Hello there! You know the drill, another year, another chance of getting a permanently halloween pumpkin! Jump back in, beat the Halloween quest and it’s all yours.
If this is your first time and haven’t got your pumpkin hat already, be sure to visit the Dabiriu’s Fort beach area and look for a guinea pig with a pumpkin on his head, from there you can start the quest!
That’s great Lucas, but where’s the major update? I know I’ve been taking forever but trust me, it’s coming, a lot of unexpected things happened this year that slowed it down a bit. I’ll be sharing info about it soon :)
Happy Halloween everybody!
Let's Talk #12 - Underwater Improvements, Levels and More!
Have you ever wonder what it would be like to swim in War Islands? Today I would like to talk about a very interesting thing I’ve accidentally discovered while testing new features for the game: The ability to swim! (Yes, really).
I was actually just testing upgrades for the Sea Turtle when I got a bit frustrated by falling in the water every time, so I quite literally did a small test, the movement felt solid, added a short swim animation and with a bit of polishment I’m sure it’ll look great.
So that lead me down a rabbit hole of making sure the game looks good underwater, began by making a new underwater screen effect so you can see more clearly, then some lighting tweaks and finally added missing details to some lakes and rivers throughout the game.
Now I’m thinking on changing how shark attacks work entirely, potentially making them an actual npc in the game, reason being is because I noticed that sometimes it’s a bit annoying to instantly get killed by a shark without no time to quickly get out of the water.
All in all I’m definitely keen on adding that feature to my to do list. I’ll try to push it alongside the new level update but can’t guarantee since I’m aware that I’m taking way too long to release the next level.
Another cool little thing we did was improving Jonathan’s crossbow, the texture was a bit off so we now have a fancy new one for you.
Finally, we are also expanding our team so we already began development of future levels to avoid long delays between updates. The props above for example are for a new jungle level, I know I’ve been really silent lately but there’s really a lot of new content coming up for the game!
So, what are your thoughts on swimming in the game? Let’s talk!
Lucas
Let's Talk #11 - Upcoming Features, Dev Challenges and More
Long time, no see! I know It’s been quite a while since my last post but It’s been really tricky to manage time lately, I’ve got quite a lot of stuff in the works for War Islands.
Lately I’ve been working on some heavy changes to the Save System, one of the issues I was having is due to the amount of items increasing the game couldn’t load all items info at once (Due to how It was previously developed) so now the game only load item data on demand. How’s is that related to the Save System you might ask? Well, the game’s savedata was previously saving items based on their hard reference path and so forcing the game to always load all items (even if you’re not using them).
The new update will feature a brand new character panel that now shows all items your character currently has equipped. This is useful since we added weapons to the game and thus planning on possible adding stats bonus for them. (damage, health and other bonuses)
In previous posts I did mention the two new upcoming areas, Honey Cave and Morumotto Forest. For Morumotto the only thing left to do is a few tweaks and voice acting. Honey Cave however still needs some work such as some puzzle design, characters and it’s cinematic event.
Alongside all of that, lots of performance optimizations were done under the hood for the whole game. From things that I mistakenly left calculating without need in the background to overall noticeable visual effect differences.
I’ll return with more frequently posts sharing our development status soon, I can’t wait to get this update out for you all!
Lucas
Game Engine Update
Hey everyone!
I'm pushing a new update that might seem a bit large but that's because I've decided to update the game engine to provide more overall stability to the game, here are the few things you can expect from this update:
- Game engine updated - Fixed split screen players wardrobe, map and other menus not closing when any cinematic starts - Characters can now equip items on the fly without needing to go to a wardrobe - Pickup items now swap to what's currently equipped when picking up - Fixed rare occasions where after dying in a boss fight, game reloads elsewhere - Christmas content disabled
If any of you experience issues with this update please let me know!
Have a great week! Lucas
Let's Talk #10 - Save The Christmas Tree!
Hey everyone, Lucas here! Today we’re pushing our Christmas special quest back online! This time with a new item for you. The peppermint stick!
I’ve been looking to get weapon items in the game for quite a while now, decided to give it a try on this Christmas quest. Beat the initial 5 waves and get the item permanently on your save game, the quest is replayable meaning, you can play more than 5 waves to beat me on the leaderboard if you’d like. :)
This update also includes a new rain effect and some overall game improvements, lately I’m focusing on Morumotto forest which is a upcoming completely new area featuring 2 new side quests. One of the key features of Morumotto will be a brand new Jonathan weapon: The Harpoon Gun!
I’ll be sharing more details on Morumotto soon, just need to get a few more things done. In the meantime feel free to enjoy some nice snow in War Islands!
So what do you think? Like the new Almika’s Peppermint Stick item? Let’s talk! :)
Lucas
Let's Talk #09 - Halloween Puzzle is back!
Hello everyone! Today we’re pushing a update to re-enable the Halloween puzzle. It’s your change to get a nice Halloween pumpkin!
Last year you visit it by talking to a Dabiriu near shore, this time in order to visit it you need to go by the interior part of the Fort! A brand new space for you to explore.
From there you talk to this nice fella, the one with a pumpkin on his head! Beat the puzzle and get your pumpkin! Hope you like it! Just make sure you got the skills needed to complete the puzzle!
