Just a short progress report to let you know what we've been up to this week: Oli has been designing a black frontier prison based on the citadel outpost from last week...



Programming-wise, Maykol is still at work on integrating the re-designed GUI; hopefully it will be ready for the last final touches next week. Chris and Sam have both finished slavery mechanics and the DirectX11 upgrade, now back on fixing up the path-finding system and other general bugs which have emerged after adding the new content. We've also finally added the very first torch lights into the game!...



Otto's been working on a range of odd jobs, including models for lights, the latest new race (sorry, no screens just yet), our re-designed logo & avatar, and some WIP sketches for new creature concepts:





Let us know what you think!

Just a short progress report to let you know what we've been up to this week: Oli has been designing a black frontier prison based on the citadel outpost from last week...



Programming-wise, Maykol is still at work on integrating the re-designed GUI; hopefully it will be ready for the last final touches next week. Chris and Sam have both finished slavery mechanics and the DirectX11 upgrade, now back on fixing up the path-finding system and other general bugs which have emerged after adding the new content. We've also finally added the very first torch lights into the game!...



Otto's been working on a range of odd jobs, including models for lights, the latest new race (sorry, no screens just yet), our re-designed logo & avatar, and some WIP sketches for new creature concepts:





Let us know what you think!

Hi everyone! It looks like we're going to be quiet again for a couple of weeks so just thought I'd fill you in on what's to come. We're hoping to have our next update ready for early April.

• Slavery
  There will be a slave camp where players are shackled, shaved, stripped and forced to work in mines. The capture AI will be rather limited at first, but in later updates there will be slave raids and potentially slave markets.
  
  
• New GUI and character editor
  New morphs and improved editing in the character editor. You can check out a latest GUI screen here http://lofigames.com/gui-makeover/
  
  
• New character models
  The character editor and character models are primarily aimed to help boost performance, as opposed to simple aesthetic improvement. New character face designs have been created with less bone structure for better optimisation.
  
  
• Performance boost
  Slight improvement in frame rate but still needs further optimisation in future updates. Also fixed the bug where guards won't protect you from bandits

*We may include the 'bone people' as a new playable race, but still contemplating saving it for beta release when the new world map is finished*




Sam is currently taking a short break from work on the path-finding bugs and is now moving on with the Direct X11 upgrade. As you may have noticed, at the moment the graphics are a little fugly - this is a temporary result of the 64-bit engine upgrade. Direct X11 won't, however, be finished until later after the 0.73.0 release. If you're worried about your computer specs, don't worry, DirectX9 will still be supported.

Please note that fixing up the broken path-finding is still a top priority, we just really don’t want Sam to go insane after being stuck with that ungodly task for a whole year.


UPDATE: This will be delayed a few more weeks for bug fixing. You can read more about progress here http://lofigames.com/dev-blog-2-lights/

Hi everyone! It looks like we're going to be quiet again for a couple of weeks so just thought I'd fill you in on what's to come. We're hoping to have our next update ready for early April.

• Slavery
  There will be a slave camp where players are shackled, shaved, stripped and forced to work in mines. The capture AI will be rather limited at first, but in later updates there will be slave raids and potentially slave markets.
  
  
• New GUI and character editor
  New morphs and improved editing in the character editor. You can check out a latest GUI screen here http://lofigames.com/gui-makeover/
  
  
• New character models
  The character editor and character models are primarily aimed to help boost performance, as opposed to simple aesthetic improvement. New character face designs have been created with less bone structure for better optimisation.
  
  
• Performance boost
  Slight improvement in frame rate but still needs further optimisation in future updates. Also fixed the bug where guards won't protect you from bandits

*We may include the 'bone people' as a new playable race, but still contemplating saving it for beta release when the new world map is finished*




Sam is currently taking a short break from work on the path-finding bugs and is now moving on with the Direct X11 upgrade. As you may have noticed, at the moment the graphics are a little fugly - this is a temporary result of the 64-bit engine upgrade. Direct X11 won't, however, be finished until later after the 0.73.0 release. If you're worried about your computer specs, don't worry, DirectX9 will still be supported.

Please note that fixing up the broken path-finding is still a top priority, we just really don’t want Sam to go insane after being stuck with that ungodly task for a whole year.


UPDATE: This will be delayed a few more weeks for bug fixing. You can read more about progress here http://lofigames.com/dev-blog-2-lights/

This is mainly meant to be a bug-fixing update, but I got carried away and added some AI stuff.
Currently it's only in the opt-in "Experimental" branch, but if it goes will I will update it into the main branch. 32-bit exe is now included too.

0.72.0

• Wandering adventurers can be hired as bodyguards
  
• Unarmed NPCs can loot bodies for a weapon if needed.
  
• Some jerks might just loot everything while they're at it.
  
• NPCs and bandits will equip gear they loot if it's better than theirs.
  
