This will be a lengthy post! We have been hard at work developing the World Invasion System and other gameplay features the past two months. While the bulk of the system is done, it is not yet in a stable state so we decided not to upload it on our itch.io page. We will instead probably upload a video DevLog sometime next month to explain the system in greater detail and also discuss what we intend to add to the game over the coming months.
Fire
We've introduced Fire into the game! Players can now use Ignite and Explosion to start a fire. Fire spreads through Flammable objects, characters and tiles. Residents will attempt to douse a fire when they see one by obtaining water from a Well or other sources of water. We'll have more interesting interactions with Fire in the future!
Burning inn.
Zombie Virus
You can now start your own zombie apocalypse. Players can now afflict a resident with a Zombie Virus. Characters with the Zombie Virus has a small chance of suddenly dying. Any character that dies with a Zombie Virus will reanimate into a Zombie that is hostile to all non-Zombie characters. Our Zombies shamble slowly when idle but moves really fast when there are hostiles in range!
Start your own zombie apocalypse!
Pestilence
Players may now afflict characters with the Plague. This is a spreadable disease that makes the character vomit from time to time until he eventually dies of septic shock. It spreads to other characters! A Doctor character may be able to cure someone with Plague.
Franklin was afflicted with the Plague and eventually died of septic shock
Psychopathy
Players may now turn characters into serial killers. When afflicted with this Trait, the game will generate specific victim targets for the Serial Killer. If the killer meets anyone fitting his criteria, he will target that as his next victim and will eventually abduct and kill it.
Serial Killers typically are generated with two types of victims
They will eliminate their victim in a secluded location. Excuse placeholder graphics please!
Paralysis
Players may now afflict characters with permanent Paralysis. A Paralyzed character can no longer move. Other characters may still help him by feeding him and carrying him to his target location.
Friendly residents will assist their paralyzed comrades.
Cursed Object
Players may now curse an object. Anyone that interacts with it may suffer strange accidents. We're still not too happy about this one's effects so this may be improved later on.
A cursed Ore had another victim
World Invasion System
The foundations of our World Invasion System is already in place. It is still pretty barebones in terms of content but most of the major components are already in there and just needs to be fleshed out and expanded.
The World Invasion System subdivides the world map into interconnected regions. At world generation, the player's Demon Portal will be spawned at one corner and a single defending settlement will be placed at the opposite end corner of the map. The player may then slowly corrupt the world by sending out a minion to invade one adjacent region at a time.
Different regions have different landmarks, objects and characters. When a new region is corrupted, the player will gain benefits depending on the region's content.
The player may only attack the settlement once his corruption is directly adjacent to it so until this happens, he may visit the settlement at any time and use his Intervention Spells to weaken the residents in preparation for the attack. There are plenty of residents spawned at the settlement so the player's invading minions will not be able to defeat them in combat without softening them up first. The gameplay loop we want is for the players to continually switch between the world map and settlement map as he manages the world invasion while simultaneously weakening the settlement.
There is a limited amount of time for the player to complete his invasion. The settlement is protected by a Goddess and a ritual is already underway to invoke its Divine Intervention. Once it completes, the player will lose. We are still unsure whether we want to include a final defense fight within the portal once Divine Intervention occurs or if it should go straight to Game Over.
This is only the initial setup for our World Invasion System. More landmark types, objects and random events will be added to fill up the game with enough content. In addition, Demonic Landmarks will be introduced soon which are structures that the player can erect in invaded regions for a variety of benefits. These are key features that will provide further progression system for the player.
Summons
Players may now obtain Summons from invaded regions. These will be a variety of beasts and monsters that the player can then unleash on the Settlement. We've introduced 4 Summons for now: Wolf, Golem, Succubus and Incubus. Wolves and Golems are fairly straightforward monsters that will engage the residents in combat. Succubi and Incubi are more interesting as they will enchant residents into going in bed with them and then suck their life force while they are at it!
