Solace Crafting News

Continuing onward with new technology improvements, this patch expands on the new world generation technology to spawn large locations procedurally throughout the world. Currently we've only implemented mountains as they're the most obvious to spot, but we'll now be expanding this to work with other biome based locations.

Some of the new mountains are currently blending a bit sharply with their surrounding, I will be fixing that tomorrow. And biomes will need to blend to match these large locations as well.

The player controller is also continually undergoing upgrades at the moment. This patch adds swimming, increases the angle at which players begin to slide, adds health bars and damage numbers, and removes the fall damage that was cause players to fall flat and not get back up. We've already got a few more things in the pipe, just not quite ready to upload right this moment.

Happy Thanksgiving! My wife and son are also back home now, at last! so we've got a very busy, sometimes very noisy household. It took a couple days to get settled back into a home that had been abandoned for the better part of 3 weeks,

v 1.1.1.1 2024.11.28
- Added 5 more mountains
- Expanded large stamp system to work anywhere
- Temporarily blending the edges of large stamps
- Added swimming capabilities
- Removed fall damage
- Increased the player slide angle
- Added health bars and damage numbers

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 Adventurers!

I'm sorry that my personal life has repeatedly delayed this momentous patch, which I intend to explain, but we've got a lot done these past few months, and we've got a lot to talk about, so let's get into it!

First and foremost, I need to make it very clear that [h3]this patch is not at all intended as a playtest.[/h3] This patch is intended as a preview for players to take a look at, to feel the new controls, and to provide early feedback. This patch contains thousands of new lines of code, hundreds of new assets, and focuses primarily on the following:

• Overworld biome graphical assets
  
• Enhanced player movement
  
• Action based combat
  
• Enemy artificial intelligence
  
• World generation technology improvements

This preview patch is only available via the beta branch and has several features that are temporarily turned off, or simply have no effect, such as:

• Avatar creation: no matter what you create or wear you will be a guy with a cape.
  
• Weather is completely absent. The day/night cycle and skies are also being reworked.
  
• Harvesting is largely impossible as again, this is not a playtest patch.
  
• Combat. In the overworld nothing can hurt you. If you travel elsewhere, you will likely not be able to hurt anything else.
  

[h2]So, what is the purpose of this patch?[/h2]
The above mentioned new features all reach deep into the core of the many systems that make up Solace Crafting, and are foundational in moving the game from it's old haphazard design into the new well oiled machine we are planning for it to become. That means, defining and upholding an expandable art style, and improving the many different ways that players interact with the world. Movement, combat, harvesting, crafting, leveling, exploring, all of these systems are heavily dependent on how the world is shaped and presented to the player, which is why we have added a number of new technologies to bring hand-crafted points of interest into the game world, from a small copse of trees, to an entire mountain village.

These foundational changes set the framework for us to move onto the next step of rebuilding the many different types of content that already exist in Solace Crafting.
For example, we have now a wolf and a bandit working with out entirely new AI systems which means we can add any type of humanoid creature using the bandit's AI as a starting template, and though a bit trickier we can use the wolf template for other non-bi-pedal creatures.
The large mountain that you should be able to see near the start area is hand-crafted, and hand-painted. It's the only mountain in the game right now, but now that the system works we can use it to bring in dozens of mountains, canyons, oasis, islands, anything we want using the same systems.
The player character will now always start with a claymore so that you can try out either weapon combat or the hand to hand combos. Likewise, these are proofs of concept for how weapon animation sets will work. Magic and healing will of course be added in very shortly, now that these foundations have been put in place. Climbing, sliding, mounts, and other features are also being built into and tested with these new systems and will be brought online as we progress.

[h2]So what's next?[/h2]
Now comes the fun part. New monsters, new animals, new skills, new weapons, new resources, new locations... content! Content can't exist without systems, and now that we've got the first major group of systems in and working, it's time to make proper use of them. And that doesn't mean reinstating all of the old content, we will be introducing almost entirely new content that better aligns with our long term goals of a well populated fantasy multiverse filled with things to do and lore to explore, as well as a variety of play-styles to go about experiencing them with.

There is a long list of advanced features that we will be talking about and implementing as time moves on, but we are going to take things step by step. Having said that, we are working on a roadmap and would very much like everyone's input on that when we're able to reveal it, as our vision for the future of Solace Crafting is entirely dependent on pleasing our community and attracting new adventurers from all around the globe!

