Fourth campaign released and more skirmish upgrades
Hi all,
The fourth campaign has now been released. Here the player will learn how the prison and the squad system works. Besides that the skirmish maps have gotten a little upgrade, you can now choose victory conditions. The way this works is not final yet as I want to create different skirmish maps based on these victory conditions.
For those of you that want even more freedom in generating maps I have now added an extra start game option, that is "Custom Game". Here you can change almost every map generation parameter there is and then play the map you want to play. Just remember that you have the option to remove fog of war by pressing ALT+T and then click the "Remove fog of war" option.
What's next?
In a week or maybe two I will release the next campaigns that will give the player access to traps and catacombs. I also want to include some more skirmish maps that has specific goals.
Thank you!
Thank you all for wanting to be a part of this wonderful game :) Please let me know in the comments section below or in the forum if you have any suggestions that you think would improve the game. The more feedback I get the better game Dwelvers will be!
Third campaign released and upgraded skirmish maps
Hi all,
So now the third campaign has been released. Here the player will not only learn how to craft weapons and armor, but also how to expand his territory in the most efficient way possible, and that is by building storage rooms. The battles are getting stronger and stronger, but for those of you that would like jump ahead and get some real competition should try out the skirmish maps.
What's next?
For the last week I've been working a lot on the skirmish maps, as I want to give the player as much replay-ability of the game as possible I'm starting to give the skirmish maps some different objectives. Such as killing all humans, being able to survive for a certain amount of time and stacking up on certain item types. That combined with randomly generated levels that can give the player totally new game experiences each time they play.
Thank you!
Thank you all for wanting to be a part of this wonderful game :) Please let me know in the comments section below or in the forum if you have any suggestions that you think would improve the game. The more feedback I get the better game Dwelvers will be!
I will be back in a week with the next campaign and hopefully some more upgraded skirmish maps.
First Steps Towards a Full Release
Hi all,
I've been working a little behind the scenes and have almost finished all the campaigns planed. From now I will release one new campaign each week until we have eight campaigns. On the side of the campaigns I've also upgraded the terrain generator, so with the future releases I will also include a lot of new skirmish maps with exiting new goals.
What's new?
Besides creating new maps I've tied up most of the loose knots in the game.
We now have a spell system where the spells require mana and experience. (We will have more spells introduced with upcoming versions).
The UI is complete.
Easier to use squad system.
Easier to use trading system.
Easier to use creature equipment system.
Traps are independent and hydraulics will no longer be needed to fire cannons (We will have more traps introduced in upcoming versions).
Evil meter remastered and are now also bound to mana generation.
Prison room is now also a torture chamber where torturing enemies increases the evil meter.
Guard rooms now attracts Cyclotaurs
Imp generation is now based on the amount of mana the player generates.
And much much more changes and new features...
Why not release all campaigns at one?
Why I decided to release one campaign a week instead of all campaigns at once is because I want more focused feedback. This way we can make sure that all campaign keeps the same quality.
We need your help
I hope you all enjoy this new version, and if you have any feedback, please let me know- The more feedback the better end-game!
Also, I would like to put out a reminder to all of you that we still are looking for translators and voice actors for the Dark Mother. Any help is appreciated :)
New upcoming campaigns and game mechanics
Hi all,
As usual my news post begins with me saying that I'm sorry for the lack of updates. But I promise you all I'm doing my best to find the time doing what I love which is developing Dwelvers :)
As I've said before the company Divine Robot (where I work) has invested in Dwelvers, this has enabled me to get a lot of help with the UI from UX designers. They have also had artist working on the game meaning that I have about 200 hours of graphics just waiting to be implemented in the game. This includes creatures such as a king, princes, archers and a lot more, these will be presented in future news posts as they get implemented in Dwelvers by me. Unfortunately I've had a lot of other projects that needed to be finished which has forced me to de-prioritize Dwelvers. But now things have calmed down and it seems that I now have a lot of time on my hands to continue with the Dwelvers development.
So enough about that and on to what's new.
New Campaigns
I've said before that my focus right now is to create campaigns and polish the game after the campaign needs. For example the UI still needed to be updated so that it is easier to understand for the player. So we now have a second campaign where the player learns how to build training room, metal works room, use the rally flag, dig and explore and kill all enemies in the way.
New Portal mechanics
A question I've gotten more frequently lately is "How do I take over a portal?", and that is a good question! It isn't all that clear that you have to build a road up to it. So now I've changed it so that the player instead can attack the portal, and when it gets destroyed the player is the new owner.
Update UI
The UI has been updated even more since the last version. The resource bar that was in the top has now been replaced with non-equip-able, and in the bottom right menu bar we have two new buttons which opens a buildings menu and a items menu.
The buildings menu
The buildings menu has four tabs which are:
Rooms - Including Bar Room, Bed Room, Catacombs room etc.
Objects - Containing anything that the player can build that is not directly related to traps or rooms. This includes Well, Statues, Doors etc.
Traps - Including Cannon, hydraulics pipes, Dynamite etc.
Unbuilables - Including buildings that you as a player can own, but can not build, such as portals.
The items menu
The items menu has two tabs which are:
Crafting - Here you can select what equipment to craft, you are also able to see how many items of that certain item type you have, and how much materials are available for crafting that item. This was something that was lacking in the old resource bar. One new cool thing about this menu is that you are able to see the supply and demand, meaning that when the bar right to the item image is green, then you are supplying enough equipment of that type to your creatures. But if it is red, then it means that you don't have enough equipment of that type to equip your creatures, and they have to go for their second or third equipment choice.
New creatures on the way
Hi all :)
The development have been a little slow this last month because I'm needed elsewhere at my job, but the development will shortly speed up again as things calms down :) In the meanwhile the graphic artists at Divine Robot has been doing some modelling on a new human soldier and the surface castle. I've also gotten a wraith creature from CobraMode that will be a player creature that controls ghosts.
New player creature in progress - The Wraith
I got this creature from CobraMode a while ago, and now the time is closing in to put it in the game. This Wraith will be attracted after the catacombs have been built. It will not be a strong creature, but under the right circumstances it can be very dangerous. The idea is that she will be able to kill and raise unconscious enemies as ghosts on the battlefield, and she will also be able to attract player-owned ghosts to fight for her when she encounters enemies. So in battle and without any backup she will die pretty easily, but with backup she can work behind the scenes and improve the players odds of winning a lot.
New surface building in progress - The Castle
So here we see a example of how the castle will look like, it hasn't been textured yet, or put in the game. But the models are there and will be implemented shortly. The idea is that the harder campaign missions will contain castles on the surface world packed with soldiers that needs to be defeated to complete the missions.
New human creature in progress - The solidier
It is currently in progress of being textured, but the main idea is that helmets and armors etc will be replaceable to create more visual variations among the soldiers. He will be stronger than the peasant but weaker than the knight. The idea is to have a human creature strength order that will look something like this:
Dwarf
Peasant
Soldier
Archer
Knight
Prince
King
So what's next?
We have set a soft release date! We are aiming towards releasing a full version of Dwelvers in the end of summer or beginning of autumn. If you are interested in checking out what will be included in the release version you can go here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/276870/discussions/0/616187839427064109/
And after the release we will of course keep releasing updates such as more game content and more campaigns.
But for now I will try to get the next version out there in the next couple of weeks. Thank you for the patience :)
Dwelvers v0.12.0.0 released
Hi all!
These last weeks has been really exciting! Thanks to Divine Robot (the company where I work) I've been able to get more work done on the game than I have in years, and it's so much fun finally being able to make all those ideas I'll been having a reality.
Finally we have an editor in the game, and thanks to that editor I've been able to start working on the campaigns. It's not much right now, only one level that works mostly as an tutorial. But this level have set the foundation for the upcoming campaign levels. So with each new release from now on you will see more and more campaign levels coming out in a faster phase.
So lets get started listing all the new features with this version!
First campaign level - Bed and Breakfast
This first campaign level is called "Bed and Breakfast", and its purpose is to teach the player how to create a dungeon that tends to all the creatures needs. This includes building a bar room, a farm room, a bed room and a cookery room. I think we've all learned that Dwelvers has a very steep learning curve, so my hope is that this campaign will help the player ease into the game instead of giving the player a feeling of confusion when the Dark Mother starts spitting out 8 imps and 6 orcs without any instructions at all.
