Weekly Dev Update: Mar 18, 2024
This week's update is a little sparse as I just returned from a week's vacation where I took the kids not once, but twice!, to Legoland. I believe the whole theme park is built around the singular fact it is hard to leave Legoland without new lego!
Update #3: Exploration
Exploration is our next major update to the game. It will greatly enhance the overworld experience, map exploration, UI experience, dynamically generated quests based on NPC motives, and player progression.
Zach has a rudimentary dynamically generated quest working in game. There is still lots to do, but this is a significant milestone!
- Michel is working on tooling for the new Exploration gameplay
- Tyler is working on the Conclave and player progression
- Jessi continues on the new UI
- Mark and I are working on something that has always been a problem with the game: the pacing of a life.
- For those that remember Nic, he always questioned "Thomas! How are you going to fill the time? 70 years, by hours, is a lot of time!!!"
- I put off dealing with it until now. One idea is instead of playing out every hour of every year, instead play through more abstract stages of life: young adult, adult, middle years, eldership
Mini-Update Rival Combat
Rivals is a small update adding the ability to fight specific named mages in the game. These mages specialize in one of the schools and present a unique challenge to the player.
Rivals has been updated and ready for another internal playtest, which I will perform this week. If the experience is good we will package it up and ship it out.
Other Studio News
New Hire! We just hired a Associate Project Manager to help with the production side of the studio. As we work towards 1.0 there will be increasing production responsibilities and complexity. Phil and I have been doing it, but having someone dedicated and focused on it will really help run things better and free us up to focus on our core responsibilities. Emily starts May 1st.
Related to the above, Phil is off this week dealing with a serious family member illness. It is sudden so we don't have a plan. There won't be a patch this week, nor will he be on the discord server. We expect him back Mar 28th.
