Hello everyone, and welcome to the long-delayed sixth Producer’s Letter for Solace Crafting.

I’m Fab. Today’s letter is dense with updates on where Solace Crafting stands and where it’s heading.

We’ll talk Builder, Optimization, Modding, Creatures, Dungeons, Landscapes, Solaces and more.

A year ago, Kyle and I teamed up to revitalize Solace Crafting. For him, it’s his life’s work and livelihood. For me, it’s about taking projects and people I believe in to the next level. The survival game market has changed fast since Valheim, and we knew Solace Crafting couldn’t sit still.

We didn’t wait for perfect funding or timing. We just jumped in, pulled from ourselves what wasn’t provided, and started building.

At first, momentum was easy. Then life did what it does.

You know what that means. Things that should work but won’t. Upheaval in one’s personal life. Delayed resources. Morphing timelines. Tech that fails.
Yeah.
Not all bad. But gives you pause and delays all your plans.

Today, July 2025, marks our first year working together. It’s marked by the release of our first Builder demo and a wave of new developments, alongside the usual short-term challenges that need overcoming.

Some of these challenges are serious. But Kyle and I don’t quit. If there’s no smooth path forward, we’ll brute-force it with grit and resilience. Your support, through your likes, comments, and shares, has grown warmer and more encouraging, and it helps us tremendously. Keep it coming.

Our first issue is right there. To reach where we want to go, we will need more staff. 

We had begun solving that with the onboarding of Newbery, a developer I have personally worked with for years. I have nothing but great things to say about Newbery, he’s a fantastic guy and a fantastic developer. 

Unfortunately, we lost him some months ago to the drying up of our resources and a missed appointment with funding. He’s been on standby ever since and everyday we feel the pain of his absence.

Newbery has given a lot, and we can’t just ask him to work for free, he has his own family to take care of. So our absolute first priority, and the one if there was only one to focus on, would be that one. 

Newbery is a gameplay developer, very versatile, it’s thanks to him that the game will find its flow, its smoothness, its richness in terms of sheer experience. We need him back! 

Another developer or two would not be too many, for sure but we’ll take one Newbery over a bunch of strangers. So he’s our top priority.

In many areas, we are still below standards. Some of you have seen our recent in-engine screenshots, or our general visual upgrades: game logo, company logo, key art. That’s the outer layer. The beast itself needs some serious improvements first and foremost on performance and optimization, then on game design and user experience quality. We are working on all this. It’ll be impossible to make it where the game needs to be and where you deserve to be, without addressing all that. The recent releases, both small (visuals) and bigger (builder demo) are, to us, a kind of statement of this upgrade of standards we want to redefine BKG with from here on out. We have a lot to do, but we’re doing it. This is why we need not only Newbery but maybe another couple of him, as well as other collaborators. But we’re doing it.

Solace Crafting is a product. Companies survive and thrive on business models, which products are a part of. So we need to bring some improvements to the way Solace Crafting exists and makes its living. We will be exploring two ways to do so.

The first is by adding more products to Big Kitty Games’ lineup. Fear not, this is not something that will take us away from Solace Crafting: the Builder defines our approach: 

Some of these new releases will be new entry points into Solace Crafting and products and experiences that help develop it. Part standalone thing for those who do not care about Solace Crafting, part modding tool for those who do.

Some of these new targets will be to turn prototypes I have developed over the years into opportunities to offer you more games, small but fun ones, through associations with other partners. Some of these will expand the worlds of Solace Crafting. Some of these will be new IP material entirely. All of it should be fun, wholesome and colorful, for that is BKG’s identity.

The second is offering you meaningful opportunities to support us. The Builder, connected to Solace Crafting, will enable us to inject support packs into our lineup, focusing solely on cosmetic function. We are defining the approach that feels right for BKG, one where those packs are designed and distributed in ways that work and don’t feel excessive, intrusive, awkward or otherwise inappropriate. Most of all, they’re supposed to give you, Solace Crafting and BKG value, not just transfer cash. 

