This update includes functionality for spectating games, UI for building structures, Mac support, and a ton of backend improvements.
Full list of updates:
Spectate functionality
Players can now spectate a game, seeing all game state info without being able to affect anything.
- Lobbies allow for players to switch to different slots
- Players can start a game from a lobby when there is only one filled player slot (and any number of filled spectator slots)
Framework for game audio
No actual audio in-place now, but functionality now exists for game music and sound effects.
UI additions and improvements
- UI for building structures - a structure silhouette appears over the hovered tile when a structure is selected to be built, and valid build locations are clearly shown
- An alert text system for showing in-game alerts
- When a resource structure runs out of resources, an icon is displayed on the structure and a text alert is shown
- Text alert for trying to build something that you can not afford
- The bottom-left UI now displays the player name and team color. For spectators, it displays both player names, colors, and resource amounts.
- Clickable in-game pause button
- The in-game pause menu now includes a "return to main menu" button for singleplayer games and spectators. The surrender button is still in place for multiplayer games.
- Game timer
- The command card at the bottom-right now has a dedicated cancel button which cancels queued/active abilities, cancels the last build in the queue for structures, and leaves the build menu for peasants. Relevant functionality stolen from the escape key, which now exclusively handles pausing/unpausing.
- Players can no longer see their opponent's build queues or build timers. Spectators can still see all of this info.
- When selecting an opponent's unit, its abilities are visible (but not selectable). Spectators can see the path to that unit's move location/rally point.
Backend changes
- Mac builds are now supported. Multiplayer works cross-platform.
- Unity engine update
- Big refactor of unit functionality and networking. Nothing player-facing here, but future updates to units will be quicker and more reliable.
General gameplay
- Camera drag-pan is now inverted and works more like a "grab and move the camera" instead of a panning situation
- Idle units that are attacked automatically get a command to attack-move towards their attacker
- The map is a bit smaller, two village locations are removed, and forest tiles are shifted around
- Peasants are now buildable from the keep instead of from the barracks
- Attack-priority has been improved. Units now prioritize attack-units over peasants over structures. Target-firing a unit still always prioritizes that unit.
Balance changes
- Horseman move time reduced from 1.8s to 1.6s
- Horseman HP increased from 18 to 22
- Charge research cost decreased from 100gold/50amber to 50gold/50amber
- Charge research time decreased from 45s to 30s
- Charge cooldown time decreased from 20s to 10s There has not been much usage of cavalry units or the charge upgrade during playtests. This is probably largely due to barracks units being simpler to build and use, but I think it is also partially because Horsemen were not strong enough to justify the initial investment of building an Amber Mine and Stables early. Hopefully these buffs will help incentivize players to try out early-game cavalry builds!
Bug fixes
- Displayed eligible structure build locations now update properly when a unit moves
- Players are no longer able to cancel their opponent's queued builds
- Fixed a few disconnect issues