I don't know whether we are to blame, but we had a VERY restful Christmas holidays. It's time to get back to work.

The Water Gun is to present, this is a new element of defence.

So, enemies are coming after you, and you try to catch them into your traps and pull the first lever.



Ooops! They managed to escape. Then you pull the second lever that simultaneously pushes a peasant away and opens a new trap pit just under the peasant.



Gotcha!

Our next step based on this mechanic is to add a new liquid types, spirit for example. Imagine: you sprinkle peasants that besiege you with spirit, then set fire and watch them burn.

Also we have to solve an important problem: task assignment. Some minions must be told to stay home to do the most important and urgent tasks promptly, e.g. pull the levers.

These two points are our plan for the next update.

After the last update we were accused of insufficient variability of the scene - almost everything was static, which was not good for game design.

Now we're working on adding more motion in our scene. For example, an ominous cloud of evil was added to our Dark Lord. In Unity it looks fairly obscene, like he broke wind.



Though, integrated in the scene it looks more decent :)

Also we added more materials to decorate the castle: malachite, carved stone slabs, columns, framed glass. These are to illustrate our important feature: one block is relatively small, this allows to create fine buildings and decorations.



You can find the new malachite ore at the Ruins map.



Plus we solved one important problem (or made an attempt to solve): often new players didn't recognise their game was paused. So the solution is to make the pause button more visible to the player, now it's brighter and slightly pulsating.

This update is dedicated to traps.

Imagine: you pull the lever and your enemies fall into the pit of death. Such an amazing feeling!



To organise this system you need the following elements:
- Lever
- Trap Pit
- Wiring

Each of these can be crafted at the Metal Workshop. After crafting you install the trap pit and the trap activator (the lever), then you connect them with wiring. Build wiring piece by piece, it will try to take the right shape on its own.



Then you can order to activate the trap: click on the lever in the caret mode ( I mean the first green button in the bottom left corner :) In this version the trap can also be activated automatically by a peasant - just one time. The lever always activates the trap.

Awesome structures can be created using these 3 elements. One lever can be connected to many traps - they will be activated simultaneously. Look:



The bottom of the pit can be lined with traps of a different kind, they're called just 'Traps'. They spring sharp stakes when a peasant steps on them.

The next update is supposed to be about beauty, but new trap types are on the way too!

This week the update is rather small because bigger changes are in preparation.

Now you can build water blocks if you have a minion equipped with a bucket.



1) Use the pickaxe mode and mark the blocks you want to transfer.
2) Use the building mode, choose water and select the destination - like if you build other blocks.

1) We've changed the triggering mechanism of peasant attacks. Before they came like waves, now they come when you kill their chickens or enter their houses.



This leads to some game rebalancing. Now the player won't encounter enemies until Level 4 and has time to prepare for it. It's strongly recommended to get best gear (armour, weapon) before dealing with peasants on Level 4.

2) We've added a particle system to animate fire.



More animation is better, isn't it? ;)

3) The bug with infinite traps was fixed. Now peasants can escape your trap, even though the trap damages them.

The next update will be about 1-2 new types of traps.

1) If you mouse over a block, you see at first a short hint with the name of block, then the extended hint like this one:



2) In the Recipe book after each item you can see a short description of the item:



3) Now you get a new minion not after reaching each level, but every other level. It seemed the team on the higher levels could have been excessively big and hard to feed.

4) Each minion has their personal window with their parameters.



Our next update will be about the AI of Peasants: we want them to be triggered when you steal their chickens/sheep or enter their houses.

Also we're planning to rework old traps on Level 7. Now if you build a basic trap of the trou de loup kind (the hole with sharp stakes),humans cannot leave the hole. It looks sometimes oddly pleasing: you can eliminate your enemies in an infinite booby trap without even touching them.



But this is only a funny bug and we have to rework it.

Btw, I think we need more names for minions. If you have favourite names to name them after, write them in comments :)

Try out the newest map (Sand Cave) but don't forget to craft shovels for your crew and patch your roof.



This map is intended to demonstrate sand mechanics and what one can do with huge amounts of sand. Sand blocks can decrease HP of both your crew and enemies. So be careful, sand can kill your minions (no surprise: when something hits your head - it's dangerous).



Think what sand traps you can create to beat humans intending to attack your castle. The big heap of sand will protect you on its own - the enemies must first dig up a hole to get you.

Important changes
1) Now minions pick the nearest resource to use, not the first dug/crafted.
This allow them to finish all their procedures faster.

2) It was sometimes hard to feed minions because their food was scarce.
Now more berries are dropping from the bushes, you can cook more fried meat from one piece of raw meet.

At first we thank our first players for their very precious pieces of feedback!

I'm going to list players' wishes and concerns, the first two are the most common.

1) Change recourses pickup priority. - [done - 25.09.19]
Now resources are used on a first-mined-firs-used basis, but it's more reasonable to use the closest resource.

2) Show tooltips while mouse over on a block to distinguish different ores and minerals [done - 2.10.19]
There will be more of them by the way.

3) More space in chests. Chests to keep many sorts of items.
Here I have doubts - 50 items in a chest looks enough.

4) Low amount of water shouldn't destroy everything on its way.
I offer rather soak few drops of water into the ground. But bigger tides of water are able to wash away everything relatively flimsy, and I thing it's fun.



5) Build faster, bring more items in one go.
I think p.1 will improve the condition. Let's see after the next update.

6) There should be a lose condition when all of your minions die that teleports you back (similar to throne destruction)

7) Priorities when it comes to commands - like a ctrl+click that would move a command to the front of the queue or something

8) Bubbles (hungry tired) should disappear so you can see what's behind it [Bubbles were made significantly smaller].

9) Make minions procure food on their own. It's tiresome to constantly care about food
Some new mechanics should be introduced - something like farming, and this requires time.
I offer to mitigate the problem by increasing amount of food dropping from bushes/hens/sheep.

To be continued!

What happened in our update on September 16?

Now minions work and move significantly slower when they are starving.

Look at the poor guys!


Then feed them.


We added a new map (which is still deeply in development).

Your castle lands in the middle of a human city, human forces attack you immediately. In its current state this map is solely to test castle fortifications. Imagine: in Level 6 you've built wonderful traps around your castle, it's time to try them in action against forces of "good".



The level will be hugely reworked in the future.


The next step is all about sand simulation. It turns out sand traps can be awesome!

Btw, there will be more cute gifs on our twitter.