Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
The summer (or winter if you are in the south half of the earth) is coming. That means the 18th anniversary of NEOLITHIC and the Steam Summer Sale will soon be here. Thus, there will be a discount soon.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely going to be a peaceful summer/winter as the war in Ukraine is still going on.
I will continue to add more game content to support Ukraine to the end of this war as I mentioned previously.
So, during this week's updates, the sunflowers have been added to the game.
You can plant them anywhere you like.
But, let's not stop just here.
I want to give you more reasons to plant sunflowers other than their beauty.
A bit of historical background here:
Back in 1986, the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, releasing radioactive material into the environment. In an effort to reduce the damage of this disaster, scientists planted sunflowers to extract toxins from the soil. The same efforts were taken in 2011 in Fukushima, Japan.
Thus, it has been well-known that sunflowers, in addition to being the national flower of Ukraine representing love and peace, are also great detoxification.
Now, how can we show this aspect of sunflower in our game?
It's not like we can just put sunflowers in food.
Well, that's where this week's crazy idea coming from. We shall have an entire alchemy system.
So, we now have it: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Alchemy
Whenever something for whatever reason suddenly transmutes into something else. People may call it magic. However, that's not entirely true. After all, Alchemy is the ancient forefather of modern-day chemistry. Thus, they shall sure some similarities.
As a result, the Alchemy system is unlike the cooking system that has its products based on recipes,
Alchemy is based on the elements inside each ingredient.
For example, a sunflower has an element to purify poison so that you can brew antidotes with it.
If we then add another ingredient such as Ectoplasm, the two elements do not react with each other, thus, the final potion can have the benefit of both.
But, if we put strange meats which can apply poison effects with sunflowers that remove poison, they may just cancel each other out.
This is just a quick example of the system. More complex chemistry reactions may be added later.
But, for now, with more than a dozen of ingredients and unlimited combinations, you can brew the potions you want, combining their benefits together on your journey.
It also brings more benefits to monster hunting as many useful ingredients are from specific supernatural creatures. For example, brewing a potion with vampire dust may allow you to temporarily gain a vampiric buff on all your physical attacks. However, just be careful with the dosage. Adding too much vampire dust can make the potion toxic while adding too little may not grant the vampiric effect.
(Alternatively, you can also add sunflowers to cancel the toxic effect in case you are not sure about the dosage.)
With this new system in place, it comes with infrastructure to support it.
We need devices to work on alchemy. Thus, a set of a spirit lamp and some flasks have been added to the safehouse. You can also purchase Witch's Cauldrons from the market and deploy them anywhere you like. Maybe you can even make an alchemy lab in your pocket dimension. That's all up to you to freely explore this system.
The number of status effects is also increased to accommodate the alchemy system and to bring more diversity to potions,
https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Status_Effects
That's for this week. I hope everyone can enjoy their summer/winter even in a world that is on fire.
Meanwhile, I will quote from the Pope here "Let not get used to living as if the war were a distant thing." Let's not forget Ukraine. Let's not forget they are still at war against a dictator. Let's not forget they must win to survive. Слава Украине!
https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Ukraine_Awareness
Today's changelog:
##########Content##################
Updated 3 in-game BGM to the Boombox.
New status effects: Resist Fire, Resist Light, Resist Dark, Bloodlust
Vampiric Dust may now provide a Bloodlust effect on potions brewed via alchemy.
Bloodlust provides +10% vampiric when the effect is active. It shall affect all physical damages including guns.
Drunk now affects hit rate.
###########System#################
Status effects can now provide temporary special effects.
###########DEBUG################
Fixed a bug that crashes the game when using a gun under vampiric effects.
###########WIKI##################
Added a page about all the status effects: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Status_Effects