Guess what? My birthday was last week - Happy Birthday me! 🥳
Let's tuck into May's updates shall we?
Community and Beta Versions
To kick things off I just want to remind readers that you can sign up to play the BETA version of the game. This includes a near-complete version of the game which takes you close to the finale. If you're interested then please reach out via the Discord channel or over on Twitter!
I'm also reaching out to various content creators who've shown interest in the game so far! One of which is ThePillowFortG over on Twitter. I could tell straight away that they were a perfect fit to try out the game and I've already received valuable feedback from their initial plays. I look forward to hearing more about what they think! If you want to see more indie game reviews and streams from an up-and-coming creator - then go check them out!
I'm always happy to chat to content creators and gamers about BETA access, so if you like the idea of working closely with a passionate developer and can help steer the squashing of bugs and feature improvement - then feel free to get in touch by joining the Discord or following over on Twitter.
May Demo Update
There is another update to the demo - I'm so happy to be pushing out regular builds again!
However I wouldn't expect any new features for this patch, as this is mostly a bunch of bug fixes that I'm porting back into demo experience after going through many play-tests of the full game.
Click here or the GIF below to visit the full changelog for this update. Now's a better time than ever to play the most stable version of the Demo and get a sense of what this game has to offer!
Steam Store & Logo Update
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed two visual changes to the Store front. One of which is a revised logo for the game itself!
Here's a before and after image to show the difference.
What I find amusing is that after I finished the new logo, I realised why the old logo had been annoying me so much - and that's because the "The" was placed incorrectly for all that time!
The new logo makes more sense because "The Dancing Moon" is the name of the inn that you find yourself in within the game, not "Dancing Moon". It's so simple but explains why after all this time why the old logo didn't sit well with me.
The other change is a complete revamp of the Steam's store page. Now that the game is nearing the end of it's development, I've realised I can rely on a bunch of new and updated assets to really make things pop. I hope you like it!
Making a Village More Alive
One of the challenges I've faced is how to make the world I'm building feel a bit more alive.
There's a total of five hand-crafted zones with a handful of important NPCs that you can interact and follow quest-lines with, but around that things have always felt a little bit... empty.
This critique is valid, as that has also come up as a point of player feedback from the Demo.
The intention here is that most of the more empty spaces in the game is available for the player to sandbox in. This means placing objects down, crafting, and eventually putting large buildings in place too (more details below!), but as these things unlock later in the game, those areas are essentially unused until that time.
However, to help with the steady growth of the village and to enhance the feeling of being more "alive". I've started experimenting with a "passive" feature that occurs as you progress in the game.
I'm calling this feature "Visitors". These are additional non-important NPC's who fill in empty spaces in the game that provide "eavesdrop" style dialog as you wonder around. These NPC's could be chatting in a group, fishing by the water, sitting at a table at The Dancing Moon, and more.
As you walk by them, they have the opportunity to provide snippets of conversations which change depending on where you are in the story or what quests you've done. These sorts of things are simple to expand upon, and hopefully make the village feel a bit more alive as you progress throughout the game!
Story Insights - Village Building
In last months newsletter I delved into the museum and artefact gameplay. Following this trend, in this months newsletter I'd like to demonstrate village building.
In the earlier portions of the game you may notice that the regions you explore are either scattered by burning debris or empty plots of land. As you help the village rebuild these areas will become available for you to craft and construct.
There are two main mechanics for construction within the game - the first is a build mode for object placement, and the second is a construction mode for larger things like buildings. Each of these things are driven by the crafting system which require you to gather various resources.
Both of these options are provided by Lucas - the local handyman who's staying in Illisor! After completing the relevant quests, talking to Lucas will display these options for you.
To support your endeavours in construction, Lucas has also provided a Construction Storage Box to assist your need to harvest materials. Instead of using your inventory, placing any materials in the Construction Storage Box will go towards the buildings you wish to construct.
