Hello everyone!
I'm excited to release today a big demo update with major system reworks, some new content, and many improvements. Let's review the details!
New route system
The old route system was working fine for the beginning of the game but it was too limited and I was struggling to add progression to it as I work on the mid- and end-game content. So I am introducing a new template-based route system! When you create a route, you must chose a template first, and then you can fill in the different cities and resources. At the start, you have only access to simple templates, but as you progress you will unlock more to make more complex route pathing. For instance shipping several resources at once, looping between three cities, etc.
So, as you get more templates, there is an incentive to delete your old simple routes and redo your shipping network in a more efficient way. This system also allows to have optional settings for routes to control if ships should idle and wait for resources or just skip to the next step in their schedule.
I am also introducing one-time supply routes. Contrary to recurrent supply routes that keep going for ever, these just bring resources to you and auto-delete right after. This can be handy in some situations!
Routes now also use the same transfer interface as the player, so they are impacted by the transfer rate and capacity statistics just the same.
From a technical standpoint, I am quite happy of this rework because the routes code is now much clearer. The old code was a bit hacky and increasingly harder to fix without breaking things. It is now using a proper state machine, so it is easier to manage and debug. I did my best to test it thoroughly, but if you encounter any issues or weird edge cases please let me know in the Steam forums or on the Discord server, I'll fix it!
NB: existing saves will lose all their current routes. The internals have changed significantly so there was no way around it. You will have to recreate them with the new template-based interface.
Tree of advancements
The upgrades tab has been renamed to "Advancements" and the permits tab has disappeared. Everything is now displayed in the Advancements tab with a tree-like display, so it is easier to visualize your progression. This shows everything you can purchase, but also everything that will be unlocked through quests or side mysteries, so you can peak at what is ahead, how it unlocks, and gauge how much content there is.
This new structure also makes it easier for me to add some more upgrades. For instance, some of the new routes templates are purchasable. Access to the routes options is too. I also added new upgrades to increase the percentage of resources you get back from destroying buildings, although it won't be accessible in the demo version because it requires more advanced resources. And I will try to add even more in the future.
Regional constraints
In order to make each sector feel a bit different, I'm introducing some constraints unique to each region. In the north, the climate is cold so you will be able to build houses only next to a Heating tower.
In the south, anything employing workers requires to have a Shady park in the city. Also, sand may accumulate and block empty tiles over time so you have to build Clearing turbines to remove it.
These are small changes and I don't want to modify the gameplay too much, but I believe these unique twists will help each sector feel a bit new instead of just a repeat of the previous ones. Let me know your thoughts and suggestions on that!
The unique constraints of each sector are described in the Advancements tab when buying the permit. So you have all the info to decide if you prefer to go to the north or the south first! (You will have to do both anyway to progress in the full game, but the order is up to you!)
Ship customization
This feature has been there since a couple patches, but I didn't make a post for those so let's talk about it here. You can now customize the appearance of your ship, the export fleet and the supply fleet! You can choose the sail color (which will also be the color of the new trail particles), the sail pattern and the ship model. Colors and patterns are all unlocked from the get-go. Ship models will be unlocked as quests rewards through the course of the game.
They have no impact on speed or cargo capacity or anything, this is purely cosmetic. But I think this is nice to have a bit of customization. Everything is in the Cosmetics tab in the menu, and you get access to it early in the game. Fun addition: the sail color and pattern of your ship will also impact a few buildings with fabric elements in your cities, such as the flags, the stages, etc.
Improved timeline
You will also notice that the journal logs have disappeared from the Quests tab. They are now in a new "Story" tab. This tab will now show an improved timeline of your playthrough. It will show the story notes, but also a list of various events, such as completing a quest, settling a city, unlocking a region. So you can scroll the timeline back and get a feel for all you have accomplished during your journey.
Let me know if there are other events you would like to see recorded in there!
With these reworks and panel relocations, I think the menu is better organized and will feel easier to work with. I hope people who played previous versions won't be confused too much and will easily find where things are now!
The rest is minor fixes and improvements, you will find the full changelog below (+ the two previous patches I did not post about, this is quite a massive list!). I hope you will enjoy these changes! I am really happy of them and I think they give the game a more polished vibe. As I am making good progress on the full game content too, this is starting to feel more and more like a real complete game, and this is very motivating to keep pushing forward.
As always, thanks for your support in this journey. Many of these reworks and improvements are inspired by player feedback, so it does help me a lot to read your comments and suggestions! Now, I am going to focus again on creating content for the full game, especially the East and West regions, and I'll see you next time!
