I was planning to release DB011 today, but the QA results were not great and the build seems to have few game breaking bugs, so I am delaying it for next week. I am attaching the release notes for the curious.
Most notable change is the new staff training, and how research, training and everything else work together now. The new history panel should allow players to diagnose why your tavern is failing as well. Also, the inst-game over is a thing of a past.
By next week Thursday (The usual patch release date), levels 1~6 should be very fun to play :D
I want to finish re-balancing the game by the month's end and push a stable version to the Main Build. DB012 will be about further improving the game's quality of life features, main menu overhaul and sound FX overhaul.
Also, please note that 32 bit support will end soon.
Dev Build (DB011)
Added: Levels 1~4 rebalanced.
Added: Levels 5~6 partly rebalanced. (Work in progress)
Added: Staff Training Room and new perk training workflow.
Added: Staff and guest history.
Added: Financial bail out (If your gold drops below zero, the lord offers a one time bail out)
Added: When gold is below zero, tavern's reputation slowly drops leading to an eventual game over.
Added: New buffs: (Out of money, Fresh mead and more)
Added: Staff area restriction and UI workflow.
Added: Smooth placement for furnitures.
Added: Level 5 ambient effect and sound
Improved: Furniture placement grid UI.
Improved: Fireplace size refactored.
Improved: Earth quake sound effects
Improved: Staff face graphics sprite streaming sequence.
Improved: Furniture break sounds and UI.
Improved: Win sequence and sound effects.
Improved: Revised New recipe letter and improvment letter.
Fixed: Guests stop visiting spa after a while.
Fixed: Recipe improvement letter typo.
Fixed: Level win letter format bugging out.
Fixed: Frames dropping when hiring staff.
Fixed: Tavern value not showing up.
Fixed: Rooms not selectable after a loaded game.
Fixed: Sell price on the quick panel showing higher price than actual refund amount.
Fixed: Some UI sequence can be triggered twice.
Fixed: Some quick UI panels triggered while furniture panel is active.
Fixed: Level Loading getting stuck upon moving onto next level.
Fixed: Transition screen not playing any sound.
Fixed: Non-guests affecting reputation.
Fixed: Some UI panels showing legacy content during transition.
Fixed: Management Panel title in the wrong position.
Fixed: Local guests stop animating when camera quickly slides into view.
DB010 Released!
Finally, DB010 arrives! And regarding DB010, I have done many regrettable things in my life, but not as sorry as this one. When DB009 was released, my goal was to make DB010 with more balanced gameplay. I kept the whole month of September for this alone, as I understood that this is very important.
During my game balancing period, I kept feeling that the UI workflow was very disturbing. I know, I know. I made it that way, but after all this time, I had to re-evaluate. The minimalist style also didn't really look great.
So, DB010 became a huge patch (game balancing + UI overhaul + workflow overhaul) that I had to pull off in just one month and it did take me almost 2 months instead (It is October 24th now at the time of this writing).
Nevertheless, I am happy with the results and looks like a well invested development time. It is not completely done though. There are bits and pieces of old UI and workflow still there which will be flushed out by the follow up patches. My hope is to get it done completely by the month's end, but that's just my wishful thinking and could be few more patch cycles until you get to experience the "complete overhaul" that I intend - UI and workflow wise.
There are few things to note:
Only the first 3 levels were re-balanced as later features still need to be overhauled. I expect to complete it within the next few patch cycle. The rest of the levels may crash or be unbeatable at the moment.
Things that were not broken may be broken now. Many codes were moved around, rewritten or replaced. Please be patient until all things are sorted out.
Smooth movement for furniture placement in rooms were implemented but not for the furnitures not in the room. I did this intentionally so that players can compare and give feedback. I personally like the new smooth movement :D
Some UI sounds are missing as I didn't have time to find or record them yet. I expect to complete it within the next few patch cycle.
32-bit support will soon end.
If you have suggestions game play wise, make em now!
The above space will be used for showing guest/staff history, thoughts and other useful information for the player should he needs to diagnose a problem.
Dev Build (DB010)
Added: User interface overhaul (Work in progress!)
Added: Staff special perks. (Experimental)
Added: Furnitures can now be edited directly by simply clicking on the furniture.
Added: Object placement animation.
Added: Timed buffs.
Improved: First 3 levels were rebalanced.
Improved: Smooth furniture rotation during placement and relocation.
Improved: Window panel transition and animation.
Improved: Staff potential allocation and effects reworked.
Improved: Staff ability and movement speed adjusted.
Improved: Level 1, 7 and 9 ambient light discrepency between GI and non GI lit environment.
