Dev Blog and Changelog

[RiciRickMOD]

Feudalife development began in early-2018.
Since the beginning it was intended as a game to be played without any installer or even client. Just visiting feudalife.indiegala.com
The only thing you need is an indiegala account.

In June 2019, we went public with our alpha version.
In less than one month over 20.000 players already played the game and we see many of them already engaged by it!

This thread serves as blog for mid-term development direction.
Also, all future changelogs will be posted here.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.3.7.2 is now online.
FULL CHANGELOG
We reverted to a previous version of our IDE so most of the crashes and overnight issues should now be sorted out. Also we fixed some other issues and made saplings and flints respawn faster in the farm.

Coming next...
I'll take care of all the bugs that could pop up and do some polishing all around until this Friday. I'll then be away until the first week of August, but in the meantime my fellow programmer colleague will take care of the game. Currently he's working on the first iteration of online multiplayer functionalities, there wont be much to wait before farming together!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.3.7.3 is now online.
FULL CHANGELOG
This version contains just a bunch of minor fixes, most notably the now correct synchronization of the game clock across all users.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.3.7.4 is now online.
FULL CHANGELOG
Small fix but an important one is here: quests now should no longer reappear after they are completed. Also now the game always starts at morning when playing for the first time. The game clock is then globally synced the first time you exit the Farm.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.0.0 is now online.
FULL CHANGELOG
Please welcome online play!
As soon as you finish all the missions, or if you already finished them, a Farmboard will be added on the opposite side of the Mailbox. From there, you can access other farms when the respective owner is online. While you are visiting another farm, you can get coins by picking and watering plants, mining rocks, and chopping trees. It's like working as a farmer for hire! I'm going to write about online multiplayer in the wiki soon, to better explain how it works. EDIT: here it is!
Please be aware this is very experimental and we expect bugs. Lots of them!
It works, but it also needs work. Lots of it! Have fun with online multiplayer and don't hesitate to reach us for comments and feedbacks in the feedback thread!

Coming next...
We will evolve online play and resolve as many issues as possible. We have plans and ideas for more complex online interactions and how players can authorize or deny certain actions performed by visitors, but first we want to make sure base functionalities work seamlessy. At the same time we are still on the hunt for previous bugs and some things that are left unresolved since some time ago.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.1.0 is now online.
FULL CHANGELOG
Let's begin with some fixes for online functionalities, plus some improvements on the day/night lighting effects that were long overdue (i.e. problems like that fade effect every time you change room, light color updating only once per game hour)... For the next releases in particular we are aiming to make multiplayer more stable, plus other fixes and quality of life improvements.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.0 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed player Farm being overwritten with the visited Farms or Wildland scenery.
- Fixed missing objects when visiting other Farms, and when going back to the home Farm in certain cases.
- Fixed players being visible across different scenes.
- Fixed visitor players not being deleted when disconnected from the Farm.
- Fixed sleeping players appearing standing in front of the objects.
- Fixed Mailbox and Farmboard menu opening on the visitor player too, when the owner player opened them.
- Fixed dragging objects from the inventory as a visitor locking them under the mouse.
- Improved Farmboard with timeout, error messages and added Farm availabilty.
- Players can now restrict Farm access from the Settings screen.
- Changes on Farm made by visitors are now saved even when the owner is in the Town or the Wildlands.
- Visiting other Farms is now limited to one player at a time.
- Plants and other timers continue to grow if the player is visiting other Farms.
- Farmboard button on the dock has been changed with a Home button, use that to go back to home Farm.
- Town is now a public lobby, though no interactions between players are possible.
Gameplay
- Fixed House becoming transparent and staying stuck that way.
- Fixed Pallet not being interactable.
- Fixed night appearing inside the House.
- Fixed various issues to day/night cycle and lighting.
- Fixed Quests not updating when going back to the Farm.
- Added required items name to Quest tooltips.
- Faster and smoother game camera.
- Other smaller fixes.

