Going Medieval News

Greetings medievalists!

Let’s talk about a new structure type that will help you light up rooms naturally. Grated floors are coming in the Update #9.

Grated floors have no insulation and allow certain things to pass through them. This includes a small amount of sunlight along with rain and snow.


Wicker grated floor (left) and Metal grated floor (right)

You will be able to use them to allow sunlight in, warm a room, or help plants grow. They also block hail, giving you the ability to protect crops whilst still providing them with sunlight.
Want more creative applications? Imagine building a long hallway with grated floors above it and welcoming raiders that way. Well… we’ll leave it to your imagination.

But, we’re still not done with the temperature and its effect on the environment! When it comes to terrain, we added a couple of immersive aspects. Snow will slowly melt if settlers walk through it, or if the area temperature is high enough. Direct sunlight can cause the snow to melt, too, and once it melts, the terrain becomes wet.



We're also adding wetness, which will affect the temperature and comfort of your settlers. Wetness will come with rains (and snow melting) and can cool them down in the summer, but they might start to freeze if they become wet during the winter. Certain types of clothing will change how long they stay wet, so you'll need to be careful about what your settlers are wearing.

And finally dirt paths. Once something is created on the ground, it will cause the disappearance of the grass on that terrain. This effect will also occur on the paths that are frequently used by animals and settlers. These dirt paths will offer a minor movement boost, but keep in mind that the ground will “heal” if not “used” frequently.



And that would be all. The good news is that all of these features we’ll be live on the experimental branch sometime this week. It is worth noting that we decided to keep the Dev version of the game on the experimental branch, and that means that a Dev log with red text will appear from time to time. This will help us get more info from your side when crashes and bug reports occur.

Once they have been properly tested, we will make an official update release.

Talk to you then.

Foxy Voxel Team

Greetings medievalists!

Time to continue our previous talk.

Another important addition to the temperature overhaul is the day & night cycle. If you check it now, you’ll notice that sunrise and sunset always occur at the same time, regardless of the season. Sunrise usually occurs sometimes around 4AM (great time for pretty screenshots), while sunset happens around 8PM (also, great time for pretty screenshots). While that is a good enough solution, it ain’t… interesting. In reality, days are longer during the summer and shorter in winter. While Going Medieval is not a 100% realistic game (hauling bear pets say hi), we try to take real elements and gamify them in a sensible way. So, that is what we did.

In the summertime, the sun will rise around 4AM and go down around 9PM. During the winter season, sunrise will occur around 8AM, and sunset around 3PM. This also means that the angle of the sun will also be different depending on the season, so things that received enough light during the summer, might not receive enough of it during the winter. All of this should put heavier emphasis on the summer/winter difference.



We’ll also introduce the diffuse sunlight effect. Let’s put it this way: you make a closed room with no windows. It’s cold, it’s dark, so you put a couple of torches in it to light things up. Sure, the room is warmer, but you can’t place a plant in there and expect it to grow. This is due to the room space being marked as “Inside”. But, in the upcoming update, you’ll be able to place a window and now anything around that window will ‘embrace’ diffuse sunlight. This means that you’ll be able to cultivate plants in rooms, even in some caves, as long as sunlight can reach it and it isn’t too cold. Close to reality, right?



In Update #9, you’ll be able to plant flora anywhere, and it will grow… as long as there is sunlight there. There is another catch, there is a chance that once the growing period is over, the plant becomes stunted. Stunted plants are smaller in appearance and will yield less. The chance of being stunted increases depending on how much sunlight a plant receives. When it comes to trees, beyond sunlight, the amount of other trees nearby also increases stunted chances.



We’ll introduce another structure type in order to help sunlight reach your room. Can you guess what it is? You’ll get your answer in MMT #37 next week, along with other interesting tidbits that are coming in the update #9. Talk to you very soon!

Foxy Voxel Team

Greetings medievalists!

Do you remember when we mentioned that we’re constantly discussing new features and what needs to be overhauled with existing ones? Let's dive into overhauling features, specifically temperature, which will be revamped in the next update.

Currently, the game recognizes only two types of temperature: inside and outside. Inside temperature (rooms) considers all the objects emitting heat inside it and finds the median value, which applies to the entire room. So, if you had one torch in a corner of a medium sized room, the heat from that torch would be distributed evenly throughout the room. While the feature worked well enough (even if it wasn’t realistic), it caused some of you to ask questions like: “Why doesn’t the room next to it receive some of the heat” or "Why heat sources placed outside don’t emit heat”.



Don't worry, we're introducing a new temperature system in the next update, that will make things more believable and fun. Rooms will now heat each other, depending on their contents. For example, a kitchen with a stove and torches will heat the bedroom above it if the floor separating them has low insulation. Since everything will emit heat, including furniture, buildings, animals, and settlers, you'll have plenty of ways to ponder on how to distribute heat. Fun fact: In medieval times, people positioned cattle in the room beneath their living quarters to control the temperature. You can do that too!

If all this sounds a bit overwhelming, we've got you covered. We'll introduce a temperature overlay button that will show the temperature distribution and help you optimize your gameplay experience.



To tackle temperature, we had to change how sunlight and shadows work in-game. In the upcoming update, they will impact the gameplay. For example, the angle of the sun and shadows will impact your map, and the type of map will influence the overall temperature distribution. Winter will be harsher on mountain maps, while on valley maps, they'll barely be an inconvenience.

During the summer, things will get warm, and working outside will be difficult due to the heat. But fear not, settlers will look for shadows (tree shadows, ground shadows, building shadows, you name it) to avoid negative mood modifiers and protect their health. Wearing appropriate hats will also protect them from possible heatstroke.

