Chronicles of Vaeltaja: In Search of the Great Wanderer

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Latest news

• Patch Notes·8 Aug 2026Official

  Immersion and Optimization Update News

  Good day, Traveller! Chronicles of Vaeltaja is getting some pretty great improvements and enhancements with the next update. This is going to be a long one, so I’ll get straight to the point. 1. Optimization There will be lots of it. So far I've had to rely on parallel processes when creating certain mechanics for the game. These parallel processes are very intensive for cpu and one of the biggest, if not the biggest, bottlenecks of the engine. I designed a bunch of very light plugins to handle all those mechanics, for example the torch and lantern system, so there are no longer heavy parallel processes causing unnecessary workload.The new plugins are designed to be active only when they are needed to avoid any unnecessary per-frame work. And I didn't stop there: I went through all my previous plugins and some other plugins that I'm allowed to edit (and which aren't obfuscated), and eliminated all the possible per-frame work that I could. There were some mechanics in a few of the plugins that were running constantly, even though it wasn't necessary.These are some of the mechanics that were turned into lighter plugins: Torch and Lantern system, Party HUD tracking (checks if the HUD is enabled/disabled when transferring from one area to another), Instant Movement and the player icon tracking on minimap. Also the weather and Magic Map plugins both had some unnecessary per-frame work going on that were optimized to work only when needed.Of course, not all the per-frame work can be avoided all the time, for example time must be tracked all the time, and torch duration must be tracked when the torch is lit, but these are lighter to achieve with plugins than with multiple parallel processes running at the same time. I don't know how much all this improves performance on mobile cpus, because I lack the hardware for testing, but I'd expect the game to run better on Steam Deck after the update.So these are the biggest optimizations I can make at this point, and since adding t...
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• Patch Notes·3 Jul 2026Official

  Chronicles of Vaeltaja Update V.0.8.8.4

  Good day, Traveller!This update fixes the issue that caused the Honour to decrease when collecting monster parts from fleeing enemies to complete the certain House of Adventurers' quests. I have also made changes to some enemy mobs, and increased the drop rate for rare monster parts, not to mention some adjustments and optimization to ambient sounds.Patch Notes:Honour no longer decreases when hunting monster parts from fleeing enemies to complete House of Adventurers' quests.Bandit mobs in Pramea have been changed to Outlaw mobs.Bandit Archers have been added to some of the Bandit Cave enemy mobs.Bandit Boss chest has now more appropriate loot.Increased drop rate for rare enemy parts.Ambient sound adjustment and optimization.Reduced the echo in some caves and dungeons.I hope you enjoy these changes! See you in Twin Falls!Jani/Witchgrove Games
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• Patch Notes·8 Jun 2026Official

  Days of Honour Update v.0.8.8.3

  Good day, Traveller! Chronicles of Vaeltaja’s new update has arrived, and while it doesn’t bring any new content yet, it is still a solid update with lots of fixes, changes and some nice improvements to give some extra depth for the game. For a long time one of the gameplay mechanics have been bothering me: the Reputation/Honour system. While it has been a nice thing to have in the game, I’ve always felt it was a bit too shallow, and lacking the potential it could have. Since its release, the Reputation/Honour system has mostly determined how many of the NPCs react to the player, but I have always wanted it to do more than that. And now it does; I think my obsession with Ultima IV has finally paid off!This update splits the Reputation/Honour system into two separate mechanics with their own purposes. This means that now the player can have low Honour despite a good Reputation. While the Reputation mechanic does what it has been doing so far, the Honour mechanic is more tied to combat, though it has its use outside of combat too. Also, until now the Reputation/Honour has been sort of a hidden mechanic that hasn’t had any visible indicator. While I like the idea that the player is never too sure how the NPCs will react, it made the system a bit too vague for the player. From now on that has changed too.Reputation and Honour both have their own tiers, which are shown in the main menu above ‘Coins’. Both of them have eight tiers: Reputation: Corrupted, Infamous, Disreputable, Commoner, Honest, Reputable, Peerless and Immortal Honour: Outlaw, Honourless, Dastard, Craven, Freeman, Steadfast, Chivalrous and VirtuousReputation will increase or decrease the same way it has been doing since the beginning; by completing the main and side quests, and by making choices in the dialogue. Honour is a different beast; every enemy encounter has the potential to increase or decrease it. By acting honourable the player earns points to the Honour point pool, and once the player has earn...
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• Patch Notes·2 May 2026Official

  The Kingdom of Sounds Update Version 0.8.8

  Good day, Traveller!I've been a bit busy these past weeks, and will stay so for couple of more weeks, so I haven't had the time to properly announce this update. I have lots of things to do today, so I'm going to keep this rather short.This update adds the environmental sound effects to all the overworld areas and enemy movement sound effects in the dungeons to improve the atmosphere. I noticed that the new sound effects may introduce some loading lag when transferring between areas, when the daytime changes and when closing the game menu, but it only lasts 1-2 seconds. I will try my best to improve the situation with the future updates, but if the game has ran smooth so far, it should do so after this update too.This update will also bring two new methods for frame capping (previously Vsync); some of them might work better on some setups and provide smoother experience. I've been experimenting by creating couple of plugins that should in theory improve performance for weaker CPUs and GPUs, but so far the improvements have been so minimal that I didn't want to include them in this update. I just wanted to tell you this to let you know that I'm always searching different ways to optimize the game; even though the engine has some limits. Sometimes these experiments bring some results, but usually not that much.One improvement worth mentioning is that the starting questions will now bring different starting bonuses; answers now determine which stats start with better values, how much coins the player has and what equipment. From now on characters with bad starting reputation doesn't mean the worst equipment and least amount of coins.Also, the overworld area map can now be opened with the controller's L3 button. This is now mentioned in the 'Controls' explanation in the Quest Journal's 'Codex' section, which has been updated.Patch NotesNew Stuff:Environmental sounds for all the overworld areas, including towns and villagesSound effects for town torches, fireplaces, foun...
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• Announcements·22 Apr 2026Official

  Chronicles of Vaeltaja Demo Version 2.1 Released

  Good day, Traveller!Here's a surprise update for the demo version of Chronicles of Vaeltaja, which will add some new features and improvements that will be added later to the main game too. Highlight of the update is the new sound system, which adds different ambient sounds to the game. These new effects are not just simple loops playing in the background, they also take the player's position into account; for example, rivers get louder when the player approaches them. In some parts of the Great Forest the birds are louder and in some parts there are loud crickets when it rains. Night sounds different than day; for example owls can be heard only at night, though some of them are quiet when it rains.But that's not all considering sound effects: Now enemies in the dungeons have their own movement sound effects too; dungeons feel a bit more exciting when the approaching enemies can be heard. Footsteps and other sounds also have echo in dungeons.The new update also brings some enhancements to daytime lighting by slightly altering the sunlight colour and brings out the shadow properly during the day hours. There have been some performance improvements too, so the game should run smoother now. One of the issues with the game engine is that it doesn't allow proper Vsync, so the Vsync that has been in the Options Menu is actually just a frame cap. There are few different ways to implement the frame cap, and some of them are more optimal than the others. For this reason I renamed the Vsync option and added three best methods (based on test results) for the engine to cap frames. From now on the player can try them personally and choose which ever method feels the smoothest.One important Quality of Life -feature is that the controller's L3 button opens the outdoor area map, so there is no longer need to reach for the keyboard. I have updated the tutorial section of the codex with all the key bindings.It will take some time to implement all the ambient and enemy movement sounds...
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