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Staxel Reporter – Issue #26

Hi everybody, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we’re going to show off the new villager, ‘Farm Fan’, and take a look at the new pet system!

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Farm Fan (The First Villager)

We’re very excited to introduce you all to ‘Farm Fan’ (we asked her for her name but this is all she’d give us). She’s the first villager you’ll meet when beginning Staxel for the first time!

She is an absolute farm fanatic, completely hooked on all aspects of farming! We’re talking posters of farms on all her walls. She has an abundance of knowledge when it comes to farms, and she’s excited to help you get started with your role as the village’s new farmer! She can be a bit pushy, sure, but she just loves farming so much.

When you start out fresh on the farm, she’ll visit and ask if you need any guidance on getting started. She’s really quite clever and will walk you around the farm showing you the important parts. She can teach you how to use tools, how to plant crops and tend to them properly, how to ship your goods and much more! She does her best to explain things thoroughly so you don’t feel like you’ve been thrown in the deep end.

If you’re pretty satisfied with your farming knowledge you can tell her that you don’t need any lessons and she’ll head back to the village where she’ll continue about her day. She’s just another villager after all. A villager with an intense obsession with farms.  If you ever change your mind though just strike up a conversation with her, she’s always happy to give advice!

We feel ‘Farm Fan’ will be a great help when introducing new players to Staxel, and we can tell she’s excited to help! She marks an important milestone as she’s Staxel’s first villager. The first of many!

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Pets!

I’ve been excited to talk about this feature for a while now, and I can finally give you all the scoop. The first pets have recently been added! It was inevitable really, who can imagine a lively farm without its resident dogs and cats scampering about?

Every pet needs a pet house and a food bowl, these are important when it comes to pet care as a neglected pet will become sad and disobedient. If you love and care for them properly, a happy pet will sometimes bring you a gift to show it’s appreciation. You might have noticed the little area next to the pet house in the picture, that’s where your pet will deliver any presents it finds for you, so make sure to keep them happy and well looked after!

A happy pet is a loyal pet, your companion will follow you around while you perform your day-to-day tasks, so no slacking! You need to set a good example now that you’ve got a cute little best friend on your heel. If you’d rather let your pet play while you work though, you can tell your pet to relax and it will stop following you and just hang around.

As of now, at the start of the game you will have an option between either a cat or a dog, but we’ve got some other plans for pets in Staxel too, not only will there be a selection of colours for your dogs and cats, but we’re thinking of adding other domestic animals at some point in the future. I can’t go into it just yet as nothing’s been decided, but be on the lookout for new types of pets somewhere down the line.

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

Thanks for reading!

–EGadd

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #25

Hi everybody, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we’re going to talk about our new development focus & take a peek at merchants which are currently in development.

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New Year, New Milestone

Back after the holidays, the team’s at full capacity again working on Staxel. At the end of November we had just finished a major milestone, ‘Sprout Edition’, which had a heavy focus on the farming aspect of Staxel.

Before we began working on our next milestone, we took the month of December to work on our own features within Staxel as a way to wind down a bit throughout the holidays. We actually got some very cool stuff out of it. Here’s a few pictures of some of the features we added over December.

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #24

Hey everyone, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we’re going to talk about ‘Staxel – Sprout Edition’ & our December plans.

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Staxel – Sprout Edition

We have just put out a new build which marks the end of development for a major milestone for Staxel! With a lot of work and a lot of care, Staxel – Seedling Edition has just sprouted. It is now ‘Staxel – Sprout Edition’!

• Farm animals
• Playable non-creative mode
• Selling and shipping station
• Order catalogue
• Currency
• Weather
• Wide range of crops, berry bushes & fruit trees
• Starting farm
• Gatherables
• Docking stations and storage
• Major UI overhaul
• Clothing System
• Majorly improved cooking/baking system (Still needs plenty more recipes)
• Majorly improved character creation & customisation
• Much more stable/optimised
• Major tool improvements
• More content
• ‘Return Home’ button
• Sound effects overhaul
• Achievements
• Entity persistence (for entities and players so you don’t lose progress)
• Translations
• Fishing
• Beekeeping

 

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December Plans

We’ve almost reached the end of another year and our plan for December is a little different than usual. The last few months leading up to sprout have been quite intense with everyone pushing hard to get content ready in time for the big update. So we’ve decided that for December, we’re going to change things up and have a bit of fun.

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #23

Hey everyone, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we’re going to talk about the newer character creation menu and the work we’ve been doing on SFX.

