Arkavite – Experimental Changelog

Here you will find the changelog/patch notes for experimental releases.

[0.1.5-E] Sep 2023 (PENDING)

  • Load Process
    • Updated the “Loading Screen”. The game will now use a fancy transition when loading between scenes. A loading animation will now be used to provide users with reassurance that the program is thinking, and the application has not frozen.
  • Settings Menu
    • Sliders
  • Build Automation
    • Automated some aspects of the build pipeline to speed up the build/package/release process

[0.1.4-E] Sep 11th 2023

  • Settings Menu
    • Upscaled and redesigned UI elements for the new resolution. Redesigned and reworked Sliders and Dropdowns.
    • Improved the look of the settings menu when accessed via the sandbox system menu. UI elements behind the settings menu will now transition out of frame, leaving a clean empty backdrop for the settings UI.
    • Sandbox – Fixed issue with dropdown animations not working in unscaled time (resulting in the hover animations not playing). This was only an issue when accessing the settings UI from the sandbox system menu.
    • Sandbox – Fixed issue where it was possible to resume the game while the settings menu was still on screen.
    • Note, in order to keep the settings UI working in the Character Creator, the Settings system has been temporarily set up to adjust the camera scale when when via the Character Creator. This might look a little goofy, but it’s because the Settings UI is now in the new higher scale whereas the Character Creator is still at the older small scale. This will not be an issue one the Character Creator is updated.
  • Main Menu
    • Credits Page – Updated <3
    • Centered the [PRESS SELECT] button
  • Sandbox
    • Audio
      • Increased the volume of audio in the sandbox all around.
      • Added surface triggers for movement audio. Now the audio will change depending on what surface the player is moving on.
    • Combat
      • Added meander behavior to enemy AI. Enemies will now perform a random walk around the map, stopping intermittently to contemplate their existence. This has been applied to the Slime enemy.
      • Added [Lunge Attack] to enemy AI. This has been applied to the Slime enemy.
      • Added “On Damage” SFX and GFX to the player. The player will now shriek when hit, and flash for a brief moment.
    • Death Screen – The player will now be presented with a death screen if they lose all their HP.
    • Event Dialog System
      • Fixed issue where item effects would not be displayed after “Auto-Skipping” through System-Tan’s Dialog in the Character Creator.
      • Fixed issue where System-Tan’s dialog would not appear if you triggered an item effect in the Sandbox before entering the Character Creator.
  • Console System
  • READ_ME.txt
    • A READ_ME file will now be bundled with every build. This contains standard information, such as what the application is, who made it, where you can go to get help, recommended specs, and links to any a attributions and acknowledgements.

[0.1.3-E] Aug 13th 2023

  • Sandbox
    • Reflection Screen – Upscaled and redesigned UI elements. Updated “SHORT” description to not display Tail type if the player has no tail.
    • Item Effect Screen – Upscaled and redesigned UI elements
    • Inventory Screen – Upscaled and redesigned UI elements. Upscaled and improved some item slot textures. Added a visual component to the clock. Reimplimented the actor preview screen using the new animation pipeline (Equipping and dequipping items will result in visual changes to the player sprite).
    • Trees – Upscaled trees with base variants, hard shadows, randomized heights, reduced part count. Improved tree sway shader.
    • Fonts – Swapped out the interface fonts used in the sandbox in favor of something prettier and more distinct. The new fonts will make their way into the Main menu and Character creator in the near future.
    • Items
      • Added 2 Taiyaki effects and dialog. Taiyaki now has a chance of causing the player to grow cat ears, and a chance of causing the player to grow a tail. The tail dialog will change depending on whether or not you’re wearing underwear. Changes should be visible in the SHORT Reflecion screen. Tails need to be added to the DETAIL Reflection screen. Changes should also be visible on the player idle animations.
    • Combat
      • Added a slime “Enemy”, basic proxity aggro behaviors, and and pathfinding with obstacle avoidance. The slime currently has no way of attacking, so they will only follow you for now.
  • Parser – Added slot support. Added actor.hairCol tag.
  • Command System – Added slot support, and commands to manage tail & ear data. Added target/user support for item scripts (so a user can target specific actors, or users themself can be affected by the script).
  • Animation
    • New animation pipeline sucesfully integrated
    • Added standard textures for the sandbox items.
    • Added Nyaatsu ears and Tail for all idles
    • Refined Run Left & Run Right animations
    • Added hair to a number of animations.
    • Added UV layer to Idle Down, Idle Left and Idle Right animations. These animations should look normal enough now.
  • Fixes
    • Fixed bug where dialog/effect screens would fail if the character creator was entered before the sandbox.
    • Fixed bug where character creator would overwite player parameters, leading to weird behaviors upon later entering the sandbox. Player parameters will now reset upon returning to the main menu.
    • Fixed bug where the sanbox world clock would not start ticking until you enter and exit the inventory.
  • Main Menu
    • Credits Page – Updated <3

[0.1.2-E] Jul 23rd 2023

  • General
    • I have begun updating the game to a 360p resolution in lieu of the player character upscale.
    • Text printer – Rewrote the script which handles all the text scrolling/glitch text you see in game. Ran into some complications with the previous system when it came to getting the inventory title not to seize up, and I noticed some FPS related timing issues in the main menu. I’ve completely streamlined the system’s processing to eat fewer cycles, and to not de-sync.
  • Main Menu
    • New Startup Sequence
      • The startup sequence has been redesigned for 360p.
      • Skipping the sequence takes you straight to the main menu
      • Returning to the main menu replays the cool triangle transition. I might use that elsewhere as a transition out from loading. It looks rather nice. Very cool.
    • Redesigned main menu interface for 360p
    • I’ve added “Experimental” under the Project Arkavite logo, which only appears in experimental builds. This should hopefully lessen the chances of people accidentally booting up the experimental builds when they intended to boot up the stable release.
    • Credits Page – Updated <3
      Some new names have come through this week. These will be added in the next release~
  • Sandbox
    • Camera Updates
      • Added damp camera smoothing. At the moment, the cam follows behind the player. I may later update this to have it move ahead of the player in the direction of travel.
      • Implemented some camera trickery to get world layers rendering pixel perfect.
      • Camera native resolution switched to 360p. The HUD is fine at its current scale, but the inventory and menus will need readjusting to look right. Styling of settings, needs bringing in line with the inventory and main menu. The Inventory colour palette should also be unified with the main menu.
    • Trees have been removed for maintenance. They sure look pretty, but they need re-adjusting for the new player scale, and some minor optimizing.
    • The sandbox now links back to the main menu via its own system menu.
    • The settings menu is now accessible via the sandbox system menu.
    • Fixed issue with the inventory heading getting stuck when switching between screens too quickly. I just went ahead and refactored the text printer. See above for more details~

[0.1.1-E] Jul 09 2023

  • New and improved sandbox map.
  • Equipping and dequipping items will now update player animations after closing the inventory. Note, not all textures and anims are final~
  • Added a basic character description window (accessible via the arrows in the inventory). This will eventually get a dedicated hotkey, and the interface itself should see some improvements and adjustments as time goes on.

[0.1.0-E] Jun 30th 2023

First Experimental Release