5/16/20 Development Status Update - New Features
Lawless Lands,
Hey everyone!
So, I just wanted to stop by and give you all a quick update on what I worked on all week.
Main Story
The main storyline got a lot of love over the past few days and many new additions to this were made. Some plot twists, new objective types, a lot more dialogue and lore, and new characters were added. There's still a lot of work left to do on the main plot, but it's definitely progressing.
Base Building
The much awaited base-building mechanic is nearly completed. Upon finishing a bit of the main storyline, you'll be granted your own estate to manage and improve as you see fit. There are over 10 upgrades so far which all have different distinct purposes, and with this, you can really make a place for yourself in the game world. Both for roleplaying and actually gaining drastic benefits that alter the experience. Some examples are serfs that passively harvest resources, a garden which can grow alchemy ingredients over time, sentries to prevent encounters in your base, a smithy with a usable anvil, you can hire a blacksmith which can be taught new skills to improve their capabilities and other artisans and merchants, etc. The list is huge and there is a lot of variety for different functions.
Companion Dialogues
With this addition, I decided to work on a feature that I've been asked about since my first game, Waste Walkers... Due to an overwhelming amount of popular demand, I finally added multiple deep and unique dialogues for companions. Now, you can REALLY get an idea of who each companion is. Players mentioned to me in the past that once you get a companion and talk to them a bit, that's it. They just become a mindless follower. Well, that's no longer the case. For the sake of simplicity and to avoid causing other issues with gameplay hiccups and whatnot, I added all the player companions to the player base once they unlock it. If the player has a specific companion, they'll appear in the base and you can go and converse with them about all kinds of things.
Right now, there are 11 human companions. Each one of them now has their intro where they tell you about themselves, but then you can ask to speak to them further and they'll chat with you with 4 different conversations so far. It could be about regrets, past experiences, lost loved ones, old romances, memories, future plans, dreams, and so on. The list is pretty huge and the companions are extremely varied so there's a lot of new lore involved. You should be able to learn a lot more about each individual follower than you could ever hope to before because all the new dialogues were written brand new today.
Settlements
I added another village so now there is only one village left to make and one city left! We're really getting there! The world map is about 90% complete!
Save System Improvement
One other thing I did was add a save delete feature from inside the actual game. A few people asked me about this in the past, but now it's finally here. The engine doesn't have this by default, but now when you're in the load menu to load up a previous save, you can delete the save by pressing F8, so you don't have to manually go to the game folder and delete them that way. It's a simple feature, but for player comfort and quality of life, it's been added.
Optimization and Stability
I also spent about one full day (one actual full day, not just a work day) optimizing the living hell out of the game. I made things run much smoother, got rid of unnecessary stuff constantly running and checking in the background, improved efficiency of several systems, and all of this increased performance. I also fixed a rare crash that has been causing headaches for awhile and squashed a few pesky bugs!
Final Thoughts
The game is almost finished and it's come a very long way since it was first released in EA. I look forward to hearing what people have to think and if they have any suggestions or input!
I'll have more information very soon!
-Corrosion ːCStudiosː