Hi there and sorry for the long time without news.
The 8 Sins are on sale 25% off! Also, this is the last sale before the major update! I gonna keep my promise and after a major update price will go up!
= The updates = Sadly, but I am currently in a hard situation so I have to change my priorities.
Currently, I need to focus on my main project: "Señorita El Chupacabra", but in the meantime, I will try to finish this update with better terrain, AI, and fix bugs with some achievements and wrong commander spawn in some missions in Conquer mode.
= What about a Major update? = I don't gonna give up on this topic! Until there is no big boom on The 8 Sins, the game code and concept for the new battlefield I will take and make a dungeon crawler, the game mechanic will be mixed with Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, and a series of RPG games Might and Magic.
Like in The 8 Sins I will take you to a surreal weird world in randomly generated dungeons where our heroes not only will gain experience, but also morph into a stronger form.
After launching this game, with the new code I will return to the 8 Sins and upload that as a major update.
Short News
First of all, The 8 Sins will take part in Strategy Fest where it will be for a 50% sale!
As for leaking, It was fixed, but seeing that Fest is almost here, I decided to focus on refreshing the game page and some art.
After polishing, I am going to return to make this update with AI hoping that it will launch in the coming days.
Cross-finger and see you later!
Optimization and logo in halfway
= Leaking = After a long battle, I was able to stop linking in half, After 100 000 battles, the Rams go from 428 MB to 1 GB instead 1,6 GB.
= Town Panorama = Some people are interested in the minicity builder, in the incoming major update I gonna focus on Battlefield and creatures' stats, and city-builderI will add later. So in the incoming update, I gonna remove the town's panoramas.
= Improving the biome = For now, I think the last added biome now looks good, and currently, I can go to improve another one. How Nightmare looks before: Present look: Biome that I gonna work:
= Logo and capsule = Thanks for the comments under the last concepts, here are the last concepts before I gonna work on the final version:
Code optimization
Hi there!
= Optimization = When working on improving the AI player, I notice that battle code requires optimizations, the need for RAM is slightly increasing after each fight, and I need to find out where is leaking. New AI player use simulations a lot, so the amount of used Ram is going crazy.
Noticed that there was no big visible progress from last time and the Festival of Strategy game is coming, the 8 Sins will be now a priority.
So my current goals: 1. Optimization of the battle code; 2. Refresh the game page; 3. Add multiplayer.
Depending on how good the Festival will go for this project, after finishing the goals, I gonna start working on major update immediately.
= About refreshing the game page =
Because of the planned major updates and incoming Festival, I decided to try to make a new logo, and of course refresh capsule art (for the rest maybe later), here are some rough concepts of that:
= Map = Still improving the last added biome to make it looks more differently than others, at first place it was too purple like the volcano biome:
= City Builder? =
Some time ago I was mentioning about making a panorama screen and whether this is necessary or not. And I mentioned about city builder module. Interested in that, I make another concept of such screens, where every town generates some point like "Units: Brute" or "Kindom: Magic", and if there are enough of them, the current technology level go up and players can unlock new units or items. Technology screen:
= Ending = After releasing the update with a fixed battlefield and with a lot of concepts that I made with the prepared UI, work on major updates should be easier and from the graphics side I can focus on making complete animation sets of all refreshed units. And was thinking, about how my game can look if I gonna increase the screen size by double:
Thanks for reading and see you next time!
AI in testing
I haven't made any visible progress since the last time but was a lot of work, but I gonna write it.
New AI is in testing for now without the "the march" module that is it's not even written as a code.
A better army manager will be also used to prepare the town for defence only if the opponent is near.
As for the map. I am polishing the last added biome to make it looks better and adding more objects, the new incoming large map will mainly focus on this biome and it will be for 2 players.
A for concept In the incoming mayor update, I decided to use that action takes place in hell and in-game probably there will be no "only positive effects", everything will have side effects or only negative effects, here you have the look of the new skill description window.
Town screen and town panorama
Still improving the AI, but Today I wanna talk about the town screen and town panorama.
Here are the concepts of new town screens, instead of jumping to the new screen, the top part of the screen will change: Here you can see a few concepts to show unit health, in the major update will be also an energy bar so I just wonder how I should represent that.
Doing research, I notice that in similar games that I am making, creators don't give a panorama view of the towns, the town's screen immediately jumps into a "tech tree". So I wonder if I should add a panorama because looking back, it's taken me a week for one town and in my game is 8 faction and one neutral.
So this brings me to two conclusions: 1. Add panorama as the last thing if will be a time. 2. Add immediately if Panorama is an important gameplay mechanic. In another way, expanding my game of the mini city-builder module.
The mini city-builder module First I will check if there is a place for such a solution, between map exploration and combat on battlefields. But how would that work: 1. Every town and capital has a construction site. 2. Building structures next to other structures or terrain objects can affect efficiency all around structures. 3. Should give the player several options for expanding the city: military, economic or something.
I'll save that for a concept of future major update.
Working on AI and Commanders skills
A small report on improving AI: For now, the simulation is done and this is the easy part, currently, I am focusing on the advanced army manager.
