Wind Carrier; Pre-Alpha 1.59

Hello all!

I am late!
What else is new? :p

This week, I've got a couple big things, but the change-log is a rather short one; which can be attributed, in part, to the fact that my wireless card finally crapped out after 10 years of faithful service.

Let us have a moment of silence for my dead hardware....

And then the changelog!


Change log, 1.59


-The Temple was always intended to be a bit of an important landmark for the Wind Carrier. I have several functions in mind for it, other than the ones which are already added. Before now it didn't add a bunch; I'm not even sure it did anything other than look pretty. But now:

-The Temple civilization upgrade now allows the player to sacrifice resources to increase/decrease influence levels to discovered civilizations. As the temple levels up, the Wind Carrier will be able to invoke more powerful and more efficient sacrifices, making spreading their influence and their will that much simpler.

-The Temple now allows you to permanently summon a card as a follower. By placing a card onto the dais of the temple, the Wind Carrier can summon the being dwelling within for as long as they choose. If the summonee would fall in combat, they will rise anew a short while later. And at any time, the Wind Carrier can return to the temple and remove the card, dismissing the follower and allowing them to place a different card atop it.

Enemy Updates:


-Haljuhurtta

-Added a charge attack


Bug Fixes:


-Fixed a bug where a blooming Siieri wouldn't drop it's seedpod when gathered.

And that's all I have for this week. >.>

I've not even any screenshots, as there was not enough to take a shot of. :/ 

I supposes I could have taken pictures of the new interface, I legitimately did not think of that until this moment. 

Not a lot, I know. I'm posting this far too late in the evening and I feel myself falling asleep at the keyboard. Which is an odd feeling, I've heard, anecdotally, of friends doing it, but I've never experienced it before right this moment, which, coincidentally, is leading to this pointless tangent and this horrendously long run-on sentence. 

But, yes, until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Pre-Alpha 1.58, Demo 1.0.7

Hello all!

I did manage to get the game to build, and the newest build can be found, as always, at:

https://cloudsofglassgames.itch.io/wind-carrier

and the combined change log from demo 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 will/is on the aforementioned link.

Random thing I noticed: The newest builds have a compressed size of half of the previous builds. Which is odd, since the unpackaged builds are only barely different sizes.

Turns out the problem had to do with me reorganizing my folders within UE4. :/
At tip, for those that ever use UE4, organize your files properly the first time - the re-directors haven't once worked properly for me. It could be just me, I mean, it would not surprise me in the least. But, I've found reorganization is a bigger hassle than it should be.

Anywho, I spent the bulk of my time creating and implementing the female Vulpine's anims. I also rebuild the influence system from the ground up as the previous system didn't account for multiple civilizations of one race; which was a large oversight on my part. :p

To the change log!



Change log, 1.58


-Added some new Eir encounters

-Increased the likelyhood of Eir encounters

-Rebuilt the influence system

-Updated the melee system to be more accurate with the timing of its damage

-Added some animations for female Vulpine: Spear C1, spear casting, spear idle, death

-Updated the way that the animation blueprints play montages


Player Updates:


-Set up everything needed to have to player's melee function properly, just need animations and meshes. :p

-Set up everything for the new animation implementation as well.


Card Updates:


-Updated all cards to properly interact with Eir encounters

-Updated all spell cards with stable ticks as opposed to one based on frame rate


Enemy Updates:


-Changed the mesh and animations of the Vulpine Ritualist to the new female Vulpine mesh


Coming up:

Well, probably more work with the female Vulpine. :p

I've also got a new large creature that should be ready for next week; all that needs to get finished are some animations and then it's done. Well, other than implementation, but that is the easy part.

But, screenshots!

A comparison shot between the previous spear idle and the new idle for the female Vulpine. To me, the new idle speaks more volumes about the Vulpine race's views toward their afterlife than anything else. They aren't overly concerned about death, for the Vulpine believe in a vibrant, festive afterlife and believe that their peers will all gather for an immeasurable feast at the end of their lives; and they wish to be prepared. Vulpine Ritualists  often take a hallucinatory drug - the lavaleaf - to help them communicate with the other side. Vivid hallucination often follow, quite often also leading to their untimely deaths at the hands of one of Goldrath's many predators, at the hands of brigands, or at the hands of the Wind Carrier herself. 

A blooming Siieri, aided by the powers of the Wind Carrier. Siieri seedpods have multitudes of uses: from simple poultices to different types of jewelry and even dyes. 

And that's all that I have for this week. I find myself spending more time on art these days than in UE4, but I suppose that is part of the natural progression of these things.

Anywho, until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier, Pre-Alpha 1.57

Hello all!

Start this off with a bit of bad news. The project is throwing a fit this week, so there won't be an actual updated version of the game this week. I'll post the changelog and all that, I'll just have to get the next version up next week.

