Nature And Life - Drunk On Nectar - Venugopalan Sreedharan
Drunk On Nectar is back into full development again!
This milestone v0.5 update is literally the halfway point for the game towards a Full Release out of Early Access. The game's development process has been revitalized on many levels and is now fully equipped to realize this goal for 2023.
v0.5 features the game's largest collection of Visual and Gameplay improvements, bugfixes, menu and narration updates and is a must play experience for both old and new players of the game.
You can now expect a new update every 2 weeks from here on. so this is just the beginning of something great!
What's Changed in v0.5
Here's a quick roundup:
Chemical Vision Perfected:
Across tiny instars and large adults, across flora, fauna and various game modes, time of the day, unique gameplay situations like highly populated swarms, etc, etc, DoN's Chemical Trails have been reimagined and corrected for visual and gameplay perfection.
Chemical trails no longer stay permanently on the screen.
The most important gameplay change here is that players now have to Hold X to perceive chemical trails. The goal here was to reduce visual overload, encourage more intelligent planning and to open up new gameplay avenues.
Swarm AI - Significantly Improved
The behaviour of AI swarms has undergone major changes. They're now far more placid, predictable and play out perfectly well for complex predator interactions.
Your experience of the Jumping Spider Lifecycle and Ladybug Lifecycle in particular should be massively improved - more fun, rewarding and interesting as a consequence!
Chemical Filters - Redefining your view of the world!
The game now offers a full range of chemical filters which can be cycled by Tapping the C key.
Chem Filter: Prey Only
This mode limits your chemical vision to only prey that you can currently catch and eat. For example, if a Grasshopper is too large for your current instar then it is entirely skipped! This allows you as a predator to focus your energy intelligently on prey that you can actually catch when you get there :)
Chem Filter: Predators Only
Ever nervous about whether a Jumping Spider or Dragonfly was prowling about you? Well, put your fears to rest by turning on the "Predators Only" chemical filter, which limits your chemical view of the world to only those predators which might actually be interested (and able - i.e. by weight, species. etc) to catch you.
Chem Filter: Mates Only
A classic for Lifecycles Act 3 - Mating & Reproduction. This filter limits your vision to only those fauna that you can actually flirt or mate with. Forget about those prey and predators and fly away to find a beautiful mate! :)
Chem Filter: Flora Only
A treat for advanced predator players - You can now smell floral nectar trails - even as a predator and thus predict which flowers are more likely to actually be visited by butterflies and bees :) No more wasting time sitting on the wrong flower!
Perfect for a Praying Mantis laying ambush!
Chem Filter: All Fauna
This is pretty much game's previous chemical trail mode which would show you all of everything. It can get very visually intense, but they will now fade away the moment the player releases the Chem Vision key (Default: X), thus preventing visual overload.
Other Improvements by category
Chem vision and AI swarms weren't the only thing improved, this update brings a ton of bugfixes and many long awaited changes across the board.
Visuals & Graphics
Landscape texturing at close range improved. Most obvious for tiny instars of Jumping Spiders, Ladybug larva, etc while they're off prowling across the forest floor :)
Landscape texture shaking at close range greatly minimized. Future updates will fully fix this by bringing in new landscapes altogether!
Camera behaviour for drinking nectar from flowers vastly improved. Abrupt jerking fully eliminated, viewing angles are always smooth now!
Gameplay (Common)
Bodyfat saturation cooldown - Allows caterpillars plenty of time to rest / scout before pupation, instead of being forced to eat again and make up for lost bodyfat!
Tiny Predators are now protected from large grasshopper chew holes during tutorial quests.
Camera behaviour for drinking nectar from flowers vastly improved. Abrupt jerking fully eliminated, viewing angles are always smooth now!
Lifecycles
Jumping Spider
Dragonfly quest no longer freezes during narration
Silk Tent Construction vastly simplified - the first two phases (spinning silk) have been removed. Now build your tent in just under 30 seconds!!!
Chemical trails are now carefully designed (size & intensity) across all instars
AI Mates now start off with full satiety (hunger, bodyfat). This ensures they don't run off to look for food while the player engages them for courtship and mating!
Silk Tent Construction vastly simplified!
