So with a little under a week left to go until EGX I’m deep in the trenches of development crunch as I desperately try to get as many features implemented as I can in an attempt to present a fresh and solid build to the public worth talking about. I wanted to write a brief post about some of the things I’ve been working towards with the upcoming 0.9 update and what I’ve been doing for the last fortnight or so.
A few weeks ago Adam Korenman from CC2K got in touch with me and interviewed me over Skype about the game. He’s written up a lovely preview and posted a video of the interview (it’s about 20 minutes) I’d love for you to watch it because he really captured the tone of the game and asked some interesting questions that I think give a lot of insight towards my vision of the game and what’s left to come.
I’ve also been working very closely with Chris on the final pieces of the Soundtrack. It’s running at around an hour long now with 12 tracks on the album, something we’re both really happy with. We’ve put together a promotional cover for it and will be looking into our options regarding releasing it soon. (Soundtrack sales will go directly to Chris)
Plenty of new features have been making their way into the game since the last build. Most noticeably I’ve made a few more UI tweaks that should make things easier to understand. I’ve redesigned the bottom right UI element in the game completely to make the go-to information, such as how much gold you have, even easier to see at a glance.
I’ve also been playing around with buildings. As the game has grown it’s become more clear that part of the challenge of the game is space management and I really wanted to take advantage of this further. So, now instead of having a hero limit that is locked to specific houses and a population meter with similar restrictions, the only limitation is now how much space you have in your kingdom. Each hero has their own house, so if you have enough space, you can place multiple houses down and hire more heroes. It’s an interesting trade-off though, because a House takes up four squares so you begin to fill your tiles up pretty quickly. Similarly, I’ve begun work on letting the player place more than one of the same building. I’d restricted it previously for balance but my initial reasoning behind that has become more and more fleeting recently, again this should add more interesting trade off’s because as you place more copies of a building, such as the Tavern, you’ll allow more adventurers to visit a Tavern should a different Tavern already be occupied. However, placing a duplicate building will lower its value, so the output is much less effective.
Based on some of the feedback I’ve had, I’ve been doing some work on Quest Events and Choice Rolls to make them much easier to understand. When you pick a quest, instead of a few buttons you’re now presented with a tile that breaks down the target score you’ll need to achieve in order to succeed at a quest choice (More of these tiles will unlock as your Epicness Level grows). When you select a choice the game now shows you a rolling screen where the choice breaks down into a (dice-roll-like) system that can allow for up to 6 rolls per Hero with the same goal of achieving a total score above the specific threshold, set out previously by the mission you’ve selected, in order to succeed. (Also, some choices will now relate to specific traits. So you’ll only be able to make a certain choice if you have a Hero with a specific trait in the party.)
It really wasn’t that long ago that I took RPG Tycoon into the public for the first time back at Rezzed earlier this year. I had a small banner, a single laptop and a basic one-sided flyer to promote the game. The game has come far since then. This time around, I’ll have a nice big backing board and two (that’s right, TWO) builds running the latest version of the game before it goes live on Steam, as well as some lovely new swag for people to wear in order to help spread the word around because I take any opportunity for free advertising I can get.
So if you’re attending come and say hello to me and check the game out at my booth in the Rezzed area. If you’re a fellow dev and fancy a drink/coffee/game-off feel free to drop me a tweet. Alternatively, if you work for some press and can help show the game off. I’ve got a few interview slots left over the week, so be sure to get in touch before I’m all booked up!
If you’re not going and eagerly awaiting the newest build. I’m aiming to release it at the end of the month. (Basically straight after EGX)
As always, thanks for the support.
All the best,
Matt