Early Access Mega Post!

YES, SAVAGE: The Shard of Gosen has made it to Early Access!

Hey everyone, Matt here, coming out of the grind cave for another update! Apologies for the lack of any news across EVERYTHING - it's been a pretty heavy grind to get the game where it is now, and I generally am not very good at finding a solid work/news update balance. So, apologies for keeping so quiet.

I was very unsure about Early Access, but I started to change my mind once some very kind people started asking me to make the game available in that capacity, so they could support the game and get a copy at the same time. It also helps get more eyeballs on the game that I wouldn't have otherwise, and all the extra help is greatly appreciated.

Speaking of which, thank you VERY much for all of the bug reports, feedback and critiques; this stuff is going to help me turn Savage into a MUCH better game.

All of the support across Kickstarter, early backers and the current round of Early Access has just about floored me. It is surreal and I am humbled by it, and very grateful. Thank you!!

That being said, let's talk about the game, what's currently in it, what didn't make it, and what's coming up in future content updates.

• 50 - 60% of dungeon and area content
  
• New title screen!!
  
• Brand new dialogue system
  
• “Perk” system finally implented with UI and unlockable perks
  
• Alchemy and cooking!
  
• Recipes for alchemy/cooking, tons of new materials, ingredients and consumables
  
• General polish and lots of bug fixes
  

The currently accessible landmass!


The title screen got a significant upgrade!


The new dialogue system is all drawn dynamically based on it's content, has a brand new "response" window that can hold up to 11 responses, and each response can potentially be a skill check against your four primary stats (with success and failure outcomes)!


Leveling up gear and/or items to level 3 "masters" that item -- NOW you have a nice fancy UI and menu system showing you what you've unlocked across several categories!


Alchemy and cooking are now a thing! Experiment by adding ingredients and materials to one, or all of the three available slots with a chance of creating a powerful potion, a rare crafting material, or simply cooking your raw meat to yield better healing results.


Lots of new materials, ingredients and consumables have been added!


Increased inventory limits - “infinite space” for mats/consumables

• Upgrades for weapon/shield and armor inventory space
  
• Map system (probably via crafting and/or vendor)
  
• “Journal” entry moved to the main character menu
  
• Buffs and debuffs to go along with new consumables
  
• More Forge functionality - Repair, Improve, Salvage and Lore
  
• Picking up weapons and armor method and “Discard” in inventory
  
• Stat balancing (damage, HP, BP gain, drop rates)
  
• Animations for new consumables, more perks
  
• Recipe UI for discovered recipes and MORE recipes
  
• More music - variety for individual areas
  

The remaining areas that will receive big juicy content updates - including ship travel!

• Fixed giving Morth ore if you only had 1 ore to give
  
• Losech’s dialogue now triggers automatically
  
• Fixed pickup info appearing twice for “Gal’vek’s Remains”
  
• Fixed Hem dialogue crashing game if he is sad
  
• Fixed Grethelde not remembering if you spoke to her or not
  
• Fixed Reylhast not remembering if you spoke to him or not
  
• Fixed Blacksmith crashing game if you chose certain dialogue
  
• Fixed NPC dialogue objects remaining after NPC went hostile or was killed
  
• Added alchemy and cooking
  
• New title screen with new images and sound effects!
  
• Fixes to green arrows in UI comparison windows
  
• 9 sliced UI for dialogues to allow dynamic window sizes
  
• Fixed Maginoch not spawning and crashing the game during optional boss scenario
  
• Rewrote and fixed logic for dialogue system
  
• Sped up the disclaimer at game start
  
• Brand new dialogue window to display multiple choices
  
• New dialogue choices for Skillchecks (Might, Resolve, Cunning and Favor)
  
• Dialogue system now allows for up to 11 choices
  
• Fixed a bug where the “shift” key would show up as “A” key when remapping controls
  
• Updated mouse sprites for the UI (left click, middle mouse, right click, etc.)
  
• New “typewriter” dialogue sound effect that can be pitch shifted
  
• New “success” dialogue skill check sound effect
  
• New “fail” dialogue skill check sound effect
  
• Fixed falling hazards crashing game if colliding with player’s shield if player didn’t exist
  
• Fixed several vendor bugs where values were not rounding correctly, causing other issues when interacting with shops, crafting and alchemy
  
• Certain NPC dialogue sets updated with optional skillcheck entries
  
• LOTS of new materials, potions and consumables for use in a variety of ways
  
• New recipes for alchemy and cooking
  
• Better gear info and comparison screen with stat icons showing scaling effects and requirements for your stats, also for vendor screens
  
• Fixed a bug where vendor screens were drawing player inventory information in both buy and sell modes
  
• Fixed a bug where if you were equipped with a shield in the intro and viewed the prison capture cinematic, the game would crash when loading the main character into cell
  
• New shield revamped “HITS” system with visible shield hit bar on the HUD
  

• Fixed 16:10 aspect ratio crashing the game when starting a new game in the name entry screen
  
• Fixed parallax layers and background layers drawing correctly for 16:10
  
• Fixed visuals for 16:10 title screen
  
• Fixed being outside room boundaries where no room is assigned for the compass object crashing the game
  
• Fixed mouse cursor positions for menus in 16:10
  
• Fixed scaling and tile drawing issues in 16:10
  
• Fixed drawing water FX in video options menu
  
• Fixed eating/drinking consumables from the items menu soft-locking the player
  
• Fixed picking up throwing dirks and hurlbats giving you “+0”
  
• Fixed hurlbats dropping below 0 quantity
  
• UPDATE DIRECT X if the game crashes due to water FX or weather FX!!
  
• Removed ship docks (they were accidentally left active)
  
• Added a few materials and other items to loot tables for currently available enemies
  
• Death fully restores HP once respawning at a checkpoint
  
• Favor subtracts much slower on death
  
• Improved base drop rates when killing items, destroying objects like crates and opening mundane chests
  

Check out my ramblings here in the video version for more detail on certain aspects of this post:





Thanks for reading this far if you've made it! Lots of tuning and balance fixes need to be done, in addition to filling the rest of the game up with more content. Keep your eyes peeled!



Fully realized map shown here for fun!

Watch the game being developed on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/toborprime

Join the Discord to ask questions, give feedback and report bugs: https://discord.gg/7KfCNm6

Thanks for all of the support, patience and feedback!

-Matt