Hey everyone!
In today's dev update we want to talk about some of the final major systems we've been implementing in preparation for the early access launch. In case you missed it in our last dev update, we are currently planning on releasing sometime in May. We are getting the near the end but still have some loose ends we need to tie up and some more polishing to do. Here's a look at what we've implementing and have been working on over the past couple months.
Dialogue
A major system we were still missing was a dialogue system. This is very important not just to be able to talk to various NPCs you find in the world, but also to pick up and turn in quests. We needed a system to handle different quest states, the ability to take items from the player or give the player items, and the ability to chain quests together for guild quests and the main quest. We've got that system now mostly in and working. It still needs some testing and polish but overall it's working well.
Although a large part of the game is going to be about exploring and survival, we really want there to be some fun and quirky NPCs for you to find and talk to including merchants, quest givers, and just general islanders.
Merchants
In addition to the dialogue system, we also knew we needed a merchant system. There's a ton of loot in the game and you probably aren't going to want to keep it all. Merchants can generally be found at Sea Ports and are a great way to sell some of your unwanted gear in exchange for some coin. Merchants also sometimes have quests and unique items that you can't get anywhere else. A large part of the implementation process for things like dialogue and merchants is the UI design. We have to make sure you can see all the information you need at a glance, have the ability to buy back items, and things like that. Merchants are now in the game and working so we're happy to say that's another system implemented and ready to go for launch.
Cooking and Crafting
One thing I'm really happy about so far with the game is the amount of items that you can craft. We've added a ton of things for you to do with the materials you find in the world. You can craft hundreds of different armor pieces and weapons, over 80 different ship decoration items, and now we're implementing cooking recipes. Throughout your journey in Salt you'll be able to loot and find various cooking ingredients and use these to make a lot of different recipes including meals and potions. These items will often heal you for some amount, prevent you from starving, and also give you some kind of bonus for a certain amount of time. The more rare the recipe, the better the bonus to your stats. We're currently working on about 50 different meal recipes for you to find and cook and more will be added later.
Enemy Spawns and Secrets
Another major area we've been working on is filling our caves and points of interest with enemies and secrets. Once we got the areas visually how we wanted them, we now are going through them and strategically placing certain enemy types and hiding secrets all throughout. This means you may be delving deep into a cave only to discover a locked door with a hidden key or a secret wall. We want exploration to be fun and rewarding and our hand built POIs are a great way for us to do this.
Coming Up
One aspect of the game we are still working on and want to get in a better state before release is the quest design. There will be a few different type of quests in the game including town commission quests, side quests, and guild quests. Some of these will be simple tasks that you can pick up for a town board and complete as you go about your normal journey. Other quests will be more specific and involved. We'll have more news on this front soon.
As always thank you all for your support and patience. The game is coming along great and we are so excited for you to get to play it soon! Also, if you are a Kickstarter backer, rewards will be sent out soon. We've got all the physical rewards in and are just checking to make sure everyone has their correct shipping address updated. Once that's complete we'll be sending out physical rewards in the next few months.