This is the 32nd week devlog for Comic Construct. Now that the new demo version is out, I've been getting some feedback about the game systems, and some of them aren't working as intended. As is to be expected with a large changes like this.
To follow the game's progress you can join me at:
My bluesky account which gives more frequent updates.
Also Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.
Each week in these devlogs we typically go over development goals established at the end of the previous weeks post.
---
Supporting the demo release.
With the new demo versions changes, there is a lot of testing and bug fixing that needs to happen. Most of these revolve around systems new to the game such as energy consumption and the totem sacrifices. Thankfully, the new demo version was finished and made live right around the next Demo Day deadline. So I was able to submit the new demo version to Demo Day 63, and update game jam hosted bi-monthly by the AGDG (Amateur Game Development General) community. Which has had about 20 downloads on itch so far, and a couple people giving extensive feedback. You guys are awesome, and I know you all are gonna make it.
Getting Pawns to consume food like they should.
This was easier to get working than I expected, considering the amount of things I needed to change. Which reminds me I need to update the github repo... and done lol. Pawns now consume energy while performing tasks, when they are low on energy they will become slow, and unwilling to work on their assigned job. They will change their job to gathering berries. Their energy consumption is considerably slower than the player's for balance reasons. I might need to adjust this in the future.
Add achievements for exotic items that are missing from new biomes.
This is a simple database edit. However, I had other things I needed to set up for future integration because of the way I have the database managed (which is super naive). Thankfully, it works well enough that I will likely never change it. Considering the entire game pauses while menus are open, it's efficiency doesn't really matter. The only trouble it causes is on objective checks, which only check part of the struct infrequently. Which causes the same issue as storage updates. I have fixing both of these things on the todo list, but they aren't game breaking. Just slightly irritating when they rarely trigger at an inconvenient time.
Get some more structure art done.
I finally got the Abattoir done. The building is a little plain, but there will be a bunch of Grubs moving around behind it, which will give more motion. The Abattoir will passive produce meat, bone, and hide which will reduce the need for pawns to hunt. If or when I add new creatures to other areas, I can have it produce their resources too.
---
No unplanned work was done. I did do some marketing related stuff, which I'm not sure I'll see results from, I'll let you know if anything comes from that. Here is the planned development work for the next week.
- Framework for the first minigame.
- Get the market UI and trading done.
- Art assets for the next biome.
- New structure art. (if I have time)