Virtualord, the virtual conqueror News

February has been the first full month that I spent working on Virtueror and I believe that it shows in the progress overview I put together in this post.

[h2]Map Editor, the beginning[/h2]
As planned last month, I started to work on a map editor.
Initial progress was slow as I had to come up with a full design from scratch. Furthermore, a good chunk of work went into implementing several new features of the GUI library.

Currently the editor only allows to create a new map and to set tiles, but new features will be added soon (see the "what's next" section below for more info).



The map editor will be fully integrated in the game and I am doing my best to make it look like part of it and not an independent tool.

[h2]Quick unit selection[/h2]
A key feature of Virtueror is that only a maximum of 10 controllable units will be allowed per map.
The UI now has some buttons to select and to monitor them.



In the future these elements will also show special events or states, like for example when an enemy is spotted or when a unit is under fire.

At the moment the plan is to start with a limited number of units and to grow that number with research and upgrades.

[h2]Units consume energy[/h2]
Units in Virtueror are like RPG characters. They have attributes, they gain experience and now they consume energy when they do something.



A way to see the current energy level for each unit is the new quick selection button.
In order to help the player to gather more information at glance, energy values are also color-coded, as you can see from the images above.

[h2]New unit: scout[/h2]
I added a new unit, a scout, which is represented by a sphere.



As you might imagine, it's lightweight and not very effective in combat, but it is fast and with a bigger view radius, if compared to other units.

[h2]Minor updates[/h2]
- Main menu now shows version and build number
- Source code has been split and now there is an independent framework repository which is linked by the game repository as git submodule. Both are updated to the latest version.

[h2]What's next[/h2]
During the month of March I will be able to work only 3 weeks because of some personal stuff that will keep me busy for about 10 days, but I will try to stay productive the remaining 20 days.

Obviously I will continue to work on the level editor. My main goal for this month is to add more editing features like placing game objects on the map. I would also like to start to experiment with some simple procedural generation, but considering the limited time, I am afraid I will have to delay that to next month.

A mix of level editor and procedural generation has been voted as the best option in the Discord server of the game and I totally agree it's the way to go.



If you want to take part in the next polls to influence the development, make sure to join the Discord server, where you will also find regular updates and occasional memes (ratio may vary).

Recently I started to work on a mini-map that will be accessible both in game and in the map editor.
After that is completed I will probably go back to some core gameplay elements like for example handling experience and upgrading units.

As usual plans are pretty loose, so make sure to check out the next update to find out what I manage to do next.

[h2]Support this game, wishlist and follow![/h2]
If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror make sure to wishlist and to follow it. Thanks and see you next month with a new update!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607580/Virtueror_The_Virtual_Conqueror/

In January I could only work on Virtueror from the 11th, but I have been pretty productive since then and the results of all that work are here for you to see.

[h2]New dialog to create units and structures[/h2]
Most of the work this month went into the implementation of the new dialog to create new elements in game which I introduced last month.
Implementing the dialog didn't take too much time, but before doing that I had to implement a new unified stats system for units and structures and I had to change several things in the existing code that handles how new elements are created.

The dialog itself went through several revisions and improvements.
For reference, this is the initial mock-up I posted in the previous update:



And this is how the dialog looks in game now:



The new version of the dialog can show an extra element, it has room for more attributes, all elements have a title and a description and colors are used to highlight what resources are sufficient and what are in need.

[h2]New structure: solar panels[/h2]
Now it's possible to build solar panels that, once connected to your base, generate energy.



A solar panel occupies a single cell of the map, but you can build and chain many of them to increase your production.

[h2]New structure: storage units[/h2]
I added 4 new structures that act as storage units for the different types of resources. Once connected to your base it's possible to accumulate a bigger quantity of the corresponding resource.



As for the solar panels, each structure occupies a single cell, buy it's possible to link and group together several of them like showed in the image above.

[h2]New scene element: mountains[/h2]
The spiky rocks you might have seen in older posts or screenshots, have been replaced by mountains, which I believe fit much better the style and the scale of the other graphics.



I am not planning to use the old rocks from now on, but maybe I will introduce a revisited version later.

[h2]Minor updates[/h2]
During this month I also worked on many minor improvements and fixes.
Some of the most noticeable are:
- Rendering optimization that limits the part of the map rendered for better performance.
- A new loading screen used to pre-load resources when the game is launched.
- A brand new, bigger, 80x80 map.
- New screenshots for the Steam page of the game.
- Game source code in the GitHub repository is now updated to the latest changes.

[h2]What's next[/h2]
February is going to be the first full month that I will be able to dedicate to the development since I restarted to work on this project last December.

I might spend a good chunk of the upcoming weeks on the creation of a first version of the level editor, which will be fully integrated in the game.
I said "I might" because I am also thinking about implementing some sort of procedural generation for the maps. Something like that would make the editor less important for now.

Soon I will probably post a poll in the Discord server of the game soon, to check what people would prefer. Make sure to join today if you want to vote for it.

