Hello everyone, thanks for checking out this devlog. Let’s jump right in, its been an interesting month full of things I don’t usually do as much. This month’s work was more planning than work if I had to classify it.
To start out, I did do a few things to the actual code of the game. Chests can now be picked up, so they are back to functioning as they do in the live version of the game. Aside from that I rebuilt a minor system to keep UI behaving correctly, specifically it ensures that you can’t click a button in the same frame it is made. I also fixed an issue where moving diagonally was faster cause that was strange.
Lastly, I rebuilt a system for in game messages. If you play the current game you’ve probably seen the small messages that appear from the top of the screen, that system has now been setup in the new engine.
All of the things mentioned above were really just minor additions. The meat of work this month was, as I said at the start, planning. I wasn’t expecting to do that, but realistically I probably should have expected it. Most of this planning revolved around the shipping chest, specifically the process of ordering items.
For those who are maybe unfamiliar the shipping chest allows you to order objects, usually furniture. This involves paying a fee as well as supplying one to three items. All very simple, in fact making the actual system likely won’t take very long at all. The issue was that the old version of the game essentially populated the database that this system worked from at runtime.
In short what this means is that there isn’t just a spreadsheet out there I can port into this version of the game. As a result I had to scrape the data manually, which wasn’t too bad. The next part was where things sort of spiraled out of control and the reason this basically just turned into a planning month.
Because of how the shipping chest and items work it is better to have everything related to it worked out when it is implemented. So the first step to that was to figure out what exactly the player can order from the shipping chest. This sounds like a simple question, but as I quickly found out, it ends up branching into several other systems, specifically quests, secrets, shops, and tangentially into any sub-system that requires a station to work from like sewing, hunting, or engineering (which is new and not in the current version of the game).
So, the bulk of the work was setting in stone exactly what was a shop item and what was a catalog item. The game has several secret shops that operate on either gold or additional currency. The items in these shops are unique to them. I had to determine what I wanted to just be something you unlock via quest reward and order from the catalog or an item in a special shop.
In addition to this I added a whole bunch of stuff. Partially to fill out some rewards and shops, but also because I felt what was there was a bit lacking. The furniture item list is currently sitting right around 390 items. 229 of those items are ordered through the catalog. All of this is to say that I spent a good chunk of time setting up the prices and item requirements of those 229 items in the catalog.
That however, is not all. As I said earlier this sort of spilled out into other systems. Shops, secrets, and quests were mostly just a matter of re-arranging or setting exactly what would be available. Other systems involved a bit more investment. Mostly this was a lot of nailing down exactly how I wanted things to work. A simple example is archeology. In the current version its just a button in your inventory menu. Because of changes that are coming to the UI there is now a station that you’ll access for it instead. Engineering needed to have its projects sorted and ideas for what it can do for the player set. Engineering is basically the late game automation system for a few things. Tailoring, which is new, had to have its items and stations sorted out. Brewing is also seeing an overhaul which involved a few new things that needed to be set into place.
Which is actually a good place to transition. Last word on the catalog, it is done. It was basically just a lot of data entry as well as setting rewards and requirements for a variety of systems. As for brewing, it will see some changes. In short I’m trying to simplify it. I’m still mulling over exact details, but the general idea is to make it a less intimidating system. First there are now a few degrees of separation. You can now make beer, wine, and liqueurs (flavored liquor). Beer is the easiest, you’ll just throw an item into a station and you get beer after time. Wine is a similar process but adds an element of aging, the longer you let it ferment the better the wine.
Liqueurs are what will replace what currently exists. I still want to simplify it but allow for a bit of player decision as well. Instead of just tossing a bunch of stuff together like in the current version and sorting values this will be a more precise process. I am doing away with custom recipes; I like the idea but I think its daunting to a player. Also, the concept of custom items that are created on the fly in a game like this is a nightmare from a code perspective.
Instead, how I currently have things is that there is a five-step process that you basically setup and let it run. I did some level of research into brewing and this is supposed to mimic that process. If anyone who actually makes alcohol is reading this I apologize because it’s an extremely simplified version of the real-world process.
First, you pick a catalyst which determines what type of alcohol you get. You can make rum, whiskey, vodka, or gin. Next you pick a water purifier. There are basically a couple of items you can use that purify water to various degrees. Third you pick a heat source, again there are a few items that generate more or less heat. Fourth you pick a flavoring item. This is the largest group of items you’ll get to pick from. Basically, there is a big list but the items simplify down into one of 5 categories with some items being better than others. Finally, you determine how long you want to age it.
All of these elements determine a specific item that you create. The better purifiers, heat, and aging you use the better the product. I figure between this, beer, and wine, players can pick how much they want to interact with the system (if at all). This seems better than being forced to learn a huge convoluted system that garners mixed results unless you really invest a lot of time in writing down combinations.
Last thing that I won’t swear to, but I did a bit of fiddling around and I think it would be possible. I know other games, specifically Stardew I guess, offer multiple farm layouts. I may follow suit on that, but I also did a bit of dabbling in a custom map creation tool this month and I think it would be possible. To explain it would allow players to go in and create a farm layout with a simple tile editor and then use it in game. Because of how it would be saved it should be easy to also allow players to basically share their layouts as well if they choose. Like I said I don’t swear to it because it is still early days, but it seems feasible.
And that’s mostly it. There are a couple of things I didn’t get around to but this is already pretty long and those things aren’t super important. Hopefully November will be more coding and less data entry. For my own sanity I hope so at least. As always, thanks to everyone for playing the game and giving feedback. Happy Halloween if you celebrate that sort of thing and I’ll see you all in a month.