Greetings island builders!
A couple of months ago, we released a blog where we mentioned that we were working on major updates for the Island Creator - updates that would also affect the adventures of all players in Worlds Adrift. If you haven't read that blog, we encourage you first head over and give it a read, for a bit more context for this post.
We're getting closer to releasing the first of the Island Creator Gameplay Updates, and we wanted to share exactly what'll be in it with you!
Turrets
There are a variety of different types of turrets that you can now place on your islands, ranging from smaller Light Turrets all the way to Explosive Turrets that'll also target ships. We foresee people using them to protect high value areas on their island that are filled with loot.
One of the turret types is a bit different from the others: it uses a similar technology to players' grappling hooks. When it attaches to a player, it reels her in until she's close enough to be shocked and flung away.
We don't think using your entire turret budget on a circle of these is the greatest idea for gameplay reasons but it just goes to show what is possible with the systems. Perhaps someone might design a secret area that a player could only reach after being dragged to the entrance by a tether turret.
Fighting Back
With these added threats, island makers will need to gauge the difficulty of their islands. Within the main game there'll be multiple ways to destroy turrets, and teamwork will make the task exponentially easier, so we're adding a tester pistol to the Island Creator.
Its power will be adjustable to make the task of disabling the turrets easier or harder to simulate different weapons or player skill levels in game. The test player will now also have a health bar that uses the same impact resolution/fall damage and turret damage as the game, so you can really fine tune your puzzle designs with a decent idea how they will feel in game.
But how do you make an area truly inaccessible when everyone has a grappling hook? That brings us to another part of this update:
Unclimbable Surfaces
We're including a range of building blocks that cannot be grappled or climbed on, just like a ship during the effects of an atlas pulse. These will allow for more elaborate platforming puzzles. To add a little danger, we're also adding spikes and barbed wire to create a sense of danger for any potential explorers.
Bringing all of these things together, we have a video that shows how all these mechanics could affect exploring islands in Worlds Adrift in the future:
https://youtu.be/aYbgbj2Ovrg
Note that this gauntlet has a very high difficulty - you can thank a certain sadistic island builder for this one - and most islands will not be this hard! It will ultimately be up to the island builders to decide on the difficulty of their island dungeon. On our side, we'll tweak the looting system to accommodate this new addition to the game: If a container or chest isn't looted for a certain period of time (due to the challenge of the dungeon, the cleverly hidden location of the chest, or the difficulty of reaching its island) the chest will accumulate more and better rewards, awaiting a plucky adventurer to claim for her own!
We expect this update to be released in September. You may have also seen on Twitter here and here a preview of the Kioki architecture, a brand new culture from the past we'll be releasing assets for soon.
Looking forward to seeing everybody go wild with this whole new aspect of the game!