Island Off Outer Darkness news & patch notes

Island Off Outer Darkness has gotten a massive wave of attention the past week thanks to Side Story's podcast about it (and Titanium Court). Massive thanks to Austin Walker, Keith Carberry, Jack de Quidt, and also Blood Machine (for their initial Bluesky post) — over 80% of IOOD's lifetime sales have been in just the past two weeks! It's genuinely insane, and I'm unutterably grateful for their words and the light they've shone my way. Getting to the big announcement (which I've been sorta public about elsewhere): Island Off Outer Darkness is getting a sequel, this summer! I've been working on it with some of the team from IOOD for about a month now, and have had it planned for much longer than that. It's going to be quite different, as it's a rhythm game, not a narrative delivery simulator. But it does follow these characters in a very unique scenario, and I hope you play it when it releases. For free! It's gonna be free. The title... is Island Off Outer Dancing.

Real good title, I know. And this is quite a weird follow-up, especially after people actually started responding to IOOD quite positively, but. It's what feels right for Rekkieg. So check it out when it releases. And thank you, for checking out Island Off Outer Darkness! This was a long, difficult project for me to make, and getting it out the door felt like fighting for my life at times. It's unreal to see this response to it. I'm forever grateful.

Patch Notes:

• Mirror Mode now reverts applicable portraits to their 1.0.0 appearance, as well as mirroring all that have remained unchanged.

  • Gave special Mirror Mode behavior to Klamm, whose portrait partially-inverts in the style of :srs_invert:, and the Compurgator, who will instead use their previously-unused portrait by undead pvnk.

  • Added a note about this to file creation.

• Train Mode now causes the player to make a train horn sound upon moving forward, disableable via the footsteps toggle.

  • Added some text to the footsteps toggle explanation to imply that it also disables the train horn sound.

• Fixed the footsteps toggle not silencing all footsteps.

• Fixed the player being able to open menus from previous days while the current day is loading.

• Edited some dialogue to streamline 1.4..

• Added a recommendation to disable unique character fonts if the player has dyslexia or a similar condition that affects their reading ability.

• Fixed many typos.

• Moved strand point on 6.6. to be more forgiving.

• Fixed an incorrectly-set-up ☇ response with Fort on 6.5..

• Fixed the fishing menu being 0.5 pixels misaligned.

• Fixed the ground on the west side of Rekkieg being 0.07 units higher than intended during weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10.

• Fixed P.F.'s Other Passions topic having an incorrect ☇ response.

• Fixed the upgrade menu incorrectly coloring upgrade particles in an identical fashion to water strand particles.

Major New Additions:

• Added controller support.

  • Must be enabled from the Options menu. Glyphs for the Xbox Wireless Controller, the DualShock 4, the DualSense, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, the Steam Controller, and the GameCube Controller are included as an option (as well as generic glyphs).

• Added 30 rare variants of 20 regular/nocturnal/chill fish, 2 rare variants of 2 poudrins, and 1 unique rare fish.

  • Rare variants are placed after their associated fish in the Compendium and have unique descriptions and character responses. They are worth identical DP to their associated fish.

  • Rare variants can be caught in place of their associated fish at varying rates, provided you have already caught the base fish.

    • Lucky will make most rare variants have 1/24th higher base odds. Utilizing Multivalent bait will double the rare fish odds.

    • The roll for catching a rare variant utilizes a different RNG from regular fishing, and remains pseudo-random whenever you activate fixed-RNG fishing.

• Added a Sound Test accessible in the Extras menu after completing a playthrough.

  • The Sound Test includes:

    • The entire 31-track Island Off Outer Darkness Original Soundtrack in seamlessly-looping form.

    • 23 additional tracks, made up of alternate versions, WIP snippets, and exploratory tracks, all created during the making of Island Off Outer Darkness.

• Added a Gallery accessible in the Extras menu after completing a playthrough.

  • The Gallery includes:

    • Character portraits at full size alongside concept art, exploratory art, and WIP art screenshots, all created during the making of Island Off Outer Darkness.

