Some language fixes, due to the new menu!

(Content shown in screenshots are works in progress and subject to change)



As you may have noticed, I've decided to 'spruce things up a little' with the game's screenshots. This is because I've finally gotten around to replacing the placeholder palettes with my own custom variants. If things go well, you should be able to make your own palettes in the game itself!



Beyond this, I've been hammering away at the game's foundations to get that next big cogwheel ("Fighting a Slaughtered God") ready to spin. Fighting a slaughtered god requires at minimum a few new things added to the core game and ways to get them. Namely, you're going to need Clues and with them will (optimally) come Heralds.

Clues are little bits and pieces that reveal your Adversary (the God chosen at the start of your run who is slowly stirring from their slumber) or prepare you to fight them. There's a few reliable ways to get bundles of clues (Kill Heralds, Perform Rituals, and Complete Mysteries), but you may also findthem in events or encounter eldritch personalities who offer them in trade.

Against adversaries, there is no greater shield than Clues. They are the key that allows you to summon them, but also can rob them of their fell power: their omnipotence, their omnipresence, and immunity to fate.

If an Adversary can be stripped of all three and a Banishment properly performed, not only will you send that Slaughtered God back to sleep but cleanse their Portfolio of its corruption. What to do with these Portfolios? Become more of a concept and spirit in exchange for power or lock them away, beyond the reach of mortalkind? (Or at least this is what is currently planned)

Heralds are 'miniboss encounters' that roam the shadows of The City, spreading chaos and complication in their wake. Catching these foes is optional, though the longer they're allowed to plot in secret the more a thorn in your side they may become. Like you, they go from Location to Location each turn but instead of investigating a Mystery, they prepare the world for their dread master's arrival. To do this they will open rips in the Veil and allow monsters to spring forth onto The City's streets, assault (and possibly kill if left alone!) your Allies, lock down locations for a time, and terrorize the cities' merchants and notables to drive out any who would help you or harm their master.

Unlike regular encounters, a Herald can summon things from the shadows to the battlefield thanks to A small piece of the Adversary's deific power. Heralds are neither mortal or immortal, but defeating them once is not enough to stop them. The consequences of each battle will linger upon them and weaken them, but they will shamble on to the end under the weight of the Scars you have given them. Each Mystery grants them a chance to return to the world to continue and haunt your efforts to stop the Adversary's descent and only by sending their master back into the void can they be truly defeated. (Or at least this is what is currently planned)



Fighting the Herald is one thing, of course. Finding them is another. The Heralds, too, are aware of the Prophecy and of the Investigator and know well it is best to confront you indirectly than directly. Fighting a single creature in an urban sea such as The City will require resources.

Resources such as ... a Guild?



More to come.

We're excited and proud to announce that we've just hit 1,000 wishlists on Steam 🎉 🥳 🎊

It's been incredible to see the positive response from all of you so far, and we're going to do our absolute best to live up to the expectations. Thank you everyone! ❤️‍🔥

Hi Tiny Life community!

It's been a minute since the last update that featured a devlog, but why that is, and why development speed will be a bit slower for a while, will be explained as part of this devlog. So don't worry, we're not ghosting on yall!!

First, though: The fun stuff! This update mainly features various improvements and a lot of bug fixes, but it also has a very exciting new feature that was never really part of the public roadmap, but was always something we'd been wanting to add: Upgrades for your appliances!

If you know about upgrades from The Sims, you know that they're usually applied through some skill and then allow you to either do special actions you weren't previously able to do, or they make actions more efficient somehow. Upgrades in Tiny Life do pretty much the same, but the way you discover and apply them is a bit different. Let's run you through the system!

To get started with upgrades, you first have to acquire the new Tinkering skill, which can be done by tinkering with objects. The Tinker With action previously leveled up your Repair skill, but not anymore: It now gives the new Tinkering skill instead.



