving them a more important role in combat
Most abilities that cleanse conditions have been made more effective by also providing immunity to all conditions for 3 Rounds (which allows you to also use them proactively)
The Guardian's 'Radiance' passive - which cleanses all adjacent allies - now requires 4 stacks in order to trigger instead of 3 (it was very powerful and too easy to trigger, but it also makes her damage abilities that consume Radiance stacks more potent now)
Added two new combat conditions: Sunder Armor (breaks target's Defense) and Grievous Wounds (prevents targets from being buffed, healed, or shielded)
Bleed and Burn conditions now last until cleansed
Updated Poison to deal damage to the target equal to 10% of their current Health, lasting until cleansed (we had been meaning to change it for a while as it was previously too similar to Decay)
Stunned characters have their Defense halved (and we updated the tooltip to mention that Basic Attacks against Stunned targets cannot miss, which was always the case, but not displayed anywhere)
Added a new Miasma terrain effect that inflicts Poison on the occupant
Tweaked the Corruption Terrain that is spawned by Demons and Corrupted units. Enemy units standing on it will be healed for 10% of their max health once per round
Increased the effects of standing in Tall Grass to be more impactful. Units now gain 15 Evasion, but lose 15 Accuracy.
Reworked how enemy compositions are created by applying a "strength value" to each unit. Combat difficulty should now be much more consistent as a result, and we can easily tweak the values as needed going forward if an enemy is too strong or too weak relative to their value.
Limited the number of enemies that can appear upfront in a fight. Any overflow will now spawn as reinforcements in later rounds (this will most often be seen in overworld fights, and on smaller tilesets such as the Fort)
A number of changes to various class Abilities and Upgrades. Too upgrade changes to list, but below are the changes made to abilities themselves:
(Guardian) Blinding Strike's damage has been significantly increased
(Guardian) Safeguard's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Guardian) The Root from Judgment now lasts for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Huntress) Rapid Fire's damage has been slightly reduced
(Huntress) Restraining Order now Roots for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Huntress) The buff and Mark from True Sight now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Huntress) Increased the trigger range of Overwatch from 2 to 3 cells
(Huntress) Volley's damage has been increased
(Icebinder) Arctic Armor's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Icebinder) The Freeze effect from Cold Feet now lasts 1 Round instead of 2
(Icebinder) Cold Feet's trap damage is slightly increased
(Pugilist) Mind, Body, and Soul no longer heals by default, but it does provide condition immunity for 3 Rounds
(Pugilist) Healing Trance now heals adjacent allies for 25% of the value to himself (instead of 50%, which was too powerful)
(Pugilist) Battle Instinct's starting values have been reduced to +35% for Evasion, Defense and Power
(Pyrolancer) Pyromania can now be active on more than one ally
(Pyrolancer) Wildfire can now be used again without erasing a previous instance
(Pyrolancer) Return to Cinder can now be used again without erasing a previous trap, and its damage has been slightly increased
(Pyrolancer) Heatwave has had its damage slightly reduced
(Stormcaller) Conduit now targets a specific cell instead of an enemy (so it can miss if the target moves). Any cell within range (empty or occupied) can be targeted. We felt the ability was a bit too easy and powerful before, but now it requires a bit of planning. To compensate for the change, its damage has been slightly increased.
(Stormcaller) The range of Cyclone has been increased and any pushed targets are also Slowed for 2 Rounds
(Stormcaller) Changed Wind Surge to now grant a singly ally +10 Speed, +2 Movement and +20 Evasion for 3 Rounds.
(Valkyrie) Aegis now grants the Valkyrie a flat +20 Defense (previously +40%). The Buff and the Taunt now last 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Valkyrie) Guardian Angel now applies a Damage Shield to the targeted ally for 3 Rounds
(Valkyrie) Take Flight's damage has been slightly reduced
(Valkyrie) Champion's Order now lasts for 2 Rounds and has a Range of 2 (both up from 1)
The 'Potency' upgrades for Damage, Healing, and Shielding abilities have been reduced (most have gone from +25%/+30% down to +15%/+20%). With the rest of the trees now available, the previous values resulted in you outscaling enemies too much in the late game (few enemies could withstand 1500 damage from an upgraded Rapid Fire!). While we want you to feel powerful late game, it shouldn't be easier than doing 1 Skull missions in the early game
A number of changes and additions to enemy Passive Abilities:
(Specters/Wraiths) As a drawback to their Apparition passive (teleporting and ignoring Attacks of Opportunity when moving), Specters can no longer move and attack on the same turn, and will now delay their attack until the end of the round
(Necromancers and Undead) Decay no longer stacks on targets. Targets will have their Max Health lowered by 5% every round until cleansed
(Demons) Enabled the Demon's Empower passive. Upon their death, they will buff the stats of one adjacent ally (with the highest Health). Be mindful of this when going to strike a killing blow!
(Soldiers) Due to their training and discipline, House Soldiers excel when fighting together in formation. We've given them a Shieldwall passive that grants them a bonus to Defense and Evasion when they have two or more adjacent allies at their side
(Nullbeasts) Nullbeasts gain a new Deadzone Shroud buff when occupying a cell with Deadzone Terrain, granting them increased Evasion and cleansing their conditions.
(Hoarwulfs) Ice Tracks now spawns Ice Terrain on the cell they move to, instead of on every cell traversed.
(Hoarwulfs) Added a new Crystalize passive to Hoarwulfs, increasing their Defense by 10 (max of +30) for every round they remain stationary. This can be dispelled by pushing them, burning them, or by using an ability that removes enemy buffs
(Brightmanes) Added a new Piercing Light passive, allowing their attacks to completely ignore Defense
A few passives are currently disabled, leaving a few enemy types without any. We'll be enabling them in a future update

