A little preview of the future character sprites.

This is not my highest priority right now, but I still tinker with the main character model from time to time, trying to improve the way it looks. These are the results of my experiments.

Again, this is me just playing around with blender. None of these are meant to be final. However, my goal is to make the shading softer than what the game has now. I just have to strike the propper ballance between the model looking like a drawing and looking like a plastic doll. 

Another thing I will most likely put in the game is variable skin color.

Making the skin of the protagonist get darker as she gets older seems like a nice touch. You spend quite a lot of time working outside so it's only natural for your skin to get tanned. I would like to tie this to some variable, so I can change the skin color depending on things you do and not just your age. This will most likely not happen though, since this would highly increase the amount of sprites I would have to do. I will think about it.

Other than that, I have one minor patch almost ready for release. It fixes two mutation related traits which were not working properly and two completely new traits. I might release it this weekend.

I played through the game few days ago and found out two bigger problems

Not enough half-day activities and not enough ways to increase wellness.

I quickly put together a simple workout system. You select atribute you want to raise, then you select equipment. Time passes, you get wellness and your atribute increases a bit.

You will need food and some equipment will require you to have certain level in your atributes before you can even use it.

I will do some more testing and relese new version. I also improved the inventory and description system a bit. Now you won't get kicked to the map screen when you use an item, so you can heal your self or eat food quickly without having to open the inventory after every use.

Another thing I promised long time ago. Bestiary.

Still not finished. I would like to fit item drops and other information in the. You will be able to scroll the information screen too, so there is really no limit to the amount of information I can fit there. I will also obscure most of the information at the start and reveal more and more depending on the amount of kills.

On top of that, I will add a system that changes the damage you do / receive to enemies depending on the amount you killed.

War system will take me longer than I thought, so the next major update will have the bestiary together with some new locations and enemies.

Bestiary is now pretty much finished.

As I said, it reveals more information depending on the number of kills. You can switch between the drops and description windows and you can scroll windows down and up. 

Drops work as you might expect. If enemy drops an item, it will appear in the bestiary together with its drop rate. Items you didn't get from that enemy yet will display as "???" so you know exacly how many items are missing. 

Two more things for me to do. Actualy add all enemies currently in the game and make the amount of kills influence the combat in some way.

And even more experiments. With lighting this time.

The best way to make something look "good" is to simply make everything dark so it is harder to see anything bad. But I want to use the tilesets in brightly lit areas too so I can't really skimp on anything.

The story dungeon I'm working on will have a part where you restore the electricity in it, so I'm trying to strike a good ballance between "too dark" and "not dark enough".

The whole scene looks different once you add lights. The shadows in the door sprites, around the pipes or around the wall corners make the whole thing look much better in my opinion.

I'm working on the new and improved character model. This includes improving it both visualy and "technicaly" I guess is the right word. Working with the old model was sometimes painful. Exported images had to be edited by hand or sometimes created from scratch. This made things like eyes or mouth animations nightmare to create. I managed to improve the model and my workflow well enough so that any editing I have to do will be minimal. Thanks to this, I will be able to add some decent enough facial animations. This will make your main character seem more alive as her expression changes in dialogue. I can also make better expressions for low health, being drunk and other states. Here are some work in progress faces I was playing with.

Again, work in progress and all that.

I spent some time improving the work window. I will be redoing all UI elements rather soon, but the work window was really ugly. This should make it more bearable.

Another screenshot.

I don't think this should be considered a spoiler. You will obviously be fighting abominations in this dungeon.

There will be quite a bit of dialogue in this dungeon. You will be walking through it together with the generals and they will have different dialogue depending on your character, or decisions.

One example is the picture above. This is the first enemy you encounter in the dungeon. Ordinary hungry abomination. After fighting it, you will get different dialogue depending on multiple things:

There are more situations like this. Some are affected by traits and there is one that is affected by how fast you do certain thing. 

Large portion of the work needed is done. I still have to finish the encounter with Mr. White and change some existing events that are already in the game (Event for humanoid kills will be different, he won't be in the forest basement). If everything moves smoothly, new version might be released even sooner.

The number of successful work days is now pre-determined. What the "Total" values says is the exact number of successes you will get. Not more and not less. The exact days you mess up or work properly are still randomised to make the animations more interesting than first days being successful and the rest failing.

