Update of the mini game between the levels which allows to have the bonus stage. The new "goal" is to choose 5 cards from the 6 offered. If you fall on the persistent it's lost
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Friday Dev News!
We've kept ourselves quite busy this week and released another 2 small patches. Besides that, I already want to share some actual new features for the 1.0 update on September 19th!
Distribution Center
One of the biggest remaining sources of friction in the InfraSpace gameplay experience is the limited control you have over traffic and deliveries. You can control it a little bit with districts, but they are hard to use for many players.
The new distribution centers should help! The idea is that you can build a collection center to gather resources from nearby factories that produce them and build a distribution center to distribute materials to nearby factories that need them. Then, you can also hook up the collection center to the distribution center and that way you can control the whole traffic flow of a group of buildings!
Don't worry if this sounds complicated now. Basically, you're getting some advanced storehouses that also deliver into a certain radius which you can choose.
The details are still up for implemenation, but this is Adriana's concept for what they could look like:
Lasse already started turning it into a 3d model for the game and while it's not completely finished, you can get an idea here:
Tutorials
Some features in InfraSpace may need improvement, but others just require good explanations! We see many people confused about why outgoing storage is full or incoming storage is empty. Or how train signaling works. Or districts. Or ESPECIALLY how to deal with large amounts of traffic.
Wtih the 1.0 update, we're planning to release a bunch of new tutorials - this time with videos!
Also, you'll get an encyclopedia so you can look up anything you might have missed.
Sepehr has already implemented most of the tutorial system and released it to our playtesters today.
Traffic Info
And finally I wanted to show you a small little extra we made: The traffic info view!
This little number just shows you how well the traffic in your city is flowing and can be used to learn about inefficienies and jams and also to compare different cities.
I hope you like the changes coming to you in September for the Early Access Graduation Update. Let us know what you think!
The Rogue class wields twin daggers and is specialized in fast movement, allowing them to perform two quick attacks with normal attacks and most of their abilities. Additionally, they can climb and jump between terrains with less cost compared to other classes.
They have movement abilities like "Shadow Strike" that enable them to attack and move to the target simultaneously, and ranged abilities such as "Flying Edge" that allow them to throw the daggers from a distance.
However, these advantages come at the expense of reduced health and defense.
Added Parry System
The Swordsman Class now has the ability to parry enemy melee attacks from the front side with a 50% chance to trigger in each hit.
When the parry activates, an orange circle will appear on the attack target (the one receiving the damage) along with a thin white circle that will shrink over time.
Players must interact with the circle in time (by default, using the left mouse click or spacebar) and align it within the orange circle to execute a successful parry.
In the event of a Successful Parry: The damage received from that hit will be negated, and all remaining combo hits will be stopped. The defender will then counter-attack the attacker with a normal hit or a critical hit, depending on the result of the attack (Normal Hit or Critical Hit) delivered by the attacker.
In the event of a Failed Parry: The damage will be received as usual, and the attacker can continue their combo hits.
Added Extended Move Range
Players can now move twice as far as before, but it will also cost twice as many action points (4 AP Cost instead of 2 AP Cost). This means the player will take only one action instead of two to cover the extended distance. For example, previously, if a player wanted to spend 4 action points on moving, they would have to move once for 2 action points and then move again for another 2 action points. Now, the process is shortened, making actions quicker and more visually reasonable. However, players can still opt for the normal movement process by choosing Blue tiles (2 AP Cost) instead of Purple tiles (4 AP Cost) within the movement range action.
Added Jumping
All the characters are now able to jump between terrains, but it will cost more movement points.
For example, jumping from a plain tile will have a lower movement cost compared to jumping from a forest tile, which will be more expensive.
Additionally, jumping up will cost more movement points than jumping down, approximately 25% more.
It is worth noting that the Rogue class can jump with less cost, about half of the jumping cost of all other classes.
Added Rogue Skill: Flying Edge
Throw two daggers consecutively at the enemy. Deals 115% of P.ATK damage with a 20% chance to inflict Poison per hit.
Added Rogue Skill: Shadow Strike
Teleport to the back of the target (if possible) and then dash and stab through to the front of the target.
This skill counts as an attack from the back, and all bonus damage is applied if possible (+50% damage when attacking from the back).
