Hi, everyone! Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
Warning! The developer's diary may contain uncomfortable content. Please avoid reading it when eating.
First, some bad news here. The weather is getting quite high and my air conditioner is dead. It's almost like deja-vu from last year. I'm pretty sure I wrote something like this before. Alright, anyway, please enjoy this week's developer's super hot diary.
The Saint A new side quest has been added in the Egypt area. You will help slaves trapped in a cave to find their freedom from the cultists. You will find a relatively benevolent ancient Egyptian god hiding in plain sight. In a world of all the eldritch horror, maybe it's time to add something different for a change.
The Sinner Two new faith tenets have been added to the game. The Ritual Cannibalism and the Carnal Exaltation. I admit, I committed the sin of stealing those sinful ideas from Crusader King 3. Well, to be fair, the entire faith customization system is more or less inspired by Crusader King 3 and Godhood. :D So, let's move on to some more details.
The Ritual Cannibalism After tasting the human fresh for the first time by using the skill of "devour corpse", you can unlock this tenet. It makes the "devour corpse" skill recover more HP and even adds some devotion to the believer. Bon appetite.
The Carnal Exaltation It's a relatively simple tenet. You make love and you gain devotion. But, I don't know why many people consider sexual content in games more sinful than even cannibalism. In decades, we can have all kinds of violence in games while it takes a long time to allow a girl to wear a bit less, both in real life and in games. This is not a hentai game. But, we do have sexual content. And I hope people enjoy it. You certainly deserve some naughty fun with Kristin after developing a relationship during your adventure. You certainly can have some eye candies when the world is falling apart, just like those people in Unlucky-13 Motel did. But, it's not advised to do it with a certain succubus, as she usually unintentionally kills her partners in the process until we find a way to fix this later. Meanwhile, this update also carries a special meaning on this day. One of the best Japanese adult game developers “Illusion” just declared their cease to exist next month. They have been making adult games with a lot of sexual content since 30 years ago. I confess to you this, I played their game even when I was far under the required age long ago. I believe many people did the same. To avoid being caught made it more exciting. Those are good memories. But, now, isn't it sad that whenever you open those games such as "Honey Select," "VR Girl Friend," "VR Boy Friend," or "DES Blood," and cannot help but realize the developers once brought you so many sinful fun is gone. What makes things even worse? People who live in heavily censored countries may never taste such joy in their lives without even knowing how much they missed. Once again, I hope one day there will be no censorship in this world. I mean, we eventually all grow up, we eventually learn. This game itself is more than 19 years old now. What's the point to hide the truth from people with a censorship machine to tell people what can see and what can not?
The Infinity Congratulations! You just passed through the paragraph about my daily complaint about censorship. (Please excuse me because I live in China.) Now, let me reward you with a very cool new system! The functions of the Wonderland Travel Agency have been implemented this week. You can pick different randomly generated locations, fight randomly generated enemies, with endless repeatability, and farm specific items you want like there is no tomorrow. It's an upgraded version of the escape simulation mini-game you previously found on the Foundation's Site Demeter. The new system can generate maps that match different themes, with different sets of enemies, procedurally combined together. You can see the details of each location such as environment and enemy types before you enter. You can reroll endless times till you like the playground you get. Even though this system is still in an early stage as it just comes live late this week, it already covers 4 different environment themes and two sets of undead enemies. More will come. And the combination can be infinite. I may even add some new environments, enemies, and pets there before the story covers those areas. It's essentially an infinite dungeon system.
Something else of this week's updates: 1, Expansion of the Floor of Language of the Grand Library. You can find a new faith tenet that empowers your language skills, making it more possible for you to shout your enemies to death. :) You also get some control switches to decide which types of language characters may spawn on this floor. That mostly benefits people who want to use this floor to seriously learn some Japanese. To some people just want to slaughter their enemies, those language characters now have a drop list with some nice items.
2, Skill icon improvements. Thanks to the summer sales on Steam and everywhere else. More art assets have been acquired to add to the game so that we have some better skill icons.
3, New furniture to make nice gates. Those are also new art assets I bought and some code support to support some furniture that can be passed through from its center.
4, Cluster Smoke Bomb What's better than a smoke bomb that covers you from the detection of your enemies? A lot of smoke bombs! This new type of smoke bomb can cover a large area of 5x5. That shall be big enough for you to "sneak" through a lot of enemies as long as you don't accidentally step on another enemy who is also inside the smoke. Plus, the word "cluster" sounds quite exciting recently. :)
That's for this week. Endless new adventures await! (After I fix the air conditioner. :P)
A side note on the main story: Everything in Egypt is done. But, there is still a small part of the main story in the safe house. I can finish that part relatively easily. However, that will be the official conclusion of Chapter 2 of the game. As per the price policy of the game, that means a price increase after about one month of the finishing will happen. The last time we did something like this is at the end of Chapter 1 last September. But, I feel it may be quite weird to announce something like that right after the Steam Summer Sale. Thus, I am delaying the finish date of Chapter 2 to August so that the price increase will take place in September. Nobody gets hurt in their summer vacation season until people start to get back to school and work. :) Meanwhile, we can have some polishes on other parts of the game and some new game systems.