Monarch Butterfly Lifecycle
Mating Rituals: Chem trails are now carefully controlled at each stage
Ladybug Lifecycle
Chem trails are far more manageable now, yielding vastly improved gameplay
Swarm AI behaviour vastly improved
Grasshopper Lifecycle
Critical bugfix to grass blades: Chew holes no longer "disappear" on certain grass blades.
New "Predators Only" chem filter of special interest for Grasshopper Lifecycle players!
Survival Mode
Praying Mantis Survival
Various bugfixes to animation state and locomotion
"Prey Only" chem filter ensures that oversized Grasshoppers are not shown as potential targets!
Blue Mud Dauber Survival
Gameplay completely rebalanced, much easier to complete now.
Sensory range vastly increased to make it easier to hunt spiders
Nectar consumption and hunger rates increased and decreased, respectively.
Critical bugfixes to resolve blockers that prevent progress at various points
Creature Quests
Checkpoint system fixed. This was previously broken in many cases
Ladybug Creature Quest made a lot more fun and easy thanks to the Chemical Vision improvements
Nature Sandbox
Squirrel removed from fauna menu as it is not yet complete
Various other bugfixes
Major improvements are planned to Nature Sandbox in upcoming updates!
Major Upcoming Updates
Several groundbreaking updates are headed your way, notably
Skill Trees - Lifecycles Act 4 - A Tale of Generations
Ever wished your creature was a lot bigger, or could move faster, or jump higher?
Well, Lifecycles Act 4 will make this possible!
Level up across multiple generations. choose new skills and create your own unique expressions of the game existing species. Featuring RPG elements such as a Specices Tech Tree, this update will add unparalleled depth to the game's existing offerings and is guaranteed to provide endless replay value for the game's ardent fans.
This content focused update will add new subspecies of existing creatures.
So more butterflies, more types of Jumping Spiders, more Grasshoppers - some bigger, some smaller, some green, some brown, etc.
New models, animations and textures will infuse new vigor and life into the game's existing offerings.
Living Flora - Plant & Environment Focus
One of the oldest pillars of Drunk On Nectar is its extensive "Living Flora" plant simulation engine. Historically this has not been featured as much in the game, but the goal of this update is to absolutely revitalize the plants, the flora, the environment - i.e. the natural foundation which the rest of the game and all its creatures depend on.
Thank You
My heartfelt thanks to the game's loving players for your belief in this game and for your patience through the past years.
I'm deeply grateful for your patronage and am absolutely thrilled to walk this road of successful release of the game, here with all of you.
The past few years have been exceedingly challenging, but now the time has come at long last for the game to shine in its full splendor. I am fully committed to achieving this and will do absolutely everything in my power and indeed - beyond that, to fully ensure that Nature & Life - Drunk On Nectar is complete, successful and brings a lot of fun, happiness and joy to all who may play it!
With lots of love to the game's wonderful players and fans, Venugopalan Sreedharan (Developer of Nature & Life - Drunk On Nectar)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS: If you could report any bugs or other issues you run into with this update either here or on the forums, that would be very greatly appreciated! :)
Taboreans, don’t miss out – tomorrow, you’ll find a bunch of discounted items in the shop! Keep checking back to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the time-limted offers.
When?
The Flash Offers will start on 09.05.2023 at 3:00 PM (CEST)
What Items?
The following are just some of the items that are waiting for you:
Today marks the 2nd-year anniversary of UNBEATABLE [white label]! We thought we’d give a few surprises to celebrate the occasion while the team’s been hard at work on the full game, including the release of PATCH V1.0.10, the start of The UNBEATABLE ‘23 season, a progress update on the final game, and more!
[white label] V1.0.10: CHART OVERHAUL 2.0
All of our levels, known by the community as charts or beatmaps, are getting a major refresh in UNBEATABLE [white label]’s newest patch, arriving today! Over the course of the past few months, we’ve been overhauling all of our levels to match the quality of the stuff we’re doing for the final game, and as a part of the [white label] 2nd Year Anniversary, we’re updating [white label] to include these revised charts!
These charts were edited with the help of our current charting team lineup: CHI XU (Jeff), TaroNuke and Cheryl Stelli, giving more variety to each track!
It’s more than just reworked levels too - this comes with re-balanced difficulty ratings and a renaming of our current lineup of difficulties to similarly match with the changes we’re making to the final game.
