Hello Saeges!
Long time no see. Since our last devlog back in *checks notes...April, there have been a lot of new features, updates and general improvements added to the game as we continue our way towards our big demo.
Let's jump right into it!
The Enchanted Forest
First, let us be fully transparent: we took a small vacation at the end of April. It was our first vacation in years, the first since our honeymoon over four years ago. We visited some friends and family, disconnected from the world for a couple days, and came back fully recharged, ready to tackle the work head on.
One of the first things we began working on was The Enchanted Forest
I wonder who lives in here...
The Enchanted Forest is a large area in the world of Farmwand (which will be partly available in the demo), full to the brim with magical creatures and plants, ancient sites and lots of secrets to uncover. It also has a very different topology from other areas of the world, as it is full of many, many rivers!
But that required us to create a whole new set of shaders to be able to render those rivers properly.
These rivers are placed as small flat models by hand, controlling the flow of the water as they are placed to ensure that the different arms of the river can merge into each other and move over the terrain in a believable (yet stylized) manner. And they look so pretty around trees!
Speaking of trees and plants, those are kind of a very important part of a forest! We wanted to make sure that the plants for this new area were distinct and very colorful, just like the trees:
And we already have a LOT of magical plants (including some very interesting and, dare we say, unexpectedly irritable ones!)
New Locations
We've also been working on new locations for Lunahweld town and the surrounding areas. There are too many characters to meet, and even more places to visit!
These locations require a lot more work than simply the models and graphics. They have to be populated by many different critters, each one with their own lives and needs that have to be properly simulated so that the world feels truly alive!
There are also some little neat tricks that we had to develop in order to make transitions between the outdoors and the indoor areas (such as the inside of your house, a dungeon or a lovely bakery) as smooth as possible. We don't want to subject you to endless loading screens!
So, a little peek behind the curtain. Wonder how we make the transitions between exterior and interior locations? To ensure that there are as few loading screens as possible, we just "spawn" the interiors whenever needed right below your feet, and teleport you there.
That way, once you go out again, the exterior world (which is much bigger) was already there waiting for you. While our open world is much smaller than, let's say, Skyrim's or BotW, we still want it to be as seamless as possible.
And so far, loading times are under a couple seconds. So far, so good.
The big one. Decorating to your heart's content!
While it is still a work in progress, we've been developing the decorating and building mechanics for Farmwand. This has taken us a while, as we have been trying our best to find the right balance between creative freedom and ease of use. Some of us prefer neat, organized grids and some others prefer the full control that a grid-free system allows.
So what was our solution? We decided to implement both and make switching between them as easy as pressing a button!
Things can be moved, rotated, placed on top of each other, customized...so many possibilities!
We can't wait for you to try all the things we've been adding. There's still a lot of work ahead of us, including some playtesting rounds before the demo comes out (*wink!), but the work continues and the game is going on better than ever. The little world of Farmwand keeps taking shape and coming together, right before our eyes :D
Thank you for reading!