Training also works like this now. 

I will do some more testing and then release this new version. This is a small, but quite serious change that will hopefuly make the game better.

I don't have anything great to show yet, but I decided to post something just to tell you how things are going. I don't think this is worthy of a new blog post just yet so I'm going to put it here.

Next update will have the dungeon loot overhaul and one very small dungeon. This dungeon will be the first dungeon you will be able to enter. The mine dungeon will be closed at the start of the game, but this change will come in even later versions.

Loot overhaul will only apply to the new dungeon for now, so you can see both the old and new systems in the same version and decide which you like more.

Other than that, I'm still playing around with AI. I won't be using it in any direct way, except for textures (The story dungeon was made pretty much entirely from 3D models with AI generated textures).

However, I might also use it to get inspiration when I get around making models for side characters. I have their looks and main features outlined and writen down, but details are still in the air. I'm no artist so making concept art is not that useful to me since the best I can do is very rough sketches on paper or mspaint. Images generated with AI are imperfect and each one is slightly different, which makes it good for the purpose of concept art.

I tried generating some images of the existing main characters and these are the results

I particulary like many of the elements on the cult robes and the hat for Helena. The black turtleneck also fits Mr. White more than the orange he is supposed to have. I'm not really happy with Suong, since she is supposed to look older, but some elements of her dress look interesting. I like Friedrich's haircut on the right and how cool he looks over all. I imagine Boris looking like a combination of the left and right faces together with brown leather duster and green military tank top and trousers. His haircut on the left also looks interesting.

Making models for these characters is still far away, but images like these will help me get inspiration once I get to it and.

Same goes for the main character. This is what happened when I put in the first image:

This gave me some ideas for improving the basic dress and making it look more interesting. I like the belt and the frills at the bottom and sleeves look more interesting than just white stripes. There is a high chance I will alter the 3D model and add some kind of belt.

That's pretty much it for now. Update is coming. Also, I would like to know what you thing about the recent small patch that removed random chance from training and working.

The mini dungeon and new loot system are now complete. I will spend some more time testing everything, but new version should be out tomorrow, unless I find something really broken.

Small anouncement.

Next version is taking me longer than expected, so I decided to split it in two parts. 

First part will have the overhauled skill events and shrines, second part will have the expanded church faction.

First part should release sometime this week, since it is pretty much finished. Only thing left to do is some testing and fixing.

Next patch will not have the new faction system yet, but it will quite a bit of QoL changes and improvements. Here is one of them:

This is a feature few people have been asking about.

Next version will (among other things) allow you to escape from battles.

I added multiple escape items, like smoke bombs or fire crackers. Using these in battle will quit the combat, show animation over an enemy that attacked you and make them slightly transparent.

The enemy will stay in one spot for certain amount of time, depending on the item you used. Smoke bombs will stun them for longer and give you about 4 seconds to retreat. Crackers will give you about 1.5 second. Once the stun wears off, the enemy will continue what he was doing before, which in most cases will be chasing you. Getting out of their aggro range before that happens will return them to their idle state.

There are a few quirks. Some of these are by desing, some of these are limitations of the system I didn't bother changing. 

• Running from battle will reward you no experience points of any kind, even if the enemy is half dead or you even killed some members of a group before you retreat. You will still receive negative mood from fighting abominations, since this is applied at the start of the battle.
• Running away will reset the HP, SP and other stats your enemy has. You will still retain your injuries though.
• If you get attacked by enemies that have multiple overworld characters (like dogs or boars) and you escape, only the one enemy character that touched you will be stunned. The rest will still chase you. Group enemies like kobolds or abominations will be all stunned, because they are counted as one character.

Escape items will be craftable and you will be able to buy them too.

Next version will include a little rework of healing items.

Your character will have new "health" stat. This stat will be affected by your vitality and wellness.

Each week, you will be able to heal the amount of HP equal to your health stat by using healing items. Using healing items beyond that will have no effect. This number resets weekly.

This will basicaly limit the amount you can heal with items every week. Bandage sprites from using first aid kits will be changed to work with this system.

Next update is almost ready. Only thing left is to add these bars into the status window and test everything as much as possible.

