Dinolords News

[p]Yet another page turns on the calendar, and that means we're back with a new edition of Dinolords Monthly.

Last edition we were a little cheeky, and a few of you hadn't checked the date of the post, but just to make it clear; no, we are not making an AI-slop shovelware match-3 farming lootcrate season pass game. We are still hard at work making Dinolords, which we definitely think is a much cooler idea.

This month, we are going to get a glimpse and a talk about the music, as well as some new concept art and 3d models.

[/p][h2]Real music for real dinosaurs![/h2][p]From the start, we knew we wanted to go big on the music for Dinolords. It is one of the most effective ways for setting the tone (hah) for a universe, and using anything but custom music composed and produced for the project seemed like it would severely hamper our ability to set the stage, but also highlight the care and work we have put into everything else.

Enter Jordan Rees, who we have collaborated with for the last good while to create something that sounds distinctly "Dinolords".

Jordan has composed and produced basically a whole album for the game, with music for combat, suspense, day and night themes and a theme over the last 10 months and it is very close to being finished.

Crazy instruments like Lur horn, Tagelharpe, Goat nail shakers and a bunch of other cool instruments that fit the time period but also very much fits the vibe we are going for.

A vast array of people are involved in the process of making orchestral music, and we have a few images to show some of the "behind the scenes" that goes on when making 16 pieces of music.

Guitars being recorded. Guitar: Joshua Lascar

Flute's gonna flute. Flute: Charlotte Thomas

Are French Horns really french? French Horn: Jack Sewter

Clarinet, more like Clarineat! Clarinet: Naomi Roberts

And to top all that cool stuff off, we ended up having the string instruments recorded by a proper orchestra, take a look at this:

Violins, Viola, Cellos, Double Bass, The gang's all here! Hungarian Studio Orchestra conducted by Krisztian Balassa

Look at all those bows! Where are the arrows though? Hungarian Studio Orchestra conducted by Krisztian Balassa

Solo lead violin, and more microphones than an Anky has legs! Violin: Balazs Bujtor

Additional Wind Instruments by Jessica Jones, Trumpet by Hugh Davies and Bassoon by Michael Elderkin.

To say that we are excited about the music of Dinolords is a bit of an understatement, and we can't wait to hear the finished results and put them in the game.

[/p][h3]Please don't stop the music[/h3][p]Having all these awesome pieces of music does not help much if we don't have a solid system to play them from, and for that we have made a dynamic music system that can respond and adjust to what is happening in the game.

Imagine this: You are walking around your base peaceful music is playing, villagers are hustling and bustling. A messenger comes up and shouts that Vikings have been spotted on the shore, the music fades and an uneasy suspense track starts playing. As the vikings approach, the music abruptly changes with a bang of a drum as your sword makes its' first impact against a Viking shield. It starts raining as the battle comes to an end, a solemn violin plays as flashes from lightning illuminates the ground colored red from blood.

We are trying to have a system that allows for interesting transitions between distinct states, and it has turned into this cool thing that can handle background atmospheres, music and weather sound effects all in one, and different actions and events in the game can then ask the system to go to that state and it will make sure that everything is playing as intended, so that rain sounds like rain, nighttime has a different sound in the forest than daytime, fog feels more isolated and quiet as visibility decreases, and everything that needs to change sounds can get a meaningful feeling attached via sound.

[/p][h2]Concept Art and 3D[/h2][p]There's also been a bunch of cool stuff made in the art-department, ranging from new concept drawings to new 3D models, so lets get to it and have a look!

Firstly, there's a couple of sketches for dinosaur saddles and riders, in both a Viking and a British flavour for the Ankylosaurus!
There is just something about the Anky that makes it look like the perfect mount albeit it's probably a bit slow.

Then there is a big one, Viking structures! Because having to eliminate a VIking village and when you get there it looks like your own English village does not really cut it.
So we need some Viking inspired buildings you can destroy!
And for that, here's a longhouse!

And finally, we want to have some more DInosaur-themed buildings to help show the British progressing into the Dinosaur-age. A Triceratops can help pull trees from the ground and makes for a great addition to any lumber camp, or a little Compy with a cart could be a great way to transport resources around the base, and we like to think that having dinosaurs as a part of society would influence many different aspects of everyday life including something like architecture.

Here is a little trip from concept sketches to 3D models to showcase this:


[/p][h2]Until next time[/h2][p]That is all for this past month.

We are seeing a lot more people joining our Discord, and it's cool to have a more casual conversation about what we are doing over there, as well as the possibility for everyone on the team to reply to questions about their specific task of expertise, so if you are so inclined come say hi.

