Going Medieval News

We will be featuring a stream led by the fine folk from The Irregular Corporation (our publisher). They are playing the Steam Festival Demo version of Going Medieval right now! Joined by special guest, Vladimir Zivkovic! (Co-founder/Developer @FoxyVoxel)

Vladimir will be giving them all his developer tips and tricks on creating the ultimate settlement!

Head on over to our Steam page to watch now ːsummersunː

Greetings medievalists!

We are happy to announce that the demo for the Going Medieval will be playable when the Steam Autumn festival starts.

For those that are not familiar with it - The Steam Game Festival is a multi-day celebration where fans can try out demos, chat with developers, watch live streams, and learn about upcoming games on Steam.

Disclaimer: This demo is almost identical to the one played by the closed-beta players a couple of weeks ago. However, this is a chance for those who missed out on the beta to get hands-on with the game. This also means that the changes made in the September devblog will not be in this demo, however, those things are fixed, true, but they require extensive QA on our side, and we are not yet ready to share them with our players.

You can play our timed demo from Wednesday, October 7th, 10AM PST to Tuesday, October 13th, 10AM PST. It is important to note that the demo lets you play until the end of the summer season. For this purpose we’ve disabled the save/load feature - you will be able to start as many new games as you want during the festival, and play freely by the start of the in-game autumn.

Share your experience with our community and us via our Discord server and Twitter account.

Foxy Voxel Team

Be sure to visit our Discord and become part of our community: discord.gg/yHKcJat
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/going_medieval
See the trailer for the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy_rW95WtmA

Greetings medievalists!

The closed beta came and went, but the feedback you provided along with the bugs helped us immensely! So, thank you all so much again for taking part.

We have been fixing and implementing some of the feedback suggested throughout August. There is still more to go of course, but based on the response that came from all of you, this tells us that we are on the right path.

Here is what we have added so far:

[h3]Gameplay improvements[/h3]

• Enemies plan their attacks better now
  

Users reported issues where enemies behaved weird, not changing targets properly and attacking when they should be fleeing (also attacking unconscious villagers). We’ve implemented a system that should be much more satisfying and optimized when it comes to these attacks, thus avoiding a player’s frustration in the process.

• Villagers getting stuck within constructions, stairs and ground should be thing of the past now
  
• Planning construction within the game’s grid space is much easier now. Also, the issue where some buildings getting canceled in the mid-build process would stay written in grid
  
• The underlying system for socketable constructions (wall banners, beams, etc) is refactored and changed. This solved the potential issue where the players couldn’t build buildings under torches or banners
  
• We’ve changed to the way villagers reach certain points (mining ground, picking up resources, etc). This way, no pile will be ignored
  
• The destroyed door will spawn a floor now. This solves the problem of a door on the second floor with nothing underneath it. When enemies would destroy the door, a hole would be created thus blocking their path forward
  
• We’ve added orientation indicators to the buildings. Players can now see where the “front” of the building is
  
• Added better position indicators to the staircase in order to make it easier to place the stairs
  

[h3]Tooltip improvements[/h3]

• Info that is shown to the player when selecting an item on the ground has been expanded
  
• Added tooltips to all the important information in the selection tab (with an explanation of how this number came to be)
  
• Added tooltip with more detailed information when hovering on a weapon/armor/shield on the ground
  
• Added detailed information on how the math works for range, damage, armor, temperature, etc in the inventory panel
  

[h3]Additional Features:[/h3]

• Reworked combat animations. All animations are now slower (in order to help combat look a bit more clearer)
  
• Animations no longer move the villager when performing an attack
  
• Wind up part of animations have been trimmed away (except for ranged weapons)
  
• Doors now animate and open automatically when villagers walk through them
  
• Food production no longer has a simmering phase. Other productions like smoking meat still have this passive phase because it’s much longer and logical
  
• The player can now choose to produce x5 and x10 food products at once
  
• The production panel automatically opens if the production building is selected during construction
  
• The construction panel automatically updates when research is unlocked
  

Now - if you want a COMPLETE list of fixes, you might want to sit down, as this will take some time:

[h3]Beta bugs and issues fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a bug that caused enemies to walk through the doors
  
• Fixed a bug where the player was able to place stairs blueprint over stairs that were being constructed at the time
  
• Fixed a bug where the player was able to place roofs in such a way that one endpoint of a roof was resting on either a wall, window, door, or beam and the other wasn't, i.e. it was resting on a floor one level below its other endpoint. Because of this bug, roofs appeared as floating on one side and on the other they had proper support
  
• Fixed multiple roofs related bug issues; villagers wouldn't construct roof after game loading, roofs not visible after loading, roof foundation rotation wasn’t correct after loading and roof positions not calculated properly after loading (which might lead to roofs collapsing for no obvious reason)
  
