Dinolords News

[p]It’s July and that means it is time for another edition of Dinolords Monthly where we dig into what has been going on over the last month.
While May had a couple major topics, those being networking and controls, June has been a month of many different things that might each appear smaller, but quickly adds up to some major steps.

[/p][h2]You Vikings get off my lawn![/h2][p]When the Vikings come wading all over your freshly mowed lawn, there is only one thing to do: build a wall!

While walls have been in the game for a good while now, they just got some updated models and are now working in networked play. Having walls work in multiplayer now makes it a lot less confusing when everyone can see them, what a surprise!

There’s also been some progress on the technical aspects of the wall system and how it works, but before we dive into that just some quick temporary terminology used to explain the walls. Walls consist of individual wall “chunks”. Think of these as a 1x1 “part” of a wall. Multiple of those can form a wall “segment”, e.g. a longer section of connected wall chunks.

Firstly, walls are now more intuitive to build; you place a wall segment and it is constructed as 1 construction site instead of individual chunks. Meanwhile, the system is still keeping track of individual chunks of that wall, so that damage to a segment is still per chunk where neighboring chunks are also damaged and deteriorate as they get damaged.

Secondly, how walls work with attacking units also got some love. Units will now attack individual chunks of a segment more dynamically, working towards making an opening that is wide enough for several units to pour through. Depending on the attacking unit's size, they can also damage one or more connected chunks (imagine the difference between one guy with a sword versus a big dinosaur swiping with its tail or similar).

The damage and health values are very much still in flux; walls need to be an impactful defense system that keeps your base safe - you spend a lot of resources on building them - but on the other end of the scale it is also very much not meant to be a “be all end all” defense that you just set and forget. Striking this balance will be done through testing, testing and more testing, until the feeling is just right.
Here’s a little sneak peek at some of the new in-progress stone wall models:


[/p][h2]Fighting the good fight[/h2][p]Combat has also seen some changes lately as we have focused more on it during our playtest sessions. Overall, the game is a hybrid merge between two genres, seeking to mold elements from each into one coherent mass, with combat and controls that feel intense and dynamic from Action-RPG, and base building, unit combat and level design from RTS games.

From the get go, we have wanted to avoid what we have affectionately dubbed “mosh pitting” where friendly and enemy units just form two big blobs and hit each other until whichever blob with the largest numbers reigns victorious. Having that tends to feel a lot less like you play an integral part in combat, and it also is not really visually interesting.

On the other hand, while the Lord is a powerful character with powerful abilities and weapons, we do not want units to feel meaningless if you can just solo all the encounters in the game.
What we are currently looking at, is making combat a lot more dynamic, both gameplay-wise and visually, by leaning into two primary additions to the gameplay.

One of which is telegraphing. Telegraphing is a visual indicator that a unit is about to do something, giving the player a brief grace period to react and dodge, block or otherwise play around the incoming attacks. A concrete example right now is archers. We want to avoid the flat directional arrows that are used elsewhere and have the effect of proper arcing arrows that fly across the sky, so to allow for this we had to figure out a different way for archers to telegraph their attacks. The solution we are looking into right now is having them draw their bows tight and then they “lock” their aim, predicting where their target will be as the arrow is fired, and showing an indicator on the ground where the arrow will impact. This allows you to avoid arrows by moving unpredictably. This is already leading to some super engaging gameplay where you can dodge in and around incoming arrows fired from archers and sword blows from soldiers.

The second addition is smarter units. Since units now telegraph their attacks, it makes sense for them to also react to incoming attacks from other units. As we showed in the last monthly, we added a “scatter” command where you can command units away from immediate danger, but this can also exist in a much more lightweight form where units can dodge, block or parry strikes from other units or attempt to move around incoming attacks. Finding the right balance here where units feel smarter but not flawless is important, and much of this second aspect is still early in design space and subject to change drastically, depending on playtest findings.

[/p][h2]Boats Boats Boats![/h2][p]The Vikings, however cool they are, did not swim across the North Sea, so we had to make some vessels that would be deemed worthy to carry both infantry and dinosaurs. Our 3D department has been busy at work researching, designing, modeling and texturing some awesome ships. We will just include a super cool screengrab here, and if you are more curious about ship-related 3D models, there is a cool 3-part thread with “the making of” over on our Discord, https://discord.gg/bTWMfWkjuw

[/p][h2]Gamedev is fun[/h2][p]Inevitably, when doing any sort of development, you come across bugs. Some of which can be quite unexpected. Here are a few of the better ones we have seen while playtesting. More can be found over on our Twitter, https://x.com/dinolordsgame

Sometimes, even a lord needs to unwind and relax, but maybe swimming in full plate armor is not the best idea.