    • All crops and fish you've obtained in any playthrough along with their compendium text. Unobtained crops and fish will be obscured.

    • All drawings throughout the game.

    • Key art, logo art, and miscellany.

• Added a World Map, available via dialogue with Clavichord or in the Extras menu after completing a playthrough.

• Added an Achievements menu accessible in the Extras menu, with an identical collection as the Steam achievements.

  • Any already-unlocked Steam achievements will automatically be unlocked in the Achievements menu.

  • Unlock criteria for certain hidden achievements will be revealed after completing a playthrough.

• Added unlockable overcoat colors after completing a playthrough, accessible within the Postal Office on subsequent playthroughs.

  • The unlock criterion for each is an achievement.

• Added 2 new achievements, one for catching a rare fish, another for finding the hidden photograph.

• Added new portraits for Marnia and Homi, created by undead pvnk.

• Added a new minor NPC named the Shipmaster, who is the captain of the Hekimoglu and who appears prior to 5.2..

• Added a hidden photograph.

Minor Additions and Changes:

Movement:

• The Postman's default speed is now 12.5% faster (x1.125). Additionally, the player begins with Light as a Feather.

  • Light as a Feather and Lighter than a Feather now have a comparatively lesser effect.

• Added 1/15th of a second of coyote time to jump when falling off of a ledge.

• The Postman's period of no ground speed slowdown after landing from a jump ("grace period") is now 1/9th of a second by default.

  • Quantum Legs maintains its grace period of 1/3rd of a second.

• In addition to its original effect, Quantum Legs now increases the player's aerial turning speed by 150% (x2.50) as well as increasing the coyote time period one-hundred-forty-ninefold to 10 seconds.

• Doubled One With Kolob's effect.

• The Postman's walking animation is now faster.

Writing

• Added a moderate amount of dialogue for every NPC.

  • This is primarily made up of missing ambient dialogue, expanded ambient dialogue, crop topic responses, fish compendium responses, and conversations which were extended where they reasonably would have in an interesting way.

  • Ukulen and Dulcimer were made into more significant personalities, with the largest additions proportional to their previous dialogue.

• Changed a moderate amount of dialogue for every NPC.

  • This was primarily to improve legibility and comprehensibility of certain responses, lead to new responses, fix logical inconsistencies, and/or make more meaningful dialogue.

  • A few characters' feelings about minor things have been changed, as a result.

• Renamed some topics to change their priority in the topic menu.

• Significantly improved tutorials.

• Significantly changed the premise of 2.6..

• You can now talk to all NPCs who are present before their first deliveries.

  • This includes A.G.C., Addharthus, Fort, and Pluripotent Fester.

• You can now talk to every NPC out on 7.1..

• Changed and clarified A.G.C.'s directions.

• Changed Aleks' Suganmanut directions to be slightly more clear.

• Changed references of the "farm" to the "garden".

• Changed references of "advance tick" to "fertilize".

• Changed references of "strats" to "techniques".

• Normalized resident Postman capitalization.

• Replaced all instances of bolded text with italicized text.

Environment/Levels:

• Added environmental glow, which the lighthouse's primary beam and moldspores now utilize.

  • Small moldspores are no longer dynamic lights.

  • There is a toggle in settings for glow.

• Changed and improved the appearance of fog and global illumination on various days, in both high and low quality settings.

  • Particularly noticeable on 1.6., 2.6., 3.6., 4.6., 5.5., 6.6., 8.6., 9.2., 9.6., 10.1., 12.6., 13.2., 13.6., and 14.1..

• Added boats in the distance on 1.5., 2.1., 2.3., 2.4., 3.2., 3.5., and 5.4..

• Moved the strandpoint on 1.4., 1.5., 1.6., 2.1., 2.2., 2.3., 2.4., 2.5., 2.6., 3.6., and 4.6. to better locations.

• Bevans now looks at the player at the beginning of 1.4..

• Changed 2.6.'s layout significantly.

• Music now stops at the top of the lighthouse on 3.6..

• Changed appearance of water on 5.5..

• Changed 6.6.'s layout significantly.