Now, we've got a few new things as you see in a bit. Nothing super exciting, save the new female Vulpine mesh, but there are some substantial updates this week.

I, again, spent the largest segment of my time in Blender; this week working on finer details: fingers, joints, perfecting the weights.

But without further blathering from me, the changelog.


Change log, 1.57


-Updated the inventory descriptions of items to include the stats, positive and negative, that would be gained by equipping it.


-Updated the equipment system to be much more mutable, making items with more exotic stats simpler to implement.


-Weapons can now deal elemental damage.


-Started implementing the new female Vulpine mesh

-Idle, walk, run, jump anims

-Most female Vulpine NPC's will be replaced with it as of now, including all merchants and crafters


Item Updates:


-Added Mushy Poultice, causes the user to regenerate health for 30 seconds, craftable.

Coming Up:

I've some plans for tweaking the AI a bit for next week and I'll certainly get the damn packaging problem sorted, of course. I'll likely work on getting the newest mesh up and running for at least the bots, which I guess will mostly be female for a while after that. :p It seems like this dang new mesh will be a bit of a priority for a while, which is annoying, but that's what needs to get done. 

Anywho, onto screenshots.

All we've got for this week are a pair of shots illustrating the new stat info widget (which really has a much stupider name in the system.) But, it shows you all of the specific info that one could want from an item. 

It also compares based on your current equipment! Which is simply something that it almost has to do, as far as I'm concerned. I like doing math more than most people, but I still don't want to have to flip pages to get the exact difference between this or that item. 

Anywho, my shoulders are aching and I should probably do something that isn't work for a bit. :p

I'm loving this though. This being this whole process. I have to wonder if game #2 will be as much fun to produce as this one. There will certainly be less frustration, I'm sure.

But!

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Not entirely sure what to title this!

Hello all!

This week, I spent around 90% of my time in Blender and I think it finally has paid off!

I have updated the female Vulpine mesh and begun the time consuming process of making all of her animations. I had always intended that each of the races/sexes would have their own animations sets and that's part of what I've started here.

Now, her full animations are not completed yet, only the walk cycle and the idle are finished. The only implementation that has occurred is changing the base female NPC's to the new model. In order for full implementation to occur, I will have to: finish the animations and then regenerate all the animation blueprints.

In the next week, I will spend time working on getting the basic animations created and returning to UE4 for implementation along with other UE4 related things.

I did add a couple of new items to the game, but to save myself time, I will just add them to the next changelog next week before the newest build.

Onto screenshots!

The new Vulpine model, just naked in Blender. Other than a few rough spots here and there (the shoulders, a couple spots under the breasts, among others) she is complete. Touch ups will be done, but I'm happy with her. 

In UE4, mid animation. :p

The time that I did spend in UE4 was, mostly done working on getting a truely customizable color pallet up and working. 

There are three colors that can be changed. Base coat, secondary (seen here in the white underbelly,) and the tertiary markings (the black eyes and tail tip.) The secondary and tertiary markings will also be able to be chosen on character creation, as one would expect from a game like this. Currently there are only the default, but as time goes on, you'll be able to mix and match from dozens of different markings, even between races. The skin patterns on the: paws, ears, and nose, will also be customizable in the future; the only thing stopping it now is the lack of patterns. :p

Another example, I just feel ecstatic that I was able to get it up and running. I theorized and planned how I wanted it to work, and was surprised when it actually worked out how I wanted it to. :p

A final example, the coloration only because I felt like making something garish. 

So, yes. That is what I spent my week working on. I probably put a good thirty hours into that model and the logic to go with it, but the good news is that it will make all of the following models and textures that much simpler to work with. 

Looking at that last picture, I feel like I should change the ears a bit so the skin doesn't extend all the way to the front of them... hmm.

Anywho, until next week.

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier, Pre-Alpah 1.56; Demo 1.0.6

Hello all!

We've got a new build this week, located at:

https://cloudsofglassgames.itch.io/wind-carrier

As it always has been thus far. :p

I'm going to be trying a new format this week, because I need to find the format that works the most efficiently. So, this post will have the changes from last week for those that follow along every week here, and I will simply add the change logs for this week and last to the description on the itch.io page. We'll see how I like that.

I had a rather busy week with things not at all related to Wind Carrier, thus the changelog for this week is a bit sparse. Mostly UI related things. But, anyway, to the changelog!


Change log, 1.56

-Added a new type of random encounter, which I have titled Eir encounters. Eir encounters (Environmental Influence Random Encounters) deal with the Wind Carrier influencing the world around them in ways that are less about murder. By deciding, consciously or otherwise, the fate of these encounters, the Wind Carrier directs the regional civilizations, and the world as a whole.


