DR4X News

Hey folks! Its me again!
So, i didnt get as much done last week as i had hoped due to a mishap with Bella and family commitments. Bella hurt herself (again) this time while jumping on a bean bag chair and then suddenly yelping (Unfortunately i didn't actually SEE what happened because i was looking the other way at the time) but over the last few days she has recovered just fine with vet perscribed painkillers etc. And she seems to be mostly back to her old self again!. But since i've been worried about Bella and just comforting her. I didnt get much game dev done heh. That coupled with several family outings, has not left me much time to game dev.
But ill hopefully get some stuff done this weekend.
There are just 4 tasks remaining for this release, so perhaps it's nearing completion? I'm hesitant to make any promises though. And it will be a month til all the art gets in so it will be kinda like the old days with loads of stuff lacking unit portraits (Though the placeholders im using this time are not blank and are still very liminal).

Regrettably, I’ve yet to receive any feedback on the beta, which has been somewhat disheartening and impacting my motivation. If you have any thoughts, please share them!

I plan to release a changelog on Sunday (Though it will be a mini one). and If everything goes according to plan, I might just quietly merge the beta in next week – a simple "it's live" post without delving into the updates, aside from the gigabyte of enhancements that will be seen when the game updates for those who didn't opt into the beta. (Though i also started a new youtube channel for the game, so video devlogs might be a thing in the near future https://www.youtube.com/@DR4XTheGame ) The UI updates will require me to update all the screenshots, so that will be a subtle hint at the changes.
Honestly, I’m not too fussed about it – it seems like no one delves into the changelogs much, anyway.

At this stage, I'm primarily developing the game for my own enjoyment and not much else lmao.




Oh but i just got done adding a new teams map mode, which is cool :P

I also made a gude for how to save the dog in the tutorial for those who are interested!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3193972003

So I worked some ui updates into the noderooms branch today. Here are the highlights



-Completely revamped lighting setup, things were simply too bright, especially on noderooms maps

-Moved camera buttons to top of screen and cleaned that up.

The red is unique to my setup, you will have whatever color your ui is (as it is randomized per player via fun values)

-Units/Buildings now have a light gray outline. This outline will change color when attacking to reflect advantage disadvantage etc aswell this is to make it easier to see units on busier tiles like forests.
(I am planning to also add a new map mode that will color the outline based on team color)


-When attacking the game gives you a little key at the bottom of your screen explaining advbantage disadvantage neutral (they also have tooltips if you want to know what exactly each color does) this is because people still weren't quite getting it.


-AI is now way better at exploring
(Thisis on top of earlier improvements, basically they use idle units to explore a bit now too)

-Turns out I accidentally nerfed the AI a while ago, it should attack properly again lol

-Fixed typo with deep entrance tooltip

-Cleaned up ui in other spots too

-Reduced mesh size of walled cities so they don't hang off of tiles quite so much

-Abandoned apartment now gets proper lighting/shadows on it

-Liminal decorations dont have the outline. This is to keep them looking liminal

Hey guys! the update has a name now!
I was just calling it the Noderooms update before. But now its

"Update FFE300, The NodeRooms"
So in the last one i shared a list of stuff i wanted to get done. Some of that is done now.

This is still all only on the noderoomsbeta branch you can opt into.


-Added a tech for increasing deploy range on cities, upgraded rogues guiilds, upgraded cultist hideout etc.

-Puppeted plants now can go wild if the faction that currnetly owns them has no units that aren't buildings/misc left

-'Upgraded' artifacts now only grant +5 tenacity (not +10)

-Changed color of "upgraded" artifacts

-Made poiron/fire crystals their own unique artifacts (instead of just a edited version of the firesword etc, the only visible difference right now will be that the color is slightly different lol as I havent added the 'upgraded' version of these yet)

-Other minor balance tweaks to artifacts

-Fixed minor typo with wailing head (Its -> it)

-Gave update official name on the main menu etc

Plan is to keep working on this today so I might put out another one. But essentially i do have a list of specific things i need to implement for this to be release ready yet:


For this one, I didn't want to delay it because of the bug fixes, essentially the new artifacts were really messing with buildings heh



-Fixed major bug where the new noderooms artifacts woudl just permanently drain buildings stats if the artifact only applies to units

-Fixed bug where whispering head could make building capable of moving

-Added very low chance of getting teleported to a shopping cart or grocery store when using the nodic harvest tile effect just to make it weirder

-Reduce hard coding of name checks on tile effects (This is to fascillitate soem other planned changes)

-Added a 1 out of 100 jackpot chance to the scavange til eeffect because i wanted to make it more rewarding

-Zombies now made in 1 turn on abandoned apartments

-Whispering head can now get an "upgrade" much like the compass etc and what it becomes is extremely unsettling

-Added new art (We plan to keep adding mro euntil i have about 4 for each new deco item)


-Liminal grocery store now has noise effect on portrait to match the rest

Join us in the Noderooms (as seen in DR4X) liminal art stream.
https://www.twitch.tv/natch_evil
#skibiditoilet