At the moment we only have subtitles for the Dark Mother, and it will probably keep being so until we finished with the whole campaign or feel certain enough that nothing will change that will force us to change the story.
Graphics update - Surface world
The first thing the artists started working on in Dwelvers was improving the surface world to make it more hospitable for humans. So no more green fog, instead we gave it a more natural look.
New human creature - The Dwarf
This is something we have been planning for long, we wanted to move the rogue to the player side instead of having it work with the humans. So now the Rougue is with the player, and the humans got a Dwarf.
New way to spawn creatures
To be honest I've not been all that satisfied with how the creature spawning process work. So I've now made some improvements. Instead of having rooms and buildings attracting creatures we now have certain conditions that attracts creatures.
Here's the list:
Cyclotaur - First creature attracted by taking over the maze - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of enemies that have been killed.
Fishman - First creature attracted by building a bridge - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of fishes being fished.
Imp - Then spawn rate is depending on the amount items being transported in the dungeon.
Orc - First creature attracted by building a metal works room - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of items being produced in the metal works room.
Piggeh - First creature attracted by building a cookery room - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of food and drink is being consumed in the bar room.
Rogue - First creature attracted by building a trading room - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of gold is being mined or earned.
Impanzee - First creature attracted by building a brewing vat - Then the spawn rate is depending on the amount of beer is being produced.
Yeah, and the orc no longer drinks beer, the impanzee has taken over the drinking :)
New editor
We finally got the editor in there, but I must warn you it is pretty simple at the moment. The users can form the level exactly as they want too, but when it comes to event handling this must be done with xml scripting. I've included the editor in this version and you can play around with it, but don't expect it to work perfectly :)
All maps created in the editor is saved in the "..\AppData\Roaming\Dwelvers\editorMaps" folder and can be copied to the "media\maps\maps" if you want to play it. You also need to edit the "media\maps\Maps.xml" file to include your level in the game.
Upgraded UI
The UI has been upgraded, we had UX designers take a look at the current UI and this is the new UI mock-up they came up with:
And from that mockup I've implemented this much:
So I will upgrade the UI a bit at a time with each new version being released.
Final words
So I really hope you like this new version, and if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comment section below :)
Dwelvers development is going faster than ever!
Hi all
These last weeks have been really productive. We have revamped the surface world, got a level editor in there and started on the campaign levels! It is all going really smoothly :)
Here's a screenshot of what levels can be created with the upcoming level editor:
Divine Robot enters the game
Here comes the big news! The company I work full time at (Divine Robot) have agreed to help me finish Dwelvers. So now I'm back to working a lot more on Dwelvers with the help of graphic artists and project managers.
The main plan now is to focus all the resources on getting a fully functional level editor into the game so that we can start making campaigns. And with these campaigns we need new enemies and more game content.
What has been done so far since the last update
We have revamped the surface world with new trees, grass, rocks and more. Just so that it all will look more pretty (Which gives more satisfaction when destroying it :P).
A Dwarf creature has been added which will replace the Rogue as a human creature, and instead the Rogue gets spawned by the player just like the other creatures owned by the player.
The first version of the editor is almost finished. This version will give the player the possibility to build the dungeon exactly as he or she wants. All the event handling will be easily customizable using XML sheets.
The first campaign level is almost finished. I've been getting a lot of help at the Dwelvers forum from Mello Tonin and Sebt with designing the campaigns. They have saved me a lot of time, so a big thanks to them :D
The translation XML in the game has been cleaned up. So now we have all the text in the game ready for translation inside on XML file being all categorized and pretty :)
We are looking for help! We need translators
As the translation XML now has been cleaned up we want to start translating and proofreading the game texts to different languages. If you have the time and will to contribute, please let us know in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/276870/discussions/0/1693785669871229609/
Your efforts will be rewarded with a permanent spot in the game credits and a testimonial for any future translations if requested.
Translating the game to other languages than English will broaden Dwelvers visibility here on Steam, and non-English speaking people will also get the opportunity to play Dwelvers. So if you want to help with this it would mean a huge deal for me and for the development of Dwelvers.
