Friday Dev Update: Cartography and Plans for 2016


Hello everyone!

Today we want to talk about our plans for 2016, and give you an update on the current cartography update, as well as some other features we've been working on.


Cartography


Our upcoming cartography patch is coming along very nicely. We've been mainly working on coding and underlying functionality of systems required for the mapping system to work. Here's the gist of how it's going to work. 

The mapping system will be a chart and grid type system. The chart will have individual squares in which you'll be able to click and add an island to. Once you've added an island to a grid square, you can then add icons to that island detailing what kind of features and content the island has. We've even added a system where you can add your own custom icons, if you don't want to use the ones we've provided or if you'd like to add additional information. 

A couple functionality features we've been working on is the ability to click and drag to move across the chart, as well as the ability to zoom in and out on the map. We are currently still working on some remaining code work needed to run these functions as smoothly as possible, and working on designing the visuals. 

Plans for 2016



Cartography and Player Journal


First, we are going to finish implementing the cartography update. We expect this to be done fairly soon and will continue to give you updates on our progress. 

Last week John added in the ability to input text into the game, and began work on a player journal. Here's how the journal will work. The player journal will be divided into sections. Within each section, there will be an unlimited amount of pages that you can use. Each page can have a number of entries and what we are calling "section links." Entries are just the text that you or the game inputs into the journal. The section links will take you to a new section of the book. There is also a feature to go back to the previous section in case you mistakenly go to a section or want to instantly go back. This journal is also going to act as a quest journal, where the game can add short entries to give you updates on your quests. 

We are still working on some systems related to the player journal and visuals, but overall it is coming along nicely. We expect this to come very shortly after the cartography update. 


Finishing the Main Quest


Once cartography and the player journal are implemented, we're going to finish adding in the rest of the main story. The remaining quests have been written, and we just simply need to add them into the game, as well as some of the content that goes along with them. The remaining quests will include new rewards such as weapons and items, new backstory and lore, new bosses, and some other fun new features. 


Multiplayer


Once this is done, we will finally begin working on multiplayer implementation. This will likely be a long development process. Adding multiplayer into Salt is going to be a huge hurdle technically, and require a lot of design and balancing. We aren't sure exactly how long it will take yet, as we haven't dived into it to see what all will be required. However, we'll be keeping you up to date throughout the process and asking you to help us test multiplayer (we'll probably need a whole lot of testing) once we get the basics of it up and running. 

We are extremely excited to add multiplayer and this is definitely going to be our biggest focus this year. We believe that the ability to play with your friends is going to add an entirely new dimension to Salt and we could not be more excited. 


Other Features


Depending on how quickly we can get multiplayer implemented, there are some other areas we'll be focusing on this year. One area is settling. We want you to be able to build some basic structures on islands and create yourself a home if you so choose to. We've also got features such as steam trading cards, achievements, cloud saving, and things of that nature that we'd like to work on as well. 

As I said before, our main focus this year is going to be finishing cartography, adding in the rest of the main quest, and implementing multiplayer. 


We'll be keeping you up to date throughout the development process this year and we will definitely need your help testing out the new content! As always please be sure and let us know your thoughts and feedback. 


- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

Community Feedback: Journals, Weapon Rebalancing, and More



Ahoy mateys!

Throughout the development process you all have given us some fantastic suggestions and helped us shape the game into something better than we could do on our own. We want to make sure you know your voice is heard, and so every now again we’re going to round up some suggestions, questions, and general feedback, and respond to it in a blog post.


Player Journal


This suggestion comes from Poser Nutbag on the steam forums.

“First off, compliments to you, this is an incredible project. I have been digging this game the past few days. It's a great way to spend a winter night. I can almost smell the summer ocean breeze. My biggest suggestion would be an in game journal of sorts (apologies if this has been suggested, 65 pages is a lot to read through). The compass and sextant are great tools, but I find myself having to keep alt tabbing out or write on a piece of paper to remember coordinates and the like, which isn't cool, it takes a lot of the submersion out.”
So you may know that we are currently working on a cartography update. As part of this update, John just added in the functionality for inputting text in the game. This functionality is going to be additionally useful for journals, jotting down your own notes, stories, or whatever you want!


Weapon Rebalancing
This suggestion comes from user Judgement50.