After you satisfy the requirements for a building, Lucas will take you to a birds-eye view of the village, where you can place your new building. This mode also allows you to move existing buildings, so you don't have to be perfect straight away!
So far this covers the construction mode gameplay, but to allow for even finer customisation we can talk about the build mode.
A feature which can already be used in the demo, build mode allows you to craft an assortment of items and place them freely within the world (within some limitations)!
So with both construction mode and the build mode features, the game allows for broad stroke customisation as well as finer detailing. This is perfect for when you eventually get the opportunity to build and furnish your own home!
That's all for the May edition of my developer newsletter - have a good one and see you in June!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider giving me a Wishlist & Follow! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media!
Hello everyone, just a couple of small fixes in this patch!
Feel free to continue reporting any bugs via our Discord bugs channel or through Twitter.
Discord: https://discord.gg/kpGVRKPn5W
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DancingMoonGame
Bugfixes
The farm plot tooltip will successfully remove itself if the player removes the farm plot itself.
Fixed an issue with season progression.
Fixes to player hotkeys.
Thank you so much for playing! -DjMonkey
Demo Patch 6 - 07/05/2023
Hello everyone and a warm welcome to those who are staying with us at The Dancing Moon Inn!
A huge thank you to those who have provided their bug-reports and feedback.
Feel free to continue reporting any bugs via our Discord bugs channel or through Twitter.
Discord: https://discord.gg/kpGVRKPn5W
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DancingMoonGame
Farming
Removed the logic that would remove farm plots if they were empty and unattended. This was causing unnecessary player friction.
Added a new tooltip display for farming plots, detailing the current crop, water status, and remaining growth time.
Tree's stumps have been removed as a harvestable thing.
Proc-Gen Exploration
Improved the point-of-interest logic for the procedural zones (Dewiland Meadows, etc). For the demo this will make copper rocks appear more often.
Added a confirmation dialog before exploring a procedural area.
UI
Removed the city building conversation entry point on Lucas, as it serves no purpose in the demo.
NPC's will now have a ??? overlay before learning who they are.
Improved visuals and use of colours to better distinguish between auto saves and regular saves.
Re-ordered quest categories in the quest journal.
An information text is displayed when the player is not carrying out any procedural tasks for NPCs.
Updated the game logo graphics.
The news button on the main menu now displays the title and author of the latest newsletter.
Audio
Music volume is now set to 25% by default.
The combat music has been updated.
Engine & Gameplay
Reworked the level initialisation logic to improve load order of gameplay systems, preventing race conditions from occurring. This will fix various instabilities that can range from player to player.
Fixed a setting that improves the visuals of foliage lighting.
Fixed a value for culling distances on certain foliage assets.
Fixes to world collisions to prevent NPC's getting stuck.
Fixes to NPC scheduling logic that would cause NPCs to not exist or be too far away.
Fixes to NPC level transitioning logic that prevents NPCs from getting stuck in collision objects.
Improved the speed of which NPC's will travel outside of the players current level.
Fixes to harvestable objects not clearing in memory after being destroyed.
Reduced the number of days in a Season.
Bugfixes
Fixed a time progression issue when sleeping in a bed that would not cause certain daily logic events to trigger.
Fixed the interaction proximity on chest storage boxes.
Thank you so much for playing! -DjMonkey
April 2023 Newsletter
Greetings travellers!
Before I begin - I must ask you a favour! It's very simple, if you're reading this right now, and you enjoy looking at these newsletters, then feel free to click the "Like" button towards the bottom of the page or leave a comment. I know some of you are already doing this (and I thank you for that!).
This will just give me a small indicator as to how useful or enjoyable these newsletters are!
With that out of the way - let's dig into all the things that happened in April shall we?
Demo Update
The first important update is that - after so long - there's been a large update to the demo experience!
This includes a bunch of fixes, quality of life changes, and some new features that have been rolled back from the full game. I have also tweaked areas and NPC conversations, that gives a little more insight to the main story of the full game.
Some of the opening and tutorial quests have been streamlined too, reducing some of the friction that I've discovered from player feedback.
