Wind Carrier; Alpha 25.8.18

Hello all!

Another week and more changes!

The biggest change this week is the official re-adding of the Leonen race. They are completely game ready now. Other than that, I worked on getting some quests fixed up along with the addition of a couple more.

Anywho, changelog!


Changelog

-Added a foliage density option to the option and pause menus

-Re-added the Leonen race for player choice

-Added more sound effects and a couple of open licensed songs

-Changed the way that the quest indicator worked, now it stars hidden, but becomes visible if a quest is available


Player Updates:

-After dying a non-Spirit Walk death, the player now has the option to teleport home instead of reloading the game
Note: If a player home is not found, the player will teleport to the hill where the game starts

-Updated the dodge animation, along with adding left and right directional dodging

-Added Spirit Walk tutorial


Enemy Updates:

-Made Enemy AI more aggressive

-Updated the Leonen IronEye and Leonen IronPaw to work properly with the new meshes


Minor Creature Updates:

-Minor creatures now play death animations as well

-Added a death animation for the Kiwi


Quests Added:

-The Windy Seas should spawn properly now

-Feeding Ardor should spawn properly now

-Added Dangerous Farmers
-Leonen

-Added A Few Leaves
-Vulpine


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where cities that hadn't been built yet were still creating the city name widget

-Fixed a bunch of incorrect normals

-Fixed the lack of collision on the Builder's Workbench

-Fixed a bug where spawning within a civ's stream radius would not properly set the civ's influence level

-Fixed broken attack animations on the Vulpine Poisondrinker and the Saurian Treefeller


Along with the mentioned changes, I also started designing S'Hae themed armor and weapons! Nothing concrete yet, however. And now, the S'Hae itself only requires one animation sequence and one more bit of logic before it is completely complete!

Note to self: Ilhkor'sei needs its weapons to be designed...

On that note, I have begun to redesign the Ilhkor'sei animations - they're rather atrocious right now...

Anywho, I'm hoping to have the S'Hae itself ready for implementation by next week, as next week is our next demo week. So, woo!

And that's all I have for now,
until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 18.8.18

Hello all!

Not a whole lot this week either, I spent two more days this week out of the house dealing with various things that needed dealing with. Good news is now we are actually running off a proper modem instead of a mobile hot-spot. So, woo. :p

The largest change this week is a new death state. I explain it in full below, but basically, when it is up, the player will enter a Spirit Walk mode which allows them to regain lost health/mana based on how well they do during its duration.

I also plan on adding the option next week to allow the player to teleport home after a non-Spirit Walk death. Because losing progress isn't fun, but being teleported home is better than actually losing experience, items, and way points. At least to me.

Anywho, changelog time.


Changelog

-Minor Creatures, depending on the type, now have a chance to drop various materials on death

-Adjusted card code to make it more efficient

-Increased the detection range for allies


Player Updates:

-Once per minute, when the player would otherwise die, they will enter a mode called "Spirit Walk" where they will detach from their body and gain increased movement speed for the duration. Time will freeze for everything but the player and spirits will begin to spawn and the player can collect them. Each spirit will either heal the player 10% health or mana. Once the Spirit Walk duration has ended, the player will resume playing as normal with the percentage of health/mana that they collected.

-Added the skills Strength of Spirit I -III
-Multiplies the duration of Spirit Walk, from death and from cards, by 1.5/ 2/ 3 times respecively


Card Updates:

-Added the Time Dilation card
-Tier 1
-Slows time for all but the player by 80% for 5 seconds

-Added the Spirit Walk card
-Tier 2
-Upgrades from Time Dilation

-Added the Mana Overload card
-Tier 2
-Currently only obtainable from enemy Carving Dolls as a rare drop or as their capture, and as a rare gift from benevolent Carving Dolls
-A Carving Doll appears and charges, taking mana from the player to increase the scope and damage of the attack
-Explodes dealing damage to all in the AoE


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a host of cards which weren't properly damaging everything that was necessary



Another week without screenshots? Hmm. I really need to take more screenshots. Bleh

I also spent a fair amount this week working on the S'Hae - the fabled creature that doesn't seem to be coming at all. By my count, it still has four damn things that I need to make it be able to do before it is complete. Of the remaining things, only one of them will require anything that I haven't done before, so there's that. This is the biggest creature that we have ever made (code/asset wise, not physically) and is shaping up to be an interesting one. I'm learning quite a bit from it about AI: both AI in general and where ours needs to be improved. After this creature, the next "big" one should be easier to handle. It doesn't help that this one requires completely new interactions and status effects (to me.) It'll probably also have two armor sets, which will make more sense after it has been revealed properly.

