We’ve been incredibly busy bees these past couple of months! Robert from Wonderscope Games has the latest scoop for you…
Dialog & Camera
I reworked the dialog system so that more than two people can have a conversation in the world! In the conversation files I added functionality that can switch between characters at different points in the dialog, as well as functions for checking if characters are nearby and triggering different conversation.
Along with this update, I worked into the camera so that it frames characters better and moves between them depending on who is talking. All this stuff will come into use in the next months when more of the intro to the game and character dialog is written.
Town Center Unlocks
Over the course of the game you'll unlock different buildings in the town center. This month I implemented the parts required to get this working; where parts of the town center will change visually when a new building is unlocked. These buildings will be unlocked when you've become friends with their owner and they've decided to move to town.
New Character Moving-in Flow
In Hokko life, based on your actions and the type of town you build, you'll "unlock" new visitors and potential residents! Up until now when a character was unlocked, they'd start appearing in the world, wandering around a bit aimlessly at certain times of day. This felt really strange, as characters you didn't know would start showing up, and you'd often miss new animals because they'd be in an area you didn't visit for example. The initial story for this was that they'd arrive at the train station, wander around a bit and then head home; but without actually seeing their arrival, it just meant they were in the world randomly.
With the new pub/restaurant location added to the town center, visitors to your town will now appear here, either during lunch time or the evening. Once you've unlocked a new character they'll appear here and you can then talk to and befriend them. Once you've built them a house and they have moved to town they'll start wandering around and existing in the world. Setting things up this way means that you'll have a lot lower chance of missing potential residents, as they'll be at a main location at set times. It also allows for some really cozy evening chat dialog!
Once you've become good enough friends with a character, after chatting to them when they visit, you'll get the option to ask them to move in. Doing so will put them in a moving in "queue". Whenever you build a new house you can choose which character you'd like to move into that house from this list. Previously you would need to have a vacant house ready in order to ask a character to move to town, which, I felt, could cause frustration. Imagine having a character that only visits every few weeks, on a Tuesday, at lunch time, that you've finally gotten close enough with to ask them to move in, only to find you don't have a house ready! You'd have to wait until their next visit to ask them to move in, which I felt would be annoying.
Moving Boxes
When a character moves to town they'll now bring with them a bunch of items for their home and will decorate the walls and flooring in their own style. As their friend, you'll help them move in by unpacking their items and placing them where you'd like in the room. This way you get to design everyone's home, but still retain some of their personal charm (unless you hate their style, then you can just sell their stuff...! 🤫)
World Redesign
I went through the whole world of Hokko this month and redesigned it completely.
The old world was too flat with not much variation and didn't have distinct enough areas. Alongside this, it wasn't built with progression in mind, and so the player could easily reach all areas from the beginning of the game.
The new world comes from a paper plan I doodled, thinking about how the town would flow, allowing for different area types and how they'd all connect.
Here are some shots of the new levels:
The Bomb
Now that parts of the world are locked-off, you'll need to use both your design skills and crafting in order to progress. Several of the areas require you to design special items to access them, and others need... a bomb...!
Now there's a craftable bomb in the game (with placeholder graphics right now) which you can use to blast your way through areas blocked by rubble and rocks; for example when trying to get into the mine:
Clothing
Eva's hopped on board this month and has been busy working away on clothing items. These have ranged from jackets, to shoes, skirts, pants and more!
Here is a very small selection of some of the pieces she's created:
Town Center Assets
The artists over at Team17 have been working away on assets for the town center too, primarily updating the buildings.
This month we got a new train station and builder’s hut!
There was also a rather lovely tree finished!
So there we have it!
With more hands on the project a lot more gets done in a month, as you can no doubt see!
I hope you're all keeping well, let me know your thoughts in the comments, or in our Discord server!
Speak soon,
from Robert