-Updated some descriptions.


-Updated and added some widget art.


-Played around with the coloration of the menu buttons.


-Dealt with some spelling errors.


-Dealt with some UI usability issues.


Player Updates:


-Fixed the "I", it should properly open and close the inventory regardless of which menu you are in


-The inventory now also pauses the game, which is something that I had been neglecting to fix for far too long. :/


-Added a key binding to "Backspace" and "Escape", closes the menu



Item Updates:


-Pellervoisen Lahja, Manaladen Lily of the Valley, and Mushy have been changed from potion class items to crafting component class items. All remain usable as they were.


-Added Simple Draught item. Drinking this bitter brew restores 35% of the drinker's mana. Craftable.


-Added Distilled Gift. Usage increases the eater's maximum health by 7.5% permanently. Craftable.


-Added the Honeycomb crafting ingredient. Drops from beehives or rarely from some opponents.


Card Updates:


-Added the card Crack:

-Tier 1

-Earth Type

-Mana Cost 45

-Deals damage slowly over 2 seconds then bursts dealing a larger chunk of damage

-30 damage/second, 90 damage total

-Available from the merchant


Bug Fixes:


-Fixed a bug where cards wouldn't show up when the "All" category was clicked in the inventory


-Manaladen Lily of the Valley should heal mana properly now.


Coming Up:

This next coming week, I've got some UI updates planned. Mostly in the inventory to increase readability and add a couple more features. I've a handful of Eir encounters rattling around in my head as well, so those will likely get added as soon as I can properly flesh them out.

I went to my screenshot folder to post them here, but I found out that I didn't take a single screenshot this week. I think this is a first. :p

Anywho, until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier, Pre-Alpha 1.55

Hello all!

A bit of bad news, a new build will not be uploaded this week. I packaged it up, both 64 and 32 bit, and got it all ready, but then I found that a recent change to the way the menu UI works in causing problems after packaging; in short, you can open then inventory but not close it. :/
I'm not entirely sure that I'll keep posting builds each week either, I may switch to a bi-weekly schedule. We'll see, I suppose.

Oh, and since I failed to mention anything about it last week, Simplygon is not currently accepting new applicants, it seems. So, I will keep my eye out for that whenever they decide to start allowing new members again.

Anywho, the changelog is below.



Change log, 1.55


-Subduing enemies that have become stunned now cause a minor increase of influence within the enemies home civilization and a minor decrease of influence within any non-home civilization.

-Increased the stability of the follower class

-Added clay deposits for collecting clay


Player Updates:


-Added a key binding to "Tab", resets the z rotation of the camera to be behind the character


Item Updates:


-Stone Scythe

-Renamed to Primitive Scythe, for consistency

-Primitive Throwing Ax, Primitive Dagger, Primitive Spear, and Primitive Scythe can now all be crafted out of base materials.


-Added Simple Poultice

-Heals 35% of player health

-Craftable


Card Updates:

-Fixed a bug where the Vulpine Ritualist follower could cast Fennoc Fire multiple times at once


Enemy Updates:


Preliminary note: All of the creature data got reset because of an engine bug, I tried to recreate all of the statistics to the best of my ability, but I am only human, so if you notice any huge discrepancies, that would be why. 

Preliminary note, post script: Oddly enough, the Hummingbird Sprite enemy was unaffected...

-Lowered the health percentage for enemies falling into the stunned state


Bug Fixes:


-Fixed a bug with the pause button, where if you attempted to pause more than once during a single gameplay session, it wouldn't pause the third or higher times.


-Fixed the tool-tip text on the third skill, Refreshing Cloud


-Fixed a bug within the Crafting Screen, where when clicking the category buttons (Weapons, Armor, etc.) the list wouldn't properly populate and would end up empty.


-Fixed a bug where potions were not healing as much as they should have.


-Fixed a bug where, sometimes if you moved away from a resource without gathering it, you would be able to gather it the next time that you pressed "E"


Coming Up:

I've been thinking about expanding the breadth of the game quite a bit lately. It seems to me that a lot of the systems that have been added or tweaked as of late are running smoothly (excluding that damn tumble) and that increasing the diversity of the world should be my goal for a while. 

I've more than enough concept art to add three dozen creatures and I've planned out nearly a hundred cards, I just need to model and implement. 

Of course, bug fixes and working on the UI will also be important to the coming builds, as will likely be the case until the project is finished. 

But, onto the screenshots!

The aforementioned clay deposits. Just another material node.

The updates to the Haljuhurtta mesh. I realized after my wife told me that I never did post a screenshot of it. 

The new thatch texture that one of our team members made a while ago and I just thought to take a shot of. (Credits Luffie)

Some new card art; The Vulpine Ritualist. I figured since the card was almost unavoidable, it should have some art. :p

That's all I have for this week. It wasn't the best week, but damn am I tired. :p

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier Pre-Alpha 1.54; Demo 1.0.5

Hello all!

