One of the things you learn when you move up to Maine: We're not like the rest of the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. I mean - yes, we DO have a "Best Buy" electronics store - but anything beyond the basic stuff, you need to order from out-of-state - especially if you need specialty equiment that is just a year ot two out-of-date (such as power supplies that can deal with our graphics cards.)
Thankfully, after the four days it took for a new motherboar...
2023-11-02 02:44:07 +0000 UTC
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Last night, we installed the new power supply, only to discover that the motherboard on the main development machine was burnt out, as well.
It will take another four days for as new one to arrive.
As frustrating as this has been, work continues. Buoys are being placed, the controller continues to be refined, and work on the brief preview of the sto...
2023-10-26 23:02:03 +0000 UTC
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Today at 3:00 PM, the power source on our main development machine died. The local Best Buy didn't have a replacement in stock, so we're trying to find a place that can overnight the unit to us.
This is a kick in the pants - but as a former employer once said:
"Bad News Never Comes at a Good Time."
We sincerely apologize for the delay - we hope to release the final closed Beta in one week's time.
2023-10-18 23:44:25 +0000 UTC
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In next week's update, we will be sharing the last "Closed" Beta of Peace Island for PC - Mac build soon to follow.
Since the previous beta, we have been able to address over 76 issues & omissions. Some were no-brainers that made me SERIOUSLY embarassed for having missed them:
- Some foliage tended to disappear when seen against the skybox.
- There was no "Splash" sound if a cat fell into the ocean.
- The sovereign micronation of "Yunala...
2023-10-11 23:48:33 +0000 UTC
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The list of items required for the public beta has swelled from 88 items overall, to 101. However, we’ve now passed the “half done” mark with 53 items addressed, and 48 remaining.
Without a doubt, the most comprehensive thing we’ve had to address was the addition of Rain. We’ve had the ability to add such a weather setting to the skybox fo...
2023-10-05 00:56:31 +0000 UTC
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Due to recent releases, this is the first public Peace Island update in a while - so I wanted to discuss what recently happened with Unity Technologies. If you are not aware - two weeks ago, the company that makes the Unity Game Engine (which is pretty much THE preeminent dev engine for indie games) announced that it was imposing a 20-cent-per install fee for all games made on its platform.
Now - laying aside the concerns about multiple installs and piracy...
2023-09-28 00:10:49 +0000 UTC
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Simply put, we need just a few more days - seven, to be exact. I have never believed in “crunch time,” and while I might be able to push myself to do a few extra hours of work daily, I cannot ask anyone else in our group to match that.
We’ve worked hard, and accomplished a LOT over the last two weeks. After our visit to the MEow Lounge, we reviewed our latest build along with the latest bug reports. We calculated what we needed to get ...
2023-09-09 18:14:51 +0000 UTC
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- An ideogrammatic language
- Finalizing Alpha interiors
- Reviewing system tweaks
- Sound Effects
- Bug fixes.
All in all, we have 24 remaining issues, with 63 resolved.
We are still on-target to have an MVP/Closed Beta ready for one week from tonight. As much as I would like to talk about our accomplishments, I have a...
2023-09-04 00:17:41 +0000 UTC
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So- first: The demo at MEow Cat Cafe went pretty well! My only real complaint was that I was so busy, I never got to spend much time with all of the awesome cats!
Of course, we ran into bugs. For example: Over the past few years, we have been getting reports that Peace Island was prone to crash on 4k displays. I had never seen the bug in...
2023-08-27 01:07:59 +0000 UTC
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We have been late with our update this week, because we've been so busy getting Peace Island in shape for our public demo at the MEow Cat Cafe, in two hours - We'll be posting photos and news from the event, tomorrow!
We will try to stream the event via our Twitch.
Thanks for your patience!
2023-08-25 20:33:49 +0000 UTC
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Sorry for the delay - the reason for this will become clear, below.
While I have never been a religious person, there are a few phrases from the texts of various faiths that are peerless in summing up the human condition. Among these is the passage from the biblical book of Job:
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”
I believe the next person to come close to relating the same crystalized sentiment on the vag...
2023-08-16 00:42:23 +0000 UTC
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Folks- there was a LOT I wanted to address this evening - but we have to keep it at that, for now: WE BROKE 200 FRAMES PER SECOND IN AN INTERIOR SCENE, AND OVER 100 FRAMES PER SECOND IN THE EXTERIOR - at "Ultra" quality on a 3440X1440 monitor!
THIS is the "Holy Grail" we have been searching for, since our first attempt at refactoring, two years ago. It seems that our lead coder Lance & I happened ...
2023-08-10 01:36:19 +0000 UTC
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FIrst off: an apology. Last week, I said we would be posting a new update on Monday- that was a mistake. Ya see - we’ve been posting on Monday for well over a year now. However, over the past few weeks, we have been trying to move our update day to Wednesday. When I concluded last week’s update, my promise of a Monday update was based on that old schedule - apologies if that confused anyone!
(Pic unrelate...
2023-08-03 00:30:10 +0000 UTC
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Sorry we’re a day late- yesterday was a scorcher, and our computers shut down for a couple of hours (we don’t have air conditioning.) Laura & I took the afternoon off to have a writer’s meeting with one of the ferry greeters out on Peaks Island (more about the visit, below.)
First - to our Mac-Using supporters waiting for their playtest version:...
2023-07-28 00:30:48 +0000 UTC
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Sorry we did not update yesterday - Portland had temperatures in the 90’s, and our computers shut down due to overheating.
Those of you who were reading updates earlier this year might remember our aborted attempt to convert the project to URP (Universal Render Pipeline.) That attempt was foiled due to bad scheduling - the time required conflicted with our playtest release timeline. The problem with the process is that it is downright exha...
