Patch #3
It's been a week since last update and ive been super busy developing and testing. The game is far from done but its going forward! Im also going to talk about the vision of the game and what the future of the game is going to be like.
Goal of the game
The goal of the game is that it will be a colony sim / survival rpg. My inspiration for making this game was by playing Bellwright. In case you don't know what Bellwright is, then it's a medieval rpg game with city builder / colony sim elements. But the cool part about the game is that there are NPCs that you can command / manage in third person, so instead of being a traditional RTS game like age of empires where you command your units around, you can control them in real time, basically like having companions in Fallout or any Elder scrolls game, but instead of just following you around for a limited time, you can have them work for you, build a village, harvest resources and fight for you etc. That was the intriguing part for me.
Prototype
So i started by making a prototype using GOAP (in case people dont know what goap is, it stands for Goal Oriented Action Planning and is used in games such as FEAR. A genius made game, the AI is really good. Will recommend it), but that was too complex for what i needed. I liked that you could chain actions together, but it took too much micromanagement to set everything up, so instead i resorted to using State machines and a priority system to check if they had any tasks they could do. Tasks include chopping wood, crafting, building, mining and harvesting (so far, might add more later such as farming and hunting). I also have a task system that registers everytime a task is added to a work station sort of like a queue. So now i just have a state machine for every task a worker can do and i switch between them and contain the logic within them.
So at the start of the game i load a task for every tree there is, or every ore or every harvestable resource there is. And everytime a player adds an item to a workstation it adds a task to the global task manager, same with building, everytime you place down a building part, it will add a building task to the global task manager. And same everytime you complete a task it will remove the task from theglobal task manager.
The priority system i mentioned before will then loop over the NPCs priorities and check which priority is highest and check if it has a task and then take any task, and if it doesnt have a task it will go to the next highest priority in the list. And to make sure no priority is left out, is check priorities from left side (no pun intended) and right side of the priority list.
The plan:
My long time plan for the NPC system is to have multi story buildings, where the AI will help you build in different levels of a building or how to say (english isnt my native language). Right now its sort of working but there are still some quirks. I will add them to the todo list for later, but the basics should work.
Will probably also plan on having more large scale battles between workers and and bandits, so you can command workers around in formations and have them battle a lot of bandits. Will also have a spawn system, so the bandits will spawn in waves and you have to defend your town you build. For now it’s just ideas, but they’re also on the todo list for later.
I have also been working on the combat lately (yes as people can guess im a huge nerd atm (No offense to anyone), but i really like studying how AI works and try to implement it and i draw inspirations from other games). So since the main focus of the game wasnt combat i had to get some inspiration, so i thought what systems would be cool to have. I looked at dark souls combat but i felt it would be too hardcore for the game, especially when having many workers and bandits fighting eachother. ( I have tried it before, look at my game Medieval Arms, i almost had large scale combat between AI working, but it was too much of a hassle to maintain in the end)
So ive been playing valheim recently and i really like their combat, the combat feels fluid and rewarding but also punishing at same time. There are hit effects like screen shakes and a lot of particle effects and flashy effects. And the combat feels good, you can easily deal damage and it feels rewarding, but you can also just as easily take damage and die fast if you dont watch out. So you are not overpowered by any means, it feels fair. So ive been thinking about implementing it like valheim so far with screenshakes to make it feel and look good, also have some blood effects when you hit someone and some particle effects as well as making you stagger when you get hit as well as making the enemies stagger when they get hit.
Current progress:
Atm ive been working on the wolf enemy. It works by checking an aggro radius, and if you are within it it will play a howl animation before start charging at you and chase you until it is in range and then keep attacking you, as well as suddenly running away. But that last part is a pathfinding quirk more than something i intended to implement, but i like how it looks so ill keep it.
I have also been working on the stamina so now you can only run and attack as long as you have stamina - that was of course a nobrainer to have i just didnt have time to implement it before now.
Graphics:
I have decided to use Unity’s HDRP solution instead of the URP, as i feel there are more graphical options to go with in the long run, such as volumetric fog or sun rays, and they just have better lighting support in general, so things look more realistic, although im not sure how well it works with the polygon art. But we will see! maybe its better to go for a cartoony coloury look combined with the polygon art. Who knows!
World:
I plan on maybe procedurally generating the world as it doesnt make sense to put everything down by hand. Im not sure if it should be a fully fledged RPG yet, with a set in stone questline. Originally i was inspired by Bellwright, but then it hit me i cant just copy Bellwright (hehe) so i have to make the game into something else, besides, its done before so i dont feel like theres a reason to make the game game again. Thats why im thinking about making it to a base builder / survival rpg with minor tower defense elements, or like the purpose is more to defend your base as enemies charge at you. But maybe also so you can go explore into the world and find enemies to fight and find bases with bandits, as well as hunt wolves and rabbits for food.
Game and development
The game still has a bit of way to go, although i feel im getting there. Last patch i made a lot of inventory overhaul as well as crafting menu, as well as fixing a lot of bugs from playtesting. That really helped a lot. It helps to get other peoples view on things when you have been working on it for a long time. At some points the bugs starts to blend into gameplay and you kind of forget they are bugs heh. But again i will probably focus on making it a lite sandbox rpg where you can build bases and manage workers for your colony. Theres still a lot of bugs to fix and minor features to implement, so im not sure how broad i can go game design wise, although it would be cool to have a lot of subsystems in the game that interact with eachother, like worker management with skills, food, happiness etc. But thats still long down the line. Currently im planning on getting features out and bug fixes out as fast as possible so i can focus on working on the next thing and improving areas of the game, taking it little by little. Anyways thats enough from me for this time. Until next time!
ps. the game is still really buggy. But i plan on pushing out single patches every week or often as i can. Im just one guy working on it atm, so i cant get everything done in time hah although i wish i could x^)
Patch Notes:
- fix stamina use - cant run when stamina is below 0 - right now it subtracts with 10 units per second. let me know if its too much
- fix stamina regen - right now it regens with 15 stamina per second, so it takes about 7 seconds to regen back to full stamina
- fix stamina use - cant attack when stamina is below 0 - each attack costs 10 stamina
- combat
- added screen shake and more blood effects when attacking
- added workers can walk up stairs now and multi story buildings
- added colliders for trees and ores
- player will stagger for a second when taking damage - making them unable to move or attack Workers
- Added so they can mine ore pathfinding
- bandits should avoid walls now
- unarmed combat - can now punch
- bug where worker couldnt build bed
- audio bugs where you could hear everything from far away Building:
- Fixed a bug where you could place wooden floors inside another, basically added collision checks for floors and walls UI:
- Limited view range for world objects - now you cant target trees, hemps and food etc from afar
- Fixed so you have to be up close to talk to a worker, before you could talk to them from far away
- Added seperate loot panel for dead mobs, ie interacting with wolves or rabbits or bandits when they are dead will open a seperate inventory panel
- Health bars, made them like valheim / dark souls where it slowly removes health and displays yellow color behind
- Added skills to the worker panel - its not implemented yet, but later they can skill up crafting and building etc to work faster the better they get combat
- changed it so the player face the way hes looking when attacking
- updated health bar
- added multistory building
- added wooden spike structure that you can place down to defend your base with
- Set up combat. Added screen shake effects, blood on hit, particle effect
- fixed respawning so it works now Death screen:
- added a death screen when dying. It will display a you died text for 4 seconds then fade away until you respawn.
