Hello Elders,
First of all, let me thank you for your continued enthusiasm for Folkways! I am happy that many of you are enjoying all the new mechanics, events, and buildings introduced in the DLC.
I am here today with some great news!
Do you remember the roadmap we had last year that led up to the release of Folkways?
Well, it's time for an update! Thanks to the ongoing support and interest, I intend to work more on the game and keep it evolving!
Without further ado, here is the updated roadmap:
The main focus for my next phase is on Quality of Life, but I would also like to explore new ways to play dotAGE, as I know the game can be daunting for many for different reasons, so expect some new options in that regard in the coming months!
Here is a brief description of the upcoming (and evolving) plans:
- Hyper Update: An update coming very soon, focused on general QoL, and improving the Agepedia with Hyperlinks! Read below for more information!
- Research Update: An update focused on improving the research tree, and reducing some pain points of the current system. With the game now having so many buildings, I also would like to add a new (optional, unranked) rule here for players that dislike the randomicity of the tree.
- Lava Update: An update that focuses on event balance, event QoL, new events, and... you guessed it, LAVA.
Please note that I’m not committing to specific release dates, as I’m working solo and prefer flexibility. Still, this will give you a rough idea of what I will be working on in the coming months.
All the updates will be free and come for the owners of the base game, and you can expect some new additions to Folkways too where it makes sense.
The Hyper Update: QoL incoming!
Available now in the experimental version, update 1.7 is almost here!
The goal of this update is to implement QoL improvements based on your feedback. I thank you all for the feedback you provide, as with your help the game is becoming better and better with every update!
Hyperlinks
The titular feature for this update is the addition of *hyperlinks* to all Agepedia elements! You can now highlight colored keywords to read the element description, and directly access the Agepedia from them! I am very happy with how this turned out!
New settings
New settings await you to customize your experience, with new options to skip unwanted panels, separate settings for speeds to give you more nuance, and new accessibility and performance settings.
In general, some pain points around animations have been smoothed out, for cases where too many Pips are hit by events, or too many knowledge points are flying around, or too many Pips need to be put into their graves.
Actions tab & new views
We also have new UI elements: a new "Actions" tab among the Pip tabs on the right will let you find your Trainees or Builders more easily, and two new custom view lenses help you get a better overview of the status of your village.
Auto-Cast and Production-Lock
At last, we have two new very cool features for handling your villages: Auto-Cast and Production-Locking.
Auto-Cast will let you hold a key (default: X) while selecting a building action to set the building to keep repeating that action as needed.
For example, this will make Plants be auto-replanted when they are destroyed, or ailments be automatically cured by the relevant Pips if possible.
Production-locking allows you to lock a building on a specific production. By default, when the input runs out, a Pip will try to switch to another production (for example, if they are hunting Hares, they might switch to hunting Birds).
This lets you lock a building on a specific production by either clicking the small lock icon in the production selection screen, or by holding the Auto-Cast key (default: X)
Of course the update also brings some balance changes, especially to underused buildings, and many bugfixes.
The update will be released during the upcoming Turn-Based Thursday Fest, so keep an eye out for great deals on strategy titles!
Here is the complete Changelog for 1.7 for the current experimental version: CHANGELOG HERE
Switch & GOG
Testing for both versions by Nintendo and GOG is now complete, and Folkways will be available for both platform this week unless something odd happens in the coming days!
Nintendo is scheduled to publish Folkways on the 20th of May , while the GoG version will be available the 21th of May worldwide (still waiting for some final confirmation, but they said they scheduled it there!)
Both versions will receive version 1.6 alongside Folkways, but I will update them to 1.7 after I roll it out for Steam in the coming weeks.
Thank you again for your support, I'm excited to see how far we can push dotAGE as we keep improving it!
Have fun
- Michele