Swords 'n Magic and Stuff News

Hey all! A bit late, but for a good reason!

We've done last week's development digest as a YouTube Video!

It's premiering right now, so come check it out!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I'll see you this Friday for a regular update!

Hey all!

I'm a day late - sorry about that. Let's dig into what the team has been up to this week!

First off, here's the updated roadmap:


While we adjust to Joe leaving, we've reprioritized what we need to do and how best to go about it. We're looking at getting an update out within the next few weeks with some quality of life things, job boards, and some other fun things. I'd say the most important part of the update is getting rid of the snow. It's just too much (am I right or am I right?).

This doesn't mean the combat, weapon skills, abilities, and magic system is being pushed off. It's still very much being worked on. Just that without Joe, it'll take more time to complete. So instead of just waiting until that was done, we wanted to get an update out sooner with the things that have been done. Louis is still chipping away at the backend programming for all the new systems.

One of the most requested quality of life features is sorting in the crafting menus!


Another quality of life update is also in the crafting menus. You can now see on your experience bar how much each recipe will give you if you craft it. No more guess work!

The last big big piece of news for the update is a necromancers cave on Azura. It's actually been there this whole time, it just didn't have the mechanics needed to open up. If you caught the stream on Twitch, you'll know where this cave is. If not, you'll find out when we update!

Last update for this week: we've recently taken on a volunteer. Mike has been part of our community for about a year. He's a fellow Unreal Engine dev working on his own project. He's offered to volunteer some of his time for the next month or so to help us with whatever he can. He's already been a big help with quite a few tasks that we've had to push to the side. If you are in our Discord, you've probably seen him answering questions in our #game-dev-chat channel and you'll see him in our weekly meetings as well. We're thankful for the help!

That's all for now as we work on getting you all a QoL update! See you next week!

[h3]We’ve got a lot of news this week.[/h3] First and foremost, we’re sad to announce that Joe, our AI programmer and animator, has accepted a position with another team and will be stepping away from Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff. Joe joined the team in August of 2020 and has helped bring the world to life through his character and creature animations, boss battles, companion system and dynamic NPC schedules among many other important and impressive contributions. He also stepped into a general programming role as Louis joined the team and really helped out all around. We’re excited to see what he does with his next adventure, but sad to see him leave. At this time we aren’t looking to replace him, but may reevaluate at a later time.

What does this mean for the huge combat update we’ve been working towards? A large part of the combat update is backend work that Louis is working away on. He’s been balancing his focus between the backend programming and various other front-facing tasks like the hotbar rework (which also takes a lot of backend programming) and new job boards with repeatable, procedural quests. However, the other main part of the update included plenty of new animations for combos and abilities. With the changes to the team, we may need to adjust our plans a bit and will let you know weekly what’s happening through these development digests. We had previously said that the combat update would take a while and that’s still true, but we don’t have a good timeframe as of yet.



As we learned of Joe’s departure, we’ve shifted some priorities a bit. Wendy was working on level design for the next zone, Bone Reach. She took a tiny break from that this week to work on a Hero’s Crypt in Windless Woods. Michael (AKA Kindred) has been working on brand new map art, prepping the main questline for the Windless Woods and dipping into the AI system a bit to see what he can break make.



Speaking of new maps, this is our second huge announcement: we have a new world map! Adjusted development roadmap coming soon.



All of the zones from before are still present aside from Dragonlands, but a lot of new zones have been introduced. When the first map was made, there wasn’t really a detailed plan with what to do with the whole area, nor any idea of the time it would take to fill it out. Michael has been working on re-scoping the world map for a better story, progression, and transition between zones. This will make it easier to get more zones out faster as well. For example, Iris Lake was originally somewhere around 6-8 times bigger than Farmlands. The Farmlands took somewhere around six months to complete (it also included crafting, farming, cooking, etc. which took time). If we wanted to release Iris Lake as it was before, it would take over two years to get the one zone out! With this new layout, we can easily break up the workload.


Of the released areas, you’ll notice that the Farmlands zone has been broken into two zones. The Sleeping Glade is where Sleepy Haven and its surroundings are located (notice the river that shows the divide). Sleepy Haven used to be located in the Windless Woods, but we realized that it was super confusing having West Windless Woods, East Windless Woods, and Windless Woods (where Sleepy Haven is). The Graveyard was previously in East Windless Woods but is now located in a portion of Black Rook Vale. These are essentially just naming and lore changes!


Windless Woods is getting its first content pass. NPCs are being added, quests and dialog are in progress, mini dungeons are being built. It’s starting to come together! Ironwind Pass is about 60% done with level design. Bone Reach is about 30% done with level design. Once Windless Woods is done with content, level design in Ironwind Pass and Bone Reach should be just about finished and ready for content. This will allow Wendy to keep moving forward in future zones.


We’ve got a Youtube video in the works where we’ll describe the new zone layout in depth, including what the feel of them will be, how they’ll play into the story, and all the juicy details. I’ll be sharing details with our Patreon supporters before the video goes out. For now, I’d like to hear your guesses! Which of the new zones are you most intrigued by? See you all in the comments!

Happy Friday!

This week has been a bit of behind the scenes work, so not as many cool pictures. We've just launched a new YouTube video about what we've been working on, so check that out:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

A few notable things that were worked on are mannequin furniture items that allow you to show off your hats, masks, and outfits in your house. Still needs some tweaks, but here's a picture:



Another huge quality of life task that is in progress has been job boards! They are still in development and aren't even ready for testers, but here are some of the preliminary options that were presented:


Normally I'd present the new roadmap, but we're actually making some big adjustments to it, so I hope it'll be available to change out this month. Don't worry, they are good adjustments! The map is in progress of getting a facelift, including in-game maps, so that's one of the big adjustments.

In other news, our official soundtrack has been launched! Check it out here if you haven't already.

I'll end with my favorite screenshot of the week. Every couple of months, I'll go through and get in-game screenshots to update our Steam page. While doing that, I got a shot that didn't make the cut, but made me laugh too much (floating gobbos flying at you are the best):



And yes, I died after that shot.

See you all next week!

Happy Friday evening!

We've had some bug fixing days to fix the issues our dedicated testers found. Mainly level design issues with weird collisions, rocks, placement of things, that kind of stuff. Still a bit of new mechanics and level design were added to Bone Reach. What do you think this does?



Still working in the background with the damage overhaul and a few new treats. Maybe I'll have something to show on those treats next week. We've also bounced around a few features being added into the next update (ETA not announced yet).

As far as West Windless Woods go, I'll give you some pictures, because they are awesome!

















There's some cool stuff going on in there. Can't wait for you all to check it out.

Next week I may have a new roadmap available for February. If not, I'll still get some awesome pictures for you!

See you then.