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New Character Creation Screen

The character creation screen has had a major overhaul. We covered this briefly in issue #16 while it was still a work in progress but now that the main components are in place (there are still a few little tweaks left to complete) I thought we’d look at the new system in a bit more depth.

The biggest difference you’ll notice is that designing your character now consists of 4 stages (indicated by the 4 tabs at the top of the interface.)

The first of these tabs is where you’ll decide on your character’s most basic defining traits. This is where you’ll choose your character’s gender, their species, skin tone and personality type (the last of which doesn’t have any impact on the game at this current stage).

For the time being your name is set to the name you chose when you signed up. This may change in the future.

The second tab is all about hairstyles and headwear. In other words, this is where you get to accessorise your head! There are plenty of hairstyles to choose from, long luscious locks, short cropped and smart, edgy mysterious fringes, we’ve got them all. Alternatively, if your hair isn’t your strongest feature, there is a more than ample supply of hats to suit any occasion.

In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re also able to change the colour of your hair, as well as many of the available hats by using the colour palette at the bottom.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes. This couldn’t be more true in Staxel as eyes are the most prominent facial feature you’ve got going. This is the third tab and it’s where you’ll design your character’s face. Again, notice the colour palette at the bottom, you have a wide selection of eye colours to choose from. Get an outlandish look with purple or orange eyes, or stick with something more traditional like blue or brown.

There are plenty of eye styles on offer as well, so you’ll always be able to get your point across, even without saying anything.

And so we reach the fourth and final tab of our customisation journey; the clothing section. In Staxel, clothes are going to be collectible items, so you won’t start out with every piece. Think of this tab more as your wardrobe, once you’ve collected a new item of clothing it will show up in this panel. As I’ve mentioned in previous Reporters, we’ve got loads of ideas for stylish outfits and clothing designs so get prepared to dazzle onlookers whatever the occasion!

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New Sound Effects

Over the past week or so we’ve started working on the in-game sound effects. You may have noticed some weird noises playing back while interacting with things and browsing through menu and inventory screens.

This is because we decided to start off by setting up the sound effects directory but didn’t have anything to put in there, so I decided to take the initiative and create a selection of purpose built sounds to act as placeholder. Sure they’re just a bunch of recordings I made of myself blowing raspberries and tapping things on my desk, but who can really tell, right?

Thankfully we’re starting to get somewhere with it now and it won’t be long before things start sounding like you’d expect them to.

Currently, we’re working on a lot of tool sounds, which are mainly simple whooshing sounds as well as more unique sounding tools like the smoker gun and milker. We’re also getting started on sounds for UI navigation, this can get quite tricky as finding a pleasant balance of subtle but informative can be harder than it seems!

Sounds effects have the potential to really bring a game to life, and this is what we’re trying to achieve with the sounds you’ll hear in Staxel. We want to add sound elements and variety to nearly everything you’ll be interacting with while playing the game.

So now that you know, keep an ear open the next time you play and see if you can hear anything new. We’ve still got a way to go but you should start noticing things making their own noises pretty soon!

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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

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #22

Hi everybody, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we’re going to talk about the new starter farm and have a look at the new in-game clothing objects.

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New Starter Farm

Up until this point, whenever you join a fresh Staxel world you’ve been thrown into a very flowery wilderness. Not anymore though, as we’ve just added the ‘starter farm’! I’m going to talk a bit about what that is exactly. Quick note first, the new farm isn’t in the release build just yet. It will be soon though!

You now begin the game on a starter farm. It has a good amount of land, but it’s very overgrown. It’ll take some work to clear the land to make space for your crops, barns, pens and so on.

You also begin with a small home. It’s pretty run down, so it’s up to you to show it some love and fix it up! It looks like the garden needs a bit of work too. Best grab your tools!

You’ll certainly need to do some cleaning up and repairs. The house comes with very basic furnishings but not much else. It would be a good idea to get stuck in with farming as soon as you can so you have the funds to furnish your new home further, and perhaps expand it!

With this home you’ll be starting with the bare essentials. It comes with a bedroom that overlooks the ground floor, a small kitchen, a catalogue station and some storage units.

It’s worth mentioning the design of the starter farm might be changed every so often as we add more features and get closer to our vision for Staxel. A bathroom might be a good idea actually…

Well, that’s about it for the starter farm. I hope you like what you see, and there’s still plenty more to come!

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New Clothing System

Currently, clothing is just changed on the character creator screen… that’s it. We’re currently working on a new system so that clothing pieces are now actual items in-game!

So now clothing pieces are real objects you can place in the Staxel world. We want the player to be able to build a wardrobe unique to them, or perhaps try and collect every clothing piece! That’d prove to be quite a challenge though, as we plan to have a huge variety of clothes.