Tinkering with objects still has a chance to break them, but now, it also has a chance to unlock a new upgrade you can apply to the type of appliance you're tinkering with! Unlocking the upgrade causes your Tiny to be able to install it on the appliance, as well as all other appliances that the upgrade works on.



Keep in mind that discovering the upgrade is not enough: You also have to have a Tinkering skill level high enough to be able to install the upgrade on your appliances. In addition to these two requirements, upgrades also cost a bit of money per application - usually between TB100 and TB400.



As part of this release, there are already plenty of upgrades to be discovered and installed. Some of these upgrades make actions faster and more efficient, and some add entirely new actions for you to play with. Some of them also include some fun visuals that make your objects more enjoyable to look at.

For example, check out the RGB Lighting upgrade, as well as the Advanced Configurable Shower Head upgrade:





Of course, throughout Early Access and beyond, more upgrades will slowly be added, both for existing appliances and for newly introduced ones!

The character creator used to have a bit of a weird layout - okay, it still has a bit of a weird layout, but at least now, the layout fits in with the game's UI style more!

Previously, the character creator featured panel-inside-panel action, which looked a bit silly and unnecessarily took up space between your Tiny and their information and clothes. Now, the entire panel is a little wider, and because there's not a panel-inside-panel thing going on anymore, there's also a lot more space for content.





We're still not 100% happy with the way the character creator looks - especially the fact that you have to remove all Tinies from the household you're creating to close it without saving - but it's slowly getting to a nicer place.

You may have noticed that, over the last few months, development on Tiny Life has slowed down a bit compared to the previous year or so. For transparency, and so you don't feel like we're not giving you all the content you deserve, we want to talk about that!

If you don't know, Tiny Life is developed by a single developer: me, Ell, who is also writing this devlog post right now! While some content is created by community members, and the music is created by the lovely Leiss, pretty much everything else is done by me! As you can imagine, this is quite a big undertaking for a single person, and so getting stuff done takes quite a bit of time.

In December, a big chunk of my time has been taken up with celebrations and family, which is why development was - as with many other projects - slow over the holidays.

I am also a student (studying computer science!), and - this is really the main part - I've recently started a part-time job as a research assistant at my university, which takes up about ten hours a week, with additional time spent traveling and trying to finally figure out how git rebase works. This job has been incredibly fun so far, and it's also going to be a great way to get myself a topic and an advisor for my bachelor's thesis, so it's very important to me.

Nevertheless, I am still committed to Tiny Life and its community, and I plan on maintaining the "one major update with a devlog per month" schedule that I've been trying to stick to for the last two years. However, please be prepared for these updates to potentially be a little less major than they've previously been.

I hope you, as the community, understand, and are still excited for future updates and the general future of the game and its development!!

Lastly, I want to mention a fun little thing that I've been planning on doing: livestreaming on Twitch more again! While I used to do this quite frequently (I actually became a Twitch affiliate in 2017-ish), my streams have slowed to a trickle, and I've been interested in picking it back up more frequently again.

Since Tiny Life development, and engaging with the Tiny Life community, takes up a big chunk of my free (!?) time, I plan on encorporating those things into my livestreams as well. Some of the ideas I've had are working on pixel art and code for new Tiny Life features, potentially fixing bugs and refactoring code, but also doing fun community engagement stuff like modding tutorial and custom content exploration livestreams!

If you're interested in any of that sort of stuff, you should follow me on Twitch, and then eagerly await my "getting back into livestreaming" era.

Yall are probably used to this by now, but: as always, here's the full changelog for your perusal. You can also always check it in the bottom-right corner of the game's main menu, if you want a reminder of recent changes and fixes!

Other than that, that'll all for this devlog. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this update!!

