So despite all the chaos that is happening in the world, development for Dead Monarchy continues. No fire will stop Dead Monarchy!
Today I just wanted to talk about my progress on the next major update which I guess you could call the "armor update". There is still a long way to go as the armors need to be rigged and new icons need to be made. I've been working on armors just on the side with my focus still being on addressing the more urgent issues that the world map has. The problem is just finding the time, but I am hoping to have something out by the end of this month in terms of an update to fix the economic issues.
The major armor update will be a complete visual overhaul of all the armor currently in the game and it also changes how the armor progression system works.
This update is part of the overall work that is being done to the world map. While there are broadly speaking three types of armor that being light, medium and heavy, they are restricted by level requirements. It means that you won't be able to wear heavy armor until very late in the game and that light armor progression finishes relatively early on.
I've now decided to make three definitive categories of armor with an even amount of armors within each category for a balanced progression. In other words, there will be high end light armor just as there will be low end heavy armor.
The world map introduced different types of shops in the settlements which sold different types of armor, but these types of armor were categorised mainly by their armor/helmet value. This also meant that some settlements would exclusively sell high end armor and other settlements would only sell low end armor. The armor update should address this issue by making it so that if a settlement specializes in light armor, it will sell a range of light armor from low end to high end. If you have a character that wants to specialise in light armor you can do so now and progress all the way to the end game as there will now be light armor that has higher level requirements.
The biggest hurdle with this update was the visuals. Each category of armor has 5 tiers and then added on top of that there are 5 broad cultural groups. I wanted to make it so that if you bought armor from Yamatar then it would look different to armor bought from Bretony. The visuals also needed to make sense, I couldn't have metal plated torso pieces pass off as light armor so each cultural group had to have relatively distinct light, medium and heavy armor pieces. Or in other words leather, reinforced leather, metal.
The other problem was deciding how unique each set should be, especially considering that the armor that I am currently designing is only worn by the sellsword companies. There are still other factions to do so it would not be realistic to create 75 unique helmets, one helmet for each set, per culture.
I ended up giving helmets less variation, but I feel the restriction has a positive effect on gameplay. So for example, rather then there being 5x tier 1 light helmets (one for each culture) there is only 1x tier 1 light helmet which is only available in one of the five realms. It gives the player more incentive to travel to different lands. That said, there will eventually be other factions that have helmets and armor that will fill in the gaps but of course that comes with the risk of having to fight them if you want to upgrade your armor.
I've decided to show off all the armors, so it might be excessive but it could also be a treat for the eyes. Keep in mind that this is only the armors intended to be worn by sellswords, there's still a lot more to do when I implement factions, but it is the first step towards that in a way. For the sellsword armor, I decided to go with more earthly colors, staying away from any bright colors but I feel that each set is still unique enough. The brighter more vibrant colors to me (first pass armors), felt really tacky and more suited towards the flamboyant noble houses.
I hope this demonstrates just how iterative development is and that sometimes I am willing to make drastic changes if I feel that it improves the game. Speaking of drastic changes, there is also something else I have been considering. I've been considering merging the basic attack body/head and break armor/helmet attacks into 2 attacks. So for example, if you attack the body, you first damage the armor then damage gets applied based on armor remaining, this would also apply to the head attack. I feel like this would streamline combat a bit more but also make combat feel more deadly, especially if I increased the amount of armor/helmet that weapons can reduce. In the long term, this also makes designing combat AI more viable as currently I have to run several checks just for the AI to make a relatively smart choice when it comes to using a basic attack.
These are hi-poly models, so they still need to be decimated before they are game ready, which means that the armors will lose some details when they are actually put into the game.
Nordanic Sellsword Armor from Vinmark:
Parthanite Sellsword Armor from Zabylon:
Khitanese Sellsword Armor from Yamatar:
Tiberian Sellsword Armor:
Anglish Sellsword Armor from Bretony:
With all this armor, I'm also thinking about randomising the armor values between a threshold just so things don't become static too fast. So far, these are the helmet/armor values I'm considering.
So if I was to randomise say the tier 1 light armor, the value could be between 35-50. The values are set up so that even the best medium armor won't have more armor value than the worst heavy armor. The alternative is to allow some crossover but still considering that.
The bonus stats that light, medium and heavy armors give will remain unchanged. IE light giving Stamina, medium giving Defense and heavy giving Resolve. If I was to stick with these values, I would probably make it so that heavy armor is also a lot more expensive to acquire.
The other thing is that eventually I will phase out "cultural armors" and they will be reworked into armor sets for other factions. That's everything for now, see you in the forums.
Cheers, Kevin.