The current build is also lacking in performance in some areas yet. There are a lot of tricks and puzzles to making Unity perform better, but now is not yet the time to be spending much time on that area.

[h2]What happened?[/h2]
There's no real point in going too deep down this discussion, but we had a kind of perfect storm of unfortunate events one after the other. Our git account went over the limit imposed by its developers, not by like our account tier or anything like that, and became completely unusable right as all three of us currently working on the game tried to merge all of our work together. While waiting for support to help us out I tried a few things to fix the problem, but actually made things worse. Once support picked up our case I was deep into trying to put things together, when my wife's water broke! Our son is happy and healthy, but my wife met several complications and is unfortunately still in the hospital, though it's looking like she will be released in another few days. I lost nearly a week trying to repair the damage and ultimately having to redo several days of work.
Such is game development though, problems come and problems go. I have ample time to get us back onto our original schedule, and we've already made a lot of good progress.

[h2]In closing[/h2]
I really hope everyone enjoys the new art style and can understand why the old style was really just making everything much more expensive and difficult to work with. I'm confident the new combat system will grow into a feature rich, player choice driven class system. And above all I look forward to bringing out new content, quests, stories, and treasure for players to engage with and uncover as we move through the next stages of Solace Crafting development!

Best wishes and happy gaming!
Kyle


This preview patch is only available via Beta branch.
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!
(Our Patreon will soon be undergoing a revamp of its own)

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

I'm Fab, and today, we're diving deeper into the exciting features coming on this journey toward version 1.5. While we've previously shared our broader vision, today we’ll explore the nitty-gritty of what lies ahead.

But first, let’s take a moment to celebrate another milestone: Kyle, the brilliant mind behind Solace Crafting, is now a proud father!

Insert from Kyle:
It's been a crazy week! I've got a healthy new baby boy, who will be home with my wife in another 36 hours from the time of me writing this!
We had some problems with our version control that completely stopped development but the support from the service that we use was quick to respond, all thing considered, and I was hard at work getting things sorted out when my wife's water broke and we were off to the hospital on Sunday night! It was a chunk of hours I knew I was going to have to take off at some point, but was hoping to get the first preview patch we've been working on up before then. The past few days I've been commuting home from my in-laws to work during the day and had to redo some things that got lost in the version control problems, but I'm planning to have the patch up tomorrow so I can take another day or two off to try and help my wife get some at home rest and recovery which she's very much in need of.


So, sorry again things got delayed a little, but we're still on track in our overall progress 👍
You should hear from me again very soon!
- Kyle

Congratulations to Kyle and his growing family. It's truly poetic to see both a life project and personal life evolve simultaneously. With this in mind, we officially kick off the next chapter of Solace Crafting, starting with the new beta branch updates, outlined in our Patch Notes.

Let's go to the plans and Roadmap!
[h2]In the last month[/h2]
[h3]Player Controller[/h3]

• What we've done: We're starting out with improvements to the controller, to make it more responsive and make the character's handling more pleasant all around. That means smoother locomotion controls, which in turn will become more permissive gameplay-wise. Combat is also receiving a major update, where improved animations and controls will make the experience more dynamic overall.
  
• What we're planning: Further improvements to the Player Controller involving additional locomotion features to create class abilities like Blink, Slow Fall; advanced features like Sliding, Gravity adjustments and Swimming, as well Mount functions. As the worlds of Khora are receiving massive updates, so should your ability to navigate, explore and enjoy them.
  

[h3]Bot AI[/h3]

• What we've done: Bot AI also gets its upgrade path. Monsters can now fight. They move around, attack, combo, block, dodge, melee and attack at range dynamically, and fight each other; not just through math and hit/miss notifications.
  
• What we're planning: This foundational update allows us to open the door to more ambitious features, such as social mobs with interdependent behaviors and strategies, as well as companion NPCs and pets, which can follow you around and obey orders.
  

[h3]Game Art[/h3]

• What we've done: The first visual updates are locked in, with new assets for several biomes, such as plains, deserts and swamps, and early post-processing effects. We also have updated the player character. For the time being, this also means temporarily deactivating some functions like weather, skyboxes or NPCs in this beta branch, as well as character customization. We have a bit of work to make them all catch up with the update, which in some cases requires dedicated production. As it's nothing deeply technical, it's just a matter of time until everything is back in the game looking and working better than ever before.
  
• What we're planning:
  Short term, further updates to game art, especially in the realm of Solace/Building/Settlement textures and objects, allowing you to build better, more beautiful or expressive homes and villages. Improved atmospherics and post-processing are also planned for more atmospherics, more beautiful and more surprising worlds.
  