• Fixed a bug when building construction is canceled only while the villager is constructing it. That would lead to that building data to remain on grid spaces it occupies, which resulted in other bugs (example: roofs couldn't be placed because the system thinks stairs exists (even though they've been destroyed))
  
• Fixed a bug where the room is not detected in case its door has no ground or floor under it, resulting in villager mood penalties
  
• Fixed a bug where the room's wall (under which is a hole) was destroyed, but the area remains still recognized as a room
  
• Fixed a bug where the slope dig marker sometimes doesn’t get deleted after the selected slope was removed
  
• Fixed a bug that caused villagers to get stuck. Villagers should get stuck less often, if at all
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented roofs and stairs from carving crop fields
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some dirt ramps to disappear after loading a save game
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented villager from not hauling resources to the stockpile if the stockpile was on the upper level
  
• Fixed a bug that created an unmovable pile - caused by when a pile spawns at the stockpile and it's forbidden to be stored on it (example: waste spawns after food rots)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the same villager to arrive multiple times (caused usually by that same villager being dead before the event ends)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the roof foundation to not be properly aligned after the roof replacement that happened after loading a saved game
  
• Fixed a bug where all of the banners appeared white until you try to open the in-game menu to edit the flag
  
• Fixed a bug that caused villagers to stuck themselves into an infinite construction loop. This bug was caused by the beam that had one grid space width in size
  
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect calculation of the year cycle. The game was displaying the spring variant of the materials for a moment when loading the game, then it switched to the appropriate variant corresponding to the current season
  
• Fixed a bug where the marked ground would not be dug after loading (the reachable positions would not refreshing properly)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused human carcass piles to not be stored/unstored in the resources dictionary when loading a saved game. Villagers would ignore those piles when in need of a resource
  
• Fixed a bug that caused villagers not to deliver resources to floor blueprint if socketable item exists above it
  
• Fixed a bug where villagers would get stuck inside the stairs when falling down
  
• Fixed bugs with dig markers; invisible dig markers, villagers do not want to dig some marked ground, some dig markers when selected show an action_dig text on the info panel, you have to mark it for dig, then cancel and mark again to make it work, etc…
  
• Fixed a bug that caused building blueprint to have stability 0 when attached to the voxel - when that would happen, villagers would never deliver resources for construction
  
• Fixed a bug that caused when a pile falls down, it's reachable position is null, meaning villager would never touch it
  
• Fixed a bug that worked like this - after loading a saved game, if furniture or a socketable item (that's in the foundation phase only!!!) construction fails, it will never start again
  
• Fixed issue with the player being able to place a wall through a roof
  
• Fixed issue where typing numbers in production queue changes game speed
  
• Fixed issue where Villager's Mood tab was showing placeholder text on the first open
  
• Fixed issue with overlaying text in Selection Panel > Info Tab
  
• Fixed issue with almanac linking - it’s more understandable on what word to click to get almanac help
  
• Fixed issue where the wrong villager name was shown on birthday notification
  
• Fixed speed button issue where the button would be disabled when no raid is happening on screen
  
• Fixed issue where group skills were mismatched on the character creation screen
  
• Fixed issue where socketable items (torches, beams) could be placed over other socketable items
  
• Changed design of production Edit button to make it more important and easier to spot
  
• Fixed Attributes extra panel behavior - Attributes extra panel is now updated instantly after opening
  
• Added indicator to the stairs - height indicator as well as from what side can villager access them
  
• Animals shouldn’t get stuck into the terrain now
  
• Combat colliders should work as intended now - things like archers shooting through floors and walls when showing/hiding layers work as it should
  
• Icons are now properly shown in the villager’s Skill Extra Selection Panel
  
• Destroyed doors will now spawn constructed floors at their position. This will prevent workers and enemies from getting stuck if the doors were on upper levels
  
• Detailed equipment tooltips have been added
  
• Changed the way villagers reach piles. Some piles would remain frozen and no one would use them due to a reachable position problem
  
• Refactored socketabel constructions: This was done so that the player could place items directly below socketable items. Solves a bug where some socketable items were in blueprint mode forever. Furniture, decorations, and production buildings can be placed on the same grid space as socketable items
  
• Deactivating particles when construction fails for socketable torch (infinite particle loop problem)
  
• Villagers will prioritize higher nutrition food
  
• Socketable items can't be placed if stairs exist at the same position. If the player tried to do that, a message will pop up
  

And that would be all for this (last) month. There is still a lot of fixing to be done, and a lot of stuff to be implemented, but we are on it!

Stay well, and see you soon.

Foxy Voxel Team

Be sure to visit our Discord and become part of our community: discord.gg/yHKcJat
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/going_medieval
See the trailer for the game here: [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Greetings medievalists!

