Today we would like to show you a bunch of screenshots - yes, we've decided that this is a nice way of representing the work in progress stuff and so it should be taken as a rule - so, today we are showing a hive ship.
The idea behind this ship-building wonder is that there are ships for traveleling, there are cities for the economy and there will be these hive ships for being a self-propelled production settlement. Of course, feeding the full crew of such a ship is a wild task. But taking such a thing with a boarding attack is no easier than attacking a regular fortress.
Truth to be told, these ships cannot be called particularly fast because of their enormous size, but they don’t even need it - they are strategic vessels. We will add them to the game eventually, when we deliver diplomacy and inter-factional wars functionality. Then these hive ships will allow you to seriously change the balance of forces in the region by the very fact of its appearance. That is the implementation of the classic principle called fleet in being - if your enemy has such a thing, you must plan your strategy differently.
Screenshot Saturday (February 1)
Indie developers are supposed to upload screenshots of their projects on Saturdays - and we believe we should abide the tradition by sharing our own picture.
OK, from an aesthetic point of view it might have a debatable merit, but in terms of mechanics this should be a lovely thing: a prototype for a new personnel management interface.
Initially, crew management this was supposed to be a key element of fine-tuning your entire ship life. Or even the ship life itself. We didn't want a player to be transported from one battle to another. The battle is only a test of how well you have organized the life and production of your small floating settlement.
In the upcoming update we going to polish not only the interface, but also the ship ranking system. Vessels will have several roles. There will be desalination ships, arsenal ships and even distillery ships. In addition, the balance between rowing, steam-powered and sailing vessels is changing. A type of your, say, engine is your strategic decision (try to feed a whole rowing team in an offshore voyage).
Devblog #15 — Gazing at the clouds
Hello everyone,
today we're gonna start with something unexpected - with a beautiful sky at sunset.
I beg your pardon, one may say, isn't it a screenshot of Red Dead Redemption 2? Precisely, it's RDR 2 ineed and we brought it on purpose. This piece of video game art shows us how volumetric clouds can provide us with the sense of a game. You spend 2 hours riding a horse and staring on clouds and then you're done and go to sleep. Gameplay!
Would mechanics work without aesthetics? Sounds kinda doubtful to us. For example, Alexander, our game director, had his own way playing GTA Vice City back in the days: jump on a plane, tune in Emotion FM and fly over the city, screaming I just died in your arms tonight loudly. Alexander didn't care that much on the narrative driven missions. Remember the one with a toy helicopter and bombs? There is the most popular comment saying "This mission was made by satan". So true. It's not fun, it's just very torturous gameplay. But the immersion of the city is that what makes this game great.
We have been keeping this in mind since the very start of production: a visual sense can be a game mechanic itself. If you've played the original Sea Dogs by Akella you'd remember those skies at sunset. Probably, this was the reason we try to build a beautiful game, and not just mechanically reach playable system.
This week we were working on tuning the ship economy, production GUI and balance. But also - we redid the system of procedural grass and amended the lighting system. Because these silly things eventually create the whole game experience.
Update Notes (January 17)
Hi everyone,
Today we're releasing a new update for Feral Blue.
This update will bring you new options of earning water and wood for your crew, so called stealth missions. We are not going to implement any serious narrative at this stage, but a few hints were written.
Also, we've tried to amend the most annoying bugs and tune the balance a bit.
With the next update we're gonna concentrate on fixing ship management and UI, so please stay tuned. Below you may find the current patch notes.
Mechanics
- Land missions with a pinch of stealth gameplay. You may be engaged in this activity by picking up a quest in cities or by entering into a point of interest on the map (check orange exclamation marks)
Balance
- Morale drop was reduced significantly - Pirates are much less aggressive now - Crew members improve their skills far more quickly (in case they are assigned to a job in a cabin)
Fixed
- Warnings about irrelevant quests were disabled - When trading in cities, the price difference is now calculated correctly
Optimization
- If you have any troubles launching the game with AMD video adapters, you may set a special safe mode by entering -safe via Steam's Set Launch Options - Windowed mode was added - Additional graphics options were added
Stealth missions - now in open beta
On every New Year's eve for the last 20 years, а few minutes before the twelve chimes of the Kremlin clock beat midnight, Mr Putin (the current Russian president) has been appearing on TV for his New Year greeting speech to the fellow citizens. His customary brief summary is "We've been having a rough year". And for this this year Snowbird Games couldn't agree more. A rough year indeed, good sir.