Australia's Bushfire Crisis
Hey guys,
I'm sure some of you have heard of the bushfire crisis in Australia, it's been ravaging for months with no real end in sight and it has now gotten to the point where I have been personally affected too. I've been moving around a bit too and trying my best to keep in contact with relatives as I am deeply concerned about them.
I have no doubt though that this will just be another challenge on my development journey, a challenge that I'll overcome but I am just writing this to let you guys know of the current situation.
As an obligation to remain transparent to all my fellow players, if for some reason you guys don't hear from me just assume that I have been evacuated and that I do not have stable access to the internet. I understand that it is these types of situations that make players wary of solo developers but rest assured that I am still 100% committed to the development of my game.
With the release of the world map update to the public build there has been an influx of feedback and activity on the forums and I am extremely grateful for all the support. I am going to let it stew for a couple weeks and continue to gather more feedback, so please let me know what you think and what can be improved as I am taking it all down.
Right now the majority of my time is spent on weapon modelling with the freelance modeler. I know this might not make sense initially but please remember that freelancers come and go so I need to prioritize the work with them when they are available. Work with this particular freelancer has been extremely challenging but I am determined to see it through.
The goal for these next couple of months is to continue working on the world map, overhauling the armor system and to start implementing the weapon models into the game. Thanks again for all the support in 2019 and looking forward to 2020.
Cheers, Kevin.
Dev Update #13: Build 6.1 Live
Hey guys,
Dead Monarchy has now been in early access for just over half a year and what a crazy year it has been. I would like to thank everyone for their support and feedback over this year. I would also like to thank everyone that has reviewed the game. I generally only respond to reviews that need clarification as per Steam's moderator guidelines, but please know that I read every single review. Even if it isn't in English, I'll translate it as I truly value ALL feedback.
As of now, the community has grown to exactly 2019 members which I find is such a fitting number to round out the year's end. Going into next year, I will continue to work on polishing the world map and perk systems, so please if you have any feedback feel free to post it.
The next major update will be the armor update, in which I plan to rework the armor system and will be adding in new armor and also weapon models. The armor update will then naturally lead to the human factions update. There will also be smaller updates too that will incorporate more of the feedback on the forums now that the world map has transitioned to the live build.
I honestly did not think I would start on the world map this year, let alone get around to implementing the basic framework for it. It goes to show how hard it can be for predicting development times and that it isn't always just delays.
The last thing I want to address is my health. In early February I will be going in for a small operation, it is nothing life threatening but it has served as a valuable lesson to me. I can honestly say that this year, I have given it my all, to the point of giving up my own health. I've had to make some serious lifestyle changes to ensure that I can sustain development. Nothing has changed in the grander scheme, I still plan to develop DM for years but weekly updates is just not possible considering that I have to work a day job too.
I'd like to say that my dream is relatively modest, which is to be able to make games for a living but I'd probably work myself to death if I kept up with my old lifestyle. Doing the 9-5, then coming home to work on the game and getting a couple hours of sleep seems crazy but sometimes it is easy to get caught up in all the excitement.
Players may not understand, but I'm sure some developers would agree that sometimes development of a game can become incredibly "insular" to the point where you solely focus on the game and ignore a lot of other important things. This is just simply something that cannot be sustained for a long period of time and I think that is the harsh lesson I've learned this year.
If ever comes a day where I can make enough to quit my day job then I'd love nothing more than to work on DM, releasing more frequent updates but for now I'm hoping you guys will understand. For now, I am aiming for bigger, juicier updates as opposed to the smaller weekly updates.
Build 6.1 Patch Notes:
This is the update that brings the perks system and world map over to the live build. Please bear in mind that these two systems are still under heavy development but I consider them relatively stable now. This is also the update that will essentially render any existing save file from previous live builds, useless.
If you wish to continue playing your current campaign, you can opt into the "legacy" build, which is the old 3.1 build.
Instructions to opt into the old 3.1 build.
1. Within the Steam library list, right click 'Dead Monarchy", then select "Properties". 2. Towards the top of the window that pops up, click the "Betas" tab. 3. A dropdown menu list will then appear, select "legacy - Build 3.1". 4. The game should then automatically download and update to this build. 5. Once you have booted up the game, if you see "Build 3.1" in the main menu, then you are good to go.
Gameplay Tweaks:
- I have added an option in the options menu called "Daily Autosaving" it is only really needed for Ironman mode and it is disabled by default. Traversing the world map in Build 6 was incredibly clunky as each time a new day was triggered the game would freeze up for 10 seconds. I have done a lot of optimisation trying to speed up the new day transitions. If you enable "Daily Autosaving" you may experience a significantly smaller delay of about 1-2 seconds over 10 seconds however if you disable it entirely, the transitions to the next day should be seamless.
