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I hope to reimplement the glider someday. I'm glad you liked it.

I've had a busy summer and haven't had a look at it. Will get back to focusing more on Windstone come the colder months. Nothing wrong with starting a Discord server if you want to. 

I've considered it. Focused on working on the game first, but a Discord would be a good thing. I haven't streamed in months, but once I have more time to focus on stuff other than development I'll definitely start streaming again and start a Discord. I think it will just be me and you on there for quite some time, maybe a couple of my long time viewers, but it could grow.

I'm glad you found it!

In the ability and attribute system that I am currently working on there are multiple ways to increase the amount of items that you can carry by increasing carry weight with skills and strength and decreasing the weight of crafted items.

There is still much more that I want to incorporate before I think it will be ready for steam. I'm working on a skill tree and attribute leveling system right now. When that is finished, I'll have a better estimate for Steam launch. 

Thank you. I wasn't aware of the craft requirement issue. To make sure I understand correctly; if the craft menu says you need 4 items but only have 3 in your inventory, it will still say 3 ever after pulling another item from a chest?  Once I figure out how to reproduce this I will fix it for the next update.

Windstone isn't a final game. I didn't realize there was over lap in the settings menu, or do you just mean multiple elements on different parts of the screen at the same time?

To address some of your other feedback, I'm glad you like the cabin and cave indicators, although some have already stated that they don't because it takes an aspect of exploration and discovery away. It's impossible to please everyone because some people like some things that other's do not and also, many things are still evolving and half-implemented.  The cabin and cave indicators may not always be shown from the start and could require a point in a skill tree to activate for instance.

Similarly, the carry weight will be able to be increased with a skill point, and/or passively gaining strength over time and also with an upgraded backpack that the player can find or craft. The main reason I lowered carry weight in advance is because the only feedback I received about carry weight and inventory space is that it was too high/too big to even make a real difference anyway, which I agree with, but most things were intentionally made to make the game easier as the current main focus is to find bugs, not gameplay balance. This is also why there are so many starter tools and weapons just laid out to easily grab and test in the starter area. Picking them up does complete the crafting quest they are related to, but that quest has to be active for picking up the item to complete. I could change it, but the main point of the quest is to learn the crafting steps and those items won't all be there in the future to pick up anyway.

Windstone is very stable right now so I'm starting to evolve mechanics to be closer to the difficult challenging level of gameplay that has always been planned, similar to the difficulty of the The Long Dark, rather than a testing ground for bugs. That is why I recently made swimming and rain cause cold among other things that have increased the difficulty of surviving. Making the game more challenging may slow down the discovery of bugs, but the transition has to happen sometime and now seems like a good time.

The Overfed warning:

This pops up if your hunger meter has been over about 90% for too long, in which case stamina-draining actions drain more stamina. Conversely, if you are too hungry for too long, about 10% or lower for a handful of minutes, you will get the Malnourished affect, which has the same effects as Overfed with the addition of reduced carry weight.  Both of these effects are intentionally added to prevent two different exploits. Being Overfed keeps the player from gorging themselves on food that also grants health, while being Malnourished keeps the player from starving themselves to save food for too long. I believe these are a better way to address the issues than the "well-fed" bonus in The Long Dark, which promotes overeating and doesn't have any mitigating affect on starvation other than missing out on a debatably trivial well-fed bonus. Food in Windstone should be managed, not wasted or hoarded. Finding that balance during development will be difficult and will be greatly affected by how easy it is to acquire as much as the effects and rate of consumption.

In addition to adding a skill tree in the next update, I'm working on making water need to be purified before drinking safely, except from certain sources, making the ocean water non potable until desalinated, and adding permadeath, meaning that if you die, that's it, start over. If you don't like that, don't blame me, blame The Long Dark for being my favorite survival  game and inspiration, or just blame me, because I'm sadistic.

In all seriousness though, if there is enough public outcry, (wishfully assuming Windstone will someday gain a player base capable of what could even be called a public outcry) I will add a casual easier mode, but until then and especially now, Windstone is going to get a lot more difficult, purposely ridiculously difficult at times in this testing phase to push the limits and find a good balance and a difficult challenge. 