❤️ Ell

Additions

• Added the tinkering skill and the ability to discover upgrades
  
• Added the ability to upgrade various furniture items
  
• Added a variation of the wooden stairs that doesn't have wallpaper

Improvements

• Improved the visual style of the character creator
  
• Made the family-focused personality's emotions also take close friends into account
  
• Only allow admitting to romance with someone else for seven days after it happened
  
• Renamed "Add a Little Something" to "Enhance Flavor"
  
• Made energy loss and the chance of splinters lower when woodworking
  
• Made people not stand in the same spot when multiple people visit a lot at the same time
  
• Improved the Tiny Bucks logo to be more easily decipherable as TB

Fixes

• Fixed the furniture tool considering possible parent objects on different floors
  
• Fixed moving to a different map not moving people there correctly
  
• Fixed a crash when moving ceiling-hung objects out of bounds using the furniture tool
  
• Fixed the same map being able to be in a save twice
  
• Fixed help actions not working correctly when the person is being held
  
• Fixed notifications not being able to be dismissed when clicking their icon
  
• Fixed object selection not working correctly on higher floors
  
• Fixed objects at map borders causing a crash when checking for free interaction spots
  
• Fixed an exception when the sink or baby is missing while cleaning up a baby
  
• Fixed objects still being highlighted while placing stairs
  
• Fixed collision issues with stairs

API

• Game content initialized through static constructors is now explicitly loaded in order. If a mod disrupts the order by accessing content earlier than expected, a warning is emitted.
  
• Made TestedVersionRange property mandatory for mods
  
• Refactored particle and light property names to be more consistent

You can now mix and match 21 game modifiers in Custom Game Mode. Some of these are great together. Some of them are mutually-exclusive. Some of them are bad ideas: like, the mode that does your homework for you, but then the mode that eats your homework. Don't use those together.



Read on:

• Functionality: Units in the front row are transformed into a random undead unit.

• Functionality: After defeating a boss, players can send a column of units to hell.
  
• Reward: Gain a goat that inherits the total base damage of the sacrificed column.
  
• Bonus: The acquired base damage is also granted to every other goat in the player's militia.

• Feature: Players have 40 health.
  
• Key Change: Health levels no longer reset after each boss encounter.

• Benefit: Gold remains always protected throughout the game.

• Effect: At the start of the game, randomly remove all units of one specific type from the game.

• Functionality: Hellhounds in the game no longer self-destruct.

• Functionality: After defeating a boss, they toss a Nuke or Time Bomb into your militia.
  
• Impact: Introduces an additional layer of risk and strategy post-boss battles, demanding careful planning to mitigate the damage from these explosive surprises.

• Feature: Deploying a Dire Wolf adds another Dire Wolf to the militia.
  
• Benefit: This modifier effectively doubles the number of Dire Wolves each time you deploy, enhancing strategies that focus on these units and potentially leading to rapid militia expansion.

• Effect: All undead units use their damage to heal the boss instead of damaging it.
  
• Strategic Shift: This modifier completely changes the role of undead units in the game, turning them into support units for the boss rather than offensive units. Players need to carefully consider the use of undead units under this modifier.

• Change: Human units transform into a ghost or skeleton after deployment. (Priests, Paladins and IAO are immune to this effect)
  
• Implication: This modifier encourages a shift away from relying heavily on Human Type units or adapting to the new forms these units take upon deployment.

• Rule: Selecting a new unit to add to the militia results in that unit being removed from the game.
  
• Tactical Consideration: This modifier demands careful selection of new units, as each choice permanently affects the available unit pool. Players must strategize with a long-term view of their militia composition.

• Feature: Gain 15 gold in your militia after defeating a boss.
  
• Advantage: This modifier provides a significant boost to your resources, allowing for more strategic flexibility and unit upgrades.

• Effect: Always have a single EMP unit in every deployed militia.
  
• Strategy Shift: Ensures constant availability of EMP units, offering consistent utility and a stable element in your militia composition.

• Change: Fire units no longer mark themselves for destruction.
  
• Implication: Enhances the viability of fire-based strategies by increasing the longevity of fire units.

