- Biomes & Points of Interest - 31 August 2026
Its been a busy month, a little too busy. I was pushing myself hard to try and get multiplayer ready in some early form for the upcoming Survival Fest that Aiyana is a part of but I pushed too hard and needed some time off once I realised I just couldn't hit the deadline. So instead I stopped and focused on what I could get done in time, hence this update a little out of nowhere. Biome GenerationI've known for quite some time that Desert spawn chances were not as high as they should have been but in order to fix it means changing with biome generation formulas, which is something I try to avoid because it corrupts existing worlds. With the new wood types ready and the event looming it felt like the right time to fix this but in an effort to reduce how often worlds need regenerated I've packed as much as I can into this update.First up, biome generation has changed to be Much more consis…
- New Wood (Beta & Creative Only) - 30 July 2026
Time seemed to slip away from me again but this update has some changes in it that could do with more time to confirm them so its live on the Beta branch only for now. Multiplayer is still coming along nicely but nothing new to report on it yet. Its just very slow to make progress on, especially as a solo dev. Bamboo, Ebony and Cherry WoodAs usual I work on something slightly creative to give myself a break from the constant bug fixing that can be a bit soul destroying. For this update it was 3 new wood types in preparation for a future biomes update. Without the new biomes you wont be able to find these new blocks but they are available in creative mode. This was a pretty huge undertaking since it meant making 150+ new blocks, as each new wood type needs applied to every potential shape and object such as chests, crafting benches, slopes, steps etc. Making these new blocks was pretty t…
- Triangles & Snow Shapes - 10 July 2026
This one took a little longer than expected and I don't think there was any one particular reason, I just struggled to reach a stable state whilst juggling single player and multiplayer bug fixes. For example I need to compress world data before sending it for MP as players join worlds, something that should have been Extremely straightforward but it turns out off the shelf compression algorithms are quite literally garbage. They will generate excessive garbage which for games is problematic and results in a frame drop each time a player joins the world. I've reduced the frame drop to be manageable but its still not ideal, however fixing it means rewriting compression algorithms to not generate garbage which is a Lot of work. I started to do that but thankfully saw sense and stopped before I ended up losing probably a weeks worth of time that could be spent fixing bugs.Roofing Triangles…
- Charcoal Hut, Ore Spawns & Gems - 15 June 2026
A fairly big bug cropped up with the last water changes so this update is coming out a little early to make sure its fixed. If you saw a whole mess of green stuff whilst in the Lost Civ or Dungeons, this update should fix that.Charcoal HutThis one is long overdue and its a way to turn wood into coal. This recipe is currently available from the start and will turn 5 wood into 1 coal for those of you that avoid mining but still want some torches around your house. Ore Spawns & GemsI'd mentioned previously that I was going to rework ores to be "smaller and more frequent" rather than what they currently are which is "harder to find but bigger veins".I was going to wait for the biome rework to do this to avoid breaking existing worlds but then I realised this one doesn't matter at all because nothing will break. Chunks you have edited will have old ore spawns and new chunks will now have the…
- Water Visuals - 9 June 2026
I didn't quite plan to work on a lot of what is in this release but here we are! Multiplayer is still coming along nicely but still has a ways to go.WaterA few things about how water renders has never really sat well with me so I eventually took the time to give it another pass. It all started with me continuing work to improve performance and water being shorter than a full block meant that it would generate a lot of excess faces. So if you had water with stone above it, it would previously need to render. Now it doesn't because it fills the entire block. Anyway whilst working on this I spent enough time looking at water reflecting light in caves that it annoyed me enough to fix it and embark on a saga... I wont go into details because it really was a saga but the end result is that water rendering has changed significantly. GlassGlass had some obscure rendering bugs and didn't always…
- Release 0.5.1.0 - 25 May 2026
This took a lot longer than expected but a Lot has changed in the backend of Aiyana and it needed some time to stabilise. Steam CloudOne of the big changes is that Steam Cloud has been removed and your worlds etc are stored only on your local machine instead. I've done this for a few reasons.Worlds in Aiyana are fairly big and storing them on cloud means a lot of data Steam needs to syncLinked to this, it means that relaunching Aiyana takes a bit of timeThe tools I was using to send things to the cloud forced me to send data in a way that isn't ideal for performance. Which wasn't a problem before but for multiplayer it could have had more impactI imagine the main use case using the cloud is if you use the Steam Deck, which I've still not finished full controller support forI will add options in the future to manually upload/download from the cloud but it will involve a bit of a rebuild…
- Progress Update - 11 May 2026
Just a quick one to say I'm still making progress on multiplayer but nothing to share as an update yet. Its typical that just as I say that I can make smaller updates I get stuck into a can of worms that its taking a while to sort out! I'll go into more details for the patch notes themselves once its ready but as a quick summary: I've removed Steam Cloud for various reasons but its meant rechecking/rebuilding a Lot more logic than I expectedWorking on Multiplayer is very repetitive so to keep myself motivated I do a half day on it and a half day on other thingsI've rebuilt the starting area you spawn in to be more interesting and to show off some of the blocks in AiyanaI've added a some new blocksI spotted something that resulted in a Huge performance gain. Rendering blocks takes 4x less memory now plus a big boost to actual rendering times (I've yet to measure the exact gains). I've do…
