Hi everyone!
II understand that it's been a while since the last update. Let me fill you in with the game’s development thus far and what’s going to happen from this point on, and boy, there’s a lot to cover!
For the most part since late last year, development has slowed down to a crawl due to some personal issues I had to deal with, combined with preparation for Craggenrock’s attendance to some local events. These, together with the amount of feedback I got from all the said events and the previous demo releases, made it difficult to prioritize what parts of the game needed much love. I took the time to realign myself and the project to make sure everything’s right where I want it to go.
Now that things seem to have calmed down a bit, it's finally time to really get working on the game again.
So what about the game? What's going to happen now?
I will release it soon. The game is NOT being cancelled, shelved or anything of the sort.
As for the release date, stay tuned! I don’t really want to overpromise and end up disappointing people (and myself). I want to make sure that Craggenrock will be at its best when it releases and, as of now, I still think it needs a bit more work. It’s getting there (I know, it’s exciting!), but there’s still more polish and content needed for it to reach its potential.
My ultimate goal is to have the project released by this year, 2024. That’s my final word.
What exactly are you still working on in the game? Why is it taking so long?
Here is the list of features I’ve listed in the game’s store page. Let’s go by them one by one.
- Skill-Based Crafting
- Shopkeeping
- Jobs and Haggling
- (Build Your Own) Reputation
- Town events
- Create the (Craggenrock) recipe
Skill-Based Crafting
If you have played the demo before, you might have already tried the crafting system in its almost-complete state. All workstations already work as intended. You can already craft anything as long as you have all of the materials needed for it and, for items that require recipe unlocking, the unlocked recipe.
However, I understand that too much too soon can be a bit overwhelming for some considering the amount of workstations available straight away. To alleviate this, I've delayed the introduction of the spinning wheel and the tanning rack until after you've payed Braso and have spent at least a month in town. This way, you can familiarize yourself with some of the workstations enough before learning how to work with a few more.
Aside from polish and bug-fixing, I’m currently working on adding a system that lets you modify the stats of items you can craft via “custom crafting”. All materials have stats that can increase or decrease equipment stats of items you are about to craft in the crafting table. What makes this quite complicated is the amount of references I’d need to update in the code as I, admittedly, haven’t made any foundations of this in earlier versions of the game. This goes beyond just crafting; item stats affect customer choices in shop selling and issued jobs. The expanded skill/talent system (more below) also affects how item stats turn out during crafting and that adds a bit more work to do. As of the time of writing this, I have made the necessary preparation and just need to make the stats start applying to crafted items. I have expanded the crafting table menu screen in preparation for this.
The most important bit that I also need to work on is the changing of item quality while you’re playing the crafting table minigame; this is what I think defines the “skill-based” aspect of the crafting in the game after all. This part has been in the game for quite some time now, but was disabled in the earlier versions of the demo. While this is technically “done”, it still needs tweaking on how sensitive the quality changes go. Based on the feedback I’ve received from previous events and demo releases, the crafting table minigame has been consistently described as the most fun part of the game so far. I’ve done tests on this and I’ve started to enjoy playing the minigame myself. I will enable it in future demo releases and make tweaks based on people’s feedback.
Right now, this minigame is set in such a way that quality will go down the more you miss, but having enough “perfect" hits can completely cancel this out. I’ve configured it just enough to reward people who can time their presses properly, but not punish people too much for missing their hits too much.
Your Crafting level dictates the base amount of progress you make depending if it’s a miss, a “good", an “excellent" or a perfect hit. Having more recipe mastery can slightly increase the amount of progress you make when landing hits, while your fatigue levels no longer play a part in how much progress you make.
Shopkeeping
I’d like to think that the shopkeeping in the game is functional, but still lacking a personality. Some of my current goals are to improve customer behaviors while shopping in the shop and to improve the shopping gameplay by making it less frustrating in some cases.