A Wolf attacks the settlement!
Artifacts
Players may now obtain Artifacts from invaded regions. These are special objects that can be placed in empty spots in the settlement. Typically, artifacts have unique area of effect abilities that get activated when an unsuspecting resident inspects it. The Ankh of Anubis creates a quicksand in an area around it that will drown residents caught within. The Necronomicon will reanimate all dead corpses in the entire settlement and turn them into hostile Skeletons. The Chaos Orb will turn anyone that inspects it insane.
A Level 1 Ankh of Anubis in action. Pardon the placeholder graphics
Character Travel
Occasionally, a character from the defending settlement will travel to a different region and trigger a random event. The effect of these type of events will usually be detrimental to the player's invasion effort. There are a couple of ways we want the player to be able to defend against this. If the region is adjacent to corrupted ones, then they can invade it before the event ends to cancel it and kill off the character. If it is not, then the player may send a minion and interfere with the event.
Intervention Spells Changes
We've transferred Intervention Spells out of minions and directly onto the player. The player now has up to 4 Intervention Spell slots that will eventually be filled out by learning new spells via World Invasion System. Intervention Spells are now one time use only so the player must use these wisely.
Let me explain why we switched to this. With the World Invasion System in place, we switched the Intervention Spells from being repeatable use via cooldown to single consumable use. The intent is for the player to be more mindful when to use a Spell as well as to allow the player to go through a variety of different Spells throughout a single playthrough rather than be stuck with just a small fixed set. So when a Spell is consumed, he will eventually be able to replace it with a new one as he invade the world. Now, this makes the minions merely containers of Intervention Spells and makes using them more fiddly as you have to go through a list of minions to find the Spell you want to cast. Moving it out of the minions makes it much simpler and still accomplish the same goal.
Now the downside to this is that the minions are now practically no longer involved in interventions inside the settlement. What we intend to do is to make them more useful in the World Invasion System and in combat. As we put in more of the World Invasion System's features in place, the minions will have various tasks to do including building Demonic Landmarks, unlocking new Spells, starting random events, interfering with other events, etc.
Save/Load System
We've started working on our Save/Load functionality. It's not complete yet as it takes a bit of time to do it for the data inside the settlement but it should be finished by next month.
New Traits
We've started adding more flavor to the characters by introducing new traits that will affect their behavior. Some are buffs like Doctor, Vigilant and Blessed. Some are flaws like Accident Prone, Music Hater and Ugly. Some are neutral like Nocturnal and Curious. Many more will be introduced next month.
An Accident Prone character occasionally stumbles and gets injured while doing stuff
Other Smaller Intervention Spells
This is getting a bit too long but know that there are a few more Spells we added in there such as Cannibalism, Agoraphobia, Lullaby, Spoil and Release. We still feel that there is still not enough means for the player to plan out a specific course of action. To fix this, I think we need to figure out a more manageable way of unlocking specific Spells that the player needs rather than what's in place right now where the player may choose from a random set of three ala Stellaris. What's tough here is how to balance it in a way that it wouldn't be too overpowered. We can't just allow the player to turn everyone into Serial Killers (or could we?).
Day/Night Schedule
We're updating our character AI to better consider the Day/Night cycle in the game. In previous builds, characters do not really take the current time into consideration too much. Example: they dont typically sleep at night time and don't have an eating schedule as they are largely controlled by their Need Meters. We're changing this up so that characters will eat and sleep within a set schedule even if they may not be too hungry or sleepy by then. Our major goal here is to have most characters asleep around the same time at a certain point at night. This will then be a good time for the player to switch to the World Map and work on that side. We think it would be a good loop for the player to be in the Settlement Map in the morning and then in the World Map at night.
At the moment, we're in the middle of transitioning to this. However, it is tough taming the AI into doing a predictable schedule when faced with many unpredictable factors and events. Though I think we should get it done by next month.