Other features I would like to work on this month are a new, improved way to build walls and conquer cells and maybe upgrades of units and structures.

[h2]Support this game, wishlist and follow![/h2]
If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror make sure to wishlist and to follow it. Thanks and see you next month with a new update!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607580/Virtueror_The_Virtual_Conqueror/

In case you are wondering what happened to this game after last summer, the short answer is that I had to take a break from development to focus on other stuff. The long answer is in this previous Steam update.

This month I went back to work on Virtueror on December the 13th and despite the Christmas and New Year's break I managed to push the development forward a little in the last 3 weeks.

These are the main changes from this half month of work.

[h2]In-game currency[/h2]
I introduced something that can be considered a new resource: money.
It is represented by the first icon from the left in the following image that shows the resource bar at the top of a mission screen.



For now players will only be able to use money to buy and to sell other resources.
I am not planning to let players use it to buy upgrades or structures as I believe that's something that should still require active work from existing game elements (ex.: some unit building a wall). I might experiment a bit with other uses though, like for example unlocking tech research that will give access to new upgrades.

[h2]New dialog for units and structures[/h2]
I have completely redesigned the dialog to choose the unit (or structure) to create.
The old dialog was like this:



And the new one is this:



The old one was something quick I implemented to have something functional, but it was not supposed to be used in the final game as it was pretty limited and not designed for showing many elements.
The new dialog will allow to navigate through elements more easily and it can show more information at glance, which is something pretty important considering that now each unit has 11 attributes, whereas they were only 6 in the past.

Another major difference is that the old dialog was specific for units, but the new one will be used for both units and structures.

Unfortunately I haven't finished to implement this dialog yet, so for now I am only showing you a mock-up image, but I will make sure to include a GIF in the next update to show it in action.

[h2]Updated faction selection screen[/h2]
I updated the dialog of the faction selection screen to make it more consistent with the new in-game dialog.



In this case everything is already implemented as changes were minor. I also re-balanced the attributes of the different factions after noticing something was a bit off (one faction was slightly stronger than the others).

[h2]New selection highlight[/h2]
I changed a bit how selected elements look in game:



Before they only had a thick outline, whereas now the outline got a bit thinner and the whole element is covered by a semi-transparent light color.
A subtle change, but I can guarantee it makes easier to recognize selected elements.

[h2]Minor updates[/h2]
During this period I also worked on other minor updates, like for example a new command to center the camera on the player's base and some work to improve and to simplify the UI system.

I normally don't post much details about these kinds of updates here, but if you are interested in knowing more about them make sure to join the official Discord server of the game and to check the #dev-updates channel.

[h2]What's next[/h2]
I already know I will have to spend at least 1 week away from home this month, so I prefer to keep the planning pretty loose for now, but I will start finishing the new dialog, That will also require some work to adapt all elements to the new unified and extended attributes. Then I will probably spend some time on some mechanics to upgrade structures. Eventually I will start to work on new dialogs like the ones to trade resources.
More might come, but as I said, it's hard to plan things for now.

[h2]Support this game, wishlist and follow![/h2]
If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror make sure to wishlist and to follow it. Thanks and see you next month with a new update!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607580/Virtueror_The_Virtual_Conqueror/

If you have been following this project on Steam, but you haven't joined the official Discord server, you might have had the impression that this was just another dead game.
That would be totally fair, as most games are never finished, especially in the indie scene, and this one didn't show any activity for months.

Luckily it is not the case this time!

What happened is that I had to suspend the development for a while because I have been extremely busy with other things IRL. In particular I have been focusing on a career change (for my day job) going from software developer to skydiver. Pretty unusual, I know, but it's what I love and what I am trying to do.

The good news is that thanks to that I quit my old job and starting from today I will be a full time indie developer, at least from Monday to Friday.

Obviously it will take me a a few days to be fully productive again, also because I have to plan a lot of things pretty much from scratch and I will need to get familiar again with everything I had done so far.
Hopefully that won't take too long though, so expect a new monthly update on the 3rd of January 2022 and more regular updates after that.

In the meantime you can join the Discord Server to follow and to influence the development from close. Also don't forget to wishlist and to follow the game on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607580/Virtueror_The_Virtual_Conqueror/

This month's update is going to be a short one. the main news is that there's no news!
But let me explain things better...

During the month of August I have been very busy with some real life things, including my day job, and because of that I couldn't dedicate any meaningful time to Virtueror.

I only fixed a couple of bugs, but nothing major or worth to mention here.

It's very likely that things will be the same during September, but the good news is that they will completely change in October.

Unfortunately I can't tell you why or give you more details yet, but I will do that in my next dev log.

I know it's not nice to see 0 progress on a game you follow, but for now I can't do any better than this as I don't work full-time on this project, yet... ;-)

[h2]Support this game, wishlist and follow![/h2]
If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror make sure to wishlist and follow it. Thanks and see you next month with a new update!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607580/Virtueror_The_Virtual_Conqueror/