August 2026 has been another very busy month for Virtualord!
I managed to release a new alpha build despite I wasn't expecting to make it by the end of this month, as you can see in the "what's next" section of my previous update on Steam, and I also already started to work on next version.
It's usually the other way around with development time predictions, but I am glad I was wrong this time!
On the 28th of August I released version 0.6.9, which completes the tutorial and that can be considered a first Release Candidate for the demo. In this version you will find all main updates described later in this post, but if you want a quick preview of what's new in this release, you can watch this new video:
If you want to try this latest version, you can join us on Discord, where you will find a Windows and a Linux build.
These are the main features I worked on during the previous month.
Most of the development this month went into completing the third and final tutorial mission, which offers around 30 minutes of gameplay.
In this mission you will have to set up a base and to prepare for a first attack to the enemy's one.
Working on this tutorial also forced me to fix and to improve a lot of things, so now the game is much more stable and enjoyable than in all previous build.
Once I finished the tutorial I also created the 2 missing maps of the first planet, which means that after playing the full tutorial you will be able to keep playing 2 more missions freely. That, combined with the tutorial, should guarantee 2 hours of gameplay to the demo.
I implemented a new auto-camera that truly tracks movements of moving objects.
The first version I implemented at the end of May was something I hacked together and that wasn't up to the task, especially when mini-units were moving. This new one works perfectly especially with them and makes it much easier to follow what's happening.
I also made sure to fix all the weird behaviors that were happening when the view was close to the edges of a map.
I still need to improve how things work when enemies are playing, but the overall experience has improved a lot.
From this new release, every time your units or structures spend some resources, you're going to see the amounts spent where that's happening.
This not only gives you a better idea of what's going on, but it also makes the scene more lively.
I started to create new content for the demo and the first addition was cactus bushes.
Cacti behave like trees, which means they grow, then start to reproduce and eventually they end up occupying some surrounding cells.
Another new scene element was a different type of mountain.
There's absolute no difference in terms of functionalities with the old ones, they are just static scene elements, but they offer more variety and color to the scene.
Some other changes worth a mention are:
game is auto-saved after every turn while playing the tutorial
settings dialog is now available while playing the tutorial too (this will be part of next release, 0.6.11)
also many other fixes and changes that you will find in the full changelog accessible from the main menu of the 0.6.9 release.
The plan is to have a first playtest session on Steam around mid-September and to release a first version of the demo by the end of it or on the first week of October, all depending on how things go during the playest.
In the meantime I will work hard to iron all the known bugs out and to add some useful features to the next builds.
support and follow the development of Virtualord by adding it to your wishlist on Steam.