Catch you in the next one![/p][p]-panxter[/p]

[p]All aboard for a cute and fluffy announcement in this edition of Dinolords CatMatch Diamond Saga Monthly!

Prior to today, we were all hard at work making a 'hack-n-strat' game called Dinolords, but truth be told none of us were even remotely excited about the game, not did we really think anyone was interested in it, so we had some long meetings over the weekend that included plenty of beverages and came up with a new plan.

Right, with no further ado, we hereby present what we are pivoting Dinolords into - presenting CatMatch Diamond Saga!!!

In this new direction, we follow some fluffy new friends on their journey to match yarn skeins in a classic match-3 gameplay, but wait, there's more!

Long gone are the big scary dinosaurs and cruel vikings of yesterday, and action packed gameplay is a thing of the past - you must now take care of a farm, with time-gated idle-game mechanics that forces you to check in multiple times a day to sow, water and harvest crops to feed your purring fluffy friends in the cat village!

Follow your friends villages, open mystery crates with cosmetic items (crate keys sold seperately), level up a seasonal fur-pass and find cute and wonderful items to customize your fuzzy friends!

Open up the gates to a soft and furry world of magical friendship!

Overturn the evil dog villain by completing levels on the near-endless level-ladder with a time-gated energy system (additional energy purchased seperately)!

Let love win, and fluff prevail, in... CatMatch Diamond Saga!

See you in Fluffingville![/p][p]-panxter[/p]

[p]It is the end of February, and that means technically we are leaving winter behind and spring is upon us. We are in Denmark though, so that is not really the case in practice, but the thought still counts!
That also means it is time for another edition of Dinolords Monthly!

This month we are looking at some new art and UI improvements that has made it into the game, as well as talking about our trip to Copenhagen Gaming Week!

[/p][h2]Tomorrow's Awesome Games Showcase[/h2][p]Calling it a trip might be a bit of an overstatement, as it was practically in the same neighbourhood as our new office, but we ent to Copenhagen Gaming Week's Tomorrow's Awesome Games Showcase (TAGS for short).
We brought a build of the game to the show floor with one level, The level was straight up just the current state of the game, and not tailored towards a convention experience. Usually, when we have shown off the game in previous iterations, we have created a small, condensed level specifically made to take 10 minutes to complete from start to finish, as this seems to be a sort of sweet spot where people have time to get a sense for the experience we want them to have, but also does not sit and play for so long that other people can't have a go.
This version took more like 40 minutes, and a lot of people had a blast playing from start to finish. It was such a joy to see people interact with the game and have fun playing it!

We also really wanted to have some stickers printed for the event to hand out. Unfortunately, they arrived in the mail 3 days after the event had ended. So now we have 500 super cool Dinolords stickers ready for the next thing we will attend.

We also want to say a big thanks to everyone who visited our booth, it was great meeting you all and sharing our excitement about Dinolords with you!

[/p][h2]New Art[/h2][p]We want to share some of the unit paintings made by Pablo. These are used in cropped form for unit representation in various parts of the UI like your warband or barracks. Pablo absolutely nailed the vibe we remember from strategy games of our youth, have a look:

Philip has been making some landmarks in the form of runestones, they look almost too good:


[/p][h2]Fighting the good fight[/h2][p]Or, I guess "good" is in the eye of the beholder, maybe the Vikings would prefer less resistance..
Anyway, combat in the game is seeing a lot of iteration currently, and we are discovering and playing around with a bunch of things to make combat both interesting and satisfying. We want there to be a good amount of skill expression in combat, so it is something you can be good at or get better at, where a combination of your skill and your lords abilities and stats both affect the outcome.
Put in a different way, we do not want combat to be purely a numbers game or feel like you're just comparing numbers on a spreadsheet.

One of the things we are trying out is execution/finisher moves where, if a larger enemy is downed, you can take them out in a glorious finishing move, sure to improve legion morale and discipline! We are currently experimenting with having this heal you (and possible your units) to provide an edge in combat, all of this is of course subject to change, but it needs to be both cool and impactful.
Here's a short recording of a raptor being sent to the shadow realm:


Additionally, we are working on the feel of combat, many small tweaks and additions all work together to make combat feel juicy and make every hit feel impactful and cool!
Check out this small gif where the enemy animation is tweaked and fine tuned:


[/p][h2]That's all, folks![/h2][p]That concludes this Dinolords Monthly.
We have been exploring and experimenting a lot this month, and a lot of pieces are falling in place. There's been long design meetings, discussions that lead to good solutions, and also a few funny debates like; could a knight ride a deinonychus - our conclusion is no, but a brute could definitely manage two in chains.


