Posts filled under: indie
We’re Back…
…And you all deserve to know what’s been going on.
Why haven’t we been updating?
There is no excuse for such a long break from updates, but our supporters should know why we haven’t updated. Simply speaking, Genel and I have been experiencing some big transitions in our life. As some of you may know already, we both have been attending university while working on SoR. I’m happy to say that I have finally finished.
“Now I have a piece of paper that says I’m a programmer”
The normal stresses of completing a degree, like taking a few more credits than usual to graduate on time and passing, really strapped me for time. Add switching jobs to that mix and you get unfortunately late updates such as this. Genel too was in a similar boat(although he still has some college left to come), but luckily he has found an interesting position doing graphic design that has better hours than his previous job.
All of this means we have more time that SoR, and all of you, deserve.
Give us new stuff to play with already!
Coming out in alpha 27 we have a big crafting rework. The system now keeps track of all items in stockpiles and automatically removes them when a dwarf crafts an item. Now instead of spending minutes walking back and forth collecting the items to craft, a fraction of the time is spent walking over to the proper craft building to create the object. This won’t take away from the strategy or simulation aspects, as your dwarfs still need all the supplies gathered up into the stockpile before crafting will finish. This new system is possible because now, all items in the game world are kept track of in a persistent list.
In alpha 26 we talked about our combat and stat system. Both systems are fleshed out, but mean very little without weapons and armor to equip. The above crafting system changes should make it easier to stockpile your armories and weaponize your dwarves.
Looking Ahead
We have a few secret ideas we’ve been keeping for a special update in the future and we still want to keep some of that as a surprise, but I think you’ll all appreciate a glimpse of what our plan is for moving ahead.
Better and more complex map generation, including caves, dungeons, and unique biomes, is very high up on our list. More complex inter-dwarf and dwarf society features are going to be getting worked on as well. Things like dwarf house zones, hangout zones, etc. I have also taken a personal interest in working out some sort of system that would allow players to add custom items, weapons and armor, but that will have to wait until the core game is mostly finished(Free DLC?).
I sincerely hope this post clarified our situation and put your concerns at ease. I assure you that we are not dead and that we are committed to making SoR great.
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam!
Killing Bugs (Alpha 26)
Zap! Zap! Zap! Here at French Rice Games one of our many jobs is to bring you bug fixes for unfinished games that need a lot of work in a relatively late manner. We could give you some boring details about life and only being being developed by two individuals who both are full-time students and have part time jobs… but we won’t bore you with all those boring bits. We’ll simply just copy and paste some wonderful patch notes you guys might find entertaining and continue on with development.
- Added New tree that is part of the plant system.
- Fixed Plants growth better managed.
- Fixed Aggressive mob pathfinding.
- Fixed Aggressive mob graphical glitches.
Alongside some minor bug fixes we are gearing up our combat system for use with equipment. Here’s what we have in mind.
SoR Stat System
Base Stats:
- Vitality (health, ammount of food and sleep needed)
- Strength (damage, and a few jobs.)
- Endurance(base armor, length of time a dwarf can be starving or tired)
- Willpower(Magical skill and defence)
- Agility (Critical Hits, Acuracy and speed, some jobs)
- Luck
These start out randomly between 10 and 15.
50% of the Exp given for every other task(skill usage) will be given to the Dwarfs main level.
The Dwarfs main level take 3x to 5x as much Exp to level up.
Base Stats increase with the dwarfs level, NOT by usage.
Base Stat Level Calculation: level = ((maxLevel + geneBonus + personalityBonus) /maxLevel)*dwarfLevel)
Static Values:
maxLevel = 1000
geneBonus = (0<->10)*20
personalityBonus = (100 if it is the dwarfs personality)
Personalities:
- Energetic - Vitality
- Hotheaded- Strength
- Stubborn- Endurance
- Reserved- Willpower
- Lively- Agility
- Perky- Luck
Each personality will increase a base stat improvement rate by about 10%.
Genetics:
Genes effect base stats by 0 to 10%.
A random value will be determined that will create a number between 0 and 5.
That value is the dwarfs gene for that particular stat.
The gene multiplied by 20 equals the bonus.
Skills:
- Gatherer
- Hunter
- Woodsman
- Miner
- Carpenter
- Smith
- StoneCutter
- Cook
- BrewMaster
- Tanner
- (Comming soon, skills for each weapon class and type)
Skills level with usage following the function: (4*(x^3))/5Genes that control this function may be added later.
Equiptment Slots:
- Head
- Neck
- Chest
- Ring (left hand)
- Ring (right hand)
- Right Hand
- Left Hand
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
Five Cubed
If you are reading this we can safely assume you have survived Ragnarok, alongside a new gregorian calendar year. Quite a lot to go through in just a few short days. Meanwhile in Midgard vegetation has been reported to have been propagating throughout the world. Which is quite lovely considering the real life Winter’s air.
- Added Farming/Plant Life.
- Added 9 Plants: Bamboo, Grapes, Bitterhumle(hops), Huskycap, Strawberry, Sugarcane, Tomato, Wheat, Grass.