• Long term: New, better textures for environment assets and players, as well as texture variants to create a greater range of visuals for the same objects, whether trees, rocks, animals, clothing, etc.

[h3]World Generation[/h3]

• What we've done: Considerable work has been added to updating the biomes, giving them specific flora and placeables, improving placement as well as overall shaping of biomes. Plains, Desert, Swamps, Highlands have received their first update. This too is a work in progress but another foundational update nonetheless. Weve also added a custom landscape feature system that now allows the procedural spawning of hand built features, such as mountains and oasis.
  
• What we're planning: Updating the Snow biome, finishing up the Ocean biome as well as fine tuning terrain shaping and landscape features spawning parameters to get richer, more immersive worlds overall. Dungeons will also receive the same kind of treatment, as we update their assets and ensure more intriguing and richer dungeon layouts.

[h2]November & December[/h2]
[h3]Character Creation[/h3]

• What we’re planning:
  A solid character creation, mixing lore, stats and visuals, is the best entry point into an RPG, so we will be seeking to bring Solace Crafting’s up to standards. This will be a way for us to begin distilling elements of the updated lore of Khora, which always sat far in the back, and give you a sense of identity and purpose for your character. It will also be a way to introduce Classes and their dynamics in a more seamless way.
  
• Also, as of the visual revamp we’re deploying on the beta branch, we’ve had to suspend the character customization features. We’re planning to reintroduce them, enabling you to make good-looking characters that insert themselves seamlessly into the revamped world. This process will be an ongoing one rather than a one-off, as new assets, such as new clothes, textures and styling options gradually make their way into the game.

[h3]First Hour & Restructured Game Narrative[/h3]

• What we’re planning: we’ve redesigned the game’s emergent narrative, that is what you do in the game in terms of its meaning within this particular universe. This will give more direction and motivation to doing things, as they will no longer simply be video game tasks that you perform to entertain yourself, but part of a narrative specific to Solace Crafting: why you’re there, what Solaces are, why you use them, why you harvest resources and build things, what are the repercussions, what the progression logic is, etc. This should make entry into the game more meaningful, your actions more purposeful, but also tie up several aspects of the Solace Crafting experience together into something more flowy and immersive. The introduction of the tutorial quests were an important way to structure the first hour but we seek to go beyond that. We aim to give you something more organic, intuitive and evocative where you do things because you feel compelled to and experience tighter gameplay loops.

[h3]UI Update[/h3]

• What we’re planning: With the visual update we’ve brought to the world and character graphics, as well as the restructured Game Narrative, we have to ensure the UI is clear enough to navigate and visually relaxing. This might be a longer update process, through which we will work with you to tailor finer improvements. However, unifying textures, fonts and adhering to more established UI standards is likely to be the object of a quicker first update that should in turn contribute to making the game more accessible and fun.

[h3]Lore & Story Update[/h3]

• What we’re planning: Tied to the previous update items, we will do a lore unification pass to make as much content as possible world-specific, doing away with generic. From item names and descriptions to lore nuggets and quests, as well as narrative context introducing cultures, history and stakes, the goal is to help you feel like you’re navigating the multiverse of Khora specifically and not any fantasy video game world. This is an ambitious target but another that we will deal with progressively, in layers.

[h3]Art Direction[/h3]

• What we’re planning: Finally, it will be really important to us to elaborate on the visual identity of Solace Crafting not simply in terms of game graphics, but also in terms of artworks, themes, atmospheres, etc. Expect to see more on that front, as we work to flesh out this Multiverse a lot more for your immersion and enjoyment, enabling you to absorb or come up with new stories, new ideas, new inspiration!

[h2]Beyond[/h2]
[h3]Improved Player Content Tools [/h3]

• What we’re planning: Building Improvements, World Modification/Terraforming Improvements, Custom Quests

[h3]Items & Crafting Improvements[/h3]

• What we’re planning: Resources Tiering & Harvesting Updates, Itemization Revamp

[h3]Immersion Improvements[/h3]

• What we’re planning: NPC Relations, Companions & Pets, Exploration Updates

[h3]Revamped & Advanced Towers & Dungeons Mechanics[/h3]

• What we’re planning: Architecture Updates, Gameplay Challenges, Resources & Bosses improvements

[h3]…AND MORE![/h3]

This first series of updates and their follow-ups should take us to the spring of 2025 and profoundly change the face and structure of the game by adding a lot more fun, richness, depth, and accessibility to the Solace Crafting experience.