Today's changelog: ############Content################ [Wonderland Travel Agency]Wonderland Travel Agency now provides five random locations with names already generated to allow you to pick from. [Wonderland Travel Agency]You can see the details about that location such as the environment of the location and the hostile entity types of that location after selecting one. (Only Undead right now, but they can have different sub-types.) [Wonderland Travel Agency]Randomly generated locations now can dynamically spawn enemies that match the hostile entity setting of that area. [Wonderland Travel Agency]The enemy spawn mechanics are the same as the ones used in the Grand Library's Floor of Language. Thus, you can encounter an endless amount of enemies if you want to stay there to farm something. [Wonderland Travel Agency]Water Caves and Ice Caves may now appear in randomly generated cave settings. [Wonderland Travel Agency]Fire caves now have a "hot" environment tag. [Wonderland Travel Agency]Ice caves now have a "cold" environment tag. [Wonderland Travel Agency]Reduced the traveling cost to those random locations from $5000 to $500. Have fun to keep regenerating those random caves till you are happy. :D ############System################# [Map]Added a layer over the map_info hash table. With this new layer of encapsulation, game maps can overwrite a map's name without changing a lot of existing code. [Map]Changed the loading order. Pre-load events can now affect a map's environment settings. [Map]Added a very early version of the map name generator. [Save/Load Menu]Mouse/Controller can now use the up/down button on the right to wrap around the top save file and the button save file to be in line with the keyboard behavior. ############Debug################# [Map]Fixed a graphics issue in one of the cases of a procedurally generated cave start location.
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Update, Version 20230713
English ############Content################ [Wonderland Travel Agency]Added new NPC: "The Receptionist." [Wonderland Travel Agency]You can now travel to different strange locations from here. (For now, only fire caves and earth caves with almost nothing in there.) [Wonderland Travel Agency]You can now travel back from those strange locations by talking to the "Tourist Guide." ############System################# Added a procedural generation system for caves. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【奇幻之地旅行社】加入了新的NPC【接待员】 【奇幻之地旅行社】你现在可以从这里前往各种奇怪的地点旅行了。（当前可选的只有火焰洞穴和泥土洞穴两类地点，并且里面几乎什么都没有。） 【奇幻之地旅行社】你现在可以从那些奇怪的地点通过和导游对话返回。 ############System################# 加入了一个洞穴动态生成系统。
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Update, Version 20230712
English ############Content################ [Item]New item: Cluster Smoke Bomb [The Bazaar]The weapon merchant now sells Cluster Smoke Bombs [The Grand Library]Expanded the Floor of Language. [The Grand Library]Added the 4th switch on the Floor of Language. But it's broken. [Furniture]New furniture: Forest Gate [Commodity Market]Furniture Merchants now sell Forest Gates. [Furniture]New furniture: Egyptian Gate [Saint's Refuge]Saad now sells Egyptian Gates ############System################# [Furniture]Added system support to allow furniture characters with an empty space at the center, such as gates. ############Debug################# [The Grand Library]Fixed a bug that causes the game to freeze if you turn off all the switches on the Floor of Language. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【物品】新物品：集束烟雾弹 【巴扎】武器商人现在贩卖集束烟雾弹 【大图书馆】扩展了语言层的地图。 【大图书馆】在语言层加入了第四个开关。但是已经损坏。 【家具】新家具：丛林之门 【小商品市场】家具商人现在贩卖丛林之门 【家具】新家具：埃及石门 【贤者洞穴】萨阿德现在贩卖埃及石门 ############System################# 【家具】加入了对图像中间区域有空白的家具的支持。（比如大门） ############Debug################# 【大图书馆】修复了在语言层上关闭所有的开关后游戏会假死的Bug。
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Update, Version 20230711
English ############Content################ [Cave of Escaped Slaves]New side quest: A Slave and a Deity (Repeatable) [A Slave and a Deity]The "deity" will have additional dialog content after you finished this quest at least once. [Wiki]Added a wiki page of this side quest: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/A_Slave_and_a_Deity_(Mission) 简体中文 ############Content################ 【逃奴洞穴】新的支线任务：奴隶与神明 （可重复） 【奴隶与神明】那个被发现的【神明】会在你完成这个任务一次之后出现额外的对话选项。 【维基】对这个任务加入了一个维基页面：https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/A_Slave_and_a_Deity_(Mission)
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Update, Version 20230710
