Throughout the month of November we added quite a few new features to Capsa, some as a result of great feedback from players. This is a short recap of the lasts months additions, as well as what to expect from the coming month. Please do continue to leave feedback and reviews, as this helps with development, as the more we know what you are thinking about our current progress, the better game we can make in the long run :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1230921503
Cinema
One of the first things we added was the Cinemas, at two locations; Tiata and Rawhiti. At each cinema users can play synchronized 1080p YouTube videos (which are also good for dancing too, in the case of music videos). Adding this was accelerated based on user feedback, and seems to be a well-used and great addition to the game.
We have plans to develop playlist support and a handful other expected features sometime after the New Year when we will revisit and improve this feature more.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1230919155
Climbing & Item Hunt
Based on the behavior of many of our users, we decided on adding climbing mechanics to the game. This involves hand-holds on cliff-faces and certain rocks, which users can use to reach new heights. We also added new climbing-based areas in all our existing areas.
Adding onto the climbing mechanics was the hidden item package hunting gameplay we added. For this we hid various colors of items in most of our designated areas, which currently around 90 in total to find. Each one unlocks an in-game usable title, which you can then pick via the character editor to sit under your player name.
There is likely room for improvement here with additional mechanics to add. We will also be adding more items to hunt for as we add new areas over time, as this proved popular with several players.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1230918585
Swimming
We didn't have this ready for our early access launch, but we finished it just recently, and included ability for the Horses to swim too. With swimming with your main character, you can dive down underwater where we will be adding underwater areas to explore in an upcoming update.
We want to give underwater areas the same attention to detail as on land so lots of exciting places to see, such as wreck sites and coral reefs, but more on that in upcoming updates, right now we just have purely the mechanical state to show off.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1230919217
Customizable Horses
We had horses in for launch, but only just made them customizable. You can pick from a handful of different colors, plus adjust the color of things like the mane and tail. We have plans to also added customization that effects things like what saddle and accessories your horse is wearing, this will be most likely coming in the new year.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1230916757
Steam Achievements
Since launch we’ve added more than 200 achievements that cover all aspects of Capsa. A lot of our users enjoyed collecting the initial batch we added, so we kept adding more based on everything new we added, and will continue to do so.
Another positive benefit to adding these achievements is that for areas or elements we specifically need testing get a lot more focus due to users collecting the achievements around them. They also help us collect useful statistics data on which activities people are doing the most, and this helps us orient development to certain areas, or consider why certain elements are underused and to improve upon them.
Upcoming Plans
Currently we are hard at work on three things, Bicycles, Underwater Content and Vive VR support. We hope to have all three out this month at current rate of development. We also hope to add additional language support, currently are supporting 14 localization's, but want to extend this further.
The underwater content will feature dense and detailed areas just like our on land areas. These will be constructed using the same base procedural, but then manual areas added to bring the areas to life. We aim to all kinds of different fishes and wildlife, with areas like kelp forests, coral reefs and more.
Meanwhile bicycles are in late development and in the process of being finished off. These will be fully customizable, with currently a dozen different slots for accessories and changes. We hope to show this off in the coming week.
And finally, VR support will begin with just Vive, but in the new year we will be looking to purchasing other headsets such as Oculus and get those supported if our implementation proves popular.