- Release 0.5.0.7 - 15 April 2026
Since my last post I've been focusing on Multiplayer and making pretty good progress. The nice thing about it is that I can make progress without feeling like I need to hit milestones for a release. This means I can easily swap between bug fixes/improvements and multiplayer so I plan to continue releasing smaller updates like this one whilst I make progress behind the scenes. Excessive Animal SpawnsThere is currently a bug where animals will sometimes spawn in excessive amounts on a few chunks. I've tried looking into this one a few times to no avail because animal spawning is complex. Its because I have systems to account for chunks unloading a lot, which happens if they are on the edge of your vision and you move around a bit such as going back and forth in your base. What happens is animals spawn on a chunk and wander to new ones. As chunks reload, they check if they have ever spawne…
- Release 0.5.0.5 - 30 March 2026
It seems like things are going well with the Enchanting update so far. I do need more feedback on it though so I still plan to tweak it over time as I see how people interact with it.For example I've been told the Energy Drain enchantment feels underwhelming, which is fair. However there is a big difference with it applied to an Iron vs a Gold sword as well as once its levelled up a few times. As a result, its a bit tricky to balance so it still feels useful at first but has room to grow without being overpowered. I have also been busy making a new trailer that is live on the store page, so now that its done I'm plannng the next update.RoadmapThis is mainly why I'm making this post. I've done my usual and posted a few patch notes at the end of the last one and its made me realise I did spend a decent amount of time on bugs/improvents lately so its probably time to plan for a bigger upda…
- Enchanting & Balancing - 11 March 2026
Well I had hoped this would be the combat update but it wasn't meant to be, more on that below since its a big wall of text! Instead there are still Plenty of changes in here and it means Enchanting is now available. I've already touched on most of the changes in my previous posts but I will summarise them all here for anyone that missed them. Since this update turned into me focusing a lot on balancing I've also tackled a ton of bugs that cropped up whilst testing.EnchantingOnce your totem has reached a high enough level you will unlock the Enchanting Bench and Essence Gatherers. Gatherers will collect resources based on where they are placed in the world. Enchantments can be learned from either the challenges or as rewards from chests in either Dungeons or the Lost Civ.There is also a tech tree added for Enchanting for you to spend perks on to get some improvements. Its pretty small c…
- Progress Update 2 - 4 March 2026
Things are coming along nicely but I'm settling into the slower parts of development which is testing/balancing all these changes. To be honest I'm also second guessing myself a lot and struggling to decide what needs to be in this update now vs later.Overall enchanting is feeling pretty solid with all its features working. Equipping armour and the new armour types is also finished.A.I has had a bit of a pass to have some basic pathfinding so the enemies feel smarter and their spawning has been rebalanced so there are about 75% more animals in the world during the day. It turns out there was also a nasty bug preventing animals from spawning in a semi obscure circumstance if you placed your Totem near a particular corner of the starting island and it covered 0,0,0. I'm hoping that worlds feel much more consistently full of life for everyone once this is live. Night SkySomething about the…
- Progress Update - 15 February 2026
I've made a start on the next big update which, as expected, is going to take a while so I thought I would drop a progress update since its turning into a bit of a can of worms. Please note that none of this is live yet and it will be a while before it is.Tech ReworkThe first thing I tried to do was to lay out where Enchanting would sit as part of the Tech tree as a way of deciding when you would first get access to Enchantments, is it an early, mid or late game feature? The problem is that the way I have Tech setup each time I want to add a new 'core' tech like the Enchanting bench would be, I would need to add 2 decorative techs as well. However for Enchanting, I actually wanted 3 different 'core' techs. One for the bench and two more for silver and gold armour. Which meant I needed to also create 6 more decorative blocks and the way I create these blocks its not just 6 blocks, its 6…
- Wind - 2 February 2026
I've not had any complaints about Dungeons so far so hopefully they are working smoothly. Their enemies do need an A.I pass to better handle the tight spaces but I'm holding off on that for the combat/enchanting update.I'm considering making them travel through walls since they are more ethereal now and it makes a bunch of logic a ton easier. However I'm concious it will make both dungeons and the Lost Civ tougher which is why I want to wait before making that change and save myself from balancing twice.WindTo take a break from a solid week of bug fixing I decided to work on something small/visual and finally got around to adding wind streaks. As part of that I looked into dust/storms to give them both a mini overhaul to look/feel a bit more interesting.Roadmap UpdateI released a whole bunch of hotfixes once Dungeons went live as part of my usual focus on stability after a bigger update…
- Dungeons - 23 January 2026