Note to self: Design S'Hae armor sets...


Anywho, until next time

-Lucas Cady

Project Director 

Wind Carrier; Alpha 11.8.2018

Hello all!

I'm working off a shitty mobile hot-spot right now, but our modem should be here by next week... hopefully.
I haven't gotten a whole lot done over the course of the last two weeks. I've spent the majority of it setting up our new apartment and settling in, along with dealing with a sprained ankle that I got from trying to get everything moved up to our new apartment too quickly.
I also spent a fair amount on company related planning and really thinking and devising ways to make Wind Carrier feel and play better.
The changelog is fairly sparse this week, as one could imagine. So, lets get to it.


Changelog

-Adjusted the speed and various other variables within the building management system to make it feel better to use

-Civ Cost now appears in the overhead management widget for the selected building, along with the building interaction widget that spawns when interacting with a sign post

-Adjusted some code within the enemy parent class to make it more efficient

-Added a visual indicator for creatures over the player's level


Enemy Updates:

-Carving Doll
-Now has a 20% chance to spawn as a benevolent variant of itself
-Currently, the only benevolent type it can spawn will heal the player significantly and may gift a resource. Afterwords, it will immediately despawn


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where the weather actor wasn't properly attaching itself to the player when they used a transform card
-Fixed a longstanding bug where the Vulpine Ritualist would only cast Fennoc Fire at the player no matter their target


Yeah, told you so. :P

I expect next week's changelog to be a bit more close to the norm. I finally sorted out my notes for the S'Hae and I've been working on a couple of minor creatures to populate the world with. But, yeah.


Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha Demo 0.1.1

Hello all!

I apologize for the delay, this is now the latest changelog and build in history! Woo...

My upload speeds today were atrocious and I've no idea why. It took 5 hours to upload the newest test build to Google Drive for testers and another 3 to upload the actual build to itch.io.

Maybe it was going slow because of the horrendous heatwave that we've been experiencing recently.

Yes, that's probably it.

As this week is a build week the new build can be found here and from the header up top, as always.

A fair number of changes this week, nothing drastic that I can remember, but still a fair few.

I've got a couple of larger changes that I've been considering for the past bit, trying to take care of a couple problems that I've felt Wind Carrier has had; the fail state of death, for example. We'll see if I can get something up and going for the next update.

Which reminds me, there may very well not be an update next week as my wife and I are moving across town this coming Wednesday. I may work Monday and Tuesday, but I doubt I'll get much done during the latter half of the week. Along with that, there is also a chance that I will not have access to the internet by next Friday. It depends heavily on the whims of the Finnish postal system. :p

One thing that I fell needs explanation is the grass fix.

Note: This was written at a different time than the larger portion of this update. Please ignore the tonal shift, if there is one.

I fixed the grass and for anyone who may have something similar I am going to try to explain what I think was happening. I have used Simplygon to make LOD's for my landscapes and generally, since this computer is 8 ish years old, I play and work on Wind Carrier on the lowest setting. I had noticed that doing this does not have the LOD's for the landscapes properly switched, nor does it allow the LOD's for other things to switch, but when testing that really doesn't matter.

So, I noticed that grass maps built entirely fine on maps that I had not created LODs for yet, so when I switched the engine to 'epic' settings, it cleared up the entire problem. It was because the proper LOD landscapes were not loading in, so it couldn't build maps on something that wasn't loaded.
Kinda weird, but hey, it's fixed now! Woot!

Anywho, to the changelog!


Changelog

-Grass is back!

-Updated the way that weather is handled and added the option for more types in the future

-Updated most wind-based spell effects (Hurriscale, Scale Dance, etc.)