First and foremost, we are players, equally disgusted as most of you have been by the way the market/industry have gone and we both literally put our lives and livelihoods on the line to take a shot at making games in a way we’d keep finding healthy and wholesome. So both these goals (new products and value-rich support opportunities) must fit that bill.

We just released the builder demo. Now here are our plans for the rest of the year.

• Builder. We’ll keep updating the builder into a more rounded and more content-rich demo, which we will release for free, with its own Steam page. That demo will allow you to build more detailed structures and more lived-in spaces. We will keep supporting it until its September-October release. The demo will ship with cosmetic preorder packs. Our hope is to generate enough traction to stabilize our resources and secure our core needs.

• Optimization. We will optimize the game for acceptable performance. It is our current primary focus. It might require us to make some strong choices to how the experience presents itself, maybe dial down some features initially, maybe not. But I think we all agree that walking back the game’s scope for a while to rebuild clean foundations to thrive better and longer on, is better than releasing broken betas that fall apart and set fires to GPUs.

• Modding. The builder is the first step towards modding. We have said it elsewhere: we don’t want you to be able to just build characters and buildings. We want you to be able to build worlds. See a cliff you like? See a large tree you want to bring to your backyard? Want to turn this corner of the world into a custom biome? Want a herd of cows grazing your land? The builder is the first step.

• Creatures. Brice, a senior 3D artist has kindly lent us his skilled hands to provide new animal assets for the game. We’re starting with the wolves that have been chasing you around and expanding into other forest animals. The wolves come in five forms: Grey Wolf, Brown Wolf, Snow Wolf, Timber Wolf, and Warg. Each has a Young, Adult, and Alpha version. These will be in-game soon. We just need to rig them properly, finalize the swaps, and set up their spawns. Other animals will join them, for you to hunt, be hunted by, or tame and add to you little sanctuary.

• Dungeons. We’re improving dungeon assets to support more coherent and organic layouts. The secret here is that dungeon pieces will eventually also be included in the Builder, so you’ll be able to design and share your own dungeons for Solace Crafting. While this is a longer-term, content-heavy development path, it’s a central part of the game’s identity. We’re treating it as a cornerstone of our user-generated content strategy.

• Improved Loops & Landscapes. The landscape generation system has stabilized. What it now needs are proper landscape features. The broader creative revamp of Solace Crafting is about giving you more power over the worlds you generate and shape. This new loop will enable you to explore the map for natural structures, then use those structures to customize your world, in effect playing landscaper with rocks, trees and various environmental assets. All you have to do is find their natural blueprint and collect the needed resources to replicate it. We love the idea of a play experience where you don’t have anything other to do than walk around, find and collect impactful, meaningful things to build your world. No UI or metrics to monitor, no creatures to fight, just good old exploration.

Can I bring this tree home, I wonder?

• Solaces. Putting the Solaces Back in Solace Crafting is another priority. In a previous Producer’s Letter, we shared our plans to bring more meaning and mystery to Solaces. The first step is to implement them as major landscape features using the Points of Interest system. Solaces will no longer just be the core of your hub. They will become places of power, each offering unique effects: energy to harvest, resources to mine, world-shaping mechanics to experiment with, buffs. They’re becoming actual destinations and solid gameplay nodes.

The past few months have been relatively quiet on the public front, mostly because we’ve been deep in this work and juggling multiple challenges. As you can see, quiet doesn’t mean inactive. Communication-wise, we’ve remained most active on Discord, where you’re welcome to join us and follow more casual and more frequent progress posts. For those of you who dislike Discord, don’t worry, we are never far from the Steam Page.

https://discord.gg/solacecrafting

Thank you, truly, for being here.

