Sunday, November 26, 2017

Ports and pacing

Hey crew! It has been almost a year since our last update, which is really sad. The scope of the game had become overwhelming and as a result progress dropped down significantly. However, the good news as that the new build is now out for you to try and it is packed full of very meaningful changes. The biggest change is an attempt to scope down the game into something more manageable, which is to remove the sailing experience in favor for a port that is static between adventures. The openness  of the previous sailing experience was cool, but it ultimately left an overwhelming amount of work in order to make it crisp and fun. The port is much more manageable for such a small team as ours. Furthermore, the port adds a really nice pacing to the game since you have an upgrade phase between every event you go on. This matches some of my favorite games such as "XCOM" and "Darkest Dungeon" which mix a high level strategy layer and a tactical layer.

Another big change is the addition of a bunch of new enemy types. Kurt created a bunch of new sprites which can be layered over our basic human model. Each of the new enemy types has new tactics which makes them different to fight. We will be working them into events over the next releases.

New Enemy Types
Lastly, I have added in a leveling system for the crew. They can now level up from 1 to 5 by earning experience in events. Each time that they level up their health and abilities become stronger. This will help the crew's abilities to scale along with the quality of items as the game gets harder at higher levels.

Go ahead and download the latest version here if you want to give it try...


Also, you can check out a let's play where I go through the various changes here...



---- v0.23 ----
- New port replaces the sailing experience
- Tavern added to port for hiring and finding events
- Harbor added to port for purchasing ship upgrades
- Results window showing the loot achieved with each event
- Crew now have levels which increase their power
- New experience system for crew
- There are a bunch of new enemy types with new tactics!
    - Kondanese
    - Ravenman
    - Ogres
    - Goldenmask
    - Drakonid
    - Knights
    - Natives
    - Couple more which need to be finished

- Several bug fixes