Although this edition was slightly delayed, I hope you guys find some of the stuff we are working on just as exciting as we do.

Until next time![/p][p]-panxter[/p]

[p]New year, new Pterosaur!
Wait, no, is that how the saying goes?

Anyway, as the calendar year ticks up one and we all return from a well deserved Christmas break, we get right back to work on DInolords, and a bunch of cool stuff is going on right now.
In this monthly, we will have a look at some new 3D models and go on a bit of a technical journey into navmesh and the intricacies of making our own bespoke navmesh system for Dinolords.

[/p][h2]Dinolords Unscaled 7[/h2][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]In case you didn't know or hadn't seen yet, we put a new episode of our behind-the-scenes video series up on Youtube you can watch it here!
We finally give a tiny tour of our new - slightly smaller but much newer - office and Michael talk about some of the new combat-units that have made it into the game as well as a little reflection on a year of development past.

[/p][h2]Making the world 'lived in'[/h2][p]In Danish we say "Mange bække små gør en stor å", I guess the closest translation is "Little strokes fell great oaks", and making the world of Dinolords come alive and feel as it is actually lived in takes a bunch of effort. Loads of small touches ranging from making the layout of a level, placing just the right tree in a specific spot, to making and texturing the 3D models that can be found across the world make up a large bulk of work.
We want to start out by showcasing some of the things that might seem like small things in isolation, but in reality are key to making the world tangible.

Small cart in both a working and less-than-working condition.

One of these I'd be careful before using.

I wonder if this water is safe to drink?

A small boat that has clearly seen better days.

Models like the ones above really add a bunch of visually interesting elements to a level, but they also serve a more functional purpose. In a level that can be constantly changing with buildings being constructed or destroyed, trees getting cut down and walls be put up, having some sorts of 'landmarks' to help you navigate is critical so you don't have to consult the minimap every time you want to find your way back to a specific spot. It allows for much more fluid navigation of a level when you see something familiar and remember "Ah yeah, I had to go left at the old well", even if its subconscious.

Details and smaller objects like the ones above can also be thematic and help to convey a story, and for that we are going to need some Viking encampment gear:
Apart from the spear-rack, this looks cosy!

Having different 3D models, all carefully made by our 3D team, helps us create interesting encounters that feel much more real and like they are part of the world, as opposed to the crude gameplay-test setups I have been messing around with consisting of enemy units standing in the middle of nowhere just waiting for a Lord to run by to fight.

[/p][h2]Navigating treacherous terrain[/h2][p]All right, this next bit might get a little technical, but it is a super important integral part of Dinolords, and we are very proud of it so it definitely deserves its own segment here. But before we dig in, there is a little preface with some terminology and a description of some technical functionality we have to get through first - just to make sure we are all on the same page.

All the units, including the Lord (aka Agents), need to be able to move around in a level in a meaningful way; this means being able to walk from point A to point B while avoiding obstacles like trees and rivers, but being able to cross bridges or climb towers or ladders on walls. To achieve this, it's most common to use something called a Navmesh.

A navmesh visualisation

Imagine a large, blue blanket spread out over the entire landscape, with holes cut in it wherever there is some sort of obstacle like a tree, a building, a river, a rock etc. This would be the visualisation of the underlying data that makes up the navmesh.
By absolute magic wizardry, some arcane incantations can then use complicated math to calculate a route between a point A and a point B, based on various parameters like the shortest in distance. This is called pathfinding.

Now I will pass the torch to Ulrik, our lead programmer, who will take us along a journey into the depths of navmesh generation:

[/p][h3]"[/h3][p]After doing the prototype of the game using Unity’s built-in NavMesh system, and just kind of ignoring all the problems that came with it, we finally decided that it was time to build something real.
We had a few requirements for the system:
[/p]

1. [p]We needed a triangle mesh, not a grid. There’s a lot of grid based games out there, and we want the freedom to place buildings at whatever rotation we want. Also, building castle walls in a grid-based system just makes your castle turn into a box, and we want the freedom to build great castles.
   [/p]

[p]It needed to be accurate. We want to have bridges for units to cross over, and castle gates to pass through. It couldn’t be an approximation.
[/p][p]It needed to be fast to update. When we place down a wall, it needs to start blocking paths straight away.
[/p][p]It needed to support a fair number of units pathing and avoiding each other at the same time.
[/p][p]It needed to support big units, for obvious reasons.
[/p][p]It needed to be ready for networking.
[/p][p]We had a decision to take, on wether to build this system ourselves, or find something off the shelf. Using something someone else has build is a way to get done faster, at the risk of it not fulfilling all our requirements in exactly the way we want it, and having to work around that. In the end, we decided to take the plunge, and build our own system.

