Hi everybody. While taking my winter break, I actually took some time to implement a few new features that I’d been meaning to do last year but hadn’t gotten around to. Some of these features are now in the game with version 19.01.08, some others I’m still working on and testing to make sure that they’re stable. 19.01.08 is compatible with older versions of DwarfCorp but your mileage may vary when it comes to objects from previous saves behaving correctly when it comes to fire.
Better Fire and Lightning
Most of the changes that made it into the 19.01.08 are related to fire, lava, storms, water and how these systems interact. Fire now looks better, spreads from object to object, and lights grass/wood blocks on fire. Fire also permanently darkens some objects. Dwarfs flee fire, and a flaming dwarf can now set other stuff on fire.
New fire which spreads from object to object.
Fire can now be put out by rain — but rainstorms can also start fires with lightning bolts.
A lightning storm.
Explosives now generate fire.
An explosive starting a fire.
Some other Changes
19.01.08 also has some other miscellaneous systems changes.
Water/Lava – water and lava look nicer while rolling over uneven terrain or falling. Lava now generates fire while spreading.
Tree Growth – to counter the spread of fire and dwarves chopping them down, trees now sometimes generate seedlings near them which grow into adult trees over time. Rain now has a chance of growing seedlings, while snow has a chance of killing a growing seed.
Currently in Progress
There are a couple of other systems that I have going on an experimental branch right now which I will roll in once they’re sufficiently tested.
Nicer Animals
I’ve been doing some work on the way carnivores attack. Previously, all carnivores would attack all herbivores and dwarfs all the time. I’ve changed this so that carnivores only attack when threatened or hungry (with the exception of giant snakes, which are just evil). This change needs some testing to make sure it works in the expected corner cases.
Collapses
I’ve also been working on a change which makes blocks that aren’t 6-connected to bedrock collapse. This change needs some testing to make sure it doesn’t reduce performance too much and that it works in some corner cases (like what happens when a dwarf is under the collapsing structure, what if there are objects in the way, etc.)
Dragons
When the player has enough gold (TBD, right now $5k) a dragon may come to try and take it. This change is mostly finished and is just waiting on artwork (as you can see right now the dragon is just a green flying snake!)
Bugfixing
Now that my break is over I hope to get back to bug fixing soon, hopefully by this weekend!
Full Changeset
New Version 18.12.21
Hello everyone, I’ve just pushed version 18.12.21 to Steam and itch.io. This version fixes two critical bugs that were making it impossible to build certain items, specifically beds and anvils. It is compatible with previous version of DwarfCorp.
Project Status Update
You may be wondering where we’ve been lately, and why it took a month to fix those two bugs. We were supposed to leave Early Access on Halloween 2018, and only had enough funding to keep us going until then. On October 30th we got an opportunity to promote the game through the Massachusetts Digital Institute. After meeting with representatives from that group, we decided to change our release date to around February 1st 2019. As a result, we had to close out our contracts with remote developers, leaving just myself (a programmer) and my partner, who is an artist.
So at the moment I’m taking a break from game development and bug fixing; because (1) my day job has been keeping me very busy lately, (2) I’m pretty burnt out after working on the game in my free time for the past 7 years, and (3) because what little time I have been able to devote to the game I’ve spent on getting materials ready for this marketing push (blog posts, interviews, videos, etc.). However, I do plan to return to development after the winter holidays in mid to late January to fix any outstanding bugs that need to be fixed before release.
Changelog
New Version 18.11.21
I just pushed a new version to Steam and itch.io which fixes some crashes, some of which were caused by the previous update.
Changes
Tweak: Add grain to the list of resources that can be blacklisted from a stockpile.
Crash: fix common crash caused by dwarfs trying to get resources that are already in their inventories. (This was caused by the changes to the way stockpiles are managed.)
Crash: fix rare crash during world generation.
Crash: fix rare crash when 3D primitive drawer overwrites bounds of cached perlin noise texture.
Crash: fix rare crash when graphics device is disposed as the sky is being generated.
Crash: break up the code for rendering the world preview in the world generator so that if crashes occur there in the future error messages are more helpful for debugging.
Crash: hopefully fix weird crash while pushing participants that are gambling (crash still poorly understood and can't reproduce).
Bug: fix the gambling pot getting loaded twice from a save file.
New Version 18.11.18
Hi everyone, we have a new version out on Steam and itch.io, version 18.11.18. Unfortunately, due to optimizations I made in the collision manager, this version is incompatible with older saves, however I hope you will agree that the changes I made in this version are worth it.
