Friday Dev Update: Closing In On The Jungle

8:13 AM willsterling23 12 Comments

The Jungle Island





The main chunk of content in this next update will revolve around the new island type: the jungle island. We wanted this island to be lush and full of plants and trees. Sometimes you can get bored of seeing tropical island after tropical island, so we wanted to add in some variety and a change of scenery. Not only will this new island feature new visuals, but it will also only be able to be found far out at sea. This is one of the first introductions of what we are calling "post 50 content."





The idea here is that these islands will only start spawning past the 50 coordinate marks. This will encourage players to head out farther into the seas and give them a reason to explore the distant oceans.





New Quests and NPC





We love to add rpg elements in Salt and so with this update we wanted to add some new quests. These new quests will of course come from a new friendly npc. You will only be able to find this npc on the jungle island and he will act as a trader of sorts, giving you awesome gear and loot that is exclusive to him.





New Enemies





In addition to new quests and a friendly npc, this island will also feature new enemies! We have added in a new enemy animal that will be exclusive to jungle islands and a new enemy humanoid. Each of these enemies will have a specific loot table featuring new weapons, armor, and items. In addition to this, we've also added in a new a boss. He will be tough to defeat. That's all I can say.





New Fishing Content





With the new jungle island update we are also adding in some new fish that you can catch around these islands. In addition to the new fish, there will also be a new fisherman npc. He will act as a trader that will give you really nice loot in exchange for those super rare fish you catch!





New Secrets





We love secrets in Salt and this update will certainly feature some of those. These secrets will be hard to discover but reward you nicely should you figure them out. Our goal by the end of development is to have a lot of secrets in the game so you'll always be left wondering if you've truly found them all.





New Tree Rendering





This update will also feature some improvements in the ways trees render in the game. This will improve the way they look and will improve performance on islands with a ton of trees. You can read more about this here: Speed Tree













Over the upcoming weeks we'll be adding some final touches to this update such as a way to get the new boat, some new resources, and balancing and testing. We will keep you updated and will likely be pushing this update to the testing branch soon.









- Will Sterling (Game Design and Audio)





Hey everyone!Our next update is starting to come to a close and we can't wait to release it to you! This has been one of our biggest updates yet and we are chocking it full of content. In this post I wanted to give you a brief update on where we are currently and a few of the things we have left to do on this update before we push it out. I won't give you every specific detail, as we want you to discover a lot of it on your own, but I will give you an overview of the content to come.