Running of the Wolves - Phase 1

Finally! Only a few weeks late.

First off

Apologies, the download is now a Google Drive. Itch only supports uploads of up to 1Gb. I can speak to them to get extra space allocated, but it's christmas, so unlikely to get any movement on that for a few weeks. The first build that went out to Patreon was 1.5Gb, but I've managed to optimise it down to 1.17Gb which isn't great, but it is significantly better than before. I think I might be able to get it below the 1Gb mark with a few more days work on it, but I think it's time to be released.

The motherfuckin' updates

• Levels added
  • Pineridge
  • Release
  • Forest Worldmap
  • Open Forest
  • Forest Shop
  • Music added to all levels
  • Physics props in Pineridge
  • Dungeon stylised/updated
• Quest System added
  • 5 quests added
• NPCs
  • NPCs in Pineridge and Shop can now be interacted with properly.
  • 20 Characters with unique dialog
  • Several characters with branching and context specific dialog
  • NPCs can wander around the town
• Enemies
  • Female enemies chase and alert male enemies
  • All enemies now howl when they spot the player (even the badgers. I'm working on that)
  • Analyse functionality now restricted to range defined by game difficulty
  • Badgers
• Game Shit
  • Save/Load system - Only 1 save file. When you die, you lose the file and have to start again.
  • Game Modes added (choose when registering for Event with Chobb - currently only supports Casual)
  • Game Difficulty - Set on Character building screen
• Other Stuff
  • Camera no longer drops when crouching
  • Camera position moved further bck
  • When completing Forest World, you now return to Pineridge. Head past barn to re-randomise levels and play again.
  • Animations now unlock. Every time you encounter a new animation, it unlocks and can be viewed in the barn in Pineridge
  • Rocks added to possible item spawns
  • Added guaranteed item spawns. 1 in Pineridge.
  • Fixed falling deaths

Yeah, thats a lot of stuff. The main thing is we now have an actual gameplay loop that can be repeated. There's still work to do in most of the levels. Pineridge is maybe 30% completed. The Release, Shop and Worldmap are fairly close to complete, they might need some tweaks. The dungeon will be getting some updates, as will the open forest.

Updates to levels

First up, the dungeons.

I've rebuilt how the tiles spawn in the dungeon, so tilesets can be swapped out depending on what world is currently being played. This ties in to plans for adding more props and details into the dungeons. Right now they're just rooms and corridors. I'd like to make it so there's also more interesting rooms in there, as well as several levels of dungeon to give some verticality. In the end though, that's just set-dressing and down the priority list. I would 100% like to improve them and make them more interesting, immersive and fun to explore. Also traps.

Next, the Open Forest.

That damn forest needs a devlog of its own, and I'll probably do one soon, unless I already have. The last few weeks have been a blur. I've optimised it a load, but there are still areas that experience lag. Unfortunately, it's in areas of dense foliage which a forest needs, so I'm chipping away at that one. The upside is that it is playable.

Eventually, I want props and areas of interest added in there as well. So there might be a windmill in a clearing, or a ruin or something to climb and explore. Again, possibilities, but constrained by a rapid development cycle.

The Bugs

Not gonna lie, there's bugs in here. I've playtested each time I've compiled and squashed the ones I can, but there's a few persistent ones that are being difficult. They're not gamebreakers though, so I'm content to make people aware they exist and promise to keep working on fixing them.

• Opening inventory removes clothing - This is the biggest bug, and the one that's been annoying me for weeks. When you open the inventory, it should get the current clothes you are wearing and only change the items you change. It doesn't load the clothing initially, so it removes all the clothes in the character save. However it doesn't remove them visually. You'll only see it when you change level or reload. The way to get around it is to reselect all your clothing each time you go into the inventory. It's annoying, but you usually only go in there to change clothes anyway, so it's not too bad...
• Exploded clothes don't remove immediately - This one is tricky. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and I'm still trying to figure out what causes it. When clothing loses the last of it's damage, it should explode and be removed. Sometimes it doesn't, but in the game logic, it has gone. Usually when this happens, it'll still appear in the inventory as a broken piece of clothing until you try to equip it and it explodes a final time then vanishes. It's a mystery!
• Female fox skins have mismatched heads - another mysterious one, cos every other skin works. Female canids have a range of species they can be. Eventually this will tie into body morphs to be more accurate to that species. Fox is the only one it does this to.
• Dialog bunches up if you loop - Chobb is the main culprit. Once you register for the event, it takes you back to the root dialog, but the players answers get narrower each loop.
• Players mouth doesn't move during blowjobs / Male badgers mouth opens the wrong way - Yet another annoying but kinda funny bug. All the skeletal meshes show the animation, it just doesn't happen ingame, still figuring out why!

What's next?

Phase 2. We'll be back to the 3 subphases approach again, each in theory taking 3 weeks.

• Phase 2a - Mechanics
  • Struggle and sex interactivity with mouse movements
  • Combat and fighting mechanics
  • Proper inventory integration
  • Currency
  • Persistent wolves generated at character creation
  • Female enemy takedowns
  • Canid body morphs to allow additional species
• Phase 2b - Characters
  • Struggle ability for enemies when takedown happens to them
  • Enemies can join in if they catch you while "recovering"
  • Improve enemy AI (been looking at using locations within a cone from enemy location instead of random location within circle)
  • Allow enemies to decide between capture/sex and attack
  • Improve wolf and player movement - vaulting, climbing, swimming, sliding, etc.
  • 2 new enemies
• Phase 2c - Gameplay
  • Add shop functionality
  • Game prologue/cutscenes
  • Dungeon improvements
  • Male player character
  • Customisable hotbar
  • NPC Tutorial and training - instead of the current text option
  • Forest Boss

And finally

So, that's it. Phase 1 is probably done. I'm anticipating a few weeks of bugfixes, depending on what people find. Some stuff will probably get skipped unless it's major bugs. Animations are probably getting an overhaul in phase 2, so that's not a major worry right now.

The plan for now though is to take a little time off to work on some other stuff, probably returning to Phase 2 mid January.  The main reason for the break is to figure out how to implement some of the upcoming features. There's some tools I want to investigate for animation creation, and I need to research a more procedural style of animation ingame. As an example, at the moment the animations are baked in, so if you hit a wolf with a rock, he'll stagger straight through anything in his way. Adopting an IK based animation rig could in theory allow him to react to obstacles. It could also allow him to capture a player and find a wall to bend her over...

As usual, the game relies on the players feedback to improve and especially to find the bugs I've missed. The easiest way is by pausing ingame and using the Report a Bug button. Failing that, all the links are below:

Bugtracker | Discord | Patreon