Overall, this update changes the demo into a neater package with a more definitive start and end to the experience - but don't worry! The demo is not time-locked, and you can continue playing with the sandbox gameplay after completing it.
One of the things on my plate this month has been introducing and prototyping a new enemy type to fit into the procedural Swamp biome. I finally decided to settle on a spider enemy, which will be easy to kill but difficult to reach.
This means that they'll be slow when idle, but as soon as they spot you they'll spring into action, darting to different locations and shooting multiple bullets of shadow slime at you. It's only after this where an opportunity for you to strike can occur!
I had posted my progress on these spider enemies on Reddit and Twitter, and received quite a positive reaction!
And here's the prototype all hooked up in game. It's actually pretty close to what I need, the locomotion system of the spider and it's legs was probably the hardest part to figure out. I now just need to add the combat abilities. (Oh, and what's this? A new unseen dungeon area! 😮)
Story Insights - The Museum
For this months newsletter I'd like to dive into one of the game mechanics you will encounter in Tales from The Dancing Moon, and that is the museum!
When you start the game you will quickly learn that the village you've found yourself in has recently been attacked by an enemy known as the "shadow-beasts". Before this invasion, the museum within this village housed many artefacts and relics.
But what happened after the shadow-beast invasion, and the timely event of your arrival? Well - you guessed it - the artefacts have gone missing!
When you first walk into the museum you'll meet Oswyn, the curator and owner of the museum itself. Who entrusts your help in finding any new items that can populate his museum. You're unsure of what items he had before, but sure enough on your adventures you'll encounter mysterious items that Oswyn will be interested in.
Speaking of Oswyn, let's take a look at his character portrait - say hello!
So how do you find these lost artefacts I might hear you ask?
To the east of the village are the city gates, and from there you can explore various procedurally generated zones where you can chop trees, mine rocks, attack enemies, and - you guessed it - find artefacts!
During your explorations you might see something poking out of the ground, when you interact with these items you'll pick them up and initiate the quest for returning these items back to Oswyn.
Let's take a look at an example of these artefacts.
Wait... did we read that correctly? A car tyre? A music amplifier? What are these sorts of items doing near a fantasy village?
Blending the "real world" and the village of Illisor is a common theme within this game. This applies to the museum artefacts, and the lore diaries you can find throughout the world.
The mysteries of why and how this occurs will unravel as you advance through the main story, and you can already get a sense of that if you play the demo! (hint hint! 😉)
(side note: I've been watching His Dark Materials on BBC iPlayer recently. I read the books when I was younger, but I really like the ideas it has of mixing fantasy and real world ideas. It probably inspired me a bit with this game!)
Anyway, after taking one of these items to Oswyn, he'll display it in one of the cabinets that sits within the museum. You can always return to the museum to reflect on all the items you've found during your time in Illisor, and it's always interesting to hear what Oswyn thinks of these strange items you bring to him!
Press-Kit Reminder
Before signing off for this months newsletter, I just want to mention a quick reminder that the official press-kit is now available. I'm happy to partake in any media related enquiries such as interviews, Q&A's, podcasts, etc! Feel free to get in touch!
Have a good one!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider giving me a Wishlist & Follow! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media!
Boy oh boy - It's been a little while since there's been a game patch or update. (October of last year to be exact!)
I'm pleased to let you know there are some following changes to the Demo! This includes a bunch of fixes, quality of life updates, and features rolled back from the full game!
Gameplay
A new introduction screen has been added to introduce the story and set the tone for the start of the game.
The sprint endurance slider has been completely removed, allowing you to sprint for however long you want.
Sleeping in a bed will now progress time to 6:00am on the following day, rather than always using an 8 hour offset. This allows you to always start the day reliably after sleeping.
Added a new moment in the game to tell the player when they have completed the demo (players can still chose to carry on with sandboxing).
The default inventory slots has expanded back up to 36 slots. This removes player frustration in the early stages of the game. For existing saves, you can retrieve the extra slots from the bag found in Quinn's General Store.
