- Update on Apple version + Patch v1.11 - 19 November 2023
Hello Villagers! I hope everyone is enjoying v1.1 so far! If you've stumbled upon a bug or two or twenty then you aren't alone, though there do seem to be fewer bugs than I feared after unleashing such a complicated release into the wild. I am very sorry to those experiencing especially frustrating bugs, and I really thank you for your patience while I sort them all out. I am hard at work on v1.11. The original plan accounted for two patches between v1.1 and Thanksgiving, but I've decided to combine them into one large update. This will come out in the next 2-3 days. On Apple Speaking of changing plans, I need to talk about the Apple version. A big reason I haven't released a patch yet is that I've been trying to get the Apple version. It's been a major challenge and a huge, unexpected time sink. The setup I've used since 2018 is no longer working due to a combination of hardware issues…
- Major Update & 66% Off: Village Monsters v1.1 - 6 November 2023
Hello Villagers! https://i.imgur.com/OV98f5u.gif Welcome to Village Monsters v1.1. It's been awhile! I'm eschewing from sharing traditional patch notes because they'd be too long and, frankly, not that useful. Instead, I've broken things out into three sections: what this patch contains (generally), what this patch does *not* contain, and a brief FAQ. To celebrate the release of v1.1 I've also put Village Monsters on a weeklong sale for the low-low price of like $5. It's the lowest price ever! So tell your friends and tell your enemies twice. Enjoy! https://i.imgur.com/RSRX0Va.png What this Update Is In a sentence, v1.1 is what v1.0 should have been. No more, no less. After exiting Early Access last year I created a number of patches in quick succession, but soon realized I needed to take a slower, more comprehensive approach. Unfortunately for me, life immediately got in the way and ki…
- Restoring a Village: Bonus Week, or: A Slipping Release - 29 October 2023
Hello Villagers! https://i.imgur.com/pkrT1Ku.png tl;dr A progression-blocking bug was discovered in the final stages of QA. To prevent a repeat of v1.0's troubled release, and to ensure v1.1 is the proper relaunch Village Monsters deserves, I am giving myself a - *ahem* - bonus week to fix and re-test. The new release date is November 6th. That is unfortunately outside the Spooky Window, but I'm hoping it's close enough to be considered Spooky Adjacent. Previous Restoring a Villages: Week 0, Week 1, Week 2, Weeks 3 & 4 https://i.imgur.com/X0eCTYp.gif Scorpion's Frog Here's the full situation. A few weeks back I discovered a progression-blocking bug in the late game. It was one of those bugs that I couldn't quite replicate, but I fixed what I thought was the cause. However, I ran into the same problem again on Saturday during my final wrap up, and this time I could reproduce it reliably.…
- Restoring a Village, Weeks 3 & 4 - 21 October 2023
Hello Villagers! https://i.imgur.com/sHXOxGK.gif You'll likely notice that I missed last week. But can you guess why? I don't think you can, because it is one of the most unlikeliest, most stupid, and most cursed thing to happen. https://i.imgur.com/6bEh2KY.png Yeah. My entire house got COVID... again. Again! It hadn't even been a full month yet! Is that even possible? Well, I suppose it literally is given that it happened. Well, as much as I hate to do this, I am forced to once again make the hard decision to... ...announce a release date!! Did I get you? That's right, baby! No more delays, no more tales of woe, no more excuses. I am beyond thrilled to announce that the oft-discussed but much delayed v1.1 finally has a release date: Monday, October 30th! https://i.imgur.com/R7JjH78.png So yes, COVID sucks, but this time around I was able to huddle in my blanket and mug of TheraFlu and…
- Restoring a Village, Week 2 - 30 September 2023
tl;dr Not even COVID can stop this train, though it gave a good run for it. The best part of this week – beyond being able to implement missing Kickstarter backer rewards – was the creation of The Big Board, which will track our progress towards v1.1. We are still on schedule for an October release. Previous Restoring a Village: Week 0, Week 1 The Good Creation of The Big Board By far the biggest accomplishment was creating The Big Board. https://i.imgur.com/UAt9PWh.png Every single task I have left to do on v1.1 is listed, categorized, and now tracked via The Big Board. When the bottom bar reaches the right side we’re ready for release. Not all tasks are weighted equally (for example, art and writing issues are generally much easier than code / testing tasks, etc.), but it’s good as a rough guide. Code Refactor refers to slower and more measured manual code migration from the corrupted…
