Life is Hard
Polishing and bug fixing
Bug fixing
Hello everyone! Just wanted to announce that I'm currently focused on bug fixing and thank you for your help.
Together we've managed to fix about 30 bugs and small glitches in 10 days!
I'm also working on new content - new gathering system and decorations are to appear really soon!
If you want to help me in bug fixing, join our Discord: https://discord.gg/pirozhok
Sincerely yours,
Life is Hard dev.
Random events, world generation, personal traits
Today's patch affects the late game. Many players told us there was nothing left to do after beating the nords and the necromancer. Well, the time has come to change it.
Random events.
I've done a great work on new random events, which may happen with your settlement in the late game.
Northern vibes
For the last two months we've been working hard on the upcoming patch.
I'm happy to announce that it will come out in the next few days.
Important changes were made in sound design - there will be two new soundtracks and a plethora of new sound effects - 4 per weapon/armor type.
So, I'm proud to introduce you to the new nordern raiders theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyK3kV-_35g
This theme was heavily inspired with the northern folklore and culture. Vocal and drums are widely used in the Scandinavian music, so we used them in this soundtrack to make it sound authentic.
It took a lot of effort to study the subject and compose this theme, so feel free to share your opinion, as it really helps Life is Hard to get better!
P.S. This art is to become a cornerstone of a new cinematic trailer.
All the artwork used in the cinematic will be available in-game as loading screens and on Steam as profile backgrounds.
New world map, shields and weapons
Gameplay changes:
- First of all, world map was changed. Eastern Kingdom, Islands and naga were removed from the game. World map looks like that now:
Nord location's appearance was also changed - now it's a rocky sea shore:
- Different difficulty levels were finally implemented.
- Your subjects have learned to construct two new buildings!
[I]A school
A market attracts trading caravans from other towns, bringing money to the settlement:
<*> Meat the mages! You can train mages in a wizard tower. Mages can wear robes and leather armor and use wands as weapons. Low armor is compensated with high damage and high effectiveness against heavy armored units.
[I]Mage without a wand:
[I]Mage with a fire wand:
<*> Shields were implemented. Soldiers can use one of three shield types -a round shields, kite shields and tower shields. Every one of them has advantages and disadvantages. Shields can be crafted in the workshop.
<*> Mercenaries were redesigned. Now you'll be able to hire those cutthroats instead of five similar units. Every one of them has their one weapon and armor types:
[I]Before:
[I]After:
<*> You'll be able to find treasure in the mine. Or ruins of an ancient settlements. Explore carefully!
<*> Two new weapons were added. Military picks effectively puncture heavy armor, and two-handed axes deal terrible damage to unarmored units:
<*> Two new effects were added. Some weapon types provoke bleeding, dealing periodic damage. Weapons of the undead might provoke poisoning, making your units miss with a 40% chance.
<*> New traits were added:
1) Undead slayer - your unit deals 25% more damage to the undead
2) Nords slayer - your unit deals 25% more damage to the nords
3) Fear of undead - your unit deals 25% less damage to the undead
4) Fear of nords - your unit deals 25% less damage to the nords
Control changes:
- Hero and soldiers can descend into the mine now.
- Workshop interface was noticeably changed. Items were divided into three types - "weapons", "armor" and "miscellaneous":
- Soldiers Control panel was also changed - now they have personal traits:
- Behaviour mode or attack move for all chosen units were implemented.
- Pressing Shift you'll move to a free minion now.
- Pressing Tab one chooses hero, pressing it twice will move the camera to him.
Graphic changes:
- Banners were redesigned:
- Loading screens were redesigned:
- Helmets were redesigned too. Ancient helmets might be dropped from the skeletons. They are slightly better that the leather ones, but are quite bulky to use, slowing your minions down:
- Names and appearance of the minions were redesigned:
- Iron armor and weapons were redesigned too.
Bug fixes:
- Incorrect hero behaviour in battles
- Impossibility to hire minions to farms using the control menu (T)
- Incorrect soldiers and mercenaries behaviour near hunting minions
- Incorrect rations pictures after loading the game
- Incorrect dialog texts after loading the game
- Incorrect villagers behaviour
- Massive dear migration
- Incorrect ore spawn in the mine
- Incorrect bears behaviour
- Incorrect fence length on the background
- Incorrect bakery sprite after loading the game
- Ore and stone amount that is gained from villages was slightly decreased
- Minions quit their job after bathing
- Minions bug out after hiring them into the mine using control panel
- Ammunition choice bugs out using control panel
- Goblin and dwarf traders bug out
- Incorrect expedition wagon behaviour
- Heroes ranged attacks bug out
- Quests are not loaded
- Towers are not loaded
- "No soap" icon bugs out
- Catapult armor type is not shown
- Incorrect skeletons behaviour during the daytime
- Incorrect underground skeletons behaviour
- Incorrect support beams sprites while building
- Buildings overlap
- Childrens' heads bug out
- "Fighter" and "Puny" bug out
- Forest background bugs out
- Nords bowmen' armor types bug out
That's all for now, folks! I'm planning to implement secondary weapons for arches and random words generation. Share your opinion and don't forget to join our Discord-channel!
