Started the week out finishing the world map. Took Monday, and made refinements while playing it out. Complicated event structure because it’s the only place I’m tracking mousemove (or touchmove), you can drag the map around to see it all. Posted a preview to r/gamedevscreens.
Had a chat with the players in our Discord and we decided to put in a skippable intro video when you first play. It adds some story and perspective to the task being undertaken by the player (get past the Gatekeeper). Someone has recommended a really excellent artist on Fiverr, we had quick fruitful discussions and a pretty banging prototype exists. It needs polish and scoring but will hopefully make the next build. We may not post much more than these spoilers from r/gamedevscreens, to see it you gotta play!
Around Tuesday I posted the orc strategy guide, third in the series after the halfling and the dwarf. These are some of the earliest characters you unlock. Got the most votes yet out of r/indiegames, that subreddit is a tough nut to crack.
Finally, we added a new “feature”, though actually an increase in difficulty. Previously, in keeping to our doctrine of minimizing interface, tapping a creature would simply attack. Or, if you held a food that creature liked, it would tame them. There was no option to attack if you had food they like, but you could do a weird dance where you dropped your item first, then attacked. A new player wouldn’t know that.
The new system is you get a popup to decide if you want to attack or not. It reuses action menu code, example below. After attacking a creature in any way, you never get this option to tame it again. This nullifies the effectiveness of the item dance and keeps the mechanic tidy. We think it will reduce rage quits by 15%, and provide a nifty swipe left/right moment. Store purchases might get this treatment too.