This ended up being a bit of a road map and long explanation, but I wanted to let you know my deep thoughts on these details especially because you take the time to play test so much and give lots of feedback. 

What is it about the settings menu that you don't like right now? I know it's simple, but it should be working properly or is something bugged that I'm not aware of?

And hey, I like that spider attack electrical malfunction sound! That one got me right in the feels. Cut me real deep Shrek.

I just uploaded a hotfix to address the rain, quest compass and landscape error.

Hotfix is coming soon to fix a few of those issues. Some other things like carry weight are in preparation for a skill tree, which will grant abilities including carry weight increase. 

Carry weight limit increase will come soon with an ability/skill tree and point system with leveling planned for the next update.  I'm trying to keep a balance also so you have to decide whether to wear everything and have less carry weight  or dress lighter and have more carry weight.

Sorry about the water containers and arrows disappearing. It was a result of making them non stackable. Good news is that the new canteens are better than the water gourds. Also added some extra arrows to the map, but I don't want to spoil where to find them. 

I'm deciding whether or not to have the cabins and caves marked instantly. I decided to mark them because it makes sense that the surveillance drone would see them and I noticed people streaming the game having no idea what they were walking right past, but I also understand your point of the joy of exploring. 

Maybe I'll make POI surveillance drone location a part of the level point system so you can spend a point to reveal POIs on the map. 

Thanks for your feedback. 

Those are pretty neat. The first one reminds me of ancient wells that are a spiral ramp lined with stone that I plan to add to the game. 

Thank you for confirming that the build works on other computers. It seems that it is an issue with Windows 11. Hopefully a future windows update will resolve it. If I come across anything I'll let you know. 

I have not had any other reports of the game crashing and I can't find any issue on my end so it seems like you may be right in guessing that there is something your system does not like. I assume it is an issue with Windows 11. The only thing I can think of to suggest is to uninstall completely, delete all Windstone files and then reinstall the itch app and make sure to only download Windstone with the app. Downloading the files and trying to run them without the app has caused many issues with playtesters in the past, but downloading and installing the game with the itch app always solved their problem because the itch app automatically installs extra required files that are not in the direct download.

I'll fix the layer order of the drop menu next update so it shows on top of the craft menu as well as the compass position as priorities.

The ring of the space ship is a work in progress as well as the main central cylindrical fuselage. I'm in the process of modeling a part of the interior of a ring section that will be explorable and the placement and size of all sections around the map will most likely change. 

The Broodmother battle will have a better reward. Currently it's a bunch of meat, carapace and XP.  

The rain is a tricky thing and not really a priority right now, but I'll spend time tweaking it in the future. 

Finding and fixing bugs is the biggest concern right now like what is listed in the latest Update 14 patch notes. Thanks again for the feedback.

Thanks for your feedback. You cannot enter the mother ship yet, but I'm currently modeling the interior of sections that will be accessible. 

I'll fix the quest soon also. 

I am working on Windstone everyday and have much more planned.

Thank you.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll check out all the things you listed. The items in the first cabin are there for play testing so you can discover bugs more quickly.  Difficulty levels are going to be added soon. 

Hello and thanks for trying out Windstone. I look forward to your feedback. 

I am the sole developer except for a real life friend who composed about half of the music.  I composed the rest .

I've been working with UE4 for about 6 years and have been 3D modeling in Blender for the same amount of time. I've used GIMP for about 15 years for digital art and photoshop long before that. I've been a life long artist in many mediums. 

All the assets in Windstone are created by myself with the exception of a few textures. The vast majority of the textures I make in GIMP.  I make all the 3D models in Blender.

I've been working on Windstone for about 5 years nearly every day, often all day, much more than a full time job. 

For a road map, I keep an endless list of things I want to complete to help stay focused. Usually I have a shorter priority list of 10 to 20 tasks and once those are done, I play test and add new things to the list, which usually includes a mix of bugs that need to be fixed, new mechanics to implement and new assets to create as well as game play balancing. 