2023-07-18 23:53:22 +0000 UTC
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I believe we finished the build & upload at around 8:00 PM Sunday night! We sent out a general email to all playtesters right after, but apparently, they all went into spam folders - so the proper announcements went out just a few minutes ago...
The final issue was getting the start of the initial mission just right. For a few hours, Liz would simply freeze in mid-air, and gently float eastwards the moment she exited her home.
2023-07-10 22:52:13 +0000 UTC
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I'll also have to say that the majority of dev news will have to wait until then, as well. There were just a few last features we needed to work out:
1: "Failure State" for the first exterior quest.
2: Collectibles.
3: Skybox fixes.
4: "Zoom-In" on sample readable objects.
5: UI fixes.
Each one of these just required about 2-3 more hours apiece get in-shape for the build - we apologize for this slight delay....
2023-07-04 02:11:46 +0000 UTC
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I’m sure that the gamers out there have wondered: “Why do quest-givers in indie open-world games live such static lives?”
For example: the Hearthians in “The Outer Wilds” are indeed stuck in a 22-minute time loop, but wouldn’t you think that someone among that species (aside from yourself) actually might want to move a bit during one of those 22 minutes? Nope - in each of those cycles, everyone lives a life so sedentary, they make the Ang...
2023-06-27 22:29:36 +0000 UTC
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Sorry for being a day late with this update - I’ve been dealing with a bit of insomnia over the past couple of nights.
Firstly - I’ve gone through reports from our Playtesters. The first Playtest version resulted in approximately 130 pages of bug reports - this latest version resulted in about only 43 pages!
Half of the remaining problems were a few controller issues - many of which have already been addressed, as of this writin...
2023-06-21 00:02:19 +0000 UTC
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Firstly: As we mentioned in last week’s update: we have the first “Whitebox” ready - think of it as a variation of “The Construct” from “The Matrix.”
It was made to “speed-test” the first iteration of the Beta mood/stat system. It includes:
1 - Food
2 - Beds
3 - Entertainment sources
4 - Golf Carts
5 - A “Jungle Gym...
2023-06-12 23:12:08 +0000 UTC
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So - why the delay?
If you will remember, a few updates ago I mentioned that we were in a VERY intense mode of development:
- We had spent the previous few weeks swapping out the Skybox, which includes the weather system, the day/night system, the lighting system, and others.
- We also swapped out the Ocean system.
- We improved the dialogue UI, eliminating most of the visual & interactivity issues.
- We added a few new NPCs and switc...
2023-06-05 00:13:43 +0000 UTC
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Hey- I'd like to write a lot, but build nights are always busy ones - so many bases to cover! As before - this playtest version is open to Patrons- just drop us a line to let us know you'd like a link!
Unfortunately, the first build inevitably has a few bugs - and the final will require another hour-plus to build, and an equal amount of time up upload.
We'l...
2023-05-30 20:17:11 +0000 UTC
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First, the cool stuff: We're finally getting the cats into a proper driving pose, when behind the wheel of a golf cart.
We finished our optimization review of the "Downtown" sectors. These used to be the most problematic sectors - at one time weighing in at an insane 9 million triangles per frame. After cleaning up the more poorly-bak...
2023-05-16 01:09:12 +0000 UTC
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As we rolled forward with our pre-Beta review, we encountered more inexplicable stuff done a few years ago. To fully explain what was going on, I have to go into a bit of back-end stuff.
Ya see: the world of Peace Island is broken up into sectors - such as the one you see above on the left. Each of these sectors is made up of a collection of smaller, baked objects.
“Bak...
2023-05-09 00:09:32 +0000 UTC
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I'll be straight-up with ya'll: My attempt at upgrading the project to Unity's URP did not turn out as planned. Despite all of the systems within unity REPORTING that everything was URP-ready, it turned out that not a one of them were working, despite us following all conversion protocols and procedures.
Everything from the fur on the cats, to the skybox, to half of the 3d prefabs within the game refused to function properly, and were throwing up thousands u...
2023-05-03 02:22:25 +0000 UTC
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So- around Friday of last week, we began the optimization process for Peace Island. Ya see: we encountered an issue that was causing the frame rates to dip from 20-30 fps, down to 2 frames per second.
Long story short: it was a glitch in the lighting that was causing the engine to render dozens of instances of the same content. This resulted in the camera having to render up to 155 million triangles per frame (when our goal is around 2-3 million!)
2023-04-25 01:32:32 +0000 UTC
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This week, Laura & I finalized the Beta version of the Stat system - and Lance already has most of it implemented. This has undergone a few revisions over the past two years, and as originally intended, we’ve stuck with three:
Food: Pretty much a necessity for everyone, regardless of species.
Vigor: Eventually, your cat will get tired. Let them take a nap, or make a “deposit” at the nearest litterbox.
...
2023-04-16 02:28:19 +0000 UTC
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We've had a few Mandy Moments during the development of Peace Island, so this was nothing new. If you are not aware of what a “Mandy Moment” is, it's when we encounter a setback in development that prompts me to respond in the manner of Nicolas Cage during the infamous “bathroom scene” in the 2018 film “Mandy.”
2023-03-30 01:09:30 +0000 UTC
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The biggest news this week is that we finally tracked down the causes of a persistent issue with certain rock colliders.
Those who have played our alpha releases to-date know the story: depending on how the cat approached a particular rock or piece of vegetation, they had a chance of passing through them. 2023-03-21 23:39:57 +0000 UTC
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This update is unfortunately late, due to a blackout that occurred in our neighborhood last night that kept us in the dark for about four hours.
This blackout also prevented us from releasing the stripped-down version of PI to our playtesters. We were finally able to get the build finished about an hour ago, but we're still waiting for it to arrive on the server.
2023-03-16 00:21:30 +0000 UTC
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