I'm working on the Teleport Platform and the effect for when it's activated. Still debating exactly how it's going to work, but I've got the basics in place.

To use a teleport platform you will need to have a teleport stone (crafted at the Stonemason using ore and alchemy ingredients) after placing one in your town and another in specific spots in the wilderness.

You can craft the town's teleport platform in the same menu where you place buildings. The platforms that are placed in the wilderness can be crafted at the Stonemason and then carried and placed when you find a spot for one.



I'm also debating whether to have one spot in the wilderness for a teleport platform or maybe up to three. If I add more that one spot in the wilderness where you can place a teleport platform I'll come up with some way to choose between them when using the teleport platform in your town. Any teleport platforms in the wilderness always bring you back to the one in your town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAXJyWYgclc&feature=youtu.be
I created a video of the visual target for HammerHelm's new environment. Aside from the new art I also wanted to experiment with more open spaces. Right now the forest is very dense. I like the idea of having some open space with maybe a couple of clusters of density.

Probably spent more time on this than I should have, but I'm happy with the result. Still experimenting with lighting and some of the textures. I'm going to use this as a template as the visual quality bar when I add all of the new art to the world map.

So now it's back to more content and features. Really don't like going a week without a game update. Just feels weird.

I wasn't planning on showing anything related to the new world map and the new environment assets, since I'm still a ways away from actually changing them all out in the game, but I'm so happy with how this turned out I had to share.

This is visual target piece I put together to give myself a goal for what the game world will look like when I update it. Also called a "beautiful corner". It's not optimized, but it provides a template for how I want the world to look when I change out all of the environment art.



Note the falling leaves particle, the trees swaying in the wind, the smaller plants and flowers, and the rocks, which have a small bit of moss on them. Lots of configuration options like the color of the leaves, the amount of moss on the rocks, etc. so I can create lots of variety. The flowers are neat because they aren't flat like the grass, they're actual models that have some depth to them. It's difficult to tell in the gif, but the flowers and bushes are also moving with the wind.

As I said before, it's going to be a while before the game looks like this. I think the trees and other assets match the characters and monsters much better than the current place-holder assets.

I'm very happy with how the beautiful corner turned out and I hope you like it too!

https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios/status/1113632495356891136

Got some good feedback that the difference between the mines quest that grants you the next level of ore and the one that was just about monsters attacking in the mines was confusing. So I changed the way it works!

The quest that grants the next level of Ore is still called "New Ore Discovery" and overall remains unchanged. I did update the quest manager to make sure this quest gets picked in a reasonable amount of time once it's available. In the old system it was possible to get really unlucky and not get to upgrade to the next ore for a long time leaving you unable to craft the next set of armor and weapons.

The bigger change is to the quest that used to be called "New Mine Level". It's now called "Enemy in the Mines" and its been updated to be more clear that this quest is for existing levels, not for a new level with new ore. When this quest is active, your miners will also be a little bit less efficient, reducing the amount of ore they deliver to the storehouse.

This is fine right? I think sewers are supposed to do that. I'm sure it's fine. :)

Today's update includes a new quest using the Sewers and some quick updates to the sewer map.

• Added the Broken Sewer quest. The sewers are backed up and the townspeople are feeling the effects! Find out who is tampering with the sewers.
  
• Adjusted the textures on the sewer walls. They were kind of flat and just didn't look very good.
  
• Decreased the Gold and Stone cost of the Sewers.
  
• Increased the Stone cost for Stone Water Wells a bit.
  
• Reduced the frequency that the "Bed Rest" quest appears.
  
• Fixed a typo in the description of the Brewery. It said you could create "Bears" with Wheat. Everyone knows that Wheat Bears are WAY overpowered so I changed it back to "Beer".

It's been a lot of fun adding some new quests to the game, especially the kind that affect the town. I'm going to spend some time now messing around with the new environment assets and I should have some shots of the new armor models for you to check out soon!

(click the image to see full size)

Tonight's update includes another new quest, "All Dried Up".

The Orcs have caused the wells in town to dry up. None of the homes are getting water and the townspeople are upset about it. Find the Orc's underground hideout and clear them out!

It was fun building a cave that looks lived in. Gives it a very different feel compared to the mines or regular caves. I added some hay beds and crude tables and chairs after taking the above screenshot.

When taking that screenshot I forgot that I can't block the Orc Brute's special attack so I was in for quite the surprise when I un-paused the game after taking the shot. :)

This quest is also the first quest that can affect the town benefits, in this case water. I built a system so now more quests can affect the town in similar ways, such as monsters in the sewers causing the sewers to back up, removing the mood buff for the town's cleanliness until you root the monsters out.

Quick build to resolve a couple of bugs:

• Fixed a bug that caused Shaydee to become unresponsive.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused quests that can be repeated to only appear once.

Tonight's build is the 325th update to the game since launching in early access in July 2017... and it's a fun one. New Quests!

This build includes three quests!

Meet Grrrumble the Earth Elemental, learn his story, and receive a unique reward. This is a "Story Quest" so it only occurs once.


Thwart the Orcs at the beach and destroy their boats.



This is similar to the tutorial quest. Now it can occur once you have placed more than one Storehouse! The Ratman are drawn to the vast amount of supplies!


This build also includes a bug fix that resolves an issue that caused Workers to get stuck walking in loops while trying to find a tree to chop down.

Feels like it's been forever since I added some new quests to the game so this week I've been working on some new ones. So far I have the Grrrumble quest, a Storehouse quest (similar to the one in the tutorial), and another quest involving Orcs and smashing boats.

And who doesn't like smashing things!?



I want to get a couple more quests completed and tested before releasing them all together.

Ash, the concept artist who created all of the new monsters, created his rendition of Grrrumble the Earth Elemental. Had to share.



Now I'm wondering how the fire elemental would look with a beard... j/k!

I'll be using this art as part of the UI when you meet Grrrumble and learn his story.