Honorable Knights of the Valley,
The Alpha 2 schedule is set and I wanted to share the plan with you!
The release build will be triggered on December 22nd, so the first recipients will get Alpha 2 still this year. With the amount of new features added, I want to make sure things go smoothly for the majority of testers though, so it will be a slow rollout this time.
The complexity of some of the new things is high, and it is likely that you, the players, will come up with ideas that I didn't even think of, breaking the logic. Those things need to be fixed before the build goes to a larger number of testers to avoid frustration on your side and a flood of identical bug reports on mine.
The criminal record page of the Journal
Assuming no major issues come up during those initial tests, all playtesters should get their keys during the first weeks of 2024, up to the end of February (or later, if issues do come up).
If you're on the list, you will receive a notification when the time is right (no need to ask). The list is finalized and includes all Alpha 1 testers, eligible Kickstarter and Patreon supporters, as well as influencers.
An incredible amount of work went into this release and it is an enormous step up from Alpha 1. I am looking forward to your feedback :)
The new wilderness camping screen (work in progress, not all features will be included yet)
Here the full change list:
New Features
- Filled city buildings with characters, furniture, and items
- Filled the wilderness with creatures
- Implemented realistic townsfolk behavior
- Added stealth engine for realistic hiding and discovery mechanics
- Added explorable caves
- Added new quests
- Added the Health screen showing your complete health status
- Added the Journal screen showing your quests, the criminal record, and tutorials
- Added the Credits screen (with the beginning of what will become a little mini-game)
- Added ability to switch between travel map and local map in the wilderness (and added procedural generation of wilderness maps for all terrain types)
- Added ability to perform various criminal acts (and be punished for it)
- Added new map effects: fog of war, weather particles, adaptive fire/smoke/light effects, character/item highlights
- Added new ways to interact with the environment: offer, read, attack (as an interaction)
- Added wilderness camping options
- Added procedural character name generator
- Added screen-switching controls on inventory, character sheet, and journal screens
Improvements
- Improved combat
- Improved the inventory
- Improved the pathfinder
- Added more sound effects
- Unlocked feature to have several saved games
- Implemented a building map editor for development purposes
- Many other improvements and bug fixes. Probably added new bugs, too :)
Looking ahead, there is still quite a bit of work left before the game is ready for Steam NextFest. Stores & trading, and possibly rudimentary crafting are high up on the list here. More content too... quests, dungeons, characters, and more.
I am also considering speeding up timeflow - currently a day takes a bit too long in the game. This will have side effects on many features and needs to be thoroughly implemented and tested.
Until next time,
Martin