A portion of the Illisor Steppes region has been unlocked in the demo, giving the player a hint of what's in store in the full game.
The interior of The Dancing Moon ground floor has been adjusted.
Museum items will no longer appear as they serve no purpose in the demo.
Some items are now flagged as "important", preventing them from being sold or destroyed. This includes tools and quest related items. (You can still transfer them to other storage boxes.)
Quests
The "Introduce Yourself" quest has been adjusted for a better and more straight-forward player onboarding experience.
Added more references to the main story during the tutorial quests.
The quest journal now has categories for Main Quests and Side Quests.
The market deposit box can now only be used after completing a certain quest.
Music
Changed the selection of music in the main menu and The Dancing Moon Inn to better fit the tone.
UI
A new overlay appears after transitioning to different areas in the game that displays your current location in the world.
The market deposit UI has improved mouse interaction.
The social and store links on the main menus have had a visual update.
The map/discoveries UI and menus have been rescoped and simplified. The map will now only show you where NPCs are and if they have new quests for you to do.
Moved the health bar above the item hotbar.
Some icons have improved visuals.
Item icons now have distinct coloured backgrounds depending on their type.
Bugfixes
Fixed a soft lock that can occur when interacting with particular items.
Adjusted a collision check in the Illisor Plaza to prevent players from falling in the river and getting stuck.
Fixed a visual artefact on level tokens when highlighting all interactable objects.
Fixed an issue with a miss-fired event in the market deposit box, which caused further instability with inventory items.
Feel free to continue reporting any bugs via the Discord bugs channel.
Discord: https://discord.gg/kpGVRKPn5W
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DancingMoonGame
Thank you so much for playing! -DjMonkey
Demo Patch 5 - 19/04/2023
Hello everyone!
Boy oh boy - It's been a little while since there's been a game patch or update. (October of last year to be exact!)
I'm pleased to let you know there are some following changes to the Demo! This includes a bunch of fixes, quality of life updates, and features rolled back from the full game!
Gameplay
A new introduction screen has been added to introduce the story and set the tone for the start of the game.
The sprint endurance slider has been completely removed, allowing you to sprint for however long you want.
Sleeping in a bed will now progress time to 6:00am on the following day, rather than always using an 8 hour offset. This allows you to always start the day reliably after sleeping.
Added a new moment in the game to tell the player when they have completed the demo (players can still chose to carry on with sandboxing).
The default inventory slots has expanded back up to 36 slots. This removes player frustration in the early stages of the game. For existing saves, you can retrieve the extra slots from the bag found in Quinn's General Store.
A portion of the Illisor Steppes region has been unlocked in the demo, giving the player a hint of what's in store in the full game.
The interior of The Dancing Moon ground floor has been adjusted.
Museum items will no longer appear as they serve no purpose in the demo.
Some items are now flagged as "important", preventing them from being sold or destroyed. This includes tools and quest related items. (You can still transfer them to other storage boxes.)
Quests
The "Introduce Yourself" quest has been adjusted for a better and more straight-forward player onboarding experience.
Added more references to the main story during the tutorial quests.
The quest journal now has categories for Main Quests and Side Quests.
The market deposit box can now only be used after completing a certain quest.
Music
Changed the selection of music in the main menu and The Dancing Moon Inn to better fit the tone.
UI
A new overlay appears after transitioning to different areas in the game that displays your current location in the world.
The market deposit UI has improved mouse interaction.
The social and store links on the main menus have had a visual update.
The map/discoveries UI and menus have been rescoped and simplified. The map will now only show you where NPCs are and if they have new quests for you to do.
Moved the health bar above the item hotbar.
Some icons have improved visuals.
Item icons now have distinct coloured backgrounds depending on their type.
Bugfixes
Fixed a soft lock that can occur when interacting with particular items.
Adjusted a collision check in the Illisor Plaza to prevent players from falling in the river and getting stuck.