“I am one of the early beta testers...still LOVING the game, but I feel that many of the weapons just are too underpowered to be used. I believe that the aspect of an RPG-style-leveling up system should be taken into account for the player. A simple one would be great to test out and we could give a ton of feedback. Please take this into consideration and I would love it if I could get some DEV-feedback on this!”
We agree completely that there needs to be some rebalancing in weapons, and other areas as well. Since we’ve kind of just been adding weapons and armor in as we go along, it’s been a bit difficult to keep a cohesive balance to everything. So, one of our goals is to take a look at all of the current weapons and armor in the game, and make sure that the stats fit accordingly with its rarity, weapon/armor type, etc. That being said, this is something that will come a little bit later. Right now our primary focus is to get the major content implemented into the game. We then want to polish a lot of areas such as stat rebalancing.


Grass, Anti-Aliasing, and Pirate Trading


 This feedback from Trumpkin Pie.

“I would like to see a lot denser and taller grass! Some aliasing options would be nice. The ability to trade with pirates or just be peaceful with them.”
One thing we want to do before all is said and done is provide more graphics options. This will include more options in areas like anti aliasing, as well as possibly increased grass rendering options. As for pirate trading, we hadn’t really thought of that but we do have the functionality to do it. It remains on the discussion table for now.



Well, that’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and remember if you have a suggestion, there is a thread on the Steam forums specifically for that. We read these threads and keep track of new and recurring suggestions so we can make Salt the best game it can be.





Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

2015: A Year In Review


Hello everyone!

Now that 2016 is upon us, we’ve had some time to reflect back on 2015 and all of the changes that have been made to Salt. Today I’d like to talk about some of the things we accomplished in 2015.

2015 was a great year for Salt, and we feel like the game is in a far better state that it was a year ago. We’ve improved the game graphically, added a lot of new content, and improved a lot of the base functionality of the game. Here’s a look at some of the changes made to Salt in 2015.

New Grass and Island Generation


One of the first major updates we made to Salt in 2015 brought a brand new graphical look for the grass. Our old grass didn’t look very good, and so one of our goals going into 2015 was to change that as quickly as possible. We’ve been very happy with the new grass and we think it looks far better than the original.

We also changed the way islands spawned in the world past a certain distance. Originally, the farther out in the ocean you got, the farther the islands were spread apart. This could result in really long expanses of oceans and then maybe only hitting one or two islands. While the large expanse of ocean can be kind of fun and add to the immersion of the game, only finding one or two islands after you’ve sailed for so long is not so fun. With the new island generation, we made it so that islands past a certain point will spawn in clusters. This means you’ll still hit large expanses of water, but when you find an island, it will be a large cluster of islands giving you lots to do.


Dawn of the Story
Following the new grass and island generation update, we started implementing the first portion of the main story in Salt. This introduced a quest line, new rewards, lore, new characters, and a general slew of content to take part in. If you know anything about our philosophy with Salt, we didn’t want players to feel forced to do the main quest, but we wanted a sense of story and objective there for them should they want to.


A New GUI
Our next update was a much anticipated GUI overhaul. Our original interface was mainly a placeholder until we could come up with and implement something better. The new GUI brought a much more accessible inventory, controller functionality, and even introduced visible character stats.


New Models 



They came. They saw. They conquered.

The original pirate models in Salt were certainly something to behold. Their eyes gave such an emotionless stare as they swung their axes at you that you couldn’t help but feel intimidated. Although we were sad to see the old pirates go, they were never intended to be more than placeholders. With this update we added in brand new pirate models and animations that much improved the look and feel of the pirates.


Jungle Islands



After we updated the models we began working on adding in a brand new island type: the jungle island. This was perhaps one of our largest updates, due to the amount of content that went into it. The jungles featured brand new visual assets, new enemy npc’s, new friendly npc's, quests, new wildlife, fish, secrets, and a batch of new loot. These islands were the first of what we called our “post 50 content.” The idea here was to include tough islands that only spawned past the 50 degree mark.


Stars and Boats
With our most recent update, we added in stars and brand new boat models. The stars added a whole new aesthetic to the game and a reason to sail at night. Along with the new stars, we also added in brand new boat models for a few of the boats in the game.


Other Updates
In addition the major content updates we also made a lot of other changes of the game such as controller support, new lore books, new tree models, quests, in game damage numbers, and more.

Overall, 2015 was a great year for Salt. Next week we're going to talk about what we’ve got planned for 2016! As always, we would love to hear your feedback.


- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


Hey everyone!

We hope all of you seafarers had a great Christmas and are as excited about the new year as we are. 2015 was a great year for us and we are even more excited about what's in store for 2016! Next week we'll be talking a little more about some upcoming content in 2016 and what we've got planned for Salt.