English ############Content################ [The Grand Library]The Floor of Language now has new enemy spawn mechanics, the floating characters will dynamically appear and disappear. [The Grand Library]Added a control room near the entrance. You can now turn on/off which types of characters you want to spawn on this floor. [Skill]New skill icon for the Spider Web. [Skill]New skill icon for Restless Undeath. [Skill]New skill icon for Heal. [Skill]New skill icon for Mass Heal. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【大图书馆】语言层现在有了新的怪物刷新机制。漂浮的文字会动态出现和消失。 【大图书馆】在语言层的入口附近加入了一个控制房间。你可以选择在这个楼层出现何种文字。 【技能】蛛网术技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】无尽亡魂永不眠技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】治疗技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】群体治疗技能有了新的技能图标
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Update, Version 20230709
English ############Content################ [Tenet]New Faith Tenet: Ritual Cannibalism (You can unlock it by using the "Devour Corpse" skill for the first time.) [Special Attribution]New special attribution that can modify the healing effect when devouring a corpse. [Tenet]Language Is Our True Fatherland now also increases a believer's speech skill level by 1. [Tenet]Language Is Our True Fatherland now costs more to adopt. [Tenet]Freedom of Speech's silence resistance is increased to 45%. [Tenet]New Faith Tenet: Carnal Exaltation (Unlocked by default.) [Skill]New skill icon for Condemnation [Skill]New skill icon for Stone Skin [Skill]New skill icon for Heavy Punch [Skill]New skill icon for Detect Faith [Skill]New skill icon for Inspect [Skill]New skill icon for Study and Analyse ############Debug################# [Faith]Fixed a UI display problem when finishing tenet editing of faith with more than 3 tenets. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【信条】新的信条：食尸仪式 （在你第一次使用食尸技能后解锁。） 【特殊属性】加入了一个新的特殊属性可以调整食尸技能的治疗量。 【信条】【语言才是我们真正的祖国】现在会增加1级信仰者的说服力技能。 【信条】【语言才是我们真正的祖国】现在需要更多的虔诚值才能加入你的自定义信仰当中。 【信条】【言论自由】的沉默抵抗效果增加到了45% 【信条】新的信条：爱欲飞升 （默认解锁状态。） 【技能】谴责技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】石肤术技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】重拳出击技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】侦测信仰技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】观察技能有了新的技能图标 【技能】研究与分析技能有了新的技能图标 ############Debug################# 【信仰】修复了一个编辑完毕有超过3个信条的信仰后出现的UI界面显示错误。
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Update, Version 20230708
English ############Content################ [The Grand Library]Expanded the Floor of Language. [The Grand Library]Increased the number of enemies on the Floor of Language. [Loot]Added an item drop list for all the language characters on the Floor of Language. (The equipment that drops from them always has a language-related prefix.) [Mod]"Back to the Stone Age 2" can now start right on the title screen. [Element]Language is now a new skill element. [Tenet]New Faith Tenet: Language Is Our True Fatherland. (You can unlock it by reading something on the Floor of Language.) ############System################# [Mod]Adjusted the mod icon positions on the title screen. [Item Generation]Added support to directly send prefix overwrite settings as parameters in item generation code. 体中文 ############Content################ 【大图书馆】扩展了语言层的地图。 【大图书馆】增加了语言层的敌人数量。 【掉落物】对大图书馆语言层的语言文字敌人增加了一张物品掉落表。（它们掉落的装备都会带有一个和语言有关的词缀。） 【MOD】石器时代2现在可以在标题界面上直接启动。 【元素】语言现在也是一种技能元素。 【信仰】新的信条：语言才是我们真正的祖国。（可以在大图书馆语言层阅读一块石板解锁。） ############System################# 【MOD】调整了标题界面上MOD的排列位置。 【物品生成】提供了直接将词缀重载代码作为参数传入物品生成代码的支持。
DD#128 The Continuation of the Past 19 Years
Hi, everyone! Welcome to the first developer's diary on our journey of another year of this endless game.
This week, we celebrated the game's 19th birthday with a surprise update to the very first version of the game or "the first world." I know some people still play that version even after 19 years. And I never forgot how everything starts. That version lives on as a mod of our current game. To make it more accessible, we can now access it from the game's title screen. But, from a story point of view, it's still better to find the hidden cyber cafe and launch that version from there. The story of all three worlds of our "Stone Age" are connected by a story both inside and outside the game.
Next is something from the second world. That world still has a pile of treasury code there not yet ported to our current third world. Here comes the sliding puzzle game. Do you remember there is a time Steam is full of such simple puzzle games with beautiful girl images? I will give you this for free as it's part of our legacy. I didn't make a sliding puzzle just to show some nice images. Instead, when I first developed this feature back in the second world, I was studying AI to automatically solve such puzzles. Thus, the old AI is here as well. You can ask your teammates to solve this puzzle for you. They will use a search tree algorithm to solve it. As it's another mini-game, some exp rewards and GPA coins are to be expected. Moreover, in addition to unlocking all possible images to play by progressing the stories, you can use your own images, and make your own sliding puzzles. Maybe, you will never need another sliding puzzle game on Steam anymore.
