Not so weekly Changelog number 60 This week I went hard into QOL updates
So as usual this is just kinda a summary of all the changes from the past couple weeks ignoring some simpler changes.
Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-Floating text now fades away in 3 seconds by default
-Added the ability to customize the time it takes for the floating text that appears when something happens in game to fade away. --You can do this in the options menu and it defaults to 3 seconds. If you are having trouble understanding what is happening in game, just set this to max.
-Added Nodic River To Noderooms Tileset --Its based on the dream pools
-Added Flopcat's Flipizza to NodeRooms Tileset --It's based on a pizzzaria with a few mascots
-Added a new song to the soundtrack that plays in game
-The arrow shooting animation now will always show up when shooting arrows and they take a bit longer --This is to make it easier to see where you are being atatcked from and to just improve the game in general
Bug Fixes
-Health is now rounded on the unit info screen
Balancing
-When a unit is attacked by a stealthed unit, the attacker (and all other adjacent stealthed units) are revealed. However, units that are attacking from range are not revealed.
-Cult Acolytes now have a new flag, acolytes now have a 50% chance to gain 1 sacrifice for each kill they make
-Cult priests now have a 50% chance to get between 1 and 3 sacrifices each time they get a kill
Suggestion for testers
-You can do various things.
YouTube Spotlight!
-None this time, its been awhile. I hope someone eventually makes another video on it. Oh well :)
Thanks guys!
BONUS NEWS!
Some news! I've been working with a friend to create an awesome new updated trailer for the game. That should be done soonish!
Second news: I have a plan for implementing the long awaited lich faction! Which has been hinted at in the setup screen since the beginning!
This will be a new faction with a couple new resource types (Flesh, Bones (And two othe rones i shall not reveal)) that wil be meant to be a relatively in depth necromancer//lich tycoon/sim.
This has nessessitated fleshing out how undead work in my setting!
This is partially explained in an in game book. Which served as a kind of base for the concept!
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Not so weekly Changelogs number whatever the heck. Some polish stuff this time. Most notably the main menu has loading screens instead of just freezing while loading, so that should help. So as usual this is just kinda a summary of all the changes from the past couple weeks ignoring some simpler changes. Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-Added smoother loading transitions to the main menu
-Added new loading images --2 new common loading images --3 new rare loaidng images
-Improved all of the skirmish win condition pop ups to be more visually interesting. I also updated the store page to reflect these changes. Some examples:
-Added missing win condition pop ups for repair and ruin capital goals.
-Reworded many other in game pop ups
-Updated NodeRooms tileset with some new art.
-Added new "Sherwood Forest" wild force setting --This wild force setting changes the map generator to add more forest tiles --The Monsters that populate the setting are Vargrs, and Some Magical Creatures --This setting also spawns soem wild rogues guilds, and the wildlife team can utilize them to recruit rogues
-Added new "Sherwood Heroes" wild force setting --This is identical to sherwood forest, except each player starts with a powerful hero unit from Robin Hood (Eg Robin Hood Himself or Friar Tuck) which adds an interesting twist to the gameplay. --Heavily inspired by the age of empires 2 sherwood heroes map heh
Bug Fixes
-Fixed some saving and loading bugs.
Balancing
-If wildlife acquires a rogues guild (For example, when a bandit group "falls to infighting" the wildlife can now build their own rogues. Which are expensive and take 3 turns to build, unlike normal rogues.
Suggestion for testers
-Try the new Sherwood Heroes wild force
YouTube Spotlight!
-None this time, its been awhile. I hope someone eventually makes another video on it. Oh well :)
Thanks guys!
There will probably be some additional updates to the game tonight.
Liminal Update DR4X Changelog #58 9/16/2022
Added some cool new stuff in the last couple weeks, this changelog includes all changes in the "mini logs" on gamejolt and all other changes made in the last two weeks.
Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-Added a new wild force option that uses the new noderooms tileset but doesn't spawn normal wildlife. --It only spawns the...entities
-Added a new wild force option that uses the new noderooms tileset but doesnt spawn normal wildlife. --It only spawns the...entities and magical beings
-Added the...entities
-Added more types of tiles to the noderooms maps
-Implemented system that allows me to give tiles alternate names in tilesets --This is utilized in the noderooms and with the other tile variations in the game
-Slightly changed art for "No Clip" setting to something more washed out, as it was too bold to make out units sometimes before
-Added more secretty secret things to main menu...
-Updated description on gambling debuff
Added some more possibilities to the food name generator, this includes adding ravioli --So you can now conquer alll the towns that specialize in making ravioli if you want I guess.
Bug Fixes
-Fix towns, chests, towers etc, spawning on water tiles.
-Fixed bug where chests can't spawn anywhere in noderooms
-Fixxed issue with unit training causing game to lock up rarely
-Fixed bug where tumors and such could grow in the void (They still can they just die when in the void really fast)
-Fix bandits renaming selves on mission when they absolutely shouldnt
-Fixed game crash when failing to place freespawned units
-Fixed minor bug where gambling hall gambling chance was lower than claimed (Even if that would be realistic lol)
Balancing
-Changed spawning rules for wildlife/bandits/etc to spread them out more and restrict them less This should juist ensure the wildlife is more spread out, less concentrated in certain places.
-Giant scorpions now cost 30 misery instead of 20
-Giant scorpions take 2 turns to build
Suggestion for testers
-Try the new wild force options I suppose
YouTube Spotlight!
-None this time, its been awhile. I hope someone eventually makes another video on it. Oh well :)
Thanks guys!
The Void. DR4X Changelog #57: 9/02/2022
Hey guys! This is the first of the not-weekly changelogs! Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-Added a new goal for repairing the capital if you are a kingdom in a setting with any kind of ruined capital.
-Added a new goal for ruining the capital if you are a cult, dark force, or whatever on a setting with a non-ruined capital city.
-Made AI bandits prefer gray over yellow, now instead of choosing from the same color list as wildlife they choose from a list with several shades of gray and other colors
-Changed how move costs work so that if a unit is surrounded by tiles they wouldnt normally be able to move to they can move to them even if their movement cost wouldnt otherwise work for that situation. EG, A warrior can now move onto a mountain that has 4 move cost, for all its move cost instead of being unable (Basiclaly if you are a unit that can move, and you have low movement, you will always be able to move at least 1 tile in any direction in a turn (assuming said tile isnt a void tile) all previous movement flags abvities are maintained, eg Aquatic things still cannot move onto dry land etc.
-Added new tile type 'Void' tiles these are basiclaly no tile but they have fog of war, and flying units and ethereal units are able to traverse them
-Added new (partial) tileset for a new setting.
-Units with "flyer" can now move through void tiles
-Added new wild force option
Bug Fixes
-Fixed city typo
-Fixed bug where tons of "phantom" buildings would appear in lower left corner on small/tiny/complex maps
Balancing
-Flying and Ethereal units can now travel through void tiles
-Creeating an uncjw ferk from an unjw, now costs the same as building it from a fungal lair (removing the discount)
-Unjw Ferk no longer have the myco spawn flag (It was overpowered)
-If the spore ability procs on a given unit or building it will now check each adjacent tile and if each adjacent tile already has a unit on it, it wont spawn. And will pop up the word "failed"
-Increased cav archer cost to 10
Suggestion for testers
-Try the new wild force option
YouTube Spotlight!
Nothing
A devlog from the heart on the future of my passion project. 8/26/2022
Intro
Hey guys! Its Untrustedlife here. This week has been very busy, and very stressful. So I had nearly no time to work on the game this week. I think I just need a bit of a vacation this week. There is still dr4x work being done, its just mainly on the art front this week.
I don't want to go into detail as to why this week was so busy and so stressful as its mainly personal.
I will talk a bit about my future plans though. I'll be honest. For a steam early access game. DR4X has completely flopped. I don’t know what I did wrong. This is my first steam game and only my second unity game and the reception of those who have tried it is nearly 100% positive.
I think that what I have accomplished so far is a really fun and weird game and many others agree with me.
However previous games i've made on other platforms have had much more traction. And i mean orders of magnitude more traction.
I have nearly 60 changelogs, dropping one every week without fail for, I don’t know how long. So lack of activity certainly isn’t a cause.
DR4X is now on 3 platforms, steam, itch and even gamejolt, so lack of platforms certainly isn't the case.
My roguelike RLDR however has thousands and thousands of downloads not just on itch but on my own website as well, and you can find it here: https://untrustedlife.itch.io/roguelegends-dark-realms-0182 and I was certainly not doing weekly changelogs for that.
Despite this complete failure I will of course keep working on the game, as it is mainly a passion project and i'm not going to let that "flop" affect my passion. This is my game, my passion, and if you like it great, if you don't great, spend your time playing something else.
What Have I Learned:
But I think I learned a few things:
1. As you can imagine this has been kind of demotivating for me. And lately I’ve been trying to add more "visible" things to catch more eyes, but I think that was the wrong approach. Why do I care so much about the amount of downloads, I didn’t used to care. My perspective has changed. I want to get back to that old perspective.
2. I have too many ideas not all of which are equally fun to work on, I need to prune them a bit, down to the fun stuff.
3. I’ve been trying too hard, I force myself to have new content every week and I force myself to make visually interesting changelogs and I force myself to do weird little polish things when I have no fun at all doing that.
What I will be doing from now on: 1.i'll be focusing more on the parts of the game i'm having loads of fun developing, like adding new content (New win conditions, new monsters, new secrets etc) and more fun secretty secret things for players to find.
2. I'm going to stop trying so hard to make visually interesting weekly changelogs in the vain hope that I’ll get any new players on it and I’m going to focus on what I have fun doing with it. Making changelogs might show that i'm actively developing the game but now that dr4x is on 3 platforms its getting kind of tedious. So the changelogs will be more like my old changelogs from now on. Maybe with a smattering of dev logs like this one.
3. Polish?? Who cares. Polishing things isn’t getting me more downloads and isn’t fun, and I'm in early access still. The polish can wait.
4. I'm not going to force myself to have new content for the game every week, if I have new content, I’ll have a changelog, if I don’t, ill make a devlog instead or I wont post anything. Forcing myself to do things isn’t fun. Sorry but that’s just how it is going to be from now on.
Thank you SiomplyFunGaming for helping me realize that by suggesting, months ago, that I stagger the dev logs more. You are cool as hell. See his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/SimplyFunGaming
Thank you to my Artist friend Grimwit, who also helped me realize this. Follow him on twitter https://twitter.com/Sir_Grimwit
Thanking my players
For the final section I want to thank all those people who have so far reviewed my game, helped me out by making videos on it, and to everyone who plays my game. You are the coolest people alive, and I hope you stick with me while I work on this. Because there will be some wild new content added soon.
Also, I don't say this enough, spread the word. If you like the game talk about it.
This week i actually was more focused on getting all my games onto gamejolt and making the game pages on there than working on the game. And the stuff i did work on is [NODEOSERROR] Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-The most obvious change this week is that I finally added a way to customize the "breathing room" you spawn with on maps in the options menu.
-I also updated the veteran guard unit portrait from last week to an improved portrait Can you spot the changes?
-I added more veggies and fruit to the vegetable and fruit generators that are used in various places in the game including city names, tavern names, food names etc.
-Added more hints to the loading screeens
-Optimized [NODEOSERROR]
-Added new signs and dialog to [NODEOSERROR]
-[NODEOSERROR]
-Added new NodeOS Program.
-Made it much harder to [NODEOSERROR][NODEOSERROR]
Bug Fixes
-Fixed bug where [NODEOSERROR] had incorrect texture
Balancing
-None this time that I remember
Suggestion for testers
-Play the game.
YouTube Spotlight of the week!
None
Calling the guards. DR4X Weekly Changelog #55: 8/12/2022
This week was mostly polish stuff. Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-I briefly no clipped out of reality
-Improved several of the graphical shaders
--The improved shaders include: cavity vertex shader that added toony white line effect and subtle shadows when a surface is at an angle (You know what i mean if you've played)
--Shadows in general
--CRT shader
--VHS Shader
--And Several more
-Selected units now get an outline that appears around their model, which is a desaturated version of their player color, that also shows through buildings and looks very pretty.
--This should make it easier to play especially as the mushroom things
-Enemies that are marked as attackable now get an outline determined by whether attacking them would have advantage disadvantage or neither.
--if a unit on a building would be attacked it is highlighted instead of the building.
---This makes it easier to see when you wont be atatcking the building, but rather the unit on it
-General code optimizations, clicking on a bunch of units real fast should be significantly faster and more responsive.
-Added new town guard unit portait.
-Added new veteran guard unit portrait
Bug Fixes
-Fixed a bunch of invisible code warning issues
-Fixed a real odd bug, You may be asking yourself: "Will he give more details", and my answer is Nope.
-Fixed bug where for a couple days there the treasure chests appeared above the fog of war due to new shaders.
-Fixed bug where sometimes unit that is attackable wouldn't highlight as attackable when hovering over tiles you can move to.
-Fixed bug where toony vertex shader added weird lines to trees, now they look smooth as intended, this has been a bug since the beginning.
-Fix bug where easy save tries to save and load the outline object on a unit resulting in loading the save failing
Hello, I’m posting this a day later than usual because I was up programming until 5 am and decided to go to bed instead of working longer. So I ended up getting some sleep and it is now nearly noon.
There are a lot of changes this week and most of this was live as of last night.
I didn't decide to take screenshots for these because I already am posting the changelog late and I want to get it out and start on the next update. (That and family is visiting me today)
Anyway letsa go...
Gameplay and UI
-Added new Goal --Ultra Super Deathmatch., where you have to kill all other factions except wildlife
-Added New Goal --Last One Standing, where you have to kill just every single faction
-Made wildlife lairs and other factions NOT spawn within 4 tiles of the spawn location of the human player, giving the player 4 tiles of breathing room.
--This makes the game much, much more playable
--I didn’t have time to make this customizable, but expect that tomorrow
-Forest trolls now have a more forest troll appropriate death noise
-Added new flag that allows pikemen to damage a unit as if they had a hard counter bonus without granting that unit the cavalry anti-archer bonus
-AI now understands pikemen better as in, they will go after those they have bonuses against more often
-Added new secretty secret stuff
-Improved shadows and lighting
-Added new hints
-Added new office minigame --This is one i've been working on in the background for awhile
--It isn't complete still but hey
-Goblin Updates --Gave goblins a new goblin pikeman unit, which has a bonus against cavalry
--Made it so when training goblin units the command buttons are color coded for easiness on the eyes and to make their commands more readable
--Goblin pikemen can promote into Goblin Legionnaires
Bug Fixes
-Fix bug where "0" tech shows up on buildings in factions that have researched a global research item
-Blacksmith cost corrected on capital cities
-All units that weren’t displaying their hard counter bonus icon that should have now do --EG, Cavalry archers now display a horse and bow icon, since they have both bonuses
Balancing
-Buffed Rust Spitter Faction --Made rust spitter Majors cost 9 and have an upkeep of 9 for bandit sub factions instead of 15 and 12
--Made rust spitter majors cost 15 and have an upkeep of 15 for wildlife factions
--Made AI smart enough to use repletes like Mines
-Buffed Gremlin Factions --Reduced Miserable Poppet for green gremlins cost from 200 misery to 75 Misery
--Reduced Miserable Poppet build time to 2
--Reduced Fleshy Kennel cost for brown gremlins to 200 Misery
--Reduced Coral Tower cost for dripping gremlins to 100 Misery
-Kingdom Balance Changes --Markets now cost 35 gold and 6 iron
-Wildlife Balance Changes --Hell Goat is now classed as cavalry for the purposes of hard counter bonuses
-Goblin Balance Changes --Made Goblin Legionnaires more expensive for cube cult
--Goblin fortresses now generate +2 gold and +2 misery instead of just +1 gold
Hey guys! Added some fun stuff this week. Also continued on my quest to balance kingdoms.
Gameplay and UI
-The boss in "Mirefield's Troubles" now has the correct unit portraits. --I have also buffed the boss slightly --It has more health, power, defense, and armor
-GSTBTBTU now utilizes the wizard bear portrait
-Removed Wendigo from "Standard" lair rotation, they are a cryptid --They still can show up for other reasons though, eg on young worlds or as a result of random events
-Added forest trolls --Forest trolls have unique art and so do their lairs --Forest trolls have stealth --Their lairs spawn in forests --Forest trolls have entirely different (though still similar attributes) stats from other trolls, but maintain the same passive and active abilities --Forest trolls are overall more expensive to train and maintain than other troll variations --Forest trolls have some secretty unique stuff going on --Forest trolls have very notable lore relavance
-Gave saber toothed bear lair a new unit image
Bug Fixes
-Fixed bug where capital cities had incorrect numbers for some economic buildings (Mines/Markets/Guardhouses/Inns)
-Fixed spawn bug introduced with economic updates to AI last week
Balancing
-Gave guardhouse +1 fire damage
-Gave Mine +0.5 gold production
-Gave Market +0.5 gold production
-Gave black market +0.5 gold production
-Removed bog troll from "Here Be Dragons" setting
-Added Forest Troll to "Too Many Trolls" setting
-Added Forest Troll to "Dark Forest" setting
-Added Forest Troll to "Here be Dragons" setting
-Added Forest Troll to "Strange Humanoids" setting
-Added Forest Troll to "Here Be Darkness" setting
-Removed Bog and Swamp trolls from "Realm Of Horror" setting
Hey guys! Smaller update this week, but still it is changes I guess.
Gameplay and UI
-Added new cryptid (Cryptid is a class of unit types in my game that spawn under some very rare circumstances) --Hell ape --It spawns like bigfoot, but it has less health, more damage, cheaper reproduction, --It also has the pack tactics flag, so multiple hell apes is a terrifying enemy --It has the warrior bonus --It has stealth level 3
-AI is now better at managing an economy
-AI Kingdoms can spam mines if they want fast resources
-Secretty secret changes
-Added command enum for markets so i can disable them on scenarios if i want and for ai purposes
-Added new ai personality "Mercantilist" which just loves spamming economy buildings, it isn't just for kingdoms either, it is just as capable of doing economy as any other faction
-AI is also much more likely in general to build economic buildings like markets and mines
-Added new ai personality "bully" that is less likely to build economic buildings and more likely to build offensive buildings (among other bully-esque things)
-Added new ai personality that does not bother focusing on economy at all instead only on conquest and also is more likely to build high tier units and upgrade (it is closer to the old AI)
-Added new catapult unit portrait
-So we had a fun experience on the "The Hunt" campaign mission where we encountered a bear, that just had like 10 artifacts, a staff , like 3 different swords and magical cloaks, so we added a unit portrait for saber toothed bears that horde artifacts, it isnt used yet, but I will get to it
Bug Fixes
-None this time, remember to report bugs on the steam discussions for dr4x , wher I have a bug reporting forum for people who own the game, I fix them fast.
Balancing
-Mercantilist is also more likely to upgrade
-Gave all land trolls same bonus as warriors (but now they are weak to archers)
-Reduced hooligan power from 6->4
-Reduced hooligan defense to -1
-Reduced hooligan piercing to 0.5
-Black market on upgraded rogues guilds down to 50 gold and 30 misery
-Reduced black market cost for bandit subfactions from 80 gold to 60 gold and 50 misery to 40 misery
-Reduced black market cost for rat subfactions from 80 gold to 60 gold and 50 misery to 40 misery
-Black market on upgraded rogues guilds down to 50 gold and 30 misery