Also, don't forget that Salt is currently 34% off on the Steam Holiday Sale which runs through January 4th. If you've been waiting for the game to go on sale, now is the time to pick it up.

Salt on Steam
Stay tuned to next week's blog post for an update on our current Cartography Patch, and information regarding features coming in 2016!

Thanks for reading and Happy New Years!


- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

This Week at Lavaboots: Story and Cartography


Hey everyone!

It's been a fun week over here at Lavaboots with lots of stuff going on. We've been hard at work at a few different things and I wanted to give you a brief overview of some of the content we've been working on.


Cartography


John and Rob have been continuously working on the upcoming cartography update. If you don't know much about that yet, we are essentially designing an in game chart/map that you can use to mark locations of islands and information about those islands. We are making good progress on this and can't wait for you guys to try it out! 

This week John has been focusing primarily on the design aspect, creating icons and the look of the map. I have to say it is currently looking really nice and will fit well with the rest of Salt's UI theme. Rob has been working on map functionality features, such as map zooming and things of that nature. We want to make the map smooth and fun to use and so we are spending time polishing it's look and functionality. 


Main Story


This week I have been primarily focusing on design work for the main story. One of the upcoming updates we'll be working on soon will be implementing the remainder of the main quest line. Our goal with the main quest is to give you a sense of linear direction in otherwise open game, and give you some information on the backstory of the world as well. When we implement the remainder of the main story, we'll also be adding in a quest journal to help you more easily keep up with the tasks you've been given. 

Since Salt doesn't feature any voice acting, I've been spending a good bit of time re working old dialogue and writing new dialogue that is more concise and easier to digest. My goal is to find the balance between not having to read a wall of text, but getting a sense of personality and depth to what is going on. This can be a challenge but we've got some ideas and I think the new dialogue achieves this fairly well. 


As always please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments. We love hearing your feedback! 


- Will Sterling (Game Design and Sound Lead)

Friday Dev Update: A Closer Look At Cartography


The cartography update is underway. This week, I want to discuss a little bit of what to expect with regards to the new mapping functionality coming in the next major update.


Marking Your Map


The core of the map functionality is actually very simple. Initially the map will be blank. It is up to you to mark the map however you see fit. In addition to marking where islands are in the world, there will be a number of other map mark icons available to you that you can place on top of the islands. For instance, if an island contained pirates, you can mark it with a pirate icon.


Sharing Your Map


Many players enjoy making their own maps of the Salt world, and they have been doing so on paper or third party apps. This system intends to take the same philosophy of hand-drawn maps and provide an in-game system to accomplish the same goal.

There are many players who prefer to reference maps that other people have made, and on the flip side, there are players who get a lot of enjoyment out of making maps with the intent to share with other people. We will make it fairly easy to transfer map data by having each game’s map data stored in a single file, which players can exchange.

Another thing to note is that the map data itself will be stored in a commonly used plain text format called JSON. This means that third party apps and websites will be able to easily read map data.


Map Customization


 In addition to icons in the map, we plan to add the ability to make custom notes tied to islands as well. This is something that ties in heavily with the Player Journal, which is something that is planned for a future update. Being so, the custom note functionality of the map will be released along with the Player Journal update instead of this one.
We will continue to keep you updated with the progress and features of the map update as development continues.
- John Gamble (Lead Developer)

Friday Dev Update: This Week at Lavaboots



Happy Holidays!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. All of us on the Lavaboots team definitely did but we're glad to be back to work. Here's a quick update on what's going on at Lavaboots.

New Boats and Stars Pushed


You've probably already gotten your hands on the update, but if not, be sure and download the latest patch to get the brand new boat models and to experience the starry night sky. With this update we also added some other additions such as updated icon resolutions, new tree models, new lore books, and more. You can read the announcement and patch notes here: 


We also want to say thank you to everyone who ops into the testing branch and helps us knock out bugs before patch releases. The feedback we get from you all is extremely valuable and makes our updates much smoother. 

Cartography


Our next update will feature an in-game mapping system that will allow you to chart your adventure. This week we've been working on some systems in preparation for this upcoming update. We are very excited about finally allowing you to chart your world in-game and some of the possibilities that come along with that. We'll be sharing more info related to this as we get closer to the patch release so keep an eye out. 


Thanks again for your feedback and we hope you all are enjoying the new boats and stars! 


- Will Sterling (Game Design and Sound Lead)
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