  • The primary path is now easier, Bald Eagle 24-390 is now on a new secondary path, and a path to the western cove later seen during 9.6. has been added.

• Changed the Bruegel Intermission's layout significantly, and added a beginning portion.

• Changed and cleaned up the layouts of 7.6. and 11.6..

• Removed a possible softlock on 8.6. and 12.6..

• The water particle effect that appears whenever the player strands now changes based on the day.

• Fixed fish rack collision (for real this time).

• The light at the end of the tunnel is now much brighter.

• Changed the final encounter platform's geometry.

Menus:

• Completely redid the Options menu with explanations and new settings.

  • New settings include text size, toggle walk, camera sensitivity, invert camera controls, hiding mouse while using controller, and date counter style.

• Improved the behavior of the Options menu with the top menu and title menu.

• Improved first-time startup menu.

• Changed Compendium menu to be wider, as well as to respond to button presses on the image of crops themselves.

• Changed Greenhouse menu to be wider.

• Changed crop colors in the Greenhouse to be more accurate.

• Changed most menus to mirror better.

• Changed NPC textbox appearance slightly.

• Changed the priority of weekdaily dialogue once again to make ambient dialogue more likely to appear in the third portion of the game.

• Partially reworked the criteria for fetching responses in order to minimize the amount of responses that show up as new despite having already been seen.

• The ESC menu now functions better during locked NPC textboxes.

• Added various sound effects for the first time you catch a fish.

• Changed appearance of particle effect when catching a luckfish.

• Changed out-of-bait message spacing.

• Changed the layout of upgrades on both static and dynamic title screens.

• Upgrades on both title screens will now always appear if their associated achievement has been unlocked.

• Added missing daily weather variants to the dynamic title screen.

• Changed weather on the dynamic title screen to more accurately reflect each day.

• Added the Shipmaster to the dynamic title screen.

• Moved Ukulen's position on the dynamic title screen.

• Added a unique sound effect when you press "Play Game".

Miscellaneous:

• Added warby to the credits.

• Added an anti-softlock feature where if you get stuck in collision for 2 seconds the game will attempt to launch you upwards.

• Suganmanuts are now made into 3 Multivalent bait, up from 2.

• Party Poppeppers are now made into 3 Chill and 3 Nocturnal bait, up from 2.

• Joybeans are now made into 3 Dull bait, up from 2.

• Expanded the valid crops for mutating a Suganmanut.

• Added ocean sound effects that fade in during the intro.

• Added crop colors to the Compendium and Gallery.

• Added a viewable statistics display to the Postal Office on subsequent playthroughs.

• Added a registration number, JDR-101, to the Hekimoglu, as well as a door.

• Changed the color of Ukulen and Dulcimer's portraits.

• Changed the sprite of Koloby Bait, Fragrant Bait, Toxic Bait, Benthic Poudrins, Coral Poudrins, Detritus Poudrins, and Hadal Poudrins.

• Changed end-of-first-playthrough pop-up to clarify new information.

• Pluripotent Fester now expands slightly as 4. continues.

• Quantum Legs is now a requisite for Lighter than a Feather.

• Light as a Feather now unlocks the Advanced Movement Techniques topic with A.G.C..

• Boosted the volume of It's a Shame We Can't See Stars From Here, the track for 12.6..

• Zugerujk & company logo now fades out.

• The title screen will no longer automatically play Rekkieg's Theme if the game launches while the user's Steam ID is 76561198159878056, which is Zug's.

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where 8.6. was playing It's a Shame We Can't See Stars From Here, the track for 12.6.. I Could See You Coming For a While now properly plays.

• Fixed Sludgeberries' compendium entry listing Aleks instead of Bucephalus.

• Fixed A.G.C.'s heartbeat being turned off some days.

• Fixed a spacing issue with NPC textbox topic responses being narrower when empty.

• Fixed an improperly-set-up topic response with Bucephalus.

• Fixed the audio settings being editable via scrollwheel, which was not intended.

There is definitely a lot I forgot as well. This is The Big One. If for whatever reason you want to access v1.1.2, you can by entering the beta code "theoldonelol".