If you wanna push us up, either one of these will support us more than you know

• Keep up the kind words on our Steam posts and the Likes

• You can get and support the builder here:  https://bigkittygames.itch.io/solace-builder

• Drop by our IndieDB page to help make it visible: https://www.indiedb.com/games/solace-crafting-rebuild

• And of course, support on our Ko-fi page for our developer Newbery here:  https://ko-fi.com/bigkittygames

The Solace Builder is a standalone creative tool designed to let you build your own sanctuaries, homes, fortresses, and villages in Khora, the endless world of Solace Crafting. You can design structures and environments using the same systems we use to create the world of Solace Crafting, giving you hands-on access to shape and personalize your space.

This early demo allows you to start building right away, experimenting with layouts, aesthetic details, and environmental storytelling. Your builds will eventually be exportable into Solace Crafting through save files and Steam Workshop support, letting you live and adventure inside the spaces you’ve designed. Not only will the building interface be implemented directly into Solace Crafting, the build files from staff and community alike will be used to populate the world with curated hand-crafted content.

We’re sharing the Builder early because we want you to be part of this process. By testing, experimenting, and sharing your creations and feedback, you help shape the Builder’s future as we refine the system toward our planned Steam release in September.

Our goal is to make the Builder a robust, user-friendly creative tool for players and a platform for artists and students to distribute curated content within the Solace ecosystem, ensuring we build a player-driven world while supporting human creativity in game development.

We have a lot of improvements and developments planned. The nature of such modular, parts-based creative tools involves lots of complex use cases that may reveal all kinds of unexpected situations. 

Different players will use the tool in different ways to create different things, and run into different glitches, bugs and interesting situations. Help us root them all out! We've got a lot of content and features still left to implement.

• Early Demo Release on Itch.io: Play around, test, and share feedback.

• Wishlist on Steam: A dedicated Steam page for Solace Builder will go live soon to prepare for the September launch.

• Extended Functions: Landscape modification, lighting and atmospherics, parts deformation, UI, UX and QoL improvements.

• Cosmetic Packs and Cultural Themes: Horse Lords, King’s Men, Firstborn, and Quaintlanders cultural packs will add new building parts, furniture, flora, and decor options.

• Biome and Companion Expansions: Post-launch updates will add themed biomes, animals, and NPC companions to enhance your builds.

• Steam Workshop Integration: Export your sanctuaries directly into Solace Crafting.

We believe in empowering players to build and personalize the worlds they play in, creating spaces that feel meaningful and personal. We’re also committed to building systems that support creators, artists, and students by giving them a platform to share their work within the game ecosystem, ensuring that human creativity thrives in game development.

The Builder is the next step in expanding the Solace universe, making it a world shaped by its community.

https://bigkittygames.itch.io/solace-builder style=button

If you have questions, want to share feedback, or want to hang out with other builders, join us on the Solace Crafting Discord.

Thank you for your support, whether you’ve been with us since the early days of Solace Crafting or are just discovering our world through the Builder. We’re excited to see what you will create.

Hello!

It's been some time we haven't given a public update to the steam page: we've been very busy. We've been pretty active on Discord, so this is a good reminder to join us there if you haven't already: you'll get more real-time previews and feedback on what's cooking.

We have lots to announce and discuss and truth be told, we've been trying to figure out how to split it, to not overload. So bear with us as we do a bit more figuring out for a while longer and in the meantime, we can show you some screenshots of the progress we've been making revamping the game visuals and world feel. We hope you enjoy them!

We'll see you very soon with the next Producer's Letter, long overdue.

Lots in this beta patch, though I need to make it clear this is another foundational bug fix / optimization patch, not bringing in a lot of new content or systems.

As we finish up dealing with these little bugs and kinks in all the new systems we've implemented I've also been hard at work on an entirely new building system and a standalone tool specifically for building design. We'll be doing a deep dive into that in the near future. It's hard, but it's always best not to get ahead of ourselves as we'll make everything clear and available as soon as it's all ready.

