Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Strategy
NovaMundi: The Spear of Chaquén
NovaMundi 0.37 - Destiny of the Muisca
Development has resumed in full! The biggest addition for this version is the Perks system; you can now customize your runs by selecting different bonuses, penalties, or just variations of the universe.
This version ships with the following 4 perks
Combat Blessing: +2 Bonus to attack for all units
Vagabond Defect: -10 HP for all units
Peaceful Lands: You’ll be attacked much less often by raiding parties
Militia Only: Only “Guardian” units will be available (no Guecha Warriors or Archers)
Known Lands: The location of the main towns will be known in advance.
Even knowing the location of the Muisca towns, traversing the rugged Andes geography will be challenging!
Talking about combat, another important thing that is changing is a change of its pace, taking some steps towards more “active” gameplay. For now, that means the battles start unpaused, in the future, we are going to add more visual feedback on the battle as we extend the combat rules to give it a little more depth (but not a lot! exploration will remain the focus of the game)
In more combat-related things, we fixed some issues with unit selection to allow combat between large parties
That’s it for today’s version! for next week we are planning to release important changes in the “cave exploration” system, providing some procedural Muisca dungeon crawling for your pleasure. It’s going to be big so don’t miss it!
v0.36.2 - Bugfixing for Save/Load
This version contains two critical fixes:
Cannot load games at all (root cause issues with the MuiscaNameGenerator state)
Exploit: Raiding parties not saved
We renewed our commitment to take the game out of Early Access, this includes a person from Slashware working full time on playtesting the game and coming out with ideas for improvement within the constraints of its development. This version includes some cheat options to ease that work too (You can't touch them tho).
I'm also in the middle of developing some important improvements in the setup of the runs, being able to customize them and set up the initial party, I hope this will be available next week
NovaMundi 0.36 - Achiote
A new version is out, 0.36 – Achiote, here are the major changes but as always there were smaller bugs fixed along the way.
Let’s start with exploration: based on player’s feedback I doubled the movement speed in the overworld since players didn’t seem to really like to take their time to look at the scenery 🙂 this of course makes moving between locations much quicker (but the time scale was adjusted accordingly so it all takes the same amount of game time.). Additionally, the time doesn’t completely freeze when you are not moving, but instead slows down to 10% of the normal speed, since it felt a bit glitchy with the full stop.
The random dialogs that expedition members used to say while traveling were removed since they were not really adding a lot to the experience and actually were confusing players who thought they might be real hints to the game mission or things to do.
However, the main reason I decided to push this version to the public was the addition of the hints in the minimap; players will no longer need to refer to the journal and textual directions for the nearby towns; instead, they are added as blotches of paint in the map, put in an approximate location.
As the first step on a sequence of improvements for the towns; the game now zooms into them when you “enter” them. This is just the beginning of an arc of development for the towns, and I am going to incorporate recent research on the Muisca towns as well as usability improvements and tweaks to make them feel bigger and more alive.
The Mac version was finally updated from v0.32.4 (August 16, 2021), so if you are on Mac make sure to update and get a LOT of improvements 🙂
We continue working on a list of improvements for the game; it’s not clear how much longer it will be on Early Access, but I want to make sure of its quality, accessibility, and variety of content while keeping the current base scope. So make sure to keep an eye out for future releases!
Small but important fixes (0.35.2)
Fix click areas for units in combat
Make Suamox visible on the map
Fix broken onboarding in the "map" step
Allow disabling tips
NovaMundi 0.35 - Trailblazer
Let’s talk about the new version, 0.35 – Trailblazer, here are the major changes but as always there were smaller bugs fixed along the way.
A new combat unit, the Spanish Trailblazer, has replaced all other Spanish units (at least momentarily) to fit with the new visual style of the units and our latest research. These lightly armored European warriors are armed with steel spears and appear along with Panche raider groups in the mid to late days of the invasion.
The Muisca units were also improved with knives added to the Explorer unit, and new animations for the Guardian’s staff attack.
