Given the Holy Days this week, I was quite busy. But nonetheless I got some stuff done, and the beta release fast approaches.
Now, a variety of shops spawn in towns, not just food shops. I'm not 100% sold on how they spawn, and more importantly which items are in their menus, but they still are out there and you can buy stuff.
The Tuxborough gun store. A fine establishment, which offers a derringer, a revolver, a sawn-off shotgun, and a .450 cal rifle.
I also added bosses to the game, though they are under-implemented at the moment. These more powerful monsters will be found at the end of lairs, and represent the objective of a lair quest.
This week I also added sacramentals, perhaps being inspired by the holy days. Sacramentals work exactly as they do in real life. They're tied to certain devotions, they improve your fortitude (that is, your willingness to continue), and on some occasions they are a physical reminder to yourself or others about your faith.
I plan on having a lot of sacramentals to choose from.
Why did I make these specific design choices? I didn't want them to be some sort of cheap talisman or superstitious trick that grants some sort of buff or ward, because that's not how sacramentals work. They work as physical reminders of the metaphysical. Do you receive supernatural protection because you wear a red scapular in honor of Christ's Passion? No, unless God granted you that grace, and it would be superstitious and impious to think otherwise. Would another person treat you differently if he sees you holding a rosary? Yes, and a monster or demon even more so. Sacramentals will work similarly in the game, as subtle reminders and outward signs of faith, and while they won't be essential, they will be nice to have.
After that, I did a little bugfixing. Now, lairs and nests no longer spawn in rivers or on roads (assuming I did it right). While I'm planning on making rivers impassible or difficult to cross one day, now it just doesn't look ugly. I also made it so immovable, indestructible encounter-linked NPCs no longer spawn on top of level stairs, which means now there's a 100% guarantee that lairs are fully passable.
I then started on the "Challenge Rating" system for quests. This allows me to scale the difficulty of all quests throughout the game. How it works is that all monsters have a relative proportion they appear at each challenge rating, and a value by which that increases each level. This will allow me to do things like tweak when monsters first appear and how frequently they appear on later levels by changing a couple numbers. It also allows me to have non-integer challenge ratings, which allows for even more fine tuning.
For next week, I will still be working diligently on getting this initial beta release up, and you should expect a trailer soon as well, so keep an eye out for that. Remember to email any questions, comments, and prayer requests you have to [email protected].