Quick update for what’s been going on with Verdant Village here. This month has been something of a mess from an outside perspective. Combination of trying to go on vacation and then getting Covid instead so a chunk of my time was sort of squandered.
In any case, some things still got done. This month was mostly working on the compendium. A few other bits and pieces have come up and been altered as well, but the compendium is the main focus. Tutorials are done, at least for the current game. I will have to write a few more as some other systems are added or if people request them. Tutorials are sort of made at my discretion which isn’t always the best. Since I made the systems, I find many of them self-explanatory when players may find that they need clarification. All that said once the compendium is out, I expect I’ll probably be adding some more if they are requested or I realized something could be tutorialized.
Tutorials aside most of my focus has been on the item database portion of the compendium. To put it simply, the compendium will have a section where you can look at every item you have found in the game. These have to be filled in as you play. Usually, an entry is filled in when you gather it once. Sometimes additional info can be unlocked by using the item however. For instance, breaking an item down with alchemy will unlock that related info on the item. This info is basic for some objects but others like fish will contain info like where and how to catch the fish, seeds list the growth times, etc.
For people who like collecting stuff I guess this will serve as a small side system as you can make it a goal to fill out the database if you want. It does track item discovery and entry completion (filling in all the additional data for an item). So, if you like percentages you may enjoy that. There aren’t any rewards linked to completing the database at this point, but it might be something to look into for the future. Sort of feels like the kind of thing you should get a little something for.
Once items are done there are a couple more sections to add. I think the next one I’ll be tackling is, well, I’m calling them challenges in game because I think that sounds better. If you are playing on Steam these will double as achievements.
Currently, based on what I’ve got outlined there are around 150 of them. These range across pretty much every aspect of the game. Admittedly, a lot of them are just do thing x times, such as plant 500 crops, but there are some oddballs in there.
I do need to do some thinking on this bit because 150 steam achievements, or just achievements in general is a lot. I feel like most games average like 20 – 50 or so. What I might do is reevaluate some of them. I might remove a few of them and turn others into multistage achievements. For instance, if there were 3 achievements to spend 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000 gold it would all be one achievement with 3 stages and on Steam it would just be the 1 achievement to spend 100,000.
None of the achievement stuff is set in stone yet. I haven’t really been an achievement person since my Xbox 360 days. That said if anyone has any ideas on what they think would make achievements more satisfying or put together I wouldn’t mind hearing ideas on that.
Compendium aside this next patch has a few zones and NPCs to add as well. I’m not sure if I’ve said this publicly or not, but my goal for zones is to branch out from Amberglen. By that I mean zones closest to the town will be the first to fill in for the most part. NPCs are following a somewhat similar trend. My goal is to make every house in Amberglen have a resident first. There are still a few places that you can’t enter because the person who lives there doesn’t exist yet. Once there is at least one person in each house I’ll branch out from there.
As for zones, I think the first one I’ll start with will be the quarry. I think people are long overdue for a consistent source of stone. Once combat goes in the mines won’t really be an easy romp either so I’d rather have a better way to get ahold of that basic resource before then.
Anyway, I think that’s basically it for right now. This month was kind of a mess as I said at the start. In fact, that last few months have been sort of busy with life in general, but things should be slowing down now so that should mean more consistent development on my end. Thanks for your patience and I hope you have fun playing Verdant Village in the meantime!