Hello everyone!
I am very happy to finally be able to share some great development progress with you all.
As stated recently, work is being done to reach Unknightly's full release (v1.0).
the v1.0 road-map has multiple major features defined as goals (for more info check out the previous announcement here).
Major Update (#6) represents a significant step in that direction.
Major Features
-
Guards to Interact with Doors
- Guards currently bump into doors causing them to slam open. This didn't look great but since existing Dungeon levels have very few doors it simply wasn't worth the huge development cost of implementing a proper AI interactions system.
- The Village level has buildings filled with multiple rooms and thus the level has many doors. A new system needed to be put in place to handle AI door open / close interactions.
- Thanks to this guard door interactions look a lot better but more importantly if you do not observe your surroundings carefully you might get caught off guard by a guard walking into the room!
- PS: Existing Dungeon levels have been updated to use with with the new door interactions as well. :)
Left Handed Support
- Many left handed players have had an awkward time using controls since they were originally built with right-handed players in mind.
- Moving locomotion control to opposite hands.
- Adapting equipment location (bow, dagger, arrows etc.)
- Fully integrated with tutorial and in-game menu book.
Support for HMD Oriented Movement
- Support for this movement mode has been discussed with players multiple times.
- After giving it some thought and play-testing it we feel it's a viable option for players who have grown accustomed to HMD oriented movement from other games.
Official Windows MR Support
- Unknightly now officially supports all Windows MR headsets.
- The game has been fully play-tested with the Acer's version of the WMR platform.
- WMR has been fully integrated into the tutorial and in-game menu book.
Minor Features:
- Changed Noise Generated from Walking
- Walking noise is no longer affected by if player is crouching or not. Only movement speed matters.
- Reduced noise generated from walking.
As a result of these changes players will no longer be required to physically crouch in order to move around silently but rather only crouch to hide between objects to avoid being detected.
- Redesigned Light & Noise Indicators
The previous indicators felt like (and in fact were) placeholders which looked very crude and overly bright. We've replaced those with a much cleaner and elegant design. Check it out in-game. - Simplified In-Game Menu Interactions
We received multiple complaints about players having a hard time turning pages or figuring out they had to pick up the quill-pen to interact with the in-game menu.
We still insist we do not want any menus inside Unknightly and so we tried to simplify some existing interactions like having to drag a page to turn it (a page will now automatically turn when you grab it) etc. - Improvements to Bow Handling
We've received multiple complaints on the use of the bow & arrow being uncomfortable so we've gone back any re-played a few classic games who are hailed for having great bow & arrow systems.
One of these games was Valve's "The Lab" to see what learning we could bring into Unknightly.
We quickly came to the conclusion that the reason people grow to like the bow and arrow mechanics in these games is primarily because after firing a good number of arrows our mind picks up the game's physics and calculates the offset required to hit a target.
With Unknightly you only fire a very small number of arrows and thus the learning curve is very slow.
In fact, after firing many arrows in Unknightly we found out the system is more precise than many of the other games out there.
Yet we were able to include multiple changes improve the bow handling experience. Hopefully you grow to like it :) - Minor UI design improvements
- Tutorial Tips Dark Mode Text: Dark mode text fits in much better with the atmosphere of the game and is easier on the eyes.
- In-Game Menu sliders and button colors re-arranged on some pages to be more compact.
- Button Hold-to-Press times changed for Save Game, Load Last Save and Pause Game.
- Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
Fixed or worker around multiple bugs including crashes caused by "ObserVR" plugin, players spawning off limits, etc.
Background Work:
It's worth noting that a significant chunk of the development time has been devoted to rebuilding some of the AI systems (especially AI navigation).
While these efforts do little in terms of affecting game-play the are mandatory in order to properly support multiple story buildings which are very common in the upcoming Village level.
These navigation improvements have also solved various game-play issues where AI would disappear into walls etc.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your huge support of Unknightly and I hope to delight you with more content very soon.
Special Thanks to some of our beloved community member for helping play-test this update, giving feedback, discovering bugs and making great improvement suggestions - most notably: Major_Troubles, Hoshi82, Jaknet and Caldor <3
We're all set up so that the next major update can finally include the Village level! <3