So what's next?
I will try to get a new version out there next week with a couple of campaign levels, and from there we want as many of you as possible complaining about any little issue you may find so that we can fix it as soon as possible :)
If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comment section below :)
Dwelvers v0.11.19 bug fix version is now released!
Hi all!
I've been spending some time these two weeks hunting memory leaks and fixing bugs. The memory management in the game has also been improved which may give some of you a performance boost.
My hope is that this version will take care of the unexplained crashes that has happened to some of you. I've also taken some safety measures just in case the crashes hasn't been solved. This is by adding a proper error handler that will generate a crash dump file and send it to Dwelvers server so that I can locate and fix the most critical bugs asap.
The sandbox seed is the same each time a new game started.
And a lot of memory leaks has also been fixed.
Additional hot fixes
Dwelvers v0.11.19.2 hotfix released! The new crash handler worked perfectly, I've already got two crash dumps uploaded to me.
One where it crashed shortly after pressing "Start Game" and the loading screen comes up. This is now fixed with the new uploaded version!
Another one when loading a PNG file that should exist... So I couldn't solve this issue right away but I added some extra error handling around it to be able to locate the issue next time it comes up.
Dwelvers v0.11.19.3 hotfix released! I found and solved a issue that caused the game to crash randomly because one thread could read from an area in the memory that another thread simultaneously wrote too.
Dwelvers v0.11.19.4 hotfix released! This time I found and solved an issue when loading the xml files for creatures and particle effects. The issue was that all decimal numbers read got rounded down to integers. But it only happened on some computers...
What's next?
Now I've reached the point where I will focus only on the level editor, and hopefully we will see the first campaign level within a week or two :) I know there may be other stuff in the game that needs more polish, but I feel like we need to move forward and introducing a campaign is something that definitely will take this game to the next step!
So I really hope you like this new version, and if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comment section below :)
Dwelvers v0.11.18 released
Hi all :)
First of all let me just say Happy New Year! I hope that this new year will bring you all as much fun and excitement that I hope it will bring myself :P
So Dwelvers v0.11.18 has now been released on the website and on Steam! This new version has filled some gaps in the old UI, I've mentioned earlier that I got some suggestions on remaking the resource bar in the top of the window that showed some of the items in the game. I thought these suggestions were really good because one issue with the old UI was that it was tedious for the player to get information about how many units of a item type they owned. Usually it required the player to go into the items menu and search for the item type, and this is something I really wanted to avoid. I want the player to have all the information they need right in front of them so that they can make quick decisions without having to click around, and the old items menu counteracted that purpose. So since the last update I've been working on getting rid of the items menu and making its options available in a new improved resource bar instead.
Besides from the resource bar I've also changed the trading system in a way that will make it much easier and fun to use :)
New resource bar
As you can see in the screenshot below the whole resource bar has been changed! Instead of just showing a part of the total amount of item types in the game I've categorized the items so that the player now can click on a category and then find the item type he or she wants information on.
So to break it down - I've made 11 different categories that is not only item related:
Basic items - Lists items that can be found naturally in the dungeon and don't need to be crafted in a production chain.
Advanced items - Lists items that can only be produced by combining other items in a production chain.
Consumables - Lists items that can be consumed by creatures.
Weapons - Lists equipable weapons and other items that can be crafted and used for inflicting damage on enemies.
Armors - Lists equipable armors and other items that can be crafted and used for defending against enemy attacks.
Trades - Lists available trades that can be made in exchange of gold.
Fluid related buildings - Lists building that can be built on different types of fluids.
Resource bar - Item category
When choosing a item related category you will get a sub menu showing the items that fits the category. As shown in the screenshot below you can see the amount of items owned by the player and by hovering an item type you will get more detailed information about that item type. Also, by left clicking on the item type the camera will zoom in on the items belonging to that type one by one, this is a great way to locate items that there are a shortage of and make sure they get delivered to the right place.