Fixed a visual artefact on level tokens when highlighting all interactable objects.
Fixed an issue with a miss-fired event in the market deposit box, which caused further instability with inventory items.
Feel free to continue reporting any bugs via the Discord bugs channel.
Discord: https://discord.gg/kpGVRKPn5W
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DancingMoonGame
Thank you so much for playing! -DjMonkey
March 2023 Newsletter
Greetings Travellers!
This month has been a bit of a slow burn compared to last month. With the main quest blocked out and done (ish), I am spending all my time iterating on all the important side quests that will support the flow of the game. I feel my role as a developer has shifted over to writer as now it really is just getting the story content into the game!
In social media news - I'm fortunate to have increased my visibility in the last month, as one of my tweets performed a lot better than my usual posts. I went from having about 400 followers to over 500! It may not seem like much to some people, but every little bit helps, and for anyone who is new here - welcome!
BETA Update!
Before jumping into the main content of this newsletter, I want to mention that I've updated the BETA build! This includes the primary content for the 2nd act of the game, and from now on I'll wrapping up the third and final act.
It's easier then ever to sign up to the BETA - just follow this link and you'll be in line to receive your key!
As I'm iterating on the side quests at the moment, I thought I'd do something a bit different for this month's newsletter.
I've recorded a 30 minute video of one of these quests, stepping through it in-game to give you an idea of the sort of things you will be able to do. It's a quest not found in the demo (and still spoiler free!), so it will be new to everyone!
The quest is called "Setting The Stage" - where you'll be helping the local bard gather resources to construct a stage at The Dancing Moon Inn for them to play their music on.
Bear in mind I've taken some "developer liberties" and accelerating some of the moments in the game, otherwise the quest would have taken a bit longer than what I've shown. This is mostly related to crafting and NPC schedules.
The gameplay begins at about 01:58, and I've timestamped further key moments in the video description on YouTube.
Please enjoy and let me know what you think!
Seasonal Snippets
I think one of the reasons why one of my tweets performed well is because I focused on showing some of the winter snow effects I've done for the game. I hope I can speak for many people that I associate winter and snow with cosiness and festivity, and as some of us have been experiencing snow around the world over the last few months - I think it resonated with people!
To celebrate the seasons, check out more of these screenshots I've gathered within the game. These are examples of all the different seasons, and I hope you find them even more cosy and inviting!
News & Press-Kit
Stepping out of my comfort zone for this section. Recently I spotted a tweet by the Indie Games Developer Magazine, who were inviting developers to partake in an interview to be featured on their website. On a whim I replied and said I'd be interested, and was then asked for a Press-Kit.
Now I know Press-Kits are quite standard and required for this sort of thing, but after all this time I never actually sat down to create one!
So after a couple of hours of pulling together all the resources I've generated for this game - I can now reveal the official Tales from the Dancing Moon Press-Kit!
If you have any media enquiries please refer to the Press-Kit, and use the contact details at the bottom of the page to get in touch. I am more than happy to do interviews, Q&As and other media related things for you!
That's all for this months newsletter, I hope you enjoyed. I definitely feel like the game is coming together now!
Have a good one!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider giving me a Wishlist & Follow! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media!
As I sat down to write this newsletter, I knew it was going to be a tricky one to tackle. Last month I said I was dedicating more time to the main quest and story of the game, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. To the point that I’ve blocked out all the steps that will take the player through to the finale, and now I’m in a position to iterate on that.
The down-side for this, is that it doesn’t really give me material for the newsletter. The main quest is the one thing I haven't properly showed here or on social media - the reason being is I hope players can play with fresh eyes, with no preconception from seeing things on social media or trailers. Saying that - if you play the demo then you will get a very early idea of what might be going on.
Having the main quest in place is a great thing though, as it acts as the driving force for progression for the player. Every big and little thing you do in the game leads to knowledge that will help you on your way, whether it’s side-quests, reading books, finding notes and exploring the procedural areas. This also gets me one step closer to a potential early access version of the game.