We’re essentially revamping everything, ambitiously but carefully. We are committed to taking this game to its next incarnation and doing so as transparently as possible. Through Kyle’s well-demonstrated work-ethic and dedication and my contribution in structuring and communicating, we want to improve both the game and your lives as its players..

Your support and feedback throughout this process, old players, returning ones and newcomers alike, are the lifeblood of this indie venture.

Thank you!
Fab

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

I’m Fab, and today I’ll guide you through the plan elaborated to take Solace Crafting beyond its current limitations and into a future where its creator’s original vision for this game is fully realized. Through this, we’ll be creating for you an experience that takes everything you’ve enjoyed about the game and gradually takes it to the next level.



First off, let’s celebrate the longevity of this project and the dedication put into it by its solo creator and developer. Creating a game like Solace Crafting is no small feat, bringing it to the market and ensuring its ongoing support and further development, all by oneself, is definitely a tall order. Many of you have put yourselves behind this game in appreciation of its creator’s hard work, ceaseless commitment and transparent character. It is the reason why I am here as well today.

[h2]Acknowledging the Journey So Far[/h2]

First, let’s recognize the dedication behind Solace Crafting. Created by a solo developer, it’s no small feat to build a game of this scale and depth. Kyle’s relentless hard work and transparency have won the loyalty of many, and it’s also why I’m here today. Over the past few years, I’ve supported the game in various ways behind the scenes and some might have seen my name mysteriously featured in the no less mysterious Associates section of the Discord. Recently, I’ve taken a more active role in structuring the next chapter of Solace Crafting, where I’ll be pooling more and more of my resources into helping bring the game into its future.

[h2]What’s Next: A Roadmap for the Future[/h2]

This letter is a glimpse into the key areas we’ll be focusing on as we move forward, with clear goals to enhance your experience.

[h3]Gameplay Enhancements[/h3]
The first order of business is improving the core gameplay. Right now, the game offers a vast world to explore, but some aspects, like character movement, combat, and interaction with the environment, feel limited in various ways and for various reasons. We’ll be making those experiences more seamless and enjoyable, allowing you to better navigate the vast worlds and interact with everything in them with greater freedom and satisfaction.

Creature AI will also be revamped, making encounters more varied and exciting, whether you’re engaging in combat or using stealth and, ultimately as well, interacting with and relating to NPCs.

[h3]A More Meaningful Procedural World[/h3]
Procedural generation has always been the absolute core element of Solace Crafting, offering endless exploration. However, procedural worlds can lack a sense of meaning or narrative or finality, by their very nature. To address this, we’re improving the quality of the content generated, focusing on tighter, more thematically rich environments. You’ll discover more engaging landscapes with distinct biomes that make exploration more rewarding. Resources will be found in logical places, encouraging more immersive and purposeful discovery.

The soul of Khora, the dimension that Solace Crafting takes place in, its history, and its mysteries will also be woven more deeply into gameplay, ensuring that you’re not just collecting resources, but uncovering the narrative layers of the world as you go, and weaving your own story into them.

[h3]Visual Uplift[/h3]
Visuals will be a key area of improvement as we replace, one by one, every asset in the game, as well as the game’s post-processing and visual flair towards something more cohesive, richer, colorful and atmospheric. We have long been aware of the fact that the game’s dated look has put a ceiling on its ability to provide the visually immersive experience we want, and in a game like this, immersion is key. Open worlds don’t need AAA treatment nor do they need the latest technology to satisfy and some very old games in that genre still deliver very rich experiences. So fear not, we aren’t going to overload the game with a lot of fancy high end visual features. But from the way the terrain itself is generated and structured, to what 3D models, textures and shaders give it its appearance; what atmospherics play out to express light, shadow and weather, and finally the look of characters, NPCs and enemies, everything will be reviewed and improved. This is going to be a long process but one that is vital for your comfort as well as to keep people wanting to come and experience Khora for all that it has to offer.

