Problems, Steam release and more news - Last Knight

A new big bug

You might be familiar with cloud saving issues, where your new save game can get overwritten with a old one. I managed to put such issue in the game without having any cloud saving in the game! Please do not install the 1.16 version when you played another version before, here is what happens then:

- If you have played the 1.0 and also the 1.1 before and then play the 1.16 your save game will get overwritten with the save game you had in the 1.0!

- If you are playing the Mac version your save game will be fine since the save game location was never changed there.

Sorry about that, it is basically the worst kind of thing that I could have messed up since your save files will be lost/overwritten on the first startup. I have now pulled the 1.16 where I could but I also have the update still on my website as a now called beta update with a fat warning about the issue.

If you lost your savegame I can't do anything to get it back but you could download these save game files. Also included is a save file that fixes the overwrite issue:
Tocogames.com

Zip-ReadMe wrote:
The zip includes these files, you can also just use what you like of it:
- resdefined.bin and resdefined2.bin: prevents the overwrite bug (only matters when you had not started the 1.16 before.)
- chivalry.bin: a chivalry amount that with unlock all the unlocks connected to Chivalry (world mutators, view modes, starve or blow up mode)
- levelmastersave.bin: Unlocks all the levels
- goldoverall.bin: 500000 gold, note this will overwrite your gold to 500000 (if you were aiming for the castle rebuild and had more let me know)
- unlocksafetyrisky.bin and safetyrisky.bin: will unlock the safety rope and the scratches insurance

Put the files here C:\Users\\Documents\My Games\Last Knight\Save

If you had no problems you could of course also use this to cheat you the stuff.

If this all sounds kinda crazy to you then that is because it is kinda crazy. Here is the rundown that explains it:

BUG wrote:
In the 1.15/1.16 I introduced the hats and for who played a version before I had the "genius" idea to give you/them a special hat: the golden horns hat as a early supporter gift kinda. But to check if the player has played a version before the 1.16 I had to check if a particular save game file already exists. For that I had chosen the "resdefined" variable which holds the defined resolution that everyone has to set on the first startup. But to not give everyone who played the game only since the 1.16 the hat I had to use, from that version on, a new variable, so I renamed the new to resdefined2. Which was all good and fine.
Problem was that I forget that I had also used resdefined for checking if a old save game exits in the old location, before. The old save game location was only in the 1.0, it was there in the install folder. In the 1.1 it changed to the documents folder which resolved issues with high admin security setting under windows. (Windows only likes games to save in the documents folder) On first startup it looks if there is a resdefined variable saved in the new save game location. If there is none defined, it tries to load whatever there is in the old location. And there is the problem, because I renamed that variable to resdefined2 in the 1.16 it thinks the resolution has never been defined and with it thinks that there is no save game in the new location so that it load the old save game of the 1.0 and then overwrites the new.

It might be just too much of a berserker class programmer and I just charge through every logic which keeps shit pooping up. (The berserker programmer is the worst kind of programmer, despised by every other programmer class) Which brings me to the next point:

Future Patches/Updates

Since I keep messing up important things of the game in my updates I decided to get patches/updates out much less frequently. I will however release beta updates, those will then just be released on the website, so everyone who feels brave enough can also check those out and maybe help with testing. So then it should be like only 1.10, 1.20 etc will be released on the platforms. I will then do extended testing for those versions before I release them. This of course all takes time which brings me to the next point:

Steam Release

I decided now to release it later on Steam, my aim before was a December release there. But since problems keep popping up I decided to take my time with it. It might have been also a bad idea from the beginning to release on Steam around Christmas since there are so many other games released and it can easily go under. Also, I would had to release in a quite small timeframe between the Autumn Steam sale and the Xmas Steam sale which is also not the best idea.

I'm now aiming for a early next year release. This then also gives me more time to polish it and making sure that nothing nasty happens. I'm also thinking about making it a extended version with the new game mode I had hinted about earlier. Calling it then something along the lines of Last Knight: Ride Or Die Edition on Steam. But that still means everyone will get the same, no matter where you download it from! And you will of course all get your Steam key when it is released on Steam.

The main reason for that new "Edition" name is to get another shot for a launch (now on Steam) with hopefully getting the Press interested and not failing at it like the initial launch. (also with a new proper Trailer that is not messy like the old Long Launch Trailer) The launch basically was a fail, no way to talk that good but is of course very hard for every unknown Indie that releases his game on PC without Steam. Most that play it really like it (atleast from what I hear) but it never got anywhere concerning attention. The Groupees Bundle on the other side is great thing that really helps to make some money from it so I'm not getting broke. It is also great to see many Youtubers play the game and liking it! I made a list here: Youtube.com

More

I have then also enough time to get the much requested trading cards and achievements in and making sure all that other Steam related stuff is working fine. For that edition/update I would then also seperate the game modes better, scratching the splash screen with the play (endless modes) and continue story button and instead letting you go in 3 seperate game modes with their own menus: Story, Endless, ???. This is also better because there was some confusion before with the story mode because you can't use certain things there like different characters or the world mutators as well as some other things. The new game mode will be even more seperate then the difference between the story mode and the endless modes. I don't like to reveal it yet since it is in a early prototyping stage but the base is already very promising. I however like to put early versions of that game mode in updates (beta updates and proper updates) for you to try and you could then also contribute ideas or just help testing.

If you like a release time for the Steam release, sorry, can't give you that yet, I suck at plans and I don't want to end up rushing things because if I learned one thing then that that makes things worse.

Before I forget, I have put some randomly generated hats on the heads of the Buckets and Skeleton enemies which turned out be rather interesting: