It’s been a couple of months since my last update so I thought I’d chime in and let you know what I’ve been working on and what I’ll be working on in the future.
One of the big things I’ve been doing over the past few months is overhauling the way that walls work. In the current release, the walls take up a 3x3 tile area. The reason for this is because when you’re inside it looks like the top down indoors style of Zelda a link to the past. It’s nice as far as dungeon’s are concerned. But there are two problems:
1. Buildings look silly on the outside.
2. Small homes take up a LOT of space.
You can see what they look like in this screenshot:
I’ve now changed walls so that they take up an individual tile space. Here’s the new look of wooden walls:
Recently I did a thorough play test of the game. The goal was to find bugs and gameplay holes. Here’s a list of just a few things I came up with after playing:
1. Player speed needs to be increased.
2. AI needs tweaking across the board.
3. Damage values need to be balanced better.
4. There are too many occupations. I’m bringing it from 12 to 9 and combining some of them.
5. The game needs more farmable animals. You should also be able to breed them. In the end you will only be able to get them by purchasing them from a rancher. Adding Pigs and Sheep.
6. The game needs more crops. I’ll be adding a couple to the game.
7. The game needs more potions. I’ll be adding some of those to the game as well.
8. I'm adding more meals to the game (like beef stew). I’m going to add a Lamb Chop Dinner and Pancake breakfast. These food items will not only restore energy, but they will apply a buff that will prevent energy from decreasing for a period of time. It will always be best too make complete dinners with your food items.
9. Health regeneration should happen at a slow rate all the time. Forcing the player to use health potions just isn’t fun. I found myself intentionally dying just so I could get full health. No more of that.
10. Add a lot more sound effects.
This list is actually a LOT longer. These are just some of the things that come to mind. I’ve been very productive lately and there’s no reason to believe I’m gonna slow down. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done but the plan right now is simple: Finish up this list, then do another play test. If it doesn’t seem like there’s any gaping holes in the game after my play test, then I’ll be 100% focused on bug fixing and finishing touches.
Keep me posted if you have ideas or changes that you think need to be made to the game. I’m in the homestretch!