Refine/Define is the theme for this release. There’s tons of tweaks in beta 1.7! Hopefully lots of them are meaningful and noticeable. There’s some love in this release for both new players and old players alike. Hopefully we are getting close to a release which could be Early Access quality for a Steam release.

Play Online:

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward/

Downloads:

• Windows (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Linux 32-bit (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Linux 64-bit (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Mac OS X (10.7+) (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)

Some highlights in beta 1.7:

• Fixed a long standing bug that would cause the character to continue moving if focus of the tab/window was left while a key was being pressed (among other causes). This would routinely cause players to die as they would continue walking into monsters or getting hurt from stamina loss.
• Translation system implemented. Official translations will be coming later.
• Environmental items are now damaged when dug/carved back up. If they reach 0 durability, you can no longer use them in that context.
• Daily Challenge Mode added. Extremely difficult mode that is only for fun (or frustration) that changes each day. Does not effect your save.
• Removed all “Poor” items. They have been all renamed to match material descriptors instead of quality descriptors. Several minor recipe changes because of this.
• You can throw any item. The distance is dependant on the item’s weight and Throwing skill. The damage is dependant on the attack value of the item thrown, or the weight if the item has no attack value shown in the tool-tip. Some items can only be thrown if the player has the proper strength (based on item’s weight).
• Crafting order is now based on the order it appears in your inventory, equipment or quickslot (in that order). No longer just limited to just inventory items. The hover effect will now only show which items will be used in the craft.

Read more in the changelog:

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward-free-changelog/

Special thanks to vlsd and Orillian on this release.

Release Schedule Plan

Releases seemingly have been taking longer and longer. It’s due to a lot of factors, but I can’t see those factors changing any time soon. I have a plan though, or at least an idea.

Read more…

Work has been quite slow on beta 1.7. I totally blame the huge translation portion… also maybe too much Hearthstone. Considering the Wayward player-base consists of mostly non-native English readers, translations have always been a high priority. Well, we finally bite the bullet and got translations working in the upcoming beta 1.7.

Wayward probably won’t actually have “official” translations for quite some time; however, that shouldn’t stop players from making and releasing their own translations and sharing them abroad. I’d love to also feature them on the Modifications page too – just send me an email!

Interested in translating for yourself? Take a peek or download the current beta 1.7 english.js file. It’s very simple to edit and understand, but let me know if you have any issues. Like every portion of Wayward, translations and translation support will continue to improve as we develop.

Also, yes, we are close to releasing beta 1.7.

Update

As of February 2nd, there was a small change made to the english.js file. A new line was added “fireDropAll”. If you have already started, simply just find this new line and add it into your translation file.

As of February 8th, there was some more minor changes/additions. The old “build” and “plant” definitions are now “builtItem” and “plantItem”, and 4 new lines were added at the end of the Messages definition.

Just thought I’d give a short update and mention a current poll going on for Roguelike of the Year 2013.

Beta 1.7 Spoilers

The first pre-release, preview build of Wayward beta 1.7 has been released for all you donators. Make sure to view the spreadsheet for the link. There’s already quite a few things complete from the to-do list, as you can see in the changelog. Some of the coolest changes and fixes so far include:

• Monsters will no longer spawn on any player made tiles/flooring.
• Removed all “Poor” items. They have been all renamed to match material descriptors instead of quality descriptors. Several minor recipe changes because of this.
• Fixed several errors and oversights relating to treasure items and travelling home (would not always count the proper amount). Removed all treasure finding messages.
• Equipped containers no longer get damaged (preventing several errors and unintended consequences).
• Fixed an error occurring when trying to light a fire with an empty container equipped.
• Fixed a long standing bug that would cause the character to continue moving if focus of the tab/window was left while a key was being pressed (among other causes). This would routinely cause players to die as they would continue walking into monsters or getting hurt from stamina loss.
• There is new status effect called “Burning Pain”.

I’ll try to reveal some more goodies from beta 1.7 coming up soon!

Request for Votes: Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2013

The Ascii Dreams blog is once again running their Roguelike of the Year poll. Yes, we all know who is going to win (T.o.M.E. 4), but that shouldn’t stop you from voting on all your favourite roguelikes this year. Please note, you are able to vote for as many roguelikes as you want! Vote here. There’s currently 8 days left to vote and nearly 4000 people have voted at the time of this post. Want to see a bigger full-screen version of the poll? Click here.

