[Neolithic]To the End News

Welcome! I hope everyone had a nice Moon Festival.
It's another Friday night. That means another developer's diary is here.

When the Illuminati is bleeding itself in popular culture to hide their agendas, putting their logos everywhere, another secret society that is directly involved in the incident of Queensmouth also found its way to hide in plain sight.

The Foundation.

When mentioning the name of this organization, people may think of some science fiction novels or SCP, that effectively makes this Foundation off the radar when people get direct away from them by misinformation. It's just like the moon. You can see it in the sky. But, you can almost never see its dark side from the earth.

In this week's update, with the right key to the right location, you can find one of their sites located right inside Queensmouth. Although it's not SCP Foundation, unfortunately, it also has its own containment branch thanks to all the current events in Queensmouth. As the Foundation discovered a certain threat earlier than other organizations, they are working on their own projects to counter it except things went wrong.

Base on the site's name, it does not take much genius to discover this is one of the problems:

Do the dwellers of night howl at the moon or does a black moon itself howl?

This is just part of the story we can see from the surface for now. With the sadistic prefix added onto weapons and combat robot modules this week, we may go even deeper into the sorrow underneath this facility till a secret is uncovered and her story is told.

The description in this DD is vague as the story updates of this week may easily be spoiled if not careful.
But, please feel free to take a bite to see it by yourself.


That's for this week.

Next Friday, we will participate in the "Steam Next Fest."
However, there will be no active marketing efforts to be made as I'd rather spend time in development.
The life cycle of the game's update will be extreme compared to many other games while a fest is merely a glimpse. Even it may bring some good marketing numbers in the short term if I redirect my weekly update efforts onto it, I don't think it will matter too much in the long run. Meanwhile, a game about a secret world doing some additional marketing can be quite an irony. Thus, I'd enjoy the peace and solitude on the dark side of the moon.

Today's changelog:
English
#########Content#####################
You can now find a keycard in Kristin's room in Ardham Hotel.
Added a new dialogue option for Kristin after you get the keycard.
New area: Site Demeter (The Foundation site underneath the Ardham Hotel.)
New side story: Containment Breach (Automatically start when you enter the Foundation site. Just a part of it. It's still in development.)
New enemy type: Vampiric Researcher (Can not be turned into pets for now.)
New crafting material: Vampire Dust. (Dropped by vampires of course.)
#########DEBUG######################
Some passable bugs are fixed in the "Facility" tileset.

English
#########Content#####################
You can now restore the power on the 1st floor of the Ardham Hotel via a secret room. (But, the elevator-related content is still under development.)
This part of the story is not linear, you can do that even before triggering the stories in the Illuminati base.
简体中文
########内容更新########################
你现在可以恢复在一个阿德汉姆旅店的秘密房间内恢复一楼的供电了。（但是，电梯那里的内容还在进一步开发中。）
这部分的剧情并非线性，因此你完全可以在完成光照派基地的剧情前进行。

English
#########Content#####################
Combat Robot Modules can now have the prefix of "Sadistic"
Added new tileset "Facility" that can be used to customize your home.
#########DEBUG######################
Fixed a crash when entering your pocket dimension that already exists before version 20210905
Fixed some bugs causing events on saved maps, including your pocket dimension, that cannot be triggered and having passable issues.
Now when loading a saved map, a forced update to event coordinate cache and big event list will trigger.
简体中文
########内容更新########################
战斗机器人模组现在可以包括前缀“虐待狂的”
加入了新的图块风格“设施”可以用于自宅自定义。
#########DEBUG######################
修复了进入一个20210905版本以前的口袋空间时会崩溃的BUG
修复了一些导致被保存的地图，包括你的口袋空间，中的事件可能不被正确触发或者存在通行问题的BUG。
现在每当读取一张被保存的地图时，事件坐标缓存和大物体清单会被强制更新。


Making art assets are always slow as I'm not good at that.
I also got delayed by some bugs I just found right before making the build.
The good news is, those bugs are now eliminated.

20210919
English
#########Content#####################
In the fast tutorial, Mephisto will explain a bit why he uses the word "Racism." And overall, why he sounds weird sometimes.
Updated current procedurally generated weapons to have the potential to gain the "Sadistic" prefix.
#########System######################
New generic prefix: Sadistic Gain MP when causing physical damage on anyone, even when you hit your teammates.
简体中文
########内容更新########################
在快速教程中，梅菲斯特现在会稍微解释一下为什么用“种族歧视”这个词。以及为什么实际上他说的任何东西有时听起来都可能很奇怪。
更新了动态生成的武器，使之可能带有“虐待狂的”词缀
#########系统改进#######################
新通用词缀：虐待狂的 造成物理伤害将会恢复一定量的MP，这包括殴打自己的队友的情况。


I'm trapped in some social events of the Moon Festival, shareholder meetings, and legal business. Thus, the update is short.
Fun fact: The word "sadism" comes from Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, a French nobleman and revolutionary politician.

