It has been 2 months since our last post and 3 months since our last update to the demo. But the good news is, the multiplayer demo is just around the corner.
We had to change and iterate a lot of things in the game to work well with the multiplayer. The behaviors of every creature in the game, dungeons and other instances, quest system, save system and almost every other system in the game received an update.
Today we're proudly participating the couch co-op fest. Unfortunately you might have to wait a bit more for the multiplayer version of the game.
Another good news is that we didn't stop content production while we were waiting for the multiplayer development. The starting path of the game is receiving a big update and it will change the feel of the first 2 hours of the game dramatically. We are updating the cities and improving their content. Here is the senakpeek of City of War:
We will share more when the demo is ready but until then, you can check some of the new equipment options in this gif
Devlog#10 - Development News
Hello Chosen Ones,
We are not making any update to the demo this time because multiplayer development is taking a big chunk of our time and we are trying to migrate all game systems to support multiplayer. But we still want to share news from our development and what to expect soon.
We will need another couple of months until the release of our multiplayer version. Yet might still make some smaller content updates until then.
MOUNTAIN KING
The second boss of the game (probably the first one you will encounter) is almost ready. All bosses have their own lairs and theme. This ones speciality is cooking and I assume he wants to use you as an ingredient for his next special dish.
This character was a challenge for us in terms of Spine-Unity integration, fake 3d look and some conditional attack animations using inverse kinematics. But it was fun to develop and hopefully it will be a fun challenge to beat him in the game.
CITIES and PROFESSIONS
We are expanding the content of the game by adding new vendor/questgiver NPCs to cities. Each biome can hold one of the two factions available in that biome (Such as vampires and werewolves for the starting biomes) and each of these factions can develop cities belonging to 3 cultures. We have love, war and the scholar culture available in the first two biomes of the game.
These cultures define which NPCs will appear when the city levels up. The NPCs serve as a vendor and a questgiver to one of the tech trees in the game. Here is the development path of the first 3 cultures
Note that if you don't encounter these NPCs in the first island you start, you can still find them in other islands. And you don't need them to progress in your tech tree or in your base. They will just give you quests related to their areas and in case you already invested in those areas you will have a slight edge in moneymaking and developing these cities.
They will also serve as an alternative for buying some items in case you have difficulties finding them in the game or crafting them on your own.
MULTIPLAYER DEVELOPMENT
This has been the biggest development task of the game so far. But it's going well. We started to create initial connections between two players, update world data and player animations and let the host handle every calculations.
These characters are showing their affection to each other in this gif:
Stay well until the next update.
HOTFIX for the Demo v0.3.23
We just released an update addressing some issues discovered after the last release.
Our artist playing the game
Our artist playing the game
Devlog#9 - Demo Update v0.3.23
Hello Chosen Ones,
We haven't had any updates for a while to prepare for a bit bigger one. Land of the Crescent is the biggest regional event for us and we hope this will put Good Heavens! in the radars of many players who weren't aware of it so far.
We have new features, new content and functionality in this update.
MAP
We now have a map feature that we will work on improving further. Undiscovered areas of the map are obscured at the start with fog of war and once you start to reveal the map as you explore your island, important map features such as the cities, point of interests and some resources are shown on the map.
Further improvements to the Map will be made on later updates.
WORLD GENERATION UPDATE
This was something we mentioned in the latest update. It wasn't possible to show any effects of this but the infrastructure was developed. Right now, we have different zones under each biome. There is a different distribution of resources and creatures under each zone. Some of these zones will be visible to the player, some of them won't. Also points of interests will be placed in designated zones within the biome.
This will help players to find resources next to each other and also wander in safer zones and avoid more dangerous ones if they want to. We believe this will affect gameplay quite a lot but there will be more updates about these different hidden zones in future updates.
NEW POINTS OF INTERESTS
We want the exploration in Good Heavens! to be exciting. Players should be able to find interesting side stories, mysterious dungeons and quirky NPC's all around the world.
In this update, we introduced a couple of random encounters such as the BDSM vampires, nudist elves and the drunk orc. These encounters are mostly a showcase for now and they will have more in depth content later on.
