Update 1.6 Blood Jungle Now Available

7:24 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Hey everyone!

First off, thanks to all who helped us during testing with this update. We always love your feedback and help polishing up updates before official release.

We have now officially pushed Update 1.6 for all to play. This is one of our biggest updates yet featuring a ton of new content. We've added a brand new island type, the jungle island, with multiple new enemy types, new wildlife, new traders and npc's, new resources, new fish, quests, weapons and armor, and secrets! We've also made a lot more balancing changes and fixes as well throughout this update.

You can read the patch notes here:

http://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791436522199/announcements/detail/115199797487267669

These jungle islands are our first content exclusive to the deep seas as well. This means you'll have to travel far out into the ocean to start finding these islands, and they will be quite tough as well! We hope you enjoy them and as always we would love to hear your feedback!

0 comments:

Friday Dev Update - Blood Jungle On Testing

9:29 AM Unknown 2 Comments

Update 1.6 - Blood Jungle was released on the Steam testing branch last Friday! Thank you to all of you testing branch adventurers who brave the bugs to help us polish Salt in its roughest moments. Sometimes you endure tragic crashes, while other times you reap the rewards of herds of infinite incoherent deer. Whether your reward is pain or plunder, we greatly appreciate your help.

This will be a fairly short blog post just as an update. This week I have been working with our generous testers to polish up the patch for full release. During the downtime while recent changes are being tested, I have started working on the next mini-patch, which will replace the old boat models with new ones.

When the new boat models go in, your current boat furniture and upgrades will be who knows where - in walls, under the floor, floating in the open. So, the first order of business is to create the ability for players to recover all of their placed boat upgrades from a given boat. This will be accomplished by inspecting the boat item from your inventory, and clicking a new button that will be there.

Once that boat upgrade recovery system is in place, then I can begin setting up the colliders and floating functionality of the new boats. Finally, I’ll test them and release them to the testing branch as per the normal process. The models that will be replaced will be the abandoned pirate ship, the pardon pusher, and the maiden. The small sail boat and raft will remain as they were before.

Once that mini-patch is pushed, we will start full development of the mapping/cartography system. This is one that I have very much looked forward to for quite a while, and I think it will make a big difference in the game.

If there are no more major issues, you can expect the Blood Jungle update to make its full release next week.

- John Gamble (Lead Developer)

2 comments:

Dev Update: Testing the Jungle

5:36 AM willsterling23 5 Comments

Hey everyone!

We just wanted to let you know that our latest update (Update 1.6 - Blood Jungle) is now available on the Steam testing branch. If you'd like to opt into the testing branch and help us knock out any last minute bugs, here's how you can access it:

Accessing the Steam Testing Branch

This update includes a ton of new content including a new jungle island with new wildlife, enemies, npcs, quests, items, and mysteries to explore!

Keep in mind that these islands can only be found in the deep ocean, so you'll need to voyage out to at least the 50 degree mark before they start popping up.

Happy adventuring!

- Will Sterling (Game Design and Sound Lead)

5 comments:

Jungle Island Coming to Testing Branch Next Week!

8:37 AM willsterling23 11 Comments

Warning: screenshots incoming.

Hey everyone!

The Jungle Island is nearing completion and will be coming to the Steam testing branch by the end of next week. All of the content is essentially made, and we are just doing some last minute testing and balancing before we push to the testing branch. We will need your help to test as well so if you want to opt into the Steam testing branch, here's a link explaining exactly how to do that:

Opting into the testing branch

Once the update has been pushed to testing, we'll see if you guys find any glaring imbalances or issues, fix those, and then we'll push to public!

My main goal for today's blog post is to go over some of what this jungle island update is going to include and share a bunch of screenshots with you so you'll get a good idea of what to expect! Do not fret though, there will still be secrets and content you won't know about as well.

Lush, Big Trees, and Post 50

Tarzan is up there...somewhere...lurking...

It's important to note that jungle islands are only going to spawn past the 50 degree mark. So get your sextants out and start heading into the deep seas. Once you get past 50 degrees in any direction, you will be able to find these islands. We thought this would be a good way to encourage and reward players for venturing far into the seas.

One of our main goals visually with this island was to have really big trees and lush plant life. We wanted you to feel like you were under a canopy of trees where you could barely see the sun. As you can see in the above screenshot, the trees can get pretty big and it really gives the island a much larger feeling than the tropical islands you are used exploring. We've also littered the ground with plant life so that the island really feels lush and thick. In essence, we want you to get lost on these islands.

The Tiger

Okay now I really could use Tarzan's help.