We've had some pretty deep discussions in Discord lately regarding the future of the game as well. Everyone is welcome to drop their two cents as we make the tough decisions moving forward with Solace Crafting!

Lot's to come!
Happy adventuring.

- Malkere

v 1.2.0.4 2024.5.13
- Fixed some resources looking for "axe" instead of "hatchet"
- Fixed sledgehammer not coming out
- Fixed tool strength not being used properly in such cases
- Upscaled terrain resolution 4x
- Improved terrain performance
- new plains noise
- object height problems fixed
- new plains noise not flattening starting area fixed
- stopped objects from spawning in the first 32m
- Fixed stone tools being smithing recipes
- Fixed stone tool recipes showing up twice
- Fixed equipping stone sledgehammer tutorial step not updating
- Fixed sickle wind not working/throwing errors
- Fixed sickle damage not working properly
- Fixed environment biomes calculating at old heightmap 256 res scale
- Improved player torch lighting and repositioned to light up face better
- Disabled player auto-facing nearby targets during combat/harvesting
- Monsters are granting exp
- Bandits are dropping loot
- Players will now attack in the direction the camera is facing
- PoI loot will be saved once interacted with
- Fixed map UI using old biome math
- Fixed a harmless bandit error
- Fixed staff & tools sizes
- Fixed attacks movement
- Fixed sledge hammer double hit
- Fixed stone club
- Fixed some weapons wind costs
- Fixed a missing mace

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting?
Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

We had a debilitating bug plaguing the beta branch causing quite a bit of concern and negativity. Rightly so as it was pretty game-breaking, and something I would have liked to have fixed in just a few hours after it was reported. Unfortunately it was not a bug. Bugs you can track down and squash, and I've got a LOT of experience doing that. I couldn't find this one and called in help to try and figure it out. We finally found it this morning and it was actually a timing issue, meaning the code was correct and working, but sometimes things would happen in the right order, sometimes they would happen in the wrong order. It was a very elusive problem and I'm sorry it took this long to get it sorted out.

This patch should have that cleared up, ore nodes have been repaired and had their spawning locations upped a bit. Early next week I should have more ready to talk about, but we always want to make sure we don't get ahead of ourselves ːsteamthumbsupː

v 1.2.0.3 2025.3.22
- Fixed an animation timing issue causing combat and harvesting modes to get stuck and become unresponsive
- Fixed the old sledgehammer showing up on the player model and removed a lot of outdated code
- Fixed ore not mining properly
- Increased ore spawns in Grass and Swamp biomes

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting?
Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the fifth Producer’s Letter for Solace Crafting.

I’m Fab, and today we'll take a moment to contemplate the journey so far and look towards the future for our next step.

We embarked on a hell of a journey with this overhaul, one that will likely take us late into 2025 for all the core changed envisioned to fully materialize. As you’ve seen from work gone into the beta branch over the past few months, this is a complete rebirth of the game. It is also a structural changes to operating procedures, both things in full respect of what keeps some of you so faithful: the actual soul of the game, and the personality of its creator, Kyle.



After causing substantial chaos on the beta branch through autumn and the first part of winter with all the stuff we’ve rewired, we’ve used the past couple months to bring the branch back to its original playability in line. The goal is then to update the main branch and resume the game’s regular life cycle, while continuing its profound transformation into a better, sharper, tighter version of itself.

As the latest post announced, two areas of focus will be tightening the gameplay loops (or bringing them in when they’re missing) and deploying user content and modding tools. To us, this is really the essence of this next phase: making Solace Crafting and its worlds, yours.

Remember the world customization screen when you create a new world? Well, what if that kind of control was not just a one-off thing at world creation. Rather, we envision it as an entire relationship with the world extending not just to biome setup, difficulty, resource abundance but contents, lore, rules, you name it. We want to make you architects of destiny within the planes Khora.

