• Optimized proximity sensors readout during astrogation. The astrogation sequence could be slower on low-end machines, especially with a high-resolution LIDAR installed.
  
• Fixed the Morse code radios to deliver more readable Morse code and not confuse dots with dashes anymore.
  
• The "Driving Stick" achievement will not be granted if you just float in place or spin around a habitat.
  
• Updated translations.

Greetings Adventurers!

There's been quite a number of changes to make Your travels more...interesting:

• Gnarled Gardens: Added multiple terrain variations, sprites, and set pieces.
  
  
• Celestial Catacombs: Added multiple terrain variations, sprites and set pieces.
  
  
• Various new and reworked animations:
  
  
  
  
  
• Randomized Hub Worlds

• You can level up most perks for stronger effects!
  For example:
  
  • Weight lifter II, allows all held objects to be weightless.
    
  • Vampirism II, causes defeated foes to drop more health orbs.
    
  • This trend applies to almost every rune type added to the game.
• Runes are now much more common and more evenly distributed across the worlds!
  

• New track for Hazard level theme (by Mat Dwyer)
  Here's a preview.
  
• Rebalanced Necromancer theme.

They may not be as fast as their crossbow-wielding brethren, but they make up for it with accuracy.

• Faster loading times.
  
• Significant Optimization as we continue to port the game to Nintendo Switch.
  
• Projectiles fired from dying enemies can cause friendly fire.
  
• While the Hunter is in a temporarily weakened state, it deals less damage (based on feedback from the Cursed Chest mechanic)
  
• Enemy health scaling, when jumping between worlds, has been increased.
  
• Numerous surprises...

NOTE: We will be merging other smaller updates with this announcement, so stay tuned!

• We've been doing some redecorating around the hub world🍂🎃!
  
• Rebalanced special tile distribution in Grotto of Guidance and Celestial Catacombs*
  
• Check the top left of the hub for some goodies.
  
  
• All XP you gain during a run increases by 12% during Halloween (and up to the 6th of November). You'll need it because:
  
• Undead enemies rise more frequently during this season!

This month, we have completed the development of the 'Homemade Syrup' smuggling missions, including all the characters and three varieties of available syrup.



The value of a syrup cargo to be smuggled has been adjusted according to the difficulty of reaching the seller. Therefore, if you want to make more substantial profits in a single run, you'll need to take more risks, traveling longer routes filled with police officers ready to catch you.



As if the police weren't enough to hinder business (and they are!), we've introduced other smugglers who, not at all pleased with competition in their territory, will go the extra mile to further complicate the honest work of the independent smuggler.

Speaking of smugglers, we've added a group of traffickers flying an airplane across the map. It's quite challenging to spot them, but if you do, try to follow them. The pilots are so busy looking for a distant landing strip away from prying eyes that they might lose part of their cargo, all to our advantage!



November is approaching, and we're very excited to introduce some side missions, active every day of the week, allowing you to earn some money by helping the community, so nothing illegal (as long as you don't destroy everything and everyone during your work activity)!

See you next month!

Hello, dear friends

I have set a release date of Nov 1st for Melody of Seasons Early Access! I will press the release button at noon EST!

In the meantime I have been fixing up as many things as I can on the game. I have added key-binding which is a step closer to controller support. There won't be controller support on release but I'll get there eventually. To be honest, one of my ultimate goals is to release on Nintendo Switch so controller support is essential. I've been adding some new flooring tiles to the game and brushing things up as much as I can. I'm still finding bugs all the time which is scary. I hope nothing major is broken on release day!

I will post more reminders in the next week but I really hope you will consider supporting me on release. Getting 10 reviews is very important on Steam so if you can buy and leave a review it is very much appreciated. If I don't get 10 reviews Melody of Seasons will be buried forever on Steam - yikes! Haha, just kidding...sorta. No matter what happens I'll be working on the game for a while, but I really hope it does good enough to make it viable to work on well into the future.

Take care, everyone.

Hi, Captains of Fortune!

In recent days, I have dedicated myself to solving the problems that you have reported to me and to implementing a new feature that could make a significant difference in future gameplay: each weapon now generates a repulsive force against its enemies.



- IMPORTANT: each weapon, depending on its size, when it hits, generates a force that pushes enemies away from the mercenary who wields it.
This feature, as well as being pleasant to look at, changes the gameplay because the clash between mercenaries and enemies acquires a physical dimension.
In the info for each weapon, you can see the force generated under the "Thrust" heading.
Honestly, this feature was in my head at the beginning of the game, but I had never implemented it because I was afraid that it would cause the fps to collapse. After doing some tests, it doesn't seem so heavy on performance, but I'm waiting for your feedback.
I thank the player who suggested the idea to me (and with him, all of you who give me your support every day with your great suggestions).

