State of the Code: September 2023

Long overdue - we've got some things to share! The Summer Update pt 2

• Development of the major Summer Update has now concluded
  • Beta branch release is playable now for those who want to get involved in playtesting & feedback
    • Steam general release will be ready in a week or more - just for stability & balance

  
  
• The major features of this update include:
  • Ability skill ranks, allowing you to rank up & change the affect of all playable combat abilities
    • Monster migration (replacing the old Dungeon Cycle system) to introduce new & different enemy mobs to the dungeons
    • 8 new wild enemy monsters; 4 Holstaur & 4 Wolf units will now appear in the Savannah on different weeks

• If you would like to playtest the new update immediately you can join the beta branch by reading the pinned topic at the top of our Steam Forum
  • This will help us rapidly shape this update for our general Steam release by solving issues & balancing new content appropriately

It's nearly the end of 2023! How is development progressing?

• Roadmap progress is behind schedule
  • This latest update's major feature took longer than expected, especially when deliberating on combat balance
    • We have hired a 4th programmer to join our team in a fulltime capacity
      • This will give us the best possible chance of staying on-target and with the full feature set laid out in the roadmap

    • We actually started some of the content for next update ahead of time
      • See more below in 'what else are you working on?'

Will Cloud Meadow's development be affected by Unity licensing changes?

• As we are quite far into development it would likely not be viable for us to change engines for Cloud Meadow
  • The proposed runtime fees in addition to our ongoing Unity Pro licenses would approximately double (or more) our total license costs to Unity, for no benefit to us.
  • However at the time of writing this, Unity have declared their intention to adjust the proposed policy changes again

What else are you working on? How about...

• In addition to the new Holstaur & Wolf enemy units, we've also close to concluding several new sets of enemies for the dungeon;
  • 3 new pirate units
  • 4 new wild Lamia units
  • 4 new wild Harpy units

• We're preparing to begin work on introducing Kiram - the 10th & final recruitable NPC
  • Kiram's combat toolkit is getting a revision from the old playable prototypes
    • We're setting up his introduction with a unique story sequence
    • This will branch the end of the Poacher's story arc into beginning a new arc, setting up their shadowy benefactor & leading into the Forest dungeon

  
  

More work behind-the-scenes:

• On the art side of the team...
  • Environment assets on the first zone & additional boss area for the Forest dungeon
    • Concept art for sections of the second Forest zone, including new harvest nodes
    • New expression portraits for dialogue characters!

  
  
• The writing team has been busy finalising dialogue & cinematic scenes for the story Act II introduction, especially Kiram's introduction sequence
  • Progress is also being made on narrative sequences for the Forest dungeon
    • New plans for written content to make Cloverton feel more alive are also in the works

  
  
• Our animators have been progressing well in their many-months work on the new HD sex scenes
  • Evan x Orchid loop section was completed quite recently

• Animation improvements & finalisation work has been contributed to future upcoming combat units; demons, cyclops & others
  

If you have any questions we are always readily available in the following places:

• Introduce yourself, discuss the game or send bug reports directly under the eyes of developers - in our very own Discord [ https://discord.gg/cloudmeadow ]
• Drop in on our Livestream where Artists, animators & programmers work daily on Piczel [ https://piczel.tv/watch/Spurple ]