Solace Crafting News

Introducing the new Point of Interest system! Very happy to get this new piece of tech up for testing. Please remember these new changes are taking place on the pubic "beta" branch until we further implement the wide array of changes that are being worked on.

I also recorded a video update that goes into explaining this a bit near the end, and in general what's going on, how we got here, and where we're headed:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In short the PoI system spawns points of interest throughout the world, each of which is then capable of randomizing and controlling its own sub-components. So for example the new bandit camp can spawn with trees enables, ruined walls enabled, a set of chairs around a campfire may or may not spawn, and so forth.



The PoIs included in this patch are only combat encounters, but we'll be adding landmark, harvesting, crafting, building, and social encounters as well. The landmark encounters in particular are being designed to create large geographical/natural structures that can be seen from a great distance allowing players to better orient themselves in the infinite planes of Khora.

This patch also introduces a variety of upgrades to the player controller, combat, and monster AI. Certain combat actions will now make use of a resource pool called Wind. This is similar to what might be called Stamina in other games, as it will quickly recharge and allow players to continue fighting on a very short-term time scale, whereas Stamina in Solace Crafting is planned to be used for much more important decisions with lasting effects. Some new weapons and weapon swapping/equipping logic is still being improved, and we've also got two new monsters that didn't quite make it into this patch that I should have in and uploaded shortly.

Happy gaming!

- Kyle

v 1.1.1.5 2025.1.22
- Complete rewrite of encounter/PoI generation systems
- Dungeons and caves are spawning again though still unpopulated and void of resources
- New procedural locations system spawning wolf dens and bandit hideouts
- Added more harvestables including ore and stalks (not yet intended final solution)
- Added wolf loot logic and animations
- Added bare hand harvesting animation
- Combat enhancements and tuning
- Improved bot hit reactions
- Player step sounds
- Slash effects
- Combo finisher logic added for 2 handed weapons
- Weapon attacks now use "wind" resource pool
- Character's again teleport home and revive on death
- Most weapons that have not been reimplemented yet will default

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the fourth Producer’s Letter for Solace Crafting.

I’m Fab, and today we'll take a moment to reflect on the past few months, what was done and what remains to do as we approach the first live update for Solace Crafting!
First of all, we want to take a moment to thank the overwhelmingly positve reception of our efforts by you, the players. What we've been doing has been rather disruptive at times for the main game: months without updates, a lot of hush-hugh, more recently we even broke a few things etc. Yet, in every comments section available, the community has cheered us on or supported our efforts. Very validating, as it's not only a rather unique undertaking, completely transforming a live game, but also a very unique set of circumstances we're doing it in.

But we're so enthusiastic and hopeful in the first place that this reception pushes us to the next level. And so now, without further ado, let's talk about what we've been doing and what's coming.

A major update of this last segment has been the combat system. Despite its nature as an exploration/crafting game, Solace Crafting will still feature plenty of combat and that's a part of the game that has to be very satisfying on whatever axis it hinges on. Is it the controller? Is it the numbers? It is the enemy AI? For us, it's a little bit of all that. The goal is to keep the experience comfortable, dynamic and accessible without turning the game into a souls-like or a spreadsheet simulator.
This foundational updating process was big. As a matter of fact it took the full focus of a single developer over the past few months, still ongoing, but the results are very encouraging.



Right now we are wrapping up the updating of Bot Behaviors, making the encounters with them more interesting by giving them personalized ways to respond to combat encounters, where they can be aggressive, enraged, turtling, avoidant, etc and shift dynamically from one mindset to the other depending on the development of combat situations. This should conclude the first cycle of combat updates, transforming the experience completely



Points of Interest are another major feature, tied to every aspect of the game. They will stand out in the landscape, giving you more of a sense of exploration, adventure and discovery. We are concentrating the resources and valuables into them, whether loot or harvest, centering that part of the game upon a notion of expedition.



Think of a mix between what the current dungeons, monoliths and towers do, but in a lighter, more relaxed format: a bit of a surprise box of a gameplay experience. Bots may or may not patrol or lurk these spots, as they too would tend to flock around them. Following this update, the new open world experience would divide into relaxing, scenic strolls in the landscape to forage for resources, and PoI spotting and exploration to collect prized stuff in greater abundance.

Most of these items are intended to be present in the first major update of the live branch in January, where Solace Crafting will take its bold first step into its future. It will completely shed its old skin to acquire the whole new look you've seen in all these previews so far. 80% of the old game's systems and mechanics should remain there, supplemented by all the new stuff. And from there on out, the live transformation process will begin, updating and improving everything.

Our vision for what Solace Crafting should be is strong. Many of you have said for years that the foundation to make a great game was there. We also believe it is: both strong enough in its positives, and identified enough where it's lacking, to provide us a straight road to shoot for a place of honor in the public's heart.

- Fab

We’re thrilled to share the latest major update for Solace Crafting! While this update doesn’t include that many visible changes or gameplay enhancements just yet, it lays critical groundwork for integrating the progress we’ve been making on the beta branch. This milestone marks a pivotal step in preparing the game for the exciting features and improvements on the horizon.

Work on the beta branch is still in full swing, and while not all gameplay features are reintroduced or enhancements finalized, we’re eager for you to explore what’s already shaping up. If you're new here or returning from a long hiatus, we encourage you to dive into the beta branch and take a peek at the recent Producer’s Letters for an insider’s perspective on the future of Solace Crafting.

Thank you for your continued support as we build towards something truly special!

