Hey all! I just thought I'd give everyone a status update. It's been a while since the last patch, but development definitely has not slowed down in any way shape or form. InDev 16's new world map is one of those strange features that I can't really push like I do my normal updates.
Typically, when starting a new major update cycle I can have the first Unstable build out the door within 2 or 3 weeks, that's not the case with InDev 16. Because the world map fundamentally changes how the entire game is played it's nearly impossible to release anything until the new world map is mostly completed, luckily though we're getting close to that! I still have a lot of work left to do, but where I am now is worlds (hah!) away from where InDev 15 was a month ago when I released InDev 15i.
Most of the players who follow my twitter see my daily status updates, listing all the cool new features coming up. For those of you who don't follow me on twitter I thought I'd show you some of the progress shots to let you know what's been going on! :)
The first step was figuring out how I wanted the world map to look, this took some time, I went through several design concepts before finally settling on one. Here's a whole bunch of designs I worked through until I finally settled with the current design in production.
Design concepts:
After design after design, I finally settled down with the current version, and started to draw!
..and finally;
It's been a long road, I'm currently working on the GUI and save data. The biggest struggle at the moment is interconnecting all the save data together into one cohesive "world map", but progress is going great!
By Unstable 1 I expect to have the world map mostly working. By InDev 16 Stable I am planning to give the player the ability to actually bring all their maps together into one big metagame, allowing them to transfer villagers and resources from map to map using influence spells. I think this update will fundamentally change Retro-Pixel Castles, bringing it a feature very few village simulators have. I can't wait to get the update out to you guys! :)
.. oh, and by the way, the world map you see now is only about a fifth of the entire world map planned by the time Retro-Pixel Castles is released! Here's the entire map as currently planned. Each colored section is a planned map theme. :)