In the latest patch, we’ve updated the graphical elements for houses and towns; this is just a small beginning. Not only are we going to improve their looks and config, but we’re overhauling the building system to be more responsive and easier to produce beautiful homes with.



Dungeons should soon follow, with new assets coming in. As part of the user generated content approach, we fancy the concept of you being able to build and share your own dungeons too. We’re not quite there yet but it’s certainly on the horizons. Either way, sharing your creations is going to be a key dimension of this next update cycle.

The foundational updates to the world creation system continue with the implementation, shortly, of new tools enabling us to dish out a lot more new areas to populate worlds. I’ve kept on referring to this as “static islands in a procedural ocean”. The idea being that right now, the world is fully procedural, right? PoIs were the first step in a transition. Just the same way you currently encounter PoIs, which are static (as in they are pre-built objects with built-in variability), you will encounter entire world chunks, mini-worlds, in effect, giving your experience a lot more anchoring and familiarity as each biome acquires its set of locales. We’ve been validating tools for that, so finalized development and implementation will be coming this spring. The goal is to give your Solace Crafting world a sense of wonder and exploration, a sense of grounded and tangible and at the same time enhancing replayability by making worlds more meaningful and surprising.



Additionally, one more word on gameplay loops, which have been mentioned a few times here previously but it’s really something that is going to be key to take Solace Crafting to its potential. By gameplay loops, we certainly do not mean theme park-like play circuits. Simply, we mean the flow of goals, tasks, incentives and underlying systems into one another that give structure to your experience. Whether you decide to step out into the wilderness or go craft a new weapon, each should organically take you through a sequence of events, thoughts and emotions that is much more purposeful and rewarding and is more than “stuff to do in the game” and more like building Solace Crafting-specific experiences.

This also means further updating the RPG aspects of the game, starting with character creation, to give it that “assign stat points and create your build” experience.

And finally, another word on visuals. We are still transitioning to more marked and game-specific visuals. Currently, we’re very bright and somewhat cartoony at times. Understand that what we want to keep is the freshness and vibrancy that make the visuals more catchy and easy on the eyes but the style will evolve. This is still a kind of reset phase. Our ideal scenario is to pay homage to the 90’s rpgs and old school fantasy we grew up with while achieving a crisp, modern, enchanting look. Tall order but we’re preparing that meticulously, collecting refs and hands to help us through this process.

That’s it for today!

We have so much to do but as you’ve seen over the past few months, we are committed and bold. As you’ve seen with Kyle for the past few years, he is relentless. So one by one we’ll clear all the necessary steps to take the game where it needs to go and deliver you many great experiences both along the way and at destination.

Hey everyone,
Kyle here, super excited to drop a massive beta update just in time for the Steam Spring Sale! 🎉

Though we're still keeping this on the beta branch, this has been a long time in the works, and brings back a lot of functionality to all the new and improved systems.

What’s new in the beta update?
✅ Major system upgrades – We’ve overhauled key parts of the game to deliver a stronger, more dynamic experience, including a new Points of Interest system, and steadily evolving action combat system.
✅ A fresh foundation – While content is still growing, this update lays the groundwork for bigger and better things ahead with heavily revamped world generation.
✅ Completely re-imagined art direction – Greater contrast and more colorful all around, this new style allows us to create and work with assets as a greatly improved speed.



What's soon to come?
✅ Powerful new dungeon generation – Allowing us to seamlessly connect caves and dungeons, as the first step towards more long term goals for deep and rewarding dungeon crawling.
✅ Community-driven content – We’ll soon be introducing tools that will let YOU create dungeon rooms, quests, and points of interest—your creations will become part of the game!

Steam sale – Get it at a discount!
For a limited time, the game is on sale! If you've been waiting to jump in, now is the perfect time. Not only do you get a discount, but you'll be among the first to help shape the next wave of content.