These bars will track your weekly limits. You can bring them up by pressing shift on the menu screen or by going to the status window.

All limits are fully working. Healing, combat xp, dungeon visits, chatting and eating are all limited in some way. These limits can be increased in some ways.

• Healing is increased by raising your wellness, using ichor or joining the church.
• Combat xp gets increased every time you level up a weapon skill and also by ichor and joining church.
• Dungeon visits get increased by age and ichor + church membership.
• Social points are increased by your age and renown.
• And food limit is set to one, picking a proper trait can increase it.

Dungeons now work slightly differently.

• You can enter the number of dungeons equal to your visit limit
• Dungeons reset every time you leave, meaning you can clear the same dungeon multiple times a week

This means that you have to be really prepared when you are entering a dungeon, since simly going in and out will take away one visit point. If you run out of healing items or ammunition and you leave, you will be unable to enter again if you have no points left, or you will have to clear the dungeon again if you have some.

All those values can be easily adjusted and I'm sure I will be balancing them once the update is out and I get some feedback.

I'm currently experimenting with using AI for NPC graphics.

Current npc graphics are really bad and very inconsistent. These new ones look better and are quite easy to work with. Bear in mind that I wan't to make proper graphics in the future, so these will serve as a placeholders. Much better than the stick figures that are in the game right now.

General Keller.

Side note. I can't believe how good of a job I've done on the dialogue sprite system. It detects additional images on its own and adds them to the animation cycle on it's own without me having to edit anything manualy.

Just letting you know what will be coming next.

The very next update will include the new npc sprites. This should be done this weekend if things go smoothly.

Next major update after that should be focused on one of these:

• Faction system
• Work schedule overhaul
• Thievery system

I will talk about these in more detail as I work on these and have something to show.

Still have some characters left to do. Here is a look at the new dialogue box.

Next version will arive later, mainly because of two things.

1.) I wanted the text window to change depending on what person you decide to join after the story dungeon. I was able to do it, but making the additional text windows and making the system actualy work took some time.

2.)  Most of the character sprites are finished, but there are some characters with barely any dialogue, like Tadeas. I will be adding some simple dialogue when you trade, work or train with them and when you just talk to them. Basicaly what Billy or Suong has. This will also take some time.

I think the new version might get released this week, but anything can happen so no promisses.

Something I'm working on (It is much smoother in game). Should be ready with the next major update.

More experimenting with the UI. I changed the color schemes and button styles and I added screen transtions between menu screens.

A very early version of the new work schedule screen:

A lot is still missing. The three windows at the bottom show nothing and a lot is still missing, but the general idea is here. You will select a day, then type of activity, then you will chose from a activity giver / activity type and then you will select a specific task. 

As you can see, I selected work, Suong and fixing traps job. The icons next to the day selected will quickly tell you what you scheduled, for example the day two is: Work (money bag icon), your employer is Billy (Icon shows his head), and the specific job is smithing related (the icon is a stack of ingots with roman "1", meaning it's a low tier job that raises your smithing skill). I will be showing more of this new system as I work on it, but you can already see that NPCs will have more kinds of job for you, even focusing on skills that are not direcly tied to their trade.

Another picture of the wip work window. I will make a new blog post in the next 24 hours and tell you more about what to expect from this new system . It should be finished and released in early december, if everything goes well.

Small update. Work is progressing well. I have only two things left on my list.

• Add all the actual jobs
• Add atleast some job pictures

There are around 100 different jobs in total so that's one of the reasons why this update is taking so long.

Also, next version will be the first ever "test" version. New test NPC will spawn in your hideout and allow you to test the new work system. It's going to be horribly unbalanced and buggy and I will need community help with that, Old work system will still be usable so if you want to play the newest version, you can safely ignore the work overhaul.

If everything goes acording to plan, new version should be released this weekend.

Christmas season is coming to an end, so I'm slowly resuming my work on Sinathir. Still working on getting all the schedule options working. Next up is the "hangout" option.

I'm working on a system that will enhance the scheduling a bit.

I will be adding simple cutscenes that will play after you accept your schedule. These cutscenes will show up once in a while and will depend on the activities you scheduled.