Hi everyone. Welcome to another developer's diary.
The Moon Festival is upon us! It's just a few days away. It's an important festival across many countries in Asia. People reunite with families, eat mooncakes, enjoy the beautiful round moon in the sky, write poems, do some rituals to summon eldritch entitles, make good wishes. Oh, wait... I may just mix in something weird, something you are not supposed to know. :P

Fun fact: Many people in China are complaining there is only a 1-day holiday while People in Korea can have a 3-days holiday. Thus, it seems Korean people certainly pay more respect to such tradition more than us. I think that's good. People and nations may have conflicts and arguments. But, this is a day of our common cultural heritage, a day people can put away some differences and celebrate together. (Just like the Dragon faction in the game.)

Anyway, here are some mooncakes for everyone:

I am using procedural generation and prefixes to bake mooncakes. Thus, it can come with some randomized flavor just like people can celebrate this day differently in their own traditions. Because, why not?

In addition to that, here are some highlights of this week's update:
1, We also have procedurally generated traditional Chinese medicines in the game now. (Everything can be procedurally generated.) I don't know much about those mystery medicines even if I am Chinese. I have no idea how they work. But, it seems sometimes they work. Thus, they appear just like that in the game. They can cure different negative state effects. But, only very few people know how exactly they work in the game. You can find one of such rare people in the Museum of Weird History.

2, The concept of "Dungeon" is now official. The basement of the 3D printing store and the Nameless Captain's memory about the Perfect World is now defined as "Dungeons" in the game. In those dungeon areas, you will face stronger enemies while also have a higher chance to get loots.

3, Procedurally mission generation system also got some improvement.
3.1 A new mission board is up in the Queensmouth Police Station. Survivors all across the town may send in distress calls to ask for medical supplies as they may be injured by zombies or even got shot by their fellow survivors who mistaken them as zombies. There is not much reward. But, it can improve your relationship with the survivors of Queensmouth. (Yes, the game is tracking this, and your Karma.)
3.2 The research materials asked by people in the Bazaar may have a big variation range, and the people who request those materials will no longer spawn too far away from the center area of the Bazaar. Thus, you will no longer need to search them all over the Bazaar.

4, More modern medicines are also got added to the game in order to balance the appearance of traditional Chinese medicines. For example, you can now get painkillers and stim-shots from hospitals. Their effects are more constant and reliable than those mystery Chinese medicines. Thus, it will ultimately be up to you to pick the best medicines to best suit your tactical choice in this war against supernatural and not-so-supernatural evils...or the good guys if you are the evil.

5, More prefixes and procedurally generated weapons have been added. Some of them are just based on life experience. For example, you drink a bottle of Vodka, get an empty Vodka bottle, and then, break it. Now you get a procedurally generated broken vodka bottle with sharp edges which may even have some good prefixes. Have fun!
It's just like a British gentleman once said "We’ll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!" He certainly didn't mean using a vodka bottle. But, anyway, In desperate times or the finest hour, we can have some desperate weapons. It will be a glorious victory when the heroes get old and tell the tale about they defeat Cthulhu with the butt ends of broken beer bottles. They will be likely admired by... all the doctors and nurses in the asylum.
(Meanwhile, my Paradox friends are having Hearts of Iron 4 on sale at the moment I write this diary. They have Churchill's speech in one of their DLCs.)

So, yes, this week's content covers a very wide and wild range.
Anyway, that's for this week. Enjoy the Moon Festival and have fun! :D

Today's changelog:
#########Content#####################
New item: Mooncake (Procedurally generated. It has prefixes. But, that's just for flavor. Sold in the Dragon's Treasure.)
New prefixes for Mooncakes: Red Bean Paste, Pork, Five-Nuts, Chocolate, Coconut
The Pork Mooncake also got a different icon. (Because I live in Shanghai. :P)
New item: Painkiller (Give a temporary damage resistance buff and restore a small amount of HP. Sold in hospitals.)
New item: Stim-Shot (Temporarily reduce MaxHP while increasing atk, str, spd, eva. Sold in hospitals.)
A mission board is added to the Queensmouth Police Station.
New procedurally generated quest in Queensmouth Police Station: Medical Supplies Needed
It does not provide much quest reward. But, it improves your relationship with local survivors.
The NPCs from the procedurally generated mission "Research Material Needed" will now spawn closer to the player so that there will be no need to search them across the entire Bazaar.
More types of crafting materials may be asked in the procedurally generated mission "Research Material Needed."
#########System#####################
When you use hotkey "N" to turn on/off NPC names, there will now be a sound and a popup to display the current status.
After taking all the missions on a mission board, now it will not immediately refill new missions. It will wait at least 1 minute to do so to avoid a certain exploit.
Added functional support to make certain procedurally generated mission NPCs to be spawn in a fixed location instead of randomly spawn on the map.
##########DEBUG######################
Fixed a crash that happens when a player is moving on certain edges of the map. It's caused by literally an edge case of the even coordinate cache.