Trollskog cover
Trollskog screenshot
PC Steam
Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy, Indie

Trollskog

Minor features & fixes
A minor update to introduce two new features and strike a few items off the old bugtracker:


  • The game can now be started in "Survival" mode, enabling the AI to attack the player. This is fairly basic so far, but is a first step of the improved AI roadmap.
  • Added an "Idle Villagers" button.
  • Fixed an issue where workers would not retrieve certain resources from storage.
  • Fixed some issues related to smelters.
  • Upgraded buildings now retain their previous resources, if possible.
  • Fixed several map generation issues.

0.8.6.1 - Bugfixes & tweaks
Trollskog 0.8.6.1 - Bugfixes and minor visual tweaks.


  • Fixed a pathfinding bug
    An optimization introduced in an earlier patch was causing units to get stuck on terrain again.
  • Haul tasks between storages can now correctly be canceled by unsetting the dropoff point.
    Also fixed some minor glitches with worker AI and dropoff points that were a bit too intricate to explain in bullet list format.
  • Tweaked building slot and icon layout positions
    Icons should no longer appear on top of each other, or hide villagers.
  • Re-rendered tier 1 buildings to reflect new models
    Tier 2 and tier 3 are forthcoming.


Sorry for the wait! These bugs were slow to fix due to catching coronavirus and some real life business cropping up (Don’t worry - nothing bad!). The roadmap to 0.9 is almost completed, so stay tuned for that in the coming days.

Your friend in the forest,
Andreas

Building mechanics update out now!

Trollskog update 0.8.6.0 is here!


With some far-reaching gameplay changes that have been a while in the making:

City building limits removed


There is no longer any limit to where buildings can be placed on the map.

Buildings are now constructed by villagers


A slight caveat to the above - your villagers have to be able to reach it!

Added Storage building


Buildings and their ability to store resources has been reworked. This new building acts as an additional storage slot.

Buildings can spend resources within a radius


When you select a building, a dotted line demarcates its resource radius. Buildings that require resources to train units, such as barracks and town halls, can use any resources stored within that radius.

Tutorial quest updated for new mechanics



15 minutes of new music tracks added


Thank you Shane Rutherfoord-Jones once again for the wonderful tunes.

Improved GUI


To service new mechanics, displaying resource dropoff routes and villager state.

Bugfixes


Fixed many issues related to unit AI, saving & loading, quests, &c.

Tech and performance


Among many other optimizations, the game is now running on .NET 6, which grants a pleasant performance boost in itself.


The idea behind the city limits mechanics was to encourage multiple cities, and force some decision making in which buildings to include. In practice, I have to agree with the playtesters who felt it was overly restrictive and led to a cramped playstyle - ultimately, a bit contradictory to open-world gameplay.
It had to go, and this had a few knock-on effects in terms of mechanics redesigns, that I feel ultimately makes for a much stronger game.

Some content that was originally planned for this patch had to be pushed to the next one to keep the scope in check, an updated roadmap will be coming shortly.

See you soon,
Andreas

Update 0.8.6.0 coming soon
The next game update has been in the making for a while, so I figure it's only fair to write a status update here. The items on the roadmap will be included in this patch, such as: No more city limits, villagers constructing buildings (anywhere), a new "storage" building that replaces the town hall's inventory limit, and more.


These improved dropoff route indicators are just one of the several upcoming GUI improvements.

These things have required some systems reworking, which in turn have had consequences for other game systems, but overall the game is playing a lot better for it.
I'm still taking my time to stamp out bugs, polish the GUI, and make sure the game balance is in order. And I'll admit, the release of age of empires 4 has unfortunately caused a hit to productivity. But aside from that, I'm working hard on getting the next trollskog update delivered to your steam, and as always, am grateful for your patience.

See you in the patch notes,
Andreas

Small bugs, small fixes
This patch fixes an issue related to building inventories being cleared after upgrades.

