With a slight delay, we finally thawed this edition of Dinolords Monthly from the ice slab it was delivered in. I wonder if they will ever hear about regular envelopes, or if they will keep sending these updates in massive frozen chunks of glacial ice.
This month, we will be looking at some of the exciting new biomes that are making their way into the game, along with some new art and 3D as well as having a look at some building-related developments that are currently in full swing.
Dinosaurs
If it is not already very clear, we really like dinosaurs. I mean, we probably wouldn't be making a game like Dinolords if we didn't. But there is just one little problem: it has been a little difficult to quickly see if a stray Deinonychus on the battlefield is friend or foe.
Well, we can finally rejoice, because as if recently, dinosaurs are now clad in barding and banners to make it clear where they belong!
Here are some in-editor views of the different bardings we have made for our prehistoric friends, starting out with the British:
There is a folder somewhere on our shared storage full of references to medieval barding for horses, and Lina has been busy making concept sketches for how they could look if fitted to a dinosaur.
And of course there is the other force, the Vikings, and they also want to adorn their cool dinosaurs with armor, just to make it easier for them to tell them apart too, have a look:
I love the chains on the Ankylosaurus, there is just something to it that feels just right with having chains on a big dino that basically comes with a built in flail. Rad!
Biome, Bioyou, Bious!
It is a continuous effort to make the world of Dinolords look visually interesting and beautiful, and lately our artist Elisa has been making some super cool progress we want to show.
Firstly, though, let's talk a little bit about why this important - apart from making a game we thing looks great, having different areas that can look distinct and unique also affords some important functionality for actually playing the game. Primarily, they aid in traversing the world and navigating different zones - think along the lines of "It's to the east of the moorland" or "it's just on the other side of this pine forest". Secondly they are also a super efficient way to help set the mood of an area, to prepare the player if they need to be on high alert or if they can find specific things in a certain area. If the fog gets dense and visibility is low, maybe it's a good idea to prepare for an ambush. Or if I want to find a bog witch, maybe there's better odds if I search an actual bog and not a nice sunlit meadow with deer frolicking amidst the flowers.
So we really want to make areas that are recognizably different but also that still adhere to some degree of accuracy, or plausibility. That means a bunch of research into plant and tree species on the British isles and here are a few screengrabs:
Add to those different looking grass and ground textures, and it's really starting to look like different areas with varied nature.
We continue to expand and explore how to make these even more distinct, but we think it's already moving in a pretty cool direction.
Building up a base
Basebuilding in Dinolords is an element of gameplay that has undergone a lot of iterations. We quickly discovered that playing as a character and being 'locked' to the lord, it was a challenge to keep on top of everything that was going on once the base started growing. Throw in some invading Vikings with dinosaurs and other events out on the world that demanded your immediate attention, keeping a well-oiled machine with 50 different buildings became a frustrating chore. As a result, people would build minimally and not engage with a lot of the buildings, they would only train base units and never explore different units and resources fully simply because there was no mental overhead to explore it.
As a consequence, basebuilding has been through a lot, ripping out superfluous systems and striking a balance between keeping the feeling of a thriving base, and not being completely overloaded with keeping 20 plates spinning while being tickled.
To sort of explain it in a comparative fashion, if we have a scale that goes from full citybuilder tycoon game with lots of intricate interwoven systems, and on the opposite end a very minimalist streamlined RTS, the needle used to point all the way deep into citybuilder territory, and now we are taking strides to point it more towards RTS games we all know and love.
Boiling down the sheer number of resources and production buildings with refinement and intermediate resources to none and making a much more direct connection between having the resources needed for a unit or a building and getting that desired unit.
Meanwhile, we really want to keep the feeling of a thriving base, affectionately known internally as "the anthill" where villagers are busy and things are getting done. We are exploring ways to have units idle in different locations and have stuff to do even if they are not actively working, and ways to have soldiers guard the walls and archers in towers, to make the base feel alive and interesting.
And lastly, and probably most impactful visually, is that we have done away with upgrading buildings in 3 tiers, and instead we are revisiting building models and making them cool from the get-go. You might have seen some of the concept art on roofs and buildings in our previous posts, but for good measure, here are some reference drawings and models for some of the buildings.
Until next time
That was all for this month. Over the next two months, most of us will be taking a week or two's worth of well deserved summer vacation. Not all at the same time, so don't fret, work will still progress on Dinolords.
Just like the lord, hopefully there will be a little time to relax on a beach during the 3 days of summer we usually get here in Denmark.
Catch you all next time!
-panxter