There will be numerous ways for you to get new clothing. You could buy them from the local clothes shop, get some new clothes as a reward for completing a favour for a villager, recieve them as a gift, or trade with your friends!

The clothing system is still a work in progress but it’s a feature we’re very excited about. There’s a lot of room for creativity and we’ve got plenty of ideas for stylish new clothing sets which you’ll start to see trickling into the game soon. We’re even thinking of adding a mannequin object sometime in the future for you to display your favourite outfits on.

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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

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #21

Hey everyone, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we update you on how Minecon went, and give you a tour of our Staxel village.

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Back from Minecon!

As some of you may know, we were invited to show Staxel off at Minecon! This year’s Minecon was held in California, which was a big trip for the team members who went. I thought this would be a perfect chance to give you all an idea of how our experience was.

The three of us who went to Minecon were me (EGadd), Bart and Razz. Bart set up the booth, which turned out great! Also, we got assigned a green-coloured booth. We don’t know if it was randomly given to us or if they chose it to go with our game, but it was definitely the perfect colour for Staxel.

We had plenty of gamers (and even some non gamers) from all ages trying out Staxel. They gave us awesome feedback, and plenty of compliments too! Bart jotted down pages worth of notes for us to address post-Minecon, which we’re already working through and making nice progress.

Character creation still needs work, but it was definitely a hit with the kids!

All in all it was a fantastic experience. Having the chance to actually watch people play Staxel is a very enlightening part of the development process. It gave us all lot of feedback on what we’re doing right, and what needs improving so we’ve arrived back with a clearer idea of what needs focusing on and how to develop certain features further.

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Tour of Our Minecon Village

The team built a mockup of a very small village for the gamers at Minecon to play through. Right now in Staxel you’re not spawning in an existing village, you’re just thrown into the wilderness. The plan is you’ll be starting with a run-down farm in a small village, and it’ll be your job to revitalise the farm and turn a profit.

I took a few pics of the mock up village showing an example of a more successful farm in a very small village, let’s have a look.

This house is a moderate size. The kind the player will be starting with will be much smaller and more of a fixer-upper. For example, your garden will be filled with weeds, maybe some windows will need replacing, cobwebs need removing and more odd jobs for you to take care of along those lines.

Here’s a large barn we built for the larger animals, and a little enclosure for the chickens! We’re not sure right now if the player will be starting with a barn or if they will have to build one themselves.

A partial look at the front field. We planted assorted veggies to show the players at Minecon some of the variety they can expect from crops.

The main straight that goes between some stores and houses. It climbs up the cliff to lead to a large inn and another house. There’s also an abandoned mine before the turning which you can see in the pic.

Here’s the inn and house that have been built on the upper layer of the village. The inn has a great view of the town and farm!

We were wrapping up taking the pictures when it started raining, so we decided to get an early morning fishing shot!

That about sums up the village we built! It’s a very small village compared to what will be generating in the future, but it does give you a rough idea of the game we’re envisioning. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

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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

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #20

Hey everyone, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we announce we’re going to Minecon again this year and talk about the improved cooking system.

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We’re Going to Minecon – Again!

It’s that time of year again where lovers of voxels everywhere come together to see what’s new, ask questions and get answers, meet up with friends from around the world and generally have a fun time. That’s right, it’s Minecon 2016!

Last year we went to London for Minecon 2015. It was an opportunity for us to set up a booth in the Indie zone and finally let people have their first look at the game and get some valuable feedback in real time.

It was great to see Staxel so well received and we took a lot back from the experience which really helped us focus on the direction we wanted to take Staxel in.

It’s now a year later and we’re readying up to do it all over again in California! All we had to show last year was a creative mode and our community built server, but this time around we’ve got a lot more features to show off, a brand new server build set on a farm, and an in-depth display of some of the more important gameplay components in Staxel. Farm animals, crops, buying and selling, crafting, baking and cooking among other things will all be available for people to try out.

Minecon 2016 is taking place on September 24-25 at the Anaheim Convention Center, California. We’re very excited for it and really looking forward to meeting some of our community, if you see us there come and say hi!

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New and Improved Cooking

We recently overhauled the cooking and baking system in the game, the new system is a lot more streamlined and intuitive. Originally, the cooking process required the use of several different objects and stations. For example, a kitchen counter would need a chopping board placed on top, and you would then need to equip the knife from your inventory just to chop a tomato. It was a bit finicky and could get confusing quickly, especially for players who were new to the game.