Here’s a handy reference on difficulty name changes:
Beginner → Beginner (no change!)
Easy → Normal
Normal → Hard
Hard → Expert
UNBEATABLE → UNBEATABLE (no change!)
For those comfortable with the game’s toughest levels, you’ll primarily notice fixes and minor adjustments here-and-there, but for everyone else, you should expect a more forgiving entry-level difficulty curve, as well as a substantial uplift to the quality of those charts. To see all current difficulty ratings and the current tracklist, see the chart below:
We’ll be monitoring feedback on the revised charts, so if you have thoughts on them, feel free to leave them in the Steam forums or the UNBEATABLE feedback channel in our Discord, as well as the Steam forums for [white label]!
NEW STAR CHART + QOL CHANGES
TaroNuke’s first STAR-chart releases today in the [white label] V1.0.10 patch! Introducing “NUKLEAR”, the alternate Lv. 18 for WAITING - LUMENA-TAN REMIX! Here’s a comment from TaroNuke on the design behind this chart:
“Feeling inspired, I decided to create a chart that simulates a feeling of playing DDR. Place one index finger on each lane button, and punch the keys as if they're your legs!”
In addition, we brought [white label] up to parity with our most recent changes with the main game, which includes several tweaks and improvements to the main rhythm gameplay. Let us know what you think!
Important PSA: Story progress (but not game settings / high scores) will be reset in the new patch, as a result of internal changes to our saving mechanisms.
THE UNBEATABLE EVENT RETURNS
Our now-annual event, THE UNBEATABLE, returns with THE UNBEATABLE ‘23, featuring a community-focused fanart event and competitive tournament featuring the world’s most UNBEATABLE players!
QUALIFIERS BEGIN TODAY FOR THE UNBEATABLE TOURNAMENT
That’s right! We’re bringing our [white label] tournament back, time kicking it off with a qualifiers set (available to play in the V1.0.10 tourney mode), consisting of the following tracks:
To participate, join the Discord, check announcements, and bust out your video recording software. Follow the instructions in the event channels to learn how to submit your qualifying scores!
The top 7 players will qualify to partake in the event, hosted live on D-CELL’s official Twitch! Last year was handled as a Invitational, but this time, most of the participants will be joining through this qualifier, with Stellaris defending their title!
THE UNBEATABLE ‘23 will air later in the Summer, with the final date to be announced shortly after the Qualifiers wrap. We’ll be sharing more details on the event (prizes, side events, commentators, etc.) in the coming weeks, so keep an eye here if you’re interested in participating in the festivities!
SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN FOR THE ART SHOW
Want your art featured during The UNBEATABLE ‘23 livestream, as well as our social media? We’ll be opening up THE UNBEATABLE ‘23 ART SHOW, hosted on the Discord-Cell Games server’s “horse-museum-3” channel.
Last year, we had the theme of “Competition”, but this year, our theme is “SUMMER”! Whatever it be the beach boardwalk, the starry nights, or the comfort of box fans, we want to see submissions that best capture the feeling of the warmest season of the year! To participate, all you have to do is submit your creations, whatever it be 2D / 3D artwork, animation, or more!
Submissions will be open from now until June 9nd. Full rules are present here, as well as the Discord (where submissions will be handled!). Once submissions close, voting will be open from June 9nd-June 23rd, where the community will be able to vote for their favorite pieces. The studio at D-CELL will also vote for their top pick too, and both picks will be prominently featured as the main event artwork for The UNBEATABLE ‘23’s competitive event!
New GUITAR TABS for UNBEATABLE: DEMO TAPES
Long-requested by many, we’re releasing official guitar tabs of several of the game’s tracks, written by peak divide’s Clara! Tabs are made for EMPTY DIARY, FAMILIAR, PROPER RHYTHM, and WAITING! We’re adding these to our new "EXTRAS" page on our website, which you can see here!
We'll also be bringing the tabs to other places (i.e. sites like Ultimate Guitar Tabs) sometime soon.
See our newest progress update on the main game here!
