To secure and speed up the release pace, and minimize the occurrence of delays, you can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/winterfallgame
Hello there and welcome to this blog.
We've been hard at work on the Outpost-building system described in previous blog entries. Typically, those are the slow progress updates because they require a lot of groundwork to be laid out before anything really comes through. So from a list of many items, you will spend a lot of time on the first two items or so, before you can do anything to really begin. Anyways, let's get into what we've been up to for the past few weeks.
Outpost Crisis Mechanics
In our previous update, we were dealing with the Crisis mechanics: if Outpost resources dropped too low, a Crisis Event might pop up. We successfully completed that logic according to our plans. We have a Crisis Check, a Type of Crisis determinant, a Crisis Gravity parameter and some basic Crisis Events.
Crisis Check occurs at Resources Thresholds
4 Categories of Crisis: Security, Management,/Economy, Cultural, Logistical/Industrial
Basic Crisis Gameplay Goals
Security: Defend Outpost from Bots for time duration
Management/Economy: Recover Missing Item
Cultural: Complete a Number of Interactions within time
Logistical/Industrial: Carry # of objects to a central location before they're all destroyed
Crisis Gravity Level influences difficulty for the above events:
Security: More or less bots attacking Outpost
Management/Economy: More or less obstacles on the way to Item
Culture: More interactions to complete within allotted time
Logistics/Industry: Less amount of time between each object's destruction
Crisis Gravity can be lessened based on what Facilities the Outpost contains
Crisis Messages inform you of the current Crisis's goal
Raiding or getting raided is par for the course for Wilderlands Outposts
The next step for this was to add the NPC contributions to Crisis: for example having guard NPCs in your Outpost would obviously play a part in whether or not there would be a Security Crisis in the first place. However, in order to get there, it was necessary to address first the mechanics by which you may get NPCs in your Outpost. And that is:
Outpost Building Mechanics
Your Outpost is a general "zone" containing a central Hall, customizable, as well as a number of slots for various facilities. From the Outpost, you will plan your expeditions, watch your characters live their life, and intervene in that life as you customize and improve the Outpost. This is a part where RPG meets RTS meets Life Sim.
The Facilities present in the Hall give you options as to what you can do from your Outpost and what is likely to happen in it, as well as what type of NPC is likely to come visit. It's a very intricate system so for now, let's focus on the Outpost Building Hall and keep the broader presentation for another time, when we can all shoot it on video again.
Outpost Halls contain 4 types of slots: Facility, Extension, Common and Fixed
Facilities are what you will build to add functionality to your Hall (Lodgings, Kitchen, Workshop, etc)
Extensions add specialty features to Facilities. Example:
A Foundry or Woodworks added to the workshop to enable metal-working or wood-working
A Pantry gets added to the Kitchen, adding quality of life and better craftable foods
Common is the public Mess Hall, living space in which Characters will eat, chat, and drink, sometimes sleep
Fixed are the tiles whose functionality is predetermined based on the Hall Model. You can only upgrade them
Basic Hall Layout. Different Halls may offer different basic layouts.
The rules for Facility-building are what we have been working on more recently and are as follows:
Click on a Hall Tile to select the Facility you want to build
Facilities cost Resources, initially and then daily
Facilities employs Labour, nameless little NPCs that wander by your Hall looking for work
Facility Construction begins at 6:30am each day and ends for the day at 6:30pm
A progress bar is added above the Facility tile being built on
It is possible to increase Labour assigned to a Facility's Construction
If Resource shortage, Construction is paused. If the shortage gets too long, Construction gets aborted
Facility Construction goes on day after day until the Facility is completed
When a Facility is completed, a portion of the Labour involved in it will claim its pay and leave your Outpost
Various Facility-based options enable you increase your Outpost's Labour Retention
Facilities will require Operators to run autonomously, add to the Outpost and produce for it
Certain Facilities will unlock Events, that you can then trigger, at the cost of Resources
Certain Facilities will add to Outpost Stats for various effects upon the Outpost's life
As mentioned initially, Facilities will play a role in Crisis Events
Those are the things we have been setting up this past couple of weeks. We should finish them entirely this week and, by the end of this month, wrap up the Outpost development systems completely. Outposts are very, very central to gameplay so it's a big hub of features. Once that is done, we will move to the Camping mechanics. The features list we provided in Update 13 is a MVP list, that is a list of features for Minimum Viable Product.
Given the nature of Winterfall, a MVP for us is already far, far bigger than a regular MVP for, say, an action game or a platformer. It's only made even bigger by the fact that Winterfall is a systemic game, that is a game where all kinds of systems run constantly to generate gameplay opportunities. In that type of setup, you can't have a proper picture of the experience until enough systems are actually functional.
To secure and speed up the release pace, and minimize the occurrence of delays, you can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/winterfallgame
Our recent efforts have focused on tackling one of the last two items in the Wilderness features list: Outposts.
