Hello everyone!
Today marks the 1 year anniversary of Alnico hitting early access!! Woo!
I was hoping to have a fun update ready to release for today, but as usual between work and everything else, I have not been able to wrap things up like I wanted. As compensation, I hope you'll be satiated with this post where I'll go over everything that's currently planned for future updates!
Big spoilers ahead!
New NPCs!
The final number of characters isn't yet set in stone, but right now I am working on introducing 3 new NPCs to the game alongside the merchant we all know and love.
The Forge Supplier (WIP name) will be taking over the sales of smithing tools and equipment upgrades. He will also be selling new structures for your smithery, which I'll give more details on below.
The Inventor will sell you more niche tools and high tech gadgets that will help improve the productivity of your forge, as well as fuel for a certain structure detailed below.
and The Collector will sell you artwork to hang in the smithery, collectable items like plushies, and other decorations as well like the clock and potted plant. Most of the items they sell won't serve a purpose aside from livening up the workshop.
Once added, you'll be able to see a tab for each available NPC on the right of the game which you can click on to call them. The tabs will also display how much longer it will be until you can summon them for business.
Also coming will be some minor changes to the merchant, most notably the way order scrolls are handled. You will be able to view 3 orders prior to receiving them, and can select which you wish to complete. If you don't have interest in any of them, you can refresh the selection a set number of times per merchant visit to re-roll the orders. You are required to select at least 1 to continue, but can select all 3 if you want to.
Rumors will also be coming to the game! Talking to the merchant will reveal the going ons of the kingdom as you play, and the quality of your crafts will affect how certain events play out in the world. There will also be some return customers each with their own mini story lines, but I don't have too many of those details fleshed out enough to reveal just yet.
New Structures & Stations
As mentioned above, the Forge Supplier will be selling new structures for you to add to your workshop. These will let you further improve your finished crafts to increase their sell value.
The Basin is a long tub that can be filled with water. Dunking any hot metal in water will quickly cool it down, and certain crafts can be heated and quickly cooled to improve their toughness. (yes, I know oil is used to quench things, but it looked like pee so it's water now.)
The Grindstone will allow you to sharpen some crafts to increase their value. This will work by placing an item on top of the wheel and quickly turning a crank to sharpen them.
The Tumbler will allow you to both improve the quality of certain smaller crafts, but also polish rough gems so they can be applied to future crafts during forging.
The Crusher will allow you to grind up items you no longer want into dust, and it will also revert finished crafts into metal bits. Further crushing metals will separatethem into their base elements. Too much pot metal? This is the solution. The metal output will be of a lesser quantity than the amount input however, it won't be a 100% return rate.
Lastly, you will be able to purchase the Generator from the Inventor. This device will, when provided with fuel, automatically mine, crush, and refine stone into ore. The higher quality the fuel, the longer and quicker the equipment will work.
You will be able to place new structures wherever they fit in the smithery, and they can be moved with a new item detailed below.
New Items
With new npcs will come new items! I'll go over some of the most exciting ones now.
The Wrench will not only allow you to move the new structures throughout the smithery, but also let you move existing ones! Shelves, the anvil, and even the lights will all be movable, letting you set up your workshop just how you like it.
The Big Magnet is exactly what it sounds like: a bigger, stronger magnet.
The Clock doesn't do much, but it does show you what time it is.
The Potted Plant will start with only a seed, but if provided with the right amount of water and sunlight, it'll grow bigger! Again, useless, but I like it a lot.
The Trunk is a big box that you can put items into! If your room is too cluttered but you don't want to get rid of anything, you can store a limited number of items inside the trunk for safe keeping.
New Art will be available. Right now, 3 new paintings are planned, as well as 1 new plushie to collect.
New / Updated Mechanics
Everything is subject to change prior to the full release, but here are some things I am planning on adding or changing right now.
Reheating Crafts- This feature has been requested a lot, and while I was against it initially, you've worn me down. I'm still not sure how i'll be implementing this, but I am looking into ways to reheat in-progress crafts.
The Ore Dispenser currently keeps track of how many small, medium, and large ores are kept within. I will be changing this so that the side output is random or set based on what levers are switched on. If there's enough ore in the refinery, it will continue outputting the selected size instead of stopping seemingly randomly.
The Crafting Minigame is coming along nicely, but I am still looking at tweaks to make it more fun and more intuitive. I am also considering adding more minigames to it, but that's a big maybe.
The Lazy Bones Setting will, in the future, allow you to auto use more of the equipment around the smithery, rather than only cranks.
Enchanting is a mechanic I plan on adding to the late game. It will include all new items, tools, and systems that will let you add enchantments to crafts to further increase their value. Customers may also request certain enchantments be added to their crafts.
Lastly, Alternate Modes are something I've wanted to add for a while, but they will be one of the last features added. Right now I am planning on adding Challenge Modes, and a "Hard" mode where mechanics will be more realistic and much less forgiving.
And that's pretty much everything that's currently planned for the game!
Of course throughout the development, bug fixes, quality of life changes, translation updates, etc will also be happening, but these are the main features I have in mind right now.
I want to thank everyone for their continued patience as I work on the game. I know updates are very slow, but at the end of the day I am 1 person, and game development is a hobby for me right now, not my job. As always though, I plan on continuing to work on the game as we inch closer and closer to the full release. Lastly, I'll answer some questions I've seen below!
F.A.Q.
Q. Is the game still being worked on?
A. Yes, although only when I have time to work on it. If for some reason development is ever stopping, I will be sure to make an announcement stating so, but I have no plans to do so.
Q. Will you be adding more elements or alloys to the game?
A. No. Maybe after the full release, but that's a strong maybe.
Q. Why does my game lag so much?
A. I don't know, but I am looking into it! Right now I have hit a dead end, but hopefully as I work more and learn more, an answer will reveal itself to me.
Q. Will you add [blank] to the game?
A. Maybe! Feel free to leave a suggestion in the discord!
Q. Do you know about [blank] bug?
A. Probably, but just in case, feel free to let me know in the discord!