Last month was reserved for various bug fixes, game improvements, and QA testing. So no new features, at least not yet. Keep reading to find why that needed to happen.
[h3]Improved Tutorialisation of Draft & Combat Mechanic[/h3]

• We have added a tutorial pop-up window (note: If you turn off tutorials in the options menu, this pop-up window will not appear)
  
• The first pop-up window appears when you start the game. It has a welcome screen, explanation of camera controls, layer controls, and game speed
  
• After the first raid event has started the game will pop-up the second tutorial window with instructions on selecting, drafting, equipping and moving your villagers
  
• Standalone pop-ups will appear for the first time when opening the job, schedule, and research panel
  
• Videos have been added to all tutorials
  

[h3]Additional UI/UX[/h3]

• We’ve added additional tooltip information for resource categories
  
• Added hyperlinks to stability and decomposition almanac to help players understand how both systems work
  
• Added additional tooltip to books in research panel to help understand how negative value of books functions
  
• Building blueprint will change color when it’s out of reach (also added text “out of reach” when clicked on)
  
• Drafted go-to position arrow is now red when the player tries to order villager to an unreachable location
  

[h3]Additional Changes[/h3]

• Fixed several issues with quitting to the main menu and resuming the game
  
• Fixed issue with placing a building on a forbidden pile resulting in villagers freezing
  
• Added new input controls and made it cleaner when remapping (in categories now)
  
• ESC key now closes all windows and opens the in-game menu
  
• Drag select now works with priorities (if a villager is in the selection box, that villager will be selected every time, after that - an item, and after that, resources. Trees and buildings can’t be selected with drag-select by design)
  
• Shift + click now also deselects stuff
  
• “New villager” events now have randomized: health, sleep, hunger, wounds, and equipment
  
• Enemies now have randomized HP of equipment
  
• Villagers carry unconscious villagers properly now
  
• When enemy upon dying leaves carcass and equipment dropped - they will be forbidden by default
  
  
• Added basic combat sound effects
  
• Added several more UI sound effects: pause, notification, event, etc.
  
• Buildings now instance properly making it less CPU heavy
  
• Attack animations are slowed down so the player can tell what's going on
  
• Attack animations are now randomized between 3x different animations
  
• Added randomized heraldry to heraldry editor (all random heraldries are created by discord users during Alpha, their names are credited underneath)
  
  
• Added Trebuchet projectile VFX
  
• Enemies will have a bubble of defeat when running away
  
• Fixed several problems with counting resources on stockpile and map
  
• Villagers are in the flee mode by default
  
• Trebuchet projectile, animals, and fists now inflict wounds
  
  
• Floors and walls hide differently now when hiding and showing layers
  
• Fixed several bugs with roofs, beams, and floor
  
• Fixed several bugs with stockpiles and building on stockpiles
  
• Fixed several issues when renaming a villager (not appearing in a text later as the renamed villager)
  
• Added leaves blowing in the wind
  
• Animals will try and stay away from villagers when idling
  
• Fixed camera restart problem and default camera position issue
  

[h3]Rebalancing[/h3]

• Book piles now hold 100 books instead of 50
  
• Limestone, wood, and iron piles hold 200 instead of 100 resources
  
• Equipment decays faster when not worn
  
• Equipment decays slower on a villager
  

Rebalanced the nutrition value of food in the game:

• Raw food now has a nutrition value of 0.5 while cooked has 0.8-1.0
  
• Villagers will prioritize higher nutrition food
  
• Villagers will prioritize food when sleeping
  
• Villagers will prioritize food when in a sleeping hour (making them eat before going to sleep)
  
• Villagers will eat at tables now (Animation is still work in progress)
  
• Human meat added to the game. All meals can have a human meat version to it (forcing villagers to eat them will result in harsh mood penalties)
  
• Changed how much food costs to cook
  
• Less raw food is given from hunting/harvesting
  

And we’ve fixed a bunch of tasks regarding optimization, save/load problems, and all sorts of other things that our QA found. Like you can tell - we did a lot of work. Why is that? Because…

[h2]Beta starts on August 10th![/h2]

That’s right. The day has come - The Going Medieval beta will run on August 10th at 4PM BST / 5PM CEST / 8AM PT - August 17th 4PM BST / 5PM CEST / 8AM PT and it will be on Steam via a Steam key. We will provide your key to you during the day on August 10th! So please keep an eye on your inboxes then (if you have any issues with your Steam key when it arrives, please let us know).

Everyone that applied so far for it will receive the beta key. You can share your opinions and thoughts on Twitter (and tag us in the process) and head over to our Discord server - there you’ll be able to share your thoughts, give us feedback, and post some sweet gameplay screenshots.