So for this newsletter I’m going to focus on some of those little "side-things", as well as digging into my archives to really show how things have progressed since I started.
Tea Brewing Mini Game
Quite soon after the demo section of the game, you'll encounter a new character by the name of Graham. Graham teaches you in the craft of brewing special tea, which can grant the player special temporary perks. You can think of this similarly to the cooking mechanic that I described in a previous newsletter.
The more I implement these features, the more I realise that this game really relies on discovery. Particularly with the cooking and brewing gameplay - a lot of the recipes you learn will either be found by experimentation, or finding recipe notes whilst you explore. This approach to things really is at the core of the game, and I think it's good that I'm leaning into it at every opportunity.
One thing I've been working on is a screen overlay effect which will help you find ingredients for brewing tea. You can think of this similar to the Witcher senses, and will highlight hidden resources in every area in the game that you can forage. This will highlight as purple as apposed to the typical gold for all other interactables.
Stoknel Swamp
Stoknel Swamp is the third procedural zone you can explore in the game, and is designed to be one of the more dangerous locations, with even deadlier enemies to encounter. It's very early days so I can't show much, but there's enough here to give a glimpse. It was also another opportunity to jump into photo-mode and show off some of the filters I have implemented - including sepia-tone!
From the Archive
I won’t spent much time setting things up here. Below are a few images I’ve dug up over the last 2 years of development. I’ll briefly describe what’s going on in each one!
One of the earliest screenshots I could find of a conversation test, with an insight to art styles I was attempting before going down the realistic assets route. You can see I'm even using the default Unreal Engine mannequin for the NPC's here!
A later screenshot of the conversation system, with an early look at the town. I'm using a basic screenshot of the Unreal Mannequin here as an NPC portrait, before finding an artist to help me out with those!
This is a test for a procedural zone, you can see that the lake formation doesn't look too natural especially around the edges. This was before I changed tactics and decided to do an art-pass first, and used that as a guide for the proc-gen systems.
One of the first thing I did when upgrading to Unreal 5.0 was converting some of the particle systems over to Niagara. What you see here is a mix of snow particles and a material shader to turn the ground icy!
That's all for this months newsletter! I'm excited to figure out what will come next to show for next month. If all goes well I'm hoping to push another build up to the Beta branch that includes all the latest and greatest for the main quest!
Have a good one!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my newsletters and would like to be notified of more news about Tales from The Dancing Moon? Then please Wishlist/Follow from the Steam page!
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media! Links can be found on the store page.
And Happy New Year! Can you really believe it’s 2023!? And we're already trailing off towards the end of January!
I started working on Tales from The Dancing Moon towards the end of 2020, in the height of the COVID pandemic. I've learnt SO MUCH since that time, but... a new year - means new goals!
Reminiscing over the development of this game has inspired me to focus. I'll be aiming for significant progress on the main quest and story, as that really is the beating heart of what the game will be about. The sooner I can get this done, the sooner I'll be able to think about things like early-access. I'll also be aiming to get regular beta builds up to go along with these newsletters. So if you’re at all interested - make sure you sign up to that Beta!
The general theme for this months newsletter has been “progression”. I don’t necessarily mean my own progression with the game development - but more the sense of progression that the game has whilst the player advances through the quests. This applies to both story, and also gameplay systems.
The first I want to show is the new gear upgrade system. By the time the player finishes all the tutorial quests, you'll have an arsenal of tools at your disposal, such as axes, shovels, swords, and fishing rods. In their most basic form they will only be useful at the early stages of the game and will require upgrading as you advance. These upgrades will also give player perks like dealing extra damage, chopping down trees faster, or extracting rarer materials.
Upgrading your gear will be made possible by a new NPC by the name of Val. A retired sea captain who's been assigned to be the official Dockmaster of Illisor, who has experience with sharpening tools and forging new materials. Talking to him will start the quest to allow you to upgrade your gear from copper based materials, all the way to the mysteriously rare material called "shadow-silver".