"Army manager" module use simulation to calculate the best army squad and is used in creating a new party or choosing an upgrade for a unit.
The algorithm is written down, and now I am putting that into code but probably it will gonna be connected with a "victory march" module (AI is setting a path to reach a map goal if is ready and destroying any armies on this path if necessary), to create the best squad (or two) to defeat the goal.
As for the concept:
Here is an expanded character sheet where on the left I add fields to show what currently is working on this creature, starting from the top: aura (cast by abominations), mixture, spell and states of mind, soul and body:
For the concepts, I need to prepare the new town and battlefield screens.
That is all for now, see you latter
Progress of A.I.
As I mentioned before I wanna finally start working on a major update.
But before that, I need to add two updates: 1. Improving AI player; 2. Add multiplayer;
For Improving AI currently, I replace a calculation function that was checking if combat with the current party is risky with a simulation.
This solution should make AI more effective in leading the Demons of Envy.
Lukyly is working, here is the screenshot where the AI player tries to charge on town quite early but loses the battle:
The two other steps are to improve the army manager (so he can lead Daemons of Acedia more effectively) and last to set a marching line to victory if the map goal is like for example destroying a neutral party if Ai Is ready to do it it will try, if not because defenders are too hard, it will send two armies or more. But testing AI requires time so is hard to tell when this update will be.
As for working on the new (optional) colour palette, here is the current progress:
Current:
Incoming:
Old/New:
As for the last concept, people have chosen many forms except form A (by the way, thanks for the comments on the last post):
Gonna prepare a development tree for all concepts, but now I wanna focus on the town screen for gluttony and neutral. The neutral town in the incoming major update will have extra buildings like one for recruiting units in this town and another for upgrading units from 1 to 2 levels.
You gonna see it next time.
Today I don't have any new concepts.
That's all for now, see you later.
Returning to work
The amount of work was bigger than I expect, But I am returning to this project and I wanna finally start working on a major update.
But before that, I wanna launch smaller updates that gonna improve A.I. player in:
- charge on map goal if it has enough strength;
- advanced army manager for better use of demons of Acedia;
- advanced calculation of battle losing for better use of demons of envy.
Here are some concepts:
A new concept of the light warrior:
And alternative looks of shapeshifter warrior (let me know in the comments which you like the best):
I will try to launch smaller updates soon, I can't wait for myself for the major update.
V 1.0.24
In short Improving AI and adding a map.
= V 1.0.24 =
Miscellaneous: - Added: in the list of maps, may 64x64 are already marked with an H symbol and have an icon, previously the list of maps could be covered with a black area due to the lack of an icon; - Improved: the health skill increases the character's health by 40% from 20%, in order to make it more attractive compared to other skills, e.g. damage; - Added: Map: Beauty spot" (Size).
Pride: - Giant - changes: -- health from 90 to 100; -- initiative from 45 to 30; -- the ability to prepare for rest; - Stallion - changes: -- fight from 15 to 14; -- health from 100 to 110; -- initiative from 50 to 45; -- steadfastness skill removed; -- the ability to prepare for concentration; - Taurus - changes: -- Armor from 20 to 30; -- the ability to prepare for rest; -- steadfastness skill added; - Swordsman and Fencing Master - replaced: -- the ability to rest for preparation;
A.I.: - Added: Can charge an enemy player with an experienced team. - Fixed: uses starting bonuses; - Fixed: doesn't close the game when he decided to select an item as starting bonus; - Fixed: the priority of attacking cities and parties on the map is higher than attacking hideouts, it was equal before and now due to hideouts respawning, the AI could get stuck on the map visiting the same locations; - Added: doesn't go to the shop if he can't make any purchases; - Fixed: the priority of the defensive player was to expand the city first, then magic, and finally recruit an additional commander, now the last action is in the first place - Added: doesn't return to town when he has a unit to upgrade and can't afford it - Fixed: AI units' states are cleared, by right-clicking on their team it was possible to get information on how much experience they gained from the last fight; - Added: does not return to the city when he has a wounded or dead unit when he has no resources for healing; - Added: scout party doesn't return to the city to buy new characters; - Added: when after finishing party management, it turns out that there are no more of them (because, for example, he lost a fight), it buys in the same turn, earlier it could have caused the AI to expand the city without having parties, which paralyzed it for several turns in terms of recruiting new team; - Added: buys an additional shooter or mage to the rear column if there are only 2 warriors in front with e.g. a melee mage;
I noticed that AI have a problem when leading demons of envy and acedia so I gonna focus on that that requires an advanced party manager and more precisely calculating the risk of losing combat.
As for the gameplay improvement, here are concepts that I will add in the next updates (if you wish).
The first one is a short creature description in party view (on the left current, on the right concept) that I think shows the most important information (level, attack type and source of the attack: psychical or magic):
The second one was inspired by videos of people playing similar games, so why not add a window of comparison? columns of both sides with portraits is the last looked info of current creatures, such an option will be available from the window of creature info :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As for the concepts, still continue with elements for body parts, mechanical:
