Hello everyone!
Late Steam update because of a very busy period with the (full-time) work that pays the bills. Sigil of Kings (SoK) is a passion project, which means that I make it during my spare time, but it also means that I get to make all the decisions and direction (good or bad). Work on the game has been continuous as usual, so here is a longer-than-usual update, which should also hopefully dispel any fear that the game is abandoned!
Capsule art
In case you didn't notice, the game has now new capsule art, which more closely reflects the game's theme and art style! You can see part of it at the game's Steam page, but here it is, uncropped
Linux port, aiming for consoles
I've been careful to design the UI with controllers in mind, so that the game can play as well with 1) keyboard only 2) keyboard/mouse 3) controller only. And since my aim is to publish the game to more than just Windows, I took the extra step of porting it to Linux. This means that the game now will aim to be published at least on Windows, Linux and Steam Deck, to begin with!
New GUI screens
There's a variety of new GUI screens implemented (the list never ends really). Here they are, with demo videos. As usual, these are more functional drafts rather than anything polished and final.
GUI: Ability hotbar and remapping
SoK will include *a lot* of abilities (spells, etc). The difference with many other games is that they are not learnt as part of a class, but they are taught by guilds/teachers/tomes etc (delving into the specifics is a topic for a different time). The point is that, at any given time, your character will be able to potentially execute a large number of skills, although there will be some "favourite" ones that will be chosen far more often than others. To support this, SoK now supports an ability hotbar, with remapping capabilities. There's a single-row version, and a multi-row version activated with a press-and-hold action.
GUI: Reading notes/books/journals
SoK will include items you can read like notes, journals and books. There's a new GUI screen implemented that does exactly that.
GUI: Item transfer
Transferring items from one container to another is something that can happen often: get a few items from a chest (loot!), put a few items in a chest (storage!), pick up some items from the ground, put some items on the ground, exhange items with others, etc. The GUI screen that enables this action is a variant of the inventory screen, as seen below.
GUI: Split stack
During item transfers, you might want to pick up, drop or transfer only *some* items, rather than the entire stack. This is enabled with yet another simple GUI screen that, during a transfer, you can select how much of that item you want to transfer.
Modding tools
This was a far bigger piece of work than a player would care about, and is partly responsible for the delay of this not-quite-monthly update. There has been a revamp in the game's configuration code, so that it's more modding-friendly while also running fast. "Configuration" here is an understatement: it includes things like the specification of biomes, the different creatures (playable or not), behaviours, factions, and a lot more. You can literally edit a text file to add some new content (adding new images is slightly harder, but I'm working on that). Not everybody wants to edit text files to add content, so there is now "modding GUI" to assist with that. If you're curious to get a glimpse on things that can be configured, have a look at the video. Again: you won't see that in-game unless you activate some super-special-developer mode.
Summon effect
The death visual effect in the game breaks the creature/object image into bits that fly away. Now, the opposite has been added: for some abilities where you summon or build things, bits fly and form the original image. It's a simple reversal, it works, and I'm trying to think of abilities that can use that.
Gold pieces
Gold will be a separate item, and of course you can stack it a lot. To be able to see if there are few or many gold pieces on the ground, different images are used, showing one, few or many coins. Some of these variations are shown in the below video.
To close it all off, here's a carefree walk in the overworld wilderness without the fog of war. Thank you for you support, and see you in a few weeks!