For those that follow such things, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Apologies for the quiet december game-wise... there are a few reasons for that, including the usual blend of work and life commitments, along with 2 kids-worth of christmas presents to deal with.
The other main reason for the quietness is that my few spare development hours this month have been spent building up some 'biggish' systems that'll take a while to get going but eventually should take the game forward for the next few months. These are (in no particular order) :
- A town conflict management system : This allows town owners to declare war against (and eventually form alliances with) other towns on the world. The implications of that are scriptable and will be detailed later.
- A new battle system : and also tidying up the battle process so it can be scripted more easily.
Once these two things are ready enough, i'll be modifying the Aramathea setup so more towns can get made, and be providing incentives for doing so. Once proven there, they'll both be handy for other worlds, im sure.
Also being worked on :
- A new minigame system : This will provide a framework for new minigames in the pub, when it returns. At least one of those games will be something you can play with others who might not be in your timezone.. taking your turn whenever you happen to be online, etc.
- Wellbeing and more work on Aramathea : The Wellbeing system will eventually link in to different items being made (let them eat cake etc) and other new buildings (vinyard, winery etc).
- Backend work on the login servers: There are various, mostly-unnoticable 'Big' system changes in progress at the moment that allow for great scalability of the game and more fine-grained control of the user (and new-user) experience.
Most of this stuff should be 'ready enough for an Alpha' in Jan or Feb, at which point we'll stumble on a little more through the medieval period and hopefully refine the way all those new things work so they're better next time round. Once thats done we should be able to move on fairly quickly through the next couple of chapters (likely involving some tractors) - during this phase i'll start work on the space race & moon landing bits, which i'm looking forward to immensely
To everyone : Hope you're having a pleasant holiday season wherever you may be.
To those who have subscribed over the past year : Your unbound excellence means your holiday season automatically qualifies for 'Awesomeness' howsoever it happens to be going in reality. Remember, you are truly great for you have wisdom & insight and you have played a part in making something that will one day be very good indeed!
See you in 2013 :]
mit
