Hello everyone!
I hope you're all well.
We wanted to share some updates on the development of Card Survival: Fantasy Forest and also use the opportunity to tell you about one of its new main features.
The game continues to progress well, with new features and content being added on a weekly basis. We do have to say however, that despite this we won't be able to release the game as early as we had originally wanted. It seems we're not the smartest or fastest Devs around... our original plan with the Card Survival series was to streamline production using the engine from the first game; however, instead of doing this we've mostly just been adding new features or improving existing ones... -_-u
We really hope we haven't disappointed any of you too much with not being able to release the game any sooner! Hopefully the new features, content, and quality of life additions will be worth the wait!
We will make an announcement as soon we are confident enough about an official release date.
Now, for those of you interested here's some details on one of our main new features:
Agents:
Basics:
Fantasy Forest features new complex NPC's to interact with. These agents are designed to simulate simplified social interactions and assist with daily chores and activities.
Agents, much like players, are equipped with many stats reflecting both their physical and emotional states. They need to manage basic needs like hunger and hydration and are also susceptible to illness, stress and even mood fluctuations. In addition to this, they also have a lot of stats that define their relationship to the player. Things like self-worth, trust, resentment, fear, gratefulness, and even infatuation. All these stats help make their interactions systemic, rather than scripted, which helps make things more nuanced and realistic.
Duties:
One of the main features Agents have is the ability to perform "duties". Duties can be simple self-assigned things like drinking or eating, or also more complex activities like foraging, wood-gathering or even cooking.
This system allows players to delegate tasks to companions or helpers. For example, if a player doesn't like cooking they might prefer to focus on hunting and foraging for ingredients and let their companion cook them into meals.
Agents are not robots however. They track how helpful they've been, how grateful they are to you, how much they trust you, as well as many other things to determine how often they will help you or whether they will even want to help you at all. An agent that feels mistreated or unwanted will do less to help than one that feels valued. An agent that is overwhelmed with demands may grow resentful or depressed, affecting their productivity and loyalty.
Agents can also get angry, leave you or even act against you if things go badly enough.
Personalities:
While we had originally planned to have many agents (basically an entire village), we ended up having to make a reality check and decreasing their number to a more manageable level of just two main agents and a number of minor, simpler ones.
The minor agents are mostly helpers that have the potential to aid with different aspects of your life. The two main agents however, can be befriended and their relationships improved over time. They can move into your house and live with you, helping you with your chores and daily activities.
Each agent is unique, with their own personalities, skills, hobbies, likes and dislikes. So keeping a good relationship with them will require a different approach. One agent might like cooking, while another might hate it. One agent might be more independent and react negatively to excessive attention for example, while the other might appreciate any attention you can spare.
Agents can also become your partners and start a family with you if you invest enough in the relationship. While not implemented yet, the idea is that babies you have with them will even grow up over time and become new proper agents themselves.
Hope you liked what you've read. We feel that with the addition of agents, Card Survival can become a life simulator with a lot more potential than what we had in Tropical Island.
And speaking of potential, we have some good news about something many of you have been asking for. After some thinking and discussing, we've decided to go ahead with making Fantasy Forest properly mod compatible! This should make finding, getting and creating new custom content for the game a lot easier.
We can't promise that this feature will be ready in time for Early Access, but we can confirm that we are definitely planning to include it in the game. We will let you know more about this in the future. :)
That's all for now.
Thank you for reading, we'll see you in the next announcement!