Resource bar - Craftable items
When choosing an item related category with item types that are craftable the sub menu will look a little bit different. As seen in the screenshot below you now have the amount of items owned in the bottom right corner in each item type sub menu, and above that the amount of items that are queued for crafting. When hovering the craftable item type a 'plus' and a 'minus' button will appear, and by clicking these you will add or remove crafting queues.
Resource bar - Trading
This is the biggest feature upgrade for the game mechanics, we now have new way to trade items. When I started working on the resource bar I had the intention to replace the whole items menu, but I didn't know exactly what to do with the trading system. It was way to complex to just add into the resource bar. I've also been thinking for some time that I wanted to simplify it a bit because usually players tend to ignore it when playing the game. The reason for this may be because it was way to complex and hidden away in the items menu.
So to list the changes made to the trading system:
Trades are no longer fixed for each portal, you can now make all types of trades with all portals.
The trading option you will get by claiming a portal is no longer yours to make, instead the trades that gets unlocked are fixed in a random order that is decided when starting a new game.
Items are no longer traded with items. Instead we use gold as a currency.
You no longer add or remove trades by hand. Instead you set conditions for when to buy a certain item and when to sell a certain item.
You can now for example buy bread for gold or buy gold for bread, but you will always make a loss when selling items. In this scenario you can get 6 bread for one gold, but to buy one gold you need to sell 12 bread. In another example you can sell 30 rocks for one gold, and then buy 6 bread for one gold. In this way we can get rid of the huge amounts of rocks and other items the player tend to collect when playing the game for too long.
So by looking at the screenshot below you can see how the new trading system are implemented into the resource bar. By hovering a trade with the mouse and by clicking on the plus or minus button you set the trading condition for that specific item type.
By clicking the plus button you set a value for when to start buying this item type. So if the value is 30, then you will start buying this item type when you have less than 30 units of this item type stored in the dungeon.
By clicking the minus button you set a value for when to start selling this item type. So if the value is 30, then you will start selling this item type when you have more than 30 units of this item type stored in the dungeon.
In this way you don't have to micromanage the trading.
Resource bar - Buildings
When choosing a building type related category such as rooms, wall construction or hydraulics the sub menu will show the building types matching the category. Besides from just showing the amount of buildings of a certain type owned by the player, the player can now also get detailed information of each building type by hovering the sub menu. And by left clicking a building type the camera will zoom in on the buildings belonging to that type one by one.
Final words
I also made some promises to add an extra button to the resource bar where the player can setup his own items, so that the player only sees the items that are of interest for him or her. But I decided to put this option on hold for now so that we can see how this new resource bar plays out first.
So I really hope you like this new version, and if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comment section below :)
Dwelvers 0.11.17 hotfix is now released
Hi all,
Thank you all for your massive support during the development and thank you all for pointing out all the bugs you may find :)
This release is only a hotfix addressing some known crashes. I've noticed thanks to the new analytics tool I implemented in previous versions that some of you were experiencing crashes such as the texture dimensions were wrong etc. These issues has now been solved!
If you still experience crashes of some sort, please report them to me here at the Steam forum or at Dwelvers forum so that I can fix them ASAP!
So what's going on?
During the last week I've mostly been doing some work with the Dwelvers forum updating the graphics and addressing some issues with the myBB 1.8 update. So you are all welcome to pay Dwelvers forum a visit and say what you think :)
One feature that will come up shortly is that I will update the resource bar so that it gives the player a much more better understanding on what resources are available and what each resource is used for. For the time being I've made a mock up that I've been getting some feedback on here and it looks like this:
[IMG]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/914659215895635527/35B33C67A87BF90591903D663AD086C6CADA628F/[/IMG]
The main idea here is that the player can choose what item to get information on by pressing the item category button in the top, and from there they will get a list of items belonging to that category below. And by hovering the items with the mouse they will get a tool tip showing information about the item and a graph showing how many of these items have been in your possession the last hour.
When it comes to items that can be crafted I will add a plus / minus button right next to the item as shown in the picture, and by clicking these the player will order the creatures to craft the same amount of weapons or armors.
So what this new resource bar will do is to totally replace the items menu and giving the player direct information about his resources without having to go into the item menu and try to find that particular resource.
So please tell me what you think, is this something you would like to see implemented?
