UPDATE 15/2/22: A new patch 1.5.12 is now rolling out fixing a critical issue – details at the bottom of the post
Yes, it’s been a long time, around 2 years I think, and I am sorry about that.
This update isn’t huge, with very little new content, but it hopefully addresses a long-standing and incredibly frustrating bug.
The Dreaded Save corruption.
It didn’t happen often, and I was never able to reproduce it at home, but it was real, and Bad.
It took many months of adjusting code, tweaking and testing, but I am happy to finally release this update
Hopefully, your data won’t corrupt again – but just in case it does – I have learned from this mistake and added automatic daily backups to the game. Now, at most, you will only lose a day of progress rather than everything you have ever done
On top of that, Cloud backups have been adjusted – you are now rewarded with 500 coins a day if you backup to the cloud, plus you can have up to 10 of these backups using the new menu (just remember – you need to be logged in through Google Play to use this feature!)
Cloud saves are linked to your Google Play account and are privately stored in your Google Drive folder, so you don’t need to worry about me seeing them!
There’s also a helpful little exclamation point to remind you to make a backup when you can get a reward
One small change is that words you have taught your birds are no longer saved to the cloud and cannot be synced across devices (because of sync time and potential corruptions). I may add an option for this again at a later time
So, this update is small in terms of additions, even if it was a large task. The good news is that this has paved the way for a new update.
The Big One
This will add a ton of new content and completely re-design the UI for the better (it’s a… little dated right now). A lot has changed since I first made this game in 2017, and I aim to use what I have learned for the better!
New birds, new accessories, new nests, a new look – and maybe even a new mini-game or three?
Thank you for your continued support, and happy birding!
Full Changes:
- Engine Upgrade
- Daily Save Backups added, so if your data breaks you can restore an older version
- Restoring a backup creates a “restore point” for so you can revert if the backup is not what you were expecting
- Cloud Saves Updated
- You can now have up to 10 of them
- An internet connection is no longer required, but saves will only upload once a connection is restored
- There’s a full menu!
- You get 500 coins a day for backing up to the cloud! A red exclamation mark is used to highlight this on the main menu
- You still need to login with Google Play, as this feature backs up to your Google Drive folder (saves are private for you!)
- Saves have been rebuilt from the ground up
- Saves now add missing data more accurately on load, hopefully preventing launch crashes
- Voice recordings are now stored as separate files to game data – this does affect backups and cloud saves, as voice recordings are not backed up
- Black-Box engine stuff has generally been removed to avoid risk of corruption
- Saves use a new internal data type, thanks to the engine upgrade, reducing risk of errors
- Be aware of bugs! This touched every part of the game, and I may have missed something
- All old savefiles should upgrade safely. Broken ones should attempt to repair themselves, at least partially
- New save format allows for much easier expansion of the game
- Gamedata extraction validation hash write delayed breifly to help ensure data can actually be read at important times first
- Google Play login has been adjusted
- An internet connection is no longer required to login to Google Play and use Cloud Saves, as long as you don’t sign out.
- Note that you can no longer “fake login” without an internet connection if you sign out. Instead, a network error will occur.
- An internet connection is no longer required to login to Google Play and use Cloud Saves, as long as you don’t sign out.
- Being trapped in one of those loading circles should be even less likely
- Secret Addon System security improved
- The coupon service has been discontinued
- Updated all Google Services
- Misc bug fixes
- Selling birds (how could you) now returns their accessories to your inventory
- Moving a bird to a nest doesn’t make all nest capacity numbers wrong
- others, but they’re small
- Language changes and typo fixes
- Leadbeaters Cockatoo renamed to Pink Cockatoo, as it’s generally more accepted
Update 1.5.12
- Fixed a critical crash when trying to purchase an egg with a full nest (this was one of those things I may have missed when updating the file format)
- Fixed an issue with cancelling a cloud save/load disabling the cloud buttons until restart
- Fixed a crash related to an invalid microphone state
- Fixed a crash when a certain secure file is tampered with
Known Issues:
- Some icons are placed incorrectly in some places, but close enough. This will be resolved in The Big One