That is all for this time. It might seem somewhat abstract-ish, but the way temperature calculates and emits paves the way for many stuff we plan for the future. We've made some other changes too, including the day/night cycle, where plants can be grown, and more. We'll dive deeper into these changes in our next MMT which you can expect next week.

Foxy Voxel Team

Greetings medievalists!

At the heart of game development lies a deep commitment to improving the player's experience, which means not only adding new features and fixing bugs, but also refining existing systems. We understand that every aspect of the game must work together seamlessly to create an immersive and enjoyable experience for our players. One of the first things we overhauled was the crop system. Previously, your settlers would magically conjure them from thin air with no additional resources required. The system was updated once we established proper storage options, introduced merchants and diplomacy. Only then did it make sense to introduce new resources, add new flora, and properly tie those features to the new harvesting/farming loop. While some may have initially been hesitant about these changes, we were thrilled to hear that the majority of players embraced them wholeheartedly! Eventually, players that didn't like this feature update were able to turn it off via custom difficulty settings. We can't do this for all of the things we overhaul, but balancing feedback and suggestions is something we think about often.

We are constantly discussing new features and what needs to be overhauled with existing ones. The things we choose to do are a combination of a couple of factors: the complexity of the task, the time required to finish it, and its contribution to the overall game experience. Something that sounds easy on paper, like ‘add water’ is, in reality, a complicated feature that needs to be linked to several different systems. Some that you can easily guess, while others require a lot of work happening under the game’s hood.

Then, there are issues that we would classify as annoyances. These do not break the game in any way, but they do make you wonder "why is it not fixed/upgraded yet?" When that happens, usually, there is something occurring under the hood that prevents seemingly easy tasks from being solved.

One of the major annoyances for our players was the inability to edit multiple selected storage/fuel structures. Good news! The next update will allow this. You will be able to edit their priority, material/resource allowance, and even change names. However, this feature will not work for production buildings. That has a separate, more complex logic for each building and as of now, properly prioritizing such systems may take a lot of time without finding a middle ground that would equally satisfy everyone.



The trough is also another thing that was causing a bunch of problems for many players. Were they given good enough priority? Were they reachable? Were there enough resources to fill them? Whatever the case, people reported that animals were starving left and right. Something had to be changed.

In the next update, troughs will be turned into fuel-able structures. Think of them as braziers but for food. That also means you will be able to right-click and prioritize them. To balance it with the rest of the tasks, refilling troughs will be part of the Animal Handling job, as suggested by you. That makes sense - it was part of the Hauling job before, and now we’ve separated the code and synced it with Animal handling infrastructure.



While we're on the subject of buildings that use fuel, do you remember how settlers used to have to grab small wood pile to refill a brazier or candelabra, and then go get another wood pile for the next one? Well, that's going to change. Settlers will be able to take a big pile of wood and use it to refill as many fuel-based buildings as they need. Pretty neat, huh?

We also plan to add a bunch of new sound effects to the game, as you made some wonderful suggestions via the F10 system in-game. Birds will be chirping, cows will be mooing, and settlers’ footsteps will finally be heard. It might sound like a minor thing (hehe, sound), but we think it will greatly improve the game’s immersion.

That is all for this MMT, folks! Your feedback continues to be an essential part of our development cycle. Whether you report via F10, provide suggestions on Steam or in our Discord channels, your opinion helps us shape Going Medieval into something special. Not everyone will agree with some of our choices, but in the end, we hope that the final product will be something everyone can enjoy.

Foxy Voxel Team

Greetings medievalists!

Let’s talk about the thing many of you have wanted for a long time: ladders! Our long-time followers may remember the days when we used to have these things in the game. They were removed for a couple of reasons; they broke pathfinding logic, the difference between them and stairs were minimal, and they added little to the overall gameplay.

Well, we are bringing them back in a big way, with a new look and new functionality. Allow us to explain.

Ladders are voxel elements (like walls), that allow traversal between two layers. They can be built anywhere (in allowed space), can be stacked up one another and can be built adjacent to floors, walls, doors and windows.



They will be used by humans (both settlers and raiders) and certain animals, like cats, rats and polecats. The amount of sides from which they can be approached will vary, depending on their position. Settlers will only be able to perform certain goals when on ladders:

• Deliver construction material
  
• Construct
  
• Pickup/equip resources/items
  
• Combat
  
• Locking unlocking doors
  
• Refueling fuel buildings

All other actions are pretty self explanatory, but combat deserves a special mention. Settlers can pass through one another when on ladders, but they will not be able to pass through if a raider blocks their way. That is when the fight starts. Since this will be a battle focused on verticality, you’ll have to have a couple of things in mind. One handed weapons will have better strength of attack than two-handed. Settlers with shields will equip them on their backs during the ladder interaction, that way, they will block arrows. Some weapons will be more effective than others. For instance, billhooks will have a better critical capability when on ladders. Your settlers can, of course, fight unarmed when on ladders. This will also occur if those settlers are archers.

Ladders are not a go-to solution for everything, though. Walls, roofs and floors can’t be placed on top of them. You will not be able to place them under beams either.



Settlers will not be able to move sideways via ladders (they will not be able to go full spiderman on ladders). Settlers will be able to fight with raiders on ladders, if those ladders are positioned side by side. There is a front side of the ladder (depending on its position) that can be approached from 5 nearby voxel positions. Approaching the ladder from the back will not be possible. We’ll detail all the worthy notes once the official update is released, but for now, we hope that this gives you a better idea of what to expect in the upcoming update. We’re still working on it, so please have patience.

While you wait, we invite you to join our Discord server (if you haven’t done so already!), and share your settlements, game experiences, tips and tricks, partake photo challenges, show off your heraldry and give feedback on the existing feature, or even suggest a new one.

Foxy Voxel