- Travelling over longer distances on the world map no longer requires the player to excessively click on the world map to continue movement after each new day is triggered. Or in other words, player movement is no longer interrupted when a new day is triggered.
- Updated the in-game tutorial as the world map, character avatar and perk systems have introduced quite a few drastic changes.
- All 5 settlements now have individual and unique names.
- Removed crowns from mission loot tables.
- Removed weapons from mission loot tables, ring drop chance lowered.
- Removed cultural armor from mission loot tables, can only acquire when completing siege missions or defeating a Monarch.
- Added level restrictions back to all weapons.
- Reduced chance of lumber resources spawning in marketplaces to encourage the player to travel to the different lands in order to acquire the resources.
- Added x3 Attack rings back to the starting inventory, these rings will provide a small starting buff to your party on a new playthrough.
- Siege money reward reduced from 10k to 5k.
- Money reward for killing a Monarch reduced from 50k to 20k.
- The maximum amount of food required for a single party member is now between 1-3, so basically the maximum threshold has been reduced from 5 to 3.
- I've tweaked the amount of EXP required for leveling up as the world map now allows the player to engage in a lot more combat scenarios compared to the older builds that only allowed 1 fight per turn/week.
- Tweaked some of the lighting settings in the world maps that affected trees.
- The perks system broke the range AI that the monsters used, I have gone through all the AI behaviors again and updated them, they should now be attacking properly again.
Cheers, Kevin.
Dev Update #12: Build 6 Live + 25% Off!
Instructions to opt into the beta/experimental branch:
1. Within the Steam library list, right click 'Dead Monarchy", then select "Properties". 2. Towards the top of the window that pops up, click the "Betas" tab. 3. A dropdown menu list will then appear, select "experimental - Experimental branch". 4. The game should then automatically download and update to this build. 5. Once you have booted up the game, if you see "Build 4" in the main menu, then you are good to go.
The World Map:
Build 6 is the largest update to date as it introduces the world map and player avatar systems to Dead Monarchy. To celebrate, Dead Monarchy is 25% off!
The world map drastically alters Dead Monarchy on many levels and due to real life commitments, I have not actually done much testing. As such, the plan is to keep these next few builds in the experimental branch for a couple weeks before moving it to the live build. Despite being in early access, I am reluctant to go straight to the live build as it may cast the wrong impression on players that are just discovering the game now.
I highly recommend starting a new game with this build, especially if it has been a couple months since you played as previous updates added things like difficulty levels and the perks system.
The rest of this text is almost structured like a tutorial. The tutorial is something I actually need to overhaul as the world map has changed a lot of things, so if you are interested in trying out this latest build (experimental branch), I would keep on reading.
There are now 5 large maps that can be fully traversed, each map represents a biome. You will always start in Bretony (forest biome) and from there, you can travel to other lands via boats.
The player base now has a physical presence on the map as well and it is something you need to actively defend. Any characters that are garrisoned within the base will partake in base assault missions while the main party is out in the world. If you enter the base a day before the siege commences, when you end the day and the siege triggers the day after, your active party can partake in the siege instead. If you are wandering the world and you have no garrison in the base when it is attacked, then you will lose 25% Company Morale and any upgraded buildings will be reduced by 1 level.
Since the player base has a physical presence in the world that also makes exploring the distant lands/maps harder as you can no longer heal (Condition) and repair equipment as easily. As such, two new items have been introduced to all marketplaces in the towns (Herbs and Tools) that can be used to repair and heal condition on characters. To use those items, select the character and drag the item over the portrait or right click to use the item. Healing and repairing within the base will always be cheaper, but it is something the player needs to plan for when traveling beyond Bretony as you no longer have a base of operations.
Some buildings have been taken out the base, but in the future I will consider adding new ones. The buildings that have been taken out (camp, marketplace, headquarters) have been assigned to the towns that populate the maps. Each map has 10 towns and the towns have various vendors.
Different vendors sell different weapons and armor. I have to mention again that this is the first pass of the world map, the armor will feel a bit skewed but that is the next update I am working on. Lots of things still need to be added to the world map or tweaked, in order for it to feel as streamlined as the game did before the world map was added.
Monarchs now also have a physical presence on the world map, each map will have a lair that contains a Monarch. The Monarchs will move around the map though and will not always be present at their own bases. If a Monarch is present, the icon for it will appear on the map, if there is no icon it means the Monarch is elsewhere meaning it will show up on a contract. As of now, the game still revolves around hunting down and killing the 5 Monarchs.
Contracts for now are the main way the player will sustain their company. Contracts replace the old UI system that was used to distribute missions. The missions themselves have not changed, it is just how they are distributed that has changed. There are three difficulty levels for contracts (easy, medium, hard) and the old difficulty levels have been assigned to those three levels. IE, the old mission difficulty level 1-4 is now all considered as easy level contracts.