The new systems brings every aspect of each cooking method together into it’s own respective station. So instead of having to prepare an area with a stove and pots specifically for “boiling”, you’ll just have to place down a “boiling station”. This will make it a lot more straightforward when it comes to preparing different dishes from recipes that call for different cooking methods.

There are currently five different cooking methods in Staxel, and as such five different stations. This might be expanded upon in the future but for now here is what you can look forward to seeing when it’s available in game:

• Chopping station
• Boiling station
• Mixing station
• Frying station
• Baking station

As you’ll expect, cooking becomes a lot easier when you’ve got a recipe to hand. There are a few ways to get recipes in Staxel. Firstly, you can experiment! This is one of the reasons we decided to reinvent the cooking system. Experimenting is now a lot more user friendly, and when you don’t have to worry about setting up different cooking apparatus and looking for utensils, it makes it so much easier to use your imagination.

Secondly, recipes can be found throughout the world. You could find one in a chest while exploring or be rewarded with a recipe for completing certain tasks. The only question now is where do you keep them once you’ve found them?

Once you have a recipe in your hands you just have to interact with it and then it’ll be added to your “Recipe Book”. This is an in-game collection screen that you can find under the “Cooking Pot” tab at the top of the inventory menu.

There are going to be a lot of recipes in Staxel but don’t worry about running out of space, the recipe book has more than enough room for all of them.

That’s about it for the new cooking and baking system, I hope it gives you a good idea of what you can expect in the coming updates, but until then why not start thinking up plans and designs for your very own restaurant or bakery where you can show off your cooking skills to your friends!

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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

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #19

Hey everyone, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we talk about turning a profit on your farm & the new Ranch Furniture Set!

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Farm Profit

Let’s talk a bit about selling your produce in Staxel, after all, the only thing better than sharing the tasty goods you produce on the farm with your friends, is making some money on the side. Before we get into it just be aware that we’ll only be talking about money you can make from farming in this section, not any other activities that you would be able to profit from.

Crops

This is the obvious place to start. Growing crops undoubtedly takes the longest amount of time before you see a return on your investment, but it will certainly be worth the wait. Crops will more than likely be the main focus on your farm, considering the amount of work you’ll be putting into them! But this isn’t a bad thing. After ploughing, planting, raising and harvesting there’s nothing as satisfying as than seeing all that love and care reflected in their monetary value.

Out of all the possible money-making avenues on the farm, growing crops requires the most planning. You’ll have to make sure you plant your seed in the right season (and make sure you’re not planting them too late!). You’ll have to decide if you’re going to fertilise your crops or not, while this increases the value of the end product keep in mind that fertiliser costs money, and so does keeping animals if you’re thinking of making your own.
Lastly, don’t go getting ideas about creating a turnip kingdom and retiring within a year. Remember, the rules of “supply and demand” exist here, if you grow too much of a certain vegetable, people aren’t going to want to pay so much for it after a while, offer a little variety and your customers will be happy to pay up!

Fruit Trees

This will be one of the easiest ways to make a profit on the farm. Once fruit trees are established, they really don’t need much looking after. That’s not to say you should leave them to their new-found independence, after all they’re still living under your roof! Collecting and selling fruit is really just as simple as it sounds, once you’ve picked all the fruit you’ll be happy to know that they will eventually grow back, so don’t just leave them on the tree because it looks good!

Fruit isn’t just restricted to apples and oranges, you can plant any type of fruit you find while out exploring and grow your own varieties right here on the farm. This applies to bushes too, remember to pick a few berries while you’re out and about, if nothing else you’ll have easy access to recipe ingredients instead of hunting around for that blackberry bush you think you saw once.

Animals

Keeping livestock on the farm will bring you more than just company, if you care for them properly you’ll find out that there’s quite a bit of money to be made when it’s done right.

Each animal supplies you with it’s own type of produce. The three main types from the animals we’re currently working on are:

• Cows – provide milk
• Chickens – provide eggs
• Sheep – provide wool

These all fetch quite a nice sum of money when you come to sell them, but as you’ll expect you could also use these items to process into something else, possibly selling for more! So experiment a little, sometimes the quickest buck isn’t always the best buck…. buck, buck.

In the end, with animals it all boils down to how well you look after them. If you don’t give them proper attention or keep forgetting to feed them you could end up worse off than when you started.

 

Processed goods

The clue is in the name, and although we haven’t completely decided on which items will be considered “processed goods”, they will generally be food items that have been prepared and packaged for storage on the store shelf, or useful items crafted from other produce on the farm.