UI/UX Changes and Additions

Split up the old 'Company Management' window into separate screens (with their own hotkeys). The 'Manage Roster' screen has been completely overhauled and is much easier to use (the other screens such as Company Upgrades, Reputation will be getting a rework in the future to match the new style of the Roster screen)
Added a stat comparison tooltip when hovering over equippable gear in the 'Manage Roster' screen
Added a Codex that can be accessed at any time to give players information on the foes they are facing (accessed in combat by right clicking an enemy portrait)
The default dialogue font is now larger (the smaller font remains as an option for those who prefer it). We will be slowly converting all other UI elements to this larger font.
Tweaked existing Tutorials and added a few new ones to help new players gain a solid understanding of various game mechanics
Added a tooltip when hovering the difficulty skulls of a contract or encounter that suggests a recommended party level
Void Breaches in the overworld now display a recommended party level in the tooltip (we'll be adding this in the tooltip for other Points of Interest in the future as well)
Added a tooltip on a character's XP bar, so you can see their progress to the next level
Increased the number of slots in the turn order UI
Added more unique status icons for some buffs/debuffs instead of using the generic ones all the time
The number of rounds remaining for buffs and debuffs is now displayed on the status icons (and within the tooltip)
A unit's stat tooltip now comes up in combat after hovering their sprite for 1 second (you can still instantly access it by pressing tab)
Added Mending, Critical Chance and Accuracy to the stat tooltip (and a list of traits for Bosses and Elites)
Added a new boss icon to the portraits of boss enemies
Added instructions and a sound effect when using abilities that select 2 separate targets