It's usually not difficult to stay motivated as I love working on the game while watching videos or listening to music. The only time it was really hard to stay motivated was during 2019 when I was dealing with some major real life issues, but other than standard burn out from working too much and then taking a break every once in a while to regenerate, it's not hard for me to find motivation as most days I look forward to it. 

I'm very happy with how development is going, but that's not to say existential dread and fear of failure aren't often on my mind. I also am a bit envious of bigger dev teams who could have accomplished what I have in a fraction of the time, but I also enjoy working alone. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to work on game development and thankful for those who enjoy playtesting and offering helpful feedback. 

Also, did you download the itch.io desktop app and install the game with it or did you just download the files?

Have you ran earlier versions or is this the first time you've played? It isn't crashing for me but I'm looking into it. I play tested the update before I uploaded but it may not have uploaded correctly.  Thank you.

Thanks! The overhaul update took quite a while.  The updates will be much more often now and the next one is nearly ready.  I'm glad you've been looking forward to them. 

Thanks, I should have another update coming this week and have addressed some things from your latest feedback, as well as some major additions

Also confirm that Esc closes the pause menu, as it works for me.  You may need to start a new save.

Thanks doej.  Did you ever figure out why you're capped at 30fps? There's a possibility that your laptop just can't pull a higher frame rate, but if you can on other games as you stated, you definitely should be able to at least on the main title screen and in map view. 

Possibly you inadvertently set an fps cap in the nvidia settings for Windstone?

Thank you! I'm currently uploading a fix for the bedroll degradation that was just added in the last update. 

Much has changed over the years of development including the road map.  It's ever evolving but the main arch and core of ideas is constant. I've revamped much of the game heavily in the recent past and the road map needs updating. 

The world building, both literally and figuratively is a main focus. I've condensed the playable area to a restricted area bordered by impassable mountains that will open up as new regions are added. To get an idea of the current playable area and the rest of the world yet to be developed, you can move the over head map with WSAD to scope out unexplored areas.  The map mechanic will be explained when a little camera drone is added. At first, it will be just an animation when opening the map, but real-time scouting with the drone nearer to the ground will be implemented also.  This is just one of many things planned including fleshing out the story of the first colonists that arrived on Windstone, the Formican invasion and the mission to repopulate. The gameplay focus will be on open world survival with the story being integrated with objectives and encounters around the world. 

Improving AI and mechanics of current wildlife is a major focus before adding new creatures, but that is on the menu. A unique large Formican "boss" is planned to be the next wildlife addition, as well as a unique Formican and wildlife creature for each new region as new regions becomes accessible. 

The dragon companion will also be able to grow older and larger as each new region is released, expanding her attack skills and eventually being able to fly and carry the player. 

New items, weapons and armor will be periodically added also, the most recent being the Wolf Fur Coat in preparation for access to the winter climate island via boat initially.

Some other additions to be added soon are the crashed escape pod, wreckage of the mother ship, the first npc and the implementation of difficulty levels and hardcore mode. 

Development will continue as long as I'm still kickin' but what I've listed above is a close approximation for where I want the game to be for the next milestone, which will be launching on steam hopefully sometime this year.  After launch, more regions and more content and overall functionality will be added with subsequent updates. 

Thanks again for playing and I hope you continue to enjoy Windstone. 

Thank you

Something is up if it's set to 60 fps but only getting 30, especially on the map screen. 

The gpu usage and overall performance is lower on the map screen because most objects are beyond the view distance at that height, which is why the view distance setting has such a large effect on fps when the map is closed. 

Is your gpu software capping your global framerate at 30?  

I must also reiterate that if you are holding a relatively steady fps while gpu usage fluctuates, that's great. High gpu usage isn't necessarily a bad thing if the framerate stays steady. It just means there's a lot of things to draw on the screen. Fps is the primary concern.

It would also be good to set everything to maximum and then check how view distance effects fps.