• Armour can be tagged as a uniform. If a faction sees you wearing their looted uniforms...
  
• Sell value of loot has been halved.

BUGFIXES

• Animal backpacks can no longer be worn by people
  
• Fixed problem with characters stopping what they were doing after you place a building
  
• A lot of dialog system features and fixes, including the problem where you couldn't talk to following characters because they would run away
  
• Fixed characters forgetting their jobs or disabling machines when changing squad
  
• Pathfinding improvements for combat pushing NPCs off the navmesh, and NPCs getting stuck on corners of ramps
  
• Fixed import games with multiple squads
  
• Fixed the cannibals running back to the village and just getting stuck circling in the centre
  
• Fixed the chase behavior a bit

This is mainly meant to be a bug-fixing update, but I got carried away and added some AI stuff.
Currently it's only in the opt-in "Experimental" branch, but if it goes will I will update it into the main branch. 32-bit exe is now included too.

0.72.0

• Wandering adventurers can be hired as bodyguards
  
• Unarmed NPCs can loot bodies for a weapon if needed.
  
• Some jerks might just loot everything while they're at it.
  
• NPCs and bandits will equip gear they loot if it's better than theirs.
  
• Armour can be tagged as a uniform. If a faction sees you wearing their looted uniforms...
  
• Sell value of loot has been halved.

BUGFIXES

• Animal backpacks can no longer be worn by people
  
• Fixed problem with characters stopping what they were doing after you place a building
  
• A lot of dialog system features and fixes, including the problem where you couldn't talk to following characters because they would run away
  
• Fixed characters forgetting their jobs or disabling machines when changing squad
  
• Pathfinding improvements for combat pushing NPCs off the navmesh, and NPCs getting stuck on corners of ramps
  
• Fixed import games with multiple squads
  
• Fixed the cannibals running back to the village and just getting stuck circling in the centre
  
• Fixed the chase behavior a bit

FEATURES

• Squad management! Multiple squads, character dismissal. Character cap increased to 50 and can be modded even higher.
  
• Made a SmellManager. Bleeding and corpses now stink up the place and attract dangerous animals. Wolves hunt by smell.

BUGFIXES

• Finally fixed the Havok loading area crash(?)
  
• Fixed speech boxes cutting off text at low resolutions
  
• Stealth state is now saved, and the checkbox is fixed
  
• Fixed NPCs not being visible when moving the camera around paused
  
• Fixed newgame window going off screen at low resolutions
  
• Fixed a crash related to building material storages
  
• Fixed the framerate drop when building certain walls
  
• Fixed a few more little crashes
  
• Fixed problem with correct floor visibility when building furniture

How to opt in to Experimental:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/5/540737262411186819/[/]

FEATURES

• Squad management! Multiple squads, character dismissal. Character cap increased to 50 and can be modded even higher.
  
• Made a SmellManager. Bleeding and corpses now stink up the place and attract dangerous animals. Wolves hunt by smell.

BUGFIXES

• Finally fixed the Havok loading area crash(?)
  
• Fixed speech boxes cutting off text at low resolutions
  
• Stealth state is now saved, and the checkbox is fixed
  
• Fixed NPCs not being visible when moving the camera around paused
  
• Fixed newgame window going off screen at low resolutions
  
• Fixed a crash related to building material storages
  
• Fixed the framerate drop when building certain walls
  
• Fixed a few more little crashes
  
• Fixed problem with correct floor visibility when building furniture

How to opt in to Experimental:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/5/540737262411186819/[/]

Hey all, hope everyone is enjoying the holidays so far! First off, a massive thank you to everyone who has helped us with all the bug & crash reporting since the Experimental release.


At this point most of the random crashes have been fixed, except for the main, most frequent one that is the main source of the instability in the 0.70.x updates. (This is the crash that usually occurs randomly as a result of moving around the map or loading new towns).

The reason this pesky bugger isn’t getting fixed is because it happens in a Havok library, which is closed off to us. Meaning we can’t fix it directly and have to just experiment with different work-arounds and rely on Havok support for a fix. Havok are working hard on it for us, but until we get an update for this, it’s gonna keep crashing as much as it is.

But in the meantime we will carry on working on fixing all the other bugs and any other crash-fixes as usual. It just means that 0.70.x will stay in the “Experimental” branch for a while longer, ETA unknown at this point.

The forecast for the next month is mostly just going to be bug-fixing, although version 0.71 will have the new multiple squad management feature.


This month, Otto's been working a lot on new character designs, including improvements to the current human models.




Plus he's also begun work on new races, such as the Bone People:





We also have screenshots of some of Olly's progress with the new world map. This is still many many months from being complete and these biomes will eventually need filling with lots of content. (See http://lofigames.com/landscape/ for more images)






Wishing everyone a happy new year from Lo-Fi Games! :D