- IMPORTANT: the formations acquire a new value because now it makes sense to put mercenaries in the front line and others in the second line, as the latter may not be touched by the enemies.

- As you know, all weapons that gain magical vampire powers have the ability to heal the mercenary who owns the item.
Previously, any damage the weapon dealt generated 20% (of that damage) as healing to the mercenary wielding it.
Now, that percentage has dropped to 10% because a sort of invincibility was created.
I need your feedback here, too!

- Fixed the bug with the shield skill, which made it useless.
Now, the skill value indicates the percentage of greater effectiveness of the shield in terms of armor.

- The shop timer now has absolute priority over map objects, so it will no longer risk remaining partially invisible under, for example, trees.


Do you feel the need for some breaks during gameplay?
I'm referring to pauses like the end of a wave of enemies.


I hope you like the new feature; I like it!
Surely, the values will need to be adjusted, but I'm waiting for your feedback to do so.

Thanks to all of you, the game is improving a lot compared to the beginning and for that I thank you! Keep suggesting your ideas, and I'll try to include them!

In the next update, I want to improve the quality of life:
- Double-click to put the equipment from the inventory to the selected mercenary.
- use the "Esc" key to exit any open screen.

With just five more days until version 1.0, the challenge going forward is keeping both our nerves and our excitement in check. We’re horrified at the thought of our game not living up to our expectations, to our players’ expectations. This is a feeling we’ve had since very early in the development of Sands of Aura and one we would like to reflect upon a bit.


GDC or the Game Developers Conference is an annual conference for game developers. It’s an opportunity to network, to meet with others passionate about games, and a chance to showcase your work to fellow developers with the hope of receiving some initial feedback. Our goal was GDC of March 2018.

Our demo was to focus on showcasing level and enemy designs, our combat mechanics and the random loot drop rewards. Each of these were to be the main pieces of our game and we were excited to bring them together to show them off.


About a month before GDC, we hit a roadblock. Despite our excitement, the pieces of our demo just didn’t fit together right properly. The gameplay loop just wasn’t fun and we needed to figure out why. Our explorations eventually revealed a main culprit: the random loot mechanics. Every weapon and armor drop had randomized attributes such as stats, effects, and extra gem slots. Combat style was randomized as well, so that when a weapon dropped it could result in being a one-handed slashing style, a dual wielding style, etc. Our intent was to use RNG to make loot feel special, to harness the excitement that randomness provides. However, intent and reality often come into conflict.


This system made creating a good build an absolute slog. While we had wanted the RNG elements to complement our combat system, they had done the opposite and forced our encounters to become stale and repetitive rather than thrilling and unique. With this issue being so complex and one so central to the core design, we realized what had to be done.

We decided not bring our demo to GDC a month before it arrived. Our demo just wasn’t something we were proud of. Such realizations are hard to face.



Not only did the collapse of our GDC ambitions reveal weaknesses in our demo, they revealed weaknesses within our studio. Organizational structure, task management, timeline projections, development skills, testing structure, asset pipeline management… All those necessary aspects of game making that often go unconsidered…each of these were subpar for our studio at best.


In hindsight, this all seems blatantly obvious, but we were young and our studio was composed of recent graduates. With only one title under our belt—a game that began as a student project—like many who attempt game development, our creative ambitions stretched well beyond our experience. Not to mention, our programmers were actively transitioning from working exclusively in Unity to development in Unreal.

To be blunt, we were naïve. We needed to level up and fast. Luckily, it’s only once you see a problem that you can actually fix it.



Back again at the drawing board we fought hard to find a solution to our RNG problem. We tried idea after idea, implementation after implementation. Each time we thought we had something that worked, we would only find it to be more cumbersome later on. However, with each attempt, with each failure, there was a bit of progress that carried over, little by little.

Eventually the randomized loot evolved into a simplified version of the weapon crafting system you’ll recognize in Sands of Aura today. Our armor sets also became fixed but we added an upgrade rune system to capitalize on a bit of variability in the old RNG system.

Turning again to our inspirations, we incorporated a cleansing mechanic similar to the Sharpen mechanic from the Monster Hunter series (spoiler alert, we eventually had to reevaluate this too based on player feedback) and added spell activations into the combat flow. While previously the combat was simplistic and repetitive, it gained a degree of difficulty requiring the player to make numerous considerations.


