We just released a new update for Dustgrave’s alpha demo including many improvements and additions!
We keep working on the game, and we are close to releasing some interesting features that will drastically increase the player’s agency and freedom of action in the game. While we keep improving Dustgrave’s narrative with new quests and dialogues, we also believe players’ options shouldn’t be limited to fighting and talking.
That’s why we developed a system allowing for secondary interactions to be used in the game, ranging from classic stuff like picking locks and killing sleeping characters, to more unique approaches like making NPCs forget the bad things you did to them or poisoning food supplies to weaken a group of enemies before fighting them.
Simply having those new options wasn’t enough, so we’re also in the process of revamping the structure of major quests so that completing sub-quests won’t be the only way to progress! Actions like killing a group of enemies or poisoning a settlement’s well will have an impact on the game’s simulation and narrative. This means that it will be possible to finish some major quests, like the ones involving the conquest of a settlement, without being forced to also complete several subquests before launching the final assault.
More details on those new two systems will be released in the future with a proper dev diary. In the meantime, you can check the latest update’s changelog.
Changelog 0.1.4.10
Major Fixes and improvements
- NPCs will now greet the player properly instead of always thinking they already met the player a few seconds earlier.
- Keybindings have been added to the Options Menu
- NPCs will be much more reactive to crimes and other player actions.
- The game will no longer explode if you kill an NPC that gave you a Quest. Still, it’s a rude thing to do and you shouldn’t do that too often.
- The trading screen has been revamped. Trading items is no longer instantaneous, but chosen items will move to a new area. It’s the same screen that many games have, so it’s not even a new cool feature, it’s just us fixing our past mistakes.
- When hovering your mouse on items during trades, the trader will now share unwanted opinions on what you may be willing to buy or sell. The system’s reactivity will be greatly expanded in the future.
- The game will now track stolen items. Traders will recognize the stuff stolen from them and even the stuff stolen in the same location they live in. If a trade is attempted, they will react accordingly.
- It is now possible to sleep in Inns, which has the added benefit of healing Wounds and Traumas at a higher pace.
- Some Items now have a durability value, which can lead to permanent penalties to the item that can only be restored by repairing them. This will let us increase the number of looted items, especially when it comes to faction-specific armors, without ruining the game’s progression.
- Added new locations (Sacred Shrines and Ruins) which will be used in Quest and Subquests.
- Added new quests, minor factions will now have their own quests to assign depending on their identity.
- Added new sub-quests.
- Added special events that can alter the structure of existing quests.
- Added roaming parties of NPCs on the map. They are just chilling around, doing stuff, living life.
- Trader will no longer buy everything at the same price, but will have favoured or disliked categories, and may even refuse to buy certain things.
Minor fixes and improvements
- Wounds and Traumas now work properly again.
- A new tooltip area has been added to show the currently equipped item when changing the equipment.
- Money is now displayed in the inventory.
- Added a visual feedback when clicking on the ground to move around.
- Fixed a few instances of the Quest Marker not disappearing once a Quest status changes.
- Added additional feedback in combat to let the player know if a character is dying or if they have no more Action Points to spend.
- Added a minimum cap of 1x to the Critical Modifier.
- Fixed a few issues with how damages were calculated when attacking highly protected enemies.
- Changed the order of Actions in combat, so that Attacks and Spells will be displayed first.
- Traders will now refresh their inventory after some in-game days.
- Added more places in which the Persuasion Minigame can be used in dialogues.
- The Persuasion Minigame will now show the correct percentages when hovering on different options.
- NPCs will no longer ignore the player going around killing people, and will now occasionally join the fight if they feel like it.
- Going back to the main menu is less likely to destroy the game and lead to absurd issues.
- Areas of Effect will now be anchored inside the max range of each action.
- Added more detailed info in the diary, so that Quests and their Phases have descriptions when necessary.
- Added a visual effect for the Rooted Status.
- Rebalanced some Attributes.
- Fixed an issue when loading savegames.