Forgetting that enemy town halls also spawn workers and then leaving for lunch with the game running:

When blender decides to warp into the 7th dimension and summon an eldritch horror instead of opening the file you asked for:

[/p][h2]Until next time[/h2][p]That was what was on the programme for this month’s edition of Dinolords Monthly. [/p][p]As always, there is a lot going on every day and things change weekly as we chase the fun from iteration to iteration. [/p][p]Thank you for reading along and following us and the development of Dinolords. [/p][p]Catch you in the next one. [/p][p]-panxter[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Huh, one of the villagers found this in a big nest in the forest. Wonder what we can use that for? [/p]

[p]May came and went quicker than a Deinonychus can catch a squirrel! A lot of things are happening with Dinolords that we are super excited to talk about, and a couple of the things in progress are what we are going to have a look at today.


[/p][h2]Connection in progress[/h2][p]One of the big things we have been talking a lot about internally is multiplayer - we read all the comments and we definitely agree. Playing an awesome game is fun, but sharing that experience with friends is even better! Some of you picked up on it in the trailer where there suddenly was a lord with a different coloured cape and we have been working hard to make the underlying systems work for networked play. All those technical things are coming along nicely and our latest playtests have been hectic, fun and chaotic, trying our best to find bugs and make sure it’s all working as intended.
But all the underlying code is only as good as the gameplay, and that part is still in flux. We are looking at co-operative PvE play and PvP for online play and are currently experimenting with how coop play will work; there is a big difference between playing multiple people in one castle or each player having their own, both in the fantasy of playing together, but also in the mechanics - how does sharing resources make sense and how does coordination work in both base building and in combat etc.
We discovered the necessity for clearly showing all players what is under construction to avoid multiple players placing down construction sites for the same type of building. This of course was not really a problem in solo play, as it was easy to keep track of what buildings you place. Similarly, it was difficult to know what units are currently being controlled by another player, to avoid a tug of war with conflicting commands to the units.
Those are small humps to iron out though, and overall multiplayer is shaping up to be a bunch of fun!

[/p][h2]Taking control[/h2][p]Dinolords is a hybrid genre game taking cues from RTS and ARPG. Both of these genres traditionally rely heavily on mouse input. This has been a long standing challenge we knew we had to find a good solution for, and we have tried various solutions but things are taking shape in a way where we feel like the level of friction between the player and the controls have gone down and the fun and intuitiveness have gone up!

But before we talk about the current state, let's have a look at the challenges and what the previous solutions have been trying to do.
In RTS games, you typically do a lot of building management, production and construction with the mouse - clicking on buildings, placing construction sites, ordering units for production and so on. You also do a lot of unit control with the mouse - selecting units both via clicking and box dragging, issuing unit commands like move and attack with right click. So there is a lot of clicking going on in a strategy game!

In ARPGs there is also a lot of clicking: you often move with right click, attack with left click, interact by clicking, drag inventory and equipment around, pick up items with left click and so on.
By now the issue is becoming clear: we want to do all of the things but we are limited by only one hand and one mouse with two primary buttons.
So imagine a scenario where you stand next to a tree, an enemy, a friendly unit and on the ground is a resource pickup. What would happen if you click in the vicinity of all of those? Do you attack the enemy? Do you chop the tree? Do you select the friendly unit? Do you pick up the resource? Do you move?


[/p][h3]The ‘smart’ solution[/h3][p]At first we tried to solve this by trying to predict and weigh the importance of actions, effectively making a hierarchy of interactions and what priority they all had so that when you clicked it would do the most important task of the available options. This worked okay in many cases, but felt super restrictive in situations where the player intentions did not align with the hierarchy. Say if you actually wanted to select the friendly unit and not attack the enemy, or you wanted to pick up the thing on the ground and not chop a tree or vice versa.
Next up we experimented with putting certain interactions behind modifiers, for example holding a modifier down to box select or to otherwise “circumvent” the auto priority input system. This went some way to solving the issue, but it left us feeling like we were fighting the input system more than we were fighting the enemies while playing.
From the beginning people have mentioned a mode switch, toggling between building and commanding units and fighting. Figuratively and literally a sort of “unsheathe/sheathe” your weapons. This always felt a little like a copout from making an actual hybrid of the genre by piling down a wedge between them, making you switch between playing an RTS and an ARPG, and was something we wanted to avoid but we kept it in the back of our minds as a last resort solution.