Every town has a single contract at any time that will be easy, medium or hard. As the days progress, the contracts will expire and new ones will be replaced if the player does not accept them. The player can only ever have one active contract. If the player accepts the contract, the player is asked to go to a marked location, complete the contract and then return to town. Again as of now, I am still tweaking the values and rewards, there are still things left over from the old builds that need to be tweaked for the world map.
A new quest/contract UI will appear in the top left hand corner whenever the player is on an active contract and you can cancel the contract by pressing the X button. If the player does cancel a contract or completes the contract, there will not be another contract immediately available at the same town, the player will have to wait for some time before a new contract is assigned to it or to just travel to another town. Sometimes though, a new contract may appear soon after the previous one was completed/canceled if a new day begins shortly after.
The way time progresses has been completely changed as well, although it is also subject to tweaking. When the player is out in the world, time progresses based on movement. So there are 24 hours in a day and the hours will increment based on player movement. When a new day is triggered, daily wages and food are distributed, contracts roll for renewal, shops are restocked, Monarchs are shifted around etc etc, so a bit of strain is naturally placed on the CPU and as such, it will take a few seconds to finish. At this point, it is kind of like ending your turn in a Total War game. I will try to look for better solutions for optimization though in the future.
The other way to progress time is to end the day while you are in the player base, ending your turn in the player base will add 24 hours though. So if it is the 6th hour on day 3, ending your day in the base will progress it to the 6th hour of day 4.
Changing how time scales has also changed the amount of time it takes to upgrade new buildings. Since resources are also tied to specific biomes and the biomes are tied to the maps which require physically walking there in most cases, the requirements for buildings have been tweaked to reflect these new changes. Again this is subject to community feedback.
As mentioned earlier, there is now a player avatar as well. The player will be able to name the avatar before starting a new game as well as the company and the name of the player base. The player avatar will most likely be your strongest character, as it has boosted stats and stat development. It also starts out with some decent armor. Player avatars also have unique portraits to make it easier to distinguish. The player avatar cannot be garrisoned within a base (IE put into reserves), it will always be in your active party as it is you. The player avatar will never leave you either even if Company Morale is at 0% but it is still subjected to Company Morale penalties. This means that the only way you can lose the game is if your player avatar dies. That also means that if your player character is participating in a siege battle, it is an extremely risky thing to do as you cannot retreat from a siege battle.
Lastly, I have added in some basic "filler terrain" which basically serves to hide map edges. In the future, I may add in some basic environmental props as well.
The world map adds another pillar to Dead Monarchy and represents a huge step forward. A couple years ago, I really did not think this was possible, especially for one guy. Not only is this now a reality but I ended up starting on the world map several months earlier than I had originally anticipated. I suppose the harsh reality is I had to compromise somewhere and that ended up being my health.
There is a lot more work to do, but I thank everyone for their support and especially patience. Thank you for understanding my own personal struggles, all the thoughtful comments really do help. If you wish to further your amazing support, please consider writing a review!
What's Next?
For the remainder of this year, I will be implementing some of the feedback that I have received on the forums. I am also sure that I will receive feedback on the world map update so I will be focusing on that as well as finally doing my own testing of the world map. Going into the new year, the next major content update will be the armor overhaul. I will be updating and adding new armor models, reworking how armor works and probably also start adding in some new weapon models. The plan for next year is to alternate between the world map and the perks system.
Here are some screenshots of the new weapon models that are currently in the works. At this point, I am leaning towards having both unique models and also having texture variations between each model. Researching and designing the weapons took a lot of work, ultimately I am keeping things grounded and more "realistic".
Also, here are a couple of new armor models that will replace some of the European armor sets. I wasn't too fond of the tabbards. These sets will probably be used by the noble houses that reside within Bretony when the human factions get added in. Previous tabbards were a bit too short and I wanted something modular that I could easily texture.
Build 6 Patch Notes:
The changelog for this update does not really reflect the amount of work that has been done over the past few months, but it should sum up the major points.
New Stuff:
- Added 5 maps to explore, each map has 10 towns. Entire systems have been overhauled to accommodate to the world map.
- Player avatar has been added. The player now has a character that represents the player. It has its own unique portrait and has boosted stats and stat growth. If the player avatar dies in combat, it is game over.
- New music tracks have been added to all 5 maps.
Various Tweaks:
- The new combat animations have been temporarily removed, I need to rework them.
- Changed swamp ambient audio to something a little less intrusive.
- Added in basic filler environments for terrains that can be optionally enabled. This is basically if you do not want to play with a black void surrounding the battle maps. These environments will most likely be improved on in the future, I may add more environmental props.