Customers in town, including your shop, have “classes” and “types” that determine what items they’re willing to buy, how much they’re willing to spend and how they go by making these decisions upon entering your shop. What I’m currently working on is making these more apparent by including some behavioral changes to the customers. Some customers should now decide and move faster (or slower) depending on what their class is and they start emoting to show what they think about an item they’re checking out. I also decided to adjust their movement patterns to make them feel more like real life shoppers to an extent, and to be much less robotic to say the least. Their overall starting budgets were also increased, but I will still need to improve their criteria checking based on your feedback.
I've also adjusted the pricing guide that appears right of the pricing text box. This was included to help players decide how much they can sell their goods. In previous versions of the demo, the expression changes were either too vague or too easy to "game" and even failed to consider the total capital needed to produce the item you were pricing (my bad!). At its current improved implementation, Arlo's expression should still show when you're pricing items too high or way too low at the base level; that means you will get alerted if you are about to lose money if you set the price at a certain level, or if you'll be selling an item for a price that absolutely no one will buy it from. What changed is that the accuracy can differ vastly every time you try to price an item, with your fatigue level being another factor that can influence this accuracy. To further provide help for some players, you also get an option to increase this accuracy by investing your skill points in raising a certain talent (more on this in the Skills and Talents section below).
Aside from these changes, I’ve adjusted stamina consumption and time passing while the shop is open to be slower. Hopefully, these changes help you last a bit longer in the shop, making you faint much less. (Still need to watch that SP bar, though)
Additionally, I’m thinking about adding a possible new feature that could allow you to influence customers’ decision making while in the shop. Based on my observations and my own experience playing the game, I think shopkeeping needs to feel a bit more dynamic. I will still need a bit more time to plan this out well; I will make another update in the future on how this will turn out to be.
Jobs and Haggling
The biggest deal about this part is the haggling. While I did not intend for it to be the main feature in the game, implementing it turned out to be more work than I expected. The actual gameplay is one thing, making it somewhat intuitive is another. Right now, a barebones version of it is included in the game but, similar to the quality changes in crafting, it is disabled in the demo. Here's a rough representation of what it currently looks like.
As you may see, the plan for it is reminiscent of turn-based battle systems. I wanted haggling to feel and play as dynamically as the crafting in the game, but more appropriate to the selling aspect. I think highlighting the back-and-forth exchange between Arlo and a potential customer is the way to go, and a turn-based "battle" system felt like the right choice.
The goal in haggling is to essentially smooth-talk your way to convince customers to commission you, and in here it felt right to have your Sales talents come into play. As shown in the gif, the system already works to an extent but would still need a lot of improvements. It's perfectly understandable if the entire thing looks confusing and overwhelming. I will continue to work on this and make it the way I envisioned it to be.
On the job side of things, I've fixed when job givers start to appear from Crafting level 2 to Sales level 2. It just makes more sense, I think.
Reputation
Compared to the rest, this system is relatively "done". The entire thing is working as intended, and improvements may be in order in the future as needed. What it currently lacks is a proper explanation on how it works, what it influences and such. I'm working on making a short introduction about this along with other systems in the game.
Right now, you can expect your reputation to change a bit more based on your actions in town and this can be more easily noticed. Before, reputation changes are primarily tied to crafting and selling. Now, your choices in dialogues can also influence your reputation. Even the amount of time you open your shop can make you more/less reputable. You may also start noticing adventurers in town behaving and talking to you differently based on your reputation. If you have a favorable reputation based on their class, they will be willing to issue a job or haggle with you. However, if you don't, they will insult or underestimate you and will decline on issuing jobs. Be even less desirable, and they'll outright avoid you.
To help ease you into this whole system, I've also delayed its introduction until you reach Sales level 2 and have spent about a month in town, where it will be properly explained and start to affect your playthrough.
