Happy Holidays everyone! It’s been a hell of a year for team Kinky Fridays, we have been hard at work smashing out Sapphire Safari for you all and honestly, we are so close to crossing into the beta territory (beta as in, base mainline mechanics are all operational and now we focus on extra mechanics and main content). We have never been this confident in our game and it is all for one reason alone.
Narrative.
Yes, that age-old wiggle stick of a word has reappeared. In Sapphire Safari, narrative means a pretty simple Point A to Point B while collecting this and that type of system. It does not need to be complicated, but we have designed a system to distract the player from that experience. Which is what the last couple of years have been focused on. Internally we call it the Three Pillar Experience, three core mechanical systems designed to pull players from one another.
Anyway long intro short, we have built many of those systems already, with the final pieces being the Main Quest and Expedition Logs being built right now. So that's what this Sapphire Issue is about! Told you it was a long intro…
For myself and the team, the narrative is less about the words said, and more about the vibe and atmosphere set. We wanted to show this straight from the get-go, hitting New Game will now push players into the Introduction Cutscene. It establishes the trio of characters (Frida, Jamie, and Oscar) arriving at Sapphire Island and goes through character selection.
Followed by their disembarking and a quick refresher on how to do basic photography, which you can skip if you're skilled already.
This tutorial was a huge pain to get right, we worked on timings, UI elements, UX feedback, positioning of assets within the environment, built new systems, and put together new SFX and jingles just to ensure it all worked out!
Lastly, the narrative elements dip their toes into directing the players into correctly activating the Campsite Core Beacon, which was a pain point for some users. Our final piece yet to be made is the Expedition Log unveiled at the end of this quest, which will hopefully push players into seeking them out around the playable space.
After all that is done, we will be locking off the narrative content until we launch on Steam on March 7th next year, as our focus will go into polishing and bug-fixing the content we want to display first and foremost. So we hope the meager portion of narrative content will give everyone a look into the quality we aim to hit and the mystery of the island to uncover!
For now, we are gonna take some time to relax over Christmas, and we hope you all do the same as well! One final piece of encouragement though.
If you are running into a bug that crashes your game because you completed the Rune Stone Mystery Tablet, we know what is causing it and a fix will come within the next patch. For now, you can simply set your view distance to “Epic” in the game options and it will no longer crash.
Maintenance has concluded as of 8:33 AM and the servers are open once more. We thank you for your patience.
Mabinogi will have a scheduled maintenance on December 26th. During this time, the game will be unavailable. Maintenance is expected to begin at 7:00 AM PST and last approximately 3 hours.
Please note that the estimated length of time for each maintenance is subject to change without notification.
-Time-
Thursday, December 26th
Pacific (PST, UTC -8): 7:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern (EST, UTC -5): 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM Paris (CET, UTC +1): 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM Sydney (AEDT, UTC +11): 2:00 AM (Dec. 27th) - 5:00 AM (Dec. 27th)
To address the following:
Weekly server upkeep.
Have you been logging in and claiming your Pre-Astrologer items? The Pre-Astrologer Check-In Event is ending, so make sure to pick up your rewards.
Irusan is looking to steal all your presents if you don't claim them in time! The Check-in Attendance Event has ended!
If you haven't collected your prizes, you'll be able to do so from Lorna until maintenance on December 26th!
Note: The Name Change submission site will be unavailable after 7:00 AM PST time, and will be available after the maintenance.
Hey there everyone! New update is out! Wanted to give everyone an update before the end of the year! The latest update has a lot of quality-of-life improvements to the movement, combat, enemies and UI. I also added a bouncing ball in the Playground and Slums area that you can play with and practice Air Combos with! Hope everyone enjoys the new improvements and I look forward to reading all everyone's feedback!
New Features
Bouncing Ball
Added auto save system
Added a debug menu for better testing
Improved the Movement system
Added smooth rotation when turning
Added a new advanced enemy spawn system
Enemies AI has been improved where they feel more active now
Combat has been improved with less missed attacks
Added exp pop up when deafening enemies
Added a new parry animation for Faris
Added a "are you sure you want to quit" when pressing the Title Screen button
Added UI sound effects
Updated pause menu with more player stats
Added spinning spikes in playground for parry testing
Updated the Credits menu with new features and with the latest playtesters
Added shadows for all enemy
Added camera zoom system when entering enclosed spaces
Bug Fixes
Scrolling with controller doesn't work properly sometimes
Arabic localization not working
Attacking down the stairs will always do an upward hit
Hey there everyone! New update is out! Wanted to give everyone an update before the end of the year! The latest update has a lot of quality-of-life improvements to the movement, combat, enemies and UI. I also added a bouncing ball in the Playground and Slums area that you can play with and practice Air Combos with! Hope everyone enjoys the new improvements and I look forward to reading all everyone's feedback!
New Features
Bouncing Ball
Added auto save system
Added a debug menu for better testing
Improved the Movement system
Added smooth rotation when turning
Added a new advanced enemy spawn system
Enemies AI has been improved where they feel more active now
Combat has been improved with less missed attacks
Added exp pop up when deafening enemies
Added a new parry animation for Faris
Added a "are you sure you want to quit" when pressing the Title Screen button
Added UI sound effects
Updated pause menu with more player stats
Added spinning spikes in playground for parry testing
Updated the Credits menu with new features and with the latest playtesters
Added shadows for all enemy
Added camera zoom system when entering enclosed spaces
Bug Fixes
Scrolling with controller doesn't work properly sometimes
Arabic localization not working
Attacking down the stairs will always do an upward hit
