With fall rapidly approaching, September has arrived, and with that another edition of Dinolords Monthly is ready.
In this one, we talk a little about Gamescom, how to command and control units, and look at some new assets that have made their way into the game.
Just like last year, Michael, Ulrik and Kasra went to Gamescom in Cologne to represent the Jurassic age and show off DInolords in the business area.
We heard there was Kölsch, which we were very jealous of, but also that there was an exciting interview with Robin Valentine from PCGamer who, among many great thoughts, wrote this:
"All along the way, there are dinosaur delights. Far more than just another class of units to recruit, dinos are baked right into the game's DNA, and even just in 30 minutes I felt like I was constantly experiencing child-like joy at finding some new way they click into the formula."
The full article can be read here:
It never ceases to amaze us how Dinolords resonates with so many people, and it is both humbling and also a little nerve wrecking that so many of you find our project as cool as we do. We want Dinolords to be the best it can, and we will continue to work hard on doing our very best to achieve that.
That aside, they also saw a bunch of cool games, every year especially the indie area shines with awesome ideas and we can't wait until it is our turn to show Dinolords to all of you. Until then, let's move this monthly along with a look at unit controls.
This segment is going to touch upon areas of the game that are still in-the-works and not completely crystalized yet, so here is the obligatory "this is all subject to change" disclosure before we dive in.
With that being said, we have been spending some time really digging into how we want controlling both the player character and units to feel, and furthermore how we can achieve that with only 10 fingers, 2 hands, a mouse, and a keyboard.
The way you interact with units have already been through many iterations, all trying to strike a balance in fidelity - how fine-grained is it viable to expect one to be able to manage while also dealing with the other aspects of the game, and as the pendulum has swung back and forth, we are now honing in on that goal.
As we are chipping away at the rough stone to find the gem, one if the issues we have had was simply that there is only two buttons you can viably use for primary functions on the mouse; left and right click. And with a hero-character you always control who has to attack, buildings you have to select and manage, various elements you might have to click, having the mouse do double duty to also select units and issue commands seemed like an impossibility. So we are experimenting with making that possible via a dynamic switch between two modes ("modes" being a bit of a misnomer here, because they have a substantial overlap in functionality still), where in one of them you play on a lord-oriented way, and the other offering a more strategic overview both in terms of the actual viewport of the battlefield, but also when it comes to what the cursor and mouse buttons do.
The former works similarly to how the game has worked so far; you move via WASD, you right click to attack, and you left click to select/interact with units, buildings etc.
The latter works slightly differently: you still move via WASD, you left click to select units, but right click is now used to issue different move commands to your unit selection. This view also provides additional UI elements to help you manage your army and fine-tune your strategic placement of units.
Shared between both is one important reintroduction as many might be happy to hear: traditional box-selection is back!
There are still details to be figured out and kinks to be ironed out, but so far this is proving a lot more solid than previous iterations, and the pendulum feels like it's landing in a solid spot where you can really feel some deep heritage from two huge genres while still being fresh and intuitive.
Since last time, some cool new dinosaurs have made their way into the game as well.
Firstly, an upgrade to the lumbercamp to increase the manpower, or rather, dinopower and really up the wood production:
Absolutely love to watch the Triceratops just yoink the trees straight out of the ground. It's so cool!
Secondly, the Pterodon tower shown in the last monthly, is functional!
Disregard streams of pee from the soldiers. Although, who wouldn't have done that if they got lifted off the ground by a massive flying dinosaur only to be yeeted towards the ground at breakneck speeds. Can't really blame them.
We got some new screenshots from gameplay hot of the press, have a look here:
That's all for the August edition of Dinolords Monthly. As always, thank you to everyone who is following along, and to everyone who has wishlisted Dinolords here on Steam.
Catch you all in the next one.
-panxter