Mixed some summer berries up for a delicious, fresh jar of jam? That’s a processed food. Spun a ball of yarn from your sheep’s wool? That’s a processed item too. Of course, hand-crafted treats like these don’t come cheap. You need to be compensated for your time and expertise after all, so in most cases you can expect to get a better price for processed goods than you would by selling the ingredients individually, just make sure the time you put into preparing them doesn’t interfere with tending to your crops and animals, or else you could end up losing money in the long run.

And there we have it. You should have a better idea about making some money on the farm, and although it might sound like a lot of hard work, just take it one step at a time and you’ll be fine. If you have any questions or suggestions then be sure to drop by the forums or the Discord! There’s always someone around who’ll be able to help you out.

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Ranch Furniture Set

We’d like to introduce the Ranch Furniture Set! Perfect to pick up for any home, cottage or farmhouse, if it doesn’t have it already!

• Ranch Armchair
• Ranch COffee Table
• Ranch Double Bed
• Ranch Dresser
• Ranch Lamp
• Ranch Loveseat
• Ranch Side Table
• Ranch Single Bed
• Ranch Table
• Ranch Wardrobe

Ahh, you can still smell the sawdust. Can’t you picture it? Coming in after a hard day’s work in the pouring rain, having a hot meal at the solid oak table. Finish the day with a bit reading on the couch and off to bed which, by the way, has a hand made quilt. We found it in the cupboard, nice isn’t it?

To sum up, if you want your home to feel extra cosey and homely, the Ranch Furniture Set might be for you!

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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

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Staxel Reporter – Issue #18

Hi everybody, in this issue of the Staxel Reporter we talk about placing orders from the Honey.Comb catalogue and chickens!

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Placing Orders

There’s always something you need to get round to buying, be it a new hat, some extra fence pieces or a brand new furniture set to spruce up your home. For all you shoppers out there, Honey.Comb has you covered!

Every villager has a Honey.Comb catalogue laying around somewhere in their home. You use this catalogue to place orders for things you need (or don’t need).

To make use of this ever so handy shopping catalogue you need to place it in your home somewhere and then interact with it. This will bring up the shopping interface with which you can buy ’til you cry!

When reading the Honey.Comb catalogue you can search for goods, view your order queue, see how much money you have to waste on things you really don’t need but have to get before your friends show up for the crop watering “party”.

Ooh I like that groovy armchair, let’s order one! Tap the ‘Order Now’ button, while making sure we have the quantity we want, and badabing badaboom it should arrive the next day. (That’s right, free next day delivery!)

After a good night’s rest, go to your ‘delivery station’ and a crate should be waiting for you! One crate can be delivered per day with a limited amount of space, so make sure to prioritize the right things when placing orders.

That about sums up ordering and receiving goods. I should note that you will eventually be able to go to a store and purchase items as well as order from a catalogue, but for now this is how you do your shopping in Staxel.

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Chickens

You’ll have noticed recently that we’ve been doing a lot of work on the farm animals in Staxel, this week was no exception and we’ve finally got our first look at chickens in the game.

Let me tell you a little about how they’ll work. Bear in mind that all of this is subject to change throughout development. Saying that though, we’re very happy with our current plans!

D’aww, aren’t they cute? As you’d imagine, chickens will supply you with eggs. It’s up to you whether you sell the eggs, use them in delicious recipes or hatch little chicks from them to increase your farm’s overall productivity and cuteness.

Care

They may be small, but they’ve got big hearts! Chickens require the same amount of love and care as the rest of the animals on your farm. You’ll need to make sure they’re fed every day, chickens can be fed with seed or with chicken feed which you can purchase from a vendor.

Staxel’s chickens are a hardy bunch, they have a naturally strong constitution! Basically, chickens don’t get sick. But don’t try and take advantage of this by neglecting their needs. Chickens are sensitive, and when they see that you haven’t been caring for them like you usually do they’ll become sad. A sad chicken won’t lay any eggs until it feels better so make sure to keep them happy and cared for.

Eggs

Selling eggs is the most straightforward way to utilise this commodity, a happy chicken will lay an egg a day. Having two happy chickens will get you 2 eggs a day! You get the idea, more chickens equal more eggs, which in turn means more money.

Eggs can be used as ingredients too, especially in baking. Cooking with eggs isn’t just for fun either, you can sell your baked goods to a vendor for profit, or just give it to someone as a thoughtful gift.

Finally, you might decide to hatch your eggs instead of needlessly spending money on purchasing more chickens. This takes a while longer than buying a chicken and having it delivered the next day, but who can resist the thought of cute little chicks running around the farm?

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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

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