- Updated the retreat zone highlights to something a little more visible. Moving onto a retreat tile will now cost your full turn (12 AP).
- The player base now has a physical presence on the map and can only be accessed while the player is in Bretony. There is now a garrison mechanic where if the base gets attacked, only the garrisoned members will fight, if no one is garrisoned the base buildings will be reduced by 1 level and Company Morale will be reduced.
- Going on expeditions is a lot harder now beyond Bretony as you do not have support from a base. New items (Herbs and Tools) have been added to marketplaces that will increase Condition by +5 and fully repair equipment.
- Monarchs now have a physical presence on the map. You can attack their bases just like they can attack yours, but Monarchs will not always be at their location either. If they are not in their bases, they will show up during contracts. So now, the player can take the fight directly to the Monarchs instead of just waiting for them to show up.
- The way missions are distributed has been completely reworked. Missions now dubbed as contracts, are given out by the various towns that you visit, there are 3 difficulties. Level scaling and loot still remains the same as of now and will need to be tweaked.
- When the player takes on a contract, a new UI will show up in the top right hand corner. There will be a quest marker (coin) on the map showing you the location you need to travel to. You can cancel the active contract by clicking the X button within the UI.
- A bug where if all your characters retreat but during the retreat, one of them dies and triggers an endless loop should have been fixed.
- Reworked the daily intake and wages UI to hopefully be clearer as to what is being deducted per day.
- Time is now progressed based on movement and is incremented in days not weeks anymore. As such, building upgrade times and resources have been tweaked, this is still subject to change.
- Tweaked some of the lighting, but more work needs to be done (when I get time).
Cheers, Kevin.
General Update #16: October News
Hey guys,
It has been a very busy month and I apologise for the lack of updates, but sometimes life just gets in the way of things especially when you are a solo developer. Earlier I've had to cope with the loss of a family member and all the procedures that follow after someones death like getting death certificates approved and contacting government services etc and in addition to that, I've had a few health issues myself. Recently gotten multiple blood tests and a CT scan, but so far the results are positive so I am very grateful for that.
That said, I have not been idle with development and I in fact have been pushing forward. The main reason for the delay is again tied to the world map. There is a 3rd party tool that I use that is related to the maps and there is currently an issue that I am waiting for to be patched out. So because of that, I cannot really move forward with an update. So I'm doing my best to work around it and wait until the new patch releases.
Earlier in the month I showed pictures of the forest biome map and I have mentioned on the forums that the upcoming update would only include the forest biome map but due to having to wait for this tool to update, I've actually gone ahead and sculpted the other 4 maps.
The buildings will eventually be overhauled, I still need to create the architecture for each biome, currently all buildings are just using one tileset, but the sculpting for the terrain has at least been finished.
It is honestly a lot of work and my doctor says I should be resting more, but I wanted to at least get this done before the end of the year and things look to be on track. The stressed peaked today when I locked myself out of my house, left my wallet inside with the keys/money and was refused by a medical clinic that I had waited over a month and a half to get a booking in. That said, you can't sweat the small stuff lol. For now, I am just hoping you guys can understand my current situation. I'll release a new update as soon as I can. ːsteamhappyː
These pictures were taken directly from the editor, so the proper lighting is not present.
Forest:
Wasteland (Plains):
Desert:
Swamp:
Tundra:
Cheers, Kevin.
General Update #15: Next Update
Hey guys,
I just wanted to make a quick announcement, there won't be any updates for a couple weeks as I've run into an issue with the world map implementation that requires my full attention. To keep it short, it is just a time consuming thing I need to work through, it isn't a funding issue or anything like that. In addition to that, I have started implementing the "player character" into the game and there is a laundry list of things I need to test and overhaul to make it work. The next update will be the world map + player character and it probably won't be out until the end of next month. Once these huge features are in, I'll resume the weekly updates again.
Also thanks to everyone for the recent feedback on the forums, I have read through it all and will be looking into implementing some of those suggestions. I am still looking for more feedback on Build 5.2 which is currently on the experimental beta branch (perks system), so if you have some free time please consider diving into that.
Cheers, Kevin.
General Update #14: Overworld Map
Hey guys,
So today I just wanted to talk a bit more about the world and show you all what I've been working on this past month. As the title suggests, it's the overworld map. This is part of the core gameplay and as such it will take probably at least a year before I am finished implementing everything I want to get in. That said, I want to release the overworld map in smaller chunks. I'll probably release the first overworld map update sometime next month, this is surprisingly several months ahead of schedule.
So as you know, in the world of Dead Monarchy, there is something known as "The Great Mistake" and for better or worse it has plunged the world into chaos. It's obviously not the first time an RPG has come up with this setting and it won't be the last, but for me it's a tool I use to craft the world I want and more specifically, the gameplay around it.
