UnReal World - Enormous Elk
Things have been cooking and development has evolved up to an extent where a sneak peek of what to expect in the future is in place. We don't have a deadline for the upcoming release, it's a work in progress, but we do know what the core content will be about.

The core content of the next release will focus on NPCs. The most important additions will concern the wandering woodsmen you may meet in the wild and the companions you can hire for yourself. They'll be given a bit more wits, tasks, and meaning for their existence in the game world as follows.


Who let the dogs out?

Let's start with few a introductory features regarding NPCs and dogs.

  • Wandering woodsmen you may encounter in the wild may occasionally have dog companions with them - and their dogs will also protect their masters.

  • Village dogs are now released out of their pens to roam freely at the village area. This allows dogs to truly protect the village from possible threats. Intruders may be now first greeted with alarm barks and approaching watchdogs.

  • Moreover, all the domestic animals may now have subtle varieties in their coat colors. Adds some flavour, but also makes it easier to distinguish different pets from each others just by their looks.
Free roaming dogs and domestic animal color variety.



Actively hunting wandering NPCs

NPCs who roam the woods can now actively hunt animals. They seek the game based on their cultural preferences, and within their hunting possibilities. The very act of NPCs hunting, or running after a game, is probably rarely witnessed by the player character but bones and remains found in the woods can now tell a story of another human hunter at the area.

As we know, the hunts can end in unimaginable ways, so many different scenarios may arise from the NPCs now taking their chances with the wildlife - and occasionally maybe even the very same wildlife that you were after.

Witnessing an NPC hunting scene. Seal-tribe woodsman has been met in the wild, and he's busy trying to shoot down a squirrel.



New companions commands

Companion usefulness gets boosted with some new tasks they will be able to do on demand. Currently it's been added:

  • butcher and skin a carcass
  • make logs
  • make boards

...and the list is likely to grow with a few more crucial tasks. There's a great level of complexity to make companions proceed these tasks with similar detail than the player character so tasks to be added are prioritized with the quality over quantity.

The list of companion commands - so far:


As companion skills naturally affect to outcome of the tasks their expertise can be sometimes used to obtain higher quality goods than what the player characters could produce by themselves. We also need to add an chat option to ask NPCs about their general skills and expertise so you know what kind of craftsman you've hired.

The companion was commanded to butcher and skin one of the reindeers we managed to hunt down. We got meat now, and a fine reindeer skin, which is way better hideworking result than what Jurks could have done in his current condition.



Exciting times ahead.
The work continues, more is to follow.
Stay tuned.


These are future additions - not yet function in current version 3.52

UnReal World - Enormous Elk
Once again it is time for new video greetings to thank you, dear UnReal World Steam players.

For more than half a decade already we've had a habit of creating characteristic video greetings with varying themes to thank and delight the supporters. These video works have been brought on Steam as a free DLC for UnReal World Steam players.

A fresh video greeting "Goto Sauna;" is now up in the video greetings DLC package.



Feel free to add Video Greetings to your cart if you like. The package now contains six video greetings in total, and more will follow in time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/505100/UnReal_World__Video_greetings/

If you grab the Video Greetings DLC you'll find the videos within your local UnReal World files in BonusMaterial/ folder. And the game main menu also shows BONUS MATERIAL option which guides you to the right folder.

If you're curious about what the video greetings may be about you can browse the older stuff at:
Enormous Elk YouTube channel.

Cheers!
UnReal World - Enormous Elk
For the sake of inspiration and related interest how would you like a little picture story from the real world adventures of unreal world developer?

This is what may occasionally happen behind the scenes outside the development chambers.

So, I went skiing the other day, and the ski trip then turned into a tracking exercise. Soon after entering the forest I spotted some lynx tracks, but our paths then departed as I went about my own trails.



Later, when returning home, strange curly tracks caught my attention - and sparkled my tracking instinct. I guessed that this might be the same lynx now dragging its kill, and had to confirm the theory.



I scouted the area, found lots of hare tracks, and then the lynx tracks which eventually turned into sneaking tracks as it approached the location.


The hare's last dance with the lynx went to many directions until finally the place where it ended was found, with some hair and (not too old) bloodscape.