As always, the newest build can be found here:

https://cloudsofglassgames.itch.io/wind-carrier

Got a few exciting things this week, more than I expected, honestly. :p
But, without further ado, the changelog!

Change log, 1.54

-Doubled the mana crystal drop rate

-Added elemental damage! For now only enemies have elemental weaknesses/strengths. The elemental system that I have chosen is simply: fire, water, earth, air, spirit.

-Updated all the enemies with the new loot system. I was going to write out exactly what everything could drop, but then I thought, hey, that's half the fun of it.

-Increased the legibility of most of the widgets in the game

-Added extra information to the hand widget, in addition to the image and tier of the card, it now displays:

-mana cost after MCM

-elemental type

-card type (spell, summon, transform)

-Dealt with some map tears, including a particularly horrendous one just west of Ardor

-We have crafting!

-Currently, there is a single NPC within your civ (who may or many not get in the way :p) who is able to craft gear for you. The only craftable gear as of now are things made from Haljuhurtta parts. The plan is that each civ will be able to craft you different types of gear, thus making your destruction decisions a bit more difficult. Fret not, however, your own crafter, who will be unlocked before age 2, will be able to learn all the crafting recipes, for an upgrade cost, of course.


Player Updates:

-Increased the experience to level a bit


Item Updates:

-Added Aenahiv Eye, an accessory which lowers both the Mana Cost Multiplier and the Melee Damage Multiplier, making your spells more frequent, but you melee less effective. (Craftable)

-Hurtta Claw, Hurtta Barb, Hurtta Flight, and Hurtta Fur Vest are all now craftable!

Card Updates:

-Decreased the cost of card evolution

-Updated every card to cause different types of damage, physical being a damage type as well. And in the interest of legibility and space, I will sort them thusly:

Fire

-Fennoc Breath

-Fennoc Fire

-Fennoc Meteor

-Fennoc Gout

-Metal Mist

-Metal Pool


Water

-Bastion of Ice

-Crown of Ice

-Frozen Standard

-Ice Nova

-Poison Rain

-Wall of Ice


Earth


Air

-Hurriscale

-Myrskyn Purema

-Scale Storm

-Scale Tornado

-Thunder Egg

Spirit

-Cloak of Scales

-Scale Dance

Physical

-Crystalline Barrage

-Crystalline Stream

-Crystalline Wave

-Rockdancer's Drop

Note: It seems that there are no earth spells in the game as of yet. I need to remedy that. :p

Note 2: All summons type cards and healing type cards are spirit type, unless otherwise noted (Faithful hound, Healing Well, etc.)


Enemy Updates:


-Finally got the damn bots to stop chasing after a certain distance, I think. :p

-Added the aforementioned resists and weaknesses to all the creatures in the game, but I'm not telling.

-Brindlebark

-Increased lumber drops from 6-8 to 6-10 with a chance that two pouches will pawn

-Haljuhurtta

-Updated the mesh

-Now drops creature parts

-Leonen Ironhead

-Decreased minion spawn from 1 - 4 to 0 - 2

-Lizard Spearman

-The Spearman's leap now will fail if the player is a certain distance away from them, wasting the cast and cooldown.


Bug Fixes:


-Fixed a bug where the Brindlebark would drop a null card when being captured.


-Fixed a rare bug where, if timed exactly perfectly, the player character would be killed by the stunned particle effect. >.>


-Fixed a bug where the Faithless Hound was dropping the same items as the Vulpine Ritualist


-Fixed a bug where, if you discarded with an empty deck, the deck's count would go below zero


-Fixed a bug where the deck would sometimes create null cards.


-Fixed a bug where, when the deck became empty, it wouldn't properly update the values in the deck widget


Coming Up:

Next week I'll be trying to add more ways to influence the surrounding civs; I've a few ideas, hopefully something will pan out and work. :p

I know I say it every week, but I'm still gonna try to increase the map size, it's not really the highest priority, I know, but I feel like the map is growing too small.

Anywho, I've got a few screenshots and then I'm done!

A quick mesh I whipped up for the Aenahiv Eye. Too small to see normally, so in the mesh editor! Yes, I know the texture for the stone doesn't match up. :p

From my current perspective, the widget is kinda small, but if you enlarge the picture, you can see the card info. The top icon indicates card type, the second card element, and the number near the bottom is the mana cost, post MCM. Not exciting, but informative.

And that's about all I've got for this week. I should probably also look into generating patches for the builds instead of making you all download the whole thing when you want to try the newest one. I've found out that UE4 can generate them, but I have yet to look deeply into it. :/

Anywho, until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director