Arcane Survival ALPHA RELEASE
v0.12 - the open world update, biomes, alpha release & more
I BRING GOOD NEWS!
(okay no more shouting, I’ll use my inside voice now)
After 8 long years, countless failed attempts, innumerable reworks, and dozens of mildly interesting rabbit holes...1
I have finally created a version of the game I am happy with enough to release into alpha. Which is available now via Itch.
What I’m aiming to do with this alpha is something similar to the typical model of an early access game on Steam. But without all the massive hype (and slew of marketing prep) of an actual release over there.
This is a completely new invention I am calling… Early Early Access.
Revolutionary. I know.
In all seriousness, the reality here is that I need to pay the bills. But I really don’t want to rush this game out to Steam just for the sake of getting paid.
So I figured… “Hey, why not just do a low-stakes alpha release on Itch? I can keep working on making the game better, while also earning some cash through sales here and there.”
So that’s what I did.
This next v0.12 Open World Update is for sale over there for a one-time purchase. I’ll keep it constantly updated for free with each new version I release.
psssst, I’ll even keep it updated after I release to Steam. So if you buy it now, consider it yours forever, at an early bird discount ;)
I don’t know what the final price of the game will be. But I’ll slowly be increasing the price over the coming months as I add more value2 into the game.
Also if you’ve got access to the playtest, keep in mind that I’ll eventually be retiring the playtest at some point before the Steam release (so secure ya copy while it’s hawt!).
…
Alright, now that my sales pitch is over. It’s time for me to return to my comfy programmer cave so that we can go over all the juicy stuff I’ve been working on over the last couple weeks for this new update.
v0.12 Changelog
Here’s all the changes I’ve been working on, in no particular order…
THE WORLD IS NOW OPEN.
There are no more edges. The world is infinite3 in both directions thanks to the new chunk system.
This is what I spent a good portion of my time working on for this update.
Added in a basic crafting queue.
New art, courtesy of Sefton.
We’re working together to try nail those beautiful vibes from Kingdom4
It’s an ongoing process but we’re iterating on it bit by bit. It’s already an order of magnitude better than my programmer art ;)
No more perma-death.
Just a classic respawn mechanic like Terraria.
New procedural world generation.
With the new chunk system comes a new world generation algorithm. It’s kinda basic at the moment and doesn’t look too good. But it’s good enough for this first update.
Added biomes into the game.
There’s 3 so far: Plains, Forest, and Farlands.
The farlands being the edge biome that just goes on infinitely. In other words, a poetic edge to the limits of the content in the game.
New boar AI + animations.
We’re still prototyping this guy out (as will be the case for a bunch of upcoming enemies), but it’s feeling a lot better than the previous boar already.
New mob spawning behaviour.
Mobs will spawn during the day as well. This is a bit overwhelming at the moment since there’s no empty-handed attack. So I’ll work on that in the next update.
Saving is now automatic.
For the most part you don’t really need to worry about saving / loading. Although there is an option in there to create a backup of the current save.
Added jumping back in. Replaces the dash (for now).
The base stone has been removed. You can now place your base down anywhere.
In general there’s a big move away from the base-defense style of things.
You’re not defending the base. The base is now defending you.
Added new Crude base buildings for starting out.
The second tier of defense walls now damage the enemies. It provides a nice breather from the mob spawns once setup. Not sure how I feel about this long-term for the design, but I think it balances out with the durability. We’ll have to wait and see.
Disabled wall repairing since it was broken in the last update.
Just destroy and rebuild to ‘repair’ for now.
Added the Crude Workbench. Which you can place down anywhere for starter crafting items.
Added the Crafting Station. Which needs to be inside a base and lets you craft more advanced recipes.
Playtime data tracking.
I spent a good chunk of a week learning how to set up a server and communicate with it via the game using Sockets.
The game now sends anonymous pulses out to the server whenever it’s open so that I can use that data to calculate the median playtime for each new version update.
This is going to be incredibly helpful for seeing how new versions are performing.
You can opt-out via the settings.
I am incredibly keen to see a graph of the playtime for each new version.5
Some more smol things:
fixed bug on linux (proton/win) with links not opening
removed item drop on death
parallax wrapping of the backgrounds to make it infinite
there’s an actual sky gradient now hehe
simplified the main menu
flipping ui upside down for better positioning (still needs some more tweaks tho)
Next up
I’m incredibly excited to get cracking on this next update after I consolidate all the feedback for this version.
I want to give the combat system some love and see if I can figure out a way of introducing a simple magic system, so that I can put the Arcane in Arcane Survival (if ya catch my drift).
Until then, I’m sending you some good vibes for whatever it is that you’re working on.
PEACE!
-randy
p.s - I got a lot of replies to the little easter egg I put in the last changelog, so if I didn’t get around to replying to you I’m sorry for leaving you hanging!
see here, here, and here. Although if you’re an OG, you already know what I’m talking about because you’ve been along for the ride.
I don’t reget these rabbit holes. Ultimately, the work works on you more than you work on it. But still, I’m excited to finally be working on something that’s of actual value to people outside of a funny YouTube video.
Now while this footnote is getting kind of long at this point, I don’t care, because it’s a footnote and I can do whatever the fuck I want.
So speaking of YouTube videos. Sit tight because there’s a biggie cooking in the oven. I’ve got ONE MORE VERSION TO GO until I will have collected all the content for the video.
I am like Thanos, collecting his pretty rocks.
Over the last couple months I have been on a mission to do as many playtest iterations as possible. We have hundreds of hours of footage already. So at some point my editor and I shall lock ourselves in a basement and resurface some undefined length of time later with the best devlog the platform has ever seen.
more value = more playtime = more fun things to do
Not actually infinite of course, but practically infinite for the purposes of a game. Either the floating point precision will break down the further you go out, or the chunks (which are handled as signed 64 bit ints) will overflow, or some weird crash will happen. Either way, I’m kinda curious to see what that will look like.
Specifically the Norse Lands expansion that I believe Franek drew. Absolutely beautiful.