There was no great demon invasion but rather, a series of "natural" disasters that has reverted what you could consider a feudal society into something a bit more primal. The lands are not as safe to travel so what settlements remain both serve as protection and a hole to die in.
One of the natural disasters was a great flood that has essentially fractured the continent into several smaller landmasses which then further isolated the surviving communities.
This then plays into how I want to implement the overworld map. I've been thinking about this for a while and I've decided to split the landmass up into smaller chunks with the player being able to travel between these maps. This is obviously better for performance but it also allows me to easily add in more maps to explore in the future and the smaller landmasses makes it easier to sculpt.
I don't know how many maps I'll do at this point, but the actual terrain itself is 2km x 2km, with the island taking up about 75% of the actual terrain and the rest of the terrain being water.
The first thing you might have noticed if you've been following previous updates is that I've dropped the 2D tileset. I ended up running into a lot of issues with it and it didn't help that a few games have already been released on Steam with that tileset too. Placing 3D models for locations on a 2D background also looked a bit off, so I bit the bullet and decided to go for fully 3D overworld maps.
The biggest challenge for the world map was figuring out how to implement time. Time is a crucial thing as it plays into the company management gameplay. What I've decided to go with is having time increment as the player moves as opposed to always ticking away. This gives me more flexibility for future events when I add them in as it basically allows me to check a whole bunch of things directly tied to the player.
The other thing I've started implementing are all the scripts for defining different shop types for the cities. IE merchants that sell swords, shafted weapons, bows and different armor types. Each city has 2 of these merchant types, a camp to hire new recruits, general marketplace for supplies and 1 active contract that the player can take.
The player base will lose some buildings, like the marketplace and camp (recruitment) but it still retains its purpose and will be elaborated again in the future.
Again it is early days, but currently each city only offers one contract at a time, Contracts come in three difficulty levels but it is based off the old difficulty system. So a level 1 contract has enemies that scale between difficulty 1-4. There are no dialogue events right now, but I have set it up to allow for dialogues in the future. Also, the contracts themselves are still just extermination missions.
All in all, going 3D and finding the best way to create these landmasses was a very steep learning curve but it was still enjoyable. As this is my first game, it has been both a journey and a learning process.
I've learnt that there is a fundamental difference between a solo developer and even a team of 2 or 3, the difference is night and day with the main culprit being that the entire game rests on your shoulders. It became blatantly obvious to me as these past few weeks have been quite hard on me following the death of a family member but it has also made it even more clear to me that before I leave this world too, I'd like to create a world of my own.
Cutting to the chase, development has not been affected in a negative way, I've been keeping busy as a way to cope with the stress. I do find it funny though, as a player I have read similar updates regarding a loved one's passing but it never really hits you as you finish reading and carry on with your life. Yet there isn't anything expected of you either and knowing that you have read this is enough for me, as writing this is a way of moving on for me too.
Anyway, to end this on a cheery note, thanks to all the recent feedback and support on the forums, it's funny how that one seemingly innocent message you write brightens up my day. It is also nice to see that the community is nearing 2k members.
Cheers, Kevin.
Dev Update #11: Build 5.2 Live
Build 5.2 Patch Notes:
Still spending the majority of my time working on the world map systems, but I have also found the time to start implementing the custom animations that I've been working on.
EDIT: I've just realized that I didn't update the build number, I'll be uploading a new build with the proper build number shortly.
New Stuff:
- The "Head Attack" for swords now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Head Attack" for axes now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Head Attack" for maces now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Head Attack" for greatswords now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Head Attack" for warhammers now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Head Attack" for greataxes now has its own unique combat animation.
Bug Fixes:
- The idle animation for the warhammer has been fixed, it is now looping properly.
Dev Update #10: Build 5.1 Live
Build 5.1 Patch Notes:
I am currently spending the majority of my time on implementing the world map systems. There is a plethora of things that I need to tick off but progress is steady. That said, I am still aiming to upload weekly builds, albeit they will be smaller for the time being.
New Stuff:
- The "Body Attack" for swords now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Body Attack" for axes now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Body Attack" for maces now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Body Attack" for greatswords now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Body Attack" for warhammers now has its own unique combat animation.
- The "Body Attack" for greataxes now has its own unique combat animation.
Bug Fixes:
- The bug in the battle loot UI, where pressing "all" will take all items instead of showing all item types has been fixed. The "take all" button still remains at the bottom, previously pressing either of these buttons would transfer all loot which was not intended.
- The issue of having multiple portraits highlighted when swapping between specific menus like vault, arena and temple has been fixed. From now on the last portrait that was highlighted will be used when swapping between vault, arena and temple menus.
Dev Update #9: Build 5 Live!
