System

• An "Exit Island" Feature has been added to the pause menu. Use this function to teleport back to the entrance on the overworld you used to enter the island. Does not work at the start of the game before exiting the Ancient Island. If used after entering an island with the phoenix, the player is returned to that landing room.
  
• Gamepad glyphs added for Steam controller support.
  
• Bulgarian and Romanian language support added.
  
• All islands except for Serpent Stacks now have maps.
  
• The in game timer is now precise and tracks / displays seconds on the end game screen.
  
• The game now properly saves and restores window position from the previous session.

Gameplay

• Frozen Spire Albatrosses have been reworked.
  
  • A question mark appears above birds of paths that have not been traversed yet.
    
  • The map shows indicators of traversed and not yet traversed paths.
    
  • Taking an albatross flight for the first time takes the player to the end of the flight path as it did previously, but now both albatrosses are unlocked.
    
  • When the player uses an albatross that has been unlocked, they can now choose to fly to any other unlocked albatross on the map.

Developer note: The previous system was confusing and frustrating for most players. The goal was a sense of discovery and mapping out the paths of the island as a sort of meta puzzle. I think the new system achieves those goals without the frustration. Previously, using each new albatross could feel like a more and more confusing web of paths with no rhyme or reason. The new system however makes unlocking each albatross a reward and makes getting around the island EASIER instead of more confusing.

• Some puzzles and parts of puzzles that were trivialized by the Kite Cloak have been reworked.

Developer note: Although the goal with items is to absolutely make some parts of puzzles easier or solvable in different ways, there were some cases where puzzles were made too easy with the Kite Cloak.

• Puzzle Availability and Reworks: The following puzzles have been made more clear that they are inaccessible, and / or have been generally reworked.
  
  • Stoney Cliffs B4 Gopher Glove requirement made more clear.
    
  • Tidal Reef D2, new gem puzzle.
    
  • Raging Volcano D0 Salamander Shirt required to approach the puzzle.
    
  • Spire B3 reworked.
    
  • Spire D3 reworked to make more interesting and also avoid confusion about accessibility.
    
  • Spire B2 top right star puzzle slightly reworked.
    
  • E4 Tweaked slightly to communicate the cloak requirement for the key.
• Removed some confusing hints at future content.
  
  • Dead end overworld paths removed.
    
  • Mysterious pedestals on Serpent Stacks removed.
    
  • Rooms that are basically inaccessible / contain future content are now blacked out on the map.
    
  • Eastern Shoal: Temporarily removed the pattern puzzle and added a new reward to this island.

Developer note: This puzzle is one of my personal favorites and will most definitely be making a return, however I feel it doesn’t currently fit with the style of gameplay and puzzles for the basic stars required for 100% completion. It will return in a future update with a non-star reward.

Art

• An indicator of which big bells have been rung has been added to the large stone that blocks the Beast Ridge for clarity.
  
• Added effects to the Frozen Spire egg incubators when the correct egg is in the player’s possession.
  
• Doubled the speed of the water elemental copy animation when copying an air elemental.
  
• Rune Stone artwork and item available effect updated.

Developer note: The goal is to make it clear that the Rune Stones in the god rooms are immediately available to the player without any items or upgrades, and that they are an important key item required for progression.

Bugs

• Fixed several bugs and inconsistencies between elementals and various elements such as rivers and shadow twins.
  
• Fixed various soft and hard lock issues.
  
• The 30 star stone in Tidal Reef A2 no longer shows a cost of 1 after the tide is lowered.
  
• Moved one of the possible positions of the idol statues on the Raging Volcano which could be come obfuscated by the streamer mode window.
  
• Some fixes to missing secret indicators.
  
• Minor localization fixes.
  
• Various map fixes.
  
• Various visual, tile, and collision fixes.

Woohoo!! We are honored to announce that Isles of Sea and Sky has been nominated for ⭐Best GameMaker Game 2024!!!⭐

Please vote for us here! ⬇️
https://gamemaker.io/en/blog/gamemaker-awards-2024-voting


Thank you very much! 🙏

v1.1 Ended up becoming much larger than originally expected. This update is large enough that it warrants skipping ahead in my versioning system.

The full patch notes are available on Discord, and will be posted here on Steam when it is ready for release. In the meantime, here’s a preview of some of the major changes:

• An “Exit Island” feature has been added. You can now quickly exit an island onto the overworld from where you entered using the pause menu.
  
• Frozen Spire Albatrosses have had a major rework.
  
• Quality of life improvements such as clarity of puzzle accessibility (Whether or not a puzzle is solvable at the moment).
  