You should get better fps with everything set to maximum with the lowest view distance than everything set to low with the highest view distance. Although something else is capping your fps at 30 and the lowest it dropped is 29 so not much can be gleaned unless we figure out why your fps is capped.

Sorry, I didn't mean record a video. I just meant record the data; take a screen shot as a record. Leave the fps setting at 60 and only change the view distance setting. View Distance has 4 stages which greatly reduces the number of mountain rocks, trees, boulders and foliage in the distance, which should increase your fps. 

Thank you. You should only get the muddled effect if the brain circle or icon is red. This may be a bug from loading an old save and shouldn't happen with a new game, but it might. I'll look into why this may be happening. Thanks again. 

It's tricky make a recommended Minimum and maximum requirement as it is a  subjective and the game changes with updates. The current requirements are an estimate based on my old and computers and an old version of the game and play testers systems from about 3 years ago. The low is around where the game should at least load and run but still have lowish fps even on low settings. It's the minimum to at least be able to play at an acceptable, albeit low fps, and that's where it becomes subjective. The high is recommended for the game to run at least 60 fps average on high settings, but that became even more unclear with the big overhaul update a month ago. Anything under the highest recommended specs shouldn't be expected to run 60 fps at maximum settings. I'll look into a more relevant min max requirement.

How does Windstone run for you compared to other games such as Ark or any other game that is large and a seamless open world? Ark is a good comparison because it is built similarly and on the same engine. 

Thank you for testing the performance with overlays and the screen shots.

You may have noticed that I removed the 4 variations of settings for most settings and not there is just low and maximum. The maximum is the original maximum and the low is a modified medium/high. I did this because there was not much of a difference between medium and high and low looked absolutely horrendous. 

I don't see much difference in performance between low and maximum either but there is some. The main reason was to preserve visual quality and to adhere to a certain visual standard. 

View Distance setting was left untouched and has the biggest affect on fps for me and may for other users. Could you try running the performance overlay test again and record the difference between view distance settings when looking into the trees? If you do this, make sure it is at an angle where there are many trees far in the background also. 

I also changed the way that the view distance settings are changed in the engine and I need to confirm that it is actuality culling all objects like trees, rocks and mountains in the distance and not just grass. I can do this myself, but it just occurred to me that it might not be working properly after the change. 

The trees definitely have a big impact on performance and I'll continue to optimize in the future. There is also a significant performance connection with certain scripts that run constantly to check various variables that I can make run more efficiently as well as AI and the dynamic day night cycle which both also affect fps. I'll be working on those also.

Thanks again for the feedback. 

EDIT: I confirmed that the view distance setting is working as intended. Setting this lower should significantly affect your fps if it is struggling at max settings

I misunderstood,  but I see now. I'm glad that bug is fixed. Thanks.

You'll have to load a new game to fix the video settings and fps cap. 

Your gpu usage will drastically change in real time depending on where you are looking; at a clear sea or into a dense forest. 

E isn't currently used to close menus as it's the main interact button. Only the other hotkeys that open menus can be used to close them respectively. ESC and TAB  close everything though. I'll look into making E close menus that it opens also. 

The stuck-in-ground issue was fixed 4 or 5 updates ago as was the raptor/peacock ai. I suspect that you still experienced it because you were using an old save. 

It should get very dark at dusk and dawn, right before the moon and sun rise respectively. If that happens at other times, something is wrong. 

I've heard that "rain on a tin roof" sound also. I plan to fix it and will soon. Thanks again for the feedback. 

Make sure to start a new game any time a new version is updated. You can sometimes continue from an old save with no issue, but starting a new game will rule out any issues, which I think may be the the cause of some of the issues from your previous post. 

The last update 9 was just a quick fix for the camp fire and some other small issues. The fire was not casting light.

Addressing your performance issues.  FPS is of most concern. You should be getting higher fps with the optimization update. Real-time sun lighting and shadows for the day night cycle, and a relatively high polycount and model count in a large seamless world are going to be rough on an older laptop. 

What fps are you getting on average in different situations? It should be highest standing at the shore looking out to sea or the sky and lowest looking towards the forest, especially with a lit campfire. 

