Weekly Dev Update: Sept 12, 2022 (Patreon)

What's New 

This last week Meisaka and I began planning out the final details for the refactor on Death. We will be achieving this by introducing Gear Durability and repairs. How this system will work is that when you die your gear takes durability loss. And once it takes enough it will be broken and the stats will stop contributing. The only way to remedy this is to go to a blacksmith and have your gear repaired. You will still teleport to the nearest telepad when you die. But now you will no longer be charged by death. Instead the gold cost will be transferred to the repair fee.  

Last week Charles and I also began planning out another system, ability cooldowns.  Meisaka and I previously worked on this design a couple months ago, but I am now transferring this task to Charles. We have high faith in his ability (Ceann help us all, jk). Okay, so this system will allow us to have abilities with cooldowns. Currently it's not in the engine. The only "ability" with a cooldown is currently the item slot (health potion) and that is hard-coded. This will allow us to refactor the combat system and have better control over it to design all the remaining abilities that are missing from the game.  

Over the last couple weeks the whole team has been working on the new Introduction together. Laguna has previously written a fantastic script and dialog that will drive us through the new introduction to be added to the game. Akezhar, Eric and I have been hard at work making the art to support this new cinematic-like introduction. FancyCookie and I planned out the layout of the map together and figured out exactly how everything is laid out.  Gregg also made a new music track for the introduction.   

What's Next 

I will be continuing finishing up the art for the introduction, and working on the tile mapping for the new introduction areas. We will also be working on getting the cutscenes programmed, new music composed, sound effects acquired, and all the last minute work to bring the new introduction to completion.  

We also will be working on finishing up a series of features and systems so we can release Alpha 7.  These include: new decimal weights, ability cooldowns, repairs, social menu, guilds, controller support and full keyboard support. Holy moly! A lot is going into this patch: it's basically all the remaining systems that are needed to get the game out in Early Access. It's no wonder it's taking a while to get it out the door. But don't worry most if not all of these features are in good states of progress, some even almost completed.