And that’s what we now have a 1.0 version of in the game. All the navmesh generation, pathing and avoidance are now our own system that we control. The navmesh will look at the terrain and all the obstacles on it, and dynamically update only the parts of it that has changed. It’s very fast to update, and the results are perfectly accurate. It’s built entirely on DOTS ECS, and is Burst compiled and multithreaded.

The way there was not easy, and it took a bunch of research into triangulation, avoidance/pathfinding/path funneling algorithms, DOTS entities and multithreading, and while there’s still features to be done and places for optimization, all the hard work has turned into a very well running system. For the technically curious crowd, we use chunked, constrained Delaunay triangulation to build the navmesh, using rectangle and polygonized circle obstacles to cut out features. When a unit moves, it uses a raycast through the navmesh to detect line-of-sight to its target, and if no direct path can be taken, it does a triangulation pathfind, to find the route through the triangles to the destination, and then runs a funneling algorithm to find the final path. To move, it then combines the vector pointing to the next waypoint with the vector from the RVO2 unit avoidance implementation to get the final movement vector. When the navmesh changes, all affected paths are recalculated. There are more pieces, like avoidance obstacles and navmesh links, but going into detail would need a whole blog post in and of itself.

On of the more challenging parts of building a system like this is finding an optimal path between two points. This is something that is rather easy in a normal grid-based system (why do we make this so hard for ourselves), but in a triangle-based system, it’s not as straight forward. A lot of scientific papers was read, trying to get a fast, optimal path calculation, that is optimized for this kind of game, and we still have the occasional issue of units really wanting to take the long way around building. This is strangely reminiscent of older RTS’s like the Warcraft I and II, where unit pathing definitely still wasn’t a solved problem. The reality is that, while we’ve gotten much further since then, both in terms of algorithms and computing power, it’s still not a completely solved problem; there is not just that one solution that you just use. But really, the most complicated part is just putting all the pieces together in a way that works, and is performant.

There’s a lot of pieces that goes into getting a system like that to work, and each piece is like a whole project in and of itself. There are still a few pieces missing, like weighted paths, to make unit path around places that will slow them down, but the most important thing is that we now have a working system, that we can customize to our needs. If we want to do a special unit, that needs custom pathing or avoidance, we can just build that. We’re very excited about the possibilities this is going to give us.[/p][h3]"[/h3][p]
Thank you Ulrik for the more in-depth explanation of how all this works, and super cool to hear some of the more nitty-gritty under the hood of how all this works.

Work in progress of the pathfinding and avoidance in the new navigation system

In-editor screenshot of how the raycasts spread from a unit to check whether or not it has line of sight with objects and units in the level

Raycasts used to check if a unit has direct line of sight

While there is still some ironing to be done to work out some of the quirks in the system, as seen in the gifs above we can now reliably ask large groups of units to move somewhere and more or less expect them to go where we ask them to. Sometimes a couple of them stray and find their own path, but we made sure they get reprimanded by the Lord and fall back in line soon (e.g. after a little more tweaking of some code).

We are all very excited about this. For such a core system of Dinolords to be working buttery smooth and being a lot nicer to interact with when designing levels, is making future work a lot more efficient.

[/p][h2]TAGS - Tomorrow's Awesome Games Showcase at Copenhagen Gaming Week[/h2][p]If you happen to find yourself in Copenhagen on the 13th-15th of February, come say hi!
We will be showcasing a demo of Dinolords as part of the TAGS section of the exhibit.
There's also a bunch of other cool stuff to check out at the event, check the program and get tickets over at https://www.copenhagengamingweek.dk.
Hope to see some of you there.

[/p][h3]Until Next Time[/h3][p]That was all for this edition of Dinolords Monthly.
As always, you can find us on Twitter and Youtube, or have a more informal chat with us over on Discord.

Catch you in the next one![/p][p]-panxter[/p]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Eighty Thousand Wishlists![/h2]
Great news, everyone! Dinolords have just reached 80.000 wishlists!

We keep being humbled by the continued interest and support our project is met with by all of you, and a Triceratops-sized thank you from all of us to all of you for engaging with us across all possible platforms!

Eighty thousand people, there are so many of you! That's almost the entire population of Isle of Man! Just imagining that many people interested in what we do and sharing our passion for cool games is completely overwhelming!

So thank you, from all of us, sincerely.

It means the world to us!