I will look into the other issues. 

Thanks again for your feedback. 

Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, the Formican invasion of the colony planet is the main theme driving the story, but that's basically all in my head right now. There will be various Formican bosses to defeat until you finally find the Formican Queen, but the main focus will always be on exploration and survival.   It will be open ended with major enemies that you can defeat whenever you feel like you are ready, but with focus on exploration and survival. Combining the feel of the games the Long Dark and Ark is my vision.  I never considered a peaceful alternative ending, but I will now. Maybe the player could drive the Formicans off the planet instead of eradicate them. 

On a side note, I finally figured out how to make all menus toggle with the hotkey to open them, except storage which opens with E and closes with Tab, i or Esc and fires and beds, which open with E, but close with ESC. Closing them with E doesn't feel right because it is the main interact/open button, but I could try it out. The main thing is that every menu now closes with ESC, even the pause menu. 

The overhead map can also be moved now. With WSAD. These changes will be in the next update. 

Customizable hotkeys assignment is a whole different thing and I discovered that I need to upgrade to a more recent version of UE4 to implement them properly, so that may be delayed quite a while. 

My next focus is on optimization of trees and mountain meshes.

Also considering implementing a permadeth option and increasing difficulty all around (less pre crafted supplies laid out and higher damage from enemies). 

Thanks again for all your feedback and I'm really glad you have enjoyed playing. 

Thank you.   VIdeo for the main screen is a great idea as are the others. I'll look into them all. 

I just uploaded a major patch with about 30 changes. You can sit in the chair now! :)

I haven't spent an excessive time looking for the inventory bug. I just keep an eye out for it when I play test other things and I naturally use the inventory while playing, so I'm hoping to run into it and notice a reason for why it may be happening. Nevertheless, it's a pretty major bug that needs fixing, but I get your point. 

There are 4 chunks in the playable area, called streaming levels in UE4.  I thought that might have something to do with it, but I don't think so as I've tested saving and loading in all of them. 

Concerning your mention of the video settings; They should save and load properly now. Are you referring to the overall performance and that the game needs overall optimization of the highest video settings?

As for the key binds, I plan to add customizable key binds soon, but I thought it was a low priority at this stage. You have me second guessing my assumption that there wouldn't be many players that wouldn't play just because of that. I just didn't think it was really an issue but you may be right. I should prioritize that as it's an expected feature. 

Other than optimization and key binds (and the dreaded inventory bug of doom) what else would you consider a high priority? I don't expect a super detailed response or any response at all, but since you seem genuinely interested in playing and helping to improve the game, I have no other person to ask other than myself and the dark void of the internet that rarely responds. 

Edit: Also I don't use anything else like github for feedback. There is a "known issues" thread, but I haven't added anything to it for quite a while and most stuff on there is fixed or outdated. Following replies and keeping my own list works for now but I will update and add the inventory bug to the issues thread if it persists.

You have been a great help and I appreciate your play testing and feedback very much. Can't really say that enough. Thank you. 

Have you came across the inventory bug since last time you posted screen shots of it? I still cannot reproduce it and no one else has mentioned it, but from your last post about it, it seems that it may still be possible.

I'm thinking it must rely on a specific combination of items taken out and put in and save loads that is rare.

Thanks, I've confirmed the missing fade to black when sleeping only happens when post processing is set to the lowest setting. I've fixed it so that won't happen in the next update. 

Also, much of the overall performance issues is that I still need to add LOD to the trees and consolidate mountain meshes, which should greatly help your laptop to not be a BBQ grill. 

I've found that the view distance has the greatest affect on performance for me because it greatly reduces the amount of trees and mountains that render.

When sleeping, does the screen still fade to black for you if you set all the video settings to max? I think the issue is with the camera fade and it may be linked to a certain combination of video settings, possibly just post processing. I may have to make a UI blackscreen overlay fade instead of using the camera fade. That may be better anyway because it would also fade the UI elements instead of having the vitals and quests pop in and show up before the camera fade in like at the start of a new game or load.