Lurking on these jungle islands will be a tiger. These will be quick and dangerous wildlife that will kill you on sight. This is our first introduction of enemy wildlife (excluding the giant spiders at night) and we feel that they will fit quite nicely on the jungle islands. As with most things, there will be quests and rewards for killing these tigers so always be on the lookout!

The Huntsman

Presenting the award for most glorious mustache.

One new friendly NPC you will encounter on jungle islands is the Huntsman. He will provide you with quests and act as a trader, rewarding you for certain goods you find. Be sure to look for him while you are adventuring on these islands! Just look for the mustache and the hat.

The Fisherman

Bait? Nah. I just whistle and they come swimmin.

Fishing is a really fun part of Salt and we wanted to give players even more reasons to fish. With this update, we've added new fish and a new NPC called The Fisherman that spawns on jungle islands and offers quests and rewards for catching rare fish. He'll usually be hanging out on the shore with his fishing pole and fishing hat.

Additional Content

In addition to the content listed above, there will also be a new enemy AI that we are calling poachers. They are dangerous and will be roaming these islands so be on the lookout for them. Also with this update will be more secrets and things to discover on your own. We can't wait for you to set sail for your first jungle island and explore the new content is has to offer!

After the Jungle Update

Once the Jungle Update is pushed, we are going to start working on replacing the current boat models with the new ones (you can view some of those here .) We are also going to start working on implementing an in-game cartography system. This is something that has been missing from the game for quite a while and so we are real excited to finally get it implemented! Being able to chart and map out your world in the game is going to add a lot more fun to exploration.

As always, please let us know your thoughts and feedback!

- Will Sterling (Game Audio and Design)

11 comments:

Friday Dev Update: Secrets of the Jungle

6:24 AM willsterling23 4 Comments

Hello fellow sea farers!

Our jungle island update is almost finished. We're putting the final touches on it and polishing up all the content that is going into it. It's going to be a big update and we are very excited about it. Today I wanted to talk about one particular aspect I'm excited about in relation to this update, which is secrets!

Since Salt is primarily about exploration and the freedom to adventure out on your own, we wanted to make sure there were mysteries and aspects to the world that you actually wanted to discover. We didn't want Salt to be just about going from island to island and gathering loot. We wanted you to have an adventure, and an adventure means figuring things out on your own. With this in mind, we knew that Salt needed secrets.

Encouraging Exploration Through Secrets

I won't spoil it, but if you've played Salt for some time and been around on the community forums, you've probably heard of The Dark Guardian. The Dark Guardian is a secret boss in Salt that requires a set of secret steps to be completed before he can be found. We knew that this content would likely be missed by a lot of players but that the reward someone would feel for discovering it on their own would be worth it. This adds a layer of depth to the game that you didn't know was there otherwise.

This depth is something we strive for in Salt. We want Salt to constantly unfold more and more layers of depth as you play. We also want you to constantly be on the lookout for new secrets, and so we believe that by adding secrets into the game it encourages players to continue exploring and to look more closely at the world.

Encouraging Community Through Secrets

Another great feature of secrets in a game is the encouragement of sharing these with the community. Lets say you did miss The Dark Guardian and never even knew about him. Well perhaps one day you are browsing the forums and all the sudden you see a screenshot of a boss you didn't even know existed. Perhaps you thought you had completed all the quests and content the game had to offer. Now all of the sudden another layer of depth has unfolded and you want to go back into the world to explore again, looking for something you may have missed.

This encourages players to share their experiences with others and talk about what they have found. It gives you a sense of pride if you find it on your own, but even if you don't, it gives you a desire to go back and discover content you didn't know was there.

Get Your Tin Foil Hats

One of my favorite results of having secrets in a game is what I call the tin foil hat response. Once a player discovers that there are secrets with hidden rewards, they will begin to question and look more closely at everything. That quest you did for the merchant ten times already? Maybe there was something you missed (lower your tin foil hats for this one, it's just an analogy.) That statue you thought was just something visually in the world? Maybe there's something to that.

This also goes back to community involvement where you can discuss your theories with other players, trying to figure out how to unlock these secrets. One of my favorite aspects we see this occur in is fishing. We wrote fishing with a lot of conditions that need to be met to catch certain fish. I'm always seeing discussion on the community about how to catch certain fabled rare fish such as the blue crab or the dragon fish. These moments add a degree of depth and immersion to a game that goes beyond the gameplay itself.

With our next update we will continue to add more secrets into the game for you to discover. Even after this update we plan to always add more secrets to Salt so you'll always be left wondering if you've truly discovered it all.

- Will Sterling (Game Design and Audio)

Salt Development Blog