The logic for this is simple: the blueprint used to build and customize an Outpost is a scale up of the Camp-building mechanics. Scalability and adaptability drive the design of Winterfall, allowing us to cover a lot of ground by using the same mechanical structures in different parts of the game.
What is that blueprint, you ask?
Let's get into it, after some pictures.
Rebuilding the Hall
An Outpost is made of a Hall as well as some facilities around it. You've seen an excerpt of a piece of a Hall in the Trailer through this picture:
That scene, however, was built when I had no idea what I was doing regarding basic scene-building logistics so it became an expensive mess of hundreds of items that didn't survive the project developments too well.
So in order to properly design the Hall in preparation for the Outpost mechanics, I had to begin rebuilding everything from scratch.
The logic being that while the Hall itself is a fixed, static buildings, parts of it can be customized from a "tiles" system. Essentially, the Hall in its basic state is made of empty slots, which you can fill up with "Room" tiles which we call Facilities.
Facilities include all the usual: a mess hall for meals and feasts, a workshop, lodgings, all that kind of stuff.
So here are some screenshots of the tentative Hall rebuild according to that "tiles" system.
Now, let's talk about the logic before we go to the dev items.
Logic
Think of an Outpost as both a base of operations and a living community.
The Outpost System deals with the following mechanics:
Gathering & Spending Resources for the Outpost
Developing the Outpost physically by adding Facilities and People
Dealing with Crises bearing down upon the Outpost
Logic - Gathering & Spending Resources
Resources can be materialized from working Resource Nodes, or can be found in certain areas
Those Resources materialize as "Carry Objects" (crates, bags, etc)
Those Carry Objects must be carried to the Outpost
Once delivered, those Carry Objects update the Outpost's Resource count
Various factors cause a daily expenditure of Resources
Logic - Developing the Outpost physically by adding Facilities and People
The Outpost is built on a Grid
This Grid contains 4 types of Cells, with different rules
Facilities Cells, where basic Facilities can be built
Extensions Cells, where the above Facilities can be extended
Hall Cells, which are the default central area Outpost denizens will linger at
Preset Cells, which already contain predetermined Facilities that can only be upgraded
Facilities require Operators, specialized denizens that will operate them
Facilities have two main types of impact:
Open up new interactions/actions
Lessen the severity of adverse events called Crises
Logic - Crises
The evolution of Outpost Resources, as well as various events, will generate Crises
Crises generate high stakes gameplay goals and/or dilemma prompts
Success & Failure at Crisis Handling shape up the life & death of the Outpost
Specialized Facilities and Operators may lessen the severity of Crises
Development
Outpost Basics
Added a Permanent Hearth to the Outpost, ensuring respawn possibility in case of Woe
Outpost UI now displays counters for Food, Supply & Treasure
Outpost now contains a Drop Off area into which to drop aforementioned Resource objects
Resources in Drop Off update Resources Counter UI
Resources in Drop Off are "stowed" at 6pm
Drop Off no longer active between 6pm and 6am
Outpost Status
Outpost Health/Quality of Life now marked as a percentage (HP%)
Outpost Material Security now marked as a percentage (MP%)
HP/MP UI Display
People in Outpost incur HP Cost/day
Facilities in Outpost incur MP Cost/day
Daily HP/MP Cost UI Display
HP/MP status updated at 10pm
We're currently implementing the Crisis mechanics, which should be done very early this week.
Next, we'll be dealing with the mechanics that enable Facility-building in the Outpost.
This may lead us to either finishing things up with adding Outpost NPCs mechanics, or digressing to Camp-building.
Outpost NPC mechanics promise to be quite an involved deal, which is why we may want to finish up Camping first.
Some systems are that kind of rabbit hole, where you do know where you begin but it's impossible to know where you'll end. Winterfall contains a lot of those, so careful consideration will have to prevail here.
Thank you for your patience and continued interest!
Greetings,
To secure and speed up the release pace, and minimize the occurrence of delays, you can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/winterfallgame
The past two weeks have been very busy, with game work primarily, as well as other, unrelated work (gotta pay those bills that won't pay themselves).
At the moment, the roadmap for the mechanics of that specific segment of the game contains 27 items, of which 6 remain to either update, finish or fix, the rest is done. Here is a a picture of said roadmap, or more like Checklist. It's indicative, so it's missing a lot of finer detail and specific bits, including and especially stuff that's already done:
Once that roadmap/checklist is done, we'll focus on strictly gameplay material: tuning the gameplay/experience of those systems; because unfortunately, having lots of systems doesn't in itself suffice to create or guarantee a game experience so a good amount of work will be needed to ensure actual playability and even fun.