[/p][h3]Present day[/h3][p]After some more experimentation it is starting to appear that we have found a solution that has less friction than the hierarchy, and does not further fragment the genres. It is also strangely familiar to interact with, and makes fighting and commanding units at the same time feel a lot more intuitive but still with a curve that enables skills to develop for more optimal play.
We already had the lord movement on WASD, abilities on number-row, but by moving some of the combat and interaction buttons over to the keyboard we freed up the mouse to be more traditionally RTS, while keeping the ARPG feeling juicy and engaging. Being able to pick up resources, interact with trees or ore and deliver them to a stockpile from the press of a keyboard button, and attack in a similar fashion, makes doing these tasks while commanding units to attack a big dino a frictionless experience and we can’t wait to show you what we came up with in more detail.

[/p][h3]Unit Commands[/h3][p]Commanding units is now free to work how one would expect: select or box select, unit groups, double click a unit to select similar unit types, shift click or box to add to selection, deselect all by clicking the ground, deselect individual by right clicking their portrait in the selection group etc.
Leaning on tradition is helpful in lowering the learning curve to play, but we have also been exploring an additional way to interact with units in a slightly simplified way. This is a little sneak peak with lots of temporary visual gizmos so these are by no means a representation of the final implementation, but we are pretty excited to show a little.

‘Paint’ selection of units allows the player to quickly paint over units and select all within the circle, while box select still works, this allows you to pick units in different shapes or diagonally in one swift motion.

Seeing your units group hug a big dangerous dinosaur and suddenly get crushed is a fun sight to behold, but also detrimental to succeeding on the battlefield. If you select and issue a move command, the units opposite the direction of the move will have to run all the way around the dangerous unit. The new ‘scatter’ command makes your units run away from where the command is issued! No more being squished under the feet of a Brachiosaurus!

[/p][h2]You, me, them, everybody, everybody![/h2][p]We are still absolutely humbled by how many future Dinolords have wishlisted our game and words can not express how grateful we are. Thank you, to each and every one of you, who are coming along for this journey with us. [/p][p]And thank you for checking out this edition of Dinolords Monthly! [/p][p]Catch you in the next one. [/p][p]-panxter[/p]

Hey everyone!

Things have been a little wild after the Triple-i Initiative event (in case you missed it, a VOD can be found over on YouTube). Loads of you saw the new trailer and it was your first introduction to Dinolords, and a lot of you went to our steam page and pressed that blue wishlist button. So many in fact, that we have just reached 70.000 total wishlists!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
To say we are humbled and honoured is an understatement. We are completely overwhelmed by the interest, your comments and reactions, and that there are so many who - like us - want a super rad RTS-ARPG hybrid with cool dinosaurs!

We were already working hard, but this incredible interest and interaction with you guys have been invigorating to the point where I have absolutely looked at if it'd be possible to open a real Dinosaur Park from cloned eggs, but so far my search for frozen ones under the ice caps on google maps have been less than fruitful.

We want to take this opportunity to say a huge 'Thank You' to every single one of you who have wishlisted Dinolords and are joining us on this journey to make an awesome game! Without you, this would not have been possible, and it is through your support that we will be able to continue working on the project after Early Access, where we plan to make some neat stuff!

So thank you, from the bottom of our Jurassic Hearts, you are all awesome!

Photo of (some of) the team at this years Danish Game Awards.

[h2]Reactions[/h2]

The Tripple-i event also lead to some great video comments and press coverage, and we want to share some highlights with you guys.

Youtube comments

@conandrake444
History channel at midnight.

@Gaskinmoo79
When are more developers going to understand that all games are better with Dinosaurs in them.

@Dan86130
never thought a stegosaurus with viking shields would go so hard

@corn582
Lore accurate denmark

Press

GameCentral at metro.co.uk
"Don’t even get us started on the perverse lack of dinosaur-related video games, just let us be thankful that we have a new one, in the wonderfully bizarre Dinolords – which involves 11th century England being invaded by Vikings riding dinosaurs."

Robin Valentine at PCGamer
"A warlord leaping into the fray on a feathered raptor mount. Siege weapon-bearing stegosaurus marching into battle in wooden armour that makes them look like upturned viking longships. Pikemen struggling to subdue a wild ankylosaur and steal its eggs. Honestly, it's the stuff dreams are made of."

Eddie Makuch & Steve Watts at GameSpot
"Dinolords, a game with a cool concept–you're a knight who rides dinosaurs–is in the works for PC and got a new trailer during the showcase."

Andrew Webster at The Verge
"At first blush, this doesn’t look all that different from other medieval-themed strategies. But then there are the dinosaurs."

[p]Welcome to the first iteration of a new segment we are calling Dinolords Monthly! This is meant as a place where we can talk more in-depth about some of the technical and design related aspects of Dinolords and check in with you on a regular basis to give you the latest progress on the game.

As always, everything we share in these devlogs are subject to change.

But before we get into what we've been up to this past month, we have a brand new instalment of our behind-the-scenes video series, Unscaled, where we talk about the first milestone builds, UI & Networking.

