Badiya Alpha 1.7 is here and it marks our one year anniversary on Steam Early Access and our biggest release yet. This is a game changer!
Notes:
- If you like what we are doing please consider giving us a positive review in the game reviews section.
- Installing the game on a SSD drive is highly recommended for the best experience.
- The game defaults to "Medium" quality settings but you can change that from the Options-Graphics menu.
* FEATURES:
- Map System with Fog of War:
In the player menu we now added a new Map section that shows the game's map (also accessible by pressing M on the keyboard).
You can find the usual functions such as panning, setting destination marker, center on player, etc...
- New POI Compass:
On top of the screen you can now see a new compass that shows you the direction and distance to each point of interest (will be presented by a question mark if it's not discovered yet, otherwise it will show you the POI icon).
Note that this compass only shows up if you have the Compass item in your inventory which now comes with all the different starter kits at the beginning of the game (Except the None preset which assumes you want to start with absolutely nothing in inventory. In which case you can acquire, buy or craft the compass).
- Quest System with several types of quests:
This is perhaps the biggest addition to this release. You can now find Quest Giver NPCs marked with an exclamation mark on top of their heads. Interacting with them will show you the Quest dialog where you can find details about the quest, description, reward and the required objectives at which point you can accept or refuse the quest.
There is an infinite number of quests in the game and they are of several types that will require you to perform different tasks and will leave it up to you to discover them. We will be adding more quest types with every new release.
Once you accept a Quest you can inspect them in the Quests section in the player menu. From there you can track the different quests and show their objective location on map if they have any. The currently tracked quest will appear in the top right part of the screen so you can now what objectives to pursue.
Quest objectives will also appear on the POI compass on top of the screen.
- New terrain generation system with better distribution of Points of Interest:
Now there will always be new places to discover the more you explore. We separated our Points of Interest to large ones with mini POIs scattered in between.
The new system ensures that there wont be repetition in POIs when you are exploring the world (Unless mandated by the design on purpose) and therefore there will always be something new for you to explore.
- Ambient AI Improvements:
You will now see crowds talking to each other and to merchants
Crowds will now react to you aiming your weapons at them, if you continue raising your weapon they will attempt to run away. This is the base of a Crime and Reputation system that we will be adding later on which will make your actions toward factions affect your reputation with them and have gameplay consequences such as increasing your wanted level, the prices you get for trading and other features.
- Fast Travel System:
We now have Caravans that contain fast travel NPCs (with a camel icon on top of them). Those NPCs will allow you to travel to bedouin camps or villages that you visited before.
Note that Fast Travel NPCs can also be found on other types of friendly POIs.
- Steam Achievements:
You can now gain achievements for surviving longer in the game. We plan to add different types of achievements for the various game activities in upcoming updates.
- Steam Trading Cards:
Those are coming up shortly. Stay tuned!
* CONTENT:
We added plenty of new points of interest to discover in this release. Raising the total to 30 so far and we plan to add more in the future:
- Sheep Herder
- Caravan
- Bandit Camp
- Explorer Camp
- Traveller Camp
- Hunter Camp
- Merchant Camp
- Iron Mine
- Gold Mine
- Copper Mine
- Stone Deposit
- Frankensence Tree Cluster
- Silktree Cluster
- Wheat Field
- Green Field (Rawdha)
- Palm Farm
- Big Oasis
* GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS:
- The drop item button on the controller is now R3 (pressing the right thumb stick. While Pressing Circle/B button will close the inventory menu.
- You can now build tents that look like the ones in the bedouin camp.
- You can now eat herbs (previously they were only used to craft medical potions).
- You can now chop down palm trees and collect wood, plant fibre and dates from them.
- Each animal type now has a unique hide item.
- You can now reload your weapon on a PS4/XBox One controller by pressing L3.
- Photo Mode now requires pressing L3+R3 sticks on the controller at the same time (if photo mode is enabled from the pause menu).
- Aiming Shoulder Switch is now done using L Alt key on the keyboard instead of the middle mouse button.
* Graphics:
- New improved terrain textures: Game will now have a better desert look.
- PCSS: Shadows get softer the farther they are from the source object that is casting it like in real life. This feature is tied to the "Ultra" quality setting and can be disabled manually from the graphics menu if needed.
- Better look for Night time in terms of brightness and colors.
- Better Eye Adaptation and sunlight intensity so that the overall image isn't overly bright.
* Numerous Bug Fixes:
We did a lot of bug fixing in different areas in the game. As usual if you encounter a crash or a bug, go to the game's folder and search for a file named "Output_log.txt" and send that to us on the email [email protected]
This file tells us exactly what happened from the moment you ran the executable to when the crash or error happened and it will help us identify and fix the issue.
* Coming Up Next:
We will be releasing a few updates during the 1.7 life cycle that improve the gameplay, performance and any issues that need addressing. Some of the features to expect are;
Better combat AI behaviour
Better shooting mechanics
Difficulty level for hostile points of interest
Armor for enemy AI that is period accurate (also wearable by the player)
Gameplay balancing for item stats, merchant inventories and survival stats.
On behalf of the entire team at Semaphore. Thank you so much for a great first year on Steam Early Access. Our community is our fuel and you guys and girls are the best!
Ahmad Jadallah (@AhmadJadallah)
Director of Development
Semaphore (@SemaphoreLab)
www.semaphorelab.com