This is a big update for online multiplayer! We fixed a load of problems, most notably the Farm overwriting issue, players seeing each other across the different scenes and much more, plus a series of fixes on gameplay and other non-online things. Important: if your save was precedently corrupted due to one of the previous issues, you still need to restart from scratch. Sorry for that!
The changelog will be added as soon as we fix some server issues on the wiki.

EDIT: as the wiki continues to have issues when editing articles, I'm copying changelogs here from now on.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.1 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed cases of Farm data corruption when going back from the Town.
- Fixed missing shadow on connected players.
- Fixed players seeing each other across Farm and House scenes.
- Players in Town now can see each other roaming around.
- Connected players movement is now smooth.
Other
- Handled critical loading error that caused data corruption when launching the game.
- Other minor fixes.

A couple more big issues are fixed with this release, mostly related to data corruption and online stuff that didn't make the cut in the previous update. This version should bring the online experience to a much more stable level, but as usual we are on the lookout for harder to reproduce issues.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.2 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed visitor players not saving some work when returning home from the dock Home button and while the Farm owner was away.
Gameplay
- Fixed critical issue where visiting Wildlands or Town and making at least an action would overwrite the Farm with the current scene.

It took a while but we finally found the culprit for the Farm overwrite bug, which was actually a different issue than the one fixed in 0.4.2.0, despite the very similar effects. Again, corrupted farms cannot be recovered until playing from the beginning. I'd like to remind this game is still in Alpha and unfortunately data loss can happen when big changes are done, especially now that we are fiddling with online multiplayer. Thank you for your patience and for helping us!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.3 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed visited Farms overwriting the player's Farm when going back home.
- The game will now show on the top left when player is visiting a Farm, or is being visited by someone else.

The saga about the overwriting bug continues! We hope this is a decisive step. There are more things left for improving online multiplayer, mostly about not losing the very last actions done online during some very limit cases.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.4 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed loading screen not appearing immediately when connections launched, leaving room for issues and data loss if the player did some actions or changed scene while the connection was happening.
- Fixed watering plants online not giving Gold.
- Farms of players who are already visiting someone else will no longer appear on the Farmboard.
- When a player connects to another Farm, visitors in his Farm will be disconnected and will return to home.
- Better check for Open/Busy Farm status.
Gameplay
- Fixed Bonfire cooking food even when off.
- Fixed Bonfire no longer being interactable.
- Plants and other objects are now automatically saved.
Known issues
- It's possible to lose farm objects when you go to the Wildlands or the Town and come back to the farm. Please pay attention.

More fixes for the online multiplayer issues and then some more. From this changelog I will add a Known Issues list with the major things that need a fix as soon as possible. Please read that! This week I'll be hunting for all the online bugs, as things look far more complex than we expected.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.5 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed all objects disappearing from the Farm when going back from the Wildlands.
Gameplay
- Minor fixes to some particles.

This is a very minor release to address the critical issue noted in the previous version. The bug hunting goes on!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.6 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed some visual glitches on tools used by visitor players.
Gameplay
- Improved autosave consistency.
- Fixed an uncommon issue that made completed missions appear again.
- Fixed uncommon problems with terrain generation in all scenes.
- Fixed minor issues.

Moving forward with improving the consictency of the game. No major bugs were found last days so this release contains somewhat minor issues. We are currently working on new features too, don't worry!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.2.7 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed locking a farm from visitors not immediately kicking existing visitors.
Gameplay
- Possible fix for items not being saved when buying from merchants.
- Fixed plants and trees not growing when out of sight or when game window is not visible.
- Fixed issue where items weren't detached from mouse when moving them across inventories.
- Fixed blob shadows too big for tree stumps.
- Minor performance improvements with JavaScript rendering.

Finally plants will grow as expected even when they are not in sight or when the game window is not visible; this bug took a while to be discovered, sorry for the wait! Also, some minor fixes around.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.0 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Added emotes.
Gameplay
- Improved object culling system in the Farm, for better performance and safer data save.
- Fixed vertical cursor offset when scrolling the web page.
- Fixed another rare case where the game could potentially corrupt a Farm while visiting another one.
- Fixed wildlife disappearing early or not appearing at all during night and in other cases.