Build 5 Patch Notes:
Build 5 continues to expand upon the newly implemented "perks system". In total, there are now just under 300 individual perks (including weapon abilities) which are derived from the 10 "perk type effects". Internally, I classify "perk type effects" as something that is unique from a coding perspective, IE a perk to gain +5 Strength and a perk to gain +5 Focus belong to the same perk type effect but they are still two individual perks that both cost one PP each to acquire. I just wanted to clarify this as I still have more plans for the perks system. For now however, I would like to just gather feedback on it and tweak things based on community feedback as opposed to adding more perks.
The perks system has also revamped character progression tying it closer to the perks system and each warrior now has the ability to bring up to two weapon sets into combat provided they have the correct perks. So yes, weapon swapping is in and it will no doubt give the player more options in combat.
Again this build is being uploaded to the experimental branch first, so I'd appreciate it if you guys played it and offered me some feedback. The main reason why I have opted to created two branches is to allow players to finish their older playthroughs before transitioning to the new perks system builds. In a couple weeks I will most likely be making these builds live.
Instructions to opt into the beta/experimental branch:
1. Within the Steam library list, right click 'Dead Monarchy", then select "Properties". 2. Towards the top of the window that pops up, click the "Betas" tab. 3. A dropdown menu list will then appear, select "experimental - Experimental branch". 4. The game should then automatically download and update to this build. 5. Once you have booted up the game, if you see "Build 4" in the main menu, then you are good to go.
New Stuff:
- Added new combat idle animation for rapier.
- Added new combat idle animation for 2H greatsword.
- Added new combat idle animation for 2H warhammer.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to allow for attacking on higher elevation.
- All melee abilities now have perks to reduce their Stamina/Focus use cost.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to reduce their cooldown timers.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to reduce their AP cost.
- There is now a set of perks that will increase the chance of gaining +1 for a specific stat on level up. There are 5 tiers, each tier adds +20%. So for example, +20% to gain +1 Strength, +40% to gain +1 Strength, +60% to gain +1 Strength, +80% to gain +1 Strength, +100% to gain +1 Strength. On a side note, not all perks will have tiers, some perks will be individual perks that have no other "upgraded versions".
- There is now a series of perks that can increase each primary stat in increments of +5 up to +25. These perks are found in the "Progression Perks" tab.
- There is now also a set of perks that will reduce the hit chance penalty that is applied when targeting the head. It is found in the "General Perks" tree. The highest tier perk is applied by default to all monsters/enemies.
- There are a series of "Reflection" perks, one for each primary stat. You gain half your combat level as a bonus to X primary stat. The changes are not retroactive, so it is important to decide when you want to take the perk. Waiting and taking this perk at a higher level does mean a bigger stat boost. These perks are found in the "Progression Perks" tree.
- Each character can now bring up to two sets of weapons into combat. For example Sword + Shield and Crossbow. When you swap weapons in combat, you do not receive the full bonus to primary stats that you would normally get if you equipped the weapon. For example you equip a Mace that gives +2 Stamina, you'll start combat with that bonus but if you swap to an Axe that gives +2 Resolve, your maximum Resolve will be increased by +2 but you will not gain the full amount. This is both a way to balance weapon swapping so that there is still a valid reason to just specialize in just one weapon but it is also necessary due to how the extra stat bonuses themselves are applied.
- A series of perks have been implemented for "weapon swapping". It is basically an ability that goes on your shortcut bar. By default, it costs 12 AP and you can eventually reduce it down to 0 AP.
Gameplay Tweaks:
- The implementation of all these new perks has resulted in a few abilities getting their cooldown timer, use cost and AP cost adjusted, this would be in the case of an ability that has yet to be improved by perks.
- Stat progression has been changed. At Veteran and Monarch difficulty, characters now only gain +1 in the two stats they are proficient in based on their backgrounds. At lower difficulties, characters gain +2 in their proficient stats. Characters no longer gain levels in stats that they are not proficient in. This then paves the way for stat boosting perks.
- Each warrior can now only acquire 6 active abilities from the perks tree.
- Attacking the "Head" with either Attack/Shoot Head or Break Helmet now has a -50% hit chance penalty. In other words, the bonus +50 that used to be added (hit chance formula) is now only added to attacks that target the body or weapon abilities. This only applies to basic attacks to the head, it does not affect abilities.
- "Fatigued" now applies when you have less than 5 Stamina (0-4) as opposed to 0 Stamina.
- All tiers of longbow weapons now only do +10 Break damage to Helmet/Armor values.
UI Updates:
- Updated difficulty selection menu to reflect the changes to stat gains. Also increased the texture resolution of the choice buttons as they were starting to blur at larger resolutions.
