Hello all! Sorry for the wait. Did we bite off a little more than we could chew? Maybe. But, we kept chewing and we're happy to report that we're no spitters. We'll be going over some of the technical details relating to what's being worked on, some art news, itch issues, and other details below.

Foxtail Fields

There's a new area for players to explore called Foxtail Fields! This area was a bit of a challenge because there were a lot of small technical aspects which needed to be addressed in order to bring it to fruition. You can read a more thorough rundown on our patreon.

Dodge This!

Players can now dodge! We've changed the Cancel input from sheathing your sword to acting as the dodge button. Pressing it by itself will have you dodge backwards. Pressing it while a directional input is registered will dodge in that direction. You can now sheath your sword by holding the Cancel input.

Eventually we'll tie the dodge and some of the other melee attacks (and depreciated quick recover move) into a stamina system, but for now there's no cooldown of any sort. One thing we're keeping in mind is we don't want dodging to be quicker than sprinting or with such a low cost that it's faster to dodge through an area than it is to run through it.

New Quest!

Tinkertoot is a new NPC added in this update. He'll have a quest for you when you encounter him in the new area.

Optimization

Isekai RPG isn't an open world game, but that's no reason we couldn't have some variation within our levels. One new piece of tech in this update allows us to transition between sub-biomes. While the overall climate of Foxtail Fields is bright and sunny, once we go into this cave area we're able to transition the lighting and fog to a more oppressive and spooky underground atmosphere.

It's not just the visuals either, you'll notice the music and background noise also transition. The hard part was getting it all to transition smoothly and naturally, so much so that it's hardly even noticeable while actually playing. We're happy with the result and hope players will appreciate the effort it took.

We've also made a ton of other tweaks and changes that enhance both the visuals and performance. Here's the full list of changes.

-Version 0.19-

Features:

• Added skill: Dodge
• Added area: Foxtail Fields
• Added quest: Gnomatic Tinkering
• Added character: Tinkertoot
• Added monster: Crystal Lizard
• Added mechanics for caves and sub-biomes.
• Added failsafe level for save files from previous versions.
• Added monster spawn tracking system.
• Added more hit VFX/SFX to level geometry.
• Added river SFX system.
• Added bottomless pits.
• Added cave reverb effects.
• Starter Town buildings are now unique static meshes with LOD models.
• Starter Town stables now has actual hay piles to sleep on.
• Starter Town lighting components have been overhauled.
• Projectiles can now pass through certain targets without colliding with them.

Changes:

• Fixed a bug where camera interpolation between extended and contracted wouldn't quite finish.
• Fixed a bug where projectiles wouldn't pause during interactions.
• Fixed a bug where the game could crash in some instances.
• Fixed a bug where player's name wasn't correctly formatted during Part-Time Adventurer.
• Fixed a bug where dropping from ledge into water would reposition player back at the ledge, falling back into the water forever.
• Fixed a bug where melee traces hitting character's collision capsule wouldn't register as a hit.
• Fixed a bug where player movement would hitch when ascending spiral staircase in PantyGoblinWoods.
• Fixed a bug where player head tracking would continue to refresh target pool while not in gameplay state.
• Fixed a bug where various portions of walls in Starter Town buildings would be invisible when coming into frame.
• Fixed a bug where player could trigger level transition while cutscene for level transition was currently playing.
• Fixed a bug where loud stomp SFX would sometimes play when player character loads.
• Fixed a bug where player could initiate jumps/spells and other actions while drowning.
• Fixed a bug where video settings would default to the wrong display resolution.
• Fixed a bug where player falling softlock teleport would activate while dead.
• Fixed a bug where the game could start in VR mode and crash.
• Fixed a bug where a door in Rose's house didn't have collision.
• Fixed a bug where player walking into walls at certain angles would cause them to continuously fall and land.
• Adjusted locations of some objects to prevent collision dead zones.
• Adjusted multiple VFX and materials for better performance.
• Adjusted video settings to better scale with lower end hardware.
• Adjusted river mesh and materials to auto-scale with splines.
• Adjusted melee trace hitbox size.
• Adjusted RunningStrike hitbox size.
• Adjusted how RunningStrike registers multi-monster hits.
• Adjusted how long it takes to prepare a RunningStrike.
• Adjusted weapon sheathing to trigger when holding button rather than pressing.
• Adjusted tutorial prompt about sheathing weapon.
• Adjusted ledge grab decal materials.
• Adjusted movement speed interpolation.
• Adjusted minor dialogue in PantyGoblins quest.
• Adjusted foliage in PantyGoblinWoods.
• Adjusted how AmbienceManager scales its volume based on local map conditions.
• Adjusted collision areas of stables in Starter Town.
• Adjusted Fireball point light intensity to increase when fully charged.
• Adjusted fireball hand point light color to match hand flame VFX color.
• Adjusted size of Oakmead Inn.
• Adjusted head tracking logic for interpolation between neutral state and targeted as well as targeted to targeted.
• Added monster respawn data to player save file.
• Added multiple text decorator images.
• Added quicksave point to JustTheTips.
• Adjusted size and material of fence in Starter Town arena.
• Removed VolumetricFog and switched to a less expensive implementation.
• Title screen patreon credits are now baked into release builds rather than being queried.
• A hundred other small tweaks.

Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far! If you're interested in more details on what went into making v0.19 we have more on our patreon.

For non-patrons you can still help us out by liking this post, commenting, or leaving a review. Anything to nudge that algorithm just a tiny bit helps us out a lot. Thank you!