Here I'm going to post images, gifs or videos from future updates.
You can get the motorcycle pretty much right from the start. I made the quest for its aquisition very simple and quick for now. I will make it harder in the future.
This is suposed to be one of the first vehicles you will get in the full game, so it has some disadvantages. Future vehicles will be faster, allow you to have followers and will be able to ride through more types of terrain.
One thing that will be missing in next version will be visible clothing / mutations while sitting on the motorcycle. I modified the script so it works with vehicles wihout a problem and I added differen hair color sprites for riding sprites as a proof, but adding all those clothing and mutation sprites would take way too much time. I will be turning main character into a model in near future anyway so it would be pointless work.
I'm working on a new cutscene and I found out the system that shows NPC sprites while in dialogue (One of the first scripts I wrote) was incredibly bad. So I rewriten it from scratch. Now it is about 40 lines instead of 500. NPCs can now talk between each other plus adding new NPC sprites doesn't require any new code. And as a bonus, it doesn't require me to go through any text.
I will try and go through previous cutscenes and make them take advantage of this system.
I did more improvements to the save screen. It now shows your current location and the character background now also changes depending on the save location. It also supports even the biggest girls (Thanks Osur for the suggestion).
Thanks for reporting. Imprints created on version 0.23.1 worked fine, but those created before didn't. I fixed the issue (I hope) and release new version, 0.23.2. Be sure to write if it's still broken.
I also fixed the problem with the mutant hunter. Thanks for reporting.
As a sidenote, I created new topic specificaly for bug reports. In the future, I would like everyone to post any bugs you find there, or in the latest blog post. Thanks.
War screen has now all important features in working order. I can control the battle size and place enemies. Players can place soldiers and initiate fighting. Soldiers attack enemies in oposing rows (Red ATK soldiers attack front rows, blue ATK soldiers attack back rows). If there are no enemies in the proper row, they attack the other row. If both rows are empty, the battle ends and you either win or lose.
Things left to do for war window:
I will also have to make recruitment windows, command squad editing windows and war map windows. After that, I will have to plug all of that into the game properly by making changes and adding conditions to the overworld.
I'd like to, but I will have to get it into good enough state, which means implementing all bullet points above and the rest of the windows, except for the animations a UI steps. I might be able to make it in time for the next demo day.
Basic abilities are now working. Most of the abilities will be buffs or debuffs, so that's what I'm focusing on now. Every turn, you get a command point (you will be able to change the amount you get and the max amount by putting different people into your command squad). Abilities cost points. Most abilities will last for the duration of the battle, unless you decide to change the composition for that slot. Morale also works. It decreases by one every turn. You will be able to increase both the starting value and the value while in battle.
Abilities will still need more work. I need to make enemy targeting abilities and healing abilities.
Took a break from the battle window and "finished" most other windows. They work as they should, but they are ugly and don't show all the important information. I will work on them more, don't worry.
"Dismantle" screen allows you to transform your old weapons into generic war resourcess. There are several resource types (Small melee, Heavy melee, Bows, Guns), so different weapons will give you different resourcess.
Recruiting is simple. You select soldier type you want to train. You need recruitable population (kobold grunt requires kobolds, war dogs require dogs and so on), correct weapon resource and armor resource.
Only screen left to do is the map screen, but even with that one done, there is still way too much work left to do. I will need to test everything properly and eliminate as many bugs as I can and redesigning parts of the system that are not fun. After that, I will have to balance everything as best I can and then I will have to make everything look better. Not to mention actualy putting everything into the game and making all the dialogue and world changes.
No ETA for release yet, but it is comming.
Meanwhile, I'm also playing around with other parts of the game. I'm editing the main character model, trying (and failing) to make new hairstyles and generaly slowly chipping away at all the other things I want to do.
Try to guess what that means.
If you guessed custom music, then you are correct.
Next version will allow you to use your own custom music in the game. Simply place your music files into the proper folder (Music in "Hideout" folder will play only in your hideout, music in the "Overworld" folder will play everywhere else. Caves and dungeons will still be silent and cutscenes will still force the proper music to play. The game will scan these folders and play one random track at the start of every week, just like it does now.
This serves as a basis for the future radio you will be able to get in the game. I don't have any original tracks yet so I decided to allow players to atleast play their own tracks for now.