I was planning on releasing dungeons and Enchanting at the same time but decided to do one at a time and start with dungeons first. This is mainly because some nasty bugs had come up once I made a start on the breaking changes. As a note, after this update I'm going to spend some time starting a fresh repository with a branch structure to make it Much easier for me to do hot fix patches. I've been avoiding doing it for various reasons but its causing enough issues like this I just need to bite the bullet and get it done. PortalsThe main change here is that portals now behave completely differently. Now when you find one in the world it will take you to a dungeon. It will also be automatically atuned, meaning you can choose it as a destination from the portal at your base to resume exploring. Also whenever you enter a dungeon it will become a destination you can select from any portal. T…
- Release 0.4.2.6 - 6 January 2026
I hope everyone had a good Christmas/New Years! I took some time off myself and rather than diving headfirst back into dungeons I wrapped up what I was working on and spent some time tackling bugs. After this update I might start on the final changes for Dungeons that are harder to come back from so it might be a while before the next one lands. This is also because my personal life has become pretty busy since I'm currently trying to buy a car as well as hunt for some contract work so I'm finding less time to work on Aiyana.Grid SnappingOne of the things I've been battling with dungeons is the blocky vs natural aesthetic and decided that they do need a more natural touch at times. To address this I've had to overhaul how some of the blocks place. Firstly instead of snapping to a grid based on the objects size, which always keeps things neatly within a block, things can now snap to a 10…
- Release 0.4.2.4 - 10 December 2025
Not much has changed in this release but since its been a month from the last patch notes I'm using it as an excuse to keep folks updated on my progress. I ended up releasing a few hot fixes since 0.4.2.0 which I added to the bottom of the last notes as usual if anyone is curious. DungeonsThis month most of my time was spent on the algorithm to place dungeons nicely and have rooms connect properly with each. It turned out to be Way more time consuming than I expected but its finally in good shape now. I've also had to take on short a paid contract whilst working on this update which took up a fair bit of my time. I was planning on sharing a video of exploring a dungeon but I've decided not to in the end so I don't give too much away. Instead here are some pics of some rooms I've been working on. I've added a lot more light to the rooms than you will find whilst exploring a dungeon, othe…
- Release 0.4.2.0 - 10 November 2025
I had intended to bundle more into a larger update but the last hotfix was easiest for me to include one of the changes to move Rock Volley as the starter spell and Energy Blast as the later game spell. So for this update I've focused on making that change more cohesive and laying foundations for the larger update. I've had a few blocks almost ready to go for a while but I wasn't sure how they would fit into the tech tree so this update is me wrapping those up and getting them into survival mode. CompassThe compass is an early game convenience item that will add an element to the HUD as well as show your current position on the mapSundailAnother early game convenience block that will let you see the current time of day without needing to head to bedTNTThis probably doesn't need much of an explanation! Earth elementals will now drop explosive powder and allow you to craft TNT, provided y…
- Release 0.4.1.3 - 23 October 2025
This release is mainly another hotfix, 0.4.1.2 released earlier in the week but its patch notes are at the end of the previous update. However since things are feeling stable I'm trying to plan the next update so I thought I should lay out my plan a little and prewarn that it might be a while before the next update lands. I'm still not sure exactly what it will contain but the aim is to add more content. I just spent a lot of time on performance updates and then bug fixes. These are things that I would class as house keeping and since its had a lot of focus, it feels like time to counter that balance with content. This means any house keeping tasks I've mentioned I'll delay until after this update. For example I've mentioned looking into systems that let you create manual saves or reworking how saving worlds works to reduce file sizes. Once I start making progress on the content update…
- Release 0.4.1.0 - 15 October 2025
It might seem like a couple weeks since the last update but I've done a whole bunch of mini updates in the meantime to make sure everything was as stable as possible. Rather than making a post for each update I edited the previous patch notes and added the changes onto the bottom. However a couple of weeks of intense bug fixing in a row takes its toll so for this update I've thrown in a couple of small features as a way for me to take a break. ButterfliesI love how the butterflies look in Aiyana and felt like it was time to lean into them a little more by having a wider variety of them. So there are now 6 more of them to find in various biomes.Since there are more butterflies, it felt like it was time to also add trophies for insects, similar to the trophies for animals and fish. There are unlocked as a tech at your Totem. Volumetric Lighting (God Rays)A bug was found with volumetric li…
- Performance & Clouds Update - 29 September 2025
So after many months of hard work the Beta has Finally made its way onto the main branch! I've done this slightly earlier than I would like but for good reason and I'm hoping the benefits of this build make up for its flaws.I'm doing this because there could be an influx of new players soon and there are a few too many major fixes in the Beta that I would prefer to be live. Also since world generation has updated slightly I would rather new players are on stable worlds instead of starting a world only for it to be slightly corrupted after a few days.LightingWhat I focused on this week was fixing the last of the visuals bugs with lighting so it should be back on par with the live build. I did find some scenarios that I improved as well so hopefully things are looking nice and smooth again. As a note there is a currently open bug about seeing light whilst exploring caves. I'm going to try…
