Residual v0.0.22: Improving the first 15 minutes

I’m slowly winding down my productivity a bit, as we are ending the year.. or..so I thought. But looking at this weeks changes list, I guess I did a bunch of things all over the game. Most of my focus has been (again) on perfecting the save-game code, it FEELS pretty stable right now, as I removed a bunch of bugs that caused messed-up graphics when loading the game, and I also concluded that certain things weren’t saved at all!   But I’m now more comfortable with the code, and hope we’re close to having actual correctly working save-games!   – This does mean that your save-game will be gone as you update to this version, but that’s probably a good thing because it was pretty broken/messed up!

All my other attention went into the “first 15 minutes” of the gameplay. I improved a bunch of hints, instructions, and general usability of things, all with the goal to stream line the experience for new players. This is usually something I leave til the end of development, and often when I push a game to early-access.. but since we’re skipping that phase with this game, it’s about time to tackle these things, especially since I got feedback from both Kickstarter backers playing the game, and also some publisher peeps. – Keep it coming! because I can only play this game as an experienced player myself :)

Check out the full list below for the many improvements all over, and of course check this weeks Devlog, talking about all the new lovely planet graphics:

Full changes list:

• added: Disabled captain-chair (Sleep) until it’s needed for the first time
• added: Inventory instructions for CPU
• added: starting game with mouse button
• added: show “collect resources or broken items to feed to the EDP” to inventory if no items found
• added: triggered information now properly stored in savegame (not re-triggering after every load)
• added: option to grab campfire (if not burned out) to regain wood sticks
• added: info that graphite is used to replenish nanobots
• added: recycling deployable devices back into nanobots
• added: host of new creature head-types
• added: mission to fix subspace sensors (prepare ship)
• changed: ship-exit door won’t appear until CPU is fixed
• changed: disabled/removed the “only show new missions” option
• changed: improvements to gameplay flow in early stages (guiding player)
• changed: devices “uses” resource again (besides nano-bots)
• changed: added “depth” property to creatures, allowing them to spawn only at certain depths+temperaturs
• fixed: printer now shows “place” instead of “use” when holding something
• fixed: improved placing of ship-debris (not inside solids anymore)
• fixed: Back in options menus not working with mouse-click
• fixed: some mouse irregularities
• fixed: improved mouse-handling (tested only on Windows)
• fixed: Printer shows “repairing” on broken items (cpu, fidgets, etc)
• fixed: planet-resource pockets won’t highlight when inside the ship
• fixed: ship-computer analyzing is always triggered on new games
• fixed: save_game – entities linking to Player as child-entities
• fixed: save_game – global entity counter not correctly restored
• fixed: save_game – not correctly restoring deleted states on entities
• fixed: added device “name” to “It needs..” messages
• fixed: broken-cpu won’t trigger analyzing (computer takes care of that)