Welcome once again to another Dev Update highlighting some recent changes and changes yet to come!
Since we last talked, work has continued along in rolling out all the features and content needed for the game's relationship system which, as you might imagine, is one of our largest and most complicated systems we've implemented yet. One reason for this is the obvious sorta thing, such as all the art/animations required for the different life stages of every pet and person. But even moreso it's because we've spent our time filling in the gaps of gameplay to make building relationships more fun. We don't want the game's relationship systems to be a shallow transaction-based one where all you have to do is give someone enough gifts and presto, they're head over heels for you. We want it to have a bit more depth and meaning to it than that, which takes time to properly implement. (Shoutout to our one programmer, Neal! A true connoisseur of code.)
Though despite the immense task of it all, work has been continuing along quite well. The holidays always represents a slight disruption to our development schedule, which for any of you who follow our PixelCount Post devlogs can read about, but with it now being February the team is back in the proverbial saddle and we're firing on all pistons once more. (I know these metaphors are all over the place, but you get the idea.)
Speaking of devlogs, for any of you who recently joined our esteemed rank of supporters, we threw together a sort of crash course welcome message in Issue #74 of our devlog. Feel free to check it out for a catch up summary about the game, our little team, and how we're approaching our updates and milestones.
You may recall that in our last dev update, we put in many of the initial first pass systems for marriage and all that entails. Something we also mentioned in that update was how work had begun on the gargantuan task of creating all the aging art for the current batch of NPC's in the world. We're happy to report that we are now sitting on a small army of aged NPC's (with many more to come) and the next big task ahead is to start slowly but surely implementing them into the game.
A logical place for us to begin were with NPC's that start off as the same age as the player. That way, when the player completes the Prologue and ages to the next life stage, the appropriate NPC's in the world will age with them. For our first pass, this currently includes the infamous Wurzel twins, Jed and Ned. Consequently, they're also now marriageable for any of you brave souls out there.
This represents just the first step of many in slowly rolling out aging across the entire populous and for its generations to come. Of course, pets are not exempt from the relentless hands of time, so eventually even your furry (or piggy) friends will grow old and, contrary to pining for the fjords, will one day be quite dead.
As is our practice with these progress reports, we've included some early previews of content to come in future updates. Below you'll get a Work-In-Progress look at the aging cycle for one of the breeds of both cat and dog, as well as a handful of what some of your favorite NPC's will look like as they inevitably march toward their twilight years until eventually passing back into the eternal arms of nature. "Kynseed: A sandbox RPG with a side of existential dread."
Changelog Highlights
Read on below for a general overview of what noteworthy items this latest update includes. Of course, these are just a few selected highlights from the full list of changes made, so be sure to drop by the full changelog to see the proper list. Lastly, for any of you players who enjoy getting more frequent yet experimental updates of ours, you might be interested in checking out our development branches.
New Noticeboard Trigger System
Work continues on balancing and fleshing out the Noticeboard task system. In this most recent update we've added additional noticeboard triggers and have balanced money rewards based on their worth (which should make some noticeboard tasks much more rewarding overall). Tasks have also been optimized to more likely target items the player may not have found yet.
Some Equipment Levels Up With Use
The more you use certain equipment the more it'll gain XP and eventually level up (all the way to "Legendary"). Each new level will include some sort of improvement to the piece of equipment. Such as the Fishing Rod, which can level up to gain a longer line, faster reeling in, and so on. Or the Sickle, which will provide greater rewards (including seeds) when harvesting.
Grinding (Flour!)
For all you fans of video game grinding, you can now use local windmills to grind to your heart's desire. Flour, specifically.
Jed & Ned Aging
As part of our gradual rollout of NPC aging, Jed and Ned now change to adults when they reach the right age (as previewed in our last dev update). This also unlocks dating/marriage as an option for them.
WIP Pixel Font Option, Initial Star Ratings, & Other Fixes
Further work has been done on an easier to read pixel font option, though for now it remains still Work-In-Progress. There's also new setup for items to have star rating changes based on certain conditions. (For now, fish are the first case of this where 2-star fish can now be found depending on certain time conditions.) Plus a good handful of general fixes for things like NPC gifting, inventory tab organization, and a few other things found in the link below.
Full Changelog
Jump on over to the full changelog to check out the entire list of additions and fixes.
That about does it for this dev update, but expect a good chunk more for the next one now that the holidays are over and now that we're starting to really sink our teeth into the code and content of having the denizens of our world grow old. Aging and marriage are definitely two of the things we feel help make Kynseed the unique game it is and so we're just as excited as you all are to see these things get added in. We're getting there step by step, update by update, with all you lovelies to keep us company by our side. Thank you all for continuing to join us on this great development journey. Onward to the next roadstop!
See you around the community.
Love,
PixelCount
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