-Optimized the aforementioned spells' particle effects as well

-Added Pinecone Bomb and Crystalline Barrage to random NPC stock
-Pinecone Bomb and Crystalline Barrage have also been added to the random stock of the Hummingbird and Mirrä'där merchants respectively

-Shrines now spawn wind priests
-Priests have a lower chance to gift, but they only gift population normally
-Have a low chance to gift Wind Priest Garb

-Once the player's home has been upgraded, random civilians have a chance to spawn as home-upgrade specific NPCs which gift different equipment and items


Player Updates:

-The Priest path now begins with a Wind Priest Garb instead of a Loincloth


Item Updates:

-Added Wind Priest Garb
-Randomly gifted by wind priests
-Offers little in terms of combat use, but increases the population gain rate by 10%


Card Updates:

-Added the Ashen Charge card
-Unique reward from A Single Drop
-Spawns a fan of Ashen Miirä'där which charge forward, dealing damage and leaving a damaging pool behind them

-Added Pinecone Bomb card
-Tier 1
-Can be harvested from pinecones high up in pine trees
-Sizzles for 2.5 seconds, then explodes, dealing damage and sending shards outward

-Added Pine Tree Guard card
-Tier 2, upgrades from Pinecone Bomb
-Heals
-Deals damage to enemies as they pass over the ring of pine needles


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where, if a creature only had rare drops and no normal drops, they would occasionally drop null items

-Fixed a bug where, on load, the quest indicator would not properly change if the player was too close to the quest location

Wind Priest Garb

I originally had this on a Saurian, but the default green didn't feel like it really showed the garb too well. :p

Pinecone Bomb

Just a size comparison, since it's just a pine cone which explodes.

Pine Tree Guard

This card heals those that stand nearest to the tree along with dealing damage to those that cross the ring of pine needles. I will also probably change the name of this card as it was a first draft name and I was unable to find anything better just yet. >.>

Scale Tornado

Just a quick shot to show the new wind effects. 

The priest inside the tornado is just for scale. 

So, until next time,

 -Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 21.7.18

Hello all!

Another short-ish changelog this week, due in part to the heat.

We had a meeting with a company which provides free consulting to new businesses, Ensimetri, yesterday and got a whole host of information to scan through and work on. It'll be a lot of work, but it'll be good to get an idea of how the business side of things will run once we get there.

Anywho, changelog


Changelog

-Quest boxes and random dialogue boxes now play a small sound after every 3rd printed character

-All items are now picked up by walking over them
-Their name and type is also added to the scroll box to the left of the screen as creature materials were before

-Unique items now have a warning before breaking them down

-Key items now have a proper warning informing that it cannot be broken down

-Can now break items down by right clicking them as well

-Optimized the unique item effect code from last week

-Added the main part of So'ria'ra, the Miirä'där city

-Updated Wandering Allies to work properly with the text pop-up widget

-The text pop-up widget now waits until the text is finished printing before beginning to fade

-Added a widget, which needs its own art, to the beginning of dreams to indicate its name


Card Updates:

-Added the Poisonous Deluge card
-Tier 3
-Does moderately more damage than its previous form along with poisoning everything that it touches for 15 seconds


Dream Updates:

-Added A Single Drop
-found within the Great Cistern of So'ria'ra


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where the quest indicator for Put to Death wasn't properly being dismissed after the quest had been taken

-Fixed a bug where the quest receiver for A Lost Staff could spawn multiple times

-Fixed a bug where the hummingbird sprite wasn't spawning properly

-Fixed a bug with Saurian wandering allies, where they were unable to be rescued

So'ria'ra

The ancestral home of the Miirä'där. The largest percent of Miirä'där live and work within the cloister dug into the adjoining mountain. Only the fisher and merchant classes of Miirä'där live outside of the cloister. 

Set into the center of So'ria'ra is the Great Cistern. A massive, blasted clay structure into which the cremated remains of all Miirä'där are sprinkled, forming a dense silt on the bottom of the cistern proper. Seated in the center of the water is a dream.

A Single Drop

A deep pit in the earth flows silently inward. A single drop of well water is found within the well seated at the bottom center of the pit. Take the water with caution. 

I realize now that I have forgotten to finish the unique reward for completing A Single Drop. That'll be done before next week, though. 

On that note, I think that this week was supposed to be a build week, but I am delaying it until next week, because I have no idea how long it will take to get internet at our new apartment - really, it depends entirely on the mail service, so it could take a long, long while. 