-Radiant Sloth
Changelog Demo v0.5a:
Added a constraint to the North sector: houses can only be built next to a Heating tower (this building is unique to this sector)
Added a constraint to the South sector: buildings with workers can only be built if the city has a Shady park (this building is unique to this sector)
Added a constraint to the South sector: sand dunes may form over time and block empty building tiles. They can be removed by building a Clearing turbine in the city (this building is unique to this sector)
Revamped the upgrade menu to display like a tree and also show all the different abilities unlocked through quests and side quests/mysteries
Moved the travel permits to the new upgrade menu and removed the tab
Buttons to buy travel permits show additional info: the corresponding sector position on the world map + a description of the sector unique constraints
Added new upgrades related to getting resources back when destroying buildings
Reworked the route system to be template-based and allow for more complex route paths
Changed the route creation interface to be template-based. Fields in the template can be filled in any order. The game tries to highlight "smart" suggestions based on what is already filled
NB: existing saves will lose all their current routes. You will have to recreate them with the new template-based interface
Changed the route internal code to use a cleaner state machine: can now handle several resources and work with more than 2 cities
Routes collecting or delivering resources now use the same transfer interface as the player (i.e. it is managed with the transfer rate/capacity upgrade stats)
Routes provide a few options to ignore being idle and skip directly to the next step (e.g. when the city has not enough resources to give, or when the destination has no space left in its inventory). These options are unlocked by purchasing upgrades
Introduced one-time supply routes that auto-deletes when done
Added route templates as quest rewards
Changed goal of quests requesting route creation to ask for only 1 route instead of 2
Changed quests to unlock one-time supply routes before recurrent supply routes
Merged the export route and supplies route counts into a single upgrade stat
Added a few route templates as treasure quest rewards
Routes animation should be a little smoother
Added a new icon overlay in the local production panel of cities to indicate when a resource is collected by a route
Changed internals of upgrade stats so that existing saves update their values automatically if I tweak the upgrade data table in the future
Added trail particles to ships. They use the same color as the sail color from the Cosmetics menu
Added a new video performance option to control the ship particles (None - Reduced - All) (on All by default)
Renamed "Encyclopedia" to "Statistics" in the menu
Renamed "Upgrades" to "Advancements" in the menu
Tweaked the amount of ripples particles to increase accordingly with the ship speed upgrades*
Improved the sprite of scrollbars to make their nature more obvious
Changed the quests tab in the menu to display all quests in the same column instead of having sub-tabs
Moved the journal logs to a new "Story" tab in the menu
The new "Story" tab also keeps track of various events and displays a timeline of your playthrough
Polished the progress bars in the quests goals
Polished the inventory tab of the menu with better icons, panels and spacing
The blades of the Mill are now animated
Changed Cooperage shed/Flute workshop/Stone cutter to be unlocked in the same city as Lumber camp/Lumber camp/Stone quarry instead of same sector
Changed the location of the local productions/needs legend when hovering the icons to not overflow off the screen
Changed the Lumber yard building cost to require Planks instead of Hardwood
Fixed the items sorting by amount not being stable when selected repeatedly
Fixed many building tiles not having a random rotation as they should and all facing the same direction
Changelog Demo v0.4o:
Added a new "Local ingredients needs" panel in the city menu
Added possibility to save drafts when building
Split the quest "Prepare for new cities" into two
Tweaked generation to have more building space on the first Wood city
Tweaked generation to have the three first cities spawn closer to one another when possible
Tweaked the text of the first few quests to make them clearer
Changed the player initial position in a new game to be near the Stone city instead of Wood city
Available city spots won't reveal on the map anymore before you obtain the ability to settle new cities (so that it is not possible to have the "Explore the sector" quest completed immediately when getting it)
Added local production and ingredients needs to the city tooltips on the map
Changelog Demo v0.4n:
Added ship customization for the player ship and the routes ships
Added sail animation to routes ships
Made the color and icon selection menu for city markers more condensed
Added more colors for city markers
City marker icon can now only be selected among the resources encountered in the current game
Upgraded game engine to Godot 4.6.3
Fixed quests so that goals of type "Build" remain achieved even if the building is upgraded before the end of the quest
Fixed treasure being sometimes slightly out of reach despite being at the exact spot from the treasure map
Fixed upgrade/back/replace buttons in the build menu appearing under the inventory (when the column is full), which was messing up with their hovering
Fixed memory leaks