Sleeping Beauties (Devblog)
One of the tough design issues with multiplayer mode in WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition has been sleeping, health recharge, and time acceleration. Those three elements are bound together in the single-player game, and we’ve pondered over the past few years how to make them work when there are multiple players, each of whom might have different ideas about when to sleep. Such disagreements are inevitable, but they could seriously detract from players’ experience in the game. A few weeks ago we dove back into the issue and, after some intensive brainstorming, we finally figured out a solution: the essential thing is to keep everyone’s sleep cycles in sync. Then there may be still be some disagreement about exactly when to sleep, but everyone’s *need* to sleep will be the same. So as players join the game, their Sleep meter will be synced with that of the host, whether it’s high or low or somewhere in between.
But that only solves half the problem. The other half is that sleep is necessary to restore your health. What if your health drops quite low and yet the pack does not need to sleep for many hours. For that, we created a new “Quick Heal” function — a special, if not quite magical, power for wolves in multiplayer. When using Quick Heal, wolves draw on their food reserves to boost their health. It only boosts health to 40%, to minimize potential abuse — just enough to get you back on your feet and through the rest of the day with your pack.
Watch the video for more!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Both these are coming to multiplayer….soon! How soon? We have not set a release date, but it’s a lot closer than it was a year ago!
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We have released the first episode of WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition (Amethyst Mountain) for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features, multiplayer, and ultimately the Slough Creek episode with pups. The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms. We’ll then resume development of the next episode, Tower Fall (DLC).
But that only solves half the problem. The other half is that sleep is necessary to restore your health. What if your health drops quite low and yet the pack does not need to sleep for many hours. For that, we created a new “Quick Heal” function — a special, if not quite magical, power for wolves in multiplayer. When using Quick Heal, wolves draw on their food reserves to boost their health. It only boosts health to 40%, to minimize potential abuse — just enough to get you back on your feet and through the rest of the day with your pack.
Watch the video for more!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Both these are coming to multiplayer….soon! How soon? We have not set a release date, but it’s a lot closer than it was a year ago!
______________
We have released the first episode of WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition (Amethyst Mountain) for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features, multiplayer, and ultimately the Slough Creek episode with pups. The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms. We’ll then resume development of the next episode, Tower Fall (DLC).