PATCH NOTES for V1.0.10
Here’s the full patch notes on PATCH V1.0.10 for UNBEATABLE [white label]:
[RHYTHM] Difficulty names are now changed. Going forward, we will refer to difficulties using the revised names. You can see the old → new names here: - Beginner → Beginner (no change) - Easy → Normal (new) - Normal → Hard (new) - Hard → Expert (new) - UNBEATABLE → UNBEATABLE (no change!)
[RHYTHM] Camera has been adjusted to give anticipatory zoom-outs during camera changes. Changes affect the "Reduce Camera Motion" option too, with its own set of tweaks. Reticle added to prevent motion sickness.
[RHYTHM] Measure lines are added and can be toggled on and off in the game's options.
[RHYTHM] Black bar lanes are now included to help better distinguish up and down lanes.
[RHYTHM] TOURNEY Mode has been re-enabled, featuring the Qualifiers set for THE UNBEATABLE ‘23 event. This set will be available in the menu to play until June 7th.
[CHARTS] Fixes, overhauls, and polish have been applied to the majority of the game’s rhythm levels, a.k.a. charts. The changes are numerous, so you can see the majority of what was changed here:
EMPTY DIARY (changes by Jeff / CHI XU) - Sync adjustments made with the chart - New, redesigned Beginner, Normal, and Hard charts
FOREVER NOW (changes by Jeff / CHI XU and TaroNuke) - New, redesigned Beginner and Normal charts - Minor tweaks made to UNBEATABLE chart
FOREVER WHEN (changes by TaroNuke) - New, redesigned charts for Beginner, Normal and Hard - Tweaks made to normalize hold note lengths in the Expert chart - Fixed sync in Expert and UNBEATABLE
MIRROR (changes by TaroNuke) - New, redesigned charts for Beginner, Normal, and Hard - Tweaks made to Expert chart
PROPER RHYTHM (changes by Cheryl Stelli) - Tweaks / adjusted patterns to all difficulties but UNBEATABLE
WAITING (changes by Jeff / CHI XU) - Revised charts for Beginner, Normal and Hard - Minor fix made to a pattern in CLEVELAND that could not be consistently hit.
FAMILIAR (changes by Jeff / CHI XU) - New, redesigned Beginner, Normal, and Hard charts
ONE EYE CLOSED - LOW: NSR ENDING THEME (changes by Jeff / CHI XU) - New, redesigned Beginner, and Normal charts - Tweaks made to Hard and Expert charts.
EMPTY DIARY - SoundCirclet Remix (changes by Jeff / CHI XU) - New, redesigned Beginner, Normal, and Hard charts
FOREVER NOW - DOG_NOISE REMIX (changes by Cheryl) - Edits made to every chart to fix offbeat rhythm patterns - New, redesigned Beginner, Normal, and Hard charts
PROPER RHYTHM - MUST DIE REMIX (changes by TaroNuke) - New, redesigned Beginner chart - Adjustments made to Normal and Hard charts to better balance the difficulty gap Minor tweaks to Expert chart.
WAITING - Lumena-tan Remix (changes by TaroNuke) - The addition of a brand new STAR chart, "NUKLEAR"!
[CHARTS] Difficulty ratings have been adjusted across the board, expanding the range. You can see the updated ratings here.
[MISC.] Button Prompt for Dialogue is now visible based on your Keybind. Sorry in advance if you bind it to a key / button like "Return".
[MISC.] Borders appear when in dialogue conversations where the player is locked.
[MISC.] The game's save systems were refactored internally. Game Settings + High Scores will be unaffected, but Story Progress will be reset on bootup, so you will need to play through the tutorial + main songs again if progressing through the story. Sorry!
[BUG FIXES] Shader fix applied to NSR stage.
[BUG FIXES] Web link in the main menu takes you to the main game website instead of a now-defunct page.
[???] B O I N G
HOTFIX for v1.0.10-1
[BUG FIXES] Fixed the Offset Wizard leading to a softlock.
[BUG FIXES] Fixed the scroll speed option for Tourney Mode not being properly set.
[BUG FIXES] Fixed a bug in the tutorial opening sequence.
[BUG FIXES] Fixed collision in the train station.
Thank you for your support over the past two years, and we hope you enjoy the new patch!
- Fixed problem with lvl2 boss UI not showing properly during fight - Fixed softlock on lvl4 on 'Weakling' difficulty setting - Fixed problem with unlocking finisher achievements while playing as Skinny