The sliding puzzle also serves a storytelling purpose. Many of its default images come with a background story of the game. Once you solve it, you can get more information about this supernatural world.
It's the start of a new era. Thus, Captain Nameless got his long overdue 3D model upgrade. About three years ago, his model was made with Fuse. A nice software to quickly make 3D game characters. Unfortunately, Adobe acquired and abandoned it. Now, with some more advanced character-creating software, I am able to give him a new model. Now you know why he previously didn't face the camera during all those cutscenes and photos. Time to allow him to join your relationships.
What more about this week? The stories inside the Black Pyramid come to a conclusion with two different endings. Combined with your previous choices, you can get a lot of different outcomes. In this journey in Egypt, you find many different characters to join you on your quest. Yet, they all have their own desires and goals. You cannot make everyone happy. But will you stay true to your previous promises, will you be loyal to your allies? Or, will you change your mind at the last minute after knowing more about the consequences? We all make hard decisions in our life. No matter what choices you make. Maybe at some point in our life, we all have something we regret. Yet it's our past that defines who we are. What matters more is how we keep going forward.
That's for this week.
One more thing, R.I.P. to Coco Lee, the singer of "Mulan." Another star went dark during this game's long history of updates. The game outlived too many good people along the way. Each time, it brings sorrow.
Today's changelog: ############Content################ [Sliding Puzzle]A character who solves puzzles now gains a small amount of EXP. [Loot]Added an item drop list for Templar Knights. [Loot]Added an item drop list for Meketaten. [Lost in the Sand]If you finished the Black Pyramid part of the story with the "Capture" ending, a certain character will then haunt the Otherworldly Desert of Trapped and attack you on sight. She becomes much more reckless than she was in the Black Pyramid. ############System################# [Mod]Allow mods to run a piece of code right after the game is initialized. (However, it's possible this piece of code may be called multiple times. Please make sure you set up flags if you only want to run it once.) [Mod]Mods can now register an icon on the title screen and launch it from there directly. [Mod]"Back to the Stone Age" can now start right on the title screen.
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Update, Version 20230706
English ############Content################ [Lost in the Sand]Finished the "Capture" ending of the stories in the Black Pyramid. [Lost in the Sand]There is one more Boss fight in this ending. (If you previously made a promise, the Boss fight will be more difficult as you broke the promise.) [Lost in the Sand]You will keep access to the Otherworldly Egypt areas in this ending. [Lost in the Sand]Your relationships with others will change according to whether they support your decision in this ending. (Someone will turn hostile permanently.) [Lost in the Sand]The preview version is now merged with the main story. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【迷失于沙粒中】黑暗金字塔的【捕获】路线完成。 【迷失于沙粒中】这条路线会多一场战斗。（如果此前你答应过某人某件事，那么这场战斗的难度会上升，因为你违背了之前的承诺。） 【迷失于沙粒中】这条路线结束后你将会保留前往异世界埃及区域的能力。 【迷失于沙粒中】这条路线结束后，你和其它人员或组织的关系会根据他们是否支持你的决定发生改变。（某人会进入对你的永久敌对状态。） 【迷失于沙粒中】预览版本已经和主线剧情完全融合。
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Update, Version 20230705
English ############Content################ [Sliding Puzzle]You can now use your own images to play this mini-game. [Sliding Puzzle]You can now let a teammate solve the puzzle. Just sit back and watch the AI do its job. :) [Sliding Puzzle]The AI algorithm is from some ancient code I wrote when I was in university. It's a search tree. [Sliding Puzzle]You can stop the AI at any time. [Sliding Puzzle]After successfully solving a puzzle with a non-customized image, you now get a short description of the image. ############System################# [Character Selection Winow]It can now be used as an overlay. 简体中文 ############Content################ 【滑板拼图】你现在可以使用你自己电脑上的图片来玩滑板拼图游戏了。 【滑板拼图】你现在可以选择让一名队友来帮你完成这个小游戏。你只需要坐着然后看AI来玩拼图。:) 【滑板拼图】AI的算法是来自古老的年代我还在大学的时候的一些代码。基本上就是一棵搜索树。 【滑板拼图】你可以在任何时刻停止AI的拼图解谜过程。 【滑板拼图】在完成每一个非自定义的拼图后，你现在会获得一段关于拼图中的图片相关的描述。 ############System################# 【角色选择窗口】现在可以作为一个用户界面的覆盖层单独使用。
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