Moving Literal Mountains

Hi there! September seemed to just fly by. My focus continues to be on getting things ready for a steam demo and trying to release a highly-polished version of the game’s first act by the end of the year. Here’s what’s done, and whats left.

U L T R A W I D E

Instead of constraining the game to 16:9 and just stretching things awkwardly for all other resolutions, I’ve added support for other screen sizes. The viewport and UI is all responsive now, with sensible minimums in place. If the width of the game extends past the width of a map, things letterbox, but I may widen maps later on.

Soon you’ll be able to play SU on that vertical monitor if you really want.

Dynamic Gamespeed

This is a fun one, but the speed of the game can now be adjusted globally. This even affects things like music/sound playback speed. Why? Primarily to support proper pausing during takeover tutorials and correctly implementing pause frames, but I’m also experimenting with it as a combat mechanic. Not sure if it’s fun yet but I’ll share details later.

I was going to upload a gif here showing that gameplay is paused, but 5mb is not enough space for these archaic file formats. You'll have to just take my word that the gameplay pauses here during these tutorials.

Expandable Settings

Instead of hardcoding a few options constrained to a single page, I’ve made the settings screen totally data-driven, supporting different option types (toggles, percentages, options from a set of choices, and more).

I know this seems minor, but adding settings and config options just got so much easier. Expect tons of accessibility settings to control game speed and difficulty, localization options, fine-tuned volume options, friendly skill auto-targeting, and more.

Question for you: What are your must-have settings for game comfort or usability? I want to include them!

So much more

FJLink has been hard at work giving Amalia a much-needed refresh, and I’ve done a pass at improving general game polish: think footstep sounds, weather effects, subtle shaders, and so on.

Beyond that, I knocked out Guided tutorials, compressing game data (to cut down the game filesize), grinding out more support for non-English locales, cleaning up maps, making the first village a bit more directed with a short, fun characterbuilding scene, more dynamic banter between characters, and so on.

I don't know where else to put this but I also shipped out t-shirts, more available!

A lot of this I had put off because I just wanted to steamroll my way through content, but it’s worth taking a step back to tidy up what has been built. It’s inspiring seeing the level of detail and polish on so many other RPGs here on steam, so I have to do my part to make sure I reach the level of quality I’m capable of.

Plans for October

I’m deep in the demo grind. I have some tasks to tidy up maps, improve sound effects/game ambience, cleaning up game UI, and filling out more game settings. I think I’m on pace to knock those out.

Then begins the fun of integrating Steamworks: Remote Play Together, achievements, stats, handling the overlay, and probably other stuff TBD.

Lastly, I need to start testing all this stuff and making sure it’s all ready for localization.

As a stretch goal I might start writing some of Act 3’s scenes again (I haven’t gotten very far) but we’ll see? Thanks for reading!

Locale Focus: Roughlands

Steam post imageThe Roughlands is a mountainous stretch of lands on the eastern side of Alcuria. Generations ago, nomads seeking refuge from the Umbra sculpted the land with the power of the Lifestone. This act of shifting land to build massive mountains sapped them of all their strength, and the lineage of mages with this ability died off.

The mages were eventually buried deep within their magnum opus along with sacred treasures. What were once sources of power is now inert it seems. Talk about moving literal mountains!