We also added a new dungeon, that acts like a maze with portals in it and we renewed the older troll camps with lots of different variations.
UI/UX UPDATE and OTHER IMPROVEMENTS WORTH MENTIONING
We made several changes on the UI and reworked some of the functionality.
We can now skip dialog options with a single button.
We can now track multiple quests at the same time on HUD (up to 3 quests).
It is now possible to take half of a stack, take one of a stack or quick dump a stack from the inventory to a container and vice versa using CTRL, ALT and SHIFT keys.
We've changed the way tools are used and added some error messages for better feedback. Most often, the correct tool is needed to do a specific task such as chopping down a tree or mining a rock.
We also added animation cancelling on player attack animations. Now it's possible to cancel an attack after a hit to move.
Some other UI/UX changes are listed on the full patch notes.
Player has a hammer now to dismantle buildings and building prototypes.
We can now pin some crafting recipes to the HUD.
DRYLAND CREATURES UPDATE
Our quest for making Good Heavens! creatures weirder is going on non-stop. Check out these updated animals:
UPCOMING CHANGES
We're working on a new boss fight for the first biome Evergreen. The new boss is called the "Mountain King" and his diet includes players.
We're also working on base building aspect of the game and we're expecting future updates will bring a new tutorial, lots of new things to build and hopefully multiplayer support at some point.
FULL PATCH NOTES
Prevent knockback into unwalkable
Show multiple quests in tracker
Add animation cancelling to attack state
Tree & rock interaction improvements
Fix pathfinding issues
Player torch equip animation
World generation simulation
Dungeon A&B fixes
New SFX
Outdoor lights weakened
Material fixes
Fix bug occurring on quest completion
E-Q keys menu switch input
New spawn point assets
Add step as quest prerequisite
Crafting / Tech tree unlocking button improvements
Main Menu update
Furnace fixes
Tooltips position update
FarmPlot harvesting bugfix
Ant queen lair lights fix
Pinning Craft Recipes
Bush interaction update
Inventory item dividing
Quest Tracker Animations
Updated tree receive attack animation
Drylands new ant camps
Dismantle buildings
Add boomerang
Add Dungeon C
New poi generation strategy
Devlog#8 - Demo Update v0.3.22
Hello Chosen Ones,
Last weekend we took part in a local event that's why we didn't make the update on last Friday and postponed it to today.
THE EVENT
GIST - Gaming Istanbul is an annual gaming show held in September every year for some time now. This was the first time we participated as an exhibitor and it was a lot fun. It was nice to see Good Heavens! attracted lots of visitors with its unique visual style and having a polished demo was quite beneficial.
It was a big motivation for the team to receive all the praise but we also collected lots of feedback and good good memories.
Here are some pictures from the event.
With the help of the event, we surpassed 12K Wishlists on Steam, yay!
Let's talk a little about what this new update brings.
FULL VISUAL UPDATE FOR EVERGREEN
In our last devlog, we mentioned the updated look of the animals on Evergreen. We went a little further this time and updated almost EVERYTHING.
This includes the appearance of the player character. Now we start the game with our PAJAMAS! Making it a bit more consistent with the intro animation.
Please let us know in the comments how do you feel about this new look.
A NEW DUNGEON LAYOUT and NEW TROLL CAMPS
This new dungeon has a different surface entrance than the first one and it's a simplified version of the first dungeon layout. We will probably introduce different layouts in the future.
We also updated the troll camps with new assets and added a few more variations which you may not encounter all of them in a new world as they spawn randomly.
LIGHTING UPDATE
Lighting in the dungeons is still in an early stage but we made lots of improvements for the light calculations, light radius and intensity. There are interactable wall torches in the new dungeon and you will probably need a light source in order to start exploring. You can interact with wall torches while having a torch in your hand to light up the environment.
We made some fixes to lighting in the Ant Queen Lair as well.
The lighting in the dungeon is a precursor of what will happen during nighttime in the surface world.