How you can help
🔹 Play the beta! Let us know what you think—we’re actively improving it.
🔹 Leave a review! If you enjoy the game, reviews help a ton during Steam sales.
🔹 Join the community! We’re building something great together, and your ideas matter.

Find something that isn't working? Let me know, I'm quick to fix problems as long as I know they're there!

This update is just the beginning of a huge leap forward for the game. More content, more tools, and more ways to play are on the way! Thanks for being part of the journey.

🔥 Play Now & Grab the Sale While It Lasts! 🔥

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting?
Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

v 1.2.0.1 2025.3.14
- Most skills are working with the new systems, though they are a work in progress, and scheduled for a complete redesign
- Character customization is now working with the new systems, though body morphs are not yet available
- Added stalks to most biomes
- Added more combat points of interest
- Revamped biome noise a bit
- The starting area will now flatten out a 75m ring at a static height and always spawn the starter platform at the same position
- Removed over 5GB of old assets
- Retextured building pieces until the replacement system and models are ready
- Added more tools and weapons, still an ongoing process
- Player health and damage once again tied to stats
- Monster health and damage once again tied to spawn distance
- Town buildings temporarily replaced with a generic building
- Town NPCs temporarily replaced with nudists (actually they're wearing underwear)
- In game armors replaced with new models, though some duplicate still, more to come
- Fixed tool damage not properly applying during harvesting

Introducing the new Point of Interest system! Very happy to get this new piece of tech up for testing. Please remember these new changes are taking place on the pubic "beta" branch until we further implement the wide array of changes that are being worked on.

I also recorded a video update that goes into explaining this a bit near the end, and in general what's going on, how we got here, and where we're headed:



In short the PoI system spawns points of interest throughout the world, each of which is then capable of randomizing and controlling its own sub-components. So for example the new bandit camp can spawn with trees enables, ruined walls enabled, a set of chairs around a campfire may or may not spawn, and so forth.



The PoIs included in this patch are only combat encounters, but we'll be adding landmark, harvesting, crafting, building, and social encounters as well. The landmark encounters in particular are being designed to create large geographical/natural structures that can be seen from a great distance allowing players to better orient themselves in the infinite planes of Khora.

This patch also introduces a variety of upgrades to the player controller, combat, and monster AI. Certain combat actions will now make use of a resource pool called Wind. This is similar to what might be called Stamina in other games, as it will quickly recharge and allow players to continue fighting on a very short-term time scale, whereas Stamina in Solace Crafting is planned to be used for much more important decisions with lasting effects. Some new weapons and weapon swapping/equipping logic is still being improved, and we've also got two new monsters that didn't quite make it into this patch that I should have in and uploaded shortly.

Happy gaming!

- Kyle

v 1.1.1.5 2025.1.22
- Complete rewrite of encounter/PoI generation systems
- Dungeons and caves are spawning again though still unpopulated and void of resources
- New procedural locations system spawning wolf dens and bandit hideouts
- Added more harvestables including ore and stalks (not yet intended final solution)
- Added wolf loot logic and animations
- Added bare hand harvesting animation
- Combat enhancements and tuning
- Improved bot hit reactions
- Player step sounds
- Slash effects
- Combo finisher logic added for 2 handed weapons
- Weapon attacks now use "wind" resource pool
- Character's again teleport home and revive on death
- Most weapons that have not been reimplemented yet will default

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting?
Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the fourth Producer’s Letter for Solace Crafting.

I’m Fab, and today we'll take a moment to reflect on the past few months, what was done and what remains to do as we approach the first live update for Solace Crafting!
First of all, we want to take a moment to thank the overwhelmingly positve reception of our efforts by you, the players. What we've been doing has been rather disruptive at times for the main game: months without updates, a lot of hush-hugh, more recently we even broke a few things etc. Yet, in every comments section available, the community has cheered us on or supported our efforts. Very validating, as it's not only a rather unique undertaking, completely transforming a live game, but also a very unique set of circumstances we're doing it in.

