Heya Drifters!

Over the past few months we have been working to improve the speed with which we can develop new content for Flotsam. As part of this development we created several tools that allow us to build the world of Flotsam by hand. This creates a more solid foundation for crafting, testing and balancing all the new features we have lined up for future updates.

One of those features is the addition of Regions!
The World Map will now have 3 distinct regions you can travel to, each with their own unique landmarks and resources to gather. Regions allows you to look for your specific needs and will act as a solid base for upcoming features.

What's next?

Regions will see regular updates using handmade maps in the following weeks. It's a great system to build upcoming content onto that we're excited to show to you all soon :). You can expect region updates throughout 0.5.x and onwards. The next bigger update will be "Expertise" that will focus on drifter attributes and research.

Enjoy the new update!

Changes

Regions

With 0.5.0 we introduce regions to the World Map! Each of these regions has a distinctive feel, defined by unique landmarks and resources to be gained.

• Added 4 Regions to the game; the Polluted Woods, Rural Ruins, Highways and City regions.Created new landmarks for each region.
  
• Created new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for each region
  
• Added a scouting landmark for three regions; Watchtower for the Polluted Woods, Church for the Rural Ruins and Skyscraper for the City.
  
• Regions can now be revealed by using the scouting landmarks.
  
• Added a handmade world map with all regions.
  
• Added a choice between handmade map (regions) and random spawning (0.4.2 and down) game modes when starting a new game. Regions will only be present in the handmade map for the time being.
  
• Adjusted the World Map visuals to correctly reflect the region.
  
• You can now use the arrow keys to move around on the World Map and sail freely.
  
• You can now toggle camera and movement on the World Map, allowing you to move using WASD.
  
• You can now click to a location and the town will move there.
  
• You can now click and hold to move your town to your cursor.
  
• You now bump into landmarks on the map. You can not go closer than your building radius.
  
• Landmarks show their boundaries on the map.
  
• Buoy markers and landmark projects will no longer be cancelled upon World Map movement. This will only occur once they breach interactable radius.
  
• Added a visual to indicate where drifters will moor onto landmarks in the map view.
  
• A radial menu showing energy has been added around the townheart on the map so you can quickly glance at remaining energy.
  

Behind the Scenes

• Worked on the World Editor, allowing us to craft a handmade map.
  
• Added region functionality to the World Editor.
  
• Added underwater highway functionality to the World Editor. This was used to test if underwater roads can lead players to city regions.
  
• Made and improved landmark creation and testing tools, allowing us to more rapidly create landmarks.
  
• Improved Salvageable and Non-Interactable prop handling, allowing leftover pieces and unique animations.
  
• Made tools to balance each region's resources.
  
• Correctly textured and re-imported older props, increasing performance but destroying older saves in the process.
  
• Fixed input handling. Key-binds for each player will be reset upon playing 5.0 and up.
  
• Adjusted how camera dragging works.
  

Visuals

• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Polluted Woods region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Rural Ruins region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the Highways region.
  
• Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the City region.
  
• Made new Landmarks for the City region.
  
• Remade the Solar Still visual
  
• Landmark Map Visuals now scale with camera movement.
  
• Energy bar will now pulse when you're low on energy.
  
• Re-implemented flag that shows completed landmarks so players can properly see it from a distance.
  
• Fixed missing resource visuals that showed as pink in-game.
  
• Increased shadow resolution on high(er) quality settings.
  
• Added an animation for drifters picking up resources while swimming.
  

Balancing

• Rebalanced the entire game to smoothly work with new region functionality.
  
• Fishing Chair now handles fish per region and does not require you to be near a fishing spot.
  
• Drifters will now only be able to catch bottled fish when using the fishing chair. This change has been made in tandem with the daily limit that can be set on the fishing chair so the limit can be linked to cooking recipe requirements.
  
• Map movement now costs 2/3 as many Eels.
  

Fixes

• Various fixes were made to be able to correctly implement all new features.
  
• Fixed issue where boats could be linked to multiple mooring points.
  
• Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a LandmarkBehavior reference not being restored properly.
  
• Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a bug with Energy producers.
  
• Fixed issue where arrow keys could not be bound as input
  
• Fixed issue where boats would moor at a mooring point to which they were not linked after loading a saved game.
  
• Fixed issue where region jump button was deactivated after loading a saved procedural game.
  
• Fixed issue where agents that were no longer on any pathfinding graph would be lost forever.
  
• Fixed bug where seagulls would not salvage Floaters from plastic patches.
  
• Fixed annoyance where drifters would fish all day long in the fishing chair. It is now possible to set a daily limit for fish caught in the fishing chair.
  
• Fixed issue where on low resolutions the main menu could get obfuscated by the road map visual.
  

Misc

• Removed experimental camera as it was no longer worth it to update it during development.
  
• Removed cost per mile from World Map HUD as the information became obsolete with the new map.
  
• Removed resource counters and population counter from the HUD.