Announcing new patch & plans for the future
It's been a long time since I wrote a post on Steam - much was changing in my life, so I had time only to support the project and fix the bugs you found.
However, I'm in charge again, and I'm glad to announce some new features & mechanics for the next patch:
UPD: it's not out yet, this post is just an announce!
- First of all, money is finally going to appear in Life is Hard.
A player will be able to construct a new building - market - that attracts merchants and caravans from all over the tiny world. They will buy goods from your minions and pay with gold!
Hiring mercenaries, monks, jesters etc. will require money from now on. No more barter!
- Secondly, mages will stand by your side.
You'll be able to hire new units at the mage's tower. Seems legit, doesn't it? Mages are equipped with light armor & wands. Soldiers will lose ability to use them.
A "work in progress" mage's outfit
- To compensate for the loss, soldiers will be able to use shields.
Shields have a chance to reflect hits/projectiles. The stronger the material is - the higher the chances are.
I'm also considering giving secondary weapons to ranged units like archers, as using bow at close range seems illogical. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments.
A wooden shield
- In this regard, i've changed weapons system, making weapon & armor types more balanced. Here's a small table:
[table]
[tr]
[th]Weapon type[/th]
[th]Damage scale to unarmored units[/th]
[th]Damage scale to light-armored units[/th]
[th]Damage scale to medium-armored units[/th]
[th]Damage scale to heavy-armored units[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firsts, fangs, horns etc.[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Cutting weapons[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Piercing weapons[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Blunt weapons[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[td]50%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Ranged weapons[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]75%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Magic[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]100%[/td]
[td]125%[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
I believe this system will make players to have a balanced army with light-armored bowmen and mages. I'm still working on it, so feel free to share your opinion.
- New mercenaries sprites have arrived to replace the old ones.
Every one of them has unique attack & armor type according to the table above.
- The last updated mechanics in this patch is rations system.
Players will be able to choose manually whether to use a resource in their minions' rations or to keep it for trading.
That's all for now. There's still much work to do, but I hope to release this patch on New Year's holidays. As I already mentioned, I'd love to hear your opinion about the patch in the comments!
Yours,
Life is Hard dev
Something great incoming
Still Alive.
Let’s start with a report about work we done.
Recently we’ve added feudal villages, which can be built after reaching a certain level of a development. Agricultural, industrial, mining or blacksmithing villages can be founded. They will share some of their resources with a player once in a while.
In-game's fauna was also extended by adding birds, which tend to fly away to warm countries late summer. We hope it'll help to create the atmosphere of a passing summer.
Talking about in-game mechanics and controls, now you can switch between soldiers with arrow keys, which allows you to quickly select the desired unit. The TAB key brings player’s view to the battlefield and you can always check how much food your minions recently gained.
We will also continue our work on the interface to make it more convenient and easier to interact with.
After that, we’ll be ready to leave Steam Early Access at any time after fixing all the bugs (just like DayZ, me-he-he). However, we don’t want to release an unstable product, which Life is Hard is. So, please report any bug you found on our Steam Forum. Thank you for your support!
Unique spells and plans.
What would you like to see in Life is Hard? We've been thinking for a while about adding more wandering traders/caravans with different tools/improvements to sell, but we're unsure if this is what our game needs right now. Please respond thoughtfully, as it's very important for the game's further development
Villages' conquest.
The developers of "Life is Hard" are on line.
It's been almost 3 months since the last documented update, and we think that it's time to shed a light on everything that happens behind the scenes of our production plant.
About what we have done
Yesterday we've pushed the last update before a big work we're going to do (written about it below), which contains significant updates of villages, balance and the final of the game.
We came to agreement that the real world is seemed being alive just because it can exist without any player's interactions. In our game the world requires constant interactions.
It was decided to add some neutral villages, which are located between the player's village and nords' lands.
A real race has now been started between nords and player: to conquer every village.
After a village capture, its inhabitants will fight on the side of a conquerors and periodically send tribute consisted of a small amount of iron.
In addition, we've introduced some random events. So, for example, if minions are sick, they will make a medicine themselves. Moreover, occasional minion can invite their partner of the opposite sex for a hot cup of coffee.
A severe rebalance of nagas has been made. You used to beat naga, now nagas will beat you.
Oh, numerous bugs have been fixed.
About what we are going to do
As we have noted, this update is the final before the big work that we will do over the game.
Due to modest knowledge at the beginning of the game development, the lines of code were repeatedly duplicated, and bugs were fixed with "crutches" (even "crutches for crutches" are presented in the code), and no one could do anything about it. The code was polluted, and some fragments began to resemble cancerous tumors.
Now we want to act radically: completely rewrite the game code.
What does it mean for you?
We will try to optimize the game and escape it from many childhood diseases, such as memory leaks and long load screens.
What does it mean for us?
First of all, the redesigned and correctly placed code will allow us to determine and fix bugs much faster. In addition, introductions of new content will be more smoothly than before.
What does it mean for everybody?
Due to an amount of the current content that must be recreated, the next major update may be released not soon.