BACKGROUND WORK and UPCOMING CHANGES
We removed A* Pathfinding Project from the game since it wasn't optimized for an open-world procedural game. We are still using the same algorithm with our own optimization. We gained significant performance boost while doing so. This required going through the behaviors of all creatures and there might be some untested instances in this update. We would like to know if you encounter some weird behaviors.
This was quite an important update before the multiplayer feature and it was part of the big multiplayer update.
We also made some changes in the way we generate our islands. This was more of a design/balance requirement. Having monsters around the starting zone was bothering players and distracting them from crafting/building the initial items.
Also we wanted to distribute resources a little unevenly so that players will know where to go to find a specific resource/creature. We now have safe/normal/danger zones for biomes and cities always pop up in the safe zone while boss lairs pop up in the danger zone. We will distribute other resources and point of interest after some testing. THIS FEATURE IS NOT YET IMPLEMENTED but it will probably available on our next update.
One final note, due to some of the above changes you will not be able to load older game saves in this version. We are sorry for that. ːsteamsadː
FULL PATCH NOTES
Evergreen visual update
Player appearance update
Pathfinding update
Uncollected items be removed after 2 minutes
Ant Queen Lair light fixes
New dungeon entrance
New dungeon layout
New Troll camps
New trees material updates
Light flicker fix
Better light calculations
Interactable lights
Light bug fixes
Equipable torch light
Fix a bug causing protect step NPCs to not spawn
Disabled teleportation out of dungeons, fix other teleportation related bugs
Fix an error in UI navigation, causing volume change on player movement
Fix a bug causing combined quest steps to not show on tracker
Fix tech unlocks not working properly on game load
Fix pathfinding of some NPC behaviors
Move monster drops to their relevant scenes, fixing an error occurring on re-entry to dungeon or boss room
Fix a bug causing chests to break on filling the last slot
Fix a bug causing vendor transactions to break quickslot containers
Improve quest giver UX, by removing indicators if there are no available quests at the moment
Devlog#7 - Demo Update v0.3.21
Hello Chosen Ones,
We are currently on a mission to create a distinct visual language for Good Heavens! that would differentiate it from other games. We are making an absurd fantasy comedy game and decided to turn on the absurdism a little.
Most changes in this updates are visual and the rest is some background work.
ANIMALS
They are now weirder, more colorful and prouder.
We started to think of them as the night time versions of creatures but we liked them so much and wanted to change the default versions to this. Later on we might come up with some other night versions or not.
OTHER CHANGES
We've added new recipes for character customizations (probably will be included in character customization UI later on)
We worked on a new lighting system for a while now. We didn't add new lights to the game but most of the materials in the game has been changed for upcoming light.
We are making improvements on the quest system of the game and soon we will have a big change in the tutorial reflecting these changes.
We've added breakable items to the game. Now some objects in the dungeons are breakable but they don't drop items yet, we will add some random items to these breakable items.
We've changed the way items are pulled (magnet) to the player. Also, we've added some sounds for objects coming to the inventory.
Another major work has been done on the multiplayer side of the game. We are optimizing the A* pathfinding project for our needs while remaining true to the way the algorithm works.
FULL PATCH NOTES
Wind shader update
Animal changes
New recipes
update skeleton pose on item equip/unequip
Update get object from pool
Quest system improvements
material fixes
add breakable items, replace dungeon sceneries
Puzzle button animation
add item and craftable icons by
Main Menu UI fix
New item magnet animation
HOTFIX for the Demo v0.3.20
Fixed treasure room door not unlocking
Fixed wall torch flames showing over player
Fixed a bug breaking other monsters after killing blobs and returning to the surface
Devlog#6 - Demo Update v0.3.20
Hello Chosen Ones,
It was a very busy two weeks for us. Dungeons had a lot of work we couldn't anticipate. We paid the price with some overtime. We also have been part of a documentary filming for two days. Cameras and production people were all around and we had a chance to test our acting skills. It went pretty well.
Let's talk about the things we're adding this time.
DUNGEON
There are lots of work here but not so many content. Content will follow in the upcoming weeks. Currently we only have an example dungeon with 3 new monsters and a puzzle.
