Good morning,
First off, big thanks for your comments, suggestions, and reports regarding the alpha demo.
It is a surprise how fast our small community is growing. The last time I’ve checked it was 500-800 wishlists per day which is pretty cool for a small indie studio without a publisher. I’m glad to have you with us! Thank you so much. Yes, that number will decrease soon but it's very cool already. :)
Secondly, in this news post, I’d like not only to answer a few frequent questions but also to tell what was fixed, changed, and added in the past few days. I did not want to spam Steam with daily build updates, after all, it is just an alpha demo build, so here we are.
BUILD UPDATE
A few takeaways of what has changed in the past few days. You’ll find the detailed build changelog below, and also in the actual game (Start screen, press F2 for Changelog).
· UI: As you’ve probably noticed, we keep updating the game to a lighter UI design, screen by screen. We’ve improved so far the Start screen, World Creation, Hero Creation, Chest and Inventory, Recipes, Building Details, as well as the Character screen. Yes, this Alpha demo is a real in-development demo, so you actually see what is on our daily table too.
· Lighting: We’ve improved the shading and lighting further. Not only the 3D voxel buildings throw a soft shadow with soft voxel edges now, but we’ve been also working hard to make the 2D sprite billboards (trees, stones, obstacles, grass) throw 3D shadows too, which then have to look similar to the 3D buildings. We have someone on the team who is quite familiar to you if you ever played an HQ Shader Pack before. But more on him in the next post update. He’s helping us to make Nimoyd, over time, more AAA!
· Balancing: Some balancing regarding the OP Proton tool (which is a mid to late game tool that replaces the Pickaxe tool, and for testing ended up in early game), but also tweaks related to the NPC attack waves. I’ve also re-added exhaustion again (tiny constant energy loss), to see how it feels to you guys. Yes, actions still cost Energy but now a small Energy loss occurs in the background, piling up to maybe some -0.6 Energy per hour (1 h in-game = 60 seconds in real-life). So, it’s 14.4 Energy per day in-game. It reflects natural exhaustion. I will probably crank it up a little more, depending on how it feels. After all, games like Stardew Valley lose Energy only on actions, while typical survival games have constant food and/or water loss for good reasons.
· Fixes: Aside from that, it’s been 25-30 fixes in a few days now, from small to bigger ones. If you are interested in it, maybe check the changelog below as it may be less exciting for most of us.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
· What about multiplayer? Why is there a multiplayer button? Multiplayer is coming, just not now. We’ve stopped working on multiplayer a few months ago, simply due to our team size, when I’ve felt that singleplayer will be more important for an alpha demo. But it’s coming, probably in a few months.
· What about mobile? This is a very frequent question. To many of you guys, maybe not on Steam, but on Facebook, Nimoyd seems to look like the perfect mobile game. Mobile is coming too. We did not announce anything yet but we get it stable and cool on PC and consoles first, and then mobile, unless we team up with a publisher who throws so much money at us that we change these plans. But so far we’re still self-funded and independent, so we have to make priorities.
· What about those publishers? Still in progress. I’ll tell more about that, the release date, and other details, as soon as we’ve made a decision which will be likely in a few months. Because, of course, all the publishers I’m talking to have their own ideas on how to release Nimoyd.
· How to report bugs and suggestions? You can either use the in-game reporting tool (Stomt), by pressing F10. I’m always checking Stomt. Or, you report in our bug reports channel on our Discord server. Link for Discover above, and in the game. Or, you could simply write me an e-mail which I’m reading: [email protected]
· The game is too easy! The game is too hard! Yes, both. Please keep in mind that it is an alpha demo of a complex game with lots of generated content. It is really still in development, with many improvements, and lots of balancing.
· What is this Backer thing? We’ve been talking about a potential Backer reward system on our Discord for a few months now. Some players also asked if there’s a way to play the game long after the alpha demo, especially with the new features then, right? And with all features that are currently stable but not part of the demo, i.e. loading save files, or the creative mode (essentially allowing you to build your own stuff for hours). Therefore, I think what I’ll do today and tomorrow is setting up a backer page, using Humble Bundle widgets, which will allow you to pledge for different rewards tiers which will not only give you alpha and demo access. Of course, this is in good ‘ol Kickstarter fashion, only outside of Kickstarter, so as always, you can talk to me about everything, as some of you probably have noticed in the past months already. Yay. ;)
· How long is the Steam demo available? Until 23 June. When the Steam event ends.
· What about translations to Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, etc.? It’s coming but not in an alpha demo. It’ll be available in the final game, and probably in some late beta version.
CHANGELOG
0.7.90
ui: world creator lighter design
ui: chest and inventory lighter design
ui: character screen lighter design
ui: info regarding energy, xp, and gold loss after death
ui: minor start screen improvement, and prep for backer system
balance: shorten wave attacks
balance: re-added exhaustion, tiny constant energy loss
fix: improved ranged weapon handling
fix: remove a few traits for now, causing issues
fix: mini map rotates with the player cam
fix: removed unsupported settings in demo settings ui
fix: two crashes related to inventory checks
fix: a number of minor issues
fix: voxel and asset hp bar
fix: improved invocation event handling
fix: removed cook and mystic traits for now
0.7.88
fix: proton tool fixes and tweaks
fix: bigger npc cities
fix: player attacking npcs
0.7.87
ui: lighter hero creation screen design
balance: locked by in item info jumps to item in recipes
fix: sprite shadows
fix: fungus expansion at night looking better
fix: world map not always centered initially
fix: npc ai combat improvement
fix: encyclopedia fonts
0.7.86
lighting: added shadows to 2d voxel assets
ui: start scene 'next update' info
ui: recipes ui now lighter ui design
ui: building details ui now lighter ui design
fix: numerous fixes regarding gameplay
fix: less mini map icons visible
fix: show more governors
fix: npcs will now shoot if you climb too high
fix: no attack waves if player underground
fix: flowers had wrong id
fix: notes and help ui font fixes
fix: hp energy bar update issue
fix: remove 'doctor' and 'quest giver' as npcs
fix: ui bottom grid issue when items disappear
fix: disable debug keys in build
fix: mech hit by pickaxe had no hp
fix: sepia shaders in recipes ui
fix: ai combat behaviour improvement
Next demo build update either tonight (CEST), or tomorrow. It’s almost every day now. Tomorrow is also a content update where we’re adding a new city theme to the game. And, who knows, maybe we’ll add even another city theme next week before the demo goes offline.
I’ll keep you updated about that backer thing! ;)
Cheers, Rafael @imlikeeh