v0.30 - Burnable corpses, bone fences, dynamic blood, improved snow area, new explorable yacht, multiplayer item sharing system, wall weapon decoration, enemy balance, player strength balance tweaks and lots more

Hey Everyone,

 

This patch makes the yacht finally explorable, and instead of having its items laid out on the deck, they are now collectable from inside.

 

It's now possible to burn enemy corpses by dropping them onto fires. After a while the bodies will turn to bone, and these bones can be used to build the new 'Bone Fence' building type. Or alternatively stored in the new 'Bone basket'.

 

We've added dynamic blood to the enemy skin shader, to give better feedback when fighting enemies and a clearer idea of when you were actually damaging them, this was especially an issue on the larger enemies where it was never really clear if all the hits you were applying were effective.

 

Snow area of world has seen some big improvements, we've added more trees, new snowy maple, and bare maple tree variations, added new snow grass textures, more snow covered porps and improved the lighting in snow to be a little brighter.

 

For multiplayer, we needed a way to share items easily between players. Building a snack cupboard or medicine cabinet isn't the easiest system, and so we have added a new pickup to the back of the plane. The metal food tray can now be collected. In inventory combine whatever items you want to share, and equip. You can now give meds, soda, chocolate bars and some other select items to a friend in need.

 

We've also revised the multiplayer death system. Previously your body would contain a random selection of items on death instead of the actual items you died with. We've changed this so the corpse is now a more accurate representation of what you died with.

 

For pacing, we've fixed some issues where enemies could still find you regardless of if you had fires lit or not or if you were making too much noise. Find your base being attacked too often' Try putting out the fires and turning off your lighter.

 

Along with this there are also a load of other fixes, changes, gameplay balance and small art tweaks all listed below.

 

As always, please continue to post your bug reports and feedback in the Discussions area of the Community Hub

 

V0.30 Changelog:

 

  • (Multiplayer) New item: Metal Tin Tray ! Store up to 6 different items in any amount in it using the crafting mat then equip it to share almost everything (Cloth, Skull, Flare and explosives are currently blacklisted)
  • (Multiplayer) Improved performance for host when clients are far away
  • (Multiplayer) Fixed cliff climbing not working properly when both host and client are holding climbing axe
  • (Multiplayer) Revamped gather body workflow after dying. Dead body has been replaced by a backpack. Backpack now has all items you lost on it.
  • (Multiplayer) Steal item trigger now requires player to hold the Take button for 0.5s
  • (Multiplayer) Lowered kill delay of downed player from 3s to 0.5s
  • (Multiplayer) Doubled bone pickup auto destruct delay
  • (Multiplayer)Fixed enter cave animation not playing for other players
  • Male and female bodies can now be burned by being dropped on a burning fire, after burning with provide 4 bones and 1 skull
  • Lowered weapon fire light intensity
  • New building: wall weapon rack decoration !
  • New building: bone fence ! Twice as strong as the stick fence
  • New building: bone basket ! Stores up to 86 bones
  • New art added: Frozen body in snow
  • Small camp with frozen body and orange tents added to snow area
  • Fixed removing waterskin from crafting mat
  • Improved look of subsurface on enemy creatures
  • (Balance) Halved amount of meat turtles provide
  • (Balance) Standing fires now drain faster/need to be re-lit more often
  • Fixed missing collision on plastic panels inside shipping containers
  • Passenger manifest is now retrievable  from plane in save games if it was not retrieved previously
  • Fixed missing home icon on leaf shelter
  • Leaf shelter now collapses after sleeping in it, making it a one time use only
  • Fixed an issue when having both a XInput gamepad and a Steam Controller connected
  • Temp crow art replaced with new crow bird model
  • (Audio) Redesigned pale mutant screams to stand out more
  • (Audio) Removed some abruptly ending crow samples and added better fading to others
  • (Audio) Added snow footsteps
  • (Audio) Improved standing fire SFX
  • (Audio) Fixed stalagmites sounding like wood when hit
  • (Audio) Tent Flaps added
  • (Audio) Idle breaths added to cowman
  • (Audio) Added burn SFX to armsy and cowman
  • (Audio) Added die SFX to cowman and babies
  • (Audio) small tin trays now make sound when collided with
  • Collision added to cave door pedestal
  • Better vertex colours for plants, 10,11 and 13
  • More turtles added to beaches and islands around the world
  • Dynamic damage added to skin shader!
  • Linked creepy mutants to new dynamic damage skin shader to give clearer idea how much damage they have taken
  • (Balance) Balanced stealth so hiding is more effective
  • (Balance) Lowered range that enemies can hear falling trees
  • Vertex Painted Tents so they flap in the wind
  • Switched laptop color to grey to make them easier to see
  • Fixed missing underside of large cabin floor (visible when it was built high up on foundation)
  • (Performance) LOD added for large log cabin,small hunting shelter and gazebo
  • Fix for bush 08 exploding when cut
  • Fixed plane crash going through water and terrain at some points
  • Fixed chocolate bars not spawning properly from dead bodies
  • Increased length of player stealth bar
  • (balance)Updated enemy layout in cave 10 & cave 1
  • Added mud back in game - spawns after rain on dirt terrain only - use mud to decrease your visibility to enemies, improve stealth
  • Animals climbing on a tree will fall down now if the tree is cut down
  • Trip wire traps are now fully removed when triggered in SP
  • Passenger manifest and plane axe are no longer available in hull when already owned
  • Bare maples added to snow area
  • Snow area tree density balanced
  • New snowy grass textures added for snow area
  • Wind now grows stronger while up in mountains
  • New textures for bush 08 and plant 17
  • Brighter snow texture on snow trees
  • Bare blueberry bush added to snow area, replacing regular blueberry bush in snow
  • Player can no longer chop up bodies with blunt type weapons
  • Fixed bug where player being hit by swinging rock trap whilst holding log sled could break game
  • New yacht model with access to the inside
  • Snow versions of Bush 02,03 08
  • Increased fog visibility and exposure compensation while in snow area
  • New billboards added for snow area
  • Loading screen is now seamless between title screen and in game
  • Fixed background mountain lods not matching
  • Added condition to complete the explore cave 2 task from todo list (the task triggered after hanging scene)
  • Player must now be almost fully submerged to get cleaned up/stop fire in water
  • Balanced tree cut down counting in strength formula, it is now easier to gain strength while doing frequent exercising (good nutrition condition still applies) but exercising a lot one day then not doesn't increase strength for a long time
  • Underfeeding is now based on time spent below 50% fullness
  • If player has been underfed and eats he cannot get overeating points regardless of time with previous meal
  • Clean up of some eye level stalactites in Cave 6
  • Replaced old white tents with flap in wind versions
  • Fixed an issue with stippling not resetting properly
  • Fixed food sometimes ending up with "none" status
 

Trailer release

Welcome to the development blog for The Forest.

The Forest is an independent game currently in development for PC and Oculus Rift.

Check back at this blog often for new screenshots, videos and updates.