- Fixed the issue of equipped weapon types not displaying properly in the "arena menu" and instead just showing up as "unarmed" despite having a weapon equipped.
- Due to the fact that I have added difficulty levels in now, you can now specify a specific amount within a stack to sell.
- Changed all references of the "claymore" weapon type to "greatsword".
- Changed all references of the "halberd" weapon type to "polearm".
- Changed all references of the "hatchet" weapon type to "axe".
- Changed all references of "rusty" weapons to "basic" weapons, as something like a "Rusty Longbow" doesn't really make sense.
- Added in a confirmation message when exiting the game with manual loading/saving enabled.
- Arena UI has been further updated. There is a UI element in the bottom left corner that displays all the perks acquired on the currently selected warrior, this should make it easy to keep track of what each warrior has. There are now also two UI elements that display the equipped weapons from both set 1 and set 2 since you can now swap between two weapon sets. Tweaked minor UI element positions.
- The camp, barracks and battle placement UI have been updated to support the additional slots for weapon swapping (second set). The UI boxes for barracks and battle placement have scroll bars, whereas the camp UI box is just a static box. "Empty" slots have been made more clearer as well.
- For players that toggle their battle camera off "V", there used to be an issue where when you come back into a battle after previously toggling the camera off you had to press "V" twice. The issue has to do with how the camera is tracked. So now, after every battle the camera is automatically toggled back on. So basically, you just have to press "V" once to toggle it back off, but the end result is smoother as previously the UI elements were not correctly displaying whether the camera was actually toggled on and off after coming back into a battle.
- The dismiss button in the barracks menu will now automatically be highlighted when the mouse hovers over it. This should give the player more "feedback" when interacting with the UI.
- A tooltip for the dismiss button (in the barracks menu) has been added, this should help clarify what the button does.
- Tooltips for "items" have been updated. They now show the icon and the amount of the specific item that you are hovering over. This is only for "items" specifically, so not weapons or armor etc.
- Added a tooltip description for when hovering over EXP or Experience Points in any related menu.
- Tooltips in general now scale to the size of the text box. This basically means that tooltips will conform to the size of the text and won't take up unnecessary space on the screen.
- New icons have been added to all weapon related perk trees. For example, there shouldn't be any more duplicate icons in the crossbow and longbow perk trees that were added in the previous build.
- All weapon abilities have "ability" added after the ability name to distinguish that it is an active ability when interacting with the perks tree. Any "passive perk" that directly augments abilities is labelled as a perk within the tooltip description. Instead of +1, +2, +3, +4 to denote a perk that augments an ability, the words "Improved, Refined, Advanced and Perfected" are used instead. For example, Snap Shot +1 is now Improved Snap Shot. In cases where there are a series of 5 related passive perks, the first perk in the chain is called "Flawed xxx".
- The initial loading sequence when first booting up the game has been shortened.
- You can now rotate the camera while you are in town. This is just a nice little touch that gives the town a bit more perspective, taking away the feeling that you are looking at a flat image.
- Updated the text size and font of UI drag icons (ie x5, x10) when dragging and dropping items in various menus.
Bug Fixes:
- Adjusted existing combat idle animation for 2H greataxe.
- Most instances of "feet sliding around" during combat animations should have been fixed.
- Tweaked some of the lighting settings for the player town/base.
- "Suicidal Vampire Archers" bug, should be fixed now. Vampire Archers will now only use this ability if they have at least 26 Strength, if they have anything less the ability will fail and they will default to basic attack AI.
- A rare issue where the hit chance UI box doesn't show up when swapping between abilities over a target you are currently hovering the mouse over, has been fixed.
- The issue of being able to initiate certain unwanted actions with the "right mouse button" should have been fixed. For example, closing a menu screen with the right mouse button or selecting an ability then initiating the ability/attack on a target with the right mouse button.
What's Next?:
Again, I'd like to thank everyone for your support and most importantly your patience. After over a month of no updates (I was low-key stressing about this actually) I feel like things are back to normal now and I should be able to upload weekly builds again. The plan is to let the perks system "simmer" for a bit, there is still a lot more I want to add to it but I will now be switching my focus to the WORLD MAP. That's right you read correctly, I hadn't planned on starting on the world map until next year but I'm in a good position now to begin work on it.
Overall, the map is somewhat inspired by Fallout 1/2, with the grid overlay and real-time map movement. The map is comprised of individual 2D tiles which will give me finer control over things like random events. The player model and buildings are all 3D models but the camera will be fixed. While the bulk of my attention will be on the world map, I will also be releasing smaller weekly builds mainly based on any feedback I get on the new perks.
So there is still a lot more to look forward to in the future, so perhaps tell a friend about it! As always, I'd really appreciate any feedback you guys have, especially reviews as they do wonders and help motivate me!
