I’m starting development of my next game. The idea is that you are the ruler of a new settlement as well as an adventurer.
I’ve started with a procedurally generated map, and a simple ball as the player. I am using custom made tiles for forests, mountains, water, plains, roads and towns.
Next on the to do list is make the terrain affect the player movement. Then create the code for the players settlement.
This week’s update:
Player movement speed depends on the ground type.
Player can enter the home town and see the population.
There is also a history log that shows major events in your town. Currently birth, marriage and deaths.
Time passes while playing and families work on farms producing food, having children, and children grow up and get married and start there own families.
Update from last week:
Initial character to replace the ball on the world map as you walk around.
You can buy buildings in your home town. A family will work the blacksmith creating tools. (needs major balancing still)
Foreign towns can now be entered and player can buy and sell items and resources. Also can give and take items and resources from your home town.
Player Menu created so you can see what you have.
Night / day cycle animation created.
Quest system started, procedurally generated quests available from Inns in foreign towns.
Update For this week:
Using coroutine yield for world generation, along with progress bar during generation of map to prevent timeout crash on device.
Delivery and gathering quests now available, and rewards for completing quests. Quests now visible in player menu and will disappear from Inn when chosen (after you leave the town). Quests can also be abandoned.
Images for buildings have been added, visible in home town.
Foreign towns have a basic economy, they produce resources and use others. They will buy and sell items at different prices depending on how much of each resource they have.
Improved the system for buying, you can buy multiple copies of resources at once.
and of course many fixes for issues that have popped up.
Last Week’s update:
A lot of work on Family decision making, how do families decide when to buy and sell food, equipment etc.. I think this will need some tweaking and balancing.
Added history graphs, currently showing the population and wealth of your town over time.
Updated the shadows for day night cycles.
Finally some under the hood work on the menu system. Which will continue this week.
Update for last week’s work:
Created a battle system for fights with monsters. Created temporary images for player and a monster during battle, and implemented battle field. Implemented armour and weapons systems. Armour used a DT and DR system for damage, and weapons have ‘blunt’ and ‘piercing’ ratings for damage. Battles use action point system that charges up and then allows player to attack when charged.
A few under the hood changes with the menu system for better consistency between menus and easier reuse of code.
Updates from Last Week:
12 Monsters image sets and added to game
Added battle Items to foreign towns to purchase
Updated town and playermenu Armoury
Battle System update: Item effect animation
Death of player, lose all resources you have. Town is not effected.
Enemy / player status effects shown in action bar
Title Screen image created
Harvesting: Wood and Stone (ore)
Intro Battle field for intro animation
Here is a quick view of the intro scene:
This Weeks work:
Caves: Cave tileset created, cave generator, and placement on world map, updated code for map types (world map and cave maps)
Fixes and improvements to battle screen
Fixes and added images to armoury menu in towns
Save and load game system started.
Was on holiday this week, went to England and saw Monkey World and Stonehenge. Going to be off this coming week as well due to October break.
Found a bit of time to work on the game last week:
I added a scroll animation for some of the information popups and added a bottle for item use in battle.
Love the active initiative bars, brings me back to old school FFs. Conceptionally, it reminds me a bit of Romancing Saga 2 (I think it was number 2?).
Will the player’s party expand as they grow their kingdom?
Thanks, I was going for that kind of feel for the battles.
I’m currently planning for the player to be the only warrior in the party. But having townsfolk join you in your battles is something I will look into for the future.
The basic idea is that it is a city builder, with adventuring to help boost your city.
This week’s work:
Treasure Box added
Difficulty level for caves, different monsters depending on difficulty
Update to level generation progress bars
Added land requirement for families if there is no land for a new family the kids move away when the marry. This lead to an issue where all the young people would marry and move away before the older families died. So the town would be empty after 2 generations. Going to tweak this next week
A few under the hood updates:
Switched to using tile position for items instead of converting back and forth
Updated co-routine yielding to only yield if certain amount of time has passed
This week’s work was shorter as I reached the point to send the current version to my alpha testers on Tuesday. I’ve got some feedback and will work on those changes soon.
Summary of changes this week:
Amount of Land will effect how productive the farmers are
Married couples might not stay in town if there isn't enough land
A few tweaks to the way families work
Updated the cave location selection code, much more efficient now
Clean up some testing changes
Player can select world size in title screen
Released Alpha version for testing with alpha testers
Made some updates based on some feed back from an alpha tester.
Updates to menus to add clarity
Added messages to initial battle scene
Added popup tips for first time in towns
Fixes to quest system.
Updated battle system, special moves
Different towns will have different armoury items available
Added Warrior and Gentle modes selection
(Gentle mode will only have monsters in caves)
Balancing of value of family and player activities.
Last week’s update:
Updated the weapon and attack animation for the player
Added new monsters and create groups and monster types
Added Poison effect from venomous monsters
Implemented Defensive position for player during battle
Fixes to quest system
Fixed various other visual glitches
Look at those weekly updates!
Great job, you can be proud of that kind of commitment
Thank you. Starting this dev log has helped with the consistency.
Last week’s update was all about squashing bugs.
I’m look for some people to test the game out, especially on the physical playdate. If you would like to help me out and provide some feedback, message me and I’ll send you the latest version.
Here is a list of some of the fixes and changes
Changed: Families will sell food if they have too much (1 year's worth of food)
Changed: Children do not help with farming
Changed: Probability for having a child
Changed: Treasurebox animation
Fixed: Battle Visual glitch: Battle now pauses while closing after player flees
Fixed: Cost visual error in hometown buy building menu
Fixed: Crash in buying food menu in foreigntown
Changed: Buying food and materials uses transfer resources code to allow use of crank and 0.1 increments
Changed: Popup menu when buying from armoury with chance to cancel
Fixed: Weapon and armour type in wrong towns during world generation
Fixed: If name or town name is nil or '' it will use default names
Fixed: Quest reward issue
Fixed: Quest Save issues corrupted quests
Fixed: Text for finding object updates when returning
Updated: added spoils for more enemies
Fixed: Crash on gentle mode
No updates last week.
Planning to continue next week after getting some more feed back.
One of my testers was unsure of what to do, so I am planning to add a bit of a tutorial / beginner missions to help players figure out the game.
