It' is time for another update! Below I listed a few things I've been working on recently, but first off, I'd like to quickly address a question I'm getting quite often those days: when will the game be released?
Unless a game is really near final completion (this one isn't yet), making any statement on that regard is rarely a good idea. Delays can occur for many reasons, some of which are outside the developer's control. There is only one person working on this project (me, freelancing artists excluded), so any unexpected problem can push the release date. I am working on the game at every possible moment, and would like to ask that you please bear with me :) Having said that, the date shown on the Steam page is still my goal for the (initially closed) Alpha, which will already be quite playable. It is still a frightening amount of work!
Here's what I've been up to lately:
Filling the cities with life! Each house in every town can be entered and has different rooms, furnishing and items, which are procedurally (and reasonably) generated. Every town is also home to hundreds of characters, each of them with a certain role and fitting work/play/sleep cycles... so in a way, this is also the AI that's being worked on at the moment, but I'm a bit hestitant to use that term, since it's more of a series of behavioral patterns rather than an AI in the sense of deep learning and a neural network. The image shows the debug version where NPCs say what they are doing.
The goal is to make the cities feel full of life and very real; but it's not just about the atmosphere - you will be able to use what you see to your advantage during gameplay. As an example, you can tell if someone is at their home (and in which room) by observing which windows are illuminated in the evening (take a guess which type of player character I had in mind for that feature). Now that all characters are being added to the game, some more art assets like a few missing portraits are also needed which are currently being worked on.
Finishing up the environmental art Environmental art includes everything you can see on the map like the ground, trees, bushes and other plants, rocks, buildings, and all kinds of other objects. Recently I completed the mountain landscape, and am now working on the last missing part, the swamp. As a reminder, trees in the game (incl. the new swamp trees) are modular, which means they are assembled from various components, making every single tree be different. This is of course a lot more work than fixed assets, but the effect is totally worth it.
Also recently completed was the mapping of shorelines... when switching (= zooming in) from the travel map to the local map, the outline of water shorelines match accurately, although those two types of maps are not built upon the same data:
Generic Requirements This is an internal addition to the engine and it's not visible to players, but it was important and also quite some work, so it's worth mentioning (but: boring alert) Recently I added code for the concept of "generic requirements", which can be used to describe any kind of prerequisite needed to proceed with... well, really anything in the game. A few examples:
Quests: there might be requirements for starting a quest, like a good relation to the quest giver or having a minimum character level.
Faction membership: to join a faction, you will also need to fulfill certain requirements... you most certainly will have to be in good standing with the faction, but you might also need to have sufficient experience or maybe a certain certain character class - the noble Knights of Saint Audin won't accept your thieving scoundrel in their ranks... normally.
Many questions like "can this room be entered" might also depend on requirements to be fulfilled, which can now all be handled using this new system.
Until next time, Martin
Getting closer to Early Access
Venerable Knights of the Valley!
I'd like to share the latest progress on developing the game... here's what's new:
Since the last update I Introduced a new character model to the game. This is a big step towards the vision of a highly dynamic world... characters can now update and act while they are not on the current map, meaning they will continue with their life and actions while you are not around. Next time you meet them, things might have changed.
The interaction engine is now completed. As mentioned in a previous update, there are many ways of interacting with objects and characters around you... I think the system turned out really nicely, and I hope you will like it too.
I completely reworked the indoor map visualization (buildings and dungeons). Inner walls as well as new transparency and light effects were added, but most importantly, the unnatural restriction that characters weren't able to move behind walls is finally gone. This was a major effort requiring lots of art and coding changes for each of the many types of dungeons and buildings, but it looks so much more real and interesting now, it was worth it.
I further improved the pathfinding engine - it is much more robust now, especially indoors when steering tightly around many objects. I'm planning to put a bit more work into this later to make it even better, but it already works fine as is.
Took first stabs at the NPC AI - this is a major project and will be the focus over the next few weeks or months.
Added many new game characters and items.
Added new music - a track from Kevin Manthei which we called "Traveling" is now part of the OST, and it's definitely one of the most atmospheric tunes in the game. I will probably share this song before the release, probably with the next (and hopefully final) trailer video.
Countless internal improvements, additions, and fixes in basically every part of the game. Things run faster and more stable all around, which is critical for the upcoming EAP release. I also replaced the component for playing back cutscenes - this was necessary, as video and audio kept getting out of sync with the old one... it's a surprisingly complex issue, but it works well now.
I created a new video which starts right where the real game will start: in the tavern of the main character's hometown Baileaon, on a morning after a drinking night (major headache). Watch our hero first walk through the building and interact with a few objects, before he leaves town to explore the world a bit. Other characters are not yet shown in this video, but they already exist and will soon join the stage.
In a few weeks I'll hit the 6th anniversary of working on this project; this sounds like a long time, but considering the game is being developed part-time, it is the equivalent of three years of fulltime work... which really is not long at all for writing a complex game with a homebrew engine from scratch as a solo-dev.
I'm very excited how things shape up. The Early Access release is on my mind for every task I'm working on now, it's getting closer.
The Grandmaster of the Order needs your Click!
Venerable Knights,
This week, Knights of Frontier Valley is participating in a contest run by GDWC, category "Fan Favorite". Please help increasing exposure for the game by voting here. No registration needed - it's really just one click.
A few updates on the development progress:
Maps for cities that will appear in the Early Access-Version are completed. Those maps contain a large number of new buildings and objects (some of the latter are interactive, such as street lanterns which can be toggled on or off).
Some special buildings like guild headquarters or churches can now be entered.
New particle effects for fire and smoke have been added. Smoke from chimneys realistically disperses based on how strong the wind current is.
Work on shaders for light effects has progressed well. A bit of fine-tuning is still needed, but it's nearly done.
Currently I am mostly working on the tactical combat system. Since this is a critically important part of the game, that project will occupy me for a while.
