Hi and welcome to all of you who are following Carving Fate to Valhalla
So I would like to talk about 2 elements: First how I will be communicating about the development of the game (where & when) and the current state of the game. Also do not forget that the pictures shown are all work in progress (written Carving in progress for a cheeky reference).
Communications and Updates
Official Website
I would like to bring your attention to the official website where I keep a development blog of the game. I am posting there one blogpost per week to present and explain different elements of the game. For example, the next coming blogpost will talk about travelling in Midgard and the different movement possibilities. It is meant as a way for curious players to see how a game is made and evolve, as well as presenting the different game aspects players will have to handle while playing.
Steam
Here on steam, I plan on doing one post per month to summarize the changes and improvements to the game in a more "patch-note" style for people who would like to follow the changes from afar. If the demand arises, I might mirror the blogposts directly here on steam, but I felt that duplicating this information would not make much sense. Also the blogposts unveils parts of the game that some players might want to keep unknown and I feel like separating this information and steam might be a good idea. (I know I appreciate starting games with as little knowledge as needed to discover the game fully). This is not definitive and if the request is made (or I change my mind) I will mirror the posts here.
Direct Contact
If you have any questions or ideas or, more generally, would like to communicate about the game, you can use the discussions tab or steam, or write me directly on twitter @FruitsYggdrasil. I will also post regular (small) updates on twitter with little insights into the development.
Game state
I always find it difficult to describe a game in development without being too technical. I will try my best at it:
Base Framework
This is the invisible inner working of the game, things like saving & loading a game, creating the entities and the interaction that brings the world to life. It is hard to exhaustively enumerate everything that is in there, so I will put it in context. I planned on having a closed (non public) playable (for myself and testers) alpha before June, and so far I am on time.
Midgard
Currently, the world must be manually created. It is composed by stacking world layers that contain different information such as depth of the layer, height of the layer, material of the ground and entities placed on this layer. This layering system allows to have interesting geological formations such as caves and overhang. The procedural generation is planned to be done last (or close to the end) as it depends on lots of design choices that have yet to be fixed.
Vikings
Together with the world, they have been the main focus of the development of the game. At the present time, they have an equipment, an inventory, a set of statistics (health, satiety, energy) and a flexible and modular skill system (e.g. move (including walking, jumping, climbing), gather (mine metal ores or cut trees), etc). While they are not completely done, I am reaching a state of satisfaction with the Vikings.
AI & Events
The AI system to support different "intelligent" actors in the world has its first version done. The single AI implemented (for testing) at the moment, is a Herd AI that moves and keeps a herd of deers together. While unimpressive at the moment, a working and flexible AI system was a mandatory and important step to develop early. It will evolves with the different AI needs that will come.
User Interface
At the moment, it still developer UI, made to be produced quickly and used by the one who created it. It is meant to evolve and become much more appreciable in the future but is no on the plan at the moment. Please do not look too closely on it in the images.
General Content
What I mean by general content is instances of a game system. For example, having a combat system with different weapons is a game system, having 5 different swords and 3 different bows in game are the instances. It is the distinction between processes and data (I hope I haven't lost too many of you). So far the variety of the game is minimal: only one object per feature is present (e.g. for animals, only deers exist but I would like to add other such as mountain goats, horses, etc). This, as with the procedural generation, will come at a latter stage as it depends on the different existing systems and is about intertwining them.
Modding
This is a tough topic. So let me state officially There will be no modding for this game. Now that this is done, I'm developing the game wit modularity and flexibility in mind, and I'm trying to make it easily upgradable. However, I am a solo developer and want to produce the game I have in mind first (and eat as well) before making it moddable. That means that I am making some trade-offs at the moment between producing a game, and producing a game engine. Some modding will very likely be possible: adding data (adding a variety of objects such as different food, or weapons), modifying the visual aspect (changing the skin of the game), and creating and sharing manually or procedurally made worlds. So please read my word for what they are There will be no modding for this game but maybe some parts might be and I'm doing what I can to support this feature. In a very down to earth statement, improving the modding possibilities after the release is definitely in the plan but entirely depends on the game's success. I want to give a game you can enjoy on its own, but would be very happy if I could offer the possibility to improve and tweak it.
This is the end of this post, I hope you enjoyed this (longer than expected) wall of text, take care and have a nice day !
I leave you on this teaser to entertain your imagination !
