Salt Development Blog

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. 

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)

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)

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: 

1.6.1 Patch Notes and Announcement

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. 

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)

Hello everyone!

We hope you’ve had a great week. This week at Lavaboots has been fruitful and we’ve got a lot of good stuff coming up! Today I want to give you a brief overview of what we’ve been working on and a little insight into what’s been going on at Lavaboots Studios.

This week I’ve been mainly focused on creating music for the new Jungle Queen boss. The Jungle Queen is a jungle island exclusive boss, similar to the Spider Queen but a good bit tougher. She’s currently in need of some boss music and so I’ve been putting most of my time into that endeavor. I’m a huge fan of boss music in games and I like to make them somewhat themed based on the enemy type. My goal with this music was to keep it in a similar vein as the Spider Queen but with more ethnic instruments and jungle themed sounds.

You can listen to the new Jungle Queen music here:

Jungle Queen Music

This week Robert has been working on a night sky, which means stars! We are very excited for stars and it’s something that will make night time gameplay a lot more enjoyable. Here’s a sneak peek at an early prototype of the starry night:

John has been working on readying the new boats for testing branch, as well as designing some new ways to get boat variations. As you may have read before, some of the boats have color variations and we are adding some new and fun ways to obtain those in the game.

Hello fellow seafarers!

We hope you all are enjoying the recent jungle island update. If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to log in Steam or the patcher and download it! This recent update features a ton of new content. (You can read the patch notes here: Update 1.6 Patch Notes)

In this update we've added two new npc’s: The Fisherman and The Huntsman. Both of these new fellas have a set of new quests and items to trade for. We also added in tigers and poachers which are exclusive to jungle islands, as well as some new bosses and goodies. Remember that these jungles only start spawning around 50 units out, so you’ll need to armor up and head into the deep seas to find them. If you still are having trouble finding them, remember you can ask the innkeeper for directions (for a price of course.)

I think we need more sails. 

Now that the jungle update is pushed and complete, we are working on rigging up the new ship models to replace the old ships. John talked about this a few weeks ago in a blog post, but in case you missed it, here’s the gist of it.

We are replacing some of the older boat models with new, much improved models. On the current replacement list is the Maiden, Pardon Pusher, and Abandoned Ship. The raft and regular sailboat will stay the same. In addition to replacing these boats, we’ve also got some new color variations that we will add in soon, including new ways to obtain these new ships.

If you haven’t seen what the new models look like, you can view some screenshots of them here:

New Ship Models

We think they look pretty awesome and are very excited for you to sail and decorate them!

In order for the new ships to be implemented, some work must be done. First on the list was creating a way to recover all of your ship upgrades/customizations from your old ship and replace them on your new ship. Since the models vary in size, the locations of your upgrades would have been all askew, and so we had to rig up a system to do this. John finished this up recently and this feature is actually available now, but will be primarily useful once the new ships are implemented.

Gotta love an x ray of a boat. 

Right now we are in the process of rigging up the new ships with colliders and making sure their physics are correct. This will ensure they float correctly and things of that nature. Once that is done, we will test them and release them for you to sail yourselves!

Once the new boat models are in, we will begin work on our upcoming cartography update. This is something that has long been missing in Salt, and we are very excited to finally begin implementation of this. We are still in the process of laying the design foundation for the update and figuring out exactly how it’s going to work, but the general idea is to allow you to create your own charts in game, adding information about the islands you visit and so forth.

We would love your feedback and ideas about this upcoming patch and we’ll be keeping you up to date as we progress along it.