Dev Logs

Hello everybody!

It was brought to our attention that emails were not being received. We discovered the problem was with our previous mailer, but it should now be resolved. If you are still experiencing issues, though, please reach out to AnimatedCritter or email CritterCodes@gmail.com.

Thank you guys, and we'll be back soon with an August mini-event. c;

Hello, hello!

It's been a hot second since the last update, but we're back with a few changes, the first of which we hope excites you!

NEW! Featured Safiran of the month

We're trying out something new starting July: a featured Safiran! The selected character will grant bonus rewards when drawn during the month they're selected, but you can learn more and volunteer your Safiran here.

Thank you critter_core for the suggestion. <3

prompt & event development

July Rollover // Starting.

Summer Rollover // Done!

August Event // Brainstorming.

Website

Current Project:

The upgrade to Lorkeeper V3 was integrated with our testing site in May, but we are only halfway through bug testing. I'm hoping to get a chunk (if not all) of testing done during the inevitable art block that arises during July.

Upcoming Projects:

Our to-do list following the V3 update remains largely the same:

1. 1. Update Direct Messages for a better user experience.
   2. Ensure all Encyclopedia pages "Availability" sections display item sources properly.
   3. Update our submission grading and clarify its wording.
   4. Install custom emoticons, allowing Safira Island Discord emotes to be used in comments, forums, and direct messages.

Images:

An updated icon has been created for the default Characters image in May.

prompt & event development

May Rollover // Starting.

August Event // Brainstorming.

Website

Current Project:

Our upgrade to Lorkeeper V3 has been intigrated with our testing site, which means we can officially begin bug testing! We hope that this update will be ready and published to the live site in late April or the first few days of May.

Upcoming Projects:

Following v3 bug testing, we will begin working on the following tasks in the listed order:

1. 1. Update Direct Messages for a better user expirence.
   2. Ensure all Encyclopedia pages "Availability" sections display item sources properly.
   3. Update our submission grading and clarify it's wording.
   4. Install custom emoticons, allowing Safira Island Discord emotes to be used in comments, forums, and direct messages. c:

Daily Explorations

AnimatedCritter here! Dailies still occasionally fail to refresh on random days. I was honestly too tired to devote much time to coding, so I've only attempted "simple" fixes so far. I will begin delving deeper into the issue now and will hopefully publish a fix soon.

We will bump our previous development log with an update when the issue is resolved.

Images

Navigation images were temporarily deleted mid-March during attempts to resolve Daily Explorations. They have since been reuploaded.

Tutorial Pages

Several minor changes to wording and layout have been applied to some tutorial pages. Notable changes are listed below.

Tutorial Index:

• Renamed "Submit a New Design" to "Create a Safiran".
• Created a new "Redesign a Safiran" page.
• The former "Submit a Redesign" page has been renamed to "Create a Design Request".

Creating an Aqualox:

• Updated UI to the current Tutorial Page design.
• Removed mouth placement requirements.
• Update ears to allow forward-facing ears.
• Moved the "Design Checklist" to the top of the page.
• Added some trait images to the "Design Checklist" section.

Creating a Pokey Smoke:

• Added some trait images to the "Design Checklist" section.

Create a Safiran:

• Updated UI to the current Tutorial Page design.

While daily explorations are scheduled to refresh at 6AM CST, there appears to be a bug that occasionally doesn't allow this refresh to run. We are looking into the issue, but if explorations do not refresh on schedule, you can expect a manual refresh to be performed around 9~10AM CST for the duration of the Ether Hunt event.

We will update and bump this post when the problem has been resolved.

Additionally, to compensate for any issues, we are extending Sweetheart Summit explorations to be accessible until March 19th.

Happy exploring!

prompt & event development

Ether Hunt // Working on a few more items, but otherwise ready for launch February 12th. c:

March Rollover // Not started.

Rainfall Festival // Planning.

Storylines // Storyline prompts are still on hold.

Website

Current Project:

We are working to upgrade our website to Lorkeeper V3.  While we're about 60% done integrating the changes, we'll need to complete extensive bug testing before publishing the upgrade to the live website. We do not currently have an estimate for when the changes will be published.