I want to finish one last thing and then I will release next version. This picture should tell you what that thing is.
Farming overhaul is progressing smoothly. I completely scrapped the old system and made entirely new from scratch.
From that tiny gif you might be able to see that there is now no stutter when you harvest plants. And that's only one benefit of this new system. It is, at its core, much more simple than the previous one, but has more features I can actualy use. This is what this system can do right now
Bear in mind that fertiliser or growing periods probably won't be in the initial version, or they might not be in the game at all. Last thing remaining is to make the seed selection window and then I have to port all old plants into the new system.
Since I pretty much tore out a large part of the game, previous save files will NOT be compatiple with next version. Unlocks will still work fine and imprints should also work. But you won't be able to load your old files otherwise. I will try and add a popup to the game that tells you precisely what is happening instead of some random error message showing up.
So if you are in the middle of playing the game, be sure to finish what you started before you download the next version (0.26)
New farming system is now complete. There might be some bugs still present and some edges to smooth out, but I will be testing the game a lot this week so I hope I catch most of them.
The core of of farming is for the player pretty much the same. Largest changes are under the hood, but there are some differences.
First, there is new "tool chest" in your hideout. Using it will show the new farming UI.
Now you can press shift to show the new seed selection screen.
This screen shows all the seeds you have, as well as some information about the plant and the process. Growth period, amount of produce you will get, how many seads you have and how much produce you have. You simply select a seed and you can start planting like you did in previous versions. Step on the proper tile and and press action button, but now you just have to press the button once, since the selected seed will last until you select different one.
You can see the amount of seeds and produce you have together with plant name in the bottom right corner. This HUD element will dissappear if you close your tool chest, or when you rest or leave your hideout, so it won't bother you anywhere else in the game.
Plants will rot if you don't harvest them when they are ripe. Also, some plants will grow back after harvesting, like the tomatoes in above picture.
Last new thing is the "remove" tool. Now you can't accidentaly remove young plants by interacting with them too soon. If you want to remove unwanted plant, select the "remove plant" tool from the seed menu and interact with plants. Ripe plants will be harvested instead of being removed, so you realy can't accidentaly remove them.
As I said before, this system is much faster than the previous one and there is zero lag when harvesting or planting. It also gives me more freedom in designing new crops and is easy to expand. Planting is much faster also, since you select the seed you want to plant only once instead of multiple times for every tile you interact with.
Also bear in mind, this update will make old save files not work, so keep that in mind. I should release this new system sometime next week, if everything goes smoothly.
Another thing that will be in next smaller version.
I reworked the way inventory system works and while I was at it, I also added the expanded item description window.
Original RMXP inventory screen is pretty horendous. If you played Sinathir for some time, you might have noticed how slowly your inventory loads once you have large number of different items. In my testing, I gave my self all ingame items and I had to wait for several seconds before the inventory screen loaded. This was not my fault entirely, since this was happening in freshly created new projects too. This is happening because the game tries to render all items you have at once.
I edited the inventory screen, so it only renders first ten items and renders new items as you scroll down. There is no slowdown once the items are rendered, even when it is something crazy like 2000 items showing at once. It's the initial drawing that slows the game down.
Next, I added the description box I was talking about earlier. This will allow me to make longer descriptions for certain items and to show what they do. Things like showing exact stat gains from eating food, weapon damage type and ammunition and so on.
This is quite new, but it should be in the next version I will be releasing next week.
I cought some kind of cold, so my progress slowed down a bit. However, both the farming and description window is finished an only thing left is to test everything.
Descriptions were added into the shop and even equip screen, Most items use the default description text, but I added custom descriptions to all edible food items. They show you how much they affect different stats. I will do the same for drugs and do the rest in the upcoming months.
I also added very simple compatibility check. Load screen will simply label incompatible save files and make you unable to load them. Much better than the game crashing when you open the load window when you have old save file present.
This update should release early next week, unless I manage to finds some serious bug or something.
馃槍No longer do new players have to run around panicked like I did when I first found out about some saves not being compatible with new versions. Also, I hope your cold gets better Quentin!
More improvements to the new description system. Bonuses now have different color and they can display differently depending on the window.
I also made you able to move when certain NPCs are leaving the scene. Mainly John and Helena.
I will spend large portion of this week refining certain parts of the game. If everything goes smoothly, I will release new minor version before friday.