Improved: Level 3 environment reworked.
Improved: Slight global illumination performance improvement.
Fixed: Furniture not accessible after repairs.
Fixed: Level 9 lighting kicking in late.
Fixed: Level 3 ground texture showing white seams.
Fixed: Wrong tip text showing on the room building UI.
Fixed: Last furniture staying on the screen if the room is completed without placing it.
DB010 delayed to 24th!
EDIT: Date was changed from 20th to 24th.
EDIT2: New staff training rooms will not be part of the patch. It will be included in the following patch.
So, evaluating where the Dev Build is at the moment, I have completed all that I planned for this patch. But, after several gameplay testing, I decided to delay the patch another week as there are few things that the game really needs.
1. Remove the current relocation workflow completely.
Until now, relocating (or moving furniture around after placing it) required clicking on the "relocation" button then selecting the furniture then clicking "relocate". When Tavern Tycoon was first designed, I had very little issues with this approach, but now that the game is working at its full capacity, this workflow is very tedius and unintuitive. Hence, I am moving to the "new workflow".
Basically, players can now simply move the cursor over any furniture and it will be highlighted (until now, only staff members had this behavior). Clicking on it will prompt a small panel with buttons and information about the furniture. From here, you can either move, replace with new, call for repairs or sell it.
This change was made quite late but it is currently fully functional and ready.
2. But the rooms still work like the old times
After play testing for several hours, I realized how the new workflow for furnitures felt "right" and almost "perfect". But the rooms, which is still based on the old workflow, now felt "outdated" and sort of "hard" to work with. At this point I really had to re-evaluate and ask if the room workflow should be changed to the new workflow as well. And my conclusion was yes. I begun porting codes last night and so far, I like how it is going. It is not done yet, but should not give any unexpected surprises.
Left is the old workflow with new UI, but I want to implement the new workflow on in as well.
3. New staff balance and training
Staff in general has been changed in many ways. For example, staff members now have perks! Staff avatar and UI had a facelift as well. This part is done and fully functional. But, after playing testing, I realized that there needs to be a some sort of training room so that players can choose who gains what sort of perks and who levels up. Currently, staff members level up steadily over time and gain perks after each levelling up which eliminates the player's input in general. This made every staff after few years a master level staff at very low wage. This is broken in terms of gameplay and it needs to be redesigned. The goal is to give the choice to the players as the manager and decide who will be a long term staff and who is not.
Conclusion
I think polishing the game and spending more time on balancing the gameplay have revealed areas of the game that needs to be reinforced. It is unfortunate that the patch has to be delayed, but the three things mentioned above is quite critical for the game to play as it was intended, so the delay was inevitable.
My current goal is to polish the DB010 build and release it before the end of October and following it up with a pushdown to the Main Build early November.
Almost there!
So, to recap what has been going on this past month, I have been polishing up Tavern Tycoon in general starting from UI, animation, interaction and mostly game balance.
Many things have changed since, especially the way the game feels and plays. I myself is hyped up about this release as well.
I do have a soft ETA for the patch: October 11th, but as always, it is a date that I aim for, not written in stone.
Game menus and lobby have not been altered, but will be worked on after this patch.
So, what exactly is happening in September?
In case you are not aware, I announced a few weeks ago that I will be spending the whole month of September to polish and mostly balance the game - something that Tavern Tycoon sorely needs at this point.
I would like to use this opportunity to elaborate:
1. General Moneymaking: (60% Complete)
There have been many reports that Tavern Tycoon, in its current state, is too hard and somewhat impossible to win. While I am not sure about it being "impossible," I do agree that it is hard to make money and consequently win the level. My angle with this problem is by generally increasing the profit margin. I will spare the details as it is not finalized and I will try to share as much as I can about this issue.
2. Staff Wage and Perks: (40% Complete)
Staff in general is being rebalanced, and that means, skills, wage and the new perk system will play a vital role into your decision making. Some staff will move faster, some staff will get more tips, and some staff will heal faster and so on...
3. New UI: (70% Complete)
I have also been working on the new UI, primarly focusing on the usability and the asthetics. Here is a WIP of staff hiring panel:
Here is another WIP of selecting furnitures. Basically, you can now hover your mouse over any furniture, which will then show a white outline to show the selection. If you click on the furniture, it will display a small information panel above the furniture. In general, I am trying to move away from clicking "Relocate" and back and forth. Instead, an intuitive straight forward UI to do what you want to do.
