Greetings plagued ones and welcome to Dev Blog #62!
We apologise for the long break between Dev Blogs, we realise that it has been almost 2 months! We have been super busy and now it’s time to take a look into what we have been working on in this issue.
This Dev Blog features a lot of media in the form of galleries and video playlists to show off what we have been working on for The Black Death. Be sure to check out our comparison sliders too, these allow us to show off our new visual changes in a nice format alongside our information.
In this issue, we dive into our Dev Updates, our shiny new main menu cinematics, character creation overhaul, game polish, new world events system and loads more.
Dev Updates
For our usual segment on Dev Updates we will be focusing on our Localisation progress, changes to the decay rate system and our controller support progress.
Localisation Progress
If you have been playing on our Beta branch recently, you may have noticed the addition of the option to switch Languages, amongst other features too, more on these later! We have been working in our Engine to get Localisations working in The Black Death. This has taken some time due to the sheer workload involved. We have implemented new fonts into our Engine for specific language character sets, as well as translating text and feeding this back into our Engine.
We are currently working on getting French and Russian into The Black Death. Some of you may have seen that German was also in a previous Beta build. Sadly we have had to take out our German localisations for now, although it may be added back in at a later date.
Those of you wanting to try these out can switch to a preferred Language in our Beta Builds. You can change languages by selecting the language Flag in the bottom left hand corner of the initial Main Menu when booting up the game, with the Beta client.
If you happen to spot a translation that you think is incorrect, submitting a report using our Google Bug Form is the best way of letting us know.
When these make there way into a Live build we will be announcing there arrival in a formal post on our Steam News feed as well as on our social pages and of course here on our website.
Changes To the Decay System
We have been gathering your feedback and have been reading your forum discussions too. We have been devising a way of tweaking the current decay rate of player placed structures and buildings in the world.
Decay is now on 3 day intervals instead of 3 hours to prevent such regular repair being needed. damage has been increased to 225 from 18 however now the interval has increased greatly is means your structures will last around 200% longer. Less repairs, Longer Life.
An example of this is the wattle wall which use to last 6 to 7 days now lasts between 13 to 14 days and the kingdom wall can last up to 60 days instead of 30 and will only require 20 repairs throughout that period rather than 200 (if you want to keep it at 100% health of course).
Controller Support
To go with our current work on our Localisations for French and Russian, we have also been working on adding our controller support back into The Black Death. We are currently testing out our mapping setup and input for use with a Xbox 360 Controller for Windows PCs, this configuration should also work with the new Xbox One Controllers for Windows PCs as well as they share the same layout. Currently in our Beta builds the controller settings that are currently in are partial. Some of the menus are not quite functioning as they are still being worked on.
New Main Menu & New Cinematics
Main Menu Changes
We are proud to introduce our new main menu for The Black Death! As we progress forwards in shaping The Black Death, this is a change that we wanted to make some time ago to unify the overall themes and tones of The Black Death, across all elements of the game. Notice the addition of the language flag in the left corner.
These changes are also reflected in the new in game menu. All of the features, settings and options have been retained as our UI has been given a fresh coat of paint. Technical information is now in a more compact form in the bottom left hand corner too, when in game.
Main Menu Cinematics Reel
When booting up The Black Death you will now be greeted with cinematics that play in the background of the menu! Here are shots from the Plague Doctor and Hunter Professions. To view the full gallery jump to this Dev Blog over on our website:
Dev Blog #62
Below is a video playlist link to this Dev Blog over on our website of all our new cinematics on our Main Menu. Each one represents key elements of The Black Death and a taster for gameplay and the setting of Mercia.
http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/
Even our loading screens have been given a rework with our new golden title branding. Tooltips are now displayed in the centre for visibility and concept art for The Black Death is now used as opposed to in game screenshots.
One of our new Beta loading screens...
One of our current V0.29 Live loading screens...
New Profession Character Creation Menu
Our Character Creation menu has been given a new coat of paint and has been reworked with a new style. Each Profession is now shown off in their full glory. Selecting a Profession will show your character in that Profession’s clothing or armour, giving you a feel for what they are all about.
http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/
Down at the bottom of the screen just above the Profession description you will see a set of arrows. Clicking on these will spin the camera around your character, giving you a full view of their attire. As the camera pans around you will be able to see the details in each environment that make up the themes and characteristics of each Profession in their natural habitat.