Wayward Island Kingdom

JamesIII has been working on updates to his “Wayward mini-game” as it was previously called. This fully customized world is filled with landmarks, puzzles, story narrative, and more.

If you are looking for some more stuff to do in beta 1.6, this can provide quite a bit of exploratory fun. Check out the forum thread for more information/screenshots.

Graphics are a constant talking point in games. Most of us in the indie scene know about things like “retro” and pixel graphics, but even within the community, there’s a hatred towards them by some. I think the general consensus is that people find them too common in indie games or show a lack of originality. Wayward does it out of necessity, to push content faster. Wayward would never be as deep as it is now if it had AAA graphics; it’s just not realistic. It probably also wouldn’t be very fun because the mechanics would need to be so complex as to interact within a 3d environment. Content over art has kind of been a roguelike tradition, and I don’t see that stopping.

That being said, I’d love to see improvements to the art, the ui and the general game graphics. Recently, I got Dusty to mock-up some “HD” graphics for Wayward. Here’s a screenshot of them actually in the game:

Please note: this is a mock-up concept. Not finalized art.

As you can see, Wayward supports non-pixelated graphics very easily. Just add water (and art)! Even though it works out of the box, it may look a bit strange. This is because there is no support for tile mapping currently. Tile mapping is that thing in games that adapts graphics based on what they are near. Here’s a mock-up that shows what it could look like once tile mapping is implemented:

So, less square grid looking! Tile mapping won’t only be an improvement for “HD” graphics in the future, but also for the pixel art style as well as I briefly showcased here.

Who knows, maybe Wayward will even eventually have a full HD graphic set. Don’t worry though, the pixel graphics aren’t going anywhere. This would be an option or modification for Wayward going forward.

So let’s get this out of the way at the start:

Wayward has been greenlit on Steam! Thank you to everybody that helped this dream come true for Wayward. That’s good news. Even better news would be, say, the release of a new beta. Well, we have that for you too!

Play Online

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward/

Download

• Windows (Mirror #1)
• Linux 32-bit (Mirror #1)
• Linux 64-bit (Mirror #1)
• Mac OS X (10.7+) (Mirror #1)

This has been one of the biggest releases to date in terms of improvements and fixes. Some of the coolest stuff form this beta includes:

• New context/item menu implemented via single click on to item. The new item menu will feature all interactions that you can use the item for. This opens up lots of future possibilities. There’s only a couple of interactions right now, but expect to see more options soon!
• Smooth movement has been added. This is disabled by default (for now).
• Added a series of new milestones to unlock and discover. Milestones now save permanently, and each unlocked on start gives +1% to starting skill, and chance for more starting items. There is now “invisible” type milestones that reveal the progress, but not the name (the reverse of hidden milestones). Which milestones are hidden and invisible are now randomized on game start.
• Fixed some errors when fighting bare-handed.
• Containers are now left open when placing something inside/removing something.
• Sandstone is now a rock-like item. Kilns now require a rock-like (instead of Sandstone, specifically). This is until the world map changes are in.
• Resource gathering is now twice as fast; however, there is a larger wait between actions when you get item(s).
• Using Remarkable, Exceptional and Legendary items in a craft now effect the chances of your craft also taking on these qualities. Reduced chance of creating Remarkable items by default. You can now craft Remarkable/Exceptional items across everything (instead of just limited to equippables).
• Starting items, resource gathering, monster loot, chest loot all now have a chance to be Remarkable (uncommon), Exceptional (rare) or even Legendary (very rare) items.
• A few new unique creatures and tons of new items/crafts including some rare/special stuff. No spoilers!

Read more as always on the Changelog page:

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward-free-changelog/

IndieDB’s 2013 Indie of the Year

The voting period for IndieDB’s game awards are ending pretty soon. If you have a quick minute, throw up a vote for Wayward. Click on the badge below, and a bit down the page, you will find a big voting banner.

Special thanks to arktvrvs and Grom_PE on this release.

So, yesterday, Steam approved another huge batch of games (100), and in doing so, placed Wayward up to #48 in 1387 games currently on Steam Greenlight. That is really good news for the future development of Wayward as you can imagine. This definitely puts some “fire” under me to work even harder on Wayward (it’s currently still a hobby project) and stay up a bit later each night, hah!