• Update: Water units no longer mark themselves for destruction.
  
• Benefit: Bolsters water-based strategies by allowing water units to remain on the field longer.

• Rule: All units, upon being selected, turn into the Human type.
  
• Tactical Consideration: This modifier encourages a shift towards human-centric strategies, transforming your militia's composition with each unit selection.
  Note: Cannot be active simultaneously with "VEGETARIAN".

• Functionality: All units, when selected, become Plant type.
  
• Strategic Shift: This modifier demands a rethinking of unit choices and synergies, pivoting towards plant-based strategies.
  Note: Cannot be active simultaneously with "HUMANITARIAN".

• Feature: Limit your militia to only Humans, Structures, Constructs, and Items.
  
• Challenge: This modifier narrows the scope of usable units, demanding creativity and strategic prowess with a restricted unit pool.

• Directive: Removes Medkit, Sacrificial Spam, Extra Health, Doctor, and Extra Life from the game.
  
• Implication: Increases the difficulty by eliminating key support and survival options, requiring players to adapt their strategies for sustainability without these aids.

• Effect: Acquire 50 rerolls and never gain another one throughout the game
  
• Implication: Tradeoffs between control over early picks or control over later picks (and synergy with… certain units).

• Effect: Gain an addition REROLL each round
  
• Implication: more control over your picks, more consistent militias!

• Grey Goo now transfers damage when transforming
  
• Siphon now works properly

• Added mouse wheel support to the modifier scroll window for enhanced navigation.
  
• New sound effects
  
• Added total lifetime damage stat to units (see in Your Militia)
  
• Removed Herobrine

We are overwhelmed with the feedback that has reached us! Thank you so much for playing the game. We take your feedback very seriously and we always try to improve the demo and the full release based on that.

Please find the changes below:

Added:

• Added option for auto aiming.
  
• Enemies touching you are now getting pushed away to prevent dragging them in front of you dealing continuous damage.
  
• We also increased the time the player is invincible after being hit.
  
• Added settings button in main menu.
  
• Added quit button after run.
  
• New enemy type
  
• Enemies can now appear in squads.

Fixed:

• Fixed an issue where the slow effect from chilled enemies won’t reset.
  
• Fixed an issue where the collection radius did not reset to normal after the “Elite Bounty” bonus
  
• Fixed an issue where the player was able to dash through walls.
  
• Fixed an issue where the ability upgrade "Increase the ability spawn count by 1" overlapped some abilities.

Adjusted:

• Dashing now moves you through enemies instead of pushing them away.
  
• The dash cooldown wheel now indicates all of the dashes, not just the last one.
  
• Reworked the difficulty settings. Every run starts at world level 1 but you can increase the difficulty to gain bonus EXP and challenge yourself.
  
• Lowered the enemy health (especially in early game). The enemies health curve was higher than intended, which resulted in never really feeling superior.
  
• Lowered the needed EXP for a skill tree level up to make progression faster.
  
• Every level up will increase your damage stats slightly to make you more powerful despite having bad rolls.
  
• Health regeneration now regenerates your health every 3 seconds (was 5).
  
• Golden Apple now heals you for 40% of your max. health (was 20%).
  
• “Elite Bounty” now grants 100% increased collection radius after defeating an elite enemy.
  
• Boss hitbox was adjusted

We hope you enjoy the changes we made!

Coming soon

Powerful Evolving Abilities:

* Added Tactic replacement feature in Mind Training;
* Added more types of Mind Crystals;

* Removed AP Spaces in Mind Training;
* Combat time-limited HP deduction from Entropy effect no longer fatal;
* Removed carry limit for HP Mixture in Mind Training;
* Lowered unlock requirements for Mind Crystal slots;
* Changed obtaining Mind Crystals from random to player's choice;
* Reduced the price of "Fragmented Mind" sold by Dor;
* Displayed Potential damage bonus information;

* Using the Detachment Terminal allows nearby teammates to escape together;
* Increased Depot Station capacity to 200;
* The Data Shop now sales blue and purple Potential items ;

* Fixed some display issues;
* Fixed some localization issues.