For example, you will get a cutscene on your first ever day of working as a farmer. This one will basicaly show how unskilled you are. You will get a next cutscene after you raise your farming skill a bit, showing how you improved. 

These will have static backgrounds and be quite short, which will make them easy to make while still showing how you are progressing / getting better and how other NPCs react to that.

Next patch should come out this week. It will include some minor bugfixes, hangour option for all major NPCs (with exceptions like Mr. White and the Generals), and basis of the cutscene work system.

Cutscene system in this initial version will be barebones in presentation, but it will have all the functions I want it to have. I will be addind support for some kind of animation that will show you days of the week and count down untill you hit a day with a cutscene. 

Only interactions with Billy will have cutscenes in this version.

The way they trigger is simple. The game will check your schedule and then look at a list of conditions for triggering a cutscene. All cutscenes will trigger only once per playthrough and you can get only one cutscene per week for now. All of them have around 5 lines of text, so adding a skip function like the proper cutscenes have is not necesary.

For example, if your farming level is lower than 10, you spend atleast one day working for Billy and you select farming related job, you will get a cutscene where Billy explains the very basics to you. Different cutscene will play if you select smithing related job from Billy. 

The system I made is easy to work with and all cutscenes are supposed to be really short. Adding large number of them should be quick and easy while making your characters progression more interesting.

Favor window is now pretty much feature complete and all the obvious bugs and shortcomings were fixed.

One of the shortcomings of this system was the lack of dialogue. This system pretty much removes need for any of the dialogue you got from some NPC when you raised their relationship level and they gave you something. 

Now you can just ask for those items directly from the favor window, which makes the NPCs feel less "real". 

I adressed this in two ways. First are cutscenes, which are already in the game and work quite well.

Second, I added two lines of dialoge for every favor you can pick. When you pick any favors from the menu and return to game, you will get multiple lines of dialogue depending on what you picked.

Is I said in the recent blog post, tying both the favor and schedule systems together and replacing the old work system will take some time. Don't expect any bigger updates any time soon.

Work is progressing well. I decided to add an option for favors you can pick repeatedly. For example, olaf will give you free ammunition as many times as you want (If you have enough spare favor points).

This will make raising relationship with different NPCs more important for certain types of characters. Billy will give you seeds, suong will give you some food, Tadeas will give you potions and so on.

Also, here are all the things that I have to do before I release new version:

• Add favor lists to all NPCs
• Add favor dialogue to all NPCs
• Tie jobs / training and favor lists together
• Do changes to maps reflecting some picked favors (Can't use some crafting stations without permission)
• Rework the week report screen to make it work together with scheduling system
• Add construction to scheduling system and change all construction projects
• Playtest and balance everything

I'm working on the first four points together and all necesary systems are in place, but it's still going to take quite a bit of time to put everything in and double check everything. Week report screen will need complete rewrite, but that should be quite easy. Construction will be slightly more difficult. 

Can't give you any estimates as of yet, but don't expect the update this month.

Small update. All character favor data and jobs should be in the game. I decided to delay the addition of construction so that I can release this update sooner. There is still quite a bit of work to be done and I will have to rework the entire tutorial to reflect these changes, but I should be able to finish the update in the first half of the month. Unless something unexpected happens.

And the schedule window will now let you leave without accepting the schedule.

The report screen is now practicaly finished.

Last thing to is is to overhaul the tutorial and test everything. If I don't encounter any serious crashes, then I will release the next beta version. I will be doing some more testing after that and fix any bugs I or you find. After that, I will add construction to the scheduling.

Next version is now in the final testing phase. All construction projects should be in and should work. Now I just have to test things to make sure there are no crashes or major bugs. You can expect next update this friday, if everything goes smoothly. Here is how the construction system works:

1. Start a project. Get all skills and materials you need.
2. Project board will now show as green check mark instead of the black hammer. This means that everything is ready and now you just have to schedule some days for the construction.
3. Go to the schedule menu by entering your tent or bed.
4. Go to construction tab and select the specific projects. The number of days you need to schedule is displayed in the middle bottom pannel, in this case it's two days.
5. Number of days you need to schedule that is displayed in the bottom middle and bottom right pannel will get lower with every day you set.
6. The project will be finished once you schedule enough days to reach "0". Project name in the bottom right pannel will turn green. You won't be able to schedule more days to this project so you don't have to worry about wasting days by accidentaly scheduling more days than necesary.
7. Accept the schedule. If you number of days equaled to "0", your project will be finished. If not, then you will have to schedule the rest for the next week.

