Hello Tribesmen,
We know this message was long due, and we are sorry for the delay.
If you followed Voodoo, you know the old dev team has been removed from the project by its publisher and that we, a joint venture between 34BigThings and Event Horizon Studios, have taken over. We hope you all can understand the implications, practical and bureaucratic, of a complete project takeover to justify the lack of communication so far.
This means you’ll get a team of experienced professionals and, quite simply, more people to work on and play Voodoo. We have been working on multiplayer games quite a lot and we understand the complex implications of network lag, data compression and trajectory forecasting we need to build the next great iteration of Voodoo.
In this very moment, we are rewriting the entire game from scratch. We believe in a future where Voodoo is built on solid and extendible foundations. Foundations we can work upon and build something truly colossal.
This takes time. But, hopefully, we’ll have your patience and attention.
We are trying to ship our first update with the new infrastructure before Christmas. We are not here to guarantee it, but we are literally working night and day to deliver it. Here is what we are working on at the moment, and what we were already able to achieve.
NEW SERVERS
This is mostly under the hood, but very important: we are migrating the server infrastructure on something that can scale in an easier way. It’s not “one click away”, but it will be possible once we need it. We don’t have a date yet, but updates will follow.
NETWORK CODE
As we said, we started from an empty project. We trashed everything that wasn’t modular enough. We began with a cube that moves correctly, contacting the server as little as possible and exchanging the minimum amount of data. From there, we are building the new game foundation, which will scale to many concurrent players, way more than has ever been possible in Voodoo before.
THE BAD NEWS
We chose to temporary disable some features that need extensive rework. A brief list includes:
The Izimu, from now on to be renamed “Colossi”.
Climbing will be reworked and expanded as soon as possible after the first update.
All buildings and resources that required Colossi souls.
A few resources, scrapped from the tech list.
This doesn’t mean that all these features are scrapped forever. We are perfectly aware some of these features are critical to the Voodoo experience and we are not here to remove them. But rewriting them from scratch is a lot of work and integrating into the new netcode before Christmas is, well, impossible.
NEW PLAYABLE CHARACTER
Our first update will include a whole new character with dedicated animations. This will replace the old “simian” character and have a more distinct and heroic feel.
NEW ART DIRECTION
Our team did an extensive rework on all the game art. Again, we’ll be building them with your feedback as time goes. For now, you can expect…
- Three new armours (head, chest, thighs). More in the future.
- Improved resources and resources nodes models. Expect them to be easier to spot, gather and farm.
NEW WORLD MAP
We are building a whole new map. We chose to take it slow and steady on this one, building it with your feedback. Initial features will be…
- A 1 by 1 kilometers carefully handcrafted map. This is our starting point from which we’ll expand until we reach the old 6 by 6 dimension.
- One Starting Biome, Tropical Savanna. The map will feature a long coastline with a large, deep valley.
- New terrain, rocks, trees, bushes and grass with new textures.
- Several carefully placed “points of interest” to improve exploration.
NEW TECH TREE
We took the old craft tree and improved on that. Updates include…
- An “Age” mechanic, tightly connected on resources needed.
- Several new benches, each dedicated to its own unique function.
- New art style for all benches and houses.
- Improved village expansion. Each bench comes with its own house.