We've updated the game!

• Fixed the three most common crashes
  
• Multiplayer stability improvements
  
• Fixed a bug where button remapping wasn't saved correctly
  
• Remapped Radial Menu from alt to +

If you have any feedback, notice any bugs or had any crashes, you can let us know via the usual methods. Hit us up on our Discord. tell us on our Steam Discussions forum, or you can email us at feedback@massiveminiteam.com.

Come join the livestream and watch the developers play the latest demo of BlackForge!

What is BlackForge?
BlackForge is a physics based Blacksmithing game in VR where you as the player is a descendant of a long line of legendary Blacksmiths. You have just stepped into the old family forge and so your smithing adventure begins!

Play the demo yourself!
As Steam Next Fest is starting, our latest demo will go live for you to try! Check out the Store Page and fire up the forge.

Already hooked on the game and need to know more?
Come join our Discord and chat with the other Smithers!
Link HERE

You can also help the development of the game by wishlisting and make some noise about the game!


Sincerely with great hype - The Team of ManaBrigade

• New Map: Fireworn City.
  
• New Boss: Illdrake Knight.
  
• New Boss: Wendigo.
  
• New Enemy: Undead Wizard.
  
• New Enemy: Undead Knight.
  
• New Enemy: Cadaver Slime.
  
• New Enemy: Executioner.
  
• New Enemy: Undead Dog.
  
• New Enemy: Roach.
  
• New Armor: Poacher's Set.
  
• New Armor: Sentinel Set.
  
• New Armor: Seer's Set.
  
• New Feature: Blacksmith can now appear on the map. Where you can upgrade equipment.
  
• New NPC: Blacksmith NPC in main hub.
  
• New NPCs: Dragon and Gnome bards at bonfire.
  
• New Achievement: Forge Fantatic.
  
• New Achievement: Smelting Fever.
  
• New Achievement: Forge Master.
  
• New "?": Status Creep.
  
• New "?": Search Corpse.
  
• New "?": Sleeping Cadavre.
  
• New "?": Knight/Wizard Ambush.
  
• New Blessing: Shield Master's Endurance.
  
• New Blessing: Anvil.
  
• New Blessing: Fortune Stone.
  
• New Blessing: Parry Strike.
  
• New Minor Blessing: Coupon.
  
• New Minor Blessing: Shield Strap.
  
• New Minor Blessing: Cookies.
  
• New Minor Blessing: Blacksmith's Hammer.
  
• New Minor Blessing: Imperfect Barrier.
  
• Blessing Balance: Eye for eye blessing now restores 100% of health instead of 70%.
  
• Blessing Balance: Killing enemies with a voodoo doll now grants player exp.
  
• Blessing Balance: Execute now triggers at 40% enemy health instead of 35%.
  
• Balance: Bonfire upgrade 3 now gives minor blessings instead of normal blessings.
  
• Balance: Wooden weapons now give 1 to their primary attribute.
  
• Balance: Greed weapons skill mana cost reduced from 16 to 14.
  
• Balance: Gold Steal status effect increased gold steal from 6 to 8.
  
• Balance: Greed weapons now appy 8% of status effect per hit.
  
• Balance: Greedy Thief random encounter now only can appear on the first 4 nodes on the map.
  
• Balance: Light Sword and Death Sword now scale based on STR instead of INT.
  
• Balance: Bleed Katana now scales based on STR instead of DEX and increases STR stat.
  
• Balance: All weapons besides shields now give 1 attribute less.
  
• Balance: Re-rolls no longer have a chance of showing blessings that were already shown previously.
  
• Balance: Earth wand skill damage increased from 23-24 to 28-29.
  