Holiday Shoppe

We've updated how we handle the Holiday Shoppe. Our holidays previously used one "Holiday Shoppe" location, but they have since been seperated. Visually and functionally, users should see no change, except:

• • Encyclopedia entry "availabilty" sections state which Holiday Shoppe an item is purchasable from.
  • Each Holiday Shoppe now has it's own URL.
    • For example, https://safiraisland.com/shops/4 links to the Rainfall Festival Shoppe, while https://safiraisland.com/shops/8 links the Ether Hunt Shoppe.

Bug Fixes:

• Purchasing items from a shop granted users double the requested amount.

Lore

New Pages:

• Glacier Port: a trade town between the Northern Island and Central Shores.
• Farport: a small, frigid trade town of the Northern Island.
• Sweetheart Summit: home to the glory, beasts, and mystery.

Lore:

• Revisited Community Characters' profiles and updated their lore.
• Added personality adjectives to all Community Character profiles.
• Added residency locations to all Community Character profiles

Misc.

• Added links to the Pokey Smoke species page.
• Reworded Pokey Smoke and aqualox species pages.
• Created an "Agriculture" item category for all seed- and egg-type items

Hello, hello again!

AnimatedCritter here to let you know we'll be back in time for our annual Crystalfall Celebration! Here's the rundown of the schedule:

December 2nd (Today!)

December Poco Discovery and Activity Corner return.

December 18th

Last year's Crystalfall Celebration prompts return.

A new raffle design will be released.

December 26th

A special activity will be released, although it will close on the last day of the month, so keep an eye out... c; More information will be available in a newspost on the twenty-sixth.

January 2nd

Poco Discovery and Activity Corner refresh for January.

January 7th

Palace will open the Crystalfall Holiday Shoppe, where you can spend your hard-earned Fortune Tokens from prompting.

January 14th

Our 2024 Crystalfall Celebration concludes! The Holiday Shoppe will remain open for another week.

January 22nd

The Holiday Shoppe closes.

Hello,

Due to some real-life events, I am taking a short break from developing the ARPG.

All activities will remain (shops, prompts, MYO submissions, etc.), and we will still be addressing questions and reports, but nothing new will be published during the break. This includes prompts that require a manual rollover and our Halloween Event, All-Fright's End, which has been canceled for 2024.

I’m unsure of the specific date, but we will return in December or January at the latest.

Thank you.

Surprise! Someone *cough* yours truly *cough* was a little overzealous for today's Smokesignals chapter, so there's been a delay.

What would have been today's chapter and it's newpost will be released tomorrow at noon.

As a thank you for your patience, there's a free Pocket Watch item that can be claimed over in the General Store, and those of you who like to peruse the site may have noticed some new information was published on the Playable Species page. c;

Again, thank you for all of your patience and support! See you in tomorrow's newspost.

prompt & event development

Rainfall Festival // Progress is beginning.

Storylines // New storyline prompts are still on hold.

Website development

User-Owned Pets

We have improved how users can manage and customize their pet-type items. This includes stacking the same-type pets so user inventories are less cluttered and updating the layout to allow for mass-customization of your pets. No longer will you need to go to each individual pet to name them or attatch them to a Safiran!

Shelter Surrenders

When submitting a Safiran to the Shelter, users are only able to see the Safiran's name and masterlist number. To mitigate the risk of surrending the incorrect Safiran, the image of the selected Safiran will now display next to the selected Safiran.

Bug Fixes

• Selecting "Clear" on the Currency Grant notification category now clears only Currency Grants, as opposed to formerly deleting all notifications.

Minor Changes

• The Completed Raffle List will be ordered by most recent instead of oldest.
• Spacing has been added above the bottom page selector on the User Index.
• Increased spacing between trade status icon and removed hyperlink from species name on the Masterlist browsing page.
• (Admin-Side) Mitigated the chance of early publishing of sales posts.

The site is scheduled for maintenance around midnight tonight, CST. There may be periods of downtime during the following ~30 minute window, but maintenance should be concluded after 12:30 CST.