Eventually, enemies began to evolve to address the changes to the combat system. The level design became more complex with rewards being placed deliberately to encourage exploration. New dungeons sprung up, like the one that exists today as Melgom’s Cavern, which would eventually become the tutorial dungeon of Sands of Aura. Islands become grander, more visually considered as they would be the focal points on the horizon. The sandsea went from static to something kinetic with waves taking on the movement of the ocean.

Things were coming together… Project Terrarium was coming together.




The development of Project Terrarium was matched by changes in our studio. We made considerable efforts to address our projections, our structures, and pipeline management. We fought to fail faster, test sooner, and iterate without remorse. We got a little quicker. A little smarter. We grew up.


Soon many of us began experiencing life changing milestones. There was marriage, the beginning of families, the pursuit of much needed changes of scenery. Chashu Entertainment had begun in a small studio space in Culver City, California. It was there that a few recent graduates completed Deputy Dangle, and where we began developing Project Terrarium. It was our starting point. Our home.
But it was time to iterate. Time for one final photo and time to say goodbye.


Chashu Entertainment moved our headquarters from California to Dallas, Texas. Some of us remained in California, some of us moved states, and some (one) of us moved to another country entirely! While this iteration of our studio had its challenges, and the chaos of conducting development in different time zones was no easy feat, given the choice, I doubt we would choose to go back and do things differently.

Chashu Entertainment was moving into a new era! The era of remote work.


Next time we’ll dive into the further evolution of Project Terrarium, covering everything from our first trailer, the Epic MegaGrant, to our painstaking process of selecting a new name. We’ll discuss our experiences with marketing, team growth, and much more!

Thank you for reading!
- Chashu Entertainment


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

The Linux build for ZaciSa: Defense of the Crayon Dimension is now available for all to try out! Got a Linux PC? Well, now you can try the game out natively!

The Linux build for Drop It: Block Paradise and its demo is now available for all to try out! Got a Linux PC? Well, now you can try the game out natively!

• Tweaked layout of part categories when using mouse+KB (gamepad version unchanged)
  
• Fixed text entry for vehicle name trying to edit the wrong string
  
• Fixed text entry for vehicle name/description sometimes entering on the left side of text)
  
• Changed Steam Workshop upload to make it more clear you're not editing the actual vehicle name
  
• Synced name for saved vehicle name and the displayed name (it uses the name if set, or the saved one if not)
  
• Fixed newly-placed flex connection parts drawing lines to unconnected parts

Hello truckers!

Sunday's a day for rest, for preparing for the week ahead. Unless you've just launched a game that is, then it's time to get PATCHING!

Here's what's new in today's patch:

• Fixes for AI getting into corners too fast and turning belly up
  
• Steering wheel hand animations should now play properly
  
• Invisible chainsaw fix
  
• Fix for workshop being inaccessible at the base
  
• Fixed endless repairs for certain systems of the truck
  
• Added information if on-the-road manual repair is only temporary or a full fix
  
• Fixed no storage being added to Tire Workshop at level 2
  
• The default installed tires are now shown in the Tire Workshop
  
• Fixed bugs connected with selling/changing and buying rims and tires in the tire shop
  
• The default tires now have the possibility to change rim size
  
• Fix for cargo dock in Pump Station 2
  
• Removed a billboard from the logistic location in Valdez to allow easier parking
  
• Fixed a police car having a sign stuck in it
  
• Added a confirmation screen when taking a loan

But that's not all...

This just in - an anonymous informer has reported supernatural activity in Alaska. A large figure with mysterious glowing eyes has been spotted in the forests, fleeing when seen.

Our informer has placed several clues around the map that will point you the way - there's even talk of a reward for those who are first to find these proofs.

Take a look at these pictures - maybe you can locate where they were taken? Good luck!



More information, including how to take part in the hunt for proof of this creature, can be found over on our Discord.

Don't forget - you can grab a discount during the launch week for Alaskan Road Truckers, so if you haven't grabbed it - now's your chance!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/849100/Alaskan_Road_Truckers/

Please remember to give us a review if possible - everything helps us gain visibility on the store. If you have already given us a negative review, why not revisit it after the latest patch and see if your experience is better - thank you!

You can check out previous patch notes here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/849100/view/3704832514248064152

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/849100/view/3704832514248847151

https://steamcommunity.com/games/849100/announcements/detail/3704832514253296846

We'll see you on the road, truckers!

Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/7nzKkAVgN4
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