The interaction with towns has been improved with a redesign popup listing the population, including the role of each populator (to make it easier to distinguish the ones related to the quests from the ones that are merely informative).
Deer hunting was also improved with them now having proper run animations, and with some tweaks on their behavior.
The text of the intro was completely remade to reflect on our latest developments of the theme of the game, mainly adjusting the portrayal of the European force as much less of a deadly invasion force while still a dangerous threat.
The texts for the dialogs of the wayfarers where they describe surrounding animals have been localized, as well as the names of the animals and their description when you find one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcBSLpU8fp4
On the media front, the interview with “Congreso and Sociedad” for the TV channel of the Colombian Congress was finally released on YouTube; some interesting points were discussed.
Finally, just for fun, I mocked up how would Encanto town (from the Disney movie) look inside the Expedition engine, using some assets from the previous incarnation of the project which I don’t rule out reviving this year in some way (as a separate game).
Early Access Report # 12
Fauna
King vultures (Gallinazo Rey) now fly on the lowland forests and wetlands. Large and predominantly white, the king vulture has gray to black ruff, flight, and tail feathers. The head and neck are bald, with the skin color varying, including yellow, orange, blue, purple, and red. The king vulture has a very noticeable orange fleshy caruncle on its beak. This vulture is a scavenger and it often makes the initial cut into a fresh carcass.
Characters and Quests
We added a complete set of 16 new characters including their dialogs for both Spanish and English. These include the leaders of 6 Muisca territories, and several characters sharing the trades and traditions of the Muisca.
This also included the implementation of a more defined set of quests to unite the Muisca territories, designed based on our research on potential sources of conflict between the Muisca territories, as well as their beliefs and needs. The Quest controller used internally had to be updated to support the new conditions to complete the tasks, as well as to improve its support for chained quests.
New trade and quest items were added, and the caverns system was also reenabled so that these quests could be completed. The Dialog Controller was also improved to support dialog fragment variations based on flags so that the conversations can be a little bit more dynamic and contextual.
Visuals We took the first step to display the Muisca population center including more huts and a palisade since these are essential elements for their architecture. We still need to work on the definitive unique elements for each town.
Streaming On October 12, most of the dev team assembled to chat (in Spanish) about the state of the project and our approach to the topic of the European Invasion of these territories which started in October 12, 1492, including how the topic has evolved in the game to its current shape where we focus on the player combating the divisions between the Muisca first and foremost, portraying a scenario where it would be harder for small bands of explorers to gain political advantage in the territory.
We also talked about our plans to transition out of Early Access, and some things we wish we could have time and resources to add to the game. Click here to see the VOD.
Early Access Report # 11
It has been five weeks since the last update. A new version, v0.33.0, was published.
Audio Gecko continues working on improving the audio of the game; the UI effects are almost completely covered, and we began experimenting with spot ambiances with the towns.
New Unit models We decided to take the leap and remake the appearance of all the units; we are looking forward to abandoning the previous “bulky” anatomies replacing them with more anatomically correct bodies with more details and higher texture quality.
We still need to add more variety to them, and we are still working in the Spanish units as well as integration of these new units into the game (as well as improving the workflow to integrate new fragments and variations more easily)
The DevTeam at DevCom 2021
We participated in DevCom 2021 (pitching a separate game we are planning for 2022). However, we also did a dev team stream, talking about the (updated) history of NovaMundi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzd-mwVm810
Some of the topics we discussed included:
The many shifts in the theme for the project and their effect on the ongoing development.
The current work in many facets of the game, as we approach the end of Early Access.
The feedback we have received from the Early Access phase from streamers such as Nookrium and their communities, and how we have integrated it into the game. (including the work we have done to make the game feel more alive)
Classifying NovaMundi as part of a genre. RTS? Survival? Strategy RPG? Roguelike?
WarTales – we noticed it.
Playing the current version of the game, some tips from the experts!
New roles for upcoming non-combat units.
Recent changes in exploration and navigation such as time compression.
