Hey guys,
So first off Dead Monarchy is 35% off and will be on sale during the entire course of the summer sale so now would be a great time if you were interested in checking Dead Monarchy out. That said I do have some news to share and although I think it’s good news in some ways it could be interpreted as bad news. Basically, I won’t be doing anymore updates to this current build of Dead Monarchy as I’ve decided to fully commit to rebuilding Dead Monarchy so it gets really tricky having to work with two simultaneous builds especially because I plan to update Unity to the latest 2020 version.
Upgrading to the latest version of Unity will give me access to new tools which I’ve been playing with, it includes things like better lighting, shadows, a more streamlined animation system and the usual performance upgrades. I’ve spent the past 3 months looking over the entire game and putting together and updated design document. Over the many years of development I’ve become quite familiar with Unity and I feel like I can now design Dead Monarchy closer to my original vision of the game with the features that I previously had to cut out.
I’ve advertised Dead Monarchy basically as a world you could get lost in and although I still believe the price is fair for what it is, the problem is figuring out how to make the jump to the next level. Yes there is quite a bit of content but how do I move forward from here, it’s those questions I’ve been trying to answer.
I’ve been trying out a lot of things, done some rough prototypes on new lighting, new animations, artwork, new armor and weapon models all in hopes to add more polish but the meat of the rebuild has been spent on trying to flesh out the world, to give the player more options in the world. In other words, you don’t have to strictly play as a “mercenary” to progress through the world or at the very least there will be side activities to break up the core gameplay loop.
I can’t show off anything right now as I’m still very much deep in the prototyping phase but I can give you two examples of changes to Dead Monarchy and hopefully it’ll make it a bit clearer as to why I have to focus on just the rebuild.
The first thing I’ve been working on is a ‘Scavenging System”, so basically there are gathering spots on the map that you can interact with. When you click on it, a scene would load in showing the player fishing and on the left side would be a menu with 3 options. The options would be (%) based and basically you are trading the chance of getting fish vs the chance of getting ambushed, the longer you stay there fishing the more fish you could potentially get but also the chance of getting ambushed by bandits would increase. That’s roughly the idea I am going for, there’s a bit more fidelity to the scene with some nice fishing animations but it isn’t a full blown fishing mini-game, but I feel like it would provide the player with a break from combat and it has a practical use too, which is gathering food. Other gathering spots would be related to woodcutting, mining etc. Currently in Dead Monarchy, combat hogs the spotlight with resources only be rewarded through combat, so with the rebuild I’d like to provide the player with alternative options.
The other example I can give is what I am hoping to achieve with contracts. You’d click on a town and a complete town environment would load in as opposed to just a simple menu. Once the town loads in, again on the left side would be a menu and one of the options would be to talk to the town leader. Once you click on that option, a new scene loads in, the interior of the town leader’s building and you’d see both the player and town leader seated and engaged in conversation. The first time meeting the town leader would prompt a unique dialogue event and when returning, the dialogue would be different albeit a bit more simpler. Once the initial meet and greet is done, you then look at what contracts are available. The contracts screen would use a UI similarly to build 3.1 so that is prior to the world map update where there was a UI that showed multiple missions displayed in a grid format. After choosing a mission, you would then enter the negotiation phase, the UI would be similar to the fishing/gathering UI. Basically on the left side, you have 3 options and the trade off is town leader relation vs the chance of getting a (%) bonus on top of the base reward price. As you can see, there is a lot more going on compared to what is currently just clicking on a town, bringing up a simple menu and then clicking one more time for a random contract with no interaction whatsoever with the town’s inhabitants. I’d like to significantly make the player feel more invested and connected to the world.
From what I’ve just discussed I’ve basically also hinted to a diplomacy system and also a skill system, like fishing, woodcutting, negotiation skills etc. All in all, it will be a massive rework of Dead Monarchy to the point where really it could be a sequel albeit just released as a content update.
Unfortunately I don’t have a timeframe as life is quite unpredictable now although development itself is not in jeopardy. I know it sucks not to get regular updates but considering the scope of the rebuild, it is just not something I can do simultaneously. Thankfully Dead Monarchy wasn’t kickstartered, so it’s not like I’m asking for your money, I’m just hoping to ask for your patience and support. The other reason why things are taking so long is because I’d like to base future games off Dead Monarchy as well, so I’d like to make things a bit more future-proof this time round.
Speaking of the future, the last thing I’d like to say is that I’ve decided that any new expansions that I create for Dead Monarchy will be free for existing users. To recoup the costs, I’m thinking of increasing the base price each time a new expansion is released and at that point I’d probably open up a Patreon account for people that wish to donate. I’d probably also repurpose some art assets for future games. So in a way, I guess there is a catch but as an existing user, I think it’s a great deal. Again it’s related to workload, I feel that managing several separate builds is just going to get too overwhelming as I still see only myself working on Dead Monarchy in the foreseeable future.
That’s all for now guys, thanks for tuning in. I’d like to post more often but if I don’t, I will try to post in the “Rebuild Thread”. As always though, I do check the forums very frequently so I’m still here to answer any questions about the game. So to recap, I’m working solely on the rebuild now so there won’t be anymore updates to the current version of DM, the next update I release would be the start of the rebuilt version. I don’t really have a timeframe I can give as to when I’d release the next update. In addition, in terms of leaving EA, I feel like things would take a lot longer now compared to the initial 2 years that I set out for myself. That said, the rebuilt version is still the same game and any new expansions I release will be free but the base price of the game will increase with each expansion I release.
Cheers,
Kevin.