Anywho, that's all I have, 

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

-Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 14.7.18

Hello all!

Not a huge amount this week, I spent a fair amount of time running around and playing with paperwork. That's because the wife and I found a new, nicer apartment and we were working on getting that all sorted out. We'll be moving in on the 1st of August. So, expect smaller updates until that is done with.

What I did get done were a few bigger changes.  I'll just let the changelog speak.



Changelog

-Added the framework for implementing unique behaviors and conditions on individual items
-akin to the way that Diablo handles unique equipment

-Spawners should no longer spawn enemies at the beginning of the day/night if the player is already overlapping them anymore

-Added a small animation to draw the eye to the mana crystal widget whenever the player gains mana crystals


Player Updates:

-Players can now use cards when their mana is insufficient by sacrificing an equal amount of health
-Spell cards cast this way have their damage increased proportional to the health used
-Cannot cast the card if the player's health + mana is still not above the mana cost

-Cards in the player's hand widget now only show up if there is something in the slot

-Card in hand widget now changes the color of the mana cost depending on whether the card can be cast without using health or not

-Added a Mana Crystal widget to the inventory screen in the bottom right corner


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where Erin, the enemy in Put to Death, could spawn more than once

-Fixed the aforementioned's animations and AI as well



The aforementioned framework is quite robust in its implementation, allowing for custom effects on a whole host of different conditions.

I had intended to make something like it for a while, but my wife had an idea that would need the framework and it inspired me to actually build it. :p

It will allow me to truly make dream rewards unique.


Anywho, that is all I've got for this week.

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 7.7.18

Hello all!

Small-ish update today. I spent most of the week creating assets for the, as of yet, unnamed Miirä'där village, which should be mostly ready to unveil by next week.

Other than that, mostly worked on quality-of-life stuff and polishing in a few places.

Anywho, changelog!


Changelog

-Added an indicator to shops and shrines to inform the player whether any given card is new to them or not

-Added a visual effect for the Crystallize finisher

-Re-did the finisher icons

-Added traditional Question/Exclamation marks for quest givers

-Quest text now slowly prints


Player Updates:

-A sound now plays when a dodge counter has regenerated

-Added Naturalize skill
-Finisher
-Double positive influence gained, nullifies negative influence gained

-All skills in the skill tree are now visible regardless of player level


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug that caused ranged enemies to miss more often than not

-Fixed some bugs with AI facing

An exclamation point!

Not exciting, but definitely makes finding quests simpler.

The New Card widget.

Since a large part of the idea of Wind Carrier is to build an ever growing collection of magic cards, I figured this would help with that. At least it helps me. :p

Note: This widget is also on the card upgrade screen.

The Naturalize tree.

The tree will spawn when the Naturalize finisher is used. It and the crystallize tree are also vaguely useful as dynamic world markers for the player, as they are both large and stay until the game session is restarted.

The Crystallize tree.

As the naturalize tree above, but after using Crystallize. This tree is also harvest-able, dropping between 8% and 12% of the health remaining of the poor creature from which it grew as mana crystals.

A second shot of the crystallize tree, for scale. The naturalize tree is just about the same size.

A Miirä'där Home.

The building itself is constructed from clay that has been baked via magic from Miirä'där SunDancers. The outer shell is made of watercloth, woven by WaterCarvers. An atmospheric condenser hovers above the main build, taking moisture from the air to continually keep the watercloth moist. 

The bed inside is essentially a clay basin, in which cool water is stored. The sheets and pillows are also made of watercloth.

Note: Will be available as a building in the future, along with the other Miirä'där buildings shown today.

A Miirä'där Salespost

Another bit of artisanal work by the SunDancers, the Salespost allows the shopkeep to man their station without needing to move elsewhere to hydrate. It is essentially a clay vase filled to the brim with water to keep the Salesperson hydrated. 

And at last, a tiny thing that I almost forgot to add. A small element icon (credits my wife) for the fire element. It has replaced the old, boring red-ball which was there before. 

I am also now reminded that I need to make the actual icon larger on the deck screen and probably the cards in hand.

That was more screenshots than there have been for quite a while. :p

Anywho, until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director