Town events
Town events were meant to introduce a bit more spice while running your shop. I'd like to think that randomness is one of the vital components of making games like Craggenrock feel more alive, and town events are one of the ways to achieve that. They can be anything from raising/lowering demand for certain item types, making certain classes/types of customers more likely to come to your shop and so on.
Currently, news can affect the woodcutter Braso's shop. His shop's operating days/hours can change on certain weeks. (Don't worry, you will be notified about this in advance). I've also added other events like:
- Ore discounts at the mining office
- Temporary unavailability of ores
- Delays in mining office order deliveries
- Increased/Decreased customers in the shop
- Heatwaves (where you wake up fatigued)
I'm planning to add some other events in the future too, ones like:
- Demand changes for certain items
- Seasonal events, where categories of material supplies/prices change (e.g. harvest seasons where plant-based materials are more abundant and cheaper)
- ... and more.
I plan to add more event types in the future, so be in the lookout for those too.
Create the (Craggenrock) recipe
For now, I'll be keeping this under wraps. It's for you to find out, after all. 😉
What else is new?
Here are some other things I've worked on that don't fit any of the listed features.
Customization
As shown in the gif below, you can now change the look of your shop by changing the counters and shelves, counter cloths, etc. You can also customize your bedroom. This will purely be cosmetic, so no worries about sacrificing style and self-expression over gaining/losing customers.
These items will be tied to future achievements, while some will be unlocked as you continue playing the game.
Expect more available options soon, plus outfits for Arlo.
Skills and Talents
You might be already familiar with the Crafting and Sales skills in the game and if you've tried some of the previous versions of the game's demo, you might have already seen some of the specializations available under your skills. I've improved what was previously referred to as skill sublevels, which are now called talents.
These talents allow you to specialize in certain aspects of your crafting and/or selling, granting bonuses and unlock items that will make running your shop fit your preferred playstyle a bit more. You can get crafting speed bonuses, access to new items and recipes and even get some insight on price changes with the merchants in town!
Dwindling Town Fair Stocks
I'd like to think that the town fair looked really vibrant, yet it lacks the spirit of one. It mostly felt like the fair was catered mostly just for Arlo. One thing I did to make it feel more alive is by having NPCs buy from the stalls slowly as days go by. You can now expect some stocks to completely disappear if you don't buy it in time before the fair stalls restock. This has always been one of my top intentions for the town fair, but have only managed to work on it this far in the development.
Miscellaneous
- New town map
This improved version shows your current location and highlights the merchant shops in town. You can now also view the shop opening and closing hours for your convenience. I plan to make the location of job givers visible as well, making it easier to track them down.
- Ledger tab showing active items on shelves
The Pricing tab on the ledger will now show a separate section showing just the items you have for sale to save you some time navigating.
- Encyclopedia
The encyclopedia shows information about all items in the game. Currently, this shows some basic information about them.
- Calendar
Your calendar will show the arrival dates of incoming mining office orders as well as any due jobs that you took. It will also show a reminder of your shop license's expiry at the end of the month if you have a license level 2 or 3.
- Button guides for workstations When minigames in the crafting stations are active, a small bar showing what keys/buttons do now show up. This should help with some of the confusion on how to interact with the minigames.
- Improved job HUD visibility I've added a subtle gradient behind the job HUD and increased the text contrast to make it easier to read the text.
- Adjusted the time flow A common concern for some is that time was going by too fast, either by just roaming around or when opening your shop. I've made time pass by just a tad bit slower to match the more laidback nature of Pareho without making it too slow that waiting for merchant shops to open might bore you to death.
- More roaming NPCs I think this further enhances the feeling of Pareho being a town of growth, lots of moving people going by their day. This includes just random townspeople going to and from the mines as the day passes by, adventurers going through the town to their different destinations and the people buying things in the town fair.
- Other minor UI/UX changes, bug fixes and other improvements
Is that all of it?
Well, yes, for now.
If you want to stay updated with news about Craggenrock, you can:
'Til next time!