Though after launching Feral Blue we faced that Fry and Laurie described as 'mixed reception', we are determined to deliver this product according to our vision (you may check our road map here). In 2020 we will proceed with quests, narrative stories, visual content, UI and UX improvements.
Tonight Father Frost is releasing a beta version of what we call land operations. If you don't mind of testing this work-in-progress gameplay, you may choose an Open Beta in the game setting menu at your Steam library. Than on the strategic map you will see some exclamation marks and by entering these exclamation areas you can activate a stealth mission for your captain. It's actually a pretty simple task of killing AI bots in the enemy village. AI can hear you, can see you, can track you and do all other usual AI-guards stuff. As soon as we polish this mechanic, we will proceed with more complicated missions and add some narrative-driven things to the game.
Our crew wish you all the best in 2020. Sleep well, walk more, read books, take a moment for a cup of tea and perhaps some cookies (you may also eat some extra cookies later, especially in case of nasty weather). See you in January. Truly yours, Snowbird team.
Devblog #14 — Stealth missions
Hello everyone,
Today we are going to talk about the stealth mechanics. Why that would be a good idea to add this element to Feral Blue (and doing so is our next task)? Well, we believe it might have been a good way of adding immersiveness to the game. There are several factions in our world, but interactions with those factions are quite limited. We either go for a sea battle or a melee fight with those folks, no deep feelings at all. Stealth missions are great in building suspense: you are unhurried, you are emotionally engaged to your enemy.
Albeit it won't be a new Splinter Cell game or something (we've had mechanics galore already), our AI will be learned all the classic tricks: I see you, I hear you, it must've been a cat. You know, we've been learning from the best: https://youtu.be/0xlZki2-r5o
Our next step is combining strategy quests and stealth missions together and then we can proceed with writing A GLOBAL NARRATIVE.
Update Notes (December 12)
Hi everyone,
Today we're releasing a new update for Feral Blue. We've now finished the technical framework for our quest system - now we only have to fill it with proper content.
But for starters, we added a contract system - this is the classic case of 'Search for a job'. The contracts available are: supplying a certain product, transporting goods, as well ass delivering special parcels.
In the near future, we also hope to add special missions on land (for now we think it's going to be a mix of stealth and settlements capturing).
Update notes below:
Mechanics
- Quest system for the strategic map.
Interface
- Morale indicators for warrior and servants are now displayed in the ship's cabins.
Fixed
- Lighting optimizations, small fixes for AI battle logic.
Update Notes (November 21)
Hi everyone,
Today, according to our development roadmap (check it here in case you still haven't), we're releasing an update dedicated to balance, optimization and interface improvements.
Update notes (November 21):
Interface
- New crew management interface. We've rearranged some elements, added a couple of new menus and tried to make the task assignment process much more convenient in general.
- Added hotkeys for the strategic map.
- It is now possible to enter the quantity of goods manually in the trading screen.
Balancing
1) Production
Substantially revised formulas and mechanics responsible for ammunition production, ship repairs, crew morale penalties and bonuses.
Now crew members will level up their skills faster depending on which task they are performing. We should note that there are no penalties for the mismatch of the character's skills and the type of work they are doing, so you can freely operate with all available crew members.
2) Battle damage
We've reworked the crew damage calculation during battles. Now it works like this:
- only one crew member takes damage until he dies (it was divided among everyone before which made it seem like nobody was taking damage);
- only warriors take damage (serfs are hiding in the cargo hold and don't participate in battles);
- the more space a ship has, the less damage the crew takes. A crowded ship will receive a separate crew damage penalty (as people have nowhere to hide).
