Archmage Rises News

[p]Hi everyone! [/p][p]I fixed the two most reported bugs over Christmas/New Years. [/p][p]There were a lot of code changes, likely fixing other bugs too, but I'm releasing it on the Beta branch first so we can see how well it performs.[/p]

1. [p]Knowledge Picker crashing - Fixed the Subject/Knowledge Picker when talking with NPCs. It was blowing up if there was a quest giver without a Job. I also got rid of the dummy text "hyrule castle" and "ninroot" so it is more clear it blew up, it now just says "error".[/p]
2. [p]NPCs giving bad directions to Monsters - it now spawns a tracks Event on the map from which you can find monsters.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Not a very long list, but hopefully this will make your game play much more enjoyable![/p][p][/p]

[p]Hi everyone! [/p][p]I fixed the two most reported bugs over Christmas/New Years. [/p][p]There were a lot of code changes, likely fixing other bugs too, but I'm releasing it on the Beta branch first so we can see how well it performs.[/p]

1. [p]Knowledge Picker crashing - Fixed the Subject/Knowledge Picker when talking with NPCs. It was blowing up if there was a quest giver without a Job. I also got rid of the dummy text "hyrule castle" and "ninroot" so it is more clear it blew up, it now just says "error".[/p]
2. [p]NPCs giving bad directions to Monsters - it now spawns a tracks Event on the map from which you can find monsters.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Not a very long list, but hopefully this will make your game play much more enjoyable![/p][p][/p][p](Remember - to play this latest build switch to the Beta branch on Steam by going to the games Properties)[/p]

[p]Jan 1: Some players are reporting save game incompatibility between Dec 6 build and this Dec 31 build.[/p][p]For now, I have made the Beta Branch the Dec 6 Build so you can load your saves.[/p][p][/p][p]I carved out some time today to look into a few recently reported bugs.[/p]

1. [p]Fixed Glassmaker not selling any glass. What was she doing with her time?! ːlaughing_yetiː Well I got them back to work![/p]
2. [p]Fixed casting Haste on plants makes the plant yield on the FIRST day of the season instead of some date within the season.[/p]
3. [p]Expanded the text display area for Random Events[/p]
4. [p]Added Console command: [c]HexEvents.Reload[/c] to allow Events writers to reload their JSON without having to restart the game. This coincides with the documentation I provided few days ago.[/p]
5. [p]Fixed Dead Body random event where you find a body with a note and no options. Now it has options and rewards.[/p]

[h2]Organic Resources[/h2][p]There were a few bugs reported on plants not yielding their fruit/resources.[/p][p]I investigated and double checked it is all working correctly and as expected. [/p][p]I think the issue is some confusion on how it works, so hopefully here is a better more clear description of the complexity and subtlety of it:[/p][p]My Mental Model[/p][p]It has to do with the 'realism' of the growth cycles of organic resources. My mental model revolves around 'Strawberries' which I just happen to be eating right now 😋 [/p][p]Where I live strawberries ripen late June.[/p][p]If I go to a strawberry plant in May, there are 0 strawberries.[/p][p]If I go to it late June, early July, they are strawberries.[/p][p]How long do strawberries last on the plant after they ripen? I don't really know, so I just made it in game that summer bearing plants have their fruit ruined by pests and rot in Winter. [/p][p]So if I go to a strawberry plant in Fall, the fruit will be there.[/p][p]I go in Winter, it's back to 0. And will continue to be 0 until late June.[/p][p]In Game[/p][p]This is how it works in game: If you ask someone about fireseed, which yields in summer, and go to the plant in Spring, there will be 0 fruit. It all go ruined back in Winter before you even knew about the plant existing.[/p][p]But if you wait until Summer, it will bear it's fireseed fruit.[/p][p]This is also why when you show up at some plants there is resources there, and for others there aren't. It depends on the growth cycle. And I made them somewhat different - snow moss blooms in Winter and is ruined in Spring. [/p][p]Most plants bloom in Spring and are ruined in Winter.[/p][p]Some plants, like Cocoa, bloom in Fall and are ruined in Winter.[/p][p][/p][p]If you still encounter problems, let me know![/p][p]Have a happy New Year everyone! I'm excited for 2026![/p]

