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basic stuff, you need to order from out-of-state - especially if you need specialty equiment that is just a year ot two out-of-date (such as power supplies that c...
2023-11-02 02:44:07 +0000 UTC View PostLast 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. Buoy...
2023-10-26 23:02:03 +0000 UTC View PostToday 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 t...
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.
-...
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 add...
2023-10-05 00:56:31 +0000 UTC View PostDue 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 ma...
2023-09-28 00:10:49 +0000 UTC View PostSimply 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, ...
2023-09-09 18:14:51 +0000 UTC View Post- 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 w...
2023-09-04 00:17:41 +0000 UTC View PostSo- 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 ge...
2023-08-27 01:07:59 +0000 UTC View PostWe 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.
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”...
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 ...
2023-08-10 01:36:19 +0000 UTC View PostFIrst 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 sch...
2023-08-03 00:30:10 +0000 UTC View PostSorry 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.)
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...
2023-07-18 23:53:22 +0000 UTC View PostI 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 freez...
2023-07-10 22:52:13 +0000 UTC View PostI'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 r...
2023-07-04 02:11:46 +0000 UTC View PostI’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 ...
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 ...
2023-06-21 00:02:19 +0000 UTC View PostFirstly: 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: 2023-06-12 23:12:08 +0000 UTC View Post
So - why the delay?
If you will remember, a few updates ago I mentioned that we were in a VERY intense mode of development:
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.
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...
2023-05-16 01:09:12 +0000 UTC View PostAs 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 o...
2023-05-09 00:09:32 +0000 UTC View PostI'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 h...
2023-05-03 02:22:25 +0000 UTC View PostSo- 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 havi...
2023-04-25 01:32:32 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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...
2023-04-16 02:28:19 +0000 UTC View PostWe'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 sc...
2023-03-30 01:09:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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...
2023-03-21 23:39:57 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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 ...
2023-03-16 00:21:30 +0000 UTC View Post