Greetings founders,

Welcome to our 90th DevBlog, we are steadily approaching triple digits! We must do something very special for the 100th DevBlog post, let us know if you have any ideas. Onwards to this week's DevBlog where we talk about optimisations, butterflies and Pemus scheduled for the next update.

 

THE DRAW YOUR BOW UPDATE

Last week the ‘Draw Your Bow’ update went live, featuring ranged combat, the creative mode mod and a few other additions. We created a very short video which details the core changes to the update, check it out below:

 

 

These types of videos are a little different to the type of content we regularly produce, but if we get a great response to it, this means that we’ll be able to produce more of these. Sharing the video online, commenting and subscribing to the CardLife YouTube channel are all things that will help us discover whether this is something you want to see more of.

 

OPTIMISATION IMPROVEMENT

CardLife has undergone some improvements to make the game run much smoother on more machines. We had a great challenge ahead of us to improve optimisation because every single building created by a player is fully customisable and will look completely different. This is due to the Connect The Dots System. In our upcoming update there have been some changes to how structures are loaded in. Players should experience better FPS, but of course optimisation is an ongoing process throughout development. Do let us know if the upcoming update has a positive effect on your FPS. 

 

NEW WORLD EFFECTS

The world of CardLife continues to look more visually stunning each day thanks to more ambient effects. A few weeks ago we shared details of the fireflies but today we have a couple of new ambient effects to show off:

Crows

The first of our new ambient effects is the Crows, they will fly overhead in groups and will appear randomly over trees and other objects in the game world. Below is a prototype which shows a denser group than we'll have in-game but it shows you the effect in action.

 

 

The crows are only visible during the day and you will often see . Of course, a closer inspection of the crow model reveals that it is indeed made out of cardboard to match the games aesthetic

 

 

Butterflies

The butterflies are our first insect in CardLife and will often be found at ground level near flowers. Their goal is to add much more vibrant color to the world. On closer insect-ion you can see that the butterflies are made completely out of a chunky type of cardboard. They will be visible during the day and will spend their time fluttering around honeyberry bushes

 

 

Shooting Stars

The shooting stars join the fireflies as part of the night time ambient effects. Again the effect below is in-game but it's a bit more exaggerated than what we'll be in the final version. Shooting stars won't cluster as closely together when added to the final version of the game. Also in V1 of shooting stars they are little more than a visual effect, but for V2 we're looking for this effect to telegraph a fallen asteroid pieces which you'll be able to use to create certain items. We're still designing this system at the moment, so look out for more in a future DevBlog. There's no timing for V2 yet, but V1 will be going live early next week..

 

 

 

THE PEMU

 

 

 

The Pemu is a new creature planned for the next update. It is CardLife’s first hybrid creature and is a cross between an Emu and a Peacock. The artists and animators at CardLife have done an incredible job of bringing this new creature to life. As you can see from the gif below, while walking, the Pemu is in a relaxed state, but as they begin to run, they will create a point with their body to reduce wind resistance when travelling at speed.

 

 

 

 

 The Pemu along with a the other ambient effects mentioned in this DevBlog will go live in the next update.

 

COMMUNITY CREATIONS

A big highlight of creating CardLife is seeing the types of houses that players will create using the tools found in game. However, some players have also been experimenting with the PNG files to create amazing characters! This week we wanted to share a character from V1nc3nz0 which was created by editing PNG files within the cardlife folder.

 

 

If you’ve created something amazing and want to share it with us, please do! Send us your photos via the CardLife Forums, Discord, Twitter or Facebook

 

We need your feedback! Has the game improved? Are there any bugs that need addressing? Let us know! The team are still squashing bugs and issues reported by players, if you have any feedback, suggestions or want to report any bugs that you’ve found, make sure to get in touch via the CardLife forums or on Discord

If you've been reading previous DevBlogs, you'll have seen us talking about CardLife's launch into Early Access for months at this point. As part of those preparations we will be taking CardLife Founder's Pack off sale from early next week, so we can have a clean slate for the Steam launch in Early October.

If you own CardLife already your access to the game won't be affected, but if you are yet to purchase we highly recommend you purchase a copy ASAP so you can have access. If you purchased CardLife prior to the Steam launch you will have an opportunity to transfer your purchase across to Steam, or keep playing via the launcher as you do now.

As always we massively appreciate everyone that has backed CardLife at this point and shown faith in the game. We couldn't have gotten this far in development without you and the Steam launch is just the next stage in CardLife's continued development. 

All the best,
Chris