This past week has been pretty busy and stressful, but I have made a fair bit of progress.
Kobold Warrens is fleshing out. With a fair bit of map, multiple enemy types, and now traps (WIP). I do still need to get Followers enabled again as a thing. The mechanics will be a fair bit different, but I do plan to remake all of the former recruitable characters as well as new ones. Though it won't all be ready by release. Everything under the mountain should be playable though including some new areas.
I've definitely learned a lot from the previous attempt and it helps to see what it is becoming from the beginning but this isn't a simple reimplementation. The battle system is all new and should better allow for continued growth while resisting the out of control levelling issues. Hopefully variety will work out better. And I can much better respond to bugs.
I plan to open the invitation to everyone on my 'friend' list here in the next few weeks, in advance of going fully open.
Added:
Basics:
Source Control: Complete.
Live webhosting: Complete.
Authentication (Google): Complete.
Multiple saves per user: Complete.
SFW/NSFW mode: Complete.
Systems:
Movement: Complete*
(The new system uses directional controls, 8 directions plus up/down, rather than the much smaller number of vague zone-linking directions. I'm doing some aesthetic fine-tuning currently.)
Combat: Complete*
(The new system is in place for basic combat, including pawn contributions. Followers are totally unimplemented but I have an approximate idea what I'm doing there.)
Inventory: In Progress
(Need to reimplement carrying limits, but not in too much rush yet.)
Buildings: In Progress
Pawns: In Progress
Followers: not started
Random events: Complete*
(Involves coding more things as I go to support new event types, but the basic engine is there.)
Timed/delayed events: Not started, except a basic calendaring feature.
Content:
Dragonbone Cave:
100+ locations, 4 major points of interest, 5 enemy types, 4 distinct level-up opportunities, 3 treasure types
Kobold Warren:
40+ locations, 2 enemy types, 2 pawn types available, 1 additional treasure type.
Nezumi Enclave:
.... nothing to speak of.
Undermountain Waterways:
... nothing to speak of.
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Work to do before going public:
Tutorial/help system: I plan to make overlay pages to illustrate/highlight/explain what to do, with a clickable bit to bring it back up in the future after you've dismissed it. It's not too technically challenging, the big bit really is putting together the tutorial pages. They're not too desperately needed, but I think they should be there before June.
Content, content, content: Kobold Warren, Nezumi Enclave, and Undermountain Waterways each need about as much overall content as Dragonbone Cave, each.
Followers: I need to implement the followers system, and bring back Jack and Jaith in particular.
Buildings: I have a bit more to do here in the shortrun, but I do actually want to implement something more of an acquired recipe process here, so you'll need to unlock buildings and their uses. You start with your hoard at your home base, and the similar Cache option that serve as dropping off points for pawns and things you're carrying around. Additional buildings you'll build up around the map as you go.
Lewdness: There's a handful of lewd content in the game at this point, and I won't hold back release for it, but I plan to continue generating more a little at a time as I go.
Longer term:
Wolfen Wood won't get started until all of the above is done. Same for Shadow Woods. I'll probably do the Caldera about the same time, and continue expanding the map in different directions. In general, the new levelling system is designed in a shallower and more controlled way; you won't be grinding yourself out of a challenge anytime soon, and will outright need to get to new areas with no options to grow stronger. I won't be scaling up the starting enemies at any point, but you won't quite so quickly reach the point you absolutely crush them.
A few more general notes:
Debugging should work out a lot better than last time. Saves are all server-side, which means if you tell me your gmail address you used to log in, I can find your saves and investigate. Also, I get logs with full stack traces if you have an error, even if you don't tell me about it. I keep backups of your saves when you Rest, but things save instantly when you take any action, so something busted won't make you lose all your progress since you last saved. (Dying rolls you back to your last rest/backup, though so don't die. :) Usually if something is busted you'll just be prevented from doing it, though you could theoretically get stuck in a weird state with no exit.
I also have some idea what caused the save breaking in later versions of the Flash game, enough to be careful to avoid repeating the mistake, if not enough to actually fix it in the original.
I owe you all a proper explanation of the new combat/levelling system at some point, but I want to get the tutorial page sorted before I lecture on it. I hope you all like it, though it's definitely a change.