To check out our video playlist of all of these Profession turntables, jump over to this Dev Blog over on our website to watch them all and see all of the new environment scenes for each Profession. http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/
Polish Overhaul
Highlights
We have been focussing on a lot of areas of The Black Death recently. One of these has been polishing up existing systems and elements of the game. We wanted to give clearer but subtle hints for interactable elements, such as NPCs, resources and lootable containers. When approaching these elements in game they will be outlined with a white glowing effect to help guide players around the world of Mercia.
Quest System Revamp
The tutorial that was featured upon creating your first character has been removed and replaced with a more intuitive system. This new system was created to help guide new players around the world and help introduce them to the various gameplay elements found in The Black Death. The UI for the Quests tracker below is a placeholder and will be changed later.
Each quest is broken up into 3 tasks. These can vary from gathering resources to craft an end product which then helps the player, or can guide the player into engaging in hand to hand combat with a infected Beggar and even housing tasks too!
There are around 60 new quests that have all been hand written as part of our new system!
New Church Pillage Areas
The Monk fanatics have been busy, Church areas have been popping up all around Mercia. These feature breakable barricaded doors, loot for the taking, and of course infected enemies!
An extra addition that comes with these new Church areas is an “echo” audio effect when you are inside these new areas. Swinging your sword or throwing punches around is amplified in the form of a new echo effect when in these plagued halls. Even the calls from enemy Bandits and Monks that you may find camping within these Churches are also echoed!
Atmospheric Effects & Mood Overhaul
You may have noticed with our most recent update V0.29 Loyalty that we have started to create a more gloomy and deathly atmospheric environment, which we feel is more suited to the Plague and the themes of The Black Death. We are continuing with this over on our Beta, factoring in many different elements to tie everything together to create intense visuals for the dreary and deathly setting of the Plague.
We wanted to create an atmosphere of death, using heavy fog, rain effects, more gravestones, a darker day and night cycle, strong moonlight, low moody lighting, more dead vegetation and the addition of depth of field. With all of these elements complimenting each other together, we feel so far that we have achieved this with the changes we have made to our Beta build so far.
To show our new changes, here is a shot of Freeman’s Port from our new Beta (top) compared with a shot from our current Live build (bottom) of The Black Death. These screenshots instantly show the differences explained above.
We have slider tools for the below images in our full Dev Blog over on our website. If you would like to see our slider tools, jump over there at the link here http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/
The Beta images featured below have an additional element to them. You may notice that there is an almost “haze” to these images. This is a part of our new World Events System. We go into more details of this later in this Dev Blog!
Here are some comparisons from a shot of Freeman's Port.
Environment changes on our Beta...
The environment on out current V0.29 Live build...
Here is another set of comparison shots, this time from the new low lighting effect changes.
Lighting changes on our Beta...
The lighting on our current V0.29 Live build...
Following on from our aforementioned information regarding our new changes to The Black Death’s mood and atmosphere, here are some more screenshots taken from our Beta that highlight these changes to our environments and scenery across Mercia.
World Events System Teaser
As mentioned earlier, we are excited to unveil our new World Events System! We will be showing you all a teaser of this system, our progress so far and how it will work across the world of Mercia. This system is still being worked on and implemented with each Beta build that goes out.
The screenshot above shows an encounter during one of our new World Events. As we work on shaping this system we look forward to you all taking part in these events around the world and working together to fight and cleanse the Plague.
The World Map will play a very important part in our new World Events system. Just to note, the preview featured below is not the final version! We will be tweaking the map alongside our world event system as progress continues.
To start with, you may notice that there are new icons strewn across the Map. These icons are represented in the form of a legend/key on the far right. You will be able to see which cities and towns across the map feature different types of merchants and world utilities for you to use. There is also a small icon shown as a character icon, this shows your characters location in the world!
The element on the World Map that your eyes have probably focused on is the large black smog like element, this circle of smog denotes a World Event area. The red crosses on the world map show areas that need to be cleansed of the Plague. The smog like area on the map will grow over time if the area is not cleansed and will spread further across the map.
These two screenshots above show some of the enemies that you will encounter during these world events. Notice how some of the enemies have red crosses above their heads, including the rat in the second image! These enemies are marked for the plague and are infected. Being in a close proximity to these fellows will be sure to give you the Plague and you will become infected, if there are multiple victims close to you it will intensify.
Another major feature of these world events are Plague Carts and infected corpses, we will be showing these off in full in a future Dev Blog. Plague Carts will be scattered all over the affected event area. These carts are highly dangerous, they have bodies stacked of plague victims in them and emit a black smog like substance. Getting close to these carts will infect your character, on top of enemies lurking around the area. Fire is a key tool here in cleansing these areas, throwing a torch at these Plague Carts will burn them and help to cleanse the area within the event.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading and we will see you next time!
// The SIG Team
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