3) Enemy power
We've adjusted the power of smugglers, so that they wouldn't be too weak at the start or too strong as more time passes.
Optimization
Improved performance in cities and ship cabins.
Content
- Added visualization for high-level cabins. - Added city flags for factions. - Added new material for pavements. - Improved lighting in cities.
Roadmap
Hi everyone,
Today we'd like to share our plans for the future development of Feral Blue - for now, untill March. Let us explain why only until March. As you may know, game development, especially in regards to early access, can be very unpredictable. Simply put, some things on the list may not make it in, while other unlisted and new stuff may appear in the game down the road. Come March, we'll do an evaluation of your feedback and our capabilities and announce further plans.
At the moment our roadmap looks like this:
November
This month is mostly about interface fixes, as there were quite a few comments on it, and we'll do our best to consider them. One part of the team is in charge of this, the other will keep working on the quest system.
Most probably, next week we'll release an update that will introduce substantial changes to the crew management interface + some graphical improvements for cities.
December
During this month the foundation for the quest system should be completed. We expect at least two updates here.
For the first update we'll launch the so-called strategic quests: delivering goods to cities, extracting required resources, transporting valuable cargo (and passengers) between the cities.
In the second update we want to add tactical quests: missions on land, where players will have to eliminate bad guys, sneak into the camp and steal something or just kill everyone there. In general, these missions will be about stealth and exploration.
In addition to this, we'll do some fixes to city economy, expected to be a part of one of the December updates.
January
After the New Year, we'll be primarily working on a new blueprint system and a technology tree. You'll be able to learn ship building methods in cities, so that you could build them yourself later. Vessels captured in battles can be brought to your city and your local engineers can take them apart and get a bonus to their research.
In addition, we'll start working on the vassal system - players will be able not only to appoint their governors in the cities, but also control them. This includes supply management, convoy system, assistance in wars.
In total, two updates in January, one about research, the second - about the vassals.
February
By the end of winter, we plan to work on the 'end goals' - things that give players an opportunity to get victorious in the game world. If they wish so, of course. An end goal will be presented through a number of global events, like epidemics or invasion of never before seen dangerous enemies. With the help of diplomacy and military power, players can accept this challenge and change the world.
Most likely, there will be a series of smaller updates that will add city missions, global events, new quest lines and the ending options.
March
By this time, we'll have added quite a few mechanics, so some bug fixing will undoubtedly be in order - for the beginning of the month.
After this we want to see how things went, summarize all collected feedback and share our next development plans.
Update Notes (October 28)
Hi everyone,
Over the weekend we've made some fixes and additions for Feral Blue (available for download now) - thank you to everyone who helps us find these issues!
Update notes (October 28):
Added:
- Added distribution of equipment through the warrior's description in the cabin
- Added notification text for the guns without ammunition
- Added auto-change for ammunition, if one of the types is depleted
- Added trading and recruitment for villages
- Added Chinese language for the tutorial
- Added factional flags for city walls and factional icons for cities and villages
Fixed:
- Fixed a bug with captured ships not moving on the map
- Smugglers now always offer to trade, rather than attacking first
- First level pirates and smuggles no longer have ribadekins
- Increased starting parameters for player's character
- Cabin repairs now costs 10 times less
- Fixed a bug with the stalemate in naval battle, when enemy attacked player immediately again and with full parameters (as if there had been no fight). Now the parameters are saved, and the enemy moves into the nearest village after the battle
- Fixed interface sliders (they decreased in size with mouseover - in settings, ammunition purchase and item transferring menus)
- Fixed a bug with the length of the interface text
- Fixed a bug with non-attacking enemies and the discrepancy between ammunition types and the guns - now all guns are distributed correctly
- Enemies shoot back more aggressively.
- Disabled automatic entering into the cities when moving nearby
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And an addition to the notes for today's update:
- Fixes for crafting system and resource management. Now everything crafting-related should work as intended.