There is a similar list for the Character (Creation, Growth, Meta...) and Strategy (Base-building, Base Life, Base Defense, etc...) layers of the game but for the time being they must remain under wraps. More lists also need to be summarized and curated for other aspects of the game (Relationships, Storytelling, Combat & Crafting come to mind...) but you know where the current priorities are at the moment.
With that being said, here is the list of what was taken care of this past couple weeks:
Mood
We are reintroducing Player Mood, a key mechanic to the Survival component of Wilderness gameplay, by which events shift the Player's Mood positively or negatively, all within in the following logic:
- Player Conditions (Survival Needs) decrease Mood as they rise or better Mood as they fall
- Fulfilled Player Urges improve Mood, skipped or unfulfilled Player Urges lower Mood
- Mood can then be used at Campfire or Hearth to acquire "buffs" or clear debuffs
In the original system, Mood evolved specifically, from one particular Mood to another. Currently, it's only a score, positive or negative, indicating a good or bad Mood but not more specific than that. We will move towards restoring that system in future updates and will tell you more as we do so.
Notice Update
Notice is the system by which the Player's presence in the environment is signaled to said Environment. In turn, the Environment may react with Events of increased severity as Notice goes up. It is therefore in the Player's interest to watch their Notice footprint so that it doesn't get in the way of progress or interfere with actions and interactions.
- Notice has been separated into two: Local Notice and Global Notice
- Local Notice affects the current Area the player is in and rules local incidents (Ambushes, Patrols, etc)
- Local Notice is triggered by:
- Detection by Eye of the Wild Critters
- Destroying Obstacles
- Making Fire/Hearth outside of Landmark Areas
- Global Notice carries across the entire Region and rules global events (Weather, for example)
- Global Notice is triggered by:
- Fully Recalling a Faded Structure
- Harvesting % of a Resource Node
- Claiming an Area
Patrol Stealth Update
- Patrol Incidents now function as proper goals, updating as needed:
- Avoid Patrol, if the Player is yet Undetected
- Escape or Overcome Patrol if the Player is Detected
- "Hiding Spots" are spawned at Map Generation
- Hiding Spots can (and should) be Discovered by interaction
- When trying to Avoid or Escape a Patrol,
- The System will indicate the direction of the nearest Discovered Hiding Spot to the Player
- The player can then enter that Hiding Spot, or any Hiding Spot along the way
- If the Hiding Spot is not in the Bot Line of Sight at entry, the Player will be Hidden
Surveying Incidents
- Critter
- An unaware Critter will walk into the Player's vicinity
- The Critter may turn into an "Eye of the Wild"
- "Eyes of the Wild" increase Local Notice when they Detect the Player and escape him/her successfully
- The Critter can detect the Player by Line of Sight or by environmental Motion
- The Critter will run away from a Detected Player
- The Critter will try to reach the nearest Escape Spot
- Tracks
- Tracks appear by the Player
- Examining Tracks will reveal a Direction
- Walking in that Direction will reveal further Tracks
- Tracks are generated in the way that prevents backtracking and crisscrossing
- Walking up the chain of Tracks will lead to a Tracking Outcome
- Patrol
- Patrol Bots spawn & flock together - Patrol Walks to nearest Hostile Camp
- Patrol has a Line of Sight
- Standing in Line of Sight causes Detection - Patrol Detection have a displayed Detection Area Boundary - Standing within the Detection Area Boundary triggers a countdown - Detection if Countdown reaches 0 - Escape Detection Radius Countdown refills by 1/s after 3s out - Detection causes Bots to Chase/Attack Player - Player Goal updates accordingly from Avoid to Escape to Defeat Patrol - Escape or Avoidance can occur through Hiding Spots - Hiding Spots = auto success to Escape when colliding with them - Must first Scout (F) Hiding Spot for it to show up as Escape goal - Can still use unscouted Hiding Spot. It's just not Pointed to - Hiding Spots have Active/Inactive state toggle
Mood
- Conditions (Survival Needs) increases lower (negative) Mood. Conditions decreases increase (positive) Mood
- Urge fulfillment increases (positive) Mood. Failure to fulfill Urges decreases (negative) Mood.
Stamina, Regen & Conditions Fixes
- Restored Passive Stamina Regeneration in Locomotion Mode
- Restored impact of Stamina Loss & Regen on Conditions (Survival Needs)
- Thresholds of Stamina Regen increase Hunger
- Thresholds of Stamina loss while Running or Sprinting increase Thirst
- Thresholds of received Stamina Damage increase Injury
- Exertion increases passively as other Conditions are triggered
Everything else was mostly mechanical nitty-gritty and updates to functions, which there was a lot of.
Our next moves will be with Outpost Mechanics and advanced Hearth Mechanics, as well as a sprinkling of gameplay fixes and additions.
We are on track for a completely functional Wilderness tech demo for the end of the year. Wish us luck!
Take care and thank you for your interest, patience and support!