Fixes

Significantly sped up the "thinking" time for certain enemies on their turn (such as the Spectral Reaper)
Potential fix for a crash that would rarely occur when a floor hazard expired
Fixed a crash related to Frozen targets taking damage from certain sources
Fixed a bug where all allied attacks would contribute to the Stormcaller's Static Charge stacks on an enemy (inflicted by his passive). All ally attacks still have a chance to trigger the Stun (based on stack count), but only the Stormcaller's attacks can increase the stacks now
When using Wait, the duration of buffs and debuffs will no longer tick down until you actually take an action in the round
Ability upgrades that refresh the duration and value of Damage Shields will now update correctly
The Valkyrie's passive 'Vismyr's Protection' which provides a Damage Shield (base of 70) at the start of combat now works correctly
Fixed a bug where other Damage Shields applied to the Valkyrie would instantly break when damage was taken
Fixed a bug where Taunted units would just pass their turn
Fixed a bug where Taunted units were not counting towards a Flank on their taunter
Fixed a bug where the Icebinder's 'Impaling Ice' ability would cause the target to act twice at the end of the round
Fixed a bug where you sometimes wouldn't get the promised coin during an event (like when making a deal with Bandits)
Fixed a bug where Basic Attacks against Staggered units were not guaranteed to hit (now they are)
Fixed a crash with falling rock hazards and significantly sped up the rate at which they fall
Fixed various bugs where enemies would sometimes not act on their turn (still sometimes occurs, but the majority of instances should be resolved)
Units should no longer get stuck in Ice Walls
Fixed a bug that allowed the 'Potency' ability upgrades to persist after refunding that character's ability points (until the game was shut down)
Fixed a bug where a character's Health in the overworld would be displayed as the amount that they had when they left a dungeon
Possible fix for a rare softlock that could sometimes occur during the camping cutscene after the tutorial
Fixed a bug where quests sometimes wouldn't appear in cities after completing the prologue
Fixed an issue where the effects from Tall Grass sometimes weren't being removed even after the unit moved off of it
Fixed a bug that was in the latest test branch where the Journal wasn't displaying any quest information
Many more undocumented fixes! There are a few minor ones we're aware of, and they'll be getting addressed in a future patch

Notes

Due to the changes, all your characters will have their Attribute and Ability points refunded when loading an old save. You'll need to reallocate them.
Any enchantments applied to gear on old saves will be removed and you will be given scrolls in your Storage (if you're currently in a dungeon, you won't see them until you exit)
We've left the F10 debug function enabled. If you experience a softlock in combat, hitting F10 will usually fix it (though please do still submit a bug report in game so we can get the log and fix the problem)

What's next?

We will be following up with patches as needed to fix a few more minor bugs (and any new ones that are found). Up next is our Tales by the Fire update which will be bringing many improvements to dungeon exploration (and dungeon loot) along with adding our 8th class: the Balladeer.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support and feedback. We hope you like all the changes! If you're enjoying the game, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on Steam, and we'd also like to invite you to join our Discord community. Have a great weekend!

-Curious Panda Games

Mar 31, 2023

Universe Sandbox Roadmap: 2023 & Beyond

Universe Sandbox - bshapiroalbert

The Milky Way galaxy with a trail for every nebula in the galaxy using our upcoming physics architecture improvements. Currently, trails are only shown for some nebulae due to performance limitations. The colors show how many times the orbit of a nebula must be computed to maintain physical accuracy. Blue means fewer computations, while red means more.

We're working to give you more power to understand and control the complex phenomena of the universe. Our roadmap for 2023 includes simulating the lakes of liquid methane on Titan, hot planets emitting light, and realistically colliding spacecraft and bananas. But before we dive in, let's recap some accomplishments from last year.

Highlights From 2022

Demonstrating highlights from 2022, including the Force Spin tool, Settle Water button, and Auto Simulation Speed.

In 2022, we put out 9 updates for Universe Sandbox. These included many new features, but some of our favorites are

Spinning up planets so fast they break apart using the new Force Spin tool
Exploring constellations for 10 different cultures
Customizing the look and topography of planets and moons with a library of realistic color and height maps
Fundamental improvements to our planetary collision system

Check out our 2022 Retrospective for more on what we did last year.

So What’s the Plan for 2023?

Add more materials for constructing & simulating planets & atmospheres
Overhaul our under-the-hood physics architecture to improve accuracy and performance
Simulate light emission from hot planets
Continue work on bringing Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets
Improve our development tools to identify issues quickly and provide a more bug-free experience

Many of our projects, like bringing Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets, have been in development for months or years. While we plan to work on everything we discuss here in 2023, complications may cause features to be delayed, and our priorities may change.