Stay well, and see you soon.

Foxy Voxel Team

Be sure to visit our Discord and become part of our community: discord.gg/yHKcJat
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/going_medieval
See the trailer for the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy_rW95WtmA

Greetings medievalists!

So as the beta date approaches we’ve added a bunch of stuff. Really. Like, A LOT - as you’ll be able to tell. We’ve focused on combat behavior and raids as the biggest feedback from the alpha concern these things. So without further ado:
[h3]Villager management during combat and combat itself
received a major rework[/h3]


We’ve implemented a more sensible approach of unit control and behavior during the battles. Now it’s more like your classical RTS experience in that area. Really, there are a bunch of things implemented in this area that would take quite a lot of time to explain… But we’ll try our best!

• We’ve added a weapon icon in the villager panel to indicate who is an archer and who is not
  
• The “Draft” indicator next to the icon in the villager panel (also villager panel turns a bit blue when a villager is drafted)
  
• We’ve also added red flashes on villagers icon in villager panel when they take damage
  
• Added prominent red overlay when the villager is damaged
  
• Enemies and villagers now have an indicator when the camera is zoomed out (basically turning your view into a mini-map). Zooming out will emphasize every character’s circle (of enemies and your villagers) and it will become visible through walls. That way, you’ll know where everyone is at every point in the game
  
• Added range indicator to selected archers. Selecting a drafted archer will show his range radius (represented in a yellow circle around them)
  
• HP bar over the worker and enemy heads (with the health bar flashing with the amount of health reduced) HP bars show when taking damage, when damage is taken a white slower bar appears that indicate the amount of damage taken
  
• We’ve removed numbers indicator when the damage is being dealt, but text like “miss, blocked, evade” is still present. If you are a numbers guy, will leave that as an option to turn it on
  
• Special text will appear when one of your villagers gets unconscious or killed
  
• You’re now able to select multiple trees, stones, and other materials with double click feature - this will make manipulation of materials much more convenient
  

[h3]Raids became much smarter![/h3]


So one of the most common complaints was that the raids are not fun & they are too hard. Behold - we’ve implemented the system that balances the raids based on the behavior of your settlement. Call it an adaptable difficulty, if you want. Without giving away too much info, rest assured that this system will allow for different scenarios for all of the players. Sure, there will be similar events here and there, but the content of those events will vary. Here is what we did for raids and enemies overall:

• Enemies will walk 50% of the way towards the target
  
• Added cheering animation to your villagers when enemies are defeated
  
• Villagers will keep attacking enemies when enemies are running away
  
• There are now different types of enemies (for now: melee, archer, heavy and siege equipment)
  
• Only the first event in the game is hardcoded (will happen to everyone), but the way you handle it will lead you down a different path. This is done as an introduction of the system, and also to show the consequences of the events overall
  
• We’ve added a couple of new raid variations - cannibals attack, twisted crusaders and mindless assassins
  
• We’ve added new events for the introduction of new villagers into your community
  

Things can get intense.
[h3]Additional Features![/h3]


Without going too much into details, we’ll list some interesting stuff we’ve also implemented. Hopefully, you’ll like it.

• Human corpses added. Now when a human dies he leaves behind a carcass (same height, same features, and same body structure as when alive)
  
• Added “ctrl + click” and “shift + click” to the production panel. This way the player can add +10 and +100 of a product to the production of a certain thing, avoiding unnecessary clicking for a long time. Alternatively, you can type in the number of products in the production panel
  
• The “Research” panel now shows all 3x types of books needed for research. It also shows additional info on the tooltip. Research evolved big time
  
• Instead of assigning jobs for your villager with an “on” or “off” button, they can now have a higher priority or lower priority (5x priorities)
  
• Added see-through effect to trees and buildings to make it easier to move around
  
• Added various graphical options (the ones that were easiest to implement but had a nice boost to performance)
  
• Health tab added to the villager’s auxiliary panel where all the info for wounds and health are presented to the player
  
• Added various graphical options
  
• Added the option to turn off the tutorial from the options menu
  
• Added blue vignette to screen when the game is paused
  
• Added constructions having variations in appearance when producing
  
• Workers no longer come to the corner of the production construction to produce, they have hand placed spots where they stand
  
• Floors will now carve crop fields
  

Those are the important ones worth mentioning.

That is a lot of things for the beta build, right? And we’re still looking for the beta players! if you know someone who still did not registered there, be sure to send them this link:

https://bit.ly/GoingMedievalBeta

That is everything for this update, we hope you’re enjoying seeing the ongoing development of Going Medieval!

Foxy Voxel Team

Be sure to visit our Discord and become part of our community: discord.gg/yHKcJat
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/going_medieval
See the trailer for the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy_rW95WtmA