But we're so enthusiastic and hopeful in the first place that this reception pushes us to the next level. And so now, without further ado, let's talk about what we've been doing and what's coming.

A major update of this last segment has been the combat system. Despite its nature as an exploration/crafting game, Solace Crafting will still feature plenty of combat and that's a part of the game that has to be very satisfying on whatever axis it hinges on. Is it the controller? Is it the numbers? It is the enemy AI? For us, it's a little bit of all that. The goal is to keep the experience comfortable, dynamic and accessible without turning the game into a souls-like or a spreadsheet simulator.
This foundational updating process was big. As a matter of fact it took the full focus of a single developer over the past few months, still ongoing, but the results are very encouraging.



Right now we are wrapping up the updating of Bot Behaviors, making the encounters with them more interesting by giving them personalized ways to respond to combat encounters, where they can be aggressive, enraged, turtling, avoidant, etc and shift dynamically from one mindset to the other depending on the development of combat situations. This should conclude the first cycle of combat updates, transforming the experience completely



Points of Interest are another major feature, tied to every aspect of the game. They will stand out in the landscape, giving you more of a sense of exploration, adventure and discovery. We are concentrating the resources and valuables into them, whether loot or harvest, centering that part of the game upon a notion of expedition.



Think of a mix between what the current dungeons, monoliths and towers do, but in a lighter, more relaxed format: a bit of a surprise box of a gameplay experience. Bots may or may not patrol or lurk these spots, as they too would tend to flock around them. Following this update, the new open world experience would divide into relaxing, scenic strolls in the landscape to forage for resources, and PoI spotting and exploration to collect prized stuff in greater abundance.

Most of these items are intended to be present in the first major update of the live branch in January, where Solace Crafting will take its bold first step into its future. It will completely shed its old skin to acquire the whole new look you've seen in all these previews so far. 80% of the old game's systems and mechanics should remain there, supplemented by all the new stuff. And from there on out, the live transformation process will begin, updating and improving everything.

Our vision for what Solace Crafting should be is strong. Many of you have said for years that the foundation to make a great game was there. We also believe it is: both strong enough in its positives, and identified enough where it's lacking, to provide us a straight road to shoot for a place of honor in the public's heart.

- Fab

We’re thrilled to share the latest major update for Solace Crafting! While this update doesn’t include that many visible changes or gameplay enhancements just yet, it lays critical groundwork for integrating the progress we’ve been making on the beta branch. This milestone marks a pivotal step in preparing the game for the exciting features and improvements on the horizon.

Work on the beta branch is still in full swing, and while not all gameplay features are reintroduced or enhancements finalized, we’re eager for you to explore what’s already shaping up. If you're new here or returning from a long hiatus, we encourage you to dive into the beta branch and take a peek at the recent Producer’s Letters for an insider’s perspective on the future of Solace Crafting.

Thank you for your continued support as we build towards something truly special!

Beta changes:

v 1.1.1.4 2024.12.24
- Added more harvesting animations
- Reworked plains and desert biome math
- Fixed a bug causing FOV to zoom in and out repeatedly
- Improved and added further weapon animation support
- Improved shadow quality and reduced jittering

v 1.1.1.3 2024.12.20
- Stopped a slope sliding bug
- Added some new weapons
- Added a staff projectile
- Bow aiming, firing, and damage all working
- Improved biome spawn logic in several places
- Fixed several bugs related to combat causing monsters to float away, spin, or not respond
- Reintroduced basic harvesting
- Harvesting tool auto-swapping WIP, bare hand animation not implemente yet
- Fixed bandit block/dodge logic being way too frequent
- Improved swapping between different weapons
- Enemies will now auto-target on damage, even if out of their normal range
- Fixed being unable to catch your breath treading water
- Fixed highlands being too white
- Fixed a lot of flora improperly spawning under water

Live changes:

- Fixed a town build error that was spamming anonymous error reports

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

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