More Materials & Composition Simulation

Titan with realistic lakes of liquid methane. Titan’s properties include the amount of methane and the percentage in each phase (solid, liquid, and gas). Material colors are manually adjusted to help see the lakes. This feature and interface are a work in progress.

We’re expanding the number of materials in Universe Sandbox you can use to simulate, construct, and terraform planets and atmospheres realistically. For example, new materials like methane will allow us to fully simulate lakes of liquid methane on Titan. We’re also adding advanced simulation to compute planet radii based on the pressure and temperature of each material in the planet’s composition. Ever wonder how big the Moon would be if it were made entirely of oxygen? Soon you’ll be able to find out.

A (Multi) Material World
- Planet radii and atmospheres will be realistically simulated based on the mass and phase (solid, liquid, and gas) of each material in their composition.
- Simulation of an atmosphere’s heating (the greenhouse effect), color, and opacity, including Venus-like atmospheres, will be based on their material composition.
- Designing the properties, data views, and tools for you to construct atmospheres, build and terraform planets, and track these materials is a crucial part of our development process.
This graph shows the calculated density of the materials of Earth based on their depth. You can see the density of Earth increases as you move towards its core. The cut-away view of Earth shows the individual materials, temperature, and phase of each material from the inside out. This feature and interface are a work in progress.
Physics-based Phases
- The phase of each material in a planet’s composition will be realistically determined based on its pressure and temperature. Make a planet entirely out of water and see the phases from the inside out (our current model says it would be 100% liquid inside).
  - Material phase models are based on geological and astrophysical measurements and research.
- Planet radii will then be calculated based on the phase and density of each material that makes up a planet’s composition. If you change the composition, the radius will change with it.
Liquid materials added to the surface of a planet with the Planetscaping tool will blend over time. Artificial coloring is used here to help differentiate materials. This feature and interface are a work in progress.
Tracking Materials
- Materials will have customizable colors based on their physical properties that will blend on the surface of objects. Watch oceans of methane mix with oceans of oxygen in real time.

Physics Fundamentals

While many moons orbiting Earth and colliding are beautiful, the more objects in a simulation, the more computationally demanding it is.

Our project to add everyday object collisions, like throwing a banana at a car, led us to first rewrite our physics architecture. Realistically smashing satellites together is part of continuous efforts to improve the realism and performance of Universe Sandbox.

New Physics Architecture
- Overhauling our custom N-body (gravity) simulation will improve gravity-related accuracy, stability, and performance. Tight orbits like the Hubble Space Telescope around Earth should be stable at simulation speeds as high as a month per second (instead of a few days).
- These updates are the foundation for future physics improvements, like spaceships.
Before - Our current gravity simulation has small inaccuracies, so the trails of these moons don't show a fish.

After - Improvements to our gravity simulation allow these moons to orbit with trails that clearly show a fish.
Everyday Object Collisions
- Currently, when objects collide, they're treated as spheres. We're working on adding new physics so that everyday objects, simple shapes like dice and pyramids, but also complex shapes like sledgehammers and spacecraft, will collide according to their unique forms. This is often known as rigid body collision physics.
Improved Planetary Collisions
- We’re researching methods to allow objects to stretch and deform, like two fluids mixing, during collisions, to improve upon the sphere absorbing method we currently use. Stay tuned for a status update later this year.
Meteors & Shooting Stars
- To simulate meteors and shooting stars, we’re working on allowing objects to burn up while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere. We’re exploring ways of applying this drag force to objects passing through gas clouds and liquids too. Currently, atmospheres have no effect on objects as they pass through them.
A meteor burns up as it flies through Earth’s atmosphere. Adding atmospheric drag is a work in progress.
Advanced Game Engine Features
- As an ongoing project to optimize our simulation, we’re transitioning to the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox. We’re excited about the expected performance gains.

Lights in Space

As moons collide, they get hot enough to glow and emit light on the surrounding moons. Non-stellar objects emitting light is a work in progress.