Super minor update that fixes some bugs and adds a new upgrade on subsequent playthroughs that adds some QOL to the Compendium. Patch notes:

• Added an upgrade available on repeat playthroughs that allows you to see crops and fish you had caught on previous playthroughs in the Compendium.

• Changed the order of fish in the Compendium.

  • All regular-type fish appear first, then all pluripotent-type fish, then all chill-type fish, then all nocturnal-type fish, then all luck-type fish.

• Changed Steam minimum system requirements to be identical to my laptop, with a note that the game can run on worse hardware.

• Optimized somewhat Compendium performance.

• Removed a disclaimer from the opening sequence.

• Fixed an improperly-set-up ☇ response.

CalamityRhapsody has put together and released their complete Island Off Outer Darkness Original Soundtrack. If you've played some of the game then you already know how good it is. Go support them on Bandcamp and listen to it on YouTube!

Here's the Bandcamp link again. It's a name-your-price download, so go name your price and download it!

Here's a YouTube embed for the full 2 hour 48 minute thing. It's so good.

If anybody's curious, my favorite track is It Settles, the song that plays during Week 4. I love them all though.

Alongside this, v1.1.1 of Island Off Outer Darkness is now live! Other than adding links to the OST to the Extras menu, this update is mostly bugfixes, though I did also do the fishing metagame calcs and added some of that info as a topic exclusive to repeat playthroughs.

Full patch notes: ADDITIONS:

• Added links in the Extras menu to the OST's Bandcamp page and a full upload of it on YouTube.

• Added the "Advanced Fishing Strats" topic with Eus, unlocked by the At The Library upgrade in repeat playthroughs.

  • If you've already purchased At The Library in your current playthrough, this topic should now be available.

• Added some more devnotes.

CHANGES:

• Changed the "For" sentence at the start of the game.

• Changed the Train Mode warning now that it's been fully tested by undead pvnk.

• Changed Clavichord's 2.2. delivery response dialogue, where he will now reference the Strand button on the top menu.

• Changed some ☇ response divergences.

• Changed Razornuts' name color to be more purple.

• Changed the topic name that an NPC uses whenever you click on an incorrectly-set-up ☇ response to "Incorrectly-set-up ☇ Response".

FIXES:

• Fixed many instances of incorrectly-set-up ☇ responses.

• Fixed Fort having the id "fot" on 7.1., making him completely uninteractable.

• Fixed Bucephalus referring to Dire Apples with their full government name when talking about Argyrean Dire Apples.

• Fixed Aleks' "mythed-about crop" instructions saying "white" instead of "black" (oops 😅 genuinely pretty major mistake there).

• Fixed some of the guys in the boat on 2.1. not having suitable responses for that point in the game.

• Fixed an instance where A.G.C. referred to Eis instead of Eus.

• Fixed an instance where Clavichord was referred to instead of Homi.

• Fixed there being two interactable Bald Eagle 24-390s on 12.6..

• Fixed not being able to say goodbye to Ukulen.

• Fixed an issue where generic daily responses had precedence over unique daily responses the first time you talk to an NPC that has no unique first-time daily response.

  • This affected very few NPCs, but, y'know, oof.

It's out! Isn't that awesome. Addharthus has a new portrait, by the wonderful undead pvnk (who also made Homi's portrait, which has been in the game since the release version). So shoutouts to them! There's a new delivery after the intermission, as well as some minor changes to general dialogue throughout the game as well as bugfixes. Full patch notes:

• Added a new portrait for Addharthus, by undead pvnk.

• Added a new delivery after the Bruegel Intermission that I forgot to include in the game but intended to by the end of development.

• Added a few more topic responses for various characters.

• Added a few more reactions to various weather events/aberrations.

• Added a new upgrade for repeat playthroughs that allows one to toggle on fixed RNG for fishing.

  • Fixed RNG is seeded by the day, and can be activated daily. All fishing-related upgrades are disabled while active.

  • This is in order to make achievements that are related to fishing (or DP gain via fishing) "solved", if anyone wants to make a strategy guide.