Ruins
There is now a decent chance that one or more ruined structures will appear around where you spawned. Evidence of past civilizations long gone.
Stockpile Management
It is now possible to restrict stockpiles to certain kinds of resources. Dwarfs now go to stockpiles containing the resources they want rather than having resources teleport between stockpiles.
Changes
New Version 18.11.10
Hi everybody, we’ve just pushed the latest version of DwarfCorp, 18.10.17 to Steam. This version is not compatible with old saves. This is the version we intended to release on Halloween this year plus some important bugfixes.
Partnership with MassDigi
I’m excited to announce that the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute will be helping us promote DwarfCorp so that we can reach a broader audience. We’re still in the planning phases, but this means we’ll be in development a bit longer before leaving Early Access. Right now, we are targeting Q1 2019. This is great news for the game, as it means that we’ll have more time in our polishing/bugfixing phase while also getting some much needed help with advertising and business development.
Project Status
As we had only allocated enough money to pay our team through October 31st, our contracts have ended, and it’s just down to two people again — Matt (programming) and Wilson (art). We’ll continue polishing and fixing random stuff until our official release date in Q1 2019, after which we will re-assess our situation and determine the best course of action (whether to continue developing the project or move on to something else). That may involve selling the project to a 3rd party. We’ve been working on this project for nearly 7 years at this point, and we both have full-time day jobs and families!
Changes
Delaying release by a few weeks
Hi everybody, as much as it pains me to say this, we’re going to have to delay releasing (i.e leaving Early Access) by a few weeks. I'm sorry for this delay.
This had to happen for two reasons. First, we have in-person meetings with business partners that have been delayed into next week, and we want to get those done before release; try as we might, people have busy schedules! Second, there are a couple of critical issues that we’re still making absolutely sure are fixed before we give the release the green light.
We take leaving Early Access very seriously, and want players to have the best experience possible.
We will keep you informed of updates, and I don’t anticipate it will be very long before we have a new firm date.
Here’s some of the stuff we’ve been working on to make release possible. Most of this is already done:
New Version 18.10.17
Hello, there is a new version out on Steam and itch right now. This version is post-feature-freeze which means we’ve focused exclusively on bug fixes, some balance and GUI tweaks, and the removal of some unstable features. We’ve also made some features (like auto-digging and auto-farming) optional.
Changes
Version 18.10.01
Hi all, we just pushed a new version 18.10.01. This version is (hopefully) compatible with previous saves, but your mileage may vary with older saves at this point. As usual we made some bug fixes and added a couple of new features. This is the last version before feature freeze. What that means is from now on we will not be adding new features until well after release, and instead will be focusing on critical bugfixes and balance tweaks (and a bit of tutorial cleanup).
Hell
If you dig deep enough, you will now encounter hell. Pray your dwarfs don’t end up there accidentally! There are also now more caves, and the number of creatures in caves is now controlled by the game’s difficulty setting.
Trade Improvements
We reversed the order of the trade screen (so the player is now on the left), and added a helpful balance beam to show you how the trade is going. We also simplified the “good trade” logic, so that traders now accept any profit over $1.00. We hope this makes things simpler.
Changes
New Version 18.09.23
Hi everybody, we just pushed a new version of the game to Steam and itch. Again this version is mostly focusing on bugfixes, though we added a couple of new features. It is compatible with previous saves.
Adventuring Parties
There is a new diplomacy screen that allows you to send adventuring parties to other factions on the map. There are three kinds of adventuring parties: Raids, Trade and Peace. Your dwarfs will leave via balloon port to travel to the faraway faction, and various events happen to them along the way.
Xray view
You can now press TAB to toggle X-ray view. This allows you to see explored caves under the surface in 3D.
Changes
Version 18.09.16
Hi everybody, we just posted a new version 18.09.16 to itch and Steam. This version contains mostly bugfixes, though there are a couple of new features. We’re stilling working on wrapping up development before we leave Early Access on October 31st.
Palisades
We’ve added a new craftable object to the game: the palisade. The palisade is a defensive structure that dwarfs can hide behind while fighting to reduce the damage they take and increase their range. As the palisade soaks up damage for the dwarf, it will eventually get destroyed.
As a part of this new feature we also made some tweaks to combat AI. Dwarfs will now give up on combat if a creature runs too far away. They will also target creatures that are closer to them while in combat.
Auto-Mining
Dwarfs will now automatically dig shafts whenever they get lost underground. Creatures attacking your base will also try destroying walls when there is no other way in. Molemen especially love to destroy walls, sometimes for no particular reason.