[h3]Enriching the Lore[/h3]
We spoke of contents previously. Also among the revamp is the world’s identity, its themes and its overall mood are also going to feature in this uplift: currently, the game does not quite have room to make you feel as though you are in an actual world with a fullness and richness of lore and character. The game plays out within a very potential-rich multiverse concept which has yet to be mined for its wealth. The way we will be approaching lore is not merely by dropping tidbits of information here and there for your consumption but rather by restructuring from the ground up the purpose, meaning, place and history of everything in that world. Your identity as a game character, the reason you’re here, the long-term of your goals, the resources that you collect, the creatures that you fight, the structures that you build, the NPCs that you attract and encounter, as well as the very process of creating new worlds…: all this will mesh together into a grand narrative that we’ll roll out over time. Again, Solace Crafting will not shift genres or turn into something it never was nor was ever meant to be. Simply, we will make sure to enhance and tighten what is current to the game into a richer and deeper presentation where things no longer exist in isolation or simply for gameplay purposes.

[h2]A Vision of the Future[/h2]

If all of this seems ambitious, well it is. We have spent the past few months planning it all out, writing pages upon pages of planned updates and material. My personal belief is that the work initially done for Solace Crafting is massive and, just as your patience and passion, deserves to be honored with a vision for the future that is sharp and decisive and takes you and the game into new territories. We all play games like this for adventure, escape, achievement, discovery and the satisfaction of some fantasy fulfillment: fighter, explorer, builder, storyteller… the list goes on. On the back of Kyle’s work and the wealth of systems and technology put into Solace Crafting, we will build something that resonates with the best that fantasy and RPGs have to offer, to bring the game to its full potential.

Thank you for being part of this journey. We’re excited about this reveal, about the coming updates, and to continue building something extraordinary together. Stay tuned as we not only deliver more updates and clarity but also find ways to involve you more in this exciting new phase of the game’s existence.

Fab

Greetings Adventurers!

I'm happy to bring you some exciting, albeit long overdue news! I now have a partner in crime. We're going to call him the Project Director for now, who I have been working together with day in and day out for the past couple of months. We have big plans for Solace Crafting I'd like to go into just a bit for now, but I will leave the majority of it up to him, scheduled for a post in the next week or two. Needless to say we are hard at work on creating a much richer, more engaging experience, in order to bring Solace Crafting to the many many players that have yet to hear its name.

Most of you know that I have always worked on this labor of love by myself, and no doubt the majority of you are aware of at least some of the many shortcoming of the game as it is right now. There really is no one to blame for these shortcomings other than myself, and yet that has never really bothered me because I am only one man.
The job of "indie game developer" nowadays can mean many different things, from multi-million dollar teams of nearly a dozen people, all the way down to zero funding, solo entrepreneurs like myself. On top of that, there are many different levels of difficulty when it comes to creating a video game, and Solace Crafting has pretty much all of the challenges that a game can. It's 3D, it's physics based, it's multiplayer, it's procedural, it uses a semi-realistic style, etc..
Were this being handled by a triple A company there would be teams of programmers, animation specialists, visual effects artists, character designers, level designers, writers, shader technicians, network developers, audio engineers, 3D artists, UI artists, managers, directors, marketers, you get the point. There are many many different professions that a strong game needs filled in order to thrive. Long story short, the majority of these professions, I'm just straight up not that good at. Our new Project Director is a great counterpart to me in that sense because his talents are very different than my own. I have my talents, but they do not stretch far and deep enough to cover even 25% of what a game like Solace Crafting really needs and deserves.
Having said all that, I don't have a million dollars to round up a team and get all of those problems solved. That's why over the past couple of months we've been putting together design documentation to redesign Solace Crafting from the ground up, keeping all of its core strengths, while filling in its many gaps with a much more player friendly, rewarding, and engaging experience. The first wave of major changes are things that we can handle with just the two of us, primarily a complete redesign of the art style, world generation, and player controls. We hope to then leverage this improved experience, along with our extensive design documentation detailing the further stages of improvement, in order to attract funding to help make those later stages possible.
We hope to have ready the first look at a re-imagined Solace Crafting around two weeks from now. Some of our plans further down the road very much include our community, some of you in Discord have been around from day 1, as well as some interesting ideas for our Patreon.

I'm sorry that during all of this the endless content and feature patches that I've been continuing for years now have pretty much grinded to a halt. So much time and stress had passed as a solo developer that I had really lost my direction, and was just doing what felt necessary to keep me and my wife warm and fed. It's was very hard to take this leap given I have my firstborn due in just two months! But there's so much more to Solace Crafting that I was never able to achieve on my own, and now that we've got a solid plan on how to get there, I'm more excited than ever!

I hope you'll all hang in there with us as we work through this transition from solo to staffed, and I wish you all the best!

Kyle Postlewait
Big Kitty Games