There, the lynx had dragged its kill to a more peaceful location for eating it. That was some twenty meters away, among thick young spruce trees. Not much was left of the hare, but a few hairy bits on the snow.



Afterwards, I had to search for my backpack for half an hour as I had left it somewhere on the snow in excitement. :urw_tree:
UnReal World - Enormous Elk
The time has come for me to start reaching back into the development chambers after the sick leave. My fractured shoulder is still far from fully healed, but computer work seems doable, so here we come development year 2019. Slowly but steadily that is, as the priority remains in exercising the injured arm a lot to increase mobility - rather than to get it stiff from the office work.

Oh boy, little did I know how slowly fractured shoulders heal. Somebody made a remark that this might be my hardcore first hand research on injuries and recovery. :) Well, yes, going through this actually got me thinking of going through game's recovery rules in case of fractured joints. I've been of the arm sling for five weeks now but it will still take months before I can shoot a bow again, and raising the injured arm above the shoulder level is a feat I have been doing reliably only for a week or two. And there's no way I can do it with carrying load of more than few pounds, so any hard work that requires both arms is out of the question. It also takes time to learn to move the arm 'normally' again, as the early pain didn't allow all the proper muscles to be used with some arm trajectories. It is easy to understand how easily deformed body postures are born.

But here I am, dedicated to work on the arm and the game as much as possible during the 2019.
I've gone through the swamp of e-mails lately and hopefully answered to everything urgent - but if you miss a reply, please do re-send your e-mail.
Getting back on the track with the forums will take a bit longer, but soon enough you can expect replies to pop up here and there.

Luckily my physiotherapist has also given me permission to ski, just guaranteed that I do not fall on the injured arm in any circumstances.
2019, here we come.


UnReal World - Enormous Elk
There went the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, and we're heading towards the increasing daylight. I've also got my fractured shoulder off the sling by now, but the recovery continues. All the movements are painful, and I'm increasing the range of motion bit by bit. The official sick leave has been extended until January 2019, and my absence from the forums continues.
But you'll be fine, and I'll be back eventually. Thanks for all the warm words and understanding and wishes.

Winter Sale is going on here on Steam so once again it's good time to grab UnReal World for yourself, or gift a friend into the Far North.

And lastly, huge big seasons greetings to each and everyone of you, from the tiny dev and the winter tree. Merry whatever, fellow adventurers!

Dec 1, 2018
UnReal World - Enormous Elk
You know what... During the past two decades it hasn't been too many times that I have been on a sick leave, or unable to work on the game due to medical condition, wounds or injuries. But now a week ago I fractured my shoulder when falling of the horse during horseback archery training. Doctors orders are to wear arm sling for the next two weeks. After that a new xray will reveal how the recovery goes. Luckily no operation was needed. I just have to rest and wait, and so do you. So, I'll enter on a sick leave now and report back after two weeks.

I am mostly unable to answer to emails or at forums, but we'll try to handle the urgent cases somehow. Not to worry, I will survive. Game development and archery endeavours to be continued when the doc says so.

My current wounds and injuries screen looks like this :)
UnReal World - Enormous Elk
Time for a small but essential patch update. Additions in the now released version 3.52 are foremostly bugfixes for smoother survival, but some balancing of exploitish issues is also featured.

Find the full changelog below.

Cheers!

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Version 3.52 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.40-> are compatible with this version. **

- balanced: villagers' interest to buy boards

Previously trading boards could be used an exploit as villagers did buy them without any reasoning. Now there's a cap for villagers' interest in boards and they only buy the amount they want to have as a reserve. This varies from village to village, and some villages are not necessarily interested in player character's board trading attempts at all.

- added: NPCs will store the obtained timber in the village

NPCs may obtain timber (eg. boards) through trading. Previously NPCs just carried the heavy loads around causing unncessary burden for themselves. Now they eventually store the timber in the village.

- added: roasting meat/fish decreases its weight

We tought this was featured already, but no. Now roasted meat/fish loses about 25% its weight in the process.