- Restoring a Village, Week 1 - 19 September 2023
https://i.imgur.com/OV98f5u.gif Hello... Villagers!! I’ve been putting off writing this post for far too long. That... probably goes without saying, eh? So let’s jump right to the good news: active development has resumed on Village Monsters! The fabled v1.1 will release this October. If you want to know more of the details of my hiatus then please take a look at the following post on my website. I am so sorry to have abandoned the game without explanation. You deserved so much better than that, especially after the buggy mess that was v1.0. To be frank, the last year has be awful. Every plan I made blew up in my face, every decision I made was the wrong one. The last thing I want to do is wallow even more, so instead I want to focus on what I can for you and the game right now. From here until release I plan to release weekly (or more frequent) updates on my progress. Here's Week 1! tl…
- State of the Village, vol. 5 - Holiday Harbor - 25 November 2022
Hello Villagers! https://i.imgur.com/lO7xl7v.png I'm not dead yet! Work continues on v1.1. I'll spare you the litany of excuses as to why every little thing is taking longer than promised. I'm sure you're as tired of hearing them as I am typing them. In summary, life has continued to be unkind, and I've needed to prioritize my family and health over everything else. The good news is that the septic tank hasn't exploded again. So, you know, I've got that going for me! In truth, the past couple weeks have been the best, most productive, and most tragedy-free I've had since last February. I'm a little nervous to admit it for fear of it going sour again, but I'm in a much better place than I've been in for a long time, and Village Monsters has benefited greatly from it. What's New? This post will not be a deep dive into what I've accomplished - I just wanted to get something out to assure y…
- State of the Village, vol. 4 - Backed Up & Running - 22 September 2022
Hello Villagers! I have mentioned before my terrible luck this past year, especially when it has coincided with Village Monsters stuff. So it wasn't surprising to me when my entire family came down with the flu the literal day I published the last dev log. 2+ weeks of sickness, including an incredibly grumpy 3 month old? No surprises there! "Ha! This time I knew it was coming, so it doesn't bother me at all. Now it's out of the way and I'll have a funny anecdote for the next dev log!" Then our septic system failed, with everything that entails. Then, thanks to school starting, we all got sick again. I am unsure which god I angered or what my offense was, but I am very ready for this curse to be lifted. Still, the journey continues. Work has resumed on Village Monsters, and I have plenty of news to share, so let's get to it. https://i.imgur.com/HouYhdl.png What's The Latest? The tools ha…
- State of the Village, vol. 3 - Precious Little Sleep - 19 August 2022
Hello Villagers! Hello again. It's been a while! If it's seemed like I dropped off the face of the earth for the last few months... that's because I did. In fact, I've barely left my own living room since May. Long story short, my 2nd son, Arlo, was born on May 17th. In fact, I was in the middle of writing a dev diary the exact moment my wife's water broke. https://i.imgur.com/WpcwKyZ.png Note the timestamp. I never did get to sleep that night... nor have I slept since. Arlo is our 2nd kid, so we had a plan for what 'paternity leave' looked like. Or so we thought. I never imagined I'd be gone for months, and I certainly never wanted to disappear altogether. In truth, this has been a very hard time for my family. I don't feel comfortable sharing everything, but Arlo has had a heartbreakingly difficult start to his short life. We've were in survival mode, and there was no room left for an…
- State of the Village, vol. 2 - 2 May 2022
Hello Villagers! Welcome to the 2nd State of the Village update, where I talk about how things are going with Village Monsters, as well as what's coming next. https://i.imgur.com/FJzlCF3.png To summarize the past month: the launch of Village Monsters was a supreme mess, and I've been trying to make things right ever since. However, I soon realized that releasing hotfixes every few days wasn't working - there were simply too many big problems to fix things in piecemeal way. I needed to change my approach. So I took a step back, regrouped, and began work on a larger, more comprehensive patch. Village Monsters v1.1, which I've been affectionately referring to as the Let's Try This Again Update, is the result of these efforts. https://i.imgur.com/8hUxVM3.gif What's Coming in v1.1? First and foremost, v1.1 will fix the multitude of bugs that have been reported since launch. Some of these bug…