- Added 8 Consumables: Bamboo Planks, Grapes, Hops, Husky Caps, Strawberries, Sugar Cane, Tomatoes, Wheat Grain.
- Changed Save games now properly reflect plant growth.
- Changed Buildings now drop some of the materials that they were built with.
- Fixed Resolution Menu and Game Menu now properly close when a selection is made.
- Fixed Multi-tile buildings no longer keep tiles tagged as buildings when removed.
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
Ragnarok Report 11.5.12
So decided on polishing up and working on the new dwarf UI. When you click the dwarf there would be this the compact version.
The items to the left would be his top 3 highest professions clicking the icon on the bottom left would pop up the full view for the dwarf UI.
Clicking on an equipable slot would open up a menu that would show all the available items in the players stockpile and/or weapon/armor/tool rack that can be equipped to said slot
Today YOU Learn.
Today you learned that 2 years ago this month Survivors of Ragnarok was conceived. Yes we are proud to say the very inception of SoR has hit a landmark 2 year development cycle. The project has evolved quite a lot and through the month of October we would will be sharing how much the game has changed since it’s initial development.
Survivors of Ragnarok was originally developed with the mobile market in mind. Under the pseudonym Project Dwarf we sought on creating a more accessible Dwarf Fortress.
As you can see from our atrocious mockup (and horrendous pixel-art) Project Dwarf was to stay fairly faithful to Dwarf Fortress. Within the next couple days of that mockup we would be ironing out design details and working on polishing out the art.
It was during a brainstorm meeting a week or so in pre-production that we had a radical idea to change the perspective of the game. We drew up a quick mockup of the concept and instantly loved the idea.
Initial engine work followed shortly after and if anyone was curious what the very first compile of SoR looked like… welll….
Mind blowingly incredible we know. Implementing what was in-game art at the time quickly followed and you can identify what was a screen of dirt rendered in the SoR client.
Fun development milestones at this time included rendering grass and sky.
Eventually after a few months of work we had implemented a very basic dwarf into the engine. In case you are wondering yes that was repurposed spelunky art that we used to quickly develop the pathfinding.
Finally after months of work we released a very crude tech demo we like to call Alpha 1, showing off basic dwarf pathfinding and building in-game.
We were very new to the industry (arguably still new even now) and we were quite proud of our work. Developing SoR has been a learning experience from the bottom up and we can’t thank our community enough for all the support they’ve given us (and understandably bad reviews). We really do read everyone’s comment and we are doing our best to fix up many of the issues you guys have with the game. Believe us, we want this game to be every bit as awesome as our community does and amateur development aside we have been working out non-dwarven butts off on fixes many of the issues and implementing new features into the game.
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
(Alpha) 23 Egnima
Morbidly obscure reference aside… Alpha 23!
An update so soon? That’s what happens when one sits on an update for quite some time. Literally we propped up a foot rest and relaxed and worked on Alpha 23 while Alpha 22 was comfortably underneath us.
And updates the game shall have for the next couple weeks. Deadlines for this years Indepedant Game Festival are due October 17th and we will be submitting Survivors of Ragnarok. So what can you guys expect by that time? Well….
- Weapons and Armor.
- Set up a good progression through trees(weapons) and create unique armor based on each mob.
- Activity Zone.
- Farming.
- Plants with growth cycles.
- Similar to mobs, in fact, the mob class might be usable here.
- Fishing.
- Dwarfs goto water sources and get fish.
- Herding
- Herd cows, chickens, etc..
- Dwarf Zones
- Home
- Bedrooms
- Party Rooms
- … Profit?
Whether or not those goals will be achieved in time is a different story entirely. However what is finite is the amount of sleep we will have in the coming month; or rather the lack of sleep. We also have a much more instantly gratifying list below of features that have already been implemented. Oh yeah, Mac users the game works now.
- Fixed Bug for Mac launch issues.
- Fixed Bug that was causing crashes due to the new dwarf pathfinding.
- Added New in game interface to modify resolution.
- Removed The old preloader was removed.
- Added preliminary code for clouds.
- Implemented multi-block buildings.
Don’t forget the GamersGate IndieFort bundle is still going on! 27 awesome indie games all for one low low price. You only have a couple more days before the bundle comes to a close Octber 1st!
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
A Fort Night (Alpha 22)
If you haven’t heard by now there is a huge bundle going on at GamersGate. At least that’s what the word on the street is. If you are a little late to the party fortunately for everyone you still have 9 more days before the bundle is over!
There are literally a ton of great games in this bundle. Okay maybe not literally in terms of the colloquial British usage of ton. However literally two dozen incredible games.
What a coincidence look what game is in the Bundle? And how convenient a new update.
- Added Settlers will join a healthy settlement.
- Added Goblins will invade in groups at night.
- Added Full save support.
- Added In-game menu options for saving and loading games.
- Changed New hot-keys Z -Inventory, X -Stockpiles, C -Activity Zones, V -Crafting, B -Information Panel.
As always don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!