If you haven’t voted yet, please do so! Every vote helps! Already voted? Leave a kind comment, or just say “MINECRAFT CLONE!” like everybody else (just kidding, don’t do that, haha).

It’s also been awhile since I did a full preview post, so here goes:

Earlier in the month, I teased some new status effect graphics:

This will make it easier to see that you are going to need to bandage or cure yourself, quickly! Especially because of this change:

• Poison, bleeding and burned status effects are now have randomized damage and scale with your strength. Equipment now taken into account for burn damage and can absorb some or all of the damage.

You can also expect some new status effects coming up in 1.7+ as well.

I have also been testing proper tile mapping which will give the game a less amateurish look, and take away from that very rigid “grid” feeling. This isn’t 1.6 stuff, but you can see what I mean in the screenshot below:

This example is very basic and doesn’t show the true visuals of a dynamic tile mapping system, but I hope you get the picture.

Read more…

Wayward Beta 1.5 has been released! Dubbed “Watergate” after the controversy of the inclusion of thirst and water in the last update and a reference to the real-life scandal. Get it? It’s a pun… anyways… water and thirst is a lot easier in 1.5. How easier? Well, if you read the previously posted “On Thirst & Hydration” post, you can get an idea on what changed and why.

Besides the water and thirst changes, there’s lots of other changes, and I mean A LOT! Take a look at the changelog! There’s close to 70 changes there. Some of the best stuff is as follows:

• You no longer move to fire bows (yes, there’s more than one now!), instead, you can double click to fire them (provided you have the ammunition).
• Aberrant monsters now spawn (more at night/in caves/on treasure). They are doubly as strong (both defense/attack), always hostile, and can potentially drop rare items.
• Milestone system has been implemented. Special bonuses are given out on obtaining each one. More milestones will appear each release.
• Fixed a bug that always focused on the crafting filter when you opened the inventory window.
• The inventory now also has a filter option for name/group.
• A handful of new items have been introduced including a focus on Archery/Bowcrafting materials/weapons.
• You can now control + right click to attempt to drop all of the same type of items on the ground/container. You can also hold control while drag/dropping items for the same effect between containers/inventory.
• Ore veins now have the potential to be double the size.
• Items quickslotted will now re-quickslot on use if available from your inventory.

Downloads:

• Windows (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Linux 32-bit (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Linux 64-bit (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)
• Mac OS X (10.7+) (Mirror #1) (Mirror #2)

Play Online:

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward/

Do a hard refresh or clear your cache if beta 1.4 is still popping up for you.

I know I don’t post very much on the blog in between each version. I usually just relegate most communication to Reddit or the Facebook page during this period, but I thought I may as well make a small update just to show you all what we are working on.

There’s some fancy new dropping/dragging features, which allow you to drop or take all of a certain item while holding down control (CTRL). Shown here:

Earlier this week, I also posted a screenshot of some new inventory changes/features:

I asked people to guess at all the changes they could spot here. But, I’ll just go ahead and tell you:

• Items with a durability of 1 or less now show up in red in your inventory/equipment/quickslots.
• The inventory now also has a filter option for name/group.
• Requirements now are shown in red in the tool-tip if you do not have the item, or enough items for the craft.
• All items now have durability (no stacking in this build). Don’t worry, I am also working on some form of smart grouping system. But for now, definitely use the filter.
• There’s a few new items shown.

Some other great changes coming up in 1.5:

• There is now “fresh” water sources (in caves, ponds, oases) in which you can place into a Waterskin or Glass Bottle to drink directly. You can also boil fresh water to make it cleaner and less potentially hazardous to health. Fresh water does not need to be desalinated unlike sea/ocean water which still needs to be distilled using a still or Flask.
• Ore veins now have the potential to be double the size.
• Milestone system has been implemented. Special bonuses are given out on obtaining each one. More milestones will appear each release.
• Ranged (projectile and bow) items are getting an overhaul with how they work. There’s also a few new items for ranged combat. More information will be added about this in the changelog when ready.

View all the beta 1.5 changes so far on the Changelog:

http://www.unlok.ca/wayward-free-changelog/

Beta 1.5 will be coming very soon. I promise!

Having trouble with a forever loading screen? No more!

If you play on the online version, simply do a hard refresh (CTRL + Shift+ R) on Chrome or (CTRL + F5) on Firefox to grab the new hotfixed version.

Your game should now load after a couple seconds as per usual.