Added Rogue Skill: Double Stab
Quickly stab the target two times consecutively. Beware that this skill will require more precision to hit, and even more so for critical hits.
Added Archer Skill: Arrow Barrage
Release multiple arrows at the target with two strafes. The skill will be more effective at point-blank range.
Added Archer Skill: Fire Shot
Shoot a single fire arrow that has a high chance to ignite the target, causing them to burn for a duration.
Time Pass System
Time will only move when a character takes an action, including walking and attacking.
The time will be stopped when a character does not make any action.
Therefore, actions that take more time to process will result in more time passing.
For instance, moving 10 tiles away will take more time to pass than moving 5 tiles away, and attacking with 3 combo hits will take more time to pass than attacking with one combo hit.
Animation and Visual
Added Character Movement
Characters will now adjust their position in a way corresponding to their actions.
For example, the archer will move back slightly when about to shoot an arrow, while the Swordsman will move their position forward with each hit when executing the Chain Attack ability or normal attack.
Added Trail Effect to the Projectiles
All projectiles will now have a white trail effect, making them more visible in the environment and showing the trajectory of the projectile's movement.
Camera
Added Camera Movement Interruption
Players can now move the camera and ignore the current focus event on the screen.
For example, if a player wants to see another character while the enemy is moving, they can now move the camera more freely without the camera being fixed on the current event (default keybinds are W, A, S, D).
Added Camera Enemy Hidden Action
The camera will focus on the enemy target only when it is revealed to the player's sight.
This prevents the enemy's movements from being exposed by the camera focusing on the fog of war.
User Interface (UI)
Added Tooltip along with Language System (English (EN) and Thai (TH))
Tooltips will be shown when the player hovers over any actions or notable UI elements that require further explanation.
All the costs of actions will be displayed on the top right of the tooltip window, including AP, HP, and MP costs.
Here are some examples of tooltips explaining the actions:
Action Move
(EN): Move
Moving within the Blue area requires 2 AP.
Moving within the Pink area requires 4 AP. (The character cannot move through areas occupied by enemy characters.)
(TH): เดิน
เดินในระยะพื้นที่สีน้ำเงินใช้ 2 AP
เดินในระยะพื้นที่สีม่วงใช้ 4 AP (ตัวละครไม่สามารถเดินผ่านพื้นที่ที่มีตัวละครฝั่งศัตรูได้)
Action Attack
(EN): Move
Attacking from the Front Attacks have a chance to be parried or guarded.
Attacking from the Side deals +25% damage. Attacks have a chance to be guarded.
Attacking from the Back deals +50% damage. Attacks cannot be parried or guarded.
The Action Bar (the UI at the bottom center of the screen where players can choose actions) has been reworked to be more compact and centralized.
At the center of the Action Bar, there is now a portrait of the current turn character along with their name.
On the left side, all available actions for that character are displayed (default keybinds are 1 -> 5), while the right side contains all of the character's skills (default keybinds are F1 -> F8).
Additionally, the UI will automatically reveal the action range when the mouse hovers over an action (for example, the movement range will be displayed when hovering over the Move Action).
When a player clicks on any action, the UI will slide down to a minimized state and display the cost of Action Points (AP), Health Points (HP), and Magic Points (MP) at the bottom of the screen.
Skill Icons
All skills now have their own icons, including those for the Swordsman, Archer, Rogue, and Flag Bearer classes.
Current Turn Side Title
The red flag with the text "Enemy Turn" will be displayed when it is the enemy's turn.
I have so many smaller bit-size updates this month, so let's just jump straight into them!
Steam Next Fest - October 2023
It's still a few months away, but I've officially signed on for the game to be featured in Steam's October Next Fest which will be held between the 9th to the 16th!
Over the next few weeks I'll be formulating a schedule of fun developer and community activities such as live streams and Q&As!
Look out for separate Steam news posts about this in the future!
Demo Update
Earlier this month I provided another patch to the demo! This includes a bunch of new things from the full game that I've been able to roll back into the demo.
Highlights include some new helpful UIs, environmental and map updates, and a bunch of bugfixes! You can read the full details here or by clicking on the GIF below.
Now is a better time than any to jump in and see what the game is all about!