4. Transition Animation: (90% Complete)
This is something I have been setting aside but I believe with the new UI, it was finally the right time to do so. Basically, I am adding smoothness to any transition of any in game transition. A good example would be opening up the zone panel or rotating furnitures before placement. Instead of instantly snapping, it will now transition smoothly, mostly with appropriate animations.
The general direction at the moment is to turn Tavern Tycoon into a Full release ready game now that all ten levels are out. I am not sure when that will happen, but it feels like the right time to begin polishing the game.
I expect most of the work to be public-release ready by the end of the month and hopefully be pushed down to the main build soon.
Time to Balance!
So, now that all ten levels are available - level 10 on Dev Build only - I will be spending the whole month of September balancing the game. I will also be revising levels 8~10 with a bit more content and narrative as those later levels are not quite there yet. In another words, don't expect major feature releases this month but subtle changes to how to game functions. Some hidden bugs and transition issues will also be worked on as well.
At the end of the month, I expect the Dev Build to be pushed down to the Main Build as 0.6
Note: 32-bit support will soon end.
Note2: I am re-announcing that all localization plans are cancelled as some people are still not aware. The reason being, I found it that the time spent to localization was just making the development cycle even longer and at this stage of development, that is something I want to avoid. It would be nice to have localization, that is the truth, but there is also the business side of things that I have to consider and I would like to stay conservative about adding new things at this stage.
Note3: Sandbox mode is still WIP, but I am still not quite convinced that it should be there to be honest. I will have to make the decision by th end of September, so I will hold off on that for now.
DB009.4 Released!
So, I am releasing Level 10 as a preview as some of the features that I would like is still not complete. It should be completed within the next one or two patch cycles.
Added: Various sound effects for furnitures and interactions.
Improved: Cleaned up legacy code for improved performance.
Improved: Door sound timing adjusted to match animation.
Improved: Particle rendering speed and memory requirement.
Improved: Ghosting effects occuring on shared guest room greatly reduced.
Fixed: Storage shelf costing 0 gold.
Fixed: Under certain cases, two instances of the game could be launched.
Fixed: Mouse cursor not changing its animation at times.
Fixed: A rare memory leak related to animations on scene.
Fixed: Collisions registering twice at times.
Fixed: Certain older generation CPUs causing crash.
Fixed: Room building glitching during kitchen placement.
Fixed: Storage room door sound playing wooden door sounds.
Fixed: Sound direction being reversed for floor noise.
Fixed: Level 7 ambient track being too loud.
Fixed: Level 9 internal error happening after level load.
Note: 32-bit support will end soon.
DB009.3 Released!
So here is the new room building! It is a WIP progress, but I think it improves the original system by quite a bit! Please let me know if you have suggestions regarding the new room building!
Dev Build (DB009.3)
<*>Added: Level ambient voice.
<*>Added: Level ambient track.
<*>Added: Arcane Study rune stage magic sequence.
<*>Added: Spa kraken sequence.
<*>Added: Gym workout FX.
<*>Added: Guests will also perform crunches and jumping jacks on the exercise mat.
<*>Improved: Room furnitures are fully editable. (No need to destroy all or just add).
<*>Improved: Room doors can be repositioned at any time.
<*>Improved: Mage and wizard float animation height adjusted.
<*>Improved: Climate effects and occurrence algorithm.
<*>Fixed: In game menu opening during furniture or room placement.
<*>Fixed: Relocating staying active when in game menu is entered after relocation is enabled.
<*>Fixed: Raining at the beginning of a round for one second.
Note: Please note that 32-bit support will soon end.
No patch this week!
There won't be a patch this week due to the late discovery of a critical bug. During the room build, the interface bugs out when extra furniture is selected.
I will be reworking this part of the game until next week to have it fully fixed.
As for now, I am attaching some screenshots of some new stuff that should have been this week's patch.
Please note that 32-bit support will soon end.
DB009.2 Released!
DB009.2 is here! For the curious people, level 10 is on its way and it should be released some time this month.
Enjoy!
Dev Build (DB009.2)
Added: Fireworks.
Added: Guests that visit the gym will change their appearance after workout.
Added: Wizards that visit Arcane Study will change their appearance.
Improved: Staff wage now scales with difficulty.
Fixed portal placement blocking path in tight corners.
Fixed guest animations and movement impairment occuring when the particular guest is offscreen.
Fixed Level 7 clear requirements being too low.
Fixed Level 8 emissive level being too high.
Fixed Gymnasium pathing issues related to training dummy.
Fixed shop counter when placed towards the wall, boxing out all paths.
Fixed wrong status text shown for guests moving to training dummy.