• All islands now have a map excluding the Serpent Stacks.
  
• Romanian language has been added.

For some reason, this has been one of the most exciting moments for me along this game dev journey. It's not necessarily that huge, but I am ecstatic to announce that Isles of Sea and Sky has been officially approved for the Steam Deck!

- Jason

We love pixel art games, and we know you do too! So, let’s celebrate together 🎉 We’re super excited to share that Isles of Sea and Sky joins PixElated Festival today! This festival is featuring some of the best pixel art games on Steam. From retro-style classics to contemporary indie gems all in one place!

Check out the official line-up and more information about the event here: http://pixelatedfest.com/

We're excited to announce that Isles of Sea and Sky is a part of IGF Celebration Days, a digital showcase celebrating upcoming indie games, Independent Games Festival nominees and winners, and the players who love indie games!

The event is hosted on Steam between July 11th to 20th. Check it out here: https://steamoss.com/steamstore/sale/IGF_CelebrationDays

The game will be discounted 10% throughout the event!

In a previous post, I talked about two major features that will come with the upcoming v1.1 content update: The Exit Island feature, and an overhaul of the Albatross system on the Frozen Spire. In this post I'll talk about a major design focus in v1.1: attempting to improve clarity in order to create a smoother and less frustrating experience. There are several changes in the works, but presented here are two specific examples of what's to come.

One of the first improvements is an art update for the four main rune stones. The rune stone found in each god room of the four main islands is required in order to get 6 gems and progress further in the game. This is not always clear to every player, so in order to make the rune stones more noticeable, enticing, and visually distinct from the local gems, they've received a make over. All 6 rune stones now also produce a much more obvious effect which implies availability. Improvements like this are not meant to solve every problem, but combined with many other adjustments big and small, reduce the possibility of players overall becoming frustratingly stuck with no clue what to do next.

Another major focus has been updating individual puzzles to better communicate if the puzzle is accessible. Some puzzles currently allow too much freedom of interactivity with no ability to solve until a later time.

In this example from the Tidal Reef, the player can still experiment after obtaining the gem on the left, but will quickly come to a very obvious impasse created by the blue rune lock in the middle of the puzzle. With a clear roadblock added to the choke point of this puzzle, the player has no way to move past and no other options, and will hopefully feel satisfied that nothing more can be done until later:

Here is an example from the Raging Volcano. Previously, the player could confusingly reach the puzzle and interact with many of its elements, but could not actually solve it without the Salamander Shirt. It wasn't immediately clear if the player needed a new power, or if they were simply missing a hidden "AHA" moment key to the puzzle. The solution for clarity in this case was simple: Runways of lava cracks which are one tile too long were added, which prevents the player from entering. This communicates plainly and immediately that the puzzle is just not physically accessible without a new tool:

Thanks for reading! I'll continue to do my best, and can't wait to share this update with you!

-Jason

If you are interested in checking out the new features and providing feedback and / or bug hunting, please join the Discord where we accumulate feedback: https://discord.com/invite/gvPcDv2
Otherwise, this is what's in the works:

Bugs

• Fixed a crash that could occur if a steam cloud save was corrupt.
  
• Fixed an issue with dragonflies appearing on the wrong screens if the player moved between rooms during the dragonfly’s animation. Dragonflies also now instantly reset if the room they spawn in is reset.
  
• Fixed an issue where the player could sometimes move briefly after an object left a river.
  
• Fixed some issues that occurred when stone elementals went through multiple air elementals in a row.
  
• The file select screen now displays worn items correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where a hidden crystal could remain invisible after being revealed.
  
• Fixed several problems with legendary items display and animation during certain cinematics.
  
• Fixed some collision / tile errors.

System

• Testing new Steam cloud save code which better checks file integrity.
  
• Testing unlocked window proportions in windowed mode.

Art

• Art for water elemental copies of metal blocks (bomb blocks) has been added.

Currently I'm working on a few important features and changes for the game's first major update. I think this update will greatly improve quality of life as well as making the late game a much more fun and smooth experience.

Here's a preview of two things in the works:

Exit Island Feature
You will be able to exit any island from where you entered, using the pause menu. No more hassle of backtracking / navigating through areas of an island that you do not want to revisit.

Albatross Rework
In addition to some other tweaks to the Frozen Spire in an attempt to smooth out its rough edges and bring it more inline with the rest of the game, the albatross network will be reworked as most people rightfully find it extremely frustrating. Currently exploring and navigating the map is tedious and unrewarding. The new version will reward players for exploring, and make travel easier as they discover more of the map.

- Jason