This system gives you more freedom with your schedule and it gives me more freedom to make construction projects more interesting. All projects in previous versions either took no time to build, one week or one month. Now they can take as much time as I want and you are not forced to put entire week into doing nothing but building. You can build a "7" days project in exactly one week, or you can work on it slowly by scheduling only one day for seven weeks.

Construction progress now shows up in the week report window. This means all the features I wanted in the version 0.38 are there.

I will now start slowly working on the faction system. I will wait about 2 weeks before releasing the final 0.38 version in case some bug reports show up or if I find any my self. If nothing crops up, then I will release the full 0.38 version.

So if you find any bugs or have some suggestions related to the schedule system, don't be afraid to post them.

Once the 0.38 version is fully released, I will start fully focusing on the faction system, starting with the church. I will talk more about this system once I have something to show.

Small QoL feature I've been working on today.

I wasn't happy with the limited amount of save slots on offer, but I also kinda liked the limitation in some way. To make save management more forgiving and pleasant, I implemented "save profiles". Every character you make will have its own save folder with separate save slots. Each character still has only five save slots, but the amount of characters you can have is pretty much unlimited. 

This system will detect and move your previous save files into "-OLD-" folder. Here you can load your old characters. Saving the game while playing those old files will create new folders depending on your characters name.

Faction overview screen will show you all factions you encountered, your rank, standing points and it will also give you short description of your relationship and short faction description. Pretty much every NPC will belong to a faction.

I didn't post any progress reports for quite some time, so I decided to show you atleast a little part of what I'm currently working on.

Among other things, my main focus right now is adding a proper intro to the game. This will show you the events between your arrival and Billy making your hideout.

This intro will mainly serve as a story / lore introduction. The gameplay tutorial begins right after it ends, like it does in the current version. Intro sequence will be mostly on rails and focus heavily on cutscenes and dialogue options, where you can ask Billy about the island, different factions, recent events and so on.

You will be able to skip the intro at any time, since it will be pretty much one long cutscene, so you won't have to sit through it if you find it boring or if you are on your second playthrough. 

There are some small systems that I will have to add to make this all work, but nothing major. Together with the intro sequence, I will also be expanding existing dialogue topics to other NPCs. No eta. for the next update yet, but I hope I can finish it before christmas.

Apart from new dialogue for the last remaining NPCs, new version will also have some mechanical and QoL changes.

Description screens will now show you more details about guns.

Some pictures from two of the new maps. Again, each of them will have something interesting in them and a reason to re-visit them later.

One of the new maps will have new mining spot, so I finaly got around to redesigning the resource extraction mechanic.

It is quite simple. The game automaticaly selects the best tool for the job. Depending on your total score, which is a total of tool quality and divided physical atributes, you will be able to gain certain types of resources. In the picture, you can see that at score level 0, you get only rocks. If you get a better tool, or increase your physical stats, you will be able to get some copper from this deposit at score level 10.

To increase the amount of resources you gain, you spend more endurance. Endurance spent is divided into 10 stages and goes from 10% to 100% of your max endurance stat. So if your max endurance is 100 and you go through some fighting, which leaves you with 80 endurance, you will only be able to use enough endurance for stage 8, which multiplies your gained resources by 8. Quite straight forward.

This new system will give more use to endurance and it will make resource gain more controlable. In previous versions, you could level your character a bit, mine once and get hundreds of resources, making you never use that system again.

I added wellness loss indicator to combat screen. And while I was at it, I also changed the fonts a little to make the numbers a little more visible.

PS.: I think I have done quite a few things for the upcoming version. I will do some more testing and make some last minute changes and additions. There is a good chance the next version will get released in the next 7 days.

Woodcutting has been reworked to use the new mining system.

I will try and add a foraging system, which will use the same framework and mining does, with some minor changes. On top of that, I’m working on next batch of maps.

And done.

On top of that, some resource gathering activities will now get bonus from certain trade skills, not just physical atributes.