[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
We also joined our Publisher, Ghost Ship, on their Stream 'On The Horizon' to talk about the incredible reception we've gotten on our new Trailer and a bit about what we're currently working on. Always a pleasure. We've uploaded our conversation here.

[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
[/p][h2]All your base are belong to us [/h2][p]April has been a month of getting the foundation right for how building a settlement works in the game. We have been continuously designing and tweaking different elements of the systems as we are working hard on making base building interesting and engaging. We consider these intertwining systems one of the main pillars of gameplay in Dinolords, as this will be the supporting backbone of your army and is what will allow your reign to grow and ultimately defeat the danes and add those spicy dinosaurs to your command!

All of this is still subject to change, but as it looks right now your base has different areas of focus, and these can be balanced and skewed to cater towards the playstyle you want to play; e.g. do you want to build a strongly fortified castle with powerful defenses that can stand against even the mightiest dinosaur army, or do you want to go full glass cannon and beeline towards training powerful offensive units to rush your opponent.

The different systems in your base can all affect how you progress through a level, and readjusting focus can be key to champion the pesky invading danes. Let’s have a look at some of the different aspects of base building and how they work.

[/p][h3]Food[/h3][p]Sometimes the Danish Vikings have a point: “Uden mad og drikke, duer helten ikke” (translates to: “without food and drink, the hero is useless”). Keeping your base supplied with nourishment is paramount for expansion and keeping the morale up. There are a variety of ways to do this, each with their own benefits and potential drawbacks.

The simplest way to keep the calories flowing is by foraging, the Foragers Hut have villagers scour the ground for mushrooms - simple and delicious. This is slow work, but provides a steady, predictable supply of simple food for your village.

The Fisherman’s Shack can be seen as the more calorie dense variant of foraging. The fish arrive in a steady stream (ba dum tss), and definitely offer a moment of tranquility to the villager tasked with catching the fish.

Next is the Hunters Lodge. Tracking down dynamic herds of deer across the land, this is more volatile than the others, but provides greater yields on a successful hunt, a deer provides a lot of food (ask any hunter how full their freezer is) at the cost of potential risk of it not being as stable as the alternatives.

And finally is a combination of farms, mills and bakeries. Growing crops, wheat being milled into flour, flour being baked to make bread, bread being delicious and hard to beat in terms of consistency and amount, but comes with an increased cost of more materials needed for the buildings and more workers are occupied along the chain.

[/p][h3]Resources[/h3][p]Wood, stone, iron and others are crucial to both construction for expansion and production. Lumber Camp workers chop trees to create logs, Quarry workers hack away at the rocks to create stone, Mine workers extract iron ore from the ground.

These materials are both used to build new buildings, and also used in production of weapons where a smelter refines the iron ore to create iron ingots which are then forged by the Blacksmith to create powerful weapons for late game units.

This is where it would probably be really neat to have a giant flowchart or diagram to show what goes where, but details are still not completely set in stone (pun intended), so I promise we will rendezvous to this at a later date.

[/p][h3]Military[/h3][p]Being in war with an invading army is no good if you don’t have units to help you fight said enemy! Military is one of the major outlets for resources, and depending on how big a priority your army is, this can come with big requirements for a supporting base to supply weapons and training for units.
A couple of supply chain examples are:

Trees are being chopped down for logs at the Lumber Camp > Logs are being used to create bows at the Fletcher > Bows are used at the Archery Range to create archers.

Iron Ore is being mined at the Mine > Iron Ore is used to make swords at the Blacksmith > Swords are being used to train soldiers at the Barracks.

[/p][h3]Fortifications[/h3][p]A second outlet for resources is fortifications, walls made of either wood or stone, towers to provide a vantage point for your ranged units, and armaments that can be installed to give your defenses an edge - whew it’s nice to have a ballista when a Tyrannosaurus Rex comes charging at your gates!
One of the primary defenses are walls made from different materials from wood palisades to reinforced stone walls. Wood being an abundant early game resource and stone requiring more work at later game but offering much stronger defenses.

A lot of details are still in flux about specific details of wall building, but we are aiming to make a system that affords both ease of use and speed for building quickly in a pickle, but also allows for more detail-oriented work in regards to layout and addition of elements such as crenelations, bartizans, gates, traps, pikes and the like.

[/p][h2]Back to basics[/h2][p]Thank you for checking out the first instalment of Dinolords Monthly! This first version was a little design-heavy but we hope to continue giving you monthly insights into the progress we're making on the game. Have something you'd love for us to talk more in-depth about? You're welcome to leave comments here, on the forums or join our Discord. We hope you have a great May![/p][p]-panxter[/p]