• Balance: Earth wand skill status apply increased from 23% to 30%.
  
• Balance: Lightning wand skill damage increased from 23-24 to 25-26.
  
• Balance: Lightning wand status apply increased from 20% to 23%.
  
• Balance: Gorilla explosion patters were changed.
  
• Balance: Light sword and death sword are now bigger.
  
• Balance: Wind sword skill speed increased by 10%.
  
• Balance: First ever enemy in forest map will never drop shield.
  
• Balance: Earth shield skill mana cost reduced from 12 to 8. Shattered apply status effect increased from 37% to 40%.
  
• Balance: Wind shield skill mana cost reduced from 12 to 10.
  
• Balance: Wooden wand damage increased from 13-14 to 14-15.
  
• Balance: All sword attack damage has been increased slightly.
  
• Balance: Ice wand skill now damage ticks every 0.3sec instead of 0.25sec and freeze status reduced from 8% to 5%.
  
• Balance: Ice wand attack status apply increased from 10% to 11% freeze.
  
• Balance: Bleed wand attack damage increased from 11-12 to 13-14.
  
• Balance: Ice sword skill each projectile damage increased from 12-13 to 13-14, also each projectile increase freeze status apply from 10% to 12%.
  
• Balance: Poison Sword skill's poison explosion damage increased from 24-25 to 29-30.
  
• Balance: Earth sword attack apply status effect increased from 10% to 15%. Earth sword skill smallest projectile increased status effect apply from 10% to 15%.
  
• Balance: Fire sword skill damage increased from 25-26 to 29-30. Status apply on skill increased from 35% to 37%.
  
• Balance: Lightning sword attack apply status effect increased from 10% to 13%. Lightning sword skill apply status effect increased from 25% to 30%. Skill cooldown reduced from 6% to 5%.
  
• Balance: Piercing wand skill damage increased from 35-36 to 39-40.
  
• Bug Fix: Icicle blessing projectiles now reset correctly after hitting the floor.
  
• Bug Fix: Blood Knives blessing projectiles now reset correctly after hitting the floor and spawn slighly differently.
  
• Bug Fix: Controller rebinding menu fixed when you clicked with mouse on other rebindings.
  
• Bug Fix: STR now decreases damage of all types not just pure.
  
• Bug Fix: In the combat shop menu, can no longer hover over buttons below when they are covered by the ui texture.
  
• Bug Fix: Using mouse scroll down in main hub scene no longer makes potion switching sound.
  
• Bug Fix: Icons in the level up screen are now preserving their aspect ratio correctly.
  
• Bug Fix: If you have 2 same blessings, now they are highlighted correctly below your health.
  
• Tweak: Enemies transition to death animation faster.
  
• Tweak: Tutorial buttons on ground lights are now flashing.
  
• Sound: Greed weapons use new sound effects.
  
• Sound: Selecting buttons has new SFX sound.
  
• Sound: New spider SFX.
  
• Sound: New equip sounds for Swords, Daggers, Shields, Wands.
  
• Sound: Stone footsteps and reverb added in the main hub.
  
• Sound: New splash screen music que.
  
• Other: Controller auto scrolling is now supported in the inventory menu.
  
• Other: Added localization support with Polish language support.
  
• Other: Weapon/Armor icons are now color coded based on the main stat.
  
• Other: Steam rich presence status added. Text that tells your steam friends what are you doing in the game.
  
• Other: Rebalanced the game. Enemies health/damage/drops, player armor stats.
  
• Other: Forest background changing during Wendigo fight.
  
• Other: Changed the basic enemy icon on the map.
  
• Other: Tutorial text position changed to be top right of the screen.
  
• Other: Added map legend.
  
• Other: When loading an existing save slot in the main menu, the screen fades before load happens.
  
• Other: Middle boss icon is now bigger.
  
• Other: Bag shakes when there are new items in the bag.