Adding new trade skills to the game is not that easy, mainly because some of the systems I needed to edit were very old, convoluted and badly documented. But everything should work fine now.

Thievery is not coming any time soon, but I wanted to refresh my memory on some of those old systems and it worked. Now back to the new maps and the faction work.

One way to gain faction standing is going on missions. These will be small dungeons / encounters that can only be cleared with certain party members.

This means you won’t be able to take any of your friends with you. Instead, you will get a bunch of generic characters you can pick from and assemble you squad. I’m currently working on a screen that will let you do just that.

This is still obviously work in progress, but you get the idea. You have three character slots. You switch between these with left and right arrow keys. And you have a character roster. You select individual characters with up and down keys. You can see their names, roles and items in the square windows. I will also add their HP and SP. Once you are happy with your selection, you accept and get teleported to the mission start.

That’s pretty much it. I plan to add different systems that interact with this screen. For example, some of those soldiers will not join you if your rank is too low, if they got hurt in previous mission and so on.

Last of the systems that was in dire need of update is lockpicking. Here is a small preview.

The way it works is pretty simple. Locks differe in size and complexity. Size equals the number of rows you will have to solve, complexity gives penalties to your percentages (more about those below)

You press left and right to “probe” lock pins.Pressing the action button then pushes the pin back. If the pin was correct, it stays locked back and you advance to the next row. If the pin was incorect, there is a 90% chance you will break your pick.

Each pick has certain number of probe atempts. If you use all of them, the pick breaks. Each pick breakage has a 70% chance to push you back one row.

Each probing atempt has certain chance to mark the pin you are probing. There is 5% chance it gets marked in full color (green and red), which tells you with 100% certainty if that pin is correct or wrong. There is 30% chance the pin gets marked with two colors (yellow and red / green), which tells you there is 60% chance that pin is correct or wrong, depending on the color.

So you probe the pins and hope your character tells you which pins are correct. If you run low on probe atempts and you get no mark, you can try and guess. This strikes a nice balance between player and character skill. These percentages and numbers will get better the higher your skill gets, so you will be able to open more difficult locks with less broken picks. It means you can open pretty much any lock right from the start, but the amount of lockpicks you will need will be huge if you have no skill. If your skill is really high, you will get marked pins more often, your picks will last longer and the will not break all of the time if you pick wrong pins or run out of uses.

Preview of new location This area will differ from other locations slightly. Mainly because you won’t really be able to enter it yet. You will have to join the German or Graveyard factions first and none of them are joinable yet. However, ther will still be a trader you can access and some alchemical plants.

Next update should be ready in a a day or two.

The initiation sequence is now about 75% complete.

The recruitment sequence is now fully finished.

Only few things remain before I can release the update. Finish the first mission and the quartermaster system.

Update is pretty much finished. I will now do some testing to make sure it doesn’t explode, but I’m 100% certain there will be some bugs present at release. That’s why I will release this update as a testing version. This means that you should back up your saves. Everything else will remain the same and the entire game will be playable like it was before.

New version will be released in a day or two.

I returned to working on Sinathir a week ago and I don’t have that much to show yet, but I decided to give you a short list of things I want to finish before releasing the full 0.44 version update.

• One new mission type

• Rework ambush mission to account for player rifle skill and change number of enemies between two variations

• Add pre-promotion cutscene with Captain Vogel in the dining area

• Add new rank

• Promotion cutscene

• New uniform

• Atleast two mini dungeons / missions

• Atleast two new items for the quartermasters

• Unlock the training area and add training half day activities

• New schedule options

• Russian encounters to the world map

And more. For example, I extended the shield points system and gave it to almost all armor pieces. On top of that, I will give different armor pieces different AGI and DEX penalties depending on the armor type. Heavy armor will decrease your DEX and AGI by roughly 25%, medium armor for 10% and light for 0%. This should make armor more interesting and make chosing an armor more complex than just looking at the pure armor reduction value.

Here is a preview of the new “campfire resting” screen

Every campfire in the game will let you rest. You will be able to distribute few points between vitality and endurance. The number in the brackets is the percentage you will restore.

Resting will advance time by half a day and you have to use all free hours in one go, so it will be better to rest only when you really need to.

Next patch will also include one new cutscene and some minor changes and fixes.