[p]As a final post this year, here is the documentation page on how to use the Events system to create your own Events (User Generated Content). [/p][p]https://www.archmagerises.com/news/2025/12/29/how-to-write-random-events-ugc[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for your interesting in the game this year, looking forward to a very bright and exciting 2026![/p][p][/p][p]Before you ask: I don't know how to get it to work with SteamWorkshop if you want to share events. It took me a long while to write all that documentation. It's accurate as of today![/p]

[p]This is my second last post of 2025. As the year winds down, I’ve been reflecting on 2025 and making some plans for 2026 which may be of interest to players.[/p][p]I’ll cut to the most exciting news: I’ll be working on Archmage Rises full time January and February. I had a small bit of good fortune wrapping up a client project end of the year and it should see me through the next two months.[/p][p]When I first started the project I came from building my own game engine in C++ and releasing two titles to the app store. I needed to decide to continue building out my game engine or switch to one of the popular ones. While I could keep building my engine, I could never keep up with dozens of dedicated engine developers in Denmark or North Carolina. In the end I decided to go with Unity because of the vast asset store, community, and C# - my preferred programming language.[/p][p]But I needed a lot of help learning this new engine, especially the new UI system they introduced, and so I got a lot of help from an experienced unity dev, Nic. Nic was so helpful that eventually we formalized his help by hiring him fulltime. He would focus on the Unity aspects of the game (scenes, game objects, UI) and I would focus on the simulation and data side.[/p][p]That division of labor worked well, but it hid a problem: I didn’t have to learn many of Unity’s deeper mechanics because someone else always handled them.[/p][p]When Nic left to pursue other projects, and I started building out the team to handle increasing client work, the team handled all the details like making an automated build and signing system, UI systems integration, combat system, and map generation.[/p][p]Kind of like the cruising passengers on the Axiom at the end of WALL-E, in a programming sense, I got flabby because whenever something needed to be done, there was someone to do it.[/p][p][/p][p]When our funding didn’t come through last year, the team couldn’t continue, and the project reverted back to just me. It’s pretty daunting to pick up where four other programmers left off, in an engine I hadn’t touched in a while. Up till that moment I had been working in pure C# building, a research prototype for what will become the dynamic quest system.[/p][p]Fortunately, starting in late 2024, I picked up some excellent client work. I had to dive head first in and get my hands dirty with things like Right to Left language localization, tricks of the unity UI layout system and prefab variants, rock solid state serialization, parallelization coroutines and tweens, particles, queued server API integration, asset bundles, and mobile shop integration.[/p][p]In short: It feels like the last year has been a non-stop high-intensity programming workout regiment forcing me to touch practically every major part of Unity.[/p][p]But there is something else that came from this client work besides just getting into shape.[/p][p][/p][p]I have been making Archmage Rises for a while now, and it’s just really hard to make: the procedural systems are difficult to work with. I hope it is because there is nothing else like it and we’re forging a new path.[/p][p]My secret fear is I’m just stupid and suck at game dev. Maybe it is some of both.[/p][p]It’s hard to describe if you’ve never been through the creative project journey, but there is a dark point of the soul (chart) where, if one is honest, you wonder “Can I really do this?”[/p][p]The client work has answered this decisively: Yes. Yes I can.[/p][p]I took the experience and confidence gained from the client work and brought it to the latest update of Hex Events & Resources. I managed to learn and rewrite the resources system in two weeks. It would have taken double or triple that time before.[/p][p]I am really excited to work on Archmage for the next 2 months. I still have to learn the combat system, but other than that, I think I’ve touched all the rest of the major systems and can now make significant changes to them.[/p][p]I hoped the recent changes would be well received – it is hard to tell until release. While writing this update, I was thrilled and really encouraged to see Splattercat felt the game was worth another video. I’m so grateful![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Thank you all for your interest in this project. I’m working hard to bring you something unique in the RPG space. With your help, we’ll get there![/p]