New Trailer
This month I put together a new trailer for the game, the last time I created one was nearly a year ago, and there's been so much work done since then. I've tried to cram in as many interesting and relevant gameplay footage as possible, to give you a general insight as to what you can do without spoiling too much!
The trailer is now live on the Steam page, or you can view it on YouTube right here!
Developer Insight - How I write and create quests!
This ultimately comes down to the fact that I have been developing a "companion tool" to the game that allows me to write quests, dialog and books away from Unreal Engine, and import it as a separate process.
Guildford has a thriving game developer culture - being the home of studios such as Hello Games, Supermassive and many more.
Being a local developer to the Guildford area myself, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to visit the ACM university and talk about my game dev experience and provide a playtesting session for the students currently studying there. Unfortunately I hadn't take a photo during my visit, so this picture of Guildford will have to do!
It was nice to "pay it forward" in a way by providing my insights of my career to upcoming talent, and a surreal experience to watch in real-time young people playing my game and providing feedback on the spot!
Let this also be a reminder that YOU TOO can playtest the game, by either downloading the demo or signing up to become a beta tester. This is especially appreciated as I lead up to the Steam Next Fest in October this year!
Check out these Threads
Just a small social media update to say that I'm now representing the game (and myself) over on Threads!
This is Meta's new social platform built on top of Instagram, and I've honestly found it to be a bit of fresh air compared to Twitter.
If you're on that platform then do feel free to give me a follow!
That's it for the July edition of my developer newsletter! I hope you enjoyed, and please feel free to get involved in all the demo and playtesting opportunities!
- DjMonkey
Enjoy reading my dev diary newsletters? Then please consider giving me a Wishlist & Follow! I'd greatly appreciate it! You can do so from the the Steam page.
If you’d like to join the community and discuss the content of this post, please visit the Discord or make a comment on social media!
In this update we have added diamonds that can be collected from neighbors' yards, houses or on the street! We improved the image, the walk and the action of the player. We made improvements to the system for picking up and carrying objects. I improved the light on the map and the texture of some objects.
Update Tutorial with Missions ( and added first and single mission, training mission ).
It has been some time since I last gave an update. So, I thought it was high time to keep you up to date. Currently, the next content update is mostly done (I dub it the Saintess Update), and it will hopefully be ready somewhere in the next 2 weeks. Here is some info regarding the content of the update:
1 new Quest Location with 10 new events
18 new enemies
New Traits that can be acquired during quests
The first legendary class, the Saint/Saintess
5 New Side Quests
1 Main Quest for the next reputation rank
Respec option
Craftable Epic tier Weapons
1 Demonic weapon
More epic Equipment in general
More Guild Events
More Guild Assignments
More Sidestories
(If you followed me on twitter you might have already seen some of the content)
A lot of the content needs to be tested regarding balance, and a lot of artwork still needs to be done for new skills and items. (I finally understand why so many JRPGs don't have dedicated icons for skills and items XD)
I hope this will be enough to add a little bit of additional playtime and challenge for those who wish to progress past the Bandit King.
But until then, I do have other news: I've finally set up Discord! I originally planned to set it up when the next content patch drops, but I think having it earlier will make it easier for communication. Especially, regarding the bug reports. I've added a button in the main menu from where you can directly join the Discord channel.
In case you were wondering... developement on Ghost of Fall is going okay! :) This year, our summer holidays go into working on the game, which definitely makes our progress faster.
So, what are we doing right now? Mostly adding fine details to the locations we already have drawn. It is during this stage that we add the "Closer Look" areas of the game. It's really fun to make them, and they're a really nice atmosphere-building addition :) One of those "closer looks" you can see here: Taro as seen from a mountain trail at sunset. One of the first "closer looks" of the game (there's already a lot, and there well be many many more)
Taro is the city where the story of Ghost of Fall (mostly) takes place. Built a long time ago in the Stone Crown Valley, and left abandoned for over three hundred years for... unclear reasons. Well. Of course now it's inhabited by over ten thousand feleks and among them, there's Ward! A felek drawn to the old city and its mysteries.
A lot of our hearts go into making Taro an interesting place, we're going back work right away. And when we're done - hope to see you there!
- Fixed some tutorial issues - Fixed NPCs but they're still janky (this isn't a priority right now) - Added damage numbers - Added honing to projectile weapons (similar to crit)
