Hello guys, hope you are well & safe!
I will first talk about how the demo experience was for me and then inform you about updates.
Demo
- It has been a month since I published the demo,It was a pretty crazy week for me, I was late for the festival, couldn't manage to finish the demo in time.After 3 stressful and sleepless days into the festival I managed to release the demo.And...I got my first crash report in a few mins from the playersːsteamhappyː
- There were a lot of bugs so the first people who played the game probably quit & never returned, but I managed to fix them rather quickly, so after a few days it was running fine mostly.I kept updating the demo, fixing,changing & adding few things based on feedback & my observations.
- Overall, it was a great experience.Even though I missed most of the festival, it got the attention of a few youtubers which has gained us quite a bit of new players(We are at 4.5k whishlists right now)! It gave me a chance to observe how people play the game, which I noticed can be quite different than I intended.
- The demo was supposed to last during the festival only, but I decided to let it stay for a while.Today I am going to take it down after almost a month, we are down to 2-3 demo downloads per day and it is a hassle to keep both versions running among other reasons.I hope to make available again some day.
- I want to thank everyone who participated in the demo and I hope guys had fun. Note:You can still contact me and I will happily send you a key for the demo.
Updates
I have noticed a lot of people have an hard time to manage their villagers and often can't find the ones they need.So I have implemented two solutions for that.
First one is a list of buttons that shows how many villagers are assigned to each job
It is an easy tool to navigate through villagers(No more lost villagers, yay!)
Second one is a list of villagers, this is more complex but it also shows villagers traits and you can change their name, this one is useful to pinpoint your target villager.
Save system kinda broke while I was rushing things for the festival, so I started fixing it.Lucky for me my game engine recieved another update which made the old data structures I used for saving absolute, so I rewrote the entire save system which took a week.But it works much better now, and I know the save is one of the most important things, nobody likes losing their progress!(Technical note: old data structures were not garbage collected so it let to memory leaks and other kind of problems if I forgot to delete or something)
I have added 6 manual save slots, also 1 more for quick save and 2 more for auto saves(which happens every day and after important events)
Researching
I have changed the system from a tree to an exploration based mechanic, which I think suits better to the game.The system works like this:You assign your villagers to become librarians in the dungeon libraries and gain research point as they work there.You can then use those points to research scrolls/books.You come across those rare books throug secret rooms in the dungeons,trading with other cities, or some islands on the map(I will come back to this)
Those researches are permanent and grant bonuses based on their rarity(From some minor buffs to new technologies, new villager or soldier skills,buildings etc)
Islands
I have added a new concept, you can come across mysterious islands on the oceans,to which you can send your soldiers and explore.These are like little side quests, you get a book from each of them and some small rewards.I have planned 4 for now and I don't intend to include more as I need to finish the core game first.
Here is a sneak peak at one:
Dungeons
Previously there could only be 1 stairs per level in the dungeons, which limited the layout.I have rewritten the dungeon system as well,villagers are smarter.Now I can make more interesting layouts.I am also working on a system so that I will be able to create 3-4 slightly different layouts so that if you restart the game the rooms will be placed slightly different.
Couple notes about that layout(which is just an example), vertically expanding the dungeons introduced another problem: long walking times between surface and dungeons.I think I have fixed it by dividing the dungeon into 3 sections.After you kill the sections boss a portal appears to another section, which is connected to all other portals.So you can directly travel to level 4 of the dungeons through the main ground portal.It also makes the design look more interesting!I will post more on dungeons in another devlog.
Next Up
So as I observed from people playing the game there were two major issues:Selection of villagers & long travel time between stockpile and buildings.I fixed the first one, and now I am working on the second one, which has been nightmare.I made it so that people deposit resources to their respective buildings(lumberjacks to woodcutter's camp instead of stockpile) and I changed the "ore_carrier" building to "Carrier's Hut" so that workers there grab resources from the connected buildings(woodcutters,fisherman,blacksmith etc.) and deliver it to the stockpile.
When you build a new building it connects itself to the nearest "Carrier's Hut".You can later delete the building from the connection list and connect it to another hut.The carriers will start going to buildings once there are enough resources stored in the building.You can change the minimum required resource amount for the carrier to move too.But it introduces another layers of problems and can be quite complex mechanic for many players so I am trying to simplify it..If anyone have any suggestions,I would be more than happy to hear it!
Once I hopefully finish that part of the game,which is a big part even though it might seem minor, I will make the enemies smarter, they currently have targetting issues.And then I will start adding more enemies and filling the dungeons and ocean.
I will announce when I make a closed beta, but don't expect it too soon.I am done giving dates since I fail to meet them.I am sorry about that but things take more time than I initially thought!:/
If anyone has read so far, thanks a lot, you win my love!
Have a great day!