We decided to keep the camera angle orthogonal in closed spaces despite using perspective camera outdoors. This is primarily done to get rid of artefacts appearing on side walls.
We created a sample layout for the dungeon, inducing some exploration and a little bit of tension with a couple of rewards in the end. There is a small monster room and a final monster room, a treasure room and a puzzle room.
We will work on new layouts with bigger or maybe smaller dungeons according to the feedback we receive.
PS: You need to start a new game to be able to discover the dungeon entrance.
DUNGEON MONSTERS
Boney
This is a simple minion for the dungeon, a melee attacker with a funny idle animation.
Blob
This is an elite monster making jump attacks. It spawns two mini blobs when it dies.
Tin Trunk
This is a powerful elite monster having a charge attack with another awesome idle animation.
LIGHTING UPDATE
We are trying to achieve a lighting system similar to our trailer video. This work has been going on for a while. We changed all the materials in the game according to our new lighting system. We had to remove the wind shader for now as it wasn't in line with the new lighting but we will have a rework on that soon.
Dungeon lights are the first pass in this new lighting system. But we will improve this to have a gameplay element. Dungeons will have some dark areas and either you will need to carry a lighting source in your hand or light a wall torch to see your surrounding.
We are still exploring the lighting for day/night cycle of the game.
PUZZLES
We introduced a logic puzzle in dungeons. There are 5 versions of this puzzle currently. This can be a little challenging as it includes a logic element and a riddle. The reward isn't huge so don't worry if you fail the puzzle. We will have other puzzles in future updates and we have advanced versions of the current puzzle if we receive a positive feedback.
That's it for now. See you on the next one.
FULL PATCH NOTES
Dungeons
Blob, Tintrunk and Boney monsters
Quest System Improvements
Dungeon Lighting & Art Improvements
Lighting
Puzzle encounter
New minimap icons
Spine shader fixes
Devlog#5 - Demo Update v0.3.19
Hello Chosen Ones,
It seems we found how to address you guys, you're now all Chosen Ones in Xant-Rar, and we will all save the realm together. Now that the scene is set properly, let's talk about what's going on in development.
We are making so many changes to UI, I'm a little afraid we will find ourselves in the same spot we started initially. It's a part of the evolution of the game.
NEW INVENTORY SYSTEM
We changed the layout of the inventory so that there are only 3 rows right now and the first row is the duplicate of the item bar on the HUD. This reduced the size of the inventory a little, but that little bit of inventory management is a challenge we wanted to have in the game to some extent.
You won't be able to interact with the item bar once you open the inventory/chest/trading UIs .This functionality appears to be more common in similar games and also ensures there are no glitches.
We made another change to the equipment slots. The hand slot you could equip weapons and tools is no more! Instead, all hand equipment can be directly used from the item bar. This seems a lot more natural after listening to your feedback.
Instead of the hand slot, we introduced pants! Now your character is a bit more customizable. We're going to add a few different pants options to the game in the following updates.
VSYNC
Screen tearing was another complaint by some players. Depending on the power of the GPU and the refresh rate of monitor it was possible to have inconsistency. This is an option enabled by default in the settings right now but you can disable if you want to.
ITEM and RECIPE DESCRIPTIONS
We recently implemented tooltips to the game and changed how they looked in the following update. Currently we're trying to add some more functional information about items, recipes and other areas in the game. We're also working on the look and feel of these tooltips.
BLUEPRINTS
An invisible change of this new build was the introduction of blueprints. Apart from the tech tree recipes, it's now possible to learn recipes from items. This allows us to earn new recipes from monster drops or as quest rewards. The blueprints might have some tech requirements and they can be used once and consumed.
BACKGROUND WORK
We're still working on dungeons, day/night cycle and multiplayer. All of them are very exciting updates. We were hoping to deliver a prototype dungeon today but we just thought it was a bit too early to release it at this state. Next update will have a dungeon, new dungeon monsters, a puzzle and maybe some other things that I don't want to spoil yet.
