Hello!
Welcome to the 9th edition of AM Devlog! AM Devlogs are weekly (when we don't patch) updates on the development progress of Adventurer Manager. These Devlogs highlight our philosophy of the importance of development transparency and player feedback.
This Devlog is very exciting for us as it's a realization of how close we are getting towards our final release! We still have lots to do but in this edition of AM Devlog I will outline some of the key features we still want to add and adjust before we move on to refining and polishing existing systems. I will first outline what you will see sooner rather than later and then list the rest in no particular order. Some of these, like the Bestiary will come next patch, others may be the patch after that, or the patch after that, and so on. So without further ado, let's jump right in!
Bestiary
This was on our list for a while and we are happy to report that it's currently in the dev build being tested! In its initial implementation it will track total number of monster kills as well as provide detailed information about each monster slain depending on its Location. All Locations and monsters will have question marks until they are entered and defeated once respectively. After a set number of kills the monsters' weaknesses and vulnerabilities will be revealed. We are working on additional information to be included at a later time such as attack range and bonuses against them.
Preview of the Bestiary
Ruler Update
The Ruler creation at the beginning of the game is one of the last relics of our pre-Steam version. This will be updated with additional adjustments available. We have also decided that the Ruler will be selectable from any race! With those races, the particular hair/beards will also be available to choose. In the beginning implementation, there will only be one clothing option per gender, but over time we plan to add more to customize your ruler's appearance.
Preview of the new Rulers (male & female)
Barbershop
Related to the new Ruler creation interface will be a new menu for customizing your Adventurers! We are still designing this system and thus I cannot provide a screenshot, but it will be similar to Ruler creation. There will likely be a small fee associated with changing your appearance, but hair, beard, eye, and skin tones will be customizable. We are also toying with the idea of including a free customization from point-of-hire as an Allegiance bonus. Overall, we believe this feature will help us bring you more customization options.
Racial Bonuses/Negatives
In our design documentation we've long had racially unique bonuses and negatives planned. The time has come for them to finally arrive! These are bonuses, and negatives, that are associated with members of each race. For example: Humans are crafty and resourceful so they gain 10% more XP than other races, but they are also greedy so they reduce Gold found. We are also toying with the idea of including weapon specific bonuses for each. An example would be Dwarves are good with hammers, barbarians with axes, humans with swords, elves with bows, etc. Look for these to come sometime soon and be improved through Allegiance ranks.
Allegiance Update
Allegiance is also in-line to get the update it deserves. Like I just mentioned, Racial Bonuses will be improved through Allegiance as well as increased Sell Costs in that city, reduced Buy Costs, unlockable Classes (different than they are now, will get to that in a minute), reduced Resurrect Cost, and others. As part of this to prepare us for launch and future tutorials, at level 1 Allegiance all racial towns will only have one Class hireable. Elves will have Rangers, Dwarves have Clerics, Giants will have Barbarians and so on. This will help new players ease into the game and as they will be tied to their Racial weapon bonuses. As Allegiance increases, more Classes will unlock as they do now. We will also likely be removing the higher level hires, but this is still being evaluated.
Achievements
That's right! Achievements are getting closer to being here! Just recently, MajicPanda was working on Steam Achievements and I have the dev build screenshot to prove it! Right now there are 57 to acquire and they include things like max Allegiance, gold collecting, monster kills, castle building, and many more! We also hope to add a lot more stat tracking into the Kingdom menu as we move forward. Things like deaths, gold spent, etc.
Achievement Preview
More Dungeons & Story
We are getting close to giving you 4 more dungeons! Two of them will get you to level 51. The third will be a gear check dungeon to make sure you are properly geared for Miraj and the finale of the story. His dungeon and all its denizens will likely be level 52+, so you will need your hardiest geared Adventurers to succeed!
Preview of Island Temple Dungeon
Sound Effects
Yes, that's right! We will finally have more sounds than the 3 that are currently in the game! We have dozens of sounds that will be slowly entering the game over the next few patches. We had a hard time deciding whether we wanted retro sfx or more realistic ones and we opted for the realistic ones. While our game is retro-inspired, the fidelity of our music tracks is much higher quality and thus we felt that higher quality sfx fit better into AM.
More Save Slots & ironman Mode
Last but not least is more Save Slots! We plan on bringing you two more slots with each of them having the option at New Game start to select Ironman mode. In my eyes, this is how AM is supposed to be played! Resurrects are disabled in Ironman, so when your Adventurer is dead, he stays dead. This will hopefully bring a new challenge to AM veterans.
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We are almost there folks! A lot of these items on our list are already in progress and the rest are in design mode. Once this list is implemented, the only things left to do will be to add a tutorial and polish, polish, polish! So for the first time since we launched on Steam, I can provide a tentative Release Date for AM: by the end of 2014. That's as tight a deadline as I can provide at this time and like most video game release dates, it's subject to change. As we get closer to the date and after knocking out the rest of these items on this list, I will provide a new estimate.
Thanks so much for continuing to help us make AM awesome!
Happy Adventuring
Thomas Spradling
Game Designer & Producer
VA Studios