Happy New Year everyone!
We fully expect 2020 to be a very busy year for us, as we head closer to our target Early Access launch. We have one major issue to resolve - we've talked about this a bit in a discussion thread here - there is currently a conflict between the "play with people's lives" sandbox side of the game and the "invade and wipe out the world" strategic side of the game. Our January will be spent solving this problem and introducing some interesting improvements to the game. We'll discuss that further at the end of January.
But for now, see what we've accomplished on the last month of 2019. For December, we actually only had around three weeks of work as we took a long leave at the end of the month. Below are the things we worked on.
Edited UI
We've reworked some of our UI to reduce the amount of space they take up.
Opinion
We've expanded on our Relationship system. Previously, we only had discrete relationships that determines whether you view a character positively or negatively. So relationship types such as Lover, Friend and Paramour are always positive, while relationship types like Enemy are always negative. This fails to simulate some interesting situations. Example, some people may be in a romantic relationship that has since soured so they both dislike each other.
To fix this, we introduced Opinion (akin to Sims and RimWorld). This is an integer value that determines how much you like someone. It is modified by various relationship types but may change independently of them. So you may end up having negative opinion towards a Lover or a Relative.
Seize
This is a simple ability that allows the player to take any character or object from the map and then drop it somewhere else. The player can only seize one thing at a time. While it sounds simple, it can be used in a lot of creative and naughty ways. The UI/UX and balancing of this ability is still in progress.
Improved Tornado
Our latest DevLog discusses the improvements we've made regarding the Tornado Spell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ-gRusSDKc
Reworked Kennels and Crypts
Previously, our Kennels and Crypts merely increase Summon and Artifact slots. It was neither dynamic nor interesting. We've started working on making them more interesting. The idea is that the actual monsters and artifacts that you can use should exist somewhere in the world, and then once you are able to corrupt that area, you must then build a Kennel (for the monsters) or a Crypt (for an artifact). Once these have been built, then you will have access to the monsters/artifact there. This would put some more thought into where Kennels and Crypts must be built. Do I build my Kennel in this tile that has five wolves, or in this tile that has a single but powerful golem?
Our plans for January will update these even further but let's talk about that later!
Character Sprite Animations
Our new character sprites now have Walking, Attacking, Interacting and Knockout animations. Farewell gliding static sprites!
Goader Demonic Structure
We have a rudimentary UI for our Goader Structure which is all about Faction Manipulation. Here, the player can induce a character to leave, join or start his own faction.
Various Structure Layouts
We've prepared different looks for new settlement structures. Could still use a bit of work but at least now different structure types are more identifiable.
Aside from Warehouse, Jail and Cemetery, the rest don't have their functionality in the game yet but that will be implemented soon!