We want to light up the universe - by allowing hot planets and moons to emit light. We’re also planning a massive graphics overhaul that will change how you see the Universe (Sandbox).

Light ‘em Up
- Light - it’s not just for stars anymore. Hot planets will emit light based on their temperature so you can light up your simulation by setting Earth to 1000 °C.
- This lighting system will eventually allow you to place and customize lights anywhere in the simulation so you can illuminate your universe without stars.
Untitled Graphics Overhaul
- We don’t want to say too much yet, but we’re working on a massive update to our graphics system that the whole team is very excited about.

Universe Sandbox on Tablets & Phones

The first step of the Welcome to Universe Sandbox guide playing on a smartphone in portrait mode. Universe Sandbox on phones and tablets is a work in progress and is still being developed.

We’re stepping up our development for Universe Sandbox on mobile devices (for iOS and Android) after some delays last year. You can read about our plans in our first Mobile DevLog, and be on the lookout for more updates in the future.

Small Screen Experience
- The primary obstacle in mobile development is adapting our interface that works well on a large screen to work on a small touch screen (like a phone).
- We’re building a system to intelligently resize, hide, and reveal panels as needed. Our goal is to reduce the need for you to spend time managing the user interface so you can focus on bending the simulation to your will.
All of the Above
- Universe Sandbox on mobile is built from the same codebase as the desktop version and will have the same features.
- Performance is also critical, and we’re working to make Universe Sandbox run smoothly on mobile devices no matter the simulation.

Enhancing Our Developer Toolkit

An initial selection of scenes we’re considering for our new in-game Universe Sandbox trailer. Our new trailer is a work in progress.

We’re creating new internal tools to make developing and releasing updates of Universe Sandbox faster. These include systems to analyze your feedback and automate testing for bugs and issues.

Testing 1, 2, 3
- Creating tests that run automatically to check our collision physics, simulation performance, and more will help us catch issues before they’re released. These tests record data and images we can use to find bugs more easily.
Tracking Feedback
- Your in-game feedback and issue reports help us improve Universe Sandbox, and there’s a lot to review. We’re transitioning to a new system to sort and analyze your feedback more efficiently.
Building the Sandbox
- We’ve revamped our automated build system. This system creates a new version of Universe Sandbox in the cloud every time a change is made by one of our team members.
  - This automation saves each of us 10-15 minutes each time we want to review a change.
- With a single button, we can also release new updates to all digital stores that sell Universe Sandbox. This process used to take many hours and involved dozens of manual steps, so this makes it possible to release more updates faster.
- This new system easily makes versions of Universe Sandbox we can test on phones and tablets (iOS and Android) too.
New Trailer
- We’re producing a new Universe Sandbox trailer fabricated entirely in-game. We’ll be able to capture it with a single button press, making it easier to iterate on the trailer over time to show off the latest features and improvements.
- You will be able to play this new trailer inside Universe Sandbox, breaking out of it to experiment or explore every shot and simulation.

And Beyond

A habitable planet with vegetation that dies off after an asteroid impact. Vegetation response to temperature is already implemented, but in the future, additional factors beyond collisions will impact vegetation habitability.

We’re always thinking about the future of Universe Sandbox. Our longer-term goals include gamepad support, life simulation, and more planet customization options. These are still in early development, and we don’t have a timeline for their release (because software development is hard, and not even our astrophysicists can predict all of the complexities of simulating the universe).

Custom Textures
- We want to give you more control over the appearance of your planet. Satisfy your world-building desires by creating a planet using custom maps or images, like a picture of your dog.
Gamepad Support
- What could be better than playing Universe Sandbox from the comfort of your couch? We’re working on adding gamepad support for more ways to control your universe. This will improve our Steam Deck support and has the potential to support other gamepad-based systems in the future.
Life Simulation
- Our expanded materials improvement is the cornerstone of our plans for life simulation. Once Universe Sandbox includes the essentials for life, like oxygen and carbon dioxide, we will be able to explore simulating simple life that will spread across the surface of a planet.

We’re excited for the year ahead and can’t wait to make Universe Sandbox even better!