Beta changes:

v 1.1.1.4 2024.12.24
- Added more harvesting animations
- Reworked plains and desert biome math
- Fixed a bug causing FOV to zoom in and out repeatedly
- Improved and added further weapon animation support
- Improved shadow quality and reduced jittering

v 1.1.1.3 2024.12.20
- Stopped a slope sliding bug
- Added some new weapons
- Added a staff projectile
- Bow aiming, firing, and damage all working
- Improved biome spawn logic in several places
- Fixed several bugs related to combat causing monsters to float away, spin, or not respond
- Reintroduced basic harvesting
- Harvesting tool auto-swapping WIP, bare hand animation not implemente yet
- Fixed bandit block/dodge logic being way too frequent
- Improved swapping between different weapons
- Enemies will now auto-target on damage, even if out of their normal range
- Fixed being unable to catch your breath treading water
- Fixed highlands being too white
- Fixed a lot of flora improperly spawning under water

Live changes:

- Fixed a town build error that was spamming anonymous error reports

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Greetings and welcome to the third Producer's Letter for Solace Crafting.

I'm Fab, and today, we're going to spend a little time talking game design and what we have in mind for the near-future of Solace Crafting in that area.

Game design is a vast and rich discipline, in that it pertains to any and all aspects that will determine the kind of experience the player will ultimately have. From the numbers that go into a combat system to the way a specific interaction feels, or even the psychology of certain goals and moments of gameplay, or the way lore informs experience, as game designers we must be on top of all that and more.

Solace Crafting is a vast and systems-rich game, with plenty to do. However, if the What can be quite clear most of the time (explore, fight, harvest, build…), streamlining the How, the Why and the What For is part of the update strategy we have recently embarked on.

As those among you who already play the game know, Solace Crafting is named after Solaces, the crystalline nodes around which you will indeed Craft and Build, from a simple workshop at first to an expanding town later on.

Being the central concept of the game, we felt there was much more we could do with them in terms of tying things up together and creating a stronger game. So as we currently update many front end aspects of the experience, such as graphics, controller and enemies, we are preparing to launch a revamp of Solaces themselves.

In the multiverse of Khora, that you’ve been exploring through your worlds creation in Solace Crafting, Solaces act as nodes in a network of energy, enabling forces to circulate. You’ve seen this from the way you can use them as spawn points and fast travel points. Another aspect of Solaces we will be expanding as we tie their gameplay tighter together, is their function as a reality stabilizer or maybe even as a reality manipulator, and their relationship with the player character itself.

We call player characters (and ultimately you, dear players), Astrals, which is also a sort of short for Astral Prodigies, that is souls that have awakened, consciously or not, to the endless breadth of the multiverse and can exist within its worlds. Astrals are connected to Solaces and can operate them in ways others cannot.

First, we plan to make the Solace’s upgrade cycle much more central to your experience. As you venture out, not only will you want to come back to the Solace regularly for crafting and maintenance, but also to upgrade and empower the Solace itself, discovering new functions and powers it grants you.

Second, the worlds of Khora, which you explore and inhabit, will contain scores of pre-existing Solaces. These we call historic Solaces, for they were here before you and have things to bequeath you, from mere lore to new opportunities to weigh upon your worlds.

These Solaces you find, out there in the worlds, could take you to hidden locations, allow you to manipulate time, weather, life cycles within biomes, grant you new powers lasting or temporary, and many more things.

All Solaces exist thanks to a mysterious focus of energy, called by some an Astral Egg, which you can harvest. However, doing so will destroy the Solace, but the Astral Egg can be carried to manifest a new Solace elsewhere or empower an existing one.

This loop of exploring, finding Solaces, interacting with them and deciding what to do with each and with its Astral Egg will be much more prominent in the updated Solace Crafting we are headed to.

The goal of this looming update is to infuse your gameplay with more meaning, with a lot more Why and What For to your actions in the game. So that having a lot that you can possibly do in Solace Crafting also means a lot more reasons to do each thing and to commit to a specific path of play.

This series of updates touching on the game fundamentals should begin around late December to January, and follow on through. We are still very much focused at the moment on more technical or artistic aspect to bring Solace Crafting into the current times in terms of looks and feel, but we are already hard at work planning those gameplay/experience steps as well.

New, or updated ways to interact with the world, will be a thing as well, as previously hinted at. New locomotion modes, more dynamic harvesting, more exciting obstacle navigation and many more.

It’s a titanic undertaking. An interesting thing is, the more experience you have working on games, the more even a small update turns out to be imposing in terms of implications and repercussions. I can remember, way back before getting involved in game design and production, thinking Oh, the devs should do this or that to improve the game. Lots of grand ideas which, on paper, would have made the game better. Now, after about a decade and a half hands-on, every new feature I plan, every new change gets me like this is going to be so much to do…

But we keep pushing, because nothing’s more beautiful than a vision fulfilled and a playerbase happy. It’s a beautiful job, a great opportunity, and as I always say, success and fulfillment follow a lot more easily when you love what you do, love the people you’re doing it with and love the people you’re doing it for.

This was intended as a Producer’s Letter, not quite a Love Letter, but we all know how for Kyle this has been a labour of love and so how could I join this beautiful undertaking with any less than these same feelings?

So here we are. Happy to be here and looking forward to it all!

- Fab

Lots of new things in this patch! Not all immediately obvious. Performance is up quite a bit, lots of new environment effects including weather, fireflies, birds, wind, two-handed weapon animations, large mountain stamps fixes, and so on!

More monsters, more weapons, and the first set of new locations set to make their appearance next week!



v 1.1.1.2 2024.12.06
- Added player damage numbers
- Sword animation tuning
- 2h Sword animations
- Fixed some moutain splat import problems
- Fixed height blending of stamps with non-zero edges
- Recolored cliff texture
- Implemented new day/night cycle
- Implemented new weather systems
- Implemented over a dozen new environment effects like birds, falling leaves, etc
- Fixed camera and movement working while in menus
- Fixed large stamp spawn performance issues
- Improved new AI spawn performance

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!