Update 29: Wilderness, Sainsbury vineyards and announcement...
Hi all!
Apart from some refinements, and behind the scenes bug fixes, I've mostly been working on filling out the landscape - adding small hidey holes, secret places and points of interest. I've added/filled out the town of Sainsbury - a small village famous for it's wine.
I also have a bit of an announcement... I'm going to be a dad very soon! I'll be taking some time off from development for the birth of my son Rest assured that development will continue once things settle down a bit, and we figure out this whole parenting thing...
~Geoff
Sainsbury inn and vineyard
Sainsbury
Sainsbury winepress
Sainsbury
Stone forest
Update 30: Development continues
Hi All!
This is just a small update to let you know that development has restarted. As you know, I took a bit of time off for the birth of my son. (he is doing very well btw Thank you all for your patience.
I have replaced the old water tiles with something a bit simpler that is also animated. Palm trees are now a thing too.
Expect a bigger update next time, where I will also release a new demo.
For now, I hope you are all doing well!
~Geoff
Yeah, sure. The Frontiers guy said the same thing and we all know how it turned out. Why can't devs just set their priorities straight?I also have a bit of an announcement... I'm going to be a dad very soon! I'll be taking some time off from development for the birth of my son Rest assured that development will continue once things settle down a bit, and we figure out this whole parenting thing...
Update 31: Load times, caves, teleporters, autotilers
Hi All!
I've been hard at work focusing on several aspects of the game.
Load Times
First of all, I have optimized the hell out of the game load time. Previously it took a whopping 20 seconds to load the game. That is now down to just 2-3 seconds. What's happening during that loading screen is the world building. It places grass, rocks, walls, and assembles the cliffs and caves.. which I'll talk about next.
Cliff and Cave Autotile
I've developed a cliff side and cave autotiler. Coming up with this was a real challenge, it was a lot more difficult than my previous auto tilers, as there are a lot more variables to consider. All I need to do now is make a basic outline of the mountain or cave and the auto tiler fills in the walls, blockers, shadows and floor... This will make content creation a lot easier going forward.
Cave art assets
I've added new cave walls and assets
New cave assets
Murky puddles are now a thing
I have also added location teleporters with smooth transition for changing location to things like caves, dungeons and underground. The overworld is still seamless except for the aforementioned locations.
As usual, I have added Alpha demo 0411 to the dropbox for eligable backers.
~Geoff
As you approach Cargile, a foul stench permeates the air. Tree's and other vegetation are dying... What happend here?
Authentic Ultima VII experience !Combat from the demo left something to be desired!
Update 32: Cargile
Greetings backers,
Starting off on a more personal note, I was recently diagnosed with a type of blood cancer. I spent a bit of time in hospital and back home resting... I was in pretty bad shape at the time, but I feel a lot better now... Thankfully it is the slow moving kind. So if I follow the advice of my doctors and continue getting treatment, I'll live a long life. (and finish this game)
Anyway... on to the update...
I had to rewrite how the game handles moving inventory items from slots to the ground and stacks etc. I was having so many problems with it breaking... The new method is a lot cleaner and more robust. I should experience fewer issues with it going forward. Along with that, I also rewrote the double click system to be more flexible. You may experience some bugs double clicking on items that are behind trees and walls, but that's a minor issue that will be fixed soon.
The Music system has been added to the game. Different sets of tracks will play at certain locations in the world. I also commissioned a violin version of one of Tom Pyrdols tracks, Tavern Under The Sea. Check it out below
Trees have been tweaked. The tree tops are now slightly transparent when an NPC or player walks behind them. There is also more variety in the colour of the tree tops.
I also added some minor pond critters like butterflies, frogs, dragonflies and squirrels.
Pond critters
Cargile
As you approach Cargile, a foul stench permeates the air. Grass, trees and other vegetation are dying... It's residence lay rotting in the summer heat. The once fertile trade port of Cargile now resembles Hell. Was it cursed? What happened here?
Mine assets
I've added assets formines to the game
New NPC's
Some of the more notable updates include:
- Added the music system and music zones
- Rewrote item drag system
- Added transparency to tree tops
- Trees now draw tree tops separately
- Centralized double clicking system
- Fixed double clicking on multiple stacked items
- Added ALT and SHIFT animations when dragging stacked items
- Fixed not being able to drag items over item box
- Disabled certain sounds when paused
- NPC names now only appear when the player knows them
- Default object loot items added to the DB lookup script
- Fixed enemy chase mechanics
- Fixed NPC schedules
- Added red blood screen when player is hit when low on health
- Lower black border of wall corners fixed
- Use action on doors fixed
- Take-all on containers with stacked items fixed
- Fixed some walls only drawing part of the sprite
- Cleaned up old collision layers
Thanks everyone. I need to focus on game content going forward... Adding points of interest, NPC's, storylines and dungeons etc.
~Geoff
Wait, there's a demo?
thats one way to get custom avatars on codexWait, there's a demo?
I got to play it a bit. Mine and my wife's portrait are going to be in the game so he sent me a file to test the combat. Felt barren. He (Geoff) acknowledged it as well so it'll be interesting to see how it develops
Update 33 - Goodbye scroll wheel actions
Hello everyone!
I decided to do away with the scroll wheel actions and focus on simple context based actions similar to how it works in Ultima 7. I was rather fond of the scroll wheel actions, but had to face the fact that it really wasn't a good user experience with this type of game... especially when it comes to combat.
Now instead of scroll wheeling to the look command and clicking on an object to look at it, you simply hover over the object you want to look at. If you want to interact with it, you double click it... Simple.
Hoverover objects to look at them
Combat will now flow a lot better. Previously when attacking something that moves, you needed to go out of combat mode, move to where the target is, then mouse scroll to combat and enter combat mode again... which was quite frankly annoying. Now I can focus on improving the combat system further.
I've added the Valley of Giants.. a valley where... well giants can be found.
Entrance to the Valley of Giants
I have added female ogres to the game. Here they are next to their male counterparts as well as the new Goblin NPCs and a human for reference.
Fireplaces have been updated with flames and are now usable
Goblins are now in the game. I've added a Goblin camp with tree forts. Goblins come in three varieties. Warrior, archer and shaman.
- added tree forts and bridge
- added female ogres
- added goblin archers, goblin shaman, goblin archer
- added bone skitters
- added giant valley plus caves
- added fur pelt beds
- fixed unlit torch sprite
- added animated fire to fireplace, forge
- fixed double click not prioritizing NPCs
- added deco items to hover over text
- scroll wheel functions removed
- fixed NPCs being able to walk through certain diagonal blocker tiles
- fixed light source alignment issue
- fixed flat deco items
- fixed items not double clicking when touching wall
- fixed spell casting where target could not be selected
With the user input change I can now focus on the combat system. So I plan to get stuck into that in the next update. I will post a special combat system demo that for one time only will be available to ALL backers.
Stay tuned!
~Geoff
Or maybe infi should cancel you for the good of the hivemind!I hope that this abomination will be canceled.
I've been working my ass off with the combat system overhaul. Still needs some work, but It's finally at a stage that I'm happy with. Open public demo coming soon!
A game inspired by U6, with U6 style graphics... Nope. Can't imagine why...Dunno why I thought it was going to be TB instead of RT.
I've been working my ass off with the combat system overhaul. Still needs some work, but It's finally at a stage that I'm happy with. Open public demo coming soon!