Speaking of Val. As a new important NPC, he will be needing a new character portrait! Here's another new addition to the portrait roster! Credit to henryez over on Fiverr!
In my previous newsletter I showed a sneak-peak of the new procedural desert-themed area of the game, and I'm ready to show even more!
Whilst thinking about this new area I've been implementing more dangerous enemy encounters. One in particular is the shadow-beast portal, which will continuously generate shadow-blobs until you completely destroy the portal itself. These portals will also be surrounded by "Shadow-Plants". A Zelda-like enemy that will shoot sludge at the player from a distance in which you'll need to dodge out the way.
The model for this enemy is still work in progress, but I'm glad to see the sludge-shooting and dodging working in a nice way already!
There's one final thing I'm able to squeeze into this newsletter. One of the things in the back of my mind is that I've avoided having too many cutscenes in the game - in fact the only one that is in the game right now is when you die and wake up at the inn again. The work I'd have to do to have cutscenes for every quest is simply not scalable for me (being one developer). So I need to come up with a way that is efficient but still effective in telling the story. I think I've found the way.
Inspired by classic RPGs, what you see in the image above is a story plaque - in it's basic form these are snippets of text accompanied by a picture. Considering the game is quite story and text heavy anyway, I am hoping this will compliment the NPC dialog system which is where you'll be getting most of your story and information from. In comparison you'll see the story plaques a lot less anyway, but they will still be necessary!
Before I close off this newsletter, I inspired myself from last months “mindfulness” winter GIF and decided to create a seasonal image which gives us a cross section of an area during the different times of the year. Putting these kinds of images together has the added benefit of highlighting areas of improvement.
That's all for now, thanks for reading and have a lovely February!
- DjMonkey
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media! Links can be found on the store page.
Happy holidays and well wishes into the new year! And welcome to a very festive themed newsletter!
As I mentioned in the November newsletter, In December I intended to start looking at the mechanics for the second act of the game. This includes things like cooking food, brewing drinks, and just generally advancing the main story quests.
So let’s start with cooking - if you’ve played the demo then you may have encountered an NPC named Nicolas, a high strung chef who works at The Dancing Moon Inn. At the moment he introduces you to the fishing mini-game, which makes sense to me right now as any fishing NPCs would be found down at the docks or the lakes, which is currently only available in the full game (or beta!). So I wanted to introduce the fishing mini-game to the player earlier.
Nicolas doesn’t have many quests right now, but as a chef I’m going to start implementing the cooking related quests onto him. Cooking will work in a slightly different way to the crafting system, in that it will be purely discovery based. You will only be able to figure out new recipes by trying different ingredients, or finding lost recipes throughout the map. To give you an insight, here’s a new UI I’ve spun up to help accommodate this new cooking mechanic!
As for drinks, the brewing interface will be exactly the same. But drinks will play an even more important part of the game, as each drink you brew will allow the player to receive temporary perks. In it’s basic form, food and drink will give you extra health, but drinks in particular will be able to improve your strength, or even see hidden items in the world (think of them a bit more like potions that you’d typically find in other RPGs). As a brit, I'm very inspired by tea drinking culture - and brewing tea will be a big thing in this game!
Speaking of quests, steady progress has been made here, and a few of the new quests will be leveraging these new mechanics I’ve described above. In particular, brewing tea will be very important during the quests you’ll be doing in Act 2!
The character portraits are one of the few things I outsource in the game and I absolutely love it when a new batch comes through from the artist that I use. Here are some new portraits I’ve never shown before to help flesh out and visualise the characters you'll be interacting with. (credit henryez on fiverr, watermarked)
And that's it for the December update! I'm publishing this a bit earlier in the month as I'll be taking the rest of this time off until the new year. To finish this newsletter I thought I’d put together a little mindfulness GIF. Please enjoy some of the areas of the game during the Winter seasons, it definitely has a more slow and calm feeling compared to the other times in the game. 😊❄️
Thanks for reading! - DjMonkey
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media! Links can be found on the store page.