With this release we added emotes! Communication was the first natural necessity after introducing online multiplayer, so now you can send a variety of emotes to quickly express with other players. Press E to open the emote drawer, or press the corresponding new icon on the dock. More emotes will be added later!

Coming next...
Bugs in online multiplayer are finally fixed for the most part. While we are going to hunt down the last ones, we are also working on some new features as promised. In particular, we want to make you able to play the game on smartphone, directly from the browser. Stay tuned for more!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.1 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed Farms remaining stuck on "busy" after a visitor player disconnected.
- FIxed UI not showing when a visitor is in your Farm (now works also inside Town or Wildlands).
- Fixed Bonfire not syncing when it was light up by the Farm owner.
- Other minor fixes.

Quick minor release to smooth out some problems with the latest builds.

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.2 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Attempt to fix issue where plants only appear graphically but won't react to any action.
- Fixed emotes not being received by other players.
- Fixed farm owners playing the interaction animation in loop when a visitor arrived while the owner was sleeping.
- Fixed issues with visitor names both in the interface and above the player.
Gameplay
- Improved object culling.
- Items now stack in the backpack too, not only in the inventory bar.
- Fixed fireflies not disappearing at morning.
- Fixed font missing the '+' character.

This update brings some fixes to bugs that have been recently found thanks to the community. In particular we are hunting down a bug that causes problems with crops. Mobile controls are on their way in a later update! The game should be working already on mobiles but controls are still pc-only. If you test on mobile, check the version number: if it says "(Mobile)" then that configuration will feature mobile controls. Stay tuned!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.3 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Changed some game save behaviors to attempt fixing more cases of Farm overwriting.
- Fixed visitors unable to harvest fully grown crops and plants to get gold.
- Fixed plants growing after browser window got focused.
- Other minor fixes.
Known issues
- Plants and crops still can't be watered under certain conditions, like after being harvested.

More bug hunting as the community is helping to break down issues. I will be back on September 9th, but will be following the forum to read and eventually reply to the community. See you around!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.4 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Improved save criteria to prevent account overlapping issues.
- Fixed Farm corruption after visiting Wildlands and coming back.
- Fixed plants and crops losing every form of interaction under certain conditions.
Gameplay
- Used tools will be now sold at a reduced price depending by wear.
- Fixed wear bar disappearing when moving tools from inventory to sell area and back in the Merchant panel.
- Fixed fruit trees in the Wildlands giving endless amounts of fruits due to a bug in the interactions.
Known issues
- Farm corruption and plants that won't water may still happen in some limit cases.

While working on mobile controls, we are back fighting account overlapping issues and plants that refuse to be watered. The last inspection to these parts of code revealed some potential failures, and this update aims to fix these. We are still unable to reproduce the account overlapping issues, but I'm quite confident we're narrowing down the cases. Please keep us updated in the feedback thread!

 

[Danjel Ricci]

Version 0.4.3.5 is now online.

Spoiler: CHANGELOG

Online
- Fixed shovel actions not syncing online.
Gameplay
- Added support for mobile controls!
- Added 2x Zoom button when playing mobile.
- Fixed some cases of text characters 'z' and '9' overlapping.
- Fixed animations playing at wrong speeds when the game ran at lower framerate than expected.
Known issues
- There still are some limit cases of data corruption when exiting the Farm and going back.

This release focuses mostly on mobile controls. If you visit feudalife.indiegala.com via smartphone, you will be able to play just by tapping. Most of the important actions are working now, but some others are yet to be implemented. This release is mostly for testing and shouldn't be interpreted as final for mobile controls!

Some quick instructions...
In mobile mode, move by tapping or keeping your finger on the screen.
Tap on an object and the right action will be executed automatically if you have the required tool. For example, tap on a tree and if you have an Axe in your inventory, the character will equip, move and chop for you. Same for rocks, watering crops, etc.
Special mention for Shovel and Hoe: in order to use these, you need to manually select them in the inventory. Once done using them, you can click again their icon in the inventory, and they will deselect, making you able to move without editing.
Fighting also works by tapping on an enemy, but attacks will be performed only when the character closes on the enemy.

As usual, head in the feedback thread for any report and question.