Staxel Reporter – Issue #14

Hey everybody, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we show off a storage mechanic idea we’re experimenting with and give a general update on some of what we’re working on.

In-game Item Storage

This week, MoocowTG started experimenting with item storage. We’re trying an unconventional approach here, as you don’t store your items in a 2D UI menu that pops up when you open a chest, but you actually place them on an in-game storage unit! There are some pictures of this below to demonstrate what I mean. I should mention however, that this approach to item storage could possibly change in the future.

This was the first pass on the in-game item storage, testing the concept. It looks great having your items visibly displayed in the actual game world. However, you don’t want to be limited to storing all your items in 2×2 crates, they’d be everywhere!

This is more like it! This is just a standard shelf unit, but it shows that storing items in-game looks great and could arguably replace having to navigate 2D menus for all your storage. You can almost imagine walking into a player made bakery where the shelves are stocked with all their freshly baked delicacies on display.

As you can see here the stack count is now displayed above a stack. This definitely needs some prettying up, but this mechanic has only been worked on for a couple of days. We’ll probably have something pop up when you hover over the item, displaying additional info for what you’re looking at, we’ll have to keep experimenting and see what works well! You’ll also notice that a lot of items look smaller than they actually are when placed in the world, this is pretty much necessary so that you consistently store any of your items in your storage unit of choice.

If we do decide to run with this idea, we’ll be able to do all sorts of different things. For example throw operational doors on some units, chests, mannequins, drawers, display cases. Let us know what you think of this mechanic on our forums, discord, twitter, reddit or facebook!

General Development Update

I thought I’d give you all a look at some of what’s been worked on this week. I won’t go into too much detail about each aspect but this should give you a good idea about a few of the things you can expect to be showing up in the game pretty soon.

We’ve made some good progress with our first in-game farm animal! This was featured in the last Staxel Reporter, but since then the cows have had their animations worked on, and improved AI code is currently being written.

This week we started working on the beekeeping mechanic, and how it’s all going to come together and function in the game. If you’re curious as to how the beekeeping mechanic is going to work, we did an article on it in the Staxel Reporter – Issue #11: Beekeeping & Modding Guide Spotlight.

We’re all very excited for beekeeping and we hope you are too!

As you can see we’ve continued to add more plant life to Staxel, right now we’re specifically working on adding fruit trees. I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to creating a huge, colourful orchard with every type of fruit tree!

We’re very happy with our progress these past two weeks, it’s nice to see another main feature shaping up in the game, and makes us excited about everything else we have planned.

That’s it for this issue of the Staxel Reporter. You can grab ‘Staxel – Seedling Edition’ at www.playstaxel.com/store.

Thanks for reading!

–EGadd