- updated: NORTHERN BOW game encyclopedia info + image added

- added: new NPC kid portrait

Still not much variety with kid portraits, but if you are into portrait customization more of them can be now added for kids as well -> truegfx/kid?.png

- fixed: character creation extra skill point issue for 0% skills

Increasing and then decreasing skill for 0% level skills mistakenly allowed two points then to be spent on the said skill.

- fixed [rare condition]: quest generation and companion rehire delays

Long lived migrated character might encounter extremely long intervals between new quest generation and earlier NPC companions willingness to be rehired.

- fixed [rare condition]: bird thief quest sages forgetting about the quest

This occurred only with long lived characters. Sages involved in the quest first talked about it normally, but might not recognize the quest anymore after a while.

- fixed: kids not recovering from wounds and injuries

- fixed: young animal skins were worth the same as adult animals skins

Now the price is reasoned according to the skin size.

- fixed: when trading with NPC the accepted items they couldn't carry just disappeared from their inventory after the trade

Now the excess items NPCs can't properly carry are put on the ground as a common village property.

- fixed [rare condition]: aquatic birds flying still above the frozen waters

This was a result of aquatic birds terrain exploration routines failing to find them new meaningful areas to check if the waters at their habitat got completely frozen.

- fixed [rare condition]: irrelevant quest related persons appearing in chat dialog

Sometimes you were given chat options to ask whereabouts of irrelevant quest related persons in the village.

- fixed: young animals giving as much fat as the adults

Now the fat yield from young animals is more or less smaller depending on the cub/calf actual age and size.

- fixed: nameless villagers ie. occasional blank NPC names

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UnReal World - Enormous Elk
The second world record received acknowledges UnReal World as a forefather of the genre.

So...

Back in 2016 we got (and proudly hold) the record for longest update support for a videogame in GWR Gamer's Edition 2017.
And now, in the recently published Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2019 UnReal World gets the record for "First open-world survival videogame". Oops, we kind of created a videogame genre, but we do not regret :)

The book happily presented at the end of this post is a Finnish edition, and here's how GWR mentions the record in English:
"The second millennial decade has witnessed an explosion of open-world survival games, particularly on the Steam platform with the success of PC tiles such as DayZ, Ark: Survival Evolved and the battle-royale shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrouds.
The genre's trues roots can most likely be traced back to the indie sandbox RPG UnReal World, first released in 1992. Set in Iron Age Finland, player's principal aim was to survive its challenging and harsh environments. Incredibly, the game was still going strong and receiving updates, as of September 2017. The game was developed by two people - head creator Sami Maaranen and programmer Erkka Lehmus (both Finland). As of September 2017, it held the record for longest update support for a videogame."
(Yeah, it's out-of-date info with latest updates as the books live in press-time info. And in case somebody wonders about the near future updates a new bugfix and balancing patch is actually to be released this month.)

Cheers and thanks to all of you for making history and taking part in creation of a videogame genre with us.




Erkka (co-designer) at the left, Sami (creator) and Alli (the cat) at the right.
And if you take a look at our previous GWR post it seems like have started a tradition with these world record promo pictures as well ;)


Aug 14, 2018
UnReal World - Enormous Elk
The summer is passing, the holidays are mostly over, and the time has come for me to return to the development chambers and slowly start getting back on track with the coding chores. When leaving on holidays somebody said to expect to see at least one fishing holiday picture. Well, unfortunately I managed to be so very absent from the forums that I basically didn't post a thing, but as a substitute for the past silence here's half a dozen random summer pictures for you.

Now it's whole lotta e-mails and post to go through to get an idea of how the community and unreal world has survived the summer of 2018.
And then, some fresh lines of code... One at a time...


UnReal World - Enormous Elk
Midsummer and the nightless nights... that's priceless.
UnReal World... it's on summer sale until 5th of July.

Just recently released version 3.51 is trucking alright, so we are good to hit the holidays now. Finnish summer will surely bring us some rainy days too so some tweaking, fixing and even patching may take place during the summertime. But officially I'm mostly absent from development chambers until early august.

Best wishes,
enjoy the seasonal goodies and I'll be sure to do the same...


Midsummer midnight 2018, just outside the UnReal World development chambers.

...