rosabella

March 18, 2025

Well these past few months have been crazy. The update is finally out and I'm in a much better place in my life. I am unsure whether pre-alpha testing is plausible for this year as next year looks more realistic but we will just have to see.

The next update will be a proper addition of our save/load system, a proper day/year system with passing days and seasons synced with save/load as the game saves each time you sleep. Along with a proper introduction of breeding into the game through a system we call "destining" or skulk-government arranged marriages. Whichever term you prefer.

Now the changelog.

ADDITIONS

- 47 new explorable map tiles for a total of 49. All each with their own unique names
- Map traveling system overhauled
- Map UI system connected to the in-game tiles
- You can now select on which map tile you desire for your skulk members to patrol on
- Territory patrols raise claim on the desired map tile
- Prey spawning system now works in accordance with seasons and some prey is more likely to spawn on other map tiles than others
- Added Unity splash screen & logo, updated application name and logo as well

CHANGES/FIXES

- Prey will now choose a random 1 of 4 directions to escape to after being detected, until they leave the map tile
- Player speed has been increased drastically
- Changed the default camera zoom to be more zoomed out (pixels per unit 4 > 3)
- Changed scale of time & season UI
- Shortened size of Brann's Camp to match the rest of the map
      

rosabella

November 8, 2024

This month wrapped up a lot of things! Among some unsavory things happening in my personal life and one hefty to-do list, I managed to get through it all. Originally, prey was planned for the next update, but I moved it over to this one because I felt patrols and prey were a realistic thing to have in one update. Thus, let's begin with patrols.

Patrols now exist, there are of two types currently: Hunting and Territory patrols. The two don't differ much for now except that Hunting patrols bring back prey to the prey pile, whereas Territory patrols don't: that's next update! You can add an infinite amount of foxes to a patrol and the more foxes on a patrol the more likely it is to succeed. Foxes will generate in one general location spread out from one another and will stand until they must leave, in which case they will pathfind off the tile, back home. You can also watch them leave for the patrol once you send them out. 

Now onto prey... It was tricky and there's still some fine tuning to be done, but nothing that breaks anything. There are two types of prey: Land and flying prey. Flying prey can be spooked off easily and will fly off the map tile. Land prey will run off the map tile if spotted. Both have idle animations and wander randomly, as a real animal would. In the future, I hope to add fish prey as well. Finally, the prey pile stash. The prey pile stash is a tree trunk in the middle of the skulk camp that fills with prey as it fills with prey units. Prey units are achieved through hunting patrols, and foxes consume off of this prey pile daily. This truly has been a lot of hard work and effort, and I feel I spent a lot of this time contributing to our website, rebrand, and establishment as a brand rather than working on the game.

From here on out, though, I can focus fully on the game. Next update brings some fun stuff. I hope to begin adding an actual changelog next time rather than this dev-bloggy posts!
      

rosabella

July 18, 2024

I have so much to share, where do I begin?

FOXES - REDONE

We now have a total of 8 tail types, 10 ear types, 20 body types (10 for males and females each), a new coat system, new shaders (for the coats!), WAY more color possibilities & better shading and graphics on our foxes, including separating the body from the legs, freeing up a lot of asset space. Kits now can stand, sit, and sleep, and walk. Foxes now sleep in a much more appealing looking way, and their animations have been improved. Foxes can now either sit or stand when idling.

PORTRAITS have also been entirely redone! Muzzle's out, but now we focus more on eye expression!

UI _ REDONE

Most of the UI has been redone in some way. Redrawn, resized, recontextualized, touched up on the colors... et cetera. The UI is also now no longer affected by lighting. And our time UI is now animated!

FRIENDSHIP SYSTEM

We now have the beginnings of a friendship system. The more you talk to a fox, the more their golden paws increase in the dialogue menu.

BIRTHING + PREGNANCY

I didn't plan on this but I said heck it, why not! We now have a UI button to randomly impregnate one female of the skulk(clan), That night, she will select a random male and the baby will be born the next morning. Pregnant females get a nice expanded belly. All of this is of course for testing purposes, at production it will likely take around 2 seasons for a successful birth. Females will stay in the nursery until their kits for that litter reach adolescent age. Kits age as normally and it all functions! Their colors also mix well between their parents.

BUG FIXES

Yes, MANY MANY bug fixes have been fixed. This includes foxes for some reason not aging to elder properly? (this took a good 2 hours... (it was a simple fix)), some animation bugs.. issues with pathfinding.. I honestly can't remember even half of them but we fixed a lot this month. And I am sure there are still more hiding. I'll find and kill them all eventually.

THE LORE?

As we market ourselves a fox game, the wildcats have no place in this story. Sno and her clan henceforth are all going to be foxes. The map is divided by the north and south. "Clans" are also being switched out in-game for the terminology "Skulk" as in "a skulk of foxes." More terminology like this will be introduced more and more, to flesh out this foxy world.