Graphics and GUI Update
A new day in the forest, with a graphical redesign to nearly all player buildings, and a myriad of other fixes. Here's the short version:


  • Tier 1 and Tier 2 building appearance has been reworked. The new visuals are aligned more closely to the game's grid-based mechanics and hopefully easier to read.
  • Improved shader appearance and general graphics performance
  • Reduced visual jank in certain particles and other animations
  • Full-screen window display mode is now supported.
  • Added constrain mouse setting for windowed or multi-desktop devices.
  • Fixed an entire forest of bugs.

And a bonus for those of you who want to see how the sausage gets made: This update I enabled the "Dev tools" option under the cheat menu - Toggle it and press F5 in-game to open the world inspector. It's only read-only functionality for now, but will make the basis for editor functionality.

You may have seen the roadmap and realize these changes don't quite align - These mechanic changes are still in development, and need to be delivered together to make sense as a whole. Expect to see them soon!
/Andreas

0.8.5.0 - Engine Update
I emerge from the deepest rabbit hole, with a new patch. This update brings the Trollskog game engine to .NET5, with some glossy, shiny tech overhauls. Some of these took a while to get right, so this update will be focusing on landing the new tech stack without bringing about too many gameplay changes - stay tuned for those.


  • Performance Improvements - CPU and memory usage have been drastically improved, shaders and renderer have been retooled. Some work remains to be done here, but framerates and memory usage should be improved in all situations.

    I only have the ability to test the game on a fairly narrow range of hardware, so it would help a ton if you get in touch if you encounter visual glitches (and let me know your specs)

  • Saving & Loading - The serialization layer has been replaced (now powered by FlatBuffers). Aside from being faster and requiring less disk space, it’s a lot more stable.

  • Animation Improvements - Adjusting the game speed properly affects animation timing (Did you know you can fast forward or slow down by pressing the + and - keys on your keyboard?)

  • More architectural improvements - Some of these will be plainly felt in-game, others harden the engine and lay the foundation needed for further development, which will continue for a long time.


As mentioned in the preamble, this update wraps up some much needed technical improvements, but with that focus it doesn’t bring much content to the table. This will be coming in the next update, which will be focusing on game mechanics. Read more about it in the forums!

Namaste 🙏
/Andreas

0.8.3.1 - Bugfix update
A few bugs slipped by my testing, teaching me once again not to do last minute changes before an update. Here comes the first bugfix patch:
0.8.3.1:

  • Fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent villagers from harvesting silver from mines.
  • Building farms via click-and-drag now works even when far away from the starting town hall.

Thanks for helping me test so far! I'll keep testing and patching issues while I work on the next update.
/Andreas

0.8.3.0 - Reworking Population and Housing
Those who have been following the game's development for a while might know that I've been trying to find an interesting role for the house building, to avoid it simply being a space-occupying time-sink the player is compelled to build as their town grows. My attempts to add more interesting mechanics to this building have mostly been overly complex and unintuitive, so the time has come to try simplification instead. This update removes the house and changes how population works, hopefully streamlining some aspects of the game and sidestepping some complicated edge cases, such as when the player migrates villagers between towns.
This one took a while to get out, blame it on the beautiful summer weather 🌞

v0.8.3.0: Population and Housing


  • Population is now globally shared across all cities.
  • Houses have been removed from tier 1 and tier 2. Instead, town halls grant 25 population.
  • Farms and pastures are now separate buildings, with new visuals!
  • Fixed a memory leak that could cause the game to crash after several hours.
  • Fixed an issue where sounds would stop playing after a while.
  • Numerous tweaks to animations and sprites.
  • Fixed bugs related to passive abilities, dropoff points, and worker AI.


Hope you're staying healthy and happy,
Andreas

0.8.2.6 - New unit: Slinger
Update 0.8.2.6 is now out, introducing a new unit - the slinger.
* The Sling weapon can now be produced at the armory (any tier).
* Slingers can now be trained at the barracks (any tier).

The slinger is available at tier 1, has a faster movespeed than it's peers, and a short ranged attack with a whopping 50% chance to stun its targets.
The goal with this unit is to introduce some interesting units with micro potential early on in the game. The chance to stun will probably be replaced, but movement-impairing abilities and status effects are here to stay, and will make the world a bit more dangerous to explore.
The AI won't make use of slingers until next patch, which looks like it will be a general polish / bugfix update.
See you then,
/Andreas
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