- Village Monsters v1.06 - 6 April 2022
Hello Villagers! Village Monsters v1.06 fixes one of the most annoying bugs I have ever been responsible for: the dreaded duplicating cutscenes. It also cleans up a number of other major and minor bugs that have been reported. Work continues on the much larger update which I'm tentatively calling v1.1. Bugs Squashed MAJOR: Fixed an issue where cutscenes would repeat indefinitely MAJOR: Fixed a crash with cutscenes MAJOR: Fixed a crash when interacting with tamed critters outside of the barn Fixed issue where skipping a cutscene could cause problems in other cutscenes Fixed seeds not properly stocking / restocking in the general store Fixed a number of issues that could prevent "flavor" critters from spawning Fixed various typos and other embarrassing gaffs Improved performance across Linux platforms Note: There may be a rare instance in which you see a cutscene repeat one additional tim…
- State of the Village - 29 March 2022
Hello Villagers! https://i.imgur.com/YBfvXHA.png It's been exactly one week since Village Monsters v1.0 was released. Village Monsters is my first ever creation. I am very proud of the work I did, and the many kind words I've received from players has been beyond heartwarming. I have notebooks from back when I was in 1st grade detailing a game where you live with video game monsters, and now nearly 30 years later... it's real! People are playing it! But, to be frank, Village Monsters is in a very rough state right now. I've already released 5 bugfix patches, and after looking at the reports on my desk, I have a long way to go. I want to use this post to address the biggest problems, how they came about, and what I'm doing to fix them. The Problems My top priority right now is fixing the issues that were introduced during the final push. For context, a technical bug with my developer too…
- Village Monsters v1.05 + A Quick Note - 27 March 2022
Hey Villagers Village Monsters v1.05 is now available, and it fixes exactly one bug. It's a terrible one, so I wanted to provide a longer explanation. The bug occurs during the Cool Stuff event in the Summer. It's bugged, and it loads a cutscene with no dialogue. To avoid crashing, the game attempts to pull dialogue from another source - in this case, debug dialogue. The dialogue it randomly chose is extremely inappropriate and contains offensive language. v1.05 disables the event entirely and removes all offending text from the game outright. Why is this "inappropriate" text in the game at all? There are two features in Village Monsters where I check for profanity and slurs. Players can send letters to villagers, and villagers attempt to "read" what you send them. I have profanity checks in place to see if you're sending them awful things and they will respond negatively if so. In a…
- Village Monsters v1.04 Patch Notes - 27 March 2022
Bugs Squashed MAJOR: Fixed further softlocks due to incorrect flags in the intro MAJOR: Fixed further crashes related to skipping cutscenes MAJOR: Fixed crash when talking to Mock in the first few weeks of the game MAJOR: Fixed crash when talking to Zigi in the summer Fixed time staying paused when re-entering the town hall basement (The town hall basement, long considered haunted, has finally been expunged of evil spirits and associated curses and bad luck) Investigating The following are a list of reported (or discovered) problems that require more investigation. I will update ETAs as I understand more about the problems. There appears to be an issue with projects (Village & Home) that I am currently investigating Events (Holidays, birthdays, etc.) do not appear to be triggering. Console is not working correctly. The cause is under investigation
- Village Monsters v1.03 Patch Notes - 25 March 2022
Three patches in three days! ...I suppose that's not something I should be super proud of... I believe I've cracked the majority of the urgent bugs that crop up in the first few days of the game, so I'll now turn my attention to other matters. I anticipate releasing a new patch every 1-2 days as fixes roll in. Bugs Squashed MAJOR: Fixed softlock caused by going back in the basement after finding the key MAJOR: Fixed crash caused by duplicate lost items Fixed progression issue related to trash and propaganda in the village Fixed incorrectly lighting from being used in the morning in some instances Fixed a large number of minor issues related to the transition from night to morning Fixed issue causing a huge number of treasure spots from appearing each day Fixed overlap bug for Pishky and Alistair in Overflow on day 1 Changes / Balance Reduced spawn rates for items in the village Added mo…
- Village Monsters v1.02 Patch Notes - 23 March 2022
Bugs Squashed MAJOR: Fixed common crash when digging up certain items (they would appear as just a red X) MAJOR: Fixed instances were skipping a cutscenes results in a crash MAJOR: Fixed rare crash related to mail and packages Fixed SFX issue with the pick with the last swing Fixed issue where certain treasures had an incorrect sprite Various typos fixed Changes / Balance Generally, digging spots takes a couple extra swings with a Level 1 pick axe Skipping cutscenes is now smoother and less jarring Investigating The following are a list of reported (or discovered) problems that require more investigation. I will update ETAs as I understand more about the problems. There appears to be an issue with projects (Village & Home) that I am currently investigating Events (Holidays, birthdays, etc.) do not appear to be triggering. Console is not working correctly. The cause is under investigation
- Village Monsters v1.01 Patch Notes - 22 March 2022
Bugs Fixed Major: Fixed crash during the 2nd day when speaking with a villager Fixed a number of "flavor SFX" (birds etc.) from being incorrectly loud during cutscenes Typo Corrections
- Village Monsters v1.0 - "The Big One" - is now available! - 22 March 2022
Hello Humans! Sorry to keep you waiting! Village Monsters v1.0 - "The Big One" has launched! It is now available on all platforms. What's New? Everything! https://i.imgur.com/gpADdRE.gif Story & Progression The biggest change in v1.0 is the addition of story and progression elements. You are a human who has arrived at Eidolon Village - a town of monsters - in surprising fashion. Unfortunately for you, humans aren't welcome in this world anymore. As you await your fate, you learn that the village has something more important to worry about: it's scheduled for imminent destruction. Soon after, your freedom is tied to the fate of Eidolon. The village is given a short two year reprieve, and now it's up to you - through court-mandated community service - to save the village and win your freedom. https://i.imgur.com/ijxZ05Z.png https://i.imgur.com/6QlNkkC.png More Stuff There's more critters…
- Update on the Update on Village Monsters v1.0 Release - 19 March 2022
Hello Humans! It's been a strange week! I began the week by sprinting confidently toward release, but just as I was about to cross the finish line I ran face-first into a brick wall. It sucked. A lot. But dwelling on it won't help, so I've dusted myself off and I'm ready to move forward. https://i.imgur.com/WOwKaTQ.png Current Status The manual workaround I spoke about last update has been completed successfully. I am now re-testing the final version. I expect this to take the remainder of the weekend. Devs aren't able to do a weekend release anyway, so this actually works out. Right now I am aiming for an early morning Tuesday release. This gives me the weekend to focus on testing, and then Monday I can wrap it up and go down my release checklist. I have confirmed that I can build the final version of Village Monsters and can upload it on Steam and Itch, so there will be no further obs…
- Update on Village Monsters v1.0 Release - 16 March 2022
Hello Villagers It's now 1:00 PM Pacific time and Village Monsters v1.0 still hasn't released. I wanted to explain what's going on. Late last night I encountered a very unexpected technical problem during the final stages of building the release. The good news is that it's unrelated to Village Monsters itself - it's a problem with my developer tools. The bad news is that until it's fixed, I can't proceed with the release. It's like driving 3,000 miles to photograph the Grand Canyon, only to find your camera suddenly stopped working. It's an agonizing problem. I have spent all day trying to find a workaround. Thankfully, I have one. However, it requires a lot of manual, time-consuming work. I can't find another alternative. I'll need ~20 more hours to complete this work, plus another round of testing of the (new) "final" release. This will force me to postpone the release by a few more d…