• Added a notice of additional options for subsequent playthroughs upon beating the game.

• Added an animation for the weather vane.

  • It now moves!

• Added a few more devnotes.

• Changed appearance of fishing cursor.

  • This is to be more in line with other menus.

  • It has an alternate appearance when using fixed RNG.

• Changed appearance of the Sand Poudrin.

  • This is to be more in line with its canonical properties, as the lore on Argyrean sand was written after the fishing design was made.

• Changed daily DP incentive post-wetter winter, removing some from the crow.

• Changed the cost of upgrades exclusive to repeat playthroughs — they are now free.

• Changed a few bits of dialogue.

  • These were generally responses that did not really take into account time progressing and Rekkieg changing.

  • The centre/center dichotomy has been normalized — Clavichord and the Postman's internal voice now uses exclusively "center", while every other character now uses exclusively "centre".

• Fixed a few broken ☇ responses.

• Fixed an issue with very cheap upgrades visually showing more DP going into the purchase button than were actually spent.

• Fixed an issue with not being able to deliver Addharthus' and Brucehilda's deliveries to them on 4.1. without first delivering Eis'.

Second post-launch minor update. I have a changelog for this one — oh my!

- Prettied up transitions to and from black.

- Added a Help/Contact section to the Extras Menu.

- Added possible "wrong person" dialogue to the first 4.1. delivery.

- Added "No Delivery" dialogue for Dulcimer and Ukulen.

- Added web links to Godot documentation for some settings, clarified some settings.

- Added fog to the Low graphics option for weeks 1, 2, and 3, changed the fog density for the High graphics option for week 3.

- Changed the spawn density for snow particles, changed the appearance of the secondary particle effects for 5.5..

- Changed some tutorials near the beginning of the game.

- Changed and added a few devnotes.

- Fixed the Pop-up Menu having different settings descriptions than the Settings Menu.

- Removed a particularly confusing and unneeded setting from the Pop-up Menu.

- Fixed a bug involving delivery persistence.

- Fixed an issue with Outer Darkness' "appear on top of fog" mode being on all the time on the title screen.

- Fixed the NPC Dialogue Menu ✗ not turning green upon being clicked.

- Fixed a ☇ response that didn't have a ☇ in it.

A debug flag that caused the play to appear at the end of the game was accidentally set during testing for v.1.0.1 and was never reset. I am mortified by this, and I apologize intensely for this being the case. It is now fixed, and if you reset your save data, your save file should be fixed. I am so sorry.

Hey y'all I changed my mind about not having achievements for two of the optional modes for New Game +. I also changed my mind about some sentences and wording near the end of the game.

Next post-launch update will just be some developer notes that have come to my mind now that the game's finished development, and shouldn't affect any non-devnotes playthroughs (a selectable option once you've beaten the game). There is a much larger post-launch update planned that I haven't begun work on, which I'll announce as I begin work on it.

Thanks for playing the game everybody (:

It's been a long time coming. Exciting times! Hope you enjoy the game or, at the very least, get something out of it.

- Zug

Island Off Outer Darkness is not compatible with Steam Deck at this time. To summarize, I designed the game for a 1440 x 1080 display and mouse and keyboard without much thought as to other displays or controller support, and it seriously limits what I can do now without an overhaul. The current Steam Deck has a resolution of 1280 x 800, and Island Off Outer Darkness requires a 1440 x 1080 display at minimum, due to how the UI and camera systems are designed. These are pretty core to the game systems, and would require a significant overhaul to make function at smaller resolutions. Otherwise, the game's UI is not designed for controllers, as it mimics Morrowind's UI, and most menu handling is designed for either Mouse or (WASD + Arrow Keys + Spacebar + E). In the future, I may implement support for a 1066 x 800 resolution mode for the Steam Deck, as well as optimize the menus for mixed inputs (controller for most things, using the capacitive touch screen as a simulated mouse for certain menus), but as of now neither of those things have been done and they are not actively planned. Thank you for your interest in Island Off Outer Darkness.