Hi,
with the past few updates being quite chunky this time I'll be a little more brief. As you may know, we have a Beta of v0.8 running for two weeks already. There are no big new features being built and the focus was on getting 0.8 stable (and also taking some time off). So instead of specific features, in this update I'd like to take a closer look at the Roadmap and answer some questions I see from time to time regarding future updates:
[h2]Where is the roadmap?[/h2]
The roadmap can be found
here. I regularly update the document by adding new versions of the sheet while keeping the old roadmaps for fun and also as a monument to the saying 'man plans, God laughs'.
[h2]Whats coming next?[/h2]
That's easy - we're nearing the end of Q2 of 2024 and the v0.8 will hopefully see the light of the world by the end of June. Beta is all in progress. We're getting a new research and autonomy updates with a lot of minor features (that will take us ages to fine-tune). Yay!
[h2]Ok so what's coming in later after Summer (Q3) [/h2]
Lots I already I mentioned elsewhere but to summarize, the next version (0.9) will focus on Map update. That means a bigger map, tweaked Quests, selectable starting position and some civilization traits to select each run. Also expanding the Dilemma card system to other areas like diplomacy and expanding the already present mechanism of Strategic resources.
All this to balance quests with the added complexity in research and trade in recent versions. The quest system is really old now and even with some minor updates the Map is too small and too inflexible to support the rest of the game properly. So this is basically to 'catch up' the pace of the game.
Even though it looks quite sizeable in the roadmap, Map update is not planned to be as large (in terms of work done) as the two previous ones. But considering the content might actually have higher impact on gameplay.
[h2]Will there be more levels of heroes?[/h2]
Yes the summer's 0.9 version is also going to push forward in the ascension tree (finally) and go to higher levels and difficulty. You will reach higher level heroes, crises and new technologies. But mainly, the tier 2 will bring in new mechanics in the Ascension tree itself.
[h2]What about the two locked Hero Slots?[/h2]
These will become unlocked in Tier 2 of the acension tree (most likely also in 0.9). But I won't share what their mechanics will be. Because I don't know (or to be more precise I have not decided between 3 options)
[h2]More eras beyond Modern?[/h2]
I am still not 100% decided but there's a plan to introduce a 'future theme' although not quite like the other 6 eras which are strictly defined. Rather I'd like to mix this with the 'endless' concept and a few other minor features to be introduced in Tier 2.
I also plan to expand to the other side of the tech tree, before the fire. But that's still very vague in my drawings.
[h2]Will there be more Hero colours?[/h2]
Yes and no. The current four base colours represent all factions designed for the game. There will however be a number of mechanics to change behaviour of these base factions. Some improvements planned for recipe system to make factions more flexible. And also changes to the corruption system - we ought to consider the 'temporary' Black colour (a corrupted hero) to play a bigger role in the future. Similarly an opposite 'white' temporary colour is something to be added in future.
[h2]How about the rest of Ascension tree[/h2]
Provided all goes as planned in summer, what follows in Fall will be Tier 3 & 4. As with Tier 2 there is going to be a little evolution going on with the Ascension mechanics from Tier 3 and 4. As I hinted before this is going to revolve mainly around the Black lotus mechanism. I'd like to introduce a conceptual change with every new Tier. The player should be aware that something has 'tiered-up' not just grown in level number.
[h2]What kind of scenarios besides Babel Tower are there going to be?[/h2]
This is one of the bigger question marks. I have a few samples in mind, but I have not parked them to each respective Tier yet. What I know for sure:
1) Each Tier will have at least one Scenario, some possibly more.
2) There will be a mechanics to make sense replaying the scenario (to maximize/farm a certain score)
3) Scenarios will have separate rewards (unlike the current state where they simply give you gold lotuses)
[h2]How many Unique heroes will there be[/h2]
I do not wish to leave early access with less than one hundred. Something close to two hundred would be preferable.
[h2]Will the game get translated?[/h2]
Yes but because of my decision to treat Ascension tiers as more content-heavy I will not initiate localization support until all four ascension tiers are done and tested. So most likely translation will start appearing AFTER game is functionally ready to leave early access. Which is why Localization support is parked at Q1 of 2025.
[h2]How about those cloud saves you promised ages ago?[/h2]
Cloud saves will come as a separate update for 0.8. The only issue there is they cannot be tested within a beta branch so the plan is to test them only with dev accounts and release that as a separate update to avoid a big bang failure (which could easily happen if there was a bug in 0.8 as well as bug causing your save get badly synced)
[h2]How about resolution support[/h2]
There's a tiny patch to fix letter/pillar boxing for different devices coming soon. I have done some testing on a Steam Deck and it 'seems to work for me locally'. The same patch should also make wide monitors playable in fullscreen. This is still far from resolution support I want but it's a first step in that direction and it will come out as part of 0.8 this month.
[h2]How about Deck support[/h2]
At the moment the formal state is unsupported but the game can actually run on it. It is obviously missing some key aspects like automatic action mapping and Cloud saves. There's no reasonable support for the controller actions (so you have to use the native touch-pad-mouse) and it also has quite bad readability of texts. (though this might slightly improve with resolution patch). There's no support for save sync on deck's unsuspend and a few other smaller issues. It is planned to fix all these in time, but I have not yet made any specific plans besides the Cloud saves (as it doesnt make much sense without those).
Thas will be all for this update. Have fun and keep an eye here in the Community for the upcoming 0.8 release announcement!
See you next time,
Ondrej
Annotated work-in-progress version of the new Map system.(Nothing is final)
The old Map size for comparison
A simple chart for the map tile types indicating two 'biomes' (lowlands and highlands) each with three options of improvement on. Each of these three improvements are also convertible to one other within the biome.
The current experiment is based on 'adjacency' points system which boosts production of each tile. Villages act as 'wildcard' adjacency boosters for all types of tiles.